“Though of course nothing like that ever really vanishes,” Solange said,
“No it certainly doesn’t,” Harry said, and after they had sat silently gazing out over the sun-burnished rooftops around them, he added that while in this particular instance he was not in a position to empathize, he had heard of such cases, notably one involving a Buddhist monk, who had been unable to bear the thought of his dead lover’s body being given up to the flames or to the perceived ignominy of decomposition, and had consequently, presumably because no quieting hand had come down on his shoulder, eaten the body, an act that had, according to the story, cursed him, though Harry couldn’t say whether or not such an eventuality was merited,
“What happened to him?” Solange asked,
“He lived for many years as a madman in the ruins of his own monastery,”
“Then I’m glad that in the end I only nibbled on the end of one of my young man’s shoelaces.”
Solange and Harry emerged from the latter’s apart ment contentedly aware that their exchange of confidences, no matter how satisfyingly thorough, could reasonably be thought of as no more than an additional incipit in what — barring any unforeseen accelerant — would require a whole cascading series in order to move them toward that something they had not, during their discussion of the matter, been quite willing to articulate, though we might reasonably infer that the potential of an intense acquaintance bolstered by duration was under discussion, meaning that high spirits were the order of the evening as they set off for the boulevard to recuperate and stow away Solange’s silver costume and Harry’s Yellow Submarine before heading together, as they had agreed, to the café to have a light meal and a bottle or two of sparkling water ahead of the revelations to come, though when they passed the second floor door marked “Rubinski” their steps slowed and they exchanged glances, but a collective shrug seemed to take care of the matter for both of them and instead of further discussing ghosts as they walked they turned to the related but generally less noxious subject of dreams, for Solange had had a corker the previous night, a nacreous haze that had ended with a question, “What word do we use to indicate that tame lions are living among us?” while Harry had found himself in a landscape dotted with amalgamators on a walking tour led by a kind of magician whose face, the dream had proposed to him, was “shining like a wet sword,” and while neither Solange nor Harry was interested in digging around for submerged meaning in these dreams, they both found the inclusion of moments of language amidst the standard swarm of images strangely appealing, and no doubt would have found their way into an interesting conversation thereon as they gathered their things on the boulevard if Alfonso, still in full regalia, including his sword and hind legs, hadn’t been waiting, arms crossed over his armored chest, next to the submarine,
“Our gondoleer,” Harry said,
“He doesn’t look happy,” Solange said,
“You’re right, he’s not, he’s been standing here waiting for three quarters of an hour next to this abandoned, borrowed Yellow Submarine waiting to see if the person who borrowed it from him would turn up again,” Alfonso said sternly, while inwardly in fact he was quite pleased that Harry’s negligence in re the submarine had so conveniently handed him a straightforward justification for rescinding Harry’s occupational privileges, and he was preparing to broach this subject, and to extract an imminent date and time for Harry to fulfill his end of the bargain and tell him his story, which would no doubt intersect intriguingly with the connoisseurs planned attentions, when a curious thought, one that had not entered into his calculations about the source of his misgiving earlier, entered his mind — no doubt by some side door or other, the handle of which was Solange’s happily smudged silver face or Harry’s sweat-streaked wrists or the half-shredded sparkling water bottle splayed across the roots of the oak tree that rose and spread just behind them — and made him uncross his arms and recross them then look off to the side to study the thought again then once more before confirming that, yes, while of course as he well knew he had been the one who had told a certain handsome young man interested in taking up the living statue profession and who had come and stood in front of him, for the purpose of observation, for several days, that he might, since he was interested in golden things, just as well go and observe the technique of the angel near the top of the boulevard, and then of course a few days later the young man had become the golden angel’s young man and then, some weeks later, had died horribly and smashed her heart to smithereens, all this he knew, but it hadn’t occurred to him until just that very moment that it was the connoisseurs who had planted the suggestion in his mind, during one of their circuits, as they passed behind him, “Send that guy off to see Solange, that’s who he ought to see next, that would be good, don’t you think?” or had it been them? was he remembering something that had actually occurred or dropping depth charges from the present into the past? he didn’t think so, and because he didn’t, because there was doubt in his mind and maybe just a little more than doubt, especially given the expressions that had played over the connoisseurs’ faces when they had discussed Harry earlier, instead of telling Harry it was time for him and the submarine to part ways, he leaned over, opened the hatch, and said,
“Climb in,”
“We’re going somewhere,” Harry said,
“I’ll take you,” Alfonso said,
“You’re sure?” Solange said,
Alfonso patted the side of the submarine and said it would be good exercise,
“Are you going to take that stuff off or walk with it?” Harry said, pointing at Alfonso’s hind legs,
“They’re on rollers, they work even better than the submarine, every now and again I like to move around a little when I’m performing, it wouldn’t do to walk off without my legs,” Alfonso said, and before Harry could say something else, Solange took his arm and pulled him into the submarine and shut the hatch behind them, and after she had instructed Alfonso to grab her gear then told him where they were going, they were off, and as they moved off, Harry and Solange looked at each other and Solange said,
“I think he’s going to tell us something,”
“I think so too,” Harry said,
“The thing is I can’t,” Alfonso said, “Or at the very least I shouldn’t, it’s difficult, even tedious, extremely tedious, it’s just that a moment ago I had a thought and that thought, well, made me think,”
“I thought a thought but the thought I thought was not the thought that I thought I thought,” said Harry,
“If only,” said Alfonso,
“This is about the connoisseurs, something to do with them, isn’t it?” said Solange,
“It might and it might not be,” said Alfonso,
“We saw you at the market with them earlier,”
“We had breakfast,”