by Norm Sibum
‘And Prentiss? She had nothing to say? She’s always good for a laugh.’
‘No,’ Dubois answered, ‘she had nothing to contribute, except that she winked. Gave me the look.’
‘Yes, the treatment,’ I said.
The café was busy, Antonio hard at it. Mostly students, it seemed, their gazes set on getting rich.
‘Then what?’ I thought to ask, ‘did you chase everyone out? Did you take Eleanor in hand and set her straight?’
Dubois guffawed. Who was he to tell Eleanor how to live? Since when had he bossed her about?
‘No,’ said Dubois, ‘I just went back to my place, stared at my computer. I haven’t seen anybody, today, just you, though His Nibs said he was going to meet me here right about now. He’s probably forgotten, and he’s down at the Claremont, courting the Lithuanian. I don’t know how he does it or why the girls let him. It can’t be his money because he’s cheap.’
I nodded my agreement. Zeus-like Eggy was most certainly cheap. And the Apostle Paul, he had had the wit to say that if the Christ had not risen, there was no point in the preaching.
Bitter Chalice
Easter Sunday was raw, what with the wind and the grim associations the holiday always occasioned in me. I had spent a bad night of it, waking around four, continuing sleepless, until first light, in that horrible zone that was all blackness and death. Then I must have drifted off. When I next woke it was due to the fact that Eleanor had come to me on a mission.
‘You still in bed?’ she said, ‘I hate this day. Always have.’
She extended her wrist for me to smell.
‘Get a whiff of this,’ she commanded.
I complied.
‘Chance eau Fraiche,’ she let me know.
‘You look terrible, by the way,’ she noted.
‘TMW,’ I explained, ‘too much wine. So it’s Easter and we’re still here. I was wondering, earlier, if the world had disappeared. Maybe it did. Maybe you’re a mirage.’
‘I’m effing real, sweetheart, and I’d climb in there with you to prove it, but I don’t want to muss my hair. I’m going to do something different, today. I’m going to church. Bob can’t believe it.’
I could not say why, but for some reason or another, Eleanor’s announcement did not strike me as lunatic.
‘Well,’ I said, which was all I had to say.
‘Also,’ she said (she was, by now, gorgeously perched on the edge of the bed), ‘Prentiss is treating us all to supper at the café. She already made arrangements with, who is it, Gregory, I guess. It was to be a surprise.’
‘Seems extravagant.’
‘Some bonus cheque she got for her work. And I thought times were bad. But anyway, everyone will be there, and so will you.’
‘Will I?’
‘Yes you will, and you’ll like it.’
‘It’s not going to be easy.’
‘You’ll be among friends, so don’t waffle on us.’
‘So why the perfume?’
‘Self-defense. I just felt like being naughty and pagan.’
‘And you’re going to church?’
‘Why not? I don’t see any contradiction.’
‘No, I suppose you wouldn’t. But if you’ll excuse me, my bladder’s about to burst and—’
‘Of course, dear.’
Gregory, his smile anxious, had slid some tables together so as to accommodate our party, Mercedes uncorking wine. Prentiss, I had to admit, was holding up her end: as engagingly as she was able, she teased Eggy on his love life, and he was flustered. Eleanor, in high spirits, piled on: ‘Come on, Eggy,’ she implored, ‘who is it this time? Who’s the object of your suit? Who’s your complementary function?’
‘No comment.’
I wondered if Dubois had, in a bit of pillow talk, betrayed Eggy to Eleanor on this matter of complementary functions. Dubois did, in fact, look wary. Even so, sartorial Dundarave was willing to play along, saying to no one in particular: ‘You don’t stop looking, do you?’ he said, his tone suggesting that when you stopped looking you were dead.
‘I will confess, with cheerfulness, love is a thing so likes me, that let her lay, on me all day, I’ll kiss the hand that strikes me.’
It was Eggy at his finest, his finger raised, his tough old eyes focused on his tormentors; Dundarave taken aback, Prentiss goofily grinning. Of course, they probably had not yet had the pleasure of Eggy when he was both in his cups and in his verses. Dubois’s smile was nearly a smirk, and he drolled: ‘Don’t get him started. He can go on like this all night.’
‘Oh, eff you,’ said Eggy, beaming.
Prentiss did not often wear as much make-up as she was wearing now, and that, and the black silk blouse buttoned to her neck, gave her the air of a rather severe, business-like courtesan, one of high intelligence. Perhaps it was the secret of her erotic appeal: that underlying the casual anything goes demeanor of a fortyish teen, was a much more formidable entity, one coherent and organized, loaded for bear. (But then, perhaps the wine had already gone to my head.) Miss Meow was lonely at her table, doubly so as it was a holiday; and I felt something for her; though it might have been a bit much, inviting her over. The Whistler, on the other hand, was perfectly content at his table to whistle and stomp and demand refills of water, Mercedes his victim. I had been under the impression that we were in for a feast of lamb; but that, to be sure, the galley was not equipped for such an undertaking. Instead, Prentiss had sprung for a couple of large Greek-style pizzas which, when one thought about it; and in light of the fact that it was Easter; and in light of Passover; in light of the Eucharistic and the phenomenon of agape in a secular, technocratic age, did seem appropriate, though I would not relish the ensuing heartburn. And it seemed to me that my eyes were dulling; and I set dull eyes on Prentiss’s countenance; and it was a plain face, that face of hers; and once again I was mystified. Did bone structure signify character? The sprinkling of freckles? The overbearing mildness of those dead, watery, and seemingly unassuming eyes? The street was, for the most part, quiet, the air too raw for anything like Easter parades and flowery extravaganzas. And life was a blind thing of arbitrarily assigned meaning; and even if one struggled and managed to get somewhere, one actually got nowhere, and got death. I could not say what Prentiss was up to, if anything; but that she was presiding over a Traymorean mise en scène; and it should have been Eleanor’s prerogative to preside, if it was anyone’s. As if we Traymoreans, in our modest relations, had been Prentiss’s idea, not our own; and the more I pursued this line of thinking the less I had any stomach for the convivial. I would eat so much and drink so much as was polite, and then plead my excuses. Eleanor kicked my shins with a pompadoured foot and said: ‘You’re awfully quiet, Randall.’
‘I don’t know,’ I answered, ‘Easter. Never been my favourite time of year.’
‘I’ll bet you don’t like Valentine’s either,’ a dull voice put it to me.
‘He’s missing Moonface,’ Eggy thundered.
And to my horror, I blushed. Prentiss was beatific. Eleanor simpered. It was undeniable that there were in me erotic burblings occasioned by Prentiss, and I was not sure I liked myself for them. I was stupid, dull, feckless. Dubois, too, was awfully quiet, and it seemed significant. Eggy was snoozing now, and Dundarave looked envious. And then the conversation, such as it was, took a rather strange turn, a dull voice giving mention to pills and bourbon and suicide. Then Dundarave spoke: ‘I guess there are worse ways to go.’
‘Morbid, Marj, morbid,’ Eleanor noted, with the tone of a woman about to put her foot down.
Prentiss responded, and coming from her, her words were most peculiar: ‘Christ was suicidal, don’t you think?’
At which point, Eggy raised his head: ‘Yes but—’
Eggy could not complete the thought for one reason or another.
‘How so?’ asked Dubois, rallying to a challenge.
‘He knew the Romans would get Him,’ Prentiss explained.
�
�That’s different,’ said Eleanor, ‘from swallowing pills and pouring booze down your throat.’
‘Really? How’s it different?’ Prentiss asked, blinking and looking for all the world like an innocent among jaded academics or worse, ologists.
‘I’m going out for a smoke,’ Dundarave announced, ‘all this is too heavy for my liking.’
‘I might just join you,’ Eleanor chimed in, ‘indeed, I will.’
And there was some fussing about for a cigarette on Eleanor’s part; and then the scraping of chairs and the putting on of jackets; and then Eleanor and Dundarave, who had once been nearly lovers, went out on the terrasse, suddenly discovering, perhaps, that they did have something in common.
‘Well,’ said Prentiss, ‘I guess I’m not going to get an answer. How about you, Randall, got anything to say on the subject?’
‘What? Suicide? The Christ?’
‘In your Easter bonnet with all the frills upon it—’
It was Eggy briefly crooning. Mercedes arrived with two giant pizza pies, which she gingerly set before us.
‘Is everything all right?’ she said. ‘Fine. Super. Thank you.’
Gregory stood there and looked upon us, he the proud proprietor, just that his smile was anxious. Eleanor and Dundarave came in from having their puff.
‘That was fast,’ Dubois guffawed.
And he took a serviette and made of it a bib for himself.
‘Are we done with the heavy lifting yet?’ Eleanor put it to the table, with something like exaggerated cheerfulness.
Conviviality had flown the coop. Dundarave gave Mercedes the once over.
Perhaps it was the wine, but Prentiss began to get ugly, going on about Islamofascists and the like; and Dubois decided to push back. The facts, mamselle. Eleanor knew better than to employ reason, and she decided she had something to watch on TV; and she was the first to break ranks. She offered to leave some money on the table but Prentiss would not have it. With a ta-ta, Eleanor took her leave, and Prentiss and Dundarave left soon after, intending to hit the bar down the street. It was dark outside, our faded Jezebel of a town passing by in vehicular and pedestrian units; and one could not say that there was anything like a noble atmosphere on the noble boulevard; it was all just the getting from A to B, nothing less, nothing more. Even so, I was receiving from nowhere I could identify such pulses of sorrow and dread as threatened to tear me apart. Could be it had to do with some childhood experience of Easter resurfacing. Could be it was the fact of the last eight years, America at sea. A second straight night of TMW—too much wine? Eggy, for his part, found that the evening had not been much fun; it could have used Moonface to lighten things up; but then, and who knew, but she was probably on her backside somewhere and thoroughly indifferent to our lot; in which case, the Lithuanian might have done, just that she was married. Dubois, now that we were Animal Table again and not some botched Last Supper, Mercedes now mopping the washroom floor—Dubois thought Prentiss an odd duck.
‘What do you mean, odd duck?’ Eggy said, ‘effing hell, man, of course she is. You’ve seen how she gets, sometimes.’
‘I mean what’s all that with Christ and suicide?’ Dubois wanted to know.
‘I don’t effing know,’ Eggy said.
‘Beats me,’ I ventured to say, and I really had no idea, about to launch into a description of how the woman always had an unsettling effect on me; just that Eggy was in no shape for complexities and Dubois’s mood had grown dour. Even so, I continued: ‘And what’s this about Eleanor going to church? Since when?’
Dubois grunted and said: ‘Since when she’s always done so, off and on when it suits her. She calls it R, R and R—rest, relaxation and reset.’
‘In my day we took the sermon seriously,’ Eggy thundered, his finger raised.
‘I’ll bet you did,’ Dubois observed, he anti-clerical.
‘No comment.’
Dubois was Eggy’s dear friend, but Dubois sometimes had a startling lack of sympathy with certain aspects of Eggy’s long life. Gregory said he would be happy to sit with us and drink wine all evening, but as business had died down, and as it was Easter, he would like to close.
‘Got to find your Easter egg and keep wifey happy,’ Eggy crowed.
Gregory looked bewildered.
‘I don’t care for pizza anyway,’ Eggy said, his barely touched, ‘and I don’t see why you keep that Albanian hanging around.’
§
Book VII—With a Song and a Prayer
Demon Love VI
—Eggy has had another fall. According to Dubois with whom I spoke last evening, no bones were broken, but a shoulder was seriously bruised.
—It must have been a curse, to have had a beautiful soul in a convention-riddled society, and yet beautiful souls are a dime a dozen now. But enough. Moonface is back. There she was in the Blue Danube, chug-a-lugging beers with Antonio, the hour close to supper hour. And for an instant, she was stunning to behold, her tan setting off her eyes to great advantage. And she was, it must be said, in shock. ‘Nothing’s changed,’ she said. Ah, she had a hold of the rag-end of philosophy. The whiteness of the top she wore also enhanced her features, making of her shoulders something noble. I pretended to wisdom, to knowing all there is to know about culture shock and how to overcome it. She touted Bolivia—its poverty and beauty. All she came across in Argentina were blondes. But of course. She had seen things one does not see in this our phantasmagorical land, violent contrasts—the richness of the rich and the poorness of the poor, for instance. And how time was a very different entity from the time we observe here in the urban north. I was agonized. For she was different and she was the same dear girl, but she was remote, in the sense that some parts of her soul had been isolated from Traymorean and Blue Danubian existence, and this reality would remain so for the rest of her life no matter how deep or shallow the isolating. She had taken the wine tour in Chile. ‘Oh,’ she informed some vintner there, ‘I work in a restaurant in Montreal, and our customers drink your wine all the time.’ Seems the vintner was most keen to know how well his wine was regarded. In any case, I could not sit with her long, her presence too overwhelming; and besides, Antonio was eager to know all about the Ecuadorian beaches, which Moonface assured him were very good, indeed, better than anywhere. Trust Antonio to get down to what truly matters. I returned to my digs without having eaten. With a scattered mind I read: Cosimo would acquire an object because it appealed to his curiosity, like those life-sized portraits of double-headed sheep and calves, rare birds, quadrupeds and monstrous fruit with which he filled the rooms of the Ambrogiana; or because it excited religious emotions, like those swooning Madonnas, weeping Magdalens and martyrdoms by Sassoferrato and Carlo Dolci … It seemed, for an instant, that I was reading about myself. And it had seemed that, in a Quito bus station, Moonface’s Champagne Sheridan had very nearly flipped his wig, people staring at them incessantly. ‘We were so tall,’ Moonface observed, ‘taller than everyone.’ She was sure it explained everything.
—Some people have love in their bones, or in their natures, at the very least. Others acquire it like one begins to accept the taste of a suspect dish. Or by dint of effort, grace or luck, one suddenly has love on one’s hands and finds this state of affairs preferable to the proverbial two birds in the bush. Still other unfortunates go through life and never love and are never loved. Lack of opportunity? Lack of talent? Absence of humanity? But let us not get carried away with any notions of humanity lest we think too kindly of ourselves on the whole. The thing of it is I have Moonface’s apartment keys; sooner or later she will come for them; and it shall be revealed, how she intends to live for the nonce. Either, she will have opted for cohabitation with her Champagne Sheridan (in which case she will surrender her apartment and Mrs Petrova will display the For Rent sign in her shop window), or the girl will enlist in the ranks of independent agents and accept conjugal visits, but not from me. It is just past the lunch hour in the Blue Danube. Cassandra, of cour
se has heard the news, but she does not yet know when Moonface will be back on shift. Cassandra seems less homesick than she has been in recent months. One gets used to things. Otherwise, no, I have not much to report. The Spanish justice system may take Previous President to court. Why, because they are not devoid of humanity? Bumped into Wiedemayer, by chance. He had been suffering from what he called conjunctivitis, a flu in his eyes (the old pink eye), and he a photographer and dedicated to the arts. Had I read Robert Louis Stevenson’s Lay Morals? No, I had not, I answered, but I was fairly certain that Mr Stevenson had not gotten his proper due as a prose artist, his reputation resting too much on his more popular but lesser works. The way of the world. Dread in the pit of my stomach now. For Emma MacReady aka Moonface, now that her eyes have been refreshed by her sojourn, will see me for the ridiculous creature I am. True, one has to be a little on the absurd side to love, but there is absurdity and then there is absurdity. Even so, she has long since forgiven Eggy his silliness perhaps because his silliness was always sincere. Moonface has never accorded Dubois anything but respect. What did he do to rate the honour? I suspect he intimidated her somewhat with his billfold and courtly manner, the odd time he treated her to a martini downtown. I go out and I hail Elias, the man sweeping the terrasse, preparing for the season. It is getting warm enough for sitting out. I walk a little, noting the balcony doors that are flung open to admit the freshening air, air such as will drive the fusty winter blahs into oblivion, radios cranked up. The music’s amorphous, enervating energy. It was not Chuck Berry. It excused maximizing profit.
—Yesterday, it was seen that Moonface was back at it. I had seen it for a fact, as I was returning from some peregrination or another, and I happened to peer into the window of the Blue Danube, she one of those pop-up figures of a children’s book, one complete with a theatre set purporting to represent a café. Her shoulders slumped, this chameleon-like creature occupied a point in time and space where the crossroads had vanished and she was no longer what she recently was: young woman about the world, open to sensations. Then again, Dubois may come to her rescue, it being his intention to organize an event. Yes, short of going there oneself, what better way to learn of a distant and exotic place than to hear from one who has been there. Emma MacReady aka Moonface shall deliver a seminar, Animal Table to convene at precisely six of the clock on the evening of such and such a date in April, for the express purpose of hearing the dear girl out; and one must listen, and that would mean Eggy, her derring-do more to the moment than that he had once been to Quito, effing hell; and the presence of Moonface’s beau, the redoubtable Champagne Sheridan shall be deemed perfectly acceptable; and Dubois shall supply the wine. It promises to be an evening.