Three days later
Just back from a lento walk with V.A. down the Monk’s Walk to the gatekeeper’s lodge. I pushed his chair. Landscape v. atmospheric this evening; autumn leaves gusted around in urgent spirals, as if V.A. was the sorcerer and I his apprentice. Poplars’ long shadows barred the mown meadow. Ayrs wanted to unveil his concepts for a final, symphonic major work, to be named Eternal Recurrence in honor of his beloved Nietzsche. Some music will be drawn from an abortive opera based on The Island of Doctor Moreau, whose Viennese production was canceled by the war, some music V.A. believes will “come” to him, and its backbone will be the “dream music” piece that he dictated in my room that hairy night last month, I wrote to you about that. V.A. wants four movements, a female choir, and a large ensemble heavy in Ayrsesque woodwind. Truly, a behemoth of the deeps. Wants my services for another half year. Said I’d think about it. He said he’d up my salary, both vulgar and crafty of him. Repeated, I needed time. V.A. most upset I didn’t give him a breathy “Yes!” on the spot—but I want the old bugger to admit to himself that he needs me more than I him.
Sincerely,
R.F.
ZEDELGHEM
28th—IX—1931
Sixsmith,
J. growing v. tiresome. After our lovemaking, she spreads over my bed like a mooing moon-calf and demands to know about other women whose strings I’ve quivered. Now she’s teased names out of me, she says things like “Oh, I suppose Frederica taught you that?” (She plays with that birthmark in the hollow of my shoulder, the one you said resembles a comet—can’t abide the woman dabbling with my skin.) J. initiates petty rows in order to undergo tedious reconciliations and, worryingly, has started to let our moonlight dramas slip into our daylight lives. Ayrs can’t see further than Eternal Recurrence, but Eva is due back in ten days, and that hawkeyed creature will sniff out a decomposing secret in a jiffy.
J. thinks our arrangement lets her fasten my future more tightly to Zedelghem—she says, half playful, half darkly, she’s not going to let me “abandon” either her or her husband, not in “their” hour of need. The devil, Sixsmith, is in the pronouns. Worst of all, she’s started to use the L-word on me, and wants to hear it back. What’s wrong with the woman? She’s nearly twice my age! What’s she after? Assured her I’ve never loved anyone except myself and have no intention of starting now, especially with another man’s wife, and especially when that man could poison my name in European musical society by writing half a dozen letters. So, of course, the female plies her customary ploys, sobs in my pillow, accuses me of “using” her. I agree, of course I’ve “used” her; just as she’s “used” me too. That’s the arrangement. If she’s no longer happy with it, she’s not my prisoner. So off she storms to pout for a couple of days and nights until the old ewe gets hungry for a young ram, then she’s back, calling me her darling boy, thanking me for “giving Vyvyan his music back,” and the stupid cycle begins all over again. I wonder if she’s resorted to Hendrick in the past. Wouldn’t put anything past the woman. If one of Renwick’s Austrian doctors opened up her head, a whole beehive of neuroses would swarm out. Had I known she was this unstable, I’d never have let her in my bed that first night. There’s a joylessness in her lovemaking. No, a savagery.
Have agreed to V.A.’s proposal that I stay on here until next summer, at least. No cosmic resonance entered my decision—just artistic advantage, financial practicalities, and because J. might have some sort of collapse if I went. The consequences of that would not come out in the wash.
Later, same day
Gardener made a bonfire of fallen leaves—just came in from it. The heat on one’s face and hands, the sad smoke, the crackling and wheezing fire. Reminds me of the groundsman’s hut at Gresham. Anyway, got a gorgeous passage from the fire—percussion for crackling, alto bassoon for the wood, and a restless flute for the flames. Finished transcribing it this very minute. Air in the château clammy like laundry that won’t dry. Door-banging drafts down the passageways. Autumn is leaving its mellowness behind for its spiky, rotted stage. Don’t remember summer even saying good-bye.
Sincerely,
R.F.
Half-Lives
The First Luisa Rey Mystery
1
Rufus Sixsmith leans over the balcony and estimates his body’s velocity when it hits the sidewalk and lays his dilemmas to rest. A telephone rings in the unlit room. Sixsmith dares not answer. Disco music booms from the next apartment, where a party is in full swing, and Sixsmith feels older than his sixty-six years. Smog obscures the stars, but north and south along the coastal strip, Buenas Yerbas’s billion lights simmer. West, the Pacific eternity. East, our denuded, heroic, pernicious, enshrined, thirsty, berserking American continent.
A young woman emerges from the next-door party and leans over the neighboring balcony. Her hair is shorn, her violet dress is elegant, but she looks incurably sad and alone. Propose a suicide pact, why don’t you? Sixsmith isn’t serious, and he isn’t going to jump either, not if an ember of humor still glows. Besides, a quiet accident is precisely what Grimaldi, Napier, and those sharp-suited hoodlums are praying for. Sixsmith shuffles inside and pours himself another generous vermouth from his absent host’s minibar, dips his hands in the icebox, then wipes his face. Go out somewhere and phone Megan, she’s your only friend left. He knows he won’t. You can’t drag her into this lethal mess. The disco thump pulses in his temples, but it’s a borrowed apartment and he judges it unwise to complain. Buenas Yerbas isn’t Cambridge. Anyway, you’re in hiding. The breeze slams the balcony door, and in fear Sixsmith spills half his vermouth. No, you old fool, it wasn’t a gunshot.
He mops up the spillage with a kitchen towel, turns on the TV with the sound down low, and trawls the channels for M*A*S*H. It’s on somewhere. Just have to keep looking.
2
Luisa Rey hears a clunk from the neighboring balcony. “Hello?” Nobody. Her stomach warns her to set down her tonic water. It was the bathroom you needed, not fresh air, but she can’t face weaving back through the party and, anyway, there’s no time—down the side of the building she heaves: once, twice, a vision of greasy chicken, and a third time. That, she wipes her eyes, is the third foulest thing you’ve ever done. She slooshes her mouth out, spits residue into a flowerpot behind a screen. Luisa dabs her lips with a tissue and finds a mint in her handbag. Go home and just dream up your crappy three hundred words for once. People only look at the pictures, anyhow.
A man too old for his leather trousers, bare torso, and zebra waistcoat steps onto the balcony. “Luisaaa!” A crafted golden beard and a moonstone-and-jade ankh around his neck. “Hiya! Come out for a little stargazing, huh? Dig. Bix brought eight ounces of snow with him, man. One wild cat. Hey, did I say in the interview? I’m trying on the name Ganja at the moment. Maharaj Aja says Richard is outa sync with my Iovedic Self.”
“Who?”