Stanley Elkin - Van Gogh's Room at Arles

Now I’m in for it, Miller thought. Now I am. What will this savage woman do to me? My condition, he thought. He wasn’t up to any rough stuff. The jet lag, et cetera. On top of on top of. On top of Old Smoky. He closed his eyes and waited for the wild rumpus to begin.

When he opened them again in the strange country Hartshine and Madame Celli were nowhere to be seen of course.

Rita was the assistant in Madame Celli’s office. She put through long-distance calls for the Fellows, she sold them stamps, exchanged money, cashed their checks. She took their wash to the launderette for them if they were desperate or particularly helpless, arranged for the odd emergency trip to the doctor or dentist and, through a brother-in-law who owned a bus, organized tours and day trips for the group. Speaking into a microphone in one of her several languages, she went along on these and provided a running commentary as their tour guide. Frequently, if the brother- in-law was unavailable, she drove the bus herself.

She was a bright, cheerful, pretty girl in her early twenties, supremely efficient, energetic, and, according to Russell, who knew about such things, was already regarded as one of the finest factotums in all of Europe. It was she, in fact, rather than Kaska, who prepared Miller’s tray and brought it that evening to the yellow house.

He hadn’t had anything acceptable in his stomach since before landing in Paris — could it have been only that morning? — and was beginning to feel hungry, though he was relieved to see that all the girl had brought him to eat was bread and butter, consommé, tea, and some fresh fruit. If she kept him company while he ate, he said, she could take the tray back, she wouldn’t have to make two trips. It really hit the spot, he told her. After the rich, heavy meal of that afternoon, he told her, it was really delicious. Really. (It was Rita who informed him that the French took their big meal at lunch. If he wanted, she said, from now on he could have his consommé, bread and butter, fruit salad, and tea in the afternoons. Perhaps, she suggested, Monsieur might enjoy a nice cheese with that, a pleasant pâté, nothing too harsh. She would tell Chef. He could have omelettes for his suppers. Miller jumped at the chance. “You must think I’m a real wuss,” he said, thinking perhaps she might not know the word. “Neither wuss nor wimp,” she reassured him. “The taste bud is not a secondary sex characteristic.”)

He asked about the afternoon tour, if he’d missed much, and was surprised when she replied that he had actually, yes. They had gone to Les Alyscamps, she said, and walked between the tall trees the length of L’Allée des Sarscophages beside the rows of limestone coffins where eighty generations were buried. What she told him did not seem delivered, a piece of her patter (though it occurred to Miller that of course it must be), but came out of her mouth almost conversationally. She described how Arlésienne wedding guests would leave the church directly after the ceremony, come out to L’Allée des Sarcophages and, sitting on the coffin lids, make a picnic of champagne and éclairs. Quite coincidentally, she said, such a picnic had occurred just that afternoon, he’d missed that.

“How extraordinary,” Miller said. “Champagne and éclairs.”

“Oh,” Rita said, “it’s to do with the life cycle. The sweetness and sorrow newlyweds must expect.”

“No,” Miller said, “I meant the combination.”

Had she flinched? It seemed to him, who had never really been able to read faces, who had seldom detected even a blush, or seen someone blanch, or understood the widely touted, famous signals of the eyes, that he saw something happen in her head, some faint temblor of hurt and shock. (Miller too well guessed at its epicenter.) Because, he thought, earlier I’d been an asshole, and then (on top of on top of, etc.) went a little crazy, lay down for a few hours, woke up refreshed, managed to get something in my belly, and am now restored to being an asshole again. At least a fool. This is a nice girl, why should I cut myself off at the pass?

So he played it straight. Straighter. Got them back on the tour bus again, hurriedly asked her where else they had gone, what else they had seen. She answered mechanically at first, then (for she was a good sort or at the very least every bit the superb factotum she was cracked up to be) resumed the casual, conversational pace of her previous remarks.

From Les Alyscamps they’d climbed the hill to the Roman amphitheater. It was probably built in the first century, was a hundred thirty-six by one hundred seven meters, which was, let’s see, maybe four hundred and twenty-eight, no, four hundred forty-six by three hundred fifty-one feet in Miller’s money. It seated twenty thousand spectators. In the middle ages it had been turned into a fortress, which gradually became an actual town with around two hundred houses and a couple of chapels. The stones for its transformation had come from the amphitheater itself. Over the years the little village dissolved into a ruin, but excavation was undertaken in the nineteenth century — eighteen twenty-something, she thought — and the amphitheater was restored. It was really too bad he hadn’t felt well enough to join the group today, she said. They’d climbed to the top of one of the three remaining watch towers to get an idea of the sheer massiveness of the arena. It had been very clear this afternoon. Their height had provided them with grand views. They’d been able to see all of Arles of course, but there’d been good views, too, of the Rhône, and of the Alpilles in the distance, and of Montmajour Abbey at the end of Arles Plain. Well perhaps another time. Yes, come to think of it, if they could get the bus, there were plans to go out to Montmajour Abbey tomorrow.

“When do they work?” asked Miller. “Oh,” Rita said, “everyone goes at their own pace here.” “It’s a little like being on an ocean voyage.” “I have never been on an ocean voyage. I do not go at my own pace. I go at the pace of the others.”

“Then that’s your pace,” Miller, landlocked in Indianapolis, who hadn’t ever been on an ocean voyage either but who’d that very afternoon, beneath his napkin, momentarily felt himself benignly wrapped in the narcotic of his waiter’s attentions and suspected the pleasures of deck chairs, of being held fast in tightly tucked blankets, and who now, this evening, tonight, in Van Gogh’s room at Arles, contentedly surrendered himself to the barbery buzz of Rita’s sweet voice, dreamily said. And who knew (Miller) that though he was rested now, restored to sanity, that his hallucination had been merely a hallucination, that the last thing in the world he wanted, the very last thing, was to get on a bus to go out with the others to Montmajour Abbey, whatever that was. That rested or not, restored or not, Miller could wait until it came out in an eight-by-ten. “Well, you know,” he added, “perhaps I should stay in just a bit longer. I don’t think I’m up quite yet for anything as rigorous as a tour. I may be coming down with something. I still feel a little funny. A little, I don’t know, disoriented and strange. It could be the mistral.”

“The mistral blows in the winter,” Rita said. “I’ll call a doctor if you don’t feel better. But really,” she said, “the best thing for your sort of malaise is not to give in to it. You should get up. You shouldn’t lie about. You should try to make it down to breakfast. You must try to get out more. Make some friends while you’re here. Monsieur Hartshine seems quite nice. He is very enthusiastic. He will get on nicely. Already, on the tour, I could see he is very popular with the other Fellows. He could introduce you, he could help you make your way. In any event, it is not a good thing to depend on trays and bland diets. I promised I would speak to Chef, and I will. That is no trouble. But it would be much better for you if you made some effort to adjust to the food. It isn’t good for you to lie about all alone in the yellow house.”