Wittgenstein's Mistress

by David Markson

  So that for a certain period all that Lucien ever appeared to be doing was fretting over a name for the cat.

  And which in the meantime we called simply Cat.

  Good morning, Cat, being what I would say when I found the cat waiting for breakfast.

  Good night, Cat, being what either Adam or I would say when we put the cat out for the night.

  All of this having taken place in Mexico, incidentally, in a village not far from Oaxaca.

  And naturally in a village in Mexico one puts one's cat out for the night.

  Well, the village scarcely needing to be in Mexico for one to do that in either, of course.

  Later, in fact, I remember having done the identical thing with my Martin Heidegger cat, once when I was painting in Rome, New York, for a summer.

  Although in that instance with the cat having been a city cat I did worry to some degree, perhaps.

  Even if a cat which had been locked up in a loft in SoHo for all of its life ought to have found it agreeable to be outside at night, surely.

  But be that as it may, Lucien never did seem to decide upon a name for that earlier cat.

  Or for so long that very likely it would have been impossible to stop calling it simply Cat by then in either case.

  Although as a matter of fact we had taken to calling the cat Cat in Spanish too, sometimes.

  Buenos dias, Gato, being what I would sometimes say when I found the cat waiting for breakfast.

  Buenas noches, Gato, being what Adam or I would sometimes say when we put the cat out for the night.

  For three years we called the cat that, either Gato or Cat, and then I went away from the village not far from Oaxaca.

  Even though I did go back, once, years and years afterwards, as I have possibly said.

  And in a Jeep was able to maneuver directly up the hillside to where the grave was, instead of being forced to follow the road.

  Having still been making use of all sorts of vehicles, in those days.

  Well, having still been looking, in those days.

  If having been quite mad for a good deal of the time, too, of course.

  Mexico having appeared as reasonable a place in which to begin to look as any, however, whether I was mad or not.

  Even if I am convinced that I remained in New York for at least two winters before I did look elsewhere, actually.

  And even if one surely does not have to be mad in the least, in being drawn to the grave of one's only child.

  So that when one truly comes down to it perhaps I was only partly mad.

  Or mad only part of the time.

  And able to understand that Lucien would have been almost twenty by then at any rate, and so well on his way to becoming a stranger.

  Well, or perhaps not yet quite twenty.

  And perhaps not at all on his way to becoming a stranger.

  There being certain things that one will never ever know, and can never ever even guess at.

  Such as why I spilled gasoline all over his old room on that very next morning, for that matter.

  After turning my shoes upside down, naturally, in case of scorpions, even though there could no longer have been any scorpions.

  And then watched the image of the smoke rising and rising in my rearview mirror as I drove and drove again.

  Across the wide Mississippi.

  And yet never once having given a solitary thought to the cat we had called simply Cat at that time either, I do not believe.

  Even alone in that empty house where so many memories died hard.

  Although come to think about it I do not believe I ever once gave that cat a thought when I had the other cat that I could not decide upon a name for as well, actually.

  Which is assuredly a curious thing to have done.

  Or rather not to have done.

  Which is to say to have not remembered that one's little boy had once not been able to decide upon a name for a cat while finding one's self in the very process of not being able to decide upon a name for a cat of one's own.

  Well, perhaps it was not so curious.

  There being surely as many things one would prefer never to remember as there are those one would wish to, of course.

  Such as how drunk Adam had gotten on that weekend, for instance, and so did not even think to call for a doctor until far too late.

  Well, or why one was not there at the house one's self, those same few days.

  Being young one sometimes does terrible things.

  Even if life does go on, of course.

  Although when I say does go on, I should really be saying did go, naturally.

  Having doubtless let any number of similar mistakes in tenses slip by before this, it now strikes me.

  So that on any occasion at all when I have made such generalizations as if in the present they ought to have been in the past.

  Obviously.

  And even if it was nobody's fault that Lucien died after all.

  Although probably I did leave out this part before, about having taken lovers when I was still Adam's wife.

  Even if one forgets whether one's husband had become drunk because one had done that, or if one had done that because one's husband had become drunk.

  Doubtless it may have been a good deal of both, on the other hand.

  Most things generally being, a good deal of both.

  And none of what I have just written having been what really happened in either event.

  Since both of us were there, that weekend.

  And could do nothing about anything, was all.

  Because they move, too, Pasteur kept telling people.

  Except later to make even more out of such guilts as one already possessed, of course.

  And life did go on.

  Even if one sometimes appeared to spend much of it looking in and out of windows.

  Or with nobody paying attention to a word one ever said.

  Although one continued to take still other lovers, naturally.

  And then to separate from other lovers.

  Leaves having blown in, or fluffy Cottonwood seeds.

  Or then again one sometimes merely fucked, too, with whomever.

  Time out of mind.

  While next it was one's mother who died, and then one's father.

  And one even took away the tiny, pocket sort of mirror from beside one's beautiful mother's bed, in which she and her image had both been equidistant from what lay ahead.

  Although perhaps it was one's father, who had no longer wished her to perceive that distance.

  Even if I have seen my mother's image in my own, in the one mirror in this house as well, incidentally.

  On each of those occasions having always made the assumption that such illusions are quite ordinary, however, and come with age.

  Which is to say that they are not even illusions, heredity being heredity.

  Then again having never painted any sort of portrait of poor Lucien at all, on the other hand.

  Though there is the framed snapshot of him in the drawer beside my own bed upstairs, of course.

  Kneeling to pet Gato.

  And he is obviously in my head.

  But then what is there that is not in my head?

  So that it is like a bloody museum, sometimes.

  Or as if I have been appointed the curator of all the world.

  Well, as I was, as in a manner of speaking I undeniably am.

  Even if every artifact in it ought to have made me even more surprised than I turned out to be at not having thought about Magritte until I did, actually.

  And so that even the very marker that Adam had promised to place beside the grave when I did not stay on for that had been in my head for all of those years before I went back, as well.

  Without there ever having been a marker.

  God, the things men used to do.

  What do any of us ever truly know, however?

  And at least as I started to say I certainly did finally understand what it w
as that had made me feel depressed.

  Last Tuesday.

  When all I had been doing was lying in the sun after the rain had stopped and thinking about cats, or so I believed.

  Although to tell the truth I do not very frequently allow such things to happen.

  By which I hardly mean thinking about cats.

  What I am talking about is thinking about things from as long ago as before I was alone, obviously.

  Even if one can hardly control one's thinking in such a way as not to allow anything that happened more than ten years ago to come into it.

  Certainly I have thought about Lucien before, for instance.

  Or about certain of my lovers, like Simon or Vincent or Ludwig or Terry.

  Or even about as early as the seventh grade when I almost wanted to cry because I knew, knew, that Odysseus's dog could certainly catch that tortoise.

  Well, and doubtless I have thought about the time when my mother was asleep and I did not wish to wake her and so wrote I love you with my lipstick on that same tiny mirror, as well.

  Having intended to sign it Artemisia, except that I ran out of room.

  You will never know how much it has meant to me that you are an artist, Helen, my mother having said, the very afternoon before.

  But the truth of the matter being that I did not intend to repeat one bit of that just now, actually.

  In fact when I finally did solve why I had been feeling depressed what I told myself was that if necessary I would simply never again allow myself to put down any of such things at all.

  As if in a manner of speaking one were no longer able to speak one solitary word of Long Ago.

  So that even if it were not until right at this instant that I were to first remember having written to Jacques Levi-Strauss, say, I would no longer put something like that down, likewise.

  One scarcely having been able to write to Jacques Levi-Strauss or to any single other person unless it had been before one was alone, obviously.

  Any more than Willem de Kooning could have been at one's studio to dictate such letters to begin with.

  Or Robert Rauschenberg could have been there to correct their mistakes.

  Or its, since there was really only the one letter.

  With Xerox copies.

  To all of those additional people.

  Who were obviously still someplace, too.

  Except that what I also realized in making such a decision was that it would certainly leave me with very little else to write about.

  Especially if even in writing about such harmless items as pets I could still wind up thinking about meningitis, for instance. Or cancer.

  Or at any rate feeling the way I did.

  So that what I realized almost simultaneously, in fact, was that quite possibly I might have to start right from the beginning and write something different altogether.

  Such as a novel, say.

  Although there is perhaps an implication in those few sentences that I did not intend.

  Well, which is to say that people who write novels only write them when they have very little else to write.

  Any number of people who write novels no doubt taking their work quite seriously, in fact.

  Although when I say write or taking, I should really be saying wrote or having taken, naturally.

  Well, as I have only just explained.

  But in either case doubtless when Dostoievski was writing about Rainer Maria Raskolnikov he took Rainer Maria Raskolnikov quite seriously.

  Well, or as Lawrence of Arabia undeniably did when he was writing about Don Quixote.

  Or just look at how many people might have gone through life believing that castles in Damascus was just a phrase, for instance.

  Still, what happened next was that I realized just as quickly that writing a novel would not be the answer anyhow.

  Or certainly not when your ordinary novel is basically expected to be about people too, obviously.

  And which is to say about certainly a good number more people than just one, also.

  In fact without ever having read one word of that same novel by Dostoievski I would readily be willing to wager that Rainer Maria Raskolnikov is hardly the only person in it.

  Or that Anna Akhmatova is the only person in Anna Karenina, as well.

  So that as I say, there went my novel practically even before I had a chance to start thinking about a novel.

  Unless on third thought it just might change matters if I were to make it an absolutely autobiographical novel?

  Hm.

  Because what I am also suddenly now thinking about is that it could be an absolutely autobiographical novel that would not start until after I was alone, obviously.

  And so that obviously there could be no way whatsoever that it could be expected to have more than one person in it after all.

  Even though I would still have to remember to keep out of my head while I was writing any of that also, of course.

  But still.

  As a matter of fact it might even be an interesting novel, in its way.

  Which is to say a novel about somebody who woke up one Wednesday or Thursday to discover that there was apparently not one other person left in the world.

  Well, or not even one seagull, either.

  Except for various vegetables and flowers, conversely.

  Certainly that would be an interesting beginning, at any rate. Or at least for a certain type of novel.

  Just imagine how the heroine would feel, however, and how full of anxiety she would be.

  And with every bit of that being real anxiety in this instance, too, as opposed to various illusions.

  Such as from hormones. Or from age.

  Even though her entire situation might certainly often seem like an illusion on its own part, paradoxically.

  So that soon enough she would be quite mad, naturally.

  Still, the next part of the novel would be about how she would insist upon going to look for other people in all sorts of places whether she was quite mad or not.

  Well, and while also doing such things as rolling hundreds and hundreds of tennis balls one after the other down the Spanish Steps, or waiting during seventeen hours for each of her seventeen wristwatches to buzz before dropping each one of them into the Arno, or opening a vast number of cans of cat food in the Colosseum, or placing loose coins into various pay telephones that do not function while intending to ask for Modigliani.

  Or for that matter even poking into mummies in various museums to see if there might be any stuffing made out of lost poems by Sappho inside.

  Except that what one senses even this readily is that there would very likely be almost no way for such a novel to end.

  Especially once the heroine had finally become convinced that she may as well stop looking after all, and so could also stop being mad again.

  Leaving her very little to do after that except perhaps to burn an occasional house to the ground.

  Or to write make-believe Greek writing in the sand with her stick.

  Which would hardly make very exciting reading.

  Although one curious thing that might sooner or later cross the woman's mind would be that she had paradoxically been practically as alone before all of this had happened as she was now, incidentally.

  Well, this being an autobiographical novel I can categorically verify that such a thing would sooner or later cross her mind, in fact.

  One manner of being alone simply being different from another manner of being alone, being all that she would finally decide that this came down to, as well.

  Which is to say that even when one's telephone still does function one can be as alone as when it does not.

  Or that even when one still does hear one's name being called at certain intersections one can be as alone as when one is only able to imagine that this has happened.

  So that quite possibly the whole point of the novel might be that one can just as easily ask for Modigliani on a telephone that does not fu
nction as on one that does.

  Or even that one can just as easily be almost hit by a taxi that has come rolling down a hill with nobody driving it as by one that somebody is, perhaps.

  Even if something else that has obviously become evident here is that I would not be able to keep out of my heroine's head after all.

  So that I am already beginning to feel half depressed all over again, as a matter of fact.

  Doubtless making it just as well that writing novels is not my trade in either case.

  Well, as Leonardo similarly said.

  Although what Leonardo actually said was that there is no better way of keeping sane and free from anxiety than by being mad.

  And which has now given me the curious sensation that most of the things I do write often seem to become equidistant from themselves, somehow.

  Whatever in heaven's name I might mean by that, however.

  Once, when Friedrich Nietzsche was mad, he started to cry because somebody was hitting a horse.

  But then went home and played the piano.

  On my honor, Friedrich Nietzsche used to play the piano for hours and hours, when he was mad.

  Making up every single piece of music that he played, too.

  Whereas Spinoza often used to go looking for spiders, and then make them fight with each other.

  Not being mad in the least.

  Although when I say fight with, I mean fight against, naturally.

  Even if for some curious reason one's meaning would generally appear to be understood, in such cases.

  Would it have made any sense whatsoever if I had said that the woman in my novel would have one day actually gotten more accustomed to a world without any people in it than she ever could have gotten to a world without such a thing as The Descent from the Cross, by Rogier van der Weyden, by the way?

  Or without the Iliad? Or Antonio Vivaldi?

  I was just asking, really.

  As a matter of fact it was at least seven or eight weeks ago, when I asked that.

  It now being early November, at a guess.

  Let me think.

  Yes.

  Or in any event the first snow has been and gone, at least.

  Even if it was not a remarkably heavy snow, actually.

  Still, on the morning after it fell, the trees were writing a strange calligraphy against the whiteness.