Ask the Dust (9 page)

Her talk was madness. She told me her name, and it was Vera. She was a housekeeper for a rich Jewish family in Long Beach. But she was tired of being a housekeeper. She had come from Pennsylvania, fled across the country because her husband had been unfaithful to her. That day she had come down to Los Angeles from Long Beach. She had seen me in the restaurant on the corner of Olive Street and Second. She had followed me back to the hotel because my eyes “had pierced her soul.” But I couldn't remember seeing her there. I was sure I had never seen her before. Having found out where I lived, she had gone to Solomon's and got drunk. All day she had been drinking, but it was only that she might become reckless and go to my room.

“I know how I revolt you,” she said. “And that you know about my wounds and the horror my clothes conceal. But you must try to forget my ugly body, because I'm really good at heart, I'm so good, and I deserve more than your disgust.”

I was speechless.

“Forgive my body!” she said. She put her arms out to me, the tears flowing down her cheeks. “Think of my soul!” she said. “My soul is so beautiful, it can bring you so much! It is not ugly like my flesh!”

She was crying hysterically, lying on her face, her hands groping through her dark hair, and I was helpless, I didn't know what she was talking about; ah, dear lady, don't cry like that, you mustn't cry like that, and I took her hot hand and tried to tell her she was talking in circles; it was all so silly, her talk, it was self-persecution, it was a lot of silly things, and I talked like that, gesturing with my
hands, pleading with my voice.

“Because you're such a fine woman, and your body is so beautiful, and all this talk is an obsession, a childish phobia, a hangover from the mumps. So you mustn't worry and you mustn't cry, because you'll get over it. I know you will.”

But I was clumsy, and making her suffer even more, because she was down in an inferno of her own creation, so far away from me that the sound of my voice made the hiatus seem worse. Then I tried to talk to her of other things, and I tried to make her laugh at my obsessions. Look lady, Arturo Bandini, he's got a few himself! And from under the pillow I drew out Camilla's tam-o-shanter with the little tassle on it.

“Look lady! I've got them too. Do you know what I do, lady? I take this little black cap to bed with me, and I hold it close to me, and I say: ‘Oh I love you, I love you, beautiful princess!” And then I told her some more; oh, I was no angel; my soul had a few twists and bends all its own; so don't you feel so lonely, lady; because you've got lots of company; you've got Arturo Bandini, and he's got lots to tell you. And listen to this: Do you know what I did one night? Arturo, confessing it all: do you know the terrible thing I did? One night a woman too beautiful for this world came along on wings of perfume, and I could not bear it, and who she was I never knew, a woman in a red fox and a pert little hat, and Bandini trailing after her because she was better than dreams, watching her enter Bernstein's Fish Grotto, watching her in a trance through a window swimming with frogs and trout, watching her as she ate alone; and when she was through, do you know what I did, lady? So don't you cry, because you haven't heard anything yet, because I'm awful, lady, and my heart is full of black ink; me, Arturo Bandini, I walked right into Bernstein's Fish Grotto and I sat upon the very chair that she sat upon, and I shuddered with joy, and I fingered the napkin she had used, and there was a cigaret butt with a stain of lipstick upon it, and do you know what I did, lady? You with your funny little troubles, I ate the cigaret butt, chewed it up, tobacco and paper and all, swallowed it, and I thought it tasted fine, because she was so beautiful, and there was a spoon beside the plate,
and I put it in my pocket, and every once in a while I'd take the spoon out of my pocket and taste it, because she was so beautiful. Love on a budget, a heroine free and for nothing, all for the black heart of Arturo Bandini, to be remembered through a window swimming with trout and frog legs. Don't you cry, lady; save your tears for Arturo Bandini, because he has his troubles, and they are great troubles, and I haven't even begun to talk, but I could say something to you about a night on the beach with a brown princess, and her flesh without meaning, her kisses like dead flowers, odorless in the garden of my passion.

But she was not listening, and she staggered off the bed, and she fell on her knees before me and begged me to tell her she was not disgusting.

“Tell me!” she sobbed. “Tell me I am beautiful like other women.”

“Of course you are! You're really very beautiful!”

I tried to lift her, but she clung to me frantically, and I couldn't do anything but try to soothe her, but I was so clumsy, so inadequate, and she was so far down in the depths beyond me, but I kept trying.

Then she started again about her wounds, those ghastly wounds, they had wrecked her life, they had destroyed love before it came, driven a husband from her and into another woman's arms, and all of this was fantastic to me and incomprehensible because she was really handsome in her own way, she was not crippled and she was not disfigured, and there were plenty of men who would give her love.

She staggered to her feet and her hair had fallen to her face, the strands of hair pasted against her tear-soaked cheeks; her eyes were blotchy and she looked like a maniac, sodden with bitterness.

“I'll show you!” she screamed. “You'll see for yourself, you liar! liar!”

With both hands she jerked loose her dark skirt and it fell into a nest at her ankles. She stepped out of it and she was really beautiful in a white slip and I said it. I said, “But you're lovely! I told you you were lovely!”

She kept sobbing as she worked at the clasps of her blouse, and I told her it wasn't necessary to take off any more; she had convinced me beyond a doubt and there was no need for hurting herself further.

“No,” she said. “You're going to see for yourself.”

She couldn't release the clasps at the back of the blouse, and she backed toward me and told me to unclasp them. I waved my hand. “For God's sake, forget about it,” I said. “You've convinced me. You don't have to do a strip act.” She sobbed desperately and seized the thin blouse with her two hands and ripped it from her with one jerk.

When she began to lift her slip I turned my back and walked to the window, because I knew then she was going to show me something unpleasant, and she began to laugh at me and shriek at me and point her tongue at my worried face. “Ya, ya! See! You know already! You know all about them!”

I had to go through with it, and I turned around and she was nude except for hose and shoes, and then I saw the wounds. It was at the loins; it was a birthmark or something, a burn, a seared place, a pitiful, dry, vacant place where flesh was gone, where the thighs suddenly became small and shriveled and the flesh seemed dead. I closed my jaws and then I said, “What—that? Is that all, just that? It's nothing, a mere trifle.” But I was losing the words, I had to say them quickly or they would never form. “It's ridiculous,” I said. “I hardly noticed it. You're lovely; you're wonderful!”

She studied herself curiously, not believing me, and then she looked at me again, but I kept my eyes on her face, felt the floating nausea of my stomach, breathed the sweetish thickish odor of her presence, and I said again that she was beautiful, and the world slipped out like a whimper, so beautiful she was, a small girl, a virgin child, so beautiful and rare to behold, and without a word, and blushing, she picked up her slip and drew it over her head, a crooning and mysterious satisfaction in her throat.

She was so shy all at once, so delighted, and I laughed to find the words coming easier now, and I told her again and again of her loveliness, of how silly she had been. But say it fast, Arturo, say it
quickly, because something was coming up in me, and I had to get out, so I told her I had to go down the hall a minute and for her to dress while I was gone. She covered herself and her eyes were swimming in joy as she watched me leave. I went down to the end of the hall to the landing of the fire-escape, and there I let go, crying and unable to stop because God was such a dirty crook, such a contemptible skunk, that's what he was for doing that thing to that woman. Come down out of the skies, you God, come on down and I'll hammer your face all over the city of Los Angeles, you miserable unpardonable prankster. If it wasn't for you, this woman would not be so maimed, and neither would the world, and if it wasn't for you I could have had Camilla Lopez down at the beach, but no! You have to play your tricks: see what you have done to this woman, and to the love of Arturo Bandini for Camilla Lopez. And then my tragedy seemed greater than the woman's, and I forgot her.

When I got back she was dressed and combing her hair in front of the little mirror. The torn blouse was stuffed inside her coat pocket. She seemed so exhausted and yet so serenely happy, and I told her I would walk downtown with her to the Electric Depot, where she would catch a train for Long Beach. She told me no, I wouldn't have to do that. She wrote out her address on a piece of paper.

“Some day you'll come to Long Beach,” she said. “I will wait a long time, but you'll come.”

At the door we said goodbye. She held out her hand, it was so warm and alive. “Goodbye,” she said. “Take care of yourself.”

“Goodbye, Vera.”

There was no solitude after she left, there was no escape from that strange scent. I lay down and even Camilla who was a pillow with a tam-o-shanter for a head seemed so far away and I could not bring her back. Slowly I felt myself filling with desire and sadness; you could have had her, you fool, you could have done what you pleased, just like Camilla, and you didn't do anything. All through the night she mangled my sleep. I would wake up to breathe the sweet heaviness she had left behind, and touch the furniture she
had touched, and think of the poetry she had recited. When I fell asleep I had no recollection of it, for when I awoke it was ten in the morning and I was still tired, sniffing the air and thinking restlessly of what had happened. I could have said so much to her, and she would have been so kind. I could have said, look Vera, such and such is the situation, and such and such happened, and if you could do such and such, perhaps it would not happen again, because such and such a person thinks such and such about me, and it's got to stop; I shall die trying, but it's got to stop.

So I sit around all day thinking about it; and I think about a few other Italians, Casanova and Cellini, and then I think about Arturo Bandini, and I have to punch myself in the head. I begin to wonder about Long Beach, and I say to myself that perhaps I should at least visit the place, and maybe Vera, to have a talk with her concerning a great problem. I think of that cadaverous place, the wound on her body, and try to find words for it, to fit it across the page of a manuscript. Then I say to myself that Vera, for all her flaws, might perform a miracle, and after the miracle is performed a new Arturo Bandini will face the world and Camilla Lopez, a Bandini with dynamite in his body and volcanic fire in his eyes, who goes to this Camilla Lopez and says: see here, young woman, I have been very patient with you, but now I have had enough of your impudence, and you will kindly oblige me by removing your clothes. These vagaries please me as I lie there and watch them unfold across the ceiling.

One afternoon I tell Mrs. Hargraves that I shall be gone for a day or so, Long Beach, some business, and I start out. I have Vera's address in my pocket, and I say to myself, Bandini, prepare yourself for the great adventure; let the conquering spirit possess you. On the corner I meet Hellfrick, whose mouth is watering for more meat. I give him some money and he dashes into a butcher shop. Then I go down to the Electric Station and catch a Red Car for Long Beach.

The name on the mailbox was Vera Rivken, and that was her full name. It was down on the Long Beach Pike, across the street from the Ferris Wheel and the Roller Coaster. Downstairs a poolhall, upstairs a few single apartments. No mistaking that flight of stairs; it possessed her odor. The banister was warped and bent, and the grey wallpaint was swollen, with puffed places that cracked open when I pushed them with my thumb.

When I knocked, she opened the door.

“So soon?” she said.

Take her in your arms, Bandini. Don't grimace at her kiss, break away gently, with a smile, say something. “You look wonderful,” I said. No chance to speak, she was over me again, clinging like a wet vine, her tongue like a frightened snake's head, searching my mouth. Oh great Italian Lover Bandini, reciprocate! Oh Jewish girl, if you would be so kind, if you would approach these matters more slowly! So I was free again, wandering to the window, saying something about the sea and the view beyond. “Nice view,” I said. But she was taking off my coat, leading me to a chair in the corner, taking off my shoes. “Be comfortable,” she said. Then she was gone, and I sat with my teeth gritted, looking at a room like ten million California rooms, a bit of wood here and a bit of rag there, the furniture, with cobwebs in the ceiling and dust in the corners, her room, and everybody's room, Los Angeles, Long Beach, San Diego, a few boards of plaster and stucco to keep the sun out.

She was in a little white hole called the kitchen, scattering pans and rattling glasses, and I sat and wondered why she could be one thing when I was alone in my room and something else the moment I was with her. I looked for incense, that saccharine smell, it had to come from somewhere, but there was no incense burner in
the room, nothing in the room but dirty blue overstuffed furniture, a table with a few books scattered over it, and a mirror over the paneling of a Murphy bed. Then she came out of the kitchen with a glass of milk in her hand. “Here,” she offered. “A cool drink.”

But it wasn't cool at all, it was almost hot, and there was a yellowish scum on the top, and sipping it I tasted her lips and the strong food she ate, a taste of rye bread and Camembert cheese. “It's good,” I said, “delicious.”

She was sitting at my feet, her hands on my knees, staring at me with the eyes of hunger, tremendous eyes so large I might have lost myself in them. She was dressed as I saw her the first time, the same clothes, and the place was so desolate I knew she had no others, but I had come before she had had a chance to powder or rouge and now I saw the sculpture of age under her eyes and through her cheeks. I wondered that I had missed these things that night, and then I remembered that I had not missed them at all, I had seen them even through rouge and powder, but in the two days of reverie and dream about her they had concealed themselves, and now I was here, and I knew I should not have come.

We talked, she and I. She asked about my work and it was a pretense, she was not interested in my work. And when I answered it was a pretense. I was not interested in my work either. There was only one thing that interested us, and she knew it, for I had made it plain by my coming.

But where were all the words, and where were all the little lusts I had brought with me? And where were those reveries, and where was my desire, and what had happened to my courage, and why did I sit and laugh so loudly at things not amusing? So come, Bandini—find your heart's desire, take your passion the way it says in the books. Two people in a room; one of them a woman; the other, Arturo Bandini, who is neither fish, fowl, nor good red herring.

Another long silence, the woman's head on my lap, my fingers playing in the dark nest, sorting out strands of grey hair. Awake, Arturo! Camilla Lopez should see you now, she with the big black eyes, your true love, your Mayan princess. Oh Jesus, Arturo,
you're marvelous! Maybe you did write
The Little Dog Laughed
, but you'll never write Casanova's Memoirs. What are you doing, sitting here? Dreaming of some great masterpiece? Oh you fool, Bandini!

She looked up at me, saw me there with eyes closed, and she didn't know my thoughts. But maybe she did. Maybe that was why she said, “You're tired. You must take a nap.” Maybe that was why she pulled down the Murphy bed and insisted that I lie upon it, she beside me, her head in my arms. Maybe, studying my face, that was why she asked, “You love somebody else?”

I said, “Yes. I'm in love with a girl in Los Angeles.”

She touched my face.

“I know,” she said. “I understand.”

“No you don't.”

Then I wanted to tell her why I had come, it was right there at the tip of my tongue, springing to be told, but I knew I would never speak of that now. She lay beside me and we watched the emptiness of the ceiling, and I played with the idea of telling her. I said, “There's something I want to tell you. Maybe you can help me out.” But I got no farther than that. No, I could not say it to her; but I lay there hoping she would somehow find out for herself, and when she kept asking me what it was that bothered me I knew she was handling it wrong, and I shook my head and made impatient faces. “Don't talk about it,” I said. “It's something I can't tell you.”

“Tell me about her,” she said.

I couldn't do that, be with one woman and speak of the wonders of another. Maybe that was why she asked, “Is she beautiful?” I answered that she was. Maybe that was why she asked, “Does she love you?” I said she didn't love me. Then my heart pounded in my throat, because she was coming nearer and nearer to what I wanted her to ask, and I waited while she stroked my forehead.

“And why doesn't she love you?”

There it was. I could have answered and it would have been in the clear, but I said, “She just doesn't love me, that's all.”

“Is it because she loves somebody else?”

“I don't know. Maybe.”

Maybe this and maybe that, questions, questions, wise, wounded woman, groping in the dark, searching for the passion of Arturo Bandini, a game of hot and cold, with Bandini eager to give it away. “What is her name?”

“Camilla,” I said.

She sat up, touched my mouth.

“I'm so lonely,” she said. “Pretend that I am she.”

“Yes,” I said. “That's it. That's your name. It's Camilla.”

I opened my arms and she sank against my chest.

“My name is Camilla,” she said.

“You're beautiful,” I said. “You're a Mayan princess.”

“I am Princess Camilla.”

“All of this land and this sea belongs to you. All of California. There is no California, no Los Angeles, no dusty streets, no cheap hotels, no stinking newspapers, no broken, uprooted people from the East, no fancy boulevards. This is your beautiful land with the desert and the mountains and the sea. You're a princess, and you reign over it all.”

“I am Princess Camilla,” she sobbed. “There are no Americans, and no California. Only deserts and mountains and the sea, and I reign over it all.”

“Then I come.”

“Then you come.”

“I'm myself. I'm Arturo Bandini. I'm the greatest writer the world ever had.”

“Ah yes,” she choked. “Of course! Arturo Bandini, the genius of the earth.” She buried her face in my shoulder and her warm tears fell on my throat. I held her closer. “Kiss me, Arturo.”

But I didn't kiss her. I wasn't through. It had to be my way or nothing. “I'm a conqueror,” I said. “I'm like Cortez, only I'm an Italian.”

I felt it now. It was real and satisfying, and joy broke through me, the blue sky through the window was a ceiling, and the whole living world was a small thing in the palm of my hand. I shivered with delight.

“Camilla, I love you so much!”

There were no scars, and no desiccated place. She was Camilla, complete and lovely. She belonged to me, and so did the world. And I was glad for her tears, they thrilled me and lifted me, and I possessed her. Then I slept, serenely weary, remembering vaguely through the mist of drowsiness that she was sobbing, but I didn't care. She wasn't Camilla anymore. She was Vera Rivken, and I was in her apartment and I would get up and leave just as soon as I had some sleep.

 

She was gone when I woke up. The room was eloquent with her departure. A window open, curtains blowing gently. A closet door ajar, a coat-hanger on the knob. The half-empty glass of milk where I had left it on the arm of the chair. Little things accusing Arturo Bandini, but my eyes felt cool after sleep and I was anxious to go and never come back. Down in the street there was music from a merry-go-round. I stood at the window. Below two women passed, and I looked down upon their heads.

Before leaving I stood at the door and took one last look around the room. Mark it well, for this was the place. Here too history was made. I laughed. Arturo Bandini, suave fellow, sophisticated; you should hear him on the subject of women. But the room seemed so poor, pleading for warmth and joy. Vera Rivken's room. She had been nice to Arturo Bandini, and she was poor. I took the small roll from my pocket, peeled off two one dollar bills, and laid them on the table. Then I walked down the stairs, my lungs full of air, elated, my muscles so much stronger than ever before.

But there was a tinge of darkness in the back of my mind. I walked down the street, past the Ferris Wheel and canvassed concessions, and it seemed to come stronger; some disturbance of peace, something vague and nameless seeping into my mind. At a hamburger stand I stopped and ordered coffee. It crept upon me—the restlessness, the loneliness. What was the matter? I felt my pulse. It was good. I blew on the coffee and drank it: good coffee. I searched, felt the fingers of my mind reaching out but not quite touching whatever it was back there that bothered me. Then it came to me like crashing and thunder, like death and destruc
tion. I got up from the counter and walked away in fear, walking fast down the boardwalk, passing people who seemed strange and ghostly: the world seemed a myth, a transparent plane, and all things upon it were here for only a little while; all of us, Bandini, and Hackmuth and Camilla and Vera, all of us were here for a little while, and then we were somewhere else; we were not alive at all; we approached living, but we never achieved it. We are going to die. Everybody was going to die. Even you, Arturo, even you must die.

I knew what it was that swept over me. It was a great white cross pointing into my brain and telling me I was a stupid man, because I was going to die, and there was nothing I could do about it.
Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa
. A mortal sin, Arturo. Thou shalt not commit adultery. There it was, persistent to the end, assuring me that there was no escape from what I had done. I was a Catholic. This was a mortal sin against Vera Rivken.

At the end of the row of concessions the sand beach began. Beyond were dunes. I waded through the sand to a place where the dunes hid the boardwalk. This needed thinking out. I didn't kneel; I sat down and watched the breakers eating the shore. This is bad, Arturo. You have read Nietzsche, you have read Voltaire, you should know better. But reasoning wouldn't help. I could reason myself out of it, but that was not my blood. It was my blood that kept me alive, it was my blood pouring through me, telling me it was wrong. I sat there and gave myself over to my blood, let it carry me swimming back to the deep sea of my beginnings. Vera Rivken, Arturo Bandini. It was not meant that way: it was never meant that way. I was wrong. I had committed a mortal sin. I could figure it mathematically, philosophically, psychologically: I could prove it a dozen ways, but I was wrong, for there was no denying the warm even rhythm of my guilt.

Sick in my soul I tried to face the ordeal of seeking forgiveness. From whom? What God, what Christ? They were myths I once believed, and now they were beliefs I felt were myths. This is the sea, and this is Arturo, and the sea is real, and Arturo believes it real. Then I turn from the sea, and everywhere I look there is land;
I walk on and on, and still the land goes stretching away to the horizons. A year, five years, ten years, and I have not seen the sea. I say unto myself, but what has happened to the sea? And I answer, the sea is back there, back in the reservoir of memory. The sea is a myth. There never was a sea. But there
was
a sea! I tell you I was born on the seashore! I bathed in the waters of the sea! It gave me food and it gave me peace, and its fascinating distances fed my dreams! No, Arturo, there never was a sea. You dream and you wish, but you go on through the wasteland. You will never see the sea again. It was a myth you once believed. But, I have to smile, for the salt of the sea is in my blood, and there may be ten thousand roads over the land, but they shall never confuse me, for my heart's blood will ever return to its beautiful source.

Then what shall I do? Shall I lift my mouth to the sky, stumbling and burbling with a tongue that is afraid? Shall I open my chest and beat it like a loud drum, seeking the attention of my Christ? Or is it not better and more reasonable that I cover myself and go on? There will be confusions, and there will be hunger; there will be loneliness with only my tears like wet consoling little birds, tumbling to sweeten my dry lips. But there shall be consolation, and there shall be beauty like the love of some dead girl. There shall be some laughter, a restrained laughter, and quiet waiting in the night, a soft fear of the night like the lavish, taunting kiss of death. Then it will be night, and the sweet oils from the shores of my sea, poured upon my senses by the captains I deserted in the dreamy impetuousness of my youth. But I shall be forgiven for that, and for other things, for Vera Rivken, and for the ceaseless flapping of the wings of Voltaire, for pausing to listen and watch that fascinating bird, for all things there shall be forgiveness when I return to my homeland by the sea.

 

I got up and plodded through the deep sand toward the boardwalk. It was the full ripeness of evening, with the sun a defiant red ball as it sank beyond the sea. There was something breathless about the sky, a strange tension. Far to the south sea gulls in a black mass roved the coast. I stopped to pour sand from my shoes,
balanced on one leg as I leaned against a stone bench.