This Is Where We Came In

by Lynne Sharon Schwartz

  David Case could be exonerated from adding his own irony. The irony is all Powell’s, shielding each page like a scrim. Even the neutrality of Nick Jenkins’s conversation, as rendered on tape, was actually a dryness wrought, or wrung out, to the highest degree, an arch, self-protective detachment so suffusing that it comes to be taken for granted, like London fog, maybe. On the page, it’s clear that what Jenkins, and presumably Powell, loathes most is hypocrisy and pomposity. What he admires is character, restraint, style and panache—the aristocratic virtues. He rarely finds them among the aristocracy, though; they are distributed democratically, if sparsely.

  But “irony, facile or otherwise,” Jenkins acknowledges, “can go too far.” Even in comedy. With very few exceptions, Powell is unable or unwilling to say anything with a straight face—what newer generations call fear of commitment, in the moral or philosophical sense. This might be acceptable: no one demands earnestness of Swift or Wodehouse. But Powell solicits our allegiance to what is behind the fixed mask of bemused urbanity—an equally fixed piety.

  No one could quarrel with what Powell holds sacred, only with his discomfort in presenting it: first, the sufferings, both military and civilian, during World War II. His most sincere passage occurs at a ceremony of General Thanksgiving held in St. Paul’s Cathedral at the end of the war, when for a brief moment, after some initial squirming in the toils of cleverness, Jenkins finds a simple statement of feeling manageable:

  The sense of being present at a Great Occasion—for, if this was not a Great Occasion, then what was?—had somehow failed to take adequate shape, to catch on the wing those inner perceptions of a more exalted sort, evasive by their very nature, at best transient enough but not altogether unknown . . . Perhaps that was because everyone was by now so tired. The country, there could be no doubt, was absolutely worn out. That was the truth of the matter.

  Almost as sacred is genuine friendship as opposed to the utilitarian camaraderie of literary and upper-class life. After seeing his dying friend Moreland in the hospital, Jenkins says, “It was . . . the last time I had, with anyone, the sort of talk we used to have together.” Finally, married love, at least the kind we must infer Jenkins enjoys with his wife, Isobel, daughter of a large family of eccentric aristocrats. On this theme, restraint nearly catapults to sentimentality, the satirist’s lurking danger.

  About his devotion to Isobel and about her perfections, Jenkins is reticent to the point of perversity. Before she ever appears, she’s called “rather different” and “a bit of a highbrow when she isn’t going to nightclubs.” Perfect for him, that is. When she turns up, it’s love at first sight, on Jenkins’s part at least; Isobel’s feelings aren’t recorded:

  Would it be too explicit, too exaggerated, to say that when I set eyes on Isobel Tolland, I knew at once that I should marry her? . . . It was as if I had known her for many years already; enjoyed happiness with her and suffered sadness. I was conscious of that, as of another life, nostalgically remembered. Then, at that moment, to be compelled to go through all the paraphernalia of introduction, of “getting to know” one another by means of the normal formalities of social life, seemed hardly worth while. We knew one another already; the future was determinate.

  Marriage, a miscarriage and an unspecified number of children ensue. (At one point Jenkins alludes to Isobel’s having “her” baby; later on he leaves town for an “arrangement about a son going to school.” Otherwise his domestic life is discreetly elided—safe from Powell’s acidic pen.) Isobel appears maybe eight or ten times over the twelve volumes; her remarks could fit on a couple of pages, and their tone is uncannily close to Jenkins’s own—wry, knowing, understated. Of her tastes, her activities, her predilections, we hear nothing but that she has, like Jenkins himself, a “knowledge . . . of obscure or forgotten fiction.”

  Sketched with such pious reserve, Isobel is a generic, idealized presence; one suspects that her voice, like Cordelia’s, is “ever soft, gentle, and low, an excellent thing in woman.” How different from the treatment of Jean Templer, with whom Jenkins has an affair in his midtwenties. Nowhere near as perfect as Isobel, Jean is a far more precise character, rich in subtleties and surprises and sex and shrewdly drawn betrayals. The subject of sex does not graze Isobel. Powell must be aware of some great lacuna, for he tries several times to explain it away. When asked about Isobel, Jenkins eludes the question: “It is hard to describe your wife.” Elsewhere he resorts to literary casuistry:

  It is doubtful whether an existing marriage can ever be described directly in the first person and convey a sense of reality. Even those writers who suggest some of the substance of married life best, stylize heavily, losing the subtlety of the relationship at the price of a few accurately recorded, but isolated, aspects. To think at all objectively about one’s own marriage is impossible. . . . Objectivity is not, of course, everything in writing; but even casting objectivity aside, the difficulties of presenting marriage are inordinate. Its forms are at once so varied, yet so constant, providing a kaleidoscope, the colours of which are always changing, always the same.

  A poor excuse from a writer who manages to present, without much worry about objectivity, the broad spectrum of postwar political hues, or the finest nuances of social class, or the changes in attitude towards homosexuality or the psychic toll of alcoholism, depression and thwarted affection. Beyond misplaced piety, the reason for Powell’s constraint with Isobel is not hard to fathom: her virtues undermine the novel’s presiding view of women as willful items of merchandise passing themselves from one man to another. Even in her absence, Isobel defies one character’s view that “the minds of most women are unamusing, unoriginal, determinedly banal.” She couldn’t possibly be treated as another suggests: “Why discuss your work with her? . . . Tell her to get on with the washing up.” Perhaps she conforms to the type Jenkins describes approvingly as a suitable companion for a writer, “unusually pretty, . . . also to all appearances bright, good-tempered and unambitious.” No wonder Powell has more to say about eccentric, foolish, promiscuous and downright awful women than about the classic helpmeet. Dreadful Pamela Flitton, a brittle, predatory avenger, is, in literary terms, the best of women, drawn with zest and esprit.

  In the end, reading brought no great shocks. I found I had already absorbed the book through the ear and through the pores; I had heard its music, tripped to its rhythms, joined in its dance. Its prejudices I had passed over more easily than I would have on the page, or rather had let them pass over me as I stirred my soup and the tape rolled on. I suspect I might not have loved it so much had I first encountered it in print. Enjoyed, yes, but not loved. Cold, austere and supremely amusing, perfect tonic for my apathy, it is not lovable in the manner of Jane Austen or even Ivy Compton-Burnett. Probably it was the faithful performance of David Case that I loved. His role was paramount. And enduring: because of it, I’ll never know what I might have felt or thought about the novel as a “mere” book.

  Of course, on the page, A Dance to the Music of Time is its own grand performance too, exquisitely choreographed and staged with the deep genius of a Balanchine and the deft direction of a Busby Berkeley. And because of the limits of ear and of memory, I couldn’t appreciate the grandeur of its design until my marathon weeks of reading.

  Powell’s dance comes full circle to end where it began. I missed this the first time around. Forgot in May the words that had so enthralled me in January. That early passage, “For some reason, the sight of snow descending on fire always makes me think of the ancient world,” refers to a group of workmen huddled around a bucket of flaming coke, taking a break from fixing the pipes beneath a London street as Nick Jenkins happens by. His musings on the ancient world lead him in turn to memories of school, and so the story begins.

  At the close of the twelfth volume—I’m only a season older, while Nick Jenkins is nearing seventy—he visits a gallery showing paintings by a long-dead friend. In keeping with Powell’s notion of periodic recurrence, the art
ist who had barely been taken seriously in his own time has been rediscovered as an example of what we’d call “outsider art.” On the way, Jenkins notes offhandedly “the street in process of being rebuilt.” Afterwards, having seen the paintings (and coincidentally run into his old faithless lover, Jean Templer), he walks out into the starting snow: “The men taking up the road in front of the gallery were preparing to knock off work. Some of them were gathering around their fire-bucket.”

  The attentive reader is ready to begin all over again, to think again of “the ancient world,” and then of school and the long life and long century that followed, “of human beings, facing outward like the Seasons, moving hand in hand in intricate measure, stepping slowly, methodically, sometimes a trifle awkwardly, in evolutions that take recognizable shape.”

  Reality Tour

  When the creaky elevator at last reached the eighth floor, it opened onto another country. Somewhere in Africa, it seemed, although the building was in downtown Manhattan. The dim, narrow lobby was sultry with bodies, mostly men in dashikis and pillbox hats, kofias, talking in clumps or navigating their way through the crowd. Facing the elevator was a glass wall, and in the studio on the other side, an African dance class was in progress. Besides the sound of the drums, snatches of French bounced through the lobby, along with an English so accented it might as well have been French. The handful of Americans, black and white, looked like tourists. I felt like a tourist myself, ignorant of the customs of the country. I even felt a twinge of apprehension, as if I might at any moment have to justify my presence, maybe even present my passport.

  I could readily justify my presence: I was there to learn to drum. At first I’d felt shy about joining the drum class. What would my fellow drummers make of me, a middle-aged white woman who, however musical, had never been near a drum in her life: this would be obvious right away. What was I doing in their territory? This kind of thinking was foolish, I told myself, and must be overcome. I was paying the fees like everyone else; I was entitled to my adventure.

  I made sure to arrive early each week so I could watch the last few minutes of the dance class through the glass. The gray-haired male teacher, wearing loose green and gold trousers and a tunic, would lead the dancers across the floor, sweat spraying from their bodies, arms and legs flinging relentlessly to the beat of the drums. Then they would gather in a circle. A few of the bolder ones came to the center to improvise while the others cheered them on. As they filed out, one by one they thanked the drummers and shook their hands.

  I watched with a kind of wistfulness. I had taken dance classes like this one a few years ago. In my old class we used to thank the drummers too, but instead of a formal handshake we each hugged our three drummers. At the beginning I felt hesitant about offering my sweaty body, but the drummers never shrank from us; they happily accepted our tributes, our wet hands and faces. I was entranced by the drums. I listened so closely that sometimes I didn’t pay enough attention to the steps and floundered. I was entranced by the drummers too, the way their faces were so somber and concentrated while their hands whirred like oversized hummingbirds’ wings.

  At some point I got a flu that was hard to shake, and after I recovered I never went back to the class. The prospect of all that leaping around made me limp, as if the flu were reclaiming me. I missed the dancing, but even more, I missed the drums. I could buy CDs, sure, but even better, I could become a drummer myself. Why not? I’d never be more than a so-so dancer, but drumming was something I might have a gift for. I’d played the piano all my life, and when I danced, my timing was impeccable, even if I didn’t get the steps right because I was so absorbed by the drums.

  Before each week’s class, I signed in at a small desk and paid. Fifteen dollars for the class, three dollars to rent a drum, and another dollar, optional, for a bottle of water, a good idea because the drumming was hot work. Some people brought their drums with them, in padded black cases on wheels, but I was renting one. Later, depending on how the classes went, I might buy a drum, though it would be cumbersome to lug it on the subway. The rental drums were kept in a glass cabinet in the lobby. The first few times, I stared at them, not knowing how to choose, until a passing teacher pointed out which would be best for me. I would drag the drum into a very small windowless room with black walls and eight or so ancient folding chairs arranged in a circle. More chairs were stacked against the wall. It was summer and we kept the door closed for the air-conditioning, so it was like playing in a closet filled with pounding rhythms. The closet became a world of pure sound, an isolated capsule of passion in the dark. Everything outside dropped away.

  The drum we played was a West African djembe, shaped like a headless woman, a broad-shouldered woman, tapering down to a thin waist and flaring hips that were narrower than the upper torso. We held her, or rather, it, between our legs, not flat on the floor but tipped slightly outward at about a thirty-degree angle, balanced on the outer edge of its round bottom rim. You play a djembe with bare hands. After an hour and a half of slapping the cowhide surface, my hands were hot and stinging. A pleasant sting, the sting of effort.

  There were about half a dozen regulars in the class. A thirtyish woman, tall and slim, who took the dance class, came in panting and shiny with sweat, still in her dancing clothes. Another woman had her long blonde hair arranged in African braids as if she were trying to become African. A stocky white man with very dark hair, an accomplished drummer, spoke only French. A young girl, maybe eleven or twelve, would sometimes wander in after the class had begun, take a seat and drum for a while with an absent-minded look, then wander out. New faces turned up occasionally, people who got wind of the place—once two Japanese tourists, once a plump American man who’d been given a djembe as a gift and wanted to learn to use it. Sometimes these people would reappear but most often not.

  One by one the students came in, and then came our teacher, Etienne, glistening from drumming for the dance class. Etienne was in his early twenties, dark-skinned, stocky, of medium height, dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt and a cap pulled low over his eyes. He seemed very sober, almost intimidating, but when he smiled he was transformed, radiant, not intimidating. He greeted the regular students heartily, with a hug and lots of exclamations, in English or French. After I’d come three or four times he started to greet me with a hug and exclamations too, as if I were a long-lost friend he hadn’t expected to see so soon again. I liked that: I wanted to be considered one of the regulars. Already I was starting to feel superior to the drop-ins who knew nothing, while I knew something. Not much, but I did catch on quickly and could keep up with the others. I was right, I thought happily: I could get good at this if I persevered.

  Etienne began each class by playing a phrase—a pattern of sound—and we would copy it. If we did it accurately he moved on to the next pattern; if not, we had to repeat it over and over until he was satisfied. He never said we were playing well; he just allowed us to continue. There was very little talking altogether. If newcomers were present Etienne might say a bit about how to hold the drum and about the three strokes of the hands: slap, tone, and bass. Slap, a sharp stroke using the heel of the hand and the fingers spread. Tone, with the fingers closed and nearer to the rim. Bass, hitting the center of the drum with the whole hand. Now and then he might come over to position our hands correctly or give instructions in his thick French accent, his manner at once stern and kindly—a stern reverence regarding the proper playing of the drum, but kindly to each individual student. But mostly we learned by listening and copying, and drumming ceaselessly for an hour and a half. Even though I loved to drum, toward the end the sting in my hands made me watch the wall clock, waiting for relief.

  At some point during the class a woman from the front desk would appear in the doorway and compare the class list with our small group of drummers, tallying. She might say a word or two to Etienne, but we were so absorbed in our enchanted bubble of sound that we barely noticed her. After a moment or two she would disappear
.

  We played two rhythms over and over—songs, Etienne called them—for months, learning them phrase by phrase, then putting the phrases together like a collage. Or, in their irregular repetitions, like an auditory mobile. I went home with their rhythms in my hands, and for several days would move my fingers in these rhythms, hearing them in my head and feeling my hands alive and twitching with them. Like a real drummer, I thought: I was becoming a drummer. If I mentioned the class to friends, they responded with a kind of puzzled awe, as if I’d revealed an exotic facet of myself they had never suspected, and this puzzlement and awe gave me a secret delight. It was not surprising to me that I could drum, but it seemed to surprise everyone else. Indeed, telling about my new adventure was no small part of my pleasure in the drum class.

  Very soon I realized that the more experienced students, the regulars, were playing more complicated patterns than the beginners, patterns that added texture to the sound the group made. And when we were going along well, Etienne would take off on his own with an even more elaborate riff. His large hands flew so fast above the drum that they became a blur, like the blades of a propeller. Sometimes he would croon along with his drumming, and once or twice he taught us the words to one of the songs and we sang the unfamiliar syllables as we drummed. From time to time another teacher would appear in the doorway and observe, poker-faced, then drift away. Or he’d come in, take a chair, and drum with us for a while. Then he and Etienne would go off on fantastic riffs together, and it was hard to concentrate on our simple patterns because theirs were so much more alluring.

  I longed for the day when I would be promoted to the more complicated rhythms the advanced students played. Sometimes I even tried them, surreptitiously, I thought, though you cannot play an instrument surreptitiously; I’m sure my deviations didn’t escape Etienne. I want to do what they’re doing, I once said to him, and he nodded and smiled and said it would be very soon.