Stanley Elkin - Boswell

I said it slowly, sounding a little exasperated this time. “Sono Boswell. Capito?”

Now he was very unsteady. I gave him another one. “Sono Boswell. So-no Bos-well. Bozzz-well. Ca-pi-to?”

He said something in a very rapid Italian. “Tch- tch-tch,” I said. “Sono Americano. No parle Italiano.”

He repeated whatever he had said more slowly.

“Americano,” I said when he was through, smiling widely, innocently. I shrugged a little stupidly and smiled even more broadly. Then I turned to Margaret and spoke very quickly in English. For his benefit I tried to make it sound as if I were saying, My my what are we to do now here it is already such and such o’clock and we’re late for our appointment and all of us will lose our jobs if we don’t get inside. I said, “Don’t look so nervous, Margaret. We’re almost through. I recognize the third degree of self-doubt on his face. I want you to say something in English now. Anything — it doesn’t make any difference. Make it should like a suggestion.”

Margaret hesitated.

“Go ahead,” I said. “Say something. Anything at all. It ought to sound as if you’re giving me an idea.”

“I might be able to live with you,” Margaret said.

“Ah,” I said, “ah.” I turned back to the policeman.

“Sono Boswell, capito?” I said. I flexed my muscles. I held up my left arm and made the biceps jump around on it. I did some of Sandusky’s best stuff. I pointed to the high gloss on my body. All the while I repeated the simple formula. “Sono Boswell. Capitol Capito?”

The policeman began to nod in faint recognition. The more I asked him if he understood, the surer he became. I smiled, nodding vigorously, repeating my name. Boswell, smile, vigorous nodding, muscle spasm. Boswell, smile, vigorous nodding, astonishing sudden appearance of hidden muscle like a submarine surfacing. Boswell, smile, vigorous nodding, delighted pointing to some intricate maneuver under the skin.

“Capito,” he said at last. “Capito. Samson!”

“Ca pito ?” I said.

“Si, capito, capito,” he said. “Bosswail.” He pulled the gate open wide and beckoned us inside. We walked past him beaming and smiling. He waved and I waved.

“Ooo kay,” he said. “Ooo kay.”

“Ca pito ?” I said.

“Si, si,” he said, “capito.”

Margaret said now what, and I said we’re inside aren’t we, and wasn’t that enough for one day, and she said but what was the point, and I said the point was that we got away with it. Margaret didn’t reply to that

I felt a little badly about Margaret’s question. What did we do now? I had no follow through, no real style; it was all the flashy stuff. Sure, how many people could get inside, but then how many people would want just to get inside? Wouldn’t they have ulterior motives? My flaw was I had none. I had only means, no cause to put them to. I was up to here with means; I had means enough for a regiment, but I was at a loss for ends.

When in Los Farronentes with Lano I had bunked with a kid from Milwaukee named Rohnspeece. He wasn’t very bright, I’m afraid, and he must have been very poor, for he used to annoy me with the great pleasure he got from the small comforts. If there were cookies for dessert, before he ate them Rohnspeece would fondle each one as if it were some rare coin. He was also an admirer of Jello, of all flavors of ice cream, and of the dark meat. But the thing he loved most in this world was the blanket on his cot. There were two kinds of blankets; one was contraband from the Argentine army and the other was a stolen shipment of U.S. Army blankets. The U.S. Army blanket was a little thicker than the Argentine one and Rohnspeece, to his unfailing amazement, had been issued one of the former. Sometimes, on the colder nights, he would suddenly become conscience-stricken by his good fortune and would wake me up. “It’s cold again tonight,” he would say. “It isn’t fair that I should always have the U.S. Army blanket. Would you like to trade?”

“No,” I would say. “Go to sleep.”

“Look,” he would say, “I’m from Milwaukee. It gets pretty cold up there sometimes. I’m used to the cold weather. I don’t need this U.S. Army blanket.”

“Rohnspeece, roll yourself up in your god-damned U.S. Army blanket and go to sleep,” I would say.

It was only because he annoyed me so much that I didn’t take his blanket. I knew that by refusing it I was forcing him to lie awake all night with his guilt and his pathetic metaphysical speculations about why some men always seemed to get extra large portions of vanilla ice cream and U.S. Army blankets, while others were issued blankets from Argentina and had to take a banana when the ice cream ran out

Once while we were eating chicken Rohnspeece gave one of his heart-rending sighs and said something I shall never forget. “Gee,” he said, “I got the thigh again. I had it last time, too.” For him it was the capstone of his good fortune.

When Lano blew up Corbonzelos a piece of a building caught Rohnspeece in the stomach, and as he lay dying he told me that he had heard one time that if you had to get it it was best to get it in the stomach because it didn’t hurt so much when it was in the stomach, it only made you a little thirsty.

“Is it true, Rohnspeece?” I asked him.

“You know,” he said, surprised and pleased, “it is,” and he died wondering about his good fortune.

I had never realized it before, but Rohnspeece and I were a lot alike. We both had that surprising humility of expectation that arises, I think, from profound discontent. To be inside when it was raining, warm when it was cold, to be able to sleep, to move your bowels regularly, to throw peanut butter sandwiches at your hunger — this was living. I shuddered, but there is nothing one can do about one’s character except avenge it, and I am always thinking of ways.

Margaret and I walked through the busy lot, strolling past the fantastic sets laid down in a weird contiguity of geography and time, turning from a toy Roman street corner into a jungle, going from the jungle into the courtyard of a medieval palace where we could see a messenger on his knees before a king. He had run from the direction of a small sea, where miniature destroyers and cruisers and battleships pitched eight feet off shore. We crossed the border into Palestine and Margaret pointed out to me the papier-mâché temple which some humiliated Samson would pull down one afternoon.

“Here’s where the policeman thought you belonged,” Margaret said.

“Oh, belonged,” I said.

We crossed a slum where people pretended to be unhappy, a mock Riviera where they pretended to be

gay.

“It’s like a big park,” Margaret said. “I’ve never seen it this way.”

I was thinking about Rohnspeece and I didn’t answer her.

“Did you hear what I said before, Boswell?” she asked after a while.

“That you’d never seen it this way,” I said.

“No,” she said, “earlier. When you were talking to that policeman and I said I might be able to live with you.”

“Oh,” I said, “live.”

We were married in the Palace of the Cavalieri di Malta by the Grand Master of the Order.

The Italian Premier was there and the Agnellis of Fiat and Enrico Mattei, the oil man. The Colonnas came. The Borgheses did. There were four Cardinals from the Curia, one of them the Pope’s special representative. There were film directors and the owners of ski resorts and chairmen of boards and directors of banks. There were ambassadors who had to find seats in the back. There was some royalty, and society so high it made me dizzy,