The Man in the Tree

by Damon Knight

  "That's incredibly generous," Margaret said. She tried not to show what she knew: this meant that she had been accepted as a member of the household.

  "Maybe not," Irma said with a faint smile. "It probably means he'll get more work out of you. Go upstairs if you want, look in the empty rooms and see if you find one you like. Then I'll give you the cottage keys and you can go back and look them over before you make up your mind."

  The upstairs apartments were like Irma's, each with a sitting room, bedroom, kitchenette, and bath. Each one was furnished in a different style, some formal, some cozy.

  In the cool evening she walked back to the cottages. There were three, well separated and screened by hedges; the first had lighted windows, the others were dark. She opened the door of the middle cottage and went in.

  "Cottage" was a misnomer. The living room was forty feet long and had a twenty-foot cathedral ceiling; it was luxuriously furnished, and so were the four bedrooms, one downstairs, three up, each with its private bath.

  As she walked back, the door of Pongo's cottage opened and the beam of a flashlight hit her in the face. It dropped immediately. "Sorry," said Pongo's voice. "Didn't know it was you." He was in the darkness beside the open door; she could barely make him out.

  "What would you have done if it was somebody else?" she asked.

  He stepped into the light and showed her the gleam of metal in his hand. "Boom, boom," he said, grinning around his cigar. "Like to see my place?"

  "All right?'

  Pongo's living room was smaller than the other: it was crowded with furniture and bric-a-brac. The paintings on the walls were of cowboys and Indians. Beside the sofa was a black leather armchair, obviously too big for anyone but Gene. In a brass cage nearby, something small and brown leaped at the bars and stared at her with bright eyes.

  "What's that?"

  "Marmoset," said Pongo. "His name's Gwendolyn."

  "He's cute," she said dubiously. "Does he bite?"

  "Like a tiger," said Pongo. "Sit down, have a beer." He poured from a chilled bottle into a Pilsener glass. The beer was dark; even the foam was coffee-colored. "Kulmbacher," he said. "You ever have this?"

  "No. It's good."

  Pongo took a long draught, set his glass down. "You moving out here?"

  "I don't think so. Irma told me I could use one of the apartments upstairs, or else a cottage, but they're too big for one person. I wouldn't know what to do with a four-bedroom house."

  "Might have guests later. You could move in with me."

  "Right, and I could do your cooking and cleaning."

  "Feed the marmoset," he said. He passed her a bowl of macadamia nuts.

  "Pongo, I'm going to get fat as a pig. Can't you serve something lighter for lunch, or else something not so good?"

  He looked pleased. "Maybe. You're not fat yet."

  "What does your name mean, Pongo?"

  He grimaced. "Monkey."

  "Oh."

  "He gave it to me. It's all right around here, but if we go to Tampa, call me Bill, okay?"

  "Okay."

  She moved into the apartment next to Irma's; her rent was paid for the rest of the month, but it didn't seem to matter. Irma said, "If you don't like the furniture, the drapes, anything, go pick out something you do like -- Gene will pay for it."

  "I haven't got time, Irma. Anyway, this is lovely the way it is."

  "Working your tail off, aren't you?"

  "Well -- if I didn't, I'd feel I was taking the money under false pretenses."

  "I know, but are you getting any sleep?"

  "Not much, lately."

  "Want some pills?"

  "No, I can't use them. It'll be all right."

  * * *

  Pongo did not cook on weekends; there was a cold buffet for anyone who wanted it. Sometimes they all drove to Tampa in Gene's enormous motor home and had dinner at the Columbia, a Spanish restaurant with many high-ceilinged rooms. They ate behind a potted palm that gave Gene some protection from curious stares; the management brought out a special chair for him and !aid a place with his own china and silverware. The chef, a brown, smiling man named Ruiz, always came to the table afterward for low-voiced consultations with Pongo and compliments from all the rest.

  Margaret did her necessary shopping over the weekend, or drove down to the public beach and swam, or went to a movie. Often, if she had been having a bout of insomnia, she simply stayed home, slept late, and lazed around the house in the afternoon.

  One day Anderson came into the living room and found her reading a paperback novel. He sat down beside her; when she put the book down on the end table, he picked it up and examined it curiously. The cover depicted a young woman with pinkish hair and a scoop-necked violet gown who was being embraced by a young man in a business suit. Their upper portions were painted with a sort of pasty realism; below the shoulders, however, they dissolved into a scribble of black and brown over which the artist had laid a few strokes of moldy green with his palette knife. From the positions of the two faces it was apparent that the young man was thrusting his nose into the young lady's left eye-socket. She appeared to be enjoying this penetration.

  "Rebecca West, 'Harriet Hume,'" Anderson read aloud. "This is an old paperback, isn't it? Where did you get it?"

  "At Haslam's, downtown."

  "Is it any good?"

  "The first twenty pages are really awful, until you start to see what she's up to."

  Anderson laid the book down. "Why did you read the first twenty pages?"

  "I'd read 'The Birds Fall Down' by the same author, and it was so good that I couldn't believe she was being this awful by accident. And she isn't. It's a work of art."

  "If you're awful on purpose, that makes it art?"

  "Sometimes. What about Picasso?"

  "Good point." He nudged the book with his forefinger and stood up. "Maybe I ought to read it. Will you put it on my list?"

  She did not quite smile; she had done so on Friday.

  At the door he turned to look at her. "Don't be too clever, Maggie," he said, and was gone.

  One day after lunch when Margaret and Irma were lingering over coffee in the kitchen, the gate signal rang. Irma leaned back to the intercom. "Yes? Oh, Piet!" In the little screen, Margaret could see a gray-haired man looking out of a car window. "Come on up, sweetie, I'll tell Gene you're here." She pressed the gate button. "That's Piet Linck," she said to Margaret. "He's an old friend." She pressed another button. "Gene?"

  "Yes, Irma."

  "Pier is here."

  The stocky man who entered a few minutes later was gray all over -- his tropical suit, his close-cut hair, his eyes. He gave Margaret a measuring glance when Irma introduced them. His voice was faintly English, but with a suggestion of an accent she could not identify. He was carrying an odd-shaped bundle wrapped in brown paper and tied with twine; he put it down to hug Irma.

  Gene came in and the two men shook hands. "Piet, it's good to see you. Sit down. Irma, can't we give this man some coffee? Where's Pongo?"

  "Out in back, Don't get in an uproar," She brought a cup, poured coffee.

  "How was your trip?" Gene asked.

  "Very good. I had some business to do in Minas Gerais, that was rather boring, but on the way here I spent four days in Colombia."

  "Medellín? Did you see Rodrigo?"

  "I did, and he sends his fraternal embraces. By the way; I have a present for you." He reached down for the bundle on the floor; Irma made room for it on the table.

  Linck opened a pearl-handled pocket knife and began to cut the cords. Under the brown paper the object was wrapped in newspapers; Margaret could see Spanish headlines between the strips of tape. Linck cut the tape, pulled the papers away. Inside was a carving of pale brown wood, unstained and unvarnished.

  "I got this in Cali," said Linck, turning the sculpture for their inspection. "They make them out of the roots of trees, and whatever form the roots take, that's what the artist uses. Here, this long
loop becomes the snake biting the man's head, you see. Very ingenious."

  "I like it," said Gene, bending close. "My goodness, he got everything in, didn't he? Here's the magic eye. Here's the book of wisdom. Sort of an allegory of human evolution, except that it goes from top to bottom -- this guy up here has a tail. Did you get it from the artist?"

  "Yes. He is an indio, his name is de La Cruz Saavedra. He wanted six hundred pesos for it; I pretended to misunderstand him and gave him double. Then he was happy and I was happy."

  "What's it like in Bogota now?"

  "Awful." Linck shook his head. "Worse every year. Something very bad is going to happen there. I stayed there overnight only because I was invited to a reception at the ambassador's residence."

  "The Dutch ambassador?"

  "No, the American one. Have you been in that place, Gene? No? It's amazing. The entrance hall is bigger than your living room, with a rotunda for a ceiling, and all around this rotunda there are little blue light bulbs. The reception was for the novelist Eleanor Theil, a very nice woman, we had an interesting chat. Well, at this reception I also met a psychiatrist who is interested in occultism. He was flying back to Cali the next day and he offered me a ride and lunch in his club. The lunch was rather dull because the doctor wanted to talk about von Daniken, but afterward I wandered around town, and that's how I found this carving. Incidentally, I also brought you two small Boteros -- I'll show them to you later. If you don't want them I have another buyer in mind."

  Pongo turned up and helped Linck carry his bags upstairs; it appeared that he was a frequent house-guest. Now that she had had an opportunity to study him, Margaret decided that the main impression he gave was one of sturdy roundness, like an animal's. His hair was brushed close to his round head; his hands were not plump but rounded, with thick, blunt fingers. He rarely gestured; his whole aspect was of watchful calm. He had a way of looking down when he spoke, and then darting a glance at your face to see how you had reacted. His speech sometimes seemed more American than British, and at dinner he gave a startling imitation of a Texan. He did not seem to fit into any model of a foreigner, and that made her a little uneasy.

  After dinner Gene carried him off to his tower room. Several hours later Linck came into the living room where Margaret was reading. He stood with his hands in his back pockets, looking around. When she glanced up, he remarked, "This is an amazing place. It was not finished last time I was here. Do you find it a little overwhelming?"

  "It was at first."

  Linck sat down beside her, taking a flat tin box out of his pocket. "Do you mind if I smoke this?" he asked, showing her the box. In it were slender brown cigars, hardly bigger than cigarettes.

  "No, please go ahead."

  "May I offer you one? They are very mild."

  She smiled. "No, thank you."

  Linck lighted his cigar and sat back, puffing blue smoke. "I believe I am getting a touch of agoraphobia," he said, with a glance at the ceiling. Anyhow, it's good that Gene finally has a house built to his own scale,"

  "Have you known him long, Mr. Linck?"

  "I met him in Amsterdam, in nineteen sixty-seven. He had some business with the family firm, and one of the employees told me about him. Then we did some business, and then we became friends. We have seen each other I suppose ten or a dozen times in the last twenty years. By the way, please call me Piet. It is spelled differently, but it sounds the same."

  "Piet."

  "Piet actually is my middle name; my first name is Coenraad, or Coen for short, but it is spelled C-o-e-n and pronounced 'coon,' and that confuses Americans."

  "It's too bad people won't take the trouble to get it right.".

  He shrugged. "Not many people can manage Dutch noises. I have a friend named Schildt, he has lived in this country for many years now. He pronounces it 'Skildt' now, because he says" -- his voice dropped and became guttural -- " 'Doesn'd id zound like schidt?' "

  She laughed, and he smiled for the first time. "Maggie, I hope we will be friends," he said.

  "I hope so too."

  Chapter Twenty

  -- Con su permiso. The porter wheels up His cart, dumps litter beside the trash can. Smiling taxi drivers ask, -- żAmigo? -- Si, amigo. The telephones demand special coins. The seats Have been stolen. Children are asleep Under corrugated cardboard. They wake, Stand in a circle like football players. -- żDonde vamos a robar hoy? The particles Are too small to be seen, a miasma of the mind. Over the tilted city, in bright sun, the sky is gray. --Gene Anderson

  Next day Gene announced that they were all going to the beach for a party. After a light lunch Pongo packed a huge picnic hamper; they set out a little after two in Gene's motor home, drove across the causeway and up the line of islands, past the funereal row of hotels and condominiums, to a public easement on Redington Beach, where the sea-front was still lined with private houses on ample lots. They walked through yucca and sea-grape and found themselves on a deserted beach. To the south they could see a few tiny black figures, small as ants; to the north, no one at all. Almost on the horizon, a white pleasure boat was trudging northward.

  Anderson walked through the gentle surf until he was thigh-deep, then dived and disappeared; they saw him after a few moments stroking out toward the breakers. A bottle-green wave curved over him; he dived again and reappeared, a dark moving dot on the white glare.

  Margaret and Irma swam nearer shore; Linck and Pongo were still busy putting up a shelter on four poles near the seawall. The water was only a little cooler than the air; Margaret felt it as a caressing softness on her body. When she came out, the sand was hot underfoot and the sun warm on her head; she was deliciously cool in between. Walking along the shore with Irma, she saw Anderson coming in with powerful slow strokes. He rose dripping like Triton, waded ashore, and walked up to the shelter.

  Margaret trudged up through the loose sand. Pongo and Linck were in the water now, Pongo with a mask and flippers snorkeling in the shallows, and Linck performing a decorous side-stroke farther out. Anderson was sitting cross-legged in the luminous blue umbra of the shelter. Margaret sat down on the blanket beside him. "This is so beautiful," she said.

  "Yes."

  "I still can't get used to the colors, and how clean everything is. It's like a child's drawing, almost."

  "Some people would call it gaudy."

  "It seemed that way to me at first, but now when I remember Albany, I realize how drab it was. All those muddy colors, gray and brown, and the grit and grime over everything."

  Linck came trudging up toward them, his broad gray-haired chest glistening with moisture. "That was very pleasant," he said, dropping beside them. He reached over and opened the cooler. "What do we have? Heineken's, all right." He brought up a bottle with a rustle of ice, offered it. "Maggie?"

  "No, thanks. Do we have any Coke?"

  "Almost certainly." He handed the bottle to Gene, rummaged in the cooler, found a Pepsi for Margaret and another beer for himself. "You have chosen a good place," he said. "It is very beautiful here."

  "So Maggie was just telling me."

  "How easy it is to know beauty when you see it, and how hard to define."

  "Aquinas said that the three requirements for beauty are wholeness, harmony, and radiance."

  "That is in Joyce's 'Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man,' isn't it?" Linck asked. "Yes. But the Latin is claritas, which is better translated 'clarity.' "

  "No, I think radiance is right."

  Margaret looked up at Anderson; he was staring out at the bright ocean." 'Clarity' seems to be much simpler," he went on slowly. "But then what you're saying is that a work of art must be clear. To whom? That's a prescription for poster art. No, I think it's radiance -- a shining. That's where the mystery comes in. You can understand wholeness, the unity of a work, and you can understand harmony, when all the parts work together. But where does radiance come from?"

  "At the moment, I should say from the sun," Linck said comfortably, and took a
long draught from his glass.

  Irma was strolling back along the water's edge. They saw her stop and talk to Pongo, who was standing up in the shallows with his mask on top of his head. Something she said made him laugh.

  "As for poster art," Linck said, "I have seen some very good posters. Toulouse-Lautrec made them, for instance. Even if you mean posters advertising toothpaste, it may be there are people who find them beautiful. If so, why not? Do we all have to admire the same things ?"