The Lacuna
Page 78
We are much less in the news here than Mexico City, but our headlines may entertain: Production lines at Asheville Casket Company have gone idle today (dead silent!) as workers go on strike, flouting their war duties, pending negotiations between management and the Upholsterers Union.
Next: the writer William Sidney Porter, or what is left of him, may be dug up from the cemetery in this very neighborhood, for relocation to Greensboro. The city of Asheville has leveled a protest, believing Mr. Porter to be comfortable where he is. The courts will decide. One hopes that no reupholstering will be required at this time.
Admiral Halsey came to the Grove Park for some sport-hunting: finally, a story involving no death. And fashion is alive: Lilly Daché has worked out how to make civilian Easter bonnets from 76,000 WAC hats discarded by the army in favor of the cloth overseas cap. Much on display here last Sunday. You would like gringo Easter: every woman, even the grayest little pigeon, finds the courage to be a Frida for the day.
Not much personal news. The wisteria vines that climb the sides of my house and twine from the eaves are in full purple bloom, the color of jacaranda. Do you ever hear from Van? A question asked, but truly no answer is wanted. A French instructor here at the Teachers College, a particular Miss Attwood, has lately kept up a long campaign to be taken to the movies. With all presentable men at the front, she feels that a fellow should accept his duty to take a girl to see The Picture of Dorian Gray. The idea of a crowded theater makes me shudder. Sometimes leaving the house at all becomes a frightful thing, I carry an inexplicable dread inside that never completely abates. But Miss Attwood would not be refused. Hurd Hatfield made a gratifying Dorian, despite his treachery toward Sibyl Vane and Gladys Hallward. Duty seems fulfilled, all quiet on the Attwood front this week.
At the end of term the Teachers College will close. Your language will cease to be maligned by the Carolina tongue. Its only advocate in Asheville will happily stay home in his vine-covered cottage, as his former pupils turn to parachute-packing and the like. These girls are so much like Mother, with their gum-cracking confidence and feral vocabularies. Holy Joe! Oh nausea! He’s oolie droolie! But Mother would be old by now, nearly fifty. How she would wail over that, if she were still here. Probably it’s a charity that she is not.
Last item: the book is to be published late this year by Stratford and Sons Publishers, New York. The editor, Mr. Barnes, confirmed it today. He wants it titled Vassals of Majesty, which is silly, as the characters are vassals of cupiditas and greed. The original title was meant to be Ten Leagues from Where We Sleep, as it’s about men who find themselves always marching short of their own and everyone else’s expectation, including the reader’s. But Mr. Barnes says that title has too many words in it. No matter. Stratford has mailed a check for two hundred dollars, an advance payment upon royalties to be received, and if they can find the paper they mean to print up copies by the thousand. A terrifying miracle. These words were all written in dark, quiet rooms. How can they face the bright, noisy world?
You must know. You open your skin and pour yourself on a canvas. And then let the curators drape your intestines all around the halls, for the ruckus of society gossips. Can it be survived?
Your friend,
SÓLI
April 13, 1945
Roosevelt is dead. The end came out of a clear sky. Pen in his hand one moment, then dropped to the floor as his secretary watched—it must have been like seeing Lev’s bright light go out. Truly, this is like the death of Lenin: a personality fused with the national purpose, struck down by a cerebral stroke, leaving his nation’s purpose standing in its shirtsleeves, wondering what under heaven to do.
All last night in south Asheville a crowd stood along the tracks in the cold, hoping to see the catafalque and coffin inside the lighted car when the cortege passed through. The president could only get to Washington from Warm Springs, they thought, by passing through our valley. But no train came. The news extra this morning said the route was through Greeneville. But some still wait, mostly women with children. In a valley east of Oteen they say a hundred Negro women clearing tobacco ground have been kneeling since yesterday with hands outstretched toward the railroad track. They won’t go home.
And now Harry Truman has taken the oath, in his polka-dot tie. He hardly looks the part of Man Fused with the National Purpose. He told the newsmen, “Did you ever have a bull or a load of hay fall on you? If you ever did, you know how I felt last night.”
Sometimes history cleaves and for one helpless moment stands still, like the pause when the ax splits a log and the two halves rest on end, waiting to fall. Lev used to say that. So it was after Lenin died, Lev riding his train toward the Caucasus, unaware the ax had fallen on his friend. That Stalin was mounting the funeral platform to capture the panicked crowds. This may be one of those times again, when history moves toward darkness or light. Which face in the newsprint photographs now conceals treachery? Are tyrants working behind blackout shades, sending a false cable to someone on a train, conniving to keep reason at a distance while power makes its move? People are sore afraid, ready to believe anything.
May 8, 1945
The world did not end. Or if so, for the Germans only. Everyone came outside to hear the fire-siren blow at 6:01 signaling midnight in Germany, official end to the firing of weapons. Women in front yards drying their hands on aprons, telling the boys to stop shooting one another with sticks and be still. On Haywood Street the clerks and grocers closing up shop all stood perfectly still through that moment, the length of the siren, looking up at the sky. The reflected sunset blazed in the glass storefronts behind them. Some put hands over their hearts, and all of them faced east. Toward Europe.
No one knows what to do with this peace. When the horns went quiet, every person on Haywood, without a word spoken, turned to look the other way. Japan.
The neighbor boy, whose name is not Tom Sawyer but the even more improbable Romulus, picked a strange flower from the Montford Hill woods and brought it here for identification. He says his mother believed it was a bad animal part that should not be touched. But the father said it’s a plant, ask the fellow next door. They suspect me of having an education. We mounted a Library Expeditionary Force and struck out boldly. Victory was ours, Bartram’s Flora of the Carolinas had full color plates of the specimen in question. It is a “Pink Lady’s Slipper.” Romulus was gravely disappointed to hear it.
August 20, 1945
Next: the writer William Sidney Porter, or what is left of him, may be dug up from the cemetery in this very neighborhood, for relocation to Greensboro. The city of Asheville has leveled a protest, believing Mr. Porter to be comfortable where he is. The courts will decide. One hopes that no reupholstering will be required at this time.
Admiral Halsey came to the Grove Park for some sport-hunting: finally, a story involving no death. And fashion is alive: Lilly Daché has worked out how to make civilian Easter bonnets from 76,000 WAC hats discarded by the army in favor of the cloth overseas cap. Much on display here last Sunday. You would like gringo Easter: every woman, even the grayest little pigeon, finds the courage to be a Frida for the day.
Not much personal news. The wisteria vines that climb the sides of my house and twine from the eaves are in full purple bloom, the color of jacaranda. Do you ever hear from Van? A question asked, but truly no answer is wanted. A French instructor here at the Teachers College, a particular Miss Attwood, has lately kept up a long campaign to be taken to the movies. With all presentable men at the front, she feels that a fellow should accept his duty to take a girl to see The Picture of Dorian Gray. The idea of a crowded theater makes me shudder. Sometimes leaving the house at all becomes a frightful thing, I carry an inexplicable dread inside that never completely abates. But Miss Attwood would not be refused. Hurd Hatfield made a gratifying Dorian, despite his treachery toward Sibyl Vane and Gladys Hallward. Duty seems fulfilled, all quiet on the Attwood front this week.
At the end of term the Teachers College will close. Your language will cease to be maligned by the Carolina tongue. Its only advocate in Asheville will happily stay home in his vine-covered cottage, as his former pupils turn to parachute-packing and the like. These girls are so much like Mother, with their gum-cracking confidence and feral vocabularies. Holy Joe! Oh nausea! He’s oolie droolie! But Mother would be old by now, nearly fifty. How she would wail over that, if she were still here. Probably it’s a charity that she is not.
Last item: the book is to be published late this year by Stratford and Sons Publishers, New York. The editor, Mr. Barnes, confirmed it today. He wants it titled Vassals of Majesty, which is silly, as the characters are vassals of cupiditas and greed. The original title was meant to be Ten Leagues from Where We Sleep, as it’s about men who find themselves always marching short of their own and everyone else’s expectation, including the reader’s. But Mr. Barnes says that title has too many words in it. No matter. Stratford has mailed a check for two hundred dollars, an advance payment upon royalties to be received, and if they can find the paper they mean to print up copies by the thousand. A terrifying miracle. These words were all written in dark, quiet rooms. How can they face the bright, noisy world?
You must know. You open your skin and pour yourself on a canvas. And then let the curators drape your intestines all around the halls, for the ruckus of society gossips. Can it be survived?
Your friend,
SÓLI
April 13, 1945
Roosevelt is dead. The end came out of a clear sky. Pen in his hand one moment, then dropped to the floor as his secretary watched—it must have been like seeing Lev’s bright light go out. Truly, this is like the death of Lenin: a personality fused with the national purpose, struck down by a cerebral stroke, leaving his nation’s purpose standing in its shirtsleeves, wondering what under heaven to do.
All last night in south Asheville a crowd stood along the tracks in the cold, hoping to see the catafalque and coffin inside the lighted car when the cortege passed through. The president could only get to Washington from Warm Springs, they thought, by passing through our valley. But no train came. The news extra this morning said the route was through Greeneville. But some still wait, mostly women with children. In a valley east of Oteen they say a hundred Negro women clearing tobacco ground have been kneeling since yesterday with hands outstretched toward the railroad track. They won’t go home.
And now Harry Truman has taken the oath, in his polka-dot tie. He hardly looks the part of Man Fused with the National Purpose. He told the newsmen, “Did you ever have a bull or a load of hay fall on you? If you ever did, you know how I felt last night.”
Sometimes history cleaves and for one helpless moment stands still, like the pause when the ax splits a log and the two halves rest on end, waiting to fall. Lev used to say that. So it was after Lenin died, Lev riding his train toward the Caucasus, unaware the ax had fallen on his friend. That Stalin was mounting the funeral platform to capture the panicked crowds. This may be one of those times again, when history moves toward darkness or light. Which face in the newsprint photographs now conceals treachery? Are tyrants working behind blackout shades, sending a false cable to someone on a train, conniving to keep reason at a distance while power makes its move? People are sore afraid, ready to believe anything.
May 8, 1945
The world did not end. Or if so, for the Germans only. Everyone came outside to hear the fire-siren blow at 6:01 signaling midnight in Germany, official end to the firing of weapons. Women in front yards drying their hands on aprons, telling the boys to stop shooting one another with sticks and be still. On Haywood Street the clerks and grocers closing up shop all stood perfectly still through that moment, the length of the siren, looking up at the sky. The reflected sunset blazed in the glass storefronts behind them. Some put hands over their hearts, and all of them faced east. Toward Europe.
No one knows what to do with this peace. When the horns went quiet, every person on Haywood, without a word spoken, turned to look the other way. Japan.
The neighbor boy, whose name is not Tom Sawyer but the even more improbable Romulus, picked a strange flower from the Montford Hill woods and brought it here for identification. He says his mother believed it was a bad animal part that should not be touched. But the father said it’s a plant, ask the fellow next door. They suspect me of having an education. We mounted a Library Expeditionary Force and struck out boldly. Victory was ours, Bartram’s Flora of the Carolinas had full color plates of the specimen in question. It is a “Pink Lady’s Slipper.” Romulus was gravely disappointed to hear it.
August 20, 1945
