John Hawkes - Travesty

No doubt it is just as well that I was not wearing a ring. But tell me, are you feeling better?

Approaching. Yes, we are approaching closer. And once again, you see, I must shift the gears. Shift them from one velvet plateau to the next. And now how directly we are propelled toward Honorine in her mammoth bed. By now she must indeed be smiling in the depths of her sleep. But of course she has left the old

lantern burning for us as usual, burning in our honor and for our protection. If I remember, I will point it out to you-that old lantern swaying on the end of its chain.

Jealousy? Jealousy?

After all I have said. . after my woman of luxury. . after Monique. . after all my fervent protestations of affection. . after all I have done to clarify our situation and to allay your fears-now, as a last resort, you are finally willing to accuse me of mere jealousy? As if I am only one of those florid money-makers who is afraid to thrust even his fingers into the secret places of his stenographer's attractive body and yet turns green, as they say, whenever he imagines that his lonely wife harbors in her heart of hearts the quivering desire to watch while her husband's best friend climbs nude and dripping from his tubful of hot water? Is it with such implications that you expect to stop me, to bring me to earth, so to speak? As if on this note I will suddenly recognize myself and bow to your judgment, exclaiming that, yes, for all these years I have been an excellent actor outwardly while inwardly nursing the most unpleasant banalities of sexual envy? As if you are the hero and I the villain, the one openly and, I might say, foolishly accepting the favors of the other's honest wife and naive daughter until the other has finally spent enough years drinking slime (in his toilet, in his monastic bed chamber, in his cold automobile parked side by side with his wife's in what was once the stable) in order to act? But are you then so foolish? And could any man, even me, bear such violent feelings for that length of time? And are you suggesting that Honorine is not sensitive, perceptive? After all, if I had in fact been concealing and suffering all this time the latent frenzy of jealousy, would it not have exposed itself in some faint sign which Honorine, in all her concern for my welfare, would have noted at once? Well, you can see what I think of your last resort. This argument is not your avenue of escape.

Of course it is true that you are not a very good poet. I have always made my opinion plain. And it is true that all your disclaimers (about your worth, the size of your audience, the importance of your prizes, the extent of your creative torment, the unhappiness of your life, and so forth) were always to me offensive. And it is true that you are an emotional parasite. Would you deny it? As for your dreadful and eternal seriousness, it is indeed true that on certain occasions, when you have been brooding alone before the fire, when you have been brooding with Honorine over some dull line of verse, when after a glass or two of cognac you have converted your brooding into a sullen, pretentious monologue for the benefit of Honorine and Chantal and me, then I have indeed longed to hear you suddenly give voice to a single, extended, piercing shriek of laughter.

But no more than that. Never have I wished you pain or discomfort more than that. So please do not accuse me of being jealous. It is a bad idea and a poor ploy.

On the other hand, it is also quite true that even after sharing so many intimate years together, still there is a great deal that you do not know about Honorine and Chantal and me. Witness my discussion tonight. And this discussion is, I assure you, the merest hint of what you do not know about the three of us. Only the clear, white, brutal tip of the iceberg, to borrow a familiar but indispensable figure of speech. But wait. Stop for another moment. Consider everything you do indeed know about your mistress and her only two living blood or legal relatives. If you exposed this information in one of your poems you would embarrass the three of us for a lifetime. At least such a revelation would embarrass me if not Chantal and Honorine, who might in fact cherish this permanent form of your devotion.

But have you forgotten it all? Need I remind you of the afternoon and even the hour of day when you wrote your first inscription for Honorine-wrote it, that is, in her copy of your first book of poems? Yes, Hon- orine's treasured copy of that volume; your earliest and, I later heard, most derivative poems; my own gold- tipped pen which you borrowed for that occasion with hardly a word. Don't you remember? There were times when I might have wished that Honorine had chosen to show me that first inscription of yours, but then there were others when I was equally pleased that she had instead chosen to guard it selfishly from any eyes but hers. At least I caught a glimpse of your black, flowery handwriting that afternoon and, to be honest, thereafter kept my gold-tipped fountain pen capped for a week.

But what of all those first days and months and seasons when I retired early to my own sumptuous but monastic room, took unnecessary business trips, bundled Chantal off to mountain holidays? Have you forgotten how considerate I was, and how discreet, ingenious, flattering? Don't you remember Honorine's pleasure when there were two gifts of flowers on the piano in a single day? Or all those winter evenings when, on the white leather divan, the three of us enjoyed together the portfolio of large, clear photographs depicting the charming pornographic poses of a most intelligent woman of good birth? Surely you remember that visual history of the life of Honorine from youth to middle age in which her own appreciation of her piquant autoeroticism becomes increasingly subtle, increasingly bold? Surely you will not have forgotten the night when you remarked that every man hopes for an ordinary wife who will prove a natural actress in the theater of sex? Well, I savored that remark for days. I still do. It was perhaps the only poetic remark you ever made.

I could go on. I could remind you of our disagreements, which were to be expected, or of our "family" celebrations, such as the event of my fiftieth birthday when you decided at last to inscribe one of your precious books for the so-called head of the household. I could remind you of all those physical moments when you managed to convey your awareness of my pleasure, generosity, total absence of perturbation. For instance, I need say no more than "the king drinks!" to recall to you those yearly festive nights when three of us sat around our flower-crowned cake and with shouts of happiness and admiration hailed the fourth. Surely you remember that you were always the king, though I would not remind you of how foolish you looked with your famous cigarette and open white shirt and paper crown. You accepted your royalty begrudgingly, as you did your popularity, but accepted it all the same. Or, for instance, it would be a simple matter for me to say that single word, those several words, which would immediately revive in your memory the sight of your body, of mine, of Honorine removing her nightgown of plum- colored velours before the embers still glowing in the conical recess of her bedroom fireplace.

It so happens that the book you inscribed for me no longer exists. But no matter. You know what I am talking about, and none of it-none of it-can be denied. So you must not accuse me of being jealous. Now is not the time to offer me a wound so deep.

But now I must tell you that once we pass Tara I will say nothing more. And I warn you now that if you make a single movement or utter a single sound once we pass Tara your death will not be an ironic triumph but a prolonged and hapless agony.

And yet I do not mean to adopt that tone of voice. Will you excuse it? To clear the air, I can tell you that whenever anything unusual is about to happen my chest itches. Yes, the skin in the area of my sternum is especially sensitive to unexpected occurrences, changes of scene, threats of impending violence. And now it is itching!