Хелен Девитт - Some Trick - Thirteen Stories

This had been, maybe “inchoate” is the word. For the unease. (Which was now, what, choate? Really?) He had thought he loved Peter Dijkstra’s work when he read the novellas and the stories, but when he saw the notebook and the file cards there was this sudden jolt, because this was English that Peter Dijkstra had actually picked and it was different from the English people had picked to share Peter Dijkstra with English readers.

Which was not a problem in itself , because there had always been Dutch words behind the English words someone had picked. Whereas.

Cissy did not want to be paranoid but she sensed that there was an inner circle and she was not in it. Adam did not want to be paranoid. Ellen did not want to be paranoid. Merrill did not want to be paranoid. That is, Cissy sat over steak and frites at Edward’s, Adam had an Omelette Ardennaise and a Leffe at Petite Abeille (he adored Tintin), Ellen was just mooching up West Broadway toward a grilled cheese on rye at the Square Diner, Merrill was heading for a TBA brunch at the Odeon when they saw Gil duck into a bar, and fame being what it is all four thought he was avoiding them. Fame being what it is a devotion to the work of Peter Dijkstra had looked briefly like the ticket to an inner circle, and now look. It was horrible. It was false to everything that had ever mattered about Peter Dijkstra.

Cissy was the one who had followed her instincts and found herself in a hotel like a monastery, independently chosen by Peter Dijkstra. Oh, she should go back to following her instincts. She should be true to herself. Passing through Berlin she had seen a restaurant in the Daimler showroom on Unter den Linden; she had thought of having Breakfast at Daimler’s and laughed out loud but there was a plane to catch, why had she stupidly caught that plane? She would go back to Berlin and have Breakfast at Daimler’s every day among the gleaming classic cars until she had written a book as fast and sleek and gleaming as a Daimler.

Adam had found a place in Cappadocia where the people lived in caves, and later , beached in New York, found it independently singled out in the PD novella. Why had he left? He would go to Cappadocia and live in a room in a hotel in a cave until he had written a book of cavedwellers in a windwashed land.

Ellen had once missed a flight in Istanbul and spent 12 hours in the food mezzanine, an expanse of white plastic tables as far as the eye could see. There was a Burger King and a bar and a deli serving authentic Turkish food, and that day among the white tables was the best of her life. Why had she stupidly boarded her plane? (Peter Dijkstra would not have boarded the plane.) She would go back to Istanbul and stay at the airport and write a book as unencumbered and directionless as a room of white plastic tables.

Merrill had once stayed in a worn-down hotel in Paris, the Hôtel Tiquetonne, in a tiny room on the seventh floor, and he had been happy. Peter Dijkstra would have stayed, taking the creaking elevator with its accordion iron door. He would go and he would write a book as lighthearted in a worn-down world as a room in a downtrodden hotel on the seventh floor.

Perhaps this was not what Ralph had in mind when he talked of the passing of the moment, and yet the moment was passing.

Gil felt the confines of the inner circle closing in around him.

The way to be true to Peter Dijkstra was to be true to himself.

A loft and stuff is the kind of thing that fits into the transaction of the gift, you can transfer , bestow . But not having a loft and stuff, solitude, silence, being alone in a room with a notebook, if you have these things you can’t give them by transferring or bestowing.

Peter Dijkstra was in this four-room underground hotel in Vienna and he had filled 50 notebooks and if he could fill 50 notebooks why would he want to do anything but stay in the underground hotel filling notebooks? Why would he want a loft and somebody else’s stuff?

But what if???!!!!!

What if the normal rate for a room at this underground hotel is $79 a night, BUT, you could get a room with notebooks & file cards on loan from Peter Dijkstra for $299 a night, and the $220 goes to Peter Dijkstra. So he can keep his room indefinitely because it is paid for out of lending out his notebooks &c. AND. There are SEPARATE ENTRANCES. So you NEVER SEE Peter Dijkstra. He uses one entrance and you use another, so he can go on working without interruption, and you can sit in your room with the notebooks. This would Be. So. Great.

It would be great if you knew Peter Dijkstra’s favorite restaurants. People go to the restaurant and they can just order a meal. Or , they can order a meal plus notebook and file cards for the cost of an extra meal, which is left on account for Peter Dijkstra. Who can turn up whenever he wants and find his meal is already paid for!

Gil could totally see himself going to a restaurant and ordering a meal and a notebook and paying extra for the notebook. It would be better than going to a restaurant and having a meal with Peter Dijkstra and paying for the meal because there was no reason to think words from the mouth would have the intensity of the ink on the grid.

He asked the bartender for a napkin and a pen, and he scribbled down the ideas in their brilliance as fast as they came.

He would write a book in which people did not destroy the thing they loved.

Peter Dijkstra got an e-mail from the go-getter the gist of which was that the notebook and file cards had struck a bonanza. A young writer who worshipped his work had offered the use of his loft and airfare and if he would take his notebooks to New York editors would make an exception and read the work in this unpolished state and the go-getter could virtually guarantee that they could get a deal on the strength of this and set the ball rolling.

He got an e-mail from the young American proposing schemes which seemed to involve encouraging total strangers to descend on his hotel and favorite restaurants and go through his papers.

He got e-mails from one young American after another who had learned to be true to themselves.

Peter Dijkstra had been sitting at the small desk in his room. He stood up, stretched. He left the room, went upstairs and went out into the street. It was not a very nice street: one good thing about the rooms was the fact that they had no view.

He could not think of anything to say in reply to the e-mails. Or rather, what he wanted to say was, “I’m a very good man, but I’m a very bad wizard.”

He lit a Marlboro and went off in search of a beer or maybe a Sachertorte or a schnitzel. He could not say which verb described the movement of his aimless feet.

‘The rest was pure Arabian Nights. Gazelle-eyed maidens with perfumed robes brought inlaid boxes of Turkish delight and roast hummingbirds and sugared grapes and honeyed wine — ghastly stuff — and tiny cups of sludgy coffee. Silks kissed the earth. Our host raised his hands and clapped — once — twice — three times, and on the third the strains of a harp wafted in from the wings.

‘“But my dear chaps! You’re not eating!” he cried. “Try the hummingbirds, I assure you they are excellent. Or a morsel of lamb? And you must, you positively must sample the mare’s milk cheese, it is a speciality of my people, a great delicacy. Fatima! See that the gentlemen have some cheese!”

‘He went on in this way for some time, and after I suppose half an hour or so said — “But come! I shall order them to prepare us a hookah, and my companions shall entertain you. Which did you favour among those who served you?”