Plexus (71 page)

We stretched out on the two cots side by side; the idiot lay on the floor at our feet. I was aware of the unpleasant sound of bats swooping about over our heads. The flies and mosquitoes, disturbed by our intrusion, attacked us mercilessly.

Despite everything, however, we succeeded in falling asleep.

It seemed to me I had hardly closed my eyes when I felt Mona clutching my arm.

“What is it?” I muttered.

She leaned over and whispered in my ear.

“Nonsense,” I said, “you were probably dreaming.”

I tried to fall back to sleep. In an instant I felt her clutching me again.

“It's him,” she whispered, “I'm sure of it. He's feeling my leg.”

I got up, struck a match, and took a good look at the idiot. He was lying on his side, his eyes closed, still as a stick.

“You're imagining things,” I said, “he's sound asleep.”

Just the same I thought it better to be on the alert. A dumb gawk like that had the strength of a brute. I struck another match and took a quick look about to see what I might use as a weapon should he really get out of hand.

At daybreak we were all wide awake and scratching like mad. The heat was already stifling. We sent the boy to fetch a pail of water, dressed hurriedly, and decided without delay to clear out. While waiting for the goon to pack we inspected the spot more closely. The cabin was literally smothered by trees and brush. No view whatever. Just the sound of running water and the insane twittering of birds. I recalled O'Mara's parting words when we started up the goat path—“Just the place for you … an ideal retreat!”

Descending, again on muleback, we observed with a shudder what a narrow escape we had had. One little slip and we would have been done for. Before we had gone very far we dismounted and followed on foot. Even thus it was a ticklish feat to keep from slipping.

At the bottom we were presented to all the members of the family. There were over a dozen kids running about, most of them half naked. We inquired if we might have breakfast with them. We were told to wait, they'd call us when ready. We sat down on the steps of the porch and waited glumly. By now—it was not yet seven—the heat was almost intolerable.

When they called us in we found the whole family congregated about the table. For a moment I could scarcely believe my eyes: all those black spots that peppered the
food, were they really flies? At each end of the table stood two youngsters busily engaged in brushing away the flies with dirty towels. We sat down, all together, and the flies settled in our ears, eyes, nose, hair and teeth. We sat in silence for a moment while the venerable patriarch said grace.

The very first blessing that Mary had

Hit was the blessing of one,

To think her little Jesus

Was God's only Son,

Was God's only Son.

The repast was a bounteous one—grits, bacon and eggs, cornbread, coffee, ham, flapjacks, stewed pears. All for twenty-five cents per head. No extra charge for the flies.

O'Mara was a bit put out to see us back so quick. “No guts,” he said glumly.

“You know I hate flies,” was all I could say.

As luck would have it, we went to a restaurant that evening which had just opened. In West Asheville. The owner, Mr. Rawlins, had been a schoolteacher. For some reason he took a fancy to us instantly. On leaving he gave us a letter of introduction to a man and wife who had a comfortable room to let and at a very small sum. We paid a week's rent in advance and the next day turned over to Mr. Rawlins sufficient to pay for a week's supply of meals.

From this point on we saw almost nothing of O'Mara. No quarrel. Going different ways, that's all.

I borrowed a typewriter from Mr. Rawlins, who displayed a touching eagerness to be of service to “a man of letters.” To be sure, I had handed him quite a line regarding the books I had written, as well as about the magnum opus which was in progress. We ate well in his cozy little restaurant. There were all sorts of side dishes which he thrust upon us gratis, in further recognition, no doubt, of “the man of letters.” Now and then he put a good cigar in my
breast pocket or insisted that we accept a pint of ice cream to eat when we got home.

It turned out that Rawlins had been a professor of English at the local High School. Which explains the royal sessions we held over the Elizabethan writers. But what endeared me to him most, I do believe, was my love of the Irish writers. The fact that I had read Yeats, Synge, Lord Dunsany, Lady Gregory, O'Casey, Joyce, led him to accept me as a boon companion. He was dying to read my work, but I had sense enough to keep it out of sight. Besides, there was really nothing to show him.

At the rooming house we struck up an acquaintance with a lumberman from West Virginia. Matthews was his name. He was a Scot through and through, but a gallant one. It gave him the utmost pleasure, a sincere pleasure, to drive us about the country in his beautiful car on his off days. He had a liking for good food and good wines, and he knew where they were to be found. It was at Chimney Rock one day that he blew us to a meal of which I can truthfully say that only twice since have I enjoyed anything like it. I must say this of Matthews, that from the very beginning he divined our true situation; from the very beginning of our relationship he made it clear that, whenever we were with him, we were never to put our hands in our pockets.

To say only this about him would be to give a false impression of the man. He was not a wealthy man, nor was he what we call a “sucker.” He was a sensitive, highly intelligent individual who knew almost nothing about books, music or painting. But he knew life—and of nature, animals particularly, he was extremely fond. I said that he was not wealthy. Had he wished to, he could have become a millionaire in no time. But he had no desire to become rich. He was one of those rare Americans who is content with his lot. To be in his company was like being with your own brother. Often, in the evening, we sat on the
front porch and talked for five and six hours at a stretch. Easy talk. Restful talk.…

But the writing.… Somehow it wouldn't come. To finish a simple story, a bad one at that, took me several weeks. The heat had something to do with it. (In the South the heat explains almost everything, except lynching.) Before I could get two lines written my clothes would be drenched with perspiration. I'd sit at the window and stare at the chain gang—all Negroes—working away with pick and shovel, chanting as they worked, the sweat rolling down their backs in rivulets. The harder they worked the less effort I was able to make. The singing got into my blood. But what disturbed me even more was the looks of the guards; just to glance into the faces of these human bloodhounds sent the shivers up my spine.

To vary the monotony Mona and I would make an excursion on our own occasionally, selecting some distant spot, any old spot, which we would get to by hitchhiking. We made these excursions merely to kill time. (In the South times flies like lead.) Sometimes we took the first car that came along, not caring which direction it was taking. Like that, observing one day that we were headed for South Carolina, I suddenly recollected the name of an old school chum who, from last reports, was teaching music in a little college in South Carolina. I decided that we would pay him a visit. It was a long ride and, as usual, we had not a cent in our pockets. I was sure, however, that we could count on having a good lunch with my old friend.

It was a good twenty years since I had last seen this good old chum. He had left school ahead of us in order to study music in Germany. He became a concert pianist, traveled all over Europe, and then returned to America to accept an insignificant post in this little Southern town. I had had a few cards from him—and then silence. As I mused I began to wonder if he could have forgotten who I was. Twenty years is a long time.

Every day, on our way home from school, I would stop
at his home to listen to him play. He played all the compositions I was later to hear in concert halls, and he played them (to my youthful mind) as well as the maestros. He had the size and the reach to command attention. On his forehead was a budding growth which, when he grew inspired, looked almost like a short horn. He towered over me by a good foot. He looked like a foreigner and he spoke like a European of the upper class who had learned English with his mother tongue. Add to this that he usually wore striped trousers and a soft black coat. It was in the German class that we struck up a friendship. He had taken German, which he knew perfectly, in order to have that much less to study. The teacher, a delightful, flirtatious young woman with a keen sense of humor, was really taken by him. She pretended, however, to be annoyed with him. Every now and then she gave him a sly dig. One day, incensed by the perfect translation he had just delivered aloud, and without preparation, she asked him why he hadn't chosen to learn some other language. Hadn't he any desire to learn something new? And so on. Putting on a malicious smile, he replied that he had better things to do with his time.

“Oh you have, have you? Like what, may I ask?”

“I have my music.”

“So! You're a musician? A pianist—or perhaps a composer?”

“Both,” he said.

“And what have you composed thus far?”

“Sonatas, concertos, symphonies and operas… plus a few quartets.”

The class burst into an uproar.

“You're even more of a genius than I thought you were,” said she, after the hubbub had died down.

Before the lesson was over he handed me a note which he had hastily scribbled and folded up. I had no more than read it when I was ordered up front. I handed it to her face open. She read the message, blushed crimson, and
threw it into the waste basket. All it said was:
“Sie ist wie eine Blume.”

I thought of other things in connection with this “genius.” How he despised everything American, for example, how he detested our literature, how he mimicked the professors, how he loathed any form of exercise. But above all, I remembered the freedom he enjoyed in his own home and the respect shown him by his parents and brothers. There wasn't another chap like him in the whole school. How delighted I was when I got my first letter from him, dated Heidelberg. He was thoroughly at home, he wrote, even more of a German than the Germans. Why was I staying in America? Why didn't I join him and become a good German poet?

I was just thinking how odd it would be if he should say—“I don't remember you”—when I realized that we had entered the town. It took less than no time to learn that my old friend had left the day before to tour the East. What luck! We were famished, it being long after noon. In desperation I held on to the Dean, a brittle, querulous old lady, trying to impress upon her the fact that we had made a tremendous detour, on our way to Mexico—our car having broken down some miles away—expressly for the purpose of greeting my dear boyhood friend of long ago. By dint of holding on, chewing her ear off, I managed to get across to her (telepathically) that we were in need of refreshment. With bad grace she eventually ordered up tea and scones for us.

We walked to the edge of the town, to stretch our legs. Here we caught a lift homeward in a battered Ford. The driver, a veteran and somewhat cracked, also a bit spifflicated—in the South everyone drinks like a fish—said he would be passing through Asheville. He didn't seem to know very definitely where he was going, except northward. The conversation which we carried on during the long ride back to Asheville was absolutely crazy. The poor devil had not only been banged up in the war, had not only
lost his wife to his best friend, but had been in several bad accidents since. To make it worse, he was a dunce and a bigot, one of those ornery cusses who become even more ornery when they happen to be Southerners. We flitted from subject to subject like grasshoppers, nothing apparently being of interest to him except his own woes and miseries. As we neared Asheville he became more cantankerous than ever. He made it plain that he thoroughly and heartily disliked everything about us, including our manner of speech. When he finally deposited us on the sidewalk in Asheville he was fuming.

We stuck out our hands to thank him for the lift and, without wasting words, said—“Good-bye!”

“Good-bye?”
he cried. “Aren't you going to pay me?”

Pay? I was dumbfounded. Whoever heard of paying for a ride?

“You didn't expect to ride for nothing, did you?” he shouted. “What about the gas and oil I bought?” He leaned out of the car belligerently.

I had to do some tall explaining and fast. He looked at us incredulously, then shook his head and mumbled: “I thought as much when I set eyes on you.” As an afterthought: “I've a good mind to run you in.” Then something I would never have expected happened: he burst into tears. I leaned forward to say a comforting word, my heart completely melted. “Go way from me!” he yelled. “Go way!” We left him sitting huddled up over the steering wheel, his head in his arms, weeping to break his heart.

“What in Christ's name do you make of that?” I said, somewhat shaken.

“You were lucky he didn't pull a knife on you,” said Mona. The experience confirmed the conviction she had always held about Southerners—that they were absolutely unpredictable. It was time we thought of returning home, she thought.

The next day, as I sat at the machine with a vacant stare, I began to wonder how much longer we could carry
on in sunny Carolina. Several weeks had passed since we last paid a cent towards our room. What we owed the good Mr. Rawlins for meals I didn't dare think.

The following day, however, to our utter astonishment we received a telegram from Kronski informing us that he and his wife were on their way, would see us that very evening. A windfall!

Sure enough, just a little before dinner time they blew in.

Come all ye out of the wilderness

And glory be, the

Father, Son and Holy Ghost