The Recognitions (Dalkey Archive edition) (30 page)

Having recovered himself, he flicked his cigarette into the darkness beyond the open window, and glanced again at the shreds on his upper lip which would be a mustache by the time he left the job. Then with a sursum corda on his lips in farewell to the image abandoned in the mirror, he undressed again and lay down on his sweated mattress. Before he was asleep, it had begun to rain.

The specially prepared matches lit easily, but cigarettes fell apart between the fingers. Weeks went by with mortal slowness, parade of heat, insects, water, paper work, stupidity aggressive and fearful, and the scribbling on the play. Weeds grew luxuriously. The only way that Otto was certain that time was passing was the frequency with which he had to pare his nails. His shoes, left under the bed, turned green.

Red flowers drooped at the end of long stalks, then dropped revealing the fruit in infant impotence. Week by week the fruit grew larger, pointed outward, then upward, and was cut in the full erectile vigor of youth.

Then it was over, early that year; and the minute the wet season was done it was forgotten. Near the horizon the haze appeared and the sun, part in and part out, rose warped out of shape like a drunken memory of sunrise. Black ashes hung over the plantation houses from a fire some distance away. Next door, from a radio, Enesco’s Third Rumanian Rhapsody was being played on a harmonica. Otto counted his money.

The months of waiting were over, the months of non-entity. Saint Paul would have us redeem time; but if present and past are both present in time future, and that future contained in time past, there is no redemption but one. This one Otto now pressed with his wrist to be certain that it had not disappeared while he was dressing, leisurely, like a tired Colonial on the stage of a West End theater, for he had returned his wallet to his inside breast pocket. The man with the kewpie doll tattooed on the inside of his forearm (signed up for two years) said, —Two years isn’t long, not if you say it real fast. For those nomads who sold the time of their lives, time was either money being made or money being spent, and life a cycle of living and unliving, as the sailor’s life loses the beginning, middle, and end of the voyage from port to destination and becomes repetition of sea and ashore, of slumber and violence. The hours of work were hours of vacant existence, but the minutes were pennies, and in each dollar was held captive the hour gone for
it: here time was held in thrall, to be spent at a man’s wish. So as misers keep years bound up in mattresses and old tin boxes, wrapped in newspaper, sewn into linings (and ashore they sing —What shall we do with a drunken sailor?), he came forth with months in his pocket, and himself to dictate their expenditure.

—I wouldn’t reach up my ass for the whole city of New York, said the man with the kewpie doll tattooed on his forearm, who stood before a mirror in the communal lavatory eating cold chili out of a can. He ate before the mirror so that he could see where his mouth was, for he had been drinking for three days. He was not working because of the burn on his back, which he said he had got when someone took a chicken out of a boiling pot and threw it at him, in a brothel down in the port. The wound on his back was not the shape of a chicken. It had been painted with a purple solution, a great island the shape of Australia the first day, now contracted to the proportions of New Zealand, the stroke of Tasmania out to sea for the doctor’s hand was not a steady one.

—That’s where I live, Otto said. He enjoyed coming into this lavatory, because the mirrors all in a row over the wash basins gave the pleasant illusion of passing one’s self at many windows. —That sounds like quite a revolution they’re having, Otto said washing his hands at the next basin.

—Them bastids don’t know how to have a revolution, said the other, turning with such Anglo-Saxon indignance that the orange chili ran down his chin. —You know what I’d do if I was up there. All you got to do is get them dumb cops on their motorcycles, and string a good piece of piano wire across the road, then get down at the end of the road and take a couple of shots at them. They come after you on their motorcycles and zing zing zing there go their heads just like that. All you need, a good piece of piano wire. They don’t know how to have a revolution. They’re afraid somebody’ll get killed. If I was up there . . .

—I’ve got to go pack, Otto said. —Have you seen Jesse?

—What do you want to see that dumb son of a bitch for?

—I’m leaving. I just wanted to tell him goodbye.

—You goin somewhere?

—New York. I told you. I’m going home.

—New York! What do you want to go there for? I wouldn’t reach . . . But he was busy eating.

Otto had suddenly remembered his manuscript, the manuscript of his play. He was certain he had not packed it, for he had kept it out to look at until the minute before departure. It was nowhere in his room. All he found was a newspaper, in which he had been looking up sailings from nearby ports (knowing all the time that
he would take the Company boat), found only a want ad for a male Chihuahua sought for breeding purposes. This paper he threw across the room, and with a cigarette in his fist like a smoking weapon he strode out, down the porch toward the shanty where the cleaning women settled about this time of day.

—Quién limpian mi cuarto mañana? he asked when he arrived, getting out in one breath the question it had taken him the distance of his walk to phrase in mistranslation.

An ancient timid hand went up among the women. —Yo, answered its owner, letting it drop. One by one they got to their feet before him.

—Hay visto una manuscripta aquí? Otto had made up the word manuscripta. One of the triumphs of his stay was his successful evasion of learning more than some thirty mispronounced words of the language.

—Qué dijo?

—La manuscripta de mi playa, said Otto forcefully. He knew that by adding
a
he could translate any English noun satisfactorily. The ladies were vastly confused. He turned from the doorway and set off toward his building. They followed.

—Qué dijo de
playa?
asked one, drawn on by the mystery of a man looking for a beach. None tried to answer her. They tramped up the dirt in silence. Inside his room Otto turned on the woman who had admitted to cleaning it. —El está para la máquina, he said pointing to the typewriter. —Esta mañana.

—Perdido, said one woman, satisfied that something was lost.

—Sí, perdido, said another equally agreeable. She started to look under the mattress.

—Qué cosa? asked the accused bravely.

—Papel, said the master. —Papel que yo escribo mi playa al máquina, finishing in triumphal confusion. —Mi playa, he repeated, menacing.

—Es muy misterioso, said one of the women.

—Sí.

—Muy misterioso, repeated the third, while the fourth let go the mattress (it was where she would have hidden anything) and stood silently marveling at this man who had lost a beach right here in the room.

—Titulito The Vanity of Time, Otto recommenced.

—No entiendo, the eldest came back at him, helplessly defiant.

—The Vanity of Time, he said more loudly. —La Vanidad del Tiemplo, God damn it, he almost shouted. Illiterate, illiterate old fools. He looked around for a pencil, found none, returned. —Tiene
una . . . una . . . He made scribbling motions in the air. —Por escribo.

One held a pencil out to him. —Un lápiz, señor? she asked. Lápiz, of course; though anyone looking at it could see that it was a pencil. He took it from her and wrote, THE VANITY OF TIME, in large letters. —Mucho papel, he said.

—Aïe . . . said the old one, dawning. —Pero sí, sí señor, with happy relief. She was uncomfortably familiar with this pile of paper. It had once been pointed out to her as mucho importante, and she had daily dusted the title page with care: the words were as unforgettably meaningless to her as the Latin legend circumscribing the largest local Virgin. —Aquí está, she said reaching to the top of a pile of linen on a shelf. —Lo pusé aquí cuando empacaba, todo estaba tan revuelto que tuve miedo de que se perdiera, o se ensuciara . . . she got out, in what sounded like one wildly relieved word.

Otto, breathing heavily, took it from her muttering, —Gracias, gracias, señoritas, without raising his eyes from the precious bundle. The four smiled, murmured —Nada, de nada, señor, and trundled out the door clustering about the acquitted for an explanation.

He carried the sheaf of clean papers over to a chair. The words were beautiful. The letters themselves were beautiful. His handwriting, in careful notes along occasional margins to give the thing a casual look, was beautiful. He read at familiar random, smiling to himself. Every page, beautiful, except one which would have to be retyped, he had killed a cockroach on it. Or perhaps, perhaps it had style in itself, that dark smudge. There were (though he had never seen one) tarantulas in Central America. Or was it black widows? And would a black widow make a brown smudge?

Then he raised his face to the empty door. The obsequious smile was gone. Left eyebrow up, lips moistened, slightly parted and curled, he waited while a producer approached, welcoming hand extended. Otto eyed the vision, nodded casually, reached for a cigarette. There were none in the linen suit. He was interrupted while he went to the dirty striped shirt for the necessary property; and returned to the chair the long way round the room, pausing (at the mirror) to light the cigarette. Putting the papers on the publisher’s desk he fumbled a little, able to use but one hand. —Here, let me help you, the publisher said. —Nothing serious, I trust? —Nothing, nothing at all, Otto answered, elbowing the sling back under his jacket. —A scratch. Central America, you know.

He read a few lines in the second act and blew a perfect smoke ring on the quiet air. There was Esther. Where would he meet her? At the apartment? But he did not want to see her husband again.
The thought of that man barely ten years his senior made him curl inside, the man who had seemed at first almost a father, then a fool, finally near maniac. It would be better to call Esther for a drink. Or for luncheon. Better still to meet her casually, by carefully prearranged accident.

—How wonderful you look, Otto.

—A little color . . . How have you been?

—Oh the same old things, you know, but without you it’s been so dull and so lonely. But you, what about you? And what’s happened to your hand?

—A revolution. Just one of those things, a regular occupational hazard down there. Possibly you saw something of it in the papers?

—Oh I never read them, you know that, not any more. But they tell me you’ve written a wonderful play.

And then as he took off his shirt and his trousers, —And you’re so brown, all of you, and all in white . . .

Outside the sun poured its heat over the endless green of the fan-leaved banana trees. As Otto struggled down the porch carrying two suitcases and his typewriter, a voice came from an open door, —Hey come here, I want to show you some pictures.

—I’ve got to get the train for the port, he called to the man with the kewpie doll tattooed on his forearm. —It leaves in twenty minutes.

—Come here. I want to show you some pictures.

Otto had, on occasion, pictured fine man-to-man farewells, close handclasps, and a few words of curt but constant friendship. He put his bags down in the door and entered. Snapshots of all sizes and degrees of fading surrounded the man sitting on the rumpled bedcover. —I’m putting them in an album, he said. He could hardly sit up. —See this one? This here is me with my first car, in Pennsylvania. He put glue all over the back of it, and then took an envelope of those black art corners used to mount snapshots in albums, and stuck them on the corners. As he licked them they came off in his mouth, and the glue on his chin, colored with dry chili. —See this one here? he went on, blowing the art corners out of his mouth and getting fresh ones. —This is me with my old man. That’s my first car behind us. That was 1931, see that? A new car. Even then I wasn’t doin so bad. On the pages he had completed, snapshots were firmly stuck with artistic disregard for angles, size, and number of art corners. All were consistent in one thing, however: —This is me. This is me in a bar in Brooklyn with some Greek sailors, one of them had a camera, I was workin in the Navy Yard. This is me in Panama, I worked in the Canal Zone before I came up here.
This is me in Darien on a hunting trip with some Indians. Here, this is me with some Sand Blast Indians . . .

—I have to go, I have to get that train. It leaves in about ten minutes.

—Here, look at this one. . . By now he had got glue over most of his chin, and art corners stuck to his wrists and arms, framing the kewpie doll. —This is me . . . he started as Otto went toward the door. —Look can you hand me that bottle on the table before you go, I don’t want to get up and make a mess of all this. My grandchildren . . .

As Otto started down the porch, there was the rending sound of breaking wind from the room behind him, and the voice, —There’s a goodbye kiss for you, kid.

The fine particles of ash in the air settled on his white linen as he hurried.

The small town of the port might have had but one place in this world of time, and that to make itself presentable for Otto’s departure, after which it could settle down to a long and uninterrupted decline. He walked in and out of its streets, looking about casually, pausing only when he saw his sudden reflection in a shop window. Stopping at the shops he appeared to be looking at the goods spread before him, while his stare got no farther than the image in the glass. Then he crossed to the shaded side of the street. On a veranda as he passed three black men were playing cards. When they saw him they pointed up, over their heads, smiling, nodding. On the open porch above a girl stood, as black and smiling as those below. She was wrapped only in a white towel, held together with one hand. He did not turn. —You want chikichig? one of the men asked. —Boy change you luck, called another after him where he walked on. —Pretty boy get all what he want . . .

The whiteness of the Company boat was a glitter in the strong sun. Few passengers were in sight, but the pier was crowded with people selling and begging and looking for a penny’s worth of work. Their colors rose from a soft tan to hearty black. They were dressed in clothes which they had never seen new, and each carried something worthless, a basket of dolls made of straw, bundles of papers, inedible confections.