Miz Snob shares a seven-and-a-half with two other McGill girls who are out at Jasper for the summer. A large living and dining room, a spacious kitchen, three small bedrooms. One window facing west and two east. A nice bathroom with an antique tub. An antique mirror on the shiny black wall. In front of her bedroom window, Miz Snob has a big walnut bed that forms an angle with a large armoire. A black piano against a high-gloss white wall. An old daguerreotype under a soft spotlight (gift from her grandmother, Toronto’s first woman photographer).
Miz Snob is studying photography at McGill. According to the posters in the big living room, Henri Cartier-Bresson and Marguerite Duras are the only citizens of this planet. I must admit, Miz Snob is sexier than M.D. She uses a professional Nikon model and used to go out with a Japanese guy during her Dawson College days.
A ROOM with bright stained-glass panels, like the Bibliothèque Nationale on St. Denis. They remind you of children’s drawings. A Chagall reproduction hanging on the wall. Chagall shines. In the center of the drawing, an enormous circle with eight spheres of Mozartian clarity. All around, fish, birds, earthly animals and letters of the alphabet dance a joyful round watched over by the Lion of Judah (a young lion with round, domesticated paws). In the distance: Jerusalem, the yellow city.
Miz Literature disappeared into an album of Lewis Hine’s photographs when we got here and hasn’t been seen from since.
The steaming tea is served in a handsome Dresden china service. Another gift from the Toronto grandmother. I assume the Black Cat position on the hassock. Incense wafts toward the ceiling. Great clouds, like Sioux signals. I watch them float upward and feel myself about to launch into a gustatory description, mingling the delectation of the spices of the Sugar Route with the seven savors of ginger at the noon hour, ending with a dazzling leap (the new black Malraux) whereby the Tao would dissolve in this Dresden china teapot — but no one would forgive me for that.
Miz Literature is completely wiped out. She goes to lie down in one of the empty rooms. Miz Snob, so I understand, is insomniac. Now we are alone.
Miz Snob goes to the kitchen for more tea. I feel as soft as one of those Rocky Mountain land crabs. I surrender to my daiquiri. Half horizontal on a hassock, I carry out a lascivious inspection of the room: the sculpted wood of antique furniture; a flea market chair; Polynesian seashells around a Dahomey sculpture on a tiny shelf; two batiks of New Delhi women in light silk saris standing on the right bank of the Ganges.
And snobbishly floating in the air from a chain, an enormous Truman Capote portrait (with hat) shot by Andy Warhol.
MIZ SNOB suddenly reappears with hot tea and catches me rummaging in her records.
“Do you like Cohen?”
Since no one ever mentions Cohen without saying something about Dylan in the next breath, I follow the pattern.
“I prefer him to Dylan. His early songs, at least.”
Miz Snob almost spilled my daiquiri. She likes Cohen, but Dylan is king.
That wry guitar always creates a special mood. Sinking into a hassock, listening to Cohen, drinking Shanghai tea.
Miz Snob searches for Rampal among her records. She kneels down. I assure you she is wearing a tiny white satin undergarment. Her body is white, untouched, smooth, almost shiny.
“Are you hungry?” she asks me out of nowhere.
“A little.”
“I’m going to make an omelet.”
I follow her into the clean, well-lighted kitchen. Handsome pale wood, big farmhouse table and a collection of spice bottles (thyme, dried nutmeg, curry, paprika, sage, mustard, chives, parsley) above an Arcimboldo poster of a man’s head with a collage of fruits of the sea and land. On a shelf in a corner: a collection of Time-Life recipe books.
Miz Snob attends to her omelet. She breaks the eggs with a sharp tap against the edge of the pan. I watch her shoulderblades moving under her tight white blouse. Muscles. Not an ounce of fat. A Scarsdale girl. But her breasts, that should be smaller, are big enough to stand out on both sides. I’m standing behind her. Of its own accord, my hand pops from my pocket, where it lay in repose like an extinct volcano, and sweeps around her waist that conjures up Jane Birkin’s curves. I bend over and kiss her pointy ear. That wasn’t the thing to do. She didn’t slap me, nothing like that. It was worse. She and I — really, it was she — decided we weren’t going to be great lovers.
MIZ SNOB sprinkles cocaine on the omelet. She puts some in everything she eats. She’s crazy about coke.
Coke and I are not the best of friends.
We talk about Hölderlin, that old madman, with Rampal providing the background. Très snob, man.
“Have you read Burroughs?”
“Yes. But when it comes to the Beats, I prefer Corso.”
Excellent Colombian stock. Too bad it’s wasted on me.
“Did you like Junkie? ”
Name-dropping 101: Miz Snob’s favorite subject.
“It was all right. I liked Naked Lunch better.”
“I thought it was too obvious. It can’t stand up next to De Quincey’s Journal. ”
Rampal, when it comes down to it, is a lot of crap. You can keep him. But Miz Snob has a good pusher.
Hats off, Colombia. White satin. Black pain.
Miz Mystic Flying back from Tibet
AS I climb the stairway I hear old Mingus playing. Charles Mingus, if you please. The door is slightly ajar. I push it and walk in. Miz Suicide is sitting at Bouba’s feet in the lotus position. Black Buddha is devouring an enormous pizza. Miz Suicide is with a girl who just came back from Tibet. Miz Mystic. Miz Mystic is a carbon copy of an iguana. Bouba’s bestiary. Eyes unfocused, body redundant, Miz Mystic is in a constant state of flotation. To keep from surrendering my vital energies to these monsters, I leap upon the last piece of pizza. Fortune has saved me a few dregs of wine in the bottle. As usual, Miz Suicide is busy boiling water for tea. I sit down on my work chair, turn my back on the typewriter and gaze stupidly on that lousy cross that haunts my window. Miz Suicide serves tea. Miz Mystic floats. Bouba reads suras to jazz rhythm. Miz Mystic is unapproachable.
“What’s Tibet like?”
“It’s okay.”
“Just okay? That’s all? I thought a trip to Tibet would be something special.”
She ignores me.
“Do they levitate mountains over there?”
A frigid look.
“I didn’t see any of that.”
“I don’t know, I figure some incredible things must go on in those frozen caves.”
“Not especially.”
Miz Mystic sits with her back against the Japanese screen. Her eyes are like those of a lama contemplating an edelweiss. Miz Suicide is working on her third tea. Mingus launches into a capricious piece that makes a crazy contrast with this mystico-depressing scene. Bouba is lying on the couch like the Dalai Lama of the Carré St. Louis. The fatigue of two sleepless nights is beginning to hit me. This planet is not going well at all. (“Dhul-Qarnain,” they said, “Gog and Magog are ravaging this land. Build us a rampart against them and we will pay you tribute.”) I formulate this vow, then fall into a cotton-wool sleep, diagonally across the bed. As Mingus plays “Goodbye Pork Pie Hat.”
I WAKE up with a start to see Miz Mystic psychotically pounding the bed. Then she makes a dash for the window and tries to jump out. Bouba grabs her by the waist. Miz Suicide has a hold on her foot. The insensitive needle scratches at the record. Miz Mystic is foaming with held-back rage. Her desire to throw herself out the window is so strong it seems legitimate to me. In cases of great conviction, we should make an exception. Let her do it. Someone wants to kill himself. So be it. (“Say: Nothing will your flight avail you. If you escaped from death and slaughter you would enjoy this world only for a little while.”) Miz Mystic has her torso out the window. Her skirt is pushed up to her waist. Dry, bare legs. Miz Suicide pulls her back desperately. Miz Mystic is making good headway toward the void as the indifferent cross looks on.