北京麻雀 (Sparrows of Beijing)
东 London, 2001 - 07
7
Kensington1
2001
Premature spring day, as author Dos Passos said in another book,2 and they had left them in without touching the breakfast, which was like light rye, with only the intense flavor of bitter marmalade to recommend it though destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked.3 They were out and about, the directing the movement from one to another. The trees had leaves on them, but they had stopped, frozen in motion. It was not early, but not yet late – it was Saturday, and a great deal of the British population was indoors reading and writing, or at least pretending to do so. London was in transition – it was no longer a capital city. London itself was a tourist destination for the rich – so most of what you saw was not from this part of London, or even from England.4 It was, pardon the expression, a Euro-trash zone.
She began: “I noticed that you had gotten up early and then returned to bed, I hope it was not me that you were trying to get away from.” It is odd that you would cast a novel. Even more odd that most, especially a man and a woman, would burst into song, and poor out their life history in a kind of verse. When in actuality, this happens only ever so often. In fact, most people have one novel in their head, which is the lifetime of those moments. All of the rest of the time one, or both, people have what could be called a “stop”. Stop is where someone means to say something but reminds themselves how it would sound to the other person. Usually, the woman has an immense need to execute this, though to another one of her sex she will go on and on about going on and on about how something did not quite happen, which reminded her of the time that something else at some other time would go on and on. The men, for their part, would listen up in talking to other men – and while they did not have as much to say, on average. They questioned whether they should tell intimate details that they hid from the world. It was private, and it would take intense prying to get them to admit it to anyone, most expressly a member of the opposite sex. That was a no-no. So, men seemed very tight-lipped to women, which they were not as tight as they seemed. What this meant for the two of our intense actors was that they had a great deal to say – and the question was could they say it to each other. So far, the signs were not good, but what is interesting is they still continued trying. So, they both walked out of the park, and into the busy streets – though they both did not know the direction that they took – and looked at each other a great deal more than should have been. Normally two people who were not lovers would not have noticed each other, and two people who were would only glance occasionally at each other. But they were both in that stage where they would glance longingly, but not too long. It was that stage where they were feeling each other out. Thus, there was no conversation – just drips and droughts that started a conversation – and then stopped, only to start up again when one of the two of them had a brilliant, or funny, or pseudo-profound, observation. She was adding up the Flesch total5 of the words that they said – realizing that this was a foreign concept to her. He was brooding and only made the least effort to answer her question without further aplomb. There was no retort. At used not what she was used as a retort when she had conversations with her older brother. They were men and women like any others. Worse, ordinary men and women, with no eccentricity in their natures, began it eye one another.6
Wandered for an hour, and never achieved a conversation which she would report back on her side to one of her friends. This distressed her, more than quite a small amount – and she even thought about ending their relationship when they went back their separate ways. She also looked at him thinking him a kind of Kerouac moment,7 one that rambled on about nothing in particular – while the ever-present was staring you in the face.
But then she looked at him and realized he was so handsome – more than she could be allowed to hold, lead alone touch – and why was she being allowed this wain privilege. He knew, or she thought he did – that there was something about him. Her guess was that he was married – or something like it – and she was a plaything, to be said aside when there were more important things to be done. She wanted to say this, but could not, could not even dare to approach it. The feminine form of stopping was in full bloom.8 So she looked at his face, when it is fine European curves and a mixture of blonde and white hair – and wondered what he was thinking. Then she thought he was rather young to have white hair and tried to start a conversation on this fact, with that singsong voice that women used when they were being coquettish.
“You have so much white hair for someone your age.”
“My maternal grandmother was from the West coast of Ireland – and there is a history of them starting around 25.” He then realized that there was an opening there, that he should have stopped with Ireland – and not given her the information that they supplied, and that he would probably live to regret this. Probably very shortly. He was right, and she would prove it by drawing all of the trumps on the board without mercy, but with a twinkle in her open eyes.
“You did not tell me that your mother's mother was from Ireland.”
This was going to be – for him – painful, and he grimaced with the illusionary twinge that he felt coming. “Did I not? I am sorry if I was remiss about that. But then there are many facets of my life that I do not get into.” He once more tried to close things down, but it was not that easy because she was a tiger hunting prey. Quick of eye, and relentless of hearing she crept metaphorically on the hunt. He did not know what caused this vision; of Composition Number 11 by Piet Mondrian, slinking back into the background, waiting for him to strike; it had to mean something though he did not know what it was. He only knew that it would stare at him with a blank verse; reciting all of the ways she was going to strike. It was like a cartoon face, grinning down at him. Die, you little tick-tock man.9
“You have not told me enough about your family.”
“There is not much to tell. I was unfaithful to my family.”10 But his eyes said nothing more.
But she persisted: “I do not believe that I lost both of my parents when I was in my teenage years.”
“And it was your much older brother who raised you.”
“It is good that something has gone through. I was worried that you were thinking about your job or other things. That I am just here to amuse you.” That was the first time that emotions percolated up to her cheeks. Normally she had been an almost unutterable calm, perhaps she was going to finally speak what was on her mind. And then she finally uttered the real thing on her mind: “Do you care about me?”
The Question he would have asked her, and not because it was confident or competent – far from it – he just had a deep insecure feeling that she would leave. The hidden value in his persona, but the idea that he would ask another person if she would stay was utterly false to his nature, and nurture had not been anything but approving of this. He realized that his face had more than one psychogram on it, like the pool that was disturbed by a flower gently floating to the breath of the water.
Rummaging around her purse, she pulled out a worn - almost dilapidated - set of cards, with a blue and white rhythmic poker set and held it to her nose so the set was tightly bound, and intimated slowly:
“Would you like to play a game?” It was the lilting sound of the word “game” which vexed him so.
“Which came is that?”
“Oh, it is called 24.” - with an air of the mysterious nonchalance.
“How is it played?”
“We deal out four cards, like this -” she dealt out to rows of 2 - “and the 1st one who finds a combination of 24 - by addition, subtraction, multiplication, or division - wins hand” - she then corrects herself quickly - “the hand. It is very simple.” 4 – 16 - 64 - 256 combinations, if you could do that you would win the game. He realized that she must be very good, very, very good, indeed - and then he decided to take her up her challenge.
At first, she won most of the games - but even most was unsettling her. Then after 20 or so of the games, he was catching up - and she knew this. After about 50 - or so - of hands, while she was still ahead, it was not a clear preponderance. Then she stopped to pick up the cards: “I think that is enough cards for one day.” And with a grimace on her face and a huff in her voice, she took the cards and put them back in her purse. But he had left a mark - because in the cards was basically an intelligence test, and clearly, no one from outside China had done as well as he had. That put him right at the top. He could see it in her eyebrows - that universal expression of puzzlement - among human beings.
A patina of extraordinary strangeness, like a petal of petunia that had rocked ashore like the waves on a romantic ship that is sinking. He read somewhere that it is for its own sake, and not ours - but he knew not where. Remembering the Slave Ship, by JMW Turner, but the event was earlier in the late 1700s: a captain through more than 100 slaves overboard, so that the insurance payments were collected, this eventually would be used in a movie about the middle passage. It was added of its time, looking ahead to the Impressionists, though the painting was actually exhibited in 1840. then he shook himself and was back in the present – remembering the ship in the gallery which it had hung in while it was on loan. Even to this day, he remembered the slight tilt which it was bracketed to and remembering that he had gone to the docent and complained. Of course, it had done nothing at all.
Just as he knew that there was no good reply to her question, whether “yes,” or “no. However, there was a trick to be pulled, because what most people do not understand is there is a third response: and that was to say it was “undecided”. We do not teach Gödel in either primary or secondary school, and the name does not mean anything except in a few universities. Yet, this was known in the distant past: in 1931. Even though it was grasped from the game of chess: there was a win, a loss, or a draw. Though most literature talked about wins and losses, the draw is as important as these other results. And when one looked, one found the draw in almost any place. He just needed a draw in this particular context: any way of slipping outside of the normal conversation and defeating her attempts to regain the conversation. But how? It was not an easy question. The Romantics would not have known, because they wanted either wins or losses, as the situation required. It was the modern player – which was not the contemporary player – who understood the lesson and value of the position he was in. so he improvised, opening that what was logical would also reach a stalemate. I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix.11 Commas, commas, everywhere and not a place to Oxford think.
Leaves were opening, but this did not help him at all: because waiting for Godot,12 would be interpreted as a loss, somehow. If he said nothing it was a loss if he said something, she would turn it against him. He thought, rather calmly, that Samuel Beckett would have known what to do. Then he realized that, yes, Samuel Beckett would know what to do – and it made many kinds of sense, whereas a win or a loss would either place her at a disadvantage. Either there was only one choice, or there were several – all of which were bad. The key was that there were several choices and no way to evaluate them. Thus, a win or a loss would be known to all, what he needed was for all players to agree that there was no agreement and agree on this – rather than fight about this. So, he needed to pacify the conversation, not extract more information from it.
“Why would you think that I have plenty of people in my life who crack jokes or make lewd observations.” There was something that was in plein air but underbrush.13
But for now, he knew that with her arm clasping his, with a gate which was not uniform but in equilibrium, with all the signs that made sure. He thought of The Cantos by Ezra Pound, and how often they were bought rather than being read. She was caught between Scylla and Charybdis.
Far away, and long ago he was a board game where making triangles, squares led to making the supreme object – a pentagon. The only problem is that it was extremely simplistic.
Reach and oft as not, there is a void that stares back into the starry eyes that looked asunder for it.14
Its name? Kensington.15 Certain words held a dullness – whatever use they were put to.
1 A board game.
2 A Moveable Feast
3 Howl, Allen Ginsberg.
4 In the fine script, Ardelle Li rhapsodized:
Wild weed rushes into tournesol tears,
Aubergois cases down to millimeter claps,
Pointed upward Allah close begotten
So far from legions remember
And reasons to be relentless absurdity.
Staff metal is my ramrod, my soul do wake
For blinded by palms I search for mine,
Irrespective of the look of victory,
Instead beguiling closer to protracted exhaustion -
Anger in the eyes.
Attention Service member vernacular aesthetic
War to end all wars,
For this microgeneration. In the aughts,
Corps to corpses, firearmed injuries,
In that studied moment of disgust en flambée,
Alone in other masking.
I partake of an eye.
To you of phantasmagoria view
in her curate churlish way,
of mad men interlocking into estrange
rolling around fingertips to belonged beside
between the towers of capitalism,
the terrors when they finally crashed down
in the great recession,
forseen by a mad men curated
by Serling.
The costs of war,
fall mainly on those who are young,
while the profits roll forth to those who are
Old and far away.
Hollow cheeks stare along
existence and exaggerated of accomplishments.
American lives arbitrarily lost through friendly fire
and written off as the back letter breathing
of a machine which spends in nanotechnology,
spewing its line of lucre, polished in to homes
we do not own.
5 Flesch–Kincaid readability tests
6 Winterson, Sexing the Cherry 81
7 Kerouac On the Road “And for just a moment I had reached the point of ecstasy that I always wanted to reach, which was the complete step across chronological time into timeless shadows, and wonderment in the bleakness of the mortal realm, and the sensation of death kicking at my heels to move on, with a phantom dogging its own heels, and myself hurrying to a plank where all the angels dove off and flew into the holy void of uncreated emptiness, the potent and inconceivable radiancies shining in bright Mind Essence, innumerable lotuslands falling open in the magic mothswarm of heaven.”
8 The real name of In The Mood for Love.
9 Harlan Ellison, "'Repent, Harlequin!' Said the Ticktockman"
10Reference to Euripides, Medea L. 698 Translated Kovacs. Original: μέγαν γ᾽ ἔρωτα: πιστὸς οὐκ ἔφυ φίλοις.
11 Opening line of Howl.
12 Waiting for oneself - the two characters names, combined, spell-out “Godot.”
13 The light that some of the Impressionist used. The light out of doors, as opposed to studios.
14 Reference to Nietzsche.
15 A board game.