I read on, “There remains the matter of protecting oneself against the return of the deceased in the form of a ghost, a vampire or a mulo.” (I look up mulo: “The mulo really seems to be in effect ‘Death’s Double. He is not the corpse; he is the man himself in the form of his double.”) My mother must have become a ghost, one I cannot yet see. Perhaps I have not earned the right to see her. But why not? I squint and try. I rub my eyes and try again. I can nearly discern her face, but her pale image dissipates and dissolves into the air. This would not count as her making a visitation, in any case, but rather as my failed attempt at bringing her back. Why wouldn’t she want to visit me? I oughtn’t read on.
A weight settles upon my chest. If I close my eyes I can see her, I can see her next to my bed, reading to me. She was a lovely woman. My unfortunate looks come from my father. I touch my nose, which is like his, bulbous. How palpable the past is! I shift in my bed as if to throw sadness off. Yet her loss weighs me down. Loss, oughtn’t you be light? I find my notebook and pen, sit up straight in bed, fluff the pillows behind me, touch my back, notice I’ve lost weight, and, even without coffee, read on.
There are five to six million Gypsies distributed throughout our world — the book was published in English in 1963, in French in 1961. In the introduction, it states that “Above all else, Gypsies are feared…400,000 Gypsies were shot, hanged or gassed in the Nazi concentration camps…” I skim along and my eye lights upon this: “The Gypsies represent an exceptional case: they are the unique example of an ethnic whole perfectly defined, which, through space and time for more than a thousand years, and beyond the frontiers of Europe, has achieved success in a gigantic migration — without ever having consented to any alteration as regards the originality and singleness of their race.” The writer of this is a Frenchman, as many Gypsiologists, as they’re called, seem to be.
It must be the Gypsy originality and singleness that attract Helen. I would venture this analysis even at this early date. Except that she is not interested, she said, in originality. But perhaps if it applied to people, she might make an exception. I take a few notes. It could be their lack of having been altered by others, of being a defiant race. But are they a race? I wonder if the surrealists, who were primarily French — or at least one could say the movement bloomed, centered in Paris — I wonder if they too were fascinated by the Gypsies. I must research this. If I believe in anything, anything at all, it is in the value of research. It is one of my household gods. These notes will go into the file marked Questions about Helen.
Yannis enters the room, carrying freshly brewed coffee. He is smiling engagingly. One must be engaged to be engaging. Engaging, engaged, these words trigger a memory that is in its own way surreal. For something surreal happened the other night — or was it just last night? — something between John and Gwen. I must concentrate. A vague pattern of sounds clusters about my ears; the memory of sound is even more elusive than that of images. But aromas have enormous vitality. And an equally vague set of images forces itself before my eyes. Gwen and John are dancing; Christos is playing music tapes on his tinny machine. Yes, I see that now. I rub my eyes. But what occurred next? I am circling about it with my mind. An engagement ring. No, a circle pin. Yes, something about a circle pin. They come off the dance floor and sit near me. Gwen is going on about how she would have worn a circle pin in the fifties, in college, that she’d always wanted to, but couldn’t because she was black — a Negro, yes, she may have said a Negro, and she drew out the two syllables. Circle pins were for Breck girls with blond hair, she said. It is not like her to mention her race, as I’ve explained, but she was high. She is especially adamant when inebriated. John simply couldn’t understand her. He kept repeating, A circle pin — man that’s weird, man. He didn’t get it, he said, and made fun of Gwen for being straight. Circle pins aren’t hip, I believe he announced — without irony. He was, I suppose, merely trying to be playful or amusing. Gwen wasn’t having it. She pulled up her small frame — she tends to curl into herself like a cat — and hissed to John that he was a privileged tot who wouldn’t know anything about what life was or was not like for her. He was, I think she berated him, a hopelessly unhip white boy, and she may have used the epithet “white Negro.” which was a fifties term, if memory serves. At this juncture I believe I attempted some witticism about how the circle pin itself might symbolically shed light on the problem. I tried my best to put it all on a different plane, but such attempts are mostly futile. She may have slapped him. I think she did. Someone slapped someone that night.
This is why I don’t believe they slept together that night, although I could be wrong. Aggressive behavior is often a prelude to sexual encounters. It has been so in my life, in any case. Some insects bite each other’s heads off when mating. Rémy de Gourmont, in that curious book The Physiology of Love, produced many remarkable examples of sexual love between animals and between insects that if enacted between human beings…well, perhaps they are enacted between human beings. I recall some bizarre incidents in the sexual life of bees; de Gourmont adored queen bees. About the males, the drones, his language was excessive and damning. Useless, parasitic, he called them. I’m sure Gwen may have used the very same language about some of her beaux-drones.
Isn’t it odd that that particular anger, or rage or life force, libido, courses with such virulence, with such peculiar physicality, and is activated and erupts within one’s body like a volcano, and that its lava — molten, heedless lust — can be aroused by the most unpleasant people? One often feels such hatred and disgust for one’s partner of the night before. He may have been attractive then, fierce, pleasant, indolently sexy, whatever, and in the morning those very same characteristics appear loathsome. Sex itself can be so unpleasant. Sometimes one experiences such terrifying feelings. A good lover isn’t necessarily in himself magnificent; it is that he makes one feel at least proficient or unencumbered by restraint. Oh, for those precious nights!
If she hasn’t already, Gwen will tire of John, another pretty white boy, a drone, useless. She will tire of him soon. I have faith in Gwen. In truth, she desires a true connection, but I–I need only have a muse. An amusement.
I can’t bring myself to work on the Stan Green book today though it is due soon. I shall be just a little late. My publisher knows that I always come through. Even my agent once telephoned from New York and said, They know you’ll come through, Horace, you’re a trouper. A trouper. When she said that, Gloria is her name, I imagined I was a fusty vaudevillian meant to be brought out on stage during a lull between better acts. I am wearing too much rouge. I don’t want to go on — yet I have been indoctrinated to believe I must. The show must go on, Horace! This tired exhortation rings in my ears as I wait in the wings, or in the seen-better-days dressing room. Fussily, I walk out on stage and stand before a hostile audience. I bow, clear my throat, and steal the show.
For the record, I do recall another incident. Though whether it happened here or in the restaurant, I haven’t the foggiest: John stole the show rather uncharacteristically. With some elaboration he spun a tale. As he is some years older than Helen, he had already spent time bumming around Europe, as he put it. He bummed around Amsterdam. This was a couple of years ago. Timothy Leary, a sixties character whom Helen would laugh at and whom Gwen knows, of course, had just been captured in Afghanistan. According to John — I did not follow Leary’s travails, nor have I ever tried LSD, not eager to simulate madness, unless assured of transcendent visions! — Leary had been living under state protection in Austria. For the price of appearing on television to denounce drug-taking, he could escape the U.S. government, which was eager to imprison him. He could have lived happily ever after in Vienna, if people do live happily there. But he was restless, or his lover was. It seems that Leary’s wife or lover encouraged him to adventure to the East and desert his safe house, Austria, which he did. They were immediately caught, busted in the airport, and deported to the States, where Leary was imprisoned.