Russell Hoban - My Tango With Barbara Strozzi

‘All right,’ she said. ‘I’ll start tonight then because ideas are coming to me right now. See you tomorrow.’

When we parted I watched her walk away and Moshe Leib’s words about the burden of one’s sorrow came to mind again. There’s a lot of it about, I thought. Barbara’s face came to me then, with her look of unknowing that was so characteristic of her. Perhaps it mirrored the look on my face? It’s very difficult to know anything, really, and here I was teaching people as if I knew something they didn’t. I was experienced in some ways — I was like a tracker who always found the turds of his prey but never caught the animal he was after. I stopped in at the Xanadu and ordered a large Glenfiddich.

One of the men in my group came up to me and nodded. I didn’t remember his name. ‘Geoff Wiggins,’ he said. ‘I’d like to write but I can’t think of anything to write about.’

‘Write about that then,’ I said. ‘If you do it carefully and honestly something will come to you.’

‘Does that always work for you?’ he said.

‘Sure it does. What comes to me is crap a lot of the time but that’s how it is.’

‘I guess if you were more successful you wouldn’t need to teach courses like this.’

‘And if you were capable of sitting at a desk alone you wouldn’t need to take courses like this,’ I said.

We both smiled hard at each other and he walked away.

Hoping I wouldn’t see any more familiar faces I had a look around me. Diamond Heart, definitely not a retreat, was a cruising ground offering interesting people of all sexual persuasions, most of them with a look of easy availability. It was rather like an auction where you had to be careful not to scratch your nose. It was the kind of scene I used to enjoy but now I found the whole thing dissolving into visual noise like a computer picture infected with a virus.

I had manuscripts to read but I put it off yet awhile. I finished my drink, went outside and walked back to Kirsty’s Knowe. I sat down on the still-warm grass, closed my eyes and listened to the sea. The warm summer air seemed a medium of transmission and Barbara’s face came to me then. I’d never been able to recall it accurately before but here it was utterly clear and real. I didn’t think any words, just looked at her face while the sea whispered me its secrets. At the beginning of these pages I’ve given my first impression of her that Saturday night at St James’s Clerkenwell. I described her as having a long oval face, a sullen mouth, and an up-yours expression. But attractive, I said: a face that pulled the eye. A shapely face that followed up the shapeliness of her legs and referred itself to the hidden sensuality of her body. As I looked at her now her face asserted its Strozzi attributes: the sombre eyes; the small mouth with its full underlip; the round chin that completed the juiciness of the mouth and led the eye down to the full breasts. Now my Barbara had become Barbara Strozzi and now the face flickered between the two of them, proclaiming the mystery of itself and the unknowability of Woman and sorrow. Tears rolled down my face; almost I could believe in God, or at least a demiurge. My empty hands moved as if kneading the dust of stars into wet clay. I looked up at the sky wondering what effect Mercury and Venus, all unseen, might be having on me.

Without being aware of having walked there I found myself at the guest dome where I was staying. Feeling strange but not sleepy I read Clara Petersen’s novella and several of the short bits from the group. When I fell asleep I dreamed that Barbara Strozzi kissed me and put my hand on her breast.

Next morning Constanze arrived at the group session with the pages she’d written. First I gave my comments on Clara’s ms, then I went through the short bits I’d read. I’m never brutal in my critiques but there’s no escaping the fact that some would-be writers have it and some don’t. Many of the people who take these courses have a modicum of talent but very few will ever be published because talent isn’t enough: you need the character that will drive the talent as far as it can go.

‘Are you going to read this out?’ I said to Constanze.

‘Yes,’ she said, taking up a position at the front. ‘This is the first chapter of a novel and the title is Uncle William’s Lap.’

‘You’ve been doing this to me since I was ten,’ I said.

He smiled down at me while he took his pleasure. ‘Well, love,’ he said, ‘this is what uncles do.’

‘Not any more,’ I said, and reached under the bed for the knife. We came together, then I cut short his enjoyment and a very messy business it was. After I’d dismembered the body and buried the pieces in different places far apart I burned the bedclothes, had a long hot shower, opened a bottle of Veuve Clicquot and thought about the last fifteen years.

She went on to read the whole first chapter which was five pages long, her South African accent adding a little something to the eroticism and the nastiness of it. When she stopped there was spontaneous applause from the coarser element of the group. ‘Don’t stop!’ was their cry. ‘Go for it! Give us more!’ Clara shook her head sadly.

‘That’s all she wrote so far,’ said Constanze, ‘but I’ll keep working on it.’

After supper I found her at the Xanadu surrounded by admirers. ‘What you read out today was quite different from your songwriting,’ I said.

‘The songs are my art,’ she said. ‘This is for money. Do you think I’ll get it published?’

‘Probably,’ I said. ‘Under your own name?’

‘Why not?’

‘Don’t you feel at all strange about it?’

‘Why should I? This is a legitimate commercial product — it’s entertainment.’

‘Yes, but the songs are a class act and this is something you’d be better off not putting your name to.’

‘Are you applying to be my uncle now?’

‘Why? Is the situation vacant?’

‘Who knows? You might get lucky.’ Gasps and giggles from her audience.

‘Thank you but I’m fully committed elsewhere.’

‘No problem. But tell me: Haven’t you ever wanted to write something that wasn’t boring?’ The circle of admirers had backed off a little to give us space but now there were more gasps followed by bursts of laughter.

I felt a hot wave of anger rising in me but I tried to stay cool. ‘What I write doesn’t seem boring to me,’ I said, ‘and it takes up my whole self so there’s nothing left over for any other kind of writing.’

‘I think you might be a self-defeater, Teach. Maybe you should take up another line of work.’ General tittering from the sidelines.

‘Like what?’

‘I don’t know. Plumbing maybe. It’s a useful trade, it gets you out of the house and plumbers make a lot of money.’ She was swaying a little as she spoke. Evidently the drinks following on her popularity had somewhat gone to her head.

‘Thanks for the advice,’ I said. ‘I appreciate your concern.’

‘You’re welcome. And I’ll be there tomorrow with the rest of the swine to pick up any pearls you might be throwing our way.’

‘I think you’re going to have a hangover in the morning, so I’ll wish you a good night now.’

‘Goodnight, Uncle Not.’ Accompanied by two or three well-wishers and the scent of cannabis she departed.

I walked out to Kirsty’s Knowe again and waited for Barbara’s face to come to me. It didn’t come and I sat there asking myself how I could make ends meet without teaching.

Constanze didn’t turn up the next morning. She left a note for me with Geoff Wiggins:

Dear Uncle Not,

I think it’s best if I leave now. I’m too embarrassed — for you.

See you around. Or not.