Art in nature . part 1

Saga Eggmont presents Art in Nature by Tove Yansen, translated from the Swedish by Thomas Teal and read by me, Sophie Wkelman.

Art in nature. The summer exhibition grew very quiet when it closed in the evening and the last visitors went away. A little later, boat after boat moved off from the beach and made its way back to the village on the other side of the lake. The only member of staff who stayed overnight was the caretaker. He slept in the sauna down below the great lawn where the sculptures were set out among the trees. He was very old and had a bad back, but it had been hard to find someone who enjoyed the long lonely evenings, and they had to have a night caretaker because of the insurance.

It was a large exhibition entitled Art in Nature. Every morning the caretaker unlocked the gates and people streamed into the park. They came in cars and buses from all directions, from the interior and from the capital. They brought their children and made an outing of it. They went swimming among the water lilies and drank coffee and wandered among the birches. The children rode the swings and had their pictures taken a top the big bronze horse. More and more people wanted to see art in nature.

The caretaker was very proud of the exhibition. All day he sat in the huge glass box for painting and graphic arts and watched hundreds of feet go by. Because of his back, he couldn't see much of their faces. But he observed their feet and made a game of figuring out who they belonged to, what the rest of the person looked like. Sometimes he'd stretch his neck and take a look to see if he'd been right. And often he was. Mostly they were women in sandals, and he could see from their toes that they weren't all that young.

Almost all the feet moved respectfully. If they were with a guide, they'd stand still for a while, all turned in the same direction, and then they'd change direction all at the same time to look at something else. The lonely feet were uncertain in the beginning. Then they'd move slowly at an angle, stop, stand with legs crossed, turn around, and sometimes they'd lift one foot and scratch with it because there were lots of mosquitoes. Then they'd move on, walking rather quickly along the last wall.

The caretaker saw lots of feet with sturdy shoes. They'd often stand quite still, then walk along without pausing, then stand still again for quite a long time. He never looked to see what old shoes looked like higher up. Old people's shoes pointed outward, young people's inward, and children ran parallel. All of it amused him.

One day, two old shoes and a cane stopped beside him. He could see that she was very tired. "Do you know?" she asked. "Do you know what number 34 is supposed to be? It looks like a package wrapped with string. Are we supposed to open it or what?"

"I don't think so," the caretaker said. The guide said it was a foreigner who started doing this kind of art and then kept on wrapping sculptures and then finally a whole mountain maybe in Arizona.

"Is there a chair?" the old woman asked. This is such a big exhibition. He made room for her on the bench beside him and they sat next to each other for a while. What I admire, she said, is that they come up with so many ideas and then they manage to carry them out and believe so strongly in what they do. I'll come back another day and look at the sculpture. You can't take in an exhibition like this one all at once. You have to take it very slowly.

The caretaker said that he liked the sculptures best. They grew up out of the grass, huge, dark monuments in smooth, incomprehensible formlessness or entangled convulsions, challenging and disturbing. They stood everywhere among the birches as if they'd sprung up from the soil. And when the summer night arrived and the mist drifted in from the lake, they were as beautiful as granite crags or withered trees.

Each evening he would close the gates and continue along the shoreline to put out the fire in the sausage grill and see to it that everything was as it should be. He'd replace the moss that children had pulled off the big rocks. And he'd collect the coins from the wishing well and lay them out on a newspaper to dry. He'd check to make sure none of the ashtrays were burning, then empty them carefully into the open sculptural oven. The June nights were quiet and the lake motionless with a mirror image beneath each little island. The guard loved his repeated evening strolls, closing for the night.

At the gate, there was a smell of hay and fertilizer from the farms all around. Along the shore was the smell of mud and grass. Then the sauna with its smell of wet soot, and when he walked by the sculptures made of plaster, he could smell tar. All of them were impregnated with tar to protect them from the rain. He'd helped to paint them himself. During the day, he didn't notice the smells. He heard only voices and feet.

The caretaker liked the evenings and nights. He didn't need much sleep and often sat by himself in the peace and quiet of the lake shore for hours. He didn't remember. He didn't worry. He just was. The only thing that troubled him was that the exhibition would close in the autumn. He'd grown used to it and couldn't imagine another kind of life.

One evening he was making his rounds of the area as usual. He had closed the gates and everything should have been ship shape. Then he smelled smoke. Smoke from something burning. He was beside himself. Fire. Something was on fire. Half stumbling, he tried to run a few steps in one direction, a few in another until he realized that the smoke was only coming from the sausage grill. Intruders had hidden somewhere on the property and had now begun grilling sausages down by the lake. Relief made him furious.

He headed off across the lawn down towards the shoreline as fast as he could go, but he tried to walk quietly. Soon he heard voices, a man's and a woman's, and they were quarreling. The caretaker snuck closer and looked at them. They were middle-aged adults who should have known better than to break the exhibition rules. The man looked pale. He was wearing an American shirt and had a salmon fly in his hat. The woman was rather fat and wearing an outfit printed with little flowers. They were grilling sausages and drinking beer and they were arguing.

The guard listened for a while. It was a perfectly ordinary domestic quarrel. Then he strode forward, struck the ground with his cane, and shouted, "This is outrageous. You can't have a fire here after closing. It's absolutely forbidden. When we're closed, we're closed. What are you doing here?"

"Good heavens," the woman said. "Albert, I told you we shouldn't." The man jumped up and was going to pour lake water on the grill, but the caretaker yelled, "Stop that. You'll crack the grill. It has to burn out by itself." Suddenly, he was very tired and sat down on a rock. The man and the woman were silent.

"Responsibility," the caretaker said. "Does the word mean anything to you? Do you know what it means? Every night I'm responsible for this whole enormous exhibition and for the woods as well. There are works of art here by the country's finest artists, and it's all on my shoulders."

"Sphere," the man said, "give him a sausage and a glass of beer." But the caretaker turned it down. He didn't want to be placated. The evening had faded into a summer night, and a light mist came gliding in over the lake and hid the islands. The trunks of the birch trees grew whiter.

"Perhaps I should introduce myself," the man said. "Farland Rasin," said the god. The woman started packing up her baskets. Clearly they couldn't go on eating and drinking. And what is that?" Rasinan asked, pointing his cane at a brown parcel they had put down on a rock. The woman explained quickly that it was a work of art they had picked out and paid for. It was the first painting they had ever purchased, and so of course they had to celebrate. "It's a silk screen," she said.

"That's no excuse," Rasinan said. "Anyway, the correct name is Serigraph. They make lots and lots of copies, but it counts as art anyway. What's it of?"

"It's abstract," Farland said. "But we think it's two chairs turned a little away from each other." Rasan said that he couldn't recall any such chairs. And then the wife said it had been the furthest in on the right, two perfectly ordinary kitchen chairs in front of some wallpaper. She spoke eagerly, and it was clear that she was trying to ingratiate herself.

"You're wrong," her husband said. "They're folding chairs, the kind you can whisk out of the way in a second. And anyway, they're not important. It's the background that's important." He turned to Russian and said, "You see, it opens out. You can see life going on outside. It could be a big city. It's certainly not kitchen wallpaper."

His wife laughed and said, "You and your big ideas, it's wallpaper. Anyone can see that. Don't be an ass. They were sitting in their chairs and now they've gone and they've kicked the chairs apart as they left. Maybe they quarreled. What do you think? Did they quarrel?"

"They probably just got tired," Farland said. "They got sick and tired and went out. Yeah, of course. She said one of them went to the bar around the corner."

Russen waited a while and then he said, "How it's funny about art. Each person sees what he sees and that's the whole idea. But why hadn't they bought something prettier and easier? A landscape, for example." They didn't answer. The wife had turned away towards the lake, and she was wiping her eyes and blowing her nose.

The caretaker said, "Or you could do this. Since a piece of art can be just about anything, and since we only see what we want to see, you could just not unwrap it and hang the package on the wall. Then you won't need to argue." He poked the coals with his cane. The fire was almost out.

After a while, she said, "How do you mean the package? I mean, with the paper and the string and everything." You saw some picture packages like that in the exhibition. That's one of the things they do these days. Maybe you should just imagine what's inside and then imagine different things."

She looked round at him and said, "Are you being serious?"

Farland said, "Vier, her rasin is teasing you. We should go." She turned and started grumpily gathering up their baskets and sweaters and all the rest of their things.

"Wait a minute," the caretaker said. "I'm perfectly serious. It occurred to me just now. You just need to make the wrapping a little prettier. Use more string. You know, fishing line or shoe maker thread. Lots of string. I've seen how it should look." He drew a picture in the sand with his cane. "Like this and this, very carefully, and cover it with glass."

"But that was expensive," she burst out. "Anyone can make a package like you're talking about at home and just hang it up on the wall."

"No," said the caretaker. "I don't think they could because then there's nothing mysterious about it." He was happy, almost elated at finally grasping the point of the wrapped art. "Now you can go home," he said. "You'll have to climb over the gate because I don't fancy walking all the way back to unlock it."

"Albert," she said, "you'll have to carry the package." She gave it a look as if it were about to burst into flames. Farolan picked up the package and put it down again. "No," he said, "we'll unwrap it here and now. We'll let her russen and decide what is a picture of." Then she shouted, "Stop that!" and started to cry in earnest and said she didn't want to know. She just wanted to see it her own way and not be intimidated.

The caretaker was silent for a moment. Then he said, "It's too dark. We couldn't see anything anyway." He stood up and said goodbye to his guests. When they'd gone, he sat down again and watched the grill for a while, and then he walked slowly back among the sculptures, which now, at the darkest hour of the summer night, were nothing but shadows with clearly defined shapes. But what I said was completely right, he thought. It's the mystery that's important, somehow very important. He went and lay down in the sauna with its four bare walls. It was nice to look at them and fall asleep without all the humdrum thoughts he was used to.

The monkey. The newspaper came at 5:00 as it did every morning. He switched on the lamp by his bed, got into his slippers, and shuffled very slowly across the slippery cement floor, taking his usual route among the modeling stands, their shadows black as holes. He'd polished the floor after the last plaster casting. The wind was blowing and the street light outside his studio made the shadows swing, driving them apart and pulling them together again. It was like walking through woods in a moonlit storm. He liked it.

The monkey was awake in her cage, hanging on the bars, whining ingratiatingly. "Bloody monkey," said the sculptor, and went out into the front hall to pick up his paper. On his way back to bed, he opened the cage door, and the monkey ran up his arm and clung firmly to his shoulder. She was shivering. He put on her collar and attached the leash to his wrist. The monkey was an ordinary genon from Tangier that someone had bought cheap and sold there. Every now and then, she came down with pneumonia and needed penicillin. The kids in the neighborhood knitted sweaters for her.

He got back into bed and opened his paper. The monkey lay quietly warming herself with her arms around his neck. After a while, she sat down in front of him, her pretty hands crossed over her stomach, and stared steadily into his eyes, an expression of perpetual sad patience on her narrow gray face. "Stare away, you damned orangutang," the sculptor said, and went on reading.

At the second or third page, the monkey would suddenly and with lightning precision jump through the newspaper, but always through the pages he'd already read. It was a ritual. The paper was ripped to shreds. The monkey shrieked in triumph and then lay down to sleep. It could be liberating every morning at 5:00 to read through all the world's worst [ __ ] and then have the shittiness confirmed by seeing it all shredded and rendered unreadable. She helped him dispose of it. Now she jumped. "Oh, you bugger," said the sculptor. "You cretinous old flea circus." He invented new insults every morning. He stuffed her in under the quilt to sleep and made sure she had air. The monkey began to snore, and he turned to the arts column. He knew they'd pan his new show, but he found instead a patronizing generosity that he hadn't expected. He was so old they had to be kind. Without the monkey, he'd have turned to the arts column at once. But she helped him to read it in passing as if it were just another page. "Sleep, you little bastard," he said. "You're too dumb to understand. All you care about is getting attention and breaking things."

It was true. The monkey was like all the rest of them. The tiniest crack, the least stain or defect, and her fingers were there to make it worse and pick it apart. She noticed everything, every tiny sign of weakness, and that's where she'd bite and rip and tear. That's the way monkeys are, but they don't know any better, and so we forgive them. The others are unforgivable. The sculptor dropped the newspaper on the floor and turned towards the wall.

When he woke up, it was much too late, and he got out of bed with the usual awful feeling of having wasted time. He was very tired. First, he put the monkey in her cage. She didn't move, just sat in one corner, her back very narrow in its handknit sweater. There was heavy traffic on the street outside, and the elevator was running non-stop. He rinsed out some clay rags and swept the floor. It's easy to sweep polished cement, a long brush that gets in between the legs of the modeling stands and glides across the floor like silk, then into the dustpan and into the trash. He liked sweeping. Out of habit, he went to the window a couple of times, but he could no longer see out because it was covered with plastic to soften the light. He fed the monkey. He decided to change his sheets and considered dragging the plaster box out into the courtyard, but decided against it and did a little more sweeping instead. He collected some old scraps of soap too small to get a grip on, dropped them into a jar, and poured in water. He took the clay rags from the statuette and looked at it, swung the top of the modeling stand halfway round and back again. He walked over to the monkey cage and said, "You old carcass, you're so ugly you make me sick." The monkey screamed a challenge and stuck her hands out through the bars. He called Saval Linan but hung up before anyone answered. For that matter, he might as well go eat and get it over with.

He decided to take the monkey with him to give her a little change of scenery. But she didn't want to go. She just threw herself back and forth from one side of the cage to the other. "Okay, what do you want?" he said. "Do you want to come out or do you want to stay here in this mess?" He waited. Finally, she came out and sat quite still while he put on her catskin coat. When he tied her cap under her chin, she raised her face and looked at him, a straight, expressionless gaze from yellow eyes placed close together. The sculptor looked away, suddenly upset by the unmoving animal's attitude of absolute indifference.

They went out together, and he held her inside his coat. The wind was still blowing. Some youngsters were hanging around on the esplanade, and when they caught sight of him, they came running, shouting, "It's the monkey. It's the monkey." She jumped out of his coat and rushed back and forth on her leash, screaming at the boys, who hollered back and followed the two of them to the corner. There she bit one of them, a quick sharp bite. "Shitty monkey, shitty monkey," the children chanted.

He hurried into the cafe and put the monkey on the floor. "So you brought it back again," said the doorman. "You know what happened last time? Animals aren't allowed."

"Animals?" The sculptor said, "Do you mean cats and dogs, or are you referring to your customers and the way they behave?" Savalinan and the others were sitting at a table eating.

"Monkeys," Savalinan observed, "are known for their destructiveness. What the [ __ ] are you talking about? Their need to destroy. They break things. And for their tenderness."

The sculptor said, "They tried to offer comfort." Lindolm grinned. "Ha, bet you could use some of that today, but it could have been worse." The monkey sat inside his coat. He could feel her shivering.

"Worse?" Savalinan burst out with mock horror. "Do you mean even worse?"

"Take it easy, you little bastard," said the sculptor. And then, in the sudden silence, I was talking to the monkey.

"Listen," Perman said, "You shouldn't care what they say. They write what they think, and so what? Except it's a shame everyone believes what they say. We're out, that's all. Back at the bottom, and it'll be hell to crawl back up again. If you're old," Stenberg pointed out.

"What does it eat?"

"Clay?"

"Sure looks like it."

"What do you call it?"

"Bloody [ __ ] boot," he said. "Sadistic [ __ ] bird brain." All at once, the monkey ran across the table, knocking over glasses as she went. Bit Stenberg right through his ear, and then ran screeching back to hide in his coat. "H tenderness," said Lindholm. "Wasn't that what you said?" "Very tender-hearted animal."

The sculptor stood up and replied that was just exactly what he'd said, "And moreover, he didn't care for the menu at this place, and that he had things to do."

"There's a Tarzan film at the Ritz," said the doorman. "I assume that's where you're headed."

"Of course," the sculptor said, "How intelligent you are." He overtipped him out of pure contempt. The wind had picked up. They walked across the esplanade. The boys had gone.

"H, it's no use," the sculptor thought. "There's nothing in it for me anymore." The monkey was having a fit. He tried to make it warm for her under his coat, but she wiggled her way out and was choking on her own collar. She started to scream, so finally he undid her leash. For a moment, she didn't move. Then she jumped out of his hands and up into a tree, held tight to the trunk, and hung there like a little gray rat, looking scared. She was shivering with the cold. Her long tail was within his reach. He could have caught her, but he just stood there and did nothing. Then, quick as lightning, the monkey disappeared up into the leafless tree and hung from one of the highest limbs like some dark fruit, and he thought, "You poor little bastard. You're freezing, but you've got to climb."

The Cartoonist. The newspaper had been running Blubby for almost 20 years when Allington quit, and they were forced to continue the strip with a different artist. They had material for only a couple of weeks ahead, so the need was urgent. They had contractual agreements with other countries that promised a security margin of at least 2 months. And Blubby was a clever strip that tore along at a furious pace, so not just anyone could do it.

They took a handful of artists on approval and gave them office space, which saved time on supervision. The same assignment for all of them, obviously. They dismissed two of them after only a few days and replaced them with others. The editor in charge went around a couple of times a day to have a look and helped them get a handle on what the paper was after. He was a tall man by the name of Frerieded. He had a bad back, presumably because he was forever leaning down over cartoonists' drawing boards.

There was one ambitious young artist who seemed to be the best of them, but he wasn't good enough yet. "You have to remember," Frerieded said, "you have to keep in mind the whole time that the tension has to mount. You've got a strip of three or four panels, five if absolutely necessary, but four's better. Okay. In the first one, you resolve the tension from the previous day. Catharsis, relief, the drama continues. You build up new tension in the second panel, increase it in panel three, and so on. I've explained that you're good, but you get lost in details, commentary, embroidery that gets in the way of the red thread. It has to be a straight line, simple, and move towards a peak. A climax, you see."

"I know," said Samuel Stein. "I know. I'm trying."

"Imagine someone opening his newspaper," Frerieded went on. "He's sleepy. He's in a lousy mood. He's in a hurry to get to work. He checks the headlines on page one and dives into the comics. He's in no condition to grasp subtleties right at the moment. That's too much to ask. But his curiosity needs a little excitement, and he wants a laugh. Wants to grin at something funny for a second. Natural enough, right? Okay. Hey, he gets all that. We give it to him. It's important. Do you see what I'm saying?"

"Yes," Stein said. "I think I got it from the beginning. It's just that it all has to happen so quickly. I just don't have the space to get everything in and still do something good. Not really."

"It'll be good," Fried said. "You'll get there. Relax. I can tell you confidentially that you're one of the better ones. You draw well and your backgrounds are fine. I have to move on."

It was a very small room with brown walls, essentially just a storeroom weighed down with crowded shelves and cupboards, and a large, heavy, old-fashioned desk that had drawers all the way to the floor. The walls were covered with old calendars, clippings, ads, odd posters, announcements, clumps of paper, all held in place by thumbtacks. The room gave an impression of a life that had passed long ago and been forgotten, a life no one had had time to tidy away. Samuel Stein liked the room. It gave him a feeling of being hidden and safe along with his work. And he liked being a cog in the machinery of the great distinguished newspaper, liked feeling its respect.

The room was very cold. He stood up and the chill engulfed him. The whole time he could hear the distant thudding of the printing presses and over them the sound of traffic on the street. He was freezing. A work blouse and a sweater hung beside the door. He put on the sweater and stuck his hands into the pockets. In the right pocket, Sam Stein found a piece of paper, a list. He read it standing at the window. "Used," it said in very small letters. "Ski skate, etc. Fun of government and modern art went to ball. One masked. Two cocktail p gangster astronaut. Three * love plus vamp out hamburger India ink lighter background laundry call ag." It was a cartoonist who had worked here and the sweater was his.

Stein was curious and opened a drawer. It contained a mix of pencil stumps, tape, empty ink bottles, paper clips, all the usual junk, but maybe worse than usual. All of it had been stirred together as if in a rage. He opened the next drawer. It was empty, completely empty. He let the other drawers be and put on some water for tea. There was a hot plate on the floor under the window. It could have been Allington who'd had this room. Maybe he never worked at home. Maybe he sat right here for 20 years and drew his Blubby.

He had stopped abruptly in the middle of a story and you're supposed to give 6 months' notice. The outline had apparently got lost at the 53rd strip. Normal length was usually 80. Stein had asked why Ellington couldn't reconstruct the story. "No, he wasn't able to. Didn't he want to? Had he forgotten?" "I don't know. Freed said it was a different department that took care of that. Don't worry about it. Go on from where he stopped and do something of your own, but preferably so no one will see the break. You can leave off the signature."

The tea water was boiling. Stein removed the saucepan and pulled out the plug. He took down the cup and the sugar he'd found on a shelf. There was no spoon. He had his own tea bags. 6 days later, Freed came in and said that now they'd decided Stein had the job no contest and there'd be a contract in a few days for 7 years. The board had been very pleased, but wanted to re-emphasize the need for greater suspense. Fried looked tired as he stood there with a smile on his soft, vague features. He stepped forward and shook hands with Stein and touched his shoulder gently in a gesture of encouragement and protectiveness.

"That's great," Stein said. "That's really great. Can you use the stuff I've done, or should I start over from the beginning?"

"No, God, no, we don't have time for that. We'll throw in the material we've got, and you can push up the speed until we've got two months in the bank."

"Tell me something," Stein said. "Did he work in this room?"

"Allington?" Yes, Allington. Yes, this was his room. It's kind of fitting that you assume his mantle in the very same workroom, don't you think? There's a lot of his things here. I mean, I didn't poke around that much. But is he going to come and get them? I'll see to it that it's all moved out. Freed said it's very crowded in here. I'll ask someone to get it all out of the way. Is he dead?" Stein said.

"No, no, not at all. So, he got sick. My dear fellow, don't worry yourself," Freed replied. "He's perfectly all right. And now I will simply wish you good luck with the job."

In the beginning, Stein worked without touching anything in the room. His first strip was published without a signature, and no one noticed the difference. Anyway, Allington hadn't signed his strips for the last 3 years of his contract, and that helped. Stein increased his pace to several strips a day. He was learning more and more. He learned to do half a dozen strips in pencil and then ink them all at the same time, beginning with pure black surfaces in the morning. Once he was warmed up, he'd start on details and along towards afternoon, when he was completely sure of his hand, he'd draw the long lines and elegant small bits that needed to be done quickly and deftly. Then he'd go on to the next batch. He came steadily closer to the prescribed lead time.

They had congratulated him when his first strip was printed without any public reaction. He was depressed that day, but it passed and he went on working steadily, pleased at doing a good job that was very well paid. He felt secure. He no longer had to dash around with illustrations and confer with a resolute, pretentious author. Three or four trips for every blessed dust jacket, take orders, meet authors, turn in his work, wait, go in to collect his fee, and occasionally go up to the printers once or twice to make sure the color separations were correct. Now, everything went like clockwork. He didn't even have to deliver his work. He just left the day's drawings on his desk, and someone picked them up that evening. He picked up his salary in the cashier's office every other week.

Freed no longer paid him visits. He just saw him now and then on the stairs. "You never come to look anymore," Stein said.

"No longer necessary, my boy," said Freed jokingly. "You're doing splendidly. But God help you if you get stuck or take a wrong turn. I'll be there like a shot."

"God forbid," [clears throat] Stein said and laughed. He had bought himself an electric heater, and the newspaper had paid for it. They were taking care of him now, and with good reason, Blubby ran in 30 or 40 countries.

Occasionally, Stein would go down around the corner and have a drink. He liked the dark, messy bar. It was full of men in the same line of work who talked about their jobs, had a drink, and went back to the paper. He met the other cartoonists. They were friendly and treated him like a greenhorn, a boy who wasn't really into the game yet, but seemed quite promising. Their attitude was more affectionate than condescending. They didn't buy each other rounds, just hung over the bar for a while with a glass in one hand, then went back.

There was one of them he admired, an extremely talented artist named Carter. Carter didn't do pencil sketches. He drew directly with India Ink. Terrifying naturalistic historical scenes. He was a heavy, very ugly man with reddish hair who moved slowly. He never smiled, but seemed amused by what went on around him.

"Tell me something," he said. "Are you one of those people who are prevented from doing great art because they draw comic strips?"

"No," Stein said. "Not at all."

"Good for you," Carter said. "They're insufferable. They're neither fish nor fowl, and they can't stop talking about it."

"Did you know Allington?" Stein asked.

"Not well. Was he one of them? I mean, one of the insufferable ones."

"No, but why did he quit?"

"He got tired," Carter said, and emptied his drink and went back to do some work.

The newspaper had forgotten to tidy up Ellington's room, which was just as well. Stein liked sitting encapsulated in a century of collected and forgotten props. They made up a kind of warm quilting, a faded tapestry that surrounded him softly on all sides. Eventually, he started opening drawers, one a day, the way you open windows on an advent calendar. He found the drawers with the most recent fan mail bound in packets with rubber bands. "Answered can wait. Important. Send drawing of bee." Another empty drawer. A drawer of glossy prints of Blubby on heavy stock. Sophisticated vignettes for adults and funny pictures for children. Papers, papers, clippings, bills, socks, photos of children, receipts, cigarettes, corks, string. The whole accumulation of dead life that heaps up around people who've lost the strength to be attentive. Nothing about the strip. Stein couldn't find any notes about Allington's work other than that list in the right-hand pocket of the sweater.

As Stein worked on Blubby, Allington grew more and more real to him. Allington not coming up with ideas and staring down at the street through the gray window panes. Allington brewing tea and rooting around in his drawers, answering the phone or completely forgotten between deadlines. Allington famous and worn out. Did he feel lonely or was he wary of people? Did he work better in the mornings or later when the paper was quiet? What did he do when he got stuck? Or did he work at a steady pace for 20 years? Now I need to be careful, Samstein thought. I mustn't romanticize him. If Allington had stood at a machine for 20 years, no one would have made a big deal of it. He was popular and well paid. So am I.

One weekend, Carter asked Stein if he'd like to come out to his place in the country. It was a great mark of favor. Carter disliked almost everyone and wanted to be left in peace. It was early spring and the countryside was completely quiet. Carter took him around and showed him his pigs and chickens. He showed him his snakes, lifted a stone in the lawn very carefully, and said, "There they are. They're still a little sleepy, but they'll liven up." Stein was fascinated.

"What do you feed them?" he said.

"Nothing. They feed themselves. There are lots of frogs and toads and other things they like."

Stein had heard that Carter never answered letters, that he didn't even open them. He wasn't the least bit curious about their contents, and his conscience didn't bother him. "You can't do that," Stein said. "You're famous. They admire you. Those letters are from children and they need to be answered."

"Why?" said Carter. They were sitting in front of the house with drinks. It was very warm and still.

"They have faith," Stein said. "When I was little, I wrote to the president of France and asked him to close down the Foreign Legion. Did he get an answer?"

"Certainly did. My mother wrote a reply from the president and said now they were going to shut the whole thing down with French stamps and everything."

"You're too young," Carter said. "It's better for them to get used to it right from the start, you know, used to the fact that things don't turn out the way you imagined and that it doesn't matter that much." He went off to feed the pigs and was gone for quite a while.

When he came back, Stein started talking about Allington and how he'd worked steadily for 20 years and then just walked away without even leaving an outline. "He got tired," Carter said. "Did he ever talk to you about it?"

"No, he said almost nothing. One day he was gone. Left a note on his desk. In fact, it was a half-finished strip and on it he'd written, 'I'm tired.' He never even came back for his money."

"But didn't they try to find him?"

"Good Lord," Carter said. "Just listen to you. Didn't they try to find him? Holy Moses. The entire police department was out searching. Everyone was hysterical. Blubby about to breathe his last. The franchise holders got wind of it and were running in and out of the offices like madmen. Franchise holders. You don't know a thing, do you?" Said Carter, lighting his pipe. "The people who live on Blubby? Have you never seen a charming little Blubby in plastic or marzipan or candle wax?" He stood up and started walking slowly back and forth on the grass, chanting, "Blubby curtains, blubby jelly, blubby clocks and blubby socks, blubby shirts, and blubby shorts."

"Shall I go on?"

"I'd rather you didn't," Stein said. "I could go on for an hour."

"Allington made sketches for all of it. He was very careful with his comic strip. He was very particular. Everything had to be just so, you know, he supervised all of it down to the tiniest detail. Textiles, metals, paper products, rubber, wood, all of it. And then there were the Blubby films and Blubby week and children's theater and journalists and dissertations about Blubby and all the charities and something called the Blubby Marmalade campaign. Holy Moses. Anyway, he couldn't ever say no. And then he got tired."

Stein said nothing, but he looked frightened. "Don't worry," Carter went on. "None of it's your headache. All you have to do is draw and the paper will take care of all the rest of it."

"But how do you know all that?" Stein said he didn't talk to people.

"I've got eyes in my head," Carter said. "And I draw my own strip. But you see, I can say no. And it's no skin off my nose if they mess around with my work. Do you get a lot of letters?"

"Yes," Stein said, "but they're all to him. Fred told me to give them to the department. They've got a stamp with Ellington's signature, and they've got people who sit there and answer them. And if I'm going to write letters," Stein went on angrily, "I'll sign my own name to them, not someone else's."

"You're awfully careful with your name, aren't you?" said Carter with a grin. They said no more about Allington. Stein had meant to ask if he'd ever been found, but he felt suddenly dejected and said nothing. Later, they saw one another in the bar from time to time in passing.

Sam Stein came to his third outline. He would work them up in pencil sketches with a little dialogue and give them to Freed. Five or six days later, they'd come back with corrections and he'd find them on his desk. "Better, but you need to pick up the pace. Cut the references to toilet paper and cemeteries. Number 65 to 70 too subtle. No jokes about the government and the manufacturers and so on."

People at the paper started to recognize him. He began to belong. It was mostly Johnson he talked to in the bar. Johnson was in advertising and sometimes when he had the time he'd answer Allington's fan mail.

"Oh, Carter," said Johnson. "I know. All he cares about are his pigs and those snakes and money. He's so fabulously talented the drawings run out of him like diarrhea. But he has absolutely no ambition. And why should he? Did you know he also grows vegetables and some cousin of his sells them at a farmers market? He never answers fan mail."

Stein said he doesn't give a damn. "You know what? These cartoonists either they're all touchy and conscience-stricken or else they don't give a damn about anything. Am I right?"

"Maybe you're right and maybe you're wrong. I don't know if they're all nuts to begin with or if they get that way from drawing comic strips. Should we have another?" It was evening and they were lingering in the bar. It was really too late to go back and get anything done.

"This thing with Allington," Stein said. "I can't get free of him. He's everywhere. What actually happened?"

"We went nuts," Johnson said. "You mean really?"

"Well, sort of. More or less." Sam Stein leaned over the bar and looked into the mirror behind the bottles. I look tired, he thought. But in a few weeks, I can take it easier. I could have Blubby go to a bar. It's been a long time since he did that. He'd gone through four years of Allington's old strips. No one remembered further back than that. He said, "Is there anyone who knows where he is? I want to talk to him."

"Why? You're doing fine."

"No, that's not it. I want to know why he couldn't go on."

"But you know that," said Johnson amiably. "You've already figured it out. It's like drummers in jazz bands. After a certain number of years, it's just over. What do you say? Should we have another?"

"No," Stein said. "I don't think so. I thought I'd do some laundry this evening."

The next morning, Stein went into the storage room behind Allington's office and started pulling down cartons from the shelves, bundles of letters, bags, and boxes. He lined them up on the floor in order to go through all of it. There was fan mail in four boxes and a suitcase. On three of them was the word "done." One said "sent things," and on the suitcase was written "pathetic cases." On yet another little box, Allington had written "good letters," and on another "anonymous product samples," Blubby in every possible material and packaging, all of them with wide blue eyes with big black pupils. Outlines crossed out with a felt tip pen. All except one, something about the Wild West. A notation "not used." Stein smoothed out Allington's manuscript and put it on his desk. Maybe he could use it.

The next carton was unsorted, and it broke when he pulled it out, and a sea of paper flowed out across the floor. "Poor man," Stein thought. "How he must have hated paper. Messages, queries, bills, exhortations, pleas, accusations, declarations of love." There was an address book with neatly noted names, and in parentheses the wife's name or the husband's, names of the children, of the dog, or the cat. Maybe the courtesy of remembering made letters a little shorter for him. It got him off the hook more easily. Suddenly, Stein didn't want to know more. All he wanted was to try and find Allington. He needed to understand. He had a 7-year contract, and he needed to be calmed or alarmed, one or the other, but he had to know.

The next day, Stein tried to find Allington's address, but no one could help him. "My dear boy," Frerieded said, "you're just wasting your time. Allington has no address. His apartment was essentially untouched and he never came back."

"But the police," Stein said, "they searched for him."

"They did a lousy job. Here's his address book. A thousand names or more. Have they seen it?"

"Of course they have. They called a few people, but no one knew anything. What do you want with him?"

"I don't know exactly. I want to talk to him."

"I'm sorry," Freed said, "but we've got better things to do. He left us in the lurch, and now we fixed it. You need to stop brooding about Allington."

That same evening, the boy appeared, a kid 6 or 7 years old. Stein had put his work away and was ready to leave. "It was hard to find you," the child said. "I've brought you a present." It was a large flat package wrapped with lots of pieces of string. When Stein had untied them all, he found inside a new package tightly circled with tape. The boy stood quietly as he cut and tore it until he reached yet another package which was bound together with plastic bands.

"This is getting more and more exciting," Stein said. "It's like a treasure hunt." The boy was solemn and silent. The packages grew smaller and smaller, but each wrapping was as hard to open as the one before. Samstein began to be uneasy. He wasn't used to children, and it bothered him pretending to be Allington. Finally, he came to the end and opened a Blubby drawn on silver paper and wearing an astronaut's space suit. He blurted out, admiring comments that were much too exaggerated. The child didn't move a muscle.

"But what's your name?" Stein said and knew at once that it was the wrong question. Utterly and completely wrong. The boy said nothing, then in a hostile tone. "Where have you been?"

"I was on a trip," Stein said quickly. Sounded idiotic. The boy looked at him very quickly and then looked away again.

"Do you draw a lot?" Stein asked.

"No." It was awful. Totally hopeless, his eyes wandered across the cluttered room, looking for help, something to say to this child who admired Allington. He picked up the Wild West from his desk and said, "This one isn't done yet. I don't really know how to go on. Come and have a look." The boy came closer.

"You see, Blubby's in the Wild West," he said, feeling suddenly relieved. "The bad guys are trying to take his spring, which is his only source of water. They've hired a lawyer and the lawyer has come up with a wicked plan. He's going to say that the spring doesn't belong to Blubby at all. It's owned by the state."

"Shoot him," the boy said calmly. "Yes, they'd be all right. On the street or in a bar?"

"No, that's too ordinary. Have them ride after each other and the lawyer shoots first."

"Good," Stein said. "It's important that he shoots first so he's had his chance. So, it's okay if he dies." The boy looked at him and eventually said, "Your new place is too far away for me. When are you coming to mine? I made an altar for you with pictures."

"How nice," Stein said. "Maybe I will soon. I've got so much work to do right now."

"Have you ever drawn with India Ink?"

"No."

"Give it a try. Write your address and my address side by side. But you already know them."

"Yes, but write them anyway, names and all." The boy wrote slowly and neatly. When he'd gone, Samuel Stein returned all of John Allington's things to the back room. They were the possessions of a dead man, but he

Had the address now of the Allington, who was alive. Allington was living in a hotel in a suburb. He was middle-aged, a perfectly ordinary man, one of the invisible people on a bus, dressed in something grayish brown.

Stein introduced himself and explained that he was his replacement for the comic strip. "Come in," Allington said. "We can have a drink." The room was clean and seemed very empty. "How's it going?" Allington asked. "Quite well. I'm on my fourth outline." "And how's Freed?" Well, there's his bad back, of course, but otherwise he's fine. Funny, Allington said all of that was so important. How long is your contract? 7 years. Sounds right. They don't want to drag it out longer when the strip's been running for such a long time. Sooner or later, people are going to want something new.

Allington went out to the kitchen to get their drinks. When he came back, he asked how Stein had found his address. There was a boy, Bill Harvey. He came in with a drawing for you. For that matter, here it is. Allington looked at Blubby the astronaut. I know, he said. He was one of the hardest to answer. Never stopped writing. Did he believe you were me? I don't know. I'm not sure I pulled it off. Do you get your mail directly or does it go to Johnson? To Johnson? That's better.

One thing, Stein said, "It doesn't feel good pretending to be someone I'm not. I'm not used to it." I understand, Allington said, "But you get into the swing of it, and it gets to be just another part of the game. You spit out letters faster and faster, and they take them at face value. You anticipate their reactions and accept their inexhaustible silliness, the same ideas over and over again with stupid variations." Nevertheless, said Stein carefully, it's a question of responsibility, isn't it? I mean, all these people open their newspapers and read the comics. They read them and they're influenced. Maybe they're not aware of it, but they can't help themselves. You could sneak in a whole lot of stuff that was— He paused. Positive somehow. Teach them something or comfort them or scare them, make them think. Do you know what I mean? I know, Allington said. I did that sort of thing for four or five years.

They were silent for a moment. "We never found your last outline," Stein said. Did it get lost? Probably. But I found one about the Wild West. I was thinking of using it. Shame to waste it. The usual story. More or less. Only 60 strips. Maybe a few more. Well, well, Allington said, I think it was something they turned down. You can only use the Wild West maybe once a year. But put it in with the rest. It won't matter. Where do you work? In your room. Is it still just as cold? I've put in an electric heater.

Stein was quiet for a moment, then asked what he should do with all the stuff in the closet and the desk drawers. "Have someone carry it out in the yard." "But I can't do that," Stein said. "After all, it's a life. You can't just dump it in the yard." Allington started to laugh, and his face was suddenly very appealing. "Stein," he said, "Not a life, a little piece of a life. See, I'm not done yet. What is it that bothers you that I quit and just walked away from all of it? You've only got seven years. You'll get through it somehow. You're not going to hang yourself." He filled their glasses and said, "There was one who did. A villa on the Riviera and a yacht and all the rest of it. And then he goes and hangs himself. Perhaps it's not that unusual, but he wrote a letter to other cartoonists and warned them against long contracts. They've got the letter at the paper in their secret museum." "Do you want ice?" "No thanks," Stein said. "I take it straight. What shall I do with this kid, Bill?" "Nothing. He'll grow up and start to admire something else. Believe me, it doesn't pay to go soft in this game." "You're one to talk," Stein said. "I've looked in your drawers." "And what did you think?" Stein hesitated. Then he said that you got very tired.

Allington stood up and walked to the window. It was getting dark. He made a movement as if to draw the curtains, but then let them be. He stood looking down at the street. "I think I should be going," Stein said. "Thought I'd go back and work for a while." "It was their eyes," said Allington without turning around. "Their cartoon eyes, the same stupid round eyes all the time. Amazement, terror, delight, and so on. All you have to do is move the pupil and an eyebrow here and there, and people think you're brilliant. Just imagine achieving so much with so little. And in fact, they always look exactly the same. But they have to do new things all the time. All the time. You know that. You've learned that, right?" His voice was quiet, but it sounded as if he was speaking through clenched teeth. He went on without waiting for a reply. "Novelty. Always something new. You start searching for ideas among the people you know, among your friends. Your own head is a blank, so you start using everything they've got, squeezing it dry. And no matter what people tell you, all you can think is, 'Can I use it?'" Allington swung around and stared at Stein, suddenly silent, the ice cubes tinkling violently in his glass. His hand had started shaking. Slowly he said, "Do you understand? Do you see that you can't afford it? That you don't have time to be in a hurry?" Sam Stein had risen from his chair. "Every day," Allington went on. "Every week and month and year and new year, and it never ends. The same creatures with the same pupils creeping around you and over you and never stopping." Allington's face was changed, swollen, and a muscle was twitching by his mouth. Stein looked away. "Forgive me," said John Allington. "I didn't mean to." "Mostly things are fine. In fact, they're getting better and better. I've been doing well recently. They tell me I'm much improved. Sit down. Let's sit for a while." "Do you like evening?" "No," Stein said. "No, I don't like it. Do you ever see Johnson? Yes, in the bar sometimes. I like him. Collects stamps, but only with boats on them. I heard about a man who collected stamps with musical instruments. Funny about collectors. I'm interested in mosses. You know, moss, but then I'd have to live in the country." "They grow very slowly," Stein said. "And then, as you say, you have to live in the country, and they say the birds destroy them if they have a bad year." He stopped talking. He wanted to go. The visit had depressed him. Allington sat and played with a pencil, letting it roll across the table a little way in one direction, and then back again. He drew so beautifully, Stein thought. No one had prettier lines, so light and pure. It always looked like he was having fun drawing them. Suddenly, Allington asked, "How do you find the time?" "Find the time?" "Well, it goes along all right. You develop a rhythm." "I just thought," Allington said, "I just happened to think that if you get stuck, I might be able to do a couple of strips sometime if you'd like."

White lady. They were probably about 60 years old and had clearly dressed for the evening. All three were exhilarated. The man driving the boat guessed they'd had a drink or two before leaving home. As he took them across, they talked a great deal and called him captain. And when they reached the dock, they made a great to do about going ashore and pretended to be afraid of falling in the water.

The restaurant lay on an eyelet in the middle of the harbor, an odd wooden pavilion with spire top towers and tall, extravagantly decorated windows. Now at dusk, the pale gray building was very pretty in a melancholy way. Eleanor said that it lay like a forgotten dream among its dark trees, or maybe like a wedding cake on a plate that was too small. Eleanor loved similes. "Yes, you're right," May exclaimed. "That's just exactly what it looks like. A decorated cake. A gateau. Isn't that what we used to call them?" "Good heavens, how pretty this is," Regina said. "Just look at the boats." They had walked onto the lawn. May, Eleanor, and Regina were standing in a row on the wet grass. The harbor lights were soft and blurred in the evening fog, and against this backdrop of quivering lights, boats were gliding past, all of them on their way out to sea. Black coasting smacks and catches their sails like swans' wings, as Eleanor put it. And behind them came the overnight boat to Stockholm, tall, radiantly white, adorned with glowing strings of pearls. Slowly, slowly the great luxury liner glided out from the harbor with all the other boats around it, and every one of them had to swing wide to get past the eyelet where the three ladies stood. "Now let's go in," Regina said. "It's getting chilly."

The restaurant was empty. The season was almost over. They asked each other if they'd been here before, but only May remembered one time with her father, who'd been a member of the yacht club and had had his own boat birthed in the marina. The stairs were broad and the ceiling unbelievably high, almost like a church. Highest up under the tower was an intricate network of timbers. It was a warm evening, and the windows stood open along the entire length of the verandah. Fog drifted in across the empty tables. "It's like some film I saw," Regina said. "A big castle with empty rooms and people who didn't know what they wanted." "Marray and bad," Eleanor said. "That was an awfully good movie." "But why are you whispering?" They took seats at the far end of the verandah. The waiter came, and while they were ordering, they found their way back to their initial exhilaration. They were going to eat and drink well. And for this one evening, they had left everything behind and were going to enjoy themselves in a new, unusual place. An island from the turn of the century, a building that was almost old when they were children. "Ah, that's what's so exciting," Regina said. "Having it all ahead of us. I'll have a white lady. I'm wearing a white dress, so I want a white lady. Is that strong?" May asked. "I'll have the same." Regina called back the waiter to say she'd changed her mind. She wanted the pepper steak instead and the wine should be at room temperature. "Did you notice?" May said, "Did you notice how young the waiter was? In a place like this, they ought to be old. But he's young and quick and hears everything you say." "Oh, I'm hungry," Eleanor said. "I'm always hungry, and I never have the nerve to order what I really want. I'm getting fat. And right now, after a real ocean voyage, I'm really especially hungry." They all laughed. And then she said, suddenly sentimental, "The man driving the boat. Just think, he'd been a captain on the seven seas, and then they let him go. He told me. Isn't that awful?" May said, "You could use that in a book." She fished out her compact and quickly powdered her troubled little face, puffed up her hair, and put the purse on the floor beside her chair. "You're not a bit fat. You're sturdy. Junoesque." Regina said, "You know, one time in Venice, I drank a white lady. Or rather, actually, it was outside Venice in that casino, whatever it's called. That was my first white lady. Cheers, girls." "Anyway, there I was, and I was so young they wouldn't let me in without an escort. Well, along came this bank director from Fume. What? Fume? A bank director from Fume. And I was young and sweet, so he invited me in and told me to bet as much as I wanted on roulette because beginners always have such good luck, he said. It was foggy outside, just like this. Here comes the food," May cried. "Girls, girls, this is going to be a real feast." The waiter smiled and asked which of them was to taste the wine. "I'm the eldest," Eleanor said. "I'm several weeks older than any of you. I'm the grand old lady." She sipped the wine and smiled at him and said, "Perfect. The temperature is just right. What should we drink to?" "To you," Regina cried. "To your young people's books." "Oh, how nice of you," Eleanor said. "Cheers. Though I don't know that anyone reads them anymore. Have you noticed how the air smells of night?" Regina said, "Oh, you have such beautiful thoughts, but it smells of the city, the sewers. It did in Venice, too, and it was just beautiful. Beautiful." May said they ought to change places. It was Eleanor who should sit opposite the window, the boats and all. It could give you new ideas, May said, but Eleanor thought it was unnecessary. After a while, they started talking about their friend, the count. It was some time since he'd called. "When was the last time he called you?" "Oh, I don't know. Last spring. He's always so busy." "Time," said Regina. "Speaking of time, that bank director from Fume told me that the only thing he no longer had was time. He had everything else, money and everything, but he no longer had time. I didn't want to bet on roulette. I thought it was awful. So, we went into the bar instead. 'Dear child,' he said, 'Pretty little child, order whatever you'd like. Green, white, red, yellow.' That's exactly what he said. 'I have everything, but I also have a bad stomach.'" "I know," said Eleanor. "Do you also have a bad stomach?" "No, but you've told me that story before." "Not to me," May said. "What did you order?" "White. A white lady. I thought it sounded so pretty. There was a little rim of ice on the glass. Look, there still is." "About the count," Eleanor said. "Has he called any of you?" "Never," Regina said. "He's forgotten us. He's way too famous. We danced once." "No. Twice. Why don't they have any music here?" Eleanor said, "They've been playing music the whole time. You just hadn't heard it. Slow stuff on tape for the old folks." "D like in Marionbad. And foghorns," May said. They listened. "Okay," Regina said. "It's foghorns. They're howling." "Oh, how are they howling?" "Eleanor. Like old tired animals," Eleanor said. "That no longer have the strength to be afraid." "Yeah, what will you give me for that one?" "10 plus," May cried. "They're too tired even to be afraid. They just howl." Regina stood up and said she was going to the ladies' room. On the way, she walked past the bar and asked if they didn't have any younger music. "So, we won't feel so old," she added and laughed. The waiter said that they had younger music, but maybe it would make her feel even older. All the way downstairs, Regina wondered if he'd been cheeky, too familiar, and in that case, what she should have said. In any case, it was too late now. The ladies' room was large and cool, tulle curtains knotted above the windows, each little stall provided with a faded family name, easy chairs covered in shiny chintz. Someone had left a red life belt hanging on a peg. Down here, she could hear the ship's foghorns much better. Regina grew melancholy. She stood and looked at her face in the neon light that made everything hard and hollow, and thought it had been somehow less heavy in the old days. Her face had grown too long over the years, and her nose as well. She went back upstairs and said to the others, "I can't understand why he never calls." "Wow, he's so rarely in town," Eleanor said. "But maybe we could dance." "Speaking of dancing," Regina said, "That time they couldn't stop playing to dance. There was an atmosphere of tension, a kind of fear, if you know what I mean. The ones playing for high stakes, I mean, insane sums of money were fenced in with the rope. Four people with a fence around them so no one would disturb them. There was dead silence. No one dared say a word." "How strange," May said. "Have you ever been back?" "No. I thought about it once, but it never happened."

Some people came in at the other end of the verandah, very young people. "Like a flock of birds," said Eleanor, "a swarm of birds that settle for a moment, for as long as it suits them." The music suddenly changed to something entirely different. It had grown dark outside, and the harbor lights were sharp and distant. It was as if the island and the restaurant had slipped further out to sea, as if they were floating away. "Ah, I'm so happy," May said. "It's as if nothing was important anymore. Is this our second bottle?" "Yes," Eleanor said. The young people were not dancing. Why should they? They could afford not to. Wherever they went, their own music followed them. They talked quietly and were completely involved with one another. "What would you say to an Irish coffee?" Regina said, "For the fun of it. You know, something unusual. I mean, now that the three of us are out together for once." She put her arms on the table and tried to sing along. "Da da. It's got a nice beat, doesn't it? Why don't they dance? The count should be here. He's probably just polite," said Eleanor. "Do you think any of them know you're an author? We could talk to them a little. Gasson, ciao. Three Irish coffees. You don't get a lot of customers in the fall." "No, not this late," the waiter said. "We'll be closing soon for the winter. Doesn't it get lonely here sometimes?" Regina said, "I mean, without customers and all the rooms so large and nothing but empty chairs." May said she'd imagined whipped cream. Some of the young people began to dance almost absent-mindedly by themselves. Regina said she was going to the ladies' room. "But you just came back." She said, "I want to look around. It's not often I get to places like this." She walked over to the young people at the bar and said, "Hi, are you having a good time? Nice music, isn't it?" "M, it's good," said a boy. She took her white lady with her, and as she passed their table, she raised her glass and smiled. A little greeting, a disarming, dismissive gesture. "They're nice," she said when she came back. "Friendly and polite. We could treat them to something. I was always getting treated when I was young." May said they hadn't whipped the cream, just stirred it in. It wasn't real Irish coffee.

Now the music grew heavier. It forced itself upon them, stubbornly repeating the same phrases again and again, over and over. Eleanor said it was like a pulse. "Then it's someone with a bad heart," May said. "He's not feeling well." She said she was going to the lady's room to make herself pretty. "Oh, drink your Irish coffee while it's warm." Regina said, "And you're not going to get any prettier. Neither here nor there. I don't want to drink it while it's warm. Oh, you're like my mother. I want to drink something clear and cold." Regina said, "Green, white, red, yellow, whatever you'd like." She laughed and threw herself back in her chair. "Regina, you're drunk," Eleanor said. Regina answered slowly. "I hadn't expected that. I really hadn't expected that from you. You're usually much more subtle." "Girls, girls," May burst out. "Don't fight. Is anyone coming to the ladies with me?" "Oh, the ladies' room. The eternal ladies' room," said Eleanor. "What do you do there all the time?" The whole scene was like something from an early talkie with too much gesturing. It wasn't a very good film. The direction was definitely second-rate. "Just go," she said. "I want to look at the fog on the ceiling."

On their way to the stairs, Regina and May stopped at the bar. "Ciao," the waiter said, grinning. "What will it be? Irish coffee?" "Absolutely not," May said. She spoke with great care. "I would like a cognac." The tape stopped. Outside it was pitch dark, a great autumn darkness. They stood with their backs to the bar. Regina raised her glass and cried, "Cheers for the springtime of youth. Cheers everyone." They raised their glasses to her toast. One of them stood up and came to the bar. He looked at May and said, "Are you the lady writer?" The waiter put on a new tape, an explosion of sound. Speech was out of the question. They smiled at each other. Eleanor appeared and shouted over the music, "What became of you? What are you doing here?" Regina leaned towards the young man and shouted, "Here's the author, Eleanor. You all use first names these days, right?" "Another cognac, one for you, too. Isn't this wonderful? Just completely unreal. Oh, and you all dance so beautifully. This new way of dancing is so right. You just move each person on his own. Like this." The waiter laughed. The young man put down his glass and bowed to Regina. "Here we go," she called out playfully in English. They stood and looked for a while and then May said, "Oh, she's making a scene, gyrating and carrying on. Eleanor, I don't feel well." They went down to the lady's room. "Funny," Eleanor said. "I write books for young people, and they don't know who I am, and I know nothing about them either." "Funny, isn't it?" May had taken a seat in one of the chintz chairs. "What time is it?" she said. "You don't write anymore." "Oh, I don't know. It stopped. I admire you, but anyway, listen. I can't go in that motorboat. I don't feel well." It was the cream. After a while, she said, "I detest Irish coffee. Have you got an aspirin?" "No, they're in my other purse." A young girl came in and went to the mirror. Eleanor asked if she had an aspirin. "Terribly sorry," the girl said, "but I'm afraid I don't." She looked at May and said, "Is it her heart?" May said, "Certainly not. There's nothing wrong with my heart. Anyway, I'm feeling better now." She went into one of the stalls and slammed the door behind her. On the stairs, she said, "Why should I have a problem with my heart? If someone wants an aspirin, it's because they've got a headache." "Oh, don't be angry," Eleanor said. "It was just the lighting."

Regina was sitting at the young people's table. She waved them over and called out, "Hi, come here. Guess what? Peter's grandmother and my father knew each other. It's a small world, isn't it?" "This is Eleanor, who's a writer, and this is May." The young people stood and greeted them. One of them brought two extra chairs. "Now, let's all go in for gin," Regina said, being playful in English again. "Eleanor, you're not in a bad mood, I hope. This is my friend Eric. He's just started at the university. What was it you were studying again?" "Humanities." "Oh, yes, humanities. The study of mankind. God, it's so lovely seeing nothing but pretty friendly faces." "Oh, you talk too much," Eleanor said. The waiter turned up the music. "Just look at these beautiful faces," Regina cried. "I haven't seen such beautiful faces since I was in Venice." The young people got up to dance as if on some common signal. The music was deafening, thudding without melody. They danced solemnly, unreachable. "They move with exquisite self-control. Like a ritual," Eleanor said. "What did you say?" Regina yelled. "I can't hear you in this racket." "A ritual?" Eleanor screamed. "Deadly serious. Priests and priestesses in the temple of OS. Do you hear what I'm saying? I don't know a thing about books for young people, and I want to pay the bill and go home." "What are you talking about?" May said. "Oh, now I'm feeling ill again." But no one heard what she said. Regina shouted that she didn't want to go home. She had made a connection with the young people and wanted to share. "Share what, for heaven's sake?" a weary Eleanor asked in Regina's ear. And Regina answered, "My experience? They listened to me." "I'm going to kill that waiter in his grin," said Eleanor. "Give us our bill. We're not friendly." He leaned over them, came so close it was hard to see what he looked like. "We can't stay," she said. "It's time for us to go." "I'll pay for myself," May shouted. "One for all and all for one."

They had turned out the lights in the main dining room and at the other end of the long verandah. Quick hands were stacking chairs, coming closer and closer, and now that it was dark, it was even more apparent that the fog had entered the room. "Dramatic," Eleanor said. The bill came almost at once. When they stood up, the music abruptly stopped. The young people were standing on the dance floor looking at them. For several moments, nothing happened, and the silence was absolute. "Thank you for a lovely evening," Regina said. "It's been wonderful." Suddenly, she was shy. "A terribly important contact." She spoke slowly with quiet dignity. "I'm certain that you've given my friend Eleanor many new ideas and your charming thoughtfulness has made a deep impression on me, on us. And now we want to give you our best wishes for long lives and the best of everything." The young man named Peter took several quick steps forward and kissed her hand.

All the way down the stairs, the music was silent. Only when they were walking across the lawn did it come back in all its uncontrollable but now distant vitality. Regina was crying. "Oh, wasn't it wonderful?" She said, "Wasn't that simply wonderful? It was like in Venice. Do you know what he said to me? He'd taken me back to my hotel, a scold little place, but I thought it was splendid. And his stomach was hurting him the whole time. And then he said, 'Dear sweet girl, if I'd been 30 years younger, our evening would have ended in a different way. Wasn't that too bad? You understand?' He was really having trouble with his stomach. 'And the next morning he sent roses. Dozens of roses. The first flowers anyone ever sent me.'" "I understand," Eleanor said. "But now you need to pull yourself together. The boat's coming." "Look," May cried. "There it comes. Isn't it like Shaon's fairy or something? You like similes." "By all means," Eleanor said. She was tired and in no mood for anyone's similes but her own.

The Doll's House. Alexander was an upholsterer of the old school. He was exceptionally skilled and he took a craftsman's natural pride in his work. He discussed commissions only with those customers who had taste and a feel for the beauty of materials and workmanship. Not wishing to show his contempt, he referred all the others to his employees. His workshop was old. It lay in a cellar down a flight of stairs from the pavement, but it was quite large. He was never short of work. Alexander himself took responsibility for ornamentation in the wood and for difficult upholstering. Simpler jobs he assigned to others. There were still some people who wanted handcrafted decoration. There weren't many, but they existed. They could be very particular about, say, the choice of wallpapers. Alexander gave them time. He conducted long, detailed discussions about the right background for period furniture. Occasionally he left the shop to attend auctions or to browse the best antique shops. And wherever he went, whether to buy or with his silence to reject, he was an honored guest. The most beautiful pieces found their way to his apartment, a place very few people had visited. It lay on a quiet street in the southern part of the city. For 20 years, Alexander had shared the apartment with his friend Eric, and both men had the same respect for the lovely objects that time and Alexander's insight had gathered around them.

Sometimes Alexander would sit and read while at work. He read the classics, the French and the German among others, but primarily the Russian, which enchanted him with their heavy patience. They gave him a sense of the inelectable constancy of things. With his thick eyebrows furrowed, and his short, powerful body expressing concentration and voluntary solitude, he read during working hours, and no one dared disturb him.

When Alexander retired, he sold his workshop judiciously, and after mature reflection. He took with him quite a number of product samples of various kinds, old-fashioned tassels and braiding, books of wallpapers and ornamentation. Most of it was quite dated, but it had a beauty few people could see. At about the same time, Eric retired from the bank. They put Alexander's samples in a cupboard and drank champagne to celebrate their new freedom. It was difficult in the beginning. They weren't used to spending their days together with nothing to do, and it all felt wrong. Eric's eyes ached from watching television, and Alexander was most interested in Russian films. They bought a stereo and listened their way gropingly through piles of cassettes and LPs that they had purchased, quite possibly because of an attractive jacket. Their friends, Yanni and Pekka, gave them tips, and they admired the music, but didn't like it, at least not enough that they longed to hear it. "Turn it off," Alexander said. "I can't read." But in fact, he didn't care about reading as much as he once had. Perhaps books had tantalized him only as a stolen luxury in the middle of a working day. "You're not turning the pages," Eric said. "Are you unhappy about something?" His voice was always the same. Low, gentle, thoughtful. His strong eyeglasses reflected the light and hid the expression in his eyes. "No," Alexander said. "I'm not unhappy. Leave it on if you want." "No," Eric said, "I don't think I do."

Eric did the cleaning. He polished the furniture, and every morning he ran his vacuum over the rugs. The mornings were best. They threw open all the windows, and while they drank their morning coffee and shared the newspaper, Eric planned lunch and dinner, sometimes asking Alexander for advice. Alexander would laugh and say, "You decide. Surprise me. I've never been disappointed." Eric went to the shop on the corner or to the covered market which was further away. Sometimes they'd have Yanni and Pekka for supper and play the stereo. But there were always the long days.

It was sometime in September that Alexander began to work on the doll's house. That is to say, he didn't know it would become a doll's house. He made a little oval table in mahogany with a carved base and then two Victorian chairs that he covered in red velvet. Eric said, "They're tiny and yet completely accurate. I don't understand how you do it." "But we don't know any children." "What do you mean?" Alexander said. "I mean, what are you going to do with them?" "I just made them," Alexander replied. "How about some coffee?" He made a cabinet with glass doors. He made an etagere with hand-carved knobs. The parlor table where he worked was covered with newspapers, and Eric vacuumed the rugs twice a day. Finally, they agreed that Alexander would move his toys out to the kitchen. Every morning, after coffee in the parlor, he went straight out to the kitchen and went to work. He made an upholstered sofa and a little bed of thin brass tubing with round knobs. There was a moment when he thought he'd let Eric make the mattress, but mattresses are precise and difficult things. Eric was all thumbs when it came to anything other than numbers and housekeeping. So Alexander said nothing and made the mattress himself. He made more and more furniture, more and more exquisite parlor furniture, kitchen furniture, verandah furniture, and finally old-fashioned furniture to store in the attic or hide away on a staircase. Alexander constructed all of it with the same loving care and attention. He made windows, French windows, attic windows, Corbelled gingerbread windows, stupid ordinary windows, every sort, and doors, complex or very simple doors, wild west doors, and classic Greek portals. Eric said, "I understand the furniture, but why are you making doors and windows? They don't lead anywhere. And why can't you clean up after yourself when you're done?" "That's an idea," Alexander said. "I've got an idea." And he left everything where it was and went into the parlor and turned on the stereo. "This is lovely music," he said. But he wasn't listening. "Turn it off," Eric cried. And Alexander turned it off and went on thinking. He was imagining a house, the ultimate house. But he'd make no blueprints. The house would be allowed to grow however it wished, organically, room by room. The natural thing would be to start with the cellar. Alexander gathered materials. He went out to an abandoned stonemasonry at the edge of town and collected pretty shards of stone for the foundation. He assembled lumber, aspen, bulser, and pine. And he filled the kitchen cabinets with bottles and jars containing various glues, paints, and solvents. He was more and more in the way. Eric said the kitchen was not a hobby room. It was impossible to run the house without space to work in, and he didn't want sawdust in the food. They agreed to divide the kitchen in two with a partition that reached almost to the ceiling. The window was on Eric's side, but Alexander bought some powerful lighting. He also managed to maneuver a workbench into his cubicle. The kitchen cabinet on his side had to be emptied, and all its china was piled on improvised shelves in the kitchen. Alexander spent a long time arranging his tools lovingly in the cabinet, each tool easy to reach in its own appropriate place. He built the cellar and began on a miniature woodworking shop. In the middle of the wall, dividing their kitchen, Alexander had built a little window, and from time to time he would look out and say, "Hi, what's for lunch?" Or Eric would look in and say, "What are you making now?" And Alexander would carefully place the world's smallest finishing plane in Eric's hand to be admired and remarked upon. When finished, the miniature wood shop was very small with a sloping roof. Alexander had built it with bleached wood and taken great pains to give it a window with dirty panes that were broken in just the right way. It had a tree stump for chopping wood and a workbench with tiny tools, each of them exact to the tiniest detail. He had never before felt such peace of mind. He liked the quiet. Sometimes the telephone would ring out in the apartment as if in another world. That was Yanni and Pekka on the phone. "We should have them to dinner sometime soon." "Yes, of course," Alexander answered. "As soon as I finished the woodshop." He sat up half of every night, having fun, never turning on the television. He ate too fast and went back to his cubby as quickly as he could. Eric bought new cassettes and turned up the volume louder and louder. When Alexander came into the bedroom at night, he was preoccupied and happy and fell asleep at once. Early in the morning, he was back at work. He took his coffee through the window. "But where are you?" Eric said. He pushed a cup of coffee and some sandwiches across the window sill. Alexander caught a glimpse of his troubled face and long nose, but his glasses turned his eyes to empty mirrors. "What did you say?" he asked. "Where are you? Where are you these days?" "On the second floor," Alexander said. "I'm up in the kitchen. The trapdoor in the floor is really a challenge. It has to meet the cellar stairs." "Of course," said Eric. "What do you mean? Of course, in that tone of voice." Eric was silent. Then he said it was nothing. "What does it look like?" "The trapdoor." Alexander showed him. The trapdoor was laid in the kitchen floor with miniature hinges while a thin chain prevented it from falling open. The stairway down to the cellar, meticulously mounted, disappeared in darkness. "It's lovely," Eric said. "Where did you get this doll's house idea?" "It's not a doll's house," Alexander said immediately. "It's a house. Who for?" "Just a house. Maybe for us. I'm building everything exactly the way I want it. I decide. The first and second stories are by the sea. Then comes the parlor. Where?" Alexander laughed a little. "Somewhere in Germany. The attic will be in Paris. We'll see." Eric looked into the kitchen. "Oh, it has a wood stove." "Of course, it's prettier." "Good lord," Eric said. "I can't imagine cooking on a wood stove. It's impossible. Not when you're used to a modern kitchen." "Oh, you'll get used to it," Alexander said. He never swept his workshop. Wood curls and sawdust and stone dust lay like a thick fur rug on the floor, and he liked standing in this soft soil his work had created, and letting it grow thicker and deeper around him. He trailed it over the rest of the apartment, and Eric had to vacuum several times a day.

When the kitchen ceiling was finished, Alexander began thinking about electric lights. The house should definitely have electricity. He bought materials, thin copper wire, fixtures, and flashlight batteries, and spent a lot of time wiring the first and second stories. It was not a success. He had to remove the wiring in the kitchen ceiling, and he damaged the stairs in the process. Eric thought the house could be lit just as well from the outside. "Out of the question," Alexander said. "This house has to glow. It has to live from the inside. Don't you see? We're there inside and other people walk by outside." But these batteries aren't worth a damn or else there's something wrong with the wiring. In the end, he called Yanni. Yanni had an electrician friend called Boy. Boy came and had a look. "You've got to get rid of all this junk," he said. "It's never going to work. You're going to need a transformer on the bottom floor." He explained in detail. They were absorbed in their electrical discussions all evening and went on planning during supper. "This will be a piece of cake," Boy said. "You haven't got a clue, but I'll teach you. I'll get it working. But you're going to have to take up that middle floor again 'cause of the wiring. You're a wonderful carpenter, but you don't know a damn thing about electricity." Boy came back almost every evening. He often brought little table lamps, sconces, or a chandelier that he'd found in some hobby shop or toy store. He came straight from work in his jeans and trailed street dirt over the rugs, but Alexander didn't seem to notice. He just admired whatever Boy had brought with him and listened gravely to his suggestions about improvements to the house. "You should realize," Boy said, "that this house is going to be famous. But whatever you build, it's the lighting that's going to make it sing. Believe me." Boy was a little skinny fellow. He looked and moved a bit like a squirrel. He laughed often, showing his gums all the way to the roof of his mouth, and he clapped them both chumily on the back. Eric detested being clapped on the back, especially by such a small man wearing boots with high heels. When Boy came, the three of them would sit in the parlor and talk for a while about whatever, about nothing, the way people do when they're ready to leave, but want to round things off to be polite. And then Alexander would stand up and say, "Maybe they should get started." And he'd go into his little cubby hole with Boy. The tone of their voices changed, grew quieter and calmer, and the pauses grew longer. They stood and