William Gaddis - The Recognitions

— Get some sleep, Stephan.

— No ruse at all…

Now, Mr. Yak gave up once more, with a glance up at the An-dalusian love scene on Stephan's wall, and returned to his own room where now hung the picture he had traded for it, Jesus del Gran Poder, which he had found leaning face-to against Stephan's wall. He stood looking absently at the dark bowed head of Christ under the weight of the Cross, and, after a full minute, cocked his head at a sound in the hall. A moment later he found Stephan trying to slip out of the pension. He let him escape, followed, and then caught him up in the street below as though by accident. There they exchanged their usual contentious greetings, and Mr. Yak took him off to buy forty meters of linen bandage, on the promise that they go to a bar immediately after.

The comradeship between these two men by now had something inevitable about it. They were in ways mutually dependent, and at constant cross purposes. The older man seemed interested in what the younger did only in order to disapprove of it; and the younger man's total lack of interest in the elder's activity only spurred that one on to redouble it. They seldom entered a bar together, but that Mr. Yak ordered two coffees, and his companion stood, restraining one hand with the other, until he could get one of them on a glass of wine, or, more frequently now, coñac. What is more, there were moments when they strongly resembled one another, though that, perhaps, was only in an expression round the eyes, a tense look, glittering with impatience, a sort of alert vacancy, ready lor flight.

Their pursuits were by now so mysterious to one another that neither showed surprise at anything the other did or said, each, in fact, depending more and more heavily on the other for encouragement, an arrangement somewhat similar to that magic formula of modern marriage, whose parties are encouraged by disapprobation and disinterest respectively.

Their present careers were reaching the first peaks at about the same time: just as Mr. Yak was ready to bring his purchase from the rural cemetery into town and commence actual work on it, his partner had passed the last lap on a Marathon of drink, and appeared to be scaling the heights beyond.

— What's that spilled on the lapels of your coat like that? Mr. Yak demanded, catching up with him at one point.

— I'm learning to drink from a bottle with a spout, you don't touch it to your lips. Getting it up there's easy enough, it's when you try to stop that it gets on you like this.

— What's that, those marks on your shoulders?

— That's from sliding down between the casks.

— You don't want to spend money like this.

— You told me it's so dirty it's unhealthy to carry around.

— Why weren't you in at supper tonight?

— Not after that gray artichoke. And that woman at our table, I can't tell whether she's crossing herself or fixing her napkin, it goes on all the way through the meal. And that woman at the next table, suckling the baby.

— What's the matter with that?

— Nothing the matter with it, it just takes my mind off the bread soup.

— You're not mixed up with some woman now, are you?

— What's the matter with women?

— I got nothing against them, it's just that no one of them can last a man his whole life.

— Good God! What, do you think I suggested that?

— No, but they will. I never knew a woman yet that the minute she came into the room I wasn't waiting tor her to leave it. Try getting married some time. I even had a wife once myself.

— What did you do with her?

— I tied the can to her. What do you think I did. Listen, tell me something… — The joke about the five Jones brothers? Have you heard that? Los cinco-jones?…

— We got work to do, why do you get drunk like this?

— Well I'll tell you, I have five monkeys in my stomach and four chairs in my head, do you know that one? The first coñac and one monkey goes up and sits down. Second glass, another one goes up and sits down, the third. .

— Listen…

— The fourth. .

— Listen. .

— And when the fifth monkey gets up there, there's no place for him to sit down, so…

— You're picking up the language? Where.

— Marga taught me all I know. That's love. Or say, I'm encoñado.

— What's that encoñado?

— That's a local invocation to call men into bed.

— Where do you think you're going now?

— I'll go to sleep if I can. If I can't I'll go down and dance with the gypsies.

— You keep away from them down there. Tomorrow. .

— Good night.

— Tomorrow. .

But Mr. Yak was restless. It was barely eleven at night, and a good deal of noise came to him from Alphonso del Gato below. He went out alone for coffee.

The streets were thronged with people very different from those of early morning, the girls and old women in black, the line before the charcoal seller's. But the cries were the same, — Cien iguales me quedan!. . Cien iguales para hoy!. . The sound of English in the street was startling, a blond boy on the arm of a man, — But I'm not even sure where Spain is… A tall woman passed, speaking to her husband, — I've gotten used to poverty by now. — You mean other people's? — Yes, it doesn't bother me at all like it did, remember when we got here yesterday and I was giving money out everywhere?. .

Mr. Yak found he had walked in a large circle, and returned to the Villa Rosa. He entered its Moorish interior, ordered coffee, looked sharply away from two girls, and was raising his cup when he heard something familiar from a room down the back hall. It was La Tani.

He found Stephan presiding at a juerga. There were bottles of wine on the table, three people were eating, a man was tuning a guitar, and the girl on Stephan's knee smiled uncertainly at Mr.

Yak. Now, if Marga had put him off, Pastora stopped him dead. Her coarse black hair stood out round her dark face. And her large and dark eyes were gravely excited. They shone with a strained surprise, reflected in the face so close there, and she turned them up with something fierce and proud in them. Her teeth were large, her nose slightly flattened, and her shaded upper lip was curled in what, on another face, might have been a pout, but here lay tinged with ferocity, suggesting the savage gifts her voice assured, and her quick simple movements confirmed. Her faded cerise blouse had pulled out of the skirt whose zipper was apparently broken, as was one of the straps on her high-heeled sandal, and she could not have been more than nineteen. From the hostility of the smile with which she greeted Mr. Yak's intrusion, her acquaintance with the man whose neck she got an arm round now was apparently not too recent.

— How long have you had this one? Mr. Yak demanded, sitting down. She watched him mistrustfully, understanding nothing but the tone in his voice, and sulked miserably when she was put down. — I see you still got your diamond ring, anyway, Mr. Yak said.

— Es un amigo tuyo? Pastora brought out, her voice harsh, uncertain.

— Tell her, she wants to know if I'm a friend of yours, Mr. Yak challenged. — Come on, what are you grinning about, you that drunk already?

— Krishna seduced sixteen thousand maidens.

— Listen, tomorrow. .

— You'll believe me if I tell you. . Krishna was the sun, and they. . they were dewdrops.

— Tomorrow we've got work, do you hear me? You don't want to do this, you don't want to let yourself go to hell like this, do you hear me?

— No, he whispered, leaning abruptly over before Mr. Yak's face, — It's just the other way, he whispered, looking up craftily at Mr. Yak's eyes. — Have you ever heard of the… I am. . encoñado, and she. . she's acara. . acarajotada, un. . understand? Known in vulgar English as… as being in love, understand?