by Henry Miller
«God, you two certainly are a couple of love birds,» she said, giving a low, pleasant, earthy sort of chuckle. «Don't you ever get tired of it? I could hear you way down the other end of the hall. You make me jealous.»
She was standing beside the bed looking down at us. Mona had her hand over my prick, an instinctive gesture of self-protection. Rebecca's eyes seemed to he concentrated on this spot.
«For God's sake, stop playing with it when I talk to you, won't you?» she said.
«Why don't you leave us alone?» said Mona. «We don't walk into your bed-room, do we? Can't one have any privacy here?»
Rebecca gave a hearty, guttural laugh. «Our room isn't as attractive as yours, that's why. You're like a couple of newlyweds: you make the whole house feverish.»
«We're clearing out of here soon,» said Mona. «I want a place of my own. This is too goddamned incestuous for me. Jesus, you can't even menstruate here without everyone knowing it.»
I felt impelled to say something mollifying. If Rebecca were aroused she could twist Mona into a knot.
«We're getting married next week,» I put in. We'll probably move to Brooklyn, to some quiet, peaceful spot. This is a bit out of the world.»
«I see,» said Rebecca. «Of course you've been getting married ever since you came here. I'm sure we didn't prevent you—or did we?» She spoke as. if she were hurt.
After a few more words she left. We fell asleep again and woke up late. We were hungry as wolves. When we got to the street we took a taxi and went to the French-Italian grocery store. It was about ten o'clock and the place was still crowded. On one side of us was a police lieutenant and on the other a detective. We were seated at the long table. Opposite me, hanging from a nail on the wall, was a holster with a pistol in it. To the left was the open kitchen where the big fat brother of the proprietor held sway. He was a marvelous, inarticulate bear dripping with grease and perspiration. Always half-cocked, it seemed. Later, after we had eaten well, he would invite us to have a liqueur with him. His brother, who served the food and collected the cash, was a totally different type. He was handsome, suave, courteous and spoke English fairly well. When the place thinned out he would often sit down and chat with us. He talked about Europe most of the time, how different it was there, how «civilized», how enjoyable the life was. Sometimes he would get to talking about the blonde women of North Italy where he came from. He would describe them minutely—the color of their hair and eyes, the texture of their skin, the luscious, sensual mouths they had, the slippery movement of the haunches when they walked, and so on. He had never seen any women like them in America, he said. He spoke of American women with a contemptuous, almost disgusting, curl of the lips. «I don't know why you stay here, Mr. Miller,» he would say. «Your wife is so beautiful... why you don't go to Italy? Just a few months. I tell you, you never come back.» And then he would order another drink for us and tell us to stay a little longer... maybe a friend of his would come... a singer from the Metropolitan Opera House.
Soon we became engaged in conversation with a man and woman directly opposite us. They were in a gay mood and had already passed on to the coffee and liqueurs. I gathered from their remarks that they were theatre people.
It was rather difficult to carry on a continued conversation owing to the presence of the hooligans on either side of us. They felt that they were being snubbed, simply because we were talking of things beyond their ken. Every now and then the lieutenant made some dumb remark about «the stage». The other one, the detective, was already in his cups and getting nasty. I loathed the both of them and showed it openly by ignoring their remarks completely. Finally, not knowing what else to do, they began to badger us.
«Let's move into the other room,» I said, signalling the proprietor. «Can you give us a table in there?» I asked.
«What's the matter?» he said. «Is there anything wrong?»
«No,» I said, «we don't like it here, that's all.»
«You mean you don't like ms,» said the detective, snarling the words out.
«That's it,» I said, snarling back at him.
«Not good enough for you, eh? Who the hell do you think you are any way?»
«I'm President McKinley—and you?»
«Wise guy, eh?» He turned to the proprietor. «Say, who is this guy anyway... what's his line? Is he trying to make a sap out of me?»
«Shut up!» said the proprietor. «You're drunk.»
«Drunk! Who says I'm drunk?» He started to totter to his feet, but slid back again into the chair.
«You better get out of here... you're making trouble. I don't want no trouble in my place, do you understand?»
«For crying out loud, what did I do?» He began to act like an abused child.
«I don't want you driving my customers away,» said the proprietor.
«Who's driving your customers away? This is a free country, ain't it? I can talk if I wanta, can't I? What did I say... tell me! I didn't say nothin' insultin'. I can be a gentleman too, if I wanta...»
«You'll never be a gentleman,» said the proprietor. «Go on, get your things and get out of here. Go home and sleep!» He turned to the lieutenant with a significant look, as if to say—this is your job, get him out of here!
Then he took us by the arm and led us into the other room. The man and woman sitting opposite us followed. «I'll get rid of those bums in a minute,» he said, ushering us to our seats. «I'm very sorry, Mr. Miller. That's what I have to put with because of this damned Prohibition law. In Italy we don't have that sort of thing. Everybody mind his own business... What will you have to drink? Wait, I bring you something good....»
The room he had brought us to was the private banquet room of a group of artists—theatre people mostly, though there was a sprinkling of musicians, sculptors and painters. One of the group came up to us and, after introducing himself, presented us to the other members. They seemed pleased to have us in their midst. We were soon induced to leave our table and join the group at the big table which was loaded with carafes, seltzer bottles, cheeses, pastries, coffee pots and what not.
The proprietor came back beaming. «It's better in here, no?» he said. He had two liqueur bottles in his arms. «Why you don't play some music?» he said, seating himself at the table. «Arturo, get your guitar... go on, play something! Maybe the lady will sing for you.»
Soon we were all singing—Italian, German, French, Russian songs. The idiot brother, the chef, came in with a platter of cold cuts and fruit and nuts. He moved about the room unsteadily, a tipsy bear, grunting, squealing, laughing to himself. He hadn't an ounce of gray matter in his bean, but he was a wonderful cook. I don't think he ever went for a walk. His whole life was spent in the kitchen. He handled foodstuffs only—never money. What did he need money for? You couldn't cook with money. That was his brother's job, juggling the money. He kept track of what people ate and drank—he didn't care what his brother charged for it. «Was it good?» that's all he cared to know. As to what they had had to eat he had only a rough, hazy idea. It was easy to cheat him, if you had a mind to do so. But no one ever did. It was easier to say, «I have no money... I'll pay you next time.» «Sure, next time!» he would answer, without the slightest trace of fear or worry in his greasy countenance. «Next time you bring your friend too, hah?» And then he'd give you a clap on the back with his hairy paw—such a resounding thwack that your bones shook like dice. Such a griffin he was, and his wife a tiny, frail little thing with big, trusting eyes, a creature who made no sound, who talked and listened with big dolorous eyes.
Louis was his name, and it fitted him perfectly. Fat Louis! And his brother's name was Joe—Joe Sabbatini. Joe treated his imbecilic brother much as a stable-boy would treat his favorite horse. He patted him affectionately when he wanted him to conjure up an especially good dish for a patron. And Louis would respond with a grunt or a neigh, just as pleased as would be a sensitive mare if you stroked its silky rump. He even acted a little coquettish, as though his brot
her's touch had unlocked some hidden girlish instinct in him. For all his bearish strength one never thought of Louis' sexual propensities. He was neuter and epicene. If he had a prick it was to make water with, nothing more. One had the feeling, about Louis, that if it came to a pinch he would sacrifice his prick to make a few extra slices of saucisson. He would rather lose his prick than hand you a meagre hors-d'oeuvre.
«In Italy you eat better than this,» Joe was explaining to Mona and myself. «Better meat, better vegetables, better fruit. In Italy you have sunshine all day. And music! Everybody sing. Here everybody look sad. I don't understand. Plenty money, plenty jobs, but everybody sad. This is no country to live in... only good to make money. Another two-three years and I go back to Italy. I take Louis with me and we open a little restaurant. Not for money... just have something to do. In Italy nobody make money. Everybody poor. But god-damn, Mr. Miller... excuse me... we have good time! Plenty beautiful women... plenty! You lucky to have such a beautiful wife. She like Italy, your wife. Italians very good people. Everybody treat you right. Everybody make friends rightaway...»
It was in bed that night that we began to talk about Europe. «We've got to go to Europe,» Mona was saying.
«Yeah, but how?»
«I don't know, Val, but we'll find a way.»
«Do you realize how much money it takes to go to Europe?»
«That doesn't matter. If we want to go we'll raise the money somehow...»
We were lying flat on our backs, hands clasped behind our heads, looking straight up into the darkness—and voyaging like mad. I had boarded the Orient Express for Baghdad. It was a familiar journey to me because I had read about this trip in one of Dos Passo's books. Vienna, Budapest, Sofia, Belgrade, Athens, Constantinople... Perhaps if we got that far we might also get to Timbuctoo. I knew a lot about Timbuctoo also—from books. Mustn't forget Taormina! And that cemetery in Stamboul which Pierre Loti had written about. And Jerusalem...
«What are you thinking about now?» I asked, nudging her gently.
«I was visiting my folks in Roumanian «In Roumania? Whereabouts in Roumania?» «I don't know exactly. Somewhere in the Carpathian mountains.»
«I had a messenger once, a crazy Dutchman, who used to write me long letters from the Carpathian mountains. He was staying at the palace of the Queen...»
«Wouldn't you like to go to Africa too—Morocco, Algeria, Egypt?»
«That's just what I was dreaming about a moment ago.»
«I've always wanted to go into the desert... and get lost there.»
«That's funny, so have I. I'm crazy about the desert.»
Silence. Lost in the desert-Somebody is talking to me. We've been having a long conversation. And I'm not in the desert any more but on Sixth Avenue under an elevated station.
My friend Ulric is placing his hand on my shoulder and smiling at me reassuringly. He is repeating what he said a moment ago—that I will be happy in Europe. He talks again about Mt. Aetna, about grapes, about leisure, idleness, good food, sunshine. He drops a seed in me.
Sixteen years later on a Sunday morning, accompanied by a native of the Argentine and a French whore from Montmartre, I am strolling leisurely through a cathedral in Naples. I feel as though I have at least seen a house of worship that I would enjoy praying in. It belongs not to God or the Pope, but to the Italian people. It's a huge, barn-like place, fitted out in the worst taste, with all the trappings dear to the Catholic heart. There is plenty of floor space, empty floor space, I mean. People sail in through the various portals and walk about with the utmost freedom. They give the impression of being on a holiday. Children gambol about like lambs, some with little nose-gays in their hand. People walk up to one another and exchange greetings, quite as if they were in the street. Along the walls are statues of the martyrs in various postures; they reek of suffering. I have a strong desire to run my hand over the cold marble, as if to urge them not to suffer too much, it's indecent. As I approach one of the statues I notice out of the corner of my eye a woman all in black kneeling before a sacred object. She is the image of piety. But I can't help noticing that she is also the possessor of an exquisite ass, a musical ass, I might say. (The ass tells you everything about a woman, her character, her temperament, whether she is sanguine, morbid, gay or fickle, whether she is responsive or unresponsive, whether she is maternal or pleasure-loving, whether she is truthful or lying by nature.)
I was interested in that ass, as well as the piety in which it was smothered. I looked at it so intently that finally the owner of it turned round, her hands still raised in prayer, her lips moving as if she were chewing oats in her sleep. She gave me a look of reproach, blushed deeply, then turned her gaze back to the object of adoration, which I now observed was one of the saints, a dejected crippled martyr who seemed to be climbing up a hill with a broken back.
I respectfully moved away in search of my companions. The activity of the throng reminded me of the lobby of the Hotel Astor—and of the canvases of Uccello (that fascinating world of perspective!). It reminded me also of the Caledonian market, London, with its vast clutter of gimcrackery. It was beginning to remind me of a lot of things, of everything, in fact, but the house of worship which it was. I half expected to see Malvolio or Mercutio enter in full tights. I saw one man, obviously a barber, who reminded me vividly of Werner Krause in Othello. I recognized an organ grinder from New York whom I had once tracked to his lair behind the City Hall.
Above all I was fascinated by they tremendous Gorgon-like heads of the old men of Naples. They seemed to emerge full-blown out of the Renaissance: great lethal cabbages with fiery coals in their foreheads. Like the Urizens of William Blake's imagination. They moved about condescendingly, these animated heads, as if patronizing the nefarious Mysteries of the mundane Church and her spew of scarlet-robed pimps.
I felt very very much at home. It was a bazaar which made sense. It was operatic, mercurial, tonsorial. The buzz-buzz at the altar was discreet and elegant, a sort of veiled boudoir atmosphere in which the priest, assisted by his gelded acolytes, washed his socks in holy water. Behind the glittering surplices were little trellised doors, such as the mountebanks used in the popular street shows of medieval times. Anything might spring out at you from those mysterious little doors. Here was the altar of confusion, bangled and diademed with baubles, smelling of grease paint, incense, sweat and dereliction. It was like the last act of a gaudy comedy, a banal play dealing with prostitution and ending in prophylactics. The performers inspired affection and sympathy; they were not sinners, they were vagrants. Two thousand years of fraud and humbug had culminated in this side-show. It was all flip and tutti-frutti, a gaudy, obscene carnival in which the Redeemer, made of plaster of Paris, took on the appearance of a eunuch in petticoats. The women prayed for children and the men prayed for food to stuff the hungry mouths. Outside, on the sidewalk, were heaps of vegetables, fruits, flowers and sweets. The barber shops were wide open and little boys, resembling the progeny of Fra Angelico, stood with big fans and drove the flies away. A beautiful city, alive in every member, and drenched with sunlight. In the background Vesuvius, a sleepy cone emitting a lazy curl of smoke. I was in Italy—I was certain of it. It was all that I had expected it to be. And then suddenly I realized that she was not with me, and for a moment I was saddened. Then I wondered... wondered about the seed and its fruition. For that night, when we went to bed hungering for Europe, something quickened in me. Years had rolled by... short, terrible years, in which every seed that had ever quickened seemed to be mashed to a pulp. Our rhythm had speeded up, hers in a physical way, mine in a more subtle way. She leaped forward feverishly, her very walk changing over into the lope of an antelope. I seemed to stand still, making no progress, but spinning like a top. She had her eyes set on the goal, but the faster she moved the farther removed became the goal. I knew I could never reach the goal this way. I moved my body about obediently, but always with an eye on the seed within. When I slipped and fell I fell softl
y, like a cat, or like a pregnant woman, always mindful of that which was growing inside me. Europe, Europe.... it was with me always, even when we were quarreling, shouting at each other like maniacs. Like a man obsessed, I brought every conversation back to the subject which alone interested me: Europe. Nights when we prowled about the city, searching like alley cats for scraps of food, the cities and peoples of Europe were in my mind. I was like a slave who dreams of freedom, whose whole being is saturated with one idea: escape. Nobody could have convinced me then that if I were offered the choice between her and my dream of Europe I would choose the latter. It would have seemed utterly fantastic, then, to suppose that it would be she herself who would offer me this choice. And perhaps even more fantastic still that the day I would sail for Europe I would have to ask my friend Ulric for ten dollars so as to have something in my pocket on touching my beloved European soil.
That half-voiced dream in the dark, that night alone in the desert, the voice of Ulric comforting me, the Carpathian mountains moving up from under the moon, Timbuctoo, the camel bells, the smell of leather and of dry, scorched dung, («What are you thinking of?» «I too!») the tense, richly-filled silence, the blank, dead walls of the tenement opposite, the fact that Arthur Raymond was asleep, that in the morning he would continue his exercises, forever and ever, but that I had changed, that there were exits, loopholes, even though only in the imaginations, all this acted like a ferment and dynamized the days, months, years that lay ahead. It dynamized my love for her.
It made me believe that what I could not accomplish alone I could accomplish with her, for her, through her, because of her. She became the water-sprinkler, the fertilizer, the hot-house, the mule pack, the pathfinder, the bread-winner, the gyroscope, the extra vitamin, the flame-thrower, the go-getter.
From that day on things moved on greased skids. Get married? Sure, why not? Right away. Have you got the money for the license? No, but I'll borrow it. Fine. Meet you on the corner....