Lost in the Funhouse (3 page)

“Listen: my friend maintained that in every order of creation there are two sorts of creators, contrary yet complementary, one of which gives rise to seas and swimmers, the other to the Night-which-contains-the-sea and to What-waits-at-the-journey’s-end: the former, in short, to destiny, the latter to destination (and both profligately, involuntarily, perhaps indifferently or unwittingly). The ‘purpose’ of the night-sea journey—but not necessarily of the journeyer or of either Maker!—my friend could describe only in abstractions:
consummation, transfiguration, union of contraries, transcension of categories.
When we laughed, he would shrug and admit that he understood the business no better than we, and thought it ridiculous, dreary, possibly obscene. ‘But one of you,’ he’d add with his wry smile, ‘may be the Hero destined to complete the night-sea journey and be one with Her. Chances are, of course, you won’t make it.’ He himself, he declared, was not even going to try; the whole idea repelled him; if we chose to dismiss it as an ugly fiction, so much the better for us; thrash, splash, and be merry, we were soon enough drowned. But there it was, he could not say how he knew or why he bothered to tell us, any more than he could say what would happen after She and Hero, Shore and Swimmer, ‘merged identities’ to become something both and neither. He quite agreed with me that if the issue of that magical union had no memory of the night-sea journey, for example, it enjoyed a poor sort of immortality; even poorer if, as he rather imagined, a swimmer-hero plus a She equaled or became merely another Maker of future night-seas and the rest, at such incredible expense of life. This being the case—he was persuaded it was—the merciful thing to do was refuse to participate; the genuine heroes, in his opinion, were the suicides, and the hero of heroes would be the swimmer who, in the very presence of the Other, refused Her proffered ‘immortality’ and thus put an end to at least one cycle of catastrophes.

“How we mocked him! Our moment came, we hurtled forth, pretending to glory in the adventure, thrashing, singing, cursing,
strangling, rationalizing, rescuing, killing, inventing rules and stories and relationships, giving up, struggling on, but dying all, and still in darkness, until only a battered remnant was left to croak ‘Onward, upward,’ like a bitter echo. Then they too fell silent—victims, I can only presume, of the last frightful wave—and the moment came when I also, utterly desolate and spent, thrashed my last and gave myself over to the current, to sink or float as might be, but swim no more. Whereupon, marvelous to tell, in an instant the sea grew still! Then warmly, gently, the great tide turned, began to bear me, as it does now, onward and upward will-I nill-I, like a flood of joy—and I recalled with dismay my dead friend’s teaching.

“I am not deceived. This new emotion is Her doing; the desire that possesses me is Her bewitchment. Lucidity passes from me; in a moment I’ll cry ‘Love!’ bury myself in Her side, and be ‘transfigured.’ Which is to say, I die already; this fellow transported by passion is not I;
I am he who abjures and rejects the night-sea journey!
I.…

“I am all love. ‘Come!’ She whispers, and I have no will.

“You who I may be about to become, whatever You are: with the last twitch of my real self I beg You to listen. It is
not
love that sustains me! No; though Her magic makes me burn to sing the contrary, and though I drown even now for the blasphemy, I will say truth. What has fetched me across this dreadful sea is a single hope, gift of my poor dead comrade: that You may be stronger-willed than I, and that by sheer force of concentration I may transmit to You, along with Your official Heritage, a private legacy of awful recollection and negative resolve. Mad as it may be, my dream is that some unimaginable embodiment of myself (or myself plus Her if that’s how it must be) will come to find itself expressing, in however garbled or radical a translation, some reflection of these reflections. If against all odds this comes to pass, may You to whom, through whom I speak, do what I cannot: terminate this aimless, brutal business! Stop Your hearing against Her song! Hate love!

“Still alive, afloat, afire. Farewell then my penultimate hope: that one may be sunk for direst blasphemy on the very shore of the Shore. Can it be (my old friend would smile) that only utterest nay-sayers survive the night? But even that were Sense, and there is no sense, only senseless love, senseless death. Whoever echoes these reflections: be more courageous than their author! An end to night-sea journeys! Make no more! And forswear me when I shall forswear myself, deny myself, plunge into Her who summons, singing …

“ ‘Love! Love! Love!’ ”

Owing to the hectic circumstances of my birth, for some months I had no proper name. Mother had seen Garbo in
Anna Christie
at the Dorset Opera House during her pregnancy and come to hope for a daughter, to be named by some logic Christine in honor of that lady. When I was brought home, after Father’s commitment to the Eastern Shore Asylum, she made no mention of a name nor showed any interest in selecting one, and the family were too concerned for her well-being to press the matter. She grew froward—by turns high-spirited and listless, voluble and dumb, doting and cynical. Some days she would permit no hands but hers to touch me, would haul me about from room to room, crooning and nuzzling: a photograph made by Uncle Karl on such a day shows her posed before our Concord vines, her pretty head thrown back, scarfed and ear-ringed like a gypsy; her eyes are closed, her mouth laughs gaily behind her cigarette; one hand holds a cup of coffee, the other steadies a scowling infant on her hip. Other times she would have none of me, or even suffer me in her sight. About my feeding there was ever some unease: if I cried, say, when the family was at table, forks would pause and eyes turn furtively to Andrea. For in one humor she would fetch out her breast in any company and feed me while she smoked
or strolled the garden—nor nurse me quietly at that, but demand of Aunt Rosa whether I hadn’t Hector’s eyes.…

“
Ja
, well.”

“And Poppa Tom’s appetite. Look, Konrad, how he wolfs it. There’s a man for you.”

Grandfather openly relished these performances; he chuckled at the mentions of himself, teased Uncle Konrad for averting his eyes, and never turned his own from my refections.

“Now there is Beauty’s picture,
nicht wahr
, Konrad? Mother and child.”

But his entertainment was not assured: just as often Andrea would say, “Lord, there goes Christine again. Stick something in his mouth, Rosie, would you?” or merely sigh—a rueful expiration that still blows fitful as her ghost through my memory—and say nothing, but let Aunt Rosa (always nervously at hand) prepare and administer my bottle, not even troubling to make her kindless joke about the grand unsuckled bosoms of that lady.

To Rosa I was
Honig;
Mother too, when “Christine” seemed unfunny, called me thus, and in the absence of anything official,
Honey
soon lost the quality of endearment and took the neutral function of a proper name. Uncle Konrad privately held out for
Hector
, but no one ventured to bring up her husband’s name in Mother’s presence. Uncle Karl was not in town to offer an opinion. Aunt Rosa believed that calling me
Thomas
might improve relations between Grandfather and his youngest son; but though he’d made no secret of his desire to have my older brother be his namesake, and his grievance at the choice of
Peter
, Grandfather displayed no more interest than did Andrea in naming me. Rosa attributed his indifference to bruised pride; in any case, given Mother’s attitude, the question of my nomination was academic. Baptism was delayed, postponed, anon forgot.

Only once did Mother allude to my namelessness, some two or three months after my birth. I was lying in Aunt Rosa’s lap, drinking from a bottle; dinner was just done; the family lingered
over coffee. Suddenly Andrea, on one of her impulses, cried “Give him here, Rose!” and snatched me up. I made a great commotion.

“Now, you frightened it,” Rosa chided.

Andrea ignored her. “ ’E doesn’t want Rosie’s old bottle, does Christine.”

Her croon failed to console me. “Hold him till I unbutton,” she said—not to Rosa but to Uncle Konrad. Her motives, doubtless, were the usual: to make Aunt Rosa envious, amuse Grandfather, and mortify Uncle Konrad, who could not now readily look away. She undid her peignoir, casually bemoaning her abundance of milk: it was making her clothes a sight, it was hurting her besides, she must nurse me more regularly. She did not at once retrieve me but with such chatter as this bent forward, cupped her breast, invited me to drink the sweet pap already beading and spreading under her fingers. Uncle Konrad, it was agreed, at no time before or after turned so crimson.

“Here’s what the Honey wants,” Andrea said, relieving him finally of his charge. To the company in general she declared, “It does feel good, you know: there’s a nerve or something runs from here right to you-know-where.”

“Schämt euch!”
Aunt Rosa cried.

“
Ja
sure,” Grandfather said merrily. “You named it!”

“No, really, she knows as well as I do what it’s like. Doesn’t she, Christine. Sure Mother likes to feed her little mannie, look how he grabs, poor darling.…” Here she was taken unexpectedly with grief; pressed me fiercely to her, drew the peignoir about us; her tears warmed my forehead and her breast. “Who will he ever be, Konrad? Little orphan of the storm, who is he now?”

“Ah! Ah!” Rosa rushed to hug her. Grandfather drew and sucked upon his meerschaum, which however had gone dead out.

“Keep up like you have been,” Konrad said stiffiy; “soon he’ll be old enough to pick his own name.” My uncle taught fifth grade at East Dorset School, of which Hector had been principal
until his commitment, and in summers was a vendor of encyclopedias and tuner of pianos. To see things in their larger context was his gentle aim; to harmonize part with part, time with time; and he never withheld from us what he deemed germane or helpful. The American Indians, he declared now, had the right idea. “They never named a boy right off. What they did, they watched to find out who he was. They’d look for the right sign to tell them what to call him.”

Grandfather scratched a kitchen match on his thumbnail and relit his pipe.

“There’s sense in that,” Uncle Konrad persevered. “How can you tell what name’ll suit a person when you don’t know him yet?”

Ordinarily Rosa was his audience; preoccupied now with Andrea, she did not respond.

“There’s some name their kids for what they want them to be. A brave hunter, et cetera.”

“Or a movie star,” Mother offered, permitting Rosa to wipe her eyes.

“Same principle exactly,” Konrad affirmed, and was grateful enough to add in her behalf, despite his late embarrassment: “It’s an important thing, naming a child. If I had a boy, I’d be a good long time about it.”

“
Ach,
” Grandfather said. “You said that right.”

Andrea sniffed sympathy but did not reply, and so Uncle Konrad enlarged no further. Too bad for Grandfather his restlessness moved him from the table, for by this time my mother was herself sufficiently to turn back the veil she’d drawn about us.

“Well,” she sighed to me. “You’ve caused the devil’s mischief so far. Your daddy in the crazy-house; people saying Lord knows what about your mother.”

“Thank Almighty God you got him,” Aunt Rosa said. “And born perfect only for his little mark. Look how wide and clear his eyes!”

Uncle Konrad unbent so far as to pat my head while I
nursed, a boldness without known precedent in his biography. “That’s a sign of brains,” he declared. “This boy could be our pride and saving.”

Mother’s laugh took on a rougher note. But she caressed my cheek with her knuckle, and I nursed on. Her temper was gay and fond now; yet her breast still glistened with the tears of a minute past. Not just that once was what I drank from her thus salted.

Grandfather would have no whisky or other distillation in the house, but drank grandly of wines and beers which he made himself in the whitewashed sheds behind the summerkitchen. His yeast and earliest grapestock were German, imported for him by the several families he’d brought to the county. The vines never flourished: anon they fell victim to anthracnose and phylloxera and were replaced by our native Delawares, Nortons, Lenoirs; but the yeast—an ancient culture from Sachsen-Altenburg—throve with undiminished vigor in our cellar. With it he would brew dark Bavarian lager, pellucid Weiss, and his cherished Dortmund, pale gold and strongly hopped. Yet vinting was his forte, even Hector agreed. What he drew from the red and white grapes was splendid enough, but in this pursuit as in some others he inclined to variety and experiment: without saccharimeter or any other aid than a Rhenish intuition, he filled his crocks as the whim took him with anything fermentable—rice, cherries, dandelions, elderberries, rose petals, raisins, coconut—and casked unfailingly a decent wine.

Now it was Uncle Konrad’s pleasure to recite things on occasion to the family, and in 1929, hearing by this means verses of Macpherson’s Ossian, Grandfather had been inspired with a particular hankering for mead. From a farmer whose payments on a footstone were in arrears, he accepted in lieu of cash a quantity of honey, and his fermentation was an entire success. The craving got hold of him, he yearned to crush walnuts in the golden wort—but honey was dear, and dollars, never plentiful in the family, there were none for such expenditure.
The stock market had fallen, the tomato-canners were on strike, hard times were upon the nation; if funerals were a necessity, gravestones were not; Uncle Karl, Grandfather’s right-hand man, had left town two years past to lay bricks in Baltimore; our business had seldom been poorer.

“There is a trick for finding bee-trees,” Grandfather asserted. One exposed a pan of sugar-water in the woods, waited until a number of honeybees assembled at it, and trapped them by covering the pan with cheesecloth. One then released a single bee and followed it, pan in hand, till it was lost from sight, whereupon one released another bee, and another, and another, and was fetched at length to their common home. It remained then only to smoke out the colony and help oneself to their reserves of honey. All that winter, as I grew in Mother’s womb, Grandfather fretted with his scheme; when the spring’s first bees appeared on our pussywillows, on our alder catkins, he was off with Hector and Konrad, saucepan and cheesecloth. Their researches led them through fresh-marsh, through pinewoods, over stile and under trestle—but never a bee-tree they discovered, only swampy impasses or the hives of some part-time apiarist.