William Gass - Middle C

What were these happy doses, these swigs of happy times, he would prescribe for the healing of his soul? Joey would sit at the piano in the downside of afternoon and play what he loved — pieces he could skip through without effort or mistake — and whose words he would robustly sing as he went along: “Believe me, if all those endearing young charms, / Which I gaze on so fondly today, / Were to change by tomorrow and fleet in my arms, / Like fairy wings fading away …” When he sang he imagined Professor Skizzen to be assuming the voice of Fate, so Joey had to possess the boyish charms referred to. But Fate’s firm boast of fidelity was futile. Although the sunflower, as the song said, turned its face to the twilight wearing the same devoted look it gave the dawn, when Skizzen was seen to be other than he had been, the expression would be anger and scorn.

As for Miriam, who already suspected something, and might not be terribly surprised by a little misrepresentation, the situation would nevertheless be as disastrous as could be imagined, because Miriam would have no more friends, could count the trials of her life as having accomplished less than nothing, and now would be compelled to face winter without hope or happiness or funds, hence to live on ingratitude as well as she could, since that was all there seemed to be an abundance of.

Upon his confession, Joey could hear her speak like this, as an outraged victim to a judge, not facing him, rather addressing the world or some god who had been brought in to preside at the catastrophe. Joey could only stand there: mute, helpless, enraged on his own behalf, ashamed, a destitute. Her manner of life, as well as his, would go up in such smoke as their suttee could summon: a bonfire of house, furniture, and garden, a consummation devoted to nothing: no degrees, no licenses, no number for a name, no father, no background, no learning, no love.

No guilt.

That would be his defense, and his explanation. Joey was innocent. He had not stolen the diamond-pointed needle from Mr. Kazan’s store.

He had not given Professor Ludens the least encouragement. He had not had evil intentions when he accepted Madame Mieux’s invitation, or succumbed in any way to intoxicating smoke in Mieux’s nest of cozy pillows. He had not made sinful overtures to the Major or taken advantage of Portho’s poverty. He had not conspired to defame or overthrow the Lutheran church whatever Rector Gunter Luthardt might say. He had returned all his borrowed books to the library. He had persuaded the college to feed the school’s emaciated collection of recordings until it was plump, if not fat.

But you stole garden seeds from the school’s shed.

And he had paid in cash for his car. He had not struck any human being with it either.

You stole garden seeds from the school’s shed.

I was poor and needy. It was a gesture worthy of Dickens. It was my poor mother’s birthday. They were cheap seeds.

You had no license allowing you to drive. You have never paid a penny in taxes.

I was … I was a misregistered alien, a victim of violence and dislocation; surely that must be seen as a plus, for it meant that I had never supported one of America’s wars or failed to carry out the duties, like voting, expected from the ordinary citizen, since I wasn’t one and was under no obligation.

But you lied to President Palfrey about your age, education, and academic qualifications.

Is it my fault if I had no training and had been denied by circumstances the tutorial skills of the great Gerhardt Rolfe? or that arthritis had slowed my fingers so that I could no longer perform my favorite Chopin? I drove my mother to see her daughter when Debbie was in labor. And again when the little pebble was born.

You got rid of the car so that you wouldn’t have to do this favor for your mother.

I rarely eat her food anymore. I rarely see her through so many doors. She gardens as regularly as a tap drips. Debbie drives in from the farm now and then. She even brought the baby with her once. How loud it was in the walls of that house.

You spent hours of your lying life obsessively rearranging the words in that sentence you wished to pronounce upon humanity.

No, no. Not a life. It cannot have been an obsession because I finally got it right.

First Skizzen felt mankind must perish, then he feared it might survive.

First

Skizzen

felt

mankind

must

perish

then

he

feared

it

might

survive

Twelve tones, twelve words, twelve hours from twilight to dawn.

I furthermore collected evidence for my fears by establishing the Inhumanity Museum. One day the library will give over one or two of its rooms to my achievement. Perhaps the very authorities that accuse me now will establish in my honor the Twelve-Tone Chair or fix upon a bronze plaque the sacred words: FIRST SKIZZEN FELT MANKIND MUST PERISH, THEN HE FEARED IT MIGHT SURVIVE. At Augsburg College, Luther had his door of wood or block of stone, why can’t I have mine?

Luther said you couldn’t buy your way into God’s good graces. It would come, if it came, free in the mail. You are the soul that needs reformation; right now you are made of nothing better than ballyhoo. For instance, wasn’t the museum designed to the specifications of your pleasure, and your pleasure alone?

Did I not establish a yearlong course in the history of music? Was I not mentioned — twice — for most distinguished teacher? My students may have, but I never skipped class, was never late, and rarely ill. My oddities helped sustain the dignities of my subject. Compare me then with my compatriots. Pull them from the line! Send them to the rear! So I had no pretty papers to make my existence authentic, and — yes — I had to learn my trade by pursuing it. So what! Compare me. Compare me. Then fire us all. Our crimes vary, but our guilt defies dry-cleaning.

There is a system of certification, designed to protect students from incompetence and misinformation, whose rules you have broken irreparably. Even if you have done all you say, you do not merit special treatment. Serious students must learn many things they do not wish to learn, but you have learned only what you liked to know. You licked the chocolate from a candy wrapper. You are a clown, a pratfaller fellow. Selling snake oil from a pregreased bottle.

Joey did not dare to explain to the president of his college or his colleagues or his dean that he had an aim in life they might not understand but one that their suspicions were defeating: it was to pass through life still reasonably clean of complicity in human affairs, affairs that are always and inevitably … envious, mean, murderous, jealous, greedy, treacherous, miserly, self-serving, vengeful, pitiless, stupid, and otherwise pointless. My father fled the Nazis before they were the Nazis, because he knew our nature. He tried to remove himself from blame, from complicity. Had he not done so, would he not have been, in some small way, responsible for the behavior of the Austrian state, greeting their cheapjack little Führer as if he arrived with lunch? Nor do I belong to America. I am without number. My money, meager as it is, cannot be spent nefariously. I have not contributed to the tricks of high finance. I live simply, out of the reach of ambition or conspiracy. You see, Professor Skizzen is not me. I send him forth to represent me, you might say, to be the man who has to do the business with the devil that must be done.

Then why is—

Then why is his face still floating about the base of the dish, though it’s been emptied of soup and every other info?