Robert Wilson - Julian Comstock - A Story of 22-nd Century America

“Well, to get drunk, first of all…”

“That’s a noble ambition—or at least easily achieved.”

“But not stinking drunk. Not so drunk I can’t navigate. Then it’s off to the Shade Tree Hotel.” The Shade Tree was one of those establishments in which “women sell their virtue for money, and throw in their diseases free of charge,” as Major Lampret had put it in one of his sermons. I asked Lymon whether he was not afraid, as Lampret had also put it, that he would come back “absent those three essential possessions of any decent man: his health, his savings, and his hope of salvation.”

“The women at the Shade Tree are pretty clean,” Lymon said earnestly. “And what I’m afraid of is that I’ll come back absent what I came to get, which is the satisfaction of a man’s deepest need, the unsatisfaction of which can also make him sick, or at least surly.”

He clenched his scarred fists as he said this, and I told him he was probably correct in wanting to avoid any condition that left him surly. “But shouldn’t you brace yourself up before you begin such an adventure? And I don’t mean with liquor. Have something to eat.”

“I am a little hungry,” he admitted, and I watched with a quiet pride as he puzzled out the items on the menu board. He was surprised that the word “eggs” did not begin with A, as it was pronounced—but by this time he had become resigned to the inevitable inconsistencies of the written language, and accepted them without rancor.

Both of us ordered meals, and we enjoyed them as the tavern grew busier around us. Lymon had just made quick work of a plate of boiled eggs and stewed onions when he detected an expression of astonishment on my face and said, “You look like you’ve been ambushed.”

And, in a sense, I had.

She didn’t recognize me; but—of course—I recognized her.

She had been sitting just yards away, hidden by the crowd of coarsely-attired men and women who shared her table. It would have been easy to miss her altogether. But right now she stood up, and strode through billowing pipe smoke light and humid air to the tavern’s small stage; and I knew her at once—Calyxa!

She wasn’t dressed as she had been at the Cathedral. If that Calyxa had seemed unworldly in her white surplice, this Calyxa was entirely earthbound, in a man’s black shirt a size too big for her and stiff denim trousers. [At first I had been shocked by the sight of Montreal women wearing trousers rather than skirts—in Williams Ford no respectable female wore trousers past the age of ten—but social customs vary by location, as Julian had taught me, and clothes signify differently in different parts of the world. I had lately begun to take pride in my ability to accept such unusual behavior as female trouser-wearing, and I considered myself a sophisticate, far in advance of my old crowd of Williams Ford lease-boys.]

The easy confidence of her walk suggested that she was at home in this place, and as she took the stage to genial applause I was sure of it.

“Look at that! That one’s a fireplug,” Lymon Pugh said. “Do you suppose she means to sing to us?”

“I hope so,” I said, annoyed.

“Her pants are cut too short, though. Pretty enough face, but look at the thick ankles on her.”

“I’m sure I don’t need to hear your opinion of her ankles! Her ankles are her own business.”

“They’re right there hanging off the ends of her legs—as much my business as anyone’s, I’d say!”

“No one’s business, then! Please be quiet.”

“What bit you?” Lymon asked; but he subsided, for which I was grateful.

Calyxa did begin to sing, then, in a voice that was pure but also precise and pleasingly workmanlike. She did not adopt trills, tremolos, theatrical asides, illustrative whistles, or any of those musical furbelows so common among contemporary singers. Instead she sang the songs as they had been composed: plainly, that is, deriving all her nuance from the words and melodies, and not their decorations.

Nor was she wildly demonstrative in her singing. She just clasped her hands, cleared her throat, and went at it. This was too subtle for some of the audience, judging by the occasional cries of drunken critics; but I took it as an expression of her natural modesty—a striking contrast to the songs themselves.

She performed five songs before she was finished, most of which had verses that would not have been out of place aboard the Caribou-Horn Train, or wherever less respectable people gather. At first I was dismayed by this. But I was reminded—perhaps for the first time truly convinced—of Julian’s doctrine of cultural relativism, so-called. For these songs, which had sounded so corrupt in other voices, were purified in hers. I reflected that Calyxa must have been raised among people for whom such songs and sentiments were, in effect, their daily bread, and not counted as obscene or irregular in any way. In other words her innocence was innate , and not compromised by the vulgarity of her upbringing—it was a kind of indestructible primal innocence , as I came to think of it.

Two of the songs she sang were not in English, which astonished Lymon Pugh. “That’s some nerve on her part, to sing a song in Dutch!”

“Not Dutch, Lymon, but French. The language was spoken here for centuries, and still is, in places.”

Apparently Lymon had believed there were only two kinds of human speech, American and Foreign, and he was dismayed by the news that languages were prolific, often coming packaged one per country. “Just when I learn to write a language they begin to multiply like rabbits! I tell you, Adam, there’s a catch to everything. The world is as meanly rigged as that Lucky Mug of Private Langers.”

“English will suit in most circumstances, unless you travel abroad.”

“I’ve traveled far enough, I thank you—this is as foreign a country as I care to see, even if it is America.”

I begged him once more to be quiet, as Calyxa finished her singing. She ignored the applause, stepped down from the stage with an air of calm satisfaction, and headed back to her table. I was consumed by the need to attract her attention, and I did this by standing up abruptly as she passed, nearly knocking my dinner plate onto the floor, and exclaiming in a choked voice, “Calyxa!”

I may have spoken too loudly; for she flinched, and there was a lull in the conversation in the tavern, as if some of the patrons expected violence to follow.

“Do I know you?” she asked, when she had recovered her composure.

“We met at Easter. I was in the Cathedral where you performed, before Dutch artillery closed it up. Don’t you remember? I hurt my head!”

“Oh,” she said, smiling faintly, and by this reaction causing the other customers to relax their vigilance, “the soldier with the small injury. Did you find your regiment?”

“Yes, I did—thank you very much.”

“You’re welcome,” she said, and walked on.

Naturally I had not expected her to prolong the conversation, or to ignore her friends on my behalf. Nevertheless this response was a disappointment.

“She blew you off pretty quick,” Lymon Pugh said, laughing to himself. “You’re wasting your time here, Adam. That type of woman don’t make herself available on a moment’s notice. Come to the Shade Tree, and your luck will change.”

“I won’t.” Not when my quarry was so close.

“Well, suit yourself. I have a schedule to keep.”

Lymon Pugh stood up, not as steadily as he might have, and after some exploration found the door of the tavern, and left.

I felt conspicuous sitting alone at a table when everyone else in the tavern seemed to have arrived with a party of friends; but I suppressed my uneasiness, and ordered an entire second meal, which I did not plan to eat, simply to keep the waitress from frowning at me.