Conrad Aiken - Great Circle

— I’m not angry, Berty: I don’t want to be angry: I’m hurt.

The rain answered him. Hurt? The word seemed singularly inadequate. But words in a scene were always inadequate: it was always like this: these midnight quarrels were always the same: ridiculous phrases followed by ridiculous silences, sudden shifts from fury to pathos, from the heroic to the absurd, and at last a bedside reconciliation dictated by sheer fatigue. But not tonight, not this time. No. Good God, no.

— Are you going to say anything?

No answer. His hands in his pockets, he walked into the kitchen, looked at the table, the empty tin, the tin opener, the half lemon, the sugar bowl, the spots of gin and water on the varnished wood. Still life. A cockroach signaled at him with alert antennae from the edge of the kitchen sink. The ice in the ice chest settled itself with a grating slump, metallic. Domestic interior: the persistent order that underlies all disorder, the useful tyranny of the inanimate. Say good-by to it, old fool — this is the beginning of the end. All is over. No more ice chests, shared cockroaches, fruit knives, gin rings to be mopped up with handkerchiefs. To hell with it. No more mosquitoes on the window screens in the summer evenings, to be squashed with one finger against rusty wire. The last day of the calendar, the calendar with the sacred cow. Out with it: this is the terminus. Let Rome in Tiber melt—

— Perhaps you’re right. Yes, I believe you may be right. What’s the use? How can we summarize everything in a few well-chosen words. Your life, and my life, our life together. Non si puo.… Just the same, I don’t see what you’re crying about — you’ve got what you want, haven’t you?

He looked at her quizzically: she was quieter, but he could still see her left shoulder now and then spasmodically lifted, hear the sharp intake of breath. He picked up the red Spanish grammar from the other end of the couch, seated himself where the book had lain, being very careful not to touch the slippered feet which were so close to his knee.

— Impossible to find the right words, isn’t it. Just as well read at random out of a book. For example. It is lightning, and I fear that it will rain. Is she unhappy? She appears to be so, but I cannot believe that she is so. He is sorry that he is ill, and I am sorry that he is ill. Use the subjunctive after expressions of doubting or fearing, joy or sorrow, or necessity. Mientras dure la vida —as long as life lasts. Ella está enamorada: y si lo está, que mal hay en ello ? No harm at all.

The rain answered him. No harm at all.

— Or how about this. This seems to settle everything. It seems to me; it seems to you (fam. sing.); it seems to him; it seems to us; it seems to you (fam. pl.); it seems to them, I go to bed; you go to bed (fam. sing.); he goes to bed; we go to bed; you go to bed (fam. pl.); they go to bed. All life in a nutshell, by God. We hate each other; they (masc. and fem.) hate each other. We embrace and kiss each other.… Cardinals and ordinals. We shall reach the city of Waltham before night comes on. Let us take leave of the wounded man: he slept well yesterday, and he is not moaning tonight. This is a Spanish proverb: “Although the monkey dressed in silk, she remained a monkey!” It is snowing or raining all the time in this town: we hope that the weather is better in yours.…

No answer to his lifted eyebrow: he began to feel angry again.

— I like the “fam. sing.,” don’t you? He has a toothache, and is shedding a lot of tears. If you do not prefer to lend them the pens, do not lend them the pens.

The sound of Bertha’s weeping became louder: she made a sudden convulsive gesture with her lifted elbow, turned her face farther away into the pillow, and said:

— Will you stop it, please?

— Certainly, if you like.

— I believe you have — I believe you have — no heart at all.

— Step right up, ladies and gents, and see the pig without a heart.… To drink is to live. An old Spanish proverb. Have a drink, Andy, old fellow. Yes, I will, thank you.

He sat still, staring, let the opened book slide to the floor, then rose and stood before her, jingling the silver in his pocket.

— Well, what do you suggest?

— Nothing.… Whatever you like.

— I see. You want me to make the decisions. Is that it?

No answer.

— By God, I could kill you when you take refuge in weeping and silence. It’s a damned dirty way of evading your responsibilities, if you ask me! I’m going back to the club. I don’t know where I’ll go from there. Anywhere. I’ll let you know—

He lurched into the hall, struggled into his wet coat, put his hat on, returned to the couch, where Bertha still lay motionless, squeezed her elbow once between finger and thumb, saying, “I’m off,” and a moment later found himself running along the slippery boardwalk toward Garden Street. In this street once. He got into a yellow taxi, which started moving before he had quite seated himself: he found himself on his back, and for a few seconds lay inert, uncertain whether he wanted to laugh or cry. Lights. The expensive hum of a Packard. Bertha at the opera, in the borrowed car. Mrs. Skinner, the old buzzard, sat behind them. “They were just finding each other,” she said. Just finding each other. Oh, yeah? And now they were just losing each other. One as easy as the other — now you see them and now you don’t. Close the eyes. Let the chin come to rest, where it will, on mother’s breast. Let us frolic on the hills at Arlington, under the shadow of the water tower. Wild barberry. Black-eyed Susan. Does some one see us. Is some one coming. Beams multiply in a scaffolding, the scantlings cant, the lashed ladder topples, falls, veers, descends dizzily down the booming well. She has bats in her belfry. Long sounds, long lines of sound, long lights on backs of sounds, rode like the Valkyrie , whooping through the tunnel. Let fall your chin on mother’s breast. No, you mustn’t here, this is too public, some one might see us, don’t, Andy, you’re too dreadful. The taxi ticking, Mr. Rodman said: I said: Mr. Rodman said: tu pupila es azul . Paid the bill. Saw the spittoons, garboons. The ice in the urinals, too, and the brass keys on the rack. Who’s on the rack? Beams multiply in a scaffolding, the scantlings cant, cross levers, struts and stays, footholds and handholds, giant’s jackstraws, you are lost among them, come down, oh, maid, from yonder height, get out from under before it all falls, it will fall, is falling, fam. sing. and all, go on and hoot your way into hell. Who was hooting? The dead man under the bridge, fumbling in darkness along slimy piles, bowing to the tide, felt hat in hand. Good evening, madam. Have they found me yet? Has my watch stopped ticking? What brick was it that spoke that about ticking? It was the train, over the joints, over the rails. In Rome too as the Romans too.

The silence—

— A dollar and a quarter. And ten.

— Thank you, sir.

— Don’t mention.

That probably surprised him.

The club was empty and still, opened before him spaciously and with marble echoes, followed him downstairs with subdued lights and sounds, with portraits of philosophers and a bison’s head, with shells from the Somme and a Chinese dragon on scarlet silk. The chessmen too. The Hoboken gambit? I’ll pawn my queen. The bar closed for the night, but water would do. A Lily-cup of waxed paper, cold water on greased skin.

At the locker, he refilled the silver flask, took a long burning drink, filled again, then placed six Lily-cups in a white row on the table in the bombproof, two of them filled with water: supplies for the night. Within reach of his hand, as he lay on the red divan. Better have a night-cap. Jitter might have been here, often was. You know, Andy, I think there’s something yellow about you. Close the eyes, to shut out swimming. Rest the chin on papa’s hairy chest. Not very comfortable. Screwed his head from left to right against the hard leather. Sleep drunkenly, tomato juice in morning, cold clam juice, ice water, cold shower set you right. Wake up, Andy, it’s time to get up: you have an appointment to tutor at eleven. That little Jew. Weisskopf. The long swift darkness swept over from left to right, here and there a streaked star, a dark pouring sound, the subdued roar of all blood. Bumwad, bumwad, bumwad, bumwad. Oh, bumwad. Now nausea plucking at the corners of the arid mouth, the twitch of sickness, the race between sickness and unconsciousness, the interstellar skid. The hands nerveless and placeless, now on the belly, now at the side, now hanging towards the floor, touching the cold leather, stubbornly conscious, waiting for something, afraid of sleep. Wake up, Andy, it’s time to get up. That was a footstep, near, menacing.