Tropic of Cancer (14 page)

She was in her dressing sack when he called. There was a bucket of champagne on the dresser. The room was rather dark and her voice was lovely. He gives me all the details about the room, the champagne, how the
garçon
opened it, the noise it made, the way her dressing sack rustled when she came forward to greet him—he tells me everything but what I want to hear.

It was about eight when he called on her. At eight-thirty he was nervous, thinking about the job. “It was about nine when I called you, wasn’t it?” he says.

“Yes, about that.”

“I was nervous, see…”

“I know that. Go on…”

I don’t know whether to believe him or not, especially after those letters we concocted. I don’t even know whether I’ve heard him accurately, because what he’s telling me sounds utterly fantastic. And yet it sounds true too, knowing the sort of guy he is. And then I remember his voice over the telephone, that strange mixture of fright and jubilation. But why isn’t he more jubilant now? He keeps smiling all the time, smiling like a rosy little bedbug that has had its fill. “It was nine o’clock,” he says once again, “when I called you up, wasn’t it?” I nod my head wearily. Yes, it was nine o’clock. He is certain now that it was nine o’clock because he remembers having taken out his watch. Anyway, when he looked at his watch again it was ten o’clock. At ten o’clock she was lying on the divan with her boobies in her hands. That’s the way he gives it to me—in driblets. At eleven o’clock it was all settled; they were going to run away, to Borneo. Fuck the husband! She never loved him anyway. She would never have written the first letter if the husband wasn’t old and passionless. “And then she says to me: ‘But listen, dear, how do you know you won’t get tired of me?’ “

At this I burst out laughing. This sounds preposterous to me, I can’t help it.

“What did you expect me to say? I said: ‘How could anyone ever grow tired of
you?
‘ “

And then he describes to me what happened after that, how he bent down and kissed her breasts, and how, after he had kissed them fervidly, he stuffed them back into her corsage, or whatever it is they call these things. And after that another
coupe
of champagne.

Around midnight the
garçon
arrives with beer and sandwiches—caviar sandwiches. And all the while, so he says, he has been dying to take a leak. He had one hard on, but it faded out. All the while his bladder is fit to burst, but he imagines, the cute little prick that he is, that the situation calls for delicacy.

At one-thirty she’s for hiring a carriage and driving through the Bois. He has only one thought in his headhow to take a leak? “I love you… I adore you,” he says. “I’ll go anywhere you say—Istanbul, Singapore, Honolulu. Only I must go now… It’s getting late.”

He tells me all this in his dirty little room, with the sun pouring in and the birds chirping away like mad. I don’t yet know whether she was beautiful or not. He doesn’t know himself, the imbecile. He rather thinks she wasn’t. The room was dark and then there was the champagne and his nerves all frazzled.

“But you ought to know something about her—if this isn’t all a goddamned lie!”

“Wait a minute,” he says. “Wait… let me think! No, she wasn’t beautiful. I’m sure of that now. She had a streak of gray hair over her forehead… I remember that. But that wouldn’t be so bad—I had almost forgotten it you see. No, it was her arms—they were thin… they were thin and brittle.” He begins to pace back and forth.—Suddenly he stops dead. “If she were only ten years younger!” he exclaims. “If she were ten years younger I might overlook the streak of gray hair… and even the brittle arms. Buc she’s too old. You see, with a cunt like that every year counts now. She won’t be just one year older next year—she’ll be ten years older. Another year hence and she’ll be twenty years older. And I’ll be getting younger looking all the time—at least for another five years…”

“But how did it end?” I interrupt.

“That’s just it… it didn’t end. I promised to see her Tuesday around five o’clock. That’s bad, you know! There were lines in her face which will look much worse in daylight. I suppose she wants me to fuck her Tuesday. Fucking in the daytime—you don’t do it with a cunt like that. Especially in a hotel like that. I’d rather do it on my night off… but Tuesday’s not my night off. And that’s not all. I promised her a letter in the meantime. How am I going to write her a letter now? I haven’t anything to say… Shit! If only she were ten years younger. Do you think I should go with her… to Borneo or wherever it is she wants to take me? What would I do with a rich cunt like that on my hands? I don’t know how to shoot. I am afraid of guns and all that sort of thing. Besides, she’ll be wanting me to fuck her night and day… nothing but hunting and fucking all the time… I can’t do it!”

“Maybe it won’t be so bad as you think. She’ll buy you ties and all sorts of things…”

“Maybe you’ll come along with us, eh? I told her all about you…”

“Did you tell her I was poor? Did you tell her I needed things?”

“I told her everything. Shit, everything would be fine, if she were just a few years younger. She said she was turning forty. That means fifty or sixty. It’s like fucking your own mother… you can’t do it… it’s impossible.”

“But she must have had some attractiveness… you were kissing her breasts, you said.”

“Kissing her breasts—what’s that? Besides it was dark, I’m telling you.”

Putting on his pants a button falls off. “Look at that will you. It’s falling apart, the goddamned suit. I’ve worn it for seven years now… I never paid for it either. It was a good suit once, but it stinks now. And that cunt would buy me suits too, all I wanted most likely. But that’s what I don’t like, having a woman shell out for me. I never did that in my life. That’s your idea. I’d rather live alone. Shit, this is a good room isn’t it? What’s wrong with it? It’s a damned sight better than her room, isn’t it? I don’t like her fine hotel. I’m against hotels like that. I told her so. She said she didn’t care where she lived… said she’d come and live with me if I wanted her to. Can you picture her moving in here with her big trunks and her hatboxes and all that crap she drags around with her? She has too many things—too many dresses and bottles and all that. It’s like a clinic, her room. If she gets a little scratch on her finger it’s serious. And then she has to be massaged and her hair has to be waved and she musn’t eat this and she musn’t eat that. Listen, Joe, she’d be all right if she were just a little younger. You can forgive a young cunt anything. A young cunt doesn’t have to have any brains. They’re better without brains. But an old cunt, even if she’s brilliant, even if she’s the most charming woman in the world, nothing makes any difference. A young cunt is an investment; an old cunt is a dead loss. All they can do for you is buy you things. But that doesn’t put meat on their arms or juice between the legs. She isn’t bad, Irene. In fact, I think you’d like her. With you its different. You don’t have to fuck her. You can afford to like her. Maybe you wouldn’t like all those dresses and the bottles and what not, but you could be tolerant. She wouldn’t bore you, that I can tell you. She’s even interesting, I might say. But she’s withered. Her breasts are all right yet—but her arms! I told her I’d bring you around some day. I talked a lot about you… I didn’t know what to say to her. Maybe you’d like her, especially when she’s dressed. I don’t know…”

“Listen, she’s rich, you say? I’ll like her! I don’t care how old she is, so long as she’s not a hag…”

“She’s not a hag! What are you talking about? She’s charming, I tell you. She talks well. She looks well too… only her arms…”

“All right, if that’s how it is,
I’ll
fuck her—if you don’t want to. Tell her that. Be subtle about it, though. With a woman like that you’ve got to do things slowly. You bring me around and let things work out for themselves. Praise the shit out of me. Act jealous like… Shit, maybe we’ll fuck her together… and we’ll go places and we’ll eat together… and we’ll drive and hunt and wear nice things. If she wants to go to Borneo let her take us along. I don’t know how to shoot either, but that doesn’t matter. She doesn’t care about that either. She just wants to be fucked that’s all. You’re talking about her arms all the time. You don’t have to look at her arms all the time, do you? Look at this bedspread! Look at the mirror! Do you call this living? Do you want to go on being delicate and live like a louse all your life? You can’t even pay your hotel bill… and you’ve got a job too. This is no way to live. I don’t care if she’s seventy years old—it’s better than this…”

“Listen, Joe, you fuck her for me… then everything’ll be fine. Maybe I’ll fuck her once in a while too… on my night off. It’s four days now since I’ve had a good shit. There’s something sticking to me, like grapes…”

“You’ve got the piles, that’s what.”

“My hair’s falling out too… and I ought to see the dentist. I feel as though I were falling apart. I told her what a good guy you are… You’ll do things for me, eh? You’re not too delicate, eh? If we go to Borneo I won’t have hemorrhoids any more. Maybe I’ll develop something else… something worse… fever perhaps… or cholera. Shit, it’s better to die of a good disease like that than to piss your life away on a newspaper with grapes up your ass and buttons falling off your pants. I’d like to be rich, even if it were only for a week, and then go to a hospital with a good disease, a fatal one, and have flowers in the room and nurses dancing around and telegrams coming. They take good care of you if you’re rich. They wash you with cotton batting and they comb your hair for you. Shit, I know all that. Maybe I’d be lucky and not die at all. Maybe I’d be crippled all my life… maybe I’d be paralyzed and have to sit in a wheelchair. Bu then I’d be taken care of just the same… even if I had no more money. If you’re an invalid—a
real
one—they don’t let you starve. And you get a clean bed to lie in… and they change the towels every day. This way nobody gives a fuck about you, especially if you have a job. They think a man should be happy if he’s got a job. What would you rather do—be a cripple all your life, or have a job… or marry a rich cunt? You’d rather marry a rich cunt, I can see that. You only think about food. But supposing you married her and then you couldn’t get a hard on any more—that happens sometimes—what would you do then? You’d be at her mercy. You’d have to eat out of her hand, like a little poodle dog. You’d like that, would you? Or maybe you don’t think of those things?
I think of everything
. I think of the suits I’d pick out and the places I’d like to go to, but I also think of the other thing. That’s the important thing. What good are the fancy ties and the fine suits if you can’t get a hard on any more? You couldn’t even betray her—because she’d be on your heels all the time. No, the best thing would be to marry her and then get a disease right away. Only not syphilis. Cholera, let’s say, or yellow fever. So that if a miracle did happen and your life was spared you’d be a cripple for the rest of your days. Then you wouldn’t have to worry about fucking her any more, and you wouldn’t have to worry about the rent either. She’d probably buy you a fine wheelchair with rubber tires and all sorts of levers and what not. You might even be able to use your hands—I mean enough to be able to write. Or you could have a secretary, for that matter. That’s it—that’s the best solution for a writer. What does a guy want with his arms and legs? He doesn’t need arms and legs to write with. He needs security… peace… protection. All those heroes who parade in wheelchairs—it’s too bad they’re not writers. If you could only be sure, when you go to war, that you’d have only your legs blown off… if you could be sure of that I’d say let’s have a war tomorrow. I wouldn’t give a fuck about the medals—they could keep the medals. All I’d want is a good wheelchair and three meals a day. Then I’d give them something to read, those pricks.”

The following day, at one-thirty, I call on Van Norden. It’s his day off, or rather his night off. He has left word with Carl that I am to help him move today.

I find him in a state of unusual depression. He hasn’t slept a wink all night, he tells me. There’s something on his mind, something that’s eating him up. It isn’t long before I discover what it is; he’s been waiting impatiently for me to arrive in order to spill it.

“That guy,” he begins, meaning Carl, “that guy’s an artist. He described every detail minutely. He told it to me with such accuracy that I know it’s all a goddamned lie… but I can’t dismiss it from my mind. You know how my mind works!”

He interrupts himself to inquire if Carl has told me the whole story. There isn’t the least suspicion in his mind that Carl may have told me one thing and him another. He seems to think that the story was invented expressly to torture him. He doesn’t seem to mind so much that it’s a fabrication. It’s the “images” as he says, which Carl left in his mind, that get him. The images are real, even if the whole story is false. And besides, the fact that there actually is a rich cunt on the scene and that Carl actually paid her a visit, that’s undeniable. What actually happened is secondary; he takes it for granted that Carl put the boots to her. But what drives him desperate is the thought that what Carl has described to him might have been
possible.

“It’s just like that guy,” he says, “to tell me he put it to her six or seven times. I know that’s a lot of shit and I don’t mind that so much, but when he tells me that she hired a carriage and drove him out to the Bois and that they used the husband’s fur coat for a blanket, that’s too much. I suppose he told you about the chauffeur waiting respectfully… and listen, did he tell you how the engine purred all the time? Jesus, he built that up wonderfully. It’s just like him to think of a detail like that… it’s one of those little details which makes a thing psychologically real… you can’t get it out of your head afterward. And he tells it to me so smoothly, so naturally… I wonder, did he think it up in advance or did it just pop out of his head like that, spontaneously? He’s such a cute little liar you can’t walk away from him… it’s like he’s writing you a letter, one of those flowerpots that he makes overnight. I don’t understand how a guy can write such letters… I don’t get the mentality behind it… it’s a form of masturbation… what do you think?”