The Recognitions (Dalkey Archive edition) (77 page)

—Father . . . 
Am I the man for whom Christ died?

Louder than laughter, the crash raised and sundered them in a blinding agony of light in which nothing existed until it was done, and the tablet of darkness betrayed the vivid, motionless, extinct and enduring image of the bull in his stall and Janet bent open beneath him.

Then it seemed full minutes before the cry, pursuing them with its lashing end, flailed through darkness and stung them to earth. Water fell between them, from a hole in the roof. The smell of smoke reached them in the dark.

With no warning uncertain flicker, the light came on. Before them, a metal wash-tub lay on the floor with a square hole riven through its bottom. The door was charred and smoking around the hinges and the lock.

Then the shadows round the walls were set dancing in duplication, each steady dark shape mocked by a distorted image leaping round it, as the Town Carpenter appeared with a lantern and stood swinging it in the door. —There now! he said; and though his voice was not loud it rang with confirmation, as he entered and walked
over toward the bull’s stall. —There! he said, swinging round, and the lantern with him, —There’s a masterful pizzle for you!

The bull shifted on its feet, sounding its weight on the board floor, and turned its head from them and withdrew.

Gwyon was gone. They both turned to the door at the same moment to look; and by the time they reached the door together, Gwyon’s figure showed halfway up the slope toward the house.

—There now, said the Town Carpenter, nodding and swinging the lantern out. His coat had come open to show long-underwear buttons to the waist. He’d pulled on his trousers and galoshes to come out, and the trousers were on backwards. —It’s that I came down to look at, he said, swinging the lantern toward the balloon stand, which was as good as he’d left it. Then he held the lantern aloft, over the figure poised in the doorway of the carriage barn.

—There, he’s fallen!

The Town Carpenter reached out and seized his arm. They could both see Gwyon on the ground up near the house.

—He’s fallen. Will you let me go help him?!

—And would you humble him, the Town Carpenter answered without relaxing his grip, —by helping him back to his feet?

He hung there in the Town Carpenter’s hand until Gwyon had recovered and mounted the porch steps. Then the Town Carpenter opened his hand slowly, eyes fixed on him, until he suddenly wrenched away and ran up the hill laughing.

The Town Carpenter lowered the lantern and looked into the barn again, murmuring. Then he snapped off the electric light, pulled the door closed, and trudged up the slope hitching the binding front of his pants as he went. At the kitchen door he raised the glass chimney, blew out the lantern and went in, pulling a light cord as he passed, straight over to his pot on the cold stove. There were voices, or a voice, in the dining room, or down the hall, he did not know and did not listen.

—“Away, to hell, to hell!” Do you remember that?

The Town Carpenter rolled up his sleeves, took a piece of yellow soap from the metal sink, and dipped his hands into the pot.

—“Oh, might I see hell, and return again, How happy were I then!” Yes, yes, that’s it! Back there!

The Town Carpenter found the soap among folds in the bottom of the pot, lifted it out, and dried his hands. —Something amiss, he murmured as he pulled out the light, —we must simplify, as he tramped toward the back stairs.

Janet came from behind the door of the butler’s pantry. She stopped when she heard the voice down the hall, or in the dining
room, she could not tell, but stood for a moment listening, thoroughly wet, her skirt torn, her hair matted down. Then she came on.

—Yes, back there, that’s the place! They’re waiting! Yes, the harrowing of hell. That’s it. Then wood splintered, in the dining room.

Janet found him alone there. He had just split the top of the low table under the window down the middle. —What is it? Janet asked calmly, coming closer.

—Damnation, he answered, backing round the table.

—Damnation? she repeated, clearly and quietly, as he got round and backed through the door.

—Damnation? he repeated questioning, and stopping as she came close, holding to the door frame.

—That is life without love, Janet said. —Who weeps for you?

He turned and broke down the hall.

—Whom do you weep for? she pursued him. He reached the front door and turned to stare at her, advancing in her torn blood-streaked skirt. —Do you not know that luxury, that most exquisite luxury we have? she kept on until she reached him.

—You . . . he burst out, holding a quivering hand before him, —were you . . . you down in the . . . barn? . . .

Janet was up beside him, so close that their rough cheeks almost touched. —No love is lost, she said, and kissed him on the cheek where the snow had torn it.

He stared at her an instant longer, and bolted out the front door.

The Town Carpenter had found a note under his door when he entered his room. He read it aloud to the dog, who raised her head from the pillow to listen. —Dawn tomorrow, a great deal of work to be done in the church. It was on an outsize piece of paper, and signed
Gw
. At the foot it said, “Return vol. 18 Plants to Raym Britannica.” All this was written in very large letters.

The Town Carpenter held it up to the light, and finding no other message he started to file it in a drawer which jingled with bottles when he opened it. But he turned with the paper still in his hand, took out his huge gold watch, weighed it for a moment without opening the case, and laid it on the dresser. Next he brought out a flat gold case and stood running his thumb over the inscription.

The dog whined; and a minute later the light was out, and the Town Carpenter’s voice sounded weary in the darkness. —Move over, you’re taking too much room. Did I brush your teeth? Here. Move over. Go to sleep. We have a lot of work to do tomorrow.

The Depot Tavern showed one of the few lights in that end of town.

—I wouldn’t dare go out in this, said the small man with beer, staring through the glass into the clear night. —I’d go in over my head somewhere.

The man with the blue woman tattooed on his arm was about to comment when the door banged open, and the draggled figure who arrived demanded cognac before he reached the bar.

—No cognac, I got only some brandy here.

—All right, brandy. A glass of brandy. Here wait, I said a glass, not a . . . not that thing.

A tumbler half-filled was put before him, and he took out a twenty-dollar bill.

The small man sipped his beer, and looked wonderingly at this extravagant diversion.

—Here, what’s that? What’s that?

—What? . . .

—Right there behind you. In the glass.

—This here? This coconut?

—Good God . . . it’s a griffin’s egg. Let me see it.

—This here’s a coconut.

—Let me see it. Where did it come from?

—Some guy sent it to me, he was in the service . . .

—Let me see it.

—You shake it, you can hear the milk inside rattling. Hear it?

—Yes, yes, I hear it. Good God . . . will you sell it to me?

—Sell it?

—Here. Do you want more?

—Well, I . . . for a coconut I couldn’t hardly ask you . . .

—Here, twenty more. Is this enough?

The small man’s hand shook as he put his beer on the bar, silently, not to interrupt. The glass was almost opaque, spotted with fingermarks, for he had been holding it all the afternoon.

Further up the bar, the blue woman who had been reclining for some time was suddenly snapped up and strangled until her forehead almost met her knees.

—When’s the next train?

—Where you going?

—Down.

—Down where?

—All the way.

—In a minute, in three or four minutes there’s one, the small man brought out, greatly excited to hear himself speak. —In three
or four minutes there’s one, he repeated. —There’s one in three or four minutes.

They held their breath until the door banged again, shivering the pane between them and the night. Then they stared at the empty glass, and the two twenty-dollar bills on the counter. Even the twelve-point buck seemed to have a dusty eye on it.

The train arrived in New York at eleven that night.

The cab slipped on the wet pavement, in and out of the slush in the gutters, thrusting itself ahead of everything else in the frenzied motion of the streets, tearing open the half-darkness of side streets with its lights and its noise.

When it pulled in at the curb he leaped out, thrusting uncounted bills into the driver’s hand, and dropped his weight against the door as he reached for the bell. But the door was not locked, and he got into the downstairs hall. There he was stopped by a voice shouting in a fury from above,

—I tell you I goin to do it, Mister Brown . . . There was a heavy thud, and three more. —I tell you, I tell you I goin to kill you, and now I doin so . . . Mister Brown, and the sound of hitting, again and again, as he got through the vast living room, up the stairs past the polychrome wood saint in the niche extending the scar of the arm offered in benediction.

He switched on the light on the balcony, and there was silence. He looked into Recktall Brown’s bedroom. It was empty. Then he ran down the hall, round the corner and on to the last doorway.

Fuller was alone. He was standing over his bed in his underwear with his broken umbrella in his hand, and the spread on the sagging bed rumpled and torn where he’d been beating it. —I caution him I goin to do it, Fuller said hardly looking round, the gold of his teeth a quick glitter in the light from the hall.

Two suitcases stood packed at the foot of the bed, both cardboard and tied with heavy twine. The high-crowned straw lay on top of them. On the table, among a number of cigar stubs, and the razor blade which Fuller used to pare them with, was the cigar whose wrapper had peeled when Recktall Brown had bitten off the end, now wrapped in a cologne-scented handkerchief. Under the table, all over the floor, bits of paper were scattered: RECKTIL BROWN, REKTELL BROWN, RECKTILL BROWNE . . . covering the pile of crucifixes stacked against the wall.

—Where is he?

—Mister Brown take a short trip, say he will return tomorrow. Sometime when he vexed he become very unpredictable.

—What was it?

—He taken a ticket from me, Fuller answered, his chest shaking under the buttoned front of his underwear, yellowed by his life in it.

—But that smell? What’s that awful smell? Like hair burning.

—That’s what it is, an evil smell, Fuller said. —That’s what evil smell like.

“I’ve had a good dream, gentlemen,” he said in a strange voice, with a new light, as of joy, in his face.

—Dostoevski,
The Brothers Karamazov

—Sempre con fè sincera . . . la mia preghiera . . . ai santi tabernacoli salì . . .

No sound but this, the radio, behind Esme’s door. Otto raised his clenched hand to knock again; and as his knuckles hit the door it came open an abrupt four inches. His smile warped into surprise, every line in his face converted to its contradiction.

Chaby faced him over the chain. Chaby had on a suede jacket, the collar turned up in back; and his hair looked like a pastry-cook’s triumph.

—Nell’ora del dolore . . . perchè, Signore, perchè me ne rimuneri così?

—Is Esme here?

—No.

—Do you know where she is?

—Jesis how should I know. She went to get some coffee.

—Do you know where?

—Jesis how should I know where. Chaby did not slam the door until Otto had reached the stairs.

Esme was sitting at a counter eating toast. She wore no make-up but faint sharp lines on her eyebrows. She smiled, and held out her hand to Otto, who realized, as he sat beside her, that she was breakfasting with the heavy-necked person on her right. He was showing her pictures of snapsnot size. —They came out nice, he said. —Much better than most of the girls we get, innocent-looking like. But look at these, look at these of me. The photographs showed him in theatrical attitudes. In one he held a knife. In another, a pistol. In another, a cord, ready for garroting. In all, he wore a hat (as he did now), and a cigarette stub stuck in the corner of his mouth (as one was now). —Whadda you say?

—It’s very kind of you, Esme said smiling to him.

—I’ll come see you Friday, huh?

—Who was
that?
Otto asked when the man left.

—He’s a nice man who is going to act in movies, Esme said.

—What did he want from you?

—I think he wanted me to act in the mo-vies.

They had both smiled, and for a moment they were together. Then Otto said, —I just called at your apartment, and he withdrew his hand.

—And did you see Mister Sinis-ter-ra? she asked, still with her smile.

—Yes. What’s he doing up there?

—He came to see me.

—So I gather. When, last night?

—Otto, that isn’t nice, she said, sobered, disappointed.

—I’m sorry. Otto, suddenly, could not afford to be left so: he had withdrawn as a woman withdraws, to be followed. There was no pursuit in Esme’s eyes, as she turned them from him. —Esme, I’m sorry.

—You’re not sorry, Otto. You only say that. It is a habit. There was no admonition and no feeling of hurt in Esme’s voice, she spoke to him simply.

—Esme . . . Oh look, that isn’t what I meant . . .

—Why do you say he slept with me?

—That isn’t what I meant at all, said Otto (and in that instant almost retorted, —Well did he?). Then Esme was smiling happily again. She was smiling at someone behind him.

—Hello Stanley, she said gently. —And do you know Otto?

Stanley nodded and said, —Hello, putting the book he carried from his right to his left hand, so that he could shake hands; but he got no further. His right hand dropped empty to his side.

—Poor Stanley. Why are you so dole-ful?

—I’m all right, Stanley said. He stood there, his only motion a slight weaving toward them, as though his mustache weighed him in their direction. Finally he said, —Did you hear about Charles?