They had grown strangely quiet, I sensed. Usually they were fussing with their hair or their nails. Now they were so still that my words echoed back from the walls.
I was able to speak and to listen to myself at the same time. Delicious. Pleasantly hallucinated, so to speak.
I realized that if I stopped talking for one moment the spell would be broken. But it gave me no anxiety to think this thought. I would continue, as I told myself, until I gave out. Or until it gave out.
Thus, through the slit in the mask, I continued on and on, always in the same even, measured, hollow tone. As one does with mouth closed on finishing a book which is too unbelievably good.
Reduced to ashes by Stanley’s heartless words, I had come face to face with the source, with authorship itself, one might say. And how utterly different this was, this quiet flow from the source, than the strident act of creation which is writing! Dive deep and never come up! should be the motto for all who hunger to create in words. For only in the tranquil depths is it granted us to see and hear, to move and be. What a boon to sink to the very bottom of one’s being and never stir again!
In coming to I wheeled slowly around like a great lazy cod and fastened them with my motionless eyes. I felt exactly like some monster of the deep who has never known the world of humans, the warmth of the sun, the fragrance of flowers, the sound of birds, beasts or men. I peered at them with huge veiled orbs accustomed only to looking inward. How strangely wondrous was the world in this instant! I saw them and the room in which they were seated with eyes unsated: I saw them in their everlastingness, the room too, as if it were the only room in the whole wide world; I saw the walls of the room recede and the city beyond it melt to nothingness; I saw fields ploughed to infinity, lakes, seas, oceans melt into space, a space studded with fiery orbs, and in the pure unfading limitless light there whirred before my eyes radiant hosts of godlike creatures, angels, arch-angels, seraphim, cherubim.
As if a mist were suddenly blown away by a strong wind, I came to with both feet and with this absolutely irrelevant thought uppermost in my mind—that Christmas was on us.
What are we going to do? I groaned.
Just go on talking, said Stasia. I’ve never seen you this way before.
Christmas! I said. What are we going to do about Christmas?
Christmas? she yelled. For a moment she thought I was speaking symbolically. When she realized that I was no longer the person who had enchanted her she said: Christ! I don’t want to hear another word.
Good, said I, as she ducked into her room. Now we can talk.
Wait, Val, wait! cried Mona, her eyes misty. Don’t spoil it, I beg you.
It’s over, I replied. Over and done with. There is no more. Curtain.
Oh, but there is, there must be! she pleaded. Look, just be quiet … sit there … let me get you a drink.
Good, get me a drink! And some food! I’m famished. Where’s that Stasia? Come on, let’s eat and drink and talk our heads off. Fuck Christmas! Fuck Santa Claus! Let Stasia be Santa Claus for a change.
The two of them now hustled about to do me pleasure. They were so terribly eager to satisfy my least whim … it was almost as if an Elijah had appeared to them from out of the sky.
Is there any of that Rhine wine left? I yelled. Trot it out!
I was extraordinarily hungry and thirsty. I could scarcely wait for them to set something before me.
That damned Polak! I muttered.
What? said Stasia.
What was I talking about anyway? It’s all like a dream now … What I was thinking—is that what you wanted to know?—is that … is how wonderful it would be … if…
If what?
Never mind … I’ll tell you later. Hurry up and sit down!
Now I was electrified. Fish, was I? An electric eel, rather. All a-sparkle. And famished. Perhaps that’s why I glittered and sparkled so. I had a body again. Oh how good it was to be back in the flesh! How good to be eating and drinking, breathing, shouting!
It’s a strange thing, I began, after I had wolfed some victuals, how little we reveal of our true selves even when at our best. You’d like me to carry on where I left off, I suppose? Must have been exciting, all that stuff I dredged up from the bottom. Only the aura of it remains now. But one thing I’m sure of—I know that I wasn’t out of myself. I was in, in deeper than I’ve ever, ever been … I was spouting like a fish, did you notice? Not an ordinary fish, either, but the sort that lives on the ocean floor.
I took a good gulp of wine. Marvelous wine, Rhine wine.
The strange thing is that it all came about because of that skeleton of a play on the wall over there. I saw and heard the whole thing. Why try to write it, eh? There was only one reason why I ever thought of doing it, and that was to relieve my misery. You know how miserable I am, don’t you?
We looked at one other. Static.
It’s funny, but in that state I was in everything seemed entirely as it should be. I didn’t have to make the least effort to understand: everything was meaningful, justifiable and everlastingly real. Nor were you the devils I sometimes take you for. You weren’t angels either, because I had a glimpse of real ones. They were something else again. I can’t say as I’d want to see things that way all the time. Only statues…
Stasia broke in. What way? she wanted to know.
Everything at once, I said. Past, present, future; earth, air, fire and water. A motionless wheel. A wheel of light, I feel like saying. And the light revolving, not the wheel.
She reached for a pencil, as if to make a note.
Don’t! I said. Words can’t render the reality of it. What I’m telling you is nothing. I’m talking because I can’t help it, but it’s only a talking about. What happened I couldn’t possibly tell you … It’s like that play again. The play I saw and heard no man could write. What one writes is what one wants to happen. Take us, we didn’t happen, did we? No one thought us up. We are, that’s all. We always were. There’s a difference, what?
I turned directly to Mona. I’m really going to look for a job soon. You don’t suppose I’m ever going to write living this kind of life, do you? Let’s whore it, that’s my idea now.
A murmur escaped her lips, as if she were about to protest, but it died immediately.
Yes, as soon as the holidays are over I’ll strike out. Tomorrow I’ll telephone the folks to let them know we’ll be there for Christmas. Don’t let me down, I beg you. I can’t go there alone. I won’t. And try to look natural for once, will you? No make-up … no drag. Christ, it’s hard enough to face them under the best of conditions.
You come too, said Mona to Stasia.
Jesus, no! said Stasia.
You’ve got to! said Mona. I couldn’t go through with it without you.
Yes, I chimed in, do come along! With you around we won’t be in danger of falling asleep. Only, do wear a dress or a skirt, will you? And put your hair up in a bun, if you can.
This made them mildly hysterical. What, Stasia acting like a lady? Preposterous!
You’re trying to make a clown of her, said Mona.
I just ain’t a lady, groaned Stasia.
I don’t want you to be anything but your own sweet self, said I. But don’t get yourself up like a horse and buggy, that’s all.
Just as I expected, about three in the morning Christmas day the two of them staggered in dead drunk. The puppet, which they had dragged about with them, looked as if he had taken a beating. I had to undress them and tuck them between the sheets. When I thought they were sound asleep, what must they do but make pipi. Reeling and staggering, they groped their way to the John. In doing so they bumped into tables and chairs, fell down, picked themselves up again, screamed, groaned, grunted, wheezed, all in true dipsomaniac style. There was even a bit of vomiting, for good measure. As they piled into bed again I warned them to hurry and catch what sleep they could. The alarm was set for 9,0, I informed them.
I hardly got a wink of sleep myself; I tossed and fumed the whole night long.
Promptly at 9.80 the alarm went off. It went off extra loud, it seemed to me. At once I was on my feet. There they lay, the two of them, like dead. I pushed and prodded and pulled; I ran from one to the other, slapping them, pulling off the bed clothes, cursing them royally, threatening to belt them if they didn’t stir.
It took almost half an hour to get them on their feet and sufficiently roused not to collapse on my hands.
Take a shower! I yelled. Hurry! I’ll make the coffee.
How can you be so cruel? said Stasia.
Why don’t you telephone and say we’ll come this evening, for supper? said Mona.
I
