Hours of insanity and escape… tear paper into thread-thin strips — not easy… then to slide lines of words from one side of a page to another, vainly hoping the difference will be agreeable… instead of a passionate particularity, to try for a ringing singularity… cancel, scratch, XXXXX… stop.
The gentle Turgenev (and one of our masters, surely, if we love this arrogantly modest art), writing about Fathers and Children—writing about himself — said: ‘Only the chosen few are able to transmit to posterity not only the content but also the form of their thoughts and views, their personality, which, generally speaking, is of no concern to the masses.’ The form. That is what the long search is for; because form, as Aristotle has instructed us, is the soul itself, the life in any thing, and of any immortal thing the whole. It is the B in being. The chosen few… the happy few… that little band of brothers… Well, the chosen cannot choose themselves, however they connive at it.
And he asked his fellow Russian writers to guard their language. ‘Treat this mighty weapon with respect,’ he begged, ‘in skilled hands it can work miracles.’ But miracles cannot be chosen either. And for those of us who have worked none, respect we can still manage. The folly of a hope sustains us: that next time the skill will be there, and the miracle will ensue.
So I am still the obscure man who wrote these words, and if someone were to ask me once again of the circumstances of my birth, I think I should answer finally that I was born somewhere in the middle of my first book; that life, so far, has not been extensive; that my native state is Anger, a place nowhere on the continent but rather somewhere at the bottom of my belly; that I presently dwell in the Sicily of the soul, the Mexico of the mind, the tower at Duino, the garden house in Rye; and that I shall be happy to rent, sell, or give away these stories, which I would have furnished far more richly if I could have borne the cost, to anyone who might want to visit them, or — hallelujah — reside. In lieu of that unlikelihood, however, I am fashioning a reader for these fictions… of what kind, you ask? well, skilled and generous with attention, for one thing, patient with longeurs, forgiving of every error and the author’s self-indulgence, avid for details… ah, and a lover of lists, a twiddler of lines. Shall this reader be given occasionally to mouthing a word aloud or wanting to read to a companion in a piercing library whisper? yes; and shall this reader be one whose heartbeat alters with the tenses of the verbs? that would be nice; and shall every allusion be caught like a cold? no, eaten like a fish, whole, fins and skin; and shall there be a wide brow wrinkled with wonder at the rhetoric? sharp intakes of breath? and the thoughts found profound and the sentiments felt to be of the best kind? yes, and the patterns applauded… but we won’t need to put hair or nose upon our reader, or any other opening or lure… not a muscle need be imagined… it is a body quite indifferent to time, to diet… it’s only eyes… what? oh, it will be a kind of slowpoke on the page, a sipper of sentences, full of reflective pauses, thus a finger for holding its place should be appointed; a mover of lips, then? just so, yes, large soft moist ones, naturally red, naturally supple, but made only for shaping syllables, you understand, for singing… singing. And shall this reader, as the book is opened, shadow the page like a palm? yes, perhaps that would be best (mind the strain on the spirit, though, no glasses correct that); and shall this reader sink into the paper? become the print? and blossom on the other side with pleasure and sensation… from the touch of mind, and the love that lasts in language? yes. Let’s imagine such a being, then. And begin. And then begin.
St. Louis, Missouri
May 26, 1976
January 26, 1981
IN THE HEART OF THE HEART OF THE COUNTRY
For Joanne, Oliver, and Allan
THE PEDERSEN KID
Part One
I
Big Hans yelled, so I came out. The barn was dark, but the sun burned on the snow. Hans was carrying something from the crib. I yelled, but Big Hans didn’t hear. He was in the house with what he had before I reached the steps.
It was the Pedersen kid. Hans had put the kid on the kitchen table like you would a ham and started the kettle. He wasn’t saying anything. I guess he figured one yell from the crib was enough noise. Ma was fumbling with the kid’s clothes which were stiff with ice. She made a sound like whew from every breath. The kettle filled and Hans said,
Get some snow and call your pa.
Why?
Get some snow.
I took the big pail from under the sink and the shovel by the stove. I tried not to hurry and nobody said anything. There was a drift over the edge of the porch so I spaded some out of that. When I brought the pail in, Hans said,
There’s coal dust in that. Get more.
A little coal won’t hurt.
Get more.
Coal’s warming.
It’s not enough. Shut your mouth and get your pa.
Ma had rolled out some dough on the table where Hans had dropped the Pedersen kid like a filling. Most of the kid’s clothes were on the floor where they were going to make a puddle. Hans began rubbing snow on the kid’s face. Ma stopped trying to pull his things off and simply stood by the table with her hands held away from her as if they were wet, staring first at Big Hans and then at the kid.
Get.
Why?
I told you.
It’s Pa I mean—
I know what you mean. Get.
I found a cardboard box that condensed milk had come in and I shoveled it full of snow. It was too small as I figured it would be. I found another with rags and an old sponge I threw out. Campbell’s soup. I filled it too, using the rest of the drift. Snow would melt through the bottom of the boxes but that was all right with me. By now the kid was naked. I was satisfied mine was bigger.
Looks like a sick shoat.
Shut up and get your pa.
He’s asleep.
Yeah.
He don’t like to get waked.
I know that. Don’t I know that as good as you? Get him.
What good’ll he be?
We’re going to need his whiskey.
He can fix that need all right. He’s good for fixing the crack in his face. If it ain’t all gone.
The kettle was whistling.
What are we going to do with these? ma said.
Wait, Hed. Now I want you to get. I’m tired of talking. Get, you hear?
What are we going to do with them? They’re all wet, she said.
I went to wake the old man. He didn’t like being roused. It was too hard and far to come, the sleep he was in. He didn’t give a damn about the Pedersen kid, any more than I did. Pedersen’s kid was just a kid. He didn’t carry any weight. Not like I did. And the old man would be mad, unable to see, coming that way from where he was asleep. I decided I hated Big Hans, though this was hardly something new for me. I hated Big Hans just then because I was thinking how Pa’s eyes would blink at me — as if I were the sun off the snow and burning to blind him. His eyes were old and they’d never seen well, but shone on by whiskey they’d glare at my noise, growing red and raising up his rage. I decided I hated the Pedersen kid too, dying in our kitchen while I was away where I couldn’t watch, dying just to pleasure Hans and making me go up snapping steps and down a drafty hall, Pa lumped under the covers at the end like dung covered with snow, snoring and whistling. Oh he’d not care about the Pedersen kid. He’d not care about getting waked so he could give up some of his liquor to a slit of a kid and maybe lose one of his hiding places in the bargain. That would make him mad enough if he was sober. I tried not to hurry though it was cold and the Pedersen kid was in the kitchen.