Time passed—spring dappled the earth with flowers, summer arrived, long and blue, weeping autumn turned the land yellow, and winter cooled and shone like silver. But that person, that woman, was missing.
“Where are you? Where are you? I’ll let your tresses down and I’ll bathe them in tears. In tears as pure as love, as pure as my anguish. I’ll kiss the imprints left by your feet …”
V.
Sometimes he would bring a woman home and lock himself away with her. Servants would appear and place on the table everything that she—often hungry and inebriated—requested, before timidly retreating with soft, inaudible, well-trained footsteps. He would drink, making himself insensible, while the woman would sit opposite him, preening herself and baring her elbows. She would take off her hat, decorated with beautiful, colored feathers, tap it on her cheek, and say:
“Let’s drink a toast. You seem upset, darling. Whatever for?”
But no reply would come, and so the woman would give an exaggeratedly loud laugh, thinking he no longer cared for her. She would sit on his lap and move her body, trying to put fire in his blood. She would pour out more for herself and for him; he would drink from his glass and listen to the raindrops falling outside. Sometimes he would look at her and say:
“Why did you take off your hat? It suits you.”
“I do love fish with a béchamel sauce,” the woman would say. “Shouldn’t I take off my galoshes, dearest? I don’t wear hats indoors.”
Then he would take her by the arms and for a long time kiss them silently. She would sit there quietly, but all of a sudden, breaking free, she would cry out in an offended, shrill voice:
“Tears! You fool!”
“Don’t …” he would mumble, shaking his head, which was full of nightmarish delirium. “Please, don’t. Are you … her?”
Minutes and hours would go by. Drunk now, the woman would press herself closer and closer to him, chatting incessantly, roaring with laughter, and kicking up her fat legs in fishnet stockings. He would kneel before her and, in a timid, plaintive whisper, beg:
“Look at me … Won’t you please look at me? … Caress me … Hold me closer, closer. Like that. Closer still. I’m your darling, aren’t I? …”
She would break into peals of uncontrollable laughter, her teeth flashing, and torment this man with a tanned face, hauling at his neck with her fat, bare hands. Her loud, wild words would bounce around the room, rebounding off his consciousness:
“Oh, you old boy! You dear soul! Who knew there were men like you in the world, my God! …”
Someone would turn out the light, darkness would enfold them, and in this darkness he would lavish kisses that were frantic and tender, like happiness, upon her naked, burning body. He would hold himself close to her. Trembling in pain and anguish, he would press his face against hers. He would bury his face in her dark, fragrant tresses and imagine that it was she, his beloved, his joy.
The night would stretch on, covering the drunken figure’s bereft soul in a shroud of shame and bringing repose to the beautiful lady of pleasure. And again the rosy dawn would draw its sleepy face up to the curtains, arraying the sleeping figures in a deathly light.
Indifferent and noisy, the day passes. Day after day is born and dies, but she is still missing. That person, that woman is missing.
VI.
The streets were growing more deserted, more desolate; the hurried footfalls of solitary passers-by rang out. From somewhere, as if from every direction, came the distant clatter of carriages rolling down crowded streets. Shadows of people flitted across windows glinting with a mean light, while the world concealed by the glass, wretched within, seemed rich and mysterious from without.
An hour had probably passed since he stepped out of the enormous, cheerful entrance. Moving in all directions, cutting across squares and open spaces, patiently traversing long streets and gloomy alleyways, he would occasionally pause, realizing that he had lost his way, then he would lower his head and, instantly forgetting where he was, walk on without a definite plan, without an aim, immersed in deep thought. Pedestrians gave way to him, since he gave way to nobody, even to women, for he did not see them. His legs grew weary, the soles of his feet and the joints of his knees ached; he felt all this but was not conscious of it. A beggar asking him for charity received the reply:
“I don’t know. I left my watch at home.”
Suddenly, as he turned a corner, amid the dark hush of a nocturnal street, he spotted a group of people crowding around a brightly lit pavement, only to forget about them immediately. After several paces, a hoarse, importunate voice shouted right in his face:
“I invite the gentleman to take a ticket! A franc, a franc, one franc only! The latest news from America and Paris!”
Like a man brought to his senses by a sudden rude jolt, he sighed, lifted his head, and looked around.
Directly in front of him, on poles adorned with flags and ribbons, hung a canvas signboard illuminated by an electric light. The word “Theater” was written on it in fancy red lettering against a white background. On both sides of this word were crudely drawn manicules, their index fingers pointing toward the letters on the sign. By the wide, open doors of the makeshift building, covered in fragments of playbills, there hung a sheet of white paper. He walked over to it and began to read.
“Surprising adventure”—“Marble mines in Carrara”—“Cowboys and Indians” …
Some young lads crowded around him, jostling him and peering into his face. Fatigue overwhelmed him. Blind in one eye, a man wearing a red bowler and a chequered scarf was traipsing along the rain-soaked pavement, shouting in his hoarse, monotonous voice:
“One franc! One franc only! It’s about to begin! Step this way and be amazed! The latest news, all the very latest! A franc!”
The bell in his fingers tirelessly let out its tinny, feeble ringing. The man with the tanned face approached the counter and bought a ticket from a plump, drowsy woman with powdered shoulders. Pushing the drapery aside, he stepped inside and took a seat.
About a dozen people were sitting around him—mostly hawkers and laborers. They sat hunched over, yawning and scrutinizing the gaily colored posters hanging on the walls, which were decorated in green and red strips of material. A pianist—an old man with a ruddy nose and artistically long gray hair—sat in front of the screen. His spindly figure, arrayed in a threadbare frock coat, shook with each stroke of the keys as he elicited the pathetic, skipping strains of a dance.
The little bell rang once again behind the wall, and all of a sudden the lights went out. A little girl with enormous eyes loudly, and with an air of mystery, asked her mother:
“Mummy, are these people going to sleep?”
“Shhh!” said the sickly woman who was apparently her mother. “Sit quietly.”
“Roosters,” said the little girl as she saw the studio logo appear on the screen. “Roosters, Mummy!”
But the roosters disappeared. A gray street with gray buildings and a gray sky rose up before the audience’s eyes. A silent, tenebrous, gray life slithered along the street. In the distance there were carriages and streetcars that grew to enormous proportions and then vanished. People were going about carrying baskets, groceries, smiling gray smiles, nodding and glancing over their shoulders. Dogs were running about, barking silently. The sudden deafness seemed to astound the audience. Life was in motion, but it was silent and dead, like shadows from beyond the grave.
A young boy came out of a sweetshop and, skipping merrily, carrying a basket full of tarts, made his way over to his young chimney sweep friend. They walk along, happy and satisfied, greedily devouring someone else’s tarts.
A motorcar drives past. The chauffeur has failed to spot a young rogue perching on the back of the car, between the wheels, happily swinging his bare feet, kicking up the dust.
“He’s gone for a ride,” said the little girl, prodding her mother on the shoulder. “Mama, that boy’s gone for a ride! …”
“Shut up,” said the woman. “Or else the chimney sweep will come and take you away.”
The people walk on, watching the vanishing rogue and laughing. A woman in a large straw hat, clutching a handbag, pauses, looks back, and watches as the camera, unseen by the audience, records the beating of life.
VII.
He leaped up, began to sob, cried out, and, forgetting himself, lunged forward.
“It’s her!”
She—his sun, his life. His darling! Her sweet, melancholy smile. Her delicate face, a little thinner now. Her movements! Everything!
She—captured by the play of light. Her eyes peering straight into his soul, into his shaken, gasping soul. The shadow of her hat falling across her face. She pauses! She’s leaving!
A long, chilling scream rent the silence and shook the very walls of the theater. He hurried, made a dash for her, dropping his hat and pushing aside the audience members, running, gasping, his face moist with tears. A distance of ten, maybe fifteen, paces …
“Vera! Vera!”
The woman rounded the railings of a garden and halted in astonishment at the scream. He caught her up, convulsing with sobs, took her in his arms, picked her up like a child, kissed her …
She took fright, and the color drained from her face … She knows! She knows! She presses herself close to him. A frenzy of happiness, searing like unbearable pain, unfurled its wings, shrouding them both. Everything drowned and disappeared. They were all that remained—just the two of them …
Somebody gripped him from behind and hauled him off. He turned around and, with a blind, startled gaze, took in the street and the other frightened people who had torn him away from his miracle, his treasure, his prayer.
Fiery snow now reeled before his eyes, and somebody struck his heart with an enormous, heavy weight. Everything went dark. Two little red roosters jumped out from each side, their eyes glinting red, and then vanished. A long, heavy ringing sounded and grew louder before fading and dying away.
When they dragged out the body, which had suddenly become an enigma, an object of hostility to all those frightened, living people, a young hook-nosed fellow sporting black eyes and a soiled tie said to the man who had been ringing the little bell:
“I spotted him before … Just imagine, he didn’t take his change from five francs! …”
LANPHIER COLONY
Like a sailor
Traversing the Yura Strait,
I do not know where I shall arrive
Across the depths of love.
Sone no Yoshitada*
I.
Three index fingers stretched out in the direction of the roadstead. A Dutch barque had arrived that evening. The night obscured its hull; the masts’ colorful lights and the little shining discs of the portholes were doubled in the black mirror of the sea; a thick, lingering mist smacked of tar, rotting algae, and salt.
“Six thousand tons,” said Dribb, lowering his finger. “Palm wood and ebony. Say, Guppy, do you need any ebony?”
“No,” returned the farmer, deceived by Dribb’s serious tone. “I haven’t any use for it.”
“Well, what about a satinwood pole? You could make a club to beat your future heir, provided his back can take it.”
“Knock it off,” said Guppy. “I don’t need any wood. Even if there were variegated or raspberry wood, I still wouldn’t be interested.”
“Dribb,” said the third colonist, “was there something you wanted to say?”
“Me? Oh, nothing in particular. Only, it seemed odd to me that the barque, whose cargo our right honorable Guppy doesn’t need, has dropped anchor here. What do you make of it, Astis?”
Astis sniffed the air thoughtfully, as if the smell of the sea concealed the necessary explanation.
“He’s made a detour, albeit a minor one,” he said. “The Dutchman’s route lay farther to the south. All the same, that’s his affair. Perhaps the barque met with some accident. Then again, maybe the captain had his own reasons for taking this strange course of action.”
“A pound to a penny,” said Dribb, “he’ll have taken a hit in the Archipelago. Unless they’re planning to open a furniture factory here. That’s my guess.”
“You’ll lose that penny,” Astis rejoined. “We haven’t had a storm in these parts for over a month.”
“You see, I don’t keep tabs on trivia,” said Dribb after a pause. “And I don’t dirty my hands for less than ten pounds.”
“Agreed.”
“What are you agreeing to?”
“Nothing. I only mean to say that you’re wrong.”
“Never in a thousand years, Astis.”
“Case in point, Dribb, case in point.”
“Here’s my hand.”
“And here’s mine.”
“Guppy,” said Dribb, “you shall be a witness to this. But here’s a quandary: how are we to prove that I’m right?”
“What confidence!” Astis scoffed. “You’d do better asking how we’re to prove that you’re mistaken.”
After a brief silence, Dribb announced:
“When it comes down to it, there’s nothing simpler. We’ll go aboard the barque ourselves.”
“What, now?”
“Why not?”
“Hang on!” shouted Guppy. “Either I’m hearing things, or that’s the sound of rowing. Keep your mouth shut for just a minute.”
Amid the deep, concentrated silence they could hear a continual splashing sound that was growing stronger, rebounding, and steadily vanishing into the sea’s velvety abyss.
Dribb started. His intense curiosity had been piqued. He hovered there on the very edge, vainly trying to make anything out.
Unable to bear it any longer, Astis called out:
“Hey! Ahoy there! Hey!”
“You are insufferable,” Guppy said, affronted. “For some strange reason you think you’re cleverer than everyone else. God alone knows which of us is cleverest.”
“They’re close,” said Dribb.
Indeed, a rowboat had come so near that one could distinguish the splashing of water as it dripped off the oars. They heard the crunching of gravel, slow steps, and hushed voices. Somebody was climbing the path leading from the shallows up to the ledge of the escarpment. Dribb shouted:
“Ahoy there!”
“Hello!” came the response from below, in a strong foreign accent. “Who goes there?”
“You’re from the Dutch ship?”
The colonist was still waiting for an answer when, very close to him, a booming, unfamiliar voice asked in turn:
“Are you the one who’s making so much noise, my friend? I’ll satisfy your legitimate curiosity: a rowboat from the Dutch ship, yes.”
Dribb turned around, somewhat taken aback, and gawped at the black silhouette of the man standing beside him. Through the darkness Dribb could make out that this unknown figure was of average height, with broad shoulders and a beard.
“Who are you?” he asked. “Have you really come from the ship?”
“We have,” said the silhouette, setting a sizable bundle on the ground. “Four sailors and I.”
His manner of speaking, without haste, pronouncing each word in a distinct, piercing voice, made quite an impression. All three men waited, silently beholding the still black figure. Finally, Dribb, concerned with the outcome of the bet, asked:
“A question for you, sir. Did the barque meet with an accident?”
“Nothing of the kind,” the unknown figure replied. “It’s trim and strong—just like you and I, I should hope. At the first wind it will set sail and be on its way.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” said Astis delightedly. “Pay up, Dribb.”
“I don’t understand it!” cried Dribb, whom Astis’s delight had cut to the quick. “Thunderation! A barque isn’t a pleasure yacht that can call in at any out-of-the-way place … What is it doing here, I wonder? …”
“If you please. I convinced the captain to put me ashore here.
”
Astis shrugged incredulously.
“What a cock-and-bull story!” he said half-questioningly as he drew closer. “That isn’t as easy as you think. The route to Europe lies about a hundred miles south of here.”
“I know that,” said the visitor impatiently. “I have no cause to lie.”
“Perhaps the captain is a relative of yours?” asked Guppy.
“The captain is a Dutchman; for that reason alone it would be difficult for him to be any relative of mine.”
“And your name?”
“Horn.”
“Astonishing!” said Dribb. “And he agreed to your request?”
“As you can see.”
His voice sounded more weary than self-assured. A hundred questions were on the tip of Dribb’s tongue, but he held them back, sensing instinctively that his curiosity had reached its limits and would no longer be satisfied. Astis said:
“There aren’t any hotels here, but you’ll find lodgings for the night and food for a very fair price with Szabó. Shall I take you there?”
“Much obliged.”
“Dribb …” began Astis.
“Very well,” Dribb snapped. “You’ll have your ten pounds tomorrow morning, at eight o’clock. Goodbye, Mr. Horn. I wish you the very best in getting settled here. Let’s go, Guppy.”
Fandango and Other Stories Page 8