Apples and Pears

by Guy Davenport

  DAT LAAT ZICH HOREN!

  Transformations happen when attention’s perfected. Culture is a transformation. Wolfje chews with his mouth closed, thanks Grietje for meals, rises when you enter the room he’s in. Nice crazy people, he says. For God’s sake, Grietje says, tell us your last name! Don’t have one, he says. Elfnose Parsnippeter, says Sander, is your name. Coldtoe Bedhopper.

  CHART OF THE FAEROES

  Wolfje in, crack of dawn, to scuddle under the covers, flopping hair in my face to rub noses and turn me out for our morning swim. Grietje already out, running. Brisk walk, Wolfje skipping at all the zebras. Joris waiting for us outside the zwemclub. His Lenin’s cap transferred to Wolfgang, rolled towel captured, snatched back, recaptured. As long as they make pants that small for boys as nifty as Wolfgang, Joris says, and with a fit that neat, capitalism’s not wholly rotten. What’s capitalism? All those bores who confuse money with living well. We get a lecture on banks, usury, and the armaments game, with an interlude for Joris’ new briefs, citron and with a wolfcub pawprint in a white circle under the waistband near the left hip. Padvinder welp! Having made it breaststroke twice across the shallow end, Joris beside him, Wolfje asked to have a pair. Give you mine, said Joris, but they’d fall off you. Would Grietje know where to get him dog footprint underbritches? Joris will tell her. Coffee and rolls afterwards, which Joris insisted on buying us. From the pocket of his jeans jacket a Radical Socialist Party button, with hammer and sickle, for Wolfje, and pinned it on his jersey. Wel bedankt! And as Wolfje was reading the round of words on his button as Radio Clubhouse Orange Slice, from his other pocket Joris took a cellofaan packet lettered Signe de Piste, a Wolfgang-sized wolfprint slipje. Round eyes, wide grin, and a kiss on the cheek for Joris. You’re my friend, Wolfje said. I like you.

  BRAMBLE WITH BUCK HARE

  Grietje has great fun chasing Wolfje all over the house, up and down stairs, finding him in closets, pulling him by the ankle from under beds, Sander pleading with her to leave him alone. Wolfgang calm and unflustered: he runs on the theory that if he can escape each and every opportunity, never giving in, he and not Grietje will win this tussle, and he will not have to touch a girl. Kaatje’s idea, that the Sensitivity Classes she takes Saartje and Hans to should be installed at Florishuis, on a regular basis. Grietje checked them out and came back enthusiastic. Very fourieriste, she says. What you mean, Sander offered, was that you and Kaatje and Saartje piled into bed together. O ja, wonderful, but we all need it. Show us, said Sander. Wolfje and I will then decide if we can stand it. So a suspicious but game Wolfje, skeptical Sander, eager Grietje, and I undergo Lesson One. We don’t need this part, Grietje says, but maybe we’ll find out we do. Everybody hugs everybody else, Wolfgang giggling. Next, in the buff, we feel each other all over with fingertips. Grietje and Wolfje a sight. Takes three tries before he can bring himself to run his fingers in her pubic hair, and reflexes double him when she gets to his genitalia. Top of hair to toes, touching everywhere. Sander has an erection like a pump handle before I’m a third of the way down his body. Wolfje and I, Grietje and Sander, Sander and Wolfje, achieving a laughing fit, Grietje and I. We were all in a fine mood to work at the Blue-Eyed Nipper, with suitable diversions time about for Wolfje, when Grietje, inspired and bouncing, called Kaatje, said we’d had, were still having, a wildly successful session: come over, all of them.

  GEVOELIGHEID

  Grietje brings in Wolfgang the way one carries a large dog, arms and legs dangling. Joris, gaping, tips coffee onto his sweater. Off with it, says Grietje, and let me run cold water on the spill, it’s the only way. His one upper garment, the Fair Isles sweater, goes to the kitchen sink, leaving him curly hirsute, nipples brown in swirls of black hair on his hard chest. Grietje, back with more coffee, says woef! you’re as furry, Joris, as Adriaan, and as beautiful as a Thorvaldsen. Thank you, says Joris. You really don’t like girls, not at all? Dear tactless Grietje. No, he said, not to love. He looked miserable. O God, what an awful thing to say, he whispered. To say you don’t intend to love anything is a hateful attitude, isn’t it? No, Grietje says brightly, we can’t love everybody, or everything. Here, she says, taking Wolfje from my lap and putting him in Joris’, hug this scamp while your sweater dries. It’s good for him, and he likes it. Take your thumb out of your mouth, imp, long enough to say hello to Joris. Out pops thumb. Hallo you, says Wolfje, batting his lashes, bobbing his heels. Grietje describes the sensitivity sessions, praising Wolfgang’s gift for affection, his clarity in giving it and receiving. As Grietje describes our sessions, Joris becomes a keenly curious but incredulous listener. Ja, says Wolfje, but I don’t see why I have to put my fingers all over Saartje and Jenny, it’s creepy crawly, but I suppose it’s in the game. But I’ve kissed Grietje all over, that gave me a good tingle. Like this? Joris asks, running fingertips over Wolfgang’s chin and nose. Like this, Wolfje says, gliding spread fingers through the hair on Joris’ chest. Do it, says Grietje, you two. Ja! says Wolfje, get naked. He squirmed loose, rolled onto the floor, untied his shoes lying on his back, sprang up, and had all his clothes off before Joris could command the here? he eventually gulped. I can’t, he says, I simply can’t. Why not? asks Wolfje.

  VAGROM KABOUTER

  Wolfgang into my bed sometime before midnight. Hugged his warm, bony, cold-toed body against me. He’s soon asleep. Perfectly comfortable with him beside me. Grietje says she’s unaware of his coming and going in their bed, so easily does he adapt to shapes and hollows. His sensuality is as yet distributed all over his body. He naps with Grietje, unmoved by her delicious beauty, bonded to her in affection and friendliness. Sander he finds sexy, and adores him. Sander knows exactly the nuances of the erotic in Wolfje’s imagination, thoroughly priapic yet a game of alert comedy, a foolishness in it all. Grietje for love, Sander for fun, me for security. Adriaan found me, he says. I didn’t even know I was an orphan.

  THIS IS NOT A PIPE

  You can’t be all of yourself at any one time, or the self you want to be all the time. Some people are never themselves.

  ONTMOETING

  Through, this afternoon, the little triangular park fenced by low hedges and an Art Deco railing, benches with nannies and Volkskrant readers, toddlers stomping, skateboarders sliding among them. A beautiful child in a warm-up jacket, hood down his back like folded wings, front open to within two centimeters of being unzipped, and white cotton cache-sexe, undercord in the crack of his bare brown butt. Fists in jacket pockets, a gesture for talking with buddies, three of them, all in knee pants. Nodding of heads, guffaws, punching of friendly shoulders, spontaneous heel dances. Nils Strodekker! Whose precocious pubic hair showed dark through the thin cache-sexe. Horde members, his fellows, in a playground full of handlings, one of whom I recognize as Tobias Strodekker, who recognizes me. Blue briefs more off than on, he grins hello and bounces over on his toes. Papa’s over there, he points, with Rasmus, reading or something, and puts a damp gritty hand inside mine to be taken. Godfried on a park bench outside the playground (jeans, sweater, cap) was writing in a notebook on his knee. Erasmus beside him, head on arm on Godfried’s shoulder, was following the writing. Small white pants, barefoot, orange bill cap cockily on back of head, naked torso. Ah! says Godfried, golden luck. Come have coffee with us in this splendid weather in our garden. Erasmus, inward eye giving his smile a tricky illegibility, rose and kissed the corner of my mouth, saying he’s read my essays on zinnelijkheid. Godfried had said he must, and he has questions to ask. But first, Nils, for whom he trotted off, and who took farewell of his buddies with a whisper in an ear, flicking fingers, kicking toes, and kneeing knees. His arm around Erasmus’ waist coming to the Renault.

  PIETER BLEEKER

  Jurassic ganoid labyrinthodont bugeyed blenny.

  WOONKAMER PASTORAAL

  Big Sander and Little Wolfje (as they’ve taken to calling each other) working on a large square canvas of two Hordelings on a quagga, both painting, neither getting in the other’s way, duc
king an elbow here, reaching an arm across an arm there, Sander keeping an eye on Wolfgang’s every stroke. The brush is a blade, bite in and draw back. A line is like the tune in music. Color’s the ground. That persimmon loves that grape and fryingpan iron grey, they make each other’s eyes go soft and silly, they want to snuggle and swap spit, but it’s the lines around them that make them sing. Home from library, a tedious lunch with Paulus, walk, swim, tea with Kaatje, brought Saartje and Hans with me to Florishuis for Quiet Hour. Met toestemming van de ouders? Adriaan is a voorstander for the law. Gewillig, said Kaatje, but with whoever has the stomach for it checking on you, no matter what Hilda Sinaasappel says about privacy. Grietje agrees with me. Jan on his way over from his music lesson, we began Quiet Hour in the conversation area of the studio, watching the painters paint. Saartje stood chummily for Grietje to wrench down her jeans, and, panties removed on the way, take her into her lap. She’s already, Hans said kneeing room for himself between my legs, unbuckling his belt, slick and wet. Shoulder shrug from Wolfgang. Hans with a speculative bat of eyelashes and a goblin grin thumbed his underpants off in two high stomping steps. You people, Sander said looking over his shoulder, handsome frown, persimmon smudge on his nose, are pretty friendly for an establishment that specializes in pumping nippers into Grietje and an afternoon encampment for everready Boy Scouts. Saartje, after a whistle of praise for Grietje’s cunning fingers, bragged that, safe for a good five days, she was getting fucked by Jantje and Hansje both. And Wolfje too, Grietje said by way of surprise. Sander, seeing (bless his heart) Wolfgang’s panic into misery, grabbed him into a sweet hug, kissing his hair and ears. No, he said, Wolfje’s mine. Fat hot tears melted down Wolfje’s cheeks. Sander, a stormy look for us all, carried him out of the studio.

  COMPOTE OF PEARS

  Hans, brightly amused and hair ruffled, looked around our door, got invited in and sent away to bring Campari, glasses, and Perrier. Cough medicine, he said, back. Jantje’s fucking himself goofy, he reported, and Saartje’s having fits. He looked hard at Wolfje hugged in Sander’s arms and legs. Grietje fetchingly half-dressed in my shirt handed drinks, and Hans joined our circle in the bed, all very jolly and convivial. How, Grietje said, would one who has not known Sander all these years believe him? He really doesn’t exist, because there isn’t anybody who can make love with Wolfje, then with me, with Wolfje again, and again with me, and I may have to share him with Wolfje tonight. Keeps things harmonized, Sander said. Adriaan’s benippering Grietje, taking his blithering sweet time, Grietje’s bleating that it’s to her satisfaction, so I have Thumper here to squeeze, snuggle, pull, sip, and wabble. He squeezes back.

  THE BAND AT GIVERNY

  Sander translates Monet’s charcoal drawing of Michel Monet, age six, and Jean-Pierre Hoschede, age eight, into his style, keeping the charm. Done in 1884, on canvas. Haystack or row of poplars along the Epte or dripping willows over water lilies intervened. And now, a century later, Sander completes it. Monet, who bought his first Japanese prints in the Netherlands, and whose daimon was Hiroshige, could not disapprove, even though the lines are now from De Stijl, the colors Sander’s (brown sweater, red cap, slate pants for Michel, blue sweater, brown pants for Jean-Pierre).

  PALE YELLOW PEAR

  From hard green, bright with rain, to a blush beneath the yellow, freckles over.

  EVERYTHING COULD BE OTHERWISE

  His mother Camille pinning up her hair behind him among flowering shrubs in the garden at Argenteuil, his kitten stalking a butterfly on the mock orange in a Japanese urn, little Jean Monet, age six, has thrown himself down in a ragdoll flop, playing Aargh! I’m deaded. In two more steps his mother, who was soon to be married to his father when this wonderful painting was done, the June of 1870 (France about to commit the idiotic imprudence of declaring war on Prussia), will pretend to find him, pick him up, and kiss him. Of course Monet is clean off the board here, Sander says. That happens every time you observe rather than copycat. Point out that the picture is iconographically a Moses in the bulrushes. Or, says Grietje, a Piero della Francesca Jezus laid out on the ground in an epiphany. So Sander does a Wolfgang lying on the floor looking out of the side of his eyes at Grietje reading, trying to magic her into looking at him. A quick drawing of Wolfje, hands behind head, bored, ankle on knee, beside Sander fucking Grietje. Laugh, pouts Wolfje, but I won’t be bored when the Nipper comes. He’ll be my brother. Don’t ever tell him I’m not his brother. I’ll talk with him while Grietje and Sander and Adriaan are busy with their things. We’ll start talking as soon as he’s borned.

  About the Author

  Guy Davenport (1927–2005) was an American writer, artist, translator, and teacher who was best known for his short stories that combined a modernist style with classical subjects. Originally from South Carolina, Davenport graduated from Duke University and was a Rhodes Scholar at Merton College, Oxford, where he wrote his thesis on James Joyce. After earning a PhD from Harvard, he taught English at Haverford College from 1961 to 1963 before accepting a position at the University of Kentucky, where he remained until his retirement in 1990. In 2012, the university appointed its inaugural Guy Davenport Endowed English Professor. Davenport won a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship for his literary achievements and an O. Henry Award for his short stories. He was also a visual artist whose illustrations were included in several of his books. His works include Da Vinci’s Bicycle, Eclogues, Apples and Pears, and The Jules Verne Steam Balloon.

  All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

  These are works of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  “The Bowmen of Shu” has been published before in Blast 3 and in a finely printed limited edition by The Grenfell Press; “Fifty-Seven Views of Fujiyama” was first published in Granta, in England, and later in the United States by The Hudson Review; parts of “Apples and Pears” have appeared before, in early drafts: “JoopZoetemelk Gagne le Maillot Jaune” in Antaeus, and a section provisionally titled “Apples and Pears” in Conjunctions.

  The drawings on pp. 8 and 10 are by Henri Gaudier-Brzeska; all other drawings are by Guy Davenport.

  Copyright © 1984 by Guy Davenport

  Cover design by Mauricio Díaz

  ISBN: 978-1-5040-1962-0

  This edition published in 2015 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

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