Vernon knows all too well that logical people are prone to fantasies of control. Don’t worry, dummies! I’ve got it all figured out! Only experience can show us what our logic has failed to anticipate. The gun misfires and we fall into the stream. Conan Doyle didn’t understand this. He had Holmes say to Watson, “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” Bullshit, Sherlock. It’s more likely there’s a possibility that hasn’t occurred to you. Charles Schultz knows better. Lucy spots a butterfly on the sidewalk and enthuses to Linus about its long migration from Brazil. Linus looks more closely and discovers it’s a potato chip. Lucy responds like any scientist wedded to her paradigm: “Well, I’ll be! I wonder how a potato chip got all the way up here from Brazil.”
No, no, the real world—human society, this moment, the cosmos—will always be surprising to the human mind, our theories one step behind. Our lifelong job is to find that one tiny island on whose beach we can spell out with driftwood This is true, and never turn our back on the unsoundable sea.
He contemplates his Beethovens. The opus numbers of the late quartets don’t match chronology. Beethoven finished Opus 127 first, then 132. After that came 130, which ended with the Grosse Fuge, then 131 and 135. Friends advised Beethoven to detach from 130 the Grosse Fuge—too long, too strange, too unplayable—and he acceded. The Fuge was published separately as Opus 133, and Beethoven wrote a shorter, cheerier final movement for 130. Friends applauded. Beethoven died. Vernon will save 130 and the Grosse Fuge for last, which means it’s time for Opus 131, the C-sharp minor. It’s said that this was Beethoven’s favorite, which shows once more what a dunderhead Vernon is. Yes, it’s great, but he’s always thought 132 and 130 were greater.
He bought the Végh Quartet recordings in 1973, on Telefunken, and their renditions are among his favorites. They play with a stolidity that at first seems somnolent, all their tempi slower than other quartets. But they win you over. Nothing is showy, but everything is there. He takes the box down from the shelf, looks at the photo on the cover. Four old men, padded asses in chairs, leading worthwhile lives. He slips side five out, handles it immaculately, cleans it meticulously, places it on the turntable.
After Beethoven received the sacraments, he uttered what he thought would be his last words to the admirers crowding the bed: “Plaudite, amici, comedia finita est.” Pretty corny. He’d probably thought it up weeks before. But life is surprising. He didn’t die that night, and the following morning a gift of wine arrived from his publisher. Gazing on all that delicious booze, delirious, he uttered his actual last words: “Pity! Too late!”
Vernon’s father woke up in his own bed on an everyday morning and uttered his final words: “I feel funny.”
According to Mark, Susan’s last word was “Figures.”
That sounds so much like her.
Vernon’s? He hopes it will be, “Play that Holy Song of Thanksgiving again, Sam.”
He sets the needle down, leans back in his chair. Glances warily around for Vargas, but the cat is nowhere to be seen. The first violin begins alone, playing yet another motif featuring a lingering leading tone. This time it’s B-sharp, wanting more than anything to be C-sharp.
There’s a poem he memorized years ago and now fervently wishes he could get out of his head:
Jenny kiss’d me when we met,
Jumping from the chair she sat in;
Time, you thief, who love to get
Sweets into your list, put that in!
Say I’m weary, say I’m sad,
Say that health and wealth have missed me,
Say I’m growing old, but add
Jenny kiss’d me.
• • •
When the piece is over, he throws Vargas off (goddamnit) and climbs the stairs, concentrating on his feet. Gen is at the kitchen table, smoking a cigarette, reading a mystery. “There you are,” she says, cheerfully enough. “What have you been doing?”
“Paying bills.”
“Should I make you something for lunch?”
“I can fend for myself.”
“I’m about to go to the Stop and Shop, I’m almost out of cigarettes. If you want anything, put it on the list. I’ll get milk for your cereal. Did you take your pills this morning?”
“Yes.”
“Isn’t it time to take them again?”
“I suppose it is.”
“I’ll get them.” She springs up, darts into the dining room, returns with the pillbox. So spry. And as slender as when he met her. “You’re going to fall down those basement steps one day.”
“I hold on to the handrail.”
“You should move your stereo and records up into the dining room. I’ll help you.”
“I like it down there.”
“Suit yourself. But if you fall down those stairs, I’ll be the one who has to take care of you.” Get your fat, injured self out of my sight.
“I won’t fall down the stairs.”
“You’re the one who’s always said it’s illogical to say an accident won’t happen.”
“I said that to children. I’m not a child.”
“You certainly act like one sometimes.”
And not a gray hair on her head. Truly, not one. Her mother always proudly claimed there was Cherokee blood in the family. The stupid old biddy’s head would have exploded at the suggestion there might be black blood.
“Anyway, I’m off to do the shopping.”
And she’s gone.
She runs on cigarettes. And high-octane dudgeon. She’s much smarter than her mother was, but otherwise a chip off the block.
Vernon gets out crackers and cheese, a bottle of beer. He finds a ball game on the portable on the kitchen table, watches a couple of innings, eats too much. Some writer said once about some woman, “She had a whim of iron.” His and Gen’s parents are all dead now. His sister Patty
