Saga Of Arturo Bandini - Ask The Dust Part 6

'I don't know. Maybe.'

Maybe this and maybe that, questions, questions, wise, wounded woman, groping in the dark, searching for the pa.s.sion of Arturo Bandini, a game of hot and cold, with Bandini eager to give it away. 'What is her name?'

'Camilla,' I said.

She sat up, touched my mouth.

'I'm so lonely,' she said. 'Pretend that I am she.'

'Yes,' I said. 'That's it. That's your name. It's Camilla.'

I opened my arms and she sank against my chest.no 'My name is Camilla,' she said.

'You're beautiful,' 1 said. 'You're a Mayan princess.'

'I am Princess Camilla.'

'All of this land and this sea belongs to you. All of California. There is no California, no Los Angeles, no dusty streets, no cheap hotels, no stinking newspapers, no broken, uprooted people from the East, no fancy boulevards. This is your beautiful land with the desert and the mountains and the sea. You're a princess, and you reign over it all.'

'I am Princess Camilla,' she sobbed. 'There are no Americans, and no California. Only deserts and mountains and the sea, and I reign over it all.'

'Then I come.'

'Then you come.'

'I'm myself. I'm Arturo Bandini. I'm the greatest writer the world ever had.'

'Ah yes,' she choked. 'Of course! Arturo Bandini, the genius of the earth.' She buried her face in my shoulder and her warm tears fell on my throat. I held her closer. 'Kiss me, Arturo.'

But I didn't kiss her. I wasn't through. It had to be my way or nothing. 'I'm a conqueror,' I said. 'I'm like Cortes, only I'm an Italian.'

I felt it now. It was real and satisfying, and joy broke through me, the blue sky through the window was a ceiling, and the whole living world was a small thing in the palm of my hand. I shivered with delight.

'Camilla, I love you so much!'

There were no scars, and no desiccated place. She was Camilla, complete and lovely. She belonged to me, and so did the world. And I was glad for her tears, they thrilled me and lifted me, and I possessed her. Then I slept, serenely weary, 111.

remembering vaguely through the mist of drowsiness that she was sobbing, but I didn't care. She wasn't Camilla anymore. She was Vera Rivken, and I was in her apartment and I would get up and leave just as soon as I had had some sleep.

She was gone when I woke up. The room was eloquent with her departure. A window open, curtains blowing gently. A closet door ajar, a coat-hanger on the k.n.o.b. The half-empty gla.s.s of milk where I had left it on the arm of the chair. Little things accusing Arturo Bandini, but my eyes felt cool after sleep and I was anxious to go and never come back. Down in the street there was music from a merry-go-round. I stood at the window. Below two women pa.s.sed, and I looked down upon their heads.

Before leaving I stood at the door and took one last look around the room. Mark it well, for this was the place. Here too history was made. I laughed. Arturo Bandini, suave fellow, sophisticated; you should hear him on the subject of women. But the room seemed so poor, pleading for warmth and joy. Vera Rivken's room. She had been nice to Arturo Bandini, and she was poor. I took the small roll from my pocket, peeled off two one dollar bills, and laid them on the table. Then I walked down the stairs, my lungs full of air, elated, my muscles so much stronger than ever before.

But there was a tinge of darkness in the back of my mind. I walked down the street, past the Ferris Wheel and canva.s.sed concessions, and it seemed to come stronger; some disturbance of peace, something vague and nameless seeping into my mind. At a hamburger stand I stopped and ordered coffee. It crept upon me - restlessness, the loneliness. What was the matter? I felt my pulse. It was good. I blew on the coffee and drank it: good coffee. I searched, felt the fingers 112 of my mind reaching out but not quite touching whatever it was back there that bothered me. Then it came to me like crashing thunder, like death and destruction. I got up from the counter and walked away in fear, walking fast down the boardwalk, pa.s.sing people who seemed strange and ghostly: the world seemed a myth, a transparent plane, and all things upon it were here for only a little while; all of us, Bandini, and Hackmuth and Camilla and Vera, all of us were here for a little while, and then we were somewhere else; we were not alive at all; we approached living, but we never achieved it. We are going to die. Everybody was going to die. Even you, Arturo, even you must die.

I knew what it was that swept over me. It was a great white cross pointing into my brain and telling me I was a stupid man, because I was going to die, and there was nothing I could do about it. Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. A mortal sin, Arturo. Thou shalt not commit adultery. There it was, persistent to the end, a.s.suring me that there was no escape from what I had done. I was a Catholic. This was a mortal sin against Vera Rivken.

At the end of the row of concessions the sand beach began. Beyond were dunes. I waded through the sand to a place where the dunes hid the boardwalk. This needed thinking out. I didn't kneel; I sat down and watched the breakers eating the sh.o.r.e. This is bad, Arturo. You have read Nietzsche, you have read Voltaire, you should know better. But reasoning wouldn't help. I could reason myself out of it, but that was not my blood. It was my blood that kept me alive, it was my blood pouring through me, telling me it was wrong. I sat there and gave myself over to my blood, let it carry me swimming back to the deep sea of my beginnings. Vera Rivken, Arturo Bandini. It was not meant that way: it 113.

was never meant that way. I was wrong. I had committed a mortal sin. I could figure it mathematically, philosophically, psychologically: I could prove it a dozen ways, but I was wrong, for there was no denying the warm even rhythm of my guilt.

Sick in my soul I tried to face the ordeal of seeking forgiveness. From whom? What G.o.d, what Christ? They were myths I once believed, and now they were beliefs I felt were myths. This is the sea, and this is Arturo, and the sea is real, and Arturo believes it real. Then I turn from the sea, and everywhere I look there is land; I walk on and on, and still the land goes stretching away to the horizons. A year, five years, ten years, and I have not seen the sea. I say unto myself, but what has happened to the sea? And I answer, the sea is back there, back in the reservoir of memory. The sea is a myth. There never was a sea. But there was a sea! I tell you I was born on the seash.o.r.e! I bathed in the waters of the sea! It gave me food and it gave me peace, and its fascinating distances fed my dreams! No Arturo, there never was a sea. You dream and you wish, but you go on through the wasteland. You will never see the sea again. It was a myth you once believed.-But, I have to smile, for the salt of the sea is in my blood, and there may be ten thousand roads over the land, but they shall never confuse me, for my heart's blood will ever return to its beautiful source.

Then what shall I do? Shall I lift my mouth to the sky, stumbling and burbling with a tongue that is afraid? Shall I open my chest and beat it like a loud drum, seeking the attention of my Christ? Or is it not better and more reasonable that I cover myself and go on? There will be confusions, and there will be hunger; there will be loneliness with only my tears like wet consoling little birds, tumbling to sweeten my 114 dry lips. But there shall be consolation, and there shall be beauty like the love of some dead girl. There shall be some laughter, a restrained laughter, and quiet waiting in the night, a soft fear of the night like the lavish, taunting kiss of death. Then it will be night, and the sweet oils from the sh.o.r.es of my sea, poured upon my senses by the captains I deserted in the dreamy impetuousness of my youth. But I shall be forgiven for that, and for other things, for Vera Rivken, and for the ceaseless flapping of the wings of Voltaire, for pausing to listen and watch that fascinating bird, for all things there shall be forgiveness when I return to my homeland by the sea.

I got up and plodded through the deep sand towards the boardwalk. It was the full ripeness of evening, with the sun a defiant red ball as it sank beyond the sea. There was something breathless about the sky, a strange tension. Far to the south sea gulls in a black ma.s.s roved the coast. I stopped to pour sand from my shoes, balanced on one leg as I leaned against a stone bench.

Suddenly I felt a rumble, then a roar. The stone bench fell away from me and thumped into the sand. I looked beyond to the Long Beach skyline; the tall buildings were swaying. Under me the sand gave way; I staggered, found safer footing. It happened again. It was an earthquake.

Now there were screams. Then dust. Then crumbling and roaring. I turned round and round in a circle. I had done this. I had done this. I stood with my mouth open, paralysed, looking about me. I ran a few steps towards the sea. Then I ran back.

You did it, Arturo. This is the wrath of G.o.d. You did it. The rumbling continued. Like a carpet over oil, the sea 115.

and land heaved. Dust rose. Somewhere I heard a booming of debris. I heard screams and then a siren. People running out of doors. Great clouds of dust.

You did it, Arturo. Up in that room on that bed you did it.

Now the lamp posts were falling. Buildings cracked like crushed crackers. Screams, men shouting, women screaming. Hundreds of people rushing from buildings, hurrying out of danger. A woman lying on the sidewalk, beating it. A little boy crying. Gla.s.s splintering and shattering. Fire bells. Sirens. Horns. Madness.

Now the big shake was over. Now there were tremors. Deep in the earth the rumbling continued. Chimneys toppled, bricks fell and a grey dust settled over all. Still the tremblers. Men and women running towards an empty lot away from buildings.

I hurried to the lot. An old woman wept among the white faces. Two men carrying a body. An old dog crawling on his belly, dragging his hind legs. Several bodies in the corner of the lot, beside a shed, blood-soaked sheets covering them. An ambulance. Two high school girls, arms locked, laughing. I looked down the street. The building fronts were down. Beds hung from the walls. Bathrooms were exposed. The street was piled with three feet of debris. Men were shouting orders. Each tremblor brought more tumbling debris. They stepped aside, waited, then plunged in again.

I had to go. I walked to the shed, the earth quivering under me. I opened the shed door, felt like fainting. Inside were bodies in a row, sheets over them, blood oozing through. Blood and death. I walked off and sat down. Still the temblors, one after another.

Where was Vera Rivken? I got up and walked to the street.

It had been roped off. Marines with bayonets patrolled the roped area. Far down the street I saw the building where Vera lived. Hanging from the wall, like a man crucified, was the bed. The floor was gone and only one wall stood erect. I walked back to the lot. Somebody had built a bonfire in the middle of the lot. Faces reddened in the blaze. I studied them, found n.o.body I knew. I didn't find Vera Rivken. A group of old men were talking. The tall one with the beard said it was the end of the world; he had predicted it a week before. A woman with dirt smeared over her hair broke into the group. 'Charlie's dead,' she said. Then she wailed. 'Poor Charlie's dead. We shouldn't have to come! I told him we shouldn't a come!' An old man seized her by the shoulders, swung her around. 'What the h.e.l.l you sayin'?' he said. She fainted in his arms.

I went off and sat on the kerb. Repent, repent before it's too late. I said a prayer but it was dust in my mouth. No prayers. But there would be some changes made in my life. There would be decency and gentleness from now on. This was the turning point. This was for me, a warning to Arturo Bandini.

Around the bonfire the people were singing hymns. They were in a circle, a huge woman leading them. Lift up thine eyes to Jesus, for Jesus is coming soon. Everybody was singing. A kid with a monogram on his sweater handed me a hymn book. I walked over. The woman in the circle swung her arms with wild fervour, and the song tumbled with the smoke towards the sky. The temblors kept coming. I turned away. Jesus, these Protestants! In my church we didn't sing cheap hymns. With us it was Handel and Palestrina.

It was dark now. A few stars appeared. The temblors were ceaseless, coming every few seconds. A wind rose 116 117.

from the sea and it grew cold. People huddled in groups. From everywhere sirens sounded. Above, aeroplanes droned, and detachments of sailors and marines poured through the streets. Stretcher-bearers dashed into ruined buildings. Two ambulances backed towards the shed. I got up and walked away. The Red Cross had moved in. There was an emergency headquarters at one corner of the lot. They were handing out big tins of coffee. I stood in line. The man ahead of me was talking.

'It's worse in Los Angeles,' he said. 'Thousands dead.' Thousands. That meant Camilla. The Columbia Buffet would be the first to tumble. It was so old, the brick walls so cracked and feeble. Sure, she was dead. She worked from four until eleven. She had been caught in the midst of it. She was dead and I was alive. Good. I pictured her dead: she would lie still in this manner; her eyes closed like this, her hands clasped like that. She was dead and I was alive. We didn't understand one another, but she had been good to me, in her fashion. I would remember her a long time. I was probably the only man on earth who would remember her. I could think of so many charming things about her; her huaraches, her shame for her people, her absurd little Ford. All sorts of rumours circulated through the lot. A tidal wave was coming. A tidal wave wasn't coming. All of California had been struck. Only Long Beach had been struck. Los Angeles was a ma.s.s of ruins. They hadn't felt it in Los Angeles. Some said the dead numbered fifty thousand. This was the worst quake since San Francisco. This was much worse than the San Francisco quake. But in spite of it all, everybody was orderly. Everybody was frightened, but it was not a panic. Here and there people smiled: they were brave people. They were a long way from 118 home, but they brought their bravery with them. They were tough people. They weren't afraid of anything.

The marines set up a radio in the middle of the lot, with big loudspeakers yawning into the crowd. The reports came through constantly, outlining the catastrophe. The deep voice bellowed instructions. It was the law and everybody accepted it gladly: n.o.body was to enter or leave Long Beach until further notice. The city was under martial law. There wasn't going to be a tidal wave. The danger was definitely over. The people were not to be alarmed by the temblors, which were to be expected, now that the earth was settling once more.

The Red Cross pa.s.sed out blankets, food, and lots of coffee. All night we sat around the loudspeaker, listening to developments. Then the report came that the damage in Los Angeles was negligible. A long list of the dead was broadcast. But there was no Camilla Lopez on the list. All night I swallowed coffee and smoked cigarettes, listening to the names of the dead. There was no Camilla; not even a Lopez.119.

Chapter Thirteen.

I got back to Los Angeles the next day. The city was the same, but I was afraid. The streets lurked with danger. The tall buildings forming black canyons were traps to kill you when the earth shook. The pavement might open. The street cars might topple. Something had happened to Arturo Bandini. He walked the streets of one-storey buildings. He clung to the kerbstone, away from the overhanging neon signs. It was inside me, deeply. I could not shake it. I saw men walking through deep, dark alleys. I marvelled at their madness. I crossed Hill Street and breathed easier when I entered Pershing Square. No tall buildings in the Square. The earth could shake, but no debris could crush you.

I sat in the Square, smoked cigarettes and felt sweat oozing from my palms. The Columbia Buffet was five blocks away. I knew I would not go down there. Somewhere within me was a change. I was a coward. I said it aloud to myself: you are a coward. I didn't care. It was better to be a live coward than a dead madman. These people walking in and out of huge concrete buildings - someone should warn them. It would come again; it had to come again, another earthquake to level the city and destroy it forever. It would happen any minute. It would kill a lot of people, but not me. Because I was going to keep out of these streets, and away from falling debris.

I walked up Bunker Hill to my hotel. I considered every 121.

building. The frame buildings could stand a quake. They merely shook and writhed, but they did not come down. But look out for the brick places. Here and there were evidences of the quake; a tumbled brick wall, a fallen chimney. Los Angeles was doomed. It was a city with a curse upon it. This particular earthquake had not destroyed it, but any day now another would raze it to the ground. They wouldn't get me, they'd never catch me inside a brick building. I was a coward, but that was my business. Sure I'm a coward, talking to myself, sure I'm a coward, but you be brave, you lunatic, go ahead and be brave and walk around under those big buildings. They'll kill you. Today, tomorrow, next week, next year, but they'll kill you and they won't kill me.

And now listen to the man who was in the earthquake. I sat on the porch of the Aha Loma Hotel and told them about it. I saw it happen. I saw the dead carried out. I saw the blood and the wounded. I was in a six-storey building, fast asleep when it happened. I ran down the corridor to the elevator. It was jammed. A woman rushed out of one of the offices and was struck on the head by a steel girder. I fought my way back through the ruins and got to her. I slung her over my shoulders, it was six floors to the ground, but I made it. All night I was with the rescuers, knee deep in blood and misery. I pulled an old woman out whose hand stuck through the debris like a piece of statue. I flung myself through a smoking doorway to rescue a girl unconscious in her bathtub. I dressed the wounded, led battalions of rescuers into the ruins, hacked and fought my way to the dead and dying. Sure I was scared, but it had to be done. It was a crisis, calling for action and not words. I saw the earth open like a huge mouth, then close again over the paved street. An old man was trapped by the foot. I ran to him, told him to be brave while I hacked 122 the pavement with a fireman's axe. But I was too late. The vice tightened, bit his leg off at the knee. I carried him away. His knee is still there, a b.l.o.o.d.y souvenir sticking out of the earth. I saw it happen, and it was awful. Maybe they believed me, maybe they didn't. It was all the same to me.

I went down to my room and looked for cracks in the wall. I inspected h.e.l.lfrick's room. He was stooped over his stove, frying a pan of hamburger. I saw it happen, h.e.l.lfrick. I was atop the highest point of the Roller Coaster when the quake hit. The Coaster jammed in its tracks. We had to climb down. A girl and myself. A hundred and fifty feet to the ground, with a girl on my back and the structure shaking like St Virus Dance. I made it though. I saw a little girl buried feet first in debris. I saw an old woman pinned under her car, dead and crushed, but holding her hand out to signal for a right hand turn. I saw three men dead at a poker table. h.e.l.lfrick whistled: is that so? Is that so: Too bad, too bad. And would I lend him fifty cents? I gave it to him and inspected his walls for cracks. I went down the halls, into the garage and laundry room. There were evidences of the shock, not serious, but indicative of the calamity that would inevitably destroy Los Angeles. I didn't sleep in my room that night. Not with the earth still trembling. Not me, h.e.l.lfrick. And h.e.l.lfrick looked out the window to where I lay on the hillside, wrapped in blankets. I was crazy h.e.l.lfrick said. But h.e.l.lfrick remembered that I had been lending him money, so maybe I wasn't crazy. Maybe you're right, h.e.l.lfrick said. He turned out his light and I heard his thin body settle upon the bed.

The world was dust, and dust it would become. I began going to Ma.s.s in the mornings. I went to Confession. I received 123.

Holy Communion. I picked out a little frame church, squat and solid, down near the Mexican quarter. Here I prayed. The new Bandini. Ah life! Thou sweet bitter tragedy, thou dazzling wh.o.r.e that leadeth me to destruction! I gave up cigarettes for a few days. I bought a new rosary. I poured nickels and dimes into the Poor Box. I pitied the world.

Dear Mother back home in Colorado. Ah, beloved character, so like the Virgin Mary. I only had ten dollars left, but I sent her five of it, the first money I ever sent home. Pray for me, Mother dear. The vigil of your rosaries is all that keeps my blood astir. These are dark days, Mother. The world is so full of ugliness. But I have changed, and life has begun anew. Long hours I spend glorying thee before G.o.d. Ah mother, be with me in these miseries! But I must hasten to close this epistle, Oh beloved Mother Darling, for I am making a novena these days, and each afternoon at five I am to be found prostrate before the figure of Our Blessed Saviour as I offer prayers for His sweet Mercy. Farewell, O Mother! Heed my plea for your aspirations. Remember me to Him that giveth all and shineth in the skies.

So off to mail the letter to my mother, to drop it in the box and walk down Olive Street, where there were no brick buildings, and then across an empty lot and down another street that was barren of buildings to a street where only a low fence marked the spot, and then a block to a section of town where high buildings rose to the sky; but there was no escaping that block, save to walk across the street from the high buildings, walk very fast, sometimes run. And at the end of the street was the little church, and here I prayed, making my novena.

An hour later I come out, refreshed, soothed, spirits high. I take the same route home, hurry past the high buildings, 124.

stroll along the fence, dawdle through the empty lot, taking note of G.o.d's handiwork in a line of palm trees near the alley. And so up to Olive Street, past the drab frame houses. What doth it profit a man if he gain the whole world and suffer the loss of his own soul? And then that little poem: Take all the pleasures of all the spheres, multiply them by endless years, one minute of heaven is worth them all. How true! How true! I thank thee, Oh heavenly light, for showing the way.

A knock on the window. Someone was knocking on the window of that house obscured by heavy vines. I turned and found the window, saw a head; the flash of teeth, the black hair, the leer, the gesturing long fingers. What was that thunder in my belly? And how shall I prevent that paralysis of thought, and that inundation of blood making my senses reel? But I want this! I shall die without it! So I'm coming you woman in the window; you fascinate me, you kill me dead with delight and shudder and joy, and here I come, up these rickety stairs.

So what's the use of repentance, and what do you care for goodness, and what if you should die in a quake, so who the h.e.l.l cares? So I walked downtown, so these were the high buildings, so let the earthquake come, let it bury me and my sins, so who the h.e.l.l cares? No good to G.o.d or man, die one way or another, a quake or a hanging, it didn't matter why or when or how.

And then, like a dream it came. Out of my desperation it came - an idea, my first sound idea, the first in my entire life, full-bodied and clean and strong, line after line, page after page. A story about Vera Rivken.

I tried it and it moved easily. But it was not thinking, not 125.

cogitation. It simply moved of its own accord, spurted out like blood. This was it. I had it at last. Here I go, leave me be, oh boy do I love it, Oh G.o.d do I love you, and you Camilla and you and you. Here I go and it feels so good, so sweet and warm and soft, delicious, delirious. Up the river and over the sea, this is you and this is me, big fat words, little fat words, big thin words, whee whee whee.

Breathless, frantic, endless thing, going to be something big, going on and on, I hammered away for hours, until gradually it came upon me in the flesh, stole over me, haunted my bones, dripped from me, weakened me, blinded me. Camilla! I had to have that Camilla! I got up and walked out of the hotel and down Bunker Hill to the Columbia Buffet.

'Back again?'

Like film over my eyes, like a spider web over me.

'Why not?'

Arturo Bandini, author of The Little Dog Laughed and a certain plagiarization from Ernest Dowson, and a certain telegram proposing marriage. Could that be laughter in her eyes? But forget it, and remember the dark flesh under her smock. I drank beer and watched her at work. I sneered when she laughed with those men near the piano. I cackled when one of them put his hand on her hip. This Mexican! Trash, I tell you! I signalled her. She came at her leisure, fifteen minutes later. Be nice to her, Arturo. Fake it.

'You want something else?'

'How are you, Camilla?'

'Alright, I guess.'

'I'd like to see you after work.'

'I have another engagement.'

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Gently: 'Could you postpone it, Camilla? It's very important that 1 see you.'

'I'm sorry.'

'Please Camilla. Just tonight. It's so important.'

'I can't, Arturo. Really, I can't.'

'You'll see me,' I said.

She walked away. I pushed back my chair. I pointed my finger at her, yelled it out: 'You'll see me! You little insolent beerhall twirp! You'll see me!'

You're G.o.dd.a.m.n right she'd see me. Because I was going to wait. Because I walked out to the parking lot and sat on the running board of her car and waited. Because she wasn't so good that she could excuse herself from a date with Arturo Bandini. Because, by G.o.d, I hated her guts.

Then she came into the lot, and Sammy the bartender was with her. She paused when she saw me get to my feet. She put her hand on Sammy's arm, restraining him. They whispered. Then it was going to be a fight. Fine. Come you, you stupid scarecrow of a bartender, just you make a pa.s.s at me and I'll break you in half. And I stood there with both fists hard and waiting. They approached. Sammy didn't speak. He walked around me and got into the car. I stood beside the driver's seat. Camilla looked straight ahead, opened the car door. I shook my head.

'You're going with me, Mexican.'

I seized her wrist.

'Let go!' she said. 'Get your filthy hands off!'

'You're going with me.'

Sammy leaned over. 'Maybe she doesn't feel like it, kid.' I had her with my right hand. I raised my left fist and shoved it against Sammy's face. 'Listen,' I said. 'I don't like you. So keep that lousy trap shut.'

127.

'Be sensible,' he said. 'What for you want to get all burned up about a dame?'

'She's going with me.'

'I'm not going with you!'

She tried to pa.s.s. I grabbed her arms and flung her like a dancer. She went spinning across the lot, but she did not fall. She screamed, charged me. I caught her in my arms and pinned her elbows down. She kicked and tried to scratch my legs. Sammy watched with disgust. Sure I was disgusting, but that was my affair. She cried and fought, but she was helpless, her legs dangling, her arms held tight. Then she tired a little, and I released her. She straightened her dress, her teeth chattering her hatred.

'You're going with me,' I said.

Sammy got out of the car.

'This is terrible,1 he said. He took Camilla's arm and led her towards the street. 'Let's get out of here.'