William Gaddis - The Recognitions

When he would look back over it all, what had happened, and what was yet to happen, this was the last moment of the voyage that he honestly, clearly remembered.

Father Martin's face was illuminated full from an uncurtained porthole, standing with his back to the rail on the First Class deck. Up the steps, Stanley started to rush toward him when a light sprang up in the face of the man talking to the priest, a light cupped in one hand against the wind, to show the face strong in profile, the eye shining from its surface. The light went down, drawn by a cigarette, flared up as the man shrugged, and went over the side a red speck. — Of course I still am, my dear fellow. We're both probably working on the same thing now.

— You haven't changed, the priest said after a pause.

— Semper aliquid haeret. . you remember?

The priest turned his back and went up the deck. Had he followed him, Stanley might sooner have found what he was after, for a few yards on Father Martin was stopped by a hospital attendant to whom he listened for a moment and then followed quickly. But the shadow remained at the rail and Stanley turned away from it, and soon got lost.

In a bar, Don Bildow caught his coattail. — I didn't know you were on board!… I want you to meet Miss Hall. Mrs. Hall? Mrs. Hall.

— How do you do, excuse me I…

Don Bildow, in a threadbare light brown suit, yellow and brown necktie, and plastic-rimmed glasses, stood up looking translucent. — Wait… he said, turning his back on Mrs. Hall.

— But I can't, I…

Don Bildow was clutching a recent copy of the small stiff-covered magazine which he edited, and, from the stains on the cover, it looked as if he had been carrying it for some time. From his eyes, it looked as if he had had a good deal to drink. "Mrs. Hall" was watching him critically from behind. — Listen Stanley, I've always thought of you as a… somebody I can. . somebody I share a lot with. . said Don Bildow with a hand on Stanley's shoulder, appraising him for some mutual infirmity, — and I… listen Stanley, have you got any Methyltestosterone? I'm with this girl, see? This Mrs. . this girl, and she. . you know she wants me to go up to her cabin with her now but I haven't got… I didn't bring any Methyltestosterone, I mean I had some but my wife. . I left it… Have you got any?

— I. . excuse me, I don't even know what it is, I have to go. Stanley broke away from the limp grasp, and turned a few feet away recalling, thinking he might have asked Don Bildow if he had seen her; but Don Bildow was back deep in conversation, telling "Mrs. Hall" about — My little daughter, she's only six and she was all swollen up when I left, I shouldn't have left I know it, I have terrible guilt feelings about it, all swollen up in the middle. .

— And you're the young man who wanted to trade some Drarn-amine for some Phenobarbital?

Stanley turned to the tall woman, automatically held out his hand as he was accustomed to do when something was offered.

— But what do you need them for, you're all right, the tall woman's husband demanded. — You can walk, I can't even walk.

— They're not for me, she said to him, — they're for Huki-lau, . now where did that boy go?

At the door, Stanley had to wait a moment.

— After you, Senator.

— After you, Mister Senator.

— Senator, you'll be doing me a great service if you'll go first and help me out, I can't even see the door, sir.

Stanley saw her pass, outside on the deck, running. — Excuse me, I…

— What?. . Senator?

— Excuse me, sir, I…

— Oops!…

— I'm sorry, I…

She was not in sight, but Stanley hurried in the direction she'd gone. He dropped the sticky pills into his pocket, found the tooth, and ran clutching it. Rounding another corner, he saw her feet through a flight of steps; but when he reached them, and got up them, she was gone again. He stopped to get breath. A man in a dinner jacket approached, and Stanley, thinking, stopped him to ask for the ship's hospital. — You don't look ill, my boy. Stay out and get a little air, that'll straighten you up quicker than all the ductors. .

Stanley ran on over the metal plates, and finally he did reach the ship's hospital, but she was not there. At any rate he did not see her when he came in. Few of the beds were occupied, and round one stood a screen against which shadows moved, and he went there.

From within came the steady murmur of Spanish, interrupted but unbroken by subdued words in Father Martin's voice. Stanley stood listening to the confession, bound, not understanding its íeatures but only what it was. Then the murmur subsided, broke in a cough, took up again more rapidly and abruptly ceased. There was silence. The shadows on the screen moved, and then Father Martin's voice took up, a monody hardly breaking the reciprocal sounds which bound the ship in motion, no more pressing or importunate, and no more faltering than the movement of the ship itself into the darkness. Bells sounded somewhere, clear tones which penetrated the misereatur, hard separate sounds which signaled the Latin syllables with consequence: Stanley was counting them. For no reason, he had never learned the simple system oí ship's bells and seven might be any hour; but now each one pinioned his tension, waiting for the next, listening, as he waited watching the shadows, for one of them to take form and move of itself. Then the bells stopped and left him swaying on the firm undulations,

— Per istam unctionem, et suam piissimam misericordiam. . He smelled oil, or it seemed, burning oil, — indulgeat tibi Dominus. . the shallow of an erect thumb drew out elongated on the screen. — Quidquid deliquisti per oculos. . Then he saw her, moving slowly and more clear as she approached the light, her dress wrinkled and torn at the bosom, hair in disarray, and catching light her eyes were wild. — Deliquisti per aurem. . the voice came on with intolerable slowness, and that because its progress seemed to draw her on and restrain her at once. — Deliquisti per manus. .

When she broke and ran toward the screen Stanley stayed her no more than a shadow thrown across her. Nor did her body when she flung it forth heaving with sobs, seem to disturb more than a shadow so suddenly fallen upon him the figure laid out there, exposed for the last touch ot forgiveness upon the flesh where all of its impulses reared in one. And like a ragged shadow her hair almost covered his lined face, and her left arm round his head and his shoulder in her other hand so forcefully that it appeared to rise slightly from the bed, nothing moving but her lips on his ear, — Oh yes. . her voice broke but she would not leave it, — Oh yes, oh yes… Oh yes…

The left hand of the man on the bed came up slowly. It moved as though with life of its own into the shadow of her thigh, and there under a final hieroglyph of veins it came to rest.

Then there was no sound, of voices nor of any voice: and without, her shape flung down there appeared no longer dirigible. The only thing to bind time together was the reciprocal motion of the ship: yet in the moments of the prow dropping forth into a trough far ahead and shaking the fragments of its advance down in shudders all about them, Stanley had long since begun, repeated every motion of battle, every twist of the past convulsed nights, every skirt and dash in this sciamachy brought up firm now with Father Martin's hand on his shoulder until he straightened himself back to its force, straining away at last, rending away his spoil and leaving a dead man laid out in the light.

Together they staggered down decks, down steps, companionways, passages, nearly fell in the pool shifting just before their own door, and once inside it was as though they'd never left: buff-painted metal walls studded with double rows of rivets, metal above transected by a steel I-beam, steel under foot in plates lapped with rivets, the closed door flush and no way out but the ventilator, and this whole severe enclosure of angles driven by vibrations, in motion with no direction, it was more than as though they had never left it, as though they could never leave it, and had never been anywhere else. Stanley looked at his wrist watch, as though knowing what time it was might confirm something.