Текст книги "The Exquisite"

Автор книги: Laird Hunt

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 13 (всего у книги 14 страниц)

TWENTY-EIGHT

Nothing ever happens the way you say it does – we can agree on that, right? I mean something happens to you and then you tell it and you’ve just told something different from the something that happened and that’s what people hear and they say, oh, that “monstrous, miscomprehending, appearance-believing” creep. Or that’s what you hear. You tell it to yourself. You go to the store and you buy a pound of flour and some crackers and then you say to yourself, even if only casually, I went to the store and I bought a pound of flour and some cookies, I’m hungry, maybe I’ll have one, despite the fact that I’m a “monstrous, miscomprehending, appearance-believing” creep. So a cracker is not a cookie, even if for some people it might be an adequate substitute. However, I am not one of those people and I don’t particularly like crackers, I have no idea why I would buy them. And the flour, that’s also a mystery. Why a pound of flour? To make cookies? My favorites are peanut butter and peanut butter chocolate chip. My god I used to love the way Carine would put on her French accent and say chocolate:“cho co let.” But I don’t have any peanut butter. Not here. And I don’t like crackers except with herring. So I went out to buy herring and instead I bought flour. I succeeded in getting the crackers, even in getting a good brand of crackers, Carr’s, I believe, so there you have it.

Have what, Henry?

I’ll give you a better example. Take the vanishing of Mr. Kindt. When I said that the last time I saw him he had let go of my hands and vanished, I meant something very different. I meant something more like diminishing.

So Mr. Kindt did not vanish?

No, Mr. Kindt diminished.

Explain.

I mean he was still there – not immediately, I grant you, he did do the thin-air thing then went away for a few days, or whatever you would call them, to make himself available to his swimmer, but soon enough he was back. He was back, but his eyes were no longer such a pretty blue and his neck seemed to have straightened and he didn’t talk to me anymore about stealing and withholding meds. Even when I brought these subjects up, he acted like he hadn’t heard me.

In what way was he there?

He’s still there. You want to go see him? Maybe we can catch him conversing with his wet friend.

Later. In what way is he there?

He comes to my room, like before, only he doesn’t get in my bed and watch TV with me anymore, and he doesn’t show any interest in cigars or Hank Williams or in eating herring.

What does he do?

He talks. He stands by the window and looks out through the black netting and talks about the same old things. The things he used to talk about. Before.

Like what?

Like himself. Like mist. Drifting out over everything. Blurring all the borders. Or like annihilation. About having annihilated someone and through that annihilation having been himself annihilated in the exact center point of his meaning, like herring that are annihilated as they are rising.

But he is no longer interested in eating the fish?

That’s what I said.

But you are?

I’ve picked up the habit. It’s almost like an addiction.

What is Mr. Kindt doing here, Henry?

It wasn’t me.

Then you persist.

Of course I persist.

Inadvisable, but that’s not what we’re discussing here.

What are we discussing here?

Your ongoing relationship with Mr. Kindt. Since his murder. His great interest in you.

Well what about the wet guy’s interest in him?

Again, that is not the conversation we are having.

You’re right. I’m sorry. Still, I don’t know why he’s bothering me. If anything, I ought to be bothering him.

Why do you say that?

I don’t quite know, it’s just a sense that whatever happened was part of an exchange. But I can’t quite get there. Just like Mr. Kindt can’t quite figure out the swimmer yet. I was thinking maybe I would ask my aunt, if she ever comes back. Maybe she could help. Maybe she’s figured out how it all works.

I’m not sure she has, Henry.

I’m not sure either, but anyway, as you said, we were discussing Aris Kindt. My Aris Kindt. In all his diminished splendor. Would you like to hear more about him? Would that help further our discussion, push us forward, get us somewhere? Shall I play the part, try on the mask, do my dear dead friend, do Aris, as over and over again Aris does himself?

All right.

I was born in seventeenth-century Leiden, where I grew up in solitude, left, by my family, to my own devices, except for the many beatings my father administered. We drank milk in great quantities when it was to be had, and I can still hear the sound of butter being made and smell the churn. My father was a quiver maker, which I became after him although I was not so deeply blessed in this capacity with skill. My mother was a darling woman. My father beat her once too often and she left a scarlet trail across the snow. Then I left Leiden forever because I had to. It was not a lovely life and I used to poach ducks from the canals and for a time lived in an abandoned windmill. That isn’t true. For a time I lived in the most miserable of hovels. My dream was to go to Amsterdam. It was difficult to go to Amsterdam. I kept getting caught. Once I beat a man. Too much. Once also there was an incident involving a young woman. Many incidents. I disliked death. Too much mist. Some nights I would dream about my father and young sister. Also I would dream of New Amsterdam. It was truly new then and every boy had seen the great triple-masters in their dreams. Once I stole a potion from a very old man in Maastricht. I drank the potion and fell into a dream. In the dream I saw a man much like myself lying in a ditch at the edge of a green field covered with frost. I went up to the man and kicked him and he awoke. It was me.

Who do you mean by “me”?

Mr. Kindt. The centuries-old version.

All right, continue.

It’s you, the sleeping man said. I was just dreaming about you. In my dream you were lying in a field just like this one. Oh, I said. Actually, there was never any potion. There was a theft, but it was brandy I stole. I woke up in the field. Cold. I was freezing. I returned to town and tried to steal a man’s cape. The man was a magistrate. I seemed to be in Amsterdam. Then I was hung. A thick mist swirled around me. Then I was harrowed. In a great hall with high dark ceilings and candles and glass jars and an audience in attendance. I was on a stage, on a slab, and a painter had been commissioned to paint me, to paint them.

Rembrandt.

Yes, Rembrandt. The painting is called The Anatomy Lesson. My German author gives much thought to the matter, conjectures that Rembrandt secretly sympathized with Mr. Kindt, saw the violence that had been done to him.

To you.

No. Not to me. Well, yes, to me with this mask on. It’s a little convoluted. Let me take it off for a second. Consider it taken off. O.K., there was a historical Mr. Kindt. A petty thief named Aris Kindt who was hung then dissected then painted by Rembrandt.

With whom you identify.

I’m just Henry again.

With whom Mr. Kindt identified. They shared a name.

Yes. Mr. Kindt, my Mr. Kindt, had borrowed the name from a certain Mr. Kindt who had only used it for some weeks.

Borrowed it?

Let’s just say that the temporary user of the name didn’t need it anymore.

How many Mr. Kindts are there?

At least three, only one of whom, to the best of our knowledge, could swim, but now it’s only the first one that matters.

Why?

Ask Mr. Kindt.

He’s dead, Henry.

Who isn’t?

Dr. Tulp made a note in her book then looked at me.

Anything else?

Lots. Descartes was there, they say, as was, possibly, Sir Thomas Browne. Did you know that in those days we still believed that after death one could feel pain? I certainly could. Most excruciating were the extremities. The first thing he did was to open up my arm.

Or at least, Dr. Tulp said, in the painting the first thing that has been opened is the arm.

Yes, in the painting. Of course a real dissection, as my German writer points out, would begin with the intestines – those areas most given to decomposition. Regardless, there was vigorous applause. I understood the larger part of the audience had been expecting a lesson in female rather than male anatomy – it is female rather than male anatomy that excites in this context, but then what is the gender of the dead? During the lesson, I learned the verb extirpate. Do you know it?

Yes, Henry, I know it.

What I had tried to do was steal the man’s cape.

I think it is time to stop now with this, Henry – you said yourself the mask is off. We’ve done enough for now.

Dr. Tulp was there.

I am Dr. Tulp, Henry.

Dr. Nicolas Tulp of the Royal Dutch Academy, who regularly performed such dissections for the benefit of Amsterdam’s intelligentsia, so that light would replace shadow and their minds would be freed of mist. Little matter that in the center of this, so to speak, sweeping-away of the cobwebs lay a small, recently breathing body.

We have no indication, outside of Rembrandt’s painting, that Aris Kindt was a particularly small man.

I’m small.

No, Henry, you are not. You are quite average.

Well then never mind.

Where is Mr. Kindt right now, Henry?

Oh, he’s around.

But diminished.

Somewhat. Dr. Tulp?

Yes, Henry.

Should I expect you to begin diminishing, so you can take care of your own business, or will you stick around for the odd chat and to perform the occasional minor or major surgery? I guess what I am wondering is, why, Dr. Tulp, are you here? Howdid you get here?

Dr. Tulp smiled, a little coldly, and didn’t answer.

I looked around the brightly lit office, with its rows and rows of folders and dull, worn office furniture, and shuddered.

I’d like to go home, I said. To Carine and the cats.

This is where you live now, Henry.

Can it, fairly, be called living?

What would you like to call it?

Have you scheduled any more surgeries? Any more scouring and filing and cleaning?

A few. There is more scraping to be done. We must be sure that all the lead is gone.

Am I still going to be moving on?

Eventually, Henry, but not just yet. I feel you’ve made a breakthrough, and it must be encouraged. I have filed for a postponement.

A reprieve.

If you like.

Until they hook me up to a machine and put me behind bars, boil my head, tear me asunder, chop off my hands.

What you did was very serious, Henry. Murder is serious, there are consequences. These are the consequences.

What did you do, Dr. Tulp? Are these your consequences too? Do you have any visitors? Am Iyour visitor? Is that it? Am I going to get to perform some surgery on you?

She smiled.

You are making progress, Henry, she said. And, unfortunately for me, I suspect, it will all become more and more clear as you continue to reflect on it. Perhaps you should set the results of your reflections down on paper. I will make sure you get some. I have thought of doing the same thing myself. There is so much I’m unsure of. You will see. I think we all will. There is light pouring into the darkness, flooding the corridors. It is moving more quickly now.

TWENTY-NINE

We walked then, arm in arm around the East Village, and as we wove our way past bus stops and beat-up garbage cans and derelict water fountains and the constantly, abruptly changing vectors of people moving forward, Mr. Kindt leaned in close to me and talked. He started by explaining that “by chance” Cornelius had phoned him just after I had left and that they had conferred and agreed that I might as well know the story of their night together “all those years ago,” that knowing it might help set my mind at ease, might allay my fears of being tricked “and so forth,” while at the same time producing the “happy result” of admitting me into an even greater measure of complicity with “my friends.”

For we are your friends, Henry, Mr. Kindt said. Your dear friends, and none dearer, of course, than myself.

I said I felt the same way and wanted very much to know what had happened, but didn’t want to precipitate another screaming episode. Mr. Kindt waved his free hand in a dismissive way, said he felt much better now, that a little stroll in the neighborhood would set him to rights and that I shouldn’t worry about him at all.

All right, I said.

Good, he said.

Now I want you to picture, Henry, a town of fine homes and half-lit streets undulating on the banks of a shining lake and in this town two ambitious young men, who have met, shall we say, a third young man, and formed a happy triangle. This third point in the triangle is passing through town, making his circuitous way to New York from the Netherlands, with a valise containing an impressive number of valuable bonds. Can you picture it? Can you smell the late summer air, still warm, though shot through with the hint of autumn coming on? Can you admire the juxtaposition of three young men up to nothing terribly good in that lovely, quiet town next to those lovely, quiet waters? Now, never mind, dear boy, how we met this young man with his valise – let’s just say that Cornelius had his ear to the proverbial ground and that both of us were already involved in certain aspects of the trade that made us, on the face of it, unthreatening to others in our line. Suffice it to say that we approached this young man and offered him a number of drinks, first in his hotel room and then in an establishment we knew and then down on the banks of Lake Otsego. We entered into a kind of confidence as we drank, and it was on those banks that this young man pulled a rumpled reproduction from his pocket, unfolded it, pointed to the corpse lying at its center, and told us it was his favorite painting. He loved it so much that he had borrowed the name of the painting’s “hero,” the corpse he was pointing to, for the purposes of the bit of business he was attending to. He spoke at some length, not quite but almost slurring his words, about how strangely thrilling it was to be using a new name, one that had belonged to the dead individual who lay at the center of Rembrandt’s famous painting. He had had false documents made and was now, for the duration of his journey to New York City and perhaps, who knew, he said, beyond, called Aris Kindt.

Ah, I said.

And you see I looked very much like him and still had that touch of a Dutch accent.

Your namesake.

Mr. Kindt nodded. Yes, and carrying around a reproduction of a likeness of hisnamesake. He looked upon this tattered image of a man whose face is cast in shadow and who has been torn open in the name of progress with great fondness, almost tenderness. In speaking of this dead man, who had been so profoundly violated, he evoked Goethe’s notion of elective affinities and marveled that of all the people in the wide world he might have felt drawn to it was this Aris Kindt, this dead, dissected man. It’s a nice name, isn’t it? he asked us. And I thought to myself, yes, it certainly is.

You killed him.

In a manner of speaking. He was a swimmer, you see. He got it into his head – well, we helped with this – that he wanted to show us just what a very fine swimmer he was. So we all went out onto the lake. Cornelius and I in a sort of canoe. He made it surprisingly far. In fact he very nearly reached the opposite shore. Then I became Aris Kindt.

And Cornelius?

I completed the delivery and we shared the proceeds. But I kept the name. And took full advantage of the surprisingly large network of contacts that came with the successful completion of the assignment. I made, as they say, good. Every now and again Cornelius has come to me and suggested that to ensure the healthy ongoing maintenance of our insoluble complicity we embark on a joint venture. I have always agreed. History binds us all and dashes us together whether we know it or like it. Shared history adds the intricacy of love to the arrangement.

We had stopped at the corner of Third and Seventh. Cars and cabs swept past. I saw the woman with the green hair and piercings heading toward Cooper Union with her dog.

That’s quite a story, I said.

It is, isn’t it, Henry, Mr. Kindt said.

Hell of a story, I thought as I sat there the night of the murder, feeling uneasy, watching the rain fall.

Yes, I said.

And now you have entered more completely into our intricacy, Mr. Kindt said.

I’m more completely complicit, I said.

Murder me well, Henry, Mr. Kindt said.

Then, though it wasn’t time yet, I got up and walked out the door.

Not sure what to do, I stuffed my hands in my pockets, crossed Seventh, and went into the park. After the thick, smoky air of the bar, the cold rain felt good, and I set off at a brisk pace. Tompkins Square Park – where I seem to have spent so much time over the course of these pages – is made up of a series of meandering asphalt paths that lead into open areas and wider lanes and surround fenced-off enclosures that contain a surprising number of trees and plants. Until not too many years ago, when they were forcibly evicted, the park was a haven for the homeless, but now on a rainy night you can pretty much walk the curved paths alone, seeing only the occasional cop or fellow stroller or worn-out drunks huddled together under beat-up umbrellas. It is a dreamy, slightly otherworldly place at night, and from time to time it plays host to vendors of odd comestibles, so I was not too surprised to round a bend and come upon a sweet-potato vendor set up beneath a lavender umbrella in the glow of one of the park lamps. As I passed, the woman behind the glistening, steaming metal cart called out “sweet potatoes, warm sweet potatoes” in a high, clear voice and almost before I knew what I was doing I had handed over a dollar and accepted one of the foil-wrapped potatoes, pulled it open, and taken a bite. The potato was incredibly sweet and moist and for a moment I stood under the heavy foliage of an oak tree, chewing, swallowing, and drifting – out over the city, the beautiful dirty rivers, the drenched islands, the roiled ocean.

But the cold rain and the calories I was consuming were waking me up, so it’s not surprising, delicious, unlooked-for sweet potato or not, that my mind turned wearily, uneasily, back to love and intricacy and complicity, to silver bowls, dreams of Dutch polders, a look lifted directly from Rembrandt’s painting, wacko stuff about life in the Netherlands in the seventeenth century, fake and real murders, gangsteresque behavior in restaurants, sextants, anatomy books, bottled plants, organs, Tulip, Cornelius, a death by drowning in the dark waters of Lake Otsego fifty years ago, and my dear friend, a confessed killer, lucid one moment, clearly mad as a fucking hatter, rocking back and forth at the center of his machine of mist and falsification, the next.

The rain hit the top of my head and the sugar from the potato smashed into my system and I thought about murders and Mr. Kindt taking care of someone, some accountant, and about Mel the Hat and his peephole, and about how, as he had said, nothing was ever 100 percent fake, there was always some real there. It was this principle, I thought, that gave some validity to Mr. Kindt’s belief that somehow or other submitting himself to a particularly rigorous version of the murder procedure would help to alleviate a guilt spurred by the aftershocks of a violation that reached deep into the past. And there was something there, something in Mr. Kindt’s wish to be mock murdered, maybe something just tangentially related that I hadn’t grasped, something that involved me. Involved Cornelius and Co., including Tulip. Involved Mr. Kindt running out after me to relate, in overwhelming detail, a story he had declined to address fifteen minutes before. Involved all the murders I had committed around the East Village. Involved the instruction – who had it originated with? – that I had to strike him hard.

I was getting somewhere.

In fact, I am suddenly feeling just audacious enough to propose that if I had had a little more time that night in the rain with a sweet potato in my hand, I might actually have sliced through enough of my own mist to reach the conclusion that both Anthony and The Hat had been right, and that at the very least it would be better, much better, not to walk through Mr. Kindt’s door. But about twenty feet after I had that realization, my promising train of thought was cut short by a punch in the mouth.

I don’t know if you’ve ever been punched right in the middle of your face while you are walking fairly briskly through a dark, rain-spattered park with your head turned down and all your attention turned elsewhere. If you have, you will not be at all surprised to know that the blow came very close to knocking me out, and that I ended up on my back with my arms lying useless at my sides. I registered their immobility almost immediately, because my first instinct was to check my teeth to see if they were still there, and I couldn’t. I moved my tongue, which I must have bitten, around inconclusively, then opened my mouth a little, then gave up.

They’re still there, if that’s what you’re wondering, a voice said.

What? I said.

Your teeth – if that is what you’re wondering, they’re still there.

Of course they’re still there, another voice said.

Why of course? I said.

Because I wasn’t trying to knock them out, that’s why. They would be out if I wanted them out.

Well, thanks for not wanting that, I said.

A face came into my field of vision then left it.

Another face did the same.

This isn’t in the scenario, I said.

It’s in the margins, written in lemon juice, one of the contortionists said.

Safety provision, the other said.

Where’s Cornelius? I said.

Keep you from thinking too much.

Keep you from thinking too much in too much detail and fucking things up.

Cornelius wouldn’t like that.

Neither would Mr. Kindt.

That’s quite a pair.

Yeah, they go way back.

This last remark made them both laugh. Unpleasantly.

I put my head down on the pavement and shut my eyes.

You know, I said, in my quietest voice, I had you two all wrong. I thought you were the nice ones. I mean, I figured Cornelius was sketchy, maybe even sinister, and that the knockout wasn’t nice, although she was nice, of course, I mean obviously,to look at, but that the two of you were the nicest. I guess I was wrong. I guess probably none of you are nice. Not even Tulip. Tulip, who found me. Who brought me in. Who does things for Mr. Kindt. Maybe they aren’t nice things. Maybe she’s got her own grudge. Maybe she’s related to the Aris Kindt who died swimming. How old is she anyway? Maybe the Aris Kindt who died swimming was her father. Or maybe it’s a grudge against me. Maybe she knew my dead aunt. Maybe my dead aunt was dear to her. I’ll ask her about it later. She’ll talk. No, she won’t. I’ll go ask The Hat. He seems to have answers. Who the fuck is he? Why exactly did Cornelius and Mr. Kindt decide to tell me about Lake Otsego? It’s a closed system. No outside perspective. Nothing to confirm. No one to confirm it. Even The Hat – did Cornelius hire him? Did Mr. Kindt? To what end? What do I mean? But the two of you. Maybe you would be nice enough to explain this to me. I mean, my miscomprehension on such a basic point: you aren’t nice. Do you think it’s important? Tell me about yourselves. Where do you come from? Flesh yourselves out a little. What are your names? Who is everyone? What the fuck is going on?

Both faces were now back in my field of vision. They were very wet and very red and very, very close.

You hit him too hard, one of the faces said.

I did not hit him too hard, said the other.

O.K., fine, but he’s unconscious.

I’m not unconscious, I said. I heard some kind of wet scraping sound. Someone smacked their lips.

You think he knows?

About tonight?

About poor old Lenny.

Nah, Cornelius and Kindt were careful.

Who is poor old Lenny? I said.

He’s the accountant. Leonard Seligman, one of your victims.

My victims?

Let’s just say he didn’t make it.

Give him some smelling salts.

Who has smelling salts?

Shake him around a little.

Just let him lie there. There’s plenty of time. The rain’ll wake him up. He can dream about his great buddy, Mr. Kindt.

Laughter. Gales of it.

I am awake, I said. Their faces had vanished. All I could see was rain and dripping tree branches. After a while, though I wasn’t sure if it could in fact be attributed to the rain, the use of my arms returned to me, as did that of various other tendons and muscles and limbs and nerve clusters, and I sat up.

Good, now I’m soaking fucking wet, I said.

It’s time, Henry, Cornelius said, coming up behind me, putting his arms under my shoulders and helping me up.

As he helped me, I could see the contortionists, farther down the path, grinning unpleasantly. The knockout, too, had appeared, was sitting on a bench wearing a long black vinyl raincoat and holding a small gun.

Is that real? I asked Cornelius.

Of course not, none of this is real, Henry.

None of it?

He handed me a knife, a flat-handled silver buck knife.

What’s this? I thought it was supposed to be a wire. I thought I was supposed to choke him until his throat bled.

Last-minute change.

What the fuck am I supposed to do with a knife?

You will make a line with it across Mr. Kindt’s throat.

A line, I said.

A very straight line. Be sure to break the skin.

Cornelius smiled. I looked over my shoulder. The knockout was also smiling, as were the contortionists.

What was with the punch in the face?

It’s time, Henry, Cornelius said. Mr. Kindt is waiting for you.

He was sitting cross-legged on his bed wearing black silk pajamas and a black silk sheet draped over his head.

What are you doing here so late, Henry? he said.

You know what I’m doing here, I said.

Mr. Kindt raised an eyebrow.

Fuck all this, I said.

What do you mean, dear boy?

I mean I’m tired of all this shit. You with your slop in bowls and heart monitors and beat-up books and being a crybaby because you killed someone a million years ago and took his name.

Mr. Kindt looked at me, a quizzical expression on his face.

I know about Lenny, I said.

Who is Lenny, Henry?

Your accountant.

I was eavesdropping in the rain. I heard about it. I know you took care of him. I know some fucking way or another I’m getting set up here to take a fall, and that the one doing the setting up is you.

He told me again that he didn’t know what I was talking about so I yanked him out of bed and dragged him into the living room, sat him down on the floor beneath the window next to a purple orchid, and hit him with the ashtray. I went to the fridge and retrieved the bag of Mr. Kindt’s blood, cut it open, and leaned over him with it and the serrated silver knife Cornelius had given me. Then I lifted the floorboard, retrieved the portfolio, and left him there. Lying in a heap in his black silk pajamas. Blue eyes open, rolled slightly back.

I very casually left the building and headed down Avenue B. Breathing hard but also whistling a little. Across and along Houston. Past Essex. Car lights shattering the rain. Impressed by the state Cornelius and Co. had managed to put me into. To Orchard. Along Orchard. The authenticity their little late-in-the-game revelation about setups and so forth must have leant my performance. My exquisite performance. The one I didn’t yet know had been videotaped. Mr. Kindt’s killer. Because of course he waskilled. The authenticity was magnificent. Cut across the throat with the knife, the one I had brandished then left sitting on the floor by Mr. Kindt’s head. I stopped. The little tattoo parlor was closed. Dark. No Tulip. Padlocked shut. I started thinking, and turned around.

Mr. Kindt lay beneath the window exactly as I had, I swear, left him, except that his throat was open. And there was no empty blood bag in the garbage under the sink. And no cheerful little note written by me as a flourish, saying that I would call tomorrow so that we could have lunch.

I leaned close to the window. I put my bloody hand on the cold, rain-splattered glass, pulled it away, and looked out at the park.

Then Tulip was there.

I didn’t do this, I said. I mean, not this.

Save it, Henry, she said.

He’s my friend, I said. My dear friend. I’m complicit. I know the story. I know Mr. Kindt isn’t Mr. Kindt, or didn’t used to be. I know he was trying to set me up, that he has set me up, hasn’t he? Is that why he told me about Cooperstown – so that I’d have something else to think about? What’s in this portfolio? Should I look?

I held up the small leather case and took a half step forward. I could see Mr. Kindt’s hat and cape hanging by the door, his heart monitor dangling wires off the edges of the coffee table. I could see that Tulip, not smiling, was holding a gun.

I don’t care what you did or didn’t do, or know and don’t know, you shouldn’t have come back here, Henry, she said.

I could see her lift the gun and point it at me. I could see mist rising from Mr. Kindt, my dear dead friend dressed in black silk and lying with his throat open at my feet.