William Kennedy - Quinn's Book

“My breasts are too small to show to anyone. Especially you.”

“A m I so much less than a cake?”

“It’s not less or more, you ninny. It’s what must be. I didn’t invent this ritual.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” said Quinn, and he grabbed her hand and pulled her along. Suddenly he stopped and threw his arms around her and kissed her with lip and tongue, but could say nothing. He finished his kissing and pulled her toward the street.

“Your face is very rough,” Maud said to him, stumbling along behind him. “You should shave.”

“I don’t shave,” Quinn said. “People who are lower than cakes don’t have to shave.”

“You’re not lower than a cake, Daniel,” said Maud. “You don’t understand my situation, and you don’t understand me.”

“It’s true I don’t.”

“If you shave I’ll tell you everything.”

“Then we’ll go to the barber right now.”

“No, we’ll go back to Obadiah’s. I’ll get you John’s razor.”

“I don’t know how to use a razor. I’d cut off my nose.”

“Of course you wouldn’t. If a primitive like John McGee can use a razor, so can you.”

“John also knows how to use his fists and knock out the champion of the world, and I don’t know how to do that.”

“Then it’s time you learned,” Maud said, stepping up into their hired carriage.

Quinn stood before the mirror of the shaving stand in an upstairs bathroom and looked at himself. His shirt was hidden under the towel Maud had tucked into his collar. She had fetched all of John’s shaving gear: soft-bristle brush, mug of soap, bone-handled straight razor, also a jar of alum to cauterize cuts — medical wisdom she had come by while watching John shave. Maud opened the razor and put it in Quinn’s hand.

“You know how it’s done, don’t you?” she asked.

“Of course I know how it’s done. I saw my father shave a thousand times.”

“Well, don’t cut yourself in any vital spots. Go careful till you get the knack of it.”

“I don’t need to be told.”

“Then I shall tell you no more for now. Ta ta.”

And she left.

Quinn touched the razor to his right cheek, a fly’s weight on the skin, and moved it gently downward. Some of the dry, soapless stubble gave way before the razor’s formidably sharp edge, but with the pain of snagged hair. The truth was that Quinn had never seen his father shave. The man wore a beard. Quinn now looked at John’s brush and soap as hostile objects, for if you cover your face with soap how will you see what you’re supposed to cut? He continued his dry shave. It hurt. Still, he had not gouged himself. He pressed on. It hurt.

Eck.

A cut.

Reluctantly he wet his face and soaped one side of it and around the mouth, making small dabs with the brush, using the circular motion he remembered from watching a barber work. He moved his lower jaw to the left and puckered his lips as he lathered his right cheek, moved jaw to the right and made opposite pucker when lathering left. With his first finger he wiped his lips clean of soap, picked up the razor and began anew the elimination of his downy whiskers. Blood was coloring the soap on his cheek, but he tried not to watch. He shaved on.

Eck.

Another cut. More blood.

He pressed on, carefully, learning to let the razor glide over his skin, shearing the whiskers with newfound ease as the blood flow intensified. He finished, rinsed his face in the now pink water, then set about applying alum to the cuts as Maud had instructed him. His blood stopped leaking but he felt new pain from the alum’s stypticity. He dried his face and stared at himself in the mirror. He concluded he would have to shave regularly from now on, a relentless obligation. He would, in spite of all, develop an awesome talent for shaving himself. He could feel that. He would be very good at what he did. Maud had predicted that.

Life does seem to conspire against the lofting of the spirit, does it not? Quinn came down clean-shaven from the bathroom and looked for Maud. He asked the footman if he’d seen her and the man said he had not.

Quinn went to the veranda and sat in the largest wicker rocker in North America. In the waning sunlight of the afternoon he mused on beauty, wealth, women, and the brilliance of the person who had invented shaving soap. He studied the architecture of Obadiah’s veranda with its twisted columns and the perfection of its paint, which seemed ever new. He relished the rolling symmetry of the lawn and gardens, the trellises and arches, the beds of roses and lush stands of mature trees. He felt a profound serenity overtaking him and he began to doze. He was awakened by the footman, who asked if he cared for tea. Obadiah had seen him napping and thought the tea might brace him. Quinn smiled and said yes, tea would be pleasant.

He rocked, no longer worrying where Maud might be. He knew she would be along, probably in a new dress, or in a peculiar costume, or with a new hairdo. Whatever her look, her mood would be the reverse of what it had been when they parted. She would be effusive, flirtatious. She would open her mouth and pretend to kiss him. She would tell him stories of old Spain, or of majestic horseback riding, or of her mother and the King, or she would reveal arcane secrets of love that Magdalena had passed on to her.

Quinn equated Maud with his Celtic potato platter: both of them agents of change and illusion, both of uncertain origin and significance — the platter waiting underground for another generation to unearth it, quantifying its own value and mystery in the shallow grave; and Maud propounding mysteries of the cosmos with every Maudbreath. Buried, they eluded. Resurrected, they grew lustrous.

The footman brought tea and cucumber sandwiches. Quinn apologized for not liking cucumbers and asked was there an alternative. The footman said he would speak with the cook, and returned with caviar canapés, diced celery, and raw peppers. Quinn tasted and loathed each in turn, an awareness dawning in him that something was amiss. It was unlikely that so many foods chosen by a chef should all displease him. Negative matter was being imposed on him. He wondered if Maud’s spirits were stalking him. He saw dusk settling on Obadiah’s landscape and imagined himself starving to death while the footman brought him an unending stream of food samplers: lamb’s eyes and bull’s testicles, goat fritters and fried pigskin. These would be perfectly cooked, elegantly off ered. Quinn would reject each, and passersby would soon notice his weight loss.

Obadiah sat down in the rocker next to him.

“Enjoying yourself?” Obadiah asked.

“I enjoyed the tea, but I wonder what’s keeping Maud.”

“No one has seen her since last night. She’s not in her room.”

“I was with her today. We took a carriage ride and came back here so I could shave with John McGee’s razor. I sat here to wait for her. She’s a girl of a different sort.”

“A different sort exactly,” said Obadiah. “No one has seen her since last night.”

“I was with her today. We took a carriage ride.”

“If you say so.”

“What do you mean, if I say so?”

“Well, you’re a young lad.”

“I was with her.”

“If you say so.”

“I do,” said Quinn.

“A horse is missing. From the stable.”

“A horse?”

“One of my horses. A horse.”

“Where did it go?”

“Well, that’s certainly a question. Where did it go?”

“Do you think Maud took the horse?”

“It’s been suggested.”

“Maud wouldn’t steal a horse.”

“Perhaps she’s only out riding. But she’s been gone since last night and so has the horse, and no one has seen either one of them.”