12. Invitation and Conjure

If she had her way, that dining room would be open and lit every day and every moment, all the time, table set, fire all sparks and spikes, all flame and kindling, heat and light but not in summer, for summer was the time to close the curtains to block the sun and open the north windows, and people passing on Scheller Street would see without meaning to look knowing they should not but the window was so near their eyes, and looking in they would be astonished at the crystal and china, potbellied fruit, sumptuous bottles, festive silvery mirror, a carnival on the mantlepiece over the fireplace. Open as it should be, not like an office or bedroom, much less a bathroom or dressing room; open like a church, invitation and conjure at any time, confusion of lunches and breakfasts, melon and chocolate, dinners, teas and aperitifs, toasts, petit-fours, honey and sabbath stew, spicy breaded chicken and molasses, people entering and leaving and greeting each other and pulling out chairs, a muddle of scents, jumble of voices, the last lights put out in the house, the first ones lit, Katja next to the sideboard, Wulda in the basement decanting wines, Lola dreaming, a dream of wrapping herself in the entrails of the earth rocked by secret lianas stronger than branches, soft, warm, savory, a dream of crouching and suckling, her immense body agile, rising brilliant to the surface, moons like pearls, dreams of seeing wheat, of the creeper she was going to plant, of a city, not this one, with towers and minarets next to jungles where the climbing vines curved away and the water in the drain spun to the other side and the sun made another trip over yellow land awoken by the pampas wind. Whether kneading, cutting, dicing, beating, or sauteing, whether sifting or marinating, whether whisking or juicing, Wulda watching everything attentively and Katja coming downstairs dressed in black and white, with her hair in a bun and silent shoes; whether toasting or poaching, whether she serves, covers, sprinkles, whatever she does, the platters are filled with colors, vales, and patterns, of tenderness in shadows or peaks, and they steam and go, leaving a barely visible track going up the stairs, an acrid fog, a heavy veil against the nose, and the scents hurry upstairs and elbow their way to the table leaving Lola behind, abandoned, all the work and troubles mitigated, moving away from the stove with a sigh and an order to Wulda to serve the sauce in a sauce boat, the hake without breaking it apart while lifting it out with a slotted spoon, and the vegetables, girl, bathed in sauce but the whole nuts on the fish and a glass of that wine.

While Lola eats, the first to come to the salon that night was Mr. Ethan Pallud dressed in gray, the high collar of his white shirt cutting into his skin, the very blue gaze of his eyes erratically taking in things and shadows of things without stopping, a book in his right hand, leaving his room behind with its echo of whimpers of cushions and velvet, faint clicks of gears, pillows, axles, tiny pendula, wheels, and levers; passing the landing of the staircase and entering the salon but first pausing for a second at the closed door of Madame Helena’s office without looking at it. Katja now in the salon, motionless and alert, did not hear words and sentences not meant for her but at his arrival she receded before he came and saw her, returned to the dining room she had just left, closed the doors and paused in the shadow among the solemn backs of the chairs, in the orbit of the aromas waiting on the platters that were already on the sideboard each in a covered dish, embers in the grate for warmth, fruit and cream on the lower shelf, wines on the ledge: she did not want him to see her, did not want him to call her on the pretext of asking what was on the menu or telling her when she should come the next day to clean his room. She wished someone else would come soon because the penumbra, the penury, the puff of time brought her voices of beings and silhouettes of voices; wished for anyone to come, not Madame Helena who always waited for the others to arrive before she entered, but someone, the new lady who might have hurried because she did not know the customs of the house and did not want to be late, even the General, someone, if there were two she could leave, latent, lance, lash, leave the dark dining room, pause at the double glass doors, wait without being troubled by winged beings or men with windblown capes or top hats that scaled mountains, if only it were time to open the doors, light the lamps, display the shining china and crystal. Madame Helena? No, no one, the shadow of someone or something or the old man with the toys walking in the salon, his pointed nose cutting through the air, silky claws and pointed teeth, grey, bluish, transparent, a box in his chest and a shelf in his belly with birds, giraffes, harpsichord players, dolls who spoke with die-cast jaws held with pins to their painted little tin faces, toys on shelves where they lie and peck, bite and die; from reading so much while everyone else slept he knew what girls fear, what the wind drags in, what the water carries. The world of shadows affected Katja but did not dazzle her, she met it on the way, on that very day that had now passed and the house was solid once again, changed but solid, perhaps not indifferent but silent and firmly serious, and in the darkness of the dining room she could see how cherry trees blossomed, how they fell, how almond tree flowers opened at any time of the year, how they withered into ochre and cadmium, she could hear how the roots of all the trees in the world moaned. Katja had been born near Klumbach in a farmhouse that flooded in autumn when the river rose, was dry and windy in summer when the earth spoke, and Luduv had taught her how to hear it. Luduv had died but sometimes he returned, and that night Katja felt he was going to come out of the shadows, appear from behind a seat, arise next to the sideboard, spy through the curtains luminous as the sun, with his sweet-sour caress as he passed, and at that moment two people entered the salon, mother and daughter, and Katja opened the door, left the dining room, stepped far to the right, hands clasped as Madame Helena had taught her, to wait until it was time.

The General heard those steps but they seemed to be nothing, a rubbing, brushing, imaginary rain, forgotten sand, not his neighbor in the room opposite and especially not the service women, and without needing to look at his watch he resumed combing his hair in no hurry, adjusted his tie, examined the crease in his slacks, checked his pockets, looked around to be sure everything was in place, neared the door; and at that moment he did hear steps but they were going down the stairway almost tumbling: the young student from the upper floor.

Young Gangulf greeted the room all around when he entered the salon, asked about the health of Madame Simeoni and whether Miss Nehala had enjoyed her day, and went to the chair where Madame Nashiru had just sat down, when Madame Helena entered. Today, Katja thought, will I have to open the doors of the dining room sooner than usual? But no, Madame Helena would open them as always at the exact time: she said she would like to introduce the new guest in the house and just then the General entered, and as Madame Helena presented everyone with few gestures and hardly a step back, Miss Esther entered. Katja liked Miss Esther, whose smile was not distant or tight and especially not twisted like the old man with the toys; she did not know about the General because he never smiled; and the fat women would giggle dryly and cover their mouths with the tips of their fingers. Madame Helena approached Madame Nashiru, who stood up and smiled. Madame Helena was dressed in a long flared black dress with a vermillion satin sash at the waist. Madame Nashiru wore sky blue, a dress of a fabric that seemed to be darker in the folds and the hem, and a pearl necklace and pearls in her earrings and rings: Luduv had told her one afternoon, she was not sure if it was in winter or summer, that she had to fish for shadows the way they fished for pearls, to dive, dive down, and find them; pull them from their fleshy stalks and bring them up. Katja had not known until then that pearls were fished: she thought they were animal eyes or came out of the ground or sprouted from rocks or were made by chemists. She thought that Madame Nashiru must have fishermen at her service, pearls, so many pearls: she must have a cook and maid, lady in waiting and coachman and errand boy and fishermen. Miss Esther did not have pearls, only a gold chain around her neck and blue eyes below hair a bit mussed; a brown skirt and white blouse with cuff and collar embroidered in brown and gold. Katja did not care how the fat women were dressed but she watched them as they greeted Madame Nashiru and told herself that no matter how close the shadows came, she would never squint her eyes or frown like that when she greeted someone, when she said good-bye, when she had to talk to a lady she did not know, never. It was time, and it seemed to Katja that everyone was talking all at the same time except the General: something had happened to him, he was not standing rigid like the back of a chair but bent forward, one shoulder higher than the other, his face shining like the pearls that she had seen and he could not stop looking at. Madame Helena spoke to everyone and no one specifically, gesturing only with her eyes, her large-toothed mouth, the turn of her head like a colossus half buried in the sand or a miniature in a glass case Katja remembered from cleaning at a different house, her voice deliberate and error-free with meaning on the wing, as the fat mother would say who was born with songs in her mouth. She said that Madame Nashiru had arrived from Tokyo, so very interesting, and was going to remain six months or at least until a business was established and underway that she would open on Kafter Street, until the personnel had come from her country and she had contracted staff from within the city. A jewelry store, she added, and young Gangulf in a decorative attack one-on-one with the elements that the General would have admired if he had not become perversely attracted by what he feared most, spread one of his smiles around the room and followed it by saying that this would a good idea because there was only one jewelry shop in the city, the one across the street from the tea room of Miss Esther, had she met Miss Esther Schleuster? Everyone stood because it was now time, a habit in their afternoons and evenings, and moved the same way, driven as a group toward a terrible dream that brought liberation and fear: me? jump into a bottomless well? Katja unclasped her hands, turned, and before she reached for the doors she chanced to see everyone on foot except the Simeonis piled on a sofa like bags of rags that someone had forgotten on a worn wooden bench in a station smelling of smoke and rust where people waited and wept, where the next day all the stories would be erased and start again refreshed: bells, whistles, shouts, forgotten bags of rags on a worn wooden bench. The double glass doors with beveled panes where light danced opened smoothly without a sound, and Katja entered the dining room, opened them fully, secured them, lit the lights, stood next to the sideboard, and waited.

The velvety scent of nuts sauteed in butter and boiled in fish broth entered Miss Esther’s nose and she felt hunger tightening her waist and throat: gobble down fish, sauce, bread, house, mills, grass, the world; swallow water, sea, and waterfalls, to awaken again on another shore, able to laugh without memories. It was not hunger, it was happiness. Katja brought her the platter and Miss Esther served herself a minuscule bit and a spoonful of sauce. She guessed Katja’s thoughts: take more, eat more, come on, another piece. She waved her hand and Katja moved on.

The book in his pocket bothered him, everyone laughing, Kati-Kati went to the other side of the table and he did not care, fish, meat, whatever but let dinner end right away, let him return to his room because it annoyed him to leave a page half-written: “Articulated figure sitting on a Queen Anne style chair.” Mr. Pallud’s skin grew and stretched until it became almost invisible, a sparkle on his temples and fingers and the bottoms of his feet; but a wrinkled excess lining his groin, his armpits and the backs of his knees, knotted into his navel and tamed into his orifices, with thin nose hairs and rough eyebrows over eyes fastened on the waist of Kati-Kati, a silly girl and as quiet as anyone could be. When he traveled, when he explored, when he extended himself over the world’s vast floating distant globe, when he left, no more white fish or creamy sauces, instead dark strong meat beneath a copper bronze fiery threatening sun. When he was no longer there but in the confines of the jungle, on the borders of deserts, he would not need books in his pockets, a white linen suit would be the fashion, held in place only by the watch chain around his body, and they would look at him differently, not the way Madame Helena was at that moment: Kati-Kati was offering him the platter and for all that he wanted to take his time, Madame Helena continued to look at him and he had to put down the serving utensils and the silly girl left at the moment when the daughter of the singer was saying that what she most wanted in life was to travel and she listed Paris, London, New York, Tokyo, Buenos Aires, Saint Petersburg. Madame Nashiru smiled. He clenched his silverware; the elastic skin stretched and contracted, stretched and contracted.

Tokyo? Tokyo was a barbaric city twenty years ago when she was there singing Aïda but perhaps Madame Nashiru did not understand what Madame Sophie Simeoni had meant to say by barbaric city and that was why she kept smiling. Her daughter wanted to make her be quiet—would she just be quiet with knots, flames, seas, steel blades, behind shut doors or in bed howling, sleeping, trembling? Just be quiet? Round, gray, soft, and voracious, they did not seem to concern themselves with the golden air of the dining room or the other guests or the time or the pearls. They swallowed air, words, food; they squinted, took one mouthful after another, and a shining ring formed around their mouths until the daughter looked at her mother more than the mother looked at her daughter, she gestured at the napkin, and the two wiped their mouths, their fingers sinking into the fabric that wrapped around their chins. Katja came with the bottle of wine. But where they most liked Aïda, according to Madame Simeoni, was in Buenos Aires. The lament in the second act had earned ovations and one night in the recently inaugurated Columbus Theater in the presence of the president of the republic, she had to repeat it three times, three.

Madame Helena nodded: she foresaw a new shining aureola, this time of broth forming around Madame Sophie Simeoni’s mouth and cream seeping out of the corners of her lips and bonbons sticking to her teeth. She leaned over to tell Madame Nashiru about the fame Madame Simeoni had enjoyed around the world years earlier. She also pointed out her daughter’s devotion in caring for her now that her health was in decline and the public, except for a few experts, had forgotten her. The ingratitude and the whalebones in her corset bit Madame Helena’s heart: she kept her back straight the way a juggler kept colored balls in the air one over another, like soap bubbles, always about to trick her and slip and escape, straight and upright, an inevitable arc in her viscera and no other concession to softness, buttocks firmly pressed against the chair, shoulders in a straight line parallel to her waist, and eyes everywhere. At some instant, in some corner, at times a whimper might awaken, for which she had to sit even straighter, be obstinate, maintain primacy, any advantage no matter how small over disorder, and block the pain or even the hint of an ache. Madame Helena preferred dessert without cream at the evening meal but since this was a special day, she had ceded to Lola’s suggestion. She signaled to Katja: the General’s cup was empty again.

Eyes empty, fish swimming in a sea of eyes, everything white including the storms, terminating in a silver platter looking at the ends of the teeth of a fork that was nearing, penetrating, passing through a body that opened obediently: all the soldiers, the entire battalion was one body maintained and contained by one voice, one music, and one order. There in front, empty glass, empty field, and only one more body needed to arrive unstained. Emptiness seemed too much like chaos: the General did not want to confess that in the nothingness between bodies, it was impossible for him to support the order of clothing, accessories, details, and so, with the platter at his side, he had to place his hands over that body, take the serving utensils, render it to pieces the way a battalion fell to pieces before a machine gun, serve himself a slice of meat and return victorious walking over new earth asking himself how it was possible that I, with a useless shield, scuffed boots, tooled leather breastplate tainted with sweat and blood, how have I become the lord of this. Anxious with all his might to be back in his room, in the darkness, to save himself the sight of another mouthful, he obliged himself to swallow, for he had survived far away, exited into emptiness without gender or words, stubborn and bitterly opaque. This woman did not seem like a woman but like an erroneous boy, that smooth body, obedient face, that foreigner, that enemy naked and with her back to him, narrow buttocks beneath that blue dress, could look like a boy, a stable boy, a god without attributes, his soldiers, pearls like bone tears sliding on an open wound, the itinerary of the park at dawn, everything lost contour and sharpness and Madame Helena spoke serenely, terribly, unmistakably, and perfectly in charge of the situation, in the tea ceremony, as women do when they are determined to make everyone else happy.

Young Gangulf never drank tea: the Titans, in his opinion, subsisted on the rocks of time, and he, when he arrived punctually, had chocolate. I prefer the rocky, gray, and firm face of the General like a Herschel plaque to the yellowish face of the old idiot; I don’t like the round faces of women; above all I prefer the shrieking roaring face lost in terror. He said as if pirouetting in a thundering circus that all ceremonies are mysterious, battles, communion, prizes, opening nights, is it not so, dear madame?

Downstairs, Lola sighed. Katja measured the wine left in the bottles and wondered whether Wulda was awake or had fallen asleep sitting in a chair low enough for children, her head resting on the white wall, mouth open, hands on her skirt. Sleep, Luduv said, standing in the windowsill, sleep, the snare of sleep.