The Brooke-Rose Omnibus (49 page)

The plane has landed on the edge of a black promontory, its long nose-tip jutting out over the darkening gulf beyond which one horizontal line of light forms a T with a vertical line of light and a great clanging noise that stripes the
blackness.
Stimaţi pasageri. Welcome aboard this vessel of
conception
floating upon a pinpoint and kindly sit quietly ensconced in your armchairs, the women to the left of the aisle the men less numerous to the right, strapped to their seats that stretch interminably towards the distant brain way up in the long nose-tip beyond the tabernacle curtain and behind no doubt the secret door so heavy that the whole vehicle may topple over the edge into the dark invisible gulf beyond which one white line of light forms a right angle with another from the corridor of the hotel, behind the door of the black room in which the body lies inside the narrow bed, strapped by the swaddling sheet and blanket at a speed of total immobility in the night of Brussels Belgrade Barcelona Bonn, what difference does it make? A difference unmarked deriving from the marked by an absence which signifies eine Abwesenheit die etwas bedeutet, etwas anderes als bestellt, a change in the expected person aghast at the death of love or maybe merely of language and fingering a medal between breasts in blackness. In the tram-ridden night of Sofia.

The decorative metal locks on each door of the cupboard shine in the shaft of bright light coming through from the left where the wooden shutters meet. They have Napoleonic hats and look like Civil Guards, the one on the right door carrying the vertical latch that hangs down in relief like a rifle at rest. Next to the cupboard the smaller doors of the dressing-table repeat the motif darkly and unreflecting. On the two drawers of the dressing-table, above the smaller doors, the Civil Guards lie down. Beyond the wooden shutters and way down below the layered floors of stunned consciousnesses and waking dreams the cars hoot faintly and rev up in Spanish unless Catalan streaked with a tinkling tram narrowly through the shaft of light where the wooden shutters meet. The dark shape of the cupboard unrounds in the filtered noise. On the
bedside
-table stands the bottle of mineral water, its label still illegible. The visitor’s attention turns immediately to higher things such as the dot of bright light thrown by the round hole in the shutter further up the cupboard imitating the sun above the Civil Guards. A voice calls out continuous
flight-numbers
and the murmur of the talking delegates as they wait in rows like a giant class fills the great Catalan evening in the bulging theatre with tumultuous applause for the
boy-star
with his guitar who pours La Nit, llarga la Nit and El poble que no vol morir full of Catalan passion down into the microphone and out in simultaneous passion. Di-guem no! Di-guem no! the bulging theatre demands in the tumultuous applause but the boy stretches out the palm of his left hand his right hand holding the guitar in a no-puc gesture
half-indicating
the police that lines the theatre and repeats instead La Nit, llarga la Nit with Catalan passion down into the microphone and out in simultaneous passion. The
chairman
knocks his hammer on the dais table. The congress members dutifully don their listening-caps and the murmur still continuing now comes through the earphones in the glass booth, picked up by the microphones the engineer has just switched on. The eyes close, the thumb and fingers join as communication begins.

The visitor’s attention turns immediately to higher things such as Kalbsschnitzel natur mit Reis, gemischter Salat, Käsekuchen, Kompott, Kaffee over the modern capital that recedes as the plane rises swiftly above the mountains to an outside temperature of minus what, thirty-four, forty-three? Between the zest of youth and the enlightenment of old age comes an immense period called The Middle Ages. You look not quite yourself mein Liebes.

The hands lie quite still on the blue table-cloth over the domes the palaces in darker blue rows, the two thumbs pressing towards the body the fingers touching away from it forming a roof with a squat diamond space between. Yes I notice you always sit like that, even in an armchair, your ankles crossed your hands joined on your lap.

— Well it closes the circuit you see, so that you’re
self-contained
, relaxed, and no-one can get at you.

— But who do you suppose wants to get at you mein Liebes?

You must excuse these questions Fräulein but in view of your French upbringing we must make sure of your undivided loyalty let us see now until the age of Herr Oberstleutnant at that age one has no loyalties. Ja-ja ich verstehe. So you, born and bred a Catholic, decided in advance, Madame, to divorce if it did not work, thus nullifying the contract in the eyes of God? Plus ou moins. My child you must use words more precisely. Did you or did you not? Oui mon père. Please declare if you have any love loyalty lust intellect belief of any kind or even simple enthusiasm for which you must pay duty to the Customs and Excise.

The hands lie quite still on the table, forming a squat diamond space with the thumbs pressed together towards the body and all the fingers touching like a cathedral roof. It closes the circuit you see so that no one can get at you. Come down into one world Liebes, decide between belief and
disbelief
, between loving and not loving, you have passed the age of adventure now, what, thirty-four, forty-three?

A woman of uncertain age uncertain loyalties holding her hands quite still with all the fingers touching to keep the résistivité électrique en Ohms and battericamente pura within and not give out too generously with a flow of rash enthusiasm above the blue tablecloth full of darker blue towers cathedrals domes palaces in rows and WIEN repeated at intervals with the plump prancing Carolus der VII in il piccolo chalet which remains a pied-à-terre for half the feet of that four-legged creature called an entity of bodies made one by the Sacrament of Marriage one foot à terre the other in the grave perhaps. Oh come off it, come down into one world und so weiter weiter gehen, immer geradeaus dann links in the smattering of the mouthpiece ears hands and eyes suddenly confronted however with TARTSD A PÉNZED A TAKARÉKPÉNZTÁRBAN in bright neon lights beyond the nylon curtain that floats behind the head down the shoulders to the floor. Of course some people may suffer while we build a new society but would you rather not have the new society? The delegates have registered their formal protests about the cardinal or the five writers still imprisoned in among the junketings, the congressional banquet and the sight-seeing tour around Lake Balaton. Down in the dimlit and deserted street footsteps walk in Hungarian slowly along the dark façade still pockmarked by machine-gun fire below the sign ELÖNYÖS! KÉNYELMES! BIZTONSÁGOS! Do you agree? Or did you want to test by means of
engagement?
Push. Tirez. Pchnąć. Ziehen. Have you Greek dialogues? Have you tea? I should like some milk together. I prefer it double-breasted. With two buttons. Without folding-up. I want narrow trousers. When shall I come for the rehearsal? In six days I go away.

Ici on parle français.

Zut alors says Siegfried grown slightly bald somewhere between New York and Reykjavik with a paunch pahr dessue le marshy. Pupate? Pupate? Que cherchez-vous madame, ah, l’ascenseur. Oh mademoiselle, they have not blossomed yet, the season has not yet come. Achten Sie auf den
Original-verschluss.
Heil-und-Tafelwasser. Das österreichische
PREBLAUER
. Sauerbrunn. Please do not throw into W.C. because one day the man will come and lift you out of your self-containment or absorption rising into the night above the wing par à quelle aile j’vois pas d’aile moi only a red light winking on and off in the blackness below but not passing away as the body of the plane bumps on the steps of air for the descent into bright lights and twinkling signals, roar and whistle of jets with undercarriage down, strong tension of brakes to a tame taxying up the tarmac until you come to a standstill somewhere beneath a Regency piece of London, on the Piccadilly Line alone in a crowd of Evening Standards lowered here and there as the long silent stop creates a slight anxiety in eyes that stare at advertisements to avoid each other in the bowels of the earth or vanish again behind a crinkle of sporting page loud in the lit up silence. Katina says Favourable day for whatever you want to do. In the evening you will have the opportunity to meet someone whose influence may further your interests. Then at last a distant rumble grows more distant and a clank lurches the carriage forward to a slow start, producing a faint sensation of relief that spreads through the body of the train slightly animating the chromosomes as if inside a long long centipede.

Emerging from Avernus made easy with escalators. They also go down. Saying ΠAPAKAΛΩ ANAMENETE, the button lighting up when pressed to call the lift, inside which incomprehensibly below
come blank white buttons with IΣOΓEION and ΣTON and KINΔYNOΣ in red meaning perhaps alarm? Na says the old porter at the rez-de-chaussée not fortunately sous-sol, shaking his head vigorously to mean yes, as ohi and a nod means no in Greek. Gut-gut, kalo-kalo?

— Nai. Kalo-kalo. Adio, efharisto.

— Parakalo. Bye-bye Frau, welgohome.

— Man denkt in Deutsch wann man in Deutschland lebt.

— Auf Deutsch darling.

— Und since man spricht sehr little Deutsch unlike my clever sweet half born and bred on Pumpernickel, man denkt in eine kind of erronish Deutsch das springt zu life feel besser than echt Deutsch. Und even wenn man thinks AUF Deutsch wann man in Deutschland lives, then acquires it a broken up quality, die hat der charm of my clever sweet, meine deutsche mädchen-goddess, the gestures and the actions all postponed while first die Dinge und die Personen kommen. As if languages loved each other behind their own façades, despite alles was man denkt darüber davon dazu. As if words fraternised silently beneath the syntax, finding each other funny and delicious in a Misch-Masch of tender fornication, inside the bombed out hallowed structures and the rigid steel glass modern edifices of the brain. Du, do you love me? Du, dein Bein dein Brust dein belly oh Christ in Rothenburg gem-city between the sheet and the tumbled sheeted eiderdown amid the central heating and the wooden panelling. Man works with hands light brush-stroke size over the rectangles of agriculture bearing plants or parts of plants forest blobs metallic lakes thin white lines man feels as an abstract study in seduction man performs with the precision of the mouthpiece eyes voice hands over limbs that find each other delicious on a creaking bed somewhere along the Romantische Strasse in a Misch-Masch of swift fornication between a hallowed structure and the rigid virginal edifice crashing down the runway with a scream of jets and strong tension of brakes to a tame taxying up the tarmac guided by some other distant brain in a glass booth and small white frogs with yellow discs for eyes and a splash of blood until it comes to a standstill du, do you love me, du? Do si la sol fa mi ré do, do la fa ré, si sol mi do peals in crash-permutations through the belfry of the distant brain way up from across the greenish drizzle and Great Scott du, my sweet, my fleissige, for God’s sake make us coffee we’ve had enough of fornication on this late Sunday morning. Tout de suite and the tooter the sweeter.

Man sagt, man banters man makes love, rising to the occasion at all hours, man never says man loves except dein Bein dein Brust und dein damn medal of St. Christopher between ’em, or at most did you like it hat’s geschmeckt despite the lil’ ole Dutch cap or hats geschmeckt oh du my clever sweet my fleissige my deutsche mädchen-goddess for Chrissake make us some coffee what, a Ding no Dea does? Ah, du witzige sweet SCREAM why what’s the matter?

— Spinne! Eine Spinne! Im Bad!

— What?

— Please! Come quickly!

— Oh hell. Now what?

— What you call it? Take it away, please, take it away.

— My dear good girl. Only a spider. A beneficent spider. There, gone, out of the window.

— Oh. Oh, thank-you.

— Why, you look pale as a sheet. For heaven’s sake, screaming at a spider, the spinner of fates, a Ding no Dea does, did Athene scream at Arachne? Well, yes she did I suppose but not from fear, from jealousy and anger. There there, calm down my sweet, it brings luck you know.

— Araignée du matin, chagrin.

— But araignée du soir, espoir. Come let’s pretend the evening has returned, ah du, dein Brust und so weiter or else don’t you think lechería for milk-shop opening the shutters on la Calle de San Antonio in Madrid looks exquisite to an English eye? Unless in Cordova don’t you think these plaster images all round in shrines and this monstrous Renaissance chapel plonked in the middle of the mosque with its calm forest of columns look positively obscene? E allora, what methods did you use?

— Comment? Ah. Hé bien mon père, d’abord une—je ne sais pas comment ça s’appelle en français.

— Dites en allemand mon enfant, ou en anglais.

— A sheath, at first, then a Dutch hat, er, cap.

— Non capisco.

— Vous voulez dire, madame, une capote anglaise?