Patrick White - The Vivisector

Going upstairs, the sole of one of his slippers monotonously slapped the bare boards. This pantaloon found himself almost wishing for Rhoda to return.

She did, and at once he resented it: the sound of her little squeaking cart; the dead noises as she dragged the sacks of horse-flesh over the kitchen floor; her own divorced, scratching movements; and the expiring expectations of cats.

He wouldn’t go downstairs; he wouldn’t hear if she called him: in any case, he had never existed on food.

She called up: ‘Hurtle? I bought a pie for luncheon.’

…

She called up: ‘There’s some cheese. You’re not sulking, are you?’

They were listening to their thoughts clashing like pebbles in mid-air.

After a while she left him alone.

During the afternoon he suddenly remembered Loebel had threatened to come, at a precise hour, bringing an American client. He got into some clothes. How would he receive Loebel and the client? Ingenuously? Or by sombre stealth?

He didn’t have time to practise, for noticing that, in spite of the impending visit and Rhoda’s prowling thoughts, his collage had come to life again: he could visualize the crimson heart-form behind an opalescent veil. He was soon busy arranging the gouache in bridal folds; while his own heart, always quick to recognize inevitability in composition, settled back into contentment.

Exactly at four, Loebel came with Propert, the promised American.

‘Ah, maestro! ’ From the doorstep the dealer was visibly steaming with flattery, the object of which stood sideways, and let it steam past.

‘Faht is ziss? Sommsing hes happened?’ Loebel sniffed, incredulously, jovially.

‘An infiltration of cats.’ It was fortunate Rhoda had left again on business; most afternoons she visited any of the local restaurants sympathetic to her work amongst cats, and carried off what they allowed her: anything too old or too gristly to convince the evening’s clientele.

Propert, it seemed, would have accepted Rhoda, along with the cats, as another agreeable detail in a background of eccentricity.

Skidding down the hall, the American laughed, and explained: ‘My godmother kept cats. The whole of her house in Vermont was given over to them — though she was ruled by one in particular: a Russian blue. I remember the combed-out fur from the Persians blowing in the wind. It was a godsend to nesting birds.’

None of this had been foreseen. Loebel began to draw his client’s attention to paintings in that lowered voice a successful painter’s house demanded.

‘Zese faht you see are all early lyrical veuorks. Zere is greater Kraft —depth — later; but purity — ze lyrical purity of youss hess its appeal, I sink you vill agree.’ He lowered his voice still lower. ‘I heff one early fah bulous Duffield — little — very small — if the maestro isn’t personally interested in selling any zet you here see.’

Propert was sold on cats. ‘My godmother’s Russian blue had a particular yen for sweetbreads. He could detect the smell. He would sulk till she fed him at least the membranes — as an appetizer to the main dish of swordfish steak.’

Propert was also incidentally interested in paintings. He smiled rather inanely whenever his attention was caught. He preferred not to comment, but touched the air in front of the object of his interest, very briefly, with one finger. He was of no particular age, but his chubby form and downy texture reminded one of a ripe quince.

Upstairs, Loebel heaved down to business amongst the ‘important veuorks’; while an opalescent veil persisted, which the dealer perhaps didn’t perceive, or if he did, couldn’t penetrate.

‘What is this, Mr Duffield?’ Propert asked.

‘A collage I’m playing about with. Haven’t finished. It may not develop into anything much.’ Lying on the floor it looked as though it wouldn’t, not beyond its initial stage of haphazard seductiveness: you couldn’t help kicking at it.

Propert, on the other hand, couldn’t resist picking it up. He was smiling. They were both smiling; while Loebel remained holding an important work the other side of the veil.

Propert said: ‘Oh, I like this! Will you let me have it, Mr Hurtle Duffield?’

‘No. I’m working on it.’

‘But when it’s finished — after you’ve gone on from here and done whatever you have to.’

‘No. I can’t think there’ll be too many stages. Doesn’t interest me enough. From the beginning, it’s too indeterminate.’

They still liked each other, however. They continued genuinely smiling; and Loebel couldn’t interpret what was happening.

‘What appeals to me is its tentativeness,’ Propert was saying. ‘I’d like to keep it in a state of becoming’—his chubby, quince face was taking an enormous risk—‘before the music sets into architecture.’

Fortunately Loebel had the window to look out of, into the concrete world: it was he who made the discovery. ‘Maestro, you heff visitors. Are zey unexpected?’

The latch on the back gate had clicked. You could hear the squeal of Rhoda’s little cart as she dragged it into the yard.

‘No. I was expecting her about this time.’

In the upper room, the figures of all three had been transformed into statuary by the unexpectedness of the expected.

Close enough to the window, the chubby Propert had grown uncharacteristically sharp: out of his fixed eyes arrows shot along his line of vision. ‘An unusually pretty girl. Is she your daughter?’

It was too exhausting: it was too cruel.

‘No. My sister.’

‘You haff such a sister? So small?’ Loebel floundered.

A kindly attempt at pity landed like the clumsiest of blows: when lightning struck the third statue into man.

‘Yes, I have a sister.’ He parted the other figures to arrive at the window. ‘The old — the oldish woman. The little girl isn’t — naturally — my sister. She’s a friend — less than that — a neighbourhood acquaintance,’ he heard himself babbling on.

The two visitors had retreated with their shame into the middle of the room leaving him in full possession of the picture of Kathy and Rhoda together in the yard. He was the one who should have felt ashamed: of Rhoda. In fact he felt nothing of the sort; for Rhoda had been drawn into the circle of Kathy’s radiance. Whether two children, or two women, Rhoda and Kathy were equals, it appeared, not to say familiars. Rhoda was recovering her breath after the journey with the laden cart. One of Kathy’s arms was loosely linked to Rhoda’s as they stood chattering and laughing, aimlessly and breathlessly. He couldn’t — in any case he didn’t want to — hear what they were saying to each other, because their loving smiles suggested they would not have wished him to share in their conversation.

Loebel hid his embarrassment in saying: ‘Vee are using your valuable time, maestro.’

Propert had put on silence for the hunchback sister of a great man. Of the two visitors, he was probably the more shocked: Loebel, as a Jew, would have experienced a wider range of humiliation.

Down in the yard Rhoda and Kathy were straining again, dragging the cart with its tins of refuse on the last lap of its journey to the kitchen. Kathy was doing most of the pulling: she was full of the strength of youth and affection; while Rhoda too, appeared fulfilled as she jerked dreamily at the cord in token gestures of exertion.

‘Vee vill pop!’ Loebel’s buzz came from the doorway. ‘It is how long — I did not know — you heff zis relative viz you? In fect, I did not know you heff any relative at all. It goes to show it is so very difficult to completely know.’

‘No. Yes! I’d be obliged if you’ll see yourselves to the door. Yes. I’m a little tired.’