William Gaddis - J R

Beyond the glass, the boy inside darted a glance from his newspaper out into the purse snapped open; snapped shut, he smoothed the porous fold of the obituary page away from him, nagged his lip with a pencil and then scratched his knee with it before his foot returned to forcing back, and forth, and back, the idle vent on a floor grating, shut, open, shut, as the light on his paper dimmed with the sun abruptly pocketed in a cloud and what shadow the child beyond had cast was lost beneath the trees where she sought the greenest leaves fallen from the pin oaks shading the grass around her. The largest she found, she folded its dark face in, creasing across the veins, then folded another as carefully chosen over it, pausing with one blown here from a maple and slightly discolored, the green already run from its edges but folded at last with the others stained back outside and snapped all together into the purse, as a wind rustled those on the ground around her and touched the trees above, the cloud past, their movement scattering the sunlight against the glass, never disturbing those within.

— Rhine… G O L D! they howled into the glare of footlights, cowering round the empty table at the center of the stage.

— Rhinemaidens!… The baton rapped sharply through their declining wail. — This is your shout of triumph. A joyful cry! Bast thumped out the theme again on the piano, missed a note, winced, repeated it. — Can’t you sound joyful, Rhinemaidens? Look, look around you. The river is glittering with golden light. You’re swimming around the rock where the Rhinegold is. The Rhinegold! You love the Rhinegold Rhinemaidens, you…

— So where’s the Rhinegold?

— We’re pretending it’s on the table there, you’re all swimming around…

— No like she means we can pretend we’re out here swimming like around this old table which we can even pretend it’s this big rock but there’s nothing on it, like there’s nothing which we can pretend it’s this here Rhinegold.

Again he tapped the baton against the music stand. — The art department has promised the real Rhinegold for Friday, so today you’ll just have to pretend. Pretend it’s there shimmering and glittering, you’re swimming around it protecting it, but you don’t dream it’s in danger. You don’t dream anyone would dare try to steal it, even when the dwarf appears. The dwarf Alberich, who comes first seeking love… what’s the matter there?

— Like if we’re all so beautiful who would want to love this here lousy little dwarf?

— Well, that… that’s what happens, isn’t it. You don’t. You laugh at his… his advances, and that hurts him, it hurts him so deeply that he decides he’ll take the Rhinegold instead, so that he can… where is he now, Alberich the dwarf, where is he…? Bast rattled the baton briskly against the music stand, and a trumpet blast shattered the comparative quiet. — What was that!

A salute stirred from the shadows in the wings. — That’s where I come in here with the trumpet when you hit that thing with your stick, answered a martial miniature advancing into the glare with a clatter of knife and ax, flashlight, whistle, compass, and a coil of rope crowding his small waist.

— You come in when I point the baton right at you, and you come in playing the Rhinegold motif. Now what was that you think you just played?

— The Call to the Colors, anybody knows that. Besides I don’t even know this here Rhinegold thing and my father said I probly should play this anyway because it’s the best thing I can play.

— Well, what eke can you play.

— Nothing.

Bast rested his head on his right hand, weakly flexing his left and studying the gouge on its back as a smart slap of salute wheeled the trumpeter off in the general direction of Valhalla, and he gave them the key with a chord.

— And like right here Miss Flesch said might be a good place for our specialty numbers, like we already have ballet tap and toe and if we’re on the school tv and all…

— You… straighten that out with her.

— She’s going to be here today?

— That’s a good question, Bast muttered. — Has anyone seen her?

— I seen her, came a voice from the wings.

— This morning? Where.

— No, last night in this green car parked up in the woods with this here…

— That’s enough! Bast, and the crack of his baton, severed that response and the billow of tittering it rode out on, breaking against the banks of empty seats; he struck the chord and with the power of music set their brittle limbs undulating in unsavory suggestion, bony fronts heaving with nameless longing straining the garlands of streaked paper and seamed up remnants of other cultural crusades, here the gold fringe of an epaulette quivered, there a gold tassel shook as, revived by Bast’s flailing arm, the cry of — R H I N E gold…! filled the hall, brought up short by the Call to the Colors: down the keyboard Bast darted as though fleeing that, into the Ring motif, and now more faintly, the last to realize that the stage had been taken over by one enthralling bellow. Undismayed by lack of piano accompaniment, or now the peremptory rattle of the baton, this baying augmented as the apparition drew up at the footlights for breath.

— She’s being Wotan, a Flosshilde offered in awe.

— Wotan isn’t on yet. You’re not on yet! Bast shouted at this eruption freely adorned with horns, feathers, and bicycle reflectors, the helmet hung askew over a face where mascara awash in perspiration descended a bad complexion to streak the imbrications of silvered cardboard covering the padded bosom below. Simulated fox tails dangled at the flanks. The spear sagged forward. — I thought you all knew, there was to be no makeup until your actual performance, he said, and as Wotan obediently drew a glistening forearm across that face he looked away, noting apparently for the first time the epaulettes and gold tassels trimming jackets tailored to imaginary bosoms, the gold piped shorts cloistering assorted hams. — What’s that you’re wearing there? And you…?

— She’s wearing her mother’s falsies in there, said one Wellgunde, delivering a Woglinde a punch in the bloated chest, bringing blushes and brays of laughter.

— No, those gold tassels, those costumes…

— We got twirling after.

— You have what?

— Twirlingafter!… he don’t even understand plain English.

— That bulletin about your costumes. Did you read it?

— We couldn’t hardly. You know? Like there were all those words in it which we didn’t have them yet.

— What grade English are you in? What year?

— English?

— Like he means Communications Skills only we didn’t get those words yet, we maybe won’t get them till Language Arts even.

— All right, all right, you can… take your places, Bast said, drawing both hands down his face in imitation of sepulchrous calm which promptly provoked — Uh, say there… from behind, and swung him round dropping his hands to face an elderly figure being weighed unsteadily forward by the saxophone strung to his neck.

— Where do I sit?

— Sit?

— Up on the stage? or down here with you.

— Sit? You’ve… come to watch?

— Not today, no, today I’ll play right along, said his guest eagerly, fingers quivering over the keys of the saxophone. — Keep at it the doc told me last night, just keep at it and you’ll have the old muscular coordination back like a well-oiled machine in no time. You’re loosening up the old fingers yourself, eh? Your hand there? That’s a nasty one, he said with solicitous relish, drawing a folding chair nearer the piano.

But Bast had escaped to the edge of the stage where he called in a choked tone — all right! the dwarf now, who is Alberich, the dwarf?