The Attic (3 page)

“
Oh,
”
she remarked.
“
You must surely be a philosopher.
”

“
No,
”
I said.
“
He
’
s an astronomer.
”

“
Yes,
”
Billy Wiseass said,
“
and he
’
s a
—
”

“
—
globetrotter,
”
I interrupted, aiming for his rawest nerve. (I
’
ve never liked to bare my true nature in public.)

“
Oh,
”
she replied and her eyes skimmed across a cloud.

“
Yes,
”
I said.
“
I
’
ve just returned from the Cape of Good Hope by way of the C
ô
te d
’
Azur.
”

“
Lucky you!
”
she said.

“
Lucky us?
”
I asked.

“
Lucky us,
”
said Billy Wiseass.

The autumn of the year 7464 (according to the Byzantine calendar) was foggy and wet, yet the foliage turned yellow and dried up overnight, so that one morning I was astonished to discover that the branches were as naked as pipes. All of this occurred so unexpectedly!

“
So what
’
s your name, actually?
”
she asked the next day.
“
I assume it
’
s not
‘
Cape of Good Hope.
’
”

“
Orph
é
e,
”
I said.
“
Orpheus.
”

Billy Consummate Liar confirmed it:

“
Look here, Magdalena,
”
he said.
“
Why shouldn
’
t you be called Eurydice? He undoubtedly meant to suggest that next . . . Right, Orpheus?
”

“
Of course,
”
I said.
“
That goes without saying. If you have no objection.
”

“
Oh,
”
she said.
“
How strange you are!
”

Then, a surprise attack:

“
So where
’
s your guitar, Orpheus?
”

“
In the attic,
”
I said.

“
Which attic?
”
she asked.

“
We live there because of its proximity to the stars. You understand. We will rename
‘
Hunger
’
. . .
‘
Eurydice.
’
Do you like that idea?
”

“
I don
’
t get it,
”
she said.

“
In order for one star at least to bear your name.
”

“
My name isn
’
t Magdalena.
”

“
Who said anything about Magdalena? I said
‘
Eurydice.
’
”

“
Oh,
”
she said.
“
I don
’
t care. But I would like to see this star.
”

“
Certainly,
”
I said.
“
We will select a star that is worthy of your name.
”

The next day I led her up the dark wooden stairs to the attic. I had already chased Billy Wiseass out, and I explained away his absence by expressing my amazement that he wasn
’
t around.

“
That
’
s not nice of him,
”
I said.

“
It
’
s not,
”
she agreed.

“
Maybe he left to go to the observatory,
”
I said in his defense.

“
But where is your guitar?
”
she asked, casting a glance around the room.

The room resembled the hold of one of those small sailboats pitching back and forth on the high seas, lost in the dark of night. On the walls the dampness had sketched out wondrous designs of the flora and fauna that bloom and thrive only in dreams. On the ceiling was a depiction of the birth of the world from the embrace of dewy sleep and tentative wakefulness, while in the four corners stood symbolic illustrations of the four continents: the African summer, the Asian spring, the snows of America, European autumn.

Mastodons and reptiles grazed on the walls, and hummingbirds plucked thick mucus from the eyelashes of a woolly mammoth. Flocks of wild doves (the last examples of which were to be found in this attic) and cranes and swallows covered the walls, forming an enormous wedge in the shape of the numeral
1
, thereby providing an illustration of biblical brotherhood and the mythical marvel of friendship:
And the swallow will build its nest in the ear of the mastodon, and the hummingbird will comb the leopard
’
s mane with its silvery beak, and the woodpecker will clean the teeth of the crocodiles of Niagara and the Holy Nile
. (The Gospel according to Billy Wiseass, translated into Mansardic from the Galactic and rendered in verse by
–
—
—
, known as Orph
é
e or Orpheus.)

With our fingernails we had copied out Latin and Greek maxims all over the wall (wherever it didn
’
t detract from the pictures drawn by the hand of dampness). We abided by them like the Ten Commandments and, in times of intellectual crisis and despair, we recited them like prayers of purification. They were guideposts to truth,
lux in tenebris
, as Billy Wiseass said. Who else would have hit upon the notion that people needed to carve maxims into the wall
ad unguem
,
“
by means of their very fingernails, until the blood spurts.
”

Here are some bits of wisdom from the Temple of the Attic:

Jos arta, caci se prostituat!

*

Quod non est in actis (in artis!) non est in mundo.

*

Plenus venter non studet libenter.

*

Nulla dies sine linea.

*

Abyssus abyssum invocat.

*

Nec vivere carmina possunt.

*

Quae scribuntur aquae potoribus
.

*

Ho bios brakhus, h
ê
de tekhn
ê
macra
.

*

Castigat ridendo mores.

*

Amo, ergo sum.

*

Credo quia absurdum.

*

Tempora si fuerint nubila, solus eris.

*

Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas.

*

Gnohti saeuton.

*

Habent sua fata libelli.

*

Os homini sublime dedit.

*

Pectus est quod disertos facit.

*

Albo lapillo notare diem.

*

Mens agitat molem . . .

Do you recall, Billy Wiseass, the cry:

—
O ubi campi!

And that wise teaching we did not wish to follow:

—
Primum vivere, deinde philosophari!

And this example of arrogance:

—
Hic tandem stetimus nobis ubi defuit orbis.

(Here we finally stand, a place that has fled our earth.)

Oh, that attic!

On the floor there was grimy straw that had been strewn about and trampled; it was teeming with roaches, so that in the middle of the gray day (the window was plugged up with rags and faded old newspapers) you could hear the straw rustling beneath their tiny feet. We had placed our books on the bed and wrapped them in diapers of cellophane, but even there the rats found them and so we had to keep the most important copies under a bell jar weighted down with a rock. Billy Wiseass had swiped the glass cover from The Three Elephants for this purpose; he had simply clapped it down over his head and announced to all the folks there:
“
With this I shall travel to the stars.
”
Everybody (including the waiter) laughed at this joke, so witty, and given his age, so ambitious. Under this bell jar we stored the following books: Spinoza
’
s
Ethics
in Latin, the Holy Scriptures in Hebrew,
Don Quixote
, the
Communist Manifesto
by Marx and Engels, Breton
’
s
Second Manifesto
, a
Handbook of Diet Foods
,
Pens
é
es d
’
un biologiste
by Jean Rostand,
Yoga for Everyone
, Jeans
’
s book on the stars, Rimbaud
’
s
A Season in Hell
, Stendhal
’
s
On Love
, Weininger
’
s
Sex and Character
, reproductions of Van Gogh prints in a pocket edition, and an international train timetable.

Our clothes were hung on hooks in the ceiling, exactly in the middle, where Venus
’
s vagina was to be found, having been sketched in there, in the shape of a shell and seaweed, by the marvelous imagination of the dampness. On these hooks protruding from Venus
’
s flesh were suspended Billy
’
s black velvet pants and my black ties, of which I had in those days approximately two hundred. On another peg hung a nylon bag in which we kept our toothbrushes, shoe polish, pomade, and shaving supplies. In one corner or in the middle of the room (it actually had no definite location) there was an old-fashioned rocking chair, with an already unraveling wicker seat, which stood us in good stead for philosophical conversations and daydreams. Whichever one of us was running amok at the moment used to rock in that creaking chair and utter Pythian prophecies and visions. A dull, cracked mirror hung a bit crookedly above the washbasin, which was made of the most diaphanous Chinese porcelain and reverberated with every word like a seashell.

“
It isn
’
t actually a guitar,
”
I said.

“
It
’
s not a guitar?
”

“
It
’
s a Renaissance lute,
”
I said.
“
You
’
re probably wondering . . .
”

“
Oh!
”
she said, alarmed.
“
Something is crawling up my leg.
”

“
It
’
s nothing,
”
I said.
“
A mouse, for sure.
”

“
A mouse?!
”

“
Well, what else could it be? The snake
’
s already asleep.
”

“
Oh, God!
”

“
It
’
s over there, under the bell-jar by the books. We extracted all the poison from it. I brought it back from Ceylon,
”
I noted with pride.

“
And what do you want with a snake?
”
she asked.

“
Are you familiar with the legend of Orpheus? Of course you must know it.
”

“
He tamed wild animals with his songs,
”
she said, trembling.

I continued:

“
So where is this thing of yours, this . . . Renaissance guitar?
”

“
Lute,
”
I corrected her.

“
Okay, then. Lute.
”

Then I opened the rusty little door for cleaning soot out of the stove, and a swarm of squeaking mice and rats came hurtling out.

She leapt onto the bed.

“
Now, Eurydice, you are going to hear the song of Orpheus,
”
I said and struck up a tender arpeggio in a minor key.

I sang softly:

She sat with her legs folded beneath her and watched me
—
with fright or with amazement, I don
’
t know.

Then she said:
“
Look! Look!
”

“
Eurydice,
”
I said with pathos in my voice.
“
You can stretch out your legs.
”

She was staring, dumbfounded, at the little iron door. With the dignity and discipline of ants or worker bees, a column of cockroaches was climbing up the wall toward the opening. They waited for the last mouse tail to be yanked in before continuing.

When the final bug had made its way up the wall, I clapped the iron door shut with my foot and started singing:

“
Not now,
”
she said.
“
Not now, please.
”

(That must have been later. At least one light-year later. I believe that the light from the star named Eurydice
—
which I caught sight of at that moment
—
set out on its journey on the day that I first beheld Eurydice, and I believe that her
“
no
”
at this moment meant that we needed to wait until the light of that encounter had reached us.)

“
Fine,
”
I said.
“
The light has to ripen.
”

“
What kind of light?
”
she asked.

I explained it to her.

“
How will we recognize it?
”
she asked.

“
The summer declination will show up in your eyes. Can you imagine? Like when olives ripen overnight. It will be beautiful,
”
I said.

“
Oh,
”
she said.

Suddenly her eyes grew dim, and dark pollen covered her lashes. The lute fell with a bang into the thin straw. It emitted a mellow chord of a type no one had ever heard. As though the fingers of twilight had strummed the strings.

Nothing could be further removed from my immediate ambitions than to write a romance novel. Although I feel that the whole business starts somewhere around there, after the caresses. I don
’
t want to make a tea set. I want to make crystal, as the wonderful Billy Wiseass would put it. That poor bastard has it good: he
’
s never experienced love. It
’
ll be easy for him to write a romance novel. If only he would give up stargazing. Nonetheless, Billy Wiseass, you will admit: it
’
s too cold out there amid the galaxies.

Or do you disagree?

When I sensed that I had pushed things too far, I said to her:
“
I have to go away. To Uganda. To Tanganyika. To Equatorial Africa. It doesn
’
t matter where. Far away.
”

“
Take me with you,
”
she said.

“
What are you thinking. Dearest. My one and only.
”

“
Why are you lying?
”
she asked reproachfully.

“
I swear!
”
I said.
“
Do you want me to prove it to you?
”

“
How?
”
she asked.
“
How?
”

“
I won
’
t leave.
”

“
Oh, that
’
s nice.
”

“
I
’
ll kill myself,
”
I continued.

She looked into my eyes.
“
If those are your only choices, then go. You
must
leave on your journey.
”

So, my dear Billy Wiseass, for several light-years I was absent, ailing. I hope you won
’
t have changed so much since we last saw each other that you will be capable of asking me why I left, why I fled.

But you see, I have changed. I
’
ve become feeble-minded and several light-years older (I didn
’
t say wiser). And, as you can see, I
’
m posing this question to myself: Why? Why?

Wiseass, do you remember our vows in the attic? Our sage pronouncements? I
’
m ashamed that I let myself ask the question
why
. Did we not say: when you go too far, think of crystal and run away?

But that was all such a long time ago!

Personal experience in such matters is irreplaceable.

Do you recall, Billy Wiseass, how we wanted to become murderers just so that we could enrich ourselves by the experience? The problems started (do you remember?) when we figured out
—
you had already prepared the pistols
—
that if we acquired the experience of being murderers we would still be a long way from the experience of being
murdered
. (If in those days we had had the slightest flicker of belief in life beyond the grave, I know we would have killed ourselves.)