Mantissa Read online

  “The way you disappear, the way you return.”

  She plucks the lyre twice. “That’s two.”

  “That’s ridiculous – it was clearly only a comma.”

  “Not the way you said it.”

  “It was just a pause for rhetorical effect. The concepts are linked. Disappearing, returning. Anyone can see that.” She gives him a warning look down. He says slowly, “You really are the sexiest thing in all creation, you know that?”

  She looks away. “That’s definitely two.”

  “I can play by the rules as well, you know.”

  “One.”

  And she stands, with a hint of complacently superior inner knowledge, not very far from that characteristic of a famous type of Cycladic marble head, that is insufferable. He takes a deep breath.

  “What I was actually rather wondering was this (colon) whether there aren’t really (comma) in spite of your distinctly exaggerated umbrage at one or two small assumptions I was obliged to make in my fictional representation of you and for which you can in any case very largely blame your own extreme deviousness (parenthesis) if not positive coquettishness (dash) and I speak as one who has more times than he cares to remember been foully stood up by you without even the elementary courtesy of being warned that you were busy having it off with someone else (close parenthesis and comma) areas that merit further investigation by both the written and the writer (comma) or (comma) if you prefer (comma) between the personified as histoire and the personifier as discours (comma) or in simpler words still (comma) by you and me (semicolon) and as I feel sure that we have at least one thing in common (colon) a mutual incomprehension of how your supremely real presence in the world of letters has failed to receive the attention (parenthesis) though you may regard that as a blessing in disguise (close parenthesis) of the campus faculty-factories (comma) the structuralists and deconstructivists (comma) the semiologists (comma) the Marxists (comma) academic Uncle Tom Cobbleigh and all (comma) that it deserves (semicolon) and furthermore as I’m sure a really thorough seminar à deux on the subject of ourselves will take time (comma) and I feel slightly at a disadvantage trying to cover my private parts with a rubber sheet (comma) while you (comma) on the other hand (parenthesis) though you do look absolutely delicious and truly divine with your pretty fingers poised like that over your wholly authentic lyre (close parenthesis and comma) do strike me as looking (dash) if it is not just a ghost of that frightful kohl (dash) the teeniest bit tired (comma) as well you might (comma) having very sweetly come all this way (comma, or semicolon if you prefer) then it occurred to me that we could do much worse than relax a little (dash) purely (comma) I hasten to add (comma) for the purposes of discussion (comma) of course (semicolon) and I should add that the bed is exceptionally comfortable if you did feel like resting for a few minutes (dash) but I –”

  “This is getting you absolutely nowhere!”

  He smiles. “I’m afraid I haven’t quite finished.”

  She stares at him, then turns and sits indignantly on the side of the bed, putting the lyre beside her. She folds her arms, and pointedly concentrates her gaze upon the cuckoo clock.

  “(Dot dot dot) to resume (dash) but I must insist that it is on the understanding that although I could go on like this forever (comma) until you would have to lie on the bed anyway out of sheer exhaustion (comma) we agree that the formal basis for our discussion must be your recognition of the indisputable fact that if you had only manifested yourself earlier in the text to which you object so much (dash) and especially in that stunning classical get-up (comma) or chiton (dash) the narrative development you most particularly take exception to would almost certainly not have taken place and we should therefore not be respectively standing and kneeling here in this absurd hospital room that I haven’t even had the patience to describe properly by square old standards (comma) let alone nouveau roman ones (semicolon) but (comma) and considering this is how I should have begun (comma) because you really are (dash) and I am not (underlined) being a male chauvinist (dash) one of the most godawful cock-teasers in the history of this planet and I sometimes think how much easier the whole damn business would be if we were all gay and if you go on like this we very probably shall be and then where will you be (dash) back mooning around on that godforsaken mountain (comma) wailing those wretched chants in that uncouth Ionian dialect (comma) pinging away on that frightful lyre (dash) and while you’re about it (comma) I wish you’d get the thing in tune (comma) the bass string’s at least a semitone flat (comma) and do not let me forget that you’d be doing us all a great favor if you’d only ask your sister Euterpe or St. Cecilia or actually just any moderately competent bouzouki player to give you a few elementary tips on how to hold a plectrum properly and –”

  He has gone too far, at last. She snatches up the lyre and stands shaking it at him.

  “If it wasn’t such a performance getting these restrung, this would be framed over your moronic head. And don’t you dare answer back! One single word and it ends now!”

  It seems for a heart-stopping moment that she will fulfill her threat, despite the consequences. But she lets the lyre fall.

  “In my entire four thousand years I’ve never met such arrogance. And the sheer blasphemy! I do not inspire pornography. I never have. And as for that other disgusting word… everyone knows that my chief characteristic happens to be a supreme maidenliness – and once and for all will you stop looking at my nipples!” He hastily directs his eyes at the carpet again. She stares at him, then at her lyre, then at him again. “I’m most terribly angry.” He nods. “Immortally offended. Apart from anything else you seem to forget who I’m the daughter of.” He looks quickly up and shakes his head. She is not mollified. “I can’t help who he happens to be. I fall over myself to behave like one of you. Not to be a snob, not to go running to Daddy like some poor little rich girl.” She looks resentfully down at the carpet at her feet. “And all you do is take advantage of my decency, my trying to keep up with the times.” She shows what is almost a pout. “I’d just like to see you trying to be eternally young and several millennia old, all at the same time.”

  Inasmuch as his muteness allows he tries to express the sincerest sympathy. She regards him for a long moment more, then suddenly turns and sits down again on the side of the bed, the lyre on her lap, and begins nervously tracing a decoration on one of its curved arms.

  “All right. I may, heaven knows why, out of some misguided sense of responsibility, have inspired you with the mere gist of a notion of some new sort of meeting between us. But all I saw was an interesting little contemporary variation on an ancient theme. Something for learned readers. Not that obscene…” She waves towards the head of the bed. “I thought at least you’d have the sense to consult a few classical texts, for a start.” Her finger traces obsessively up and down the swan’s neck of the golden-armed lyre. “It’s so unfair. I’m not a prig. And humiliating. If my wretched family gets to hear about it.” Her voice grows increasingly hurt. “They think it’s all a huge joke, anyway. Just because I thought I was clever drawing love poetry when we picked lots in the beginning. Then getting stuck with the whole of fiction as well. I have to work ten times as hard as all the rest of them put together.” She broods over her wrongs. “Of course the whole genre is in a mess. Death of the novel, that’s a laugh. I wish to all my famous relations it was. And good riddance.” She pauses again. “It’s what I loathe about this rotten country. And America, that’s even worse. At least the French are doing their best to kill the whole stupid thing off for good.”

  He gets to his feet. She sits with her head bowed; then throws the lyre to one side. After a moment she reaches for her floral chaplet, pulls it off, and starts sulkily fiddling with that instead.

  “I don’t know why I’m telling you all this. Fat lot you care.”

  He cautiously advances, hesitates, then sits on the bed beside her, leaving the lyre between them. She gives the instrument a bitter side-glance.
/>   “I know it’s out of tune. I hate it. How the idea got around that the whole world fell silent when that ridiculous cousin of mine gave one of his endless concerts, God only knows. Tinkle, tinkle, plonk, plonk. Everyone I knew used to go to sleep with the sheer screaming boredom of it all.” She fiddles with the chaplet, as if it is to blame. “And this absurd outfit. Don’t think I don’t know you’re only pretending to like it.”

  She flicks him a cold glance out of the corner of her dark eyes.

  “Pig.” She tears at a rosebud. “I hate you.” He waits. “And you thought that black girl’s boobs were much nicer, anyway.”

  He shakes his head.

  “I’m just amazed you didn’t have her as well by the end. Or both of us together.” She pulls another rosebud out of the chaplet, and starts tearing its petals off, one by one. “Properly developed, it could have been a perfectly tasteful and interesting idea. I’m not unreasonable. I wouldn’t have objected to a certain discreet nuance of romantic interest. I’m not totally unaware that you’re male and I’m female.”

  He pushes the lyre back and edges a few inches closer.

  “And don’t think that’s going to get you anywhere.”

  He reaches and takes her hand; she tries to pull it free, but he insists. Their joined hands lie on the white sheet, prisoner and jailer. She gives them a contemptuous look, then away.

  “Not if you got down on your knees again and begged me. And another thing. This is all strictly off the record.”

  He squeezes the hand; then moves a little closer still, and after a further squeeze, puts his arm around her bare shoulders. She does not respond.

  “I know exactly what you’re trying to do. I may not be the musical one in my family, but I can recognize a fugal inversion when I see it.”

  He bends and kisses the shoulder.

  “I haven’t the least liking or affection for you anymore. It’s just that I’m too tired to care. It was a bloody awful flight. I was airsick.”

  He kisses the shoulder again.

  “You have absolutely no feeling for my feelings at all.”

  He removes the rubber sheet. She throws a quick look down at his lap, then turns her head away.

  “How unspeakably vulgar you are sometimes.”

  He tries to lead her hand to the unspeakable vulgarity, but she snatches it away and folds her arms across her breasts again, staring at the quilted wall.

  “You needn’t think I didn’t see that smirk on your face when I spoke of maidenliness. Just because once or twice in the past I may have allowed myself to relax in your presence. I suppose you think that’s inconsistent and silly as well. That occasionally I have the humanity to contradict my own public image.”

  He examines her profile, and then gently begins to ease the white strap of the tunic off her delectably rounded and golden shoulder. But she clamps her arm against her side when the whole top of the garment threatens to fall.

  “And before you start thinking you’re doing a marvelous seduction job, I’d better remind you that you’re not the only one by a long chalk. I’ve had my clothes taken off by sensitive geniuses. I’m not going to be impressed by a composer of erotica.”

  He takes his hand away. There is a silence. Then, still staring at the wall, she slips the hanging strap under her elbow.

  More silence. Still she stares at the wall.

  “I didn’t say you had to take your arm away.”

  He puts it back.

  “Not that I care a damn. Personally.”

  He teases, very gingerly, the front of the tunic over what prevents it from falling to her lap.

  “You think I know nothing about men. I can tell you my very first lover had more sex in his little toenail than you do in your whole boring body. Or he would have if he’d had a little toenail. You wouldn’t have caught him just looking at the breasts of Miss Greece of nineteen eighty-two.” She adds, “I refer to nineteen eighty-two B.C., of course.”

  He raises his hand, and lets his other hand, around the shoulders, slip down to the bare waist and pull her a fraction closer. He leans to kiss her cheek; in vain. She turns her head away.

  “But then he didn’t have an infantile transferred fixation from golliwogs.” He clears his throat. “I take that back. But then he didn’t have an absolutely typical male pseudo-intellectual’s sexist belief that making black sisters proves he’s a liberal.”

  There is a silence. She looks down at his right hand and its movements.

  “I’ve a good mind to tell you about him. Just to put you in your place.” She watches a few moments more. “And that happens to be a purely involuntary reaction. I can produce exactly the same effect using my own hands.” She sniffs. “As I often have to, given how inept and ignorant most of you are.” His hand stops. She lets out an impatient breath. “Oh for God’s sake. Now you’ve started, you may as well go on.” He goes on. “I don’t know why men put such enormous value on it. It’s actually not half as exciting as you all so fondly imagine. It’s only a biological survival mechanism. To facilitate suckling.” A moment or two later, with another sigh, she leans back, propped on her arms. “Honestly. You’re just like laboratory rats. The simplest trigger… off you trot.” She subsides further, on her elbows. “Nibble and bite. Bite and nibble.” There is a silence. But then she sits abruptly and pushes him away. “You can’t do that until you’ve undone my zone. Anyway, you’re only trying to distract me. What you really need is a good bucket of cold water.” His hand is slapped. “And stop that. It’s a very complicated knot. If you want to do something useful for once, you’d better go and close the door. And turn the light out while you’re about it.”

  He goes to the door, and closes it on the impenetrable night that stands beyond. She is standing as well, by the bed, her bare back to him, her hands by her side, untying the saffron girdle. But just as she is about to slip the tunic down, she glances back at him over her shoulder.

  “If you don’t mind. We’ve already had quite enough voyeurism in this sickening room.”

  He presses the switch at the door. The white panel above the bed is extinguished, but another panel above the door, apparently controlled from outside, continues to glow. It is dim, penumbral, like summer moonlight.

  He opens his hands apologetically.

  “Sod. You’ve just invented that.” He raises his hands in denial. “Oh yes you have. There hasn’t been a single mention of it before this.” She admonishes him with a long moment’s accusing stare, then turns her back and steps out of the tunic. Now she faces him, holding the garment in front of her bosom, like some Victorian artist’s model. “You’re really asking for it again. The only good line you came up with was when that doctor said you ought to be stuffed and put in a museum.”

  She looks in the twilight for somewhere to hang her tunic; then walks around the end of the bed to the cuckoo clock in the far corner. There she hangs it from a projecting chamois-head at the corner of one of the eaves. Without looking at him she returns to the bed, plumps up the pillows, and sits back in the center of it with folded arms. He moves to join her.

  “Oh no you don’t. You can get the chair and sit there.” She points to a place on the carpet ten feet from the bed. “And listen to someone else for once in your life.”

  He fetches the chair and sits where she has indicated; then folds his arms as well. The Grecian-haired girl on the bed stares at him with an unconcealed suspicious resentment, then quickly at something lower down his body, before transferring her disdainful gaze to the light-panel over the door. There is a silence, during which his eyes do not leave her body. It is not a body, now it is revealed in all its beauty, that encourages leaving in any sense. It somehow contrives, all at the same time, to be both demure and provocative, classical and modern, individual and Eve-like, tender and unforgiving, present and past, real and dreamed, soft and…

  She gives him a fierce look. “And for God’s sake stop staring at me like a dog waiting for a bone.” He looks down.
“Unlike you I try to think before I tell a story.” He bows his head in assent. “You’d better regard it as a tutorial. Not just about sexual arrogance, either. But on how to get simply and quickly to the point, instead of beating endlessly about the bush. Like some people I could mention.”

  There is a further silence, then she begins to narrate.

  “If you must know, it happened at home. I was only sixteen. There was a place, a sort of alpine meadow surrounded by dense undergrowth, where I used to go sometimes on my own to sunbathe. It was very hot, July, and I’d taken off my tunic. A favorite aunt of mine – actually I’ve always been more like a daughter to her than a niece – has always held strong naturist views. It was she who first taught me not to be ashamed of my body. Some people say I look rather like her. She has a thing about sea-bathing as well – summer and winter. But that wouldn’t mean anything to you.”

  She unfolds her arms and puts her hands behind her head, still staring at the light over the door.

  “Anyway. There I was in my meadow. A couple of nightingales singing in the bushes nearby. Wild flowers, buzzing bees, all that sort of thing. The sun on my fifteen-year-old back. Then I thought I might get burnt. So I knelt up and rubbed some olive oil I’d brought all over my skin. I can’t imagine why, but as I was smoothing it in, instead of reflecting on naturist principles I began thinking about a young shepherd. By pure chance I’d met him once or twice. His name was Mopsus. Purely by chance, on walks. There was a beech tree he used to loll about under when it was hot. Playing a pipe, and if you think my lute is out of tune… anyway. A month before my mother – you know about my parents?”

  He nods.

  “She just had this thing about shepherds. After the divorce.”

  He nods again.

  “Not that you could ever imagine, being a man. I mean twins are bad enough. But nonuplets, and the whole lot daughters. There had to be a limit, even in those days.” She looks at him as if he might disagree; but he puts on his most understanding face. “I had to live with it all my childhood. Constant rows over the alimony. I’m not entirely blaming Daddy, she went through more sets of lawyers than dresses at a sale. And anyway, heaven knows she made enough out of the nine of us once we were old enough. Talk about traveling freak shows. We were hardly ever off the road in the beginning. It was worse than being the Rolling Stones. And we had the most ghastly manager, our so-called musical uncle, he was an absolute pansy – of course that’s why Mummy picked him, he had about as much interest in women as a film-star has in anonymity. We used to call him Aunt Polly, Thalia and me. That’s my only other sister who has a sense of humor. He used to pluck tweely away while we were supposed to prance around in our special costumes looking frightfully soulful and intelligent and all the rest of it. I mean that was the act. You’ve never seen anything so pathetic in all your life.”