The Brooke-Rose Omnibus (53 page)

— Fine.

— So, you’ve recovered your senses. Gut-gut. Well, we meet again. We can continue to meet again you know Liebes, here and there in Amsterdam Paris London und so weiter weiter gehen, immer geradeaus, if you let me know your schedules in advance I can always arrange a trip. Just think what fun we’ll have.

— We have played those games mein Lieb.

— I meant, of course, as friends.

Silences differ more than hotel rooms or menus going all the way to the moment when I must go I really must.
Bye-bye
for now or as they say in Turkey güle-güle auf
Wiedersehen
bye-bye, Frau, welgohome.

The bottle of Eau d’Evian stands on the kitchen
window-sill
above the sink near the packet of OMO—le plus fort contre la saleté. Coupage du lait des biberons. Cure de diurèse et de désintoxication. Affections rénales—Lithiases urinaires—Goutte—Arthritisme—Obésité—Régime sans sel. Evian—l’eau essentielle, l’eau “vraie”.

The hands lie quite still on the late Empire desk against the blue and green striped wall, holding the letter from Rome rooted out of the mess of papers in the niche
answered-already
-kept-for-reference Madame. I have pleasure to inform you that the Vicariatus Urbis has acknowledged the nullity of your marriage because of “mulieris simulationis contra bona indissolubilitatis et prolis” on April 17 based on half-truths and vital mysteries lost in antiquated sophistries. Dated heavens two years ago. You will appreciate that according to our conversation when you gave your testimony in Rome two years past, the Defensor Vinculi has now to appeal against this judgment at a Second Hearing. If he wins the Second judgment you may then appeal with a Third Hearing just like a tennis match mein Lieb final and decisive whichever way it goes. I can’t think why you bother. Even in religious matters ladies and gentlemen they have quietly had to shift their ground into convenient dogmas which even lose their convenience as times change. I shall with pleasure continue to represent you when I hear from you that I hated all that interrogation Liebes why, quite like the end of the war trying to get a job and a Persil-Schein certificate denazifying us whiter than white, witness I ask you what had I witnessed but the snatching away of meine Liebe under my very nose thinking all right then he will hurt her and I’ll bide my time and gather up the broken bits with a remittance for Lire 800,000 as follows: Printing Costs 50,000, Taxes
Vicariatus
Urbis Tribunal, 150,000, Second Judgment 100,000, Honorarium (nominal) 500,000. These charges as you see agree with the charges for the First Judgment. Cordially. Every solution creates new problems not one of which deserves a flow of rash enthusiasm which looked up in the dictionary on the late Empire desk once long ago meant how long possessed by the gods.

If we wish to avert famine in the developing countries, industrialised nations must concentrate on the words that flow into the earphones worn like a diadem through the neutralised transmitter in the brain way up behind the closed eyelids and down into the mouthpiece in simultaneous
German
to provide more technical and scientific help for the proper utilisation of these countries’ own resources of
proteins.
Mesdames messieurs vous allez écouter aujourd’hui plusieurs discours by eminent specialists on methods of
increasing
the output of edible protein and translating time speed height into locality and channel and descent into new matter where the light unrounds the corners of the cupboard the dressing-table the stool under which you will find your life-jacket for anche una persona priva de conoscenza. No body occupies the empty bed thank goodness nor will use l’essuie-main not für Rasierklingen. No one comes in offering anything not ordered.

No one does anything at all. Assemblies meet and talk and even this Council can do no more than pass a resolution asking governments to initiate urgent measures for closing the protein gap. But governments must act. We can do no more than give them the technical information required. And the poorer countries must themselves give far more attention to oil seed production and fish-protein concentrates which still remain the world’s cheapest sources of protein.

Between the dawn and the unrounding night the fingers fondle the medal of St. Christopher on the body stretching forth its hundred and forty ribs or so towards the brain beyond the yellow curtain that divides the poorer from the richer and no doubt behind a little door. But the biggest difficulty lies not so much in obtaining the additional protein as in making it palatable to the people who so desperately need it.

The members of the assembly sit quite still in a passion of charity concern interest unless perhaps alarm. Sandra works with her eyes ears voice and un amour de soutien-gorge but no hands as she watches the speaker through the glass-booth pouring the oilseed and fish-concentrates into the
mouthpiece
in simultaneous English. Between the cold statistics and the stark bare facts of hunger lies an immense period called indifference. Nous avons perfectionné des techniques
expérimentales
for texturing vegetable proteins by spinning to yield products which, when properly flavoured and coloured, closely simulate common foods such as bacon, chicken, beef and fish. Did you want it for eating love?

The menu goes all the way to 00147 Roma on account of mulieris simulationis contra bona indissolubilitatis et prolis. The bottle of Spa Monopole stands on the dressing-table. L’eau qui pétille—L’eau minérale la moins chargée en sels. Het mineraal spuitwater mit het laagste zoutgehalte. On the bedside-table lies the postcard from Venice out of the envelope addressed to Hotel Gallia Milano forwarded to Paris Headquarters and on to Bruges with the words Je sais que vous venez à Milan. J’habite maintenant Venise, belle ville d’amour et d’art splendide d’amour et crossed out without sufficient conviction. Si vous en avez le loisir venez voir cette merveille. Vous donneriez une incomparable joie à un vieil ami qui vous admire toujours, qui n’oublie pas la gentildonna “che fa tremar dì claritate l’âre” (comme l’a si bien dit ce grand poète Italien Cavalcanti: le connaissez-vous?
Sûrement.
Vous savez tout). Signed B.C.

B.C.? Or could it represent H.C.? H.O. or even E.C.? F.S.? S.O.? One letter scrawled over the other like an
incomprehensible
ideogram. Je m’appelle Boris Carlov. May I introduce Prince Battista di Cualcosa. You never remember anybody’s surnames Liebes or smoke them to the end. Bruce Chum glad to know you. My card Bong Ching, attaché culturel thank you. Señor Boniface Calderón. Encantada. Le plaisir de vous présenter le professeur Blaise Chose-Truc qui va vous parler de l’humanité la justice l’épidémie. Lirrechur eh? My parents had a lirre-rary turn of mind they called me Brutus Caesar. Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow will do to wander about the canals of Bruges and think of cette belle ville d’amour et d’art splendide che fa tremar dì claritate l’âre. And of where when how to whose air did one do that.

Ideas flow thick and fast. My government wishes to
emphasise
that it does not take sides in the dispute, nor do we have sufficient forces in Middle East waters to exercise influence one way or the other. But Greece must learn, Turkey must learn that between the twilit gloom of earth below the wing and the almost unshruggable Taurus Mountains in a feverish glow glimpsed through the leaning heads and exclamations to the left of the aisle the sea looks earthen clay you could cut with a knife to mould some ancient goddess such as Vénus qui complique vos projets or Mercure qui influence votre magnétisme et votre vivacité d’esprit as the body floats in quiet disparagement. Nothing deserves a flow of rash
enthusiasm
my sweet. My Government wishes to reiterate its whole-hearted support for the United Nations. Et tu Brute? We shall continue to honour our obligations and tomorrow and tomorrow we shall appoint a sub-committee to inquire into the way we can best meet the crisis. Meet Mr. Bryan Crisis. Unless Helmut Heinrich Horst. We shall organise discussions to see how best we can help those countries with their external defence problems and render unto Caesar the things that belong to Caesar, just personal effects for instance and the fact that in this air-conditioning blowing through the mouthpiece you pull red toggle (1), adjusting their
economies
to the new situation. Wherever particular people
congregate
you never remember anybody’s names. As for the Far East, we must emphasise that a vast cultural revolution has taken place, which the world will not find easy to
integrate
into my card Hong Cong cultural revolutionary please la crise la crise.

And if you look up the word crisis in the dictionary you will find that it once meant decision. Now here in this
Congress
of Demographers we need not concern ourselves too much with the etymology of words. All the same I suggest that at any minute now some bright buxom floor-steward will come in with a breakfast tray saying Morgen, gün aydın bună ziua no buzz the telephone pronto? hello? Seven o’clock madam. Thank you very much. The label on the bottle by the bed says Vichyvatten to hide the nature of the contents neither Vichy nor vatten but air surrounded with liquid so that tomorrow and tomorrow will do to wander along the Ström down below the hotel in the Venice of the North and think about cette belle ville d’amour et d’art splendide che fa tremar dì claritate l’âre.

Silences differ more than hotel rooms and tall façades with such small spirits behind them. The gods have left this land but we shall continue to honour our obligations towards a line BC representing geographical areas at right angles with the line AB representing population increase per square metre per annum. Now taking BC here you can see at a glance where the danger lies, and that the increase in ideas flows thick and fast. Mesdames messieurs, je tiens d’abord à remercier le Président du Congrès pour ses éloges que je n’ai pas conscience de mériter. Vous connaissez tous, je pense, ce mot de Bertolt Brecht (Bertolt?) which flows into the ear through the earphones in French and comes out into the mouthpiece over waves and on immer geradeaus into the earphones of the multitudes or so in simultaneous German.

On nous a convoqué ici dans ce charmant château du moyen-âge Wurtembourgeois pour discuter du thème suivant: La Littérature et la Sémantique. Mesdames messieurs je vous le demande, le moyen-âge connaissait-il la Sémantique? Hé bien moi non plus. What has the writer to do with Semantics? I ask myself that question. I even went so far as to look up the word sémantique in the dictionary and found it meant: SIG-NI-FI-CA-TION. La science de la sig-ni-fi-ca-tion. But what has literature to do with science? With analysis of meaning until the meaning vanishes under the academic weight of analysis? Rien! Ou, pour aider les interprètes, nikts, notting, nada, niente. Vous voyez! Il n’y a aucune difficulté le langage speaks for itself. I will tell you a story what story oh you know the one about le philologue Russe qui dit: we in Russia say jardine, the French say jardine, the English say jardine, the Germans say jardine, you know, a place where flowers grow, all have the same word so you see we have no differences and laughter cracks the earphones. Hé bien mesdames messieurs he had something there, through his philological blinkers. La littérature, la splendeur des mots, des sig-ni-fi-ca-tions, depends on sounds that hiss through the earphones et ces sons surgissent avec leur sig-
ni-fi-
ca-tions multiples through a natural process created by the marriage of la tradition et le progrès. Nous autres écrivains, nous ne nous soucions pas de cette science infime, infâme, for we proceed by instinct through le langage which we absorb with our mother’s milk flowing through our veins and
remaining
far behind the inklings of the few. Out of the mouths of babes nous parlons en po-ètes, mesdames messieurs, en
poètes.
La littérature, l’humanité, la justice, l’épidémie und so weiter weiter gehen until the science of signification sobs and hisses into the microphone through the eardrums unless the pale Danish novelist next on the dais says that he has looked up the word semantics in the dictionary and found it means meaning. Well now quite soon some floor-steward in white will come in with a breakfast-tray and say all ideas have equality before God bringing in as well a postcard from Bernard Colliwobbles in Venice or 00147 Roma. Bruce Cliff. Brute Clinch. You never smoke them to the end. Wherever particular people congregate you want them to commit
themselves
to your latest enthusiasm whereas nothing, rien, niente deserves a flow of rash desire love loyalty ambition marriage of tradition and progress. Henri Chasse. Hermann Clot. Fernando Chiuso. Unless perhaps H.O., E.S., F.O., P.S. Etienne Edouard Edmond Emanuel Frédérique, Paul Pierre. A great cultural revolution has taken place which needs no simulation of women bacon fish by the code of zones AB at right angles with the line BC descended into half-visited on swift conducted tours of the world’s
trouble-spots.
Kenya must learn, Angola must learn la grande leçon des préservatifs which shows Erich Enobarbus Fritz how the Greek lady says in broken French that she however has had no need to look up the word sémantique in the dictionary because in Greek semantikos means meaningful just as elios means sun and gynaika means woman. The meaning has remained and meaning in literature concerns Emile et les detectives unless humanity fraternity liberty tutungerie in the precision of the mouthpiece at a certain age of certain freedom from loyalty to anyone ABCD.

Whose coeur tremble de fol espoir.

But where and in what freedom of which air did one do that?

En Roumanie, pays des forêts, des fleurs et des couleurs, vous découvrirez un riche trésor d’art, témoignage des aptitudes artistiques du peuple roumain, de son sens inné pour le beau et l’harmonie.

The pillow stands obliquely in the wall-corner of the bed with its ears up and its middle carefully dented. The
feather-bed
buttoned up in sheeting no longer occurs, only the red black and white blanket folded back with the top sheet to form two parallel white borders from which the fact that we have not yet come out of the hard bed area my sweet has no personal significance beyond the Apă Mineralǎ on the
bedside
table. Indicaţii terapeutice: gastrite catarale cronice, colite şi enterocolite cronice, calculozǎ urică, anumite forme de nefrite, pielite şi cistite, hepatite simple cronice, litiază biliară, inflamaţii cronice ale căilor respiratorii in general, diateze, gută şi obezitate. Everywhere you will discover the history of the country, in the towns, in the valleys of the mountains as much as by the sea, witness the remains of graeco-roman antiquities, the daco-roman vestiges
disseminated
all over the land, the inestimable beauty of the Byzantine monasteries full of dark staring saintly eyes outside which a smattering of phrase-book Rumanian plus Italian Spanish French with a bearded monk brings up the tense heavy blond engineer from the excursion-party who says Mais vous savez tout!