A Gay and Melancholy Sound (Nancy Pearl's Book Lust Rediscoveries) Read online

  It is a city in which there are thousands of girls like Pan, now an admitted thirty-four, a refugee from a boy who was studying veterinary medicine at the University of Nebraska, who, according to Pan, was a very clean boy but who always smelled ever so slightly of sheep dip and, also unfortunately, admired the novels of Lloyd C. Douglas, while Pan was at the time an admirer—or said she was—of the early Henry James. Pan’s nose is less sensitive now, and she would gladly adjust to the smell of sheep dip if only someone would ask her. Pan’s bathroom in the one-room apartment on East Twenty-ninth Street is papered with old-fashioned comic valentines, and on a magazine rack beside the stool are copies of Esquire and Playboy and Atlantic and Harper’s, and the trouble is that the only unmarried men Pan now knows prefer Vogue. And the married ones, according to Pan, “…talk a good divorce, but the minute you start suggesting, ‘How about getting started, say, tomorrow?’ off they go to Norwalk on the five-oh-seven, back to Freda Frigid and the kids.”

  What Pan said to me yesterday afternoon was no surprise. I knew all along that when, six years ago, I asked Pan to hop into bed with me, she thought I meant for keeps, or hoped as much. And I lied, of course; every time the word love has passed my lips, it has been a lie. Except once, and then it was too late.

  There are a lot of me in The City, too. Hell a city much like Seville, as the Spanish say? Don’t be silly. I’ve been in Seville.

  Hell is Manhattan, between, say, Thirty-fourth and Fifty-ninth. Hell will hold no surprises for me, although I do hope they don’t have Second Empire furniture in my cell, as Sartre says they sometimes do. Mine will be glass, I predict, a glass cell in the midst of an enchanted forest, and all the people I have spoken of love to, but not loved, will look in on me. They will not speak; they will only stare, and a woman named Elisia, whose dream I destroyed, will destroy me, over and over, day after day, forever.

  Oh, yes, there are a lot of me in the Hell area of Manhattan, non-lovers who cannot love and know they cannot but who keep on testing. Testing, one, two, three, four. Testing, one, two, three, four….

  On the northeast corner of Forty-second and Lex last evening, I threw the keys to my desk, my office, and the filing cabinet into the sewer opening. Let Russell Grierson sweat a little. Let Mr. Officious Himself in Person sweat a lot.

  I stopped at the Doubleday shop on the Lexington side of Grand Central and bought a novel. I helped the clerk lift it off the table. He was tired; they are always tired.

  At a newsstand I bought copies of each of what in New York in the afternoons pass for newspapers.

  I got on the six-forty-five train, seating myself next to a perspiring fat man who had the face of a discredited angel. He said, not to me but in my direction, “I could of stayed right there in the cool Men’s Bar at the Biltmore, and Mildred knows goddamn good and well I could of.”

  He said it a second time; then he fell into a sputtering slumber which lasted all the way to Valhalla. A solidly built, unsettlingly ugly woman who must have been Mildred waited for him by a Buick station wagon. She looked as if she knew everything goddamn good and well, and the minute she saw him she started telling him some of what she knew.

  After that, I was alone on the seat.

  And then, just this side of Chappaqua, an odd and disturbing incident occurred.

  I was not dozing. I can no longer sleep without a pill.

  Yet quite suddenly at seven forty-five last evening, I had what must have been a dream. A hallucination, then.

  What happened was this:

  I looked out the window of the coach, and the train was no longer on its way through the upper, richer reaches of Westchester. It was no longer a humid evening in August. It was a bright morning in April, and through the window I saw the sunbathed, blue-green hills of England.

  In this dream—if it was a dream—I was sixteen and hopeful, not thirty-seven and finished. I was not on my way to a glass failure of a house where, when the time comes, I will end my life. I was on my way to spend a bank holiday with Professor Hollis Lindsay. Professor Lindsay taught me philosophy at the University of London and was the gentlest man and probably the best scholar I have ever known.

  On that April morning more than twenty-one years ago I had in my hands a blue-bound copy of the collected poems of A. E. Housman, which I had bought a few hours earlier at a stall on Leicester Square.

  I had chosen the Housman book as a house present for the Lindsays for the best possible reason. I wanted it for myself.

  And on the long journey between London and Land’s End, where the Lindsays had a summer place, I memorized all of “A Shropshire Lad.” I thought that since I had to give the book away, at least no one could take those words from me.

  Time did that, but at sixteen I was not familiar with its harsh demands.

  Until last evening only four lines of “A Shropshire Lad” remained in my mind. That had been true for at least ten years, I’d say. Just these lines:

  This is the land of lost content,

  I see it shining plain,

  The happy highways where I went

  And cannot come again.

  However, as I say, last evening, just this side of Chappaqua, a strange thing happened. First, I saw the limestone hills of Cornwall, and it was April. Then I looked at my hands and saw that they were no longer soft and old, no longer the hands of a man who indulges himself in a manicure twice a week. The hands I saw were those of a boy—brown, hard, somewhat dirty, the nails broken and unkempt.

  And in them was not a current novel of no consequence. In them was a book of Housman poems, on the flyleaf of which was the stamp of the bookstore on Leicester Square.

  I opened the phantom book to the first page, and there in clear Roman type were all the words I had thought were forever gone from my dwindling memory:

  From Clee to heaven the beacon burns,

  The skies have seen it plain,

  From north to south the sign returns

  And beacons burn again.

  The entire poem was there on the ghost pages I held in my hands last evening, and the words are all in my memory now as I speak, down to:

  And fields will yearly bear them

  As light-leaved spring comes on,

  And luckless lads will wear them

  When I am dead and gone.

  I cannot explain it.

  Perhaps you can. Perhaps, when he listens to these tapes (as he surely will), Dr. Baron will be able to. He is the Adlerian, the one at the place in New Haven. He sat on a yellow chair, and I lay on a green couch, and there was a reproduction of a purple Picasso ceramic tacked to the bulletin board. The ceiling in his office was gray, and there was a stain in the shape of a snake or a ribbon, and I wanted Baron to die; I wanted that every day, but he didn’t; he hasn’t yet, and when I am gone, he will listen to these words, avidly.

  But I digress; I digress. As one of the women who passed in and out of my life said, “Your whole life has been a digression, doll. All you never got to was the point.”

  Point: A dream or an hallucination on a filthy coach of the Harlem Division of the New York Central early last evening. What is amazing, unbelievable even, is the return of memory, particularly when these days I can almost never remember anybody else’s name and sometimes am none too sure of my own.

  Oh, well. It doesn’t matter. I mention the Housman hallucination because it is another indication of what has been happening to me since shortly after Charley left me seven weeks ago.

  (3) Sloane’s Station—churches nearby

  Last evening the spell was broken when the harsh, angry voice of the conductor announced that we had arrived in Sloane’s Station, near which is the house of glass where I am now dictating these words.

  As the conductor spoke, “Sloane’s Sta-shun. Sloane’s STA-shun,” I looked once more at my hands. The imaginary Housman book was gone. In its place was the novel I’d bought at the Doubleday shop in Grand Central. The hands I saw were once more middle-aged, soft, and white. They were the hands of a man who had grown indifferent.

  I rose, managing to avoid the eye of my enemy and neighbor, a fellow I’m calling the Rev. Pism C. Jackson. The name comes from a study of American names made by H. L. Mencken: “…the prize discovery is Pism C. Jackson—named by a devout mother after the Hundredth Psalm (Psalm C).”

  Pism C. had been staring at me. Was it possible I had been reciting “A Shropshire Lad” aloud? Could he know? Had he guessed? The man is a cretin, of course, but cretins and children are often the most dangerous of all.

  One thing sure. Pism C. will be glad when I’m gone. Pism C. has publicly and (I’m told) privately said that I am a dangerous element in Sloane’s Station, a village near which live a lot of people so fancy that they can feel a pea through four mattresses, the kind of people who want a table for two for one.

  What Pism C. means by saying I am dangerous is that I wrote a letter to The Sloane’s Station Banner saying that despite the word from Wonderland, D.C., Strontium 90 isn’t really awfully good for you.

  Naturally, Hermia Brader at The Banner refused to print that letter. So I had it privately printed in White Plains and left contraband copies all over town, in Poole’s Drugs and Sundries, in the supermarket, at Loretta’s Diner, and so on.

  As I say, Pism C. was staring at me on the train last evening; I decided, however, that even if I had been reciting the Housman aloud, he wouldn’t have heard. He is another of the “Let’s talk about me” fellows. In his life he has never heard any voice but his own.

  Last evening I avoided his eye, and he avoided mine and preceded me off the train.

  I watched while his chauffeur opened the door of his cream-colored Thunderbird, and while Pism C. worked his fat body through the door. The chauffeur reverentia
lly closed the door behind him. Louella says that in her circles the chauffeur is called Uncle Tom. He lives in a two-room cabin in Silver Span, which is owned lock, stock, and barrel by Pism C. Uncle Tom, who gladly pays a hundred and fifty dollars’ rent every month, wishes they hadn’t abolished slavery. For that matter, so does Pism C.

  Anyway, Uncle Tom drove off, and Pism C. leaned back on the leopard-skin upholstery and closed his eyes, his lips moving.

  Pism C. was not praying; I can assure you of that.

  He was probably calculating the day’s take, church-wise, book-wise, Wall Street-wise, real-estate-wise, widow-and-orphan-wise. The reverend wouldn’t stoop so low as to accept a mite from a widow, but he might let one of his more trustworthy deacons reach for it.

  I see by the Times that the forthcoming book written by Pism C.’s unholy ghosts is to be called, “What God Thinks of You.”

  I have no idea what God if there is a God thinks of you, but I have a pretty fair notion what God thinks of Pism C.

  I got into Carrie McCarthy’s taxi. I have not been allowed to drive since that ridiculous episode Out There two years ago. But that’s another story. All I need say here is that my driver’s license was yanked away by a venal judge in Los Angeles. For life.

  Going home with Carrie, who is widowed and who owns three taxis, is tiring, but it is also most informative.

  On the ride from the station to my house, a distance of about eight miles, Carrie usually gives me just about the same amount of news as I get from the Banner, and Carrie’s news is more interesting and more intimate than Hermia’s news.

  For instance, last night as Carrie and I passed the Dillon farm, Carrie asked if she had ever mentioned that the youngest Dillon boy, the one with the out-sized head, is the result of a drunken, impromptu union between Mother Dillon and her next-to-oldest son.

  I said that Carrie never had. “It’s like Greek tragedy,” I said.

  “There’s no Greek in that family,” said Carrie. “They’re Irish from way back.”

  Then Carrie revealed that she had just read a book, name of Peyton Place.

  She wanted to know was I familiar with it. I confessed that I was.

  “The book’s better’n the movie,” said Carrie. “Boy, is that true to life.”

  Then she volunteered that her literary excursion had given her an idea. She said that if she just had the time she could write a book about Sloane’s Station which would make P.P. look like a kid’s book. She said that she understood that the woman responsible for Peyton Place had made a lot of money. I confirmed it. Then Carrie wanted to know whether I would be interested in collaborating with her on a book which would give the lowdown on Sloane’s Station. I thanked her for the flattering suggestion but declined on the grounds that although I once committed a book, I am not a writer.

  “But I’d tell you the whole thing,” said Carrie. “All you’d have to do is write it down, and I’d be willing to split down the middle.”

  I smiled but again said no despite Carrie’s most generous offer to split down the middle.

  “It’d be like coining money,” said Carrie, being careful to avoid my Dexter hybrids as she turned around in my driveway. Carrie and I have had several lively little discussions about the care and treatment of my rhododendrons.

  “What do you hear from the missus?” asked Carrie.

  “She’s fine,” I said. “She’s just fine.”

  “Tell her how-de-do,” said Carrie, slamming the door of the car and driving off.

  “I’ll tell her,” I shouted into the grayness.

  In the village they think Charley is on vacation, although I suppose the news of the divorce will be in the papers tomorrow.

  “I’ll tell Charley what you said,” I shouted again.

  Then I came into this sad defeat of a house. Louella had my dinner ready.

  (4) The desecration

  After I sent Louella home, I sat in complete darkness behind the glass wall of the living room and for a while looked out at the foothills of the Berkshires. There was only one light anywhere—in Hebe’s barn, on the far side of what Hebe now calls Mount Olympus.

  Hebe has converted her barn into a ceramics factory where her assistant goddesses and apprentice priests turn out, among other things, an unlovely line of imperfect vases and ash trays, which are sold at places like W. and J. Sloane. Eventually some of these artless objects make their way back here as gifts from the week-end locusts. One of the vases costs about as much as the gin a locust drinks before dinner on Friday.

  Some of the ash trays are even more reasonable, but, of course, there are always those canisters of Kobu nuts a locust can pick up at the Vendome or some place like that on his or her way to Grand Central. A buck something, one double Martini’s worth. I find that Kobu nut locusts are very often double-Martini drinkers, and one of the foundations may want to take a look into that situation. I have a number of suggestions for dandy ways for the foundations to spend their money. For instance, I’d like to see a study made of why people with hyphenated last names are invariably dishonest.

  But back to Hebe.

  To think that, as Louella says, Hebe is now “head of the whole shebang” over there on Olympus.

  Not every girl from the wrong side of the tracks in Bucharest becomes a high priestess, but then not every Rumanian girl is able to find four husbands, each richer than the one before.

  Hebe’s fourth and, I imagine, final marital excursion was with a fellow who not only founded a new religion. He also invented a perpetual-motion machine. Something like that. Very profitable, whatever it was.

  Shortly after marrying Hebe, he died of a very timely thrombosis, leaving both his religion and his loot to his bereaved widow.

  If I thought there were any hope of her converting me, I would visit Hebe once more, but there isn’t. I realize a man should have a god at a time like this. It was surely for such occasions that Voltaire or whoever it was took the trouble to invent one. But I’m afraid I must make my exit the way I made my entrance, naked and alone, wailing like a banshee. I have been told that God would forgive my uncounted transgressions if I went to Him now, hat in hand, but if I did that I would lose what little is left of my self-respect, and I can’t see how He would think much of me either.

  I don’t know how long I’d been sitting in my darkened living room when the lights went off in Hebe’s barn.

  Suddenly I felt as if I were unalterably alone—not only in this house but in the universe. There was no car on the road, and nothing moved, not a leaf, not a blade of grass.

  I felt as if I alone had survived some awful holocaust, and I wondered why me and wished it had not been me.

  I have experienced that sensation several times before. At such a moment the ache of loneliness is almost impossible to endure.

  I slid open the glass door and called softly for Absalom, but he was gone.

  An awful moment passed, and then I walked to where Charley and I had hung the portrait of her painted by Loren Swearington. It was a good portrait, and some museum in Cincinnati wanted to buy it, not only because Loren was born and brought up in Cincinnati.

  At the time I wouldn’t sell. I gave Charley that portrait on our first wedding anniversary.

  Last night I stood in front of it for a moment, then lifted it down, and took the painting itself from the frame. I walked through this study, which is at the back of the house, opened the glass panel to the left there, went across the deck, down the steps and into the stand of woods behind the house.

  I laid the painting on the ground, quite tenderly, and after several unsuccessful attempts, I managed to set fire to it with my cigarette lighter. It burned quickly and well, and I brushed the ashes under a pile of pine needles.

  I stood over the small mound of ashes for a time, and I wept. There were no stars, and there was no moon. There were only the dark, still shadows of the pines and the spruce.

  Finally I came back into the house and undressed, my hands still trembling.

  After I had brushed my teeth, I took three pills. I then decided that for the kind of coward I am, a man who tends to blanch at the mere mention of the word pain, the pills would be best. I have more than enough.