City (5 page)

Shatzy turned to Gould, who had not missed a line.

“How's that?”

“My father isn't a colonel.”

“No?”

“General.”

“OK, general. And the rest?”

“If you keep going at this rate by the time you finish I won't need a governess anymore.”

“That's true. Let me see . . .”

Gould handed her the list of questions. Shatzy glanced at it, then stopped at a question on the second page.

“This is a quick one. Read it . . .”

“31. Can the applicant briefly state the dream of her life?”

“I can.”

My dream is to make a Western. I began when I was six and I intend not to die before I finish it.

“Voilà.”

From the time she was six, Shatzy Shell had been working on a Western. It was the only thing she truly cared about, in life. She thought about it constantly. When good ideas came to her, she turned on her portable tape recorder and spoke them into it. She had recorded hundreds of tapes. She said it was a wonderful Western.

4

They killed off Mami Jane in the January issue, in a story entitled “Killer Rails.” That's the way things go.

5

That business about the Western, among other things, was true. Shatzy had been working on it for years. In the beginning she had collected ideas, then she had started writing things down, filling notebooks. Now she used a tape recorder. Every so often she turned it on and spoke into it. She didn't have a definite method, but she went on, without stopping. And the Western grew. It started with a cloud of sand at sunset.

The usual cloud of sand at sunset, every evening wafted by the wind over the earth and into the sky, while Melissa Dolphin sweeps the road in front of her house; whipped by the river of circling air she sweeps, with unreasoning care, and futile. But carrying her sixty-three years calmly and gratefully. Twin sister of Julie Dolphin, who, swinging on the verandah, sheltered from the worst of the wind, watches her now: watching her, through the dust, she alone understands her.

To the right, laid out along the main street, runs the town. To the left, nothing. There is no frontier beyond their fence, only a land that has been decreed useless, and has been abolished from thought. Rocks and nothing. When someone dies in these parts, people say: the Dolphin sisters saw him pass by. No house is farther out here than their house. Nor elsewhere, they say.

So it is with astonishment that Melissa Dolphin raises her gaze to that nothingness and sees the figure of a man slowly approaching, blurry in the cloud of sand and sunset. Although she has occasionally seen something disappear in that direction—thornbushes, animals, an old man, useless glances—something
appear,
never. Someone.

Julie, she says softly, and turns towards her sister.

Julie Dolphin is standing, on the verandah, and in her right hand she's holding a Winchester model 1873, octagonal barrel, .44-.40 caliber. She looks at the man—he walks slowly, with his hat lowered over his eyes, duster down to the ground, leading something, a horse, something, a horse and something, a bandanna protects his face from the dust. Julie Dolphin raises the rifle, slides the wooden butt against her right shoulder, bends her head to align eye, sight, man.

Yes, Melissa, she says softly.

She aims at the middle of his chest, and fires.

The man stops.

He looks up.

He lowers the bandanna that hides his face.

Julie Dolphin looks at him. She reloads. Then she bends her head to align eye, sight, man.

She aims at his face, and fires.

The echo of the shot is swallowed up in the dust. Julie Dolphin knocks the cartridge out of the bolt: Morgan red, .44-.40 caliber. She remains standing, watching.

It takes the man a few minutes to get to Melissa Dolphin, motionless in the middle of the road. He takes off his hat.

Closingtown?

It depends, Melissa Dolphin answers.

Shatzy Shell's Western began exactly like that.

6

“I'm going with you.”

“Why?”

“I want to see this damn school,” Shatzy said.

So they went out, the two of them; there was a bus or you could walk. Let's walk part of the way, then maybe take the bus. OK, but cover up.

“What did you say?”

“I don't know, Gould, what did I say?”

“Cover up.”

“No way.”

“I swear.”

“You dreamed it.”

“You said cover up, as if you were my mother.”

“Come on, let's go.”

“You said it.”

“Stop this.”

“I swear.”

“And cover up.”

The street sloped slightly downhill, and the ground was littered with leaves that had fallen from the trees, so Gould shuffled his feet as he walked, as if he had moles instead of shoes, moles that were tunneling through the leaves, making a noise like a cigar being lighted, but multiplied a thousand times. A red and yellow noise.

“My father smokes cigars.”

“Really?”

“He'd like you.”

“He
does like me,
Gould.”

“How do you know?”

“I can tell, from his voice.”

“Really?”

“You can tell a lot of things, from a person's voice.”

“For example?”

“For example, let's say you hear someone with a beautiful voice, really beautiful, a man with a beautiful voice, OK?”

“OK.”

“Then you can bet on it, he's ugly.”

“Ugly.”

“Worse than ugly, really ugly, a greaseball, you know, he's too tall, or he has fat hands that are always sweaty, always sort of moist, you get the picture?”

“So.”

“What do you mean, so?”

“I don't know, I don't like to shake hands. In fact I don't have much experience of hands.”

“You don't like to shake hands.”

“No. It's stupid.”

“Oh?”

“Grown-ups' hands are always too big. It's pointless for them to shake hands with
me,
just thinking about it is stupid, and in the end it's always embarrassing.”

“Once, on TV, I saw the Nobel Prizes being given out. Well, one person went up there, in a fancy outfit, and then all he did was shake hands, from start to finish.”

“That's another story.”

“It's a story I'm interested in. Tell it to me, Gould.”

“What do you mean?”

“The Nobel Prize.”

“What about it?”

“How did they decide to have you win it?”

“They didn't
decide
to have me win it.”

“You mean you just won it?”

“They don't give the Nobel Prize to children.”

“They could make an exception.”

“Stop it.”

“OK.”

“. . .”

“. . .”

“. . .”

“All right, then how did it happen, Gould?”

“Nothing, it's nonsense, you know—a way of talking, I think.”

“Odd way of talking.”

“So you don't like it?”

“It's not that I don't like it.”

“You don't like it.”

“I find it odd, that's all. How can you think of telling a child that he's going to win the Nobel Prize? He may be intelligent, and what have you, but you can't know—maybe he's not
that
intelligent, maybe he doesn't
want
to win the Nobel, and anyway, even if he does, why tell him? Isn't it better to leave him alone, let him do what he has to do, and then one morning he'll wake up and they'll say have you heard the news? You've won the Nobel Prize. The end.”

“Look, no one's said anything to me . . .”

“It's the way you talk to someone when he's going to die.”

“. . .”

“. . .”

“. . .”

“It was only an example, Gould.”

“. . .”

“Come on, Gould, it was only an example . . . Gould, look at me.”

“What's the matter?”

“It was only an example.”

“OK.”

Gould stopped and looked back. There were the two furrows dug by his feet through the leaves, like long, even stripes, vanishing into the distance. You could imagine that someone would come along, perhaps hours later, and walk with his feet in the two lanes, slowly, having fun keeping his feet in the lanes. Gould jumped to one side and moved on, walking carefully, trying not to leave tracks. He looked back at the two stripes that had been suddenly interrupted.
The Adventures of the Invisible Man,
he thought.

“There's the bus, Gould. Shall we take it?”

“Yes.”

It went to the end of the avenue and then turned, going up the hill, skirting the park, and passing the animal hospital. It was a red bus. Eventually, it arrived at the school.

“Hey, it's nice,” said Shatzy.

“Yes.”

“It's really nice, I'd never have imagined it.”

“You can't tell from here, but it keeps on going back. There are all the playing fields, and then it goes on, for a long way.”

“Lovely.”

They stood there next to each other, looking. Boys were going in and out, and there was a big lawn in front of the steps, with paths and a couple of enormous, slightly twisted trees.

“You know the field behind the house, where they play soccer?” said Gould.

“Yes.”

“Those are the same boys, the ones who play soccer.”

“Yes.”

“The odd thing is that even when there's no ball around they play. Every so often you see them kicking in the air, or pretending to dribble. Maybe they'll make a header, but there's no ball, they're just jogging a little while they wait for the coach to get there, or for the game to begin. Sometimes they're not even dressed to play—they've got their schoolbags, they have their coats on—but still they'll make a pass to the midfielder, or they'll be dribbling a chair, stuff like that.”

“. . .”

“. . .”

“. . .”

“For me it's the same.”

“. . .”

“School, I mean, for me it's just like that.”

“. . .”

“Even if there's no book, no professor, no school, nothing, I . . . it's the same thing . . . I never stop my . . . I never stop. You see?”

“I guess.”

“It's something I like. I never stop thinking about it.”

“Funny.”

“You see?”

“Yes.”

“The Nobel Prize has nothing to do with it, you see?”

The thing is, they weren't even looking at each other; they were still standing there, eyes wandering over the school, the lawn, the trees, and everything else.

“I wasn't serious, Gould.”

“Really?”

“Of course not. I was talking just to talk, you shouldn't listen to me, I'm the last person you should listen to on the subject of school. Believe me.”

“OK.”

“All in all, school's not my strong point.”

“. . .”

“Excuse me, Gould.”

“It's nothing.”

“OK.”

“I'm glad you like it.”

“What?”

“Here.”

“Yes.”

“It's nice here.”

“But you'll come home, later, OK?”

“Of course I'm coming home.”

“Do it: come home.”

“Yes.”

“OK.”

Then they looked at each other. At first, they didn't. They sort of looked. Gould had on a wool cap, slightly askew, so that one ear was covered and the other wasn't. Looking at him, you would have had to have very sharp eyes to see that he was a genius. Shatzy pulled his hat down over the uncovered ear. Bye, she said. Gould went through the gate and started out along the central path, across the big lawn. He didn't look back. He seemed very small, in the middle of that whole school; Shatzy thought that she had never, in her whole life, seen anything smaller than that boy with his schoolbag, as he went along the path, becoming smaller and smaller with each step. She thought it was scandalous to allow a child to be so alone, and that at the very least he should have had a band of hussars behind him, or something of the sort, to escort him along the path and into his classes, a couple of dozen hussars, maybe more. But like this it was terrible.

“It's terrible,” she said to two boys who were coming out, with books under their arms and comic-book shoes.

“Is something wrong?”

“Everything's wrong.”

“Oh?”

The boys sneered.

“Do you know someone called Gould?”

“Gould?”

“Yes, Gould.”

“The kid?”

They sneered.

“Yes, the kid.”

“Of course we know him.”

“What is there to sneer at?”

“Mr. Nobel, who doesn't know him?”

“What is there to sneer at?”

“Hey, cool it, sister.”

“So, do you know him or not?”

“Yes, we know him.”

“Are you friends of his?”

“Who, us?”

“You.”

They sneered.

“He's not friends with anyone.”

“What do you mean?”

“He's not friends with anyone, that's what it means.”

“Doesn't he go to school with you?”

“He lives there, at school.”

“So?”

“So nothing.”

“He goes to class like everyone else, doesn't he?”

“What's it to you? What are you, some kind of a journalist?”

“I'm not a journalist.”

“She's his mama.”

They snorted.

“I am not his mama. He has a mother.”

“And who is she, Marie Curie?”

“Fuck you.”

“Hey sister, cool it.”

“Cool it yourself.”

“You're out of your mind.”

“Fuck you.”

“Hey.”

“Leave her alone. She's nuts.”

“What the fuck . . .”

“Come on, forget it . . .”

“She's nuts.”

“Let's go, come on.”

They weren't sneering any more.

“YOU WON'T BE SO SMART WHEN THE HUSSARS ARRIVE,” Shatzy shouted after them.

“Just listen to her.”

“Forget it, come on.”

“THEY'LL HANG YOU, AND PEOPLE LIKE YOU, BY THE BALLS, AND THEN THEY'LL USE YOU FOR TARGET PRACTICE.”

“She's nuts.”

“Unbelievable.”

Shatzy turned back towards the school. They'll hang you by the balls, she murmured softly. Then she blew her nose. It was very cold. She looked at the big lawn and the twisted trees. She had seen trees like that before, but she couldn't remember where. In front of some museum, perhaps. It was very cold. She took out her gloves and put them on. Damn it all, she thought. She looked at the time. There were boys coming out and boys going in. The school was white. The lawn was turning yellow. Damn it all, she thought.

Then she began to run.

She turned onto the path and ran all the way to the steps, took the steps two at a time, and went into the school. She proceeded to the end of a long corridor, took the stairs to the second floor, went into a kind of cafeteria and out the other side, went down one floor, opened all the doors she could find, ended up outside the school again, crossed a playing field and a garden, entered a three-story yellow building, climbed the stairs, looked in a library and the bathrooms, stuck her head into offices, took an elevator, followed an arrow that said “Grabenhauer Foundation,” turned back, went along a green-painted corridor, opened the first door, looked inside the classroom, and saw a man standing behind a lectern and nobody at the desks but one boy, sitting in the third row, with a can of Coke in his hand.

“Shatzy.”

“Hi, Gould.”

“What are you doing here?”

“Nothing, I just wanted to see if everything was going OK.”

“Everything's OK.”

“All in order?”

“Yes.”

“Good. How do you get out of here?”

“Go downstairs and follow the arrows.”

“The arrows.”

“Yes.”

“OK.”

“See you.”

“See you.”

Gould and the professor remained in the classroom.

“That's my new governess,” said Gould. “Her name is Shatzy Shell.”

“Cute,” observed the professor, who, to stick to the facts, was called Martens. Then he resumed the lecture, which, to stick to the facts, was his Lecture No. 14.

And in effect this appears to be the heart of that singular experience, although obscure and for the most part impenetrable, Prof. Martens asserted in Lecture No. 14. Take the example of a passer-by who, methodically synchronizing his action to a prior plan, determined that morning, sets off with a precise goal, taking a well-defined and unambiguous route along a city street. And suppose that he suddenly happens to come upon the negligible presence, on the pavement, of a black spike heel, unforeseen and, at the same time, unforeseeable.

And suppose he stands there as if bewitched.

He alone—pay attention—and not the thousand other human beings who, in an analogous situation of mind and body, also saw the black spike heel but carefully and automatically relegated it to the useful marginal area of peculiar objects essentially not suitable for penetrating the system of attention, in accordance with the pragmatic setting of the aforementioned system. While our man, instead, having been suddenly subjected to a blinding epiphany, stops walking, spiritually and otherwise, because he has been irremediably taken out of himself by an image that resounds like an ineluctable call, a song that seemingly echoes into infinity.

It's strange, Prof. Martens asserted in Lecture No. 14.

When, in the swarm of material that perception is charged with handing over from experience to us, one detail, and only that one, slips out of the magma, and, evading all checkpoints, actually
strikes
the surface of our automatic non-attention. Generally there is no reason for such instants to occur, and yet they do, suddenly kindling in us an unusual emotion. They are like a promise. Like the gleam of a promise.