by Alex Kovacs
A descent into the quotidian where each object and landscape is grey and the emphasis is firmly placed on the precise routines involved in cooking a meal, in washing oneself, in walking down streets that are lined with houses, in watching weather forecasts, in generally experiencing boredom and toil, perhaps in the figure of a man stumbling onwards just as anyone does, in infinite cycles of repetition, whilst he waits desperately and vainly for anything to change, for anything of interest to ever occur at all?
Long sequences of portentous symbolism, littering the remainder of the narrative with clocks and shadows and dwarves, with strange melancholy descriptions of day and night that will be depicted as entities ruling over two distinctive temporal theatres, in which every character is wearing a mask and their clothing always corresponds to their status, a situation giving rise to multiple interpretations and (hopefully) long classroom debates, to further books filled with elaborate analyses of the tumbling profusion of (no doubt) significant statements and troubling allegories?
A sequence of memoirs, recollections of childhood, suggesting that the past matters more than the present, that a person is only a catalogue of his or her memories, of whatever they happen to remember, an accumulation of ways in which they have learnt to be themselves, in the process of which finally all the things they hoped to retain from this journey are lost irretrievably?
The book progressing and traipsing from one curious incident to another, maintaining the ever-present possibility that another street will be wandered down, in order to discover what lies beyond other walls, where perhaps acrobats will appear clambering on top of each other to create a pyramid, before suddenly disappearing, existing as an illustration of the notion that “anything might happen at all”?
A complete change of every element: character, tone, pace, rhythm, style, typeface, layout, situation, hairstyle, house, plumbing, outlook, paradigm, clothes worn, weathers observed, facts related, colours mentioned, items bought, rooms furnished, metaphors employed, religions preferred, events depicted?
A lurch forward in time of perhaps 859 years, a change of scene, with things no longer so simple and now possessing so many layers of historical meaning that it has become difficult to even perform the act of walking from one side of the street to the other, a place in which time travel is now a part of everyday life, thus irrevocably altering all societies, all histories, all politics, all memories, all ambitions?
A sudden enormous shift in the life of the protagonist, resulting in the remainder of his days being ineradicably altered in ways that he had previously thought were not possible, ensuring that his levels of happiness and sadness will increase, that his long-term interpretations of events both local and international will no longer seem as concrete and evident to him as they previously had done, consequently causing waves of bewilderment to affect the operation of many of his everyday actions?
It’s Never Impossible to do Something for the First Time (If You Haven’t Done It Before)
(1984–1985)
In the late summer of 1984, Maximilian took to attending lunchtime recitals of classical music held in a number of small churches in the West End. On these occasions he always liked to sit in the front row, a red carnation pinned to his lapel, a black fedora atop his head, his eyes firmly closed, so that he could more deeply engage with the reveries that the music induced. He loved the air of secrecy and seclusion that pervaded these events, that their sparse audiences were composed entirely of people immersed in private fantasies, persons living in retirement or exile or simply escaping from the demands of the office.
During one such recital he experienced a strange and somewhat remarkable encounter. At the end of the concert, Maximilian, in his customary fashion, stayed rooted to his seat, his eyes closed, as he spent a few minutes readjusting himself to the ordinary function of his senses, so that he might be able to walk upright in a manner befitting a citizen of composure and restraint. He was interrupted by sounds of shuffling and breathing in his immediate vicinity. Blinking his eyes open into the brightness he beheld the curious apparition of a young woman, tall and red-haired, with a yellow silk cravat tied around her neck, staring at him intently, her green irises twinkling at him with interest and amusement. After a few seconds Maximilian realised that she was the harpsichordist to whom he had just been listening.
Smiling, she greeted him. A lengthy conversation ensued, which lasted into the early hours of the evening, continuing for some time over a couple of gin and bitter lemons in a tiny bar in Soho. It became apparent to Maximilian that this young woman, who he had learned was named Ramona, had for whatever reason taken an interest in him, although he could not begin to understand her motives in this regard. Dispensing rapidly with all formalities, their talk soon ranged across many subjects, encompassing topics as diverse as the personality quirks of international chess players, the depressing nature of the government then in power in Westminster, and the extraordinary number of transvestites that both of them had happened to encounter in recent weeks. Ramona, who might have been said to “collect eccentrics,” found Maximilian utterly bewitching, as he seemed to her to be quite unlike anyone else she had met before. Being still only twenty-one, she was at a stage in life that demanded the constant seeking out of adventures and this situation had presented her with a very tempting one.
They arranged to go out on what Maximilian would not have known to call a dinner date. In his favourite Korean restaurant, over plates of duck in plum sauce, they deepened their intimacy considerably by sharing further information about their pasts. Maximilian found it very odd that they seemed to have much in common. Both were “free spirits” (her term), prone to rebellious gestures that often caused them personal difficulties but, in recompense, a sense of liberation. They shared the opinion that music was the noblest of all art forms and that every last sound should be attended to in the same manner reserved for pieces of tonal music. Mischief, so called, was never far from either of their minds, and they both revelled in behaviours dominated by one or another mode of “aesthetic weirdness” (his term).
Not long after they had finished their meal, Maximilian, at the age of fifty-six, lost his virginity. It proved a shattering experience, particularly as he had assumed he would never have it. He had shut his mind to thoughts even tangentially related to the subject. Now, however, he felt that he had been in error. He had suffered a great existential loss. He had never understood that sexuality was the secret hidden at the heart of human life! Wandering through crowds, he looked at every adult that he saw in an entirely different way.
Ramona had coaxed him back to her room in South Kensington, where the crimson walls were decorated exclusively with broken mirrors, and where a four-poster bed, covered in white muslin drapes, was the undisputed locus of thought and deed. Throwing Maximilian onto the mattress, she had torn away at his clothes, an act he had read about but never imagined could occur in so literal a fashion, scratching her nails across his back and thighs, covering him with almost savage kisses, before impressing tiny bite marks into the skin at the base of his neck and making demands in crude language that Maximilian interpreted (correctly) as the final ritualized gesture she would make before expecting the initiation of coitus proper.
They saw each other often. During their meetings it became apparent to Maximilian that this woman was selfish, conceited, and consumed by an unsettling snobbery directed at anyone at all who spent their life engaged in commonplace activities. Frequently, in the midst of conversations, she would raise her voice in order to articulate obscure adjectives very carefully and slowly, doing her best, he imagined, to belittle Maximilian by using words that she presumed he would not understand. Whenever she encountered any earthly phenomenon that did not meet her standards, she would roll her eyes with great, exaggerated effect, and, lightly tut-tutting, would attempt to dismiss whatever lay in her direction . . . Pleasing her for an extended period of time was more or less impossible, Maximilian decided.
In addition
to the harpsichord, she could play the piano, the oboe, the ukulele, and the hurdy-gurdy, not to mention a great variety of percussion instruments; yet it was the harpsichord about which she was most passionate, and to which she devoted the most time, nonetheless, she had also managed to find enough idle moments to become an expert tap dancer, a form of recreation that had come to dominate much of her leisure time from adolescence onwards, after she had been inspired by the example of the classic MGM musicals, privately reenacting dance routines in front of her bedroom mirror.
Growing up in a family of academics, she’d been a highly educated and cultivated young lady at an age when most people have barely been given a chance to choose their own socks. After mastering a number of European languages and abandoning a likely career as a Classics professor, she began a prolonged descent into hedonism, glutting her senses with every experience available to her, focusing particularly, although not exclusively, upon explorations of her sexual temperament. Once this had become her path, she spent a number of years sampling almost every form of behaviour imaginable, socially acceptable and otherwise, making many hundreds of unlikely acquaintances, often of the sort who would vanish with the dawn and so make no further demands upon her time. There wasn’t much in the world that she wouldn’t be interested in trying at least once.
It took Maximilian some years to understand that this peculiar creature had been interested in the idea of him more than the individual. She had told him that she was attracted to his seniority and the status and experience that came with it. Flattered by these sentiments, Maximilian began, for the first time in his life, to walk with a proud, defiant posture. Only later did he realise that almost any older man would have been sufficient for her at that time. Put simply—she had used him.
She made sure that sex was never to be taken for granted. Frequently she would provoke him, arouse him profoundly before withdrawing her attentions entirely. He became afraid to make a move, to speak out of turn, to criticize. When she decided, finally, to return his affections, he felt as if he had won some kind of rare victory, although he could not have said how.
Nevertheless, it was clear that she derived a great deal of pleasure from their relations. They stayed “together” for a not inconsiderable length of time, perhaps—or so Maximilian feared—for no other reason than that he was more malleable than her other lovers, because so inexperienced. There was little that he would not do in order to try and satisfy her, but this compulsion was rarely reciprocated. Clicking her fingers he would rise up and behave as required like a performing animal.
Ramona loved to taunt him. She made particular use, in this regard, of his age, his mannerisms, and the fact that he had no sort of social life whatsoever, aside from Ramona herself. She pitied him. She would suggest innumerable possibilities for his engaging with the world in more direct forms than he would ever have considered on his own, telling him to “confront his fears.” There was a very fine line between torment and encouragement, as far as Ramona was concerned.
Maximilian was overawed by her. He frequently thought of nothing and no one else when they were apart. He got no work done. Images of her laughing and running played through his mind, perhaps inspired by certain pharmaceutical advertisements he had seen. There was the time they spent together, and then the long barren intervals in between. Nothing else. And yet, these were, without a doubt, the happiest days of Maximilian’s life. Whenever he and Ramona parted, Maximilian would return to the bungalow and fall asleep nearly choking on his tears of gratitude.
Of course, Maximilian did not tell Ramona the truth about his life’s work. She was never to know about the vast majority of his accomplishments. He did take her to the bungalow on a few occasions, but despite his devotion, he felt profoundly uneasy about letting her into his domain. As expected, she had thought that the lack of decorations and furnishings was foolish. Disapproving as she was, she still regarded his dedication to this lifestyle as highly admirable. He had told her at the outset that he was an artist, but he refused to reveal even the slightest aspect of his work to her, saying only that all of his work was done in a studio to which neither she nor any other living soul had ever been invited. Despite feeling the inevitable curiosity, Ramona found his air of mystery highly romantic and sought, in her way, to prolong it, rather than try and get Maximilian to acquiesce. Their relationship was based upon the erotics of falsehood and concealment.
At first they did the things that lovers do. On winter Sundays they would take long walks across desolate windswept beaches. Gratuitous quantities of sentimental phrase would be exchanged in hushed tones. They would kiss each other with the intention of making little offerings of food at the same time. Each invented a dozen terms of endearment for the other on a more or less arbitrary basis. Dressing in each other’s underwear they would parade across Ramona’s bedroom in a series of spontaneous dance moves.
Once some months had elapsed in each other’s company they began to play many different kinds of sexual game together. At first, they spent some time on role-playing—nothing revolutionary, but enjoying the frissons of subversion lingering in their personal interpretations of the classic bedroom personae. Father, Mother, Master, Slave, Teacher, Nurse, Policeman, Pilot, Secretary, Maid—they tried them all. Ramona was always the one to instigate these games, but the further that she drew Maximilian into them, the more grateful he became. When he and Ramona retreated to her bedroom, he felt as though he were fighting against the fact of his own mortality.
Between their meetings Maximilian would try to get on with his routine as best as he could but he found himself thinking about her constantly. During their lengthy separations, at wildly inappropriate moments of the day he would suddenly be possessed by the desire to masturbate (another recent discovery), and whilst engaging in yet another extended session of this activity he would picture his beloved and murmur her name to himself.
Eventually Ramona decided to introduce him to drugs. Roaming the streets together, high on amphetamines, they would lurch through a series of mental contortions, complicated by their rapid-fire chattering, enjoying the colours and forms of the tiniest observable objects, however simple they might appear on the surface. In this way Maximilian came to discover the urgent excitements to be found whilst attending to the fluctuations of a broken streetlight flashing on and off repeatedly, the conventions of decorum and behaviour that had become expected at the majority of delicatessen counters, not to mention the different forms of typography that were employed across the exteriors of pub jukeboxes. The terms on which he had based his entire conception of rationality were suddenly challenged, mocked by the very reality in which they had previously held firm. It would be quite impossible for him to return to the many assumptions which had previously ruled him.
Maximilian and Ramona spent epic days hurtling through a series of varied perceptions and identities, both of them attempting to follow the convolutions of the other’s imagination, until each had become attuned to the mental co-ordinates of their counterpart. Remnants of memories thought long ago discarded were retrieved, often taking on a new significance. Maximilian and Ramona tried to invent new ways of speaking to each other in order to accommodate their sensory discoveries, until all known forms of conduct had to be forgotten and replaced. Together they vowed that they would enter the rarefied, sacred realm in which all desires are to be explored and fulfilled.
The kind of intellectual talk with which they had commenced their relationship continued, but now it formed the back-cloth of their conversation, the shared assumption lying behind their strange improvisations and excursions. Role-playing mingled with everyday speech until it was difficult to determine which “character” might be making what otherwise mundane comment. Identities merged with other identities, and one persona might dissolve into another within the course of a few minutes.
Much of their talk came to consist of in-jokes, secret messages, obscure references. Filtered through the frenzy of their amphetamine perceptions, t
hey held on to old subjects that became manic little tics that each might throw into the stream of their relationship. Often their allusions were so subtle that their intentions were in danger of remaining secret even from each other. Playing in this manner helped strengthen the bonds of their intimacy enormously. Outsiders overhearing their conversation would likely have found it farcical, unless of course they would find it terrifying, given its lackadaisical disregard for both continuity and kindness.
And then, one day, she disappeared.
Transcription of an Afternoon Walkie-Talkie Conversation
(1985)
MAXIMILIAN: Smooth flow of black ink falls wetly from my pen nib scrawling across the surface of folded white paper. Red plastic receptacle on left hand side of desk holding assortment of pens and pencils. Heap of paper clips inside a small plastic box. Brass frame holding photograph of smiling wife and children.
RAMONA: I changed the flowers in the vase on the hall table. Red tulips. Daffodils. I held them by their stems and cut them with a pair of scissors so that they would fit into the vase. I placed them very carefully, with a measured exactitude, into the cool, transparent bulb of glass and water. I sang a little tune in the meantime. My mind was pleasantly vacant. Gradually I discovered the optimum arrangement of the flowers by arranging and rearranging them, thinking of other things.
MAXIMILIAN: I am wearing a suit. The shiny black polished sheen of the shoes. Black laces peeping through tiny silver-rimmed holes. Black socks. Pinstripe suit. Tiny white dashes arranged in long, vertical lines over a soft bed of well-cut, tailored wool. Straight, neat, silk red tie with a bulbous knot hanging beneath my throat. The redness of the tie flaring brightly over the white cotton shirt. The outfit says, I am one who commands. One who possesses a legitimate presence. One who will become very angry if provoked. One who will brandish a tool and use it with immaculate skill.