Landscape With Traveler

by Barry Gifford

  Throughout this pas de trois Jim was certain I “disapproved of” or “disliked” the “other” woman, which doubts approached being insulting. I explained that I am not so fanciful as to have such feelings—or their opposites, for that matter—about a person I’d never met. At one point during his stay with me Jim mentioned that Laura was coming to town, and I asked him not to have her come to stay at my house. I explained to him then that this had nothing to do with my completely blank feelings about the lady, but rather that I didn’t want to become a part of the lie of the moment.

  As it turned out, after his enforced “isolation” period, Jim returned to Jean and the children (by this time there were two), and all has, apparently, been resolved. I did not wish, necessarily, that Jim and Jean stay together, only that he be able to see things clearly, which is the same as wishing him happiness.

  Such events seem so strange even to think about now, so unreal. No wonder, I suppose, that Genji, Ada, and Proust’s researches have replaced Treasure Island in my affections. The most fascinating thing there is, perhaps, is the passing of time.

  41

  An

  Invitation

  Jim and I spent a bizarre evening with a couple I’d met when I was working for Sylvia Fowler. For the longest time Jason and Sara had been asking me over to dinner and, for one reason or another, I’d been unable or unwilling to accept their invitation.

  After I left Fowler’s, Jason went to work there, and whenever I visited the shop I’d see him and he’d ask when I was going to come over for supper and to see his and Sara’s paintings. Both he and Sara were artists—though I had no idea what their work was like—and finally, one day I decided it would be really impolite to refuse any longer, and I told Jason I’d come. Jim was staying with me at the time, however, and I told Jason that, but he just said to bring him along, one more wouldn’t be any problem. If Jim wanted to come, too, that was fine.

  I told Jim I had no idea what to expect, except that both Jason and Sara seemed very nice people, and it would probably be fun. Jim agreed to accompany me, and at the appointed time we arrived at their door.

  We rang the bell several times, but there was no answer. I was certain I’d gotten both the address—they lived in a loft on Broome Street—and time correct, and I couldn’t imagine where they could be. Jim and I went over a couple of blocks to a bar and I telephoned them, but there was no answer.

  Jim thought they might be out at the store buying groceries, and, since it was freezing outside, suggested that we wait awhile in the bar, have a beer, and check back again in a half hour. We had a beer and played a pinball machine—the first time I’d done that since I could remember—and in a half hour I called again.

  This time Sara answered. When I told her it was I she sounded very cheerful, and asked what was up. I explained that Jim and I had been there when Jason told us to be and there’d been no answer. That was too bad, Sara said, Jason hadn’t mentioned anything to her about our coming. They had been to a local gallery to see a friend’s new paintings.

  I didn’t know quite what to say, so I asked her how they had looked to her. “Not very interesting, I’m afraid,” she said. “He’s hung up on boxes.” Then she asked if I’d like to speak to Jason, and I said yes.

  They kept me waiting for at least five minutes before Jason came to the phone. “Sorry, Francis,” he said, “Sara forgot all about the dinner. Where are you?”

  Well, Sara’s forgetting about dinner did not explain Jason’s presence at the gallery at the time he was supposed to be home expecting us. We were at a bar a couple of blocks away, I told him.

  “We?” Jason said. “Who’s ‘we’?”

  “My friend Jim and I,” I said. “My friend who’s visiting from California. You said it would be all right to bring him along.”

  “Oh,” said Jason, “of course, of course. Tell you what, Sara and I’ll just get ourselves together here and meet you up at the bar. Where did you say it was?”

  I told him.

  “We’ll be there in a jiffy. Hang on and we’ll take you out to a really good place for dinner. Bye.”

  I hung up and told Jim the news. Neither of us cared particularly, but the situation seemed strange, nonetheless. We waited, drank another beer or two, and in about an hour Jason came in alone.

  “Sorry about Sara,” he said. “She has an awful time of it once a month, and this is the time.”

  I introduced him to Jim, who by now was wondering just what I’d gotten him into, and I was beyond wondering. It was a bad situation, one I’d endeavor not to repeat, but now there was nothing to do but carry off the evening as best we could.

  “Well, where would you like to go?” asked Jason.

  I reminded him that he had mentioned on the phone that he knew a good place.

  “Oh, Fiorelli’s,” he said. “We’d never get in there at this hour. Besides, it’s full of tourists. Why don’t we go to a Mexican place around the corner?”

  I said that I didn’t know a decent Mexican restaurant existed in New York.

  “Well, come on,” said Jason, “it’s not far.”

  He led the way. It was getting colder and windier and after four or five blocks I asked Jason just how much farther around the corner was the place.

  “I hope it hasn’t closed down,” he said. “I’m sure it was right here somewhere. I haven’t been for a while.”

  We walked on. I was embarrassed and furious, and I was certain Jim was getting angry, but he didn’t say anything, so I kept quiet, too.

  “There it is!” Jason said, suddenly, pointing to a dimly lit doorway across the street. We crossed over and of course it was closed.

  “Well, that’s too bad,” said Jason. “It’s a really good place. Look,” he said quickly, before I could say anything, “let’s just go back to my place and fix something up.”

  “What about Sara?” Jim asked. “I thought she wasn’t feeling well.”

  “Oh, it’ll be all right,” he said. “She’s probably already eaten, and we can make our own dinner. I’m a good cook.”

  By this time I was frozen and I couldn’t argue. We followed Jason back to Broome Street. Once we were upstairs in their loft, while Jim and I huddled around the living-room heater, Jason disappeared into what I assumed was the bedroom to talk to Sara. Pretty soon we could hear loud voices and the door to the living room slammed. It was Sara who came out.

  “Would you like some wine?” she asked us, and disappeared into what I assumed was the kitchen.

  I looked around. There was a hideous green painting that took up an entire wall and a hideous gray painting that took up another wall. Then a young, bearded guy came into the room bouncing a basketball. He looked at us and bounced the basketball into the kitchen. Sara came out with three glasses filled with red wine on a tray. She offered the tray to each of us, took the third glass for herself, and sat down on the only chair in the room. Jim and I took our coats off and sat down on the floor.

  “Don’t lean against that wall,” she said, “it might still be a little wet.”

  We moved forward a bit and turned and looked at the wall. It was a dark pink with light bulbs sticking out of it at various angles. I could hear the bearded guy bouncing the basketball in the kitchen.

  “Charles!” Sara shouted, and the pounding stopped. “He’s a genius,” she said. “He could be a great painter but he won’t paint anymore, or can’t. I don’t know. I’m losing patience with him.”

  “Does he live here, too?” Jim asked.

  “He used to. He’s here a lot.”

  Jim and I sipped the wine while Sara prattled on ridiculously about “minimal,” “semi-minimal,” and “seminally minimal” art. I was truly horrified. More than horrified, I was insulted. Jason did not appear.

  After several minutes of this, I arose and announced that we really had to go. I couldn�
�t imagine how Jim was managing to keep his cool. I’m sure it was only out of politeness to me, but he needn’t have bothered. I’d never experienced anything like it before.

  “Oh, but I want you to see my paintings!” Sara cried.

  “Aren’t these—” I said, waving at the living-room walls, “yours?”

  “Oh, no,” she said. “A friend did these as a wedding gift for me and Jason. Mine are in my studio.”

  Jim didn’t—or wouldn’t—return my look, and I followed her into another room. Why was I doing this?

  It was worse than I could have imagined. The canvases—huge, giant stretches of real, very expensive canvas—were almost entirely blank. There were only a few very tiny blood-red spots on off-white backgrounds. Most of the dots were located near the bottom of each canvas. There were dozens of them. I was actually frightened that she would ask me what I thought of them.

  “What do you think of them?” she asked.

  “Yes, well . . . I’ve never seen anything quite like them,” I said.

  We stood around for a minute and then Sara covered them over affectionately, and we went out. Jim had his coat on. He handed me mine.

  “I hope you’ll come over again,” said Sara, “when Jason is feeling better.”

  42

  I’ve

  Bogged

  Down

  in

  Malory

  I’ve bogged down in Malory. He’s great, but I find I’m not in that mood right now. I keep thinking about Proust, and now that I have the two new Pléiade volumes with absolutely everything—published and unpublished—other than À la recherche and the letters, I may just go on a Proust jag. Longtemps je me suis couché de bonne heure. How I envy him!

  I’m tired of winter, though it’s been an excessively mild one, and grow more and more impatient for spring. Actually it’s been a wonderfully cozy day—pouring rain, fog, cool, and me all snug inside. Happily, the leaky roof is fixed.

  43

  We

  Are

  Born

  Knowing

  Everything

  I do most firmly believe that we are born knowing everything there is to know though we may not be conscious of it. Everything that’s really important, anyway. Socrates says so, after all. There are practical things that one finds out about much more easily by studying how to do them and all that, but on a philosophical, anthropological, etc., level, I believe that people know what’s right and good and know that any man is just like any other in the way that he thinks and feels.

  I don’t, on the other hand, advocate that people stop studying and reading. It’s a great pleasure and a wonderful luxury and has given me many beautiful hours. Besides, in our society it has become an accepted necessity, though reading has been overromanticized and perverted, also. I know very few people indeed who read a book by Tolstoy, say, and have any idea at all that this is a real man and that he’s talking to them. Mostly people seem to think of art with a capital A and equate it somehow with cleverness and/or talent, whatever that is, when it’s nothing more than giving in to one’s sensitivity and opening up about it—no more to be amazed about than a conversation between friends.

  I realize, of course, that some are more willing than others to do this, to open up, that is. We seem to be living (for the past few centuries) in the Age of Bashfulness, and people vie with one another as to who’s the more inadequate, except in certain accepted fields such as sports and the performing arts, where competition is considered “all right.” Before we know it, no one will sing anymore, that being the province of singers. Or perhaps we’ll shut up altogether and let the birds do it.

  44

  It

  Seems

  Appropriate

  to

  Find

  Myself

  Alone

  It seems appropriate for me to find myself alone at this point in my life. The weekend was taken up in great part by my interceding in a lovers’ quarrel—tiresome business! And a delicate one. Mostly, of course, it involves a great deal of listening and the finest kind of lying. But it’s good, too—for me. Reminds me how nicely my life goes along! Of course, if one waits for the right person, that sort of thing is less likely, and I like to think that’s really what I’m doing. But am I destined to meet him in a nursing home?

  I’ve actually been doing a lot of nothing lately. Picky reading of this and that, but with not much interest. I am going through one of my “wandering” periods, in which I sit and stare or sleep and just enjoy “it.” I bought a plant at the dime store! Two plants, actually. Must be the springtime. Not that it’s springtime yet—it was twenty-three degrees this morning, and the forecast is for snow.

  A new possession is a Dohachi wine cup, which I couldn’t resist. After all, as I drink a lot of plum wine, I should have an authentic cup to drink it from. I bought it yesterday and went straight home, washed it and filled it, settled down to leaf through Genji, and found myself musing on whose lips had touched the cup last. Some nice Japanese gentleman, maybe, who was unaware, in 1825 (actually it’s Dohachi III), that there were such people as Chopin and Bellini, much less Malibran and Pasta? How nice it must have been to be a Japanese gentleman in 1825!

  45

  What

  A

  Lovely

  Snowstorm

  What a lovely snowstorm we had last night! Just like twenty years ago, though that was fifteen inches instead of three and a half (but we always did things better in the good old days).

  Well, it’s fine to have a big snow just before the real spring comes. One has given up all thought of it, and it comes as a wonderful surprise. Though when it becomes slush, a March slush is much more tiresome than a January slush. So today I sat at home and read Genji, sipping plum wine from my new cup, and looking up from time to time to see the snow flurrying against my windows. There was sufficient heat in the apartment, thank goodness, to make that occupation quite cozy. Dohachi III, it appears, was not a period, as I had originally supposed, but a potter in the late 1700s to the mid-1800s. Whether he was considered a fine one I know not. But it’s a sweet little cup!

  I love Japanese and Chinese landscapes, like those reproduced in Awakawa’s Zen Painting—especially those with tiny solitary travelers barely discernible scaling a mountain path or crossing a fragile footbridge. Looking at them, I become the traveler, far from the “real” world, hiking along a winding stream or sitting in a hidden eyrie. Jim’s lovely poem, Reading in the Study in the Bamboo Grove (after that painting), is a perfect commentary on my vision:

  Lonely for conversation,

  the scholar in the mountain hut

  goes on reading.

  46

  I

  Wish

  I

  Could

  Get

  On

  Better

  with

  My

  Father

  I wish I could get on better with my father (my mother being dead now for some twenty years), but I have no great hopes for it. Men are too stubborn—both he and I—about things like that. Though I have tried several times to get into the subject of us, he just won’t talk about it, and it makes him so uncomfortable that I stopped trying. My “complaints” about him don’t bother me as much as his about me, whatever they are. I’d really just like to know exactly what they are (there are several possibilities), but I guess I never will.

  It’s always strange to get a glimpse of the you that other people see, at any age. It so rarely tallies with your own you (if ever) and is usually fascinating. I always try to find out what people think of me, but to avoid their accusations of egotism, which I don’t really think it is at all, one has to be at one’s most subtle and so usually has to settle for just a fragment of the picture.

  The most curious of all, of course, is
to come into contact again with friends one hasn’t seen in many years, particularly childhood friends. It’s very hard for people to recognize each other and know that they are the same, and that they’re still part of that same wave headed for the shore—or the rocks, as in this present generation! Of course that comes from the usual human shortsightedness and self-centeredness, from which we all suffer to some degree.

  But there are times on the other hand that I seem to see so far that I actually do wonder whether I exist at all. Trouble is, too, that people just don’t think—but that’s another (and endless) subject.

  Just last Christmas a girl I’d gone to high school with and haven’t seen or had any contact with since then was in town and called me, and I was amazed by what she said. She quoted long passages of my conversations with her at that age (sixteen or seventeen)! Crazy things, like “Well, after all, we’re the two most beautiful people in the world and we just have to learn to live with it.”

  I’m happy to say I’d long since forgotten having uttered such nonsense, but still I was touched by it, saddened in a way that so much of me has died already, and by the image of what her own life must be for her to keep on remembering stupid things said by some idiotic kid a quarter of a century ago. Also by what she told me of many of my boyhood friends, like the star athlete everyone worshiped and had great hopes for who now pumps gas in a filling station. All too typical, I suppose. Old mortality, and all that.

  47

  Looking

  Back

  Through

  All

  of

  This

  Looking back through all of this I can see how one might find it a rather sad history. Aside from the sadness inherent in all humans, I’m really the happiest fellow I know—a happiness dearly paid for, perhaps, but happiness nonetheless. Well, no—not so dearly bought at that, but I never was a bargain hunter! It’s ever so much more pleasant to buy a shirt, or whatever, quietly and courteously at Knize’s than to haggle and fight for a salesgirl’s surly “help” at Macy’s, even though you pay five or ten times more and have to skimp till payday. I guess that anyone with even slight intelligence who lives through forty or fifty years of as varied a pile of experiences as I’ve had (which I don’t consider so very unique), happy and sad, couldn’t help coming to a realization of sorts rather closely resembling the Eastern notion of maya as opposed to truth, the truth being that, with even the smallest of overviews, nothing merits the distinction of sadness or joy. It’s certainly a deep question to which I can pretend to have no answer. But I just about believe that there are no questions, either.