Birds of America

by Mary McCarthy

  “You wouldn’t come out and talk to the guards for me, would you, Levy? I gather you understand some Italian.” He gave Peter’s arm a pleading little squeeze, as though he was a blind man deprived of his Seeing Eye dog. “It wouldn’t do any good,” said Peter, resolved not to go on this stupid errand. “If this was a state museum, they just might let you by with it. But the Church is tough. You have to have all sorts of permissions to take photographs or do anything that’s not in the rules. I know, on account of my stepfather. They don’t like art historians or tourists, really. To them, they’re sort of sacrilegious. That’s why they give them a hard time. Haven’t you noticed all those signs—‘Questo è un luogo sacro’—outside churches, about being properly dressed? And honestly I don’t think they’d care for the idea of interviews in the Sistine Chapel, Mr. Small. Why don’t you do it outdoors, on the street? Catch people when they’re leaving?”

  Mr. Small supposed he could. But tourists leaving a museum were likely to be in a hurry. He needed a relaxed, informal atmosphere. It worked out best when an interview “grew” out of a seemingly casual conversation: “What are you doing in Rome?” “Where are you from?” “Do you have family here?” and so on. This was going to be a depth study, he emphasized, not the usual superficial survey made in airports. To Peter, Mr. Small’s scientifically framed questions sounded suspiciously like the ones he had been answering ever since he left his native shores—with those old schoolteachers, for instance, on that gruesome train ride from Le Havre. And in his eyes Mr. Small’s costume and sprouting beard, which he wore, he explained, so as not to look like a professor, far from putting a passing tourist at his ease, might suggest he was sidling up for a handout or selling contraband.

  In fact, right here, the guard had his eyes on them. The gloomy Borgian Sibyls’ Chamber (affreschi di Scolari del Pintoricchio molto ritoccati; fu in questa sala forse che Cesare Borgia fece uccidere il cognato), hung with Flemish arrases like the closet where Polonius eavesdropped, seemed to oppress Mr. Small with its musty reminiscences of conspiracy. Whenever the guard glanced in the doorway, the professor lowered his voice and bent close to Peter as though the walls had ears. He talked feverishly of the shattering of precedents his undertaking involved. “I’m prepared for attacks, naturally, from the academic Mafia. Some of the small minds in humanistic studies will have their knives out. That’s the price one pays for having a certain charisma. Even at the foundation questions have been asked about the utility of this kind of research and the deployment of tax-free resources for fresh ends and novel approaches. In my university I can expect talk of sinecurism, based, as usual, on envy.” “Yeah, I can imagine.”

  Peter chortled. He had to hand it to Small. When he thought of poor Bob, who was forced to spend a certain number of summer hours in hot libraries and dusty archives when drawing an allocation for studying some obscure Mannerist painter, he felt a certain delight in the picture of his adviser, free to lie on a beach all day long or submerge in a snorkel—anything he did could not help contributing to his knowledge of tourism, and the less he exerted himself, the more his knowledge would broaden. Eventually he would have to write up his findings or get his student myrmidons to write them up for him, but that was a long way off, and before he was through he might be looking into moon travel.

  “Have you thought of getting a shopping and souvenir subsidy?” “What do you mean?” “Well, you know, to buy Swiss watches and Japanese cameras and Florentine leather. All that junk that tourists bring home with them and try to smuggle through customs. The idea of loot is pretty fundamental to the tourist experience. So you should have an expense account to go shopping yourself to learn how it feels.” Mr. Small took offense. “Do you find something amusing about tourists or about making a serious study of them?” “Both, I guess, a little.” “But you’re aware of the importance of the phenomenon?” “Oh, yes.” Peter sighed. “And I know I’m part of it.” “Such humility is becoming. I feared you might be one of those snobs who distinguish between class tourism and mass tourism.”

  Peter flushed. “Well, I have to admit I like tourists a lot better in units of one or two than in units of thirty or fifty. But the difference doesn’t have to be based on dough. I mean, you see young couples or boys and girls roaming around by themselves who don’t look all that prosperous.” A sturdy young girl with blond pigtails and bare chapped legs raced through the room and up the stairs. “Take her. She comes every day. She’s Dutch or German and spends most of her time with the Blessed Angelicos, I think. I saw her once in Piazza Navona with a knapsack. To me, she’s a ‘class’ tourist.” Mr. Small dismissed the northern maiden with an impatient gesture. “Tourism today is a mass industry serving a mass market The fact is finally being recognized, and adjustments are being made: improvement of mass carriers—planes, ships, and buses—expansion of hotel and camping facilities, introduction at key points of super-restaurants with self-service. The single tourist unit, as you call it, will soon be as outmoded as the coach-and-four. Even the upper crust will travel in groups on yachts, private planes, and the like. No one will be able to reserve individual space. All block booking.”

  “I can imagine,” said Peter, who had his private crystal ball. “But this process you’re describing, won’t it be self-defeating in the end? Isn’t the whole point of travel to have a change of scene? With those giant hotels and cafeterias, every country will look the same. I’ve been thinking about those Germans in my hotel. They haven’t heard anything since they got there but German and broken German. They’ll have lunch in some place where ‘Man spricht deutsch’ is advertised, and their guide will tell them in German about the catacombs. They probably won’t even have to change into Italian money. Their beds and meals will be paid for in advance, and they won’t tip the waiters or the chambermaid. They might as well stay home and have a plate of deep-freeze spaghetti and see the Sistine Chapel on television.”

  “We don’t know yet why people travel, Levy. Nobody so far has examined the question culturally and sociologically. Economically we do know something. Package tours for lower-income groups, on the balance sheet, are proving to be more profitable for the host nation than the old de luxe tourism engaged in by the higher brackets. Even the fancy hotels aren’t turning away package tours these days. It’s the same as with any commodity handled in bulk. They’re easier to process in and out.”

  “I don’t see that. Most tours don’t stay more than a couple of nights, maximum, in a town. Tomorrow morning, when those Germans leave, my hotel will have to change all their sheets. With the single tourist unit, like me, who’s a slow mover, the hotel only has to change the sheets once a week.”

  This argument caused Mr. Small to give one of his sudden effusive little hugs. He went back to the question of tourist motivation. What caused several million Americans to leave their homes annually to seek out other scenes? “In what way is this culturally determined? What part is played by economic factors, education, social background, geographical distribution, ethnic origin? And how are these, in turn, related to the length of stay abroad? What about ‘repeaters’? Statistics, of course, can help us. For instance, it now seems to be established that a far higher percentage of U.S. tourists in Asia comes from the Pacific Coast than from the Eastern seaboard. Isn’t that intriguing?”

  “I think I could have guessed it.” “Guessed it, yes. But to know it! For example, I can form a hypothesis as to what brought you to Rome at Christmas-time, which might have served well enough for an old-time writer of fictions. Say a disappointment in love. But as a sociologist, I must make no facile assumptions.” He took out his ball-point. “Of course the reasons immediately apparent to you may not be the real reasons or only the tip of the iceberg. Undoubtedly, there’s a certain amount of atavism in the travel pattern. Rome, as the center of the Christian world, evidently acts as a magnet during the Christmas and Easter festivals for people of long-standing Christian orientation, even though they may be unaware of the Papal city as
the New Bethlehem. Tourism tends to confuse itself with the traditional pilgrimage to the holy places. But we can exclude that in your case since you’re Jewish, I assume.”

  “Half. But the other half went to midnight mass on Christmas Eve. You may have something there about the atavism. I’m not religious or anything. My feet just took me. But let me tell you something else strange. Really strange. I don’t know whether you noticed, but in the Sistine Chapel, on the left-hand wall, there’s a fresco by Signorelli and Bartolommeo della Gatta. To the left of where you were sitting. Right above and behind where I was, though I guess you didn’t see me. Well, every day I’ve been sitting on that same bench, trying not to look at anything but the Michelangelos, so as not to get distracted. Of course I move around some but I always come back to that bench. Then the last time I was there, I had this weird feeling, as though I ought to turn around. Like a tap on the shoulder. And what do you think? Behind me, over my right shoulder, in that Signorelli fresco, I saw a nude youth with golden hair, wearing a sort of locket and a red scarf around his loins. Do you remember him? He looks like a tender captive. All the other figures have clothes on.” Mr. Small did not remember the ephebe. “OK, if you go again, look at him. Do you know who he is, according to the guidebook? The personification of the tribe of Levi. That’s how we pronounce the name in our family, actually—the same as in ‘Lévite.’ Not ‘Levy.’ So he’s my Renaissance cousin. You know, idealized and pagan, like a young god or martyr ready for the sacrifice. The title of the fresco is ‘The Testament and Death of Moses.’ Do you think it could be atavism that made me sit down on that particular bench, under my archetype, till I had to finally turn around and meet his eyes? He has a tear, like a cast, in one eye, as though he was crying, but maybe the picture is damaged. Or maybe he’s naked and crying because he has no property. The Levis weren’t allowed to own land.”

  “Curious,” said Mr. Small, taking an extensive note. “You should read your Jung.” Then he brought Peter back to the weary subject in hand: why he had chosen Rome for his winter holiday. Of course Peter could not answer. If he knew why he had come to Rome, his inner self and mainspring would have no more secrets from him. All he could think of was Borromini and the Sistine Chapel. “Nonsense,” said his adviser. “Those are your ostensible reasons, pretexts you gave your family to justify your trip. There are plenty of fine museums in Paris, for anyone who takes the trouble to stroll through them. Let’s dig a little deeper. I think you said you’d been here before, with your mother. Did something significant happen to you on your earlier visit?” “Borromini and Michelangelo.” “Bob” had happened to him on his earlier visit, but he had not come back to see Bob, so why bring him in? “Yes, yes! You convince me that they are meaningful to you emotionally. But why?” “I don’t know.” “Let’s take the Sistine Chapel. Was there some particular feature that stood out in your memory?” Peter sighed. “OK, the Delphic Sibyl.”

  Mr. Small’s ball-point flew. “Does the figure remind you of anyone? A girl? Or a boy perhaps? You know Michelangelo’s proclivities?” “A girl.” In fact his favorite Sibyl did remind Peter slightly of Roberta but also of his pensive mother, whose arms were muscular from playing the harpsichord. “Unusual that a clothed, asexual figure should excite erotic fantasies in someone your age.” “I didn’t say erotic,” Peter replied stiffly. “And to me she’s the height of girlishness. Miss Nature before she got to be Mrs. I love the Prophet Isaiah too. I suppose you think he’s effeminate, with that raised eyebrow and drooping hand. To me, he’s young Jewishness in a pure, refined state, the way we were before the Diaspora. Intellectual beauty, like in that poem by Shelley.”

  “ ‘Before,’ ‘before,’ ” Mr. Small chided. “It’s curious that you show so little interest in the ‘Last Judgment’—a much more powerful and gripping design, to my mind.” “The ‘after,’ ” said Peter, with a wan grin. “I agree, it doesn’t appeal to me much. I like Genesis and the Prophecies.” He thought he had made a nice discovery: it was the Prophets and the Sibyls who upheld the whole structure by their mass, weight, and volume. E.g., the old gaunt Cumean Sibyl, in her white cap, bent over her green tome, with an arm like a blacksmith’s and gnarled fingers gripping the pages. They were bigger than the other figures, as if to show that their vision of the Redemption surpassed any temporal event. Maybe that was Michelangelo’s Platonism, the Ideas being greater than their puny reflections on the wall of the cave. By contrast, the newly emerged Eve, praying, was just a stumpy little fetish. Peter was not sure how the ignudi on their pillars fitted in, but they must be another redeeming feature, contributing to the uplift, a triumph of something natural over something else. Buonarroti saw plenty to be redeemed in the pitiful sequel to the magic bright moment of the Creation of Man, with God’s forefinger passing the spark to Adam’s, to call him forth from the deep of His intention. A plan that started with the separation of light from darkness and ended with the drunkenness of Noah left you feeling that the Almighty might have been wiser to stop with the Creation of the Fish. And the four big vengeful spandrels in the corners carried mysterious and sinister messages: David finishing off the fallen Goliath, Judith and a maid tiptoeing out with Holofernes’ head on a platter, Haman being nailed naked to a tree, the Children of Israel in the coils of fiery serpents. Every one of those barbarous episodes, when you thought about it, was an execution. Yet the Prophets and Sibyls, intent on their books and scrolls, were apart from all that, and the sun, when there was any, lit up their garments, which made you know there was hope. Michelangelo must have known that a morning finger of winter sunlight would touch the yellow mantle on Daniel’s right knee weather permitting as long as the frescoes lasted. Every time Peter considered that he felt joyful, as when somebody kept a promise.

  “Well, let’s go on. Based in Paris, as we’ve established, you had a variety of travel options. Was Rome your first choice?” “Yes. No, I take that back. A while ago, I had the idea of going to Warsaw with this Norwegian I knew. I’d like to see a Slavic country in the snow. Then that fell through; he got deported. Later, I was toying, for about a half an hour, with going to Autun.” “Autun? Why in the world?” Peter told him about Gislebertus. He was not going to mention the faithless Roberta, even if it was omitting something important. “You seem unfocused,” Mr. Small commented. “All over the place. No clear line of direction. Why are you so art-oriented, all of a sudden? The last time I saw you, you were interested in entomology. Something about becoming a bug.”

  It was typical of adults that they seldom remembered anything straight about a younger person, which showed their real lack of concern. “It was birds,” said Peter. “Oh, sorry, what was I thinking of?” “ ‘The Metamorphosis,’ by Kafka.” “Jove, you’re right. Have you read it?” “No. But I know the plot.” Mr. Small kept straying from the subject, but possibly that was part of the strategy of a depth interview. Peter grew impatient. He had resolved to go without lunch to study the little spandrels above the lunettes, but already he was behind schedule, and it was a gray morning. On a day like this, the light faded fast in the chapel; after one o’clock it would be too dark to make out those dim, shadowy figures waiting, if that was what they were doing, for the Advent.

  “Would you mind if I went back now to the Sistine Chapel?” “Sure, go ahead. Just let me ask you a couple more questions. Have you had any contact with other Americans here? The Beats, for instance?” There was a sudden, bated eagerness in that last “offhand” query, which made Peter wonder if the whole interview had not been leading up to it. It was funny how older people got excited by thinking about the Beats, as if they were some new kind of pornography. “No,” said Peter. Mr. Small was disappointed. He had hoped Peter might help him; it turned out that one of his main purposes in Rome was getting to know them better. Amazingly, in Paris he had already picked up quite a few in the Place de la Contrescarpe, near where they had their pads. “They gave me a lot of data. Fascinating stuff. I have it all on tape. Some of course wer
e unwilling to be drawn out, taking me for a member of the Establishment. In Paris, with my Embassy and academic connection, I had to be somewhat circumspect. The place to find their counterparts, they told me, was on the Spanish Steps. Anywhere else that you know of?” “American Express. Maybe Cook’s. You could put an ad in the Rome American.”