The Recognitions (Dalkey Archive edition) (29 page)

—This place needs a good airing out. One look at that room in there and anybody can see that your husband . . .

—My husband . . .

—He . . .

—I . . .

The music is Mozart’s, the Concerto Number Seven in F Major for three pianos. —I wish . . . Esther says. In a feverish conspiracy of order the notes of the music burst from the radio in the other room where it is dark. They thrust there in the darkness against hard surfaces and angles as sharp as themselves. Possibly molecules are rearranged, set dancing, in a sympathy which lasts no longer than the duration of the note; possibly not, but there is the lighted doorway, to be entered in a concerted rush, the naked soles of a man’s feet hung over the end of the bed, calloused and unlikely
targets. —I wish . . . Esther says. Her hand moves quickly, but too late, where she has been pausing, holding cloth. Her breast, bared, and not especially full but standing out, centered and still, is very real to her and to no one else: her hand moves there quickly but too late as a note from one of three pianos strikes with the purpose of a blade, and has entered with the cold intimacy of a penknife in the heart. —I wish . . .

—You don’t think he’d walk in, do you?

—
He?

Les femmes soignent ces féroces infirmes retour des pays chauds.

—Rimbaud

In the dry-season haze, the hills were a deep blue and looked farther away than the sun itself, for the sun seemed to have entered that haze, to hang between the man and the horizon where, censured and subdued, it suffered the indignity of his stare. The heat of day was as inert as the haze which made it visible; and it only mitigated with the dissolution of the haze in darkness.

From that darkness outside the window came a bird cry, staccato, sound of a large alarm clock being wound in the next room late at night. Otto was sitting in a pair of underdrawers, writing. When his door was flung open and a man wearing only faded dungarees, with a bottle in one hand and a glass in the other, entered, Otto put down his pen and said, —Hello Jesse.

—Hello Jesse. How do you like that. Hello Jesse. What are you doin anyhow? said the tattooed man, and sat down on the other wooden chair.

—I’m writing.

Jesse put the bottle and glass on the table and looked around him. The corners of his mouth twitched, momentarily confused about something, but something which was going to be pleasurable. He looked over the table, littered with papers illegibly scribbled upon, and at the pictures on the wall.

—Do you want a cigarette? Otto asked him.

—Yeah, give me a cigarette. Jesse put out his hand, and then waved away the green package of MacDonald’s Gold Standard. —What do you smoke those things for? That ain’t even American-made stuff.

—I don’t know, I . . . anyhow it is Virginia tobacco, I . . .

—Yeah what do you smoke those lousy things for? Why don’t you smoke American cigarettes? He knocked one of Otto’s clean socks from the corner of the table into the cuspidor with his elbow,
and watched suspiciously while Otto got up and went behind him to retrieve it.

—What are you doin anyhow? Jesse asked. Then he said, —You’re a religious bastid ain’t you.

—Not exactly, why do you say . . .

—That. That’s a religious picture ain’t it?

—Why no, that’s just a print of a painting, an Italian Renaissance . . .

—Looks like some friggin madonna, said Jesse, mistrustful, and looked back at Otto. Then he spat into the cuspidor. —Give me a cigarette, he said.

—All I’ve got are these, said Otto. He held forth a packet of Emu, locally manufactured.

—What do you smoke these lousy things for? Why don’t you smoke American cigarettes? Jesse spat again, on the floor. Otto pushed the cuspidor nearer with his bare foot. —I didn’t get any on me, did I? Jesse looked down at his chest, where a ship struggled through a mat of hair. Toward each brown nipple a bluebird dipped. On one shoulder, a peacock; on the other, a palm-tree seascape. The arms wore anchors, a tombstone with MOTHER on a scroll, and a dagger. The gallery swelled as he watched it. —That’s pretty good, hunh? What do you think of that, hunh? He turned his head to one shoulder and then the other, admiring the rippling art there. Then he looked Otto over.

Otto lit a cigarette. It was too late to get up and put on a pair of trousers.

—Why don’t you get out and build yourself up a little? Jesse Franks returned to his own splendor. —That’s a real man, hunh?

—Yes, it’s just . . .

—Hunh? What do you think of that, hunh? Then he looked at the scribbled papers sticking to his forearm on the table. —What’s all this crap?

—That’s my play.

—That’s your play, hunh? There, he said, getting a handful of the papers and pushing them to Otto, —read me your play.

—Well I . . . this act isn’t . . .

—Read me your play.

—“Gordon: Wit, my dear Priscilla, is the vulgar currency of wisdom.

“Priscilla: But darling, no one could accuse you of being vulgar. Though to tell the truth, there are moments when I feel absolutely suffocated by witty people.

“Gordon: You are surrounded by people who take a half-truth
deliberately misunderstood to be one of the privileges of wit.” It’s not quite . . . I mean this act is . . .

—Read another act.

—“Priscilla: You know I love you, Gordon. Do you fear it?

“Gordon: Any rational person fears romance, my dear Priscilla.

“Priscilla: And so you will not marry me, because I love you.

“Gordon: Romantic love, my dear, romantic love. The most difficult challenge to the ideal is its transformation into reality, and few ideals survive. Marriage demands of romantic love that it become a reality, and when an ideal becomes a reality it ceases to be an ideal. Someone has certainly commented on the seedy couple Dante and Beatrice would have made after twenty years of badly cooked meals. As for the
Divine Comedy
, it’s safe to say that the
Purgatorio
would have been written, though perhaps a rather less poetic version. But Heaven and Hell rejuvenated, I think not, my dear. There is a bit of verse somewhere on this topic concerning Petrarch and his Laura, but I cannot recall it. But even Virginia, you may remember, preferred drowning before the eyes of her lover to marrying him. Paul at least had the pleasure of seeing her drown nude, but she knew what she was doing. A wise girl, Virginia.

“Priscilla: But then, what you’re saying is . . .”

—What the hell is he saying?

—Well, Gordon is saying that love, I mean romantic love . . .

—That’s all they do, talk?

—Well, it’s a play, and I mean . . .

—When does he slip it to her?

—Well on the stage you can’t very well . . .

—So they get married?

—Well no, I mean not really, but they . . .

—But he’s been slipping it to her anyway, hunh?

—Well he . . . I mean . . .

—Who’s Gordon, anyway?

—Well he’s the hero of the play.

—The hero? He don’t sound like much of a hero. Why don’t you write about Jesse?

—Well I . . .

—You want something to write about? O.K., take this down. Gordon was the kind of guy that walked into . . . shouldered his way into a bar. He came in and got what he wanted. If anybody wanted to make trouble . . . no. He was a nice guy, but if anybody wanted to make trouble . . . you got that?

—Yes, Otto said with a pencil.

—If anybody was looking for trouble . . . no, that don’t sound so good. Leave that out. He watched Otto’s pencil to be sure it
was marking out. —O.K. now start with this. I was around in Chilano Bay in Colombia with no money of the country, see? I had some money, I had about a hundred dollars, but no money of the country, see? But I have to have a little to get around the country. I was on a boat with a contraband cargo. So I run into a chuleta. You know what a chuleta is?

—No, I . . .

—Then you’re not so smart, are you. Just because you went to college. It’s a money-changer, a guy who changes money and takes some out for himself. O.K. So a cayuga come out to the ship, wanting to buy her cargo. But no sell. Worth too much see? You got that?

—Yes I . . .

—O.K. now where was I?

—A cayuga came out to the ship . . .

—Yeah. So this guy is only wearing a pair of dungarees, tight-fitting, see? He’s well-built, wearing a pair of tight-fitting dungarees. You got that?

—Yes.

—How do you say it?

—He was a well-built fellow wearing tight-fitting dungarees.

—O.K. So he goes into town and finds a girl in a bar. She wants to go into bed with him. But he can’t take no chances on account of that cargo. The police, see? The girl visits him at his house, but he can’t take no chances. So he tells her, take it easy . . . Jesse stopped and looked at Otto. —You’re goin to get paid for this and I ain’t goin to get nothin.

—I’ve never sold anything yet, Otto said.

—Yeah. Well you can sell this, see. This is what people like to read about. Where was I? O.K. So she wants to stay, but he wants everything he has in his mind for shark-fishing. Chilano Bay, that’s the place for shark-fishing. So he dives for sharks. The white ones and the nigger sharks. Those are the black ones. They don’t kill the white ones, but he’ll do it, see? He’s not scared. He’ll dive for any shark. Period.

Otto waited.

—How’s that? asked the author.

—Well it isn’t quite a story yet . . .

—What do you mean it isn’t a story. You think I don’t know what a story is? This is what people like to read about, realism, real men doing something, not a lot of crap in fancy trimmings. You get me?

—Yes I . . .

—You’re goin to get paid for it and I ain’t goin to get nothin. Jesse returned to admiring his chest.

Otto stood up and walked over to the bed. He scratched his arm, to give his hand something to do.

—Yeah, you’re pretty, all right. Where’d you get hands like that? They aren’t men’s hands.

—They just grew, Otto started to reason, —like yours did . . .

—Like mine! Jesse made a fist, as Otto sat down again. —Yeah, you got to wise up to yourself, see? Jesse approached with the flat bottle in the palm of his hand, and stopped, swaying over him. He made the motion of smashing the bottle in Otto’s face, then stood laughing.

—I have to. go to bed, Jesse.

—Yeah, you have to go to bed. Look, rabbit, I’m looking for a shack-job, see?

Otto sat still.

—Get me?

—I get you.

Jesse stood swaying for a moment. Then he said, —I got to go dump my bowels.

—Well, I’m going to bed, said Otto. He stood, stretched as though at ease, yawned a feigned yawn. Jocularly, man-to-man, he said, —Good night, Jesse. I don’t want to seem to throw you out, but . . .

—Throw me out! Why rabbit you couldn’t throw me . . . you just try, if you want me to kick you from one end of this room to the other. Throw me out, rabbit, that’s a good one . . . said Jesse, out the door carrying the bottle, leaving the dirty glass.

The plantation outside was quiet, the jungle held at distance by thousands of pert green erections rearing on the stalks of the banana plants. There were no poisonous snakes, no poisoned darts. Few years before, within every discouraged native memory, they had managed in primitive content selling a consistently inferior grade of sisal, hands of green bananas, and occasional loads of hardwood to ships which came in leisurely to trade. Then an American fruit company arrived, tired of buying thousands of hands of bananas, set on hundreds of thousands of stems. The Company replaced the shaky wharf in the port with two firm piers, cleared and planted a tremendous plantation; and while waiting for their own trees to mature offered eight dollars a stem to local growers, since the Company ships were ready to call regularly. The natives gathered bananas in frenzied luxuriance, and planted thousands more. Then the Company’s crop started to ripen. The price dropped to three dollars. The Company’s bananas were cut and
loaded, filling the Company ships to capacity. The Company ships were the only ones to call, since the Company owned the two new piers which the people had been so proud of at first. The local banana market disappeared. It simply ceased to exist. Ships passing the coast sailed through the smell of the fruit rotting on the trees miles out to sea. (It was now said that a plywood company in West Virginia was planning new and similar benefits for these fortunate people, so recently pushed to the vanguard of progress, their standard of living raised so marvelously high that none of them could reach it.)

The single bare bulb swung on its cord so slightly that shadows on the floor moved with the faint reciprocity of breathing, inhaling and exhaling in swell and recession the bare boards over which Otto trod in silence picking up a shirt, then a necktie, seemed to breathe the silence of that sullen night before the rains.

The walls were white painted board. There was a metal bed with a discolored mattress on it, a metal chest of drawers with the mirror, table with two chairs, a long shelf and cuspidor. The room was high-ceilinged, with vents around the top to let what moving air there was circulate. It was through those vents that the strident crack . . . crack-crack of his typewriter had first roused his neighbors against him, and after his first interview with Jesse he had settled to write his play in longhand, and transcribe it on the typewriter in the Company office on days when he was not working.

The mirror had a frame which looked like brown wood, but it was metal painted to appear so. This was because of the termites, which work so industriously in the tropics. A fifty-year-old Funk 8c Wagnall’s dictionary the size of a suitcase standing on a rickety table in the telegraph office down in the port was eaten through by them, hardly a whole word remained. But this mirror frame retained its patina. It might as well have been a picture frame, by now it had enclosed his image so often that it would seem it could not accommodate anyone else. He looked out the window, and saw on the ground only his own shadow. Jesse’s light had gone out. He returned to the mirror.

He was now wearing a white linen suit which Brooks Brothers, who kept his measurements two thousand miles away, had sent him. He was wearing a Brooks Brothers shirt of off-white Egyptian cotton, and a gray silk hound’s-tooth pattern (Brooks Brothers) tie. One thing more. With a casual over-the-shoulder glance into the mirror he turned and walked across the floor, took a Canadian cigarette from the table and lit it, his mirrored reflection intent upon him. He smiled at himself in the mirror. He raised an eyebrow. Better. He moistened his lips, and curled the upper one.
Better still. The smile, which had shown his face obsequious, was gone. He must remember this arrangement: left eyebrow raised, eyelids slightly drawn, lips moistened, parted, down at corners. This was the expression for New York.