The Recognitions (Dalkey Archive edition) (99 page)

—A lovely little hotel near Saint Germain, I don’t think I crossed the river more than twice all the time I was there. I really
lived
on the left bank, it’s so much nicer, the architecture, the cloud formations over there . . .

—Of course if you like Alps. I found them a fearfully pretentious bore myself . . . I mean, what can you
do
with an Alp . . .

—He’s still in Paris. He wrote that he’s just bought one of those delightful Renaults . . .

—Oh yes, I do love them. An original?

Esther stood up. Her face was flushed. The music disturbed her because it seemed the records were being played at random, one stray side of Handel after another in haphazard succession. She started toward the room which had been the studio, where the music came from, and bumped into a person who was saying, —Do you mean you’ve never
heard
of Murti-Bing? Before she was halfway across the room, her way was blocked by an immense glistening countenance. —Baby they told me you were looking for a doctor, and . . .

—Do
you
know of one? Esther asked, too startled for poise.

—No but I’m looking for one too. Maybe we can find one together . . .

Esther found Rose sitting in the dark. —Isn’t the music nice?
I
’m playing them, she said. —Yes, but perhaps, he wouldn’t want any of them broken, Rose. —Oh, I won’t break them, Rose said, smiling at her in the dark. Suddenly Esther put an arm around her; and then as abruptly withdrew it, and left her there with the phonograph.

—
Was
n’t it silly of me. I tried to kill myself twice in two weeks. The second time I was out for two days. Sleeping pills.

—How many did you take?

—Twenty-three. Why?

—I just wondered. It’s always a good thing to know.

Esther closed her eyes, as though shutting out sound, and moved on toward Don Bildow, whom she saw across the room talking with a gaunt man in an open-collar green wool shirt, and a stubby youth.

—Yes, I’m almost finished it, said a woman beside her, to the editor. —It’s to be called
Some of My Best Friends Are Gentiles
. I’m so
weary
of these painful apologies from our sensitive minorities. I often think how nice it must be among dogs, a bulldog saying,
there’s a grayhound, there’s a basset, a Pekinese, none of them mind at all. They’re all dogs. Here all you have to do is say a word like Jew or Catholic or Negro or fairy and
some
one looks ready to cut you up . . .

—I’m sorry to interrupt, Esther said, —but who is that fellow talking to Don Bildow? The tall one.

—He’s a critic. I can’t remember his name. He used to do books on
Old Masses
.

—The other one calls himself a poet, said the woman who had been talking. —He’s a professional Jew, if you know what I mean.

Nearby, a man smoking something from a box whose label said, “Guaranteed to contain no tobacco” spoke to a fluttering blond boy who, someone must eventually remark, resembled an oeuf-durmayonnaise. The tall woman indicated him to her husband, with the query, —And who is that perfectly weird little person? He’s been talking for simply hours about the solids in Oochello. Wherever that is.

—He’s one of our . . . more sensitive writers, her husband got out expelling air as though it were salt water.

—Yes, she murmured, —I can see he has a good deal to be sensitive about. She watched, as the object of her gaze halted a pirouette of departure to say, —But all my
dear
friends are exotic, just all twisted and turned like the ir
re
gular verbs in any
civ
ilized language, and
all
from over-use! . . . The tall woman said thoughtfully, —Yes, and I tried to read his book. Didn’t I? she added, turning to the other woman who, she noticed now, was wearing a maternity dress in collapsed folds, the pregnancy foiled. Then as though bringing a topic from nowhere she smiled and said, —Will you bring me a drink? to her husband; —I’m drinking for two now, to them both; and, —I don’t know
how
he could have been so careless, to the other woman.

As Esther crossed the room, Herschel caught her arm. —Baby, you must hear what Rudy’s given his maid for Christmas. A hysterectomy! Isn’t that the most thoughtful thing you ever heard?

While the tall woman continued to stare toward the door, where the sensitive youth fluttered an escape against the current of entrants. —At least I think that’s who it was, I remember the picture on the book jacket, posing with magnolias . . . She paused, to add, as he disappeared, —Or was that a book by Edna St. Vincent Millay . . . ? And stepped aside for,

—Big Anna! but what happened baby? How did you get
here?

—My Boy Scouts, I’ll never speak to them again . . .

—But I’m really upset about Rudy, Herschel went on, —
that
one called and has been in an auto smash somewhere.

—I have to find a doctor . . .

—And you’re so pretty tonight, and your nose, you know what they say about nos-es. Now you just drink this and we’ll find you the cutest little doll-doctor . . . Oh! so pretty for Christmas Eve, all red and shiny like a candy cane.

In the doorway, Maude hung back. —Do you think we could just go join the baby and live in Sweden, Arny? —Same thing there, he said. —I’ll get you a drink. Can you really tell I’ve got this shirt on inside out?

Someone was saying, —Rather like Pyramus and Thisbe, if you know what I mean, and of course everyone knows that he was so sensitive she had to put cotton in the bedsprings the first time so he wouldn’t be embarrassed . . . That person quieted, nodding at who came in the door. Others turned to see Agnes Deigh, who said immediately, —It’s really the most God-awful thing, will someone get me a drink? Is Stanley here?

—Who’s Stanley?

—A funny boy with a mustache. She sat down, looking round her; but Stanley had not arrived, and she was soon enclosed behind a curtain of trouser-seats.

—I really prefer books. No matter how bad a book is, it’s unique, but people are all so
or
dinary.

—I think we really like books that make us
hate
ourselves . . .

—But . . . why doesn’t someone just write a
happy
book . . . Maude had said that; but no one heard her. —If you had a judge who looked like
your
Daddy wouldn’t
you
trust him? she asked a youth who turned on her with, —Trust that old bastard? Chr-ahst, he doesn’t even trust himself. Do you want to buy a battleship?

All Maude could say, looking round the room, was —How do all these people know each other?

—Chr-ahst only knows. Do you like the party?

—It’s a little . . . chavenet. Don’t you think?

—Chr-ahst yes.

Esther had retrieved her kitten, and stood holding it too tightly. At her elbow, someone said, —Well Ruskin dated his life from the first time he saw them. —Well, of course
Rus
kin, said the other. —He was in town just last week, wasn’t he? said the tall woman. —I heard my husband talking about him. They had lunch together, I think . . . he’s doing a book about stones . . . ?

Across the room Ellery was turned toward her. He was talking to the blond girl, laughing, listening to her, she stood almost between them. The length of her back faced Esther. The heels were high, shoes narrow, legs slightly bowed. The whole of her figure up to the shoulders was slim as though waiting to be taken and turned, and
bent downward and back: Esther felt heavy, resting against the door jamb, shapeless, and her head was tired, full, aching dully. —All I want to do is rent a house in the south of France with four deaf mutes . . . said someone near her. The room before her was clean; but in her own mind it existed with the permanence granted only to shambles. Tenants whom she had not met stood like fixed dwellers in her life, never to be dispossessed: they had been borne to her as they were in their permanent blue suits and brown suits and black dresses and eyeglasses, permanently standing and turning, talking to and about one another, nourished and propagated by their own sounds and the maneuvering of cigarettes, leaving the act of life outmoded, a necessity of the past, a compulsion of ignorance: men raised cigarettes in erect threat; women proffered the olive-tongued cavities of empty glasses. —What’s that music? someone asked her. —I don’t know, it’s something of Handel’s I think, said Esther, pausing to listen to the strains of celebration written by the barber’s son who had learned to play on a dumb spinet, as the anachronistic morning-sickness rose in her, and she put an arm across her sensitive breasts. Ellery blew a smoke ring toward her, a savage missile which the blonde reached out and broke on the air.

—You’d better ask this nice lady right here, said a man who was fluttering a pamphlet titled
Toilet Training and Democracy
in one hand, leading a seven-year-old girl with the other.

—I’m the little girl from downstairs, the child said to Esther. —Mummy sent me up to ask you could you give me some sleeping pills . . . Esther set off with her to the bathroom, where they interrupted someone who was looking through the medicine cabinet. —Oh, sorry . . . he said, —just wanted to see if there were any razor blades here . . . He left with difficulty. Emerging a minute later, she was caught forcefully by the wrist. —Look, you’ve got a kitten, I’ve got to tell you the one about Pavlov and his kitten. You know Pavlov, he had dogs. Pavlov rang a bell and whfffft, they salivated, remember? The dogs I mean. Well this time Pavlov has a kitten . . . Voice and man were swept away, and Don Bildow was not where she had seen him. But Ellery was coming toward her smiling. She raised her face, smiling; and he stopped short, at the couch between them, where sitting alone was a man whose profession was as immediately obvious as that of the rickshaw boys of Natal, who whitewash their legs. A bow tie of propeller proportions stood out over extra-length collar bills on a white-on-white shirt, protected by many folds of a cloth which somehow retained the gracious dignity of transatlantic origin in spite of the draped depravity in its cut. —Benny! I’m glad you got here.

—Business is business, said Benny, raising his glass.

—What do you think of the idea?

—Terrific.

—I’ve got the guy all lined up. We’re going to pay his family when he goes through with it, half now, half on delivery. But it’s got to look accidental.

—Listen to this, said Benny. —I thought of this last night.

—What? An angle?

—Well, I didn’t know whether you wanted to gag it up or make it arty or what. You know. We could have built a nice artistic number around it. Some ballet, with a story line in the background. Sweet. Or I thought if you wanted to gag it up we could make a kind of musical out of it. You know? Girls. Exploding cigars.

—Yeah but look, that’s not quite . . .

—I know, we couldn’t do that angle anyway, the cigars. We’ve got a couple of good cigar accounts that would yell. No. The more I thought about it, the more I thought, what you guys really want is stark human drama. The real thing. So listen to this. I thought of this last night.

—Yeh . . .

—From a church. He does it from a church steeple.

—Christ! Benny, you’ll win the Nobel Prize for that. It’s a natural.

—I figured how we can make it look accidental enough. There’s this church up in the Bronx right across from a dancing school. We’ll have the cameras up there doing a show on kids learning ballet dancing, see? Then when we get the word all we have to do is break in and dolly them around right out the window. Beautiful camera angle.

—But what about the priest? He might screw it up if he’s around.

—He’ll be around. He’ll be busy inside, saying a Mass.

—It’s terrific. That’s all I can say. Ellery spoke with his eyes lowered, in thoughtful admiration. Then he raised them. —You deserve a drink. Where’d you think of it, alone or in a story conference?

—In church, said Benny.

—But Anna baby, came a voice from the end of the couch, filling the gap of Ellery’s marveling silence, —they boiled Sir Thomas More’s head for twenty minutes just so it would hold together, before they stuck it up on London Bridge . . .

—Right there, said the tall woman, nearer Esther, —in front of God and everybody. That’s the way those things always happen. Do you think I have on too much perfume? I have sinus trouble and I never know. Isn’t it
warm
in here.

—Well, your furpiece . . . Esther began, turning to face her.

—I know, my dear, but to tell you the truth I don’t dare put it down anywhere.

—I’m sure it would be safe in my bedroom.

—Oh, then you’re Esther. My dear I’m sorry, I didn’t mean . . .

—It’s all right, you’re probably right. I don’t know a lot of the people here myself.

—Tell me Esther, has
he
come yet?

—Who?

—Your guest of honor, of course . . .

—Do you know him?

—Hardly. But I’ve seen his picture so many times. And I own his book. I heard him speak once, about families, I mean about having children and that sort of thing. I can’t bear them myself. I mean
bear
them, literally you know, she laughed. —A tipped uterus, you know. There seem to be so many nowadays, you run into a tipped uterus wherever you turn . . .

They both turned hopefully to look across the room, where the door opened. —My dear
he
is probably someone quite notable. You have to be, to go about with an alarm clock strung around your neck . . .

—Mendelssohn Schmendelssohn, someone else said. —I’m talking about
music
.

—Wasn’t that silly of me, said the tall woman, watching Esther cross the room toward the couch. —Telling her a thing like that when here I am two months gone. It just goes to show what habit will do.

—I think Sibelius’ fourth is his best.

—Fourth, schmorth; it’s his
only
.

—It just goes to show that you can’t trust nature.

Across the room, Mr. Feddle already was engaged, inscribing a copy of
Moby Dick
. He worked slowly and with care, unmindful of immediate traffic as though he were indeed sitting in that farmhouse in the Berkshires a century before.