The Recognitions (Dalkey Archive edition) (113 page)

The fingers of his clasped hands twitching behind him, Mr. Inononu returned to the window and stood looking out on the city. —You live very nicely here, he said, —it is very civilized. But most of these people live in squalor. I have been in the apartments of very respectable people, and they are squalor. He paused, and then his fingers still moving behind him he said, —Did you see what they did with our Molnár? what happened to
Liliom?
That was a beautiful thing, a beautiful ragged thing,
Liliom
, and they made it to music that sounds like all the other music I hear here, everything is smoothed round like everything else, it is sugar-coated suffering of the spirit here.

The doorbell rang again, in a long peal, and his hands stopped and held one another tightly behind him. As it went on, they relaxed.

—I have heard the radio, he said. —But since I can understand it, it is very depressing. It is spiritual squalor. Does it surprise you that I can talk this way? if you thought me no more than . . . that, he said and his hands came apart to gesture behind him, and fell together again.

—Do you know the novel of Mikszáth,
Szent Peter esernyoje?
Of course, if Saint Peter could come out today upon these streets below he would find all he could wish, voices from nowhere, music from unpopulated boxes, men ascending divine distances in gas balloons, and traveling at the speed of sound, apparitions from nowhere appear on the screen; the sick are raised from the dead, life
is prolonged so that every detail of pain may be relished, the blind are given eyes and the cripples forced to walk, and there is an item which can blow a city of the beloved enemy into a place where their sins will be brought home to them, with of course as much noise as the trumpets on the walls of Jericho . . .

There was a heavy pounding on the door. Mr. Inononu swung round as he had before, his hand inside his coat. Basil Valentine came quickly from the bathroom, drying his hands on a linen hand towel. His coat and hat were laid out, and he picked them up. —Come, there’s a back staircase, he said. Mr. Inononu got his own hat and coat from the deep chair near the windows.

The pounding continued on the front door as they went through the kitchen. —Do you know, there was a funny story about you that I heard, in the hospital in Székesfehérvár? They told me you had a radio transmitter sewn inside of you.

—A transmitter? Mr. Inononu demanded at the head of the service stairs. —A receiver perhaps, but a transmitter?

By the time that Basil Valentine appeared, it had all been going on for some time; and the voices of guests lay in monotonous layers on the pestilential heat, rising into the lighted regions, falling away to the dark beds of shifting infested silence. Someone had already remarked that Bruckner had been Hitler’s favorite composer, someone else, that there was something wrong with any
young
person who really
enjoyed
the late Beethoven; someone had already confided that the soap business in America amounted to seven million dollars a year, someone else that advertising amounted to seven billion. Someone had already turned the radio on, and someone else turned it off though not before Mr. Schmuck (of Twentieth Century-Schmuck, here from the Coast on business for the holidays) had heard a catchy phrase of music, demanded of his assistant the name of the composer, been told, —I think the announcer said Kerkel . . . and finished, —Have him in my office Monday morning. Mr. Sonnenschein (here from the Coast for the holidays, on business) had already told his story about the girl who had dramatized a suicide attempt in the apartment next door to where he’d been invited to dinner the night before, —to get my attention for herself . . . had, in fact, told it four times and was finishing the fifth, —So I can’t even finish my Baked Alaska. M. Crémer (here from the Continent, on business) with a cigarette end stuck to his lip like a sore, had already remarked the uncivilized lack of public toilets in New York, and a number of people had already remarked that the tall woman wore too much perfume. In one corner, under the Patinir, Miss Stein (she was with Mr. Sonnenschein) had already
settled the future of American art with Mr. Schmuck’s assistant, who had already developed his late-evening stammer which bespoke sincerity; just as the past of German art (—There was none, properly speaking, before Dürer) had already been settled in another, under the massive Christmas tree, a Norwegian spruce, reared before the critical eyes of the wart hog, which gave the impression that the host might have been ashamed of a tree grown of earth, for any natural green that could betray such coarse origin was obliterated in one grand festoon of tinsel, sparkling under three hundred twenty blue lights which Fuller had spent nine dizzy hours in arraying.

And something else had happened, as every face (except a few that had come after, like the tall woman) revealed in strained attempts to show, to one another, that it had not. (Though Mr. Schmuck had seen fit to repeat a number of times since, —Wherever you got art you got cranks, we got the same trouble out there.) All of their momentary discomposure, however, had accumulated, and remained unmollified in Fuller’s face, as Basil Valentine saw directly they met when Fuller took his coat in the hallway.

—What is it, Fuller, he’s been here already? he asked quickly.

—Yes sar.

—What happened?

—He accomplish very little, sar.

—Come now, what happened?

—Very little occur to happen, sar, Fuller commenced, having at first seemed eager to escape, and now as he talked unable to stop. —He enter a lit-tel wile ago, comportin himself very calm as he go about among the guests talkin very diligent to them, though I can tell in his eyes that he is in great extremity for they become very green, the eyes of each mahn, sar bein the windows of his soul . . .

—Come, get on with it, Valentine cut in, looking back from the great room beyond to Fuller, who stood before him staring at the hard surface which had come over the watery blue of his eyes.

—So he restrain himself very peaceable, all the wile wearin one suit atop the other one as he go about addressin the dignitaries gathered in there until no one take notice of what he so carefully speakin to them about, and then at long last so it seem to me he arise very excited to proclaim he can prove all this what he so perseverinly try to inform them of is the truth, and upon hastenin his departure say he goin in search of you, sar.

—And Brown? Brown, what about Brown? . . .

—Mister Brown, sar, Mister Brown behave quite vexed which is not altogether surprisin, though I try to wahrn him Mister Brown goin to be vexed . . .

—What do you mean, you tried to warn him? Valentine demanded, his mind already in the other room. Fuller had gone on as though he had forgot to whom he was speaking, which he probably had.

—I try to wahrn him . . . he drew himself up again, faltering, —such a projeck destin to no great success . . . He paused, and then added as a revelation, —Mister Brown behavin like it is not my fortune to see him heretofore. Seem like Mister Brown incline to drink quite heavily tonight, sar . . . But Basil Valentine had already turned away, and Fuller stood immobile holding his coat, and watched him out of sight into the great room beyond.

Someone had turned the radio on; and as it warmed to the finish of the Jupiter Symphony, someone else turned it off.

The tall woman returned across the room to her husband, looking affronted. —That rather . . . oriental creature told me that there were no female sphinxes in Egypt before Greek times, imagine! Is this drink for me? Good heavens but it is hot in here. Always the same people, or they look the same to me. There! who
do
you suppose that flashy little dago
is?

—We want a goverment that will do something for Americans, said Mr. Schmuck, to the right, —and I don’t mean the Indians.

Three men stood over the low table before the fireplace as Basil Valentine entered, fingertips suppressing, at that moment, the vein standing out at his temple. He approached them. Two of them were European, and the third was Recktall Brown.

—There is no place here for history to accumulate, said the tallest of them, taking the cigarette and pausing the lighted match as though to illuminate his synthesis, —and you call this progress.

—Good evening, Basil Valentine said as they turned to acknowledge his arrival; and while courtesies were being exchanged, he looked straight across the table.

There was something reckless about Brown’s appearance. He had had his glasses on and off a number of times, and though they were on now, slightly crooked, the pupils swimming behind those thick lenses seemed to be wary of that constant renewal, sharpened to points, each time the glasses were removed, and nervously alerted against it. He was perspiring; and the cigar he held in his mouth burnt on a bias. At that moment he noticed it, taking it from among those uneven teeth, and threw it into the fireplace behind him. He had another out very quickly, unwrapped, and stood, vaguely marsupial, delving for the penknife in a pocket of his vest.

Basil Valentine wasted no manners in getting round beside him. —What happened?

And M. Crémer politely turned his back on them, and speaking
to the tall man beside him managed to continue a conversation which had not yet begun. —Mais cette peinture-là, je veux l’acheter, vous savez, mais le prix! . . . bien sûr que c’est Memlinc, alors, mais le prix qu’il demande, il est fou!

—Pas si bête . . . that one murmured, and together they crossed the room to look at a painting recently hung in the neighborhood of the vast tapestry. A lantern-jawed young man with a low forehead stared at them dumbly as they passed without a glance for him. He was quite used to being annoyed in public as a movie star. Now, hearing French, he muttered, —Fairies . . . and went for another drink.

—
Him
Byronic? Miss Stein demanded.

—I said moronic, said Mr. Schmuck’s assistant. —We have to keep a tank of straight oxygen on the set to sober him up . . .

—What happened, I asked you.

—Nothing. Not a damn thing happened. Not a God-damned thing, Brown threw back unsteadily.

—You’re in splendid shape this evening. Valentine stepped back, looking him over. —Splendid, he rasped.

Brown would not look round at him. Finally he did say, —He wants to buy that Memling.

—Who?

—This frog that was just here, he wants to buy it for nothing. Crazy frog.

—He is an idiot, I agree, Basil Valentine said, and supporting one elbow drew the hand up to his face, his chin lowered so that he seemed to kiss that gold seal ring, and they stood side by side, sustaining a perilous abeyance between them, and weighing the room before them in the balance.

Fuller entered, bearing glasses on a tray suspended at nose level between white hands, and altogether a harried look about him. They both watched Fuller until he arrived, without the mishap he appeared to expect, at the bar; but even when he’d set the tray down there safe, his expression did not change: it even seemed to summon itself to an exaggeration as he looked round to see them watching him from across the room, and the sounds and the movement about him fell away in the suspense of his own paralysis, an intolerable moment while they three were alone in the room, surrounded by shades, and waiting.

—Hey George, where’s the can?

Fuller turned to Miss Stein. —I will direck you to the tilet, madam, he said, and set off before her.

Like undersea flora, figures stood weaving, rooted to the floor, here and there one drifting as though caught in a cold current,
sensing in a greater or a less degree what one expressed as —Something submarine, as he paddled the air before him, and went on, —Agnes should be here, this is her world. Then he touched the beard which dripped to a point at his chin with two fingers, smirked at the stolid figure across the room whose somber presence he caricatured, and whined, —Where
is
that black Ganymede? . . .

Fuller was sitting on a white stool in the kitchen, bolt upright pretending to read a cruise guide he had found in a street trash bin. On the floor, the dog watched him. She swallowed. He did not move. She was watching him as though to see if the intent strain on his face were for his reading or tense suspension, waiting, for a sound from her. She growled. At that, as though it were a signal of relief from restraint, he brought a hand up to hide the intent corner of his profile, and peeked at her through his fingers. Sometimes this went on for what seemed hours to them both; though tonight the surveillant might be justified: she had seen him selling the evening’s emptied liquor bottles, with their undamaged expensive labels, to a furtive shade at the service entrance.

Miss Stein returned to hear the lantern-jawed young man finishing what was apparently a familiar joke, for she laughed before it was done while the tall woman listened with polite anticipation to, —So one nurse says, And did you see he has the word swan tattooed on it? And the other nurse says (here Miss Stein burst into laughter), —That word’s Saskatchewan.

The tall woman waited politely for a moment more, then she said agreeably, —Oh . . . that’s in Canada, isn’t it? They quit laughing and stared at her. —I’d better go look after my husband, she said. And turning, she gathered her features to return in kind an expression of vaguely startled curiosity from a tall white-haired man in gray, who was turning it everywhere in the room, though apparently in conversation with the hapless creature before him, to whom he had just said,

—Eh?

—Ail séd, ouî mest keep gôing ouor semmhouer naoû olouezz azz a séfté valv it izz valyouebel, ouith provijenn it dezz not spredd.

—Good heavens yes, daresay you’re right, eh? Now if you’ll just . . .

—Semm aoutt-ovv-dthe-oué pléce houer it dezz not interfîre ouith dthe civilise oueurld.

—Good heavens yes! Excuse me, there’s a good mpphhht fellow.

—Ouonne ouor . . .

Nearby, someone overheard mention of Tuthmosis in another conversation, and going on, found it immediately useful in still
another, —This is for your tomb-like little ears,
she
has something contagious called . . .