Cannibals and Missionaries

by Mary McCarthy

  “The needlessness of the slaughter,” Frank continued after a moment. “I keep coming back to that. It must trouble Henk too. I gather he feels that if Jeroen had been left to himself he might have planned his own destruction better, not to endanger other lives.” “He tried. We have to give him that,” said Aileen. “He put too much faith in technology,” Frank decided. “Modern man. I ask myself, Aileen, why didn’t he use a plain old-fashioned gun? That rifle of his. I wish somebody would clarify that for me.” Aileen sighed. “Here they come with the cart. Let’s order a drink.” “You mean I ought to use my imagination,” said the Reverend. “But I’m a down-to-earth sort of cuss, if you can believe it of a man of my calling. In temporal affairs I have to have my i’s dotted and my t’scrossed.” “Ahmed explained it,” she said. “As much as anyone can. He empathized with Jeroen.”

  “C’était un poète, madame,” the poor Arab, very dignified, had told her in the helicopter, choking out the words as he tried to raise himself on the stretcher. They had not realized then what had happened to his lung. He meant, apparently, that Jeroen had designed a poetic end for himself, like a Viking’s funeral. He had intended to go down with his ship ablaze. “Il fallait tout détruire.” All his plunder. “C’etait un homme du Nord, vous savez. Je l’aimais beaucoup. Je l’ai compris. Même sa deuxième demande.” To a Palestinian, she could see, NATO was not all that important, but Ahmed had gone along, knowing that to Jeroen his second demand meant everything. “Mais les tableaux, Ahmed. Pourquoi?” Like a muezzin, he repeated: “Il fallait tout détruire, tout sacrifier.” But Jeroen had loved the pictures, she protested, or at least the Vermeer. Why, then, destroy them? One must sacrifice what one loves, Ahmed had answered. “Le geste sublime d’un grand révolutionnaire.” Blood rose to his lips; he spat and before their eyes lost consciousness, falling back onto the stretcher.

  The hostess reached across the Reverend and set a bourbon on Aileen’s tray, beside a plastic glass filled with ice-cubes. “Civilization,” Aileen commented, winking back a tear. “Poor Ahmed. I grieve for him, I must say.” She unscrewed the little bottle. “He was the only one in the end who didn’t want to kill us. Not counting Jeroen and Greet, of course. That was a surprise, wasn’t it? I mean, the change in Greet.” “We were all changed, Aileen. Don’t you sense it in yourself?” She considered. “Not really.” She raised her eyes to his and lifted her glass. “Cheers. No, I don’t feel changed and, frankly, I don’t notice any difference in you. We’re the same as ever. Maybe that says something. We’re the ones that nothing happened to, physically or morally.”

  He was startled. His face fell. “That’s a harsh judgment, Aileen. And a snap judgment. You’ll learn better when you’ve digested this experience. I’m still struggling to encompass it myself. Maybe we both have a bit of ‘survivor guilt,’ which in your case leads you to fear that there may be a lack of depth in yourself if you’re alive and well when the others—” “There is a lack of depth and in you, too. Well, we have to live with that. We’re two-dimensional, Reverend.” “But, Aileen, surely you feel sorrow.” “Not much. Only superficially, like with our cuts. Yet you could say”—she laughed—“that I lost two matrimonial prospects in the great explosion. Did you know Archie was a widower? His wife died of cirrhosis of the liver. An alcoholic, isn’t that terrible?” “But who was the other? Why, good heavens, you must mean Jim. A great tragedy, that, and for the country. He had so much to give.” “He’d given it,” she said shortly. “There was nothing left. It was obvious. That page had already turned.”

  Frank felt chilled. Women of her age with the misfortune of being childless could have an unnecessarily bald way of passing judgment. They drank for a time in silence. “After lunch,” said Aileen, brightening, “shall we look at Sophie’s journal? There’s not much left of it, but it will help pass the time.” Pages from Sophie’s notebook had been found in the rubble, blown to the four winds; the authorities had come upon a few, semi-intact, in the rabbit run. They had been turned over to Sophie after Aileen had identified them. “Poor Sophie,” Aileen said. “She wanted me to destroy them. But I made her see that they constituted a valuable document. Somebody might want to use them for a history of terrorism or she might use them herself if she decided to write a book about the polder events.” “That could be a good project for her,” Frank admitted. “If it didn’t stir up too many memories…With her handicap, I suppose she can dictate.” “I told her that. But she wants to be reeducated to do everything with her left hand; she even thinks she can learn to type with it.” “They have special keyboards,” Frank remembered. “So much is done nowadays to help victims of accidents to adjust to the machines we all depend on.” “Well, she’s brave,” Aileen said. “Wasn’t it strange to hear her laugh about the wooden arm she’d get with movable fingers?” Frank thought that she had been on a “high” that day from the opium or whatever it was they gave her: she had also spoken, gaily, of designing bathing dresses for herself that would have balloon sleeves and full skirts to go with them—she had always loved swimming, she told them.

  The original of the journal was in Aileen’s briefcase. Sophie, on her “high,” had offered to donate it to the Lucy Skinner library, and Aileen had taken her up on it. A photostat was going home to Connecticut with Sophie’s parents. There was nothing intimate in it, Aileen said; she had seen that when she identified it for the police. It had looked like a mixture of scraps of overheard conversations and Sophie’s own thoughts. Many pages had been lost; others were too tattered and stained—with water and probably blood—to be legible to anyone but Sophie. Yet of course it could not fail to be interesting to those who had lived through the events. When the trays had been cleared off, Aileen got it out. “Now here’s some conversation.” They bent over the sheets.

  E. You never miss a chance to make fun of us for being capitalists.

  C. A missionary to the heathen, that is my role. My upbringing and tastes, you see, didn’t fit me for evangelizing the masses.

  E. …made his first killing in pharmaceuticals. Squibb bought him out because he had a corner in one of those mycin drugs…money he borrowed from friends in local rackets…. They had a pool, and Harold was the brains. But if some baby was dying and couldn’t get the drug because Harold was pushing the price up?

  C. My dear, it doesn’t do to dwell on the origin of a fortune…. Some are older than others so that the smell of the buried bodies isn’t so fresh. My own small holdings go back to the textile mills—horridly sweated immigrant labor, mostly Portuguese. One could even say that the newer money is somewhat cleaner.

  E. (brightening) Do you really think so? But you have so much culture. It frightens me to hear you talk sometimes. I feel so ignorant and inferior. And I know that Chaddie and I can never catch up. It’s no use for him to own the Cézannes and me my poor Marie Laurencins—very unadventurous of me. I ought to branch out but I’m afraid to. Owning them doesn’t give us any real satisfaction except for Chaddie’s ego. What’s the use of owning them if you don’t know what to say about them when people come to see the collection. You feel you don’t own them at all. You just have them there for other people to look at. Chaddie doesn’t have the time of course, but I’ve been to art appreciation courses in our museum. It’s a woman’s job to understand art. Division of labor, he says. But I appreciated the pictures more before I took the courses. They only made me feel stupid. For instance, our teacher said that Cézanne was a bad draughtsman and tried to illustrate it with a pointer in that “Man with a Pipe.” I couldn’t see what he meant and when I went home and told Harold he was furious and said I could drop the course. I guess if I’d been able to tell him why Cézanne was a bad drawer he would have been even madder. When I do learn anything in the class he says I sound like a parrot.

  C. Mmm.

  E. …want Harold to turn over the Cézannes to them. They don’t care about my Laurencins. Do you think he should agree? No, I shouldn’t ask you. For you it’s not the same. When
I listen to you talk, I have the feeling that you own art with your mind. It won’t make any difference to you if you have to turn over your collections. You’ll still own them in your head, the way you do masses of things that don’t belong to you, that you’ve just seen once, in a museum or somewhere. But Harold and I wouldn’t. If he lets them have the Cézannes, that’s it. He’ll have nothing to have any pride in any more. Though in a way it would be a relief. Let me tell you, he actually bragged to me because they wanted his Cézannes and not my things. He said it proved he had more taste.

  C. In your Harold’s place…

  “That’s all of that,” Aileen said. “I wonder when it was. Now here’s a different bit.”

  Mrs. Tallboys (gracious). Are you related to the rose? A lovely old pink climber. You don’t find it any more in the catalogues. Dr. Van Fleet. Mother had it on a trellis outside the library door…. F-l-e-e-t.

  “That was much earlier,” Aileen decided. “I’m surprised to see she was keeping the diary then. Well, you don’t need to read it. We all heard it anyway. What made Sophie write it down? She seems to have been fascinated by those people. But I wouldn’t think they’d make good copy, would you? But here’s something about you. ‘F. keeps wanting to have serious discussion of terrorism.’” But the rest of the page was gone.

  “Let’s look at her own thoughts. We know pretty much what the rest of us said but we don’t know what she was thinking. I always wondered what was going on in that head.” “Should we?” “I told you, there’s nothing private. Not a word about her and Henk. And, after all, she gave me the journal. If it worries you, we can stop. There’s quite a long stretch here without any stains or torn parts. See, it starts with me.”

  Aileen’s question: what can art “do” for you, can it make you a better person, etc.? To the second part, evidently not. Collectors, dealers, museum people, art experts worse class of person generically than dentists or plumbers, say. Was it always so? Probably. Isabella d’Este, Francois Ier, Medici popes. Leave reasons for this aside for the moment and consider first part of the question. Does art have any effect on person who lives with it? Yes, it may. “Rub-off” from constant exposure to beauty can develop taste, e.g., Lily. That is, teach the art of acquisition. The “connoisseur” merely a highly trained consumer. “Lily has an eye,” “Johnnie has an eye,” they say of each other. Eye an organ of appropriation: Charles. A sensitized eye may make up for slender means; tastefulness substitutes for money. But all this essentially a circular process—familiar association with beauty enables one to recognize, i.e., seize on, more of the same. Ownership of works of a. qualifies a set of well-to-do persons—at any rate in principle—to be “discriminating”; to that point, it’s educational. Great means not strictly necessary, may even be a handicap: millionaire’s eye can afford be “lazy,” relying on pack of seeing-eye dogs—Berenson, Duveen—to do work for it. But for collector some means or family history of them v. important. Art and wealth boon companions. Sad but so.

  Returning to second half of A.’s question, isn’t that part of the reason that experts, dealers, curators, fall into same bag as collectors—like them, snobs, reactionaries, materialists? Even poor Warren has itch for spending names, pathetic triviality. His specialization means corrupting contact w. trustees, donors, etc., as on this journey. Lives “high” when w. his Croesuses, gets familiar, over-familiar, w. butlers, limousines, first-class travel, w’d surely have been presented to Shah & Madam Shah. At home a church mouse and must feel contempt for ignorance of most trustees, donors, he fated to accompany to view treasures. V. bad for character. “Servants of art” form obsequious priestly caste.

  Yet perennial association of art and wealth not whole explanation of seeming evil effect of art on moral fiber of its devotees. Visual art (see above) excites cupidity, desire to possess, also touch, finger—my mother a trial on chateau tours; exclusive enjoyment everybody’s dream. Strange this should be so? Concerts and stage plays v. different. Communal. Who would want to be sole audience for symphony or stage play? If no one else in hall, w’d be sorry for actors and musicians. But no one wishes to share painting & statuary w. mob of strangers. My ideal: to be alone in Venice Accademia or w. chosen friend. Perhaps problem is that visual beauty always incorporated in an object (Rev. Frank deplores). How share an object between many in limited span of time? Judgment of Solomon. Books? Must be alone—or undisturbed anyway—to read a book. But a book, though an object, exists in the plural; no displeasure felt if others are reading it at identical moment.

  Back to A.’s question, first part. Put it another way: can an aesthete ever be a good man? Strongly doubt it. Cf. Kierkegaard on inferiority of aesthetic to ethical. H. says pronounced Kerkegor.

  Artist himself not aesthete. Workman, rather. Artists notorious for lacking taste. Able appreciate “hand” of fellow-craftsman or predecessor, but taste prerogative of amateur. Artist often unrefined, rough individual; unlike his product, out of place in collector’s salon.

  Sophie! Are you saying art is good for nothing? In fact bad, like radium, for people regularly exposed to it? V. bright and clever, but you know better. True, if you judge art by human types attracted by its “aura,” you’re bound to condemn it. But forget collectors and other parasitic growths on the noble tree. What about works of art—the Parthenon—that have always belonged to general realm of onlookers, gods, supposedly, and men? Frescoes in churches and statues standing in public squares. Cathedrals. Skyscrapers. Whoever commissioned them—cardinals or Seagrams or the city fathers—by now they’re part of the social fabric. Surely they’re art as it was meant to be. Sacred artifacts owned by nobody and by everybody that passes by. A lot of them (Chartres) visible from a long way off. But they can be tucked away in a cloister (Moissac) or even in an oratory shown you by an old nun. The point is, they’ve become assimilated to whole family of natural objects—mountain ranges, harbors, stands of trees—that have settled down to live with us too. Of course they “do” something for human community; they’re pillars holding it up. But also living members. Come to be seen often as protectors, esp. in old cities. Like lares and penates of Roman house. Perhaps represent eternity, on account of remarkable endurance. Anyway they “concentrate the mind wonderfully,” as Dr. J. said of hanging. And there’s no question of taste, fine discrimination, involved. Everyone understands they’re wondrous without being told. Cf. the first rainbow a child sees. With them it doesn’t matter whether their “owners”—clerics or Union Carbide—notice they’re there or pass them by oblivious most of the time. Here “just part of the furniture” no sacrilege as no religion of art involved. Not there to be worshipped by idolatrous possessor but to be lived among by the many. In fact the term “art” may be out of place in this context. Art merely the medium, the element, by which the sacred, i.e., the extraordinary, is conveyed.

  Written in another hand across the bottom of the page was “You romance.” She must have showed the journal to Henk. The next entry—probably some pages were missing—had no connection with art.

  …These very different from guerrillas I’ve interviewed. Except Carlos. I almost feel I know him. Hussein & Yusuf wary, a bit like some of the Laos I visited in their cave “command post.” But more hostile. Of course circumstances different; in Laos I was treated as a “friendly.” Bolivia too. And my old friends in the mountains saw themselves as patriots bent on liberating their country—a limited objective.

  A. keeps calling “kapers” fanatics. Yes, but what does it mean? 90% of the population is a fanatic: look at “Chaddie,” who’s less of a collector’s piece than I like to think. Frank is a fanatic on keeping an open mind. Wish we had a dictionary so I could see what word comes from. “She’s a fanatic for neatness”; same as French maniaque. Doctrinal fervor certainly implied, which gives a chill to others. Yet Jeroen not particularly insistent on strict observance except in vocabulary: “imperialists,” “people’s army,” “people’s court.” Vocabulary his hair shirt. Or monastic
“habit.” Otherwise quite open to reason. Ahmed a doll. Fanaticism linked to abstinence. Abstention from alcohol, tobacco, sex, forbidden books, forbidden thoughts. There’s the distinction: H. and J. not madly tolerant but enjoy thinking, take pleasure in play of their minds. Jeroen’s hair-shirt vocabulary keeps his mind pure of thought. But he’s intelligent, H. says, so must have temptations. But I suspect he takes the urge out in planning; planning comes from his will, and his mind then gets a permit to exercise. True of any puritan; revolutionaries today as the last puritans. Do he and Greet have sex? H. and J. think not any more.

  A gap followed; then she was writing about museums.

  Problem of art for the masses. Museum = private collection opened to public at certain hours & under certain depressing conditions. Public there on sufferance, unwelcomed, continually watched and chided. Guards’ happiest hour ten minutes before closing time when they can start throwing people out. Note difference between this and usual attitude of sacristan or verger, eager to open and explain. Must distinguish between the many & the masses. Many good, masses n.g. Museum is crowd-drawer and conceives mission as such. Attendance figures plotted on rising graph. Growth statistics, cf. industry. Greater growth, less individual member of crowd can see what he came to look at. Most drawn by curiosity anyway; museum promotion, presence of guards, searches, no briefcases or umbrellas, locked cases & cabinets, restraining cords to hold public back all convey thought of museum as fantastic treasure trove. People flock to see treasure.

  Since undemocratic restrict attendance to so-called qualified persons, solution would be to get art out of museums whenever possible. Malraux had right idea when he took “valuable” statues out of Louvre and set them up on the grass, where any bus-rider can look at them: traffic jams become boon. Evidently this not possible w. paintings. But lots c’d be returned to point of origin—churches, monasteries, town halls, shrines. Sh’d apply to other works too, e.g., Elgin Marbles. Interesting w’d be to “unmake” Barnard Cloisters, repatriating component parts. Such a reparations policy (aegis UNESCO?) w’d have same appeal as returning Maine to Indians. Suggest it to Senator as campaign plank for ’76: promising vote loser. But it w’d be just and bring about much needed redistribution of art works. Not only Europe; Asia & Africa w’d benefit. Could Jeroen add it to demands? All right, a whimsy, but something will have to be done soon, as w. pollution. Decentralization the watchword. As for educating schoolchildren, what was wrong with copies and casts?