Bad to Worse

by Edeson, Robert;

  Worse decided he had eaten enough, and placed his knife and fork together.

  ‘Actually, I’ve been reading poetry too, as it happens.’

  ‘What are you reading, Richard?’

  ‘A book recommended by Anna after she had been to Dante, and heard that I might be going. It’s by someone called Monica Moreish.’ Worse hesitated. ‘They’re limericks.’

  ‘Limericks? Richard!’

  ‘I knew you would find that amusing. They’re actually serious. It’s a Dante thing, apparently. The Moreish ones are themed around Virgil in the underworld.’

  ‘The Inferno has been translated into limericks?’ Sigrid put a slow, dramatized emphasis on the last word. Combined with interrogative inflection, the effect was devastating parody.

  ‘Not translated. A new account. Some of them are quite good. They say you’ll never fit in over there unless you understand their tradition.’

  Worse was a little annoyed at finding himself defensive.

  ‘Well, maybe not fitting in would be preferable.’

  ‘Perhaps I should read some to you. I might even write one when I perfect the technique. On ambiguity in the therapeutic space. You could use it in your lecture.’

  ‘Thank you, Richard. I’m sure Satroit will be quite sufficient.’

  Worse was still curious about where Haberdash had been hiding, and he knew that Victor would also be. At 3.00 am, he dressed and headed for level 13.

  As he expected, the casino was deserted. Haberdash’s key card gave him access to both the private gaming room and the inside office. There were dim lights on in both areas, and Worse noted that his surmise about the one-way mirror was correct. Within the office, a door with another electronic lock led to the cashier’s counter. At the far end of the office was an elevator entry. There were several desks, one holding a dozen flat-screen security monitors.

  Worse studied the panelled roof. There were lights, sprinklers, air-conditioning vents, a smoke alarm, a speaker and a camera, all the usual services that intrude on the aesthetic of a ceiling. Near one end, a bunch of party balloons was tied to an eyebolt. They seemed inappropriate in a business office, and Worse guessed their purpose. He looked under the main desk and found a two-metre wooden pole with a brass hook ferruled to one end. Taking it, he grasped the eyebolt and pulled down a folding attic ladder. He ascended the steps, detaching the pole to carry it with him. When he stepped onto the catwalk the spring-action ladder retracted into the roof space.

  Worse used a torch to explore the grid of catwalks. At the far end, over the public section of the casino and half hidden behind a duct, he found a rough camp bed made from blankets and a sleeping bag. There was an assortment of clothes, magazines, and food wrappers. He collected a beret, compressed it into a plastic bag, and put it in a pocket. Spoiling would match DNA from hair to that found in Fremantle to link definitively the fugitive Haberdash to the stowaway Mortiss.

  He was heading back to the ladder when he heard voices. A light was switched on below him. Through the grid, Worse could easily see down into the office. Two men had appeared from the elevator, and one’s voice was raised.

  ‘Well, where could he have gone?’

  The other, whom Worse identified as the doorman from the entrance to the private casino, was silent. The first man continued.

  ‘Have you checked again?’

  ‘Sam. I’ve been up six times today and nothing’s changed. He’s not there.’

  ‘What on earth am I going to say to Regan? The whole reason she’s calling is to talk to Ben Jay.’

  ‘Yeah. Well. You’ll just have to apologize.’

  ‘There’s no such thing as an apology with Regan. Particularly with money and family. And this is both. Jeez.’

  ‘What’ll she do?’

  ‘She’ll kill us, for heaven’s sake. And the more we apologize, the quicker she’ll do it. I’ve heard about it.’ He sat down. ‘Check up there again. She’ll be calling in a few minutes.’

  The doorman shrugged, went to a desk, and reached under. Then he bent to look under.

  ‘The hook’s not here.’

  He looked toward the balloons.

  ‘Well, where did you put it?’

  ‘Back, of course. Back where it should be. Under the desk. Who would take the hook?’

  ‘What am I going to say to Regan? The whole La Ferste operation is messed up, and now we can’t even find Ben Jay.’

  ‘Look. Don’t say we can’t find him. Say he was meant to be here for the call and he hasn’t shown up. Say he’s not in his place. Put the blame on him.’

  ‘Good idea. I’ll put her on speaker so you can hear, but stay quiet.’

  The desk phone rang.

  ‘How’re you doing, Ms Mortiss?’

  ‘Put Ben Jay on.’

  ‘Ben Jay’s not here, Ms Mortiss. He’s, ah, not here.’

  There was a long silence.

  ‘I’ll call back in five minutes. Have Ben Jay pick up. I don’t want to talk to you.’

  Worse heard the call disconnect.

  ‘Jeez. What am I going to do?’ He replaced the handset and sank back in his chair. The doorman had no suggestions. After a few seconds, his manager reached some resolve and sat forward.

  ‘I won’t pick up. I just won’t answer. She wants Ben Jay to pick up. He’s not here. So, no pick up. That’s it.’

  Worse didn’t want to stay hiding in the roof indefinitely, and decided he had heard enough. He picked up the hook-pole and stepped onto the ladder.

  From inside the office, the effect was dramatic. In one action, a ceiling panel hinged down, the attic steps swung into view and unfolded to the floor, and Worse appeared in a flurry of party balloons, descending with the aplomb of someone who was meant to be there. The manager and the doorman stared at him; neither moved. Worse carried the pull-down pole rather like a spear.

  ‘Pardon the intrusion, gentlemen. I set out exploring and seem to have lost my way in all the ducting.’

  He walked to the door and turned.

  ‘If you do decide to pick up, you might entertain Regan with a shanty from the southern seas:

  Once there was a Tweisser

  Inside the Mortiss walls;

  Tweisser was a oncer

  But Mockingbird still calls, still calls.

  Mockingbird still calls.’

  Worse whistled its metre as he left, closing the door behind him.

  Most liberally educated readers will know the Erico Satroit poem referred to by Sigrid Blitt from translations deemed suitable for school and college study. This author admits to a longstanding interest in the problem of ekphrasis, and was disappointed to revisit standard sophomore texts and realize that taught versions of ‘Poet Regarding Artist’ suppress elements of a very deliberate harshness quite uncompromised in the original. A new translation is offered with approval of the trustee of his literary estate, Libraire Satroit à Istanbul. It is argued that the tone and ambiguity of Satroit’s language have been rendered here more honestly in order to convey the disharmony and oppressing counterpoint that was surely intended.

  Mirror, palette, canvas, mirror.

  Reflected restless eyes return

  while in the hand an articulate blade

  scrapes oils to elegy, or exclamation

  or some eloquent phrase

  more suddenly seen than I can speak

  then pastes a wintry depth on worsened flesh

  that is his face. Yet, by airy sable touch there comes

  a nuance to the lips and resignation to the pose

  and greater knowing in the analytic gaze

  that rests ungrateful on this violent man

  rebuilt in mineral pigments with a solvent smell.

  The master in the wilderness steps back.

  His brush is hesitant and I am quiet.

  We are stopped before the crossing fears

  that words were better made in paint

  and paint in words.

  We can be
confident of Satroit’s intention because the theme is discussed elsewhere (see, for example, his memoir Damascene, and the preface to the collection Black Levant). For him, the problem of ekphrasis is simply expressed: the descriptive is interpretive is paralysing. (The first equivalence because description is inevitably analogizing, the second because the arrogance implicit in this erodes artistic confidence.) In consequence, Satroit’s ideal poet is one who comes to observe everything and state nothing—which might explain a spareness in all his work. Whatever its ugliness, our sympathy must turn to the object of ekphrastic intrusion, be it the art, its maker or the process; if not, we are complicit in a fatal indecision where art is stopped in time. Actually, Satroit demands even more of us: to accept that for the artist his mental wilderness is properly ineffable, and never more so than within the pain and introspection that is a self-portrait. Here is a place in which to be creatively lost, and not for visiting by outsiders.

  But for the poet, too, there is a wilderness. The symmetry of doubt in the closing lines dissolves both privilege and any belief that the one regards the other. When the artist looks to the mirror, he sees his visitor reflected. And so the poet enters the portrait, just as the portrait enters the poem. This is the problem of ekphrastic translation; within it is contained an infecting dialectic that is mutually subverting. Satroit’s response is a form of silence.

  (Indeed, the spareness noted above is a poetry of the missing—replete, we can assume, in substance and sentiment, and safe in the privacy of observant withdrawal. The contemporary British poet Vissy Mofo, whose philosophical sympathies with Satroit have been argued by Alison Pilcrow in the encyclopaedic TWF Compendium (UITA Press), has interpreted this aspect of Satroit psychoanalytically as a symptom of exhaustion. It is this rather than fear, according to Vissy Mofo, that is the instrument of failure in evidence at the end of the work above. Others hold that the key to Satroit’s poetic reticence, and reclusion, is pessimism—see note to Chapter 23, Appendix A.)

  Satroit asks (in Damascene): What is the universe of the poet? And answers: The poet alone. This is read existentially, but he is saying more. In regarding the world, he regards himself. The act is deeply self-indulgent, because the poem and the portrait are together corrupted into something new. In consequence, as others have pointed out, not only is the ekphrastic enterprise wilfully damaging, it is theft. This surely explains why, for Satroit, there were many words in the wilderness left unwritten.

  Readers familiar with the concept might note that ekphrastic translation is a Thortelmann equivalence. Furthermore, all ekphrastic writings are themselves Thortelmann equivalent. Because of transitivity, every artefact so translated thereby enters an equivalence class. This is the most powerful theoretical argument establishing the maleficence of poetry in the visual arts. It is left to the reader to apportion reprimand regarding other forms, such as gallery notes and curatorial essays, whilst in mitigation accounting for intention, consent and public interest.

  In respect of Blitt’s thesis, the parallels between Satroit’s observation of a subject portraying himself in paint and the mental state examination are too obvious to labour, except to point out that a thoughtful psychiatrist, like a thoughtful poet, is a largely silent one.

  Incidentally, the identity of Satroit’s painter was never revealed, though there are said to be clues in an interview given for La Tortuga. When the poem first appeared in English, a catalogue of fashionable artists denied being the study. After Satroit’s fame was established and the poetic subject re-beautified with postmodern illusionism, the same catalogue clamoured for recognition, including artists incapable of producing a human likeness of themselves or anyone else.

  21 RETURNS POLICY

  Two hundred kilometres off Fremantle, the Princess Namok was taken in tow. There were repeated assurances from the captain that this was no cause for concern, and the development was solely for the comfort of passengers.

  That would be the comfort of passengers who might otherwise be clambering into lifeboats, thought Worse. The ship had taken on a perceptible list to port, and it was obvious that power supply to nonessential services was being rationed. Internal lighting was dimmed, nightly live entertainment was cancelled, and there was an unnatural preponderance of cold foods in the buffet dining room. It seemed to Worse that the only part of the ship unaffected was the casino.

  Despite the general austerities, Hilario managed to look after Sigrid and Worse with the usual level of perfection. In the twenty-four hours before the tugboats arrived, the engine noise within the ship had changed in pitch following a distinct shudder and a momentary blackout. It became a slightly nauseating low-frequency vibration that was difficult to ignore, and was most uncomfortable when they lay down to attempt sleep. At one point, when Hilario was in their suite, Worse asked what he thought of the state of the ship.

  ‘We are to say that everything is satisfactory,’ was the reply.

  ‘Do you think everything is satisfactory, Hilario?’

  ‘I must be loyal to my ship. But I cannot lie, too.’

  Worse did not want to force the dilemma, but he asked, ‘Are you frightened at all, Hilario?’

  ‘I am a little frightened, Mr Worse.’

  Worse left the subject there.

  Once under tow, the mood of passengers improved. Sigrid suggested that the novelty of the experience now exceeded the anxiety it had caused. Worse thought it had more to do with an engine shutdown that ridded the ship of its uncomfortable vibration. He failed to see how anyone would find relief from anxiety when the captain had ordered another lifeboat drill, this time with the whole ship’s company and passengers directed to the port side only.

  At least now electrical power seemed to be fully restored, which brought a slightly irrational sense of celebration. The camaraderie was compounded by the captain’s announcement that the shipping line would refund fares, and all alcohol was now complimentary. People were eating more, drinking more, and socializing more.

  Gambling more, too. Worse noticed this as he made his way through the casino to a forward observation deck. He would suggest to Sigrid that anxiety was not suppressed by novelty, but buried under exuberance. On a cruise ship, profligacy banished mortality, at least until the punter died.

  Worse went outside to watch the tugs over the bow. Although the sea was now relatively calm and there were patches of blue sky, the wind was bitterly cold. He pulled his collar up and walked over to the rail, where half a dozen other passengers were standing.

  He was absorbed for several minutes watching the interference patterns of the two tugboat wakes, and didn’t notice immediately that the person to his right had turned his head toward him. Worse looked around and recognized the casino manager, who continued to stare at him. Worse decided to share what he was thinking.

  ‘You know, Sam, if one of those tow lines parted and whiplashed, we would all be decapitated, quite probably.’

  ‘Seven heads and seven tails. I don’t think so.’

  Worse was impressed by the humour, and the fact he knew the body count without looking. Perhaps he had trained as a croupier, and was an inveterate counter of things. Worse was also, for other reasons.

  ‘I’m pleased to find you here,’ said Worse. ‘I was going to visit your office later for a chat, but this saves me from the odious closeness of gamblers.’

  ‘You don’t enjoy games of chance?’

  ‘Perhaps if I owned the vigorish,’ said Worse.

  The manager turned to look forward.

  ‘Here is where that chat starts,’ said Worse. ‘What happened when Regan rang back?’

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘I’m Worse.’

  ‘Worse?’

  ‘It’s a name. What happened when Regan rang back?’

  ‘That’s private business. Why would I tell you that?’

  ‘Because,’ said Worse, ‘I am willing to help you. But my patience is limited.’

  The manager turned back to face Worse, bu
t stayed silent. Worse spoke as if they were just starting an idle conversation.

  ‘This ship is a wreck, you know. Its single remaining resemblance to a cruise liner is that it’s floating on the sea. For now. My guess is they’ll decide to tow it to La Ferste and scrap it.’

  ‘You think so?’

  ‘That means you will lose your casino,’ said Worse.

  ‘The company’s big. I’ll be moved. We’re always being posted to new ships.’

  ‘You won’t be free to move. You’ll be in prison.’

  The manager looked shocked. ‘Why are you saying that?’

  ‘We are returning to the jurisdiction of the Australian police. You harboured a criminal. That makes you an accessory to his crimes.’

  ‘Wait. Wait. What crimes? What did Ben Jay do?’

  ‘Crimes including attempted murder. I know because I was the target.’

  ‘Wait—I don’t know anything about that.’

  ‘Inspector Spoiling will not be happy that you concealed a fugitive in the casino roof space during his very expensive search of the ship. When I say not happy, it means angry. Emotional. Inspector Spoiling is European.’

  ‘But I knew nothing about what Ben Jay’s done.’ The tone of earnestness shifted to dismay. ‘That moron disappears and leaves me with this.’

  ‘We all are burdened with the wrongs of others,’ said Worse.

  The manager was staring at him, looking almost tearful.

  ‘But if I talk to you about Regan, she’ll kill me. Everyone knows the rules. Mortiss has power all over.’

  ‘She won’t kill you,’ said Worse. ‘She is about to lose everything. Mortiss Bros will shortly be destroyed.’

  ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘Because I am the one who will destroy it.’

  The manager turned again to look forward. So did Worse, watching the pitch and yaw of the tugs straining under the load of their deadweight hulk. After a full minute of silence, the manager spoke.

  ‘It’s freezing out here.’

  ‘Mr Worse?’

  Worse turned around to find Hilario holding a silver tray with two mugs of hot cocoa. Worse handed one to the manager, taking the other for himself. Hilario vanished.