Some Great Thing (22 page)

“Plenty of translations.”

“Well, that’s what I’m thinking about. It’s sad to look at words and not understand them, and then to look at these translations which say they are the same, but …”

“I know what you mean.”

“Do you?”

“Do you, Simon?”

“Yes. What you need is someone to translate for you. I could translate for you. Orally. Read it out. That’s what you need. If you hear a translation it doesn’t seem like such an impostor.”

“Right.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“Right.”

“Cheers.”

“Cheers.”

“Cheers.”

“Where’s Dad?”

“Eating.”

“I’m hungry.”

“Simon, are you hungry?”

“Not really. Yes.”

“You sound like Kwyet.”

“She just said she was hungry.”

“I am hungry, Mother.”

“Kids. Eh, Simon?”

“She is hardly a kid.”

“She is nineteen.”

“Why do I feel excluded from this conversation?”

“Because you don’t participate. Are you really hungry, Simon?”

“I could be, yes. This champagne is making me hungry.”

“It’s making me silly.”

“Me too.”

“Me too.”

“We don’t have food here, though.”

“Dad eats it.”

“And we have barely moved in. I suppose you’ve noticed, Simon. It’s an empty, hungry house.”

“I like that.”

“I agree with Kwyet. I like that too.”

“How’s that champagne going, Simon?”

“There’s some left.”

“Would you mind pouring some more for us? Finish it off. That’s it.”

“I feel like something fat.”

“Food?”

“
Yes, Mother
. Cheese. French fries.”

“Think of your father, darling.”

“That’s true.”

“It’s the champagne. It makes me hungry.”

“So how do you know how to translate Ovid?”

“I read Classics. I … I was never very good at it, at the scholarship. Never clever enough! Ha!”

“What’s so funny?”

“I don’t know. Sorry. I was never much of a scholar, but I could, seriously, translate for you. I loved the … I loved the myths. The stories.”

“Maybe we should go for a walk. Walk off the silliness.”

“But we’re hungry, Mother.”

“We could eat something on our walk. I’ve seen a chip wagon by the park. Is that disgraceful, Simon? Are you as snobbish as Leonard about food?”

“I don’t know how to answer that. I like french fries.”

“Well, so does Kwyet. Don’t you, darling? Darling?”

“I love french fries.”

“Let’s walk to the park, then. Shall we, Simon?”

“Please. What park?”

“There’s a nice park near here. Sort of a park. Kwyet and I walk there.”

“Lovely.”

“And we will go to the van?”

“Yes, Kwyet, for french fries.”

“What an extraordinary name.”

“Thank you.”

“Thank you, Simon. Would you mind if I went out without showering?”

“Of course not.”

“Let’s go then. It isn’t far. Shall we start the big talk on the way?”

“All right.”

“How long have you worked with my father?”

“Excellent, Kwyet.”

“Thank you, Mother.”

“Umm … several years now. Gosh.”

“And in what capacity do you work with him?”

“Excellent, Mother.”

“Thanks, darling.”

“In a limited capacity.”

“Excellent,
Simon
.”

“Thanks, Matty.”

“He is limited. I don’t know why I feel so inclined to be cruel about my husband today. It must be the hunger.”

“I only meant that I don’t always have much to do with him. We have worked on matters together, occasionally. This land around here, for example.”

“…”

“…”

“…”

“Why so quiet, Mother?”

“I can’t think of anything to say, Kwyet.”

“That’s the fault of big talk. It’s my fault. My work is boring.”

“It’s not that at all. Let’s pick up the pace a little. I hate all this construction.”

“But you said you liked your house.”

“Kwyet said that. I like the house well enough. It was Leonard’s idea. Come on, everyone. Pick up the pace.”

“I could beat you both in a race.”

“Of course you could, Kwyet.”

“But I am a man.”

“That’s true, Simon.”

“An older man.”

“Really Kwyet. Don’t offend your father’s friend. You are younger than Leonard, aren’t you?”

“Probably.”

“There now, Kwyet. Don’t offend him. I can see the chip wagon ahead. That’s where the park is.”

“I’m not sure my silliness is being walked off.”

“You seem sober, Simon. Very … what’s the word? Upright.”

“I feel silly. It wasn’t much champagne. Maybe it isn’t the champagne at all.”

“Come on.”

“I’m going to run.”

“Don’t run, darling.”

“I’ll buy the fries.”

“She’s only boasting, Simon. It’s not that far.”

“I am tempted to run.”

“After her?”

“Toward the van.”

“If we get there at the same time she won’t buy the fries for us. Look, she’s there already. You don’t have children to support, do you, Simon?”

“No.”

“And Leonard tells me you are unmarried.”

“Yes, I … What did you mean earlier when you said I was having trouble at work?”

“Did I say that? I probably meant Leonard. I gather you all have a big project. So you have no one to support?”

“No.”

“Leonard’s always talking about money, supporting her at McGill.”

“Well, you have a big new house …”

“Here she comes. That was quick. Aren’t you lovely, Kwyet?”

“It was your money.”

“Yes. I was just shocking Simon with that. Good God, I am hungry. These fries aren’t very fresh.”

“I think they’re good.”

“They are good.”

“They’re good, but they’re not fresh.”

“How do you spell Quiet?”

“K-W-Y-E-T.”

“How extraordinary.”

“Let’s go to the park.”

“You’ve never been to this park, Simon?”

“I don’t really know the area. I mean, I know it intimately from maps and so on. Surveys. But I have never been here.”

“How
extraordinary
.”

“Are you mocking me, Kwyet?”

“Sorry.”

“It never occurred to me to consider this just a park.”

“How extraordinary.”

“It is extraordinary. I … one gets so
involved
.”

“When will you translate for me, Simon?”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“Whenever you like.”

“What did Ovid call french fries?”

“I don’t think Ovid went to Belgium.”

“Wrong answer.”

K
WYET, SAUCY GIRL, PELTS
me with pommes frites, then runs off to the willows.

T
O CALL ON MATTY
and then to meet Kwyet. Gentlemen speculators: hold in your eyes the diamond of your dreams, blink, and behold what diamonds dream of.

“H
ELLO, MATTY, IT
’
S
S
IMON
Struthers calling. I hope I am not disturbing you.”

“Not at all, Simon. How are you?”

“I am well. I am at work, but I am well because I had a marvelous idea. Do you have a moment?”

“Hold on, I’ll ask the turnips I was peeling. Go ahead, Simon, but hurry.”

“I don’t know whether it registered with you how important it was for me, professionally, to spend time with you and Kwyet in the park the other day.”

“Professionally?”

“Absolutely. It was a pleasure personally, of course.”

“That was obvious. I have never known friends of Leonard’s to hum unless they were leaving a concert.”

“Well, professionally it was crucial. I don’t think you have a sense
of how absorbed in that land I had been. And then to see it. My idea was to go out to that park today, now. It is work, after all. And I was wondering if you would join me.”

“It would be a pleasure.”

“You have no plans?”

“No. I should take up bridge, but I am willing to wait another day. Kwyet is back in Montreal.”

“Oh. Shall I come over soon?”

“Do.”

“I
WANT TO COME
out here often. Not just to this park, but all around here.”

“It is a nice park.”

“There’s something about it. It isn’t all that nice objectively, but there is something wonderful.”

“I expect that is my company. I like coming here with Kwyet. Maybe it’s Kwyet who makes it wonderful.”

“Maybe. But it feels lovely now.”

“Maybe it is me. I believe it may be me, Simon.”

“Yes. The Government owns this land. It isn’t actually a park. It’s just land waiting for something.”

“Kwyet’s seen this land from above.”

“So have I.”

“From a plane?”

“Survey.”

“That’s not the same, is it?”

“Same as what?”

“As from a plane. Kwyet has a friend at McGill with a pilot’s license. The airport’s near here.”

“Yes.”

“So she saw it from above. I’m not sure whether he is a boyfriend or not. Normally she tells me.”

“I would like to help her with that translation.”

“She would like that. I was jealous of her for flying. I bet he is handsome, too. Pilots normally are. You really want to help her with her studies?”

“I would be happy to translate for her.”

“Is that something her father should do?”

“No.”

“She would love that.”

W
E HAVE MADE YOU
of marble, Priapus, for the time …

“L
EONARD TELLS ME YOU
have been quite close to some of your colleagues.”

“Does he?”

“Yes. Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why have you had affairs with your colleagues?”

“You’re awfully frank, aren’t you, Matty?”

“Sorry. I think Leonard likes Renée. He feels he is getting old, Leonard. I think it makes him a bit desperate—to have affairs and that sort of thing. Prove he is still attractive. It’s all a bit funny. No offense, but I find affairs a bit funny.”

“Why should I take offense?”

“Because you have them.”

“Just because I am a bachelor, it does not mean I have ‘affairs.’ You imply that I am an adulterer. I am not always an adulterer.”

“What I mean is, I find the whole thing funny. Sex, physical attraction, lust. Shall we sit down on the grass?”

“If we come here often I will buy a picnic blanket.”

“Yes, lovely, let’s have a picnic.”

“You were talking about lust.”

“Yes. It’s funny I married Leonard because I lacked imagination, in a way. He seemed to like me. My father wanted to give me away because he liked the idea of offering a dowry. It made him feel noble.
Do you mind my being frank? I thought for many years that I was only with him through convenience, lack of imagination, as I said. I thought that there might be better husbands available if I ever chose to put some effort into seeking them and so on. But through experience I’ve learned that it wasn’t a lack of imagination at all. My apathy was, is, satisfaction. That phrase is rehearsed, but it’s true. I’m not convinced that there is anyone ‘better’ than Leonard, because having someone is all the same to me. I like sex every now and then, but it seems amusing to me to want to seek it all the time. And I’ve found it difficult with Kwyet. I think she might be a bit more interested than I am in that sort of thing, and I don’t really know how to give her guidance.”

“I don’t think you should.”

“Perhaps not.”

“Perhaps she doesn’t need it.”

“Maybe. She has that pilot boy in Montreal. He sounds good—maybe I was wrong about myself, maybe I would like a pilot. She has other boys too. Has she told you about any of them?”

“I haven’t really spent much … You know everything she has said to me.”

“She is very charming, Kwyet. Maybe, though, she
is
like me—I have never known about any definite boyfriends really. She could have many, or none. Do you know the kind?”

“When will she be visiting you again?”

“In a couple of weeks. You must come over then. Why don’t you read with her then, or whatever you wanted to do? I can listen. Shall we meet here?”

“In the park, two weeks from now. The three of us.”

B
UT IF BIRTHS MAKE
full the flock, then you will be of gold
.

F
OUR DOLLARS NINETY-FIVE FOR
a picnic blanket was a perfectly affordable way to silence the earth’s cold reminders.

“S
ILENCE, PLEASE, EVERYONE, NOW
. Here. Silence. I will read my translation for you, Kwyet. A bit of Ovid that I like. Do you both like the picnic blanket? Yes? Silence. Ready?”

T
HE TALE IS TOLD
by Venus, bully Venus, love-weary Love, not weary of love but
by, with
, and
from
it. They say that by this stage in her career she was a little worse for wear. There were ghosts behind her eyes, and her breath, though still sweeter than the freshest flower in Tempe, tasted sour on her tongue in the morning. (Whiskey whispered some.)

It was pectoral Adonis, hunt-boy Adonis they all blamed. The hunt, he loved; Love, he didn’t. Venus could only chase him as he ran after animals and it was tiring her.

One day she managed to pin Adonis to the ground, her Lovesick head on his lovenone chest, beneath the shade of some tree or other—they don’t say which or how—and she told him this story, apropos of everything.

“You may,” she said, “have heard of a girl who ran more quickly than any man alive. Atalanta was her name. I used to go to school with her. And whether she was more beautiful than fast or faster than she was beautiful, even I couldn’t say.

“Like all young girls in those days she went to Delphi to ask the Oracle about a husband. And the Oracle said, ‘Husband,’ it said, ‘now there’s a thing not to mess with; run from that thing: husband.’ And as usual the Oracle felt mischievous so it added, ‘But you will not run, and running you will lose yourself.’

“Atalanta was scared by the Oracle. She lived in fear for a good few years, hiding alone in her bedroom and in the shady woods out back on warmer days. But despite her attempts to hide, suitors came knocking or they would bump into her in the woods sometimes. She had to have some defense if they tried to woo her, which, of course, they did.