Cast in Doubt Read online

  Resolved to act, I also hoped to make Gwen understand my decision. Also, I thought petulantly, as I was handed the writing paraphernalia by a sulky Yannis, I had had enough conversation last night to last me a lifetime.

  I write what I hope are gracious disinvitations, each calibrated to charm its intended, the recipient, but I can’t help recalling, even recapturing, those incendiary conversations, and how, first, Roger slid up to Gwen and me, barging into our fragile dialogue without so much as a by-your-leave.

  My word! I exclaimed, my word! Roger, you’ve taken me by surprise again, sidling up to us like one of those poisonous snakes in Texas. Three converge there, I believe. Roger sat down, though he hadn’t been invited, and I reminded myself that we were three, too, and I hoped Roger wouldn’t take that up. Thankfully he replied, Six or seven of the deadliest snakes in the world are found in Australia. Do you like snakes, Gwen? He faced Gwen and studied her expectantly, as if he were about to test her in some way. But Gwen—too smart to fall for Roger’s impetuous nonsense—swallowed her wine and wiped her thin lips with the back of her hand. It seemed a rude gesture, almost a Neapolitan insult. It was in any case oddly severe, which Gwen can be, oddly severe. Finally, she answered with two words: Some snakes.

  I don’t know why, foolishness or inebriation, but I started to tell Gwen, in front of Roger, some curious material about the Gypsies. I had dipped further into the book, and what had immediately caught my attention was etymological—the word “Gypsy” first appeared in English in 1537; also, there was no word for Gypsy in their own language, Romany. But more, I went on, and this related to my absorption in the subject of death, I explained that Gypsies believe they were Christ’s bodyguards. The myth was that two Gypsy bodyguards had become drunk, had left him unprotected, and this is how he came to be crucified. Roger looked smug. I disliked him intensely in that moment.

  Gwen knew someone of Gypsy origin, of course. She had spent time with Django Reinhardt’s nephew, who was, like Django, a musician. He was blond and fair, and given to wearing black leather from head to foot. It was a story about feet or boots—his boots—which Gwen narrated for me, though Roger sat near us listening; for in a sense she spoke only to me and subtly ignored him. He did not care; he stayed, as if an observer at our table. I will never forget the story.

  Gwen had traveled to London some years back—I hadn’t known she’d been there then—and resided in a squat, a house taken over by hippies, I gather, to which the Reinhardt boy had come. There was no romance, but she loved to listen to him play the violin. She said he had talent, which for Gwen was a rare compliment. But then she was partial to musicians, and may have been in London precisely because her musician was there, but I didn’t ask. One of the house dwellers took an intense dislike to the Gypsy violinist. And for some reason or other, one afternoon Reinhardt disappeared. Later, as the house dwellers or squatters were having tea in the kitchen, they heard the strains of a melancholy tune. It was Reinhardt, playing the violin. He had gone to the roof of the house, as if to play for the world, Gwen thought then. The roof was in disrepair. Gwen recalled vividly the moment the violin music stopped. She heard a series of squawks. Then one black leather boot descended through the ceiling of the kitchen, which was at the top of the house. The English fellow, a poet, the one who disliked the Gypsy violinist, yelled, “That’s the Gypsy. He ruins everything he touches.”

  A marvelous story. I could easily have imagined and placed Helen in a seat of honor at that tea party, as if the poet were the Mad Hatter. Roger harrumphed but eventually smiled. I didn’t trust any of his reactions that night, and I think I was right not to have done so. Roger was about to say something to Gwen, but just at that moment, by which time we’d all had a great deal to drink, and Yannis had shown up, the South African Poet, Wallace, and his amour, the Dutchwoman with the guttural name, arrived at our table from out of nowhere. This was Gwen’s first meeting with them, and after it, my memory grows weak.

  Wallace was entertaining. Yes, he was. I’ll admit that, and even I found myself rapt as he told a story about—now, who was it? H.D.? No, it was Djuna Barnes. Wallace insists of course that he slept with her. It all comes back. No, he didn’t sleep with her. It was another poet who had, a homosexual, Wallace declared, a surrealist, Charles Henri Ford, in fact, and it was his story.

  Djuna Barnes wanted to interview Hitler, and as she was friends with a man named Putzi Hofstingel who was close to Hitler, was his art adviser, something like that, she thought she had an inside chance. Barnes went to Munich to see him. I don’t know what year it was, Wallace left that out. Putzi was in love with Djuna, and, Djuna told Ford, Wallace says, that while she never made love with Putzi, he once hugged her so tightly, he burst a vein in his penis. At the time of the burst vein, Putzi and she were in New York; his family’s business was art, they ran a large art emporium. According to Djuna, according to Ford, Putzi was a marvelous piano player who often played for Hitler. Djuna never did interview Hitler.

  This anecdote was the prelude to, the means to, the most persistent and abiding of Wallace’s impassioned literary concerns. He added something about T.S. Eliot, the old possum, having written the introduction to Nightwood, which appeared in 1936, and went on about Barnes’ discussions of race and religion in that difficult novel. What about the Jew as he appeared in Nightwood? Wallace challenged. What of the Jew? Roger demanded. A heated and drunken discussion about art and politics ensued, and Roger, who sides with the formalists, and Wallace, who does not, went at each other like cat and dog. In this case it is hard for me not to think of Roger as the dog; I prefer cars. For my part I can see both sides, and as long as the work has quality, which is indifferent to politics, I can appreciate it.

  Wallace returned us to life before World War II and enumerated a list of great and not-so-great literature that was anti-semitic-book after book. D.H. Lawrence’s The Virgin and the Gypsy, for one. To set a different tone, usually unsuccessful, I brought up Jane Bowles’ novel Two Serious Ladies and ventured that nowadays few would notice that one of the two serious ladies was a Miss Goering. Surely that had relevance—the novel was written when Hitler was in power, published in 1943, and Jane Bowles was Jewish. One didn’t, I reminded all assembled, easily admit to being Jewish then. I glanced at Roger, as it was for his benefit that I remarked upon hidden Jewishness. Roger didn’t wince, blanch or even wiggle in his chair. Roger ought to be a CIA operative.

  Thinking about it now, it could have been many kinds of hiddenness I was referring to, even kinds of hiddenness that were predominantly hidden from me. The significance of Gwen’s race to her, of Roger’s and my homosexuality, of Wallace’s time in mental hospitals for having opposed apartheid. We were a ragtag band of inhibited outsiders, each a secret and keeping secrets from the others. And ourselves, I suspect. In our own idiosyncratic, careful ways.

  I can remember just one other incident. Gwen snorted something about Hitler’s having been a great dancer, which, she explained, was a line from Mel Brooks’ movie The Producers. I had not seen it, nor had Wallace. But he took exception to Gwen’s insouciance. Indifferent to him, Gwen was hitting her usual cutting stride and was swaggering full tilt, certainly by the end of that long evening. I was, as I noted, reassured. And yes, Roger, I believe, did finally get to Gwen, at least he annoyed her, but I cannot remember how. Perhaps it is true, as Gwen often asserted, that I never remember the truly vicious moments. If so, I am a lucky man. Indeed today I am content. Human beings have no real memory of physical pain, I believe, yet psychical pain can plague one. Perhaps I am one of those happy few who can wipe clean from my fleshy slate even traces of nonphysical, verbal abuse.

  I finish my notes of regret, and call again for Yannis, who takes them from me with a brazen nonchalance. I refuse to acknowledge his disrespect and ask him to hand-deliver them. Letters of regret—though what’s being regretted I’m not sure. No one will care. Had there been a party there could have been regret. There could have been all man
ner of trouble, given that confluence and cast of characters. It will come, the party, its stickiness, its aftermath; but it will not have come now or when it was expected to have come. It will have been delayed. The future perfect—plus perfect?—is an interesting condition, a tense little delved into. The future is not of course perfect. And in the notes I haven’t let on what I’m about to do; I have let that hang mysteriously—they would expect as much from me, I am famous for this kind of thing. It’s all in character, they will say. I have written that I will reschedule the party and, indeed, I will, when I return. No one will care. Perhaps Alicia will. She’ll be most curious. But I don’t have time to visit her to explain. And besides, John is ensconced in her house and I cannot possibly let him know my plan, for surely he’ll want to accompany me, even though Gwen said he cares not a fig about Helen. I don’t entirely believe Gwen, or rather, I am not certain that her interpretation of John, or his interpretation of Helen, is accurate. I am in fact entirely suspicious and dubious. He could have been pillow-talking.

  The truth, the ugly truth, is that one can only surmise and approximate, without any exactitude, what even one’s very best friend bases his or her analyses upon. Conversation is the least propitious way to discover the truth. It is uncontrollable. Why do we do it? Why do I do it? One says it’s only talk, but in fact I think talk is dangerous. vernacularly speaking, I get into more trouble talking than by doing anything else. Others have great adventures; I merely speak. That’s the long and short of it, as my father would say. He was, conversationally, the short of it. Linguists theorize about the human need to communicate, the creativity of human beings in daily speech and language, and about the inventiveness of language, all of which clarifies and elaborates upon the idiom “talking for the sake of talking.” Talk is neither simple nor obvious. Human beings are perverse and complex. We can lie. We can be mistaken. One would never accuse an ape of being mistaken. Sometimes, when I am in the midst of one of those human inventions, I cannot imagine what it is that is being communicated. Although I can well believe that it has all been created on the spot. It cannot be controlled, can it?

  Several papers spill off the bed and onto the floor—I have small bundles of paper as well as books at the foot of my bed, but I can assure one and all that I am not deranged and horribly messy like the eccentric Collier brothers. A lone sheet finds its way from its obscure position under the pile to the top, to visibility; it is something I wrote which I haven’t looked at in a long time.

  Roger is an uncontrollable character. His ability to concoct, to invent, ought to become legend, for nothing else about him will live on. Or I suppose that might be said about me. Yet at least I’ve published more than one book, even if under a pseudonym. We like to say—Alicia and I—that he is a parvenu who pooped. I will make Roger known (isn’t this the rationale authors always offer to their “subjects” when they commit them to print?), but I will not give him feats of daring and derring-do. I will present him as he is, warts and all, just as Chaucer presented the Wife of Bath.

  It is astonishing—appalling—to me that I could have written such nonsense. What was I thinking about? Still, I like the coincidence of its appearance, as its theme, about what can be controlled, aligns with my present contemplations. But I must cease contemplating, if that is what I may name these idlings, and get started. As usual I am temporizing. May I permit myself, with good humor, of course, an allusion to Hamlet?

  I have to tell Yannis what I intend to do and why I am venturing off. He will never understand. Should I ask him to accompany me? How can I explain my trip to him? I think I should ask him to come. He can say no, but at least he’ll have been invited. I haven’t been attentive to him lately and that is wrong. Last night he sat nearby, in his usual position, but seemed more aggrieved than ever. Roger and he cast each other the occasional furious glance. I don’t want to hurt Yannis. But in truth, I don’t want him with me. I need to be alone. It is something I must do by myself.

  I get out of bed and move around the room in a flurry of impotent activity. I am confused. I am enormously excited and anxious. I feel happy. Eager and expectant, like a young bride, I am about to go where I’ve never traveled before, and truly it seems like an adventure of the sort a young person might embark upon. This may seem silly but, for an instant, as I prance about the room, I remind myself of Alastair Sim playing Scrooge in A Christmas Carol. The Scrooge who has renounced his mean ways. I feel alive in a way I haven’t in years, even more filled with vitality than I was when I went to Helen’s house the other day. Was it just the other day?

  There are things to do. I have a mission. I march to my desk to make a list. Food, clothes, money, the necessities, I write these words down with a flourish, with determination. And as if doing automatic writing a sentence occurs to me, and I write it as well, for it may come in handy for Stan Green, if not for me: Curiosity and fear are partners in crime.

  And then yet another thought rushes in, as if to fill the space vacated by the previous thought, which, once written down, can be forgotten. But this set of words is more complicated and not merely a decent or provocative sentence. Why it comes to me, I don’t know. Gwen may have told me it: In 1896, when dyslexia was discovered, the disease was called word blindness.

  I write word blindness in capital letters. It seems to have something to do with my peculiar dream, whose oblique effects have not completely left me. Household Gods is to be in four parts, and I could not read some of the words in the dream. I may be suffering from word blindness. If one is dyslexic, one has difficulty reading, because one flips letters upside down or reads backward, and so on. Perhaps my book is back to front. Perhaps the last comes first. More generally, of course, it could mean that I am not seeing something I ought to see. Some speak of spiritual blindness, I could be afflicted with word blindness. Didn’t I emit the words, My word! My word! to Roger when he came up to Gwen and me? How does that fit? The dream was definitely ominous. Perhaps I oughtn’t drive to the south. Practically speaking, what if I can’t read the road signs? I add to my list: sunglasses! At least my humor is intact.

  Gwen’s won’t be. Gwen will actively dislike my cause. She will have thought she had talked me out of going to find Helen. Helen Wheels, Gwen dubbed her—hell on wheels. She insisted, adamantly, that Helen wouldn’t have hitched a ride on a donkey with a Gypsy woman, but, like any punkette, would have driven to the caves or wherever in a fast car. Gwen has no faith in Helen. She is probably jealous of my regard for her. I can certainly understand that. I am jealous of her regard for others—even the sick rock-and-roll musician. But I’d never admit it to her. I have much too much pride. We are, both of us, in some strange way, under each other’s skins, and luckily we are not in any conventional sense in love with each other.

  Yannis will take the news badly too, but unlike Gwen, he will mope. Gwen will pull her small self up, let fly a few caustic comments, and in my absence read a book or two. She will continue to dabble in John and Alicia. But to what extent is Alicia involved? If she is. That was not clear at all.

  The leather weekender I haven’t used in years is a familiar and long-lost friend. A sight for sore eyes. I’ve had it since college. I’d never throw it away. I’m not sure how long I will be away, perhaps a week, and I toss into it a number of shirts, two pairs of trousers, socks, and so on. I briskly collect my toiletries and another bag, in which to carry books and notepads. But which books to take? I race to my shelves and grab a few travel books—as well as a map of Crete. But I’ll need to go to the tourist bureau. I throw in Miller’s The Colossus of Maroussi, Stein’s Writings and Lectures 1909-1945, and The Selected Writings of Sydney Smith, an early nineteenth-century favorite of mine, and of Roger’s, too, unfortunately. Credit where credit is due—Roger has a few good points.

  I dress hurriedly, sip my cold coffee, bite into a roll, then leave my apartment. At the desk downstairs, I grab the mail, glance cursorily at it, tell Nectaria that I will be leaving for a week, watch her
expression turn sour, or a trifle grave, and walk to the harbor where, as ever, its beauty overwhelms me. The simple life that I love. Yet I know that that simple life is not simple. I merely love the illusion of simplicity that it provides me, which is the paradox.

  Many of the stalls at the market are shut or closing. It is late in the day. I rush to purchase bread, crackers, hard cheese, apples, olives and several bottles of water. The elderly Greek men, with their leathery and weather-beaten hands and faces, are unperturbed by the likes of me, moving here and there. Life for them goes on, characterized by its regularity and lack of interruption. Their games of tavoli involve them and they are intent upon moving their tiles around the board. It is strange to think now, but I often do, precisely because of its incongruousness, that when they were very young, mere boys, they may have been sexual playmates, just the way the boys are now, and one of them may have been the girl.

  I reach the tourist bureau just in time and gather up as many maps as I can. The woman behind the desk is phlegmatic but warms to me slowly as she sees with what excitement I am planning my trip. She offers me, gratis, a booklet on inns and hotels that I may need. I thank her profusely. The drive, if direct, is not a long one, but I want to scout towns along the way, along the coast road, and even go off the main road, to wander into the hills and dales. I want to see if I can chance upon Gypsy encampments. I want to spy upon their way of life, upon them. Helen could be anywhere, after all, though the map she left on the dresser is evidence of her intentions, at least her intended destination.