Genoa

by Paul Metcalf

  I remember Carl, in St. Louis, after the war, after he had come back from nineteen months in a Japanese Prisoner-Of-War Camp: we were afraid of what had happened to his mind, and, for want of a better answer, I was trying to get him to a psychiatrist, to help him go over his experiences, untangle something of what he was, what had happened to him . . . I recall the look on his face when I made the suggestion: the features withdrawing, not from me, but from one another, shifting their arrangement, becoming without form; and the smile, part of his mouth spreading, as he said, “I ain’t drowning, Mike boy . . .”

  My leg is now dead, passed into a condition from which there is no recall. I become aware of the hip joint, the part that is still me. I cherish the separation, the feeling of identity going no further than the hip . . .

  Ahab: “. . . it was Moby-Dick that dismasted me . . .

  Moby-Dick . . . a great white monster, with “a hump like a snow-hill . . .”

  not Leucothea, not a white and winged goddess, protectress, who gave Ulysses an enchanted veil . . .

  but moving out from this, from the closed and friendly Mediterranean, from the near ocean shores,

  moving out, as Columbus, across the Atlantic, and, through Melville, into the Pacific:

  the white gull become a white whale, cast in monstrous, malignant revenge . . .

  Melville, in the Pacific—the western extreme of American force—untethered, fatherless, the paternity blasted—turning—as Ahab—with vengeance and malice to match the monster’s: turning and thrusting back to his own beginnings: to

  Moby-Dick, the white monster: to Maria Gansevoort Melville . . .

  (Lizzie’s account of Herman: “A severe attack of what he called crick in the back laid him up at his Mothers in Gansevoort in March 1858—and he never regained his former vigor & strength.”

  The snow-hill hump, rumbling in the interior caverns of the sea book, bursts forth as the ultimate image in the book of the drowned—all of PIERRE perhaps being written as an excuse to expose it:

  “‘. . . in thy breasts, life for infants lodgeth not, but death-milk for thee and me!—The drug!’ and tearing her bosom loose, he seized the secret vial nestling there.”

  Carl, some years ago, on one of his rare and random splurges of reading—invading the library, chewing his way through stacks of books—came up with a volume of Indian legends: there was one about a woman with a toothed vagina, who had killed many men by having intercourse with them—but the hero inserted sticks too hard for her to masticate, and thus knocked out the teeth . . . and there was another about the first woman in the world, whose vagina contained a carnivorous fish . . .

  (Columbus, in the Boca de la Sierpe—mouth of the serpent—observed that the tides were much greater than anywhere else in the Indies, the current roaring like surf . . .

  Dead-legged, helpless and unwilling, I feel my body dragged down . . .

  Melville, blubbering from beneath the ocean, announces PIERRE to a Hawthorne—not Nathaniel, but Sophia: “My Dear Lady, I shall not again send you a bowl of salt water. The next chalice I shall commend, will be a rural bowl of milk.”

  From a contemporary review of PIERRE: “The sooner this author is put in a ward the better.”

  FOUR

  The interior of my head is an ocean, vast and unvarying, the watery horizon curving as with the curve of the globe. There is no island, no source of direction, or action. Floating, centerless, in this expanse, I am ready to drown . . .

  But there is a sudden change: my left leg—or that which had been my left leg—comes back to me: I feel blood and warmth entering again, sweeping in waves from the hip, and with this, the rest of me, all of my body becomes charged with sensation . . .

  There is also a difference: sinking in one ocean, I have risen to the surface of another—in a different hemisphere, or on the other side of the equator. The heart beats, the blood flows, the lungs inhale and discharge air—but all are radically altered. Reaching for the butt of the cigar resting in the ashtray, I am surprised to discover the gesture originating, not in my right hand, but in my left. My arm and shoulder, my whole left side, ache and feel uncomfortable—but this is not so strange as when I try to countermand the order, originate the gesture as I would normally, from the right. Plunging once more into the ocean, I attempt to force myself back, to force the gesture, and all gestures, to emerge and spring from the right: my body becomes rigid, all the machinery, all the moving parts, jammed . . .

  PIERRE: “. . . a sudden, unwonted, and all-pervading sensation seized him. He knew not where he was; he did not have any ordinary life-feeling at all. He could not see; though instinctively putting his hand to his eyes, he seemed to feel that the lids were open. Then he was sensible of a combined blindness, and vertigo, and staggering; before his eyes a million green meteors danced; he felt his foot tottering on the curb, he put out his hands, and knew no more for the time. When he came to himself he found that he was lying crosswise in the gutter, dabbled with mud and slime. He raised himself to try if he could stand; but the fit was entirely gone.”

  and Murray, commenting on this: “Although there is no record of Melville’s having suffered an attack of syncope, there is verisimilitude in his description of Pierre’s fainting. Furthermore, the time relation of Pierre’s attack . . . would indicate that Melville himself had experienced syncope.”

  (From the medical book: “. . . characterized by an abrupt onset, with uneasiness, weakness, restlessness, vague abdominal discomfort associated with moderate nausea, lightheadedness, blurring of vision, inability to walk, cold perspiration, collapse, unconsciousness, and sometimes a flaccid paralysis and mild convulsions . . .”

  Melville, standing on a Pacific island—TYPEE—floating up to effervescent MARDI—charging, then, full force, back to the origin and beginning of things—the center of the whale-herd, east of the Straits of Sunda—and turning, to plunge . . .

  (from a letter, written before MOBY-DICK: “I love all men who dive. Any fish can swim near the surface, but it takes a great whale to go down stairs five miles or more . . .”

  . . . plunge to the depths and bottom of the ocean, to drown, as PIERRE . . .

  rising, then, struggling to disgorge the ocean from his lungs (and his head), to find another island, another origin of action,

  through syncope: fainting—a small and imitation death—perhaps a drowning . . . in effect, saying to bimself—and to any who would listen:

  “I have to change centers, and I have to drown to do it.”

  Failed as an author—and as a Pittsfield farmer—failing now in health, to the extent that the family had him examined by Dr. Holmes in regard to his sanity—Melville set about in his own way to recenter: he took to writing verse . . .

  “For poetry is not a thing of ink and rhyme, but of thought and act. . .” (Melville)

  The joints, the motion-sources of my body, remain rigid, the bones and muscles forcing against one another. My tongue and eyelids are heavy, and

  I recall a time when Carl came home for a visit—it was just before the war, and I was away in medical school: he was experiencing mysterious convulsions, and the doctors for some time withheld a diagnosis, uncertain of what term to use—although I knew they suspected a recurrence of hydrocephalus. Mother and I were subjected to the electroencephalograph, in search of genetic dysrhythmia—but the findings were negative. Carl experienced all the typical preconvulsive phenomena—unexplained faints, attacks of giddiness, sleepiness, myoclonic jerks—and finally the diagnosis was made: acquired epilepsy . . .

  (the word meaning to “seize upon”: as a drowning man would seize upon an island . . .

  Perhaps because I was studying medicine—and was, as well, his brother—Carl sent me reports on his seizures . . . fragmentary letters, notes jotted on old pieces of wrapping paper, or the backs of prescriptions:

  “A touch of fear . . . great thickness and heaviness, moving to my tongue . . . last stage before the attack.

&nb
sp; “This time the aura was black, and the closing-in type . . .

  “It is always flashover, definite—like the stepping out of a warm room into the cold . . .

  “Have discovered I can induce the aura: driving the car, I put myself as someone in one of the other cars, then someone in another car, then another, and so forth—an overwhelmed-by-numbers bizzniss turns up, and right under (or after) that: the aura . . .

  “. . . a breeze . . . gateway to a fabulous world, everything maneuverable . . . like an explosion, reaching, spreading into widening space, all white . . .

  “As for question of the head and interpenetration . . . the effect is gradual . . . as for shape, configuration, the same, but as for size, I don’t know . . .

  “While I write this, I feel the approach of the aura. Realize that I have walked past where it is stored . . . go back and contact it . . . now it has me, full force . . . as long as I keep my eyes closed, it’s there . . . Feeling: it’s all in my head, and I’m in and occupy very little of it . . . all the world in there (or here) since my head is the limit of the world . . . I am a little bigger than the rest of the universe . . . the feeling now persists even with eyes open: I make desperate efforts to get away from it . . .

  “Thought, under attack: I must recap the birth of the universe . . .”

  (from the medical book: “A patient who invariably dislocated his right shoulder as he fell, explained this by saying that he would see a star before him for which he would reach . . .”

  and Carl: “A dream: conjure up a chorus, with the director (thinfaced) telling them to start the theme, god damnit, on the UP beat! Chorus furious, marches on him, on the strong beat . . . feeling of horror . . .”

  (the medical book: “The authors present the case of a woman aged 44 in whom extensive clinical investigation failed to reveal an acquired cerebral lesion, but which represented a case of musicogenic epilepsy. The patient experienced increases of blood pressure, heart rate, and respiration while listening to music. Fits could not be induced by pure tones, although the patient felt emotional to a tone of 512 cycles which persisted and was varied in loudness. Different kinds of music were invariably followed by a fit within five minutes.”

  The period in which Carl had attacks lasted only a few months, terminating as abruptly as it started; and for this, the doctors had no explanation. Nor would Carl himself speak of it, then or thereafter . . .

  Melville, collapsing the world of Pittsfield and the Pacific, salvaged the remains, hoarded them into 104 East 26th Street—fortunate to be taken on as outdoor customs inspector (badge #75), Port of New York, at a reward of $4 per diem (later reduced to $3.60). Reduced, circumscribed, and aging, he still thrashed . . .

  From DANIEL ORME (and perhaps he meant DANIEL OR ME): . . . his moodiness and mutterings, his strange freaks, starts, eccentric shrugs and grimaces . . .”

  and from a contemporary review of Melville’s verse: “Mr. Melville has abundant force and fire . . . But he has written too rapidly to avoid great crudities. His poetry runs into the epileptic. His rhymes are fearful . . .”

  FIVE

  MOBY-DICK: “But now that he had apparently made every preparation for death; now that his coffin was proved a good fit, Queequeg suddenly rallied; soon there seemed no need of the carpenter’s box: and thereupon, when some expressed their delighted surprise, he, in substance, said, that the cause of his sudden convalescence was this;—at a critical moment, he had just recalled a little duty ashore, which he was leaving undone; and therefore had changed his mind about dying: he could not die yet, he averred. They asked him, then, whether to live or die was a matter of his own sovereign will and pleasure. He answered, certainly. In a word, it was Queequeg’s conceit, that if a man made up his mind to live, mere sickness could not kill him: nothing but a whale, or a gale, or some violent, ungovernable, unintelligent destroyer of that sort.”

  I experience an abrupt relaxation, a lifting of tensions, and, with this, a restoration of vision, so marked, the dark corners and recesses of the attic stand out so sharply—that I seem to have gained new powers. Random motives, impulses to shift and rearrange limbs and muscles, occur throughout my frame. I am restless, moving, wanting to move in ways I have never tried before . . .

  Melville: “Let us speak, tho’ we show all our faults and weaknesses,—for it is a sign of strength to be weak, to know it, and out with it . . .”

  Reviving within myself, I am aware also of external motion, motion of my body as a whole, from the outside, and there are the two: inside and outside, working with and against one another . . .

  Stretched loosely in the chair, giving the sensations full play, I am aware of fresh sources of energy opening in me, opening barely in time to be poured into the increasing demands, both in action and duration, that are to be made upon me . . .

  Melville, after MOBY-DICK: “Lord, when shall we be done growing? As long as we have anything more to do, we have done nothing.”

  and Las Casas, describing Christopher, embarking on the third voyage: “. . . wherefore it appeared to him that what he already had done was not sufficient but that he must renew his labors . . .”

  I remember the three occasions—but especially the first—of Linda’s pregnancies . . . our watching and wondering as the end of her term approached, what day or night it would be when we would hurry to the hospital . . . the obvious pleasure with which she allowed me to place my hand on her, to try to anticipate, as husband, father, and doctor, the exact hour . . . her figure, short and broad, so exquisitely designed for childbirth, carrying the weight lower and lower, as the head approached the cervix, the ultimate part of its pear-shaped world, until it seemed that the infant must drop at any moment—in the kitchen, the bathroom, or on the bed where he began . . .

  Columbus: “. . . it is impossible to give a correct account of all our movements, because I was carried away by the current so many days without seeing land.”

  and from the “Libretto”: “. . . not very far from there they found a stream of water from east to west, so swift and impetuous that the Admiral says that never since he has sailed . . . has he been more afraid.”

  I am shaken—head, ribs, and limbs—by a tremendous effort . . .

  Columbus: “At this time the river forced a channel for itself, by which I managed, with great difficulty, to extricate . . .”

  and Las Casas: “Arriving at the said mouth . . . he found a great struggle between the fresh water striving to go out to the sea and the salt water of the sea striving to enter the gulf, and it was so strong and fearful, that it raised a great swell, like a very high hill, and with this, both waters made a noise and thundering, from east to west, very great and fearful, with currents of water, and after one came four great waves one after the other, which made contending currents; here they thought to perish . . .”

  “It pleased the goodness of God that from the same danger safety and deliverance came to them and the current of the fresh water overcame the current of the salt water and carried the ships safely out, and thus they were placed in security; because when God wills that one or many shall be kept alive, water is a remedy for them.”

  THE ODYSSEY: “Here at last Ulysses’ knees and strong hands failed him, for the sea had completely broken him. His body was all swollen, and his mouth and nostrils ran down like a river with sea water, so that he could neither breathe nor speak, and lay swooning from near exhaustion; presently, when he had got his breath and came to himself again, he took off the scarf that Leucothea had given him and threw it back into the salt stream of the river, whereon Leucothea received it into her hands from the wave that bore it towards her. Then he left the river, laid himself down among the rushes, and kissed the bounteous earth.”

  I am invaded by a great warmth, my entire skin surface tingling . . .

  (Melville: “. . . as we mortals ourselves spring all naked and scabbardless into the world.”

  . . . and with it, an indescribable relief, satisfaction, and wel
l-being. Reaching for the cigar butt, I lean back, stretch my legs, and light up again, relishing the warmth of the match flame, as it nearly burns my face. Drawing lungs full of smoke, I tilt my head against the back of the chair, and watch the clouds, floating in the yellow lamplight to the rafters. I recall the cigars I smoked and gave away at the plant on the occasions of Mike Jr.’s birth, our firstborn; and, with the tobacco smoke, I taste again the pleasure, the pride that I enjoyed at that time—pride such as a man might feel at the mouth of the Mississippi or Amazon, sharing in those waters that push back the ocean, the waters they are in the act of joining . . .

  BATTLE PIECES AND ASPECTS OF THE WAR

  ONE

  “IT WAS ON A BOMBER RUN that Rico and I cracked up near a hospital in China—a small outpost hospital—and discovered that Concha was assigned to it. Christ, we didn’t even know she was out of the states . . .

  “We bailed out and no one was hurt except Rico, who had stayed behind to shoot out the bombsight and set the ship afire. He tore a shoulder pretty bad, but he clamped the cut himself. By twos and threes the Chinese took us to the hospital, where they assured us Concha would smuggle us back to HQ. Seems she’d been doing this for months . . .

  “We arrived at the same time the Japs captured the hospital and surrounding town. Rico had cautioned us before we bailed out to destroy our insignia and not to admit to being officers, so the Japs would think us privates and not try to pump us. However, the Japs seem to base seniority on age, so Rico and I, not being in our twenties, were stuck—as well as a fifty-year-old sergeant, who they thought must be a general: he was tortured, and when he wouldn’t talk—because he didn’t know anything—they cut his head off, to scare the rest of us.

  “Rico raged and cursed when he was tortured, but appeared more angry than hurt. I wish I could say as much for myself . . .