Class Warfare (3 page)

JANEY AND AMBROSE and Spiffy and I live on Masterpiece Avenue, in the historic site; we have had invitations to move elsewhere, generous offers, but we have always refused them. It is a thing of some consequence, after all, to be where we are, to have stayed here. In times of restlessness, we take pleasure in this; we stumble trustfully through the barren opulent rooms, fondling woodwork, plaster, chimney tile, groping the scabrous face of history. Architecture, Ambrose said, is consolidation: first the projection of tangible things in imaginary space, then the rendering of intangible space in real substance. That seemed profound enough. It occurs to me now that I was eating a chicken sandwich at the time, that I could discern no taste in it, that in those days Ambrose was always talking, I was always listening.

Those days: a mousetrap for time, an intention that hid itself in the cobwebs, eyes bright and nose a-quiver, the moment we named it.
Let's make memories
, Janey said. She has pale hair, educated nostrils, hepatitis, a mother in Miami. We make memories regularly. We are all waiting, stoically, for the arrival of the Past: without yesterday to refer to, how shall we recognize tomorrow? As I write, Janey is plucking her pellucid eyebrows. I have forgotten, if I ever knew, what “pellucid” is.

Our house, according to Ambrose, is a specimen of Gothic Revival, “somewhat corrupt.”

But how imprecise our language is, how misleading our common prepositions. We live, in fact, neither
on
Masterpiece Avenue nor—as Spiffy likes to say, being preternaturally British—
in
it; our address represents little more than a tactical concession to the Telephone Book, which for economic reasons eschews semantics. (For economic reasons, also, we have eschewed the telephone, but that is irrelevant.) To industry, we
are
Masterpiece Avenue: so be it. For myself, dogged purist that I am, the first choice would be
near
, combining as it does accuracy and mystery both, but the consensus of the house—arrived at not without introspection, not without intimations of rancour—has settled upon
beside
, as topographically more specific. So I must concur, albeit under protest: we live, the four of us, beside Masterpiece Avenue, thirty-two feet and half an inch north-northwest, in the historic site.

There are stories, which we prefer to disregard, of old iniquity in our domain: heathen practices, crimes of passion, conspiracies against the state. The national magazines remain intriguingly silent on the subject, a silence we interpret, variously, as discretion, ignorance, or lack of interest. From time to time we observe, through the wreckage of our hedge, elderly ladies in poetic headgear standing in an attitude which may be reverence, in front of the Plaque. We seldom complain: the Plaque is attached securely to the gatepost, on the outermost surface; it is thus exterior to us, and incidental. We are always safely within, usually out of sight. The gate is unlocked only on Delivery Day, once a week, when Ambrose, our largest and bravest, stands guard.

I have never read the Plaque, but Janey—a promiscuous reader—has; she remembers it as follows:

 

HISTORIC SITE

IN EIGHTEEN SOMETHING

SIR SOMEONE OR OTHER

DIED UPON THESE PREMISES

“Sweeter it be to walk in Grace

Than jest with the Devil face to Face.”

 

Myself, I am spared the burden of curiosity. Truth to tell, I find the poetic ladies at moments oddly pleasing, poignant, in the manner of an heirloom watercolour; and their devotions, if obscure and (not inconceivably) perverse, have for me an aspect of mute creaturely pathos essentially akin to that engendered by dime-store portraits of small doomed deer, at twilight, praising their Master in their ineffable woodland way. I am more afflicted with sentiment, sometimes, than my comrades suspect.

There is a danger in this, which I concede, which I am studying to forestall. We have ourselves become, in our fashion, a species of monument, an item in the history of the site. We have, then, a responsibility to the world, a duty to be, at all times,
monumental
. We do not belong wholly to ourselves. We are here on sufferance, by the grace of the Landmarks Commission, to provide “continuity, the sense of a still-viable tradition, an ongoing ambience.” So we are told, so we believe. It appears to be, in some context, a political function; Ambrose, in a fit of melancholia, once growled something about the “comprador class,” into which we may or may not have been “conscripted.” But we all know what Ambrose is like, when the fit comes on him.

In any event, our work is apparently serious, and we take it seriously. We are constrained to be outlaws, desperadoes, the stuff of an incipient mythology. My own weakness is that I am small and squirrelly, much given to moody brooding, inchoate inspirations (to violate the boundaries of our monumentality, embrace the poetic ladies, bare myself before the multitudes), and a not always manageable disposition to tears. Such behaviour is not respected here; I must dissemble often; I await, with dread, the inexorable moment of self-betrayal. I am unworthy of Masterpiece Avenue.

Spiffy knows: I catch in her cool Angloid eye, in passing, a glint of—what? Recognition? Commiseration? Warning? And:
We must all be careful
, Ambrose whispers, polishing his glossy blade, nibbling wisely at his moustache. And whose toothpaste was it that spelled out, on the bathroom mirror one midwinter morning, the words of our sentence?—THIS IS A GOOD LIFE, WE ARE CONTENTED THEREWITH.

Is it? Are we? The issue arises, in despite of us, for we know the answer, we have rehearsed it often and well, and fear only that you who hear it, you who ask, will choose not to comprehend it. For our part, it would be merely redundant to ask: is it not our mission, is it not our job, to be contented? And why, all things considered, should we not be? We are friends,
companions
; we are schooled in loving kindness, we exchange affections, pleasant remarks, useful household articles, on a regular basis; we are tirelessly considerate, endlessly patient, tactful, benign. We sleep warmly in one bed, having no other and needing none; our protocols in this, as in all else, are democratic. We agree utterly upon all questions of ethics, music, the governance of this world, the ontological unnecessity for any other. Our blissful unanimity, being as it is complete and (we trust) indestructible, long ago eliminated any impulse to argument; consequently, in the seven years of our tenancy here, we have had neither cause nor occasion for dissension. Our lives have the texture and consistency of fine sculpture, a seemingly perfect harmony of line and mass. The Landmarks Commission would be proud of us, I think.

We speak, when we see fit to speak at all, of homely subjects: the local climate, which is just sufficiently unpredictable to induce conversation; the precedence and composition of our several daily meals, the potential variety of which, in Janey's opinion, is mathematically either incalculable or actually “infinite,” depending upon one's assumptions re natural resources, the limits of biochemical ingenuity, and the vagaries of appetite and imagination; the manifold virtues and inconsolable sorrows of our forsaken parents, childhood playmates, counsellors, sophomore sweethearts, erstwhile partners in business and boudoir, of whose collective absence we humbly beg continuance; the bizarre pastimes of our present neighbours, the omniorgiasts; the whereabouts of the dictionary, which we have become expert at losing (thereby providing, on occasion, an entire evening of sparkling discourse); and the evidence of entropy in the molecular constitution of Masterpiece Avenue, which we cannot profess to understand.

Are we contented, indeed? Silly question. We are envied, patently, we live well; surely that is enough? All we require comes to us at our behest, each Wednesday before sundown, in grey vans rattling richly up the broken stones of Masterpiece Avenue; tawny boys in uniform bring boxes, sacks, incontinent armloads of commodities from warehouses, from the bounteous city. The boys have muscled smiles that coil and flex as they perform acts of largesse around us; they sing in strong expectant voices songs of commercial opportunities, patriotic aspirations, the sweetness of vengeance, triumphant self-abuse in verminous hallways. Sometimes they begin an air we know well, and cherish:

 

I never meant

to steal your baubles, baby,

I only meant

to steal your mind.

I wanted love

to ease my troubles, baby,

but good lovin' is hard to find.

 

Then, indeed, we are in danger, we are tested. Then, I notice the dampness creep like errant moonlight across Janey's face, and Ambrose forgetful at the gate lower his blade to unmanly repose, and Spiffy arrested in greed stand agape and aglow with secret knowledge; and I, who betray too much at best of times, who am unworthy, wordlessly count money, thinking of Paracelsus dead, dishonoured, his doctrines yet lingering on and on, through centuries of disgrace, lingering even now, preserved in tinfoil and ashes, an afterlight on Masterpiece Avenue.

 

I never meant

to leave you hollow, baby,

I only meant

to leave you blind.

I asked for light

so I could follow, baby,

I never thought I was unkind.

 

Tested, so far, we do not fail, have not failed; we sway, pause, tremble an instant; we do not break. So far. I do not dismiss the possibility, altogether; I, at least, am only perishable matter, and know it. I study finitude and scratch its contours, lovingly, across my mortal skin. What is the enemy, who, and where? And what shall I do, what say, when one day we come, as come we must, face to face?

Compassion, I'll say: have compassion. You who are free, alive in the quick light of the confident world, forgive us. You who are loved, forgive us. Forgive us all who are your monuments, your history, who stand watch for you at the mouth of the labyrinth, beside Masterpiece Avenue.
Have compassion
. Have faith in us, whom you appointed to this eminence. Have faith, lest we fail you when the storms come, lest we leave you to fire and flood, industrial speculations, the ecstasy of the Minotaur. We have our work, as you in the ordinary world have yours: forgive us the work we do for you. Deserve well of us, as we deserve of you, on Masterpiece Avenue, this eminence.

As for me, I take delight in commas, which hark of unfinished things, of memories still aborning, but I find comfort in the period I shall someday place, a token ring upon a beloved finger, at the certain and only end …

You are to write THREE essays, one from Parts I, II, and III. Take an hour for each essay. Plan carefully. At the end, proofread
.

The process of watching over the examination is called “invigilation.” The process of adoration is called “unprofessional conduct.” At nine o'clock in the morning, the beautiful of this world enter the examination room, to find the examination booklets set out for them, and the Professor behind his desk, adoring. There is no other word. He has decided to leave his wife.

Discuss.
The theme, “the theme of the poem.” He is open to discussion. He will observe, praise, the purity of these faces, concentrated, focused, on silly questions: this perfection of flesh, this effulgence. These are his students, and he is their English Professor:
theirs.
They are thinking of serious words, writing them down, filling the blue-lined pages, one-side-only, every-other-line-please. He is in love. The process of invigilation consists in doing nothing, vigilantly, for three hours of an April morning.

Q.
What did T.S. Eliot have to say about April?

The Professor is going to leave his wife because she said: “You love your goddamned students more than me.” It's true, he does.
Choose ONE of the following topics. Plan carefully.

He, too, is writing earnestly in the regulation booklet. He does it as a gesture of solidarity, “symbolic action”: it's his job, his contract with the world, to deal in symbolism.
See,
he is saying,
we are all alike oppressed
. He will try not to look at the bent heads, the busy hands, writing, writing. “The universal truth expressed by the poet is …” (
Discuss conflicts of this sort, with specific reference to
…). He will try and try, not to look at them. The loveliest, the golden failures, will never know, they'll never suspect. He's had years of his profession to learn discretion. He won't touch them, won't caress, though they fall drunk against his shoulder in the Volkswagen, on the way home. “A reader may be, at first, puzzled by a work in which nothing much seems to be happening.”
In the event of a bomb threat, please follow the procedures outlined below. Do not panic. Do not interrupt the examination. Your co-operation will be
… Appreciated. The girl in the second row has long yellow hair, communicative eyes, and a valentine locket on a chain. Never mind that she's a functional illiterate, that she doesn't know an antonym from a pseudonym.
Never mind.

Nothing seems to be happening. He reads, “Such a reader may find illumination …”
Strive vigilantly upward
. Said the Buddha, he thinks. It sounds like the sort of thing the Buddha would have said. So much is slipping away … everything …

The Professor is writing a letter in his booklet; it looks like this: Dear Valerie, I am leaving you, goodbye, goodbye forever.

He is writing a poem, in iambic pentameter, in his head. He is thinking of a song heard on the radio, this morning: something about the waters of oblivion.
Send her all my salary / from the waters of oblivion
. What he heard, the rhyme he understood, was
celery
. Send her all my celery, he heard. Now he thinks of the tall green celery growing there, the pale green stalks waving wetly in the murky deeps, in the waters of oblivion. He knows those waters well; he has seen the celery.
Valerie, I'm sorry, you can keep the car, the furniture, the dishwasher, the children. And the celery, if you must. There are so many bodies here in the examination room, and I am full of desire
.

He is saying to them in his heart: “Little brothers and sisters.” They are writing about metaphor, metapsychology, metastasis, metallurgy; they are writing about the Central Experience. He could tell them a thing or two about that: the C.E. It is a new department of the Government, very secretive, a vague amalgam of former welfare recipients housed in a converted warehouse, in a provincial city. What goes on there? Questions are asked in Parliament, loudly, by entrenched back-benchers; the Honourable Member from Purple Falls requests a definition of the Central Experience. Someone replies, softly:
Celery
. Plant tall celery, tend it, in the quiet sea.

Q.
Please, can I go to the, uh, washroom?

A.
Yup.

The examination reminds him of too much. In blue ink, it has the effrontery to quote Wallace Stevens: “The body dies, the body's beauty lives.”
Discuss in depth
, the examination says. (How did
he
know?)

Little brothers and sisters, I will plant tenderness in the hearts of English professors, your masters, everywhere. You will forget what an inscape is, and you won't care. Oxymorons will proliferate, syllogisms will slide to and fro, and no one will care. Shapeliness will save you, shapeliness will suffice.
Analyze this poem
. With reference to one or more.
More
, always,
more of everything
. And I shall seed the waters of oblivion, lovingly, for you.

The gardeners wear flippers and masks, pale green, who go down into the waters of oblivion. Gently, they weed and prune. Their bodies are smooth, with the smoothness of damp plaster, in that light. They make no sound.

The man who is leaving his wife sits at the front of the examination room, writing. There is a question here about Meaning:
levels of meaning
. Last night he finished his essay on Anagogical Sublimation, a field in which he may be a pioneer. “Why the hell,” Valerie wanted to know, “do you waste your time with that stuff?” He's wondered the same thing himself. If he were half a man he'd be in a logging camp, building Character, muscles, sublimating everything. Meanwhile he has a terrible hangover, and the room is rancid with panic. The aspirin, as usual, isn't working. He remembers more of the song:
Too much of nothing / makes a man feel bad
. The examination will soon be over.

The caloric content of celery is a negative quantity.

Harvesting the waters of oblivion, a project: cutting celery, in the green sea. The gardeners use small, ivory-handled knives, souvenirs of the Jubilee, to slice the celery, to sever the tall green stalks.

Where no fish glide to and fro. Where no bright red and golden fish dart, to and fro, among the pale stalks.

 

Upward, my soul
.

 

Compare and contrast any TWO of the following.
In case of emergency, follow directions on printed sheet. Remain calm …
NOTE TO INSTRUCTORS:
Do not answer questions asked by students during the examination period
.

NOTE TO STUDENTS: The Kermess is a Flemish outdoor festival.

You learn something new every day.

Upward, my soul, vigilantly through the green waters, these murky waters, oblivion.
Explain, in as much detail possible
. The harvesters work in perfect silence, deep in the celery plantations, in the salt sea. The students are beginning to drift away. One by one they go, away, the beautiful of this world. “Icarus,” the examination says, “a figure in Greek legend …” Goodbye, Valerie. Goodbye forever.

At the end, proofread.