Norman Rush - Subtle Bodies

Unexpectedly, Joris came up to them in the darkness. For a moment he seemed unsteady on his feet, but only for a moment.

“I love your wife,” Joris said to Ned, who came back with, “Watch yourself.”

The three men sighed heavily in unison, noticed it, and laughed together. Nina was walking toward them.

“Joris wants to abandon us,” Ned said to Nina.

“I hope he won’t,” she said. Ned sensed something hollow in her words. He was puzzled.

“We await his words, my dear.” That was the wrong tone. Everything was delicate.

Joris squared his shoulders and locked his hands behind his back. He said, “I don’t want to say anything tomorrow and I want to leave.”

Ned said, “Why?”

Joris said, “Here’s the why. Why is because the world is a machine that works . It even improves itself. Douglas didn’t know that. And we didn’t know that.”

This was peculiar. Joris was normally an excellent drunk, if that was the way to put it. This was more than just the wine speaking. There had been a personal event, or a philosophical one, something.

Ned said, “Wait a minute. Something’s going on. And you’re not saying the world is perfect as is, I take it. That ideology …” Joris shook his head over-vigorously. There was a silence.

Ned continued, “So Joris, what is this? Is it something you just realized? What? Go ahead. Talk.”

Joris said, “We have this thing, evolution. S’okay … and we have us, this nasty primate. S’okay we have this nasty primate who keeps trying to build an order … a safe order different from the beast world only there are problems. Because the male part of the species goes insane over three things, just like the other animals. It goes crazy over those three things, which are sex, death, and goods. Or say money. Or say status, which money is for.

“S’okay by evolution of course we are talking about social evolution. And social evolution plays around and finds an antidote for the fear of death, which is religion, the churches, the sects, all that. And it keeps opening up in new forms like a perennial. And they don’t pay taxes, we subsidize it. They all deny death and the people are happy. Religion helps them, most of them, and that keeps it rolling.”

Ned said, “Come on, what does this have to do with you leaving? You’re drunk. There’s a damned memorial tomorrow. We can talk about these cosmic issues after it’s over.”

Nina said, “Maybe he should just talk now. It isn’t going to be too long, is it, Joris?”

“ No it’s not . S’okay, take sex, where the males happen to want to fuck anybody they feel like. Somebody has to keep the babies coming and raise them up. Evolution tries lots of things. Religion helps but not as much as it did, with death, which I said before. Sorry. So … okay, social evolution gives us easy divorces, serial marriages, okay to be a single mother, pat yourself on the back.

“Money. Greed, easy. Capitalism! The universal raffle! Overhead to be paid, of course, unemployment insurance …”

Nina said, “Joris, that’s enough for now. The things you really want to say you can’t say tonight. You’ll explain it all tomorrow. After the memorial. But you have to stay.”

Ned said to Nina, “What is he saying? I guess I’m tired. Is he saying that Douglas didn’t have this big world machine concept he’s giving us? Why are we even talking about this? Look. Douglas had an attitude that looked like an idea , to us. We were children. Now he’s dead and here we are.”

Nina, Ned, and Gruen all said they wanted to go, but Joris insisted on checking the progress of the work gang at the bridge. They went with him.

Ned wondered what was going on. Nina had been next door for almost an hour, and then talking in the corridor with Gruen. It was time to sleep. He wanted the day to be over, but he knew she was containing some news for him. And there was something he wanted to say.

She came into the room. He held up his hand before she could start to speak. Ned said, “I want to explain that thing with Joris. You have to see it as more like a seizure than like an epiphany or a theory he was presenting. I’ve been there before with Joris, drinking, both of us. When he’s drunk he’s like that. He’ll be fine tomorrow.”

Nina said, “I know, I know. And I have a lot to tell you but I want to take up something really important first, to wit, would you ever say I have a short face? What I mean is, would that ever occur to you?”

“No, of course not. Where is this amusing question coming from?”

“Well, from Jacques. He said something I believe was a compliment but I think it translated like that.”

“Unfortunately you can’t believe anything the man says, my dear. And by the way did you know he’s a moon-landing denier?”

“He is not. Don’t make things up.”

“Okay, but he might as well be.”

“Oh please. He’s very sympathetic. Do you know that he forged the most perfect, the most beautiful name tag, using machines or whatever they are that Douglas had? Press credentials.”

“Why is he discussing your attributes?”

“Oh you mean my assets? I think he said I had a brief and short face, but I’m not sure. I’m taking it as a compliment. Why don’t you ever tell me I have a brief and short face?”

“I’ll try to remember. You think he’s an outlaw, yay! and I’m not.”

Nina was looking for something.

“What are you looking for?”

He couldn’t quite believe that she meant it when she said she was looking for a radio to play so the sound would cover what she was going to say.

“You mean like spies?” he asked.

“Exactement.”

She was serious. Defeated, he joined her search for a radio and found a clock radio on a shelf in the closet. He set it on the bedside table, plugged it in, and it worked. He tuned it into something religious, in fact Pentecostal, because the preacher would occasionally break into episodes of glossolalia. She was delaying.

She said she was cold and he proposed that they get into bed together, keep their clothes on until they were warm, and talk . It was cool, not cold, in the room, in his opinion. She had plenty of layers on, a denim windbreaker over a heavy sweater and tee shirt. She had on her famous boots, jeans, and a floppy black beret that might be hers or not, he didn’t know. He’d noticed that the women staff seemed to be offering her articles of clothing on loan. She sat on the edge of the bed and clapped her thighs together and jammed her hands between them.

He could tell she liked the idea of getting into bed. He hoped she understood that it was not going to be a case of once more into the breach tonight. He had a headache.

“First, what I’m going to tell you is mostly just recent. Not all of it is. And I had a reason for not telling you right away.

“Which is the following. Wait a minute, I was just going to lie to you about why I’ve been holding on to this. Let me start over.

“I don’t know. I think I didn’t want to tell you all this because of the way it makes Joris look. Not sordid or anything, but not great, either. And Ned I feel I’ve made friends here, strange as you may think that is. I like the man. I like him the best. Or no, I like him about equally with Gruen. I have to tell you that the story is going to make some other people seem sordid, but I don’t care about them.

“What I know is from Gruen …”

Ned said, “Please tell me what in hell this is, and why is he talking to you about it and not me?”

“If you listen you’ll understand. Oh God. Well here it is. Iva about a year ago initiated a peculiar kind of affair with Joris. Yes.”