Testimony and Demeanor (21 page)

But what is interesting is this: I went upstairs to leave the book off. Mr. Pelham was across the hall in a conference room. As I left his office, the conference room door opened and there he was with some Japanese, speaking Japanese. Just gargling away. He talked to me twice about Japan and never said he spoke the language. I’m not saying that if you speak a foreign language you tell everyone you meet, but he had a whole week of chances and he is not a man to hide what he knows.

Mr. Pelham: “What is interesting about you is that you have no group to report to. I had the handicap of knowing a number of
interesting people in college and some time thereafter (alas, not all of them interesting anymore), and therefore almost every pleasurable experience I had I spoiled somewhat by thinking how I was going to report it. Of course, the reporting itself was something of a pleasure. And I suppose even the seeking out of pleasurable experiences in order to report them was a pleasure, so perhaps I didn’t lose—although it wasn’t until I was past forty that I discovered pleasures that were isolated, unlinked to any imaginary audience of friends or friend. I sometimes think we’ve reached a stage of such social density that almost all pleasures are vicarious. Certainly echoic, in that they are transmutations of a small band of original visions generally unknowable. Brahms conceives in pleasure (let us assume, although perhaps he didn’t). He scribbles down what he heard. The performer gets it second-hand, and we get it third-hand from him. Now, one theory is that the original Platonic shimmering whole that Brahms glimpsed through the clouds becomes less perfect with every communication of it. But another theory, perhaps my own, is that the original vision actually has very little to recommend it except Brahms’ rendering of it. And it is only enhanced, not lessened, in its successive stages. Not inevitably but possibly; good vicars are necessary. Good translators. If we can assume them, then nothing is lost in translation—on the contrary. The primitive vision was not of paradise (there is none); it was only a quirk of one mind. Providing that the successive receivings and retransmittings are done by minds as rich—and why not?—the original is augmented. In fact, the pleasures of Proust’s life were nothing to write home about. But I like Proust’s liking them. And I like even more my liking of Proust’s liking. I’ve gotten as much pleasure
remembering
my reading Proust as I ever did reading Proust.

“But then, perhaps the most complete pleasure of all would be to know the original germ, be aware of its injection into a mind, see its growth
ab ovo
, and follow its passage from mind
to mind, sensing the entire cycle of enrichment. Until at last one saw—one witnessed—the whole ornate growth entering one’s own mind.” Mr. Pelham paused. “And decaying there in a sterile vacuum. I refer to my lawyer-like habit of being an objective observer in the vortex of other people’s passions.”

He left on that note. But I thought it was his best day so far.

Mr. Pelham: “It was you I meant to speak of yesterday. I’m sorry. I was distracted by myself again. And yet it’s sometimes instructive to follow a chance phrase. I noted that you have no group to report to. But what I really meant to say is that you seem immune to other people’s psychic disturbances. Quite the opposite from me. I am almost too conscious. I would be particularly susceptible to
folie à deux
. Even when I’m talking to you I find myself revolving around your stolidity. You come from New Hampshire, don’t you? The Granite State. Dartmouth too. What is that song? ‘We have the granite of New Hampshire in our muscles and our minds.’ ”

I said that was an old joke.

“I’d like you to meet a group of people,” he said after a minute. “Mostly much older, but often much sillier. Than you. I’m not sure.… Some of the women are very attractive. For some reason, especially on Sunday afternoons. Especially in the fall. There’s something about the light. Tired yellow sunlight on the sides of empty buildings. I can’t imagine why people leave New York to go to the country.”

I said I’d come and he told me where he lives.

I’ve been here two years today. Still going strong. Mr. Leland noticed the anniversary and said he’d noticed the amount of work I was doing. My health is good. I maintain my level in the
Canadian Air Force exercise book. I drink less than I did in law school. Work doesn’t get me down while I’m doing it. Only occasionally at night, after it’s done.

What are my weaknesses? I think my ambition is less in a general way. I shy away from arguments that are general. And I must learn to maintain my point of view with something more than just answers.

I went to Mr. Pelham’s Sunday afternoon. Only a half dozen people. That was worse than a crowd. All older. One very old woman named Eleanor and two middle-aged ones. All three of them are divorced.

Everyone was playing a word game. The game was what words can you do without (in connection with yourself) when you’re over fifty? They all sat around suggesting words that had a tendency to be a little tough, a little too serious. I mean, they’re none of them young.

A man said, “Hope.” They hemmed and hawed over that.

Someone said, “Innocence.”

A woman with straw-colored hair said, “I’m not sure, but we can certainly do without the pretensions of innocence.”

They all said, “Ahh.”

“Infatuation.”

“No,” the woman with the straw-colored hair said. “
Au contraire
. It’s a word you wouldn’t
think
of using in connection with yourself
until
you’re at least forty.”

Someone said, “Pride.”

The other middle-aged woman said, “But not vanity.”

“Fertility.”

Same lady, who had a deep tan and black hair with a white streak, said, “Thank God.” But I think she was putting on being brassy, since she looked the youngest. Maybe forty-five.

There was a pause in the game. Mr. Pelham said, “Perhaps we should examine the seven deadly sins.”

The tan lady said, “Is that all there are?” They all laughed and she looked pleased.

A fat man said, “I’m sure you’ll find them all intact for years, my dear.”

Mr. Pelham said, “Well, no. I found, for example, that when I reached the age of fifty I was no longer bothered by envy.”

I found that interesting.

The fat man said, “What about the five senses?”

The lady with the straw-colored hair said, “I hope old age doesn’t find any of us tasteless.”

The fat man said, “Oh, very good.”

The tan lady said, “Sensitivity,” cutting in on the straw-haired lady’s applause. “I mean being upset, you know, going around being
wounded
.”

“Righteousness,” the fat man said loudly.

The lady with the straw-colored hair turned to me and said, “What do you think? Aren’t you playing? That keen legal mind …”

“Acne,” I said.

She said, “Oh,
quelle horreur
.”

The tan lady with the silver streak laughed and said to Mr. Pelham, “And you told me he didn’t have a sense of humor.”

Mr. Pelham laughed at her, although he could tell I’d heard what she’d said. Didn’t seem to bother him.

The game went on for a while and then died. I went over to talk to the lady with the straw-colored hair. Mrs. Morr. She talked to me about ballet, for some reason. I couldn’t think of anything to say so I finally asked her if she used to do it herself.

“Oh, when I was a very little girl,” she said. She curled up in the corner of the sofa and looked like a little girl. I suppose I stared at her. It was sort of a shock, no, a surprise, since she’d looked pretty good from the start, but she looked suddenly very flirtatious and I realized that the whole thing—her outfit, her gestures, her looking off to one side to show off her nose—the
whole thing right along had been meant to be attractive and I just hadn’t noticed. I’d just been talking to her because she seemed the most talkative. Even by comparison with Mr. Pelham. Anyway, it suddenly took hold. What it was was this—I don’t think of the girls I used to know as women, even the ones now married and with kids. Just as I don’t think of anyone I know who’s my age (including myself) as a man. There seems to be no marking the change from high school to college to law school to working for a firm. Just more intensity. The more they pour on, the more you learn to handle. But Mrs. Morr was beyond all that. She didn’t have to do anything, and there was a pleasant sense of drift to her when she opened up. It was clearly just for the fun of it. Like a great big sunny flower.

After a minute she jangled her bracelets up to her elbow and held her empty glass up over the back of the sofa. Mr. Pelham glided in to pick it up.

“Very, very weak,” she said. “I’m practically under sedation.”

But I didn’t care if she talked like that from time to time as long as she could be free and easy.

I asked her what all the people did for a living. The fat man was a professor of economics. Keller. Herr Doktor Keller, she called him. The lady with the silver streak had worked in advertising until she got a divorce and retired. (“That’s a switch,” I said, and realized I’d caught on a little slow. But Mrs. Morr laughed as though I’d made the joke.) The old lady had written some mystery stories. They all seemed to like her a lot. The other man besides Mr. Pelham and Mr. Keller owned a shipping line. Mrs. Morr hadn’t ever asked him what kind of ships.

I asked her what she did.

She said, “Well, last week I reassured all my friends. Next week I’ll get them to reassure me. The week after I don’t know what I’ll do. Perhaps you could suggest something.”

“Don’t look at me,” I said, “I’m just an employee. Tote that barge. Lift that bale.” I realized I was trying to sound like her
and missing by a lot. I sounded like someone at a fraternity rush.

“I hear you work very hard,” she said.

When she said that, which was such a set remark (although I was glad she didn’t say nothing), I realized that a lot of the rest of her remarks she made up on the spot under a certain kind of pressure. It made me think of answering questions in class at law school. Except she didn’t refer to a subject; she referred to herself. She let you know about her mood. More than that. She made her mood change and tried to get you to follow each change. She also made me wonder what she would say if I ever caught up with her and pinned her down about anything.

Probably nothing. Feelings are feelings, not ideas, and she’d just keep on blowing bubbles.

I had to wait till today (Tuesday) to see Mr. Pelham. He asked me if I’d had a good time. I said sure. He said, “I was intrigued. I wouldn’t have thought Ann Morr was your dish of tea. Connie Wentz”—the tan lady with the silver streak—“now there is a robust charm. She had a remarkable tan, don’t you think? Right after she was divorced, she bought a little yawl she keeps finding young men to sail for her while she suns herself. She loves being at sea. Very exuberant. Fogs, storms, sunny breezes. She was going to name her yawl the
Alimony
. It seemed to me needless provocation, and after our conversation she named it the
Applecart
.”

Next Sunday. At Mrs. Morr’s apartment. Mr. Pelham asked me. When I got there, Mrs. Morr answered the door. She seemed surprised to see me. I was embarrassed, which she noticed. I said something like I should have waited to come with Mr. Pelham so she’d be able to place me.

She said, “No, no, no. I certainly place you—certainly, after all your gallant attentions. It’s just that you’re an hour early.”

I said I’d come back, then, and started to go. She took me by the arm and said, “No, don’t be the least embarrassed. I’m flattered you’re so on time.” She led me into the living room, chattering away. “Come into my parlor, said the spider to the fly. Do sit down. I won’t be a minute. Actually several—you know, the preparational mysteries, getting my teeth out of the glass. God, I’d better be careful. Lawyers believe everything you say against yourself, isn’t that the rule? You don’t believe that, do you? What I’m really doing—You
did
believe it, didn’t you?”

I said, “No, I didn’t. It was just that you were talking so fast.”

She said, “I do do that.”

I said, “You look very pretty.” Suddenly. Jesus.

She said, “Oh, la, how flattering,” as though it were perfectly all right. But I think she must have been embarrassed too. Fortunately she left.

When she got back it was a half hour later, so we only had a half hour to go. I’d been thinking of what to talk about. Either some more about ballet—that is, get her started again—or get her to say more about the people who were coming. That looked like a better bet (longer), but she didn’t do much with it. I asked her if there was some reason for them all to get together, some interest they all had.

She said, “We’re all old, old friends, and we don’t expect very much, but for some reason each of us cares what happens to the others.” She said it earnestly, for her, as though it were a summation of a more detailed statement.

I didn’t get it all, but it ended that line. So for some reason I started talking about having worked for two years in New York and how I’d tried to figure out what was wrong—not that I thought there was anything wrong, but that I’d suddenly felt
cut off from my original plans, which were still all I had to go by. I said, “I thought that I shouldn’t get into problems that took away energy for no purpose. Energy always seemed to me the main problem. The question always was: how to keep it up. How to keep it efficient. So I kept away from anything static.”

She said, “I imagine that’s a very exciting way to be.”

I realized that I didn’t really have control of what I was talking about. But I said, “No. It’s gone on so long it’s not exciting. It—I mean trying to focus my energy—was the only way to begin. I know I’m not being specific.” She nodded. “It’s gone on for a long, long time now, because at first I thought it was the only way, and then I didn’t dare let up. And now I don’t dare stop any habit, because something might depend on it. But there
are
other ways. I’ve seen some of the other people at work. Some of them are duds, but some of them are up to the job, and they don’t need the control that I exercise. In fact, they don’t even seem to need energy. I’m not envious. I don’t mind doing what I have to do competitively. That’s not something I’d ever complain about. But I have the feeling that there is something else I could do. Something else I could know. I have the feeling sometimes that there are people who know me down to the ground and I don’t know the first thing about them.”