Trust: A Novel Part 61

"Well what's it to you? Hypocrite. Don't start telling me you've lost a father, you never had a father. What was he to you? Not a father. Don't be a hypocrite. And for G.o.d's sake get up off the floor. Don't tell me in two measly days you found yourself a father."

"Not a father."

"Then don't talk about turning-points! You don't realize."

"You have it," I said. "I realize. Now you have it."

"I don't have it. And don't say Enoch again. n.o.body has it."

"n.o.body has what?"

"Idiot!"

"But if they confirmed it," I protested.

"They confirmed it, I just said so, didn't I? Blue in the face trying to get through to you. They confirmed it yesterday."

"Yesterday William's son came in the boat A thousand years ago it feels like."

"Two thousand. Well then you know, he told you, you saw the papers."

"No papers up there. He said the hearings were moved up and all of a sudden Enoch had to go to Was.h.i.+ngton."

"What do you mean, no papers? I suppose he burned up the whole library too? A Vandal coming down on Rome. A Visigoth. That library's not intact, is it?"

"Mostly." And for honesty: "Not intact."

"See? Sacked I bet. Pilfered."

"William's son took The Law of the Sea." Her surprise was limpid; she had never heard of that law, and did not think it was for the taking. "One of those old books up there," I explained.

"Stole it? Took it? Didn't ask? Well, who should he ask, after all." She considered. "That makes it worse. If there was no one to ask he should have left it. Sarah Jean and all that holiness, and what the whole thing adds up to is just another-little-crook."

"He has ambitions as to size," I said. "Wait till he gets into the firm."

She jumped on this. "I despise the tale-bearers. Is that what he told you not to tell me? That he swiped a piece of museum? You didn't have to tell me, what do I care about that fish-house? Well at least the sea has a law apparently. Land doesn't Land's always up for grabs, you know that? With a gun you can get practically anything you want in this world, especially a country. First he calls me up-"

"Who?"

"You are dumb. Enoch. From Was.h.i.+ngton, and says get ready right away if I want to go with him, I had to start out that minute. Well I said how could I, I had to have clothes didn't I, I had to choose what to pack, and he said let Janet and the others do it, it didn't matter, or else I could have a dressmaker from over there do me up quick after we got there. Any old dressmaker! Didn't matter! I've got a dozen closets full of Paris and I'm suppose to march into the Emba.s.sy looking like Macy's. I told him that. Not that he listened, he said he'd wait for me only until the seven P.M. plane, otherwise go himself, even though the Vice President said it would be better if I went too, from out of Was.h.i.+ngton not New York. The idea would be the two of us making an entrance." She released a small snort of homage. "The Vice President's been there, he knows what impresses those people."

"Wasn't that the time they threw guavas at him?"

"Cuc.u.mbers. Guavas was a different country. And two hours later he calls back. Well I had to take something. I was getting my underwear together after all, I had the maids running in circles as it was, Janet even crying-anyhow I was sure what he was mad at was I hadn't started out yet, he sounded mad all right, too d.a.m.n calm. You know the way Enoch gets," in her old habit of pretending an intimacy between her husband and me. "And that was it. The end, finis."

I did not comprehend.

"Ignorance, that's just plain ignorance!" she tossed out. "Don't you understand anything about prestige? If a government wants power it has to have prestige. Well where does prestige come from? From us. Enoch explained the whole thing. When one of those governments over there's in trouble all the United States has to do is go right over and pat it on its head in public and that does the trick, all the revolutionaries run back into their holes. That's how it operates. It's what an Amba.s.sador's for-diplomatic notes and keeping communications open and all that, but mostly to show everyone we're friends with whoever's in power. And that keeps them in power. That's why Enoch was supposed to hurry and get there. For G.o.d's sake." She lowered herself to the carpet beside me with a squeal of hopelessness. "O.K., so Jet us sit upon the ground and tell sad stories of the death of queens. That doesn't sound right."

"Of kings."

"Poor Enoch. The whole District of Columbia's in st.i.tches. You know what they're calling him? It's humiliating, I can't repeat it. The Two-Hour Amba.s.sador. Actually he was Amba.s.sador for exactly two hours and forty minutes, if you want to be perfectly accurate about it."

Bang against her wrists an emulative laughter spiralled up obediently, as though a hypnotist had directed her to withhold it until she should sense his accessible sign (what was that mark or sign?)-this silently coerced noise of hers rattled like bangles: her forearms trembled but were bare. She was unadorned. She wore a flat black beret to cover her few poor thistles just beginning to spring out with an aberrant kink altogether new (mutation? an underemployed understudy gene suddenly given its chance?); and below this un-comical cap the left-over pinch of her reading gla.s.ses whitened.

On the other side of her body, halfway under a chair, I saw something brown.

"You mean they changed their mind? The committee?" Supine I reached over her and pulled on the thing. A wiggle of dust came with it. My mother's gla.s.ses fell out of a leather folder pouring loose typed slips. "What's this?"

"Confetti. I'm saving it for your wedding. Well they had a junta down there, that's what," she supplied loudly. And retained the jugular j. For a moment she scratched at the floor. "A notebook, what does it look like? Don't be a fool, they don't withdraw confirmations just like that"

"Hoonta," I said.

"I don't give a d.a.m.n what you want to call it, the point is it's as Red as this rug. They held up the presidential palace about five P.M. our time-look, this is only last night I'm talking about-and who do they put in but a General who's as Red as a ruby. Surprise surprise. They're all Reds, the whole bunch. The Minister of State's a Red, the Minister of the Interior's a Red, the Prime Minister's a Red, and the Cardinal's as Red as a monkey's b.u.t.tock. (That's the Vice President verbatim my dear.) Well hand that stuff over, will you? It's Enoch's business what he writes down and none of your own."

I said, "It looks like a list."

"Not my list. He keeps his own lists. Bits and pieces. Drop by drop, like blood. Poor poor Enoch, he's absolutely dead politically. n.o.body'll touch him. Pariah. Taboo. Look, the first thing the President did was break off relations down there and the second thing was fire Enoch. I mean they're not even recognizing that ditch, so how can they send an Amba.s.sador? It stands to reason. For G.o.d's sake."

Meanwhile in the fan of slips I read a word. It was Enoch's and a private one and was not "child"-how near now the private visitor's first note reverberated! how distantly his briny last! Babies did not inhabit Enoch's vows and views. He would never have smelled divinity through the diaper. He said: sentimentality is a limitation of the intellect; so the letters that joined my eye were unlyrical. "Is it poems? No," I decided, arranging the slips corner to corner. The lines were uneven. I handled prose. The word was "sinner." I asked, "Can't they give him something else instead?"

"Now what would you suggest?"-Scorn.

"a.s.sign him to another country, why not?"

"Why not, why not? Who, the Two-Hour- Amba.s.sador? You should've seen the cartoons in this morning's papers, that's all. One had this picture of Enoch in the shape of this very fat mouse running down this time-clock, you know, and out of it comes a hand with a scissors that's supposed to be cutting off the mouse's tail, and the caption says 'Hickory, d.i.c.kory, Docked.' The face was Enoch exactly. And another one had him sort of riding astride this big rocket, only backwards, and looking scared and holding tight to his briefcase, and the rocket has 'Boomerang' written on it and it's headed right for the Capitol dome, and underneath it says 'Fired.' Oh, and that's another thing, by the way-the Russians actually put up a satellite today, a G.o.dd.a.m.n little moon, I mean it's really come to that, they did it actually. Gangsters. Robbers, Karp won't get anywhere with 'em, now they'll be c.o.c.kier than ever. And besides, all those cartoons make Enoch look so fat, that was the meanest part, he's not that fat. Well he's had it. Look, n.o.body's going to make an Amba.s.sador out of Mickey Mouse, he's finished, can't you follow that?"

-Not Death but deflection was her grief.

The bird of the world fell to a sandy place, and no arrow in his breast. No arrow could have entered. He had no c.h.i.n.k or plaiting; he was made of iron painted trompe-d'oeil, in an illusion of translucent membrane. He fell gaudily and with a clank: his works had run down.

My mother's finger rasped at the leg of a chair.

"What will he do now?"

The finger rasped. She did not answer. She did not know.

I said: "Not that he has to do anything."

"h.e.l.l do something," she called to the ceiling.

I lifted myself and watched her. She lay flattened and nearly breathingless.

"Something political?"

"I said taboo, didn't I? Pariah. Dead." The finger rasped. "Nothing public. Something personal. Something with me left out of it."

"If it leaves you out it can't be personal," I said.

"Oh shut up. Once and for all shut up. I hate a logician. You talk like a G.o.dd.a.m.n little Jew. How do / know what he'll do?" But she appended with authority: "h.e.l.l write history."

"But he might be good at that-"

"Might be good at that," she drilled out singsong. "Of course he won't be good at it. If you're meant to live it you can't write it. And don't give me Julius Caesar. One Latin reb.u.t.tal out of you, just one, and I swear I'm fit for gore and murder. Lady Macbeth, I mean it this time. Besides, there's nothing in history any more. Nothing"-she hurtled to her last effect-"for me."

"n.o.body ever got into history by being an Amba.s.sador's wife," I said.

"Oh didn't they! Well you don't know me, I don't give up like that, I don't want to just get into history, that's what I call burial, I want to climb up out of it, I want to survive!" My mother teetered in a crouch; then with hands forward and heavy she thrust herself into the chair. "It's Madame de'Sevigne not Mademoiselle you hear about, and Medea was somebody important's wife, ditto the aforementioned Lady Macbeth so don't tell me position doesn't count, in the sands of time spinsters don't leave tracks. And don't give me Emily d.i.c.kinson either, I'm not talking about mystic types and so forth, I mean people like myself who panteth after the world as the hart panteth after the brook or something. Is that Enoch coming in down there? I thought I heard-" She blinked. "Look, I have to feel I'm somebody more than just, just, I don't know, you think I want to be n.o.body? You think I could stand getting submerged in a century? Or a generation? That's bad enough, already you hear people matching me up with the Radical Thirties so-called, you should see William's ears get red at that. Or even a G.o.dd.a.m.n country." She was all at once tearing at her neck. "Hives, d.a.m.n it, I've got these hives again. You know I thought that was Enoch down there. Well the fact is 111 die if he just crawls home into a corner and starts writing like Immanuel Kant or somebody. Basically all he's got are these ideas, you know what idea Enoch has, I mean about me? I'm an American, that's what he thinks. He thinks I'm an American! What he always wanted was an American. Well I'll fix him, he'd be a fool to go just on that. Oh G.o.d how I itch. I want to be more than the best heating plant in the whole world. Not just hum awhile and then die like the Great American Refrigerator-"

It was, plainly, her great speech of capitulation. She recognized she had gone down, and irretrievably. It was her mourning song-protracted, like the mourning songs of the Chorus of Women in the old old plays. Mockery remained. "You can't be an ancient Greek," I noted.

"Oh bla bla bla. I know where you got that Same old corrupted conniving blather, Nick all over again. Well I never wanted to be Greeky, you follow? His idea not mine. All I'm saying is I want something more than just my exact home address on my death certificate. A person should mean something. That's right, go stick your head in the rug, just like Enoch, you don't think I can think. I don't care who said it first, I say it for myself, only louder. You take alt these feelings in the world, who knows how many feelings, you see my point?"

"No," I said.

"Because some of them don't have people attached. I think every feeling should be represented by a live person, every feeling should have somebody to stick up for it, you see what I mean? I'm not just talking about emotions, I mean feelings, you see the difference?"

"No."

"Lost on you. On you it would be. Look, you know when you're having an emotion, there you are living right in the middle of it, but a feeling you might not know about until long afterward, a feeling might go on for years before you realized anything about it" She stirred; she knew her pa.s.sion. Alas, she could not remember its name. "Like a sense of destiny-"

"You could begin a list," I said.

"What?"

"In order of appearance. Emotions: rage, outrage, jealousy, love."

"Oh, you're cold. You always were cold."

"Types of sense of destiny: visionary, practical, prophetic, missionary, American evangelical, Napoleonic, messianic, world-love-"

"Cold cold cold. Don't say love, any kind of love don't say it"

"Love," I said.

"You've never had a feeling."

"Recently," I informed her.

She showed an amazement not genuine. "Not that boy-"

I let the word stand.

"That boy? I can't believe it. Imagine that, put her on an island and boom. We were talking about that boy practically two seconds ago, and not a word out of her. Not that you ever had half a chance with him, but good for you, naturally when you come round to a thing it's too late. Pettigrew's got him."

"Water's got him," I did not say.

"He's taken taken taken," my mother said, "and when you get right down to it, so what?"

"Taken," I said, "by water," and never again spoke to her of her lover.

But she thought me, like herself, preoccupied with the trip home and its diversions. "Never mind water, it could be a helicopter for all the difference, in or out of a boat what can you talk about to a boy like that? Glum, no conversation. Carbon copy of his father. Not a smear of charm. Leave it to you to pick someone without any. I like a man with charm. He used to have some. That stutter years ago: fake but a style anyhow. Law school peeled it off. For your own sake I wouldn't consent to it," she announced, exactly as though William's son had just asked her for my hand; she raised one of her own like a perverse madonna retracting a blessing. "William might like the idea, I don't know. History repeating itself-not that it ever does. Or maybe he wouldn't, he's got this funny feeling about you-he thinks you're tainted." Her recurrent blink, like an automated doll's, had grown compulsive. Below it her nose was beginning to leak. "My G.o.d, I never dreamed I'd be telling you a thing like that"

"Enoch thinks the same."

"Not Enoch, William I said. Look, if you want some advice, just forget about that boy. When you have a feeling about someone who doesn't reciprocate the best thing to do is forget it. That's what Enoch would say. Enoch doesn't think anyone's tainted. Well he thinks the world's tainted, but that's another story. I admit Enoch never had charm, but he doesn't need it after all. If you're a political genius all you have to be is just that." She descended into herself. Something half-a.n.a.lytic possessed her nostrils. They went on watering. "If he doesn't write history he might write philosophy," she told me.

"You know he won't."

She said defensively, "h.e.l.l do something. He has this idea for an essay-actually it's a Jewish sort of essay, he was explaining about it and then, right in the middle, that Was.h.i.+ngton call came and he left. -Don't stare, I can't help it, it's hives, I have to scratch. -It's called Pan Versus Moses. It's Moses making the Children Of Israel destroy all the grotto shrines and greenwood places and things. It's about how Moses hates Nature. Enoch said the Jewish G.o.d is the Lord of Hosts but it's the Lord of Guests who really keeps the world. The Lord of Hosts lives in his house and calls 'Come in, Come in,' but the Lord of Guests lives anywhere at all and says 'You're already here.'" My mother excavated for a handkerchief and blew volcanically. "He'll never write it, and even if he does, so what? n.o.body cares about that, Was.h.i.+ngton isn't looking for advisers on holiness lately, you know. He'll sleep, that's what I'm afraid of. All he'll do is sleep. He'll never get up all day if he hasn't got something to do in the world. He needs something to do in the world."

I said, "Needing isn't wanting."

"Wisdom. Maybe that means something, to me it doesn't mean a thing. A pensee. All right, then read Enoch's. I was just looking at them myself, I dug them up out of his desk. Well he didn't do them. Adam Gruenhorn did, not that you'll know what I'm talking about." She had forgotten her letters and what I knew. "They're sentences. Interesting, but no genius in 'em-that's because they're not political. Years ago I had them typed up and sent them to Atlantic Monthly, Woman's Day, Country Gentleman, Esquire, and Harps. {Harps is where Euphoria K. has her things.) They all rejected," she concluded sadly. "Enoch won't let me use them for Bushelbasket."

So I spread the slips on the red rug and entered the mind of Adam Gruenhorn, political genius, failed Amba.s.sador.

Most of his maxims were personal:

22.

To attempt to extinguish self-indulgence by the application of just a little more self-indulgence is like lighting a match in a room that is already blazing with fire: the big fire is neither diminished nor increased; the little fire will not frighten away the big fire; the little fire will not tire the big fire; the little fire will not conquer the big fire.

To make oneself believe that one really exists; to make oneself believe that another person really exists-which taxes credulity more? To achieve the belief in the real existence of another person one must first achieve the belief in the real existence of one's own being. But how does one persuade oneself that one really exists? By persuading oneself that the other person really exists. Hence psychological realities are interdependent.

Not a solace, not a refuge.

What then was broken?

The solace which was not a solace,