第21章 Wrack

-- Cold here in the garden. -- You were complaining about the sun. -- But when it goes behind a cloud -- -- Well, you cant have everything. -- The flowers are beautiful. -- Indeed. -- Consoling to have the flowers. -- Half-way consoled already. -- And these Japanese rocks -- -- Artfully placed, most artfully.

-- You must admit, a great consolation. -- And Social Security. -- A great consolation. -- And philosophy. Furthermore. -- I read a book. Just the other day. -- Sexuality, too. -- They have books about it. I read one. -- Well to the woods no more. I assume. -- Where theres a will theres a way. Thats what my mother always said.

-- I wonder if its true. -- I think not. -- Well, youre driving me crazy. -- Well youre driving me crazy too. Know what I mean? -- Going to snap one of these days. -- If you were a Japanese master you wouldnt snap. Those guys never snapped. Some of them were ninety. -- Well, you cant have everything.

-- Cold, here in the garden. -- Caw caw caw caw. -- You want to sing that song. -- Cant remember how it goes. -- Getting farther and farther away from life. -- How do you feel about that? -- Guilty but less guilty than I should. -- Can you fine-tune that for me? -- Not yet I want to think about it.

-- Well, I have to muck out the stable and buff up the silver. -- They trust you with the silver? -- Of course. I have their trust. -- You enjoy their trust. -- Absolutely. -- Well we still havent decided what color, to paint the trucks. -- I said blue. -- Surely not your last word on the subject.

-- I have some swatches. If youd care to take a gander. -- Not now. This sun is blistering. -- New skin. Youre going to complain? -- Thank the Lord for all small favors. -- The kid ever come to see you? -- Did for a while. Then stopped. -- How does that make you feel? -- Oh, I dont blame him.

-- Well, you cant have everything. -- Thats true. Whats the time? -- Looks to be about one. -- Wheres your watch? -- Hocked it. -- Whatd you get? -- Twelve-fifty. -- God, arent these flowers beautiful! -- Only three of them. But each remarkable, of its kind. -- What are they? -- Some kind of Japanese dealies I dont know.

-- Lazing in the garden. This is really most luxurious. -- Listening to the radio. "Elmers Tune." -- I dont like it when they let girls talk on the radio. -- Never used to have them. Now theyre everywhere. -- You cant really say too much. These days. -- Doesnt that make you nervous? Girls talking on the radio?

-- I liked HV Kaltenborn. Hes long gone. -- Whatd you do yesterday? -- Took a walk. In the wild trees. -- They spend a lot of time worrying about where to park their cars. Glad I dont have one. -- Havent eaten anything except some rice, this morning. Cooked it with chicken broth. -- This place is cold, no getting around it.

-- Forgot to buy soap, forgot to buy coffee -- -- All right. The hollowed-out book containing the single Swedish municipal bond in the amount of fifty thousand Swedish crowns is not yours. Weve established that. Lets go on. -- It was never mine. Or it might have been mine, once. Perhaps it belonged to my former wife. I said I wasnt sure. She was fond of hiding things in hollowed-out books.

-- We want not the shadow of a doubt. We want to be absolutely certain. -- I appreciate it. She had gray eyes. Gray with a touch of violet. -- Yes. Now, are these your doors? -- Yes. I think so. Are they on spring hinges? Do they swing? -- They swing in either direction. Spring hinges. Wood slats. -- She did things with her eyebrows. Painted them gold. You had the gray eyes with a touch of violet, and the gold eyebrows. Yes, the doors must be mine. I seem to remember her bursting through them. In one of the several rages of a summers day. -- When? -- It must have been some time ago. Some years. I dont know what theyre doing here. It strikes me they were in another house. Not this house. I mean its kind of cloudy. -- But theyre here. -- She sometimes threw something through the doorway before bursting through the doorway herself. Acid, on one occasion. -- But the doors are here. Theyre yours. -- Yes. They seem to be. I mean, Im not arguing with you. On the other hand, theyre not something I want to remember, particularly. They have sort of an unpleasant aura around them, for some reason. I would have avoided them, left to myself. -- I dont want to distress you. Unnecessarily. -- I know, I know, I know. Im not blaming you, but it just seems to me that you could have let it go. The doors. Im sure you didnt mean anything by it, but still -- -- I didnt mean anything by it. Well, lets leave the doors, then, and go on to the dish. -- Plate. -- Lets go on to the plate, then. -- Plate, dish, I dont care, its something of an imposition, you must admit, to have to think about it. Normally I wouldnt think about it. -- It has your name on the back. Engraved on the back. -- Where? Show me. -- Your name. Right there. And the date, 1962. -- I dont want to look. Ill take your word for it. That was twenty years ago. My God. She read RD Laing. Aloud, at dinner. Every night. Interrupted only by the telephone. When she answered the telephone, her voice became animated. Charming and animated. Gaiety. Vivacity. Laughter. In contrast to her reading of RD Laing. Which could only be described as punitive. OK, so its mine. My plate. -- Its a dish. A bonbon dish. -- You mean to say that you think that I would own a bonbon dish? A sterling-silver or whatever it is bonbon dish? Youre mad. -- The doors were yours. Why not the dish? -- A bonbon dish? -- Perhaps she craved bonbons? -- No no no no no. Not so. Sourballs, perhaps. -- Lets move on to the shoe, now. I dont have that much time. -- The shoe is definitely not mine. -- Not yours. -- Its a womans shoe. Its too small for me. My foot, this foot here, would never in the world fit into that shoe. -- I am not suggesting that the shoe is yours in the sense that you wear or would wear such a shoe. Its obviously a womans shoe. -- The shoe is in no sense a thing of mine. Although found I admit among my things. -- Its here. An old-fashioned shoe. Eleven buttons. -- There was a vogue for that kind of shoe, some time back, among the young people. It might have belonged to a young person. I sometimes saw young persons. -- With what in mind? -- I fondled them, if they were fondleable. -- Within the limits of the law, of course. -- Certainly. "Young person" is an elastic term. You think Im going to mess with jailbait? -- Of course not. Never occurred to me. The shoe has something of the pathetic about it. A wronged quality. Do you think it possible that the shoe may be in some way a cri de coeur? -- Not a chance. -- You were wrong about the dish. -- Ive never heard a cri de coeur. -- Youve never heard a cri de coeur? -- Perhaps once. When Shirley was with us? -- Who was Shirley? -- The maid. She was studying eschatology. Maiding parttime. She left us for a better post. Perfectly ordinary departure. -- Did she perhaps wear shoes of this type? -- No. Nor was she given to the cri de coeur. Except, perhaps, once. Death of her flying fish. A cry wrenched from her bosom. Rather like a winged phallus it was, she kept it in a washtub in the basement. One day it was discovered belly-up. She screamed. Then, insisted it be given the Last Rites, buried in a fish cemetery, holy water sprinkled this way and that -- -- You fatigue me. Now, about the hundred-pound sack of saccharin. -- Mine. Indubitably mine. Im forbidden to use sugar. I have a condition. -- Im delighted to hear it. Not that you have a condition but that the sack is, without doubt, yours. -- Mine. Yes. -- I cant tell you how pleased I am. The inquiry moves. Progress is made. Results are obtained. -- What are you writing there, in your notes? -- That the sack is, beyond a doubt, yours. -- I think its mine. -- What do you mean, think? You stated. . . Is it yours or isnt it? -- I think its mine. It seems to be. -- Seems! -- I just remembered, I put sugar in my coffee. At breakfast. -- Are you sure it wasnt saccharin? -- White powder of some kind. . . -- There is a difference in texture. . . -- No, I remember, it was definitely sugar. Granulated. So the sack of saccharin is definitely not mine. -- Nothing is yours. -- Some things are mine, but the sack is not mine, the shoe is not mine, the bonbon dish is not mine, and the doors are not mine. -- You admitted the doors. -- Not wholeheartedly. -- You said, I have it right here, written down, "Yes, they must be mine." -- Sometimes we hugged. Lengthily. Heart to heart, the one trying to pull the other into the upright other. . . -- I have it right here. Written down. "Yes, they must be mine." -- I withdraw that. -- You cant withdraw it. Ive written it down. -- Nevertheless I withdraw it. Its inadmissible. It was coerced. -- You feel coerced? -- All that business about "dish" rather than "plate" -- -- That was a point of fact, it was, in fact, a dish. -- You have a hectoring tone. I dont like to be hectored. You came here with something in mind. You had made an a priori decision. -- Thats a little ridiculous when you consider that I have, personally, nothing to gain. Either way. Whichever way it goes. -- Promotion, advancement. . . -- We dont operate that way. That has nothing to do with it. I dont want to discuss this any further. Lets go on to the dressing gown. Is the dressing gown yours? -- Maybe. -- Yes or no? -- My business. Leave it at "maybe." -- I am entitled to a good, solid, answer. Is the dressing gown yours? -- Maybe. -- Please. -- Maybe maybe maybe maybe. -- You exhaust me. In this context, the word "maybe" is unacceptable. -- A perfectly possible answer. People use it every day. -- Unacceptable. What happened to her? -- She made a lot of money. Opened a Palais de Glace, or skating rink. Read RD Laing to the skaters over the PA system meanwhile supplementing her income by lecturing over the country as a spokesperson for the unborn. -- The gold eyebrows, still? -- The gold eyebrows and the gray-with-violet eyes. On television, very often. -- In the beginning, you dont know. -- Thats true. -- Just one more thing: The two mattresses surrounding the single slice of salami. Are they yours? -- I get hungry. In the night. -- The struggle is admirable. Useless, but admirable. Your struggle. -- Cold, here in the garden. -- Youre too old, thats all it is, think nothing of it. Dont give it a thought. -- I havent agreed to that. Did I agree to that? -- No, I must say you resisted. Admirably, resisted. -- I did resist. Would you allow "valiantly"? -- No no no no. Come come come. -- "Wholeheartedly"? -- Yes, okay, what do I care? -- Wholeheartedly, then. -- Yes. -- Wholeheartedly. -- We still havent decided what color to paint the trucks. -- Yes. How about blue?