Дэймон Найт - Orbit 9

He won’t be coming round anymore. You can take your Joan Baez records out of the cupboard and put them back on the shelf with the others. You can stop putting new paper in the typewriter every day. You can put away the notebooks for your novel. You can get rid of the French books on Fourth Avenue or in Soho and you don’t have to dust off Heidegger any longer, you can just let it sit there on the table till it turns to dust. And. And you can tear down those wretched Cézanne reproductions. He hated them too.

I am in hospital. In Poland. Dying. They have scraped out the inside of my chest like a curetage till there’s nothing more they can scrape out but moi-meme. Which for some reason they’re reluctant to do. I have donated the organs of my body to others. Whatever they can salvage. Three times a day doctors gather at the foot of my bed and talk quietly among themselves, glancing up towards me from time to time. I lie here smoking and reading Bergson. Duration. I have the general impression that they are bargaining for the various pumps vehicles containers of my body. Wypuśc mu flaki. I am 24. Led to slaughter. I almost survived. That when it comes, not much longer now, I will hear far away in the corridors, the corridors where they would all be waiting, friends, attorneys, publishers, a few young writers, perhaps even a family, the quiet firm sound of applause.

Bump bump bump. Down the stairs. Bag slapping on your bare leg. Snow on the bottom now, I mean it this time. You always mean it. And a cab waiting. Black. And the snow. And two cups of tea on the table inside.

“I’m an American. It’s a complex fate, to be an American, Henry James. And it doesn’t matter. Any train, plane, coach, cab, that’s where I’ll always arrive. This is New York say hello. To New York. Again. No. No I don’t remember whose picture that is on the passport with me. It should say, page 9 I think. America say hello to one of your own. You’ll never lose him and he can’t get rid of you. America knows how to welcome a failure. It should. Les statues meurent aussi. And the French lady is crying into the sea. Si lourde. Sourde. Rain in the City. Noise. Smoke. Wheels. The low sob of a million machines and machinations. A thousand new plots. I am as far away as I can get now, from you. From everything. And it’s not even snowing. And there’s no beach.

Here.

The car died again today.

Each morning the grocer leaves a pound of coffee and a carton of cigarettes outside the door for me. Mail is delivered with the morning papers. Today none were there.

There is nothing on the radio. Even static.

Or maybe last night. In the dark and cold. Dying in snow. In the bright sun I gently pried open its hood, cleaned the plugs and checked they were firmly in place. Dried out the carburetor and blew into the fuel pump, opened the feed a bit wider. Scraped the battery terminals and choked it manually. It wouldn’t come around.

I can get nothing on the phone but recordings. I’ve listened to Let It Bleed four times now.

K came. As always, punctually, at ten. With breakfast in a paper bag. She is 45, close to that, old enough to be my mother but when I think of her it’s only her body I remember, her legs in tight jeans, the perfect curve of her bottom like an inverted heart, her short colourless hair and the smallness of her. Her smile and the eyes too light and soft to be blue. So much energy, so calm I think she’s never been unhappy before this. She leaves herself behind in rooms from Kensington to Mayfair. The sense of her presence so strong you hardly realise she’s gone. When she is. But she’s stopped all that. Now, she comes only to this room. Only here. And sits on the grey unmade bed. And smiles whenever I look up at her. Why. Why do you keep coming here. I ask her. A whale’s penis even in repose is taller than I am.

Next week I am being sent to another country, to learn the language. After which I am to return and teach others. I have no idea why. Nor do I seem to have much choice.

I have moved away from the window. K is painting them black and she’s turned on the radio, to listen as she works. Black. Like a bat, penis libre, tail. Jumper stretching tight to show the bra, strap and buckle, the pinch of her waist and an inch of bare skin. I think we once had a discussion of something or another.

A call from D/K. Quite upset. They were unable to pay the bill. Hospital policy, no discharge of patients until such time as the bill is met. D standing at the desk. On the white floor. In his corduroy jacket. And a bargain struck. The hospital allowed K to leave but insists upon keeping the baby. They are permitted to visit it. From 2 to 4 in the afternoon. From 6 to 8 at night. K spoke to me. I could hear D crying softly in the background.

They have taken the car. Dragging it away across the fields of broken cornstalks and through the snow. It left a thin trail of oil behind.

One of her breasts is set lower on her chest than the other. Lower and slightly off to the side, towards her arm. The nipple of that one is inverted, the other 3/4 of an inch long. The obvious facts, of her jumper. Both breasts are small. And solid under your hand. Her husband would have strong fingers.

I am burning the book. It is snowing into the sea. The radio is on. I drop the last match and look up at her. Why do you keep coming back here. They are talking about the weather again.

The pills. A white one, a green one, a red one. They are lined up as always on the bedside table. Each night beside me. And the light. In the room, si légère.

She is wearing grey slacks tonight. When she comes. Of a thick material that follows the taper of her legs down, to fit close about the ankle. Where there are white socks. The tops turned down, and loafers. Brown. Her legs are crossed at the knee. Feet at rest sur le coussin. A band of skin on the left one showing which reminds him what he once said to her, cuisine à cuisse à toi. She is always smoking. Her breasts move in the light cashmere as she inhales. Rise, then sink. With his eyes. You smoke too much.

Some instants a man knows, even as they occur, at the very moment of occurrence, he will never forget. He will carry this with him through the rest of his life. It will always be beside him. A second shadow. And the life will seem longer, or shorter, because of it. He will never be able to make it go away. Or himself from it. And he knew, now, even before the words, when he looked up and saw her there. This was one of those times.

Cher, Je lutte avec les anges de ta lettre, Jacob.

Kind of you to notice. No, Hell, I meant that. Who really cares how much someone smokes, who gives a damn, really. You do. I meant it.

Living together off and on. For twenty years now, and she hasn’t changed. Nothing about her has changed. She looks the same as that first time, twenty years ago. At the party they left together. And three days later thought to ask one another’s name. While his own age rattles inside him. Like a turtle’s blunt head. Butting dumbly, again and again, the glass slabs. That contain him.

Tu, Bientôt une réponse. Tant bien que mal. Et dès maintenant, jamais, garderais l’oiseau.

Other times she would dress in black and move about the house, moving the furniture around inside the rooms, and he couldn’t see her. Just the sound of her breath in the dark. The rasp of legs that don’t want to be changed. And once. Late, lying in bed, her plan to have a peacock tail tattooed on her bottom, in full colour. When she felt he was losing interest in her. Or she would turn up some day, maybe she’d been gone for months, with her pubic hair shaved down till just two initials remained. And maybe they would be his and maybe they wouldn’t. But he was pretending sleep. Just the sound of her breath in the dark.