The Rosy Crucifixion 3 - Nexus (11 page)

But if the object of this sublime adoration be not worthy! Seldom is it the man who is afflicted by such doubts. Usually it is the one who inspired this rare and overpowering love who falls victim to doubt. Nor is it her feminine nature which is solely at fault, but rather some spiritual lack which, until subjected to the test, had never been in evidence. With such creatures, particularly when endowed with surpassing beauty, their real powers of attraction remain unknown: they are blind to all but the lure of the flesh. The tragedy, for the hero of love, resides in the awakening, often a brutal one, to the fact that beauty, though an attribute of the soul, may be absent in everything but the lines and lineaments of the loved one.

6.

For days the after effects of Ricardo’s visit hung over me. To add to my distress, Christmas was almost upon us. It was the season of the year I not only loathed but dreaded. Since attaining manhood I had never known a good Christmas. No matter how I fought against it, Christmas day always found me in the bosom of the family—the melancholy knight wrapped in his black armor, forced like every other idiot in Christendom to stuff his belly and listen to the utterly empty babble of his kin.

Though I had said nothing as yet about the coming event—if only it were the celebration of the birth of a free spirit!—I kept wondering under what circumstances, in what condition of mind and heart, the two of us would find ourselves on that festive doomsday.

A most unexpected visit from Stanley, who had discovered our whereabouts by accident, only increased my distress, my inner uneasiness. True, he hadn’t stayed long. Just long enough, however, to leave a few lacerating barbs in my side.

It was almost as if he had come to corroborate the picture of failure which I always presented to his eyes. He didn’t even bother to inquire what I was doing, how we were getting on, Mona and I, or whether I was writing or not writing. A glance about the place was sufficient to tell him the whole story. Quite a come down! was the way he summed it up.

I made no attempt to keep the conversation alive. I merely prayed that he would leave as quickly as possible, leave before the two of them arrived in one of their pseudo-ecstatic moods.

As I say, he made no attempt to linger. Just as he was about to leave, his attention was suddenly arrested by a large sheet of wrapping paper which I had tacked on the wall near the door. The light was so dim that it was impossible to read what was written.

What’s that? he said, moving closer to the wall and sniffing the paper like a dog.

That? Nothing, I said. A few random ideas.

He struck a match to see for himself. He lit another and then another. Finally he backed away.

So now you’re writing plays. Hmmm.

I thought he was going to spit.

I haven’t even begun, I said shamefacedly. I’m just toying with the idea. I’ll probably never write it.

My thought exactly, he said, assuming that ever ready look of the grave-digger. You’ll never write a play or anything else worth talking about. You’ll write and write and never get anywhere.

I ought to have been furious but I wasn’t. I was crushed. I expected him to throw a little fat on the fire—a remark or two about the new romance he was writing. But no, nothing of the sort. Instead he said: I’ve given up writing. I don’t even read any more. What’s the use? He shook a leg and started for the door. Hand on the knob, he said solemnly and pompously: If I were in your boots I’d never give up, not if everything was against me. I don’t say you’re a writer, but … He hesitated a second, to frame it just right. But Fortune’s in your favor.

There was a pause, just enough to fill the phial with vitriol. Then he added: And you’ve never done a thing to invite it.

So long now, he said, slamming the gate to.

So long, said I.

And that was that.

If he had knocked me down I couldn’t have felt more flattened. I was ready to bury myself then and there. What little armature had been left me melted away. I was a grease spot, nothing more. A stain on the face of the earth.

Reentering the gloom I automatically lit a candle and, like a sleepwalker, planted myself in front of my idea of a play. It was to be in three acts and for three players only. Needless to say who they were, these strolling players.

I scanned the project I had drawn up for scenes, climaxes, background and what not. I knew it all by heart. But this time I read as if I had already written the play out. I saw what could be done with the material. (I even heard the applause which followed each curtain fall.) It was all so clear now. Clear as the ace of spades. What I could not see, however, was myself writing it. I could never write it in words. It had to be written in blood.

When I hit bottom, as I now had, I spoke in monosyllables, or not at all. I moved even less. I could remain in one spot, one position, whether seated, bending or standing, for an incredible length of time.

It was in this inert condition they found me when they arrived. I was standing against the wall, my head against the sheet of wrapping paper. Only a tiny candle was guttering on the table. They hadn’t noticed me there glued to the wall when they burst in. For several minutes they bustled about in silence. Suddenly Stasia spied me. She let out a shriek.

Look! she cried. What’s the matter with him?

Only my eyes moved. Otherwise I might have been a statue. Worse, a stiff!

She shook my arm which was hanging limp. It quivered and twitched a little. Still not a peep out of me.

Come here! she called, and Mona came on the gallop.

Look at him!

It was time to stir myself. Without moving from the spot or changing my position, I unhinged my jaw and said—but like the man in the iron mask—: There’s nothing wrong, dearies. Don’t be alarmed. I was just … just thinking.

Thinking? they shrieked.

Yes, little cherubs, thinking. What’s so strange about that?

Sit down! begged Mona, and she quickly drew up a chair. I sank into the chair as if into a pool of warm water. How good to make that little move! Yet I didn’t want to feel good. I wanted to enjoy my depression.

Was it from standing there glued to the wall that I had become so beautifully stilled? Though my mind was still active, it was quietly active. It was no longer running away with me. Thoughts came and went, slowly, lingeringly, allowing me time to cuddle them, fondle them. It was in this delicious slow drift that I had reached the point, a moment before their arrival, of dwelling with clarity on the final act of the play. It had begun to write itself out in my head, without the least effort on my part.

Seated now, with my back half-turned to them, as were my thoughts, I began to speak in the manner of an automaton. I was not conversing, merely speaking my lines, as it were. Like an actor in his dressing room, who continues to go through the motions though the curtain has fallen.

They had grown strangely quiet, I sensed. Usually they were fussing with their hair or their nails. Now they were so still that my words echoed back from the walls.

I was able to speak and to listen to myself at the same time. Delicious. Pleasantly hallucinated, so to speak.

I realized that if I stopped talking for one moment the spell would be broken. But it gave me no anxiety to think this thought. I would continue, as I told myself, until I gave out. Or until it gave out.

Thus, through the slit in the mask, I continued on and on, always in the same even, measured, hollow tone. As one does with mouth closed on finishing a book which is too unbelievably good.

Reduced to ashes by Stanley’s heartless words, I had come face to face with the source, with authorship itself, one might say. And how utterly different this was, this quiet flow from the source, than the strident act of creation which is writing! Dive deep and never come up! should be the motto for all who hunger to create in words. For only in the tranquil depths is it granted us to see and hear, to move and be. What a boon to sink to the very bottom of one’s being and never stir again!

In coming to I wheeled slowly around like a great lazy cod and fastened them with my motionless eyes. I felt exactly like some monster of the deep who has never known the world of humans, the warmth of the sun, the fragrance of flowers, the sound of birds, beasts or men. I peered at them with huge veiled orbs accustomed only to looking inward. How strangely wondrous was the world in this instant! I saw them and the room in which they were seated with eyes unsated: I saw them in their everlastingness, the room too, as if it were the only room in the whole wide world; I saw the walls of the room recede and the city beyond it melt to nothingness; I saw fields ploughed to infinity, lakes, seas, oceans melt into space, a space studded with fiery orbs, and in the pure unfading limitless light there whirred before my eyes radiant hosts of godlike creatures, angels, arch-angels, seraphim, cherubim.

As if a mist were suddenly blown away by a strong wind, I came to with both feet and with this absolutely irrelevant thought uppermost in my mind—that Christmas was on us.

What are we going to do? I groaned.

Just go on talking, said Stasia. I’ve never seen you this way before.

Christmas! I said. What are we going to do about Christmas?

Christmas? she yelled. For a moment she thought I was speaking symbolically. When she realized that I was no longer the person who had enchanted her she said: Christ! I don’t want to hear another word.

Good, said I, as she ducked into her room. Now we can talk.

Wait, Val, wait! cried Mona, her eyes misty. Don’t spoil it, I beg you.

It’s over, I replied. Over and done with. There is no more. Curtain.

Oh, but there is, there must be! she pleaded. Look, just be quiet … sit there … let me get you a drink.

Good, get me a drink! And some food! I’m famished. Where’s that Stasia? Come on, let’s eat and drink and talk our heads off. Fuck Christmas! Fuck Santa Claus! Let Stasia be Santa Claus for a change.

The two of them now hustled about to do me pleasure. They were so terribly eager to satisfy my least whim … it was almost as if an Elijah had appeared to them from out of the sky.

Is there any of that Rhine wine left? I yelled. Trot it out!

I was extraordinarily hungry and thirsty. I could scarcely wait for them to set something before me.

That damned Polak! I muttered.

What? said Stasia.

What was I talking about anyway? It’s all like a dream now … What I was thinking—is that what you wanted to know?—is that … is how wonderful it would be … if…

If what?

Never mind … I’ll tell you later. Hurry up and sit down!

Now I was electrified. Fish, was I? An electric eel, rather. All a-sparkle. And famished. Perhaps that’s why I glittered and sparkled so. I had a body again. Oh how good it was to be back in the flesh! How good to be eating and drinking, breathing, shouting!

It’s a strange thing, I began, after I had wolfed some victuals, how little we reveal of our true selves even when at our best. You’d like me to carry on where I left off, I suppose? Must have been exciting, all that stuff I dredged up from the bottom. Only the aura of it remains now. But one thing I’m sure of—I know that I wasn’t out of myself. I was in, in deeper than I’ve ever, ever been … I was spouting like a fish, did you notice? Not an ordinary fish, either, but the sort that lives on the ocean floor.

I took a good gulp of wine. Marvelous wine, Rhine wine.

The strange thing is that it all came about because of that skeleton of a play on the wall over there. I saw and heard the whole thing. Why try to write it, eh? There was only one reason why I ever thought of doing it, and that was to relieve my misery. You know how miserable I am, don’t you?

We looked at one other. Static.

It’s funny, but in that state I was in everything seemed entirely as it should be. I didn’t have to make the least effort to understand: everything was meaningful, justifiable and everlastingly real. Nor were you the devils I sometimes take you for. You weren’t angels either, because I had a glimpse of real ones. They were something else again. I can’t say as I’d want to see things that way all the time. Only statues…

Stasia broke in. What way? she wanted to know.

Everything at once, I said. Past, present, future; earth, air, fire and water. A motionless wheel. A wheel of light, I feel like saying. And the light revolving, not the wheel.

She reached for a pencil, as if to make a note.

Don’t! I said. Words can’t render the reality of it. What I’m telling you is nothing. I’m talking because I can’t help it, but it’s only a talking about. What happened I couldn’t possibly tell you … It’s like that play again. The play I saw and heard no man could write. What one writes is what one wants to happen. Take us, we didn’t happen, did we? No one thought us up. We are, that’s all. We always were. There’s a difference, what?

I turned directly to Mona. I’m really going to look for a job soon. You don’t suppose I’m ever going to write living this kind of life, do you? Let’s whore it, that’s my idea now.

A murmur escaped her lips, as if she were about to protest, but it died immediately.

Yes, as soon as the holidays are over I’ll strike out. Tomorrow I’ll telephone the folks to let them know we’ll be there for Christmas. Don’t let me down, I beg you. I can’t go there alone. I won’t. And try to look natural for once, will you? No make-up … no drag. Christ, it’s hard enough to face them under the best of conditions.

You come too, said Mona to Stasia.

Jesus, no! said Stasia.

You’ve got to! said Mona. I couldn’t go through with it without you.

Yes, I chimed in, do come along! With you around we won’t be in danger of falling asleep. Only, do wear a dress or a skirt, will you? And put your hair up in a bun, if you can.

This made them mildly hysterical. What, Stasia acting like a lady? Preposterous!

You’re trying to make a clown of her, said Mona.

I just ain’t a lady, groaned Stasia.

I don’t want you to be anything but your own sweet self, said I. But don’t get yourself up like a horse and buggy, that’s all.