The road from Idlewilde Airport runs past Jewish cemeteries with tall rectangular tombstones standing close together in miniature forewarning of skyscrapers. Soon some black or white waiter will come with a Manhattan cocktail or else the quiet American whose unquiet eyes will prevent any further quotations from the foolish fond old man called apparently Brutus Caesar who quotes his status as a very foolish fond old man fond, anyway, of whisky lady and bald pahr dessue le marshy, patting his bald marshy so that what can one say but smile agreeably at his charming self-deprecating sense of humour half drowned by the air-conditioning and other circumstantial emptiness amid the roar and whistle of strident laughter hum of voices that move about in close national groups.
The murmur of the talking delegates as they wait in the rows of desks like a giant class fills the vast hall. The president of the assembly knocks his hammer on the dais table or merely enters perhaps creating a sudden silence as the members dutifully don their listening caps to pick up the broken bits with a great tenderness and kindly observe the nonsmoking sign. We note that the consensus of opinion in the Committee seems to favour the draft revised resolution. My delegation will certainly vote for it. We nevertheless have to face the real question, namely, how to implement it through the earphones in French behind the closed eyelids and out into the mouthpiece in simultaneous German or through other mouthpieces Russian Polish Arabic Chinese and him in another booth for simultaneous English no doubt staring at the empty desk.
Siegfried watches the speaker, he works with his eyes as well as ears and voice, even imitating the gestures with his hands. I recall — if you will forgive a personal observation — the first Disarmament Conference I attended in Geneva in 1932 and the interminable discussions we had then as to whether security came before disarmament or vice versa, I recall also the long discussions we had as to which weapons one could call offensive and which defensive, and our conclusion reached late one night in a café, that the offensiveness or defensiveness of a weapon depended on whether one stood in front of it or behind it. We seem to have made little progress since then. Nevertheless we should not give up the attempt und so weiter weiter gehen unless merely my government wishes to reiterate its whole-hearted support for the United Nations. We shall continue to honour our obligations and shall appoint a sub-committee to inquire into how the crisis has arisen. We live in a time of tension between two social orders and we must learn to resolve that tension. We must emphasise however that a vast cultural revolution has taken place which the world will not find easy to integrate into his quiet disparagement. Nothing deserves a flow of rash enthusiasm my sweet. As for the under-developed areas, we shall organise discussions to find out how best we could help those countries with their external defence problems and adjust their economies to the new situation.
— Gee, I saw you in your glass booth you sure looked dandy, silently efficient you know, unharassed, because of course I couldn’t hear you. I listened to the English versions. That elderly fellow for the French and—
— Elderly?
— Well I don’t know, he had grey hair. I always admire those fellers who do Russian and Polish and things like that. Russians and Poles I guess. You don’t do Russian do you?
— No. French into German.
— German eh? Hmm. D’you like it?
— Do you mean German? Well—
— No I mean the job.
— Oh, this just came as an emergency, they needed extras. But one gets more than usually discouraged, more than with the other stuff.
— What other stuff?
— Oh, you know, literature, irrigation, the underdeveloped areas and all that.
— Jeeze. And you know about these things?
— Well on one level one hardly listens. On another one has to understand immediately you see because the thing understood slips away, together with the need to understand.
— Gee.
The quiet American with the unquiet eyes full of his upbringing’s mechanically courteous interest in the other and whatever he or she has to say however abstract aphoristic platitudinous misleading looks at the bald and very foolish fond old man who says lirrechur, eh? Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, creeps in this petty place from day to day to the last syllable of recorded time. And all our yesterdays have lighted airport-halls with neon airport roads and tall rectangular tombstones standing close together in miniature forewarning of united nations ford foundations wall streets madison avenues where he talks to a young so young beginner in the art of understanding immediately, all channels alert eyes ears mouthpiece and fingers through her long auburn hair. She sneezes through her long auburn hair in the draught from the window skyscraped over the Hudson River so he says Dieu vous blesse into her peals of laughter through her long auburn hair and simultaneously translates back in time with Zounds! Restoration English for God’s wounds you know. I have taken her under my wing, he says, she shows much promise and gets allotted somehow with him to other conferences, congresses, conventions where no communication ever occurs.
— Something comes out of them if only a knowledge of people. She says with her long auburn hair. Unless maybe: Something comes out of meetings or they wouldn’t happen.
— Happenings prove only that something never comes out of them my dear.
— Whatever does that mean? For a chief interpreter you use words most imprecisely darling lost or perhaps not said after all amid the roar the hum the strident laughter no. I use them, simultanément ma chère collègue.
Ma chère collègue. And whatever wing means under which he has taken her. A thing of the intellect perhaps, ideas, a passion they have in common, literature for instance, irrigation, ready-made anecdotes for the under-developed areas or a certain verbal anarchy which makes their allusions intertwine in the echoing airport lounge as an abstract study in glass metal hot air and coffee-bars where the voice announces Flight KLM 62 to Helsinki delayed by fog.
Away from the road a path leads into the deep cleft between the two masses of the Phaidriades where lies the famous Kastalia spring. The visitor’s attention turns immediately to the sanctuary of Apollo situated on the higher slopes of one of the Phaidriades rocks in five terrace-like levels, brilliant with the splendour of its monuments, the Treasures, the Portico of the Athenians, the Temple of Apollo beneath which the famous oracle used to sit and utter cryptic prophecies to all who came and consulted it on serious matters like war, alliances, births and marriages. Finally, a little higher up stands the Theatre, famous in ancient times for the performances of tragedy, and beyond the Sanctuary lies the Stadium, where the Pythic Games took place to celebrate Apollo’s victory over Python, the legendary monster.
The visitor’s attention turns immediately to the masculine unmarked and situated on the higher slopes in five terraces none of which deserves a flow of rash enthusiasm. Pupate! Pupate! He drives the hired car regardless of white hands about to signal other cars across. The policeman puts his head in at the window and shouts pupate? pupate? I don’t speak Greek and the policeman waves him on. Quel culot! Insulting me in his own language. Well pu means where, so presumably pupate means où allez-vous, hardly an insult oh shut up you think you know everything don’t you.
— For the phrase-book says listen to this under Marriage Proposaclass="underline" As I really love you I want to make you my wife. Do you agree? Have you an opinion for the marriage? Did you want to test by means of engagement? Do you want to create our own home? Do you like children? Saith the book, the phrase-book saith.