Great Circle: A Novel

by Conrad Aiken

  —Why didn’t you call up Bertha today.

  —Very simple—I didn’t want to.

  —Why not.

  —Why the hell should I.

  —But why not.

  —Oh, for God’s sake, Bill—what do you think I am.

  —I don’t know what you are—I merely want to know why you didn’t call up Bertha.

  —I didn’t want to hear her voice.

  —Oh, yes, you did.

  —Well, all right, I did.

  —So that’s that.

  —Very clever of you. The professor is right every time. He wanted to hear his little wife’s voice, he did, but he didn’t want to either, and so he didn’t call her up. He knew she was there at the other end of any telephone, just waiting, just dying to be called up by her little husband, not daring to leave the apartment for fear he would call up in her absence, and call once only. But it suited him not to call her up. So he didn’t. He enjoyed thinking of her there, pacing restlessly from the bedroom to the hall, from the hall to the stinking, cockroach-ridden kitchenette, crying, with a wet crumpled handkerchief on the chest of drawers, another in her left hand, a third on the mantelpiece by the lacquered candlestick, a fourth on the top of the ice chest, a fifth on the edge of the gas stove, a sixth——

  —Go on and be really funny, why don’t you.

  —I will. Go on and be really nasty, why don’t you.

  —You ought to be spanked.

  —Oh, no, papa, please.

  —In some respects, you’re behaving like a child—and a damned cruel spoiled one at that. I thought you knew better than to give in blindly and stupidly to a mere primitive possessiveness. It doesn’t seem to occur to you that Bertha is going through a tragic experience too—does it.

  —Oh, doesn’t it, Professor. I may be a child, but I wasn’t born yesterday. What does that mean, yesterday? It means tomorrow. I shall be born tomorrow, and this time it’s going to be an immaculate contraception, by God.

  —You said a mouthful when you spoke of dramatizing yourself. You’re deliberately trying to frighten Bertha with the idea that you’re going to kill yourself. She’s been ringing up every one in town to find out where you are and what you’re doing.

  —Don’t I know it?

  —Of course you know it. Why don’t you do something about it. Don’t be so damned selfish. Just because your pride is hurt you haven’t got to be criminally selfish and mean.

  —Straight from the shoulder.… Why don’t I do something about it. For God’s sake, Andy, do something about it. Take your heart out and tie it up with baby ribbon and send it to poor little Bertha as a Berthaday present. Pretty hot, that one.… Oh, Christ, Bill. I know you’re right. You know I know all that. But it isn’t so damned easy, and it can’t be done offhand like that—you ought to see that. It isn’t only that I’m dramatizing, either. Some of it, maybe—but much more is a need for time. I want time. Good God, it would be easy enough to rush back there and cry on her perjured breast—where else do I want to go, in God’s name? To Molly? Not by a damned sight. To the Dingbat sisters, or old Mary’s? Well, as a matter of fact, I’ve been to all of them, and last night I slept with old Mary and all her lousy little pomeranians, not because I really wanted to indulge in the flesh, but simply to avoid going to Shepard Hall. Just as the three previous nights I slept in the bombproof at the Harvard Club.… Give me time. Let me suffer in my own way. I’ve got to eat the ashes and bones in my own way. If I want to die, let me want to die. I want to die.

  —That’s all right—sure. Go ahead. But in the meantime it isn’t going to hurt you to say a word or two to Bertha.

  —What sort of word or two would I say to Bertha.

  —Anything to calm her a little. If you propose to go on staying away from her, just tell her everything is O. K., but that you just want a little time by yourself to think things over. Why not.

  —I did call at Tom’s last night.

  —The hell you did.

  —He was out.

  —Well, thank God for that.

  —Oh, I don’t know.

  —What did you want to do.

  —I wasn’t going to kill him, or even beat him up. I couldn’t if I wanted to; he’d knock hell out of me. Bertha always did have an eye for athletes—the hairy-ape stuff. Now she’s got her refined caveman, let her keep him. Now she’s made my bed for him, let him lie in it. All I want to do is tell him what I think he is—a merd. That’s all. And I shall smile as I say it to him. Hello, Tom. I just came to tell you that you’re a merd.

  —You still believe in magic, don’t you.

  —I still believe in the right of the individual to do what suits him, so long as he doesn’t break the God-damned laws of this idiot society. If Bertha chooses to do what she’s done, I choose to absent myself without a word. And Christ knows we had words enough—I’ve got to laugh.

  —Laugh.

  —I’m laughing. I can’t think of it without laughing. Ha, ha, ha.

  —That’s the funniest sounding laugh I ever heard, if you’ll excuse my saying so.

  —Step up, ladies and gents, and listen to the laughing embryo. He laughs through his primordial gills, like a lizard. He applauds himself with tiny dorsal fins, and his eyes, now shut with tears, are when opened much too large and all-seeing. He sees bang to the end of the world. The grave has no secrets from him, the tomb no horrors; when he is born tomorrow he will have a bone in his mouth, and this he will present on his birthday to his loving mother, who is none other than our old friend the worm. All his days he will walk attended by an orchestra of Elizabethan worms. The death-watch beetle will precede him in his march to the frontiers of consciousness; and arrived there on the final morning, it is he himself who, by thumbing his nose at God, will give the signal for the trump of doom. Which, in the circumstances, will be a great disappointment.

  —You bet it will.

  —Old Mary is a brick. You never met old Mary, did you. You ought to meet her—a grand old dame. Getting too fat, you know, and past middle age, too, but she’s a good sport. And it’s a liberal education to spend a night with her. What she doesn’t know about this town you could write on a two-cent stamp. She knows the college inside out—you’d be surprised, Bill, you’d be really surprised. More than one member of the faculty has wept on Mary’s ample scented bosom, and told her the secrets of Cambridge. Good God, did you ever go to Sanders Theater, to a Thursday night symphony, and see the wives of the professors? Of course you have. It’s a joke. If it weren’t for Mary and a few others, those poor fellows would be dead, that’s what. Why, they aren’t female at all. They’re a kind of lichen. Have you ever talked with one at a dinner party, or a Brattle Street tea? Of course you have. Oh, God, they’re so refined and intelligent—what a lot they think they know—and their estimable husbands have to sneak off to old Mary just to be reminded that they’re alive. What a joke, what a joke. Mary knows the names of their children, and how old they are, and where they go to school, and when they have measles, and when they die, or are born, and what Professor X’s bank balance is, and the fact that poor old Y is going to be fobbed off with an associate professorship instead of a full professorship—why she knows as much as old Terry used to know, and that’s saying a lot. And straight as a die, too. She never lets you down. I told her all about Bertha.

  —What did she say.

  —Just what you say, only better.

  —For example.

  —Forget it, she said—forget it, kid. You aren’t exactly an angel yourself, are you, to be expecting miracles of yuman nature. She always call it yuman nature. She always calls me kid, too—I suppose because she remembers me when I was twenty-one or two.

  —What else did she say.

  —Is this the inquisition? Or judgment day? And are you God?

  —I am God the Father.

  —Then Mary is the Virgin Queen. She said—what did she say. She told me not to be a fool. She gave me some damned good whisky, and massaged
my head, and showed me photographs of her one and only love, some time in the last century, and told me not to be a fool. We discussed the ethics of suicide, lying in bed with a pomeranian. She complained of the streetcars in Massachusetts Avenue—they kept her awake at night. She wished she still had her apartment in Day Street—she got fired out of that because one of her visiting girls got drunk too often and was noisy. She was sentimental about the apartment in Day Street, for she had lived there twelve years. Old Foxy Smith—do you remember Foxy Smith, the gentle old dodo who used to teach us history—was one of her regular visitors for years. He used to come there straight from a faculty meeting, wearing rubbers. Can you imagine it, Bill. What an old saint and prig we used to think he was. And Mary was very fond of him, took care of him, sewed on his buttons, darned his socks, gave him advice about his health, knew he was dying of cancer long before any one else did: he told her about it more than a year before he died. When he died, she went to the service in Appleton Chapel, and saw his wife for the first time. Strange, isn’t it? She knew him better than his own wife did. She sent some flowers anonymously, too. My God. Foxy used to talk about suicide with her. He thought of killing himself before his cancer got too bad. She persuaded him not to. When I asked her why, she said, well, she thought we ought to live out our lives as God intended. If death by cancer was indicated, we must die of cancer. To my suggestion that death by suicide might be indicated, she replied with a stubborn no, no, no, no—slapping my hand each time. She appealed to the pomeranian for support, his name is Yale, but Yale was discreetly silent. Now that’s a queer and beautiful business, Bill—I’m having another drink, and one of these crackers. She gave the old fellow what little joy he had. Just the same, his wife wouldn’t have been very grateful, would she, although I don’t doubt she thought she loved him—perhaps she did love him.

  —You amuse me. That shoe seems to fit you.

  —Not at all.

  —Sure it does. Look at it.

  —I’m looking. But I never did think the sexes were reversible in this regard. A woman can share a man, but a man can’t share a woman. And that’s all there is to it.

  —Oh, for the love of mud.

  —Thank you, I’m not very fond of mud.

  —Anyway, I’m glad to see you’re calming down.

  —Don’t fool yourself.

  —Oh, yes, you are.

  —Are you trying to annoy me? Don’t bully me. When I want to be calm, I’ll be calm. I’m not calm. I’m quiet, but I’m not calm. I’m so full of hate you could poison New York with me. Is it hate? No, it isn’t hate. Yes, it is, too. I wouldn’t at all mind killing Bertha and Tom. If mere feelings could kill them, they’d be dead. The damned incestuous——

  —That’s the keynote, all right.

  —What is.

  —Incest. Don’t you see what you’re doing?

  —Your conversational manners are very insinuating.

  —Don’t you?

  —Well, tell me, don’t badger me, tell me.

  —In every one of your love affairs, you’ve tried to make your sweetheart your mother. That’s why they’ve all been unsuccessful. Why do you want to do it?—that’s the question. It won’t work. That’s why sooner or later you reject or abandon them all, or they abandon you—they have to. You force them to. Bertha is no exception.

  —You make me sick. Do you mean to say I’ve abandoned Bertha? Don’t be a fool. Or don’t try to be a fool.

  —I don’t mean you left in the sense of moving from Cambridge to Reno—that’s immaterial. Abandonment needn’t be geographical.

  —God, that’s funny. Abandonment needn’t be geographical! You’ll be the death of me. Was Casanova geographically abandoned?

  —You may not have left her board—but you left her bed. Or so you told me.

  —You’re damned unpleasant. Let’s talk about something else.

  —You mean the subject is unpleasant. I thought you wanted to talk it out.

  —What a hell of a lot of books you have, Bill. How did you ever pick them all up. Aren’t the Japanese a wonderful little people? And the ants too. I once thought what a good satire on man could be written with the ant as the subject. You see? Everything would reduce itself to terms of ant. In short, one would reduce everything to the anthropocentric—pretty good, that. Naturally, from the ant’s point of view, all the characteristics of the ant would be considered virtues. The highest praise of an ant would be that he was, as you would expect, antly. Statues, of heroic size, would be erected to the great ant heroes—warriors, builders, or what not—inscribed with phrases like, “He was the antliest ant of all time.” … And of course there would be an anthropomorphic god.

  —Resistance.

  —What the hell do you mean.

  —All this is just your evasion of what is for you a painful subject—something you don’t dare look in the eye. Yourself.

  —Yes, indeed. There are many things I don’t look in the eye, my dear Bill. Why should I. Most, if not all, aspects of existence are disagreeable. The art of living is the art of the exclusion or mitigation of the disagreeable. Why go about deliberately rubbing one’s snout in the mud? Not by a damned sight. What the hell is whisky for? What the hell is music for, or painting, or poetry, or psychoanalysis? All of them escapes. Don’t tell me analysis is an abstract pure science—good God no. It’s an anodyne, both for the analyst and the patient, and they both enjoy it thoroughly. It’s a debauch at one remove. You can’t fool me. No. There you are, in your God-damned Morris chair—I hate that chair—goggling at me and leering and having a hell of a good time ferreting out my secrets—why? Disinterested service to mankind? Not by a hell of a way. You’re a paltry little voyeur. Afraid to live yourself, you take it out by digging into other peoples’ little filths and disasters. Yes, by God. That’s what it is. Vicarious sexperience! What a dirty little thrill you get in reminding me that I stopped sleeping with Bertha! And in suspecting all sort of dirty little reasons for it! I drink to you, Bill, old boy—you have a swell time, don’t you. You wrap yourself in all the dirty sheets of the world. The world is your soiled-clothes basket. What’s them spots on the sheet, Miranda? Oh, them’s the maculate conception, them is.

  —Ha, ha. There’s a hell of a lot in what you say.

  —Of course there is. Have a drink.

  —Why do you hate this chair.

  —Oh, pitiful little Bill.

  —You’re fond of the word little, and the word dirty, aren’t you.

  —Dirty little.

  —Equals fecal infantine.

  —Look at the snow, Bill—it must be six inches deep.

  —No, I think it’s seven.

  —We are seven. Against Thebes. Did you ever read the Anabasis? Do you remember the Arabian sparrows?

  —You mentioned them before. Why do you mention them again.

  —Damned if I know. Rather funny.

  —Why don’t you sit down, instead of pacing around the room. That’s the second time you’ve knocked over that ash stand. Give it a rest.

  —Perhaps I’d better. Whoooof.

  —Do you feel sick.

  —No. I’m all right. A little bewildered all of a sudden, that’s all.

  —Eat some crackers.

  —No, I’m all right. I’m all right. But what a whirl. I thought I was unhappy. What a whirl, what a joke. You know the feeling. Delirious, delicious. Clutching the inevitable. The postage-stamp going for a ride on the back of the ant. What did I say to her? Ma non è vero. Voi credete che si muove—ma non è vero. And she laughed like hell.… Christ, what a breeze.

  —Yes, indeed. I suppose you see it.

  —Why shouldn’t I—pigs see the wind, and it’s pink. But, my God, how I hurt her feelings. Ma non è vero. She said she saw me in the Piazza, drinking a cup of café nero at one of those iron tables, and that I was thinking. I denied it. I never think. And she laughed like hell.

  —What the hell are you talking about.

  —From V
enice as far as Belmont.

  —Why don’t you try to take a nap.

  —Good God, man, what am I? Don’t be insulting. Take a nap yourself if you feel like it. Go on, you take it. Take the couch. Wrap your feet in snow, it’s pure. Puzzle record number two is now ready, on sale at the nearest dealer. Contains two tunes. Can you find them. I think I’ll be an advertising man. There’s no money in private tutoring. None. Never. But puzzle record number two is now ready, that’s the think to remember. That ought to interest any analyst. Analist. How do you pronounce the anal? Christ, what a breeze.

  —I’m laughing.

  —That’s good of you. Presently I’ll laugh too, I’ll join you. Take a seat, madam, and I’ll join you presently.

  —What’s this about Venice.

  —As far as Belmont. Shakespeare said that. He was always saying things like that. He said everything, the damned bastard, except the truth. But, my God, how I hurt her. I think she was in love with me. She was teaching me Italian at the Berlitz—excuse me—school. And I ran away from her. I paid off and left without even saying good-by to her. She saw me. She came out into the hall just as I was paying the bill, and saw me. And even then, I didn’t say anything to her. I just smiled. What kind of a smile, Bill? There are many kinds of a smile. You know. This was a guilty smile, a Judas smile, a cut-throat smile, a tombstone smile. E divieto il nuoto. Il nuoto è vietato. As if anybody would want to swim in their foul canals anyway. Did you ever see them? Jesus. It’s a lot of liquid garbage. But at the Lido, those German fräuleins, with their one-piece bathing suits and their delirious, upstanding breasts—Christ, what a breeze. And strawberries, too, con panna. She admired Tiepolo. One afternoon we took a gondola and saw them all. Putty cupids. Wings everywhere. Angels ascending and descending and all diaphanous—such pinks and blues, Bill, such pallors of pink and blue. But that was far away. And then there was—hell, I can’t even remember her name. At Interlaken. I ran all the way from Venice to Interlaken, and the hotel was only just opened for the season, and I was the only person there, and the maid who waited on the table—I’ve forgotten her name. Elsa! When I paid my bill after a week, the manageress looked hard at me and said, “Elsa will be sorry you go. She will miss you.” I went back into the dining room and gave Elsa a good tip, I don’t remember how much it was. She was crying. I told her the number of my room, but she never came. I told her I would take her for a walk, on her afternoon off, but I never did. I said she ought to marry and have six children, all of them with blue eyes and golden hair, and she laughed, she giggled, she simpered, she went to the other side of the room and stood up on a chair, pretending to rearrange dishes on a shelf, so that I could have a good look at her legs. My God, I was excited about her. But when I saw she was excited too, I got frightened. I ran away again, this time to Paris. What I really wanted was to get back to the Atlantic Ocean, to salt water, freedom. Something I knew. I wanted to leave behind me my wife, Elsa, and my six blue-eyed golden-haired children, by gum. Elsa, with her lovely teeth, false every one of them. That’s what Alan said. I met him later in London, and told him about her, and he said he would go there, in Interlaken, and give her my love. He did, and she cried again. And he said, on a postcard, I love her false teeth, every one of them. Just the same, she was damned pretty, damned nice. I’m sorry about it. At this very minute I might be living in a Swiss chalet with Elsa and the six children and the cow. And an Alp-horn, Bill!