M/F

by Anthony Burgess

  I needed to smoke, and I had finished my Sinjantin. Those thieving swine. I rang for a stewardess, and she eventually obliged me with a complimentary pack of four Selim, just enough for Miss Emmett’s day had they been Honeydew, watery tasting cigarettes untarred and decarcinogenized by a whole midget factory in the tail. Oral violence at least had been eliminated from modern America.

  When the track of the pluribus turned from a parallel to a hypotenuse, I discovered that I had been apprehensive in vain. I had to go back to the toilet (Jupiter Inlet, Juno Beach) and on the way saw that the faggot book was now being read, but not by the summerweight mourner; it was a middleaged woman in lime and pomegranate with huge boiled arms. So that (Lentana, Gulf Stream, Village of Golf) was all right, and that it was so (Boca Raton, Hugh Taylor Birch) seemed confirmed by two glowing vacant signs. I thought I would make my piss a sort of gleeful libation, but to my horror blood came along with the water. Why blood? What had I done to myself, what was wrong with my body? I looked at my unshaven horrified face, the lips parted, and it seemed to me that the alignment of the right upper incisor was wrong. I felt the tooth. It was slightly loose; it was curiously twisted in its socket. I was not well.

  The return to seat sign was on. I shook back and fastened my seatbelt in a tremor. And then the tremor subsided. After all, everybody had something, nobody was one hundred per cent healthy. That blood was nothing: I had overfrotted in my bout with Irma. In the struggle for my bag and money I’d been fisted, though not overhard: that could explain the tooth which, if I massaged the gum, would strengthen again. One could sometimes bless violence, for it worked in the exterior light, you knew where you were with violence. In a sense it was clean and just and as human as music: the very sound of the word suggested music. It was the unjust processes that went on in the dark that had to be feared – teeth dropping (Fort Lauderdale) from mouths sweet with dental floss and mint gargles, ulcers (Hallandale) for milk-drinkers, lung cancer (Ojus, Surfside) for those who abhorred tobacco.

  We swooped very low inland over the racetrack at Hialeah, shout of ironic triumph for so many punters, and then it was Miami International Airport in ghastly heavyweight summer. I unclicked my seatbelt as we bumped down and started the long taxiing. And then, how the hell he’d managed the invisibility I just could not figure, something to do with that black? he was solid in the aisle beside me, saying:

  – Move over.

  – Why the hell, who the hell?

  – Ah, come on, move over, I want to explain, see.

  I moved over. I was, after all, curious to know what the whole game was. I said:

  – From Loewe, is that it?

  He had a breathy voice and the not unpleasant falling tune of the Bronx. He said:

  – Not Mr Loewe direct. It’s more for Mr Pardaleos that I operate. But Mr Loewe, he comes into it. Who you’re going to see now is Mr Pardaleos.

  He settled himself comfortably for the taxi-ride and began to clean his nails with a toothquill, saying:

  – This Riverside Drive one you was with, she called Mr Loewe, but then, see, it was Mr Pardaleos that takes over.

  – Irma? Irma was in on this?

  – She might be Irma or she might be anybody, names not always meaning anything in these kind of operations. Lot of calling last night, you seem to be more important than what you seem to be.

  – And you’re taking me to see Pardaleos?

  – Well, I figure you ought to know my job could have finished at La Guardia when I see you buying the ticket and speaking out where you’re going clear and loud. I call Mr Pardaleos as requested, but it’s not him personally I talk to as he’s asleep, it’s early yet at that time, and they say this one word: coincident.

  – What, who?

  – I say to them I’ve got this funeral at Cypress Hills, but then they say it’s the living comes before the dead. Who do you mean, I tell them. Well, it seems they had this tip from one of the airlines that there’s this Guzman that’s on the charter flight going back to Ojeda. Guzman, after all these years, what do you think of that? And I don’t care much for funerals, even though he was a buddy. Took three bullets straight in the back of the throat, and all those guys just looking on. So all I do is hand you over to Mr Pardaleos who’ll be waiting at the breakfast table, real aristocracy he is, and then I pick up Guzman.

  – Are you some sort of police officer?

  – That’s a laugh. Don’t you worry none, now, about matters of legality and the such. I’ll get Guzman back where he’s wanted, no trouble at all.

  He nodded seriously at me, stowing the toothquill in his shirt pocket; a man, the nod meant, in whom I could have every confidence. By this time the aircraft had sidled up to its bay, and I knew there was no point in asserting my right to enter the airport as a free man, or boy. This escort in black to an intended purpose not now to be fulfilled –

  – You’re in mourning for him, that’s the important thing.

  – Who? I get you. And it’s kind of right and proper to pick up Guzman dressed like this.

  – The trappings and the suits of woe.

  – That’s very good, that’s very well put, though there’s only the one suit. One black suit’s enough for any man. Last him all his life if his weight don’t change too much.

  Held, I say, my elbow gently as we stepped from the cool aircraft straight into the cool building to which it had glued itself, and he moved me briskly along miles of corridor, past all the boarding areas with their waiting knots of the loud and indulged and sunburnt, to the huge abstract zone of counters and boutiques, where flying was not yet a matter (feared, fascinating, apocalyptical) of moving into the air but a calm easy one of money, kilos, code-numbers. He led me to a restaurant called the Savarin. It was crammed with breakfasters (would breakfast-time never end?) and it reeked of coffee like a Rio warehouse. He said:

  – That’s him over there, see.

  With reverence. He straightened his black tie with one hand, pushing me with a new force with the other. Pardaleos had, despite the crammed breakfasting urgency, a large table to himself, and he was discussing the menu slowly with the Negro waiter, as though it were dinner-time and the name of the restaurant had to be taken seriously. He did not look Greek, not, anyway, dark and stubbled Greek; he was fair and pale, almost albinoid, and wore an exquisite suit of a glistening cranberry colour. He was of the gods, not demos. My escort said:

  – This is him you want, Mr Pardaleos, and now I get on with your kind permission with the other job.

  Pardaleos nodded him off with a flash of contact lenses, stood to show five and a half well-knit feet, shook hands with me – such a crusty kiss of rings – and courteously indicated that I sit. I sat. My escort patted me shyly and went. Mr Pardaleos said:

  – They do a rather good kidney omelette. Shall we say that, preceded by a kirsch-laced frullato di frutta?

  The voice was totally without accent, the tones of abstract intelligence purged of class and region. He was over forty. I said:

  – I’ve already had two breakfasts.

  – You wouldn’t think it too early for a pint of champagne?

  – Much too early. But what an excellent idea.

  He smiled an archaic smile and then ordered a breakfast for himself quite different from what he’d proposed for the two of us: trout kedgeree with chilli sauce, cold turkey pie, Virginia ham very thick with a brace of poached eggs, a chilled strawberry soufflé. And, for there was not much choice, a 1963 Bollinger. He drank iced water and black coffee while waiting. He said:

  – Faber. A good making name. Homo faber.

  – I beg your pardon, was that last remark meant to be –

  – How sensitive the young are. Nothing about sex, no. But, since you’ve raised the subject, there’s a sexual question I’d like to put to you. What is your view of incest?

  – What is my –

  – Incest, incest. Keeping sex in the family. Most cultures have pretty rigid taboos on incest. My own ances
tral one, for instance. Oedipus, Electra, all that. Some don’t care much. England didn’t They didn’t bring in their Incest Act till 1908.

  – Why do you, why are you – What’s all this about anyway?

  – You young people are great for smashing the old barriers. Loewe told me what you’d done – very clever, most bold. Would you be prepared to commit incest?

  – It’s an academic question. I’ve nobody to commit it with.

  – Stall not, my friend. Now when I talk of committing incest I have in mind the whole works: eiaculatio seminis inter vas naturale mulieris, and no pills or diaphragms or pessaries. I mean preparedness to risk incestuous conception.

  – Look, I think I have a right to know what’s going on. I’m trying to get to Castita to fulfil a legitimate educational enterprise. Everybody seems determined to –

  – I know all about it. Wait. Now, while I’m eating this kedgeree, I’d like for you to perform a brief act of the imagination. A boy is in bed with his mother, right? They’re naked. He, or she, puts out an embracing hand. Take it from there.

  – First Loewe has me robbed, now you have me dragged here to talk about –

  – Go on. Start imagining. Close your eyes if it helps.

  I sighed. Could I, a young man, be blamed for thinking that the old were mad? The champagne was brought in an ice-bucket, and some of the breakfasters stared, though not for long: this was, after all, sybaritic Miami. I closed my eyes and saw what Pardaleos had bidden me see. There was a double bed, the sheets not too clean, and there were flies buzzing. High summer: this was to explain the nakedness. Above the bed hung a photographic reproduction that I could not clearly see: something surrealistic, a red room crammed to the limit with chairs and a sort of fiery paraclete dancing. Then I looked down. The mother had no face, but her body was clearly defined – big breasts, belly, buttocks shining sweatily in the morning light. The son was bony and overeager. Their engagement was urgent, and he came as quickly as a young rooster. Then he lay back, wet and panting, and his face was something like mine.

  – Well? said Pardaleos, who had finished his kedgeree.

  – It was just sex. If it were a sort of morality cartoon you could stick a shocking label on – SONFUCKS MOTHER. Primal sense isn’t revolted, except perhaps aesthetically. It’s ideas, words, irrational taboos, pseudo-ethical additives that that –

  – Words, eh? Very clever. Right. Send the mother and son packing and bring in a brother and sister. Go on.

  – You know, this is really –

  But, my eyes on the easing-off of the champagne cork, I left that bed in my mind, the sheets changed and the light changed too – for some reason to winter afternoon light with the sense of an electric fire glowing, to be occupied by a boy and a girl, both lean and comely, and they made love with hunger. Their faces were not clear: they were glued together in a kiss. The cork shot, and the waiter gave the fuming overflow to my flute. I couldn’t help grinning. I said:

  – Premature ejaculation.

  – Very witty. This time what you call primal sense wasn’t revolted, right? But think now. Nine months later she has a child. Any comments?

  – It wouldn’t be fair on the child. Dysgenic. Family weaknesses massively transmitted. An irresponsible act.

  – Drink off that champagne before the gas goes. Then have some more. Good. So then, what you’re telling me is that incestuous sex is wrong if there’s the danger of issue, but it’s not out of order if conception is avoided. Right?

  I drank off the flute at his bidding. There was an instantaneous firing of the accumulated bad air in my stomach, then bubbles discharged through my nose. One of the pleasures of drinking a fizzy wine is the separation of the nasal exordium of vomiting from the desire to vomit. Pardaleos forked in cold turkey. He chewed, cocking his head at me, waiting. I said, with care:

  – Contracepted incest should be a human right. What I mean is, people should be able to claim it as they might want to claim the right to eat shit. But there are better things to eat. Why sleep with your own mother or sister when there’s such a world of women to choose from?

  – You’re very naïve, said Pardaleos. You haven’t read much. We condemn incest because it’s the negation of social communion. It’s like writing a book in which every sentence is a tautology.

  – My father, I began to say. –

  – Your father was all against social tautology. But every son is against his father. A young man who protests against the society his father built by copulating with a stranger in the open air might be quite likely to –

  – No. Besides, it’s totally academic. I couldn’t commit incest.

  – And you wouldn’t even if you could?

  – No. I claim the right to, but I wouldn’t. There’s no contraceptive that’s a hundred per cent sure.

  – I knew your father very well, said Pardaleos. He was a friend as well as a client. My compassion for him lives beyond the grave. He chose a freedom that not many would choose. Or shall I say he was impelled into that freedom, turning it into a bondage. He committed incest.

  I became aware, after five seconds, that my jaw had dropped. After five seconds I became aware that if I continued to grip my flute so tightly the glass would shatter and everyone’s attention would be drawn to my dropped jaw. I took in Pardaleos’s inexpressive eyes, glazed with their minuscule lenses; his mouth was calmly busy with turkey pie. This mouth said:

  – Well, he’s dead now, God rest him. And she’s dead too.

  I tried to croak out the question but couldn’t. I shook down more champagne. It was cold and blessed and sexless. I felt myself madly, in the act of drinking, to be in clean, cold, blessed communion with a ghostly father, not mine, blessing from a great way off. It was champagne’s creator, Dom Pérignon. Pardaleos answered the unspeakable:

  – His sister, yes. Your aunt-mother, to be Shakespearean. But don’t think this was no more than the feeble gesture of a rebel of the last generation. The whole thing was rather Hellenic. He was in love with her, she with him, and they lived as man and wife.

  The ham, dead flesh, arrived, along with the blind staring eyes of the poached eggs. I tried to read the plateful like a cryptic message from the underworld. I borrowed the stare. The sickness of my body seemed to be gathering its parts together to sing a diabolic motet to a Father Giver Of All Things. I tried to speak.

  – It. So that. You don’t.

  – Down more champagne, then down the rest of the story. You’re a tough young member of this new tough generation, you can ingest anything. Your father’s wife-sister was overtaken by terrible remorse after her second confinement.

  – Her sec her sec her.

  – She was, as you know, but you never knew the reason, found drowned. The body was disfigured but your father identified it.

  – Her. You said.

  – Yes. You have a sister. Your poor father recognized that some day you would be put in the position of possibly meeting her. The world, as they say, is small. He was obsessed by a fear that if you met her you might conceive, against your will no doubt, undoubtedly against your will, an identical passion of unlawful degree. Hellenic, again. The curse on a house. As flies to wanton boys. Sport of the immortals. Nonsense, I told him. Loewe, I may say, does not know the whole story. Nor does Acheson in Seattle. Nor Schilling in Sacramento. Your father and I were, as I say, pretty close. Anyway, the odds, I told him, are totally against it. I reject all this house of Atreus nonsense along with all the other mythified superstitions of my race.

  – A sist.

  – A young and, I have seen for myself, charming girl. Not very strong, of course. She needs warmth. She has been living in the Caribbean. If you are to visit the Caribbean we must get her out of the Caribbean. It’s merely a matter of antedating her departure for Europe. A finishing school in Nice.

  – My. It. I can’t.

  – More champagne?

  – Brandy. Bran.

  – I have some here.


  He took a silver flask from his sidepocket. It lightninged at me, as slim as a cigarette-case. He poured brandy into my empty champagne-flute, but I could not at once drink it for I was trembling too much and a fat stern bald man in glasses was looking at me. Pardaleos said:

  – There’s nothing to worry about. Your shock is the shock that attends all new and sudden acquisitions of knowledge. Things go on behind your back, and you resent this. You’re reminded that not even youth possesses total awareness of the magnitude, subtlety and horror of life’s hidden engines.

  He had eaten all his thick-cut ham and both his eggs. There was nothing to read on his plate but a brief message in mustard that I could not decode. Was it perhaps Homo fuge? The stern watching fat man attacked a large plate of something mushy and yellowish. Between tremors I got my brandy down. Pardaleos’s strawberry soufflé was brought, and also his bill for many dollars. I looked with sick fascination at the pink airy mound, grossly warted with large un-succulent halves of stippled berries. Picking up his spoon, Pardaleos said:

  – I’ve no legal right to keep you here, of course. I hope you’ll see things my way. A bit of posthumous humouring. He was, after all, your father.

  I felt as though I’d eaten my father, a vast coffined ham with poached eggs for eyes, his brain a soufflé, his fingernails alive and pricking. That was the brandy.

  – You’ll like my apartment. Leisure City – a pleasant name. Stay till I receive word that they’ve caught the plane to Paris. It’s not really an infraction of your freedom, is it? What is time, after all? You have all the time in the –

  – They? They?

  – The old lady who looks after her. Believe me, this stupidity won’t go on for ever. When you’re twenty-one, married, settled down –

  He scooped up pink brain-stuff. I said, feeling the well of a powerful nausea that, I knew, was red, an intimation of thick beef-extract at the back of my throat:

  – I have to go to the –

  – By all means.

  He let me go. Leaving the restaurant, I saw two young men in festive shirts and mirror-spectacles get up from their table near the entrance. They were why he let me go. I ran, looking for the room marked MEN, pushing against middleaged women who tutted and their paunched escorts who prepared to say hey young feller. One man, I saw, carried skis. Skis? Skis? I pushed open the men’s room door and saw, thank God, it was crowded, noise of many waters, fly-zipping, pudgy forearms being warmly laved. The two followed me in, breathing easily, smiling faintly but kindly. One had middle-parted rusty hair, thick waves tucked behind his ears; the other wore a plaited trilby. Their mouths were soft, unbrutal. I bent double from my middle and coughed a thick rusty gout on to the tiles. There was the expected mixed response: genuine and assumed indifference, distaste, embarrassment, outrage cut short, a very little concern. I cried feebly and cunningly: