Crossed dear old Minnewater Park in twilit sleet. Cold as the Urals. Ayrs’s Luger had wanted to come along, so I’d buttoned my steel friend into my sheepskin’s cavernous pocket. Jowly prostitutes smoked in the bandstand. Was not tempted for a moment—only the desperate venture out in this weather. Ayrs’s ravages have put me off ’em, possibly for life. Outside the v.d.V. house cabriolets queued, horses snorted cold air, drivers huddled in long coats, smoking, stamping to keep warm. Windows were lit by vanilla lamps, fluttery debutantes, champagne flutes, fizzing chandeliers. A major social event was under way. Perfect, I thought. Camouflage, you see. A happy couple climbed the steps with care, the door opened—Sesame—a gavotte escaped into the frozen air. Followed ’em up the salt-strewn steps and rapped the golden knocker, trying to remain calm.
The coattailed Cerberus recognized me—a surprised butler is never good news. “Je suis désolé, Monsieur, mais votre nom ne figure pas sur la liste des invités.” Boot already in door. Guest lists, I warned him, don’t apply to established family friends. The man smiled an apology—I was dealing with a professional. Sequined gaggle of mantled goslings streamed past me just then, and the butler unwisely let ’em pass me. Was halfway down the glittering hallway before the white-gloved hand clamped my shoulder. Snapped, must admit, in a most undignified manner—it’s been an abysmal time, shan’t deny it—and roared Eva’s name, over and over, like a spoilt child in a temper tantrum, until the dance music collapsed and the hallway and stairs were packed with shocked revelers. Only the trombonist played on. That’s trombonists for you. A beehive of consternation in all major languages opened up and swarmed forth. Through the ominous buzzing came Eva, in an electric blue ball gown, a rivière of green pearls. Think I shouted, “Why have you been avoiding me?” or something equally dignified.
E. did not glide through the air into my arms, melt into my embrace, and caress me with words of love. Her First Movement was Disgust: “What’s happened to you, Frobisher?” A mirror hung in the hallway; looked to see what she meant. I’d let myself go, but I become a lax shaver when composing, as you know. Second Movement, Surprise: “Madame Dhondt said you’d gone back to England.” Things went from worse to worst. Third Movement, Anger: “How dare you show your face here, after … everything?” Her parents had told her nothing but lies about me, I assured her. Why else had they intercepted my letters to her? She had received both my letters, she said, but shredded them “out of pity.” Now rather shaken. Demanded to speak with her tête-à-tête. We had so much to sort out. A superficially handsome young fellow had his arm round her, and he barred my way and told me something in proprietorial Flemish. I told him in French he was pawing the girl I loved, adding that the war should have taught Belgians when to duck in the face of superior force. Eva caught his right arm, cupped his fist in both her hands. An intimate act, I see now. Caught her gallant’s name, muttered by a friend warning him not to belt me one: Grigoire. Bubble of jealousy deep in my gut now had a name. I asked of Eva who her fearsome lapdog was. “My fiancé,” she said, calmly, “and he’s not Belgian, he’s Swiss.”
Your what? Bubble popped, veins poisoned.
“I told you about him, that afternoon on the belfry! Why I came back from Switzerland, so much happier … I told you, but then you subjected me to those … humiliating letters.” No slip of her tongue or my pen. Grigoire the Fiancé. All those cannibals, feasting on my dignity. There we were. My impassioned love? No such thing. Never was. That unseen trombonist was now monkeying about with “Ode to Joy.” Roared at him with elemental violence—damaged my throat—to play it in the key Beethoven intended or not play it at all. Asked, “Swiss? Why’s he acting so aggressively, then?” Trombonist began a flatulent Beethoven’s Fifth, also in wrong key. E.’s voice was one degree off absolute zero. “I think you’re ill, Robert. You should leave now.” Grigoire the Swiss Fiancé and the butler each clamped one of my unresisting shoulders and marched me backwards to the doorway through the herd. High, high above, I glimpsed two small v.d.V.s in their nightcaps peering down the stairwell through the landing railings like nightcapped gargoylettes. Winked at ’em.
Gleam of triumph in my rival’s lovely, long-lashed eyes and his accented “Go home to England!” ignited Frobisher the Rotter, sorry to say. Just as I was flung over the threshold, I embraced Grigoire in a rugger grip, determined that smug cockatoo was coming with me. Birds-of-paradise in the hallway shrieked, baboons roared. Down the steps we bounced, no, we thudded, slipped, swore, thumped, and tore. Grigoire cried in alarm, then pain—the very medicine prescribed by Dr. Vengeance! Stone steps and icy pavements bruised my own flesh as black as his, banged my elbows and hips just as hard, but at least mine was not the only ruined evening in Bruges, and I yelled, kicking his ribs once for each word, before half-running, half-hobbling off on my whacked ankle, “Love hurts!”
Am in better spirits now. Hardly remember what E. even looks like. Once, her face was burned into my idiotic eyes, saw her everywhere, in everyone. Grigoire has exquisite fingers, long and pliant. Robert Schumann maimed his hands by tying weights to ’em. He thought it’d increase his range at the keyboard. Majestic string quartets but what a bloody fool! Grigoire on the other hand possesses perfect hands by birth but probably doesn’t know a crotchet from crochet.
Six or seven days later
Forgot about this unfinished letter, well, half-forgot, it got buried under my piano MS & too busy composing to fish it out. Icy seasonal weather. Half the clocks in Bruges have frozen fast. So, now you know about Eva. The affair hollowed me out, but what, pray, resounds in hollows? Music, Sixsmith, let there be Music and behold. During a six-hour fireside bath last night I scored 102 bars of a funereal march based on “Ode to Joy” for my clarinetist.
Another visitor this morning; haven’t been this popular since that notorious day at the Derby. Woken at noon by a friendly but firm knock-knock-knock. Called out, “Who’s there?”
“Verplancke.”
Couldn’t place the name, but when I opened the door, there stood my musical policeman, the one who had lent me the bicycle in my old life. “May I come in? Je pensais vous rendre une visite de courtoisie.”
“Most certainly,” I replied, adding rather wittily, “Voilà qui est bien courtois, pour un policier.” Cleared him an armchair & offered to ring for tea, but my visitor declined. Couldn’t quite conceal his surprise at the untidiness. Explained how I tip the maids to stay away. Can’t abide having my MS touched. M. Verplancke nodded in sympathy, then wondered why a gentleman might check into his hotel under a pseudonym. An eccentricity inherited from my father, I said, a notable in public life who prefers to keep his private one private. Keep my own vocation similarly hush-hush so I’m not put upon to tinkle the ivories during cocktail hour. Refusals cause offense. V. seemed satisfied with my explanation. “A luxurious home away from home, Le Royal.” He glanced around my sitting room. “I did not know amanuenses were so well paid.” Admitted what the tactful fellow doubtless already knew: Ayrs and I had parted company, adding I have my own independent income, which a mere twelve months ago would have been the truth. “Ah, a bicycling millionaire?” He smiled. Tenacious, isn’t he? Not quite a millionaire, I smiled back, but, providentially, a man of sufficient consequence to afford Le Royal.
He got to the point at last. “You’ve made an influential enemy during your short residency in our city, M. Frobisher. A certain manufacturer, I think we both know of whom I speak, made a complaint to my superior about an incident a few nights ago. His secretary—a very fine harpsichordist in our little group, in fact—recognized your name, and deflected the complaint to my desk. So here I am.” Took pains to assure him it was all an absurd misunderstanding over a young lady’s affections. Charming fellow nodded. “I know, I know. In youth, one’s heart plays più fortissimo than the head. Our difficulty is, the young man’s father is banker for several of our city elders and is making unpleasant noises about charging you with battery and assault.”
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nbsp; Thanked M. Verplancke for his warning and tact, and promised to keep a lower profile from now on. Alas, not so simple. “Monsieur Frobisher, don’t you find our city intolerably cold in winter? Don’t you think Mediterranean climes might better inspire your Muse?”
Asked if the banker’s anger might be appeased if I gave my word to leave Bruges within seven days, after my sextet’s final revision. V. thought yes, such an understanding should defuse the situation. So I gave my word as a gentleman to make the necessary arrangements.
Business concluded, V. asked if he might have a preview of my sextet. Showed him the clarinet cadenza. He was unnerved at first by its spectral and structural peculiarities, but spent a further hour asking perceptive questions about my semi-invented notation and the singular harmonics of the piece. As we shook hands, he gave me his card, urged me to post a published copy of the score for his ensemble, and expressed regret that his public persona had had to impinge upon his private one. Was sorry to see him go. Writing is such a damn lonely sickness.
So you see, I must put my final days to good account. Don’t worry about me, Sixsmith, I’m quite well, and far too busy for melancholia! There’s a sailors’ tavern at the end of the street where I could find companionship if I chose (one catches salty boys going in and out at any hour), but only music matters to me now. Music clatters, music swells, music tosses.
Sincerely,
R.F.
HÔTEL MEMLING, BRUGES
QUARTER PAST FOUR IN THE MORNING, 12TH—XII—1931
Sixsmith,
Shot myself through the roof of my mouth at five A.M. this morning with V.A.’s Luger. But I saw you, my dear, dear fellow! How touched I am that you care so much! On the belfry’s lookout, yesterday, at sunset. Sheerest fluke you didn’t see me first. Had got to that last flight of stairs, when I saw a man in profile leaning on the balcony, gazing at the sea—recognized your natty gabardine coat, your one and only trilby. One more step up, you’d have seen me crouching in the shadows. You strolled to the north side—one turn my way, I would have been rumbled. Watched you for as long as I dared—a minute?—before pulling back and hotfooting it down to Earth. Don’t be cross. Thank you ever so for trying to find me. Did you come on the Kentish Queen?
Questions rather pointless now, aren’t they?
Wasn’t the sheerest fluke I saw you first, not really. World’s a shadow theater, an opera, and such things writ large in its libretto. Don’t be too cross at my role. You couldn’t understand, no matter how much I explained. You’re a brilliant physicist, your Rutherford chap et al. agree you’ve got a brilliant future, quite sure they’re right. But in some fundamentals you’re a dunce. The healthy can’t understand the emptied, the broken. You’d try to list all the reasons for living, but I left ’em behind at Victoria Station back in early summer. Reason I crept back down from the belvedere was that I can’t have you blaming yourself for failing to dissuade me. You may anyway, but don’t, Sixsmith, don’t be such an ass.
Likewise, hope you weren’t too disappointed to find me gone from Le Royal. The manager got wind of M. Verplancke’s visit. Obliged to ask me to leave, he said, on account of heavy bookings. Piffle, but I took the fig leaf. Frobisher the Stinker wanted a tantrum, but Frobisher the Composer wanted peace and quiet to finish my sextet. Paid in full—bang went the last Jansch money—and packed my valise. Wandered crooked alleys and crossed icy canals before coming across this deserted-looking caravansary. Reception a rarely manned nook under the stairs. Only ornament in my room a monstrous Laughing Cavalier too ugly to steal and sell. From my filthy window, one sees the very same dilapidated old windmill on whose steps I napped on my first morning in Bruges. The very same. Fancy that. Around we go.
Knew I’d never see my twenty-fifth birthday. Am early for once. The lovelorn, the cry-for-helpers, all mawkish tragedians who give suicide a bad name are the idiots who rush it, like amateur conductors. A true suicide is a paced, disciplined certainty. People pontificate, “Suicide is selfishness.” Career churchmen like Pater go a step further and call it a cowardly assault on the living. Oafs argue this specious line for varying reasons: to evade fingers of blame, to impress one’s audience with one’s mental fiber, to vent anger, or just because one lacks the necessary suffering to sympathize. Cowardice is nothing to do with it—suicide takes considerable courage. Japanese have the right idea. No, what’s selfish is to demand another to endure an intolerable existence, just to spare families, friends, and enemies a bit of soul-searching. The only selfishness lies in ruining strangers’ days by forcing ’em to witness a grotesqueness. So I’ll make a thick turban from several towels to muffle the shot and soak up the blood, and do it in the bathtub, so it shouldn’t stain any carpets. Last night I left a letter under the manager’s day-office door—he’ll find it at eight A.M. tomorrow—informing him of the change in my existential status, so with luck an innocent chambermaid will be spared an unpleasant surprise. See, I do think of the little people.
Don’t let ’em say I killed myself for love, Sixsmith, that would be too ridiculous. Was infatuated by Eva Crommelynck for a blink of an eye, but we both know in our hearts who is the sole love of my short, bright life.
Along with this letter and the rest of the Ewing book, I’ve made arrangements for a folder containing my completed manuscript to find you at Le Royal. Use the Jansch money to defray publishing costs, send copies to everyone on the enclosed list. Don’t let my family get hold of either of the originals, whatever you do. Pater’ll sigh, “It’s no Eroica, is it?” and stuff it into a drawer; but it’s an incomparable creation. Echoes of Scriabin’s White Mass, Stravinsky’s lost footprints, chromatics of the more lunar Debussy, but truth is I don’t know where it came from. Waking dream. Will never write anything one-hundredth as good. Wish I were being immodest, but I’m not. Cloud Atlas Sextet holds my life, is my life, now I’m a spent firework; but at least I’ve been a firework.
People are obscenities. Would rather be music than be a mass of tubes squeezing semisolids around itself for a few decades before becoming so dribblesome it’ll no longer function.
Luger here. Thirteen minutes to go. Feel trepidation, naturally, but my love of this coda is stronger. An electrical thrill that, like Adrian, I know I am to die. Pride, that I shall see it through. Certainties. Strip back the beliefs pasted on by governesses, schools, and states, you find indelible truths at one’s core. Rome’ll decline and fall again, Cortés’ll lay Tenochtitlán to waste again, and later, Ewing will sail again, Adrian’ll be blown to pieces again, you and I’ll sleep under Corsican stars again, I’ll come to Bruges again, fall in and out of love with Eva again, you’ll read this letter again, the sun’ll grow cold again. Nietzsche’s gramophone record. When it ends, the Old One plays it again, for an eternity of eternities.
Time cannot permeate this sabbatical. We do not stay dead long. Once my Luger lets me go, my birth, next time around, will be upon me in a heartbeat. Thirteen years from now we’ll meet again at Gresham, ten years later I’ll be back in this same room, holding this same gun, composing this same letter, my resolution as perfect as my many-headed sextet. Such elegant certainties comfort me at this quiet hour.
Sunt lacrimæ rerum.
R.F.
join us. I am sorry to write, no man from either shift braved the first mate’s displeasure by attending, but we shall persist in our efforts undiscouraged. Rafael was up the masthead & interrupted our prayers with a treble cry of “Land! a-hoyyyyyy!”
We ended our worship early & braved dousings of sea spray to watch land emerge from the rocking horizon. “Raiatea,” Mr. Roderick told us, “of the Societies.” (Once again the Prophetess’s keel crosses the Endeavour’s. Cpt. Cook himself named the group.) I asked if we would be putting ashore. Mr. Roderick affirmed, “The captain wants to pay one of the Missions a call.” The Societies loomed larger & after three weeks of oceanic grays & blazing blues, our eyes rejoiced at the moss-drenched mountain faces, aglint with cataracts, daubed with cacop
honous jungle. The Prophetess cleared fifteen fathoms, yet so clear was the water, iridescent corals were visible. I speculated with Henry on how we might prevail upon Cpt. Molyneux for permission to go ashore, when the very same appeared from the deckhouse, his beard trimmed & forelock oiled. Far from ignoring us, as is his custom, he walked over to us with a smile as friendly as a cutpurse’s. “Mr. Ewing, Dr. Goose, would you care to accompany the first mate & I ashore on yonder isle this morning? A settlement of Methodists lies in a bay on the northern coast, ‘Nazareth’ they’ve named it. Gentlemen of inquiring minds may find the place diverting.” Henry accepted with enthusiasm & I did not withhold my consent, though I mistrusted the old raccoon’s motivations. “Settled,” the captain pronounced.
An hour later the Prophetess kedged into Bethlehem Bay, a black-sand cove sheltered from trade winds by Cape Nazareth’s crook. Ashore was a stratum of cruder thatched dwellings erected on “stilts” near the waterline, occupied (I correctly assumed) by the baptized Indians. Above these were a dozen timber buildings crafted by civilized hands, & higher still, below the hill’s crown, stood a proud church denoted by a white cruciform. The larger of the skiffs was lowered for our benefit. Its four rowers were Guernsey. Bentnail & a pair of garter snakes. Mr. Boerhaave donned a hat & waistcoat more suitable for a Manhattan salon than a haul across the surf. We beached with no mishap worse than a good soak, but our sole emissary from the colonists was a Polynesian dog panting under golden jasmine & vermilion trumpet flowers. The shoreline huts & “Main Street” winding up to the church were devoid of human life. “Twenty men, twenty muskets,” commented Mr. Boerhaave, “and the place’d be ours by dinnertime. Makes you think, eh, sir?” Cpt. Molyneux instructed the rowers to wait in the shade while we “Call on the King in his Counting House.” My suspicion that the captain’s new graces were skin-deep was confirmed when he found the trading store boarded up & he vented a fanged oath. “Mayhap,” speculated the Dutchman, “the niggers unconverted themselves & ate their pastors for pudding?”
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