The Recognitions

  Esther started toward the dark doorway. Then across the room she saw Ellery coming from the bedroom passage. She turned toward him, but he appeared not to see her. When she got there the blonde was coming out. She smoothed her dress and smiled at Esther as she passed. Esther started to speak, but the blonde went on, smiling pleasantly, unhearing, fretting the quiescent cat that had swallowed whole the fled canary as she walked away.

  In the bedroom Esther entered with her hand pressed against her belly, and turned on the hot light beside her mirror. She looked at the powder spilled on the dressing table. Then she turned, the heels of her hands buried in her eyes and sat down for a moment before she could look: the bedspread had been straightened with quick carelessness so that one corner hung to the floor, and the pillow lay half uncovered. She ran her hand through her hair, and looked up to say, —Rose? with dull loudness. From the next room all she heard was, —I’ve put a cigarette down somewhere . . .

  —Rose?

  —Well I’m proving that Einstein doesn’t exist . . .

  She got up and went back into the room.

  —A million people a year in this country try to disappear, what does that mean?

  —Pony boy, I feel light enough to skip all the way home.

  —Aren’t you going to even say good night to her?

  —I stopped knowing her years ago.

  —Oh Chrahst, Chrahst, you haven’t seen a greasy-looking guy with shiny hair have you, because I mean Chrahst I can’t have lost him.

  —Is your name really Adeline? Herschel was asking the blonde as he left her. —Because baby I had a nurse once who looked just like you, I bit her . . . you-know-where! But you’re going to Hollywood? Baby so am I, maybe I’ll see you there and we’ll have a nice teat-a-teat over old times . . . He was backing toward the roseate misery of the Swede, who was holding his swollen nose. —Now it’s all right, baby . . .

  —But those Boy Scouts! I’ll never speak to a Boy Scout again.

  —Don’t cry, baby. Think about Rudy, I know something terrible has happened to that one, but I gave him this address when he called and said he was in an auto smash . . .

  —Where’s Bildow?

  —He went to the police station.

  —Why doesn’t somebody just tell the French they’re through.

  —You’ll like this song, said Mr. Crotcher to no one.

  —This shiny-looking little guy with greasy hair, I mean Chrahst I can’t have lost him, Chrahst.

  —We’ll just go where they’ve got some gone numbers on the box. We can order coffee and get high on benny.

  —Come on, Ellery said to him. —I hate to see you like this, Jesus Christ Benny, you’re my best friend, you’re the best friend I got.

  —That’s all it is, Benny went on. —What’s tragedy to you is an anecdote to everybody else. We’re comic. We’re all comics. We live in a comic time. And the worse it gets the more comic we are.

  —Benny you’re going to take me with you aren’t you? the figure with flannel sleeves to his elbows broke in. —You are really going aren’t you? We’re really going, aren’t we?

  —We’re comic because there isn’t anything else that . . . that has to . . . anything else that has to be.

  —Benny, relax, forget it, look, that church gimmick, you’re in, you’re made Benny . . . Ellery was supporting him, but he wrenched away when he saw Mr. Feddle who had just finished inscribing the book he held, with best wishes from Benedict Arnold.

  —What happened to him? Benny demanded. —To him, Fedya, the one you told me about. What happened to him? he pressed.

  —Why, he killed himself, of course, said Mr. Feddle with relish. —He was Russian. Benny had a hand on his wrist. —Yes, right after he said, “No need to ask! I did it all myself. The design was mine, and the deed was mine . . .” The hand fastened to his wrist loosed and fell away. —Right after he said, “When the claw is caught, the bird is lost . . .” Mr. Feddle went on, muttering, withdrawing, looking at his own hand. —Or was that The Power of Darkness? Nikíta, in The Power of Darkness . . . ?

  —Benny, tomorrow morning Benny . . .

  —In Rome I’ll be at the Dingle. —The Dingle? —The Dingleberry, baby. —What are you sailing on? —One of the Queens of course . . .

  Esther did look in need of aid, returning across that room; so everyone avoided looking at her. They renewed their assaults on one another instead.

  —I can’t imagine cutting my wrists in Pokheepsie.

  —Hemingway? Well he said he’s staying at the Ritz, but I say the Ritz was torn down simply years ago . . .

  —He joined the Church? I knew him when he joined the Yale Club.

  —Then do we all get scared when we get old?

  Esther reached the bathroom door as Arny Munk came out led by Sonny Byron, who was saying, —We’ll find her, and she doesn’t need to know a thing about it. Now tell the truth, wasn’t it nice? while Mr. Crotcher sang, —Today is the day they give babies away . . .

  In the bathroom Esther leaned against the wall and wet a washcloth. She stared at her mirror face until she realized that it could do nothing but stare back, and then thrust the washcloth between her eyes and their image; as she drew the wet cloth across her skin the bloodlines on the whites of her eyes claimed the eyes for flesh, the firmness of the bones softened, the lines of life, and the insistence of the mouth, all of it fused into one soft inanimate flesh. She had already asked him to stay the night; now she turned to seek him.

  In the room the critic turned, to the hand of the Duchess of Ohio. —I can’t just listen to this prwetty music without dancing, will you dance with me? . . . The critic left him sprawled on the floor where he’d pushed him.

  —And the oddest joke about the Pope, I don’t understand it at all.

  —I mean Chrahst, I can’t have lost him.

  —Flo-flo?

  —Florence, baby.

  She was not really surprised, in the bedroom, to see him lying there in the green wool shirt, that and nothing else. She turned quickly to close the door and bolt it: it seemed to take her an age to reach it.

  —President McKinley had one

  —I can play The Stars and Stripes Forever, or Violets lying under the piano

  —The far lockaway rocker room story

  —And the garbage cans

  —The Pope

  —The Swiss

  —The Wright brothers and the ships of the Russian navy

  —Loved him

  —This time it was a kitten

  —Hated her

  Most penetrating, just outside the door she closed, unmocking, —Some sleeping pills that my mummy sent me up for, I know which bottle it is if you’ll just lift me up.

  Esther held to a corner of the bureau stepping out of her shoes, and she pulled off her skirt. Then she reached to turn out the light.

  —Don’t. Leave it on.

  The woollen sleeve scratched her uncovered shoulders, her legs gave, soft against the hard tense muscles where she strained her hollowness to him. —Are you going to . . . take this off?

  —Yes, in a . . . minute. His cold hand wrenched her shoulder down.

  —But now, I don’t know . . . whether I dare . . .

  —No, you just . . .

  —But what are you, I thought only little boys,

  —It’s all right, I,

  —But what am I supposed to do? she cried.

  —You, just . . . watch, he said breathlessly.

  The long streets were straight tunnels of wind charged with snow which bit the skin of any out struggling against it, the paving hard-packed with that snow, its whiteness gone under a thousand dirty wheels, spotted and streaked from leaking oil-pans, dug here and there by a desperate heel. The undisciplined lights, most of them red for they hung before bars, shone through it, instructed by the tireless precision of the traffic lights turning green to red, red to green, halting precarious passage, releasing it.

  Down the subway steps came a figure
on all fours, and those who glanced at it looked away, or stopped to stare, almost as little able to stand up themselves though, if they had gone down like he was, they would have been as unable to move with his forceful ease, down, to drop his coin in the slot with his lips and pass through the stile, out onto the platform and, with hardly a minute’s wait, onto a train.

  —Arthur! What are you doing? Get up on your feet.

  He turned his head, to look up and see a small woman in a black silk dress, tight up to her throat, a woman three times his age, who had lived twice the years she had given him since she gave him birth. He looked at her.

  —Get up on your feet, I say. She clutched at the black-and-gold book in her lap, and nothing else moved but her thin lips as she spoke in low intensity, —Get up this instant. Where did you get that furpiece? You stole it! Get up this instant. Suddenly she reached out, and though he was very near her thin knees, with a motion as slight as an animal’s evasion, and as seemingly careless, he avoided her hand. She clutched the book again. —Get up on your feet this instant, I demand. The train roared on. He looked at her.

  Mickey Mouse semaphored annul. —It can’t be that late. She held it to her ear. —I think it’s stopped, she said. —He can’t have stopped, she said, halting under a streetlamp.

  —Wait here. There’s a cab. Abruptly, she was alone, and she sank back against a building, watching him run toward the curb at the corner, where he slipped and fell. Behind her, one of the indistinct shadows articulated itself.

  —Oh no, stop!

  —What happened? he asked, brushing snow from himself with one hand, supporting her with the other.

  —He stole my purse . . .

  —But let me go, I can catch him . . .

  —Oh no, she said, clinging to him. —He stole my purse. He stole my purse, she cried, all of her weight on him, laughing and crying at once.

  He looked round desperately; then his whole expression, and his bearing, changed. He murmured something, and without much difficulty guided her up the cathedral’s steps, and he took her in.

  —Can you kneel? They were struck down by that vast silence, dropping like a weight from stone arches out of all reach; they struggled to the surface again, and it was penetrated with a bell’s ringing like a rapier through stone. —I can’t breathe, she said. She fell back in the pew, pulling at the front of her dress as her coat fell open.

  He stared before him at serenity which, transfigured in light, seemed to move for him. —Could you take communion? he asked her, shaping the silence which lay between them, cutting a hard bit out of it to pierce her.

  —I . . . it isn’t . . . not now, she whispered, hacking his silence into shreds of shale, irregular fragments of its weight thrown against him. He started her to her feet, toward the liberation of the nave’s channel which flowed in one direction from which the silence seemed suddenly to be gathered and hurled back with all its weight upon them.

  —qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis . . .

  She fell over against him, dead weight.

  —miserere nobis . . .

  He supported her, as she regained her feet.

  —dona nobis pacem . . .

  He turned and followed her, where she ran from the rapier that struck behind them, out through the gigantic doors which spilled them together into that unholy night.

  He might have caught her had he not fallen on the steps, a thing which she, for all her gyrations, somehow managed not to do. He did not reach her again until almost a block away where she stopped, breathing hard, under a red-lighted doorway. Even then, before he could hold her, she was inside the bar, where a battered man ran his hand over his uncared-for chin and stared at them, and the bartender came forward.

  —Now I’d like a martini, she said, speaking clearly, seating herself.

  —But Agnes . . .

  —And you, sir?

  —Nothing. A glass of water. Agnes . . .

  She looked at him, glazed, without recognition.

  —Agnes . . .

  The bartender tapped his fingers on the bar, waiting.

  —Agnes . . . He looked up at the bartender, surprised. —Oh, here, he said then, and handed over the twenty-dollar bill from his pocket. —I’m sorry, that’s all I have. Agnes . . .

  The bartender walked slowly toward the back of the bar, looking idly at the bill. —What’sa matter, you never saw American money before? said his battered client. —I see it alla time. I’m Santy Claus.

  —Agnes, please . . .

  —I’m going to a hotel, she said, straight before her, to no one, a she set down her empty glass. —I’ll write him a letter.

  The bartender had taken the bill over to hold it under a desk lamp which he turned on beside the cash register.

  —Agnes, wait a minute . . . She got down from her stool.

  —Wait a minute here, you two. Stanley turned. The bartender had him by the arm across the bar. —Wait a minute. Stop her.

  —Agnes, wait . . .

  —I can’t stop her. I’m Santy Claus.

  —Agnes, my glasses. You forgot to give me my glasses . . .

  A few minutes later Stanley stood, eyeless enough in this reduction of Gaza, waiting for a patrol car. —You could tell it a mile away, the way the front of it’s smeared, said the bartender to the patrolman who held Stanley’s arm. —He had a dame with him, but she beat it. Thanks, Mac. He went back inside; and the patrolman turned his attention to his charge, to where the falling snow clotted the mustache, and gathered in the folds of hair on the back of the round head, silently, with a tourist’s dull curiosity, the patrolman gazed as a tourist might upon the pitted figure of a saint in indefatigable stone, left insensibly exposed in the weather a century too long.

  Roaring alight where the night never ended, underground, she said, —Arthur, get up on your feet. Don’t you know me? Don’t you know who I am?

  He looked at her.

  The train halted. Its doors opened, and before she could move they closed behind him and left her, recovering from her moment of indecision, seated and staring straight ahead.

  On all fours, he trotted down the emptied platform. He paused for a moment and raised his head to look round him; then he went on, and bumped open the door to the men’s room with his head. It was empty. He rose to his knees and reached into his pocket. The crumpled picture he threw into a toilet. With his other hand he undid his clothes, and opened the razor. He paused so, staring up at the dim illumination of the weak electric bulb, his voice audible only then, —In nomine . . . though his lips continued to move, without a tremor, as his hands worked quickly, with deft certainty, unseen.

  —Why you could tell it a mile away.

  —And the broad with him . . .

  —The broad with him . . .

  —You could have told her a mile away. Hello Jimmy. Merry Christmas. Come on in and have one for Christmas.

  —Happy Yom Kipper. What’re you doin.

  —I’m drinkin, what’s it look like I’m doin? Set one up for our friend here, Barney.

  —It’s a free country.

  —Cozy fan tooty.

  —The same to you. What does that mean?

  —That’s fuck you in Latin.

  —That’s not Latin.

  —O.K., so why should it mean anything? Cozy fan tooty, that’s just an expression.

  —Well here’s good luck. Happy Yom Kipper.

  —That’s how much you know, “happy yom kipper.” Happy Yom Kippur was around Hallowe’en.

  —So you’re meine Yiddische Sendy Claus?

  —That’s no joke now, that’s no joke. If it wasn’t for the Jews there wouldn’t be no Christmas.

  —So you’re a Jew?

  —So I’m a Jew. Tell him Barney, ain’t I a Jew?

  —Come on, you’re no more Jew than my dick.

  —Quiet down, now. Quiet down.

  —I been pissed off at him for five years.

  —Yeah, well you ought to be good and wet the
n.

  —Quiet down, now.

  —O.K. Barney. Thanks for the beer. Just tell Santa Claus here to hold his water.

  —You both better quiet down or go. It stopped snowing.

  —It finally stopped snowing?

  —You’re not being a perfect host, Barney. You’re supposed to be the perfect host.

  —It finally stopped snowing? Well I’ll be damned.

  —Merry Christmas,

  —And it finally stopped snowing,

  —Happy Yom Kipper,

  —Well I’ll be damned.

  VIII

  Then Adam, seeing Enoc and Elias, says,

  Say, what maner men bene yee,

  That bodely meten vs, as I see,

  And, dead, come not to Hell as we,

  Since all men damned were?

  When I trespassed, God hett me

  That this place closed always should be

  From earthly man to haue entry;

  And yet fynd I you here.

  —The Harrowing of Hell

  Undisciplined lights shone through the night instructed by the tireless precision of the squads of traffic lights, turning red to green, green to red, commanding voids with indifferent authority: for the night outside had not changed, with the whole history of night bound up in it had not become better nor worse, fewer lights and it was darker, less motion and it was more empty, more silent, less perturbed, and like the porous figures which continued to move against it, more itself.

  Mr. Inononu turned from the window and walked, apparently aimless in the suit which billowed silently about him, toward the fireplace, where something smoldered.