Angelica Lost and Found

by Russell Hoban

  ‘Can I ask you something?’

  ‘Go ahead.’

  ‘That weird guy with the smell who called himself Volatore, he really got to you, didn’t he?’

  ‘Yes, he did.’

  ‘Him and that painting that almost made us fall over, and that business with Orlando Furioso – the things he knew. He said he must have read it but he didn’t strike me as that much of a reader. You said you were going to tell me why that whole thing hit you so hard when you found out yourself.’

  ‘OK, Liv. If I told you I’ve had sex with an imaginary animal, what would your reaction be?’

  ‘An imaginary animal?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘What kind of imaginary animal?’

  ‘A hippogriff.’

  ‘A hippogriff!’

  ‘Named Volatore.’

  ‘Volatore!’

  ‘Does repeating everything in italics help you to take it in?’

  ‘Yes. I’m trying to get my head around this imaginary business. Like, did you name your vibrator Volatore and build a whole fantasy around it?’

  ‘I haven’t got a vibrator. And I didn’t build a fantasy. He appeared at my window one evening. Emma Kirkby singing “Olimpia’s Lament” lifted him up to my apartment. Solid and real, in 3-D with a funky animal smell. One thing led to another and we had sex.’

  ‘Wasn’t he too big for you?’

  ‘He thought himself smaller.’

  ‘Ange, what kind of a relationship did you have with your father when you were growing up?’

  ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘Might this Volatore be an imaginative displacement of sexual longings for your father?’

  ‘Jesus! Do they print that on the backs of cornflakes boxes now?’

  ‘Come on, Ange I’m only trying to help.’

  ‘Let’s leave shrinkable matters to our respective shrinks, OK? Can we talk about something else? Or maybe we could have a little music?’

  Olivia had installed an up-to-the-minute radio and CD player in Lucille and there was a small rack of CDs fitted to the dashboard: Julian Bream; Peggy Lee; Teresa Berganza in Carmen, Alfred Deller singing Henry Purcell; Rossini’s La cenerentola, an opera not in my father’s collection nor my own. This was a 1994 recording with the orchestra and chorus of the Royal Opera House of Covent Garden, London, Jennifer Larmore as Cinderella.

  ‘What’s in the player now?’ I asked Olivia.

  ‘Act I of the one you’re looking at,’ she said. ‘My uncle Leon died and left me his collection. I was just starting to listen to it when I picked you up. It’s on track 3 now.’

  I took the booklet out of the box and found track 3:

  CENERENTOLA

  (con fono flemmatico}

  Una voltac’era un re

  che a star solo annoio …

  CINDERELLA

  (singing to herself)

  Once there was a king

  who was bored with being all alone …

  ‘Oh!’ I said. Because those words all at once seemed to be talking to me. I pushed the start button and the voice of the poor daughter, motherless and discarded by her father, humble among the ashes, came to me pensive and slow. The song, with its little story of a lonely king who searched and searched until he found the pure and innocent girl he wanted – why did it make me cry? To me it was a Volatore song of heartbreak and hopeful longing, the essence of it not the comedic lightness that Rossini was famous for but something deep and sad that slipped past him. Was Volatore my lonely king? Of course I may be knitting with one needle, that certainly can’t be ruled out. Olivia tactfully made no comment and kept her eyes on the road.

  At Ocean Beach we climbed the hill to Cliff House. Next to the bar there were stairs that went around back and there was the Giant Camera, a structure looking like a huge 35-mm camera lying on its back with its lens pointing at the sky.

  ‘It’s a camera obscura,’ said Olivia. ‘Leonardo da Vinci invented it. Vermeer and Canaletto used little ones, just a box with a lens in front and a ground-glass screen at the back.’

  We waited with other obscurophiles and paid three dollars each as we came out of the sunlight into the camera body. We went through a door and into the dark chamber; before us on the round viewing table was a brilliant circle of brightness in which there were seals basking on a large rock by the dazzling blue Pacific. The camera operator told us what we were seeing as he rotated the lens to the marine headland and back to Cliff House.

  We came blinking out into the sunlight.

  ‘OK, Olivia,’ I said, ‘we went into a dark chamber and saw the world around us very bright. Is that it?’

  ‘The clarity of the view was terrific!’ she insisted. ‘Maybe you have to go into a dark chamber to see the world clearly.’

  I didn’t say anything. I had found the contrast between the darkness and the brightness aggravating, like the tongue going into the cavity of an aching tooth. Unreasonable of me but then I’m not an altogether reasonable person.

  ‘Now that we’ve had the metaphor,’ I said, ‘maybe we could get some lunch?’

  We went to Sutro’s at the Cliff House where we had beer-braised black mussels with frites and Veuve Clicquot which made the world a little easier to take.

  As we drove back to town the sky was not yet dark but the street lights were on and the lights in the houses. That time of day always brings an ache to my throat. I feel that all those, now gone, who have known this gentle goodbye from the day that is passing, never to return, are seeing it through my eyes. Volatore also seeing it through my eyes. ‘ “Look thy last on all things lovely, every hour …” ’ I sang under my breath, like Cinderella crouching in the ashes.

  Olivia notices everything.

  ‘I think you need to pull yourself together, Angie,’ she said. ‘Maybe you just need to get laid. Didn’t you have something going with Clancy?’

  ‘Been there, done that,’ I said. ‘It didn’t work for me.’

  ‘OK, maybe Clancy didn’t float your boat. But this Volatore shit is going to drive you crazy if you don’t let go of it.’

  ‘You’re right, Liv – I’ll try to do better.’

  When she dropped me off I stepped wearily into the bleakness of the street lamps, the shadows and the mica sparkles on the pavement. In the past, easing through those lamps and shadows and sparkles, I used to wish I had a cat waiting for me. Now Irene was waiting. She’d rub against my leg and purr, then she’d keep me company and dab at the foam while I had a hot bath. There’d be a large Jack Daniel’s beside the tub, and on the Bose, warm and golden and shadowy, the strings of Monsieur de Sainte-Colombe.

  Chapter 41

  Passing, Never to Return

  ‘Passing, never to return!’ These words have come into my mind like some melancholy refrain that refuses to go away. Passing, passing, never to return! What? Everything? Angelica and Volatore both? Shall we cease to be imagined? Shall we pass like the fading of the day, like breath upon a mirror, suddenly gone?

  Chapter 42

  Mostly Like a Horse

  He calls himself Volatore and he is not my Volatore. But he smells like him. An olfactory mystery. I went to the Mission Police Station on Valencia and 17th. Once there I stood looking at the Seven Dancing Stars for a while. I don’t like to miss meaningful signs of any kind, and these boulders set in the floor, representing the Pleiades, might well have some significance for me. These seven sisters of mythology, daughters of Atlas, are named in Lemprière’s Classical Dictionary as Alcyone, Merope, Maia, Electra, Taygeta, Sterope and Celeno. Merope’s star is dim because she married a mortal. A warning about mixed marriages? The constellation is near the back of Taurus in the zodiac.

  There was a sort of bank teller’s window in the wall behind the elevator.

  ‘I want to report a missing person,’ I said.

  This got me to a Sergeant Hennessy, a large bear of a man whose look and manner made me want to climb into his lap and tell him everything tha
t was troubling me. I think he sensed this because he remained standing at a safe distance.

  ‘OK,’ he said after I had identified myself. ‘Who’s missing?’

  ‘A man who calls himself Volatore.’

  ‘Sounds like an opera. Is that his first name or his last name?’

  ‘He says it’s his only name.’

  ‘Relation of yours?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Friend?’

  ‘Sort of.’

  ‘Where and when did you last see him?’

  ‘At the Eidolon Gallery in the Mission four or five days ago. I’m not sure – it’s been a confusing time for me.’

  ‘Describe him.’

  ‘Over six feet tall, strongly built; long black hair, long face, high cheekbones, blue eyes. Wearing black jeans, blue denim shirt, Timberland boots, all new. Paint smears on everything.’

  ‘Any identifying marks?’

  ‘A naked-woman tattoo on his right wrist and a hippogriff on his left wrist.’

  ‘You don’t have to explain what a hippogriff is – I read sci-fi fantasy.’

  ‘Plus he’s got a smell.’

  ‘What kind of smell?’

  I almost said. ‘A hippogriff smell,’ but I caught myself in time and said, ‘Mostly like a horse.’

  ‘Mostly like a horse. Anything else in his smell?’

  ‘Some other kind of animal I didn’t recognise. But you can’t mistake the smell.’

  ‘Right: mostly like a horse. That narrows it down. OK, we’ll give you a call when we have anything to report.’

  At home I got my big Maps of the Heavens off the shelf and turned to Albrecht Dürer’s ‘Northern Hemisphere’. I searched for Taurus but couldn’t find him, let alone the Pleiades. No luck with anyone else’s ‘Northern Hemisphere’ either. ‘OK,’ I said. I went to my PC and googled for Seven Sisters Road, figuring there probably was one somewhere in San Francisco. This took me by devious routes to some beautiful Victorian houses in Alamo Square. At that point my search frenzy left me and I went to the gallery where I spent the rest of the day cataloguing Alyosha Zhabotinsky.

  I expected a long wait for any result and I had misgivings about the possible waste of police time but the next day I had a call from Sergeant Hennessy.

  ‘We’ve got a man here who answers your description except no smell, wrong name and fifty thousand dollars. Would you know anything about that?’

  ‘Yes, I would. He didn’t steal it.’

  ‘He says his name is Joe Fontana and he doesn’t know you. If you’d like to have a look at him come to the station today because we’ve got nothing but a vagrancy charge to hold him on. Unless you’ve got some other charge to make.’

  ‘Where’d you find him?’ I said.

  ‘He was sleeping on a veranda in Alamo Square. The owners of the house were away but a neighbour reported a vagrant on the premises.’

  ‘You guys sure work fast. I’ll be right over.’

  When I arrived at the station Sergeant Hennessy showed me into what I suppose was a small interrogation room where the artist formerly known as Volatore was sitting at a table.

  ‘Is this going to be distressing for you in any way?’ Hennessy asked me.

  ‘No,’ I said, ‘it isn’t that kind of thing.’

  ‘Right,’ he said. ‘Here’s Mr Fontana. No ID, no address, new clothes and Timberlands with paint smears. And fifty thousand smackers.’

  ‘That’s him,’ I said.

  ‘Shall I leave you to it,’ said Hennessy, ‘or do you want me to stick around?’

  ‘Please do – I’m sure you’re better at asking useful questions than I am.’

  ‘You start and I’ll stand by for the time being.’ To Fontana he said, ‘I’ve already told you that you’re not charged with anything but vagrancy. This lady thinks you might be able to help her.’

  ‘OK,’ said Fontana to me. ‘How can I help you?’

  ‘Why did you tell me your name was Volatore?’

  ‘I’ve never heard that name till now and I’ve never seen you before.’

  ‘Do you remember where you got the fifty thousand dollars?’

  ‘I didn’t even know I had it until the cops frisked me and counted it.’

  ‘You don’t remember doing a painting?’

  ‘You mean a picture?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘No, I wouldn’t know about anything like that.’

  ‘Forgive me if my questions seem strange. Can you recall any weird dreams you’ve had lately?’

  ‘Dreams are personal.’

  ‘Of course they are.’

  ‘So why should I tell you mine? I’ve got fifty thousand bucks that I didn’t steal and I can stop being a vagrant and answering questions.’

  ‘Calm down,’ said Hennessy. ‘Maybe I’ll book you for committing public nuisance.’

  ‘What public nuisance?’

  ‘Peeing in the bushes in Alamo Square. Now answer the lady.’

  ‘Dreams?’ I said.

  ‘No.’ To Hennessy he said, ‘Go ahead and book me for peeing in the bushes, I’m pretty sure I can pay the fine. Whatever dreams I have belong to me and nobody else.’

  ‘Do you remember Lenore Goldfarb?’ I asked him.

  ‘No. Should I?’

  ‘She paid you that money for a painting.’

  ‘I never heard of the lady.’

  ‘I can arrange for her to refresh your memory.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘She paid you that money for a painting that came from a dream. The painting is in the Eidolon Gallery now. Would you like to see it?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘This is kind of interesting,’ said Hennessy. ‘Do you want us to take him to your gallery?’

  ‘Yes, please.’

  ‘I don’t think I have to agree to that,’ said Fontana.

  ‘Yes, you do,’ said Hennessy, ‘or I may have to take you in hand for resisting arrest.’

  ‘But I haven’t resisted arrest.’

  ‘That can be arranged, fella.’

  So we went to the gallery and Hennessy stood Fontana in front of the painting.

  ‘Funny thing,’ said Hennessy, ‘looking at that makes me a little woozy.’

  ‘What about him?’ said Olivia.

  Fontana was lying on the floor. He had fainted. We brought him around with a little cold water in his face and sat him up. The paintings on the walls suddenly looked empty, as if the virtue had left them. Paintings! I thought, what an odd thing to do.

  ‘Can I go now?’ said Fontana.

  ‘What about the painting?’ I asked him. ‘It’s your own work.’

  ‘I don’t remember doing it and looking at it makes me a little sick. I don’t know what else I can tell you.’

  By this time I was pretty sure that Hennessy felt as Olivia and I did: Fontana was the victim of some kind of temporary mind alteration and was still in a frail state.

  ‘Where are you going when you leave here?’ Hennessy asked him.

  ‘First I’ll get myself a place, then I’ll think what to do next.’

  ‘Here’s my card,’ said Hennessy. ‘Phone me and tell me where you’ll be. I don’t want you to pass out somewhere and be lying unfound for days.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Fontana.

  ‘Give you a lift anywhere?’ said Hennessy.

  ‘That’s a lot of money to be carrying around,’ I said. ‘We can keep most of it here in the safe for you or open an account for you at our bank.’

  ‘OK,’ said Fontana. He had fifty thousand-dollar bills. He peeled off one and gave me the rest. ‘Please just keep it here for now,’ he said.

  ‘So?’ said Hennessy. ‘Lift?’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Fontana. ‘I’m going to do some walking to clear my head.’

  With that he left. Odourlessly, the man who was not my Volatore.

  Chapter 43

  Farnesses of Tinyness

  I am confused, forlorn, full of doubts. Again and again
I try to send my thoughts and fears to Angelica but there is no response from her. Have my messages gone astray? Is she sending messages to me?

  Now I wonder how things have come to this pass. How did I come to be stranded in this nowhereness, half out of one reality, half into another? Where and when was the beginning of it? My memory is scattering into dancing colours, blurs and flashes swooping to escarpments of eyes, caverns of listening, farnesses of tinyness. A sorcerer told me to go where I went, I looked into an eye and saw the beginning or was it the end of me?

  Chapter 44

  Dos Arbolitos, Endlessly Rocking

  I gave Dr Levy notice and moved on to my third shrink, Dr Long. Dave Michnik, one of our painters, said he was a no-bullshit guy. Dr Long worked out of a houseboat called Dos Arbolitos at Sausalito. The dancing ripple pattern on the ceiling was reassuring and the gentle lapping of the water endlessly rocking made me feel sleepy and safe.

  ‘Dos Arbolitos,’ I said. ‘Two little trees.’

  ‘You know the song?’

  ‘I’ve got a CD with it but all I remember is the title and the fact that it’s a huapango. Is there a story behind that name for your houseboat?’

  ‘There’s a story behind everything but let’s talk about you.’

  Dr Long was a tall man in jeans and a denim shirt. He had startling blue eyes and a long face that always seemed ready to – and frequently did – break into a half-smile.

  ‘You don’t look like a shrink,’ I said.

  ‘I charge like one though,’ he said. ‘What can I do for you? If anything.’

  ‘I have a reality problem.’

  ‘That’s called life.’

  ‘But I’m living in two realities. Maybe more.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘I’m trying to understand them, trying to define what they are.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘So I’ll know, so I can deal with them.’

  ‘Knowing won’t help. That’s a waste of energy. Get practical.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter how many realities there are or what they are; just handle them one at a time and do whatever needs to be done.’