The Recognitions (Dalkey Archive edition) (95 page)

—Suicide!

They were approaching the steps to the lion house, passing a fat woman on a bench with two books in her lap, one gaudy but closed,
A Day with the Pope
, the other opened,
First Lessons in Italian
. With a hand mounting two mean pearls on a thin line of gold almost absorbed in the flesh, she drew an enameled nail down the page, and then wiped her nose, each time folding the piece of disposable tissue in half until she clutched only a wet wad, forming the words behind it,
mi piace
, with her lips, —mee piachay, mee piachay . . .

Three little girls had just deferred to the clamorous wishes of the smallest of them, and bought a balloon.

—It’s been noted, of course, that the thought of suicide has got many a man through a bad night. Nietzsche, I believe . . .

—Suicide? this? Do you think there’s only one self, then? that this isn’t homicide? closer to homicide? that, listen . . .

Approaching the door, the lines on and around Basil Valentine’s eyelids became apparent as he looked at the anxious face turned up to him; and, brought out of profile into the smiling duplicity of the full face, the strength seemed to drain out through the narrow chin. —It mayn’t be so simple, you know. This so-called homicide of yours, he said. —This putting off the old man?

A child posted by the door pointed to a remarkably symmetrical dog spiral on the walk. —Look at that dog-do! the child said with intense admiration.

—Get out of the way, Valentine snapped, and pushed the child
aside with a firm narrow foot. —Shall we go in? he asked, still smiling, with a step back to hold the door open.

The place was filled with noise coming from the opposite end, moaning which broke into a stifled scream, relapsed in a heaving sob, repeated, and repeated, interrupted by a hiss and spitting. The animals moved about their cages in the restless patterns of their lives, to turn their heads in that direction as they passed, across the front of the cage, round to the back, emerging again; and the tigers coming forth approached the bars as though they were coming straight through. Some of the animals did not move. A black panther, caged down across the way, stood watching, motionless but for the black tail whose weaving tip just cleared the floor. Other leopards sat waiting, and watched; an albino with pink eyes. The lion lay still, archetype of the calm of enduring vigilance, forepaws extended. The racket went on, leaving only two apes, caged halfway down one side, generically unconcerned.

—And you don’t hate Brown, do you? Basil Valentine asked abruptly. —For what he’s done to you.

—Brown? hate him? for what he’s done to me?

—There’s a favor I have to ask of you, Valentine went on, as though he considered his question answered.

—That Patinir? I remember. You think I don’t, but I remember.

—No. Something else, Valentine commenced, his tone both fresh and casual. —The
Stabat Mater?
What do you plan doing . . .

—She? . . . bury her and marry her, after all, she . . .

—No, no. That painting, the last one you were working on.

—Why?

—Well, if you are as you say, through with all this, I . . . thought I’d rather like to have it. What’s the matter?

—You? Yes, I told you, how fragile situations are! Every moment reshaping the past. You? you want it?

—If you’d give it to me, as a . . . to a friend, a favor to an old friend? Valentine put a hand out to his shoulder, but he turned away.

—Everything down there’s destroyed. I burned everything, I put everything into the fireplace and set fire to it.

—But not that? not that picture too?

—Why not? he demanded, turning.

—If it was, as you said, becoming . . . not van Eyck, but what you want?

—What I want? he whispered, and shuddered. Moans from the other end rose above the broken echoes of human voices.

—The face, Valentine said. —The . . . reproach in that face, it
was very beautiful, I thought. Then Valentine felt his wrist gripped tightly.

—Yes, the reproach! That’s it, you understand?

They were halfway down the tiers of cages.

—Gee lookit how
he
does it, said a boy before the apes’ cage.

—That’s a her . . . and lookit her eat it, she’s stoopin over and
eat
in it.

The caterwauling rose. The two pumas, as they would prove to be, were in the last cage to the right. Next to them, and separated by a metal wall, a white African lioness brushed the bars of her cage, stalked to the back, and came forth round a tree trunk in the center, its length torn by her claws and teeth. Her tail wove to one side and the other, and she twisted to bare her teeth and snap at it, making no pause when the cries in the next cage broke. —Weh weh weh it’s all right beautiful lady, yes, come on, you gonna eat it all up today? you gonna eat your tail all up? Yes . . . weh weh weh . . . said a woman before the cage, sharp-nosed, with too much make-up, she held out a skinny hand with a ring mounting a miserable stone, to the lioness.

—Listen. You see why it’s important now?

Shocked as much by the smile fixed on him, as he was by the grip fastening his wrist, Valentine had started to withdraw. The instant his arm tightened the hazardous hand left it, but the smile persisted; and Valentine asked, —Why what’s important?

—Yes, clearing up all this, these . . . those fragments, if they won’t believe me. If you saw it too, in that face? The eyes turned away, the eyes not looking at you, but the forgiveness, the . . . grace? Yes, but even in that, the reproach. If you saw it too, that reproach? You understand, then, don’t you. How I’ve felt since that dream? The Seven Sins, when they come to confess, and be shrived? The second dream, I don’t remember the first one, but the second one, he wakes up but he goes to sleep again over his prayers, and there’s Reason preaching, a “field full of folk”? And one by one, Superbia, Invidia . . .

—Damn it . . .!

—What?

—I’ve dropped a glove somewhere, Valentine said in a tone which penetrated the cry of the puma. Before him the lioness came forward with her head lowered and out to one side, waiting for him to appear in her view. Then their eyes met, and without turning from her as she did from him, passing the bars, he added, —Come now, what is all this . . .

—I’ll tell you about it, listen. When I was away, I was dreamt, I mean I dreamt, I had two dreams I think, but the first one, I
don’t remember the first one. But the other one, sitting bolt upright in a chair, was it? And there she was, she touched me. Her lips were blue like indigo, and she . . . I didn’t understand it then, but now, you can see, yes that reproach, if you saw it too. You can see that I can’t just go to her, like this, after what I’ve done and, done to her. That I couldn’t just go to her and offer her this . . . what’s left.

—What is it, all this, this dream . . . ? Valentine interrupted, not turning nor raising his voice, nor his attention which seemed to seethe and recede with the shape of the lioness looming toward the bars and retiring. —This she, this face in that study . . . ?

—Yes, and you see why it’s crucial. Why, when we’ve settled all this and we can leave . . .

—Leave! Valentine took a step back, without looking round his hand caught the wrist rising before him. —Tell me, what are you talking about?

—She . . .

—She? This . . . stabat Mater . . . dolorosa, it’s she standing over you, is it? isn’t it? Yes, you’ve told me, this blessed Queen of Heaven? . . . Valentine looked up quickly as the lioness turned away. The hissing in the next cage rose to broken cries. —Yes, your mother, isn’t it? Your . . . “sainted mother”?

—My mother? He twisted in Valentine’s hold, which was not tight but rigidly closed on his wrist. Beyond Valentine’s shoulder, across the way, the rigid pattern of the bars was broken by dark blond hair and dark eyes, the abrupt, aware delicacy of a woman of undamaged beauty, who turned from the leopard cage to look for the child with her. She carried a fur coat over the arm of a tailored suit, and her expensive walking shoes lent purpose to the steps of her slender frame, deceptively fragile, full-bosomed and, again, so well tailored that that modesty was such only because she could afford simplicity, turning now to catch, for an instant, the eyes in the distraught face turned, for no reason, to her. He mumbled, or cleared a constricted throat, which was it? and she moved on quickly.

—Your . . . blessed Queen of Heaven? Basil Valentine seemed to force attention to his words as he stared into the cage where the lioness came forth again with her head lowered, turning, to look up, paused at the bars with forelegs crossed left over right, and then with no effort leaped to one side and was gone. —This woman, the “women’s voices,” and did I see the moon last night? this . . . good heavens, like Lucius in the
Golden Ass
, eh? Valentine faltered on, unwilling to pause and allow contradiction, postponing denial with whatever memory crowded upon him, casting up shattered
shapes and fragments, shapes and smells. —And you, I suppose you went down and plunged your head seven times in the sea? You . . . “Little by little I seemed to see the whole figure of her body, bright and mounting out of the sea and standing before me . . .” One recalls her “odoriferous feet” but . . . yes, so it’s not, then? Not your mother at all, that reproach and all the rest of it . . . ? Unwilling to stop until his hold was broken, unwilling to let go the wrist until it turned from his hand, unwilling to listen, until their embrace was sundered by laughter.

—My mother? why she . . . good God, she in the painting?

—Yes, you told me, you know . . .

A boy in the remnants, or perhaps the beginnings of a Boy Scout uniform had got between Valentine and the bars, and reached out over the rail. —Gimmeyatail, Zimba, he said. The sharp-nosed woman repeated, —Yes, weh weh weh . . . The lioness approached, looking beyond them.

—It’s some girl you’ve picked up, is it? And all this talk about clearing things up, it’s all some notion she’s . . .

—No. Not that, all that is still itself, it’s only part of itself.

—Really . . .

—Do you hear me?

—Really, and tell me, who is this . . . Solveig of yours? this Senta? The girl you’ve been using to model, I suppose, didn’t Brown say he’d sent along something?

—Listen . . .

—And how is it I didn’t see her? the night I dropped in on you.

—But she doesn’t . . . we’ve never even . . .

—Gimmeyatail Zimba, the boy said between them and the cage.

—Or is it all in this phantasy of yours, eh?

—Yes, I’m working it out, and everything fits, everything fits so far, everything. And, that dream? I told you about that. Why, you’ve dreamt? and afterward, you meet them, who you dreamt of? What an advantage! . . . you know things they don’t know, things about them they don’t know that you know, things they’ve done, they never suspect you know. Why, they can go right on talking as though nothing had happened. Yes, like the saints, Rose of Lima? and what innocency of hers was woven into her past by her Jesuit confessor! What defense have they against our phantasies? And meeting her again, can she imagine what she’s shared? where she’s been enjoyed, in privacy? Can she imagine the postures and pleasures she’s shared? And you know, all the time. What an advantage you have, over people you’ve dreamt of!

—Gimmeyatail gimmeyatail gimmeyatail . . .

—So you understand, how important this is? How crucial . . .

Basil Valentine turned and laughed in his face. —Really, really my dear fellow. No, he said, clutching the single gray glove before him. —The “somber glow” at the end of the second act, is it? the duet with Senta, is that it? . . . “the somber glow, no, it is salvation that I crave,” eh! “Might such an angel come, my soul to save,” your Flying Dutchman sings, eh? Good heavens! And up they go to heaven in a wave, or whatever it was? Really! And all that foolishness you were carrying on with the last time I saw you, that “I min Tro . . .” and the rest of it, that Where has he been all this time? and your Solveig answers In my faith? In my hope? In my, . . . good heavens! You are romantic, aren’t you! If you do think you mean all this? And then what, They lived happily forever after?

—But listen, listen, she . . .

—No, no, it’s too easy. After all, you know. With no interruption, Valentine paused, looking into the cage of the lioness. The lioness had come to the middle of the cage, watching him. She went round the tree trunk where her tail followed close, circling it. She stopped and moaned at the tail. She turned and bit at it. Then she moaned and faced him again. He did not speak until threatened by the voice beside him, then went on derisively, —And Saint Rose of Lima! Why, this sudden attempt to set the whole world right, by recalling your own falsifications in it? And then? Happiness ever after? Then you will be redeemed, and redeem her, and . . . good heavens knows what! And then, what next? First it’s Shabbetai Zebi, now it’s the Flying Dutchman? Listen to me, he went on, his voice dropping, —this lost innocence you’re so frantic to recover, it goes a good deal farther back, you know. And this idea that you can set everything to rights at once is . . . is childish. I know what it’s like with Brown, of course I know, I know you can’t go on like that. But you and I, my dear fellow . . .

The broken cries from the next cage had stopped, given over to heaving and groans.

—What! You and I, what!

—Listen to me, Basil Valentine said, suddenly closing his grip on the wrist he’d recovered, without taking his eyes from those of the lioness. —Do you remember, when I told you that the gods have only one secret to teach? Neither was looking at the other. Over Valentine’s shoulder, the blond woman reached the child who had run to her. She was bent down now, listening, her skirt drawn tight, her jacket full with the weight of her breasts, her face alive with attention. —Were they really fighting? she asked, still inclined over the child, being led back to the next cage where the pumas were, in her voice that tone children accept as awe, delighting to shock the innocence of those who awe them.

—That secret, do you remember? said Basil Valentine still holding him tight there and still looking, himself, into the cage of the lioness. —What Wotan taught his son? the only secret worth having?