Walker Percy - The Thanatos Syndrome

“Well, I be goddamned,” says Van Dorn, landing him, his pleasure now as simple as a boy’s. We gaze at the fish, fat, round as a plate, sinewy, fine-scaled, and silvered, the amazing color spot at his throat catching the sun like a topaz set in amethyst. The colors will fade in minutes, but for now the fish looks both perfectly alive yet metallic, handwrought in Byzantium and bejeweled beyond price, all the more amazing to have come perfect from the muck.

But the beds are mostly empty. Van Dorn catches a couple more bream and a half dozen bass. “For y’all,” he says. Y’all? Hudeen will be pleased. Into the ice well go the fish, out comes the beer.

It is getting on to noon and hot in the sun. We drink beer and watch the gnats swarm. The cicadas are fuguing away. I watch him.

“That was sump’n, cud’n,” says Van Dorn.

Cud’n?

“You want to know something, Tom?”

“What?”

“I’ll make you a little confession. I think at long last I’m back where I belong. Among my own people. And a way of life.”

“I see.”

“Do you understand? What do you think?”

“Yes.” What I’m thinking is that Louisiana fishermen would not dream of speaking of such things, of my own people, of a way of life. If there is such a thing as a Southern way of life, part of it has to do with not speaking of it.

“Tom, I’m what you call a jack-of-all-trades, master of none. I do all right, but I’m not really first-rate. I’ve been a pretty good physiologist, computer hacker, soccer bum, bridge bum, realtor, you name it. I went to Harvard and M.I.T. and did all right — I was a real hacker at M.I.T. and not bad at Harvard, but they were not for me, too many nerds at one, too many wimps at the other. So I cut out and headed for the territory like Huck. I chucked it all — except the kids.”

“Don’t you run the computer division at Mitsy?”

“Yeah, but it’s routine, checking out systems and trying to keep the local yokels from messing up — we don’t need another T.M.I. No, if I’d been first-rate I’d have gone from hacking to A.I.”

“A.I.?”

“Artificial intelligence, Tom. That’s where it’s at. As you well know — don’t think I don’t know your work on localizing cortical function.”

“I’ve gotten away from that.”

“Tom, you’ve no idea what’s around the corner. It’s a scientific revolution to end all revolutions. But I’m out of it now— quite content to be back where I started from.”

“Where are you from originally, Van?”

“Not a hundred miles from here. Port Gibson. Did you know the general was born there?”

“What general?”

“Earl Van Dorn.”

“You related?”

“How can there be two Van Dorns from Port Gibson without being kinfolks?”

“I see.”

I watch Van Dorn as he lounges at his ease, head cocked, eyes squinted up at the cypresses. He’s not as handsome as his picture in Dixie. His handsomeness is spoiled by the heaviness of his face and jaw, his pocked skin, the coldness of his blue eyes in the shadow of his sun helmet, humorless even when he is smiling. But he does remind me of an Afrika Corps officer, the heavy handsome face, helmeted, the steel-blue eyes, even the skin so heavily pocked on the cheeks that it looks like a saber scar.

“Do you enjoy bridge?” I ask, watching him.

“Let me put it this way, Tom. It was fun, I was good at it, and I made a living. Now I don’t have to. Do you play?”

“No. A little in college. All I remember is the Blackwood convention. When you bid four no-trump you’re asking for aces.”

He laughs. “Still do — with modifications.”

“Tell me something, Van,” I say, watching him over my beer can. “What is mud?”

“Mud?” He takes a long swig, holds the can against his forehead. “You mean as in drilling mud?”

“No, a bridge term.”

“Oh.” He laughs. “You mean mud as in M.U.D. You do know something. That means the middle of three cards in an unbid suit. It’s an opening lead and tells your partner something.”

“I see. How about Schenken?”

“Schenken? Oh, I get it. Ellen must be talking bridge. That’s an Italian bidding system.”

“K.S.?”

“Same thing.”

“Roth-Steiner?”

“Same, though it sounds German. Ellen goes for the Italian systems — and she’s good. Say, what—”

“How about Azalea?”

Van Dorn frowns. “Azalea?”

“The Azalea convention.”

“Oh.” He smiles as he shakes his head slowly, rolling his forehead against the beer can. “That’s a wild one. Not Azalea — you had me confused. Azazel. The Azazel convention. After the fallen angel.”

“What is the Azazel convention?”

“It means you’re in a hell of a mess. It is a way of minimizing loss.”

“How does it work?”

“It’s in the bidding. If you discover that you and your partner are bidding different suits and are at cross purposes and over your heads, you signal to her that it is better for her to go down in her suit. We’ll lose less that way. You do it by bidding your opponents’ suit for one round.”

“You mean if your opponents are bidding hearts, and your partner is raising you in your suit, hoping for a slam, you wave her off by bidding hearts for one round, signaling to her: You go back to your suit and go down.”

“You got it.”

“I see.”

“I think you’ve played more bridge than you’re letting on, Tom.”

“Why do you think that?”

“You know the jargon and you’re even on to their harmless little double entendres.”

“Double entendres?”

“You made one yourself — bidding hearts and going down.”

“So I did.” Azazel. “So Azazel can be more than one kind of invitation.”

“You got it, cud’n.”

When we round our grand canal of a bayou and come in sight of The Quarters, Van Dorn makes a sign to me.

I cup my ear to hear over the motor.

“Cut the motor.”

I cut the motor.

“It’s about Ellen, Tom.”

“Yes?”

“There’s something I want you to do.”

“What’s that?”

“I want you to go to Fresno with Ellen, Tom.”

“You’re not going?”

“No way. I got these kids starting up school and soccer. First things first.”

“She seemed disappointed.”

“She’ll do fine! True, we’ve done well, won some tournaments, but what she doesn’t know is that I’m not indispensable. She’s the one. That’s why I wanted you to go.”

“I couldn’t play tournament bridge.”

“No. I mean to watch her.”

“Watch her?”

“Tom, you got to see it to believe it. And I think you’d be interested even if it weren’t Ellen.” As the boat drifts, Van Dorn takes off his Wehrmacht helmet, leans forward, and gives me a keen blue-eyed look.

“See what?”

“I can only give you the facts. You’re the brain man, the psychologist. Maybe you’ve got an explanation.”

“Of what?”

“Tom, it’s not her bidding — which is okay, better than okay, somewhat shaky but highly proficient — after all, bidding is nothing more than a code for exchanging information. No, it’s in the play. Tom, she knows where all the cards are. Do you hear what I’m saying? She knows what cards her opponents are holding. Now, most of us can make an educated guess after a few rounds of play, but she knows !”

“So?”

“Tom, let me ask you a question.”

“All right.”

“Do you set any store in ESP, clairvoyance, and suchlike?”

“No.”

“Neither did I. But how else do you explain it? She’s not cheating. So either she is reading the cards, which is clairvoyance, or she’s reading the minds of the players, which is telepathy, right?”