Sense of Wonder: A Century of Science Fiction (280 page)

“No,” I said; “but what value has the invention of happenings that never happened, or characters who never existed?”

“Who is to say what never happened? It is a matter of definition.”

“All right,” I said, “suppose the characters exist in the author’s mind, like the events; where does the value of the invention come in?”

“Where the value of any invention comes in,” he answered. “In its purpose or use. A wheel spinning aimlessly is worth nothing; the same wheel on a cart or a pulley changes destiny.”

“You can’t learn anything from fairy tales,” I persisted stubbornly.

He smiled. “Maybe you haven’t read the right fairy tales.”

I soon discovered in him a quick and penetrating sympathy which was at times almost telepathic. He listened to my callow opinions patiently, offering observations of his own without diffidence and without didacticism. The understanding and encouragement I did not expect or want from Tyss he gave me generously. To him, as I never could to Tirzah, I talked of my hopes and dreams; he listened patiently and did not seem to think them foolish or impossible of accomplishment. I do not minimize what Tyss did for me by saying that without Enfandin I would have taken much less profit from the books my employer gave me access to.

I was drawn to him more and more; I’m not sure why he interested himself in me, unless there was a reason in the remark he made once: “Ay, we are alike, you and I. The books, always the books. And for themselves, not to become rich or famous like sensible people. Are we not foolish? But it is a pleasant folly and a sometimes blameless vice.”

I wanted anxiously to speak of Tirzah, not only because it is an urgent necessity for lovers to mention the name at least of their beloved a hundred times a day or more, but in the nebulous hope he could somehow give me an answer to her as well as to her question. I approached the topic in a number of different ways; each time our conversation moved on without my having told him about her.

Often, after I had delivered an armful of books to the consulate and we had talked of a wide range of things—for, unlike me, he had no self-consciousness about what interested him, whether others might consider it trivial or not—he would walk back to the bookstore with me, leaving a note on his door. The promise that he would be “Back in ten minutes” was, I’m afraid, seldom fulfilled, for he became so deeply engrossed that he was unaware of time.

The occasion which was to be so important to me sprang from a discussion of nonresistance to evil, a subject on which he had much to say. We were just passing Wanamaker & Stewarts and he had just triumphantly reviewed the amazing decision of the Japanese Shogun to abolish all police forces, when I became conscious that someone was staring fixedly at me.

A minibile, high slung and obviously custom built, moved slowly down the street. Its brass brightwork, bumpers like two enormous tack heads, hub rims like delicate eyelets in the center of the great spokes, rococo lamps, rain gutters, and door handles, was dazzling. In the jump seat, facing a lady of majestic demeanor, was Tirzah. Her head was turned ostentatiously away from us.

Enfandin halted as I did. “Ah,” he murmured, “you know the ladies?”

“The girl. The lady is her employer.”

“I caught only a glimpse of the face, but it is a pretty one.”

“Yes. Oh yes…”I wanted desperately to say more, to thank him as though Tirzah’s looks were somehow to my credit, to praise her and at the same time call her cruel and hard-hearted. “Oh yes.”

“She is perhaps a particular friend?”

I nodded. “Very particular.” We walked on in silence.

“That is nice. But she is perhaps a little unhappy over your prospects?”

“How did you know?”

“It was not too hard to infer. You have been concealed from the mistress; the young lady is impressed by wealth; you are the idealistic one who is not.”

At last I was able to talk. I explained her indenture, her ambitious plans, and how I expected her to end everything between us at any moment. “And there’s nothing I can do about it,” I finished bitterly.

“That is right, Hodge. There is nothing you can do about it because— You will forgive me if I speak plainly, brutally even?”

“Go ahead. Tirzah”—what a joy it was just to say the name—“Tirzah has told me often enough how unrealistic I am.”

“That was not what I meant. I would say there is nothing you can do about it because there is nothing you wish to do about it.”

“What do you mean? I’d do anything I could…”

“Would you? Give up books, for instance?”

“Why should I? What good would that do?”

“I do not say you should or that it would do good. I only try to show that the young lady, charming and important as she is, is not the most magnetic or important thing in your life. Romantic love is a curious by-product of Western European feudalism that Africans and Asians can only criticize gingerly. You shake your head with obstinacy; you do not believe me. Good, then I have not hurt you.”

“I can’t see that you’ve helped me much, either.”

“Ay! What did you expect from the black man of Haiti? Miracles?”

“Nothing less will do any good, I’m afraid. Now I suppose you’ll tell me I’ll get over it in time; that it’s just an adolescent languishing anyway.”

He looked at me reproachfully. “No, Hodge. I hope I should never be the one to think suffering is tied to age or time. As for getting over it, why, we all get over everything in the end, but no matter how desirable absolute peace is, few of us are willing to give up experience prematurely.”

Later, I compared what Enfandin told me with what Tyss might have said. Did the responsibility of holding Tirzah lie with me and not with both of us, or with fate or chance? Or were events so circumscribed by inevitabilities that even to think of struggling with them was foolish?

I also asked myself if I had been too proud, too hypersensitive. I had tried to make her see my viewpoint by arguing, by fighting hers; might it not be possible, without giving up essentials, to approach her more gently? To divert her, not from her ambitions, but from her contempt for mine?

Full of resolves, I left the store after eight; eager walking brought me to our meeting place in Reservoir Square early, but the nearby church bells had hardly sounded the quarter hour when she said, “Hodge.”

Her unusual promptness was a good omen; I was filled with warm optimism. “Tirzah, I saw you this afternoon—”

“Did you? I thought you were so busy with Sambo you would never look up.”

“Why do you call him that? Do you think—”

“Oh for heaven’s sake, don’t start making speeches at me. I call him Sambo because it sounds nicer than Rastus.”

All my resolutions about trying to see her point of view! “I call him M’sieu Enfandin because that’s his name.”

“Have you no pride? No, I suppose you haven’t. Just some strange manners. Well, I can put up with your eccentricities, but other people wouldn’t understand. What do you think Mrs. Smythe would say?”

“Never having met the lady, I haven’t the faintest idea.”

“I have, and I agree with her. Would you like me to be chummy with a naked cannibal with a ring in his nose?”

“But Enfandin doesn’t wear a ring in his nose, and you must have seen he was fully dressed. Maybe he eats missionaries in secret, but that couldn’t offend Mrs. Smythe since appearances would be saved.”

“I’m serious, Hodge.”

“So am I. Enfandin is my only friend.”

“You may be above appearances and considerations of decency but I’m not. If you ever appear in public with him again you can stop coming here. Because I won’t have anything more to do with you.”

“But Tirzah…” I began helplessly, overwhelmed by the impossibility of coping with irrelevancies and inconsistencies of her stand. “But Tirzah…”

“No,” she said firmly, “you’ll simply have to grow up, Hodge, and stop such childish exhibitions. Only friend indeed! Why I suppose if he appeared here right this minute, you’d talk to him.”

“Well naturally. You’d hardly expect me to—”

“But I do. That’s exactly what I’d expect. You to act like a civilized man. “

I wasn’t angry. I couldn’t be angry with her. “If that’s civilization then I guess I don’t want to be civilized.”

I detected astonishment in her voice. “You mean, actually mean, you intend to keep on acting this way?”

Grandfather Backmaker must have been a stubborn man; I had my mother’s word I possessed no Hodgins traits. “Tirzah, what would you think of me if I turned on my only friend, the only thoroughly kind and understanding friend I’ve ever had, just because Mrs. Smythe has different notions of propriety than I have?”

“I’d think you were beginning to understand things at last.”

“I’m sorry, Tirzah.”

“I mean it, Hodge, you know. I’ll never see you again.”

“If you’d only listen to my side—”

“You mean if I would only become a crank like you. But I don’t want to be a crank or a martyr. I don’t want to change the world. I’m normal.”

“Tirzah—”

“Good-bye, Hodge.”

She walked away. I had the irrational feeling that if I called after her she might come back. Or at least stand still and wait to hear what I had to say. I kept my mouth obstinately closed; Enfandin had been right, the responsibility was mine. There were things I would not give up.

My heroic mood must have lasted fully fifteen minutes. Then I hurried through the little park and across the street to the Smythe house. There were lights in the upper floors, but the basement, as always, was dark. I dared not knock or ring the bell; her admonitions were too firmly impressed on my mind. Instead, in a turmoil of emotions, I paced the flagged sidewalk until the suspicious eye of a patrolman was attracked; then I fled cravenly.

I couldn’t wait for the next day to write a long, chaotic letter begging her to let me talk to her, just to talk to her, for an hour, ten minutes, a minute. I offered to indent, to emigrate, to make a fortune by some inspired means if only she would hear me. I recalled moments together, I told her I loved her, said I would die without her. Having covered several pages with these sentiments I began all over and repeated them. It was dawn when I posted the letter in the pneumatic mail.

Sleepless and tormented, I was of little use to Tyss next day. Would she telegraph? If she answered by pneumatic post her letter might be delivered in the afternoon. Or would she come to the bookstore?

The second day I sent off two more letters and went up to Reservoir Square on the chance she might appear. I watched the house as though my concentration would force her to emerge. On the third day my letters came back, unopened.

There is some catchphrase or other about the elasticity of youth. It is true it was only weeks before my misery abated, and weeks more before I was heart-whole again. But those weeks were long.

The subject of Tirzah did not come up again between Enfandin and me. He must have sensed I had lost her, perhaps he even guessed his connection with the break, but he was too tactful to mention it and I was too sore.

I don’t know if the episode precipitated some maturity in me, or if, as a result of grief and anger, I tried to turn my mind away from the easy emotions and shield myself against further hurt. At any rate, whether there was a logical connection or not, it is from this period that I date my resolve to centre my reading on history. Somewhat diffidently I spoke of this to him.

“History? But certainly, Hodge. It is a noble study. But what is history? How is it written? How is it read? Is it a dispassionate chronicle of events scientifically determined and set down in the precise measure of their importance? Is this ever possible? Or is it the transmutation of the ordinary into the celebrated? Or the cunning distortion which gives a clearer picture than accurate blueprints?”

“It seems to me facts are primary and interpretations come after,” I answered. “If we can find out the facts we can form our individual opinions on them.”

“Perhaps. Perhaps. But take what is for me the central fact of all history.” He pointed to the crucifix. “As a Catholic the facts are plain to me; I believe what is written in the Gospels to be literally true: that the Son of Man died for me on that cross. But what were the facts for a contemporary Roman statesman? That an obscure local agitator threatened the stability of an uneasy province and was promptly executed in the approved Roman fashion as a warning to others. And for a contemporary fellow countryman? That no such person existed. You think these facts are mutually exclusive? Yet you know no two people see exactly the same thing; too many honest witnesses have contradicted each other. Even the Gospels must be reconciled.”

“You are saying that truth is relative.”

“Am I? Then I shall have my tongue examined, or my head. Because I mean to say no such thing. Truth is absolute and for all time. But one man cannot envisage all of truth; the best he can do is see a single aspect of the whole. That is why I say to you, be a skeptic, Hodge. Always be the skeptic.”

“Ay?” I was finding the admonition a little difficult to harmonize with his previous confession of faith.

“For the believer skepticism is essential. How else is he to know false gods from true except by doubting both? One of the most pernicious of folk sayings is, ‘I could scarcely believe my eyes.’ Why should you believe your eyes? You were given eyes to see with, not to believe with. Believe your mind, your intuition, your reason, your feelings if you like—but not your eyes unaided by any of these interpreters. Your eyes can see the mirage, the hallucination, as easily as the actual scenery. Your eyes will tell you nothing exists but matter—”

“Not my eyes only, but my boss.”

“Ay? What are you saying?” For all his amiability Enfandin enjoyed interruption in mid-discourse no more than any other teacher. But in a moment his irritation vanished, and he listened to my description of Tyss’s mechanistic creed.