“By then I was caught in the net of your voice. A few days later I returned to Jim and everything came together. I felt like the opium eater who swears he won’t go down the alley leading to a certain door and then does, as fast as his feet will carry him. Do I have to say it? You’re my Palestine. The first sentence of ‘Youth’ was my jump, and the hole I landed in was every bit as deep as Jim’s. I imagined faces in my study, people crowded round, ridiculing me. They ignored my explanation. Intention doesn’t interest agents or publishers or reviewers or the public. Even if I went on to write a dozen books without a peep in any of them from you, people would always think of me as a sham, a thief of words, passing off what you had said and experienced as my own.
“I used you to tell the story of my mental life, Malone. You allowed me to say what I thought. For the first time I was able to hear myself, and learn my own truth. It’s all there in Lord Jim, in the passage where Marlow summarizes Jim’s dilemma:
“But the fact remains that you must touch your reward with clean hands, lest it turn to dead leaves, to thorns, in your grasp. I think it is the lonely, without a fireside or an affection they may call their own, those who return not to a dwelling but to the land itself, to meet its disembodied, eternal, and unchangeable spirit—it is those who understand best its severity, its saving power, the grace of its secular right to our fidelity, to our obedience. Yes! Few of us understand, but we all feel it though, and I say all without exception, because those who do not feel do not count. Each blade of grass has its spot on earth whence it draws its life, its strength; and so is man rooted to the land from which he draws his faith together with his life. I don’t know how much Jim understood; but I know he felt, he felt confusedly but powerfully, the demand of some such truth of some such illusion—I don’t care how you call it, there is so little difference, and the difference means so little. The thing is that by virtue of his feeling he mattered.”
His recitation moved me, Ford. I was touched that of all the passages from that magnificent novel he had chosen this one defining Jim, showing why he mattered, to share with me as an example of what Marlow let him say. He was quiet for a long moment, and when he spoke again there was a profound candor in his words.
“My idea,” he said, “your voice, a kind of duet, if you will.”
“A duet,” I said. “I like that.”
“Someday a scholar with an interest in my work, a literary archaeologist, might dig into these stories. Imagine him removing the broken stones and potsherds and finally arriving at the area of the hearth. Nearby there will be a slight protuberance in the soil and there he will find us, Malone, side by side, laid out with whatever laurels the world conferred.”
That lovely if somewhat mysterious phrase marked the end of our conversation. He walked over to the fireplace and prodded the logs. Sparks flew up the chimney and some fell onto the hearth. Suddenly he appeared frail and I was so relieved when Jessie chose that moment to poke her head in the door and say she was off to bed that I could have kissed her.
“I think I’ll turn in, Jack.”
“Fine,” I said. “I’m fagged too.”
When he started toward the door I went over and took him by the shoulders.
“They’re your stories,” I said. “You wrote them, brought them to life. They were just things that happened to me.”
“Yes, of course. Sleep well. If you’d bank the fire before you go up . . .”
I heard him climbing the stairs, hesitating with each step, debating some point I could not even guess. I was sickened by what my blunder had cost him and felt guilty, the way you do in a dream when a sentence has been pronounced upon you. The only thing I could accuse myself of was curiosity. What was so bad telling him what I knew? And then an explanation for what he’d done came to me. It was the equivalent of having me sit as a model, with the caveat that he hadn’t bothered to ask my permission and had painted me on the sly, as it were. It was reasonable, essentially true. I got up, intending to follow him upstairs, when I heard the bedroom door close. It’s all right, I thought. Tell him in the morning.
I made myself comfortable in front of the fire. The more I thought about the comparison, the more convincing it seemed. All great artists used models. The only difference between him and Titian or Raphael was the medium, and that was not even at issue. I remembered students in the Uffizi copying the masters. Conrad had worked from life, absorbed the raw materials of my adventures and transformed them into something uniquely his own.
With the logs settling and burning down, slowly turning gray and sending up small showers of sparks, my thoughts drifted back to the long halls of the museum, the rooms echoing faintly with footsteps that emphasized the profound quiet of the Uffizi. In the fall of light from a tall window I saw a young woman bent over her easel, studiously copying a painting, the scene superimposed on the ash that now covered the logs. And then I remembered a hall of statues and a marble face appeared in the ash outlined by the faint red lines of fire burning beneath it—a Roman warrior I had stopped to admire who had caught my attention because he wasn’t one of those handsome youths indistinguishable from a god. This chap was old enough to have learned a thing or two. His grizzled beard and ringlets of hair falling in disarray from beneath his helmet framed deep-set eyes that stared straight ahead with a kind of defiance that suggested his will was adequate to whatever he had to do. With his left hand he held a round shield embossed with an elaborate design in front of his chest. His right arm, broken off at the elbow, extended from his shoulder in such a way that suggested it once grasped a sword or spear. There was no question that he was on the attack, and that was when the Roman at the beginning of Heart of Darkness, the commander of a trireme who faced killing work upriver, materialized, his haggard face bearing the same determination as the warrior’s. The conflation of those old legionnaires led me to the verge of a revelation, Ford. It seemed only a matter of translating their composite features into the idea that bound them when the logs settled and the ash that held the warrior’s face slid away and I was there alone with a dim red glow.
IN THE MORNING I woke with a vague memory of those warriors cloaked with blowing ash. I was groggy from the wine and had a headache in my temples and the pain was sharpened by my recollection of Conrad’s distress. I lay in bed listening to birds chattering in the tree outside the window, appalled by the direction things had taken and scarcely able to believe I could have misjudged his response so badly. It’s embarrassing to admit it, Ford, but my immediate impulse was to blame his sensitivity, shoulder the cause for the blowup onto him, even though I knew damned well that the responsibility lay with me. I should have known what would happen. On some level I had known that anything I said was bound to lead to a blowup and had gone ahead anyway out of curiosity and probably irritation at not being told, which only made it worse. I needed to apologize. Conrad was an early riser and the house usually rang with his voice, sleeping visitors be damned, but there was only the birds and in a while the muted clatter of a pot. I decided to tell him about the models, an excellent idea that would surely put the question of me and Marlow in a broader perspective that he would appreciate. The legionnaires paid a perfunctory visit as I dressed, and then flitted away as I descended the stairs.
Jessie and Borys were alone in the kitchen.
“Joseph?” I asked.
“He’s not well,” Borys said without looking up from a wooden train he was pushing back and forth on the table.
Jessie wiped her hands on her apron.
“You look a little rough around the edges.”
“The port,” I told her.
“Maybe he’ll feel better if you take him some tea and toast.”
A few minutes later, holding the tray in one hand like a waiter, I knocked on the bedroom door. Silence. I knocked again. A muffled “What?” this time.
“Tea,” I said as I opened the door, “toast.”
I was surprised to find him dressed and standing beside the window
, looking out. When I put the tray down on the table he ran a hand through his disheveled hair and regarded me balefully.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I should have kept my mouth shut.”
I expected him to say something along the lines that I damned well should have. Instead, he shook his head and went over to the table, where he poured two cups of tea. He handed one to me and then stirred sugar into his.
“No. You had to, Jack. It’s easier this way, for both of us. If you hadn’t, every time we met you’d have thought about it. So would I, wondering if you knew. Imagine what that would have been like for both of us. I should have told you. I thought about doing so many times.”
I was reminded of Jim after he’d confessed to me and was casting his woeful eyes about my room, trying to find a way out. Conrad had clearly spent a restless night. Residue of our conversation showed like a stain on his face, the way high tide leaves flotsam halfway up a beach. He was considering something he wanted to say, a defense, an elaboration of what he’d brought up the previous night, perhaps even an announcement that he was severing our relationship. If I were in his shoes, feeling the way he did, I might have done just that, given old Jack the boot and slammed the door behind him.
“Have you spoken about this to anyone?” he asked.
“Of course not,” I said. “You know me better than that.”
“What about this Jones chap?”
“I wasn’t under the impression he’d shared it,” I told him. “Besides, I can’t imagine anyone besides me who’d be interested.”
“I don’t suppose you could ask him . . .”
“He’s sailed but don’t worry. Clive’s not that sort.”
He didn’t believe me. To be fair, there was no reason to. For all he knew, Clive had been blabbing since he made the discovery. Nothing could be done about him. I could tell the thing was getting out of control, becoming more unmanageable by the moment. I’d never seen Conrad in need of assurance but he was then, desperately, and my thoughts took me back to that distressing moment in Heart of Darkness when Kurtz’s intended came forward to greet Marlow in that black dress, asking with her eyes for something only he could give her, the message she had to hear.
“It’s between us,” I said. “I promise.”
“I made a fool of myself last night,” he said. “I regret insulting you, Jack. It was churlish.”
“Listen,” I told him, “I understand how you feel, not the depths of it but enough. After you went to bed I thought of something. What happened is no different from what artists have done for hundreds of years. You used me as a model. What’s the difference between the words in your books and what a painter does in his studio with someone posed in front of his easel? Nothing, not a damned thing. It just would have been easier all round if you’d told me what you had in mind.”
I was afraid he would dismiss what I said—I’d seen him do exactly that before when he was upset—but I could tell that the idea comforted him a little. He even managed a grin.
“So you see me as Rembrandt?”
“Any of them.”
“I understand the comparison,” he said, “but it’s not that simple.”
“It is,” I said, irritated, “if you’d let it be.”
“To you. What I see is not innocent, not at all. This modeling is pervasive. I relied on you.”
“There’s as much of you in Marlow as there is of me.”
“My part in his character is not as interesting as yours, not as important, either. Forgive me for saying this, Jack, but your idea is superficial. Models come and go. They sit and are paid and depart, maybe to another atelier. As I told you last night, you have never left.”
I did not know that I would see some of those sentiments return many years later in the form of an author’s note he would write to introduce a collection of his stories. Perhaps you remember it, Ford, the piece that begins with him pointing out that “Youth” marked “the first appearance in the world of the man Marlow, with whom my relations have grown very intimate in the course of years.” At the time, of course, I was simply moved by that image of us and not a little flattered that I had played such a significant role in his work.
The model, my simple idea of a model, lay in a heap on the floor like a child’s broken doll. I hadn’t been wrong, only shortsighted, unable to see what I was really like to Conrad, how I hung on in his mind, set up housekeeping in his study. A man like Conrad, possessed of a silver tongue, can consume all the air in a room and that was how it felt even though the windows were open. Our possibilities for the weekend were exhausted. So were we. We had fallen into a silence and it was clear that he preferred to stay in it. He needed time to reflect and so did I.
I said, “I think I should catch the afternoon train.”
He gave me a pained look.
“Yes,” he said, “that’s probably best.”
“I shouldn’t have said anything. It was stupid.”
“You had to.”
“It wouldn’t have been so bad.”
“You say that now.”
“I mean it.”
“That’s how it seems today. Tomorrow, next month, over the years. Think about it. It would always be there and you’d resent me, yes, without a doubt. For me this is better, painful but better. It clears the air.”
Maybe he believed what he said, but it struck me that he was offering the idea for my benefit, to make me feel better. It was just like him.
“Well,” I said, “don’t worry. I won’t say a word.”
He nodded.
“I’ll drive you to the station.”
“I can walk. It’s only three miles.”
“I wouldn’t think of it.” He grinned and added, “I’ll go slowly.”
After I packed I went downstairs with him and told Jessie I couldn’t see my way to staying with Conrad under the weather. She started to protest but let it go. A glance at the two of us told her something had gone wrong. She insisted that I stay for breakfast and I couldn’t resist.
We were silent on the drive into Stanford. When the station came into view, I remembered Tewksbury and gave Conrad some money for him if he showed up.
“Did he say he would?”
“He grunted and nodded. I think he was agreeing.”
Conrad laughed and said, “Nobody understands a word he says. Got kicked in the head by a horse when he was just a boy. He’s quite aware of what goes on around him but the words just don’t come out right.”
I got my bag out of the backseat and looked at him.
“Would you like me to wait with you?” he added.
“There’s no need.”
We shook hands through the window, an awkward thing to do but appropriate in view of the rest of the morning.
“It was good seeing you,” I said, “despite everything. And don’t worry.”
He released my hand, saying, “I’ve always admired your discretion.”
“Well, then,” I said, and shouldered my bag.
I watched him drive off, picking up speed once he reached the main road, roaring down it so fast the dust rose up behind the car and curled like waves over the fields. The platform faced a weed-covered embankment that obscured my view of the countryside. With the exception of an old woman sitting at the far end I was alone. She was eating a sandwich and as soon as she finished and scattered crumbs on the concrete in front of the bench, birds descended from the rafters, a dozen or two that hopped about, pecking while she watched with her hands folded in her lap, smiling, totally absorbed. Out of the quiet I heard the train coming and a minute or two later it chugged into the station belching steam and the birds flew away in a cone-shaped formation above the tracks, veered, scattered. As I picked up my bag and went over the edge of the platform, the old woman carefully folded the paper that had held her food and put it in her purse. Instead of joining me she went on to the stairs. She probably came to the station often for lunch and to feed the birds, a way to spend an hour of an uneventful d
ay.
No sooner did I board and find an empty compartment than the word discretion began rolling about in my head like a ball bearing in a steel drum, striking one end and sliding through its echo on its way to striking the other, rolling back, the three syllables sounding more ironic with each repetition. Conrad’s heart, which was expansive and generous in so many ways, and had always made him worry about things other men would laugh away, now compelled him to feel the pulse of my loyalty with the care a physician brings to a patient’s wrist. I knew that my stay at the Pent was the beginning of a long uneasiness, Ford, though of, course, I had no idea at the time that it would follow me across seas and continents.
THE TRAIN WAS a local and stopped at every station. Being in no hurry to return to London, I was content to watch the fields flowing by and listen to the clatter of the wheels. The conductor came up the aisle to punch my ticket, gruff as that breed usually is. Minutes later we were shunted onto a side track, where we remained for upward of an hour. I was watching some men harvesting grain, bundling sheaves in an effortless rhythm that came from long practice, when the drum suddenly tilted and the word rolled noisily again. Something was at work in my mind, some half-perceived notion was trying to climb up to the surface of consciousness. What was it? I remembered Conrad looking at me through the car’s open window, saying he had always admired my discretion. And then I remembered again the scene he had invented for Marlow in Heart of Darkness where he interviews Kurtz’s fiancée, remembered the emotions that had filled Marlow’s heart when he entered the street in Brussels where the woman lived, the houses looming tall and solemn as fate, though the street itself was lost in shadows. The great mahogany door was opened by a tiny maid who led him into the drawing room and left him waiting for the woman to appear. I remembered the dread that accompanied her footsteps on the uncarpeted stairs, the sound oddly in concert with the pale light falling on a grand piano Kurtz might have played, his ghostly sonata giving the moment a nightmarish quality as the intended, dressed in black, entered, her voice filling the room with sad gratitude. Her hands were icy when she reached out and took his. Whatever consolation Kurtz’s letters might offer were nothing compared with the story she wanted from him. She spoke about Kurtz in an impassioned voice filled with the kinds of things that live in the hearts of devoted women, none of which bore the faintest semblance to the man she asserted Marlow had known. When he said, “I knew him as well as it is possible for one man to know another,” above and behind her the three tall windows scintillating in the light seemed to reflect Kurtz’s multiple spirits—the man she loyally remembered, the man who had pronounced such a terrible judgment on his own soul, the man her simple decency forced Marlow to invent on the spot. Accepting her creation, Marlow gave her the letters and the room seemed to grow darker. But she wanted more, not less than Kurtz’s last words “to live with.” And Marlow told her that the last word Kurtz pronounced was her name.
Sailors on the Inward Sea Page 14