by Saul Bellow
Via London, ten days later, he flew home. As if he had been on some sort of mission: self-assigned: fact-finding. He observed that modem London was very playful. He visited his old flat in Woburn Square. He noted that the traffic was very thick. He saw that there were more drunkards in the streets, that the British advertising industry had discovered the female nude, and that most posters along the escalators of the Underground were of women in undergarments. He found his acquaintances as old as himself. Then BOAC brought him back to Kennedy Airport, and soon afterward he was in the Forty-second Street Library reading, as always, Meister Eckhardt.
"Blessed are the poor in spirit. Poor is he who has nothing. He who is poor in spirit is receptive of all spirit. Now God is the Spirit of spirits. The fruit of the spirit is love, joy, and peace. See to it that you are stripped of all creatures, of all consolation from creatures. For certainly as long as creatures comfort and are able to comfort you, you will never find true comfort. But if nothing can comfort you save God, truly God will console you."
Mr. Sammler could not say that he literally believed what he was reading. He could, however, say that he cared to read nothing but this.
On the lawn before the half-timbered house the ground was damp, the grass was fragrant. Or was it the soil itself that smelled so fresh? In the clarified, moon-purged air, he saw Shula coming, looking for him.
"Why aren't you in bed?"
"I'm going."
She gave him Elya's own afghan to cover himself with, and he lay down.
Feeling what a strange species he belonged to, which had organized its planet to such an extent. Of this mass of ingenious creatures, about half had gone into the state of sleep, in pillows, sheeted, wrapped, quilted, muffled. The waking, like a crew, worked the world's machines, and all went up and down and round about with calculations accurate to the billionth of a degree, the skins of engines removed, replaced, million-mile trajectories laid out. By these geniuses, the waking. The sleeping, brutes, fantasists, dreaming. Then they woke, and the other half went to bed.
And that is how this brilliant human race runs this wheeling globe.
He joined the other sleepers for a while.
VI
The washstand in the small lavatory off the den was dark onyx, the fittings gold, the faucets dolphins, the soap dish a scallop, the towel thick as mink. Mirrors on four walls showed Mr. Sammler to himself in more aspects than he wanted. The soap was spermy sandalwood. The blade was dull and had to be honed on the porcelain. Very likely ladies occasionally slipped in to trim their legs with this razor. Sammler did not want to look for another blade upstairs. The master bedroom was seriously water-damaged. The ladies had pulled the twin mattresses from the beds to a dry corner. Dr. Lal had slept in the guest room. Wallace? Perhaps he had spent the night on his head, like a yogi.
Suddenly Sammler stopped shaving, paused and stared at himself, his dry, small, "cured" face undergoing in the mirror a strong inrush of color. Even the left, the swelled, the opaque guppy eye, took up some light from this. Where were they all? Opening the door, he listened. There was no sound. He went into the garden. Dr. Lal's car was gone. He looked in the garage, and that was empty. Gone, fled!
He found Shula in the kitchen. "Everyone has left?" he said. "Now how do I get to New York?"
She was pouring coffee through the filter cane, having first boiled the grounds, French style.
"Took off," she said. "Dr. Lal wasn't able to wait. There was no room for me. He rented a two-seater. A gorgeous little Austin Healy, did you see it?"
"And Emil, where is he?"
"He had to take Wallace to the airport. Wallace has to fly-to test-fly. For his business, you know what I mean. They're going to take pictures and so on."
"And I am stuck. Is there a timetable? I've got to be in New York."
"Well, it's nearly ten o'clock now and there aren't so many trains. I'll phone. And then Emil should be back soon, and he can drive you. You were sleeping. Dr. Lal didn't want to disturb you."
"Extremely inconsiderate. You knew and Margotte knew that I had to get back."
"The little car was very pretty. Margotte didn't look right in it."
"I am annoyed."
"Margotte has thick legs, Father. You've probably never even noticed. Well, they won't show in the car. Dr. Lal will call later in the day. You'll see him all right."
"Whom, Lal? Why? The document is there, isn't it?"
"There?"
"Don't irritate me by repeating questions. I am already irritated. Why didn't you wake me? The document is in the locker, isn't it?"
"I locked it up myself, with the quarter, and took out the key. No, youll see him because Margotte is out for him. Maybe you didn't notice that either. I really need to talk to you about this, Father."
"Yes, I'm sure you do. I did notice, yes, to tell the truth. Well, she's a widow, and she's had enough of mourning, and she needs somebody like that. We aren't much comfort to her. I don't know what she sees in that bushy black little fellow. It's just loneliness, I suppose."
"I can see what she sees. Dr. Lal is very distinguished. You know it. Don't pretend, after the way you talked in the kitchen. It was beautiful."
"Well, well. What will I do? This thing of Elya's is very bad, you know."
"Very?"
"The worst. And I should have realized that returning might present problems."
"Father, just leave it to me. And you haven't finished shaving. No, go on, and I'll bring you a cup of coffee."
He went, thinking how he had been feinted out of position. Outgeneraled. Like Pompey or Labienus by Caesar. He should not have left the city. He was cut off from his base. And now how was he to reach Elya, who needed him today? Picking up the phone in the den to call the hospital, he heard the busy signal Shula was getting from the Penn Central. Patience, waiting, now were necessary-things Mr. Sammler had no talent for. But he had studied, he had trained himself. One began with external composure. So he sat down on the hassock, looking at the sofa, and at the silken green luxurious wool of Elya's own afghan he had slept under. It was a lovely morning, too. The sun came in as he sipped the coffee Shula brought him. Glass tables on legs and semicircular struts of brass spattered the Oriental rug with light, brought out the colors and the figures.
"Busy signal," she said.
"Yes, I know."
"There's a telephone crisis, anyway, all over New York. The experts are working on it."
She went into the garden, and Sammler again tried dialing the hospital. All lines were busy in that dreary place, and he hung up the repetitious croaking instrument. Thinking of the colossal number of conversations, all those communings. Utilizing the invisible powers of the universe. Out in the garden, Shula was also engaged in conversation. It was warm. Tulips, daffodils, jonquils, and a paradise of gusts. Evidently she asked the flowers how they were today. No answers required. Brilliant instances sufficed. She herself was a brilliant instance of something organically strange. His glimpse of the entire Shula last night now made him feel her specific weight, as she trod the grass. The entire female body was evoked, white skin everywhere, the thighs, the trunk, the actual feet, the belly with its organs, together with the kinky hair straggling from the scarf. All visible and almost palpable. And even about plants, who knew the whole truth? On educational TV one night he and Margotte watched a singular botanist who had attached a polygraph machine-a lie-detector-to flowers and recorded the reactions of roses to gentle and violent stimuli. Stridency made them shrink, he said. A dead dog cast before them caused aversion. A soprano singing lullabies had the opposite effect. Sammler would have guessed that the investigator himself, his pale leer, his wild stern police nose would distress roses, African violets. Even without nerves these organisms were discerning. We with our oversupply of receptors were in a state of nervous chaos. Amid the tree shadows, pliant, and the window-frame shadows, rigid, and the brass and glass reflections, semi- steady, Mr. Sammler wiped his shoes with the paper towel Sh
ula had placed under the coffee cup. The shoes were damp, still. They were soggy, unpleasantly so. Margotte also had her plants, and Wallace was about to found a plant business. It would be too bad if the first contacts of plants were entirely with the demented. Maybe I'd better have a word with them myself. Mr. Sammler was heavyhearted and tried to divert himself. The heaviness was brutally persistent, however.
He came to the point. First, how apt it was that Wallace should flood the attic. Why, it was a metaphor for Elya's condition. In connection with that condition there arose other images-a blistering of the brain, a froth or rusty scum of blood over that other plant which lay in one's head. Something like convolvulus. No, like fatty cauliflower. The screw on the artery could not reduce the pressure, and where the vessel was varicose and weaker than cobweb it would open. A terrible flood! One might try to think of mitigating things-That, oh well! Life! Everyone who had it was bound to lose it. Or that this was Elya's moment of honor and that he called upon his best qualities. That was all very well, until death turned its full gaze on the individual. Then all such ideas were nothing. The point was that he, Sammler, should be at the hospital, now; to do what could be done; to say what might be said, and what should be said. Exactly what should or might be said Sammler did not know. He could not find the precise thing. Living as he did, in this inward style, working out his condensations or contractions, one became uncommunicative. To explain or expand his thoughts tired and vexed him, as he had learned last night. But he did not feel uncommunicative toward Elya. On the contrary, he wanted to say everything possible. He wanted to go to the hospital and say something! He loved his nephew, and he had something that Elya needed. All concerned ought to have had it. The first place at Elya's bedside belonged to Wallace or to Angela, but they were not about to take it.
Elya was a physician and a businessman. With his own family, to his credit, he had not been businesslike. Nevertheless, he had the business outlook. And business, in business America, was also a training system for souls. The fear of being unbusinesslike was very great. As he was dying Elya might conceivably draw strength from doing business. He had in fact done that. He kept talking to Widick. And Sammler had nothing with a business flavor to offer him. But at the very end business would not do for Elya. Some, many, would go on with business to the last breath, but Elya was not like that, not so limited. Elya was not finally ruled by business considerations. He was not in that insect and mechanical state-such a surrender, such an insect disaster for human beings. Even now (now perhaps more than ever) Elya was accessible. In fact Sammler had not seen this in time. Yesterday, when Elya began to speak of Wallace, when he denounced Angela, he, Sammler, ought to have stayed with him. Any degree of frankness might have been possible. In the going phrase, a moment of truth. Meaning that most conversation was a compilation of lies, of course. But Elya's was not one of those sealed completed impenetrable systems, he was not one of your monstrous crystals or icicles. Feeling, or stroking the long green fibers of the afghan, Sammler put it to himself that because he and Antonina had been designated, part of a demonstration of the meaninglessness of this vivid shuffle with its pangs of higher intuition from the one side and the continual muddy suck of the grave underfoot-that because of this he himself, Artur Sammler, had put up obstinate resistance. And Elya, too, was devoted to ideas of conduct which seemed discredited, which few people explicitly defended. It was not the behavior that was gone. What was gone was the old words. Forms and signs were absent. Not honor but the word honor. Not virtuous impulse, but the terms beaten into flat nonsense. Not compassion; but what was a compassionate utterance? And compassionate utterance was a mortal necessity. Utterance, sounds of hope and desire, exclamations of grief. Such things were suppressed, as if illicit. Sometimes coming through in ciphers,… buildings (the empty tailor shop facing the hospital). At this stage of things there was a terrible dumbness. About essentials, almost nothing could be said. Still, signs could be made, should be made, must be made. One should declare something like this: "However actual I may seem to you and you to me, we are not as actual as all that. We will die. Nevertheless there is a bond. There is a bond." Mr. Sammler believed that if this was not said in so many words it should be said tacitly. In fact it was continually asserted, in many guises. And anyway, we know what is what. But Elya at this moment had a most particular need for a sign and he, Sammler, should be there to meet that need.
He again telephoned the hospital. To his surprise, he found himself speaking with Gruner. He had asked for the private nurse. One could get through? Elya must be molested by calls. With the mortal bulge in his head he was still in the game, did business.
"How are you?"
"How are you, Uncle?"
The actual meaning of this might have been, "Where are you?"
"How are you feeling?"
"There's been no change. I thought we would be seeing each other."
"I'm coming in. I'm sorry. When there's something important there is always some delay. It never fails, Elya."
"When you left yesterday, it was like unfinished business between us. We got sidetracked by Angela and such hopeless questions. There was something I was meaning to ask. About Cracow. The old days. And by the way, I bragged about you to a Polish doctor here. He wanted very much to see the Polish articles you sent from the Six-Day War. Do you have copies?"
"Certainly, at home. I have plenty."
"Aren't you at home now?"
"Actually I'm not."
"I wonder if you'd mind bringing the clippings. Would you mind stopping off?"
"Of course not. But I don't want to lose the time."
"I may have to go down for tests. EIya's voice was filled with unidentifiable tones. Sammler's interpretive skill was insufficient. He was uneasy. "Why shouldn't there be time?" Elya said. There's time enough for everything." This had an odd ring, and the accents were strange.
"Yes?"
"Of course, yes. It was good you called. A while ago I tried to phone you. There was no answer. You went out early."
Uneasiness somewhat interfered with Sammler's breathing. Long and thin, he held the telephone, concentrating, aware of the anxious Intensity gathered in his face. He was silent. Elya said, "Angela is on her way over."
"I am coming too."
"Yes. Elya lingered somewhat on the shortest words. "Well, Uncle?"
"Good-by, for now."
"Good-by, Uncle Sammler."
Rapping at the pane, Sammler tried to get Shula's attention. Among the wagging flowers she was conspicuously white. His Primavera. On her head she wore a dark-red scarf. Covering up, afflicted always by the meagerness of her hair. It was perhaps the natural abundance, growth power, exuberance that she admired in flowers. Seeing her among the blond openmouthed daffodils, which were being poured back and forth by the wind, her father believed that she was in love. From the hang of her shoulders, the turn of the orange lips, he saw that she was already prepared to accept unrequited longing. Dr. Lal was not for her; she would never clasp his head or hold his beard between her breasts. You could seldom get people to long for what was possible-that was the cruelty of it. He opened the French window.
"Where is the timetable?" he said.
"I can't find it. The Gruners don't use the train. Anyway, you'll get to New York quicker with Emil. He's going to the hospital."
"I don't suppose he'd wait at the airport for Wallace. Not today."
"Why did you say that about Lal, that he was just a bushy black little fellow?"
"I hope you're not personally interested in him."
"Why not?"
"He's not at all suitable, and I'd never give my consent."
"You wouldn't?"
"No, no. He wouldn't make any kind of husband for you."
"Because he's an Asiatic? You wouldn't be so prejudiced. Not you, Father."
"Not the slightest objection to an Asiatic. There is much to be said for exotic marriages. If your husband is a bore, it takes years longer to discover it,
in French. But scientists make bad husbands. Sixteen hours a day in the laboratory, absorbed in research. You'd be neglected. You'd be hurt. I wouldn't allow it."
"Not even if I loved him?"
"You also thought you loved Eisen."
"He didn't love me. Not enough to forgive my Catholic background. And I couldn't discuss anything with him. Besides, sexually, he was a very gross person. Things I wouldn't care to tell you about, Father. But he is extremely common and lousy. He's here in New York. If he comes near me, I'll stab him."
"You amaze me, Shula. You would actually stab Eisen with a knife?"
"Or with a fork. I often regret that I let him beat me in Haifa and didn't do anything back to him. He hit me really too hard, and I should have defended myself."
"All the more important that you should avoid future mistakes. I have to protect you from failures I can foresee. A father should."
"But what if I did love Dr. Lal? And I saw him first."
"Rivalry-a poor motive. Shula, we must take care of each other. As you look after me on the H. G. Wells side, I think about your happiness. Margotte is a much less sensitive person than you. If a man like Dr. Lal was mentally absent for weeks at a time, she'd never notice. Don't you remember how Ussher used to speak to her?"
"He would tell her to shut up."
"That's right."
"If a husband treated me like that, I couldn't bear it."
"Exactly. Wells also thought that people in scientific research made poor husbands."
"He didn't!"
"I seem to remember his saying that. Does Wallace really know the first thing about aerial photography?"
"He knows so many things. What do you think of his business idea?"
"He doesn't have ideas-he has delusions, brainstorms. However, he wouldn't be the first maniac to make money. And his scheme has charm, dealing in plant names… well, some of the plants do have beautiful names. Take one like Gazania Pavonia."