The Recognitions

  Max picked up the practice keyboard from the street and brought it up to him on the curb opposite, where he stood quivering. —What happened? he asked. —That moving Christmas music?

  —Well it isn’t . . . they have no right to . . . Stanley tried to speak, out of breath, accepting the cardboard keyboard like a delicate instrument.

  —What do you want on Sixth Avenue, The Messiah?

  —They have no right to . . . cheapen . . .

  —Ask them to play, Yes We Have No Bananas, Max said, smiling. —That’s from The Messiah, and it’s more their line.

  —What do you mean? Stanley was trying to wipe the tire marks from the length of the white keys.

  —I mean Yes We Have No Bananas was lifted right out of Handel’s Messiah. Come on, Max said taking his arm, and looking round for Otto. —What’s the matter with both of you today?

  —You don’t have to . . . tell me things like that, Stanley said, pulling away.

  A man standing with his back to a shop window said, —It won’t snow, it’s too warm to snow. And Otto, looking where the man was looking, over the buildings at the northern sky, realized that he was not shivering with cold, but simply shivering. And he heard Max say,

  —You want everybody to be like you, that’s your trouble Stanley.

  —I want everyone to be like I want to be, Stanley answered.

  Otto met Stanley’s eyes. And though the sky was dull, and there was no such color in sight, they appeared green, brilliant, burning into green in that prolonged moment as Otto stood bound and apparently unable to mount the curb between them. But it was only a moment, the passage of a shadow, and Max’s voice, breaking between them, brought Otto up.

  —You might say that the man who wrote Yes We Have No Bananas was searching for memories? a vague consonance of sounds? . . . Max began good-humoredly. Then looking at Otto he said, —What’s the matter, you look all disjointed.

  —I don’t know, but . . . yes, disjointed, Otto said mounting the curb, speaking unevenly as he fell in beside them. —Like . . . do you know what I feel like? Like when a clay reproduction is made of an original statue, and then they take the copy and cut it behind the head with fine wire, and behind the arms and the legs, and those are all moved and it’s cast again.

  —Why? Where’d you hear that?

  —To be sold as part of a series, a series of the original, a series that never existed, I . . . I read about it in a book a friend of mine had, a friend a long time ago, he . . . listen . . . Otto groped.

  As though spurred by his faltering confusion, Max interrupted, —I knew there was something I meant to tell you. That story you sent to Edna, for a magazine that publisher she works for owns, they’re bringing out my book you know.

  —What about the story, I sent it in for some guy I met at your party.

  —She thinks you wrote it, Max told him. —That you wrote it and sent it under another name.

  —She thinks I wrote it? But why would I have written it? I didn’t even read it, I . . . why would I do a thing like that.

  —I guess she thought you were playing it safe.

  —But she . . . but God damn it . . . Otto brandished the sling.

  —She says you used to be clever when you were in college, writing, but you sort of faded out, Max went on agreeably. —She says the reason you were clever was because you didn’t know how to be honest.

  —Well the only reason she’s honest is because she’s too God damn dumb to be clever, I mean if she was honest, but she . . . why the hell should she go around saying a thing like that about me? for no reason?

  —No reason? Max repeated, and put a hand on Otto’s shoulder. —Nobody resents you more than somebody who’s loved you.

  Otto twisted away from him, but unsteadily as though trying to retain the hand on his shoulder but turn his face to hide the trembling lip. —Why do I . . . why do people have to be so . . . so . . . he mumbled brokenly as detailed fragments of expressions broke over his face one after another until he grabbed with a whole hand round the eyes and drew the hand down, as though to wipe away these abrupt strokes on the surface which mocked the clear image of his anger beneath. Then he brought out a cigarette, and caught both lips round it.

  —Forget it, Max said, and patting his shoulder before he removed his hand went on as cordially, —Say, I’ve meant to tell you again how much I liked your play, Otto . . . Otto mumbled something without looking up. —Because when other people have said they didn’t like it, I’ve told them . . .

  —You’ve told them what! Otto broke out. He looked up to see Max smiling at him.

  —Don’t be so touchy, Max said to him.

  —It’s just . . . all this . . . damned . . . Otto hunched again, looking down before him. —And when people say I stole it, that I plagiarized.

  —Somebody, I can’t think, who was it, Max appeared sympathetically thoughtful, —said they thought you’d lifted parts of The Sound and the Fury.

  —The what?

  —Faulkner’s novel, The Sound and the Fury, that you’d plagiarized . . .

  —I’ve never even read it, I’ve never read The Sound and the Fury damn it, so how the hell . . . Otto looked over to see Stanley look troubled and start to speak. —I mean, damn it . . .

  —What’s the difference? Max laughed. —I noticed a couple of little things you’d picked up, but what’s the difference.

  —What do you mean, what little things?

  —Little things, lines here and there. That line of Ben Shahn’s, “You cannot invent the shape of a stone” for instance.

  —But . . . who the hell is Ben Shahn? That line, a friend of mine, a long time ago, somebody I used to know, said . . .

  —What’s the difference. Max smiled. —As Stevenson says, we all live by selling something. He raised a hand to Otto’s shoulder again. —What’s the difference. The money? You have a real complex about money don’t you Otto, a real castration complex without it.

  —Yes, the money, Otto muttered, —but, damn it . . .

  —It doesn’t have to be money, just money, Stanley broke in, —if he . . . if it’s his work, if it’s his own, and he wants . . .

  —His own! Max repeated, and his laugh this time was sharper, more unkind, edged with contempt. —Look, he said to Otto, —that magazine of mine you’ve got there, open it. Max made no gesture of surrendering Collectors Quarterly, and taking the other magazine himself. —Just open it to . . . there, here it is, this thing on Sherlock Holmes, “the first authorized Sherlock Holmes story to appear” since Arthur Conan Doyle died. See? Authorized. It “was written after exhaustive study of Sir Arthur’s literary methods . . .” he read, as Otto held the magazine before them. —See? these two men who wrote it, “They studied such minutiae as Doyle’s sentence rhythms, his use of the comma, the number of words in the average Holmes sentence . . . The authors have felt no temptation to vary the pattern which Doyle usually observed . . . Special pains have been taken to reproduce certain Doylean literary tricks . . .”

  —But what do you mean? Otto asked him.

  —What’s the difference? Max asked in return, bringing Collectors Quarterly up. —Authorized paintings by Dierick Bouts? van der Goes? Who authorizes them? Somebody says, One wishes there were more stories by Conan Doyle, somebody else wishes there were more paintings by Hugo van der Goes. So, after a careful study of the early Flemish painter’s technique . . . such minutiae as his brush-stroke rhythms, his use of perspective, the number of figures in the average van der Goes canvas . . . What’s the difference? You fake a Dürer by taking the face from one and turning it around, the beard from another, the hat from another, you’ve got a Dürer, haven’t you?

  —But only on the surface, Stanley said.

  —On the surface! How much deeper do people go? the people who buy them?

  —But this, this isn’t a . . . forgery, Otto said holding out the large picture magazine. —It’s no secret, they tell you right here . . .

  —That’
s just what I mean, Max said impatiently. —What’s the difference now? In our times? He laughed again, and folded Collectors Quarterly under his arm. —As long as it’s “authorized.” Isn’t that right, Stanley?

  Stanley answered immediately, —No.

  —No? He studied Stanley’s face with mock interest and shock. —Is there something diabolic about bringing Sherlock Holmes back to life?

  —The devil is the father of false art, Stanley said quietly. He was walking carefully on the pavement along the edge, his face expressing a concentration which Otto’s echoed, but a vague echo, as Otto walked staring at the pavement, not listening to them.

  —Stanley believes in sin, don’t you, Stanley? Max persisted.

  —If we believe that love is weakness? Stanley brought out, —and people resent it, because they think it’s an admission of weakness, and they draw away from it . . . and that’s why you kill the thing you love, because it’s your weakness personified. If you kill it, you kill your weakness before it kills you.

  —I said sin, Max cajoled him.

  —But, was there love? before sin, a sense of sin, made it possible? Stanley said in the same low tone, without looking up. —Before there was sin, to be suffered and forgiven?

  —Love! You in love? Max laughed.

  —Art is the work of love.

  —Art is a work of necessity, Max said.

  —Was it a good story? Otto asked finally.

  —The Sherlock Holmes thing? It was lousy.

  —No I mean, I mean, the one that I . . . that was sent up to . . . her.

  —It was lousy too, Max answered.

  —But isn’t there a moment . . . Stanley went on, —a moment when love and necessity become the same thing?

  They reached an open square where the sky was almost black, looking north, as most people were doing. Shops were lighted, and the lighted windows of the buildings stood out against the sky, holding it off, and themselves to earth.

  —Where are we going, anyhow? Otto asked.

  —I’m going right up here, Max said, nodding ahead. Then, noticing Stanley’s careful walk again, he said, —Step on a crack, Break your mother’s back . . . and Stanley stopped. —Come on, Max laughed, and when Stanley came on, now obviously avoiding cracks in the pavement, Max said to him, —I can believe you’d really believe that, Stanley. What an unspotted soul for the devil to bid for. What do you think he’d give me, if I sold you to him?

  —You couldn’t, Stanley said.

  —All right, we’ll sell Otto. You wouldn’t mind, would you Otto?

  —Christ no, not at this point.

  —You couldn’t, Stanley said again.

  —Well Faust did, damn it, Otto broke out morosely, —Faust sold his soul to the devil.

  —No. That’s a fallacy, Stanley said looking round at him soberly. —That evil can take entire possession of the soul like that. Evil is self-limited.

  —Damn it, it was his soul, Otto said defiantly, —and he sold it to the devil.

  —No. It was not his to dispose of. We belong to our souls, not our souls to us.

  —Ontological dialectics, said Max, as they approached a subway entrance.

  Otto stood unsteadily, as though afloat, away from them, as Max clapped Stanley jovially on the shoulder and said, —Stanley’s fired by a divine spark. The words seemed to come from the great distance of sounds over water before a storm. He turned to Otto without breaking his smile. —But you and me . . . ?

  Otto stood there, his arm shivering in the sling, the wind blowing his hair up from behind. —Yes, he said, raising his eyebrows, —sometimes it’s difficult . . . he curled his lip slightly against its tendency to tremble, —it’s difficult to shed our human nature. Then he turned away quickly and stepped back to the curb, where he stood with his back to them, scraping the edge of his shoe. He heard Max laugh, and call to him, —A little always sticks . . . And when he turned, Max was disappearing into the pit of the subway. There was only Stanley, frail against the dark sky.

  —What’s the matter? Stanley asked him as he approached slowly.

  —There was something . . . Otto said, looking him in the face again, in the eyes, which were dull with the sky beyond. —Something . . .

  —What? . . . Stanley looked at him anxiously.

  —I don’t know, earlier, that moment . . . Otto said, looking more confused. —For a moment, a feeling that you . . . that you and I . . . It was as though you were someone who had been . . . He faltered, broke off, and looked up, recovering. —Damn it. He’s gone, Max?

  —Yes, he’s gone, down there, Stanley pointed.

  —And this damned thing, he left me this and took Collectors Quarterly, it cost a dollar.

  —Do you want it back? Stanley commenced helpfully. —If I see him . . .

  —That painting, Otto murmured, looking down again. He rubbed his free hand over his face. —The Christ in that painting, I wanted to look at it, I wanted to look at it again, there was something . . . familiar . . . he went on vaguely, mumbling, —and the Virgin . . .

  After a pause, Stanley said, —But there should be, Christ . . .

  —Not that, not that, Otto waved him back, and stood gripping his temples in an open hand. Then he dropped his hand and shook his head. —Never mind, he said. Looking at Stanley, he tried a strained smile. —The divine spark . . . he muttered, at the anxious face being weighed toward him by the uneven mustache. —And what are you going to do with it, anyhow? he brought out in sudden derision.

  —But that, Stanley said, coming a step nearer him, —that is what undoes us all. He stood before Otto looking into Otto’s eyes, waiting; but saw them narrow.

  —I hate him, Otto said, changing again as abruptly.

  —Who?

  —Him. Max.

  —But, why?

  —Yes . . . because he’ll survive.

  Every street she crossed, the black sky showed to her right, as though these were tunnels through to the “chilly hell” of the poet’s Elegy on the Thousand Children, through to Boreas, and beyond the north wind. And so every time she stepped from the curb, going west, she tried not to look; and always had looked before she stepped up on the curb ahead.

  As she came nearer the river, the pavement and the walks were wet with the light snow which had commenced since she started. She passed an empty baby carriage, and stopped, a step beyond it, to look back and make sure it was empty. Then she looked up and smiled at the woman who had been shaking a mop from the window above, and that woman only stared at her until she went on; and even then looked up, and a minute later stopped shaking the mop again, seeing her pause down the block and kneel on the wet walk to help a child with an entangled mitten-string, kneeling there, the narrow eyes of the woman in the window had it, a moment too long.

  On a trestle at the far end of the street an engine smashed a coupling closed with a shattering sound which was gone immediately, leaving a wail from the river beyond suspended on the particles of silt in the air, to be exhausted slowly as they were borne to earth by the scales of snow shed from above.

  Where a crate lay broken on the sidewalk she turned in at the doorway in this last block of Horatio Street. She sought the bell with no name and then, leaning against the door it came open before her finger found the bell, and his door was just inside. In front of it stood a wastebasket full: some bottles and tubes, electric-light bulbs, and that door was not tight closed.

  —Asleep? she whispered, entering. And she closed the door behind her silently, a hand on the knob and her back against it, slowly, as she looked round. Then she coughed, and covered her mouth quickly, for the room was full of a bitter cluster of smells from the smoldering pile in the fireplace. In fact some of it had burned on the hearth and lay smoking spilled out on the floor, and she hurried over and kicked the burning pieces back up on the bricks seeing, as she did so; the blackened edges of photographs, details of brushwork highly enlarged.

  There were torn bits of paper, torn pieces of canvas
and splinters of wood, a few books, some eggshells, a small squirrel-hair brush, strewn among the bright pigmented spots on the floor. Beside the low bed, where she went and sat on the edge, was a broken glass, a box of Dutch cigars unopened, a coconut, and a leather box filled with cuff links, collar buttons, paper clips, two penknives, another knife, bladeless, and a knifeless blade, buttons, pen points, studs, a number of keys, some brass wood-screws, a single pearl earring, and prominently, two large archaically studded hoops of gold. She leant down and wiped her wet cheeks with the end of a blanket that trailed from the welter on the floor. Then she straightened, on the very edge of the bed, and turned putting a hand forth, gently. —You . . . she whispered.

  She sat like that a minute more, seeming not to breathe, then she whispered again, —You . . . but more tartly, —if you keep your eyes closed, then where are you now without me?

  The bare bulb glared on her standing up, and she said, —It is very warm in here, taking two, and three, and four steps, taking off her coat. She laid it on a high stool and looked round her again, stood singly beneath the bare bulb and casting no shadow until she turned and walked toward the only whole canvas in the room, turned face-to-wall, where her shadow fell on it and on a single plane expanded over the rough and soiled back of it. She got hold of the frame and turned it from the wall.

  —Do you reproach me? she said, after a time of looking at it though their eyes did not meet, and then she extended her hand and traced its features. Then she whispered something and abruptly turned her back.

  Frank, Bishop of Zanzibar, lay on the floor at her foot; and she kicked the book away. Then she walked over to where the hinged mirrors stood against another wall, turned them open and closed them again quickly.