The Recognitions

  They reached San Zwingli without incident, and very little conversation after Mr. Yák had outlined their plan. —We can’t take it away in the box, that’s too bulky . . . but if we leave about at dark . . . Then he looked closely at his companion, as though to see if he would be capable of carrying out his end of it when the time came. —How many monkeys you got sitting down up in your head now? he brought out finally, as they climbed the hill from the railway station.

  —I? I haven’t had a drink all day.

  —Where you been all day then? Mr. Yák’s tone was truculent, possibly to hide the surprise he felt at this answer. —I looked all over the place for you, he added, muttering, returning his eyes to the stones of the road. Up in the town, the bell of the church sounded, and both of them raised their eyes for a moment, then lowered them immediately as though in embarrassment, as it went on striking, and they continued side by side up the uneven grade, out of step, and so close they bumped each other. —Where were you all day? Mr. Yák asked again, when they bumped the second time.

  —The Prado.

  —The art museum? Mr. Yák shrugged. —What did you do there? He glanced up at the face beside him, and said, —You don’t look like you liked it much. The art there.

  —Well they . . . the El Greco, his companion began, as though called upon to comment, and he drew his hand across his eyes. —They have so many in one room, they’re almost hung on top of each other and it’s too much, it’s too much plasticity, there’s too much movement there in that one room . . . He suddenly looked up at Mr. Yák, holding a hand out before them which appeared to try to shape something there. —Do you . . . do you see what I mean? With a painter like El Greco, somebody called him a visceral painter, do you see what I mean? And when you get so much of his work hung together, it . . . the forms stifle each other, it’s too much. Down where they have the Flemish painters hung together it’s different, because they’re all separate . . . the compositions are separate, and the . . . the Bosch and Breughel and Patinir and even Dürer, they don’t disturb each other because the . . . because every composition is made up of separations, or rather . . . I mean . . . do you see what I mean? But the harmony in one canvas of El Greco is all one . . . one . . . He had both hands out before him now, the fingers turned in and the thumbs up as though holding something he was studying with a life which Mr. Yák had not seen in his face before. But he broke off abruptly, and his hands came down to his sides.

  After a pause, Mr. Yák said more quietly, —I didn’t know you ever went there.

  —I . . . I go there every day.

  —You spend the whole day there? Mr. Yák turned on him in amazement.

  —Well, I . . . not today, I . . . I had the strangest dream today, I . . . when I came back. And I woke up and I thought. . . it was almost dark, but I thought it was dawn and I thought I’d slept there all night, and all I heard was . . . I heard a child crying somewhere, that was all I heard. But I thought I’d slept all night and it was dawn. Then I tried to use my right arm, I reached out for a cigarette and it wouldn’t work, my arm wouldn’t work, it just hung there and fell over, and I . . . and all I could hear was a child crying somewhere.

  They had reached the town. Mr. Yák glanced at him again, shrugged when he did not go on, and as they approached the doors of La Ilicitana muttered, —I just hope that barrel organ don’t catch us out, as they entered, and his order for two coffees was not countermanded, or even qualified, by his companion, which, after the revelation concerning the Prado, brought Mr. Yák to observe soberly, —I even said you weren’t a bum. Eh Stephan?

  That brought a smile to Stephan’s face for a moment, though it was one of detachment and when it faded away, left a vague abstracted expression.

  —That girl you were with last night, Mr. Yák commenced, pressing his mustache and speaking with the ease of someone mentioning an event long forgotten, —I was glad to see you got away from her with your diamond ring.

  —But you . . . wait, you don’t understand, you see she . . . I don’t know, never mind.

  —You paid her, didn’t you? Forget her. Mr. Yák shrugged, sipped his coffee, and asked, —That blonde, did you pay her anything?

  —Well, I . . . that’s just it, you see I . . .

  —Forget it. That’s nothing, forget it.

  —No, because the blonde didn’t ask for anything, at first she didn’t ask for any money, I thought, she just came with me as though she wanted . . . to. But then after a few times, then she borrowed some money from me just before she went away and I thought, I lent it to her. I would have given it to her except I still thought she’d come with me because she’d wanted to, and I lent it to her.

  —Never mind, forget it. The kind of tramps you’re picking up now you’re lucky you still got your diamonds.

  —No no but that’s the point! when the blonde pretended she didn’t come with me for money but all the time she . . . don’t you see? And this one, this . . . Pastora, she . . . with her it was money right from the start, and now, she couldn’t afford to pretend because she needed the money, she really needs it but now, now with me what she wants . . .

  —I know what she wants . . . Mr. Yák drew back as the diamonds came up in his face. —You gave her those rhinestone earrings?

  —Those cheap things! Twenty pesetas. When I gave them to her I told her that, how cheap they were and she nearly cried just because . . .

  —Just because you didn’t go get your diamonds made into earrings.

  —No, listen, look, those cheap clothes she wears coming apart at the seams, she doesn’t mind, if they’re clean, if I . . . if I tell her she looks good, but if I say anything like . . .

  —You make quite a couple in the street, said Mr. Yák.

  —Yes, he laughed himself quietly, looking down. —I was walking with my hands in my pockets, and all of a sudden she stops right there on the sidewalk, she was furious, Si tu no me coges . . . she wouldn’t walk a step further with me if I didn’t take her arm. He stood there looking at the floor and almost smiling, until Mr. Yák said,

  —You could do better, if you’re going to get mixed up with . . .

  —Better? He brought his eyes up again, their vacant quality restored.

  —If you’re going to pay good money . . .

  —But it isn’t . . . paying!

  —I get it. You just give her some money afterwards.

  —Yes but, listen . . .

  —You’re going to catch something, you probably caught something from her already. Those kind of tough girls you meet like that . . .

  —Tough, yes, the scars on her belly and down one leg, listen . . .

  —You probably caught something from her already.

  —Caught something . . . ? His hand was up between them again, squared fingers closing upon nothing; and he was staring there. —I was, I had her breast and I was . . . she, all of a sudden she said, No, son para la niña, she didn’t want me to . . . to take what was . . . wasn’t mine.

  Mr. Yák shrugged. —If you were getting what you paid for . . .

  —But that’s what I’m trying to tell you! right in the middle of it, when I was still . . . His closed hand quivered between them. —All of a sudden crying out, she burst out crying, Me quieres? me quieres? Díme lo . . . que sí! aunque no es verdad . . .

  Mr. Yák finished his coffee and studied the face before him with the composure of a man examining something unobserved. Then he shrugged again and said, —You get one every once in a while like that, they have to cry right in the middle of it. So you told her yes, you loved her? even if it wasn’t true? He got no answer, put down the cup he’d been holding, and shrugged again. —You ought to have told her yes. A time like that, it’s the only thing you can do, if you want to get your money’s worth.

  The town was quiet in the late afternoon. Mr. Yák tucked the purple and gold cord into his front as they came out on the street, and reopened the conversation on a more promising note. —Wait till you see this mummy
thing when we get through with it, it will be so terrific it’ll make your nose bleed.

  The sky was unchanged, except for seeming closer to the earth, more oppressive upon the mountains, as the light of day drained from it. The two men approaching the rock-studded road up behind the town did so in silence, the one swinging his arms as he walked, allowing sounds of anticipation to escape him, the other hands clasped behind, watching every detail of the pavement they followed. It is true, Mr. Yák’s gait was somewhat irregular, his head bobbing up to the challenge ahead, then down, and aside, as the past threatened in the dull intent profile beside him. He wondered, if this climb would recall its earlier end, when they’d met over a past beyond them both, if this prolonged gesture of atonement of his should suddenly shatter between them while the future yet promised, if he should mention any of that simply to hold it at bay, before it attacked of itself.

  —Good God! . . .

  —What’s the matter with you? Mr. Yák asked before he looked for reason, finding, for the first time, this hand on his arm.

  A white carriage, all white, drawn by horses strung with broken white netting, mounting a small white casket beneath the white coronating cross, climbed before them, —Christ! are they always held at the fall of the day? Another one, up that broken road to the cypress trees, and the men follow, carrying their hats, and that girl on her bicycle, in her green dress, making the stupid windings of life in the road behind it, and she’ll be back down the hill before they unload the box . . . As though that child had . . . chosen this time to die.

  His hand had fallen away, and Mr. Yák caught his arm. —Listen, Mr. Yák said quickly, —you go back there and wait for me, go back to that bar and wait for me, see?

  —Well I . . . then you’ll have to lend me some money.

  —You’re broke . . . you’ve spent . . . you don’t have any money?

  —Point d’argent, point de Suisse . . .

  —Listen, I don’t want to let you . . . have you got your passport? Mr. Yák had pulled out a wad of paper money. —If they . . .

  —It says I’m from Zurich. Quick! I’ll speak to them in German . . . aber die jüngste war so schön, dass die Sonne selber . . . Quick! . . .

  The procession gone up the hill had been drawn by two horses, and now, down through the town, came a cart drawn by one, loaded with refuse from the factory nearby. Watching it with the same apparent interest as she had watched the other, an old woman withdrew from her railed balcony, leaving her husband in his chair, put out there in the afternoon for the sun, to look and cough, with his piece of bread, waiting. And the sun, which had kept so close all the day, sought before leaving it to fill the sky with color, a soft luster of pink, and then purple, against the pure blue, color which refined the clouds to their own shapes and then failed, discovering in them for minutes the whole material of beauty, then leaving them without light to mock the sky, losing form, losing edges and shape and definition, until soon enough with darkness, they disappear entirely.

  —Allí se mueren, said the man behind the bar of La Ilicitana. He placed a glass there, and brought down the bottle of Genesis, answering a question with his voice, and an order with the bottle of coñac. —En invierno no, pero quando vienen las hojas por los árboles, allí se mueren.

  It was dark out of doors when the bartender at La Ilicitana leaned forth to direct his only client’s attention to the couple waiting outside. Mr. Yák stood just within the dim shaft of light, beckoning. Beside him, in the shadows, a small figure draped in a shawl waited patiently; and a moment later, the man behind the bar there watched the three of them leave with no misgiving curiosity in his face at all.

  —Take her arm, said Mr. Yák in the street. —But be careful. You’re not drunk, are you? Are you? You got enough chairs for the monkeys? Come on. Be careful. We pretend it’s an old woman, see? Only when we get on the train she’s real stiff in the joints, see? But these Spaniards here are very reverent for an old woman, like it’s somebody’s mother, see? So be careful . . .

  He was right.

  The conductor even threatened to help the stiff figure aboard the First Class coach, but Mr. Yák was impressively filial, and they were soon seated abreast in a compartment. Mr. Yák pulled the shades down upon the aisle passing outside, for the figure between them sat stretched out at an uncomfortable length for her size, and there was no relaxing her into the cushions, —because we don’t want to break nothing.

  The moon, in its last quarter, had not yet entered the sky, waiting to come in late, each night waiting nearer the last possible minute before day, to appear over the distant gate more battered, lopsided, and seem to mount unsteadily as though restrained by embarrassment at being seen in such condition. And so the train rattled out into the rock-strewn plain in darkness. Mr. Yák stood up, slipped the door open enough to peep into the corridor, and then displaced the glass and removed the light from above the seat across from them.

  —You’re afraid the light will hurt her eyes?

  —No. In case somebody should come in here with us so it don’t shine in her face, Mr. Yák answered earnestly. —See? he added as he resumed his seat and leaned forward, solicitously arranging the black shawl, tucking its long ends round the extended feet. Then he straightened up and said, —There! . . . patted down the shock of black hair, pressed the mustache, and cleared his throat with satisfaction. The acrid smoke of an Ideal commenced to rise from the window side of the compartment, and they rode on, seated backwards, facing the place they’d come from, and looking in what light there was through the smoke like a weary and not quite respectable family.

  The conductor, at any rate, showed no rude curiosity when he tapped at the glass panel, slid the door open, and took three tickets from Mr. Yák, who had bounded to his feet to meet him, with such zeal, in fact, that part of the shawl came along with him, exposing hands clasped one over the other on the sunken basin of the pelvis, above the wide separation of the lower limbs, and the head, tilted forward slightly, the surface of the face unbroken by a nose, the eyes sunken, the jaw dropped. But the conductor was gone.

  —Come on! . . . cover it up! Mr. Yák burst out, getting the door closed, but the face he saw was a reflection in the glass. He pulled the shawl up quickly round the stiff figure, and drew it in a deep hood over the nodding head. —You got to keep alert, doing something like this, he went on when he got his breath, —you can’t just sit looking out the window, you . . . Are you drunk? Hey? Stephan? How many monkeys got upstairs while I left you there? Did you? Are you?

  With no answer, and nothing of his companion but the back of his head and the steady image of his face in the glass, Mr. Yák recovered from his impatience, sat down again, and turned to the figure between them. —You wouldn’t think she’s only a little girl, would you have. He stared abstractedly at the flat lap for a minute, blinked, rubbed his hands, said, —Now we can really get to work, and sat back.

  But he could not sit still. His foot commenced tapping on the vibrating floor. —What we want to do first, we want to find a place to bury that linen stuff awhile, so you can go there and sort of wet it down, see? Then I got to get into touch with this guy, this Egyptianologist, so he don’t give up hope and leave town. Then all I got to do is keep out of his way till it’s all set. See? Then we . . . Are you listening to me? Mr. Yák leaned over and tapped a far knee.

  —What’s the matter?

  —Are you listening to me? What’s the matter?

  —Nothing, I . . . Nothing.

  —Nothing? You . . .

  —Nothing. I was just thinking about something.

  —What?

  —Nothing.

  Mr. Yák snorted, and tapped his fingers on his knee. Then he turned abruptly and his neck shot out of the plexiglas collar. —Listen, he said, —I feel like I’m alone in here with this . . . with this. He nudged the figure beside him. The face beyond did not turn from the window. —See? So . . .

  —What do you want me to do? Get up and dance?
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  —No. The vagueness of the tone irritated Mr. Yák. —But we . . .

  —Shall I sing something? Una y una dos, dos y dos son tres . . .

  —Listen, we . . .

  —No sale la cuenta . . . Porque falta un churumbel. What’s churumbel?

  —That’s a gypsy word here, Mr. Yák answered, the irritation still in his voice, speaking to the back of his friend’s head. —The bill doesn’t come out right because there’s a kid missing. It means a kid. His tone was belligerent, but he answered rather than have no conversation at all. —See? he added, paused, and prompted, —See?

  —They don’t die in winter, the voice murmured from the reflection in the glass, which held the blackness of the night right up against it.

  —What?

  —But when the leaves come to the trees, the bartender told me, then they die, quando vienen las hojas . . .