chapter Nine
The next morning, Henry left early for his music lesson. Events conspired to improve his mood. First, his clarinet teacher surprised him with a gift.
"I can't accept this," Henry said.
"What are you talking about? It's from a good friend, an old student. He hasn't used it for a century. He wanted to get rid of it. I got it for practically nothing. What's the point of the thing never being used?"
"I'd like to pay you for it."
"Never! Over my dead body. You'll pay me by playing it beautifully."
Henry was holding in his hands the loveliest Albert system clarinet.
"And I think you're ready to try some Brandwein," his teacher added. "We'll start today."
Maybe my heavy black ox is starting to take off, Henry thought. He was playing all the time, after all. Two tricks helped him. The first was to devote a corner of his apartment exclusively to music playing, with the stand set up, the sheet music in order, the clarinet clean, and a cup in place in which to soak his reeds in warm water. The second was to practice often, but only in short bursts, no more than fifteen minutes. He usually practiced just before a commitment he couldn't miss. That way, if he played well, he stopped regretfully and eager to come back to it, and if he played poorly, he was forced to give up before dejection and exasperation had him wanting to throw the clarinet out the window. With this arrangement, he was practicing three, four times a day.
He had two faithful spectators: Mendelssohn, who was patiently fascinated in the way only cats can be, and the monkey skull, which he had set on the chimney mantel nearby. Their round eyes, the cat's and the skull's, were always on him when he played. Erasmus, the Philistine, would whine and howl, so Henry had to lock him in another room, usually with Sarah.
The weather also soothed Henry. It was a Sunday that was gloriously living up to its pagan name, a bold rebel burst of warm weather that announced the impending vanquishing of winter. Music was escaping from doors and windows that at long last could be left open, and everyone in the city was parading in the streets. Henry arrived early at the cafe to have a light lunch before his appointment with the taxidermist. A smart thing too, as the place was packed. He got a table right next to the wall, one chair in the sun, one in the shade. He had Erasmus as usual, but he didn't have his normal zip. The dog lay quietly in the shade of the table.
The taxidermist arrived exactly at two, as punctual as a soldier.
"Sunlight, warm wonderful sunlight!" Henry said expansively, his arms open wide.
"Yes," was the taxidermist's full reply.
"Which seat would you like?" Henry asked, rising a little to indicate that he was willing to move.
The taxidermist took the free seat, the one in the shade, without saying a word. Henry settled back. Outside of the confines of his store, the taxidermist looked out of place. He was overdressed considering the warm weather. When the waiter came over, Henry noticed that he addressed the question "What can I get you?" only to him and not to the taxidermist. And the taxidermist wasn't looking at the waiter, either. Henry ordered a latte with a poppy seed pastry.
"And you?" Henry asked.
"I'll have a black coffee," the taxidermist said, staring at the tabletop.
The waiter left without saying a word.
Whether it had started with him not liking them or them not liking him, it was clear that by now the dislike was mutual. It was not hard to imagine that if there was a street association, the fancy bridal store owner, the natty jeweller, the sophisticated restaurateur, the hip cafe owner and the others would stand on one side of issues, while the old taxidermist, the man who had trucks bringing him the carcasses of dead animals, the man who never smiled or laughed, would stand on the other side. Henry didn't know what the issues were, but there would be issues, that was for sure. Sundays, rainy days, every day, politics gets into everything.
"How are you?"
"Fine."
Henry took a breath and put a firm lid on his high spirits. He would get only monosyllables out of the man if he didn't play it his way. One thing was certain: he wasn't going to mention the previous day's awkward visit with his wife.
"I was thinking," said Henry. "You describe Virgil in your play. You also need to describe Beatrice."
"I do."
"I was thinking that because I saw a donkey a few days ago."
"Where did you see a donkey?"
"At the zoo. I went on my own."
The taxidermist nodded, though without much interest.
"I thought of you when I saw it," Henry continued. "I had a good look at it. You know what I noticed?"
"What?" From the inside breast pocket of his coat, the taxidermist pulled out a pen and a notepad.
"I noticed that a donkey has an appealing terrestrial solidity--it's a good, solid animal--yet its limbs are surprisingly slim. It's as firmly yet lithely connected to the earth as a birch tree. And such lovely, round, compact hooves. And the legs tuck directly under the animal when it's standing still. When it's walking, the stride is dainty and short-stepped. The proportions of the head--the slim ears, the dark eyes, the nose, the mouth, the length of the snout--are very satisfying. The lips are strong and agile. The crunching and grinding sound a donkey makes when it's eating is very soothing to listen to. And its braying is as frank and tragic as a sob."
"That's all very true," the taxidermist said, jotting things down in his notepad.
"Some have a cross in their hair along the back and across the shoulders, exactly like a Christian cross."
"Yes. Coincidence." The taxidermist did not write that detail down.
"So what do they do, Beatrice and Virgil?"
"What do you mean?"
"What do they do in the play? What happens?"
"They talk."
"About what?"
"About many things. I have a scene with me right here. It takes place after they've gone off to look for food and each is afraid of having lost the other. Just after Beatrice goes off to find Virgil, Virgil comes back."
He looked around warily at the other tables. No one was paying them any attention. The taxidermist pulled out of his breast pocket some folded sheets. Henry thought he was finally going to have something to read. Instead, the taxidermist unfolded them in front of his face, leaned forward in his seat and cleared his throat. Even here, in public, he was going to read aloud. What a control freak, Henry thought, exasperated. The taxidermist started in a low voice:
"Virgil always has a sore back. And Beatrice always has a sore neck," the taxidermist informed Henry. "It's the stress. And she has a limp. The limp is explained later."
The waiter approached their table. The taxidermist stopped reading and held his papers under the table. The waiter placed their coffees and Henry's pastry on the table.
"There you go," said the waiter.
"Thank you."
Henry realized that he had forgotten to ask for two forks. He took the single fork that the waiter had brought and cut the pastry into several pieces. He placed the fork on the taxidermist's side of the plate. He would use his coffee spoon instead.
"Help yourself," Henry said.
The taxidermist shook his head. He brought the play back above the table.
"'Those criminals...'" Henry repeated. The taxidermist nodded and continued:
Henry was struck by the irony of the timing. Just as coffee and cake were delivered to them, Virgil and Beatrice mourn their absence. And earlier Beatrice had said how the sun had gone, leaving them without faith, and here they were basking in the sun. It also struck him how naked and alive Virgil and Beatrice were, so much more revealing of themselves than their author.
"They have conversations like that at first," the taxidermist said. "A mixture of passing the time and figuring out what they should do next."
"I like the jokes being whispered. That's good."
"They also speak on their own at times. Soliloquies. Beatrice can still manage restful sleep, even whole nights, and with dreams too. Virgil, however, is a poor sleeper. He always has the same dream: a noise--a boring--that slowly gets louder until he wakes up with a gasp, his eyes popping open like burst balloons, as he puts it. He jokes that he's always dreaming about termites. It's the anxiety."
"Why is Virgil so anxious?"
"Because he's a howler monkey in a world that doesn't want howler monkeys."
Henry nodded.
The taxidermist continued. "When Beatrice is sleeping, Virgil sometimes talks to himself. In the middle of their first night next to the tree, he wakes up and talks about a book called Jacques the Fatalist and His Master."
"Yes, by Denis Diderot," Henry said. A French classic from the eighteenth century. He'd read it long ago.
"I didn't understand it at all," the taxidermist said.
Henry tried to remember the novel. Jacques and his master travel around on their horses, talking about this, that and the other. They tell stories, but are constantly interrupted by events. Jacques is presumably a fatalist and his master is not, though Henry couldn't vouch for it from memory, only assumed so from the title. He couldn't recall having especially "understood" the novel. He remembered only the Gallic lightness and the modern, comic feel of it, a bit like Beckett on horseback.
"Why do you make reference in your play to a novel you didn't understand?" Henry asked.
The taxidermist replied, "I'm not bothered by that fact. I use it because there's an element in it I found useful. Jacques and his master have a discussion on the various injuries a body can suffer and the pain that goes with each. Jacques strongly argues that a knee injury is the champion of hideous, unbearable pains. Virgil can't remember if the example Jacques gives is of falling from a horse and hitting one's knee against a sharp rock or of receiving a musket shot in it. Whatever the case, it convinced Virgil when he read the book. But now, during his soliloquy, he mulls over the measuring and comparing of physical pains. He grants that the kind of knee pain described by Jacques would be blinding, but it would also be a jolt, short and powerful at the moment of impact, but then greatly reduced. How does that compare with the grinding, hindering pain of a bad back? A knee is small, locally linked and comparatively easy not to use. 'To put one's feet up and relax'--the pleasure of not using one's knees is even celebrated in a cliche. But the back is a real railway hub, connected to everything, demands constantly made upon it. And what about the pain of thirst and hunger? Or that entirely different kind of pain, the one that injures no particular organ yet kills the spirit that links them? At this point, Virgil starts to weep but he stops himself so that he doesn't wake Beatrice. This is one soliloquy he has during the play."
"I see."
"He has another one that morning, while Beatrice is still sleeping. Virgil remembers how their miseries started. Started in his mind, that is, the moment when he realized what was happening to them. He acts it out. He's reading his morning paper at his favourite cafe and his eyes are drawn to one of the headlines. The headline announces a government edict concerning new categories of citizens--or rather, as the article makes clear, a category of citizens and a new category of non -citizens. Virgil reads with increasing astonishment as he realizes that he--he himself personally, in all his specific details, this monkey sitting in a cafe reading a paper, such an ordinary thing--is the exact and intended target."
Henry took mental note: a government edict excluding Virgil. He didn't want to interrupt the taxidermist, who was becoming quite animated. A customer or two glanced over casually. But it was the waiter returning to their table that had an effect on the taxidermist. He brought his hands into his lap and looked down.
"Do you need any help?" the waiter asked Henry. He corrected himself: "Can I get you anything else?"
"No, I'm fine, thank you. Would you like a refill?"
The taxidermist said nothing, only shook his head slightly. He seemed to be pretending he wasn't there.
"I'll just have the bill, please."
"Yes, of course."