Flying to America (34 page)
“Far, far too old.”
“She had been using she told me now one of the new devices. It failed.”
“The oldest person in my rather wide acquaintanceship. I usually prefer youth. I made an exception, for you.”
“And it was much appreciated, it was like a new lease on life. I bought a new necktie, then another. The first clashed. With itself.”
“The photographer Nadar was said to know ten thousand people in Paris alone. Many of them young.”
“Youth. A hoot and a half.”
“For thou art Pan, thou Bacchus art, and Shepherd of bright stars!”
“I had given her a personal adornment allowance. Anything in the world she wanted so long as it was made of hair.”
“They’re doing some great things with hair nowadays, elephant hair, fish hair —”
“We made mistakes.”
“Brilliant mistakes, frequently, of the kind only the most gifted among us can achieve.”
“A light rain was threatening but did not fall.”
“I gave her a bouquet, scarletina, diptherium, phthisis, sweet megrims, purple mange —”
“We were going to kill somebody right in front of them, and then bring him back to life, the regular Corn God routine, I suppose, but enlivened with certain aesthetic touches no one had ever envisioned before —”
I wondered about my colleague. Was he, perhaps, skewed in the brain?
K
ellerman, gigantic with gin, runs through the park at noon with his naked father slung under one arm. Old Kellerman covers himself with both hands and howls in the tearing wind, although sometimes he sings in the bursting sunlight. Where there is tearing wind he howls, and where there is bursting sunlight he sings. The park is empty except for a pair of young mothers in greatcoats who stand, pressed together in a rapturous embrace, near the fountain. “What are those mothers doing there,” cries the general, “near the fountain?” “That is love,” replies the son, “which is found everywhere, healing and beautiful.” “Oh what a desire I have,” cries the general, “that there might happen some great dispute among nations, some great anger, so that I might be myself again!” “Think of the wrack,” replies the son. “Empty saddles, boots reversed in the stirrups, tasteful eulogies —” “I want to tell you something!” shrieks the general. “On the field where this battle was fought, I saw a very wonderful thing which the natives pointed out to me!”
On the night of the sixteenth, Wellington lingered until three in the morning in Brussels at the Duchess of Richmond’s ball, sitting in the front row. “Showing himself very cheerful,” according to Müffling. Then with Müffling he set out for the windmill at Brye,
where they found Marshal Blücher and his staff. Kellerman, followed by the young mothers, runs out of the park and into a bar.
“Eh, hello, Mado. A Beaujolais.”
“Eh, hello, Tris-Tris,” the barmaid replies. She is wiping the zinc with a dirty handkerchief. “A Beaujolais?”
“Cut the sentimentality, Mado,” Kellerman says. “A Beaujolais. Listen, if anybody asks for me —”
“You haven’t been in.”
“Thanks, Mado. You’re a good sort.”
Kellerman knocks back the Beaujolais, tucks his naked father under his arm, and runs out the door.
“You were rude with that woman!” the general cries. “What is the rationale?”
“It’s a convention,” Kellerman replies. The Belgian regiments had been tampered with. In the melee, I was almost instantly disabled in both arms, losing first my sword, and then my reins, and followed by a few men, who were presently cut down, no quarter being asked, allowed, or given, I was carried along by my horse, till, receiving a blow from a sabre, I fell senseless on my face to the ground. Kellerman runs, reading an essay by Paul Goodman in
Commentary.
His eye, caught by a line in the last paragraph (“In a viable constitution, every excess of power should structurally generate its own antidote”), has wandered back up the column of type to see what is being talked about (“I have discussed the matter with Mr. and Mrs. Beck of the Living Theatre and we agree that the following methods are tolerable”).
“What’s that?” calls the first mother. “On the bench there, covered with the overcoat?”
“That’s my father,” Kellerman replies courteously. “My dad.”
“Isn’t he cold?”
“Are you cold?”
“He looks cold to me!” exclaims the one in the red wrapper. “They’re funny-looking, aren’t they, when they get that old? They look like radishes.”
“Something like radishes,” Kellerman agrees. “Dirty in the vicinity of the roots, if that’s what you mean.”
“What does he do?” asks the one in the blue boots. “Or, rather, what did he do when he was of an age?”
Kellerman falls to his knees in front of the bench. “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. I committed endoarchy two times, melanicity four times, encropatomy seven times, and preprocity with igneous intent, pretolemicity, and overt cranialism once each.”
“Within how long a period?”
“Since Monday.”
“Did you enjoy it?”
“Which?”
“Any of it.”
“Some of it. Melanicity in the afternoon promotes a kind of limited joy.”
“Have you left anything out?”
“A great deal.” On the field where this battle was fought I saw a very wonderful thing which the natives pointed out to me. The bones of the slain lie scattered upon the field in two lots, those of the Persians in one place by themselves, those of the Egyptians in another place apart from them. If, then, you strike the Persian skulls, even with a pebble, they are so weak, that you break a hole in them; but the Egyptian skulls are so strong, that you may smite them with a stone and you will scarcely break them in.
“Oh what a desire I have,” cried the general, “that my son would, like me, jump out of airplanes into aggressor terrain and find farmers with pitchforks poised to fork him as he drifts into the trees! And the farmer’s dog, used for chivying sheep usually — how is it possible that I have a son who does not know the farmer’s dog? And then calling out in the night to find the others, voices in the night, it’s incredibly romantic. I gave him a D-ring for a teething toy and threw him up in the air, higher than any two-year-old had ever been, and put him on the mantel, and said, ‘Jump, you little bastard,’ and he jumped, and I caught him — this when I was only a captain and chairman of the Machine Gun Committee at Benning. He had expensive green-gold grenadiers from F.A.O. Schwarz and a garrote I made myself from the E flat on his mother’s piano. Firefights at dusk on the back lawn at Leonard Wood. Superior numbers in the
shower room. Give them a little more grape, Captain Gregg, under the autumnal moon.”
“Now, Agnes, don’t start crying! We better go see Uncle René all together right away, and he’ll explain anything you need to know.”
“Interesting point of view,” the ladies remarked. “Does he know anything about skin?”
“Everything.”
Touched by the wind, the general howls.
“He was a jumping general,” Kellerman explains to the ladies, “who jumped out of airplanes with his men to fall on the aggressor rear with sudden surprise and great hurt to that rear. He jumped in Sicily with the One-Oh-Bloody-One Airborne. The German cemetery at Pomezia has 27,400 graves,” Kellerman declares. “What could he have been thinking of, on the way down? Compare if you will the scene with the scene at the battle of Borodino, at the battle of Arbela, at the battle of Metaurus, at the battle of Châlons, at the battle of Pultowa, at the battle of Valmy —”
“Eh, hello, Mado. A Beaujolais.”
“Eh, hello, Tris-Tris. A Beaujolais?”
“Listen, Mado, if anybody asks for me —”
“You haven’t been in.”
“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. I wanted to say a certain thing to a certain man, a certain true thing that had crept into my head. I opened my head, at the place provided, and proceeded to pronounce the true thing that lay languishing there — that is, proceeded to propel that trueness, that felicitous trularity, from its place inside my head out into world life. The certain man stood waiting to receive it. His face reflected an eager acceptingness. Everything was right. I propelled, using my mind, my mouth, all my muscles. I propelled. I propelled and propelled. I felt that trularity inside my head moving slowly through the passage provided (stained like the caves of Lascaux with garlic, antihistamines, Berlioz, a history, a history) toward its début on the world stage. Past my teeth, with their little brown sweaters knitted of gin and cigar smoke, toward its leap to critical scrutiny. Past my lips, with their tendency to flake away in cold weather —
“Father, I have a few questions to ask you. Just a few questions about things that have been bothering me lately.” In the melee, I was almost instantly disabled in both arms. Losing first my sword, and then my reins. And followed by a few men, who were presently cut down, no quarter being asked, allowed, or given, I was carried along by my horse, till —“Who is fit for marriage? What is the art of love? What physical or mental ailments can be hereditary? What is the best age for marriage? Should marriage be postponed until the husband alone can support a family? Should a person who is sterile marry? What is sterility? How do the male reproductive organs work? Is a human egg like a bird’s? What is a false pregnancy? What is artificial insemination? What happens if the sex glands are removed? In the male? In the female? Is it possible to tell if a person is emotionally fit for marriage? Why are premarital medical examinations important? What is natural childbirth? What is the best size for a family? Can interfaith marriages be successful? Can a couple know in advance if they can have children? Are there any physical standards to follow in choosing a mate? How soon after conception can a woman tell if she is pregnant? What is the special function of the sex hormones? What are the causes of barrenness? How reliable are the various contraceptive devices? If near relatives marry will their children be abnormal? Do the first sex experiences have a really important bearing upon marital adjustment? Can impotence be cured? Can the sex of a child be predicted? How often should intercourse be practiced? How long should it last? Should you turn out the lights? Should music be played? Is our culture sick? Is a human egg like a bird’s?”
Kellerman stops at the ginstore. “We can’t use any of those,” the ginstoreman says. “Those whatever-it-ises you’ve got under your arm there.”
“That’s my dad,” Kellerman says. “Formerly known as the Hammer of Thor. Now in reduced circumstances.”
“I thought it was radishes,” the ginstoreman says. “A bunch of radishes.”
Kellerman kneels on the floor of the ginstore. “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. That one was venial. But in respect to mortal
sins, I would announce the following sins. Their mortalaciousness will not disappoint, is in fact so patent, so demonstrable, that the meanest confessor would, with a shy wave of the hand, accept and forgive them, in the manner of a customs inspector running his hand generously, forgivingly around the inside of a Valpak presented by a pretty girl.”
“What do
you
do?” the mothers ask. “You yourself.”
“I’m a bridge expert,” Kellerman says kindly. “The father of a book on the subject,
Greater Bridge,
which attempts to make complex the simple, so that we will not be bored. A Bible of bridge, if you take my meaning. Some of our boys carried it in the pockets over their hearts during the war. As they dropped through the air. Singing ‘Johnny Got a Zero.’” All deliriously pretty and sexy mothers in brawny Chanel tweeds. Black-and-white hound’s-tooth checks, say; black-and-white silk Paisley blouses; gleaming little pairs of white kidskin gloves. Very correct hang to the jackets. Short skirts with a clochelike slide over the hip, lots of action at the hemline — couldn’t be better. Café-ed mouths, shiny orange-brown cheeks, ribbons of green enamel eye makeup. Mrs. Subways.
“I’m cold,” old Kellerman says.
“Cold,” the ladies remark, pointing.
Kellerman pulls out his flask. “Winter gin,” he says, “it absumeth the geniture.”
“Say something professional,” the ladies request.
“♠6 ♥KQJ94 ♦AK85 ♣KQ2,” Kellerman says.
On the third, Hood’s main army was in the neighborhood of Lost Mountain. Stewart’s Corps was sent to strike the railway north of Marietta and to capture, if possible, Allatoona. Stewart, on the morning of the fifth, rejoined Hood, having destroyed two small posts on the railroad and having left French’s division to capture Allatoona and destroy the Etowah Bridge. The Army of the Cumberland led the pursuit, and on the evening of the fourth it was bivouacking at the foot of Kenesaw Mountain. “And many others,” Kellerman says. “Just as steamy and sordid as that one. Each sin preserved in amber in the vaults of the Library of Congress, under the management of the Registrar of Copyrights.”
“With all the sticky details?”
“Rife with public hair,” Kellerman says, “just to give you a whiff of the sordidness possible since the perfection of modern high-speed offset lithography.”
“O sin,” exclaims the general from his bench, “in which fear and guilt encrandulate (or are encrandulated by) each other to mess up the real world of objects with a film of nastiness and dirt, how well I understand you! Standing there! How well I understand your fundamental motifs! How ill I understand my fundamental motifs! Why are objects preferable to parables? How did I get so old so suddenly? In what circumstances is confusion a virtue? Why have I never heard of Yusef Lateef? 1. On flute, Lateef creates a completely distinctive sound — sensitive, haunting, but filled with a firm and passionate strength unequalled among jazz flutists. 2. On tenor saxophone, Yusef is again thoroughly and excitingly individual, combining brilliantly modern conception with a big, deep, compellingly full-throated tone. 3. The oboe, as played by Lateef, undergoes a startling transformation into a valid jazz instrument, wailing with a rich and fervently funky blues quality. 4. What is ‘wailing’? What is ‘funky’? Why does language subvert me, subvert my seniority, my medals, my oldness, whenever it gets a chance? What does language have against me — me that has been good to it, respecting its little peculiarities and nicilosities, for sixty years? 5. What do ‘years’ have against me? Why have they stuck stones in my kidneys, devaluated my tumulosity, retracted my hair? 6. Where does ‘hair’ go when it dies?”