I wanted the privacy of my study again. I used to look at that closet door and say it was a tombstone through which I could never enter again. Mona's dresses! It sickened me. And yet I could not tell my mother or Mona to please move the dresses elsewhere. I couldn't walk up to my mother and say, "Please move those dresses." The words would not come. I hated it. I thought I was becoming a Babbitt, a moral coward.
One night my mother and Mona were not at home. Just for old time's sake I decided to pay my study a visit. A little sentimental journey into the land of yesterday. I closed the door and stood in the darkness and thought of the many times when this little room was my very own, with no part of my sister disturbing it. But it could never be the same again.
In the darkness I put out my hand and felt her dresses hanging from the clothes-hooks. They were like the shrouds of ghosts, like the robes of millions and millions of dead nuns from the beginning of the world. They seemed to challenge me: they seemed to be there only to harass me and destroy the peaceful fantasy of my women who had never been. A bitterness went through me, and it was painful even to remember the other times. By now I had almost forgotten the features of those others.
I twisted my fist into the folds of a dress to keep from crying out. Now the closet had an unmistakable odor of rosaries and incense, of white lilies at funerals, of carpetry in the churches of my boyhood, of wax and tall, dark windows, of old women in black kneeling at mass.
It was the darkness of the confessional, with a kid of twelve named Arturo Bandini kneeling before a priest and telling him he had done something awful, and the priest telling him nothing was too awful for the confessional, and the kid saying he wasn't sure it was a sin, what he had done, but still he was sure nobody else ever did a thing like that because, father, it's certainly funny, I mean, I don't know how to tell it; and the priest finally wheedling it out of him, that first sin of love, and warning him never to do it again.
I wanted to bump my head against the closet wall and hurt myself so much that I would be senseless. Why didn't I throw those dresses out? Why did they have to remind me of Sister Mary Justin, and Sister Mary Leo, and Sister Mary Corita? I guess I was paying the rent in this apartment; I guess I could throw them out. And I couldn't understand why. Something forbade it.
I felt weaker than ever before, because when I was strong I would not have hesitated a moment; I would have bundled those dresses up and heaved them out the window and spat after them. But the desire was gone. It seemed silly to get angry and start heaving dresses about. It was dead and drifted away.
I stood there, and I found my thumb in my mouth. It seemed amazing that it should be there. Imagine. Me eighteen years old, and still sucking my thumb! Then I said to myself, if you're so brave and fearless, why don't you bite your thumb? I dare you to bite it! You're a coward if you don't. And I said, oh! Is that so? Well, I'm not either a coward. And I'll prove it!
I bit my thumb until I tasted blood. I felt my teeth against the pliant skin, refusing to penetrate, and I turned my thumb slowly until the teeth cut through the skin. The pain hesitated, moved to my knuckles, up my arm, then to my shoulder and eyes.
I grabbed the first dress I touched and tore it to pieces. Look how strong you are! Tear it to bits! Rip it until there is nothing left! And I ripped it with my hands and teeth and made grunts like a mad dog, rolling over the floor, pulling the dress across my knees and raging at it, smearing my bloody thumb over it, cursing it and laughing at it as it gave way under my strength and tore apart.
Then I started to cry. The pain in my thumb was nothing. It was a loneliness that really ached. I wanted to pray. I had not said a prayer in two years — not since the day I quit high school and began so much reading. But now I wanted to pray again, I was sure it would help, that it would make me feel better, because when I was a kid prayer used to do that for me.
I got down on my knees, closed my eyes and tried to think of prayer-words. Prayer-words were a different kind of word: I never realized it until that moment. Then I knew the difference.
But there were no words. I had to pray, to say some things; there was a prayer in me like an egg. But there were no words.
Surely not those old prayers!
Not the Lord's Prayer, about Our Father who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name, Thy kingdom come . . . I didn't believe that anymore. There wasn't any such thing as heaven; there might be a hell, it seemed very possible, but there wasn't any such thing as heaven.
Not the Act of Contrition, about O my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee, and I detest all my sins . . . Because the only thing I was sorry about was the loss of my women, and that was something which God emphatically opposed. Or did He? Surely, He must be against that. If I were God I would certainly be against it. God could hardly be in favor of my women. No. Then He was against them.
There was Nietzsche, Friedrich Nietzsche.
I tried him.
I prayed, "Oh dearly beloved Friedrich!"
No good. It sounded like I was a homosexual.
I tried again.
"Oh dear Mr. Nietzsche."
Worse. Because I got to thinking about Nietzsche's pictures in the frontispieces of his books. They made him look like a Forty-niner, with a sloppy mustache, and I detested Forty-niners.
Besides, Nietzsche was dead. He had been dead for years. He was an immortal writer, and his words burned across the pages of his books, and he was a great modern influence, but for all that he was dead and I knew it.
Then I tried Spengler.
I said, "My dear Spengler."
Awful.
I said, "Hello there, Spengler."
Awful.
I said, "Listen, Spengler!"
Worse.
I said, "Well, Oswald, as I was saying . . ."
Brrr. And still worse.
There were my women. They were dead too; maybe I could find something in them. One at a time I tried them out, but it was unsuccessful because as soon as I thought of them it made me wildly passionate. How could a man be passionate and be in prayer? That was scandalous.
After I had thought of so many people without avail I was weary of the whole idea and about to abandon it, when all of a sudden I had a good idea, and the idea was that I should not pray to God or others, but to myself.
"Arturo, my man. My beloved Arturo. It seems you suffer so much, and so unjustly. But you are brave, Arturo. You remind me of a mighty warrior, with the scars of a million conquests. What courage is yours! What nobility! What beauty! Ah, Arturo, how beautiful you really are! I love you so, my Arturo, my great and mighty god. So weep now, Arturo. Let your tears run down, for yours is a life of struggle, a bitter battle to the very end, and nobody knows it but you, no one but you, a beautiful warrior who fights alone, unflinching, a great hero the likes of which the world has never known."
I sat back on my heels and cried until my sides ached from it. I opened my mouth and wailed, and it felt ah so good, so sweet to cry, so that soon I was laughing with pleasure, laughing and crying, the tears spilling down my face and washing my hands. I could have gone on for hours.
Footsteps in the living room made me stop. The steps were Mona's. I stood up and wiped my eyes, but I knew they were red. Stuffing the torn skirt under my shirt I walked out of the closet. I coughed a little, clearing my throat, to show I was at ease with everything.
Mona didn't know anyone was in the apartment. The lights were out and everything, and she thought the place was deserted. She looked at me in surprise, as if she had never seen me before. I walked a few feet, this way and that, coughing and humming a tune, but still she watched, saying nothing but keeping her eyes glued to me. "Well," I said. "You critic of life - say something." Her eyes were on my hand. "Your finger. It's all . . ."
"It's my finger," I said. "You God-intoxicated nun." I locked the bathroom door behind me and threw the tattered dress down the air shaft. Then I bandaged my finger. I stood at the mirror and looked at myself. I loved my own face. I thought I was a very handsome person. I had a good straight nose and a wonderful mouth, with lips redder than a woman's, for all her paint and whatnot. My eyes were big and clear, my jaw protruded slightly, a strong jaw, a jaw denoting character and self-discipline. Yes, it was a fine face. A man of judgment would have found much in it to interest him.
In the medicine cabinet I came upon my mother's wedding ring, where she usually left it after washing her hands. I held the ring in the palm of my hand and looked at it in amazement. To think that this ring, this piece of mere metal, had sealed the connubial bond which was to produce me! That was an incredible thing. Little did my father know, when he bought this ring, that it would symbolize the union of man and woman out of which would arrive one of the world's greatest men. How strange it was to be standing in that bathroom and realizing all these things! Little did this piece of stupid metal know its own significance. And yet someday it would become a collector's item of incalculable value. I could see the museum, with people milling about the Bandini heirlooms, the shouting of the auctioneer, and finally a Morgan or a Rockefeller of tomorrow raising his price to twelve million dollars for that ring, simply because it was worn by the mother of Arturo Bandini, the greatest writer the world had ever known.
Chapter Seventeen
A HALF HOUR passed. I was reading on the divan. The bandage on my thumb stood out clearly. Mona said no more about it though. She was across the room, reading too, and eating an apple. The front door opened. It was my mother, returning from Uncle Frank's house. The first thing she saw was my bandaged finger.
"My God," she said. "What happened?" "How much money have you got?" I said. "But your finger! What happened?" "How much money have you got?"
Her fingers fluttered through her ragged purse as she kept glancing at the bandaged thumb. She was too excited, too frightened to open the purse. It fell on the floor. She picked it up, her knees crackling, her hands going everywhere, groping after the purse lock. Finally Mona got up and took the purse from her. Completely exhausted, and still worried about my thumb, my mother dropped into a chair. I knew her heart was pounding violently. When she got her breath she again asked about the bandage. But I was reading. I didn't answer. She asked again. "I hurt it." "How?"
"How much money have you got?" Mona counted it, holding the apple between her teeth. "Three dollars and a bit of change," she mumbled. "How much change?" I said. "Be specific please. I like precise answers."
"Arturo!" my mother said. "What happened? How did you hurt it?"
"Fifteen cents," Mona answered.
"Your finger!" my mother said.
"Give me the fifteen cents," I said.
"Come and get it," Mona said.
"But Arturo!" my mother said.
"Give it to me!" I said.
"You're not crippled," Mona said.
"Yes he is too crippled!" my mother said. "Look at his finger!"
"It's my finger! And give me that fifteen cents — you!"
"If you want it, come and get it."
My mother jumped from her chair and sat down beside me. She began stroking the hair from my eyes. Her fingers were hot, and she was so powdered with talcum she smelled like a baby, like an aged baby. I got up at once. She stretched her arm out to me.
"Your poor finger! Let me see it."
I walked over to Mona.
"Give me that fifteen cents."
She wouldn't. It lay on the table, but she refused to hand it to me.
"There it is. Pick it up, if you want it."
"I want you to hand it to me."
In disgust she snorted.
"You fool!" she said.
I put the coins in my pocket.
"You'll regret this," I said. "As God is my judge, you'll rue this impudence."
"Good," she said.
"I'm getting tired of being a workhorse for a pair of parasitical females. I tell you I've just about reached the apogee of my fortitude. At any minute now I propose to flee this bondage."
"Poo poo poo," Mona sneered. "Why don't you flee now - tonight? It would make everybody happy."
My mother was completely out of it. Distraught and rocking to and fro she could learn nothing about my finger. All evening I had heard her voice only vaguely.
"Seven weeks at the cannery. I'm fed up with it." "How did you hurt it?" my mother said. "Maybe it's blood-poisoned."
Maybe it was! For a moment I thought this possible. Working in the unsanitary conditions at the cannery, anything was possible. Then perhaps it was blood-poisoned. Me, a poor kid working down in that sweat hole, and this was my reward: blood-poisoning! Me, a poor kid working to support two women because I had to do it. Me, a poor kid, never complaining; and now to die of blood-poisoning from conditions down there where I earned the bread to feed their mouths. I wanted to burst out crying. I swung around and shouted.
"How did I hurt it? I'll tell you how I hurt it! Now you shall know the truth. Now it can be told. You shall know the demoniacal truth of it. I hurt it in a machine! I hurt it slaving my life away in that carnatic jute-mill! I hurt it because the fungus mouths of two parasitical women depended upon me. I hurt it because of the idiosyncrasies of native intelligence. I hurt it because of incipient martyrdom. I hurt it because my destiny would deny me no dogmatism! I hurt it because the metabolism of my days would deny me no recrudescence! I hurt it because I have a brobdingnagian nobility of purpose!"
My mother sat in shame, understanding nothing I said, but sensing what I was trying to say, her eyes down, her lips pouted, looking innocently into her hands. Mona had gone back to her reading, munching her apple and paying no attention. I turned to her.
"Nobility of purpose!" I screamed. "Nobility of purpose! Do you hear me, you nun! Nobility of purpose! But now I weary of all nobility. I am in revolt. I see a new day for America, for me and my fellow-workers down in that jute-mill. I see a land of milk and honey. I visualize, and I say, Hail the new America! Hail. Hail! Do you hear me, you nun! I say hail! Hail! Hail!"