Plexus (38 page)

“What?”
I fairly shrieked, “you don't mean to say you want to sell me a policy?”

“Not now, to be sure,” said Luther, grasping my arm again to quell my agitation, “not now, Henry, but perhaps in a month or so. God works His wonders in mysterious ways. Who knows but that a month from now you may be sitting on top of the world? If you had one of these in your possession you could borrow from the insurance company. It would save you a lot of embarrassment.”

Here I abruptly took leave of him. He was still standing with hand outstretched, as if immobilized, when I got to the other side of the street. I gave him one parting glance and spat out a gob of juicy disgust. “You prick!” I said to myself. “You and your fucking Comforter! For a pair of heartless shits I've never seen the like of you.
Pray?
You bet I'll pray. I'll pray that you have to crawl on hands and knees to scratch for a penny. I'll pray that your wrists and knees give out, that you have to crawl on your belly, that your eyes will become bleary, and filled with scum.”

The house was dark when I got back. No Mona. I sank into the big chair and gave myself up to moody reflections. In the soft light of my table lamp the room looked better than ever. Even the table, which was in a state of huge disorder, affected me pleasantly. It was obvious that there had been a long interruption. Manuscripts were lying about everywhere, books lay open at pages where I had left off reading. The dictionary too was lying open on top of the bookcase.

As I sat there I realized that the room was impregnated with my spirit. I belonged here, nowhere else. It was foolish of me to stir out in the manner of a householder. I should be home writing. I should do nothing but write. Providence had taken care of me thus far, why not forever? The less I did about practical matters the more smoothly things went. These forays into the world only alienated me from mankind.

Since that fantastic evening with Cromwell I hadn't written a line. I moved over to the writing table and began fiddling with the papers. The last column I had written—the very day that Cromwell had visited us—lay before me. I read it over quickly. It sounded good to me, extraordinarily good. Too good, in fact, for the newspaper. I pushed it aside and began slowly perusing a novelette which was unfinished, that “Diary of a Futurist,” of which I had read fragments to Ulric once. I was not only favorably impressed, I was deeply moved by my own words. I must have been in good spirits to have written that well.

I glanced at one manuscript after another, reading only a few lines at a time. Finally I came to my notes. They were as fresh and inspiring as when I had jotted them down. Some of them, which I had already made use of, were so provocative that I wanted to write the stories all over again, write them from a fresh, new angle. The more I unearthed, the more feverish I became. It was as though a huge wheel inside me had begun to revolve.

I pushed everything aside and lit a cigarette. I gave
myself up to a delicious reverie. All that I had wanted to write these past fall months was now writing itself out. It oozed out like milk from a coconut. I had nothing to do with it. Someone else was in charge. I was merely the receiving station transmitting it to the blue.

Just the other day, some twenty years since this occurrence, I came upon the words of one Jean-Paul Richter, which described exactly how I felt at that moment. What a pity I did not know them then! Here is what he wrote:

“Rien ne m'a jamais ému davantage que le sieur Jean-Paul. Il s'est assis à sa table et, par ses livres, il m'a corrompu et transformé. Maintenant, je m'enflamme de moi-même.”

My reverie was broken by a gentle knock at the door. “Come in,” I said, not moving from the spot. To my surprise Mr. Taliaferro, our landlord, entered.

“Good evening, Mr. Miller,” he said, in his quiet, easy Southern way. “I hope I am not disturbing you?”

“Not at all,” I replied, “I was just dreaming.” I motioned to him to take a seat and after a due pause I asked what I might do for him.

At this he smiled benevolently, drawing his chair a little closer. “You look as though you were deep in work,” he said, with sincere kindliness. “It's unfortunate that I should have disturbed you at such a moment.”

“I assure you I wasn't working, Mr. Taliaferro. I'm glad indeed to see you. I've been intending to call on you for some time. You must have wondered.…”

“Mr. Miller,” he interrupted, “I thought it was time we had a little chat together. I know you have lots of preoccupations, besides your work. Perhaps you are not even aware that it is some months now since you last paid your rent. I know how it is with writers.…”

The man was so truly gentle and considerate that I simply couldn't stand on pretense with him. I had no idea
how many months we were in arrears. What I admired in Mr. Taliaferro was that he had never in any way made us feel uncomfortable. Only once before had he ventured to knock at our door and that was to inquire if we needed anything. It was with a feeling of great relief, therefore, that I surrendered myself to him.

Just how it happened I don't know, but in a few moments I was sitting beside him on the cot we had bought for O'Mara. He had his arm around my shoulders and was explaining to me, quite as if I were a younger brother, and in a voice so gentle, so soothing, that he knew I was a good individual, knew I had never intended to put him off so long (it was five months, I discovered) but that sooner or later I would have to come to terms with the world.

“But Mr. Taliaferro, I think if you gave us just a little time.…”

“Son,” he said, pressing my shoulder ever so lightly, “it's not time you need, it's an awakening. Now if I were you, I would talk it over with Mrs. Miller this evening and see if you couldn't find a place more suited to your income. I am not going to hurry you unduly. Look around… take your time… find the place you like, and then move. What do you think?”

I was almost in tears. “You're too kind,” I said. “Of course you're right. Certainly we shall find another place, and quickly too. I don't know how to thank you for your delicacy and consideration. I guess I
am
a dreamer. I never realized that it was so long since we last paid you.”

“Of course you didn't,” said Mr. Taliaferro. “You're an honest man, I know that. But don't worry about…”

“But I do worry about it,” I said. “Even though we may have to move without paying you the back rent, I want you to know that I will definitely pay it back later, probably in driblets.”

“Mr. Miller, if you were situated differently, I would be glad to accept your promise, but it's too much to ask
of you now. If you can find another place before the first of next month I shall be quite content. Let's forget about the back rent, yes?”

What could I say? I looked at him with moist eyes, shook his hand warmly and gave him my word that we would be out on time.

As he rose to take leave of me he said: “Don't be too discouraged about this. I know how much you like this place. I hope you were able to do good work here. Some day I expect to read your books.” Pause. “I hope you'll always think of us as friends.”

We shook hands once more, then I closed the door softly after him. I stood a few minutes with my back to the door, surveying the room. I felt good. As though I had just come through a successful operation. Just a little dizziness from the anaesthetic. How Mona would take it I didn't know. Already I was breathing easier. Already I had visions of living among poor people, my own sort. Down to earth again. Excellent. I walked to and fro, threw open the rolling doors and strutted about in the vacant apartment in the rear. A last taste of refinement. I took a good look at the stained glass window, rubbed my hand over the rose silk tapestry, slid a few feet on the highly polished floor, looked at myself in the huge mirror. I grinned at myself and said again and again, “Good! Good!”

In a few minutes I had made myself a pot of tea and fixed a thick, juicy sandwich. I sat down at my worktable, put my feet up on a hassock, and picked up a volume of Elie Faure, opening it at random.… “When this people is not cutting throats or burning buildings, when it is not decimated by famine and butchery, it has only one function—to build and decorate palaces whose vertical walls shall be thick enough to protect the Sar, his wives, his guard, and his slaves—twenty or thirty thousand persons—against the sun, invasion, or perhaps revolt. Around the great central courts are the apartments covered with terraces or with domes, with cupolas, images of the absolute
vault of the deserts, which the Oriental soul will rediscover when Islam shall have reawakened it. Higher than these, observatories which are at the same time temples, the ziggurats, the pyramidal towers whose stages painted with red, white, blue, brown, black, silver and gold, shine afar through the veils of dust which the winds whirl in spiral. Especially at the approach of evening, the warring hordes and the nomadic pillagers, who see the somber confines of the desert streaked with this motionless lightning, must recoil in fear. It is the dwelling of the god, and resembles those steps of the plateau of Iran leading to the roof of the world, which are striped with violent colors by subterranean fire and by the blaze of the sun. The gates are guarded by terrific brutes, bulls and lions with human heads, marching.…”

A few blocks away, in a quiet street largely taken over by the Syrians, we found a modest furnished room situated in the rear of the house on the ground floor. The woman who rented the place was a bluenose from Nova Scotia, a harridan who gave me the shudders every time I looked at her. Everything imaginable had been crammed into our quarters: washtubs, cooking stove, heater, huge sideboard, old-fashioned wardrobe, extra couch, a battered rocker, a still more battered armchair, a sewing machine, a horsehair sofa, a whatnot filled with five-and-ten-cent store knickknacks, and an empty bird cage. I suspected that it was this room the old witch herself had inhabited prior to our arrival.

To put it pleasantly, an atmosphere of dementia reigned.

The saving thing was the garden outside our back door. It was a long rectangular garden enclosed by high brick walls, reminding me for some unaccountable reason of the garden in
Peter Ibbetson
. At any rate, it was a place
in which to dream. Summer had just begun and in the late afternoons I would drag out a big armchair and read. I had just discovered Arthur Weignall's books and was devouring them one after another. After reading a few pages I would fall into a reverie. Here in the garden everything was conducive to dream and reverie—the soft, fragrant air, the humming of insects, the lazy flight of the birds, the swishing of foliage, the murmur of foreign voices in the gardens adjoining.

An interlude of peace and privacy.

It was during this period that purely by chance I ran into my old friend Stanley one day. Forthwith Stanley began to visit us at frequent intervals, usually accompanied by his two boys, one five, the other seven. He had grown very fond of his youngsters and took great pride in their appearance, their manners, their speech. From Stanley I learned that my daughter was now attending a private school. His elder son, also named Stanley, had quite a crush on her, he informed me. This last he imparted with great relish, adding that Maude viewed the situation with alarm. As to how “they” were getting along, that I had to drag out of him. It was nothing to worry about, he assured me, but the tone in which he said it conveyed that their circumstances were none too good. Poor old Melanie was still slaving away at the hospital, hobbling to work now with a cane; her nights she spent coddling her varicose veins. She and Maude were more than ever at odds. Maude, of course, was still giving piano lessons.

It was just as well I didn't visit them any more, was Stanley's summing up. They had given me up as hopeless and irresponsible. Only Melanie, apparently, had a good word to say for me but then Melanie was just a doddering idiot. (Always subtle and tactful, Stanley.)

“Can't you sneak me in there some time when no one's home?” I begged. “I want to see how the place looks. I'd like to see the child's toys, if nothing more.”

Stanley couldn't see the wisdom of this but promised to think it over.

Then he added quickly: “You'd better forget about them. You've made a new life for yourself, stick to it!”

He must have sensed that we didn't have enough to eat, for every time he came he brought food, usually the remnants of some Polish concoction his wife had made—soups, stews, puddings, jam. Good gruel, the sort we needed. In fact, we began to look forward to these visits.

There wasn't much change in Stanley, I noticed, except that his nose was now pressed closer to the grindstone. He was working nights in a big printing establishment in lower New York, he told me. Now and then, standing up over the kitchen tubs, he would try to write. He found it almost impossible to concentrate—too many domestic worries. Usually they were broke before the week was up. Anyway, he was more interested in his children now than in writing. He wanted them to have a good life. Soon as they were old enough he would send them to college. And more of the same.…

Though he found it impossible to write, he did read. Now and then he brought along one of the books which entranced him. It was always the work of a romantic writer, usually of the 19th century. Somehow, no matter what book we were discussing, no matter what the world situation, no matter even if a revolution were impending, our talks always ended on Joseph Conrad. Or if not Conrad, then Anatole France. I had long ceased to be interested in either of these writers. Conrad bored me. But when Stanley began to sing his praise I would become intrigued despite myself. Stanley was no critic, to be sure, but, just as in the old days when we used to sit by the glowing stove in the kitchen and while the hours away, so now Stanley had a way of talking about the men he adored which infected me. He was full of yarns, usually about trivial episodes. These yarns were always humorous and spiced with malice and irony. The undercurrent, however,
was freighted with tenderness, an immense, throbbing tenderness, which was almost suffocating. This tenderness of his, which he always smothered, redeemed his rancor, his cruelty, his vindictiveness. It was an aspect of his nature, however, which he rarely betrayed to others. In general he was brusque, mordant, acidulous. With a few words and gestures he could destroy any ambience. Even when silent there emanated from him a fluid which was corrosive.