Dhalgren

  A word sets images flying from which auguries we read ...

  "Oh ... he did spell it right." Back on the page where he had been writing, he crossed and recrossed his own kakograph till the bar of ink suggested a word beneath half again as long.

  "Have you been reading in there?" She kneeled beside him. "What do you think?"

  "Hm?"

  "I mean ... the guy who wrote that was strange.

  He looked at her. "I've just been using it to write my own things. It's the only paper I've got and he leaves one side of each page blank." His back slumped. "Yeah. He's strange," but could not understand her expression.

  Before he could question it with one of his, she asked, "Can I read what you're doing?"

  He said, "Okay," quickly to see what it would feel like.

  "Are you sure it's all right?"

  "Yeah. Go on. It's finished anyway."

  He handed her the notebook: his heart got loud; his tongue dried stickily to the floor of his mouth. He contemplated his apprehension. Little fears at least, he thought, were amusing. This one was large enough to joggle the whole frame.

  Clicking his pen point, he watched her read.

  Blades of hair dangled forward about her face like orchid petals, till-"Stop that!"-they flew back.

  They fell again.

  He put the pen in his shut pocket, stood up, walked around, first down the slope, then up, occasionally glancing at her, kneeling naked in leaves and grass, feet sticking, wrinkled soles up, from under her buttocks. She would say it was silly, he decided, to show her independence. Or she would Oh and Ah and How wonderful it to death, convinced that would bring them closer. His hand was at the pen again-he clicked it without taking it from his pocket, realized what he was doing, stopped, swallowed, and walked some more. Lines on Her Reading Lines on Her he pondered as a future title, but gave up on what to put beneath it; that was too hard without the paper itself, its light red margin, its pale blue grill.

  She read a long time.

  He came back twice to look at the top of her head. And went away.

  "It.. ."

  He turned.

  ". . . makes me feel . . . odd." Her expression was even stranger.

  "What," he risked, "does that mean?" and lost: it sounded either pontifical or terrified.

  "Come here . .. ?"

  "Yeah." Crouching beside her, his arm knocked hers; his hair brushed hers as he bent. "What.. . ?"

  Bending with him, she ran her finger beneath a line. "Here, where you have the words in reverse order from the way you have them up here-I think, if somebody had just described that to me, I wouldn't have found it very interesting. But actually reading it-all four times -it gave me chills. But I guess that's because it works So well with the substance. Thank you." She closed the notebook and handed it back. Then she said, "Well don't look so surprised. Really, I liked it. Let's see: I'm . . . delighted at its skill, and moved by its ... well, substance. Which is surprising, because I didn't think I was going to be." She frowned. "Really, you . . . are staring something fierce, and it makes me nervous as hell." But she wouldn't look down.

  "You just like it because you know me." That was also to see what it felt like. "Possibly."

  He held the notebook very tight, and felt numb. "I guess-" she moved away a little-"somebody liking it or not doesn't really do you any good." "Yeah. Only you're scared they won't." "Well, I did." She started to say more, didn't. Was that a shrug? Finally, she looked from beneath the overhanging limbs. "Thank you."

  "Yeah," he said almost with relief. Then, as though suddenly remembering: "Thank you!"

  She looked back, confusion working through her face toward some other expression.

  "Thank you," he repeated, inanely, palms pressing the notebook to his denim thighs, growing wet. "Thank you."

  The other expression was understanding. His hands worked across each other like crabs, crawled round himself to hug his shoulders. His knees came up (the notebook dropped between them) to bump his elbows. A sudden, welling of ... was it pleasure? "I got a job!" His body tore apart; he flopped, spread-eagle, on his back. "Hey, I got a job!" "Huh?"

  "While you were asleep." Pleasure rushed outward into hands and feet. "That lady in the bar last night; she came by with her dog and gave me this job."

  "Madame Brown? No kidding. What kind of job?" She rolled to her stomach beside him.

  "For this family. Named Richards." He twisted, because the chain was gnawing his buttocks. Or was it the notebook's wire spiral? "Just cleaning out junk."

  "Well there's certainly enough junk-" she reached down, tugged the book loose from beneath his hip -"around Bellona to clean out." She lay it above his head, propped her chin on her forearms. "A pearl," she mused. "Katherine Mansfield once described San Francisco, in a letter to Murray, as living on the inside of a pearl. Because of all the fog." Beyond the leaves, the sky was darkly luminous. "See." Her head fell to the side. "I'm literate too."

  "I don't think-" he frowned-"I've ever heard of Katherine .. . ?"

  "Mansfield." Then she raised her head: "Was the reference in the thing you wrote, to that Mallarme poem . . ." She frowned at the grass, started tapping her fingers. "Oh, what is it... !"

  He watched her trying to retrieve a memory and wondered at the process.

  "Le Cantique de Saint Jean! Was that on purpose?" "I've read some Mallarme . . ." He frowned. "But just in those Portuguese translations Editora Civilizacao put out . . . No, it wasn't on purpose I don't think . . ." "Portuguese." She put her head back down. "To be sure." Then she said: "It is like a pearl. I mean here in Bellona. Even though it's all smoke, and not fog at all." He said: "Five dollars an hour." She said: "Hm?"

  "That's what they're going to pay me. At the job." "What do you want with five dollars an hour?" she asked, quite seriously.

  Which seemed so silly, he decided not to insult her by answering.

  "The Labry Apartments," he went on. "Four hundred, Thirty-Sixth Street, apartment seventeen-E. I'm supposed to go up there this afternoon." He turned to look at her. "When I come back, we could get together again ... maybe at that bar?"

  She watched him a moment. "You want to get together again, don't you." Then she smiled. "That's nice." "I wonder if it's late enough to think about going over there?"

  "Make love to me once more before you go." He scrunched his face, stretched. "Naw. I made love to you the last two times." He let his body go, glanced at her. "You make love to me this time."

  Her frown fell away before, laughing, she leaned on his chest.

  He touched her face.

  Then her frown came back. "You washed" She looked surprised.

  He cocked his head up at her. "Not very much. In the john down there, I splashed some water on my face and hands. Do you mind?"

  "No. I wash, myself, quite thoroughly, twice-occasionally even three times a day. I was just surprised."

  He walked his fingers across her upper lip, beside her nose, over her cheek-like trolls, he thought, watching them.

  Her green eyes blinked.

  "Well," he said, "it's not something I've ever been exactly famous for. So don't worry."

  Just as if she had forgotten the taste of him and was curious to remember, she lowered her mouth to his. Their tongues blotted all sound but breath while, for the ... fifth time? Fifth time, they made love.

  The glass in the right-hand door was unbroken.

  He opened the left: a web of shadows swept on a floor he first thought was gold-shot, blue marble. His bare foot told him it was plastic. It looked like stone . . .

  The wall was covered with woven, orange straw- no, the heel of his palm said that was plastic too.

  Thirty feet away, in the center of the lobby-lighting fixtures, he finally realized-a dozen grey globes hung, all different heights, like dinosaur eggs.

  From what must have been a pool, filled with chipped, blue rock, a thin, ugly, iron sculpture jutted. Passing nearer, he realized it wasn't a sculpture at all,
but a young, dead tree.

  He hunched his shoulders, hurried by.

  The "straw"-covered partitioning wall beside him probably hid mailboxes. Curious, he stepped around it.

  Metal doors twisted and gaped-like three rows, suddenly swung vertical (the thought struck with unsettling immediacy), of ravaged graves. Locks dangled by a screw, or were missing completely. He passed along them, stopping to look at one or another defaced nameplate, bearing the remains of Smith, Franklin, Howard . . .

  ' On the top row, three from the end, a single box had either been repaired, or never prised: Richards: 17-E, white letters announced from the small, black window. Behind the grill slanted the red, white and blue edging of an airmail envelope.

  He came out from the other side of the wall, hurried across the lobby.

  One elevator door was half-open on an empty shaft, from which drifted hissing wind. The door was coated to look like wood, but a dent at knee level showed it was black metal. While he squatted, fingering the edge of the depression, something clicked: a second elevator door beside him rolled open.

  He stood up, stepped back.

  There were no lights in the other car.

  Then the door on the empty shaft, as if in sympathy, also finished opening.

  Holding his breath and his notebook tight, he stepped into the car.

  "17" lit his fingertip orange. The door closed. The number was the only light. He rose. He wasn't exactly afraid; all emotion was in super solution. But anything, he understood over his shallow breath, might set it in fantastic shapes.

  "17" went out: the door opened on dimness.

  At one end of the beige hall, an apartment door stood wide; grey light smoked through. At the other, in the ceiling-globe, at least one bulb worked.

  He passed 17-B, 17-C, 17-D, nearing the globe.

  After the third ring, (and practically a minute between) he decided to leave: And walk down the steps, because the pitch dark elevator was too spooky.

  "Hello ... ? Who is it. .. ?"

  "Madame-Mrs Brown sent me."

  "Oh." Things rattled. The door rasped on two inches of chain. A woman perhaps just shy of fifty, with shadowed hair and pale eyes, looked at him above the links. "You're the young man she said she'd send to help?"

  "Yeah."

  "Oh," she repeated. "Oh," closed the door and opened it again without the chain. "Oh."

  He stepped in on green carpet. She stepped back to look at him; he began to feel uncomfortable, and dirty, and nervous.

  "Edna told you what we wanted?"

  "Cleaning," he said. "You've got some junk to move?"

  "And moving-"

  Two thuds, and two men's loud laughing was joined by a woman's.

  They both looked down at the Acrolan.

  "-to an apartment higher up in the building," she said. "The floors, the walls of these buildings are so thin. Everything goes through. Everything." When she looked up, he thought: Why is she so uncomfortable ... am I making her uncomfortable? She said, "We want you to help clear out the place upstairs. It's on the nineteenth floor, at the other end of the hall. It has a balcony. We thought that would be nice. We don't have a balcony in this apartment."

  "Hey, Momma, is-"

  He recognized her when she was half into the hall.

  "Yes, June?"

  "Oh . . ." which wasn't recognition, though she held the wall and blinked at him. Her yellow hair swung to hit her shoulders. She frowned by the green wall, just paler than the carpet. "Is Bobby here?"

  "I sent him down for some bread."

  "Oh," again, and into her room.

  "I'm," pausing till he looked back at her, "Mrs Richards. My husband, Arthur, will be here very soon now. But come in, and I'll explain just what we want done."

  The living room was all picture windows. Beyond half-raised Venetian blinds, a hill of patchy grass rolled between several brick high-rises.

  "Why don't you sit-" her finger fell from her chin to point-"there."

  "I didn't get a chance to wash too well, this morning, and I'm pretty messy," then realized that was just the reason she'd picked that particular chair. "No thanks."

  "You're living . .. ?"

  "In the park."

  "Sit down," she said. "Please. Please sit down."

  He sat, and tried not to pull his bare foot behind his sandal.

  She balanced at the edge of the L-shaped couch. "19-A where we want to move is, well frankly, a mess. The apartment itself is in good condition, the walls, the windows-so many windows got broken. We wrote to Management. But I wouldn't be surprised if they've lost the letter. Everything's so inefficient. So many people have left."

  A rattling, with thumps, moved outside in the hall: Then, someone punched the door!

  While he tried to fix his surprise, tattered whispers outside raveled with laughter.

  Mrs Richards sat straight, eyes closed, small knuckles against her stomach, her other hand mashing the couch. The loose flesh between the ligaments over her collar pulsed either with slow heart beats or quick breathing.

  "Ma'am ... ?"

  She swallowed, stood up.

  They punched again: he could see the chain shake.

  "Go away!" Her hands were claws now. "Go away! I said go away!"

  Footsteps-three or four pair, one, high heels- chattered to echo.

  "Mother .. . ?" June rushed in.

  Mrs Richards opened her eyes, her mouth, and took a breath. "They've done that-" turning to him-"twice today. Twice. They only did it once yesterday."

  June kept raising her knuckle to her mouth. Behind her the wall was covered with rough green paper, shelves of plants in brass pots, unwaterably high.

  "We're going to move into another apartment." Mrs Richards took another breath and sat. "We wrote to Management. We haven't got an answer, but we're going to anyway."

  He put his notebook on the table beside the chair and looked at the door. "Who are they?"

  "I don't know. I don't know; I don't care. But they're about-" she paused to pull herself together -"about to drive me mad. I think they're . . . children. They've gotten into the apartment downstairs. So many people have left. We're going to move upstairs."

  June kept looking over her shoulder. Her mother said: "It must be very difficult for you, living in the park."

  He nodded.

  "You've known Mrs Brown a while? It's nice of her to send somebody to help. She goes out, meets people. Myself, I just don't feel safe walking around the city."

  "Mother hardly ever goes out," June said, very fast, yet still with the hesitancy he remembered from last night.

  "It isn't safe, and I don't see any reason for a woman to take that sort of chance. Perhaps if I were someone else I wouldn't feel that way." She smiled. Her hair was salted brown, recently and simply done. "How long can you work?"

  "As long as you want, I guess."

  "I mean how many hours? Today?"

  "The rest of the day, if you want. It's pretty late now. But I'll come earlier tomorrow." "I'm talking about the light." "Light?"

  "The lights aren't working in most of the apartments."

  "Oh, yeah. Well, I'll work till it gets dark. What time

  is it now?"

  "The clocks." Mrs Richards turned up her hands. "The clocks have stopped." "Your electricity's out?"

  "All except one outlet in the kitchen. For the refrigerator. And that goes off too sometimes."

  "In the hall, there's a light on. And the elevator's working. You could run a cheater in." Mrs Richards looked puzzled.

  "An extension cord. From the hall light, into your apartment. That would give you some electricity."

  "Oh." Lines deepened in her forehead. "But then we'd lose the hall light, wouldn't we? We have to have some light in the hall. That would be just too-"

  "You get a double socket. You put a bulb in one and run a cord from the other, under the door." "From the hall?"

  "Yeah. That's what I was talking about." "Oh." She shook h
er head. "But the hall lights aren't on our utilities bill. Management wouldn't be very happy about that. They're strict here. You see, the hall lights, they're on another-" Her hands fluttered-"meter. I don't think we could do that. If someone saw . . ." She laughed. "Oh no, this isn't that kind of place."

  "Oh," he said. "Well, you're moving. So I guess you don't have to. The apartment you're going to has electricity?"

  "One of the things we have to find out. I don't know yet." Her hands went back together in her lap. "Oh, I hope it does!"

  "I'll work till it gets dark, Mrs Richards." "Very good. Oh, yes, that'll be fine. At least you'll be able to get started today."

  "Maybe you better ask your husband about the extension cord. I could do it for you. I used to be a super." "Did you?"

  "Yeah. And I could do it, no trouble." "I will ..." She pinched at her skirt, noticed, then smoothed it. "But I don't think Management would go along with that. Oh no, I don't think so at all." The door bell rang twice.

  "That's Bobby!" from June.

  "Ask who it is!"

  "Who is it?"

  Muffled: "Me."

  The chain rattled loose.

  "Okay, I got your-"

  June interrupted him: "You know they came back and did it again! You didn't see anybody, in the halls, did you?"

  "No . . . ?" Bobby's questioning was toward the living room. "Who's he?"

  Bobby (fourteen?) was holding a loaf of bread too tightly. Around his left wrist, in a bright bracelet, were half a dozen loops of the optical chain.

  "Come in, Bobby. This is a young man Edna Brown sent over."

  "Gee." Bobby stepped into the living room. Blond as his sister, where her features suggested shyness, his sharper nose, his fuller mouth hinted belligerence. Under his arm was a newspaper. "Are you just living out in the street, huh?"

  He nodded.

  "You want to use the bathroom or wash or something?"

  "Bobby!" from June.

  "Maybe," he said.

  Mrs Richards laughed. "Isn't it rather difficult for you, and dangerous?"

  "You . . . have to keep your eyes open." That sounded inane enough.

  "We'll go upstairs and look around."

  "I wanna stay and read the-"