Landscape With Traveler (11 page)

 

53

I

Feel

Happy

Anyhow, I feel happy. Tranquillity and all! Happiness and sadness, not being opposites, can coexist.
Un
happiness is the opposite of happiness, and though I'm often sad, I'm not unhappy, of that I am quite seriously convinced, so pay attention! All the sadness in the world brought on by the sight of those poor people and other things I see every day on the street and in the subway can't possibly cancel out the happiness that having a friend like Jim gives me. I've not felt this close to anyone as far as I can remember, even lovers, as they're called. I'm getting impatient for his visit.

 

54

Jim's

Visit

Jim's visit was lovely. He's so much calmer now, so at ease since the last time he was here, when he was in such a state of confusion. He appears to be quite happily settled in again with Jean and the kids, and next time he promises to bring them along, though it is quite an expense. We shall see.

Last Saturday there was a terrific ruckus in the hallway, just as I was sitting down to eat, so I went to see what it was all about. It sounded as if someone was trying to kick down a door, and the impression was correct. I leaned over the bannister to see what was going on and heard someone shouting, “Open the door, you fucking bitch!” (
KICK KICK KICK
)
“Come on, open up, you fucking whore!” (
KICK KICK KICK
) Turned out the mousey little fellow in the middle apartment (whom I'd always considered gay, but I was wrong) and his girl had smelled smoke, looked out the window to see the girl in the front apartment (a probation officer, incidentally) had lit a charcoal grille on the fire escape to cook some steaks, and he (the mouse) had decided it was dangerous and likely to set the building on fire so wanted her to put it out, but she wouldn't answer the door to talk to him.

However, she and her own boyfriend finally came to the door, naked and mad, and it was obvious why they'd not wanted to bother with neighbors at that precise moment. By this time half of the apartment building was watching, and just then the superintendent arrived on the scene, and soon everyone was yelling. Before we knew it there was a terrific fight between Mouse and the boyfriend (who, unfortunately for me, had by this time betrousered himself). Mouse's girl was soon hysterical, screaming, “Oh, Ronnie! Oh, Ronnie! Oh, no!” And the probation officer girl was quietly saying, “I'm really very sorry. I'm terribly sorry.” And the fight continued. Then one of the lookers-on jumped into the middle of it all, trying to make them stop, and himself—he being a fair-sized fellow I'd not seen before—being pummeled severely. So then the super joined in the fray, hitting the probation officer's boyfriend on the head with his fake arm, kicking Mouse with his lame leg (he being a World War II veteran), and pushing the boyfriend back into the girl's apartment. Finally the little opera was closed, with the probation officer quietly saying she was most awfully sorry as she closed her door. The charcoal glowed invitingly on the fire escape until about
2
a.m.

Then the next night, after I'd finished studying my Greek and twanging my guitar, when I went over to close the window before going into the bedroom to sleep, what do I see but two lovely young fellows mother-naked standing by their window in the building across the street drying their hair. So I naturally looked at them. Soon they lit up a pipe of dope, got high, and lolled about, talking and being beauteous till they finally decided to dress and go out.

I was so surprised that I was surprised at myself. I always hear of people being city voyeurs, but had never seen even an ugly person with no clothes on, much less two handsome ones at the same time! And the same thing happened last night. Finished twanging and conjugating, shut the window, and there they were again. Same program. What next?

 

55

A

Quiet

Moment

A
quiet moment on a beautiful sunny Sunday. I'm tired of typing opera libretti for the moment (a small job I'm doing for a friend) and will sit for a while and gaze down on the blossomy cherry trees in the park by the river. Such a contrast to yesterday, when I dashed out in the pouring rain to give a Greek lady friend who's going to Athens in a few days some baubles to take to Ada.

Ada was very disappointed about my not being able to get to Greece this summer and expects me without fail next year. But who knows? There have been times these past few months when I've hoped I wouldn't even be alive next year! Funny how a certain focus of assorted difficulties every now and then can get one down, whereas the same things sometimes don't really affect one at all at other times. But even at my worst, I don't seem to be suicidal.

 

56

Summer

Has

Finally

Come

Summer has finally come, hot and muggy, but welcome. I'm reading
Céline
for the first time—
Voyage au bout de la nuit
—and liking him immensely. So far (midway through) a perfect book of its kind, from every point of view, and
très fran
ç
ais!!
The French are the only people I know whom it's possible to love and cordially detest at the same time.

Also took a quick and rapturous trip through Mary Renault's
Last of the Wine
again, another perfect little opus. I know of no other example (except perhaps—in a cooler way—Marguerite Yourcenar's
Memoirs of Hadrian)
of such a well-woven web of imagination based on a few known facts.

The other night there was a huge, magnificent thunderstorm, with theatrical blasts of lightning all up and down the river. I sat in the dark and listened to Mahler and reveled in it!

And today I came across a little book of poems I wrote ten or twelve years ago and which I was certain I had thrown out. That was the last time I felt, as Isherwood says, “the need to versify,” and I was amused to read them. One I still like:

Optical Illusion

Sitting up

In his bed

I saw the morning.

About me and Ilya, of course.

 

57

I

Was

Delighted

I was delighted today to have at last a “real” letter from Jim, this after a several-week spate of postcards only, or nothing at all. I don't know why I should panic so when I don't hear from him. After all, he is certainly busier than I, what with his writing, being a husband and father, friend to his friends, brother to his brother and sister, son to his mother, and God knows what else!

But I'm no less selfish than anyone else, so naturally want Jim to spend every possible moment writing to me! I really do look forward to
any
communication from him. That he seems to like me so much is wonderful to me. I'm not sure I do realize how much I mean to him, or that he in turn realizes the reverse. I find it hard to believe that someone loves me, or even says that they do—not just Jim, but anyone. It's not that I really believe myself unworthy of being loved, but just that it's hard to believe that anyone takes the trouble these days to stop and consider another person long enough to love him. Perhaps I'm living not only in the wrong age but in the wrong city for love. Perhaps I don't, after all, know what I'm talking about!

 

58

Ada

Has

Written

That

All

Is

Mostly

Well

Ada has written that all is mostly well in Athens, except for some trouble brewing with her young cousin and his jealous wife. As far as I know, Stavros, the cousin, is not the unfaithful-husband sort at all—being therefore an atypical Greek male—but somehow his wife (a Roman) has become jealous and possessive, to the point of going to the gym with him while he worked out, preventing him from visiting his mother, etc., etc. The poor guy finally gave up going to the gym and started running in the neighborhood early in the morning along the seashore, but his wife just put their baby daughter in the car and followed alongside!

Poor both of them. Whether her jealousy is founded or unfounded, she must be suffering awfully. More so if unfounded, probably, since she can't focus it on anything. And as for Stavros, one can only imagine how he must feel (assuming, as I do, that he's innocent). Soon she'll drive him either mad or certainly to a mistress.

My jealousy over Ilya was one of the most shattering experiences I've ever had. Cancer is benign by comparison! Well, perhaps I exaggerate—maybe it was no more shattering than being born. Now I can look back and take valuable lessons from it—about myself, about relationships with other people, about love, freedom, unselfishness, egotism, the works, but mostly about love—that is, passion gets jealous; love never does. So I guess it was valuable, too—but what a price! I say now that I'll never let it happen again, and I hope I'm right. I have a great faith in love and honesty and believe they can win out, if the situation ever arises again, over jealousy—my own or someone else's. But what a gloomy topic!

 

59

Old

Photographs

It's quite curious to look at old photographs, as I've been doing lately, sorting through boxes of them I haven't seen since childhood. It's difficult to remember the times when they were taken, and since almost all of the photographs are of me, rather impossible to imagine just what I was like when they were taken.

It's sad in a way, but really more puzzling than sad, I guess. And interesting to feel one's mortality so acutely—and eternity at the same time, as I suppose I feel no different now than when I was a “sweet, innocent” child. I end up feeling rather sorry for my father, as he would certainly have wanted me to be anything but what I turned out to be, and since he can't accept me as I am. Nothing bad, or so I think, but just something beyond his understanding. Though I guess it's presumptuous of me to think I can know how he feels about it, especially in view of our long-standing lack of communication. Strange, too, that I value a couple of photos of writers that I've never met over any that I have of my family. I just wonder how that can be.

I recall well my cousin Will in San Antonio, a fellow I've always loved dearly, who looked upon me lovingly, perhaps, but with at best an awed respect and at worst a sort of impatient, or even slightly contemptuous tolerance, finding that I saw things in a strange and, to him, irrelevant way, though at the same time a little envious of my independence and what he saw as the “glamour” of my life, feeling a bit shy with me.

How I project! Though I firmly believe that innocence
can
survive the light of knowledge, if there is enough of that light.

 

60

Intellectuals

How blind “intellectuals” can be—such as people who are horrified at one having a great number of possessions. One would think they'd realize that attachment to the idea of nonpossession is as bad as attachment to possessions themselves—and that “attachment” is the key word, not “possessions.”

I went briefly through such a phase, as have most people, I'm sure, and realized finally—rather quickly—that it's nonattachment that counts (as in all the religious and philosophical preachings—Eastern or Western). So I've long since relaxed with my possessions, which are a bother only when I have to dust them or make room for more, which is, incidentally, the only time I notice their existence.

 

61

Ignorance

Ignorance is the only thing that rejects. It also is a great poseur and makes pronouncements (as I seem to be doing!) and has firm pretensions. Most un-Socratic. I know all this firsthand. Some people get into a youthful habit of condemning and sneering (natural in one's insecure youth), which becomes a character trait, quite unshakable, if they don't see just a little bit of light before, say, the age of twenty-five or thirty. I did see a little bit of light, mostly due to considerations of other people's misunderstanding of me, and it more or less saved me from falling into that particular idiocy. Or so I like to think. Though now I come to think of it, maybe enlightenment also rejects. I'm not ignorant, but I reject many things.

Nothing irritates me more than people who read books or go to the theater or opera or ballet only in order to pick out what they call faults. My first reaction is still (I'm ashamed to say) to give them a boot in the ass, though I know kissing them very sweetly on it would likely do more good. How did the ass, such a pretty thing, actually, get to be almost nothing but the object of kicks? A nice lady said to me one time not long ago that something or other “sucks,” and I, smartass that I am, told her I hoped, for her husband's sake
and
her own, that she did too. Fancy
not
sucking. It's like never having eaten fresh caviar! Just imagine! Ah, language!