John Gardner - The Sunlight Dialogues

She felt herself growing stronger. “A minute,” she whispered. She gazed into the mirror and could not tell what she felt. She washed her face. No feeling in the skin. She’d been mistaken. She’d imagined that he had partly grown used to going around like some ugly, drunken tramp, shirttails hanging out, beard a rat’s nest, shoes worn over till the sides supported more than the soles; because when he wanted he could make himself kempt, almost respectable except for the ruined face. But now, remembering the way he’d covered that face with his arm, she understood his hatred. She remembered the safety razor in the medicine cabinet and squinted, imagining herself slipping the blade into his throat. She opened the cabinet. (Behind her father’s house, when she was a child, there had been a woods where there were the remains of a road not used in years — an alley through the trees, merely — and alongside that road that was no longer a road, there were the ruins of a house where a couple named Springer had lived, long ago; a young man and his bride. She had killed him with a razor, because she loved someone else and never intended to marry him, but was forced. Once Millie had been out in the garage playing — she must have been twelve or thirteen at the time — and had all at once been overcome by a profound, completely inexplicable grief, thinking of the Springer girl. She could see the girl very clearly in her mind now, just as she had then — a tall blonde, with hollow eyes and high cheekbones, wearing a cotton print dress faded almost to white from many many washings. But the Springer girl had in fact been plump, Millie had heard later. She had thick lips and dimples, and she used to swim naked with boys.)

The soft knock came again, and Millie started. In the mirror she caught herself gaping like a witch (a second Millie observing the first), saying, “Yes.” She thought with sudden violence, surprising to her, I too would have swum naked with boys. She’d come too late to her sorceries. After the first green dawn. “Yes,” she thought soberly, and opened the bathroom door.

Luke and Nick, too, had washed and had not combed their hair. Luke stood at the piano looking at the keys, holding a martini in his shaky left hand, his mind miles away, or gone entirely. Nick sat on the couch, suitcoat open, with bourbon in front of him and on the ashtray a cigarette he did not seem to have lit himself. The Sunlight Man — no, Taggert Hodge (but that too was wrong: he was no longer Taggert) held out a glass to her, a martini like Luke’s, with a small piece of lemon peel in it. She ignored it. He put it in her hand and closed the fingers.

“Ravishing,” he said.

She was stone. She could look out and see the glow of Attica Prison in the sky. All those policemen down there, she thought, and he’s here, comfortable, prepared to go on for weeks.

“A beautiful night,” he said.

She turned to look at him again for a moment, then shook her head, numb. She remembered him suddenly as he’d been behind the chickenhouse, standing over her after Nick killed Mr. Hardesty, and her back tingled. It passed.

“Yes,” he said. “It puzzles me too. But no doubt there’s some perfectly reasonable explanation.”

“What are you talking about?” she said.

He raised one finger to his lips. “What does it mean, if anything, to say that we’re cruel beasts?” he said. He leaned closer and whispered, “It’s shocking. The fantastic insignificance of it all.”

“All?” she said.

He winked. “As for my own investigations, I’m inclining more and more to the persuasion that the center of it all is Time.” Cliché from one of those modern novels. She realized, briefly, that she was merely a character in an endless, meaningless novel, then forgot.

She nodded again. “Time.”

“Precisely. It makes us suspend our disbelief. We live by instants, that’s human nature; and if we judge, we judge on the basis of the past. But tentatively, because there’s always the future, p. 622. Are you actually trying to understand all this rubbish?”

“Trying—?”

“By instants. Exactly! What we are, instant by instant, is a part of a system of relationships. As in classical ballet. I stand in such and such a relationship to you: that is my meaning, my significance. If I go over there and stand by your son, my significance must change. I kiss him. I slap him. Insofar as there are common elements in all these situations, there is continuity, which is to say, I begin to embody values. And insofar as both of you, or both kiss and slap, also embody these same values, we three have reason to suppose these values are a part of the common core.”

She said nothing.

“It’s very moving, in a way, to be part of the common core. That’s what religion is. The Ten Commandments, that sort of thing.”

She pretended not to hear.

“But only tentatively moving, because of the Future. Everything may change. We expect it won’t, but it may. I’ve known myself characters whose lives seemed absolutely stable, and whose values therefore seemed absolutely clear. But then, unexpectedly, everything changed. You follow me, don’t you? This is a difficult line of reasoning.” He hurried on: “So, probability failed them. They became questioners, testers, gadflies to divinity. They discovered that life was—” He leaned close to whisper: “—vastly insignificant.” He smiled. “They therefore imposed meaning on life: they became, in other words, as rigid as possible, so that in all particular instances they were as much like themselves in other instances as they could manage to be. For example, in all situations (I speak of one example now), one of these people made a practice of turning the conversation to politics, on which he could say exactly what he had said before, with the same expression. This was very comforting to him, as you can imagine. He became skillful at interpreting each new political situation exactly as he had interpreted all past political situations. Eventually, and of course predictably, he took the extreme position, that is, he died. Another such maniac—”

“Wait a minute,” she said.

“I’m a palmist, too,” he said. “Were you aware of that? Give me your hand. Very good, wonderful. Fingers lightly curled. Good. Are you ready?” He closed his eyes and began to move his fingers over the palm of her hand slowly, like a man feeling out a page of braille. “Pointed and Sensible Suggestions to Guest and Hostess,” he read. “Avoid controversy and argument. Do not monopolize any good thing. Do not overdo the matter of entertainment. Do not make a hobby of personal infirmities. Go directly when the call or the visit is ended. Do not forget bathing facilities for the traveller. Make yourself at home, but not much so. In ministering to the guest do not neglect the family. Conform to the customs of the house, especially as to meals. Let no member of the family intrude in the guest chamber. Do not make unnecessary work for others, even servants. Be courteous, but not to the extent of surrendering principles. Do not gossip; there are better things to talk about. When several guests are present, give a share of attention to all. Introduce games and diversions, but only such as will be agreeable. Better simple food with pleasure than luxuries with annoyance and worry.” He opened his eyes. “Shocking,” he said. He looked alarmed and let the hand fall. “Nevertheless, you and I are not so dissimilar as I had imagined, my dear. Shall I refresh your glass?” She had not drunk from it. “I too have a great respect for facts. For instance, it is of no little importance to me that a closed room is bad for sleeping in because air once breathed parts with a sixth of its oxygen and contains an equivalent amount of carbonic acid gas. Air breathed six times will not support life. And I care very much that red hair is of that color because it has a larger proportion of sulphur than black hair. If a fishbone gets stuck in your throat you can get it down by swallowing a raw egg. A red-hot iron passed over old putty will soften it so that it can easily be removed. A teaspoonful of Borax added to cold starch will make clothes stiffer than anything else I have ever tried, and it adds no polish. Let me refresh your glass.”