William Gaddis - The Recognitions

— This sunlight. I was just wondering where this sunlight could be coming from, from the west. Then I noticed it's a reflection from that window across the street.

— Yes, so it is.

— Can I buy you a beer? Let's have two beers here, he called to the bartender.

— I'm always surprised to see sunlight anywhere in New York, Otto said.

— Have you ever crossed on the ferry? Have you ever seen the sun on the Statue of Liberty at seven o'clock in the morning? Here's your beer. Have you?

— Matter of fact, said Otto, resting his helpless arm on the bar, — I passed it on a ship just yesterday morning. Coming in from Central America.

— Central America, have you been down there?

— I just got back.

— You know, when I saw you, or when I heard you talk first, I thought you had some sort of accent. Not a foreign accent, more of a what you might call cosmopolitan.

— Well, I…

— Can you speak Spanish?

— Oh yes. Certainly, I picked it up down there.

— You did?

— It's not difficult. When you really live with the people.

— Not if you have a talent for languages. You must have one.

— Well, a bit perhaps. I…

— Say, do you know Central America very well?

— Fairly well, I…

— Peru and northern Bolivia, have you ever been there?

— I've never spent much time down that far.

— Have you ever done any writing?

— Yes, as a matter of fact that's the sort of work I do.

— Ever done motion picture work?

— Never directly, I…

— Here, will you take my card, and get in touch with me?

Otto took the card. It said SUN STYLE FILMS in large letters, and R. L. Jones in one corner. — I'm very glad to know you, Otto said, shaking hands. — My name is Otto.

— Just write it down here, the man said. Otto wrote.

— When I saw you first, or rather when I heard you talk. Another beer?

— Let me get it, Otto said, reaching in for his wallet. The man paid from his change on the bar.

— What were you doing down there? In South America?

— Writing. But those revolutions.

— You were covering a revolution?

Otto thrust his sling forward. — Things got pretty hot down there, he said.

— Is that where. something happened to your arm?

— Yes, I…

— I didn't want to ask you. You know, I thought it might hurt your feelings, I mean some people are sensitive about things like that.

— Oh, I don't mind talking about it. As a matter of fact, I…

— What time is it? said the man looking at his wrist watch. — Is that clock right? I've got to get going. He pulled his hat down in front.

— Haven't you got time for another beer? It's my turn.

— I've got to get to the office. Will you call me there?

— Yes, certainly, I'll be delighted… — Don't forget, now. We may be able to work something out.

They shook hands. The man went out. otto nodded to the bartender. — Could you give me a whisky and soda? he said, and opened his large manila envelope, to study a few pages of his play with minute appreciation. The bartender put a whisky sour down before him. — But I…

— Sixty cents, the bartender said. Otto paid.

The trip to MacDougal Street involved two crowded buses and a seething subway. Otto, in good spirits, planned to spend some time with Max, discussing the finer points of his play. Max was not at home. Otto tried to wedge the manuscript into the mailbox, but it was getting badly bent. Then the thought of it getting lost, or stolen (and produced with great acclaim under someone else's name) drove him to summon the janitor. After establishing the thing's value in that dull head he gave it over for delivery, slightly weakened at its loss.

Walking west, he stopped in an Italian grocery to buy cigarettes, was disregarded, tapped his foot loudly, and then pocketed a package from the counter and left.

Hannah passed without a word. She was talking with a tall Negro. Otto looked the other way.

Esme was alone. She had just stopped Chaby in her doorway, telling him it was cold, that he must wear a coat, warming his neck with her arms for a moment and then tying round it a green scarf she found on the floor behind the chair. He was gone when Otto appeared.

Otto and Esme sat quietly for a few minutes, for Esme a content quiet demanding nothing, for him a perilous one, the minutes building up upon themselves like a precarious house of cards waiting to be shattered. She walked about the room singing a frail song, whose words found nothing to bind them together but the free sale of her voice, separated, and were lost. She smiled at him, but shy, when she looked up and saw him watching her. Picking up papers, or hanging a skirt, or simply following the fragments of her song about the room, Esme seemed to show how easy it was being happily alive, to be beautiful, not to question.

Otto sat impatient. Finally he said, — I may have to go to South America.

— Really Otto? she said, charmed.

— Bolivia and northern Peru.

— That would be very nice, she said. — What a silly place to go,

Otto.

— I don't see anything so silly about it.

— You must do what you want to do.

— It's not as silly as staying in New York. Spending time with people like Chaby. And half-wits like Anselm. And Stanley.

— They are very beautiful people, Esme said.

— Chaby? Beautiful?

— Yes, Otto, she said gently.

— He's a kind of a… there's something really low, really disgusting.

— He's very unhappy.

— That's his own damned business.

— Please don't swear at me, Otto.

— I wasn't swearing at you, Esme. I'm sorry, I didn't mean.

— He was hurt in the war, and that's where he got the bad habit.

— What bad habit?

— Of taking drugs, she said, sober and simple, staring at the floor where the rug ended.

— He's a drug addict? I might have known it.

— It wasn't his fault. They gave him morphine in the war when he was hurt, and that's the way he learned about it.

— Well, enough people came out of the war without being dope fiends.

— Chaby didn't, she said. She looked up, to watch Otto find an ant on the back of his hand, and crush it and roll it into a bit of lifeless dirt with his thumb. Then he said, — Is this one of your poems?

— Yes, she answered, seeing he had picked it up from the bookcase.

— Do you publish them?

— Sometimes. If I like.

He read it.

To a child, beheld in summer raiment

Little girl, one lesser garment Will suffice to clothe your crotch, Hide that undiscovered cavern Where old Time will wind his watch.

— Where did you get a word like crotch? Otto asked, his voice mocking, shocked (for he was shocked, and this dissembling the only way he knew to evade it).

— I got it.

— But don't you think it's sort of… vulgar? I mean, why crotch?

— It rhymes with watch, Esme explained. — It's a poem. Then, in the tone of a child conspiring, she said, — I wrote a poem for

Recktall Brown. It's about him and me. Would you like to read it? Otto, ready to sulk again, took it from her. — What does Effluvium mean?

— That's the title.

— Yes, I see. But what does it mean?

— Why should it mean anything? It's the title.

He read it through, stared at it, and finally managed to say, — I didn't know you knew words like perspicacious.

— It's just a word, Esme said.

— It's a very nice poem.

— It isn't nice at all.

— I'm afraid I don't understand it.

— Why should you understand it?

— But what does it mean?

— What does it mean. It just is.