by Milan Fust
"Do you believe, sir, in higher intelligence?"
"What the hell is that?" I inquired.
"In intelligence like Vitruvius and Zoroaster," said the old man quite meekly, "who do think about us, after all."
"What do I care, man? I want to decide myself if that cabbage soup . . ."
"Oh dear, what cabbage soup?"
". . . that you send up for lunch is right for me. Or if the fireplace on the second floor is working." (About my wife I said nothing. . . . Life, life these people keep talking about. Others may be crazy about it, but I am unimpressed.) "No, sir," I shouted in the man's ear, "I do not believe in higher intelligence."
"You don't?" asked that old ignoramus on the staircase. "You mean you don't believe in cosmology, in a celestial order, in the purposefulness of the universe?" (That's what they all do: they trot out the fancy phrases about the stars and the heavens, instead of explaining the reasons behind all those things. As if a piece of carrot couldn't be used to prove this or that, depending on how you twisted it.)
"The movement of the stars is a thing of naught, then," he intoned. "Or the music of the spheres, the celestial harmonies? . . ." That's just what the old fool said, flinging out his skinny arms toward the janitor's booth.
"What if it is 'a thing of naught?'" I asked. "What if it is? Look here, holy man, maybe I am a fool too, but I am not alone. And I assure you that creation itself finds pleasure in ninnies like you, or else it wouldn't have inundated the world with them.
"Just listen to me. If something is cooking in your pot, what are you going to say about the hissing and bubbling? That these are some wonderfully harmonious noises? What is so harmonious, my dearest sir, about one creature devouring another? The only principle at work in the world is a parasitic one. This is predator's paradise, my gentle friend, predicated on extreme cruelty. Such a world doesn't attract me, it doesn't even interest me. How can it? How can there be harmony in a world that's governed by grandiose ideas and where the individual is ignored. Oh no, I am through with such a world, and through with you. Farewell, dear sir . . .
"And if the Swedenborgian fathers will not forgive me, tell them I shan't forgive them either.
"Just remember that it's the practical truths that are important, never the higher, abstract ones, never those. And to buttress my point, I shall have to refer to the words of Father Lambert himself. (I got into the swing of it by then and started quoting straight from the book.) 'Man's life is a tragedy; it is an awful subject'— this is his first thesis. 'Life is practical'—this is the second. 'It is neither poetry nor effeminate philosophy. The passions of human nature, civilized or barbarous, make stern alternatives necessary, and lugubrious cant will not change man's nature or the necessities that arise from it.' And with that I really must take my leave. Good-bye and good luck."
That's just how I held forth, in my early morning drunkenness, on the staircase of our shabby boarding house. I could have just as easily begun preaching in some park. "Bravissimo," an Italian tenant shouted from the first floor.
"How sweet you look when you're drunk," my wife said, laughing, and pressing me to tell her all about last night—where I was, what I did, did I have a good time? She asked for more and more details, though as it was, I couldn't stop talking.
I did detect a certain slyness in me, however, and remarkably enough, I felt good about it, better even than about being honest. That's how one ought to live, I said to myself; it would make things so much easier to bear.
What I did was to pretend I was even drunker than I actually was, for in such a state one tends to chatter away thoughtlessly. And that's what I did, though at the same time observing carefully the effect my words had on my tiny albeit curvaceous wife.
Curled up on the pink sofa in her blue pajamas, amid books and cigarette butts, she was indeed like a queer little ball, who'd also had a wild and exhausting night. Yes, like a ball she was, a blue tangle that's been roughed up by kittens.
Is that it? I asked myself. Is that all there is to her? The woman I am supposed to love? After the marvels of the previous night, that seemed inconceivable. Yet, at the same time, there was a heaviness around my heart, the realization perhaps that stray as far as I may, I would never be rid of this little woman. Miss Borton was right. The conclusion rang true, indeed so true that in the solemn silence of my fading drunkenness, in that curious morning glow (I had already opened the shades and the room was flooded with light), I could stand back and hear myself go on and on. As though I was no longer there.
I told her about my adventure with the two women but in the following manner:
"They were two millionairesses, whom I met while negotiating a deal with Kodor. I didn't bother to remember their names, I still don't know who they are, two scavenging vultures most probably, ready to swoop down . . . But they were beautiful vultures, like birds out of a dream, I swear (and I even raised my hand, as if taking an oath); one was a plump bird, the other as graceful as a violin . . . (The word made my wife burst out laughing. 'A poet, a real poet,' she squealed 'Birds, violins . . . how sweet.' They are so literal, these French.) Anyway, the two extraordinary birds went ahead and—this is God's honest truth—asked me to marry them . . .
"So watch out, sweatie," I warned her with a smile, "I am a real lady killer now."
Well, my wife almost rolled off the couch.
"You sweet, darling man," she enthused, hugging her hip.
"Oh, my side," she suddenly cried and her face contorted. (She did have a problem with her hip, nothing serious, some form of sciatica, I shouldn't wonder, but whenever she was in pain, it was my fault naturally.)
"It hurts," she reproached me, and even turned to the wall, to make sure I didn't see her face.
So I stopped talking, and though still unsteady on my feet, began to undress. But then I heard her again:
"How was it with those two?" And there was chuckling under the blanket. I took up my story again, and told her how flustered I was when a foot under the table started rubbing mine (another embellishment, as you can see) and when at the same time a hand—it could have been a nasty gremlin, I dare say—began to pull on my jacket.
"And you?" she asked, her eyes asquint.
"I made as though I had to tighten my shoelaces . . . Naturally."
"Ooh, that's so precious," she again squealed, "I love it, I love it." (Anything having to do with a secret romance got her going like this.) So I continued, telling her more about the two lovelies, about their black hair and black dress (Kodor I left out of the picture, said nothing about one of them being his lover), and kept weaving my yarn and arranging the ever more intoxicating details so that the central question remained:
"What was I to do with two in Heaven's name? I couldn't very well marry two women at once, could I?"
"Oh, dear, oh dear. But must you marry them right away?" she asked anxiously.
"That's what they wanted."
"What do you mean that's what they wanted? They actually wanted you to marry them?"
"They did, on my word. You still don't believe me? My word means nothing. . . ?"
Here I stopped for a minute.
"Didn't you say you were married already, that you had a wife?"
"Of course I did."
"And?"
"A lot they cared. In America such things don't much matter. (Oh yes, I made them out to be Americans.) They must have thought that even if I did have a wife, I'd leave her for them . . ."
Now I came out with it. And let's stop here for a minute, for at this point something happened; it got a little too quiet in the room. My wife raised herself on the couch, lit up a cigarette, inhaled deeply, and said:
"So you were again the man of the hour. Congratulations." And she snickered, lightly, mirthlessly. Then, in a dreamy, musing sort of way:
"Isn't it interesting? Just yesterday I was also asked by someone to marry him." But she said this quite casually, as if thinking out loud, though she did add, oddly:
&nbs
p; "Will you let me go?"
Next day the first thing I wanted to do was search the house.
But let's for the time being stick to those crucial moments the day before. For we did pursue the matter. I tried to laugh it off at first.
"You must be joking," I said. "When did they ask?" (My legs, to be sure, were already trembling.)
"I told you, yesterday."
"Yesterday, really? But how, where? What are you talking about? All you do the whole day is lie in bed." My wife began to laugh.
"That's not even true. (It wasn't; she did wander off someplace the other day.) And besides, you don't have to leave the house for that."
"You don't, do you? I suppose it happened right here, in the flat.
She now laughed even more cheerfully.
"The things you keep thinking about," she said, though making sure not to look at me. "Why must it be here or some other place? Can't I get a letter?"
So she's been receiving letters. Hm. That I didn't think of.
"What sort of letter?"
"For Heaven's sake, a letter, a quite ordinary letter."
I didn't really believe it, certainly not right away, not the letter, though everything else . . . But what was everything else, what the hell was going on? If somebody could propose to a married woman ... I tried to figure this out but couldn't; thoughts were churning about in my head but they didn't register; I was numb, empty, as if stunned by a blow. But then the storm began to rage inside me, and with such fury it made me shiver. I must talk about it... In due course, though, I am rushing ahead of myself again.
The first person who came to mind was the Italian chap. The business about the letter I dismissed, of course. This fellow, however, lived here in the building, he was handsome, a sculptor, and Italian, to boot. Maybe he was the one who sent her those violets.
Another Italian, then . . . Yet he was just a face, picked out at random from the turmoil reigning in my head, the same one who yelled bravo just before. But this sculptor fell off some platform the very next day and was taken to the hospital. So I waited for three days. And during that time my wife didn't leave the house, I made sure of that. And the Italian asked to see only one friend of his, who then left town the same day. And the sculptor himself died the fourth day. And my wife stayed in bed all that time, she never left our rooms.
So I had to search elsewhere. But where, how?
Would I let her go, she wanted to know. Just as I thought, in other words. The case of my old friend, the scalesman, must have scared her. She would have liked to leave but was afraid.
What was I to do with her now? I tried to imagine what it would be like to banish her from my thoughts. I told myself: Make believe she is dead, or that you never knew her. Try to get used to the void.
Or try to put up with a thorn in your flesh, it can be done. After all, in India people stick needles in their feet and go on living that way.
In other words, we, too, will go on as before, and when lover boy comes to call, you will go out for a smoke, how is that? And just don't think about it, right? But can you do that? Can you disregard the thing that your very circumstances compel you to think about? Ah, and life can be so sly, so cruel. Just then wherever I went I heard reminders. Did she cheat on him? Did he? It was all over: on buses, in newspapers—family dramas, jealous rages, crimes of passion, suicides. And there was the famous Bittery case, too, which had all of England in an uproar just then. A triple suicide: husband, wife and lover. It was the talk of the town.
I myself witnessed something similar right around then. And an ugly affair it was. I found out that an old friend, Gregory Sanders, was in town. Sanders was an excellent chap, serious, intelligent—I thought I'd look him up and have a little chat. Where he stayed it was always quiet and peaceful. A man like him needed peace and quiet, and so did I. He put up in an old hotel. But on my way to his room, after climbing four flights of stairs, a shot rang out, not more than ten paces away from me. Quick and simple. As if someone had just slammed a door. A small-caliber revolver it had to be.
A miserable little woman lay near the stairs, a mere child, really, a bundle of colored rags—a sorry little felt doll somebody just threw away. There was no blood anywhere, no sound—nothing. She yielded very quietly.
As I later found out, she tripped on the hallway carpet while trying to get away. But the man with the revolver caught up with her. And he seemed like such a fraud, such a buffoon. Again I couldn't help feeling that it was all a scene out of some trashy melodrama. He was disheveled, his eyeballs bulged, he wouldn't stop panting. It was like a picture show, really, so false in every way.
"She cheated on me," he whispered with a rattle in his throat, and then, he, too, collapsed. Bloody fool, I thought. Everybody is cheated, didn't the crazy bastard know that? And I kept on walking, haughtily, totally unconcerned. His woes seemed so ludicrous to me, and his act so abhorrent.
For what does it mean to cheat on someone? What is this silly word compared to that young woman lying there, silent and motionless, who only yesterday could do so much more besides cheating. She could laugh, she could remember—all of that had no significance any more, and she herself no more meaning? Only that one word, those few letters? We make our lives depend on it. We allow ourselves to be humiliated, to be dragged through mud. But why? What makes us do it? Why can't I understand this, because I can't, even if I cracked open my thick skull.
This incident made me lose my bearing again. I was in a daze, my head crammed with wild dreams for days afterward.
Just think: You go over to a woman and whisper in her ear: "You cheat ... I killed you because you cheated on me." Maddening nonsense. How can death be a punishment for someone who is no longer aware of that punishment—because she is dead, of course. And at the same time, how can it be a source of satisfaction to the aggressor? It's all so ridiculous, we are ridiculous, down to our fingertips, our loftiest moral principles notwithstanding.
Such conversations I carried on with myself, even at night . . . But if I read on a movie poster or in the paper: the Deceived Husband, I felt I was being deprived of my manhood. Somebody ought to explain to me once how these things work. One day we see everything quite clearly, and the next our vision is blurred. Or maybe we never get a clear picture, it's all a deception from the beginning to end.
I keep wandering aimlessly in their midst and I learn nothing. What is behind all this? Maybe somebody comes up to my place, too, people around here may even know him, the chambermaids, for instance, they may laugh about it, laugh in my face even, and I smile back because I think they're being nice. And of course they discuss it amongst themselves, tell the grocer about it. They tell everybody except me; I am forever left in the dark. It's a conspiracy. They are tight-lipped and stone-hard. What, then, is the explanation for my ignorance? Is it sheer apathy on my part? Have I simply learned not to care? Yes, that's what happens, for a while, at any rate. Up to a point. But then the abyss opens up and I notice everything. After the fact, that is. . . .
What can I say? I suffered untold pain.
Other people's affairs, their complicated relationships, never used to interest me much, but now they did, I was all ears. That's all I paid attention to, in fact. Sometimes, while observing a lonely face, I'd say to myself, quite calmly: This chap's being deceived. Or here's another instance: A young worker says to his friend on the bus, "Slap her, why don't you?" And his eyes flash. "Let her have it but good," he advises darkly.
Is that really such a good idea, boys? I would have liked to say to them, and with all the warmth my heart could muster. Slap her because she doesn't love you, or not enough? Because she also loves somebody else? Act the bully, is that the idea?
The question that presented itself was roughly this: Is it so awful for a man to go under while living it up? To be debased by what he truly loves? And here I must cite the case of a friend of mine. This man loved going to night clubs and dance halls, he lived for them, you might say. He did have a steady inco
me, a small annuity, actually, but to me the idea of spending it on such a diversion . . . And fool that I was, I even asked him if he didn't think it was all a waste, staking his future, everything he had on a single passion. . . . My friend was visibly amused.
"You mean it doesn't pay to live that way," he said cheerfully. And he was all fired up, ready to pounce. "But what's better, more edifying, according to you? Bickering with your little merchants while fleecing them? Or watching them fleece a hapless peasant, who in turn cheats his own mother? But pray tell, what are those things, those rare and lovely things that would not offend your squeamish good taste?
"To me that's what life is all about—the silken curtains, the colored lights . . . and the gold teeth in the dancer's mouths, and their bite which may be as deadly as a snake's. That's what I live for . . ." He was panting these words, singing them.
And what was behind all that fervor? We all know about such things: a fallen man who begins to applaud his own depravity, acting as though he wanted it, welcomed it. All that is clear enough: heading for a fall can be exhilarating, we know that, too. I do understand the feeling, I did even then. . . . But when we shift the scene, I am less understanding. She sits in front of the mirror and I see her smile. Or she is by the fire and casts a brief glance toward the door. And there are thoughts in her eyes, thoughts I will never ever find out. Who is she expecting in her heart, what memory just crossed her mind, what honeyed phrase . . .? Once I walked into her room unexpectedly. It was early in the afternoon and she didn't even know I was home. Her cheeks were on fire, her eyes glowed, but with a curious, wet glow, the kind you see in the eyes of young girls who poured too much rum in their tea. . . . But that is what you notice, invariably: that your wife is thinking about something else. Of unnatural pleasures, frankly. Can you ever come to terms with such a thing? Can you ever accept it? Well, maybe you should. Such things have their own conventions, after all. The wife's lover is recognized, given equal status in some Oriental societies. Why can't we apply the same rules and do as they do? But the very idea . . . oh, why does it strike me then as sheer madness. . . ?