CHAPTER SIX

          FOR days the after-effects of Ricardo’s visit hung over me.  To add to my distress, Christmas was almost upon us.  It was the season of the year I not only loathed but dreaded.  Since attaining manhood I had never known a good Christmas.  No matter how I fought against it, Christmas Day always found me in the bosom of the family – the melancholy knight wrapped in his black armour, forced like every other idiot in Christendom to stuff his belly and listen to the utterly empty babble of his kin.

     Though I had said nothing as yet about the coming event – if only it were the celebration of the birth of a free spirit! – I kept wondering under what circumstances, in what condition of mind and heart, the two of us would find ourselves on that festive doomsday.

     A most unexpected visit from Stanley, who had discovered our whereabouts by accident, only increased my distress, my inner uneasiness.  True, he hadn’t stayed long.  Just long enough, however, to leave a few lacerating barbs in my side.

     It was almost as if he had come to corroborate the picture of failure which I always presented to his eyes.  He didn’t even bother to inquire what I was doing, how we were getting on, Mona and I, or whether I was writing or not writing.  A glance about the place was sufficient to tell him the whole story.  “Quite a come down!” was the way he summed it up.

     I made no attempt to keep the conversation alive.  I merely prayed that he would leave as quickly as possible, leave before the two of them arrived in one of the pseudo-ecstatic moods.

     As I say, he made no attempt to linger.  Just as he was about to leave, his attention was suddenly arrested by a large sheet of wrapping paper which I had tacked on the wall near the door.  The light was so dim that it was impossible to read what was written.

     “What’s that?” he said, moving closer to the wall and sniffing the paper like a dog.

     “That?  Nothing,” I said.  “A few random ideas.”

     He struck a match to see for himself.  He lit another and then another.  Finally he backed away.

     “So now you’re writing plays.  Hmmm.”

     I thought he was going to spit.

     “I haven’t even begun,” I said shamefacedly.  “I’m just toying with the idea.  I’ll probably never write it.”

     “My thought exactly,” he said, assuming that ever-ready look of the gravedigger. “You’ll never write a play or anything else worth talking about.  You’ll write and write and never get anywhere.”

     I ought to have been furious but I wasn’t.  I was crushed.  I expected him to throw a little fat on the fire – a remark or two about the new “romance” he was writing.  But no, nothing of the sort.  Instead he said: “I’ve given up writing.  I don’t even read any more.  What’s the use?”  He shook a leg and started for the door.  Hand on the knob, he said solemnly and pompously: “If I were in your boots I’d never give up, not if everything was against me.  I don’t say you’re a writer, but….” He hesitated a second, to frame it just right.  “But Fortune’s in your favour.”

     There was a pause, just enough to fill the phial with vitriol.  Then he added: “And you’ve never done a thing to invite it.

     “So long now,” he said, slamming the gate to.

     “So long,” said I.

     And that was that.

     If he had knocked me down I couldn’t have felt more flattened.  I was ready to bury myself then and there.  What little armature had been left me melted away.  I was a grease spot, nothing more.  A stain on the face of the earth.

     Re-entering the gloom I automatically lit a candle and, like a sleepwalker, planted myself in front of my idea of a play.  It was to be in three acts and for three players only.  Needless to say who they were, these strolling players.

     I scanned the project I had drawn up for scenes, climaxes, background and what not.  I knew it all by heart.  But this time I read s if I had already written the play out.  I saw what could be done with the material.  (I even heard the applause which followed each curtain fall.)  It was all so clear now.  Clear as the ace of spades.  What I could not see, however, was myself writing it.  I could never write it in words.  It had to be written in blood.

     When I hit bottom, as I now had, I spoke in monosyllables, or not at all.  I moved even less.  I could remain in one spot, one position, whether seated, bending or standing, for an incredible length of time.

     It was in this inert condition they found me when they arrived.  I was standing against the wall, my head against the sheet of wrapping paper.  Only a tiny candle was guttering on the table.  They hadn’t noticed me there glued to the wall when they burst in.  For several minutes they bustled about in silence.  Suddenly Stasia spied me.  She let out a shriek.

     “Look!” she cried.  “What’s the matter with him?”

     Only my eyes moved.  Otherwise I might have been a statue.  Worse, a stiff!

     She shook my arm which was hanging limp.  It quivered and twitched a little.  Still not a peep out of me.

     “Come here!” she called, and Mona came on the gallop.

     “Look at him!”

     It was time to stir myself.  Without moving from the spot or changing my position, I unhinged my jaw and said – but like the man in the iron mask - : “There’s nothing wrong, dearies.  Don’t be alarmed.  I was just … just thinking.”

     “Thinking?” they shrieked.

     “Yes, little cherubs, thinking.  What’s so strange about that?”

     “Sit down!” begged Mona, and she quickly drew up a chair.  I sank into the chair as if into a pool of warm water.  How good to make that little move!  Yet I didn’t want to feel good.  I wanted to enjoy my depression.

     Was it from standing there glued to the wall that I had become so beautifully stilled?  Though my mind was still alive, it was quietly active.  It was no longer running away with me.  Thoughts came and went, slowly, lingeringly, allowing me time to cuddle them, fondle them.  It was in this delicious slow drift that I had reached the point, a moment before their arrival, of dwelling with clarity on the final act of the play.  It had begun to write itself out in my head, without the least effort on my part.

     Seated now, with my back half-turned to them, as were my thoughts, I began to speak in the manner of an automaton.  I was not conversing, merely speaking my lines, as it were.  Like an actor in his dressing room, who continues to go through the motions though the curtain has fallen.

     They had grown strangely quiet, I sensed.  Usually they were fussing with their hair or their nails.  Now they were so still that my words echoed back from the walls.  I was able to speak and listen to myself at the same time.  Delicious.  Pleasantly hallucinated, so to speak.

     I realized that if I stopped talking for one moment the spell would be broken.  But it gave me no anxiety to think this thought.  I would continue, as I told myself, until I gave out.  Or until “it” gave out.

     Thus, through the slit in the mask, I continued on and on, always in the same even, measured, hollow tone.  As one does with mouth closed on finishing a book which is too unbelievably good.

     Reduced to ashes by Stanley’s heartless words, I had come face to face with the source, with authorship itself, one might say.  And how utterly different this was, this quiet flow from the source, than the strident act of creation which is writing!  “Dive deep and never come up!” should be the motto for all who hunger to create in words.  For only in the tranquil depths is it granted us to see and hear, to move and be.  What a boon to sink to the very bottom of one’s being and never stir again!

     In coming to I wheeled slowly around like a great lazy cod and fastened them with my motionless eyes.  I felt exactly like some monster of the deep who has never known the world of humans, the warmth of the sun, the fragrance of flowers, the sound of birds, beasts or men.  I peered at them with huge veiled orbs accustomed only to looking inward.  How strangely wondrous was the world in this instant!  I saw them and the room in which they were seated with eyes unsated: I saw them in their everlastingness, the room too, as if it were the only room in the whole wide world; I saw the walls of the room recede and the city beyond it melt to nothingness; I saw fields ploughed to infinity, lakes, seas, oceans melt into space, a space studded with fiery orbs, and in the pure unfading limitless light there whirred before my eyes radiant hosts of godlike creatures, angels, archangels, seraphim, cherubim.

     As if a mist were suddenly blown away by a strong wind, I came to with both feet and this absolutely irrelevant thought uppermost in my mind – that Christmas was on us.

     “What are we going to do?” I groaned.

     “Just go on talking,” said Stasia.  “I’ve never seen you this way before.”

     “Christmas!” I said.  “What are we going to do about Christmas?”

     “Christmas?” she yelled.  For a moment she thought I was speaking symbolically.  When she realized that I was no longer the person who had enchanted her she said: “Christ! I don’t want to hear another word.”

     “Good,” said I, as she ducked into her room.  “Now we can talk.”

     “Wait, Val, wait!” cried Mona, her eyes misty.  “Don’t spoil it, I beg you.”

     “It’s over,” I replied.  “Over and done with.  There is no more.  Curtain.”

     “Oh, but there is, there must be!” she pleaded.  “Look, just be quiet … sit there … let me get you a drink.”

     “Good, get me a drink!  And some food!  I’m famished.  Where’s that Stasia?  Come on, let’s eat and drink and talk our heads off.  Fuck Christmas!  Fuck Santa Claus!  Let Stasia be Santa Claus for a change.”

     The two of them now bustled about to do me pleasure.  They were so terribly eager to satisfy my least whim … it was almost as if an Elijah had appeared to them from out of the sky.

     “Is there any of that Rhine wine left?” I yelled.  “Trot it out!”

     I was extraordinarily hungry and thirsty.  I could scarcely wait for them to set something before me.

     “That damned Polak!” I muttered.

     “What?” said Stasia.

     “What was I talking about anyway?  It’s all like a dream now…. What was I thinking – is that what you wanted to know? – is that … is how wonderful it would be … if….”

     “If what?”

     “Never mind … I’ll tell you later.  Hurry up and sit down!”

     Now I was electrified.  Fish, was I?  An electric eel, rather.  All a-sparkle.  And famished.  Perhaps that’s why I glittered and sparkled so.  I had a body again.  Oh how good it was to be back in the flesh!  How good to be eating and drinking, breathing, shouting!

     “It’s a strange thing,” I began, after I had wolfed some victuals, “how little we reveal of our true selves even when at our best.  You’d like me to carry on where I left off, I suppose?  Must have been exciting, all that stuff I dredged up from the bottom.  Only the aura of it remains now.  But one thing I’m sure of – I know that I wasn’t out of myself.  I was in, in deeper than I’ve ever, ever been … I was spouting like a fish, did you notice?  Not an ordinary fish, either, but the sort that lives on the ocean floor.”

     I took a good gulp of wine.  Marvellous wine.  Rhine wine.

     “The strange thing is that it all came about because of that skeleton of a play on the wall over there.  I saw and heard the whole thing.  Why try to write it, eh?  There was only one reason why I ever thought of doing it, and that was to relieve my misery.  You know how miserable I am, don’t you?”

     We looked at one another.  Static.

     “It’s funny, but in that state I was in everything seemed entirely as it should be.  I didn’t have to make the least effort to understand: everything was meaningful, justifiable and everlastingly real.  Nor were you the devils I sometimes take you for.  You weren’t angels either, because I had a glimpse of real ones.  They were something else again.  I can’t say as I’d want to see things that way all the time.  Only statues….”

     Stasia broke in.  What way? she wanted to know.

     “Everything at once,” I said.  “Past, present, future; earth, air, fire and water.  A motionless wheel.  A wheel of light, I feel like saying.  And the light revolving, not the wheel.”

     She reached for a pencil, as if to make a note.

     “Don’t!” I said.  “Words can’t render the reality of it.  What I’m telling you is nothing.  I’m talking because I can’t help it, but it’s only talking about.  What happened I couldn’t possibly tell you…. It’s like that play again.  The play I saw and heard no man could write.  What one writes is what one wants to happen.  Take us, we didn’t happen, did we?  No one thought us up.  We are, that’s all.  We always were.  There’s a difference, what?”

     I turned directly to Mona.  “I’m really going to look for a job soon.  You don’t suppose I’m ever going to write living this kind of life, do you?  Let’s whore it, that’s my idea now.”

     A murmur escaped her lips, as if she were about to protest, but it died immediately.

     “Yes, as soon as the holidays are over I’ll strike out.  Tomorrow I’ll telephone the folks to let them know we’ll be there for Christmas.  Don’t let me down, I beg you.  I can’t go there alone.  I won’t.  And try to look natural for once, will you?  No make-up … no drag.  Christ, it’s hard enough to face them under the best of conditions.”

     “You come too,” said Mona to Stasia.

     “Jesus, no!” said Stasia.

     “You’ve got to!” said Mona.  “I couldn’t go through with it without you.”

     “Yes,” I chimed in, “do come along!  With you around we won’t be in danger of falling asleep.  Only, do wear a dress or a skirt, will you?  And put your hair up in a bun, if you can.”

     This made them mildly hysterical.  What, Stasis acting like a lady?  Preposterous!

     “You’re trying to make a clown of her,” said Mona.

     “I just ain’t a lady,” groaned Stasia.

     “I don’t want you to be anything but your own sweet self,” said I.  “But don’t get yourself up like a horse and buggy, that’s all.”

Just as I expected, about three in the morning Christmas Day the two of them staggered in dead drunk.  The puppet, which they had dragged about with them, looked as if he had taken a beating.  I had to undress them and tuck them between the sheets.  When I thought they were sound asleep, what must they do but make pipi.  In doing so they bumped into tables and chairs, fell down, picked themselves up again, screamed, groaned, grunted, wheezed, all in true dipsomaniac style.  There was even a bit of vomiting, for good measure.  As they piled into bed again I warned them to hurry and catch what sleep they could.  The alarm was set for 9-30, I informed them.

     I hardly got a wink of sleep myself; I tossed and fumed the whole night long.

     Promptly at 9-30 the alarm went off.  It went off extra loud, it seemed to me.  At once I was on my feet.  There they lay, the two of them, like dead.  I pushed and prodded and pulled; I ran from one to the other, slapping them, pulling off the bedclothes, cursing them royally, threatening to belt them if they didn’t stir.

     It took almost half an hour to get them on their feet and sufficiently roused not to collapse on my hands.

     “Take a shower!” I yelled.  “Hurry!  I’ll make the coffee.”

     “How can you be so cruel?” said Stasia.

     “Why don’t you telephone and say we’ll come this evening, for supper?” said Mona.

     “I can’t!” I yelled back.  “And I won’t!  They expect us at noon, at one sharp, not tonight.”

     “Tell them I’m ill,” begged Mona.

     “I won’t do it.  You’re going through with it if it kills you, do you understand?”

     Over the coffee they told me what they had bought for gifts.  It was the gifts that caused them to get drunk, they explained.  How was that?  Well, in order to raise the money with which to buy the gifts they had had to tag around with some benevolent slob who was on a three-day bender.  Like that they got stinko.  Not that they wanted to.  No, they had hoped to duck him soon as the gifts were purchased, but he was a sly old bastard and he wasn’t to be hoodwinked that easy.  They were lucky to get home at all, they confessed.

     A good yarn and probably half-true.  I washed it down with the coffee.

     “And now,” I said, “what is Stasia going to wear?”

     She gave me such a helpless, bewildered look that I was on the point of saying, “Wear any damned thing you please!”

     “I’ll attend to her,” said Mona.  “Don’t worry.  Leave us in peace for a few minutes, won’t you?”

     “OK,” I replied.  “But one o’clock sharp, remember!”

     The best thing for me to do, I decided, was to take a walk.  I knew it would take a good hour, at least, to get Stasia into presentable shape.  Besides, I needed a breath of fresh air.

     “Remember,” I said, as I opened the door to go, “you have just an hour, no more.  If you’re not ready then we’ll leave as you are.”

     It was clear and crisp outdoors.  A light snow had fallen during the night, sufficient to make it a clean, white Christmas.  The streets were almost deserted.  Good Christians and bad, they were all gathered about the evergreen tree, unwrapping their gift packages, kissing and hugging one another, struggling with hangovers, and pretending that everything was just ducky.  (“Thank God, it’s over with!”)

     I strolled leisurely down to the docks to have a look at the ocean-going vessels ranged side by side like chained dogs.  All quiet as the grave here.  The snow, sparkling like mica in the sunlight, clung to the rigging like so much cotton wool.  There was something ghostly about the scene.

     Heading up toward the Heights, I made for the foreign quarter.  Here it was not only ghostly but ghastly.  Even the Yuletide spirit had failed to give these shacks and hovels the look of human habitations.  Who cared?  They were heathens, most of them; dirty Arabs, slit-faced Chinks, Hindus, greasers, niggers…. The guy coming towards me, an Arab most likely.  Dressed in light dungarees, a battered skull cap and a pair of worn-out carpet slippers.  “Allah be praised!” I murmur in passing.  A bit farther and I come upon a pair of brawling Mexicans, drunk, much too drunk, to get a blow in.  A group of ragged children surround them, egging them on.  Sock him!  Bust his puss in!  And now out of the side door of an old-fashioned saloon a pair of the filthiest looking bitches imaginable stagger into the bright sunlight of a clean white Christmas Day.  The one bends over to pull up her stockings and falls flat on her face; the other looks at her, as if it couldn’t be and stumbles on, one shoe on, one shoe off.  Serene in her cockeyed way she hums a ditty as she ambles on.

     A glorious day, really.  So clear, so crisp, so bracing!  If only it weren’t Christmas!  Are they dressed yet, I wonder.  My spirits are reviving.  I can face it, I tell myself, if only they don’t make utter fools of themselves.  All sorts of fibs are running through my head – yarns I’ll have to spin to put the folks at ease, always worried as they are about what’s happening to us.  Like when they ask – “Are you writing these days?” and I’ll say: “Certainly.  I’ve turned out dozens of stories.  Ask Mona.”  And Mona, how does she like her job?  (I forget.  Do they know where she’s working?  What did I say last time?)  As for Stasia, I don’t know what the hell I’ll trump up there.  An old friend of Mona’s, maybe.  Someone she knew at school.  An artist.

     I walk in, and there’s Stasia with tears in her eyes, trying to squeeze into a pair of high-heeled shoes.  Naked to the waist, a white petticoat from Christ knows where, garters dangling, hair a mess.

     “I’ll never make it,” she groans.  “Why do I have to go?”

     Mona seems to think it uproariously funny.  Clothes are lying all over the floor, and combs and hairpins.

     “You won’t have to walk,” she keeps saying.  “We’ll take a taxi.”

     “Must I wear a hat too?”

     “We’ll see, dear.”

     I try to help them but I only make things worse.

     “Leave us alone,” they beg.

     So I sit in a corner and watch the proceedings.  One eye on the clock.  (It’s going on twelve already.)

     “Listen,” I say, “don’t try too hard.  Just get her hair done up and throw a skirt over her.”

     They trying on earrings and bracelets.  “Stop it!” I yell.  “She looks like a Christmas tree.”

     It’s about twelve-thirty when we saunter out to hail a taxi.  None in sight, naturally.  Start walking.  Stasia is limping.  She’s discarded the hat for a beret.  Looks almost legitimate now.  Rather pathetic too.  It’s an ordeal for her.

     Finally we manage to run down a cab.  “Thank God, we’ll be only a few minutes late,” I murmur to myself.

     In the cab Stasia flicks off her shoes.  They get to giggling.  Mona wants Stasia to use a dash of lipstick, to make her look more feminine.

     “If she looks any more feminine,” I warn, “they’ll think she’s a fake.”

     “How long must we stay?” asks Stasia.

     “I can’t say.  We’ll get away as soon as we can.  By seven or eight, I hope.”

     “This evening?”

     “Yes, this evening.  Not tomorrow morning.”

     “Jesus!” she whistles.  “I’ll never be able to hold out.”

     Approaching our destination I tell the cabby to stop at the corner, not in front of the house.

     “Why?”  From Mona.

     “Because.”

     The cab pulls up and we pile out.  Stasia is in her stocking feet, carrying her shoes.

     “Put them on!” I yell.

     There’s a large pine box outside the undertaker’s at the corner.  “Sit on that and put them on,” I command.  She obeys like a child.  Her feet are wet, of course, but she doesn’t seem to mind.  Struggling to get the shoes on, her beret tumbles off and her hair comes undone.  Mona frantically endeavours to get it back in shape but the hairpins are nowhere to be found.

     “Let it go!  What’s the difference?” I groan.

     Stasia gives her head a good shake, like a sportive filly, and her long hair falls down over her shoulders.  She tries to adjust the beret but it looks ridiculous now no matter at what angle it’s cocked.

     “Come on, let’s get going.  Carry it!”

     “Is it far?” she asks, limping again.

     “Just half-way down the block.  Steady, now.”

     Thus we march three abreast down The Street of Early Sorrows.  A rum trio, as Ulric would say.  I can feel the piercing eyes of the neighbours staring at us from behind their stiff, starched curtains.  The Miller’s son.  That must be his wife.  Which one?

     My father is standing outside to greet us.  “A little late, as usual,” he says, but in a cheery voice.

     “Yes, how are you?  Merry Christmas!”  I lean forward to kiss him on the cheek, as I always did.

     I present Stasia as an old friend of Mona’s.  Couldn’t leave her by herself, I explain.

     He gives Stasia a warm greeting and leads us into the house.  In the vestibule, her eyes already filled with tears, stands my sister.

     “Merry Christmas, Lorette!  Lorette, this is Stasia.”

     Lorette kisses Stasia affectionately.  “Mona!” she cries, “and how are you?  We thought you’d never come.”

     “Where’s mother?” I ask.

     “In the kitchen.”

     Presently she appears, my mother, smiling her sad, wistful smile.  It’s crystal clear what’s running through her head: “Just like always.  Always late.  Always something unexpected.”

     She embraces each of us in turn.  “Sit down, the turkey’s ready.”  Then, with one of her mocking, malicious smiles, she says: “You’ve had breakfast, I suppose?”

     “Of course, mother.  Hours ago.”

     She gives me a look which says – “I know you’re lying” – and turns on her heel.

     Mona meanwhile is handing out the gifts.

     “You shouldn’t have done it,” says Lorette.  It’s a phrase she’s picked up from my mother.  “It’s a fourteen pound turkey,” she adds.  Then to me: “The minister wants to be remembered to you, Henry.”

     I cast a quick glance at Stasia to see how she’s taking it.  There’s only the faintest trace of a good-natured smile on her face.  She seems genuinely touched.

     “Wouldn’t you like a glass of port first?” asks my father.  He pours out three full glasses and hands them to us.

     “How about yourself?” says Stasia.

     “I gave it up long ago,” he replies.  Then, raising an empty glass, he says – “Prosit!”

     Thus it began, the Christmas dinner.  Merry, merry Christmas, everybody, horses, mules, Turks, alcoholics, deaf, dumb, blind, crippled, heathen and converted.  Merry Christmas!  Hosanna in the highest!  Hosanna to the Highest!  Peace on earth – and may ye bugger and slaughter one another until Kingdom Come!

     (That was my silent toast.)

     As usual, I began by choking on my own saliva.  A hangover from boyhood days.  My mother sat opposite me, as she always did, carving knife in hand.  On my right sat my father, whom I used to glance at out of the corner of my eye, apprehensively lest in his drunken state he would explode over one of my mother’s sarcastic quips.  He had been on the wagon now for many a year, but still I choked, even without a morsel of food in my mouth.  Everything that was said had been said, and in exactly the same way, in exactly the same tone, a thousand times.  My responses were the same as ever, too.  I spoke as if I were twelve years old and had just learnt to recite the catechism by heart.  To be sure, I no longer mentioned, as I did when a boy, such horrendous names as Jack London, Karl Marx, Balzac or Eugene V. Debs.  I was slightly nervous now because, though I myself knew all the taboos by heart, Mona and Stasia were still “free spirits” and who knows, they might behave as such.  Who could say at what moment Stasia might come up with an outlandish name – like Kandinsky, Marc Chagall, Zadkine, Brancuse, or Lipschitz?  Worse, she might even invoke such names as Ramakrishna, Swami Vivekananda or Gautama the Buddha.  I prayed with all my heart that, even in her cups, she would not mention such names as Emma Goldman, Alexander Berkman or Prince Kropotkin.

     Fortunately, my sister was busy reeling off the names of news commentators, broadcasters, crooners, musical comedy stars, neighbours and relatives, the whole roll call connected and interconnected with a spate of catastrophes which invariably caused her to weep, drool, dribble, sniffle and snuffle.

     She’s doing very well, our dear Stasia, I thought to myself.  Excellent table manners too.  For how long?

     Little by little, of course, the heavy food plus the good Moselle began to tell on them.  They had had little sleep, the two of them.  Mona was already struggling to suppress the yawns which were rising like waves.

     Said the old man, aware of the situation: “I suppose you got to bed late?”

     “Not so very,” said I brightly.  “We never get to bed before midnight, you know.”

     “I suppose you write at night,” said my mother.

     I jumped.  Usually she never made the slightest reference to my scribbling, unless it was accompanied by a reproof or a sign of disgust.

     “Yes,” I said, “that’s when I do my work.  It’s quiet at night.  I can think better.”

     “And during the day?”

     I was going to say “Work, of course!” but realized immediately that to mention a job would only complicate matters.  So I said: “I generally go to the library … research work.”

     Now for Stasia.  What did she do?

     To my utter amazement, my father blurted out: “She’s an artist, anyone can see that!”

     “Oh?” said my mother, as if the very sound of the word frightened her.  “And does it pay?”

     Stasia smiled indulgently.  Art was never rewarding … in the beginning … she explained most graciously.  Adding that fortunately her guardians sent her little sums from time to time.

     “I suppose you have a studio?” fired the old man.

     “Yes,” she said.  “I have a typical garret over in the Village.”

     Here Mona took over, to my distress, and in her usual way began elaborating.  I shut her off as best I could because the old man, who was swallowing it hook, line and sinker, intimated that he would look Stasia up – in her studio – some day.  He liked to see artists at work, he said.

     I soon diverted the conversation to Homer Winslow, Bourgereau, Ryder and Sisley.  (His favourites.)  Stasia lifted her eyebrows at the mention of these incongruous names.  She looked even more astonished when the old man started wheeling off the names of famous American painters whose works, as he explained, used to hang in the tailor shop.  (That is, before his predecessor sold out.)  For Stasia’s sake, since the game was on, I reminded him of Ruskin … of The Stones of Venice, the only book he had ever read.  Then I got him to reminiscing about P.T. Barnum, Jenny Lind and other celebrities of his day.

     During a lull Lorette remarked that an operetta would be given over the radio at three-thirty … would we like to hear it?

     But it was now time for the plum pudding to be served – with that delicious hard sauce – and Lorette forgot, momentarily, about the operetta.

     The mention of “three-thirty” reminded me that we still had a long session to put in.  I wondered how on earth we would manage to keep the conversation going until it was time to go.  And when would it be possible to take leave without seeming to rush off?  Already my scalp was itching.

     Musing thus, I became more and more aware that Mona and Stasia were heavy with sleep.  It was obvious that they could scarcely keep their eyes open.  What subject could I bring up which would excite them without at the same time causing them to lose their heads?  Something trivial, yet not too trivial.  (Wake up, you louts!)  Something, perhaps, about the ancient Egyptians?  Why them?  To save my life, I couldn’t think of anything better.  Try!  Try!

     Suddenly I realized that all was silence.  Even Lorette had clammed up.  How long had this been going on?  Think fast!  Anything to break the deadlock.  What, Rameses again?  Fuck Rameses!  Think quick, idiot!  Think!  Anything!

     “Did I ever tell you…?” I began.

     “Excuse me,” said Mona, rising heavily and knocking the chair over as she did so, “but do you mind if I were to lie down for just a few minutes?  I’ve got a splitting headache.”

     The couch was only a foot or two away.  Without further ado she sank on to it and closed her eyes.

     (For Christ’s sake, don’t snore immediately!)

     “She must be worn out,” said my father.  He looked at Stasia.  “Why don’t you take a little snooze too?  It will do you good.”

     She needed no coaxing, Stasia.  In a jiffy she stretched herself out beside the lifeless Mona.

     “Get a blanket,” said my mother to Lorette.  “That thin one upstairs in the closet.”

     The couch was a bit too narrow to hold the two of them comfortably.  They turned and twisted, groaned, giggled, yawned disgracefully.  Suddenly, bango! the springs gave way and on to the floor tumbled Stasia.  To Mona it was excruciatingly funny.  She laughed and laughed.  Much too loudly to suit me.  But then, how could she know that this precious couch which had held up nigh on to fifty years might have lasted another ten or twenty years with proper care?  In “our” house one didn’t laugh callously over such a mishap.

     Meanwhile my mother, stiff as she was, had got down on hands and knees to see how and where the couch had given way.  (The sofa, they called it.)  Stasia lay where she had fallen, as if waiting for instructions.  My mother moved round and about her much as a beaver might work about a fallen tree.  Lorette now appeared with the blanket.  She watched the performance as if stupefied.  (Nothing like this should ever have happened.)  The old man, on the other hand, never any good at fixing anything, had gone to the back yard in search of bricks.  “Where’s the hammer?” my mother was saying.  The sight of my father with an armful of bricks roused her scorn.  She was going to fix it properly – and immediately.

     “Later,” said the old man.  “They want to snooze now.”  With that he got down on all fours and shoved the bricks under the sagging springs.

     Stasia now raised herself from the floor, just sufficiently to slide back on to the couch, and turned her face to the wall.  They lay spoon fashion, peaceful as exhausted chipmunks.  I took my seat at the table and watched the ritual of clearing the table.  I had witnessed it a thousand times, and the manner of doing it never varied.  In the kitchen it was the same.  First things first….

     “What cunning bitches!” I thought to myself.  It was they who should be clearing the table and washing the dishes.  A headache!  As simple as that, maybe, since I knew all the moves.  Now it wouldn’t matter what came up for discussion – dead cats, last year’s cockroaches, Mrs Schwabenhof’s ulcers, last Sunday’s sermon, carpet sweepers, Weber and Fields or the lay of the last minstrel.  I would keep my eyes open no matter if it lasted till midnight.  (How long would they sleep, the sots?)  If they felt rested on waking perhaps they wouldn’t mind too much how long we stayed.  I knew we would have to have a bite before going.  One couldn’t sneak away at five or six o’clock.  Not on Christmas Day.  Nor could we get away without gathering around the tree and singly that ghastly song – “O Tannenbaum!”  And that was sure to be followed by a complete catalogue of all the trees we ever had and how they compared with one another, of how eager I was, when a boy, to see what gifts were piled up for me beneath the Christmas tree.  (Never any mention of Lorette as a girl.)  What a wonderful boy I was!  Such a reader, such a good piano player!  And the bikes I had and the roller skates.  And the air rifle.  (No mention of my revolver.)  Was it still in the drawer where the knives and forks were kept?  That was a really bad moment she gave us, my mother, the night she went for the revolver.  Fortunately there wasn’t a cartridge in the barrel.  She probably knew as much.  Just the same….

No, nothing had changed.  At the age of twelve the clock had stopped.  No matter what anyone whispered in their ears, I was always that darling little boy who would one day grow up to be a full-fledged merchant tailor.  All that nonsense about writing … I’d get over it sooner or later.  And this bizarre new wife … she’d fade away too, in time.  Eventually I would come to my senses.  Everyone does, sooner or later.  They weren’t worried that, like dear old Uncle Paul, I would do myself in.  I wasn’t the sort.  Besides, I had a head on me.  Sound at bottom, so to say.  Wild and wayward, nothing more.  Read too much … had too many worthless friends.  They would take are not to mention the name but soon, I knew, would come the question, always furtively, always in smothered tones, eyes right, eyes left – “And how is the little one?”  Meaning my daughter.  And I who hadn’t the slightest idea, who wasn’t even sure that she was still alive, would reply in a calm, matter of fact way: “Oh, she’s fine, yes.”  “Yes?” my mother would say.  “And have you heard from them?”  Them was by was of including my ex-wife.  “Indirectly,” I would reply.  “Stanley tells me about them now and then.”  “And how is he, Stanley?”  “Just fine …”

     How I wish I might talk to them about Johnny Paul.  But that they would think strange, very strange.  Why, I hadn’t seen Johnny Paul since I was seven or eight.  True enough.  But what they never suspected, particularly you, my dear mother, was that all these years I had kept his memory alive.  Yes, as the years roll on, Johnny Paul stands out brighter and brighter.  Sometimes, and this is beyond all your imagining, sometimes I think of him as a little god.  One of the very few I have ever known.  You don’t remember, I suppose, that Johnny Paul had the softest, gentlest voice a man could have?  You don’t know that, though I was only a tike at the time, I saw through his eyes what no one else ever revealed to me?  He was just the coalman’s son to you: an immigrant boy, a dirty little Italian who didn’t speak English too well but who tipped his hat politely whenever you passed.  How could you possibly dream that such a specimen should be as a god to your darling son?  Did you ever know anything that passed through the mind of your wayward son?  You approved neither of the books he read, nor the companions he chose, nor the girls he fell in love with, nor the games he played, nor the things he wanted to be.  You always knew better, didn’t you?  But you didn’t press down too hard.  Your way was to pretend not to hear, not to see.  I would get over all this foolishness in due time.  But I didn’t!  I got worse each year.  So you pretended that at twelve the clock had stopped.  You simply couldn’t recognize your son for what he was.  You chose the me which suited you.  The twelve-year-old.  After that the deluge….

     And next year, at this same ungodly season of the year, you will probably ask me all over again if I am still writing and I will say yes and you will ignore it or treat it like a drop of wine that was accidentally spilled on your best tablecloth.  You don’t want to know why I write, nor would you care if I told you why.  You want to nail me to the chair, make me listen to the shit-mouthed radio.  You want me to sit and listen to your inane gossip about neighbours and relatives.  You would continue to do this to me even if I were rash enough, or bold enough, to inform you in the most definite terms that everything you talk about is so much horse shit to me.  Here I sit and already I’m in it up to the neck, this shit.  Maybe I’ll try a new tack – pretend that I’m all agog, all a-twitter.  “What’s the name of that operetta?  Beautiful voice.  Just beautiful!  Ask them to sing it again … and again … and again!”  Or I may sneak upstairs and fish out those old Caruso records.  He had such a lovely voice, didn’t he now?  (“Yes, thank you, I will have a cigar.”)  But don’t offer me another drink, please.  My eyes are gathering sand; it’s only age-old rebellion that keeps me awake at all.  What I wouldn’t give to steal upstairs to that tiny, dingy hall bedroom without a chair, a rug or a picture, and sleep the sleep of the dead!  How many, many times, when I threw myself on that bed, I prayed that I would never more open my eyes!  Once, do you remember, my dear mother, you threw a pail of cold water over me because I was a lazy, good-for-nothing bum.  It’s true, I had been lying there for forty-eight hours.  But was it laziness that kept me pinned to the mattress?  What you didn’t know, mother, was that it was heartbreak.  You would have laughed that off, too, had I been fool enough to confide in you.  That horrible, horrible little bedroom!  I must have died a thousand deaths there.  But I also had dreams and visions there.  Yes, I even prayed in that bed, with huge wet tears rolling down my cheeks.  (How I wanted her, and only her!)  And when that failed, when at long last I was ready and able to rise and face the world again, there was only one dear companion I could turn to: my bike.  Those long, seemingly endless spins, just me and myself, driving the bitter thoughts into my arms and legs, pushing, plugging away, slithering over the smooth gravelled paths like the wind, but to no avail.  Every time I dismounted her image was there, and with it the backwash of pain, doubt, fear.  But to be in the saddle, and not at work, that was indeed a boon.  The bike was part of me, it responded to my wishes.  Nothing else ever did.  No, my dear blind heartless parents, nothing you ever said to me, nothing you did for me, ever gave me the joy and the comfort which that racing machine did.  If only I could take you apart, as I did my bike, and oil and grease you lovingly!

     “Wouldn’t you like to take a walk with father?”

     It was my mother’s voice which roused me from my reverie.  How I had drifted to the armchair I couldn’t remember.  Maybe I had snoozed a bit without knowing it.  Anyway, at the sound of her voice I jumped.

     Rubbing my eyes, I observed that she was proffering me a cane.  It was my grandfather’s.  Solid ebony with a silver handle in the form of a fox – or perhaps it was a marmoset.

     In a jiffy I was on my feet and bundling into my overcoat.  My father stood ready, flourishing his ivory-knobbed walking stick.  “The air will brace you up,” he said.

     Instinctively we headed for the cemetery.  He liked to walk through the cemetery, not that he was so fond of the dead but because of the trees and flowers, the birds, and the memories which the peace of the dead always evoked.  The paths were dotted with benches where one could sit and commune with Nature, or the god of the underworld, if one liked.  I didn’t have to strain myself to keep up conversation with my father; he was used to my evasive, laconic replies, my weak subterfuges.  He never tried to pump me.  That he had someone beside him was enough.

     On the way back we passed the school I had attended as a boy.  Opposite the school was a row of mangy-looking flats, all fitted out with shop-fronts as alluring as a row of decayed teeth.  Tony Marella had been reared in one of these flats.  For some reason my father always expected me to become enthusiastic at the mention of Tony Marella’s name.  He never failed to inform me, when mentioning the name, of each new rise on the ladder of fame which this dago’s son was making.  Tony had a big job now in some branch of the Civil Service; he was also running for office, as a Congressman or something.  Hadn’t I read about it?  It would be a good thing, he thought, if I were to look Tony up some time … never could tell what it might lead to.

     Still nearer home we passed the house belonging to the Gross family.  The two Gross boys were also doing well, he said.  One was a captain in the army, the other a commodore.  Little did I dream, as I listened to him ramble on, that one of them would one day become a general.  (The idea of a general born to that neighbourhood, that street, was unthinkable.)

     “Whatever became of the crazy guy who lived up the street?” I asked.  “You know, where the stables were.”

     “He had a hand bitten off by a horse and gangrene set in.”

     “You mean he’s dead?”

     “A long time,” said my father.  “In fact, they’re all dead, all the brothers.  One was struck by lightening, another slipped on the ice and broke his skull…. Oh yes, and the other had to be put in a straitjacket … died of a haemorrhage soon after.  The father lived the longest.  He was blind you remember.  Toward the end he became a bit dotty.  Did nothing but make mousetraps.”

     Why, I asked myself, had I never thought of going from house to house, up and down this street, and writing a chronicle of the lives of its denizens?  What a book it would have made!  The Book of Horrors.  Such familiar horrors, too.  Those everyday tragedies which never quite make the front page.  De Maupassant would have been in his element here….

     We arrived to find everyone wide awake and chatting amiably.  Mona and Stasia were sipping coffee.  They had probably asked for it; my mother would never dream of serving coffee between meals.  Coffee was only for breakfast, card parties and kaffeeklatches.  However….

     “Did you have a good walk?”

     “Yes, mother.  We strolled through the cemetery.”

     “That’s nice.  Were the graves in good condition?”

     She was referring to the family burial place.  More particularly her father’s grave.

     “There’s a place for you too,” she said.  “And for Lorette.”

     I stole a glance at Stasia to see if she were keeping a straight face.  Mona now spoke up.  A most inopportune remark it was too.

     “He’ll never die,” were her words.

     My mother made a wry face, as if she had bitten into a tart plum.  Then she smiled compassionately, first at Mona, then at me.  Indeed she was almost at the point of laughter when she answered: “Don’t worry, he’ll go like all of us.  Look at him – he’s already bald and he’s only in his thirties.  He doesn’t take care of himself.  Nor you either.”  Her look now changed to one of benevolent reproval.

     “Val’s a genius,” said Mona, putting her foot in still deeper.  She was about to amplify but my mother stalled her.

     “Do you have to be a genius to write stories?” she asked.  There was an ominous challenge in her tone.

     “No,” said Mona, “but Val would be a genius even if he didn’t write.”

     “Tsch tsch!  He certainly is no genius at making money.”

     “He shouldn’t think about money,” came Mona’s quick reply.  “That’s for me to worry about.”

     “While he stays home and scribbles, is that it?”  The venom had started to flow.  “And you, a handsome young woman like you, you have to go out and take a job.  Times have changed.  When I was a girl my father sat on the bench from morning till night.  He earned the money.  He didn’t need inspiration … nor genius.  He was too busy keeping us children alive and happy.  We had no mother … she was in the insane asylum.  But we had him – and we loved him dearly.  He was father and mother to us.  We never lacked for anything.”  She paused a moment, to take a good aim.  “But this fellow,” and she nodded in my direction, “this genius, as you call him, he’s too lazy to take a job.  He expects his wife to take care of him – and his other wife and child.  If he earned anything from his writing I wouldn’t mind.  But to go on writing and never get anywhere, that I don’t understand.”

     “But mother …” Mona started to say.

     “Look here,” said I, “hadn’t we better drop the subject?  We’ve been all over this dozens of times.  It’s no use.  I don’t expect you to understand.  But you should understand this…. Your father didn’t become a first-class coat maker overnight, did he?  You told me yourself that he served a long, hard apprenticeship, that he travelled from town to town, all over Germany, and finally, to avoid the army, he went to London.  It’s the same with writing.  It takes years to acquire mastery.  And still more years to attain recognition.  When your father made a coat there was someone ready to wear it; he didn’t have to peddle it around until someone admired it and bought it….”

     “You’re just talking,” said my mother.  “I’ve heard enough.”  She rose to go to the kitchen.

     “Don’t go!” begged Mona.  “Listen to me, please.  I know Val’s faults.  But I also know what’s in him.  He’s not an idle dreamer, he really works.  He works harder at his writing than he possibly could at any job.  That is his job, scribbling, as you call it.   It’s what he was born to do.  I wish to God I had a vocation, something I could pursue with all my heart, something I believed in absolutely.  Just to watch him at work gives me joy.  He’s another person when he’s writing.  Sometimes even I don’t recognize him.  He’s so earnest, so full of thoughts, so wrapped up in himself…. Yes, I too had a good father, a father I loved dearly.  He also wanted to be a writer.  But his life was too difficult.  We were a big family immigrants, very poor.  And my mother was very exacting.  I was drawn to my father much more than to my mother.  Perhaps just because he was a failure.  He wasn’t a failure to me, understand, I loved him.  It didn’t matter to me what he was or what he did.  At times, just like Val here, he would make a clown of himself….”

     Here my mother gave a little start, looked at Mona with curious eyes, and said – “Oh?”  Evidently, no one had ever expatiated on this aspect of my personality before.

     “I know he has a sense of humour,” she said, “but … a clown?”

     “That’s only her way of putting it,” the old man threw in.

     “No,” said Mona doggedly, “I mean just that … a clown.”

     “I never heard of a writer being a clown too,” was my mother’s sententious, asinine remark.

     At this point anyone else would have given up.  Not Mona.  She amazed me by her persistence.  This time she was all earnestness.  (Or was she exploiting this opportunity to convince me of her loyalty and devotion?)  Anyway, I decided to let her have full swing.  Better a good argument, whatever the risk, than the other sort of lingo.  It was revivifying, if nothing more.

     “When he acts the buffoon,” said Mona, “it’s usually because he’s been hurt.  He’s sensitive, you know.  Too sensitive.”

     “I thought he had a pretty thick hide,” said my mother.

     “You must be joking.  He’s the most sensitive being alive.  All artists are sensitive.”

     “That’s true,” said my father.  Perhaps he was thinking of Ruskin – or of that poor devil Ryder whose landscapes were morbidly sensitive.

     “Look, mother, it doesn’t matter how long it takes for Val to be recognized and given his due.  He’ll always have me.  And I won’t let him starve or suffer.”  (I could feel my mother freezing up again.)  “I saw what happened to my father; it’s not going to happen to Val.  He’s going to do as he likes.  I have faith in him.  And I’ll continue to have faith in him even if the whole world denies him.”  She paused a long moment, then even more seriously she continued: “Why it is you don’t want him to write is beyond me.  It can’t be because he isn’t earning a living at it.  That’s his worry and mine, isn’t it?  I don’t mean to hurt you by what I say, but I’ve got to say this – if you don’t accept him as a writer you’ll never have him as a son.  How can you understand him if you don’t know this side of him?  Maybe he could have been something else, something you like better, though it’s hard to see what once you know him … at least, as I know him.  And what good would it do for him to prove to you or me or anyone that he can be like anyone else?  You wonder if he’s a good husband, a good father, and so on.  He is, I can tell you that.  But he’s so much more!  What he has to give belongs to the whole world, not merely to his family, his children, his mother or his father.  Perhaps this sounds strange to you.  Or cruel?”

     “Fantastic!” said my mother, and it cut like a whip.

     “All right, fantastic then.  But that’s how it is.  One day you may read what he’s written and be proud of having him for a son.”

     “Not I!” said my mother.  “I’d rather see him digging ditches.”

     “He may have to do that too – some day,” said Mona.  “Some artists commit suicide before they’re recognized.  Rembrandt finished his life in the streets, as a beggar.  And he was one of the greatest….”

     “And what about Van Gogh?” chirped Stasia.

     “Who’s that?” said my mother.  “Another scribbler?”

     “No, a painter.  A mad painter too.”  Stasia’s ruff was rising.

     “They all sound like crackpots to me,” said my mother.

     Stasia burst out laughing.  Harder and harder she laughed.  “And what about me?” she cried.  “Don’t you know that I’m also a crackpot?”

     “But an adorable one,” said Mona.

     “I’m plumb crazy, that’s what!” said Stasia, chortling some more.  “Everyone knows it.”

     I could see that my mother was frightened.  It was all right to banter the word crackpot about, but to confess to being mad, that was another matter.

     It was my father who saved the situation.  “One’s a clown,” said he, “the other’s a crackpot, and what are you?”  He was addressing himself to Mona.  “Isn’t there something wrong with you?”

     She smiled and answered blithely: “I’m perfectly normal.  That’s what’s the trouble with me.”

     He now turned to my mother.  “Artists are all alike.  They have to be a little mad to paint – or to write.  What about our old friend John Imhof?”

     “What about him?” said my mother, glaring at him uncomprehendingly.  “Did he have to run away with another woman, did he have to desert his wife and children to prove that he was an artist?”

     “That’s not what I mean at all.”  He was getting more and more irritated with her, knowing only too well how stubborn and obtuse she could be.  “Don’t you remember the look on his face when we would surprise him at work?  There he was, in that little room, painting watercolours after everyone had gone to bed.”  He turned to Lorette.  “Go upstairs and fetch that painting that hangs in the parlour, will you?  You know, the one with man and woman in the rowboat … the man has a bundle of hay on his back.”

     “Yes,” said my mother pensively, “he was a good man, John Imhof, until his wife took to drink.  Though I must say he never showed much interest in his children.  He thought of nothing but his art.”

     “He was a good artist,” said my father.  “Beautiful work.  Do you remember the stained-glass windows he made for the little church around the corner?  And what did he get for his labour?  Hardly anything.  No, I’ll always remember John Imhof, no matter what he did.  I only wish we had more of his work.”

     Lorette now appeared with the painting.  Stasia took it from her and examined it, apparently with keen interest.  I was fearful lest she say something about it being too academic but no, she was all tact and discretion.  She remarked that it was beautifully executed … very skilful.

     “It’s not an easy medium,” she said.  “Did he ever do oils?  I’m not a very good judge of watercolours.  But I can see that he knew what he was about.”  She paused.  Then, as if she had divined the right tack, she said: “There’s one water colourist I really admire.  That’s –“

     “John Singer Sargent!” exclaimed my father.

     “Right!” said Stasia.  “How did you know that?  I mean, how did you know I had him in mind?”

     “There’s only one Sargent,” said my father.  It was a pronouncement he had heard many times from the lips of his predecessor, Isaac Walker.  “There’s only one Sargent, just as there’s only one Beethoven, one Mozart, one da Vinci…. Right?”

     Stasia beamed.  She felt emboldened to speak her mind now.  She gave me a look, as she opened her mouth, which said – “Why didn’t you tell me these things about your father?”

     “I’ve studied them all,” she said “and now I’m trying to find myself.  I’m not quite as mad as I pretended a moment ago.  I know more than I can ever digest, that’s all.  I have talent but not genius.  Without genius, nothing matters.  And I want to be a Picasso … a female Picasso.  Not a Marie Laurencin.  You see what I mean?”

     “Certainly!” said my father.  My mother, incidentally, had left the room.  I could hear her fiddling around with the pots and pans.  She had suffered a defeat.

     “He copied that from a famous painting,” said my father, indicating John Imhof’s watercolour.

     “It’s doesn’t matter,” said Stasia.  “Many artists have copied the works of the men they loved…. But what did you say happened to him … this John In -?”

     “He ran away with another woman.  Took her to Germany, where he had known her as a boy.  Then the war came and we heard no more from him.  Killed probably.”

     “How about Raphael, do you like his work?”

     “No greater draughtsman ever,” said my father promptly.  “And Correggio – there was another grand painter.  And Corot!  You can’t beat a good Corot, can you?  Gainsborough I never cared much for.  But Sisley….”

     “You seem to know them all,” said Stasia, ready now to play the game all night.  “How about the moderns … do you like them too?”

     “You mean John Sloan, George Luks … those fellows?”

     “No,” said Stasia, “I mean men like Picasso, Miro, Matisse, Modigliani….”

     “I haven’t kept up with them,” said my father.  “But I do like the Impressionists, what I’ve seen of their work.  And Renoir, of course.  But then, he’s not modern, is he?”

     “In a way, yes,” said Stasia.  “He helped to pave the way.”

     “He certainly loved paint, you can see that,” said my father.  “And he was a good draughtsman.  All his portraits of women and children are strikingly beautiful; they stick with you.  And then the flowers and the costumes … everything so gay, so tender, so alive.  He painted his time, you’ve got to admit that.  And it was a beautiful period – Gay Paree, picnics along the Seine, the Moulin Rouge, lovely gardens….”

     “You make me think of Toulouse-Lautrec,” said Stasia.

     “Monet, Pissarro….”

     “Pointcaré!” I put in.

     “Strindberg!”  This from Mona.

     “Yeah, there was an adorable madman,” said Stasia.

     Here my mother stuck her head in.  “Still talking about madmen?  I thought you had finished with that subject.”  She looked from one to the other of us, saw that we were enjoying ourselves, and turned tail.  Too much for her.  People had no right to be merry talking art.  Besides, the very mention of these strange, foreign names offended her.  Un-American.

     Thus the afternoon wore on, far better than I had expected, thanks to Stasia.  She had certainly made a hit with the old man.  Even when he good-naturedly remarked that she should have been a man, nothing was made of it.

     When the family album was suddenly produced she became almost ecstatic.  What a galaxy of screwballs!  Uncle Theodore from Hamburg: a sort of dandified prick.  Uncle Schindler from Bremen: a sort of Hessian Beau Brummel who clung to the style of the 1880s right up to the end of the first world war.  Heinrich Müller, my father’s father, from Bavaria: a ringer for the Emperor Franz Joseph.  George Insel, the family idiot, who stared like a crazy billy-goat from behind a huge pair of twirling moustaches, à la Kaiser Wilhelm.  The women were more enigmatic.  My mother’s mother, who had spent half of her life in the insane asylum: might have been a heroine out of one of Walter Scott’s novels.  Aunt Lizzie, the monster who had slept with her own brother: a merry looking harridan with bloated rats in her hair and a smile that cut like a knife.  Aunt Annie, in a bathing suit of pre-war vintage, looking like a Mack Sennett zany ready for the doghouse.  Aunt Amelia, my father’s sister: an angel with soft brown eyes … all beatitude.  Mrs. Kicking, the old housekeeper: definitely screwy, ugly as sin, her mug riddled with warts and carbuncles….

     Which brought us to the subject of genealogy….In vain I piled them with questions.  Beyond their own parents all was vague and dubious.

     But hadn’t their parents ever talked of their kin?

     Yes, but it was all dim now.

     “Were any of them painters?” asked Stasia.

     Neither my mother nor my father thought so.

     “But there were poets and musicians,” said my mother.

     “And sea captains and peasants,” said my father.

     “Are you sure of that?” I asked.

     “Why are you so interested in all that stuff?” said my mother.  “They’ve all been dead a long time.”

     “I want to know,” I replied.  “Some day I’ll go to Europe and find out for myself.”

     “A wild goose chase,” she retorted.

     “I don’t care.  I’d like to know more about my ancestors.  Maybe they were all German.”

     “Yes,” said Mona, “maybe there’s some Slavic blood in the family.”

     “Sometimes he looks very Mongolian,” said Stasia innocently.

     This struck my mother as utterly ridiculous.  To her a Mongolian was an idiot.

     “He’s an American,” she said.  “We’re all Americans now.”

     “Yes,” Lorette piped up.

     “Yes, what?” said my father.

     “He’s an American too,” said Lorette.  Adding: “But he reads too much.”

     We all burst out laughing.

     “And he doesn’t go to church any more.”

     “That’s enough,” said my father.  “We don’t go to church either, but we’re Christians just the same.”

     “He has too many Jewish friends.”

     Again a laugh all around.

     “Let’s have something to eat,” said my father.  “I’m sure they’ll want to be getting home soon.  Tomorrow’s another day.”

     Once again the table was spread.  A cold snack, this time, with tea and more plum pudding.  Lorette sniffled throughout.

     An hour later we were bidding them goodbye.

     “Don’t catch cold,” said my mother.  “It’s three blocks to the L station.”  She knew we would take a taxi, but it was a word, like art, which she hated to mention.

     “Will we see you soon?” asked Lorette at the gate.

     “I think so,” said I.

     “For New Year’s?”

     “Maybe.”

     “Don’t make it too long,” said my father gently.  “And good luck with the writing!”

     At the corner we hailed a taxi.

     “Whew!” said Stasia, as we piled in.

     “Not too bad, was it?” said I.

     “No-o-o-.  Thank God I have no relatives to visit.”

     We settled back in our seats.  Stasia kicked off her shoes.

     “That album!” said Stasia.  “I’ve never seen such a collection of half-wits.  It’s a miracle you’re sane, do you realize that?”

     “Most families are like that,” I replied.  “The tree of man is nothing but a huge Tannenbaum glistening with ripe, polished maniacs.  Adam himself must have been a lopsided, one-eyed monster…. What we need is a drink.  I wonder if there’s any Kümmel left?”

     “I like your father,” said Mona.  “There’s a lot of him in you, Val.”

     “But his mother!” said Stasia.

     “What about her?” said I.

     “I’d have strangled her years ago,” said Stasia.

     Mona thought this funny.  “A strange woman,” she said.  “Reminds me a little of my own mother.  Hypocrites.  And stubborn as mules.  Tyrannical too, and narrow-minded.  No love in them, not an ounce.”

     “I’ll never be a mother,” said Stasia.  We all laughed.  “I’ll never be a wife either.  Jesus, it’s hard enough to be a woman.  I hate women!  They’re all nasty bitches, even the best of them.  I’ll be what I am – a female impersonator.  And don’t even make me dress like this again, please.  I feel like an utter fool – and a fraud.”

     Back in the basement, we got out the bottles.  There was Kümmel all right, and brandy, rum, Benedictine, Cointreau.  We brewed some strong black coffee, sat down at the gut table, and took to chatting like old friends.  Stasia had removed her corset.  It hung over the back of her chair, like a relic from the museum.

     “If you don’t mind,” she said, “I’m going to let my breasts hang out.”  She fondled them lovingly.  “They’re not too bad, do you think?  Could be a little fuller perhaps … I’m still a virgin.”

     “Wasn’t that strange,” she said, “his mentioning Correggio?  Do you think he really knows anything about Correggio?”

     “It’s possible,” I said.  “He used to attend the auctions with that Isaac Walker his predecessor.  He might even be acquainted with Cimabue or Carpaccio.  You should hear him on Titian sometime!  You’d think he had studied with him.”

     “I’m all mixed up,” said Stasia, dosing herself with another brandy.  “Your father talks painters, your sister talks music, and your mother talks about the weather.  Nobody knows anything about anything, really.  They’re like mushrooms talking together…. That must have been a weird walk you had, through the cemetery.  I’d have gone out of my mind!”

     “Val doesn’t mind it,” said Mona.  “He can take it.”

     “Why?” said Stasia.  “Because he’s a writer?  More material, is that it?”

     “Maybe,” said I.  “Maybe you have to wade through rivers of shit to find a germ of reality.”

     “Not me,” said Stasia.  “I prefer the Village, faky as it is.  At least you can air your views there.”

     Mona now spoke up.  She had just had a bright idea.  “Why don’t we all go to Europe?”

     “Yes,” said Stasia airily, “why don’t we?”

     “We can manage it,” said Mona.

     “Certainly,” said Stasia.  “I can always borrow the passage money.”

     “And how would we live, once there?” I wanted to know.

     “Like we do here,” said Mona.  “It’s simple.”

     “And what language would we speak?”

     “Everybody knows English, Val.  Besides, there are loads of Americans in Europe.  Especially in France.”

     “And we’d sponge on them, is that it?”

     “I didn’t say that.  I say if you really want to go, there’s always a way.”

     “We could model,” said Stasia.  “Or Mona could.  I’m too hairy.”

     “And me, what would I do?”

     “Write!” said Mona.  “That’s all you can do.”

     “I wish it were true,” said I.  I rose and began to pace the floor.

     “What’s eating you?” they asked.

     “Europe!  You dangle it in front of me like a piece of raw bait.  You’re the dreamers, not me!  Sure, I’d like to go.  You don’t know what it does to me when I hear the word.  It’s like a promise of a new life.  But how to make a living there?  We don’t know a word of French, we’re not clever … all we know is how to fleece people.  And we’re not even good at that.”

     “You’re too serious,” said Mona.  “Use your imagination!”

     “Yes,” said Stasia, “you’ve got to take a chance.  Think of Gauguin!”

     “Or of Lafcadio Hearn!” said Mona.

     “Or of Jack London!” said Stasia.  “One can’t wait until everything’s rosy.”

     “I know, I know.”  I took a seat and buried my head in my hands.

     Suddenly Stasia exclaimed: “I have it … we’ll go first, Mona and I, and send for you when things are lined up.  How’s that?”

     To this I merely grunted.  I was only half listening.  I wasn’t following them, I had preceded them.  I was already tramping the streets of Europe, chatting with passsers-by, sipping a drink on a crowded terrace.  I was alone but not the least bit lonely.  The air smelled different, the people looked different.  Even the trees and flowers were different.  How I craved that – something different!  To be able to talk freely, to be understood, to be accepted.  A land of true kinsfolk, that’s what Europe meant to me.  The home of the artist, the vagabond, the dreamer.  Yes, Gauguin had had a rough time of it, and Van Gogh even worse.  There were thousands, no doubt, whom we never knew of, never heard of, who went down, who faded out of sight without accomplishing anything….

     I rose wearily, more exhausted by the prospect of going to Europe, even if only in the mind, than by the tedious hours spent in the bosom of the family.

     “I’ll get there yet,” said I to myself as I made ready for bed.  “If they could do it, so can I.”  (By “they” I meant both the illustrious ones and the failures.)  “Even the birds make it.”

     Carried away by the thought, I had a picture of myself as another Moses, leading my people out of the wilderness.  To stem the tide, reverse the process, start a grand march backward, back toward the source!  Empty this vast wilderness called America, drain it of all its pale faces, halt the meaningless hustle and bustle … hand the continent back to the Indians … what a triumph that would be!  Europe would stand aghast at the spectacle.  Have they gone mad, deserting the land of milk and honey?  Was it only a dream, then, America?  Yes! I would shout.  A bad dream at that.  Let us begin all over again.  Let us make new cathedrals, let us sing again in unison, let us make poems not of death but of life!  Moving like a wave shoulder to shoulder, doing only what is necessary and vital, building only what will last, creating only for joy.  Let us pray again, to the unknown god, but in earnest, with all our hearts and souls.  Let the thought of the future not make us into slaves.  Let the day be sufficient unto itself.  Let us open our hearts and our homes.  No more melting pots!  Only the pure metals, the noblest, the most ancient.  Give us leaders again, and hierarchies, guilds, craftsmen, poets, jewellers, statesmen, scholars, vagabonds, mountebanks.  And pageants, not parades.  Festivals, processions, crusades. Talk for the love of talk; work for the love of work; honour for the love of honour….

     The word honour brought me to.  It was like an alarm clock ringing in my ears.  Imagine, the louse in his crevice talking honour!  I sank deeper into the bed and, as I dozed off, I saw myself holding a tiny American flag and waving it: the good old Stars and Stripes.  I held it in my right hand, proudly, as I set forth in search of work.  Was it not my privilege to demand work, I, a full-fledged American citizen, the son of respectable parents, a devout worshipper of the radio, a democratic hooligan committed to progress, race prejudice and success?  Marching towards the job, with a promise on my lips to make my children even more American than their parents, to turn them into guinea pigs, if need be, for the welfare of our glorious Republic.  Give me a rifle to shoulder and a target to shoot at!  I’ll prove whether I’m a patriot or not.  America for Americans, forward march!  Give me liberty or give me death!  (What’s the difference?)  One nation, indivisible, et cetera, et cetera.  Vision 20-20, ambition boundless, past stainless, energy inexhaustible, future miraculous.  No diseases, no dependants, no complexes, no vices.  Born to work like a Trojan, to fall in line, to salute the flag – the American flag – and ever ready to betray the enemy.  All I ask, mister, is a chance.

     “Too late!” comes a voice from the shadows.

     “Too late?  How’s that?”

     “Because!  Because there are 26,595,493 others ahead of you, all full-blown catalepts and of pure stainless steel, all one hundred percent to the backbone, each and every one of them approved by the Board of Health, the Christian Endeavour Society, the Daughters of the Revolution and the Ku Klux Klan.”

     “Give me a gun!” I beg.  “Give me a shotgun so that I may blow my head off!  This is ignominious.”

     And it was indeed ignominious.  Worse, it was so much certified horseshit.

     “Fuck you!” I squeaked.  “I know my rights.”