Blue Voyage: A Novel (25 page)

“Answered already by all of us,” Demarest said.

“Answered already,” laughed Silberstein, “in the negative-affirmative … But who will he be, the last one who remembers us? And where will he stand? In a world perhaps englobed in snow.”

“The one who remembers last,” said Cynthia, “will remember always. For He will be God … That, at any rate, is the affirmative. Of the negative, what can be said? We know it, but we cannot speak of it.”

“But we see it there,” said Smith, “we see it there! The cold cloud, into which we return, the dark cloud of nescience, the marvelous death of memory!”

All five faces looked in the darkness at one another, as if for the instant almost surprised. At once, however, they all began laughing together: lightly, with recognition. Of course, of course! They had forgotten that for the moment! All except Demarest had forgotten it—Demarest and Smith.

“Well!” Faubion answered bravely, “that is of course what we must see, and what we
do
see. Nevertheless, can we not remain individual in our
feeling
toward this? Choosing, for our
pleasure,
purely (since there can be no other virtue in the choice) the yes or the no? And I, for one, as you already see, will choose the yes! I will be remembered! We will all be remembered! And never, never forgotten. World without end. Amen.”

“Amen!” echoed Silberstein. “But Smith and Demarest do not feel as you do. Smith is the dark self who wants to die! Smith represents clearly—doesn’t he?—that little something hidden in all of us—in the heart, or the brain, or the liver, or where you will—which all our days is scheming for oblivion. It’s the something that remembers birth, the horror of birth, and remembers not only that but also the antecedent death; it remembers that nothingness which is our real nature, and desires passionately to go back to it. And it
will
go back to it.”

“Yes, Smith will die and be forgotten,” murmured Cynthia. “He already knows himself dead and forgotten; and it is the death in Smith that gives his brown eyes so benign a beam. Isn’t that so? It is the death in Smith that we love him for. We respond to it, smiling, with maternal solicitude.
Moriturum salutamus …
There, there!”

Smith tapped his foot on the deck and chuckled.

“No no! Don’t be too hard on me. Is that all I can be liked for? I could be hurt by that thought!… But of course it’s perfectly true.”

“But of first and last things,” sighed Faubion, “there is no beginning and no end.”

The five people stood motionless and silent, their faces faintly lighted by the corposants. This is the prelude, thought Demarest. This is merely the announcement of that perfect communion of which I have often dreamed. They have lost their individualities, certainly—but was individuality necessary to them? Or is it possible that, having lost their personalities, they have lost that alone by which harmony or discord was perceptible? Or is it only that their individualities have been refined by self-awareness, so that the feelings no longer intrude, nor the passions tyrannize, bringing misery?…

“That is true,” said Silberstein. “Here, at any rate, we are: poised for an instant, conscious and delighted, in the midst of the implacable Zero. We remember—well, what do we remember? We remember that our bones are under the Icarian Rocks. We remember, too, that we are
only
what we thus remember and foresee. We foresee our past, and remember our future. Or so, at all events to interpose a little ease! And that’s saying a good deal.”

“It means everything,” said Cynthia. “It means not only the past and future we have in common, but the past and future that each of us has separately. And this, of course, is precisely what blesses us. It is this diversity in unity that makes the divine harmony. Think only of the joy of recognition, or discovery, when Smith tells us—what indeed we know already, do we not? but in a sense not so deliciously complete—of his life in Devon, his opera tickets in New Orleans, his forgotten yachting cap and his delightful passion for Faubion! To know what grass is, does not preclude surprise at the individual grass-blade.”

“How nice of you to compare me to a grass-blade! It’s exactly what I am. But you meant more than that. Forgive me for parenthesizing.”

“Yes, I did mean more than that. What do I mean? You say it, please, Mr. Demarest.”

“Consciousness being finite, it can only in
theory
comprehend, and feel with, all things. Theoretically, nothing is unknown to us, and nothing can surprise us or alienate us. But if imagination can go everywhere, it can only go to one place at a time. It is therefore that we
have
surprises in store for each other—we reveal to each other those aspects of the infinite which we had momentarily forgotten. Who has not known Smith or Faubion? Cynthia and Silberstein are as old and familiar as God. And this sad facetious Demarest, who when he laughs looks so astonishingly like a magnified goldfish, isn’t he too as archaic as fire? Yet you had forgotten that one could be sad and facetious at the same time, and that in addition to this one might look like a goldfish seen through a sphere of water and glass; and the rediscovery of these qualities, which results when they are seen in a fresh combination, this is what delights you and delighting you leads to
my
delight. This is what Cynthia means, and in fact what we all mean … Yes, and this is what blesses us. For this—on the plane of human relationship—is infinite love, a love which is indistinguishable from wisdom or knowledge, from memory or foresight. We accept everything. We deny nothing. We are, in fact, imaginaton: not completely, for then we should be God; but almost completely. Perhaps, in time, our imagination
will
be complete.”

“You could have put it in another way,” said Silberstein. “Each of us is a little essay upon a particular corner of the world, an essay which differs in style and contents from any other; each with its own peculiar tints and stains transmitted from environment. A terrific magic is stored in these little essays! more than the essay itself can possibly feel—though it can
know
. Of the
power
of Smith or Faubion to give me a shock of delight or terror, can they themselves form a complete idea? No—not in the least. Not, at any rate, till they have felt the peculiar shock of seeing
me
! After which, of course, they can begin that most heavenly of all adventures, the exploration of that world of feelings and ideas which we then reciprocate in creating—seeing at once the warm great continents, jungles, seas, and snowy mountains, arctics and Saharas, that we can roam in common; but guessing also the ultraviolet Paradises which we shall never be able to enter, and the infrared Infernos which ourselves will never be able to communicate. How can I ever make plain to Faubion or Cynthia why it is that they cannot as powerfully organize my feelings as they organize those of Demarest? There lies the infrared. There perhaps, also, whirls the ultraviolet. Dive into my history, if you like. Look! This deck is no longer a deck. It is a narrow slum street, paved with muddy cobbles. Do you see it?”

“It is a narrow slum street paved with muddy cobbles. On the East Side, New York. There is a smell of damp straw.”

“The sound of drays, too, and steel-ringing shovels.”

“Cats, ash cans, slush, and falling snow!”

“You all see it perfectly. Or almost. You see it in the abstract—not in the concrete. What you do not entirely see is the basement which my father used as his tailor shop—dark, damp, steamy, and incredibly dirty—where, as he ran his sewing machine, or peered nearsightedly into cardboard boxes for the one button which he couldn’t find, he taught me Yiddish, German, and English. He was always putting down lighted cigarettes—on the edges of the tables, on chairs, on boxes, on the ironing board; and then forgetting them. A smell of burning was always interrupting us, and we would jump up and search frantically for the cigarette. A good many yards of cloth must have been ruined, first and last—and once a customer’s raincoat caught on fire and had to be replaced. There was a terrible scene about it when the man came in for it … We ate and slept, and did our cooking, in the basement room behind this, from which yellow brick steps went up to a yard. My mother was dead—I don’t remember her. When I wasn’t at the public schools, I did the errands—delivered trousers that had been pressed, collected bills, and so forth. Naturally, I learned to cook, sew, and use the gas iron to press clothes, myself. But I also, at the public schools, and in the course of my running of errands, learned a great deal else. I knew the crowds at every saloon in the district, and the cops, and the buskers, and the leaders of the several ‘gangs.’ I knew all the brothels, and all the unattached prostitutes. I knew—as in fact all the boys of my age knew—which of the girls in the district (the girls of our own generation, I mean) had already gone the way of Sara More—the girls who were willing to be enticed into dark basements or unlighted back yards. Beryl Platt, Crystelle Fisher, Millicent Pike, Tunis (so-called, according to romantic legend, because she had been born in Tunis, and had an Arab father) Tunstall—before I was eleven I knew that there was something special about these girls; and when Crystelle one day dared me to come to her back yard after dark, I knew what was expected, and went. After that it was first one and then another. I had no feelings of sin about it—none whatever. It was natural, delightful, exciting, adventurous—it gave color to life. But I never fell in love. I liked these girls—I particularly liked the dashing swaggering Crystelle, whose hair was magnificently curled, and whose blue long eyes had an Oolong tilt, and who knew every smutty word in the language—but if they transferred their affections to other boys I didn’t mind, or if other boys forcibly ousted me I didn’t resent it. What did it matter? Life, I knew, was not exclusively composed of carnal love, and there was sure to be all of it that one needed. Why bother about it? Billiards was interesting, too, and so was tailoring, and I admired my father. I enjoyed reading with him, playing chess with him, and going with him to Coney Island or the Museum. When I was fourteen he took me to the Yiddish theater to see
Pillars of Society
. It made a tremendous impression on me. Why do I tell you this? Not because it’s especially interesting in itself; but because it’s exactly the sort of item which you wouldn’t
precisely
guess for yourselves—isn’t that it? Yes. You extract the keenest of pleasures from hearing of that, and seeing me in the gallery of the theater with my father, eating buttered popcorn. Just as you enjoy, also, hearing of Crystelle Fisher. These details enable you to bring your love of me, and of humanity, and the world, to a momentary sharp focus. Can one love in the abstract? No. It is not man or nature that we love, but the torn primrose, and young Mrs. Faubion, who is being sued by her husband for divorce on grounds of infidelity; Demarest, whose fear of his father has frozen him in the habit of inaction and immobility, as the hare freezes to escape attention; and Silberstein, who was seduced by arc light under a white lilac in a Bowery back yard … However, it was my intention, when I began this monologue, to light for you, if I could, the reasons for the fact that I cannot, like Demarest, fall in love with Faubion and Cynthia. Is it now indicated? The only time I ever came near falling in love was after we had moved to the country, when Mabel Smith, the schoolteacher, took possession of me. Mabel was sentimental and maternal. She did her best, therefore (as she was also something of a hypocrite), to arouse some sort of sentiment in
me
. And she almost succeeded, by sheer dint of attributing it to me. She tried to make me believe that I believed she was my guiding star, and all that sort of thing. Pathetic delusion, the delusion that one needs to be thus deluded! But this holiness never became real to me. How could it? I had been a placid realist since birth, calm as a Buddha. One has emotions, certainly; but one is not deceived by them, nor does one allow them to guide one’s course … How, then, can I respond to all the exquisite romantic Dresden china that Cynthia keeps—to pursue the figure—on her mental mantel? No no! It’s not for me; or only, as you see, intellectually and imaginatively. It delights me to recognize this so totally different mechanism of behavior—and I love Cynthia, therefore, exactly as I love that hurried moon, the snowflakes, or the blue-feathered corposant who gives us his angelic blessing. But if it is a question of
erotic
response, I would sooner respond to Crystelle, who is now a prostitute, and with whom I’ve often, since growing to manhood, had dinner at Coney Island. Much sooner!… Much sooner!…”

New York. Spring. The five people walked in the darkness along Canal Street. In Fagan’s Drug Store the red, green, and yellow jars were brilliantly and poisonously lighted. Sally Finkelman came out, carrying a bottle of Sloan’s liniment, and a nickel in change. Red stains of a lollypop were round her mouth. She crossed the street obliquely, and paused beside Ugo’s copper peanut stand to warm her knuckles in the little whistling plume of steam. Ugo, standing in the garish doorway, held a bag of peanuts, red and green striped, by its two ears, and twirled it, over-and-over, three times. An elevated train went south along the Bowery. The five people crossed the muddy cobbles of the Bowery under the roar of the elevated, and passing Kelly’s saloon, and Sam’s Shoe Shine Parlor beside it on the sidewalk (where French Louise was having her white slippers cleaned) went slowly toward Essex Place. In the window of Levin’s Café were two glass dishes which contained éclairs and Moscovitz; one charlotte russe (dusty); and a sheet of Tanglefoot flypaper, on which heaved a Gravelotte of flies. An electric fan whirled rainbow-colored paper ribbons over the Moscovitz. Solomon Moses David Menelek Silberstein, aged twelve, came slowly out of Essex Place, with a pair of checkered trousers over his shoulder. At the corner, under the arc light, he stooped to pick up a long black carbon, discarded from the light. Uccelli, in the alley, was grinding slowly his old-fashioned carpet-covered one-legged organ. Bubble and squeak. The monkey took off his red velvet cap. Crystelle Fisher had given him a sticky penny, which he had put into his little green velvet pocket. Winking, he took off his cap again. The organ’s wooden leg had a brass ferrule, worn down on the inner side: a leather strap, attached to the two outer corners, passed round Uccelli’s neck. Bubble bubble squeak and bubble.
Ta-ra-ra-ra-boom-de-ayy
. Crystelle danced a cakewalk, knees flinging her dimity high, a huge hole showing in the knee of her right stocking, a coarse lace petticoat flouncing. She snapped her fingers, jerking backward her shapely head of golden curls, her oolong eyes half shut.
Coon—coon—coon—I wish that color was mine
. Beryl Platt put her head out of a fourth-story window, between two black geraniums, and yodled. I can’t come out, she sang. I’ve got to wash the dishes. And mind the baby … At the corner, overtaking Silberstein, Crystelle touched his trousered shoulder—Would you like to know a secret, she said—I can turn a Catherine wheel—would you like to see me. Ha ha! Pork chops and gravy—I wish I was a baby … Are you coming round to the yard tonight?… Bubble bubble whine and bubble. Yes, I’ll be there, said Solomon, and sauntered toward the Bowery. Twenty-six Mott Street. A warm smell of benzine rose from the damp trousers. With the carbon he drew a black line along Kelly’s wall, just as French Louise was getting down from the high brass-studded shoe-shine throne. She gave Sam a nickel, and said—Where is that mutt? He said he’d only take five minutes … A train rattled north on the elevated; empty: a conductor reading a paper on the rear platform, his knees crossed … The five people, drifting slowly in the evening light under the few pale stars of New York, paused before a battered ash can on which the name Fisher had been red-leaded. Passing then through a door, which was ajar, they saw the white lilac in blossom under the arc light. Below it, on the hard bare ground, lay the bright skeleton of a fish, picked clean by the cat. There was also the sodden remains of a black stocking … Crystelle came running up the yellow brick stairs from the basement, and at the same moment Solomon reappeared at the door. Look! she said. She turned a series of swift Catherine wheels, hands to the ground, feet in the air, skirts falling about her head, her flushed face up again. Solomon, pulling a spike of lilac-whiteness toward his nose, surveyed her without expression. Pork chops and gravy, he said. You’ve got a big hole—in your stocking. I have not, she answered. You have, too, he said. Where! she answered. O Jesus, how the hell did I do that. Have you ever kissed Tunis?… Sure I have … Where?… In her cellar … Was it dark?… No, not very … Well, why don’t you kiss
me?…