The Recognitions (111 page)

the educated people up on the plateau to blow each other to bits, but for Tibieza . . . except that Tibieza de Dios, in fact its only reason for existence, was a port, and one of few. Therefore it must be taken. First, it was necessary to settle who held it. This was arranged one early morning, when three men suspected of belonging to the revolutionary party, and known to have participated in shady deals (an easily made and always justifiable charge) were shot over their morning coffee, in reprisal for removal of the local priest who had been found garishly made up with lipstick, and castrated, sitting on one of the petrified sponge-like rocks at the end of the seawall in an attitude of repose, with a hole in one side of his head where an ear had been, and out the other. After that, even the veranda card game moved indoors. The cathedral, in a state of such genial collapse that it looks never to have been built stone by stone, its arches chipped and smooth so that no one stone stands away from another, its saints armless and headless waiting, smoothed and quietened by the rain, in open niches, its towers hanging heavy with the silent bells, stands to one side of the central plaza, behind a pitted concrete wall. These pits, obviously due to poor contracting years ago, were now circled with chalk, and scribbled beside them, "Calibre .45 para los niños," though actually no children were known to have been blown up in some time. Across that plaza stood the Hotel Bella Vista, girt with a rickety balcony, and leaning, as though rickets were familiar throughout its frame, like a hipshot elder, toward the sea. There were a few large trees in the plaza, which was surfaced with concrete. Just around the corner, toward the beach, was the office of Doctor Espinach, whose sign told that he had been educated in the United States of America. It was upon this strip of beach that Otto's mighty airplane careered to an ungainly stop. The passenger who had caused this aerodynamic embarrassment, by riding outside instead of in, was so cold that he remained fixed to the tail assembly as the others got out to see why their giant had hesitated, what engine of human frailty had interfered with the miracle so preternatural that they took it for granted. The other passengers were a fairly dismal group, except for a handsome lady with an armload of orchids, and a small man whose clothes bulged suspiciously, both of whom seemed delighted to be put down right where they were. The fresh-air passenger had boarded in New Orleans, so he said, in Spanish, for that was all he spoke, with lips which were the only thing about him that he could move. —We would have seen you when we stopped in Mexico, said the co-pilot, who allowed miracles only a reasonable breadth. —Dios . . . dios . . . said the passenger. The plane might have waited until this problem was disposed of, but its arrival had caused some consternation, and delight, in the town. At that moment seven carloads of men were racing toward it, believing it had brought arms from the capital. Two of the cars were loaded with revolutionaries, four with loyalists, the last undecided, but armed. All stopped behind the dunes. Before he knew what was happening, the co-pilot was knocked awry with a bullet in his calf. He and the pilot consulted in decisive profanity, and a minute later the airplane roared down the beach and veered away into the sky, slightly cockeyed, its topside passenger so occupied holding on that he did not raise even a paralyzed arm in farewell. The proprietor of the Bella Vista was a man with a heavy bunch of keys which rattled against his thick thigh as he strode up and down the first-floor veranda, avoiding the place over the dining-room door where the boards had gone through one night during a visit from United States Marines. He wondered what the airplane's mission had been, what all the shooting was about, and it was oafish-ness rather than courage that permitted him to expose himself as he was doing. All he saw, however, was a draggled figure in gray flannel crossing the empty plaza toward his door. Everything was silent but for a distant hum of song, punctuated by thuds, from the direction of the Baptist Church where a prayer meeting was in full sway. They were using their new bass drum to rousing effect, its clamor enhanced by the resonance of the roof, which was pleached of flattened oil tins. Past the sign of Doctor Espinach, a tempting swinging target with three holes in it already, he came on looking slightly dazed, to be given a room with one window facing toward the sea, hung with forlorn curtains in the middle of a sagging string. Two doors led to nowhere, and the louvers in the outside door were broken. The wire to the electric bulb swung free on the wall. The sink gurgled like the plumbing on a ship. There were large pictures of blond girls on the wall, one holding daffodils for Carr's English Biscuits, the other, suffering a running jaundice brought on by a leak in the ceiling, presented a tray of Canada Dry. With a cigarette, he lay back to consider that modest portion of the ceiling which was painted, just over the bed, and his own, a swelling weight on his chest where the wallet lay empty of anything but uncounted bills. He had escaped twice, this second time from the certain difficulties he would have had upon reaching his destination and being asked to produce identity papers and a visa. He had escaped, where, he did not know, he did not think, he had not thought since Christmas Eve, and when thought or memory intruded he forced it off with calculation drawn to one purpose: to keep moving, with 728

money no object but to spend his way through it, to keep moving and live it through, without looking back. He reached out on the floor and drew the chamber pot nearer, to use as an ashtray. In the afternoon, it seemed that the loyalists were in full con-trol. Police, at any rate, rode into the plaza, though no one was certain whether they were on the payroll of the loyalists or the revolutionaries. They were armed with pistols and carried sabers. This was because there was to be a demonstration, fomented in the local school and forbidden by the mayor, whose measure for peace and quiet was understood as a challenge to liberty. The demonstration began on time. Boys marched into the plaza carrying placards which read, "Mothers! Your children have the right to be free!" and "Calibre .45 para los niños." Someone threw a rock at a mounted policeman. Someone else threw another. The horses were having difficulty keeping their feet on the slippery concrete. After a ghastly lunch served by a black girl sheathed in one spotted white garment, Otto wanted coffee. He waited. The dining room was festooned with fly-blown streamers of colored crepe paper, each leaf of which had lost most of its own color and borrowed some of its neighbor's. In the middle of the room, a fruit bowl stood on a table, a luxurious economy, for the bananas were so near rotten that no one ever took one, or at best, never took another. —No coffee. She burned the milk, the girl said. Otto lit a cigarette, and went out. He had got as far as a cafe across the pla/a before the demonstration began. From there, he watched it progress. It made no sense. He started back toward the Bella Vista. The demonstration was noisy, but he looked on it with a tired eye, refusing to be taken in by such foolishness. Until a policeman rode toward him, swing-ing a saber; and the policeman's neck was covered with blood. That suddenly, it was real. And as suddenly terrified, Otto looked frantically for sanctuary. The cathedral, with its protecting wall, stood waiting. He looked wildly round him but saw nothing as he started to run toward it. From behind the bandstand, a policeman rode, he and his mount looking in every direction, the man's and the horse's eyes matching in bloodshot apprehension, dodging the rocks that found them from above. Just then a white bird came down in an arc from a branch, down falling like a stone before it ascended, and the policeman, dodging the threat, threw his weight over, his horse scrambled for a moment on the concrete and went down, and the falling flank caught Otto as he ran without seeing toward the church, spun him round and pinned him on the concrete, unconscious. + The vulture on the outside roof fussed for a moment, one wing extended, impatiently like a dignitary fully dressed for an appointment looking at his watch. Then the wing came back somewhat askew, as though he'd buttoned the coat up wrong, and not noticing it in his impatience stood rocking from one foot to the other. In the street outside a little boy held up a male dog, exposed, for a female to investigate. His mother said to another and larger black woman, —Tomorrow morning, soon soon . . . Other little black boys passed, wearing men's hats. The card game was back out on the veranda. Near the only occupied cot, in the schoolroom which had been used as a hospital, was posted a stuffed fox whose snarl exposed a pink fly-blown tongue. The doctor stood beside the cot looking down at the face. Nothing moved there but a fly. It rummaged a cheek for a moment, studied the caves of the nostrils, hurried across the bandage to the cleft of the chin, from that eminence sighted the convoluted marvel across the way, and leaped silently to the ear. The eyes flickered, and closed tightly as though to recall the long night and the wonder of nonentity it had permitted: recreation not for the body, nor the soul, but opportunity for circumstances to refurbish themselves, a hope untempered by ages of experience where morning brings no change, but only renewal of conflict on the terms it left off. The lips moved, drawing up twice on, —I know it ... I know it. ... and then tightening to know sleep only, and there animate circumstance with the good intentions which had already brought it low in present disaster; and then descending, a little lower, only to belabor those good intentions, vi-carious opiates laboring in half-consciousness to fall away before the pursuit of dreams, dreams ravin in tooth and claw, while the beard grows against the pillow in darkness. The fly returned to course the warm terrain of the eyelid, moving with the careless persistence of diabolical things, and both eyes came open. —What happened? —I was going to ask you the same thing. They just brought you in here in pieces, and . . . —I feel sick. —Well you are sick, so it's a good thing you know it. —I can hardly hear you. —You're lucky you can hear me at all. Ever have ear trouble? —Yes. No. —Well, you do now. You might even have a deaf ear before you're through. Just like Julius Caesar, that would be nice, wouldn't it. 73°

Who are you? You're very young to show up with something like this. I might even say tragic it I knew who you were. —Wait, I ... I can't move my arm. —That's partly because it's broken. Do you remember trying to walk yesterday? Please excuse my shouting at you. —But what is it? what is it? —Like a drunkard. Staggering around like a drunkard. Of course I might not say that if I knew who you were. We didn't find any papers on you at all. Just money. Money. Lots of it. —Where is it? —Lie back now, it's safe. All that money! But you can't run around spending it now. Don't be impatient. Why, look at me, I have a right to be impatient. I was sent down here to help these nig . . . natives with their drainage problems, and now look at me.'They keep promising to transfer me to Barbados, but they never do. A special health project in Barbados . . . He had walked over near the window, and looked out. —I've sent for some more medicine for you. Of course I know all the time that I'll have to go get it myself eventually, this tattooed idiot who's supposed to work for me . . . Then he shouted out the window, —Jesse . . . ! Jesse! . . . There, you see? He's nowhere to be seen. Worthless, useless, tattooed idiot ... of course I wouldn't call him that if I thought he could hear me. This is the third time now that I've put in for a transfer to that special health project among underdeveloped . . . oops! Wait, don't throw up on the floor. Here . . . here we are. Ummmp! That's better. Feel better? —But . . . what . . . what is this? Who are you? —What are either of us doing here? Who are you? Tsk tsk, excuse my shouting at you. —But you . . . you must tell me . . . —I suppose I must. The doctor should not discuss the case with the patient, but who else can I discuss it with? Well, after your little accident, something set in. Something. —Something what? —Don't be hasty. Something. Maybe something entirely original. Do you hear noises in your ears? —I hear you . . . —I have to shout, or you couldn't hear me. Dizziness, nausea, vomiting, staggering, and down you go unconscious. It doesn't sound very original, does it. How would you like to have a disease named after you? —But I ... —Well, I'll tell you a secret. It may be Ménière's disease. It may be. You'd accept that, would you? Because if it is we couldn't name 73i

it after you. We'll see. I've given you a little nicotinic acid. Do you work for the fruit company here? —No ... no, I ... —It's all right, don't explain. I'm on the outs with them too. If they knew I had you here they'd try to get you for their patient. —No, I ... now I ... —That's the spirit. Now you just wait here. If anyone comes in, cover up your head and moan. I'm going over to the fruit company dispensary, and try to get some Diasal for you. Diasal or Lesofac, Amchlor or Gustamate. If it is Ménière's syndrome, we'll have you up staggering around in no time. Of course I don't know where you'll stagger to, with no papers. What's your name? We can't name a disease after you if you don't have a name. —But I ... I ... —My name is Doctor Fell. There. What's yours? — ... Gordon. Gordon. My name's Gordon. —All right Gordon. Don't throw up on the floor while I'm gone, Gordon. Gordonitis? tsk tsk . . . Get some sleep Gordon. —But you ... —Roniacol or Dramamine . . . The door banged. Outside all was quiet, except for the distant dull crash and recession at the seawall, where the rehearsal continued. The sun shone. On the ridge of the tin roof across from the window, the vulture strode up and down, wings drawn back in a black mantle and head darting forward, like an old man thoughtful of money, hands restlessly grasping under the wings of his tailcoat. Then from somewhere an old man in a dry bird voice cried out, —Mani . . . mani . . . 

"Miss Potter, where is God?" "He is everywhere," replied Miss Potter with dignity. "But, my dear Maiden," exclaimed His Highness, planting himself firmly on one of the chairs, "what good is that to me?" —Ackerley, Hindoo Holiday 

—A patron saint? 

—It's a natural. 

—What does she do? —She intercedes. —What do you mean, she intercedes. —I don't know, but that's not the point. Look, they've dug up this Saint Clare. She's going to be patron saint for the whole industry. —Where'd you hear all this? —Story conference. Somebody read about it in the paper. They've already run up a rough script on it. She had a vision once, at a basilica, where she saw the whole Christmas thing appear before her eyes. It was sort of the first TV show, you might say. —What's a basilica? What was she, Eyetalian? They didn't teach Eyetalian at Yale. —I guess so. It's where Saint Francis of Assisi lived. The poor one. A place called Portiuncula. —How come they call him Saint Francis of Assisi if he lived in Port . . . —I don't know, but that's not the point. Look, for the program that inaugurates The Lives of the Saints on TV, this is a natural. The story line is terrific. This poor girl, she lives near Saint Francis, and finally she went around to ask him how she could be a saint too, like he was, except to start one for women. So he said . . . —Start one what? —Like a nunnery, but that's not the point. So he gave her this hair shirt, and told her to go out and beg for awhile, and then come to his place at Portiuncula dressed like a bride. So she did. It's a natural. This scene where all these monks meet her with lighted candles and walk her up to the altar. —Then what. They get married? —I guess so. Why else would she come dressed like a bride? They walked in thoughtful silence for a moment. The long bare corridor was brightly lighted and empty, until a young man with a thin face, a slightly crooked nose, and a weary expression which embraced his whole appearance, passed them. —There, there's the guy who was working on this, he's one of the writers. Hey, Willie . . . But the weary figure went on. He was carrying two books, one titled, The Destruction of the Philosophers, the other, The Destruction of the Destruction. He rounded a corner away from them muttering, —Christ. Christ, Christ, Christ, Christ, Christ. —It would be nice if we could get some kind of testimonial on this. —She's dead, this saint. —I know that, for Christ sake. I mean from somebody like the Pope. It would make a nice tie-in. They walked on in thoughtful silence for a minute. —Ever since the Vatican pulled that stunt of telling Catholics that seeing Mass on TV wasn't enough, that they still have to get out and go to church, when right in the comfort of their own living rooms they could . . . —Ellery . . . ! —Morgie! —You two guys know each other? Ellery, this is Mister Darling, he's the account exec handling Necrostyle . . . —Know each other! Morgie's an old Skull and Bones man. The whole industry's being taken over by the Ivy League. How the hell are you, Morgie? —I was saying the same'thing at a party last night, Morgie said. —We all used to end up in the old man's brokerage, and now . . . you can't tell me advertising isn't the new Wall Street. He and Ellery walked down the bright corridor with their hands on one another's shoulders. The third man said, —The highest paid business in the U.S. today . . . and fell in behind them. He was an old Alabama Rammer-Jammer man. —I just came up for a look at our new morning show, said Morgie. —But why you've got a kids' ballet school on for Necrostyle, now what the hell Ellery, with kids' shows like the Saints . . . —That's how you reach them, Ellery said, —through the kids. There's something about kids. People trust them, you know? —But a ballet school! We want . . . —We know what you want, Morgie. Just be patient, we know what you want. A girl in a wedding dress stood outside a door in the empty corridor. She was very young, and the heavy make-up on her face almost hid her bad case of acne. She smiled uncertainly as they approached. —Lost, baby? Ellery asked her. She nodded and sniffed, up this close she looked about to cry. —You're on the Let's Get Married program? Ellery winked at her. She nodded and sniffed hopefully. —Look, down there, quick, see that guy in the skirt coming out of the men's room? Quick, follow him. It's studio thirty-seven, he called after her as she ran, hampered by her tight wedding skirt, her sharp heels calibrating the silence of the corridor, away from them. The third man turned and watched the restricted motion of her thighs. At present he had a single modest ambition: he was trying to get a line he had heard somewhere into the script of a highly paid comedian. The line was, It looked so nice out this morning I left it out all day. The censors would not have it: they said it was immoral. Nevertheless, he thought it was one of the funniest things he had ever heard. He also had a salt-shaker which he carried and used in public places. It was a crude plastic reproduction of the Venus de Milo. The sign in the place where he had bought it said, Because of the amusing way in which these shakers pour, better hide them when Grandma's around. He was becoming a "character," which was exactly what he wanted. When he went out he wore a cap. The person who had sold it to him had told him that he looked like the Duke of Northumberland in it. Now he said, —What a nice tight little can. Morgie looked at the girl too, over his shoulder. —You couldn't get into that with a can-opener. It's a crime the way they tie it in. —No disparaging remarks. —What d'you mean? —We got the Kanthold Korsets account. —What's the tape over your eye, Morgie? Did she bite you? —This party I was at last night. A bunch of scared intellectuals, you know? A bunch of goddam unamericans. —But you told them, didn't you Morgie. Ellery turned to the third man. —Morgie's serious as hell. He was always serious, even in college. —This is serious, goddam serious. Don't kid yourself, Morgie said. —They corrupt, these goddam intellectuals do. They corrupt. —I told you Morgie was serious, Ellery said, and grinned. —See what he got defending his country? —Don't kid yourself. Some bastard started in on how New York would change if prostitution was legalized. Clean honest whorehouses, see? —In that case, you'll have to consider me unamerican too, in Alabama . . . —No, the point was sublimation, see? This is the whoring of the arts, and we're the pimps, see? —You should have hit him. —I did. That's where I got this. Morgie pointed to the tape above his eye. —No matter how much you talk to them, they don't get it. It's too simple. It's too goddam simple for them to understand. They still think their cigarettes would cost them half as much without advertising. The whole goddam high standard of American life depends on the American economy. The whole goddam American economy depends on mass production. To sustain mass production you got to have a mass market. To sustain a goddam mass market you got to have advertising. That's all there is to it. A product would drop out of sight overnight without advertising, I don't care what it is, a book or a brand of soap, it would drop out of sight. We've had the goddam Ages of Faith, we've had the goddam Age of Reason. This is the Age of Publicity. —O.K. Morgie, you believe in it. Come into the control room and see your dancing girls. —Goddam right I believe in it. You got to regard advertising as public information, that's what it is. —O.K. Morgie, relax. Put out your cigarette. Morgie dropped his cigarette on the floor, and stopped to put it out with his shoe. —I know it, but I get browned off the way some people talk. They talk as if we weren't respectable. —It's the highest paid business in the U.S., said the old Alabama Rammer-Jammer man. A man in shirt-sleeves came through the door. —You seen Benny? Ellery asked him. —Benny who? A girl going the other way heard this. —I know who you mean, she said to Ellery. —He's in OP, nobody around here knows him. I know who you mean, he was here earlier and he left. —Thanks, said Ellery; hunching up one shoulder he dropped his cigarette, put it out, and watched the girl go down the hall as he held the door. —You've only got two cameras up there? Morgie asked. They stood looking at three selective screens. Ellery nodded. —I don't think I'd call this even a B show, even for morning, Morgie said. He was watching the close-up screen where a four-year-old girl, 736