It Takes a Thief

by Niels Hammer

  A fair westerly breeze was blowing by now – so would it be worth while to set sail for an afternoon of running hours? About two to three – then the evening would be sweeter. Not wind enough for the Sea and too much for the Broad. His worldly hunger – olives – Comté – bread and tomatoes – then his unworldly – lying on the sofa – to be soothed by gay and wistful lute tunes. The spirit of the Renaissance – still the basic awareness of Yvain le Chevalier – Perceval le Conte du Graal – sustained by Pico della Mirandola and Marsilio Ficino. The music from the strings and the wood was simultaneously earthy and ethereal. The emotion it suggested had inspired its subtle flow in time with thrills as blue surprises and repeated patterns that assured him – by their familiarity – of the trusty ways of all his coming days and nights – but the overtones formed the depth of silence from which the music arose and it became more and more audible the longer he listened and the more his inner standing waves became attuned to absorb the distinctness of the sounds. A state of being – being music – all that which was consisted of vibrations – whether āhatā or anāhatāḥ – struck or unstruck – for the unstruck notes in-formed and permeated the struck notes and it was that other-worldly realm she had manifested – consciously and subconsciously. That was why. So would he dare to paint her – to vie with Great Creative Nature – to suggest infinity in the finite features of her face? Only if she asked him – then he might not bear the full responsibility for his failure.

  But what a day – to-day? A day like any other day in this that was his life – endured haphazardly on the surface of a blue – white and green planet – though in another way unique beyond all prior conceptions. A premonition of disaster began to stir in the periconscious distance before the certainty surfaced. A dire promise to come at seven thirty – so the evening would be long and mostly dull – blighted in patches by exchange of nice trivialities – but he had given her his word and that was it. If the Sky had been slate-grey and the weather windy – cold and rainy – it would have made scant difference – although depending on his mood and inspiration – but at least he could slip away around half past twelve and sleep for a couple of hours – to be keen enough to match the best of months – but the precious present was merely a window opening up to three seconds of consciousness which changed foci continuously on the way towards that final transformation which – like the infinite emptiness beyond each present instant – each pratyayaḥ – sensation or image – lay waiting either as an ominous threat or as an assurance of ultimate release.

  III

  Walking slowly – to feel aligned with the lengthening evening light – through meandering lanes bordered by Lilacs – White Willows – Linden Trees and straw-thatched houses with small or middle-sized gardens – he came to the church where he had parked his car the previous evening. Now there were no pellets beneath the tower but the Barn Owl could still be sitting in one of the sound holes. His search last night had been inconclusive but the pellets had been unmistakable – and a little later – driving down the well-kept driveway of barren gravel and the stately house – throned in a setting of old Copper Beeches – suddenly appeared he resurfaced to confront his social responsibility. No other cars – it might be too early – so strolling to and fro along the bright green hedge he looked at the sunny or snowy Daffodils and the sky-blue or pink Scillas which here and there had pushed the Dwarf Irises aside for the season. The small angry snarl of a motor made him jump aside to seek shelter among the Lilies-of-the-Valley and a waving arm in a loose white sleeve stretched out over the door of the car greeted him in passing. He waited – to let his heart-beat return to seventy-two per minute – the floral fragrance deepened his breathing and when Jennifer – after a couple of castling-like manœuvres – had parked safely in front of the house he tiptoed out of the shadows to open the door for her.

  “I’m almost sure I remembered it.”

  A light kiss on each cheek – and the smell of Jasmines was overpowering.

  “Your hippocampus is probably shrinking. Old age and decrepitude – ”

  “Come on, Ralph! Nonsense. I’m not at all more absent minded than you are.”

  “I’m not absent minded, and you’re scatter-brained.”

  “Don’t you love me anymore?”

  Charming mock indignation – a fair expression of a particular femininity which once upon a time –

  “Of course I love you, but love has not made me completely blind.”

  “True love makes a lover blind.”

  “No, true love makes a lover see, hear and feel with sharpened clarity and distinctness.”

  It would be premature to tell her why – at least not yet – and she tossed her long hair – straw-coloured in the slanting light – aside as if in exasperation – tinted by humour.

  “Another one of your innumerable hypotheses to settle all issues in just the ways that suit you. But we had better go in, and never mind my handbag.”

  “You seem quite reluctant to derive any benefit from experience.”

  “And yet I have come to know you inside out.”

  A little half-baked apple truism with cinnamon and cream.

  “Only as far as you know yourself.”

  Holding the heavy door for her as she swung her hips softly from side to side – a Whooper Swan waddling forward on bare ice. Plus Ça change plus c’est la même chose. Mary came rushing out of the kitchen to meet them with a wooden ladle in her hand – white flour adorning her Blackcock tresses and the classical features of her face wrenched into a grimace of acute despair – but if one of them had met with a serious accident her stoic dignity would have made her entrée impeccable.

  “Dinner’s ruined. Peregrine poured half a bottle of Cognac into the saucepan and it boiled over. How lovely you look!”

  She embraced Jennifer and gave her a little pecking kiss on each cheek.

  “Don’t worry. As long as the wine has not turned I see no reason to get upset.”

  “No, of course not! That would be the end of you, wouldn’t it?”

  “Love is tooth-achingly sweet, but you insist on adding a liberal measure of one hundred per cent acetic acid – ”

  “Oh stop this childish bickering and give me a helping hand instead.”

  “Where’s Peregrine?”

  “I chased him out of the kitchen. I’m glad I didn’t hit him with the saucepan. It’s rather heavy.”

  “Women who are honest have violent tempers. That’s one of their charms.”

  A dark look of wroth surrounded a warm glow of satisfaction. They followed Mary out into the large smelly kitchen. The windows were open and outside a Blackbird was singing.

  “Silence!”

  “What do you mean? I haven’t said a word.”

  “Before we begin let’s pause for a human while and listen to his song. It’s the best there is.”

  Taking hold of Mary’s left hand its comely shape and generous strength began to suffuse him just as he stilled her anxious impatience about the future so that the prospect of dinner could set below the horizon while the Blackbird’s mellifluous paean to the melancholy transitoriness of life filled all space – for his sky-flowing music returned them for a fleeting moment to themselves.

  “Well, Mary, what were you going to make? Shall we continue with what’s left or shall we embark on a bold improvisation?”

  “I simply don’t know. Let’s go out and eat instead.”

  She would rather enjoy the luxury of shivering – naked – in black despair camouflaged as black humour – much in keeping with her love of drama – than to use the hirsute greycoat of pragmatic common sense.

  “Now, let me just have a look at this. What’s in the oven here?”

  “A roast beef of course!”

  Impatience with his slow-witted question made her cheeks flush. What she knew as a plain fact he ought not to forget so easily.
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  “Nonsense, we will eat here, and the sauce is not a problem.”

  “But where is everybody else?”

  “You’re half an hour too early.”

  “I’m sure you said seven thirty and not eight o’ clock.”

  “That’s true. I remember it distinctly.”

  “Oh, I must have made a mistake, I’m sorry.”

  “What a happy mistake. We came just in time then.”

  Taking the beef out of the oven he touched its brown greasy surface with his fingertips to feel the resilience of the muscle of the deceased bovine. A corpse and carrion eater –

  “It’s ready in half an hour and it looks excellent, so we’ll have to conjure up a suitable sauce.”

  “My béarnaise too is ruined.”

  “Do you have any cream?”

  “In the fridge there. But what will you do?”

  “Make another sauce. We also need flour, tarragon, butter and Bordeaux, but we will have to taste the wine first, and do you have any fond brun?”

  “Oh no, I should have had some but – ”

  “Where’s Peregrine now?”

  “He’s gone down to the pub to get away from me, I think, and find some sympathy among his boon companions for having been chased out of his own house by a fury with a saucepan.”

  “It serves him well.”

  But their presence had had a soothing influence on her ruffled nerves for – conscious of the confidence they inspired – she found a good bottle in the cupboard.

  “And it’s a fairly typical reaction. Running away like a frightened March hare from his responsibility and leaving it all to you.”

  “Men never grow up.”

  Ex cathedra – and as befitted the stage of the world her tears were suddenly not all that far away – tears of real frustration – caused by Peregrine’s indifference and tears of rage – caused by her inability to keep the emulsion of the sauce from breaking – and tears of feeling a little sorry for herself – three kinds of potential tears with a sodium chloride content of zero point six in addition to small amounts of lysozyme and lactoferrin or just the tears of a born tragédienne.

  “Will this do, Ralph?”

  “Excellent, and Jennifer, what about a salad with tomatoes, cucumbers and paprika? It would counterbalance the meat. First olive oil and lemon or lime? But, Mary, where is the sauce béarnaise? It’s nearly always possible – ”

  “I threw it away. I was furious.”

  Great passions demanded irrevocable actions. He opened the bottle and Jennifer found three glasses.

  “Cheers!”

  A good Bordeaux and ideal for the sauce. He mixed the flour and the butter in a saucepan to make a roux and began to add the cream slowly – stirring – round a Mulberry bush – but also widdershins to avoid lumps. Mary and Jennifer nursed their glasses and a sisterly suffragette mood of silent complaint – against all those who were guilty of having been born with a Y chromosome – the aberrant sex – only Mammals. The Blackbird ceased singing in the twilight – and he mixed the crushed dark green leaves of Tarragon into the sauce. The refrigerator would be the most –

  “What are you looking for now?”

  A system in this apparently stochastic arrangement of boxes – bottles and plastic bags.

  “Tomato purée.”

  “I’ll find it for you, and then I’ll just run up and change.”

  Emptying the content of the tube out into the sauce. Colour and twang.

  “It’s Peregrine, you know, he sometimes makes her mad.”

  “Yes, he irritates her with his studied insouciance for she’s keen on doing her utmost whether cooking or singing; fire and water.”

  “He was utterly spoiled as a child – ”

  “The red glass bowl you’ve got there must be big enough.”

  “And that’s where it all begins and ends.”

  “Unless you chance to catch hold of the horns of your Demons – ”

  On the flowery dancing floor –

  “And somersault up over their backs to leave them behind for good.”

  “Courage, my dear. You need cojones to face a charging bull.”

  “Or despair or fury.”

  Pouring the red juice from the meat up into the sauce – Jennifer kept the roasted muscle from slipping out over the dripping-pan with a long silvery pitch fork – a rather nasty murder weapon – but perfect for hay and –

  “You seem to have everything ready. I’m so grateful. I just became too furious to think.”

  The act of changing costume had furthered the act of changing mood. The long dun dress that stuck to her stately figure gave her the assurance of her rôle as hostess.

  “Come the three corners of the world in arms, and we’ll beat ‘em, but in order to do so we need another bottle. This is almost empty.”

  “I’m sometimes too susceptible, you know. Like a long green reed in the wind. So emotional – ”

  “Is it not precisely that which enables you to visualise a character or a situation. A gift of God, your raison d’ être?”

  Pleased with the look of the salad – the tender meat – the sauce – and with his plain appreciation she opened the bottle with the efficiency of a vintner. La donna –

  “Yes, here you are, but in situations like this it’s maddening.”

  The wine into the sauce and longer blue flames.

  “Here’s Peregrine, Seymour, Sally and – ”

  “Hello, hello! What are you doing?”

  “Just adding the final touches to the sauce.”

  “Splendid! Then you’ve saved the day. Let’s get the Champagne.”

  Exchanging nickel news and juicy jokes they went in to the sitting room loaded with dewy bottles and tulip glasses – the unconscious though inescapable cross of affluence and leisure – and yet each one of them had also a door kept ajar to a common attic. As Peregrine seemed to have made amends by appearing at the right moment he was forgiven – so all was at the moment well with the world. The grinding of the greyish noise of familiar or spicy tid-bits intensified in direct proportion to the amount of Champagne consumed. He went back into the kitchen and stirred the sauce a while before minimising the flames to nothing more than a warm caress. It would improve if left to simmer on its own for a little while. Feeling the long social pull of time-honoured customs and the obligation of a certain amount of breeding he found his way back into the merry mettle of the sitting room – and standing by the open window he looked out into the deepening owl-light among the honest trees while rolling the light amber Pinot Noir juice around in his mouth to extract its fragrance of honey – apples and nougat plus something faintly titillating for which there was no ready semantic crib. From the periphery of the boisterous atmosphere Charlotte sidled up beside him with her glass in the clutch of her bejewelled fingers. Ambition fuelled by a subconscious fear of missing the essentials.

  “Dear me, how unsocial you are, not even bothering to – ”

  “It’s my absent-mindedness. It’s getting worse, but it’s no excuse. There are no excuses.”

  “You’re not all that old yet. It must be something else. Are you in love?”

  Her eyes – an October Sea grey-speckled blue – brightened with the possibility. Her perspicacity was uncanny. She never ceased to surprise him and he was at a loss for an answer.

  “It may just be my dismal disposition.”

  “Nothing wrong, I hope?

  Maybe she would believe him – maybe not – but feeling too sensitive he had to defend himself against further cross-examination.

  “Well, since you ask and since you do what you do I cannot refrain from delineating the state of the world. Everything is wrong, basically, and the misery is often unbearable. The general ignorance, the general indifference. The whole system of our society of
unlimited greed is rotten to the core and hell-bent on self-destruction.”

  She took a small step back as if astonished by the vehemence of his anger.

  “Now, come on! What do you really mean?”

  At a liminal position as usual. The darkness was approaching outside with stars and Nightjars – the brightly lit world of animated voices and tunnel-visioned intentionality enveloped him here.

  “You ought to know.”

  “Well, I don’t!”

  A blunt challenge to refute reality was fostered by the innate optimism of the propagation of the species. Her healthy female prerogative – a biological process developed by necessity. To believe that one was the author of one’s own fate was such a cozy illusion. Atē.

  “You know as well as I that the present economic system is based on continual growth though the surface of the planet is limited. It is also debt-based which is absurd, evil and in the long run self-defeating. We are now more than seven and a half billion, and this number increases daily with two hundred and thirty thousand. Naturally the planet is groaning under the impact. All the fresh water sources are drying out. The increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere makes the oceans acidic, and acid kills the coral reefs, the larder of the Sea. Each of us has between twenty-five and fifty toxic chemicals in our blood. The gene-pool becomes more and more susceptible to disease because all infants survive. Between ten and twenty thousand species become extinct every year. This costs us around three thousand billion Pounds annually. An advertisement agent destroys values worth eleven Pounds for every Pound he receives, an international accountant forty-nine Pounds. Light and noise pollution is spreading to all habitable areas. During the last two decades autism has increased a hundredfold. Power and wealth become more and more concentrated in the hands of fewer and fewer individuals, so democracy has been reduced to a trivial joke. There are no values left, only interests. The only sign of life now-a-days among Humans is the ubiquitous consumption to fill the inner vacuum. A vacuum that can never be filled, so the entire habitable surface of the planet is masticated to pulp and fiction. The common modern endeavour consists in a flight from reality, in a flight from oneself, in self-inflicted exile. And here I’ve just given you a few examples, picked up at random, to show the prevailing trend. Not with an explosion but with a whimper will it all wither away in a century or two. But personally I’m fine, though when I happen to contemplate the state of the world and the future, utterly wretched.”