William Gaddis - The Recognitions

It was not the bright bare bulb he was accustomed to in his own room, but dimmed with the translucent paper wrapper from a coñac bottle. Atop the armoire there was a small forest of bottles, transparently green with emptiness. Its long mirror endlessly reflected one smaller, across the room over a single-spigot washstand, where a glass stood corroded with unfinished coñac whose smell hung in the room, rose to the molding of plaster garlands round the high white ceiling. Above the silvered bed (—a regular whorehouse bed, he'd called it himself once), the Andalusían maiden coquetted over her balcony and the shoulder of him in the guitar's embrace, hung at length across a faded vertical space where Jesus del Gran Poder had made way for her. Then noticing the cold radiator he remembered he'd meant to ask the dueño to put a brazier in here. He stepped from the carpet, a piece gray-blue and orange cut by the yard laid here on the uneven lengths of flooring, to a wicker table where a wicker chair with a red and black Indian-style cushion was drawn up, an empty coffee bowl and a stump of bread before it, and stepping, his foot rolled on something, and he stooped to pick up a.32 cartridge. It lay in the palm of his hand, the rim of the case cut in for use in an automatic pistol, and he weighed it there with a confused expression on his face, an expression which he snorted away as he pocketed the cartridge and returned to the table. A half page from a book lay beside the stump of bread, torn from Calderón's La Vida es Sueño, and it was torn evenly along the line, "El delito mayor del hombre es haber nacido. ." and this too he seemed to weigh in his hand, before he put it back by the stump of bread, and a crumpled one-peseta note on the wicker table, pausing, as though he heard something, that voice, and — Oh yes, was it? the greatest sin of man, being born? hehehehe. . and then that broken laughter. — No, because there's more to do, more work, more work if it's true that even the gods themselves, can't recall their gifts. Because there's a moment, traveling. Quiere comer? they offered, shelter. Coming up to Madrid, it's a destination, Madrid. You can tell by the name. Quiere comer? Everyone used to offer shelter to travelers, who knows it might be a god in disguise. The whole family there, eating, the whole. . all the family. . Quiere comer. .? No, no I'm smoking, there's still so much work that's necessary, I'm smoking, I'm alone because, not hungry, because if it's true, then the love had to be hoarded for the work, locked up, there, there! is there a moment? traveling when, love and necessity become the same thing?

Then his eye caught the Swiss passport, thrown open on the floor.

— Aïe no, que no lo come, there, no don't eat that. . son para la niña. . tell me, for the love of Christ now will you leave me alone?

The outside shutters were almost closed on the narrow balcony, but sounds carne up from Alphonso del Gato, the sound of voices and a barrel organ somewhere in the lame joy of some indistinguishable tune, through the shutters and the imposition of joy in the red-figured drapes that hung there motionless. Before him the mirrors, from the one tall and narrow mounted in the armoire to the small square one over the one-spigot washstand, and back, embraced one another's images, as the rain took up against the shutters, and reached the glass, and he stood there, chilled, his memory frantic for something precious left out in the rain, or a window left open, the rain pounding in, in the dark, engulfing a consciousness alert now in all the sudden perspicacity of terror, deepening round it so that it seems to have been falling all the time: sounds came from a great distance, a strange city, in a foreign land, and the sense he'd just been put down here this instant, alone, and for the first time, engulfed in the sense of something lost. He spun around on his feet, to confront who had come in the door behind him, but he saw no one there. He stood, off balance but still for a moment, and then he moved sidling toward the door, as though she were waiting for him to get out before she could enter, and once at the door he left like a crowd leaving, and the door open behind him.

— Vaya Usted con Dios. . y que no haya novedad, Jacinta said opening the front door and wishing him off, and Mr. Yak repeated that phrase as he came out to the wet street, to crowd out other things from his mind. Novedad?. . novelty, newness, change. . That you go with God, and have no… novedad. He hurried down back streets, and then out past the Cortes, to the Palace Hotel, to leave a reassuring note for Mr. Kuvetli, saying that he had located what Mr. Kuvetli sought, and for a reasonable sum could see to its turning up within a few days; but he had forgotten his passport and was unable to remember his full name, though he did know the initial to his Christian name was J, and so he signed it J. Yak, and returned quickly to the streets.

The streets were thronged with people wherever he turned, crowds parading with such animation that one might at first think some major holiday, or grand catastrophe, had brought them out. He found himself approaching the Plaza Tirso de Molina, saw a blond boy pass on the arm of a man and someone said, — Los turistas, si… pero los marecones. . He bought some raisins from a cart, an unidentified flower for his buttonhole, and stopped in at Chispero's for coffee, glancing round him all this time but without much hope in his eyes of seeing anyone he knew. From the stage in the hall beyond the bar he could hear heels pounding, where Adelita Beltrán sang La Sebastiana, and he found himself mumbling along with the words, — Aunque tiene siete colchones… as he returned to the street, more nervous each minute at putting off his return to the pension, and his work. — Un falsifi-cador? he muttered, bumping people in the Calle de Atocha, — even though he has seven mattresses, la Sebastiana can't sleep. .? How. .?

— Adiós…

— Dios…

People passed in the wet recommending each other to God, instead of God to each other.

— Y que no haya novedad… he repeated to himself, approaching the Plaza Santa Ana, and glanced down in the shaft of light from the Villa Rosa. It was the remnant of a rose in his buttonhole. He brought his hands up before him to clap for the sereno, and they hung there, as he did, standing unsteadily, overwhelmed in the chill rain at being engulfed in Spain's time, and that like his guest awaiting him upstairs he would never leave it.

— Adiós. .

—. .?

Pastora stood in the doorway of the Villa Rosa, the strap on her high-heeled sandal still broken, the cerise blouse pulled and protruding from her skirt where the zipper was broken. — Buenas noche, Señor, she repeated timidly, her coarse black hair standing out round her face, and her lip drawn back from her large teeth no longer in the snarl he remembered, though it was the same expression but now pathetically defiant, waiting, alone, staring at him and waiting. He moved his arms with a quick shrug of his shoulders, and clapped for the sereno who came stumbling up with the keys and the usual observation on his job, — The worse I do my work the more people clap for me. . and the street door came open.

— Adiós. . Pastora repeated, desolately, without a look from him as he entered and climbed the stairs, muttering against the hollow sound of his feet on them. Jacinta let him in, and he hurried down the dark passages to his own room, still muttering something about the work, the work.

He pulled on the light and stared at the figure laid out on the uneven parquet of the floor. — Why would I have said… a thing like that? he mumbled, motionless, — The love hoarded all your life. . for the work, and his lips still moved silently over that last word as he locked the door behind him, and continued to move, repeating it, until he saw them moving in the mirror where he went to pull off his hair, tug at the mustache, and startle when it failed to come off. He turned away from the glass to remove the plexiglas collar, though the gold and purple cord remained strung at his throat, and he crossed himself when his eyes fell on Jesus del Gran Poder hung upright over a faded length on the wall, forming a cross so. — All this, he muttered, and drew his hand across his chin. — Y que no haya novedad. .