The Müller-Fokker Effect (16 page)

‘Dada, yes,’ said a man outfitted as a lumberjack. ‘But this decadent sentiment…’

Ank came to a stop before a ‘Mondriaan’ which featured in one panel a sign:
WATCH THIS SPACE
. Nearby, someone was talking about the real works of Mondriaan. ‘…sacramental splendor. Inverted baroque, you see, the liturgy of the line.’

The tall art critic with the ax-blade nose saw Ank and came over. ‘You covering this, too? I thought the
Sun
fired you.’

Ank stammered. ‘I’m…here all right. God knows why, it’s a waste of time.’ The familiar phrases came easy.

‘So I thought. What did you think of that Aphrodite thing, by by the way?’ He referred to the chief piece of the exhibition, a travesty of Botticelli’s famous work, here entitled
Bertha Venus
. In this version, blood coursed down the goddess’s leg, and great bloody patches appeared in the sky.

‘I don’t know,’ said Ank. ‘The painter’s probably a clever young guy with no ideas. There’s a certain lack of tension, of fiber…’

‘I know just what you mean. Like a queer without taste.’

At the far end of the room, Glen sipped his drink and talked to a bearded young man he took to be the painter. The works were unsigned, and the catalogue called the painter ‘A.B.’

‘That Botticelli, it says it all, you know? I’ve been working on an article about the same thing myself—the corruption of the individual, the reduction of sex to a mechanism in modern life.’

The young man made a restless shift, so Glen raised his voice. ‘It’s like those Bette Cooke commercials. Supermarket sex, canned, frozen, sterilized. Love as meaningless as shopping. Art is the only way to reveal her for what she is, the great bitch-goddess of the built-in kitchen…’

‘Yeah, well, I’d better get going.’ The young man went off to fetch another tray of drinks.

Glen saw Ank at the other end of the room, standing alone by a curious pseudo-Cezanne. As he walked towards him, he heard someone saying, ‘Well I don’t know, Wilma. That’s what I thought, too, Cheap, derivative. But notice that kid from the
Sun
really likes them. Can’t take his eyes off’ em.’

Glen asked Ank if he saw the artist anywhere.

‘I thought you knew, Glen. These are…mine.’

‘Yours? Terrific!’ Glen was secretly flattered at having known the artist long before the show. ‘I really like it, Ank. In fact, I’m thinking of buying that big Botticelli.’

After Glen left, Drew waved his check at Ank. ‘We’ve made it, kid! Eight grand right off the bat! Everybody said I was crazy putting prices like these on an unknown, but…What’s the matter?’

‘Nothing. I just want to make a confession.’

‘You’re depressed. Nerves from all the commotion out there, that’s all. Those pig-ignorant bastards, they don’t appreciate…’

‘I want to get away for awhile. Go to Europe, maybe, and just…’

‘Study the old masters? Good idea.’

‘No, I want to do something
different
, I don’t know, I want to hole up by myself somewhere and maybe make up for what I’m doing here. I’ve committed a crime, Drew.’

The dealer patted his arm. ‘Don’t worry, Ank. Giotto will forgive you.’

The reviews were good. Ank’s show sold out in a week. The news that he would paint no more in this ‘period’ drove prices upward, until the last sale (to the architect Arch Ögivaal) reached ten times the first.

Ank left for Alsace-Lorraine at once. He bought an old factory near Assholtz, moved in quantities of supplies, and cloistered himself there for several months.

Marge drank to the flag, the Veterans’ Administration one, which she had draped over the sofa in lieu of a coffin. The drink wasn’t liquor, either. That had stopped working weeks ago.

And now this stuff wasn’t having much effect. She felt her head leave her cold, crawly body, but that was all. Cold and crawly, the way she felt when Bradd got too close. As he always did.

Dr Fellstus, MacCormick Hines, Mr Bradd—already her life was filling with new names. Like dust sifting in after you sweep. There was, there is, no more feeling left for him than for that nylon flag over there, fifty or sixty miles across the room. He was someone else.

So was she: Betsy Ross, Martha Wash, Molly Pitch and Bette Bitch, another standardized receptacle for the feelings of old motherless boys. Boys from Boise. You can take the Boise out of the country, but try and take…

She walked over and lay down naked on the flag. Country kitchen dinners, hot dinners…hot fudge sex star giveaway showdown tragedy delight it’s all right din-din chowdown chowder shoulder choux sho’tnin’ bread…three layer parfait banana coconut saffron mango yam molasses ripple mint apple betty nutmeg cinnamon bare clove rosemary thyme it’s dinner time, its

She spread out on the stairs and stripes, made a megaphone of her hands, and screamed:

‘COME…AND…GET IT!’

The study hall was arranged with all desks facing the walls around a large rectangle. Col Fouts stood in the center, where he could make sure that every cadet was writing his letter home properly.

The proper form was written on the blackboard:

Signed, Cadet N.N.

Like the other cadets, Spot had learned to tell, just from the sound of Fouts’s footsteps, which way he was facing. While he faced Spot, Spot worked diligently on the form letter. At all other times, Spot continued his secret letter to Billy:

Dear Billy Koch:

1. Cadet Sturgemoore Shairp wants to kill himself…

At the next desk a cadet slipped a book from under his letter home and read:

We ruined them for their own simple savage kind of life, and we didn’t succeed in making them fit to live like white men. If we really felt sorry for the nigras, like we say we do, then we’d just ‘put them to sleep’…

The cadet at the next desk was asleep. Just beyond him two ten-year-old corporals were exchanging rumors about Fouts. Some mysterious ‘woman in red’ had been visiting his quarters. Fouts had a locked drawer in his office that probably was jammed full of contraceptive pills and all like that. Someone had
seen
a woman go into Fouts’s quarters at midnight—using her own key!

Then came the squeaky floorboard that meant he was about to turn around. That side of the room went back to work. The cadets on the far side of the room began talking about the new Army outfit, a super-tough unit mentioned in the
National Military School Enquisitor
. A unit called the Pink Barrettes.

‘All right you guys, let’s try it again. Brassieres line up at the south end of the field, skins at the north,
ON THE DOUBLE
! Here comes Rocky, so make it look good!’

General Rockstone strode briskly by, a
coup
stick jammed in his oxter. ‘Sergeant, I didn’t hear very much goddamned noise in that last charge.’

‘No sir. We’ll do better this time, sir.
READY, MEN!’

‘Just a minute, Sergeant. At ease, men. Who’s that man with the haircut?’

The sergeant whirled. ‘Manning! Attention! One step to the rear—
HRARRGH
!’ Since the men were all standing with their backs to the general, the rearward step brought Manning closer. Rocky looked him over.

‘Soldier, who told you to get a haircut?’

‘No one, sir.’

‘Then why in hell did you do it?’

‘Sir, the regulations say…’

‘Not
our
regulations, by God! I want every man in this outfit to grow shoulder length hair, or by God, I want to know why! Sergeant, give the men an extra hour of backwards drill this afternoon, and put
this
man on punishment detail until he looks fit to be a Pink Barrette.’

‘Yes sir!’

‘And, Sergeant…more noise!’

‘Yes sir! All right, you bastards! You heard the general. Next time you come across that field I want you to
squeal
and
gigglel
So if I can’t hear you, you’ll do it ten more times before we take five. Is that clear?’

‘Yes sir!’ shrilled the company in unpracticed falsetto.

A moment later, those wearing brassieres charged down the field to engage those without. The ‘skins’ were fixing rubber bayonets or firing blanks.

‘Take some evasive frigging action!’ the sergeant bellowed. The ‘brassieres’ began to pirouette and skip. All the way they squealed and giggled lustily, until they reached the enemy lines.

The ‘skins’ line broke, and they became a few clusters of panicky individuals, firing wildly, thrusting half-heartedly, but cursing with real style and fervor. The light, curved
coup
sticks of the attackers never stopped moving, flicking here and there with uncanny accuracy. Within a few minutes, they had tagged everyone.

‘All right, Sergeant,’ said Rocky. ‘Keep it up. I’ve got a conference at the Pentagon this afternoon. Be back tomorrow.’

The battle of Dresden was getting off to a slow start. There seemed some question as to whether Napoleon would really engage the defending forces at all…

‘General Rockstone’s here, sir.’

‘Mm?’ Weimarauner returned with difficulty to the full-scale world. It was hard at times to realize that Napoleon’s whole army would fit into the summer house, along with Blücher’s forces; that a single musket of either side would make a toothpick…‘Send him out.’

Weimarauner stood in his modified back yard and watched his Pink Barrette general emerge from the house. Rockstone wore a green fatigue uniform sprouting lace at collar and cuffs. His long gray hair was pulled back over one ear by a plastic pink barrette. The little stick he carried was, because of his rank, tipped with one gold star.

As he reached the edge of the flagstone patio, Rocky was instructed by an orderly to remove his shoes.

‘That’s right,’ Weimarauner called. ‘Most of the yard is built up with plastic, and the surface is pretty delicate.’

Rocky slipped off the regulation shoes, to which pink pompoms had been attached, and padded carefully across the brittle lawn.

‘How are things in Florida?’

‘Good, sir. The men are in the pink—in peak condition, General, rarin’ to go. I hoped you’d be giving us embarkation orders.’

Weimarauner picked up a French lancer and examined its painted uniform with a pocket magnifier. ‘No rush, Rocky, no rush. Right now we’re in the process of changing our logistics system—Blunden here can tell you all about it—and we’re trying to cut back on troop movements until we have everything straightened around.’

Rocky looked closer at the battle of Dresden landscape. ‘Toy sojurs? That’s a big set-up you’ve got there, General.’

‘Indeed, forty acres and still growing. I was lucky enough to get these lead lancers from an old warehouse in Minneapolis—had to make a special trip to make the deal—they cost a fortune, but they’re worth it. Look at that detail!’

‘Nice hobby.’

Weimarauner frowned. ‘It’s far more than that, Rockstone. Do you think I’d waste taxpayers’ money on a
hobby?

‘No, you see, my concentration on a single battle seems to stir the deepest reaches of my intellect. While I work out every contingency of the battle of Dresden, on a
conscious
level, my unconscious is free to experiment with daring new ideas.’ He surveyed the green velvet landscape, the rows of tiny white tents. ‘It was while I was on that trip to Minneapolis that the whole conception of the Pink Barrettes came to me entire. To name but one example. And while I was debating a detail of this battle—supposing Blucher had engaged Napoleon
before
he got to Dresden—I suddenly came upon this new logistics system,
Modulog.’

‘All from a toy! Wow!’

Weimarauner looked at him coldly. ‘Why don’t you toddle off with Captain Blunden here, and let him tell you all about
Modulog
? He can explain it as well as I.’

This was perfectly true, for Captain Blunden, who now led Rocky inside to the study and poured out two sherries, was the originator of
Modulog
, just as Hackendorf had originated the Pink Barrettes. Weimarauner’s genius lay in surrounding himself with capable official and semi-official aides. They ghosted his books, drafted his recommendations to the Secretary of Defense, and now and then managed to draw his attention from Dresden long enough to hand him a new idea to ‘come upon’.

Weimarauner meanwhile withdrew further and further from real military activities. He no longer kept an office at the Pentagon, but communicated from his country home by special telephone. He no longer concerned himself with the present war—at times he could not remember the names of the enemy nation—but slipped deeper and deeper into the complexities of Napoleon
vs
. Blucher. What if Blucher attacked first? What if Napoleon had not left off his attack on Dresden in the middle? How much of the river could he have held, and for how long?