Cartesian Sonata: And Other Novellas

by Gass, William H.

  But Riff was unhappy. He didn’t feel military. He’d eat too many fries. It was already dark, long day’s end, the guy yapping at him like a pissy pup, look, there’s only so much I can do for you, you’ve made a mess in your books. He let the ledger hit the desk like the flat of a hand. Vinegar, for Christ’s sake. Sour apples from annoyed trees.

  Sis in Chicago, married up to here in money, doing well like the well was deep. And what about—what about him? his one-night stands were one-night flops. Kim would never come when called, though he could sometimes tune her in, like a voice on the radio. She said her given name reminded her of Kimberly Clark Coated Papers. So she cut it down to its stump. And lost the whole of her born one when she married. Girls got a chance to be renamed, go to another family, live in a different town, lose what they’d been, begin again.

  As his eye sniffed idly about, released like a dog from his thoughts, every surface which shaped the room and sheltered him seemed to be drawing aside like drapes, but their shiftiness made nothing more spacious for him. It was not as if windows streaming with rain or alive with landscape appeared when they parted. Instead, the surfaces of the walls, the napless rug, the bulk of the bed, crowded in, increasingly indifferent, any sensitivity they might have had hardening the way people, compelled into closeness, became calloused, skin pressed against skin like bolts in boxes, holes the heart of the heap. The light, he began to notice, the way it fell upon the floor like a bored sigh; and the bed, which had barely interest enough in life to squeak; his own case, no more now than a bloated sack, almost as bad as a string bag which won’t even hold its own space: their bodies grew near as his clients did when it was time to consult, while their inner selves, their feelings, their natures, fled. The TV, were he to turn it on, would offer him images like packaged pie, the machine as unconcerned about its business as dessert to a diner’s counter.

  He heaved the remains of his valise into the closet. Sat where it had sat and tried to gather strength. This was his bedtime story. You could see the orchards from the road as you drove, the trees in long rows like disciplined entries. No Swiss army regimen in the orchard owner’s brain, though. Riff’s facility with figures never made anyone happy, even when he made the dishonest honest, and straightened a crooked path like a paper clip. The seeds of crime grow sour grapes. And the straightened clip was but a useless bit of phony wire.

  Out and eat. He’d seen a dingy steak house near the off-ramp. Made of palisaded planks, a bad sign. But doubtless cheap. He’d eat too many fries. If Riff liked anything about himself it was that he was thin. Suddenly, out of … well, you couldn’t say blue here … he realized there was a row of books he hadn’t handled. So what. Why realize? He shoved “so what?” aside, and rose with a reluctance overcome by what he’d call curiosity but what he knew was fate. No light reached the low row. He tried to pry the secretary open with his fingers. Failing that, he was inspired to push up from the bottom where the door was a bit warped and offered a meager purchase. Open sesame.

  Satisfaction settled over him. Success. It was a sign, and now he was holding The San Felipians by someone called Roger Cowles. A society novel from 1932. About the successful, Riff bet. Diary of the Great War. Dates didn’t interest him anymore, even if they dated a diary. He’d been over the date business and it led to a mystery. Henry Williamson. There was the Radclyffe Hall again. So he had looked at the last row—a little bit anyway. What a slip. Now he was nervous. Luck had lost its luster. That quick—turn of card. Rad Hall would be a tough guy’s name. But Clyffe. Shit. Guide to Illinois Bed and Breakfasts. Also to Country Inns. A book called Six of Them. What? Like Five Little Peppers? Fireweed. The Younger Set. The Golden Door. The Little Yellow House. An American in Italy. Yes, he’d seen some of these; he’d been here before. The last one, a mystery—Jink. Jink?

  But he didn’t riffle through the books. He held them gingerly, glancing at the jackets, sampling a bit of the flap copy sometimes, but less and less, nervous without any recognizable reason, drawn and repelled by all these—well—former volumes—books no more now that they were never read. There was something about them—abandonment maybe—which resembled him, alone in his dowdy room, and wasn’t his face covered with little crinkles like the lacquered surface of the secretary? His hands were soiled. He put the last book back but left the doors ajar. Went without washing to curl up on the bed while neglecting to remove his low-topped boots. He didn’t wish for his sis. He didn’t call out for mom or undress Eleanor or anymore miss his gorgeous girl Friday, Miz Biz. His fingers still felt the paper of the pamphlet, very lightly, very slightly textured, soft though, despite some sense of soil, his tips the fingertips of a typist.

  2

  Riff held the Guide to Illinois Bed and Breakfasts in one hand while he chased cream around through his coffee with the other. A night ago in Chester, where he’d been skewing the vinegar man’s books, he could have stayed at Betsy’s Sugar Wood and enjoyed a view of the Mississippi from the inn’s perch on a bluff. If it was still there of course. And this morning he could be having coffee with Vennard and Norma at the Dowd house instead of sitting at the counter of this dingy Moweaqua diner. If his work was going to take him the entire day, he might still sleep in the “Cats and Hats” room after rocking for a few meditative moments on the front porch, though it was getting a bit chilly along toward evening now. Maybe there’d be a plant in his window. At any rate Rock Island, where he was due to dock tomorrow, had a large listing. Phone ahead, the IBBA booklet said. There was even a central reservation service. In the living room there’d be a TV to warm your eyes by, books in cases and magazines in racks. Anyway, there was a chance. Of course, his information was ten … eleven years out of date. Hey, in Mendota, where he was headed after he left the Rock, one place boasted balconies.

  How’d you like a view like that, mom, Riff said, balcony by gosh. You want somethun else besides pie, the counterman asked. Riff wagged his spoon and put it down wet by the coffee mug. Amenities were what was needed: fireplaces, porches which ran around the house like a large dog, armchairs, woodsy settings, antiques, artworks even. A large dog, that would be nice, a woolly one, friendly and smart. He read that down in Marion there was a collection of original log cabins collectively called Olde Squat Inn. Gee, he’d been many a time in that vicinity, and missed out. In his past, there was not a single squat to brag of. Probably built by river people on land nobody wanted. In Lincoln, the booklet said, you could snuggle into an antique walnut bed covered by a homemade quilt; then in Maeystown you could rent a rig. He envisioned Eleanor stretched out under a loopy canopy and it stirred him like a spoon chasing a cloud of Cremora.

  Amenities, yes. Here was a B&B that boasted six fireplaces, a player piano, stained-glass windows, and embossed-leather wall coverings. Riff’s shadow always fell so wanly on the motel’s creamy partitions, through which quarrels could be heard as though broadcast, he felt he was his own ghost … and a ghost barely ghostly, too. A glass case on the counter nearby contained a single piece of cherry pie looking like a lost red mouth. How had he managed to eat the apple? … tranquil porches, shaded yards, riverboats, eagles … hickory trees with woodland paths … Victorian furnishings, organic gardens, wrought-iron gates. Mom? In Olney, Olneys had white squirrels scampering through their oaks, free of earth, but as though the oaks were roads. A milky morning light glowed in the glassware like a low-watt bulb. The counterman’s rag moved through it as if it were a spill. Lit his spoon too, sitting in its wan brown sop. A little leftover reflection touched Riff’s cheek. Outside, gravel complained, crushed by the wheels of a truck. Riff was like a stool on his stool, his head like a seat turning slowly round. Like a hurt bird. He was.

  Riff read that Quincy’s streets, away from the highway, were shady and spacious, with Victorian homes of every style flaunting their porches and celebrating their dormers and chimneys. He read that Elsah’s Landing was largely made of village homes built before 1900. In Navoo, there was a house put up by Icarian
wine makers. Icarian? Was he supposed to recognize their role in history? He hadn’t known much about his odd-lot book collection either. Icarus was faintly familiar. Flew too close to the sun. Didn’t he wear wax wings like the bird? Well … Navoo was a Mormon hangout. Would he ever have time to stroll around in these towns? Bedded in a B&B, maybe he’d want to. How long ago, though, since he’d seen a waxwing? Riff lined coins for his coffee alongside the handle of the spoon. Prices always higher. Birds fewer. Would one of those economics books he’d entertained last night explain that? Riff slid his bottom slowly from the stool, stuffed the booklet safely in a back pants pocket. Up and attum. Antique toy store in tiny tons of trouble. Time to tip the scales.

  Riff decided to phone around.

  But in the phone booth, the booklet held awkwardly open in his dialing hand, he had second thoughts. It would be like going to another country. He would probably encounter a smothering gentility. Old people and oddballs made up most guests. He’d feel uncomfortable, as if the room weren’t his, especially when he’d only be staying overnight; it would be someone else’s place, full of foreign things, personal and uncommercial; it might be inhibiting to have Eleanor in such a proper bed, and he couldn’t risk imitating her coarse cries in an old house where sounds must carry like kites; moreover his valise was shabby, he wasn’t much for dandy dressing himself, with his cowpoke’s florid silver buckle, his satiny shirt, a long row of white buttons descending it like berries on a bush, its open throat, and, below the steer’s-horn decoration on his belt, jeans as snug as a banana’s skin. They could refuse to take him in.

  Hither and dither, darling, Kim might have chided. She was always so sure of herself, her views, her choices, her plans. Riff had to admit she’d done well by herself, and he could certainly use her advice right now. So he’d be late for his date at The Wooden Soldier if he didn’t shake a leg. Only a kid himself, he’d try to hold her up in the air in his arms so she could fondle the earlobes she liked. Until his ears heard their own tingle … He began to dial, and as he did the booklet fell from his fingers. In a rage whose reason he’d never realize, Riff stomped upon its flop-open side with his half-boot, stomped again and again, pursuing an obnoxious insect. I didn’t need that, he shouted at its bent flat pages, angry as though all morning he’d been put upon, and now angry at his anger. Recovering the pamphlet, which had a heel print across the antique teapot pictured on its cover and a streak of dirt on its drawing of a gingerbread house, Riff dialed Rock Island, fear fueling the rage which urged him on.

  Walter Riffaterre, Riff replied to the voice in his embarrassed ear. One night. Yes, by six. He’d be driving in. Yes, alone. He’d be by himself, so a single. They weren’t booked? No, he didn’t smoke. Oh yes, cash. He didn’t say he had no credit, that he avoided records, that his income resembled a series of modest tips. Did he like what? scones? Riff was standing by a pole in a parking lot of gray gravel. Maybe he should have called himself Barrett Wendell. Hoity-up the Toity. Still, Walter Riffaterre was pretty good. He turned to stare at the white sky. Gee, mom, they’re baking me some sort of biscuit, and I’m not even there yet. He felt a warm feeling which was just the morning sun, he supposed.

  Rock Island and Mendota were as far north as his travels normally took him. Most of the time he hung around Carlyle and Nashville, or Belle Rive and Du Quoin. Got to Oblong on occasion. He remembered, from the booklet, there were homey places there. That is, if they were still in the bed-and-breakfast business, because the very hardships which gave Walt Riff employment would work against any profitable custom and any lodging’s continued life. In Du Quoin he’d been to the fair. Maybe he would again, and Riff pulled out the pamphlet to verify his memory. Yes, only five blocks from the grounds, Francie’s Inn, a restored orphanage, it said, with yard games, what would those be? croquet, he bet, he’d never played, too genteel, kick the can was more his speed, and, sure thing, credit cards accepted. Even back then? Well, it made no never mind to him, he was on nobody’s books, he was invisible, hidden in his figures, shading the truth, yes, shading it a shade.

  Since he’d sacked Miz Biz (because she wouldn’t put out, he was sure she thought), he had acquired an answering service, so he was free to move about, his office in his auto, rootless as the wind. He would simply phone in to find out about new jobs. The Rock wouldn’t be rural, so where would his B&B be? He was promised a view of the Mississippi. Davenport more likely. Garbage scows, coal and gravel barges. Over the river and I-oh-way. Nice roll to that region. He longed for an anonymous motel alongside 80, no more memorable than its vacancy sign. He was sure he’d done a dumb thing. Well … only a night, he could survive that.

  Wooden Soldier, here I come. In Du Quoin, another balcony, mom. Perhaps from there, just five blocks, you could hear the holler of the crowd, or the horse’s hoofs, or the whirr of the sulky’s wheels. Someday. Rock Island, right now. Well, Rock Island would be a bit of a drive. On 121? Out of here on some slow back road. Maybe he could manage to go by Vennard and Norma Dowd’s place. Everything took time: the smallest, the simplest step. He’d better look alive.

  3

  The walk was made of evenly laid brick and marched straight to the house like a battalion on the move. On the porch there were a swing and hanging pots. Its nicely spindled railing curled round a corner out of sight. Up on the second floor façade, dark green shutters were folded back against a wall of bright red bricks like a photograph for Christmas. Riff was going to be knocking on someone’s front door, a salesman hoping to get in, as shamefaced as his dubious product. He held his valise up close to his chest, concealing the belt buckle, of which he had suddenly become very aware. But his case was scratched and crummy. A button on his shirt was a bit pulled. Welcome. Please ring. Riff rang, though only after carefully inspecting the card above the bell. Then a very square-jawed man of some age stood before him in a vested suit. Oh dear. I’m Riff—Walt Riff—Riff said. I have an appointment. Riffaterre, that is. I called this morning. I’ve a reserv— … room reserved.

  I guessed you’d be he, the square-jawed man said in a surprisingly light high voice, artificial even, with a wheeze. The screen remained between them. Mother, the man called in a loud whisper as if winded by just standing there. Riff lifted his valise a little higher. For the night, he said. You’ve rooms? No more empties now that you’re here, the man said. Two rears taken. Nice folks. But don’t like tea. Neither did Riff, Riff realized. Was this bad? He bet it was bad. His—what? host?—was a big blocky figure except for his putty-shaped nose. When he spoke, he puffed something awful. Then a white apron and black dress materialized in the sliver of the doorway that remained. You’ll be Mister Riffytear, the woman who’d been called mother said pleasantly, a slight but genuine smile on her long face.

  They managed to get the screen unhooked after some fumbling. Mr. Vest pulled Riff’s case out of the arms in which it was wrapped. This all? This trip … yes. You’ll be wanting to wash up, mother said, standing aside. The entry had a table which held a sign-in book. Riff remembered to write Riffaterre, but he forgot to put Walter. What sort of home address? He did what he often did to smear his tracks when checking into motels, and wrote Richmond, which was a speck of a place at the edge of the state way north. In front of him, Mr. Vest was puffing Riff’s valise up bare polished stairs. Hauling his own weight seemed to be the trouble. I can do that, Riff said. Mister Ambrose does it, mother said in a low not quite conspiratorial voice. I am Missus Ambrose. Welcome to our house, your home now, for this night. Thank you, Riff said. You have the nice front room with your own bath. I’ve turned out towels for you. Come along after me, and then we’ll show you around, so you’ll feel comfy. One needs to feel comfy, don’t you agree? Riff did. Richmond, Indiana, Missus Ambrose asked. No, not Indiana. Ah, then Virginia, she said with a finality which shut him up, I’ll just add that to the book … but in a minute. This staircase is over one hundred years old, yet do you hear a creak? quiet as a quilt it is, the way they built then, with bless
ed wood. Missus Ambrose went lightly up as fizz. The stairs curved after they reached a strange little landing. That window there depicts Ruth out of the dear Book. They stayed on the landing for a moment to admire it. Ruth’s hair was yellow as a lemon. Why not? Who knew?

  There was a chest at the end of the bed against which his valise leaned as if on one foot. Vest had vanished as well as his wheeze. Door to bathroom—mother says, pointing—door to closet—another gesture—and then that connecting door, that one over there, is locked, so don’t rattle the knob—might disturb the folks on the other side. Those front windows overlook the street but the street is quiet. Just come down to the parlor, Mister Riffytear, after you’ve had a wash, and we’ll—smiling—take you on a little tour. Pulling a pencil out of her apron pocket, she turned toward the deep upstairs hall and disappeared into her dark dress. We have many things, many wonderful things, she said, her voice floating back to him. Riff stood in the doorway for a moment, looking in at his new one-nighter life.

  Mother or Missus Ambrose seemed certain he would approve of his circumstances, and he guessed he did. Actually, he was overwhelmed by the opulence which now enveloped him, a plenty which made him feel secure, embowered even—pillowed, draped, laced—though he noticed, as he closed it, that his door had no lock, no catch, no latch, no hook. Still, what a place. Actually he had a little entry of his own. Very lahdeedah. And a bath … to his right … of where he stood. Once he ventured farther into the room, he first saw, still to his right, a radiator white as polished teeth, then the closet door which the Missus had already pointed out, and a catercornered sofa—a couch, geez—with a low oval table in front of it; all this before his examination reached the far wall and its three tall front-facing windows, each magnificently draped from floor to ceiling in pleated ivory with a valance which matched the wallpaper concealing the curtain tops. Riff stared. Matched perfectly. On the broad board between each window a small electric candle was fastened, while a single paper dove dangled from the lower sash, the birds aglow in the late light. In front of the central window a fern of some sort in a shiny white pot rose up from a wooden-legged plant stand. Below the pot, on a small shelf held between the spindles, a tiny hurricane lamp sat in a saucer ringed by a lacy border of cutout hearts.