by Glenda Adams
“Alas, poor Yuri,” Tom kept saying, prolonging laughing at his pun as he wielded his camera, snapping more portraits for his collection.
“Not me,” said Yuri, holding his hands up every time Tom turned to him with his camera. “I am ugly.”
Elizabeth questioned him about the role of women in the Soviet Union, Tom commented on industrial development, Jean-Claude asked about the Soviet stance toward nuclear disarmament.
Lark handed around peanuts, then stood by the double doors at the balcony, fiddling with her glass, nodding now and then at someone, anyone, in order to demonstrate that this was not a mute, not a dummy, that Tom had brought with him to New York.
Tom turned one of the coffee tables upside down to show the guests at the peanut party how easy and cheap it had been to make them. He had devised them himself—planks of wood, beautifully oiled by Tom, with painted coffee cans for legs.
“You can count on Tom to come up with something different,” Elizabeth called, and Lark was pleased this was the man she had chosen to follow and love truly.
She and Tom had pasted khaki burlap on the walls and pinned to it Beardsley prints and a Javanese batik. In the corner was a New England cheese mold. They had gone through the streets at night picking up old furniture, discarded and intended for collection by the sanitation department.
Tom, having finished the demonstration with the coffee tables, was now waving his arms at the apartment.
“We didn’t choose any of this just because it made a good conversation piece or fitted in with the décor,” he was saying. “There’s an interesting story to tell about every object in here.” He slapped the arm of Yuri’s chair. “We found this on the corner the other day. Those Beardsleys I came across in San Francisco on the way from Sydney. The cheese mold is a friend’s, maybe we’ll make some cheese one day.” He looked around for Lark. “Larkie, show them the bookshelves.” And he threw himself onto a pile of cushions on the floor.
As if she were displaying a coveted prize in a game show, Lark walked to the shelves, which covered one whole wall, and touched them with one hand, smiling at the guests. “He just got the cheapest lumber and hammered it all together himself,’’ she squeaked. “Isn’t it comical the way the sloping floor of this apartment makes them look as if they might keel right over?”
“Give them a push, Larkie,” Tom said from the floor.
Lark touched the shelves, and the whole structure swayed. Tom laughed uproariously. “And the marble,’’ he called.
Lark took a marble from the top shelf and placed it on the floor. “It doesn’t stop rolling until it has reached the other side of the room,” she announced.
The guests watched the marble roll across the room, some of them skipping out of the way, Tom calling out, “Come on, faster,” as if it were a horse.
After the marble disappeared under Yuri’s chair, Tom looked at his watch.
Lark went back to stand by the balcony doors. Elizabeth came up to her and put her arm around her. “It’s great you’re here. Jean-Claude and I are going to France.” She patted her abdomen. “We’re going to have a little Frenchman in May. We hated to leave Tom without someone. Most men can’t get along very well alone. Say, Tom’s quite something, isn’t he? Quite a catch. You should get married. You’re a cute couple.”
“I’m not clever enough for him,” said Lark.
“Don’t kid yourself,” said Elizabeth. “I’ll tell you something. Just subscribe to The New Republic, The New York Review of Books, and read I. F. Stone’s Weekly. That’s all it takes. Don’t tell him I told you that.” She looked around guiltily, then giggled. “If you were mixing with the Ford Foundation lot, all you’d have to read is The New Yorker, and that would do it. It takes a bit more work to be on the left, to be a critic. But personally I can’t wait to get away from all this.” Then realizing she might be misunderstood, she said, “Not this party, of course, great party, but this,” and she indicated the university, New York City, the whole country.
“I like it here,” said Lark.
“But I grew up here. That’s the difference,” said Elizabeth, and wandered off.
A young Irishman came and stood next to Lark. He glowered at the guests ranged again around the feverish Yuri in Lark’s living room.
“He’s no writer,” said the Irishman, nodding at the Russian. “He’s a spy. K.G.B., of course. What I object to is his sullying the name of real writers.”
“It’s possible,” said Lark, “that everyone in this room is a spy. You could be I.R.A., that German could be N.A.T.O.”
Tom was standing on a chair with his camera, photographing Yuri over the heads of his admirers. Yuri was writing down yet another name. “How you spell that?”
“Tom could be C.I.A.,” said Lark. She was glad to be talking to someone, glad that someone had come to stand beside her and replace Elizabeth.
“That’s daft,” said the Irishman. “The West is free. We don’t spy on people. Our governments don’t lie. They, the Communists, lie. And the British, of course.”
Lark turned to take a good look at him, to see if he was being sarcastic. He was drinking his beer, staring at the crowd at the other side of the room.
“Perhaps he is writing a polygraph,” she said, then, when he did not respond, she asked, “And what do you do? What are you working on at the moment?” At least she had learned the right questions.
“I’m a writer,” said the Irishman.
“It’s possible, in that case, that all the people in this room are writers, if they’re not spies,” said Lark, sighing.
The Irishman looked down at her. “I’m a real writer,” he said. “Poetry.” He pulled from his pocket a copy of his book and let Lark hold it.
This was the first poet Lark had ever met. She said the title aloud. “Alone in the Garden. The Garden of Eden?” She toyed with the idea of being alone in Eden. Had Adam been alone in the garden, the species would not even exist. If that were the case, Tom’s theory of a unicellular unconscious would not be necessary.
“Of course not,” he said. “Gethsemane.”
“Gethsemane? Oh, Gethsemane,” said Lark quickly. She had always thought Gethsemane rhymed with Charlemagne, and she was glad to discover her mistake, since she had already blundered by making Yosemite rhyme with Vegemite.
“Allow me to present my book to you. I always carry a copy with me so that I can give it away,” said the Irishman. He took a pen from his pocket. “But first I must inscribe it. What did you say your name was?”
“I’m the guest of honor, actually,” said Lark. “This party is supposed to be for me. I even live here.”
The Irishman did not look up from his poised pen. “What is the name?” And he wrote, “For Lark, may she at Heaven’s Gate sing.”
“I don’t sing,” said Lark. “I don’t do anything.”
The Irishman pocketed his pen. “When I was eighteen, I decided there were three things I had to do before I was twenty-five. First, to write a book and get it published. Second, to represent Ireland in the Olympic Games. Third, to get a master’s degree in America. As you can see, I have achieved the first. I can assure you that I have achieved the second. I have run for Ireland. And I am on my way to achieving the third, with eighteen months left.”
“I only wanted one thing,” said Lark, “and that was to run away. I have done that. Well, two things. I wanted to find true love, too.”
“I have applied to the Harvard Business School,” the Irishman went on. “I wrote and asked Ted Kennedy for a reference. The Kennedys come from the same town as my grandfather. I told him we were more or less cousins. Ted has invited me to Hyannis to visit.”
Three boys in gray serge trousers and yachting jackets, looking like miniature men engaged in a guerrilla action, suddenly appeared before Lark and the Irishman, surging around them, burrowing past them, easing them to the side of the balcony doors. They opened the doors, flung them wide, and lined up on the balcony. These were the Bird bo
ys. The tallest boy dug in his pockets to find objects to drop over the edge. Within a second or two he was releasing paper clips and pieces of paper onto the street below. Cold air gushed into the apartment.
“Boys, boys, cut that out,” bellowed Manfred Bird’s voice from the other side of the room. At the same time Portia appeared quietly at Lark’s side and was pulling at the collars of the boys’ blazers. “Remember, boys,” she said softly, “you’re under the thrit of dith to behave like gentlemen for the rest of your lives.” She turned to Lark. “They have promised to behave themselves until they are at least seventeen years old or go to college and leave the nest, whichever comes first. That was after we discovered them throwing water bombs and once a coconut from our windows onto the Drive. As you know, we live in a spacious apartment on the river. Menfred’s a tenured, full professor. He will murder them if they throw anything else. Boys, you promised.” She yanked one boy at a time inside and closed the doors. “Such bed boys. Sevidges,” she said happily, hardly moving her lips. “No bitter than sevidges in the jungle.”
The boys went off prowling around the living room, stubbing their shoes against the chairs and the little coffee tables.
“Thrit of dith,” Portia called after them.
Lark smiled slightly at Portia, whose gray hair tonight was pulled back into a pony tail. She had not asked Tom if the Birds were coming, feeling that if she did not mention their name, they might not appear.
“I have just heard that my stuff has been impounded in Tacoma. It’s not on its way here at all. An investigation, can you believe it, and me the best anthropologist this country has.” Manfred Bird was yelling loudly enough for the whole room to hear, although he was addressing Tom, who rocked back and forth on his heels, his hands in his pockets, adhering to his informality. “That’s tough, Manfred,” he said.
“Imagine, investigating my stuff. That’s petty bureaucrats for you. I’ll have to call in the big guns from D.C. if this doesn’t cease. I had valuable stuff in that shipment.”
The guests drifted away from the feverish Yuri, sunk deep in his chair yet conversing bravely, and gathered around the impressive Professor Bird.
Portia, next to Lark, was shaking her head. “He gets so upset,” she said. “That’s my husband for you. The students just adore him.”
“Professor Bird,” said Elizabeth, “would you share with us your current thinking on north–south relations?”
“I’ll tell you one thing,” Professor Bird barked at the room in general, “I’m going to have to spend all my time on leave just changing ‘the’ to ‘are’ and ‘was’ to ‘its.’” He looked at his watch, as if his leave was about to begin any minute. “The proofs of my latest book have been botched, once again, inevitably.”
“We’ve got a sabbetical,” Portia said. “We’re leaving at the end of the semester for the Pacific again. He has so much groundbreaking work still to complete.”
“And I’ll tell you another thing,” yelled Professor Bird, “travel doesn’t broaden, it narrows. People should stay at home. Whole societies have been destroyed overnight because of tourists and bureaucrats. Soon there won’t be any work for me to do, no society to observe or investigate. It will be too late.”
“But you travel, sir,” said Jean-Claude deferentially, laughing at the same time to show he was joking.
“I’m an anthropologist. I am obliged to travel. It’s absolutely a condition of the profession. I and my family blend in. We don’t spoil things. But I’d rather stay peacefully at home.”
“He has to check a few things for his book,” said Portia to those near her. “He’s trying to whittle a few anthropological myths down to size. And he’s always looking to expand his collection. For posterity. If we ever divorce, I’ll hev to hev hef—that’ll be enough to live on for some time,” and she let out a long giggle to show that she was joking.
“You should all stay at home.” Professor Bird leant against the table, still addressing the guests in the room as if he were giving a lecture.
“Go home, all of you,” Professor Bird was shouting and pointing at the guests. “You’re from Trinidad? Go home. And you? France? Go home.”
“Oh, dear, I hope the boys aren’t being bed,” said Portia. “I don’t see or hear them. I’d better go and look.”
“What are you working on now, Professor?” Elizabeth asked.
“Hm? Working on? Names. I collect names now.”
“How very, very interesting,” said Elizabeth. “Names, collecting names. How original. Ah, for what purpose, then, sir, are these names being collected?”
“They’re for my Book of Names. I’m collecting every name on earth. My daughter helps me. We’re like geologists collecting rocks.”
“Ah-ha,” said Elizabeth, as if everything were now clear. She nodded thoughtfully.
“The Russian collects names, too,” the Irishman called out, still standing next to Lark.
“Ha, ha,” croaked Yuri, placing his notebook of names in an inside pocket and holding his jacket closed. “I have bad memory.”
The Irishman snorted. “And so does the K.G.B., I suppose.”
“The C.I.A. collects names, too, remember,” someone responded. “They’d love Manfred’s list. Maybe he’s their supplier of names.”
And everyone burst into laughter at the notion. Lark frowned, remembering Donna’s list of names in green ink and the hidden message about the bomb. Perhaps it really was just a list of names, after all, collected for her father.
Portia led the three boys back into the room. The oldest stumbled over one of the low-slung coffee tables, kicking it partway across the room. One of the coffee-can legs came loose and fell off, and the plank of wood that formed the tabletop tilted, sending all the ashtrays and glasses spilling onto the floor.
“I can fix it or make another one,” said Tom. “No sweat.”
“Thrit of dith” said Portia to her boys, wagging her finger at them. Clearly they had been up to something.
“I’m afraid I found them going through your clothes,” she said to Lark. “They said they were looking for a piece of string.”
“I’ll show you what I mean,” cried Professor Bird. “Everyone,” he called out, bringing the room to attention. “Take a sheet of paper. Write down what I tell you. I’ll show you what I mean. Empirical education, it’s called. Much better than my explaining.” He clapped his hands. “Paper? Paper?”
Portia ran to Tom, who was picking up the debris from the collapsed coffee table. “Do you have paper?”
Tom called to Lark. “Paper? Do you have paper?”
Lark gave him a yellow note pad. Tom handed it to Portia. Portia took it to Professor Bird, who, with a wave of his hand, directed her to distribute sheets to everyone in the room. “Pencils?” he called, and the same procedure was followed, until everyone held a pen or a pencil, ready to play his game. “Boys, boys, come along, you join in, too.” The boys shuffled toward him. “We’re about to play the Game of Names.”
“Boring,” muttered the oldest boy. “Do we have to?” asked another.
“Of course, we’ll all play.” Professor Bird looked around the group, beyond Portia and the boys. “The Game of Names is enlightening, and it passes the time. And each time you discover new names.”
The boys groaned.
“Sit, boys, sit,” said Portia, and the boys fell to the floor sullenly.
“You begin at the beginning. The aim, eventually, is to write down the name of everyone you have ever met. Everyone. It’s an undertaking of years. You write down the name of your father, your mother, brothers and sisters, then aunts and uncles, the first people you remember, such as your doctor, neighbors, cousins. Then take, say, your first-grade class and write down the name of the teacher and the other pupils. But tonight we’ll just do last week. Write down the name of everyone you met last week.”
Yuri stood up, buttoning up his jacket. “I must go now,” he said. He looked at his watch. “I am expected in Rot
terdam.”
“Rotterdam?” everyone protested. “That means we won’t be able to continue the dialogue begun here tonight,” one said.
“Maybe he means Rotterdam, New York,” said another.
“Sorry, sorry,” said Yuri. “I must write my monograph in Rotterdam. My plane leaves soon from Kennedy.” He turned to Jean-Claude. “I enjoy our conversation. I am interesting to know that we shall soon all put a nuclear bomb in a bathtub. Ha, ha.”
“Maybe even in the trunk of a car, one day soon,” said Jean-Claude.
The Russian patted Jean-Claude on the back in a feebly jovial way. “Ha, ha, very interested.”
Professor Bird nodded curtly at Yuri. “He should be going back to Moscow, where he belongs.” He strode over to where Lark was standing, to watch from the sidelines, as everyone said good-bye to Yuri and wished that he would return soon. Again, the scene before her seemed to Lark to resemble a work-in-progress, a play in its early stages.
“Write, everyone, write,” directed Manfred Bird, after Yuri had left.
“Oh, this is fun,” said Elizabeth, and started scribbling lists of names.
“I’ll tell you the story of your life, just from the list,” said Professor Bird. “I can tell by the names. I’m an anthropologist. I’m sensitive to names. Come on”—he saw that Lark was not writing—“write.”
Because Lark was unwilling to attract his attention any further, she began to write. But she went back to the beginning. Henry Watter. Alice Watter. Mr. and Mrs. Baker. Solomon Blank. Gilbert Blank. Ellice Blank. Marshall Blank. Mr. and Mrs. Blank. And so on. If she was lucky, she would not have to speak with Manfred Bird at all the whole evening. She wondered why Donna had tried to goad her into writing down her own list of names on board the Avis Maris. Was she just an extension of Manfred Bird, the ideal daughter, like Anna Freud, assisting him eternally, ceaselessly, no matter where in the world she was?