20
As the time for our departure drew close, my head full of streets, battlefields, monuments, cathedrals, Spring waxing like a Dravidian moon, heart beating wilder, dreams more proliferous, every cell in my body was shouting Hosanna. Mornings when, intoxicated by the fragrance of Spring, Mrs. Skolsky threw open her windows, Sirota's piercing voice (Reizei, rezei!) was already summoning me. It was no longer the old familiar Sirota but a delirious muezzin sending forth canticles to the sun. I no longer cared about the meaning of his words, whether a curse or a lament, I made up my own. Accept our thanks, O nameless Being divine ... ! Following him like one of the devout, my lips moving mutely to the rhythm of his words, I Swayed to and fro, rocked on my heels, fluttered my eye-lashes, splattered myself with ashes, scattered gems and diadems in all directions, genuflected, and with the last eerie notes, rose on tip toe to fling them heavenward. Then, right arm raised, tip of forefinger lightly touching the crown of my head, I would slowly revolve about the axis of bliss, my lips making the sound of the Jew's harp. As from a tree shaking off its wintry slumber, the butterflies swarmed from my noggin crying Hosanna, Hosanna to the Highest! Jacob I blessed and Ezekiel, and in turn Rachel, Sarah, Ruth and Esther. Oh how warming, how truly heartening, was that music drifting through the open windows! Thank you, dear landlady, I shall remember you in my dreams! Thank you, robin red breast, for flaming past this morning! Thank you, brother darkies, your day is coming! Thank you, dear Reb, I shall pray for you in some ruined synagogue! Thank you, early morning blossoms, that you should honor me with your delicate perfume! Zov, Toft, Giml, Biml ... hear, hear, he is singing, the cantor of cantors! Praise be to the Lord! Glory to King David! And to Solomon resplendent in his wisdom! The sea opens before us, the eagles point the way. Yet another note, beloved cantor ... a high and piercing one! Let it shatter the breast-plate of the High Priest! Let it drown the screams of the damned!
And he did it, my wonderful, wonderful cantor cantati-bus. Bless you, O son of Israel! Bless you!
Aren't you slightly mad this morning?
Yes, yes, that I am. But I could be madder. Why not? When a prisoner is released from his cell should he not go mad? I've served six lifetimes plus thirty-five and a half years and thirteen days. Now they release me. Pray God, it is not too late!
I took her by the two hands and made a low bow, as if to begin the minuet.
It was you, you who brought me the pardon. Pee on me, won't you? It would be like a benediction. O, what a sleepwalker I have been!
I leaned out the window and inhaled a deep draught of Spring. (It was such a morning as Shelley would have chosen for a poem.) Anything special for breakfast this morning? I turned round to face her. Just think—no more slaving, no more begging, no more cheating, no more pleading and coaxing. Free to walk, free to talk, free to think, free to dream. Free, free, free!
But Val, dear, came her gentle voice, we're not staying there forever, you know.
A day there will be like an eternity here. And how do you know how long or short our stay will be? Maybe war will break out; maybe we won't be able to return. Who knows the lot of man on earth?
Val, you're making too much of it. It's going to be a vacation, nothing more.
Not for me. For me it's a break through. I refuse to stay on parole. I've served my time, I'm through here.
I dragged her to the window. Look! Look out there! Take a good look! That's America. See those trees? See those fences? See those houses? And those fools hanging out the window yonder? Think I'll miss them? Never! I began to gesticulate like a half-wit. I thumbed my nose at them. Miss you, you dopes, you ninnies? Not this fella. Never!
Come, Val, come sit down. Have a bit of breakfast. She led me to the table.
Okay then, breakfast! This morning I'd like a slice of ‘Watermelon, the left wing of a turkey, a bit of possum and some good old-fashioned corn pone. Father Abraham's ‘done ‘mancipated me. Ise nevah goin’ back to Carolina. Father Abraham done freed us all. Hallelujah!
What's more, I said, resuming my own natural white trash voice, I'm done writing novels. I'm a member elect of the wild duck family. I'm going to chronicle my hard-earned misery and play it off tune—in the upper partials. How do you like that?
She deposited two soft-boiled eggs in front of me, a piece of toast and some jam. Coffee in a minute, dear. Keep talking!
You call it talk, eh? Listen, do we still have that Poeme d'Extase? Put it on, if you can find it. Put it on loud. His music sounds like I think—sometimes. Has that far off cosmic itch. Divinely fouled up. All fire and air. The first time I heard it I played it over and over. Couldn't shut it off. It was like a bath of ice, cocaine and rainbows. For weeks I went about in a trance. Something had happened to me. Now this sounds crazy, but it's true. Every time a thought seized me a little door would open inside my chest, and there, in his comfy little nest sat a bird, the sweetest, gentlest bird imaginable. Think it out! he would chirp. Think it out to the end! And I would, by God. Never any effort involved. Like an etude gliding off a glacier...
As I was slooping up the soft-boiled eggs a peculiar smile hovered about my lips.
What is it? she said. What now, my crazy one?
Horses. That's what I'm thinking. I wish we were going to Russia first. You remember Gogol and the troika? You don't suppose he could have written that passage if Russia was motorized, do you? He was talking horses. Stallions, that's what they were. A horse travels like wind. A horse flies. A spirited horse, anyway. How would Homer have rushed the gods back and forth without those fiery steeds he made use of? Can you imagine him manoeuvering those quarrelsome divinities in a Rolls Royce? To whip up ecstasy ... and that brings me back to Scriabin ... you didn't find it, eh? ... you've got to make use of cosmic ingredients. Besides arms, legs, hooves, claws, fangs, marrow and grit you've got to throw in the equinoctial precessions, the ebb and flow of tide, the conjunctions of sun, moon and planets, and the ravings of the insane. Besides rainbows, comets and the Northern lights you've got to have eclipses, sun spots, plagues, miracles ... all sorts of things, including fools, magicians, witches, leprechauns, Jack the Rippers, lecherous priests, jaded monarchs, saintly saints ... but not motor cars, not refrigerators, not washing machines, not tanks, not telegraph poles.
Such a beautiful Spring morning. Did I mention Shelley? Too good for his likes. Or for Keats or Wordsworth. A Jacob Boehme morning, nothing less. No flies yet, no mosquitos. Not even a cockroach in sight. Splendid. Just splendid. (If only she would find that Scriabin record!)
Must have been a morning like this that Joan of Arc passed through Chinon on her way to the king. Rabelais,
