Topsy was salivating and the Professor was perspiring. Father’s hands were moving slowly, doing a bit of detached minor surgery upon the air.
“I believe she is beginning to understand,” the Professor said.
“One can understand a great deal and change very little,” Father said absently. “You can’t change ability, but you can change attitude.”
“But she is behaving, no?”
“For the time being, perhaps. You must learn to listen to those who won’t answer.”
“And then, dear friend?”
“And then you must make sure that your silence is perfectly understood. And then to make your cold silence, warm.”
“Either you are a genius or the worst charlatan, Councilor.”
“Ah, no,” Felix said quietly, tugging upon an invisible leash as if he were fly-fishing, “hardly a genius. I just know how things are, you see. I don’t know why.”
“These are certainly all new theories to me,” the Professor said brightly, “if you don’t mind my saying so.”
“Selves don’t need theories. I mean, dear friend, where do you think we are? Athens?” Father snapped out scathingly. “What is needed is a new tone, a new tempo. Something beyond irony and hyperbole.” He glowered out over the darkening river. “Something dead-on.”
“Yes, something scientific,” the Professor rubbed his hands. “Eine unsägliche diagnose (an unspeakable diagnosis).”
“Not quite,” Father sighed. “A proper science would be critical and humorous, as slippery and sardonic as art. If there’s an idea involved, it’s just this: if the nutcase is to be taken off your hands, she must know there will be no next physician!”
He had drawn abreast of his students. “Now, remove the cord, but not the collar.” And they walked on, Topsy in perfect step, her eyes never leaving their knees.
“Tell me Herr Doktor, what is the longest distance in the world?”
The Professor shrugged, preparing himself for the joke.
“To move a man from his intellect to his brain.”
“Surely this is not so difficult as you make it out.”
“You still are much too interested in unveiling hypocrisy. The point is to pass on a certain tolerance so that authority becomes affordable. A stern but benevolent ally can create courage!”
Topsy had stopped, raised a rear leg, squatted tremulously, and micturated.
“Ah, what a wonderful specimen,” the Professor guffawed.
“Sarcasm is fine, if you use it no more often than a polka in a symphony. Now, by yourselves then.”
The two moved diagonally in something of a clumsy gambol.
“Much better, comrade. We have made some progress today.”
The Professor was flushed, stammering. “And what is down the road, Councilor — the next lesson?”
“It will be a long journey, Professor, and it is still possible that in the future, spoiled and incurious, she will become everything we hate. The next steps, in order, one on each visit, will be the Col Pugno (With the Fist), the Ruhevoll (Serenity), the Mordent Coraggio (Caustic Courage), the Trotta Sentimento (Heartfelt Trot), and finally, with luck, the Adagio Religioso.”
“This last,” the Professor snorted dismissively, “is either schmonzes (nonsense) or schrecklich (frightening).”
“Life is not a ‘Society for Obvious or Underlying Jewish Themes,’ my dearest friend. But my oath to you is that you will experience it by honorable means, if possible. If not, not.”
At this point Topsy wrapped her front legs firmly about Father’s knee and began to deliriously hump away upon his be-putteed leg. Father glanced down knowingly, and for the first time I can recall in a training session, fairly shouted, “Phui!”
She slipped to the ground in the idol-like attitude of the sphinx, paws extended, head elevated, thighs pressed close to her body, her bestial eyes narrowing to mere slits.
“Now there’s a command for you!” the Professor beamed. “Forget the damn music—that’s the one I want to master.”
Father had looked away. “Ah, friend, it takes a great many phuis to make a religion or a work or art.”
The Professor and Topsy had turned toward the river. The wind had picked up, swirling the grass into viridian pockets. Gray Siberian crows, blown in from the steppe, settled about them unconcerned. A crane walked up and passed them by, looking at them over its shoulder like an old gentleman going to the mailbox.
“Relax. Never an angry gesture. Not so constricted. . Nicht eilen (do not hurry), not so close to the body. . Bedächtig (deliberately) not too quickly, give her time, feierlich langsam doch nicht schleppen. . Come out of your bag. If you are tense to begin with, you’ll have nothing left. Stay within yourself. That’s better. . Now, narrante!”
The chapel promontory was suddenly cupped with gusts of wind. Squirrels raced hysterically about its mullions as skylarks fell twittering aimlessly in descent, ceasing their song only a few inches from the ground. Inside, Waterlily was warming up, but she was no longer singing to herself, as she often did. This was a performance.
Ma-la-mi-doe-doe
Ma-la-fi-ta-do
Waterlily, to her credit, was apparently trying to wrench the Art Song from its culmination of bad history and bad poetry, those recitals solemnly progressing through four centuries and five languages, a trial for all concerned. She was also experimenting with a form of voix mixte, at once guttural and falsetto, combining both head and chest registers, so that each vowel had two rates of vibration. It gave quite a special and eerie effect, suitable for the songs which feature children dying in your arms, but seemed a bit overwrought when glowing sunsets, woeful monks, singing larks, overgrown churchyards, or maidens fishing from a bridge were invoked, and all in all it was best that only I could hear her. Sufficiently resonated, she began that afternoon’s recital with a strange Cannonian water rhapsody, as if she were standing alone in the bend of the all-time resonant piano which was Semper Vero.
Over the tops of the westerly wood
Friendly beckons the reddish gleam,
Beneath the branches of the easterly wood
The sweet-flag murmurs in the reddish gleam
Until upon loftier, radiant wings
Myself shall flee this changing time.
Eagles were now floating downriver from the upcountry, routing the owls from turrets of the chapel, then walking back and forth on the roof, preening their skulls, their wings folded behind their backs. These heraldic birds — austere, aloof, ill-tempered gentlemen — had little intelligence and no plasticity, their flat heads all inexorable lever, all beak, all pupil. The Astingi abominated the eagle above all things, not only because they carried away their lambs, billykids, and even small foals, but because every empire had adopted them as their symbol of authority. They were the antithesis of the Astingi warrior aesthetic — a beast of prey, aristocracy turned pointless and cruel — which is why every Astingi entourage was brought up in the rear by an eagle trudging on a chain, fed on grub worms and corn gruel, and why Astingi flutes are made from the largest bone of the wing.