Stanley Elkin - Van Gogh's Room at Arles

He heard the waiter tell them in French that but that “because Madame Celli had become invisible in the laundry two horses must begin to be.” Miller politely added his thanks four thousand times over to Hartshine’s own and sat stiffly back as the man dealt out three plates of appetizers in front of the three place settings.

He wasn’t born yesterday. He knew calamari meant squid. He had even watched with a certain queasy sort of fascination as a sophisticated pal ordered and ate them once in the dining room of the Indianapolis Sheraton. That he didn’t choose to do more than introduce one of its ten purply, clawlike, little baby arms past his lips had less to do with its rubbery texture or its faintly, he suspected, forbidden taste, than with its jet black, gelatinous coating.

He removed the thing from his mouth and held it out by its small caudal beak. A few drops of dark fluid spilled on the toast point on which it was served.

“This would be what, its like ink then?” he remarked to his dinner companion.

“Oh, look,” Hartshine said, “that one still has its suckers.”

“I’m not big on the delicacies.”

Though he quite liked his quenelles of pike, he had first to wipe off their thick, spiked whipped cream.

And didn’t more than sip the bouillabaisse. Hartshine agreed, offering his opinion that while the stock was too bland, Miller really ought to try to spear up some of the lovely rascasse. He must be careful with the spines however, some were poisonous. Miller was. He laid down his soup spoon and fish fork. And was content to watch Hartshine spear great hunks of gray fish out of his soup. In their thick, piebald, mottled rinds they reminded him of the dark cancerous creatures behind aquarium glass. The sweetbreads smeared in anchovy sauce seemed sharp, foreign and, to Miller’s soured appetite, had the powdered, pasty, runny taste of eyes. Conscious of the waiter watching him, Miller didn’t dare push them away. But burned his tongue on hard bits of spice and herbs laced into the bread like a kind of weed gravel. There were poached pears bloodstained by red wine. There was a sour digestif. There was bitter coffee.

Kaska (having evidently settled the problem of the two horses was no longer invisible in the laundry) had joined them again, rematerialized at their table. “Here,” she said, “what’s this? Is something wrong with your food? Clémence reports you have merely played with it, that you haven’t touched a thing.”

Now this got Miller’s goat. (On top of the drink, on top of the jet lag, on top of the anger, on top of the hallucination and hunger.) He felt he had to defend himself, get things straight.

“Madame,” he said, “it is true that I am only from Indianapolis. It is true that I teach at Booth Tarkington Community College. It is true this is my first trip to Europe. But I was born and raised in an Indiana town not more than an hour’s drive from Chicago, that toddling town, city of the broad shoulders, hog butcher to the world, home to Al Capone and many another who with one cross look could scare the merde out of you. A place, I mean, of much seriousness and, for your information, my mother raised me better than that. She taught me that if I didn’t like what was set on my plate I was to keep it to myself. Ask Hartshine if I made a fuss. Because I didn’t. I never said a word, did I, Paul?”

She said he looked tired, she said it was probably the jet lag, the new country, the strange food. She suggested that perhaps he ought to lie down in the room for a few hours, that later she could prepare a tray for him and bring it over to the yellow house.

“Gosh,” Miller said, “but my project.”

She said he had five weeks, his project could wait, that no one really got any work done the first day.

His bed turned down, his yellow pillows fluffed, the shutters on the windows angled to adjust the sun, he was installed in Van Gogh’s room at Arles like a painting.

Madame Celli took away his water pitcher and returned it full. She set it down beside him on the rush chair. “I’ll put your drinking glass where you’ll be able to reach it. Will you be all right?”

“Really,” he said, “I’m fine. Much too much is being made of my indisposition. It’s probably the jet lag, the new country, the strange food. All I need is to lie down for a few hours.”

Madame Celli looked at Hartshine. Hartshine looked at Miller. “That’s the ticket,” Hartshine said.

“No harm done,” said Miller, “no real damage. Unless— ”

“What?”

“Oh. Well. Nothing. Never Mind.”

“No,” coaxed Hatshine, “what?”

“What I asked before. I really never did say anything, did I?”

“When? What? Complain about the food you mean? No.”

“Did I make a scene? Did I shout out loud for the waiter!”

“No,” said Hartshine, “of course not.”

“Well, all right then,” Miller said, “then I was only hallucinating. I thought I might be. No one seemed to be paying any attention. Of course, with that crowd, what would you expect? They just carry on dum de dum, la de da, ooh la la, with their usual business. Nothing gets to them, nothing. A fella from Indianapolis would have to have a Sherpa and a Saint Bernard if he wanted to scale their ivory towers. He couldn’t just do it with a cry for the waiter! Those guys don’t hear the regular ranges. And who can blame them, guys like them? No, they’ve their priorities. My God, they do! Where to set the minute hand on the Doomsday clock, or fix the borders in the New Geography. Handling the headlines, worrying the world! It was a good thing it was only a hallucination I had. God forbid I was starving, God forbid I really needed a waiter in those conditions. Because you want to know something? What I actually cried out in that hallucination was noise from the soul, the ordinary screeches and lub dubs of my Hoosier heart. Oh my.”

“I like the way this man opens up with relative strangers,” Paul Hartshine said. “I like how he gets up in your face.”

Madame Celli said, “Let the poor man rest. I’m afraid we’re exhausting him.”

“No you’re not,” Miller said, “you’re not exhausting me. I’m glad of the company. Truly.”

He was. Madame Celli was earthy. Not, he supposed, his usual type, but a real babe. Older than him certainly— forty, a year or so more maybe. Not matronly though. Anything but, as a matter of fact. How could he put it? Well, European. Probably she had hair under her arms. Probably her legs were not clean-shaven. (She wore dark stockings, he couldn’t tell.) Possibly her teeth were bad. Possibly she wore no underwear. The broadness of her perfume might have covered certain feral odors, scents— stirring messages from her glands and guts and organs. (Bidets would dissolve beneath her acids and grimes.) Hair plugged up her nipples. She was as foreign as the forbidden flavors and fluids of his calamari, the queer sweets and salts of all his difficult delicacies. (This odd, inexplicable concupiscence. On top of the drink on top of the jet lag on top of the anger on top of the hallucination on top of the hunger.) Sullenly, Miller recalled his pique at the memory of Madame’s modest flirtation with Hartshine at lunch that afternoon. Would the fellow hang about all day? Reversing himself, Miller announced impatiently, “I’m better, I’m better. I’m tired is all. I need to get some sleep.” Then, almost as if it were a threat, “I better get some sleep.”

“The time!” the babe spoke up suddenly. “Monsieur Hartshine, have you forgotten the time? You will have missed your bus if we do not leave off. They will be going to the Alyscamps without you. Show me your ticket. Yes, that is just the one Rita sold you this morning. Run, you must hurry if you would catch your coach! Please, Paul,” she warned, “under no circumstances should you go to your room for your camera! The camera is of no importance whatever, it is insignificant. There will be plenty of other opportunities for the camera. I vow you that. But for now entirely disregard it. And anyway Rita has many beautiful views of the Alyscamps, both wallet size and eight- by-ten, which you may purchase at the Fellows’ official discount. Run, there is no time! Run and scamper! It would be too tragic if the coach should leave without you!”