William Boyd - Stars and bars

He wondered vaguely what to do for the rest of the day. Thinking of Jakob van Hoegh reminded him of his ostensible purpose in visiting Atlanta. He might as well spend some time in the library, going through the motions, see if there was anything that would conceivably justify revaluing the landscapes.

The William Russell Pullen library of Georgia State University proved happily to be not far from the Mono-park 5000 complex. Henderson paid off the taxi driver and wandered through a modern plaza with scattered fir trees and curious-looking lights. He entered through wide glass doors set in the blank brick façade. Nobody noticed him, nobody demanded credentials. He consulted a bright wall map, hummed up a few floors in a lift, asked a pretty co-ed where Fine Art was and duly discovered the relevant well-crammed rows of bookshelves.

After some time spent browsing through books on seventeenth-century Dutch painting he further confirmed his belief that Gage’s dank mundane landscapes were nothing more than that. He flicked through his notes on the paintings. ‘Demeter and Baubo’ caught his eye. ‘ Protrepticus — Clement of Alexandria.’

He sought out a reference librarian, a cheerful girl called, so the identity card of her lapel informed him, Ora Lee Emmet. Ora Lee, after some punching of keys on a VDU and a search through hefty catalogues, said that the only copy of Clement of Alexandria’s Protrepticus that they possessed was an inferior French translation on microfilm.

Half an hour later, Henderson sat before a blue screen and twiddled up the glowing text. Old Clement, as far as Henderson could make out, was ranting on at all the base and obscene rites and rituals associated with classical mythology.

“How can we be astonished at Barbarians,” Henderson translated slowly, “when the Tuscans and the rest of Greece — I blush to talk of it! — possess in the figure of Demeter a religion which is absolutely shameful?”

Henderson turned the wheel. Clement recounted the story. Demeter wanders round Greece searching for Persephone. In Eleusis, exhausted and toute desolee , she sits down by a well. Eleusis is inhabited by shepherds and swineherds. And Baubo. He translated on:

“Baubo, having received Demeter, offers her a drink (a mixture of farine, d’eau et d’une espece de menthe ). But Demeter refuses it because she is in mourning. Baubo ( tres chagrinee and deeply offended) uncovers her private parts and exhibits them to the Goddess. At this sight Demeter accepts the drink — delighted at the spectacle!”

Outraged of Alexandria railed on at the Athenians and I quoted some lines from the song of Orpheus.

“Baubo drew aside her robes to show all that was obscene. The Goddess smiled, smiled in her heart, and drank the draught from out the glancing cup.”

§

Henderson switched off the machine.

What did it all mean? A good laugh is the best medicine? Keep your sunny side up? There’s nothing worth getting that depressed about? Everything’s pointless?

He moved floor to find the classical dictionaries. There was, predictably, vast material on Demeter, of her grief and fasting after the loss of Persephone, the breaking of her fast and the ending of her mourning at Eleusis. In every version, however, that had been achieved by lambe and her dirty jokes. So who was Baubo?

Half interested, he began to leaf through other books on classical mythology looking for references on Demeter and Baubo. He found only one in Myth, Ritual and the Primitive Mind by Max Kramer.

♦

“Vulgar comedy and lewdness,” he read, “was common ritual practice. Its purpose seems originally to have been for the promotion of fertility, but it came later to be associated more generally with the dispelling of evil spirits and as a favoured antidote to gloom and despair. Thus Hercules released the hapless Cercopes — whom he was on the point of killing — when they had caused him to laugh over their jokes about his astonishingly hairy buttocks ( Melanpygos); and the same ritual significance is found in the story of Demeter and Baubo, when Baubo made Demeter laugh by raising her skirts and exposing herself to the Goddess when Demeter was in mourning for Persephone.”

♦

He sat slumped at his desk. It was late afternoon. He hadn’t worked so hard in years, and although he was exhausted he felt a vague exhilaration. He chewed on the end of his pen, suddenly remembering Irene back in New York; Bryant and Duane’s impending marriage; Sereno, Gint and Freeborn. He looked round the tranquil library, the ranked booths, the earnest students — all dressed for the athletic field, it seemed — hunched over their books. He contemplated the stacks of learned volumes piled in front of him, the dull gloss of the illustrations, the crammed rows of type…He turned his head and gazed out of a window at the sunlit towers of downtown Atlanta. What shambles waited for him out there?

He yearned suddenly for the warm security of study and research; the ostrich calm of the library; the utter pointlessness of some scholarly avenue up which he could pedantically stroll for the next decade or two. Out there, in the hot streets, in Luxora Beach, in the Gage mansion, life lounged like a gunslinger, waiting for him — nothing but hurt, dissatisfaction and baffling twists and turns ahead.

He remembered when, as a little boy, two brothers who lived along the road had briefly taken him up as a friend. They were slightly older than him — robust, dirty-kneed, wild little beggars, he recalled — who came round to his mother’s house on any pretext.

“It’s Philip and Colin,” his mother would tell him. “They want you to come out to play.”

“But I don’t want to go out and play,” he would wail. “I want to stay inside.”

He sympathized strongly with his younger self. That was exactly how he felt at the moment. He longed to stay indoors; he didn’t want to go out and play.

Thinking of his home and his childhood in this way reminded him of his quest for news of his father. He thought for a moment of telephoning New York, of asking the doorman to go through his mail to see if Drew had replied. But what if there was a letter? He couldn’t have it sent down here, and he certainly didn’t want its contents read over the phone.

He ran his fingers through his hair. Wearily he closed his books and assembled his notes and photographs. Beckman would be waiting. The time had come.

It was remarkable, Henderson thought, how swiftly anger and frustration could dispel calm and serenity no matter how assiduously these last two emotions were cultivated. He looked at his watch. Six o’clock. He had been waiting two hours at the corner of Peachtree and Edgewood for Beckman and his car. Two empty hours. Enough was enough.

He walked back to Monopark 5000 to collect his case. He had managed to secure a place in the hotel car park for Beckman’s pickup, and had left his overnight bag with a receptionist in the lobby. He would simply return to Luxora with the pickup. Too bad if that idiot was waiting at another street corner.

In the lobby he picked up his bag.

“Hope you enjoyed your stay at Monopark 5000,” the receptionist said.

“Well…I certainly won’t forget it.”

“We won’t forget you either, sir. Come back and see us again.”

“We’ll see.”

“Excuse me?”

Henderson turned. It was General Dunklebanger, checking out. He looked terrible — worn and harrowed — despite his smart uniform.

Oh Jesus, Henderson thought, this is all I need.

“Look, I’m really sorry about last night,” Henderson began. “They’d already got our rooms confused, it was nothing to do with me. Just bad luck — rotten luck, that’s all.”