Piper, Piper, Piper, Piper, Piper, Piper.
State of the Art
HERE we all are, at this elegant sidewalk cafe perched on the edges of what appears to be a ruined Paris. Hard to tell; outside of this circle of brightness, much is opaque. Originally we were supposed to gather in the Algonquin, but that hotel was demolished seventeen years ago to make way for Intervalley Seven. “Disgusting,” Dostoevski says, thudding his heavy tumbler against the table, “the ruination of the environment, the nature of man to impress his internal corruption upon the landscape. I tell you, we are fast approaching the end of time.”
Dostoevski is gloomy. The twenty years in Siberia have warped his soul and given him a somewhat grimmer outlook on humanity than, perhaps, events will justify. Nevertheless he must be attended to. All of us attend to one another with extreme courtesy, but Dostoevski deserves our good wishes. He contributed many important works to the literature and besides the change has discombobulated him. Siberia was not good for his personality; I must concede that. “Of course,” I say gently, draining the last sparkling dregs, “but still, technology is not an absolute. A neutral quality like sex can be turned in any direction; so can machinery. Watch; the environment may change but it will also become more pleasant.” I signal for a waiter. The service is abominable in this cafe, but then they have not been on the main line for years. Something about deliveries being undependable; the impossibility of getting good staff. A waiter shuffles over, his clothing glistening with dirt, and shrugs as I give him the order. Another mug for Dostoevski, an aperitif for Gertrude Stein, a little more wine for myself. Hemingway will pass this round. Shakespeare is now in the men’s room having more difficulty with his bowels; perhaps a little cheese and crackers. The others, another round as previously. We make quite a group hunched around this small table, blocking the aisles, giving the cafe a reputation for seediness and disruption even beyond its wont, but we are customers, and the waiter, grumbling, goes off to the kitchen. “But you’ve certainly got a point, Fyodor,” I add pleasantly, “and you’re entitled to your opinion. I defend your opinion.”
“The hell with all of it,” Hemingway says. He stands, tucks his writing pad under his arm, heads toward an exit. “I have listened to the merde. All this afternoon I have been possessed by nothing but merde. Now it is time to go off and do good things. To feel richly, to know greatly. To conquer feeling with hope.” He is in one of his sulks again. Really, despite all our efforts, we have been able to do very little with him. The man is simply not companionable. “I am off for sunlight,” he says and staggers through the aisles, leaving us with his share of the check as usual, and stepping off into the Rue de la Paix is hit by a passing streetcar which dismembers him thoroughly and leaves him in small pieces on the sidewalk.
Gertrude Stein giggles a little and raises a napkin to her lips, fondling Alice Toklas’ hands. “Ernest never did have any taste,” she says, “and all his gestures fail as gestures.” She shakes her head, puts the napkin down, leans over toward Alice’s ear and disappears into some intense conversation as pedestrians and gendarmes outside gather around the ruins of Ernest. The streetcar has stopped and from its windows, faces look out incuriously, mumbling. “Like petals on a wet, black bough,” Ezra says, speaking for the first time this afternoon, and goes back to his jottings. Now the crowd covers Ernest and it is difficult to see what is going on. I assume that in due time they will put him into one of the conveyors for reprocessing. It hardly matters. None of this matters. My relationship with Ernest has not been a happy one, and although I am embarrassed to admit this, I am not entirely sorry to think that he is dead.
Shakespeare returns from the men’s room simultaneously with the appearance of the waiter carrying our glasses, and they almost collide. “Bloody fool!” Bill says, collapsing into a chair. “You stink up everything!” And the waiter, with the air of a man who has suffered greatly and has now passed tested limits, balances the tray on one hand, takes off a glass of wine and throws it into Bill’s face. “Bastard!” Shakespeare says, but his expression does not change, his eyes revolving flat and dead above his cheekbones. Incontestably, the man is drunk. In any other condition he would knock the waiter unconscious.
But nothing will happen this afternoon. The moment of tension passes, the waiter looks toward the sky and, recovering his control after a moment, puts the glasses before us. As he bends near me, I ask him quietly for the check. The waiter’s face suffuses with rage, but somehow I am able to convince him that I mean no insult and he says that he will go off to the kitchen and see what he can do. Truly, I am the only one of us who is able to deal with the common, ordinary realities of the afternoon, the others being abstracted into their private roles or sorrows, but in all honesty I am getting somewhat tired of this and for the first time it occurs to me that I am becoming bored with my companions and our afternoon routine and that I may bring it to a halt. I would hardly be missed if I did not appear at the table at one o’clock. But if I did not, I wonder, who would order the drinks?
I think about all this, looking out idly toward the street where, even though only a few moments have passed, there is no sign of Ernest’s recent tragedy. Pedestrians whisk by quickly, automobiles honk their scattered way past, a fat patrolman with a cheerful expression paces in front of the cafe, hands on hips, looking at the sun. The one conveyor clanking its way on the street-edge is clean and empty; Ernest is already gone. It is depressing to think that for all of his bombast his death has had so little effect upon the world, but then, as most of my companions would advise me, it is very difficult to make any kind of permanent change in the landscape. Technology has done this to us, and also the alienation effect which progressively separates men from the consequences of their acts, the products of their labor.
As if catching my thoughts, which have taken a rather stricken and metaphysical turn, Dostoevski looks up at me and winks. “It is difficult, is it not, my friend,” he says, “to see so much and do so little, eh? The Czars would have had a word for this kind of condition, but I call it refractory.”
“He’s just pouting,” Gertrude Stein says. “He thinks he’s sufficient when he is really insufficient, is that not so, Alice?” Beaming Alice nods; the two old lesbians clasp hands again and recommence their incessant laughter. Really, I cannot stand them — their presence at the table is a constant embarrassment and most of the waiter’s hostility, I know, is directed toward them — but what can I do? Paris was their idea, after all, and a good suggestion it was. If we had not gone to Paris we might have ended up meeting in New York or Berlin and with the Algonquin demolished, how many places are there left which are really good for our discussions? I nod judiciously and turn my gaze from them. It is better at most times not to see too deeply, as my friends have advised me, and with some difficulty, I have made progress with this advice.
“I believe,” Shakespeare says heavily, “I believe that I am suddenly very ill, oh you fools,” and to our astonished gaze — Bill never complains; he has always been the heartiest of the lot — stands swaying in the dense little spaces of the cafe, his skin turned a sudden vigorous orange color. “It must be the wine, the heat, the afternoon, the pain oh my friends,” he says, “oh let me unbutton here,” and tugs at his waistcoat; in the midst of his struggles, however, a spasm of some violent kind hits him and he collapses heavily over the table, bringing it to the floor in an incandescence of cups, saucers, glasses, beer, wines, liqueurs. Into the middle of this he plunges, and rolling once on the floor lies still.
Standing, Fyodor eyes him with disgust and then takes a large watch out of his pocket. “I believe the old bastard has died,” he says, checking the time, “but if you will excuse me, I really have had enough of this. There is a great deal of work to be done and I hope to conclude an important subsidiary deal on Crime and Punishment before sunset.” He turns to leave.
I am offended by his coldness, by the total lack of regard which it is now clear was his only true feelin
g about our afternoons, but before I can ponder this further or remonstrate with him, the waiter has appeared flanked by two police and a large angry man who must be the owner of the cafe and who looks at Shakespeare’s corpse with revulsion. The waiter whispers desperately into the owner’s ear; he seems to be trying to explain that he had nothing whatsoever to do with this occurrence. The owner shrugs him off. “I’m quite sorry,” he says to us as the police stare solemnly, “but we cannot allow this anymore. You have been stinking and drinking up my cafe, the last cafe of Paris, for many weeks now and the disgrace is intolerable. My staff is at their wits’ end and my wife threatens to leave me.” He kicks the corpse. “You are all impounded for further investigation,” he says.
“This is disgraceful,” says Gertrude. “Alice, help me!” And Fyodor, with the ancient cunning of the prison camps, tries to slink toward the exit, but the police are efficient and determined in the way that even post-technological gendarmes can be and before I can quite grasp what has happened we are all in handcuffs. Fyodor too, and being led away.
“We will give you a full report,” one of the police says to the owner, “we can give you our assurances of that.”
“This is an outrage,” Fyodor says. ‘’You can slap chains upon us and your machinery “but you will never, never, imprison the free, lunging, human soul, and flings himself at the nearest police but is knocked unconscious by one mild blow — Fyodor is quite frail for all of his bombast — and topples to the floor, dragging all of us with him. We seem to be hooked on the same chain.
I feel Shakespeare’s corpse, already cooling underneath me, to the left and right I absorb the struggles and kicks of Alice and Gertrude, I raise my head to see that old Count Leo too, just returning from a brisk walk, has somehow been hooked and chained, but my gaze passes through and then beyond all of them; looking upon the street I see with precision I have never had before the movement of the conveyor and then, as the mass around me begins to roll in that direction, I understand that in the absence of proper police procedures, we are all going to be taken there instantly, and it is with relief — how I always knew in the deepest of my Fyodor’s aspects that it would be with relief! — that I feel Gertrude’s dark kiss upon me and in that way we are all carried out.
The Only Thing You Learn
In Memory of Cyril M. Kornbluth
HELLO, voyager. You come into the bar cautiously, not looking for trouble but ready for anything that you might find, you tell yourself, the token in your left pocket emitting its precious waves of secret and solace as you squeeze it, then let it go. Your posture is poised toward ruin but ready for flight. You are neat and fleet, ready for anything, but willing to stay and fight it out too if you must. There at the end of your bar is the target, just as they had promised in the dusky half-light of the Seven Moons, your target in sailor cap and shapeless jacket, drinking red top and beer chaser wedged in that corner, his eyes curiously alight. You are drawn to him instinctively, not only by the sense of mission you must undergo, but by that necessity in his eyes, you tell yourself that you have never seen anyone quite as open, as charmed, as needful as this man whose glance now passes from you disinterestedly, swinging left to right, then down to the shot-glass as he shrugs and drinks. Three hookers in working garb are scattered on the right side of the bar as you approach, none of them displaying any interest in the target — or in anything else — as you glide past, on the other side there are two drunken bums, their heads in their hands, listening to the private and integral sounds of their consciousness, whiskey glasses drained before them. The bartender looks at you incuriously as you come down the line of stools on the left, past the drunken bums, and take your seat beside the target. His sailor cap is oddly peaked, his brown eyes alight with something other than inebriation, but he does not seem willing to make eye contact and in that furious, broken instant during which you assess the situation, you think that despite the assurances of the ancient ones, their pledge that nothing can possibly go wrong, you might have once again, voyager, taken yourself over your head, entered a situation you cannot resolve. It is difficult to say.
What he’s having, you tell the bartender who is looking at you. And buy him a round too.
Money, the bartender says. Joint like this, you put your money on the bar first. Rules of the house. In his voice is the stentorian sound of the Reptiles; he seems to be vocalizing in their ancient and frightening tongue. Of course they would have put an agent in here, they would allow no corner of the sector to be unoccupied, undefended against precisely this kind of immersion. You do not let this knowledge frighten you.
Of course, you say. In your right pocket, the strange coins and bills seem to emit a strange warmth, something like that of the token but occupying their own heat and substance. You thrust your palm in there, remove a handful, shake them out on the bar in an indiscriminate outpouring. The bartender retreats a little at the sound of the coins, then fixes you with an unwavering gaze. Beside you, the target sits unmoving.
Is that enough? you say.
The bartender shuts, tilts a hand in an either-or gesture, limps back along the railing, and obtains glasses. You hear for the first time the thin racket from the television set above the bar, a comedy of some kind turned down very low, the old black-and-white television hazed toward a kind of omnipresent blur, the figures of the actors only dimly visible. From the television set comes the quiet sound of shrieking which may be part of the live audience in attendance but then again might be the interior of your own astonished and trapped heart, fluttering against the walls of your being. The hookers glance at the television set now and then, the drunken bums pay no attention whatsoever, being too deeply drawn into their own substance, you think, to be concerned with decor. Beside you, the target raises his glass, drains the last of the beer, shakes his head, then stares at you as the bartender comes banging down the rail, places shot-glasses before you, contemptuously up-ends a bottle and fills them with orange liquid. What do you want? the target says.
Your instructions have been very specific. You adhere to them at all perilous costs. That is up to you, my friend, you say. The bartender goes away, returns with two trembling glasses of beer, places them in front of you, takes coins and bills, moves away. The token sends out odd glares of heat from its hidden place. What do you think I want? you say.
I know who you are, the target says. There is no preamble to this statement, no edging into it, the aspect is one of shocking bluntness. You had been warned that this would probably be the case, the target has been pushed far, far beyond the rim of his patience. You’re one of them. You’re part of them. Another one come to torment me, to haunt.
You say nothing. It is time to drink, to put the liquid and its chaser into you, to obtain as much as possible the riot of their own chemistry. You do this, quickly and solemnly, fixing the target with your hopeful and sparkling gaze as the chill and warmth begin to spread through you and then the target does the same, drinking quickly and convulsively, slamming shot-glass and then beer on the counter.
Lies, he says, it’s all lies. It’s all part of the same swindle. Give me the feeling that I’m at the center of things but I’m not. I’m not. You’re just using me for something I can’t even understand and I don’t know — He stops. It is as if the speech, extracted from him in wrenching syllables, has astonished not its auditor but the target himself. Your instructions on this possible reaction are also quite clear. You have, within the limits of the situation, been given the most explicit procedures and it is within your responsibility to follow it or to face your own terrible penalty.
I’m not one of them, you say now. I’m from the other side. I’ve come to offer you surcease. Freedom, possibly. The means of freedom rest within your hands. It is within your means.
You look at the target calmly, seriously, while the target finishes the contents of the shot-glass and the beer, then waves his arms at the bartender. Enough of this, he says. I’m getting out. I’m checking out. I’m in
over my head here but I have the sense to know it.
You know nothing, you say. Nothing at all. You don’t even have the language to express your lack of knowledge. You feel the rage and disgust coming upon you, just as had been predicted, but still, within you, there is the terrible, serene knowledge with which you carried yourself back across the centuries.
Here, you say. Here.
You reach into your left pocket, remove the token, place it on the gleaming surfaces of the bar. It lies there in its phosphorescent glare, leaking power, hints of the millennia and its wastes glinting from it. Even the hookers seem to be entranced, gaining sudden respect for this colloquy, they stare at you and the target with new interest. The drunken bums, oblivious of this as the Reptiles themselves, continue to brood and nod in their vomitous stupor. The bartender, respectful, flicks a towel at the television set and observes all of this with great patience. It is fortunate that this is a neighborhood bar in a bad area and that incoming traffic is light to nonexistent because it is not clear how the token would deal with new entrants or how, for that matter, they would deal with this unleashed power.
Here, you say. Here it is. The sign of the centuries. Reach out. Take it in your hand.
The target looks at the token with an intensity as to minimize your own attention through all of this. You have never, in all of your experience, seen an attentiveness like this. Are you crazy? the target says. You want me to touch that. He gestures at the token. Touch that He recoils, his arms flailing again. Get out of here, he says. Get out of here now. That thing can explode. It can destroy the world. It can — Why don’t you try it? you say. See what it can do. You put an exploratory finger on the token, push it toward the target. Small rays of power seem to pour from it and strike the target in the eyes although this may be illusory. You have been carefully warned about the phenomena in this place, how the surreal, the imagined, the extant can mingle in dangerous and unpredictable fashion.
The Very Best of Barry N Malzberg Page 15