Sexus

  Walk down any street in the soft violet light. Make the mind blank. A thousand sensations assault you at once from every direction. Here man is still furred and feathered; here cyst and quartz still speak. There are audible, voluble buildings with sheet-metal visors and windows that sweat; places of worship too, where the children drape themselves about the porticoes like contortionists; rolling, ambulant streets where nothing stands still, nothing is fixed, nothing is comprehensible except through the eyes and mind of a dreamer. Hallucinating streets too, where suddenly all is silence, all is barren, as if after the passing of a plague. Streets that cough, streets that throb like a fevered temple, streets to die on and not a soul take notice. Strange, frangipanic streets, in which attar of roses mingles with the acrid bite of leek and scallion. Slippered streets, which echo with the pat and slap of lazy feet. Streets out of Euclid, which can be explained only by logic and theorem . . .

  Pervading all, suspended between the layers of the skin like a distillate of ruddy smoke, is the secondary sexual sweat—pubic, Orphic, mammalian—a heavy incense smuggled in by night on velvet pads of musk. No one is immune, not even the Mongolian idiot. It washes over you like the brush and passage of camisoled breasts. In a light rain it makes an invisible ethereal mud. It is of every hour, even when rabbits are boiled to a stew. It glistens in the tubes, the follicles, the papillaries. As the earth slowly wheels, the stoops and banisters turn and the children with them; in the murky haze of sultry nights all that is terrene, volupt and fatidical hums like a zither. A heavy wheel plated with fodder and feather beds, with little sweet-oil lamps and drops of pure animal sweat. All goes round and round, creaking, wobbling, lumbering, whimpering sometimes, but round and round and round. Then, if you become very still, standing on a stoop, for instance, and carefully think no thoughts, a myopic, bestial clarity besets your vision. There is a wheel, there are spokes, and there is a hub. And in the center of the hub there is—exactly nothing. It is where the grease goes, and the axle. And you are there, in the center of nothingness, sentient, fully expanded, whirring with the whir of planetary wheels. Everything becomes alive and meaningful, even yesterday’s snot which clings to the doorknob. Everything sags and droops, is mossed with wear and care; everything has been looked at thousands of times, rubbed and caressed by the occipital eye. . .

  A man of an olden race standing in a stone trance. He smells the food which his ancestors cooked in the millenary past: the chicken, the liver paste, the stuffed fish, the herrings, the eiderdown ducks. He has lived with them and they have lived in him. Feathers float through the air, the feathers of winged creatures caged in crates—as it was in Ur, in Babylon, in Egypt and Palestine. The same shiny silks, blacks turning green with age: the silks of other times, of other cities, other ghettos, other pogroms. Now and then a coffee grinder or a samovar, a little wooden casket for spices, for the myrrh and aloes of the East. Little strips of carpet—from the souks and bazaars, from the emporiums of the Levant; bits of astrakhan, laces, shawls, nubias, and petticoats of flaming, flouncing flamingo. Some bring their birds, their little pets—warm, tender things pulsing with tremulous beat, learning no new language, no new melodies, but pining away, droopy, listless, languishing in their superheated cages suspended above the fire escapes. The iron balconies are festooned with meat and bedding, with plants and pets—a crawling still life in which even the rust is rapturously eaten away. With the cool of the evening the young are exposed like eggplants; they lie back under the stars, lulled to dream by the obscene jabberwocky of the American street. Below, in wooden casks, are the pickles floating in brine. Without the pickle, the pretzel, the Turkish sweets, the ghetto would be without savor. Bread of every variety, with seeds and without. White, black, brown, even gray bread—of all weights, all consistencies . . .

  The ghetto! A marble table top with a basket of bread. A bottle of seltzer water, preferably blue. A soup with egg drops. And two men talking. Talking, talking, talking, with burning cigarettes hanging from their blanched lips. Nearby a cellar with music: strange instruments, strange costumes, strange airs. The birds begin to warble, the air becomes overheated, the bread piles up, the seltzer bottles smoke and sweat. Words are dragged like ermine through the spittled sawdust; growling, guttural dogs paw the air. Spangled women choked with tiaras doze heavily in their richly upholstered caskets of flesh. The magnetic fury of lust concentrates in dark, mahogany eyes.

  In another cellar an old man sits in his overcoat on a pile of wood, counting his coal. He sits in the dark, as he did in Cracow, stroking his beard. His life is all coal and wood, little voyages from darkness to daylight. In his ears is still the ring of hoofs on cobbled streets, the sound of shrieks and screams, the clatter of sabers, the splash of bullets against a blank wall. In the cinema, in the synagogue, in the coffeehouse, wherever one sits, two kinds of music playing—one bitter, one sweet. One sits in the middle of a river called Nostalgia. A river filled with little souvenirs gathered from the wreckage of the world. Souvenirs of the homeless, of birds of refuge building again and again with sticks and twigs. Everywhere broken nests, eggshells, fledglings with twisted necks and dead eyes staring into space. Nostalgic river dreams under tin copings, under rusty sheds, under capsized boats. A world of mutilated hopes, of strangled aspirations, of bulletproof starvation. A world where even the warm breath of life has to be smuggled in, where gems big as pigeons’ hearts are traded for a yard of space, an ounce of freedom. All is compounded into a familiar liver paste which is swallowed on a tasteless wafer. In one gulp there is swallowed down five thousand years of bitterness, five thousand years of ashes, five thousand years of broken twigs, smashed eggshells, strangled fledglings. . .

  In the deep subcellar of the human heart the dolorous twang of the iron harp rings out.

  Build your cities proud and high. Lay your sewers. Span your rivers. Work feverishly. Sleep dreamlessly. Sing madly, like the bulbul. Underneath, below the deepest foundations, there lives another race of men. They are dark, somber, passionate. They muscle into the bowels of the earth. They wait with a patience which is terrifying. They are the scavengers, the devourers, the avengers. They emerge when everything topples into dust.

  20

  For seven days and nights I was alone. I began to think that she had left me. Twice she telephoned, but she sounded far away, lost, swallowed up by grief. I remembered Mr. Eisenstein’s words. I wondered, wondered if she had been reclaimed.

  Then one day, towards closing time, she stepped out of the elevator and stood before me. She was all in black except for a mauve turban which gave her an exotic cast. A transformation had taken place. The eyes had grown still softer, the skin more translucent. Her figure had become seductively suave, her carriage more majestic. She had the poise of a somnambulist.

  For a moment I could scarcely believe my eyes. There was something hypnotic about her. She radiated power, magnetism, enchantment. She was like one of those Italian women of the Renaissance who gaze at you steadily with enigmatic smile from a canvas which recedes into infinity. In those few strides which she took before throwing herself into my arms I felt a gulf, such as I had never known could exist between two people, closing up. It was as though the earth had opened up between us, as if, by a supreme and magical effort of will, she had leaped the void and rejoined me. The ground on which she stood a moment ago fell away, slipped into a past altogether unknown to me, just as the shelf of a continent slips into the sea. Nothing so clear and tangible as this formulated itself in my mind then; it was only afterwards, because I rehearsed this moment time and again later, that I understood the nature of our reunion.

  Her whole body felt strangely different, as I pressed her close. It was the body of a creature who had been reborn. It was an entirely new body that she surrendered, new because it contained some element which hitherto had been missing. It was, strange as it may seem to say so, as if she had returned with her soul—and not her private, individual soul, but the soul of her race. She seemed to be
offering it to me, like a talisman.

  Words came to our lips with difficulty. We simply gurgled and stared at one another. Then I saw her glance roving over the place, taking everything in with a remorseless eye, and finally resting on my desk and on me. “What are you doing here?” she seemed to say. And then, as it softened, as she gathered me up in the folds of the tribe—“What have they done to you?” Yes, I felt the power and the pride of her people. I have not chosen you, it said, to sit among the lowly. I am taking you out of this world. I am going to enthrone you.

  And this was Mona, the Mona who had come to me from the center of the dance floor and offered herself, as she had offered herself to hundreds and perhaps thousands of others before me. Such a strange, wondrous flower is the human being! You hold it in your hand and while you sleep it grows, it becomes transformed, it exhales a narcotic fragrance.

  In a few seconds I had become worshipful. It was almost unbearable to look at her steadily. To think that she would follow me home, accept the life I had to offer her, seemed unbelievable. I had asked for a woman and I had been given a queen.

  What happened at dinner is a complete blank. We must have eaten in a restaurant, we must have talked, we must have made plans. I remember nothing of all this. I remember her face, her new soulful look, the brilliance and magnetism of the eyes, the translucent tone of the flesh.

  I remember that we walked for a time through deserted streets. And perhaps, listening only to the sound of her voice, perhaps then she told me everything, all that I had ever longed to know about her. I remember not a word of it. Nothing had any importance or meaning except the future. I held her hand, clasped it firmly, the fingers entwined, walking with her into the overabundant future. Nothing could possibly be what it had been before. The ground had opened up, the past had been swept away, drowned as deep as a lost continent. And miraculously—how miraculously I only realized as the moments prolonged themselves!—she had been saved, had been restored to me. It was my duty, my mission, my destiny in this life to cherish and protect her. As I thought of all that lay ahead I began to grow, from within, as if from a small seed. I grew inches in the space of a block. It was in my heart that I felt the seed bursting.

  And then, as we stood at a corner, a bus came along. We jumped in and went upstairs on the deck. To the very front seat. As soon as the fare had been paid I took her in my arms and smothered her with kisses. We were alone and the bus was careening over the bumpy pavement.

  Suddenly I saw her give a wild look around, raise her dress feverishly, and the next moment she was straddling me. We fucked like mad in the space of a few drunken blocks. She sat on my lap, even after it was over, and continued to caress me passionately.

  When we entered Arthur Raymond’s home the place was ablaze. It was as if they had been expecting her return. Kronski was there and Arthur’s two sisters, Rebecca, and some of her friends. They greeted Mona with the utmost warmth and affection. They almost wept over her.

  It was the moment to celebrate. Bottles were brought out, the table was spread, the phonograph wound up. “Yes, yes, let us rejoice!” everyone seemed to say. We literally flung ourselves at one another. We danced, we sang, we talked, we ate, we drank. More and more joyous it became. Everyone loved everyone. Union and reunion. On and on into the night, even Kronski singing at the top of his lungs. It was like a bridal feast. The bride had come back from the grave. The bride was young again. The bride had blossomed.

  Yes, it was a marriage. That night I knew that we were joined on the ashes of the past.

  “My wife, my wife!” I murmured, as we fell asleep.

  21

  With the death of her father Mona became more and more obsessed with the idea of getting married. Perhaps on his deathbed she had made a promise which she was trying to keep. Each time the subject came up a little quarrel ensued. (It seemed that I took the subject too lightly.) One day, after one of these tiffs, she began packing her things. She wasn’t going to stay with me another day. As we had no valise she had to wrap her things in brown paper. It made a very bulky, awkward bundle.

  “You’ll look like an immigrant going down the street with that,” I said. I had been sitting on the bed watching her maneuvers for a half hour or more. Somehow I couldn’t convince myself that she was leaving. I was waiting for the usual last-minute breakdown—a flare of anger, a burst of tears, and then a tender, heart-warming reconciliation.

  This time, however, she seemed determined to go through with the performance. I was still sitting on the bed as she dragged the bundle through the hall and opened the front door. We didn’t even say goodbye to one another.

  As the front door slammed to, Arthur Raymond came to the threshold and said: “You’re not letting her go like that, are you? It’s a bit inhuman, isn’t it?”

  “Is it?” I replied. I gave him a weak and rather forlorn smile.

  “I don’t understand you at all,” he said. He spoke as though he were controlling his anger.

  “She’ll probably be back tomorrow,” I said.

  “I wouldn’t be so sure of that, if I were you. She’s a sensitive girl . . . and you’re a cold-blooded bastard.”

  Arthur Raymond was working himself into a moral spasm. The truth was that he had become very fond of Mona. If he had been honest with himself he would have had to admit that he was in love with her.

  “Why don’t you go after her?” he said suddenly, after an awkward pause. “I’ll run down, if you like. Jesus, you can’t let her walk off like that!”

  I made no answer. Arthur Raymond bent over and placed a hand on my shoulder. “Come, come,” he said, “this is silly. You stay here . . . I’ll run after her and bring her back.”

  He rushed down the hall and opened the front door. I heard him exclaim: “Well, well! I was just going to fetch you. Good! Come on in. Here, let me take that. That’s fine.” I heard him laugh, that cheery, rattling laugh, which grated on one’s nerves sometimes. “Come on back here . . . he’s waiting for you. Sure, we’re all waiting for you. Why did you do such a thing? You mustn’t run away like that. We’re all friends, aren’t we? You can’t walk out on us like that. . .”

  From the tone of his voice one would think that Arthur Raymond was the husband, not I. It was almost as if he were giving me the cue.

  It was only a matter of a few seconds, all this, but in that interval, brief as it was, I saw Arthur Raymond again as I had the first time we met. Ed Gavarni had taken me to his home. For weeks he had been telling me of his friend Arthur Raymond and what a genius he was. He seemed to think that he had been granted a rare privilege in bringing the two of us together, because in Ed Gavarni’s opinion I too was a genius. There he sat, Arthur Raymond, in the gloom of a basement in one of those solemn-looking brownstone houses in the Prospect Park region. He was much shorter than I had expected him to be, but his voice was strong, hearty, cheery, like his handshake, like his whole personality. He emanated vitality.

  I had the impression instantly that I was face to face with an unusual person. He was at his very worst, too, as I discovered later. He had been out on a bat all night, had slept in his clothes, and was rather nervous and irritable. He sat down again at the piano, after a few words, a burnt-out butt hanging from his lips; as he talked he nervously drummed a few keys in the upper register. He had been forcing himself to practice because time was getting short—in a few days he was giving a recital, the first recital in long pants, you might say. Ed Gavarni explained to me that Arthur Raymond had been a child prodigy, that his mother had dressed him like Lord Fauntleroy and dragged him all over the continent, from one concert hall to another. And then one day Arthur Raymond had put his foot down and refused to be a performing chimpanzee any longer. He had developed a phobia about playing in public. He wanted to lead his own life. And he did. He had run amuck. He had done everything to destroy the virtuoso which his mother had created.