Humboldt's Gift (54 page)

  “Yes, I remember.”

  “What did I say, Charlie?”

  “You said, to air it is human.”

  “To air it is human, to bare it divine.” All made up, dark-haired and dressed in a crimson traveling costume, she laughed. “Oh, Charlie, give up this dumb trip to Texas. I need you in Milan. It isn’t going to be easy for me with Biferno. Your brother doesn’t want your visit and you don’t owe him anything. You love him but he bullies you, and you have no defenses against bullies. You go to them with an aching heart and they always kick you in the ass. You know and I know what he’s going to think. He’s going to think that you’re flying down at a tender moment to con him into putting you in one of his profitable deals. Let me ask you something, Charlie, will he be partly right? I don’t want to pry into your present situation, but I suspect you may need a break financially right now. There’s one thing more: it’ll be nip and tuck between you and his wife as to who has the right to be chief mourner if something happens, and why should he want to face both of his chief mourners just as he goes under the knife? In short, you’re wasting your time. Come with me. I dream of marrying you in Milan under my true maiden name, Biferno, with my real father giving me away.”

  I wanted to humor Renata. She deserved to have things her way. We were at Kennedy now and, in her incomparable hat and the suède maxi-coat, her Hermès scarves, her elegant boots, she was no more to be privately possessed than the Tower of Pisa. And yet she claimed her private rights, the right to an identity-problem, the right to a father, a husband. How silly, what a comedownl However, from the next hierarchical level, and to an invisible observer, I might appear to be making similar claims to order, rationality, prudence, and other middle-class things.

  “Let’s have a drink in the VIP Lounge. I don’t want to drink where it’s so noisy and the glasses are sticky.”

  “But I don’t belong any more.”

  “Charles,” she said, “there is that guy Zitterbloom—the one who lost you twenty thousand dollars in oil wells a year ago when he was supposed to be buying you tax shelter. Get him on the phone and have him fix it. He suggested it himself last year. ‘Anytime at all, Charlie.’ “

  “You make me feel like the fisherman in
Grimm’s Fairy Tales
, the one whose wife sent him to the seashore to ask the magic fish for a palace.”

  “Watch how you talk. I’m no nag,” she said. “We have a right to our last drink with a little class, not pushed around by a lousy crowd.”

  So I telephoned Zitterbloom, whose secretary easily arranged the matter. It made me think how much a man might salvage from his defeats and losses if he wanted to put his mind to it. In a gloomy farewell spirit, I sipped my bloody mary, thinking what a risk I was running for my brother’s sake and how little he would appreciate it. Still, I
must
have confidence in Renata. Ideal manhood demanded it and practical judgment would have to live with the demand of ideal manhood. I did not, however, wish to be asked on the spot to predict how it would all come out, for if I had to predict, everything would disappear in a whirlwind. “What about a bottle of ‘Ma Griffe,’ duty-free?” she said. I bought her a large-sized bottle, saying, “They’ll deliver it on the plane and I won’t be there to smell it.”

  “Don’t you worry, we’re going to save everything for the reunion. Don’t let your brother fix you up with women in Texas.”

  “That would be about the last thing on his mind. But what about you, Renata, when was the last time you spoke with Flonzaley?”

  “You can forget Flonzaley. We’ve made a clean break. He’s a nice man, but I can’t go along with the undertaking business.”

  “He’s very rich,” I said.

  “He’s worth his wreaths in wraiths,” she said, in the style I loved her for. “As president he doesn’t have to handle corpses any more but I can never help remembering his embalming background. Of course I don’t hold with this guy Fromm, when he says how necrophilia has crept up on civilization. To be perfectly serious, Charlie, with a build like mine if I don’t stay strictly normal where am I at?”

  I was quite sad, nevertheless, wondering what part of the truth she was telling me and even whether we would see each other again. But despite the many pressures I was under I felt that I was making progress spiritually. At the best of times, separations and departures unnerve me and I experienced great anxiety now but felt I had something reliable within.

  “So good-by, darling. I’ll phone you from Milan tomorrow in Texas,” said Renata, and we kissed many times. She seemed on the point of crying, but there were no tears.

  I walked through the TWA tunnel, like an endless arched gullet or a corridor in an expressionistic film, and then I was searched for weapons and got on a plane to Houston. All the way to Texas I read occult books. There were many stirring passages in them, to which I shall come back in a while. I reached Corpus Christi in the afternoon and checked into a motel. Then I went over to Julius’s house, which was large and new and surrounded by palms and jacarandas and loquats and lemon trees. The lawns looked artificial, like green excelsior or packing material. Expensive automobiles were parked in the driveway, and when I rang the bell there was a great gonging and tolling and dogs began to bark inside. The security arrangements were elaborate. Heavy locks were undone and then my sister-in-law, Hortense, opened the wide door covered with Polynesian carvings. She hollered at the dogs but with underlying affection. Then she turned to me. She was a blunt, decent person with blue eyes and chub lips. A bit blinded by the smoke of her own cigarette, which she did not remove from her mouth, she said, “Charles! How did you get here?”

  “Hired a car from Avis. How are you, Hortense?”

  “Julius is expecting you. He’s dressing. Go on in.”

  The dogs were not much smaller than horses. She restrained them and I went toward the master bedroom, greeting the chil-dren, my nephews, who answered nothing. I wasn’t altogether sure that for them I was a full member of the family. Entering, I found Ulick, my brother, in candy-striped boxer shorts reaching to his knees. “I thought that must be you, Chuckie,” he said.

  “Well, Ulick, here we are,” I said. He did not look well. His belly was large and his titties were pointed. Between them grew profuse gray silk. He was, however, in full control, as usual. His long head was masterful with its straight nose and well-barbered smooth white hair, the commanding mustache and witty, hard-glinting pouchy eyes. He had always worn roomy shorts, he liked them better. Mine were as a rule shorter and snugger. He gave me one of his undershot glances. A whole lifetime was between us. With me it was continuous, but Ulick was the sort of man who wanted to renegotiate the terms again and again. Nothing was to be assumed permanently. The brotherly emotions I brought with me mystified and embarrassed him, flattered him, and filled him with suspicion. Was I a nice fellow? Was I really innocent? And was I really any good? Ulick had, with me, the difficulties of a final determination which I myself had with Thaxter.

  “If you had to come, you could have gone direct to Houston,” he said. “That’s where we go tomorrow.” I could see that he was fighting his brotherly feelings. They were heavily present still. Ulick had by no means gotten rid of them all.

  “Oh, I didn’t mind the extra trip. And I had nothing special to do in New York.”

  “Well, I have to go and look at some property this afternoon. You want to come with me or do you want to swim in the pool? It’s heated.” Last time I slid into his pool one of his great dogs had bitten me in the ankle and drawn quite a lot of blood. And I hadn’t come for the bathing, he knew that. He said, “Well, I’m pleased you’re here.” He turned away his powerful face and stared elsewhere while his brain, intensely trained in calculation, calculated his chances. “This operation is fucking up the kids’ Christmas,” he said, “and you’re not even going to be with yours.”

  “I sent them a load of toys from F. A. O. Schwarz. I’m sorry to say I didn’t think of bringing presents for your boys.”

  “What would you give them? They’ve got everything. It’s a goddamn guessing game to buy them a toy. I’m set for the operation. They kept me in bed for all the tests, up in Houston. I made a twenty-thousand-dollar donation to that joint in memory of Papa and Mama. And I’m ready for the operation except that I’m a few pounds overweight. Chuck, they saw you open and I even think the bastards lift the heart right out of your chest. Their team does these heart jobs by the thousands. I expect to be back in my office by the first of February. Are you fluid? Have you got about fifty thousand? I may be able to put you into something.”

  From time to time Ulick telephoned me from Texas and said, “Send me a check for thirty, no, make it forty-five.” I simply wrote the check and mailed it. There were no receipts. Occasionally a contract arrived six months later. Invariably my money was doubled. It pleased him to do this for me, although it also irritated him that I failed to understand the details of these deals and that I didn’t appreciate his business subtlety. As for my profits, they had been entrusted to Zitterbloom, they paid Denise, they subsidized Thaxter, they were taken by the IRS, they kept Renata in the Lake Point Towers, they went to Tomchek and Srole.

  “What have you got in mind?” I said.

  “A few things,” he said. “You know what bank rates are. I’d be surprised if they didn’t hit eighteen percent before long.” Three different television sets were turned on, adding to the streaming colors of the room. The wallpaper was gold-embossed. The carpet seemed a continuation of the dazzling lawn. Indoors and outdoors fell into each other through a picture window, garden and bedroom mingling. There was a blue Exercycle, and there were trophies on the shelves, for Hortense was a famous golfer. Enormous closets, specially built, were thick with suits and with dozens of pairs of shoes arranged on long racks and with hundreds of neckties and stacks of hatboxes. Showy, proud of his possessions, in matters of taste he was a fastidious critic and he reviewed my appearance as if he were the Douglas Mac-Arthur of dress. “You were always a slob, Chuckie, and now you spend money on clothes and go to a tailor, but you’re still a slob. Who sold you those goddamn shoes? And that horse-blanket overcoat? Hustlers used to sell shoes like that to the greenhorns fifty years ago with a buttonhook for a bonus. Now take this coat.” He threw into my arms a black vicuna with a Chesterfield collar. “Down here it’s too warm to get much use out of it. It’s yours. The boys will take your coat to the stable, where it belongs. Take it off, put this on.” I did as I was ordered. This was the form his affection took. When it was necessary to resist Ulick, I did it silently. He put on a pair of double-knit slacks, beautifully cut, with flaring cuffs, but he couldn’t fasten them over his belly. He shouted to Hortense in the next room that the cleaner had shrunk them.

  “Yah, they shrank,” she answered.

  This was the style of the house. None of your Ivy League muttering and subdued statement.

  I was given a pair of his shoes, too. Our feet were exactly the same. So were the big extruded eyes and the straight noses. I don’t clearly know what these features did for me. His gave him an autocratic look. And now that I was beginning to think of every earthly life as one of a series, I puzzled over Ulick’s spiritual career. What had he been before? Biological evolution and Western History could never create a person like Ulick in sixty-five lousy years. He had brought his deeper qualities here with him. Whatever his earlier form, I was inclined to believe that in this life, as a rich rough American, he had lost some ground. America was a harsh trial to the human spirit. I shouldn’t be surprised if it set everyone back. Certain higher powers seemed to
be
in abeyance, and the sentient part of the soul had everything its own way, with its material conveniences. Oh the creature comforts, the animal seductions. Now which journalist was it that had written that there were countries in which our garbage would have been delicatessen?

  “So you’re going to Europe. Any special reason? Are you on a job? Or just running, as usual? You never go alone, always with some bim. What kind of cunt is taking you this time? ... I can force myself into these slacks, but we’re going to do a lot of driving and I won’t be comfortable.” He pulled them off angrily and threw them on the bed. “I’ll tell you where we’re going. There’s a gorgeous piece of property, forty or fifty acres of a peninsula into the Gulf and it belongs to some Cubans. Some general who was dictator before Batista ripped it off years ago. I’ll tell you what his racket was. When currency wore out, the old bills were picked up at the Havana banks and trucked away to be destroyed. But this currency was never burned. No sir, it was shipped out of the country and deposited to the old general’s account. With this he bought US property. Now the descendants are sitting on it. They’re no damn good, a bunch of playboys. The daughters and daughters-in-law are after these playboy heirs to act like men. All they do is sail and drink and sleep and whore and play polo. Drugs, fast cars, planes—you know the scene. The women want a developer to size this property up. Bid on it. It’ll take millions, Charlie, it’s a whole damn peninsula. I’ve got some Cubans of my own, exiles who knew these heirs in the old country. I believe we have the inside track. By the way, I got a letter about you from Denise’s lawyer. You owned one point in my Peony Condominiums and they wanted to know what it was worth. Did you have to tell them everything? Who is this fellow Pinsker?”

  “I had no choice. They subpoenaed my tax returns.”

  “Ah, you poor nut, you overeduca.ted boob. You come from good stock, and you weren’t born dumb, you thrust it on yourself. And if you had to be an intellectual, why couldn’t you be the tough type, a Herman Kahn or a Milton Friedman, one of those aggressive guys you read in
The Wall Street Journal
! You with your Woodrow Wilson and other dead numbers. I can’t read the crap you write. Two sentences and I’m yawning. Pa should have slapped you around the way he did me. It would have woken you up. Being his favorite did you no good. Then you up and marry this fierce broad. She’d fit in with the Sym-bionese or the Palestine Liberation terrorists. When I saw her sharp teeth and the way her hair grew twisty at the temples I knew you were bound for outer space. You were born trying to prove that life on this earth was not feasible. Okay, your case is practically complete. Christ I wish I had your physical condition. You still play ball with Langobardi? Christ they say he’s a gentleman now. Tell me, how is your lawsuit?”