Fall and Rise Read online

  “And this is Daniel Krin, Alan,” Diana says, “before you get into an endless trialogue about art buying and inflated reputations and phalli and pornography. But if you are thinking of buying someone, you’d be wise to scoop up these two soon. Value of some of their older work has quadrupled.”

  “She’ll say anything for a friend,” Jane says, “and because she knows we’re dying to go to Machu-Picchu.”

  “Will she?—Hello, Mr. Krin.”

  “How are you?” We shake hands.

  “I’m fine thanks I guess, and you?” and laughs.

  “Just an expression. ‘How goes, adios, I’m well, thank the Lord, by jove and gum.’”

  “Of course. My bottled-up processes—this time the incoming. Seriously now,” to Phil and Jane, Diana nipping my elbow and slipping away, “and all pornography and priapic testimonials to the rear for the time being unless you’re lusting to discuss them, which one of you works in rubber?”

  Diana’s greeting some people at the door or maybe they’re leaving. That can’t be her. She’s at the other side of the cheese table, behind a tall unused samovar, brushing crumbs off the cloth into her palm, taking my bouquet to the bar, dumping the crumbs into an ashtray and accepting a sip of wine from a man and sticking one of the flowers minus most of its stem into his lapel. Diana have a twin? I put on my glasses. Woman who doesn’t look like her much. Hair the same though. Graying, snipped short, shampooed sheen, and an almost duplicate purple turtleneck jersey. I listen for another minute, say “Pardon me, folks, I think I see over there my long lost brother,” and walk off. “What was his name again?” Alan says and Jane knows but Phil forgets. I meet her, though not yet. She was standing in the center of the room where I am now. I don’t know when she came in. I doubt she was here yet. Room’s very noisy and crowded now and was probably like that when she got here. I think I would have spotted her right away or soon after. My glasses were back in my pocket but she wasn’t that far away when she did come nearer where I needed them to see her. White coarse blouse buttoned to the neck, Russian-type blouse’s stiff inch-high collar, lace where the cuffs end and as a collar fringe, large unobscured forehead, lots of fine kind of copper-colored hair knotted on top of her head, long neck, bony cheeks, big wide-awake eyes that later turned out to be a sea-green, taller than most of the women there, long skirt, so I couldn’t see what sort of shoes she wore, but around five-nine. I suddenly get the call and set my glass on the bar and make my way to the bathroom, saying as I go “Personal emergency, please, in a rush,” relieved to find it free, also combed my hair in there and splashed water on my face and dried it, for it had become uncomfortably warm in the living room, won’t be too long now before I see her. Maybe she was at this moment approaching the stoop or climbing the steps. I didn’t ring her in. Didn’t ring in anyone since the beginning of the party. She must have rung the downstairs bell though. Or someone leaving or entering opened the door as she was coming up the stoop or about to ring and let her in or maybe the door had been left open intentionally, forgetfully or because of some door-check failure. By then there must have been too many umbrellas in the hall for the one holder. I wonder what Diana thought when she took my bouquet off the table and put it at the back of the bar away from the bottles and glasses. Glass he stuck them in is okay and more than enough if maybe too much water. But why’d he place it where hands on all four sides reaching every which way could easily spill it? Coatrack must be filled by now. Rubbers and boots lined up or strewn around the hallway floor and wall. Probably around this time that someone wrapped a woman’s coat around mine and my sweater got knocked to the floor or put some other place, which could be what helped me forget when I left that I’d come with one, being quite high by then and not automatically seeing it on the shelf above my covered coat. Don’t know why remembering I had an umbrella presented no problem, though probably because the holder was right outside the door. Bell rings. One every minute from the time I got to the party it seemed. Just about now I said to a man by the bar something like “You know, these recurrent bell-rings remind me of a Japanese play I recently read where the single principal in it is from start-to-finish answering ten different doors for hundreds of imaginary guests and talking to himself about who’s probably ringing and what person and group and then troop he just let in and found an unoccupied space for. And whom, if he sees her at the door, he’s going to do everything short of shooting to keep out.” The man I said this to, after relighting his pipe and looking as if he thought over what I said, says “I saw a play like that once. A short one, on a long double bill, and both by the same famous Rumanian, who I think became famous because of that play. But this one had two characters in it who talked to each other continuously.”

  “Mine’s got to be derivative then, since its world premiere was last year. I know the play you mean, unless there are two famous Rumanian-born Frenchmen who wrote very similar plays. In mine there are no chairs in it. The setting’s one empty room eventually packed so tight with guests that by the end of the play many of them are sitting on ceiling crossbeams and hanging from wall hooks, while the doors are still being opened by this one principal on stage.”

  “The actor.”

  “Or actress. Because in the book of this playwright’s selected plays the role of ‘principal performer’—as she called it—is supposed to be played by an old man and young woman at alternate performances, though the sex and age of the person he or she wants to keep out stays the same.”

  “I’m sure my play didn’t have those instructions. But what did you mean before by ‘imaginary guests’?”

  “Actually, it’s the ringing that’s imaginary, the guests only conceivably. The audience sees them or at least sees what the principal performer thinks he or she’s seeing.”

  “I think I heard about that play. Is it the one where the actor or actress finally asks the audience to get out of their seats and then out of the theater so the guests who are pouring in can have somewhere to sit and stand?”

  “Not in my playwright’s play, though it’d be a better ending. And now I’ve lost what I was originally saying.”

  “The intercom ringing. Leading to the absurdity of most modern dramaturgy. But there’s another one. You heard it. I know I did, if I’m not imagining us at this wonderful party and the bell ringing repeatedly. No, we’re both here and the bells are real and the party’s wonderful. You know Alan Merson there?”

  “I know his work.”

  “Fine fellow, fine work.”

  “I don’t want to say anything. Undoubtedly he’s a fine fellow.”

  “But you are saying something. Excuse me, I see someone I know.”

  He goes over to a well-known painter, they clap backs and begin talking. The Times Sunday magazine did an article on the painter not long ago. I like a lot of his work but don’t consider it art. I consider it what? Illustrations. I said that to a couple of people at this party and before it. Nobody agreed with me. One person bristled and said “Where do you come to say that?” and I said “This might sound mindless and maybe makes no sense, but I like what I know.” She said “It makes no sense or not enough for me to want to think any more about it,” and the conversation stopped for a minute while we both, when we weren’t looking at the other looking at our feet, looked at our feet. Diana has several of his works on her walls. All inscribed to her, one from thirty years ago. It says “Sleep sheepishly Dee,” which could mean a number of things but has no connection from what I can see to the illustration, which is more like a child’s cartoon, and with its colors from play crayons, of the Staten Island skyline during the daytime and about ten ocean liners lined up to go out to sea. He’s taller than his photographs. Could that be correct? Taller if his photographs were lifesize and he was standing in them erect. Balder also I notice passing him on my way to the couch, with what seemed to be real hair in his photographs being real hair combed over his head from the back.

  I sit and take a carrot stick off an end table
plate. Diana sits beside me and says before I can put the carrot into my mouth “You can’t sit on a couch at one of my parties or even in one of the easy chairs so early. If you were elderly, lame or a single to multiple amputee and one of those amputated parts was a leg or foot or even recently one to so many toes, yes, but now I want you to move around and mix. Or stand in one place and have more cheese. What’s wrong? You’re not having fun.”

  “If I don’t I won’t be invited to the next one, that it?”

  “Don’t be silly. To me you’re practically an honored guest.”

  “Honored guests rarely get the same honor twice.”

  “I can honor them once and practically honor them another time and then invite them when others are actually and practically honored. But now you can honor me by getting up and socially enmeshed.”

  “I just want to sit here and draw attention to myself and look around. You’ve a very interesting attractive group and Jane’s a doll though Phil’s a bit too driven, ass-kissing and affected to become a real artistic success.”

  “Phil has every right to want what he hasn’t quite won but has long earned. The rest are everything you say but don’t want to be looked at just yet by someone sitting on a couch. Timing’s very important for a good party. Someone sits and stares before the right time comes, he makes people uncomfortable or close to it. Also, the right person or couple must usually be the first to sit. A stranger sits, particularly one who doesn’t come with a big rep or hasn’t yet made a terrific hit, the more frequent guests get the impression he’s not enjoying himself, which makes them doubly uncomfortable: his staring and apparent discomfort. Right now everyone here—if he’s to be stared at—wants it to be done by someone standing up and, allowing for variations of shyness or boldness and height, face to face. I wouldn’t expect you to know this, being part social animal but mostly hermit.”

  “Hey, take it easy, for what am I doing that’s so wrong? You said someone will have to sit on the couch sooner or later, so why not me? Some people are the first in space. Others in the hearts of their partymen. Someone might be the first to get drunk tonight, another to break a valuable plate. I don’t want to be any of these, and even if I did want to I couldn’t be the first in space. So isn’t it better if I’m to be the first in anything—”

  “You’ve a smooth protective and circumventive sense of humor, which could be a first-rate unctuous one if you did more to thwart people from detecting how protective it is. I’ll be back in two minutes. If you’re not off the couch by then or joined on it by anyone more than my cat, I’m moving it into the hallway and you can sit out there for as long as you like.”

  “Deal.” I hold out my palm for her to slap. She looks at it and leaves. I bite off half the carrot stick. Someone sits on the couch’s other end. An actor I’ve seen in lead roles on public TV. He’s also worked in theater and movies. I smile and say hello. He nods, sets his glass down on the cocktail table, spills a little of it, “Shit!” He gets up for what I suppose is a napkin. “Here, use this,” taking out my bandanna handkerchief.

  “I have one of my own, thanks very much.”

  “I didn’t mean I’d think you’d use yours. Excuse me,” removing a scrap of chewed carrot off my lip, “the carrot. Because believe me, I’ll have to wash it some time after I get home, since I already wiped something up with it tonight, and wine leaves a nice smell.”

  “Does it? Wouldn’t think so. What it does leave is a gorgeous stain, at least the piss I usually drink. I’ll get a paper towel,” and leaves.

  He’s a good actor though I’ve never seen him in a movie or on the stage. He goes to the bar, gets a fresh glass of wine and a napkin for the bottom of the glass. Movies and TV have to be different than theater: many takes and the entire part doesn’t have to be memorized. I don’t see him anymore. Maybe they’re tougher than theater just because of those many takes and that the scenes aren’t filmed and taped in sequence. I don’t know much about those fields really, but can surmise. Accessible to so many women, but all those casting calls and waits. Bell rings. Cat weaves around lots of feet as he heads for the bedroom. I put on my glasses. Can’t see the cat but bedroom door crack widens an inch when nobody’s that close to it, so must be him going in or a draft. More people. Four to five greeted by Diana at the door. Just popping by, I overhear, on their way to wherever it is people go these days in evening dress, one saying “Rain’s frozen me stiff—what I need’s a drink,” and makes for the bar, tapping shoulders, poking triceps, startling some people when they see him in a tux. Maybe now she’s somewhere around. Coat hung up, umbrella snugged beside mine in the holder perhaps. It was, so there had to be some room left in it, and seeing her take out hers when she left is another reason I didn’t leave mine behind, or maybe only she tried squeezing her umbrella into the holder or someone leaving had just taken out his. Actor hasn’t come back. If they’d met, which they might have, and arranged to meet another time, they’d make a very handsome couple, though I doubt she’d enjoy knowing him after a week. That And-who-might-you-be? look and no smile given back, though could be he thought I was gay and he’s demonstrably or questionably not. I hear him from across the room. “‘It’s outrageous,’ he said, ‘and I simply won’t stand for it,”’ and a moment later everyone around him laughs. I don’t know why. Wasn’t an impersonation of a notable politico let’s say. Maybe he made a motion to sit. That’s an old slapstick shtick that could always do it, though I might be underrating his intelligence and overestimating his age, and I didn’t hear his entire remark. My glass is empty. I bring it down from my lips. Frozen man’s reaching below the bar where I suppose he knows or assumes the hard stuff is. I don’t remember emptying my glass. When I watched the crowd around the actor laugh or frozen man poke his way to the bar? I put the actor’s glass on the end table, wipe up the mess he left with my handkerchief and smell it. He’s right. Don’t know why I said it’d make a nice smell. Stupid, but something more. Policemen and performing celebrities as well as psychiatrists at parties and maybe even brain surgeons or all doctors and also scientists doing encephalic research make me uneasy at times and overeager to please. What else can I do for you, like your shoes and socks shined? Wine’s left a white cloud on the wood that won’t wipe off. Not my fault but someone who had only watched me when I wiped it might think it was, but I’m sure Diana or her cleaning women will know how to get it out. Should I tell her? I look at my lap. No matter how large in the crotch I buy my pants or how dark they are, my genitals still show through. Maybe I wear the wrong kind of underpants. This isn’t much fun. Should I get up and if up go to the door or bar? But I don’t want to go so soon. A woman might still come in whom I’ll want to meet and what do I have cooking at home? Bell rings. And drink his. In the Himalayas maybe one can still get a liver-eating amoebic disease. I pour his wine into my glass.

  “That was smart, taking two with you when you sat,” woman sitting down on the couch says.

  “This? It was someone else’s and I didn’t want to waste it.”

  “Someone you know I hope.”

  “No, but I trust him. I figured—one of Diana’s friends? How contagious could he be?”

  “What if, and this is just a what-if, it happened to be a friend of her friend’s—someone he just picked up at a bar? I don’t mean that, since I’m sure everyone here is more than all right, but only as an example to be more cautious other times?” and drinks from a mug of beer.

  “Oh, beer. That’s what I should’ve got. I didn’t see any.”

  “In the refridge. Mugs in the cabinet above. Like some of mine?”

  “Sure you’d want to drink from it after I took a swig?”

  “You’re an actual friend of Diana’s, aren’t you? Or at least not someone she picked up at a seedy bar minutes before she put this whole thing together, and naturally I don’t mean it, and you look clean.”

  “Very clean. And hand-invited, that’s me. But shower a day. Obsessively clean. Believe me, I cha
nge my teeth at the very minimum once a week.”

  “Maybe we ought to drop the subject.”

  “Right. Sometimes I never know where my mouth’s going to go.”

  “That doesn’t have to be a bad thing. And if you want some beer you’ll get your own then, not that I’m worried I’ll catch anything from you.”

  “No, tainted wine suits me fine and the alcohol in it kills the—but I should stop that. Honestly, thanks for the offer.” I turn to the party, figuring she no longer wants to talk and not being that interested in the conversation either.

  “Who are you,” she says, “besides Diana’s friend if you are?”

  “I am. From summer camp.”

  “From hundreds of years ago when you were both counselors or campers there?”

  “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have assumed everyone knew that reference. An artist colony upstate.”

  “That place. With the signed Tiffany windows and where she went this summer. You must be a painter. You look like one.”

  “Nope, a translator. And before you ask—you were going to?”

  “I’ll have to now.”

  “For the present a not, in English, very well known contemporary Japanese poet. Name’s Jun Hasenai.”

  “Never heard of him. But I’m not familiar with most poetry. My husband’s the one.”

  “That so? What’s he do?”

  “Forget about him. I always talk about him when I sit on couches at parties. I want to know about your work. Your poet’s very good?”

  “Believe me. But most translators, when they choose what they’re going to translate out of love or whatever you want to call it—”

  “Certainly not money.”

  “Money? Money? What’s that? Some new form of currency? No, that’s not funny. Anyway, they think all the previous translations of it aren’t good enough, though with Hasenai I’ve been lucky since there’s almost been nothing in English and not one book.”

  “I’m excited, a terrific new writer I’ve never heard of. Can you quote some of it?”