The God of the Labyrinth Read online

  When I got downstairs, I told Fleisher that I wanted to leave immediately, but that I would accept his contract. He said: ‘Sure, man, that’s ma boy’, and punched me on the shoulder.

  Later

  I began the last entry at Great Neck and finished it in the bus station at Kennedy. Now, travelling back to New Haven, I recall that Bergson stumbled upon the answer to Helga’s sense of meaninglessness. In one of his essays, he described how a stage magician (Houdin, I think) trained his five-year-old son to in­stantaneous observation. The boy was shown a domino, but not allowed to count the dots. Later, he was asked to recall how many dots there were; i.e. he had to count them ‘in imagina­tion’. Then he was shown two dominoes, and told not to count the dots; again, he had to ‘imagine’ them when they had been taken away and recall how many dots there were. He was being trained to take visual photographs with his memory. Later, he was taken past toyshop windows, allowed to glance in for a second, then asked to write down all he could remember. Within a short time, he could write down forty or fifty items from memory. Houdin was training the boy to pretend he possessed second sight. The boy would go on stage, and glance at the audience for a minute or so while his father introduced him. In that time, he would ‘photograph’ all the visible objects—watch-chains, etc. Then he would be blindfolded, and some signal from his father would enable him to identify the object roughly. He would, of course, hear the voice of the man who handed it over and be able to judge where he was sitting.

  Bergson points out that the essence of this method was not allowing the boy to count the dots. Instead of interpreting what he saw, as we all do in everyday perception, he was asked merely to let the upper level of his mind photograph it. The upper level became dissociated from his feelings, intuitions, judgements, etc, and could move much quicker; it was ‘travelling light’.

  Clever young people soon learn this trick—particularly if they are cramming for exams. They learn to dissociate the levels of the mind. But observe what this means. You teach yourself to photograph ‘facts’ without their meaning. If I was asked to memorise the contents of a toyshop window, I should say: ‘That’s a fire engine in the middle, and a doll in that corner, and a teddy bear in that one. . . .’, and I wouldn’t memorise more than two or three objects in several seconds.

  This easily becomes a habit: grasping things without their meaning. It becomes difficult to re-connect your upper levels with your instincts and feelings. The horse refuses to be har­nessed to the cart, as it were. You go around merely ‘seeing’ things without their meanings. And you say: ‘The world is meaningless.’

  Monday, April 14, Charleston, S.C.

  A Sunday with Diana and Mopsy has me feeling more sane. I spent yesterday toying with the idea of scrapping the Donelly fragment and writing Fleisher a complete book of Donelly memoirs. But this morning, just before I left New Haven, Fleisher rang me. He had just remembered that I was going to Baton Rouge, and he wanted to tell me that a descendant of Donelly’s—Colonel Monroe Donelly—is living at a place called Denham Springs. I shall be there for thirty-six hours, and try to call on him.

  I keep thinking about Beverley. Not just about her, but about what happened to the trees as I stared at them. I keep trying to put it into words. Just as, when you’re feeling miserable, every­thing you look at seems tinged with your misery—becomes a kind of symbol of your misery, like grey skies or falling autumn leaves—so in the moment when the orgasm convulses the whole body, everything becomes a symbol of the sense of power. This explains why I detest Donelly. His insipid little orgasms led nowhere; he never tried to pursue them to their source in himself.

  [Entries for the following week are omitted]

  Monday, April 21

  What has happened over the past twenty-four hours is so amazing that I must describe it in detail.

  On Saturday morning, and again on Saturday evening, I lectured at Louisiana State University—good lectures, in spite of this blanket of tiredness that I can’t shake off. (But I don’t much enjoy lecturing. I keep remembering that comment of the Marquis of Halifax: ‘The vanity of teaching doth often tempt a man to forget that he is a blockhead.’) Early Sunday morning, I ate breakfast at the motel, and hired a taxi to take me out to Denham Springs, some ten miles away. (Fleisher offered to pay all such expenses.) I purposely hired the taxi from Denham Springs. It was driven by a middle-aged negro. I asked him if he knew where Colonel Donelly lived. Oh yeah, he said, he knew the Colonel all right. He lived a mile outside town. He asked me if I was a friend of the Colonel’s, and I said I’d never met him, but was hoping to find him at home. He said: ‘Well, maybe he’ll see you and maybe he won’t. With the Colonel, you can never tell what he’ll do.’ He proved to be as talkative as most American taxi drivers, and in twenty minutes he’d told me a great deal about Donelly. There wasn’t much that I liked. He moved to Louisiana from Mexico shortly after the war, and bought land outside the town. He got it cheaply because it was swampy and full of snakes. He hired heavy equipment and had the land drained and cleared; then began to farm, growing rice, sugar and oranges. He paid well, but he became known as a man who drove himself and his hired labour. The hands—mostly negroes—lived in wooden barrack-like buildings. Donelly was a complete tyrant, although he had a reputation for fanatical fair­ness. He settled disputes himself, and even ordered whippings, which he occasionally carried out himself. Anyone who wished to leave could do so. He lived alone, and was never known to sleep with a woman. His only servant was a huge, morose Mexican he brought with him. There were rumours that he beat the man—the sound of blows and curses was sometimes heard from inside the farm building—but the servant never complained. He died of typhoid a few years later.

  In 1962, the Standard Oil Company—which has a big refinery at Baton Rouge—discovered oil on his land and offered him a large price for it. Donelly finally rented part of the land to them. And although he had plenty of farming land left, he gave up farming, dismissed his labourers, and lived a hermit existence. He had been living alone ever since, growing thinner and more taciturn. Several times a year he vanished—it was believed he went to New Orleans. A resident of Denham Springs claimed to have seen him in a brothel there, but it was not widely believed.

  We were within a few miles of Denham Springs, and the driver advised me to roll up my window. He explained we were about to pass a chicken factory that had recently burned down, and the bodies of the dead birds had not yet been removed. We passed the place on the right—little more than a large wooden shed, as far as I could judge from the burnt remains. Even with the windows closed, the sickening smell came in. The driver told me they had many fires in the area. The labourers’ quarters on Donelly’s farm had been burnt down, as had a barn full of hay.

  This didn’t surprise me. The only thing that surprises me about the south part of America is that the whole thing doesn’t burst into flame in midsummer. Although it was not yet eleven in the morning, the air was like a furnace.

  We drove through the sleepy little town, where everything looked very empty and quiet on a Sunday morning, then turned to the right, down a steep, narrow track that wound below the town. Half an hour’s cautious driving—to conserve the springs of the taxi—brought us to straggling wooden farm buildings that looked deserted. I paid him and got out. He said: ‘I’d better jus’ wait ’n’ see if he’s gonna let you in. He might just decide he’s not.’ So I crossed the dusty yard, past rusting farm equip­ment, towards the main building. A mangy yellow-coloured dog growled at me, but made no attempt to get up.

  Before I reached the door it opened, and Donelly stood there. I knew it must be Donelly—he looked too European to be any­body else; the kind of man one used to see on old advertisements for Planter’s Tea and Camp Coffee: thin, sunburned, with a face in which all the muscles showed through. He watched me approach without speaking, then said: ‘You’re Mr Somme?’ It was a relief. I expected him to say: ‘Who th
e hell are you?’ I said I was. He nodded, very briefly, and held open the door for me to go in.

  The room was bare and tidy, like an officer’s billet. Donelly hadn’t smiled or shaken hands. But I turned as he came in the door—he stood there to watch the taxi drive away—and thought he was watching me with an odd expression—speculative, like a cat watching a hedgehog. He said: ‘Can I offer you tea?’, and I said yes with enthusiasm. He went out, and left me alone. It was clear he lived in this one room. There was a camp bed, an uncomfortable armchair and an ordinary wooden chair, and a small folding table. The floor was bare and clean. There was an old green safe in the corner of the room. Half a dozen prints on the wall—of bare-fist boxers squaring up to one another, and fine horses. No books.

  Donelly came back with the tea, and a plate of buttered cream crackers. I got the feeling that he wanted to unbend, to say something friendly, and had forgotten how. As he poured the tea he asked me if I’d had a good trip. I said yes. I resisted the temptation to talk to try to fill the silence. As I sipped my tea—which was well made—I recalled Heine’s definition of silence as the conversation of Englishmen, and found it hard not to smile. Finally, I stopped trying. Donelly looked at me at that moment, and I turned my smile into a friendly grin, and said: ‘Well, it’s really a pleasure to find an Englishman living in this weird spot.’ He said stiffly: ‘I’m Irish.’ ‘Same thing at this distance’, I said, wondering if he’d throw something at me. But he gave a kind of frozen smile and said: ‘Yes, I suppose so.’ For some curious reason, the ice was broken. He said: ‘So you live in Moycullen? Where abouts?’, and I described the cottage we’d rented, and the house we’d moved into. Then he asked me if I knew any­thing of the Domenech murder case—the girl who was found at the bottom of the cliffs of Moher two years ago. I knew all about it, and described it in detail. She was an American girl whose lover killed her for her traveller’s cheques. I knew the fisherman who found the body, and the member of the local gardai who was called to view it. The face was apparently unrecognisable, but the murderer had made the mistake of leaving one item of clothing on the body—a pair of black lace panties. These con­tained the name tag of an American manufacturer, and even­tually led to her identification. I had also spoken to the detective inspector from Dublin who took charge of the case, and he told me something of the methods he used. All this first-hand infor­mation fascinated Donelly, and I began to hope he might feel co-operative on the subject of his ancestor.

  Towards midday, the heat was becoming oppressive. Donelly removed his pullover, and sat at the table wearing only a shirt—open to the waist—and his trousers. I also removed my jacket. He suggested that we might have a drink, and I agreed. Donelly produced a bottle of black rum. I knew I had no more lecturing until Tuesday, so I accepted without misgiving. Donelly pro­duced more buttered crackers, and opened tins of sardines. After we had said ‘Cheers’, he brought up the subject of Esmond Donelly. He said:

  ‘I suppose this publisher chap told you I told him to go to hell?’

  ‘No, he didn’t.’ That was typical of Fleisher—suggest I call on Donelly without explaining that he’d already met a hostile reception. Perhaps it was just as well; I wouldn’t have called if he had.

  He asked: ‘Have you seen this manuscript?’

  ‘Yes. I’ve got it with me.’ I took it from the inside pocket of my jacket. He took it eagerly. After reading half a page, he threw it down on the table with a gesture of disgust.

  ‘Just as I thought. A forgery. Just a stupid bloody forgery.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ I was astounded.

  ‘Of course I’m sure. Haven’t you read Esmond’s Diary?’

  ‘I’m afraid I haven’t. I didn’t even know it existed. Is it published?’

  ‘Of course it is. Published in Dublin in 1817.’

  He went out of the room. A few minutes later he returned and tossed a small leather-bound volume on the bed. The title was The Diary of Esmond Donelly, Gent. It was published by Telford’s, Dublin. The Epistle Dedicatory was addressed to Lord Chesterfield:

  ‘My Lord, I have often had cause to remember your saying that the worst bred man in Europe, if a lady let fall her fan, would certainly take it up and give it to her; the best bred man in Europe could do no more. It was this reflection upon the similarity of talents of the great and humble within limited spheres of activity that hath nerved me to offer this unpretend­ing volume to your Lordship. . . .’

  There was no need to read further. The man who could write this graceful, well-turned prose could not be the gloating moron who wrote: ‘Within seconds my lucky doodle was in her virgin niche, my sperm sticking my balls to her arse.’ This last quotation catches the essence of the style of Fleisher’s manuscript. I would not argue that the same man could not have written the Epistle Dedicatory to Chesterfield and the above sentence; but an in­tuition that amounted to a certainty made me feel that it was not so. I said:

  ‘I see what you mean. You don’t think it’s possible that the style of a private journal might differ from that of a travel diary?’

  ‘It differs from his unpublished diaries too.’

  ‘Have you seen them, then?’ I tried not to sound too eager.

  ‘Oh yes.’ He said it casually, and poured himself more rum. I wolfed half a dozen sardines and a buttered biscuit before drinking more, and reflected that I could spend the afternoon and evening asleep in my motel room.

  I then told Donelly about my meeting with Fleisher, explain­ing that I had never heard of his ancestor before this time. He agreed that that was not surprising. Donelly’s journal had no more merit than a dozen others of the period, Thomas Turner, Mary Cowper, the Earl of Egmont; and was simply not in the same class as Fanny Burney. Esmond Donelly was known to students of Irish literature; but he is not even mentioned in the Cambridge History of English Literature.

  By way of extenuating Fleisher’s motives, I pointed out that there is seldom smoke without fire, and that if there is a rumour that Donelly kept ‘sex diaries’, it might well have some founda­tion. He stared at me with his cold eyes, his face expressionless, then said finally:

  ‘Assuming it might have some foundation, do you suppose his descendants are eager to see such things published? You know Ireland.’

  I saw his point. The Irish are not precisely bigoted about matters of morals; they have a certain flexibility. But the southern Irish are Catholics; there is much banning of books, and the Index is still a matter to be reckoned with. I could understand that the Donellys of Ballycahane might well find sudden notoriety embarrassing, even if profitable.

  Towards one o’clock, I was distinctly drunk, and I said I ought to leave. To my surprise, he objected. ‘No, no. You can have food here. I’ll cook eggs and bacon. Or there’s sweet corn.’ He went off to the kitchen, and I read a few pages of Esmond Donelly describing Venice. The heat was making me drowsy. In fact, I was almost asleep when Donelly woke me up as he brought in an enormous saucepan that was full of corncobs. He poured half a dozen of these into a deep oval plate, stuck a huge slab of butter on them, and told me to eat. I have never eaten so much sweet corn in my life; but it was superb. Donelly, to my astonishment, washed down his food with rum. I was impressed by the quantity he could hold. Between us, we had emptied the best part of a bottle, and I had only taken two glasses. But I could see no sign that he was drunk; his speech remained slow and precise; the voice kept the acid, slightly sarcastic tone. The only change was in the subject matter of his conversation. He began to talk about sex. He held up a corncob—from which he had chewed the seeds—and said that he had heard of a book in which a girl’s virginity is taken with a corncob. I told him it was Faulkner. Donelly said Faulkner had not invented the episode: that a corncob is a well-known expedient if a girl’s hymen proves too tough to be penetrated by the more usual method. Then he went on to tell me an anecdote of one of his negro farm workers who had found hi
s daughter masturbating with a corncob. He described how the man had tied her hands to a hook on the wall and lashed her with a leather belt; then ended by inserting a far larger cob into the girl by way of driving home the lesson. He told me this story coolly and reflectively, as he ate another corn­cob; but he did not look at me as he talked. He went on to tell me more anecdotes—all involving floggings. He opened another bottle of rum as he talked. Logic told me that this succession of anecdotes about flogging and incest could not really spring from a disinterested desire to give me a picture of life in the deep south; but his manner certainly betrayed no sadistic intention. It struck me that he had lived alone for a long time; he was sex-starved and lonely, and enjoyed having a fellow-countryman to talk to. There was nothing very abnormal about that.

  But I began to wish that I’d timed my visit for later in the day. It began to look as if he intended keeping me here all after­noon and evening. I could leave, of course, but Donelly was my only source of information about his ancestor, and I had taken five thousand dollars to write about this man. Guilt alone would have kept me sitting there as long as I was welcome.

  As the afternoon wore on, I began to yawn every minute or so; but Donelly appeared not to notice. He had brought in a deck chair, and sat in this, with his feet on the wooden chair. He insisted that I take the uncomfortable armchair, and put my feet on the bed. We were now drinking beer—Budweiser from the tin—and he was smoking cheroots. Periodically, I tried to bring the conversation back to Donelly, but he evaded the sub­ject. Finally, at about four o’clock, he asked me if I felt like a walk. I said all right—anything to break the hypnotic daze. I was beginning to feel rather irritable with him. He could see I was sleepy; he might at least have suggested that I doze for half an hour, or left me to read Esmond Donelly’s journal. But he wanted to talk, and he obviously didn’t care whether I was sleepy or not.