The Recognitions (Dalkey Archive edition) (149 page)

He stood still at the window, staring through his own faint image in the glass. It is true, he did enjoy novel burning twinges on odd parts of his body at night in that bed, which might be a manifestation of some sort, though he suspected the coffee (for he did of course abstain from wine at table). In the same bed, he had developed a sort of dream, though it seemed he was but half asleep when it occurred to him: he was walking somewhere unremarkable when suddenly he tripped, or almost put a foot off something, or into something, and drew his foot back with a violent start, which woke him. That was all. And that too might be the coffee, for he did not smoke.

If he had, he would certainly have lit a cigarette now, as the sight of a soiled limousine parked up the street and almost filling it, clouded his face with the memory of the girls from the American Embassy in Madrid who had rolled up the day before. They got quite a kick out of the place, they said, and offered him American cigarettes which they were going to give to the Embassy chauffeur anyhow, if no one else wanted them. They left right after lunch, but their chatter and blank interchangeable images stayed behind well after dinner. —Well why are you in Spain? . . . if you don’t especially like it? the distinguished novelist asked, once recognized and trapped. —A job’s a job. —And you wish you were back in the States? —That’s all we ever talk about, going home, but a job’s a job.

His eyes followed the only moving thing in sight now, the slight unsteady figure of a man who had come out of the bar across the plaza, and was approaching the walls. He moved with uncertainties in his gait, hesitations before mud puddles as though unsure which way to take round them, though at that he often did not stop until he’d already got a foot into the water. There was none of the swaying vacillation of drunkenness, but a nervous combination of insistence and uncertainty.

Then the plaza was still, and he raised his eyes to the profiles of the mountains where the clouds had lifted, exposing the same gray sky at the horizon as the one stretched above. The distinguished novelist turned resolutely back to his writing table, sat down, sniffed, and wrote, “High in the brilliant sunshine of the Sierra de G—, weary and footsore after climbing the bridle path
from the peaceful which wends
wending its way ever upward from the peaceful valley town of Logrosán (?) into the forbidding landscape of Estremadura . . .”

A knock sounded at the door, and —Se puede? in a hoarse whisper.

—Fra Elālio? . . . he gasped.

The door came open enough to permit the old woman to show herself pointing down her throat with her thumb, as though there were something lodged there. —Café, she whispered, sounding as though there were, and disappeared back into the dim tortuous passage leading to his apartment. He got up, put on a black necktie, let the ends of his mouth, and his eyes, sink, and set out. But in the door he stopped to look back, as though afraid of missing something. He had, after all, been here, waiting, for three days.

—Oh my God! . . .

—Whmmp?

—She wet on that . . . whatever you call it. Bad doggie! Bad sacrilegious doggie! . . .

—This would make a nice place to throw a party, said the tall woman’s husband, pausing to look round him, as the poodle strained in the harnesses encumbering it at both ends, and pulled her toward the boxwood hedge.

—Parties, my God! . . . don’t start that. What did we come all the way over here for? I hope I never see another party. She jerked the dog away from a gothic column, and added, —All you’ve been talking about is drinking ever since we landed.

—Well all you’ve talked about is eating.

—I have not, I’m dieting and you know it. What else can you do in this country but diet?

—Well, when you don’t talk about eating, you talk about not eating. It’s just as bad. He stood gazing round the gothic arches of the cloister. —Anyway, he murmured, —the food’s usually better in these places than in a lot of the hotels.

—I still don’t see why you wanted to get here at the crack of dawn.

—You would if you were paying for the car. And there wasn’t any dawn, as far as that goes. Look at it. It might as well be . . . cocktail time.

—See? . . . there you go. They ambled on in silence, until she pointed with a scarlet-tipped finger, —Look at those old chains hanging up there, they save anything they can get their hands on. And look! . . .

—What?

—That man, isn’t it . . . in the tweed suit, did you see him? I know I’ve seen his picture on book jackets.

—Yes, him. I saw him. Might have known you’d find him hanging around a place like this.

—I’ve heard things about him, that he was . . . Is he?

—What.

—That way?

—I don’t know. He hasn’t touched a woman since his third wife left him.

—He’s gone, I guess he didn’t see us. What do you think he’s doing here? I’ve heard things about life in monasteries.

—He hasn’t got that much imagination. He’s probably writing another book.

—He’s written fifty of them. If he had anything to say you’d think he would have said it by now. Why do they keep publishing them?

—Because he keeps writing them. And it costs a publisher more to lay off than it does to keep his presses running, so they feed anything in. A morose note of reminiscence had crept into his voice.

—Now come on, the tall woman said, taking his arm in five scarlet nails, —we’re going to forget all about all that. She looked round for something to comment on, and her eyes fell on the dog. —Don’t you think she
should
wear her belt when she comes into a monastery?

He laughed, or moaned, it was difficult to tell.

—Just the same, I saw a bad goat out in the street give Huki-lau a very suggestive look.

But her husband was not beside her. He had stopped to gaze back on the cloister.

—What are you thinking about now, turning into a monk, for God’s sake?

He turned to follow her obediently, and mumbled when he reached her side, —Oh sure. A monk. I’d just as soon be dead.

But the man in Irish thorn-proof certainly had seen them and, for perhaps the first time in his adult life, he did not want to be recognized. He backed away from the colonnade, along the wall until he reached a door, and he backed through that. He went through a gallery, out into another court, was almost run down by a perambulating figure in the ubiquitous brown robe busy with the breviary, caught a hand in the swinging tassel and almost went over in a reeling attempt to avoid mashing the bare toes protruding from the sandal, grated out the first words of an apology and was silenced by a sweet and gelid smile, narrowly escaped falling backwards into the Moorish fountain, tucked in his black necktie and at
last, coming sideways through the door, found himself entering the sacristía at one end as a man, the same he had seen making his unsteady way across the plaza earlier, disappeared from the other carrying something large and unwieldy under one arm. The distinguished novelist was, by now, not only breathless but excited to a considerably alert degree, and it took no more than a glance at the wall for a square unfaded expanse to assure him that a painting was missing. Whether it was the desperate hope of managing some measure of atonement for the collision of a moment before, or the sudden opportunity to repay the complacent hospitality shown him here, or just the chance to get into things, he did not stop to consider, but rushed the length of the room trying to get enough breath to cry out. Now although he had seen the man clearly, even clearly enough to be able to swear that he had screwed his already knotted-up face into a leer as he escaped, upon arrival at the far end of the sacristía the pursuer did not know which of the two doors he’d gone out. He did not stop to consider that either, but pulled open the first door to hand, summoning enough breath to call, —What are you doing there! . . . into the depths of the church. Whether his cry was heard over the
Te Deum
, he did not stop to consider, but got that door closed as fast as he could, and the other open. The stone passage was almost dark, but a bulb glowed at the far end, and he hurried toward that, bringing forth, with what breath he could spare, —Where are you going with that! Who are you?!

—Yes, what are you doing with that? . . . Where are you? he repeated, when he reached the hanging bulb, whose glow barely cast his shadow on the stone floor. He paused, and thought he heard nothing. —Where did you go? Where are you? he demanded of the walls. —Here now! He looked down at the hand he held before him. It was quivering. Then he thought he heard a faint scraping sound, and he followed it on tiptoe until he reached a small room whose sole illumination came from the space of gray sky in the window well out of reach up the wall. And there, sitting on the floor with the painting propped up before him, was the man.

—Here now, you . . . what do you . . .

The man looked at this intruder hanging in the doorway with a hand on either side of the door frame, steadying. He stared attentively, but from a face with no expression at all, neither surprise, nor curiosity, nor interest, nor any betrayal of intelligence at all. Then he returned to the painting, and the blade in his hand made scraping sounds on the canvas, barely more distinct than they had been from farther away.

—What are you doing to that picture? You there! . . . But the
Irish thorn-proof was already beginning to sag precariously, with doubt, or possibly plain weariness. The delicate scraping continued. The painting showed a man in religious habit kneeling before a crucifix suspended in midair. —Do they know you took that picture? Do they know what you’re doing?

—They? the man on the floor repeated dully, without looking up.

—They, the . . . the monks, the brothers up here, up there, they . . . I thought . . . The protest began to fail, as the intruder got in against the wall and quieted his breathing. Finally he brought out, —You don’t have very good light. He stared at the moving blade. —Do you.

—That’s all right. The blade went on, removing the corner of a windowsill, a high small window much like the one in this room. There were no chairs, but a table against one wall was laden with pots and bottles, sticky pools and spots and some bread. —I can’t see very well anyhow.

—But . . . but you . . . isn’t it cold? . . . to be sitting on the floor? The scraping continued. —And you . . . who are you? The scraping continued. —I . . . my name . . . my friends call me Ludy. People who know me call me Ludy.

—That’s all right, said the man on the floor, still not looking up, his voice dull and even. —People I’ve never seen before in my life call me Stephen.

The Irish thorn-proof hitched slowly down the wall, and Ludy came to rest on his heels, squatted inside the small room.

When the damaged portion of the windowsill had been scraped away, Stephen turned and stared at him again, but with no more interest than before. Once turned so, his eyes did not move after details, but stared lifelessly for a good half-minute before he turned back to his work. After studying the painting with this same look, he commenced a meticulous attack on a table leg there. —Are they after you?

—Are who? . . . after me. Who?

The man shrugged over the picture. His lips were drawn tight, as though in concentration on his work; nonetheless there was something regular and mechanical about his movement, as the blade moved and its sound was the only one in the room.

—Who? . . . after me.

He stopped and put the blade down on the floor, rummaging in pockets until he found a bent cigarette wrapped in yellow paper. He lit it, and asked, —You’re not wanted? The thick smoke rose over his face. It clung to the squared hollows of his cheekbones and curled slowly in the hollows of his eyes. He shrugged again, and returned to the painting. Blue smoke from the coal of the cigarette
ran up its yellow length, broke round his nostrils and rose over his eyes, still he made no move to take it from his lips as he worked.

Ludy came forward, elbows on the thorn-proof knees. —Wanted? he repeated. —I? . . . I don’t understand. I . . . I’m afraid you don’t understand. When I followed you I . . . I took you for a thief.

—That’s all right, Stephen said quietly, and no expression appeared on his face through the smoke. He went on working at the table leg in the painting, but he muttered —A thief . . . under his breath.

—But of course, now I see . . . you’re an American too, aren’t you. I started right out, calling to you in English, it’s funny, I never thought . . .

—It’s all right, Stephen brought his voice up enough to say. —I’m lived as a thief. Don’t you know? All my life is lived as a thief.

—But you’re . . . you’re working. You’re an artist?

—Yes, and lived like a thief. Then he turned his face up again, abruptly, though the cigarette retained its ash. —You’re looking at my diamonds, aren’t you.

—Well, I had noticed them. Ludy cleared his throat. —They’re very nice, aren’t they, he managed to say.

—They were a present, this ring. A present from the Boyg, was it? Yes. There. Why did you come here? What do you want of me?

—Well, you know, a little conversation in English for a change. And the tourists here. I didn’t expect tourists. Women.

—Girls . . .

—And those awful girls from the Embassy. Coming right in. Right into the monastery. Eating here. They ate here. Did you see them?

—One of them gave me some cheap cigarettes.

—But you, being here this way . . .

—What way?

—Just . . . just working here, I mean. Living here, Ludy said looking round the stone walls again. —Do you live down here?

—No.

—Am I disturbing you? Your work?

—No.

—And . . . how long have you been here? Finally Ludy got no answer but the scraping. The leg of the table was almost gone. —You see, since you . . . since you’re familiar here, I thought you might tell me some things about the place, since you speak English. It’s a very wealthy monastery, isn’t it. Why, I’ve seen cloth of gold, and seed pearls . . .

—The lay brother Eulalio speaks English.

—Him! I know it, but he . . . I didn’t come here to talk about typewriters.