Part 18 (1/2)
”Jeune horand valeur,” he said he said
”Je le sais bien, maitre,” said Joe said Joe
He felt a heavy hand on his shoulder It was Long up and down in his sandals at the turn things had taken The near death of a world-fae drawing room, contributed an unimpeachable Surrealist luster to the party
”Hot stuff,” he said
Then the party see hiathered around, tossing handfuls of hyperbolic adjectives and coarse expostulations at his head, holding their pale tin-pan faces up to his as if to catch a splash of his rattling-jackpot ed to swi at Joe, and gave hiht and cold as , accepting their tributes and acclaim with the sullen, abstracted air of a victorious athlete, breathing deep It was nothing to hi, a confusion of perfuht hand He looked around the roo on tiptoe to see over the waxy tops of e of the plu Rosa out All his self-denial, his Escapist purity of intentions, were forgotten in the flush of triumph and a sense of calm very like that which pervaded hi It seemed to him that his fortunes, his life, the entire apparatus of his sense of self were concentrated only on the question of what Rosa Saks would think of hi handfuls of hyperbolic adjectives and coarse expostulations at his head, holding their pale tin-pan faces up to his as if to catch a splash of his rattling-jackpot ed to swi at Joe, and gave hiht and cold as , accepting their tributes and acclaim with the sullen, abstracted air of a victorious athlete, breathing deep It was nothing to hi, a confusion of perfuht hand He looked around the roo on tiptoe to see over the waxy tops of e of the plu Rosa out All his self-denial, his Escapist purity of intentions, were forgotten in the flush of triumph and a sense of calm very like that which pervaded hi It seemed to him that his fortunes, his life, the entire apparatus of his sense of self were concentrated only on the question of what Rosa Saks would think of him now
”She fairly bounded across the roo in his itee art row suddenly shy
”What did he say to you?” she wanted to know ”Dali”
” 'Thank you,' ” said Joe
”That's all?”
”He called ht I heard you speaking French,” she said, hugging herself to still a tre his exploit so richly rewarded by the flush in her cheeks and her unwavering regard, stood there scratching at the side of his nose with the thuht hand, ehter who mats his opponent nineteen seconds into the first round
”I knoho you are,” she said, coloring again ”I mean, I re it did not sound salacious
”Hoould youI'd like you to see s,” she said ”If you want to, I mean I have a-a studio upstairs”
Joe hesitated From the time of his arrival in New York City, he had never permitted himself to speak to a wolish, and anyway, he had not coirls He didn't have time for it, and furthermore, he did not feel that he was entitled to such pleasures, or to the commitments that they would inevitably entail He felt-it was not an articulated feeling, but it was powerful and, in its way, a comfort to hiree that he employed it to earn the freedom of the family he had left behind His life in A, provisional, unencumbered with personal connections beyond his friendshi+p and partnershi+p with Sammy Clay
At this very moment, Joe's attention was diverted by the sound of so in Ger the faces and the blare of conversation until he found the lips that were ant Teutonic syllables he was hearing They were fleshy, sensual lips, in a severe way, downturned at the corners in a soood sense The froas a trim, fit man in a black turtleneck sweater and corduroy trousers, rather chinless but with a high forehead and a large, dignified Gerht black eyes held a puckish gleareat enthusiasm in the eyes, pleasure in the subject of his discourse He was talking, as far as Joe could tell, about the Negro dance team the Nicholas Brothers
Joe felt the familiar exultation, the epinephrine flame that burned away doubt and confusion and left only a pure, clear, colorless vapor of rage He took a deep breath and turned his back on the man[7][7]
”I would love to see your work,” he said
10
The pitch of the staircase was steep and the treads narrow There were three stories above the ground floor, and she took hiot darker and spookier as they cli with hundreds of fraether like tiles to cover every inch of available space In each of them, as far as Joe could tell frooofy suppressing-a-fart expression, and if there was any significant difference a them, apart from the fact that so a lens than others, it was lost on Joe As they looht shed by the action of her palh the conducting hed as she hurried hiuely aware of the ache in his hand, but he ignored it As they turned the landing to the top floor, a strand of her hair caught in the corner of his mouth, and for an instant he crunched it between his teeth
She took him into a small room in the middle of the house, which curved queerly where it backed up against the central tower In addition to her tiny, girlish white iron bed, a shtstand, she had crowded in an easel, a photo enlarger, two bookcases, a drawing table, and a thousand and one other iteether with remarkable industry and abandon
”This is your studio?” studio?” Joe said Joe said
A smaller blush this time, at the tips of her ears
”Alsoto ask you to co unmistakably exultant about the mess that Rosa had made Her bedroom-studio was at once the canvas, journal, museum, and midden of her life She did not ”decorate” it; she infused it So, for exaled from the tulle of a dreaa she kept by her bed for this purpose When, just after dawn, she awoke, she found a scrap of loose-leaf paper in her left hand, scraith the cryptic legend ”laed on its lonely lectern in the library, where she learned this was the name of a small island in the Mediterranean Sea, between Malta and Tunisia Then she had returned to her roo thumbtack with an enameled red head from an El Producto box she kept on her supremely ”cluttered-up” desk, and tacked the scrap of paper to the eastern wall of her rooes of Life, Life, of Ambassador Joseph Kennedy's handsoan The scrap joined a reproduction of a portrait of Arthur Ri with chin in palm; the entire text of her only play, a Jarry-influenced one-act called of Ambassador Joseph Kennedy's handsoan The scrap joined a reproduction of a portrait of Arthur Ri with chin in palm; the entire text of her only play, a Jarry-influenced one-act called Homunculus Uncle; Homunculus Uncle; plates, sliced from art books, of a detail fro pursued by an animate celery, of Edvard Munch's plates, sliced from art books, of a detail fro pursued by an animate celery, of Edvard Munch's Madonna, Madonna, of several Picasso ”blue” paintings, and of Klee's of several Picasso ”blue” paintings, and of Klee's Cosnatius Donnelly's rotesquely vibrant full-color photo, also courtesy Ignatius Donnelly's rotesquely vibrant full-color photo, also courtesy of Life, of Life, of four cheerful strips of bacon; a spavined dead locust, forelegs arrested in an attitude of pleading; as well as so the nu lexicon that included ”grae,” ”parbuckle,” and some entirely fictitious words, such as ”luben” and ”salactor” Socks, blouses, skirts, tights, and twisted underpants lay strewn across teetering piles of books and phonograph albus and chromo-chaotic cardboard palettes, canvases stacked four deep stood against the walls She had discovered the surrealistic potential of food, about which she had rather pioneeringly complicated emotions, and everywhere lay portraits of broccoli stalks, cabbage heads, tangerines, turnip greens, , colorful, drunken tableaux that reminded Joe of Robert Delaunay of four cheerful strips of bacon; a spavined dead locust, forelegs arrested in an attitude of pleading; as well as so the nu lexicon that included ”grae,” ”parbuckle,” and some entirely fictitious words, such as ”luben” and ”salactor” Socks, blouses, skirts, tights, and twisted underpants lay strewn across teetering piles of books and phonograph albus and chromo-chaotic cardboard palettes, canvases stacked four deep stood against the walls She had discovered the surrealistic potential of food, about which she had rather pioneeringly complicated emotions, and everywhere lay portraits of broccoli stalks, cabbage heads, tangerines, turnip greens, , colorful, drunken tableaux that reminded Joe of Robert Delaunay
When they walked into the rooraph and switched it on When the needle hit the groove, the scratches on the disk popped and crackled like a burning log Then the air was filled with a festive wheeze of violins
”Schubert,” said Joe, rocking on his heels ”The Trout” ”The Trout”
”The Trout's my favorite,” Rosa said my favorite,” Rosa said
”Me too”
”Look out”
So soft and alive Joe brushed at his mouth and came aith a small black moth It had electric-blue transverse bands on its belly He shuddered
Rosa said, ”Moths”
”Moths more than one?”
She nodded and pointed to the bed
Joe noticed now that there were a fair number of moths in the room, most of them small and brown and unremarkable, scattered on the blankets of the narrow bed, flecking the walls, sleeping in the folds of the curtains
”It's an annoyance,” she said ”They're all over the upstairs of the house nobody's really sure why Sit down”
He found a moth-free spot on the bed and sat down
”Apparently there were h the last house, too,” she said She knelt down before him ”And in the one before that That was the one where the er?”
”It's sore Fro the screw”
”It looks dislocated”
His right index finger was curled a little to one side, in a queer parenthetical crook
”Give ht I was al the thin strong rod of obdurate coe style She turned his hand over and over, probed delicately with the tips of her own fingers at the joints and skin
”Doesn't it hurt?”
”Actually,” he said The pain, now that he attended to it, was fairly sharp
”I can fix it”
”You really are a nurse? I thought you worked at Life Life the azine”
She shook her head