Apples and Pears

by Guy Davenport

  Beautiful, Grietje said, but I’m disappointed. Sander seems to have met someone he can’t deprave beyond the utmost ingenuity in what can be done with tickled flesh. O that! Sander said, looking improbably innocent. Chums are chums, and some are chummier than others.

  Third grapple of that sweet day, after a swim and lazy time in the sun and another roll under the pines, we got more reciprocal and wigwag in the bed, more inquisitive, liberal, broadminded. So that in one ferocious hug the sliddering was slicked by a volunteer liter of slosh.

  Out of a philosopher, in, I’ll swear, punchy spurts that would have splatted on the walls had they not been stopped by the chest and tummy of a happy Sander. We squished and slid like oiled wrestlers. I came, too, in glops. Something in a Danish magazine, Grietje said.

  Didn’t slow us in the least, Sander said, as that wasn’t what we were hugging for. Why, said Grietje, must we try to figure out why we’re hugging anybody, like a brat all brains and no manners? Fuck why, and also by whose leave and with whose blessing. Love is love.

  18 THERMIDOR

  Apple brother, sister pear. Apple Virgil, Theokritos pear. Erewhon, apple. New Harmony, pear. Helen is to Castor and Pollux as apple is to pear. Painting is apple, music is pear. Apple is the letter, pear the spirit of the law. Bee and wasp, moth and butterfly, dog and wolf.

  Analysons les ressorts de leurs vertus: ils sont au nombre de quatre, tous rêprouvês par la morale; ces sont les goûts de saleté, d’orgueil, d’impudence et d’insubordination. C’est en s’adonnant à ces prétendus vices, que les petites hordes s’élevent á la pratique de toutes les vertus.

  And move in the Tartar, or Curvilinear Mode, wheeling their quaggas with yells and hoots, their mustards and reds, jangle of harness and ripple of flags tangling in with the storm of their drums and whistles. Their dogs and cheetahs wheel with them, bounding, circling, leaping.

  There is a happy squinch of smile peculiar to the Hordes, a lift of small shoulders and dip of coppery cornsilk hair, ruckle of nose, a display of snippety teeth, nip of dimples, and jiggle of eye. They josh, flirt, and steal impudent fingers into their britches.

  They make tactless comments on each other’s fug of pungent quagga, damp dog, prodigal sperm, and garlicky armpits. Maartens, says Frits to the world, shouting above the racket, has quagga come in his hair, from jacking it off all the time, getting two liters the spurt.

  Neen, says happy Maartens, it’s all mine from an hour of steady work and help from Hendrikx, Nollet, Gerrit, and Kees, who know how high I shoot, up and over into my hair, thick and creamy, none of your peutertroep whey, and they can’t keep their hands or eyes off it.

  Whoosh! Gunst! Hemeltje! Leve sekse! Splat! With an aftersplash from chin to bellybuckle, one more from bellybuckle to hand, and some leftover plops that run down the stalk around my balls. Zibber flop! somebody hoots. Quagga pee, another. Band piffle, yet another.

  19 THERMIDOR

  Slender Saartje honeybrown slipping two fingers down into her drablet of red-and-white-checked underpants in Sander’s studio, being drawn so, Kaatje and I chaperoning, is an image that has worked in me, in my most guarded spirit, a quick sweetness drenching the imagination.

  What’s beautiful about it? Hans challenged. De bejaarden call anything beautiful, and it’s only skinny Saartje fiddling with her speelgoed. I mean you have to know where it is to find it. I know exactly where it is, Saartje said, and gave him a saucy look before closing her eyes.

  Sander’s studio, as summoned. Fourier in his parson’s hat, and Anakreon aromatic with dill and hyacinth came in with me. Pencils ready, drawing table untilted to flat, studio tidied, Sander confessed to being dithery, wholly unlike him, a glitch nu en dan in his pulse.

  Said he would be relieved when Kaatje turned up with the little fuckers. I asked why I was there. For morale, for courage, for reasons he’d forgotten, like Kaatje wanted me there. Placidly matter of fact an de telefoon with her. She said the idea was Hans’ and Saartje’s.

  It would be better, wouldn’t it, to take them up on it, than dashing their eagerness? he had said, mentioning complexes. Wat drommel! What is a complex, anyway? Of course I want to draw them erotisch. Bruno, Kaatje said, was perfectly willing, and wished us great fun.

  For een ondeugend steendruck serie, the second of which they owned, leggy teenagers sprawled around and on each other. The first, pedantically sexy, was of Sander and Grietje, drawn from Gerhard’s photographs, I’d shown Bruno and Kaatje, Sander’s best lithographs to date.

  It was the second suite that inspired Hans and Saartje to volunteer to pose, taking up the hint of Sander’s which Kaatje had dodged. Not at all, she said, I wanted to put it to Bruno first. A bit breathless, Kaatje, and the lovelier for it, grinning wickedly, after the stairs.

  Saartje up to her impish eyes in raincoat collar, a beret cockily on the back of her head, Hans with hair jutting all around from under his cadet cap, fists socketed in jeans pockets, pigeon-toed, underlip tucked behind buckteeth, eyebrows up where presumption overtakes surmise.

  Kaatje was for pushing them in, and leaving. Oh no, Sander said, I need you. I need Adriaan. There’s coffee, just made. I don’t really know children. Grietje didn’t know whether to be here or not, so she left. I’ll say or do something awful in the first five minutes.

  He explained the transfer paper, how the printing was to be done from a polished stone, how he was to draw with colored pencils for some details, and with the lithograph crayon, how it would all be brought together for the finished plate. Kaatje fetched the coffee for us.

  I’ve explained to the monsters, she said, that this is not a film, that it’s all illusion, but they argue that they must do the real thing. So they began practicing, they called it, a good hour ago, squealing and grunting. Hansje tends to moo when his jacking off gets mellow.

  Well, said Sander, let’s hear it, gathering Hans and Saartje in a swoop and piling them on the bench across from us, and with his arms on their knees asked them, tussen de mensen onderling, what they wanted him to draw them doing. Juist wat, he? I can draw anything.

  You drew us bare butt, Hans said wide-eyed, and put us hugging, sort of, in that big picture, and we looked at the fijn drawings Papa showed us you did of tieners all opgewondenheid and allerliefst, and, well, you could draw us too, didn’t Maatje call you up, like?

  This is when Saartje shed her jeans, and, bouncing on her toes, slipped two fingers inside her tiny red-and-white-checked underpants. Whee! said Sander, nipping to the drawing board. Fourth pair of undies, Kaatje said, tried on before the mirror. Hans and I voted for these.

  Hans watched the drawing awhile, impressed with how fast and accurately Sander worked, stripped his jersey over his head and was soon in briefs only, of curt fit, Amerikaans Grieks Y klep, a rich blue with white trim. Woof! Sander said, you’re next, in those, peter out.

  I thought, Hans said, you were going to draw us real good doing real good things real good. In a bit, said Sander, fish your peter out through your fly. Let it hang down, half hard, like that. Saartje, sweetheart, take those dainty scanties off, eh? Keep your hand playing.

  For just under two hours Sander drew real good things real good. Hansje, Saartje explained astraddle Hans’ thighs, jacking him, is going to be onuitputtelijk, though he has to let a while go by before he can come again, five minutes maybe. I understand, said Sander.

  The two sprawled in a kiss, Hansje’s fingers gentle and expert with Saartje. Hans jacking with Saartje lying across his tummy. Can they, Sander asked, whose jeans were warped out by an erection, pose as if fucking? Kaatje, who’d been good at chatter all along, said no.

  Why not? Hans asked. Please, said Saartje. I had been in a kind of euphoric shock from the beginning, reality in and out of focus, partly with an arm around Kaatje, partly watching the drawing, the quick long lines that went busy at spread toes, an open mouth, hair swirl.

  Sander kept up a patter of appreciative grunts, whistles of astonishment, and commenta
ry. He criticized both their techniques. Goeie genade! Poef! Wat trilling en klopping! O come on, Kaatje! he boomed, coming around the drawing table to squeeze Saartje in a lifting hug.

  Lord knows what he whispered into her ear before he set her gently on the floor, quickly made a roll of Hans’ jeans, and tucked it under her behind. He then lifted Hans in as crushing a hug, and turning him prone lowered him onto Saartje, who opened her legs, raised her knees.

  Up onto your elbows, Hansje boy, Sander said, but bend down and kiss. That’s right. Press your hips right down against. Saartje, raise your heels higher. Tilt your hips up. If this were for real, Hans couldn’t shove in good. Can I, said Hans, put it in just while Sander’s drawing?

  No, liefje, Kaatje said evenly, though she was pretending to have gone limp in her chair. Sander was drawing with great concentration. Don’t move, he said, even if you begin to ache all over, just don’t move. I don’t ache, Saartje said brightly. Me neither, said Hansje.

  20 THERMIDOR

  What eye among the rungs and hordes

  of angelkind would turn and find

  my long call through the storm of time?

  And if one took me in his arms

  I would be nothing in that light.

  Sweet of beauty gathering in

  is fear’s beginning: we love it

  because our longing stands uncrushed

  in the strength of its harmony.

  An angel is a fearful thing.

  I keep my loud call in my throat

  and stop the deep dark of my grief.

  Is there any to turn to then?

  Neither angel nor brother, no,

  and all the animals are wise

  to our bewildered stumbling

  in the dark of our signs and myths.

  What do we have? That hillslope tree,

  our walk in the afternoon,

  our customary faithful

  things remaining year after year.

  And the night, there’s always the night

  with its wind from across the stars

  which we can close our eyes and drink.

  She’s always there, the night, kind witch,

  always, if your heart can love her.

  Is she kinder then to couples?

  They are hidden from each other.

  Have you not learned that secret yet?

  Unclasp your empty arms and throw

  that nothing into breathless space

  to quicken a bird’s pitch and dip

  if your riddance traverse its flight.

  Aprils needed you down the years,

  the stars waited till you found them,

  forgotten days have sought you out.

  As you passed an open shutter

  a fiddle under ravishment

  was surrendering to delight.

  Such was our animal faith.

  Was your response in proportion?

  Were you not worried with waiting,

  thinking it prelude, ruining it

  with expectations and designs?

  Wanting rather someone to love?

  What room had you for a lover

  with so many overnight thoughts

  arriving and leaving in droves?

  Yearn, calling to sight those lovers

  whose desire filled all their being,

  whose power to feel strengthens us,

  whom we would almost choose to be,

  whose longing was denied ripeness.

  Hymn their praise justly you cannot.

  The Hero persists. The background

  for his splendor was promise

  that he would be seen there again.

  Lovers, however, are returned

  to nature, exiles home at last,

  for good, so exquisite a force

  released but once to lovers’ eyes.

  Have you taken in the meaning

  of Gaspana Stampa enough

  to understand that you must long

  like her, for a love that, lost, lasts?

  Should not our oldest pains have borne

  their harvest by this time? When will

  we begin to last in our love

  vibrant without our beloved,

  be as an arrow to the string,

  which breathless in its singing jump

  is more than arrow, string, or bow?

  To stand still is to be nowhere.

  Voices. Listen, heart, like a saint

  raised into the air by voices,

  still kneeling, voices lifting him,

  so native to his ears the words.

  We cannot stand to hear God speak.

  Our ears can bear the aftersound,

  the enriched silence full of Him.

  A hush, as from those who died young.

  Have churches in Rome and Naples

  not told you all about themselves?

  Inscriptions have made you read them.

  Remember the lettered stone in

  Santa Maria Formosa.

  What do they want of me? Must I

  then take the wronged look from my eyes

  that obstructs their pure onwardness?

  It will feel strange not to be here,

  to leave our familiar world,

  to leave the roses, their meaning,

  things in which we’d placed so much hope,

  strange no longer to be cared for

  by the solicitude we’d known,

  to abandon our given name

  like an old toy. It will be strange

  never again to feel a wish,

  see all arduous knots drop loose.

  All will seem random when we die,

  hunting hard and gathering up

  until we find some lasting sign.

  The living draw their lines too sharp.

  Angels, we hear, sometimes don’t know

  the living from the dead. The wind

  across eternity confounds

  both realms and chimes in the voices

  of each.

  The early slain, what more

  have they to do with us after

  a while? They have been weaned from things

  earthly as from their mother’s breast.

  But we need them, we for whom grief

  is the spring of our best efforts,

  we need the great secret to live.

  Without the dead would we exist?

  Is it an empty myth that once

  in lamenting Linos with cries

  which were the seed of all music,

  weeping for a godlike young man,

  we first filled death’s anguished hollow

  with the ringing sounds that help us,

  that we must hear to understand?

  21 THERMIDOR

  A transparency, Rilke’s angel. How distant Tobias’ time when one of the brightest came to the door, dressed for a journey. And the most perilous blinding archmessenger will stride from beyond the stars and our hearts will beat their last under the drop of his closing wings.

  Jan in little white pants, looking in at the cabin door, for Hansje, his body slender and brown, like that of an archaic dusty Eros, like that of Tobias’ angel a little disguised, the shoulders of a bird with folded wings, hair gilded and windblown, said I must change my life.

  22 THERMIDOR

  Weather golden and holding, splendid for so impudique a pastoral. Reached the island over a sweet blue sea, Hans and Jan in their vermilion lifejackets as bright as pennies from the mint. They held hands, swapped gleeful glances, tossing hair from their eyes like foals.

  Knowing winks from Sander. The island flecked green and yellow in fine summer light. They went exploring while Sander and I squared away the cabin. A working visit, said Sander, his drawing pad out, pencils ready. Writing to write, drawings to draw, the boys to pose.

  Two naked impudent lovely boys, on the double! Sander hollered toward the beach. Hans came and stuck out his tongue for the fun of it, with a you can’t catch
me tilt to his shoulders. Sander had him in one spring and brought him back over his shoulder. Jan followed, eyes green, dubious.

  I’ve done this lots, Hans explained, Saartje and I. Stripped, he rolled his fists and pranced in place, as graceful a channeling of fidgets and shyness as one is likely to see. Come on, vriendje, he said, poedelnaakt like me. Jan knelt and undid his shoes, dawdling.

  Tugged off his pullover in handfuls. Turned away from us to shinny out of slender jeans. Across implausibly strait hips, neatly kiltered briefs. Idioot! Hansje whooped, we’ve done this before, in the studio, and why be schuw undressing when we’re going to be drawn bare-butt?

  Mine, he said of the briefs Jan was edging down. We wear each other’s voor de grap. Natch, said Sander, and kiss and slidder half hours of jumping bliss into one another’s peters and feel importantly sinful. Trimly finished, Jan’s body, a blush drenching its tan to the shoulders.

  Well hung for his age, he has the famished Spartan look of well-nourished flesh that would like to prosper into muscle and volume but must deny itself and stretch to keep up with lengthening bones. An encouraging smile to say that he has survived the heroic blush.

  His penis, as with Hansje’s, seems a gratuitous carnality in contrast to the calm innocence of his animal gaze. Arms around each other’s shoulders, said Sander, if you please. Vervloekt! Uit de tijd van Koningin Victoria! I can see the vijgblad! Come on, hug for real.

  Look, gooses, join the times, ja? My paintings are alive, sexy, modern. Go away, go run wild around the island. Forget you’re bare-assed. Jack off, tumble, wrestle, hug and kiss, anything to keep from looking like department-store dummies and Italian valentines.

  When I was a shrimp your age I jumped on everything that moved and fucked everything that would have me. I jacked knots and welts on my dick, kept a crick in my wrist and cramps in my balls, jellied my brains. Hansje grinned at this from ear to rosy ear, eyes teasing.

  Jan veritably gulped, curled his toes, and looked to Hans as if to ask if these godsent people were as delightfully crazy as they sounded. With shy sidewise glances, to make certain we were watching, they curled fingers around each other’s penises, drew together, and kissed.