The Recognitions (20 page)

He stopped speaking; and after a moment Esther, who was looking down now too, repeated the word, —Suffering . . . suffering? Why . . . don't you think about happiness, ever? 

—Yes, did you hear what that woman said? ... I think it's the artist is the only person who is really given the capability of being
happy
, maybe not
all
the time, but
some
times. Don't you
think
so?' Don't
you
think so? . . . 

—And what did you say? 

He put down his empty glass. —I said, there are moments of exaltation. 

—Exaltation? 

—Completely consumed moments, when you're working and lose all consciousness of yourself . . . Oh? she said . . . Do you call that happiness? Good God! Then she said, It was terrible about Esther's analyst, wasn't it, for Esther I mean . . . No, good God no, people like that . . . 

From the other end of the room came the flamenco wail, —Sangre negro en mi corazón. 

—Do you know that Spanish line, Vida sin amigo, muerte sin testigo? 

—What does it mean? she asked quietly, her eyes still turned from him. 

—Life without a friend, death without a witness. 

—I don't like it, she said quietly; then she caught his hand before he could withdraw it: she felt it pull for an instant, then go rigid in hers. —I'm sorry they upset you, she said, —but they've been very kind to me, both of them, when I ... needed friends. I have talked to them about you, I've talked to them about a lot of things, and things I can't talk to you about because you just won't talk to me. 

—What things? he mumbled when she paused, as though obliged to. 

—Well, my writing for instance, I know it's nothing to you but it is important to me, and what do you say? . . . partial to the word atavistic . . . 

—All right, Esther, he said and suddenly got his hand back from her. 

—If all you can say is ... 

—All right, listen, I have ideas but why should I oppress you with them? It's your work, and something like writing is very private, isn't it? How . . . how fragile situations are. But not tenuous. Delicate, but not flimsy, not indulgent. Delicate, that's why they keep breaking, they must break and you must get the pieces together and show it before it breaks again, or put them aside for a moment when something else breaks and turn to that, and all this keeps going on. That's why most writing now, if you read it they go on one two three four and tell you what happened like newspaper accounts, no adjectives, no long sentences, no tricks they pretend, and they finally believe that they really believe that the way they saw it is the way it is, when really . . . why, what happened when they opened Mary Stuart's coffin? They found she'd taken two strokes of the blade, one slashed the nape of her neck and the second one took the head. But did any of the eye-witness accounts mention two strokes? No ... it never takes your breath away, telling you things you already know, laying everything out flat, as though the terms and the time, and the nature and the movement of everything were secrets of the same magnitude. They write for people who read with the surface of their minds, people with reading habits that make the smallest demands on them, people brought up reading for facts, who know what's going to come next and want to know what's coming next, and get angry at surprises. Clarity's essential, and detail, no fake mysticism, the facts are bad enough. But we're embarrassed for people who tell too much, and tell it without surprise. How does he know what happened? unless it's one unshaven man alone in a boat, changing I to he, and how often do you get a man alone in a boat, in all this ... all this . . . Listen, there are so many delicate fixtures, moving toward you, you'll see. Like a man going into a dark room, holding his hands down guarding his parts for fear of a table corner, and . . . Why, all this around us is for people who can keep their balance only in the light, where they move as though nothing were fragile, nothing tempered by possibility, and all of a sudden bang! something breaks. Then you have to stop and put the pieces together again. But you never can put them back together quite the same way. You stop when you can and expose things, and leave them within reach, and others come on by themselves, and they break, and even then you may put the pieces aside just out of reach until you can bring them back and show them, put together slightly different, maybe a little more enduring, until you've broken it and picked up the pieces enough times, and you have the whole thing in all its dimensions. But the discipline, the detail, it's just . . . sometimes the accumulation is too much to bear. 

Esther had been studying his face as he spoke, and did now, where nothing moved until she said clearly, —How ambitious you are! 

He looked at her with an expression which was not a frown but had happened as an abrupt breaking of his features, an instant before apparently cast for good as they were but even now, in this new constriction, renewing an impression of permanence, as molten metals spilled harden instantly in unpredictable patterns of breakage. And Esther looked at him with the face of someone looking at a wound. 

They left a few minutes later. —That seems like a lot of money to leave, Esther said to him. 

—For the music. 

—Well, I wouldn't tip so much if I were you, she said in the door. 

—But you're not, he whispered hoarsely, holding it open. 

It is a naked city. Faith is not pampered, nor hope encouraged; there is no place to lay one's exhaustion: but instead pinnacles skewer it undisguised against vacancy. At this hour it was delivered over to those who inherit it between the spasms of its life, those who live underground and come out, the ones who do not come out and the ones who do not carry keys, the ones who look with interest at small objects on the ground, the ones who look without interest, the ones who do not know the hour for the darkness, the ones who look for illuminated clocks with apprehension, the ones who look at passing shoe-tops with dread, the ones who look at passing faces from waist level, the ones who look in separate directions, the ones who look from whitened eyeballs, the ones who wear one eyeglass blacked, the ones who are tattooed, the ones who walk like wind-mills, the ones who spread disease, the ones who receive extreme unction with salted peanuts on their breath. 

The moon had not yet entered the sky, waiting to come in late, each night waiting nearer the last possible minute before day, to appear more battered, lopsided, and seem to mount unsteadily as though restrained by embarrassment at being seen in such condition. 

—You do hate the winter, don't you. There were no taxicabs in sight, and they walked hurriedly. —You always look so much colder than other people do. 

—Other people! he muttered, as they walked east. The sky ahead was already light. —Look at it! he said abruptly, catching her arm. —Can't you imagine that we're fished for? Walking on the bottom of a great celestial sea, do you remember the man who came down the rope to undo the anchor caught on the tombstone? 

Then she heard his name called. It seemed to come from a great distance, like a cry in a dream, or under water: she might have imagined it; but it was repeated. Then there stood the priest before them, in a black hat and coat and the round collar, carrying a suitcase, —hurrying to catch a train, she heard him say. She heard him, heard her husband's voice, her own for a moment sounding especially loud, their greetings, the hurried slightly embarrassed renewal of their acquaintanceship, all as though they were suddenly met in a submarine landscape where only the others were at home, and she fighting desperately to surface, as she had that one moment when her voice burst, —How do you do . . . His name was John. She heard him say, —There was an air of legend and mystery about you even then, Wyatt . . . 

She swayed. And it seemed a long time before they were walking again, and she heard her own voice, breathed again and controlled it as she spoke. —An old friend? you studied with him? You? You studied for the priesthood? 

—For the ministry, Esther. He . . . he's high church. 

—You studied for the priesthood? 

—It's . . . yes, there's no ... mystery about it. It was quiet except for their heels on the pavement, and sounds of constriction from Esther's throat. A block ahead, the street was lit up by a blaze where a Christmas tree burned in the gutter. —It's too warm to snow, he said. They walked on toward the blaze. 

—But that sounded like thunder. He turned to support her with both hands. —Esther, Esther . . . They both swayed. —You have to
walk
. She let herself back in a shallow doorway, and the light of the blaze covered her face. It was a big tree. 

—No mystery? she said. —No mystery? All the time he talked I could see you standing there with blood all over your face. All the time he talked I could see you dancing like a lunatic, all locked up like a ... lock . . . She managed to stop her eyes on his face. —Tonight I can believe everything I've ever thought about you, she said. —And you never told me.

—Esther, now stop it. It never occurred ... 

—Why did you marry me? she demanded. 

—Esther, I don't want to be unkind . . . 

She looked at him, full in the face where nothing moved to betray the man she had loved; then her eyes, moving quickly, searching, lost and found and lost him again. —But you are, she whispered. —You are all the time. Her voice rose dully, and then it broke. —You shouldn't know other people if you have nothing to share with them. You shouldn't even
know
them, she cried. And she sobbed, —You haven't . . . ever shared anything with me . . . you won't help me do things, you do them for me but you won't help me . . . you . . . offer to do the dishes, but you wouldn't help me do them, I know you'd do them if I said yes but you wouldn't help me ... —

Esther ... In the distance a siren whined. 

—That ... set of Dante you had,
we
couldn't have it, it was as though it couldn't exist without being yours or mine so you gave it to me, but it couldn't be ours. You . . . even when you make love to me you don't share it, you do it as though ... so you can do something sinful. And you never told me . . . She raised her head which had fallen as she sobbed, and the blaze caught it again as the sirens, distinguishable now and punctuated by bells, approached nearer. —Why aren't you a priest? You are a priest! Why aren't you one then, instead of ... me . . . they don't share anything. 

—Priests don't share anything? he repeated, holding her. 

—Nothing! Nothing, any more than you share love with me. They hold out something, offer it down. They even give it but they never share it, they never share anything . . . Her coarse hair stood away from her face in disarray as she looked at his profile in the fire's light, uneven shocks of flame as one branch blazed up and another fell glowing, which seemed to make his features move, though nothing moved but his hands, taking a closer grip from which she half twisted. —Precision of suffering . . . privacy of suffering . . . if that's what it is, suffering, then you . . . share it. She was looking down, and shook her head slowly. —If you can't share it, ... you can't understand it in others, and if you can't understand it you can't respect it, ... and if you can't respect it, if you can't respect suffering . . . 

The firelight had suddenly been penetrated by the sharp white lights of a car, which stopped at the curb, its siren droning down too deep to be heard. Beyond, other sirens and the clangor of bells violated the night almost upon them. 

—O.K. Jack, what d'you call this?

—I ... we ... it's nothing, officer. 

—Is this here your campfire? 

—I don't know anything about the fire, Wyatt said, turning to face him, still supporting Esther. —Do I look like I ... 

—O.K. Jack, take it easy. Who's the little lady? 

—This is my wife. 

—You live here? 

—No, we live uptown. My wife has just had a little too much to drink.' 

—The both of you look like you've had a few too many. This your husband, lady?

—No. 

—Esther . . . 

—He
ain't
yer husband? 

—Look at him, Esther said raising her eyes. —Can't you see? Look at his eyes, can't you see he's a priest? 

—Esther . . . 

Suddenly the night around them disappeared in a blaze of red and white lights and the harmonic explosion of the sirens and bells, as a hose truck, an emergency vehicle, and a hook and ladder arrived, it seemed at the same instant. The policeman turned his back on them in the doorway. —It's just somebody's friggin Christmas tree, he called out. 

—Are them the ones that lit it? came a voice from behind a red beam. 

—You better get home to bed, Jack, the policeman said, turning to Wyatt. 

—There aren't any cabs . . . 

—Come on. I'll give you a lift, Father. 

They drove uptown, in silence except for the constant static voice on the radio at their knees repeating its esoterics, signal thirty, signal thirty . . . car number one three seven, signal thirty . . . 

Wyatt handed the policeman a five-dollar bill when they got out, and the policeman said, —Happy New Year, Father. 

As he fitted the key in the door, Esther murmured, —I feel so old. He let her in, to the darkness and the scent of lavender. She sat down and said, —Leave the light off, as he crossed to the bright shaft of light that came from the drying lamp set up before the portrait in the studio. 

—Wyatt, she said, —can't you say something to me . . . ? Even if you don't believe it? 

He did not appear to have heard, standing over the portrait. He turned off the hot lamp, lifted a small ultra-violet hand lamp and stood tapping his foot, waiting for it to warm up. There were sounds of Esther standing in the dark room, and her footsteps. The violet light gradually rose to its lurid fullness, and showed his drawn face and level unblinking eyes turned upon the portrait. The smooth surface was gone under the violet light: in the woman's face, the portions he had restored shone dead black, a face touched with the irregular chiaroscuric hand of lues and the plague, tissues ulcerated under the surface which reappeared, in complaisant continence the instant he turned the violet light from it, and upon the form of Esther who had come, looking over his shoulder, and fallen stricken there on the floor without a word.