Fortunately Wallace was at his best; he even wore his pith helmet. His friends were most entertaining. Among them was young woman named Annabelle, who had been in a Warhol movie, she said. Immediately she attached herself to one of the Greek boys and later spirited him away. They were an international contingent, Wallace and his pals — South African, French, Italian, American, and Dutch, of course. I could not speak with everyone and certainly not at length.
I was, though, a participant in one invigorating and vehement discussion. Gwen led the way, engaging Wallace and Brechje in the topics of art and expatriatism, which permitted Wallace to beat a favorite drum — Pound and Eliot. He regaled us with several short anecdotes, some of which I had already heard. There was the one about Édouard Roditi, a French, Sephardic-Jewish and homosexual poet, who was friends with T.S. Eliot. Wallace reported that after Eliot told Roditi he would allow Pound to edit The Waste Land, Roditi declared: “No, Tom, no. Tom, don’t do it!” Wallace gossiped that Roditi claimed to have made love with Lorca in 1929, in Spain. Where Wallace got his information, I did not know.
To incite or defy Wallace, and perhaps me, Gwen argued that the expatriate and the avant-garde, birthed together, had expired together. Fini, she announced. The moment has passed. The avant-garde is dead! While I was used to Gwen and her comedies, her barbed ironies, Wallace was not; I thought he would have a fit. Gwen was thoroughly enjoying her provocative self. I poured everyone a stiff drink and muttered something about the vagaries of history, to soothe Wallace.
At this point, I think it was, we moved or traveled — there is a way in which talk is a journey — from history and death to Freud’s concept of the unconscious. It was Gwen again who led us, or lured us, in that direction. But the moment the word “unconscious” rolled off Gwen’s tongue, Roger bounded over. Hearing it, he leapt into the fray and went on about how it — psychoanalysis — was preposterous, wrong as theory and ridiculous in practice. He offered, as backup and defense, Gertrude Stein’s rejection of the unconscious, or subconscious. I acknowledged that Stein had written “I never had a subconscious thought.” To Gwen this was absurd, and I attempted to defend Stein, as did Roger, in his overheated way. But I did not like to find myself in agreement with Roger. He was usually wrong. Why had Gertrude rejected it so absolutely? I had never thought about it, but that is what Gwen’s interrogation — what is at stake? — drove me to, later. I mentioned Stein’s having also written, “I am I because my little dog knows me,” which is so charming and wonderful a way of thinking about the self that all of us could appreciate it. I was also reminded, in a vague fashion, of Helen’s missing her dog. Wallace was more or less mute on the subject of the unconscious, still stung, no doubt, by Gwen’s earlier remarks.
Everyone and everything flew off in a hundred directions. A good host, I went about being sociable, filling people’s glasses and attending to their needs.
Later I overheard Gwen, Wallace and Roger. They were laughing. Wallace was roaring like a lion. Then Gwen proclaimed: All we need is two more people to make a Fifth Column. Roger, who is vehemently anticommunist, took exception and stormed off to another part of the room. He found Alicia and danced with her. At least I think that was the sequence. Were he a CIA agent, he would not have bounded off.
Wallace fell to his knees, at Gwen’s feet, and recited a poem against apartheid — for her primarily and to anyone who was in earshot. He delivered it well, considering his condition, and I was impressed with the depth of his political passion. I liked him for it; perhaps Gwen did too, though she appeared more bemused than anything else. It was a better-than-passable poem. Minutes after, Wallace poured wine into his shoe and drank from it. It rather spoiled the poem for me, but Gwen didn’t seem to mind. It is sometimes difficult for me to separate the person from the poem.
I strolled off to another part of the room. I observed that Alicia was merely tolerating Roger. She is capable of great tolerance. She can yawn in one’s face and nearly suppress it; to appear that she is not yawning, she covers her mouth with a handkerchief and gazes at one, as if engrossed in what one is saying. Finally Alicia excused herself from Roger’s grip, graciously, I was sure, and went to sit on the couch with John and Ariadne — the very one I had sat upon with John. I was unable to hear what transpired among them. I supposed that Alicia had decided to take the high road.
My attention was, in any case, suddenly directed to Roger, who ambled over, in that mincing way of his, to Yannis. Yannis was seated on a windowsill; he was scowling. Roger whispered in Yannis’ ear. I watched, with aggravation more than jealousy. The two kissed — it was by then quite late in the night. With astonishment I watched Yannis grab his jacket. Roger glanced my way. The two summarily departed, together. I was momentarily stunned. I felt helpless, agitated and aggrieved. I had not wanted to be left by Yannis and certainly not for that snake-in-the-grass Roger. I did not want ever again in my life to be the one who was left.
Roger always takes my castoffs, I repeated to myself, and hoped that a miracle would happen: Roman would walk through the door. Instead, Alicia came to my side and said calmly, Oh well, Horace, dear, we can handle these things, can’t we? She stated this as a matter of fact and with great delicacy. It hit just the right note. I thanked her for her kindness, and even though I was drunk, I curtsied as if before royalty, cognizant once again of our Queen Bee.
Dear Alicia, who had not sung in public in many years, the dear woman performed, I like to think, as a gift for me. She moved to the center of the room and rapped her wineglass with a fork, to call us to attention. She announced she would sing an aria from La Bohéme. Everything and everyone halted. There was quiet, even from Wallace’s boisterous quarter.
In Alicia’s voice was such poetry, such beauty, that ancient spirits and memories overtook me, and constraint fled. The music of the gods! I closed my eyes. I dwelled on the heartbreak of Mimi’s death, on the despair brought by sickness, on succumbing to tragedy, on loss, on love. I felt an unimaginable sadness for the world, for everyone who had ever been abandoned and who had been lost, for everyone who had loved and who had lost, and that gathered us all in, all. I opened my eyes and with them swept the room slowly, and I saw before me people I’d known for years. And even Wallace, who can be so annoying, even he and his pain, his foolish and profound anguish, touched me.
There were tears in my eyes. There were tears in Gwen’s eyes. I had never before seen Gwen cry. For what or for whom did she cry? The sick musician who ate peanut-butter sandwiches at 4 A.M. and left her alone in her apartment? For her unwritten torments? For the problems of her race? Were we crying for the same things? Surely her flippant wish — to cry at her party — had come true, but how sorry I was. Still, sometimes it is healthy to cry. I believe that to be true. I had lost Yannis, I had lost Helen, and many more, and Alicia had lost John and others, and some had lost us. Gwen — ah Gwen — Gwen always expected to lose.
Alicia finished singing. We were ravished, rapt, silent. Then we applauded and cheered. Wallace threw kisses and he and his crowd clamored, Brava, brava! Gwen rushed to Alicia and kissed her hands. I will never forget that sight. It was so very unexpected. But in so many ways Gwen is and was unpredictable. In response, Alicia held Gwen’s face in her hands and looked deeply into Gwen’s eyes. From that moment on they were true friends. It happened like that. It does sometimes happen like that. And so what seemed to have been terribly sad at the time metamorphosed into something rather happy.
Two days later Gwen flew home. My life returned to normal, dominated by my usual routine. I finished my crime book — Stan Green does indeed crack the code in the young murderer’s diary and simultaneously cracks the case. It was the easiest way to handle it; and it worked, I thought. I was conscious that I had not cracked Helen’s diary, but then it was not in code. I held that it was poetic justice and artistic license that my protagonist would do so in my book. My publisher was satisfied, in any case, and that was what mattered.