This is your code. Be a good boy today. I am going to the office and will be home at about six thirty. Do not give your mother any trouble and try to do your homework as soon as you get back from school rather than wait until after dinner when you never do it. Remind mother that today is laundry day and that it should go out along with my shirts. Remind Katherine that she is to make her bed. Be a good boy again and I will see you when I get home. I look forward to seeing you. It should be a very interesting day although business is not good.
Your Father
Which note I actually saved until we left the premises many years later and got it lost in a series of tattered socks and torn underwear which my mother discarded. Otherwise it would doubtless be part of the restoration today and very valuable and provocative it would have been.
But that is of the past; I am considering the present now in the form of my father’s note which I slowly unrumple and hold to read. There is a sudden wiggling burst of laughter from the bathroom, as if the guide had just told the punchline to a family dirty joke (the only dirty joke we ever had, having to do with a bird that only crapped once a year, but we will get to that somewhat later) and I feel nostalgia and pain wash over me again because I want so badly to be back with the tourists, trying to understand the significances of the bathroom, yet unwilling to give up this small treasure I have found and afraid to appropriate it. The note is a list headlined THINGS TO DO and appears to be dated although the dates have become quite smudged:
THINGS TO DO
Get out the garbage.
Get the laundry together (Katherine’s underwear, Michael’s socks).
Get sewing materials for pants.
Sew pants.
Shopping at either Bohack’s and A & P. No meat in Bohack’s.
Vegetables too in A & P.
Wash car.
Drive car (maybe?)
See what Josephine wants to do about
Look over
Get cold cuts.
Reading
It seems that there should be more of this, but there is not, and try as I may to understand the handwriting in the sentences whose last words drop off it is impossible. “See what Josephine wants to do about” ends with the muddled word “grozsles” which is obviously impossible (my father having never gone in for neologisms it can be understood as being illegible) and “look over” ends with the word “wu” which even interpreted as a deep pun on the word “woe” (my father never went in for puns) would still make no sense. So the note is as unsatisfying in the reading as it must have been in the writing—which under other circumstances might be given as a definition of serious art—and with a kind of disgust I prop it behind the piano again, wondering whether it will ever be seen by another to pass through here. I doubt it very much; it is in a well-concealed place (only a Westfield knew the secret of the piano-crevice as the hiding place for notes, pornography in later years and so on) and in any event, even if they were to find and begin reading the note they would probably be so untouched by it as to replace it without finishing; my father’s rhetoric can never be described as falling within the range of things which might be considered “compelling.” In so doing, of course, the guest would entirely miss the point of the note: its sly humor, its interesting inferences, its possession of levels of simultaneous meaning which are indistinguishable from the aspect of great art, its narrative drive, its unwavering sense of structure, its clear and present control of the pace which was always the key to any true apprehension of what my father was trying to do, which was, as he often said, only to “try and make a little sense out of all of this, get a little order.” It is thus peculiarly to his shame, and by inheritance mine, that this note, possessing most of the qualities of serious vision, will undoubtedly be neglected, seen only as a piece of intermittent niggling curiosa revealing an obsessive-compulsive streak and little else. It is probable that the trustees themselves have misunderstood it in that way and I tangle for a moment with the impulse to take the note downstairs and try to explain it to them, but then decide that this would surely mark my identity even beyond the scholar’s possibility, and along with thoughts of the note, put all of this out of my head.
The laughter from the bathroom is more intense now and is being succeeded by a series of barking shouts whose source I cannot quite detect. Although I am eager to remain in the living room and rummage through other objects—the one large chair is itself a treasure which I am sure would yield, if I went through it carefully enough, one of those demi-suicidal confessions of my sister to herself which for a long time passed as her own paradigm of feeling—I find the prospect of the bathroom, as I have often in other times, all too dangerously enticing and so I head in that direction, my mood one of total concentration. It is strange, but I am not thinking of Joanne at this time, nor of the question of her converse with the curator; I do not have about it even the faintest curiosity, and this may be the most dangerous sign of all because Joanne, if I know her well at all, had as one of the prime motives for her exit the desire to make me suffer. What she really wants me to think is that she might be fucking the curator in my parents’ bedroom just as she was fucking me before, but the strange truth of the matter is that if she was I would regard not only the possibility but the act itself with complete indifference. Looking at their bodies huddled on the sheets, the slow swaddling drive of sex overtaking them, I would, as a matter of fact, lend them vocal encouragement. I would have done no less for my parents had I ever seen them thus, which I did not; I could do no less for my inamorata. Or is she my inamorata? And what is an inamorata? It is all too much for me; basically I come to terms once again with the realization that I am of simple stock with a basic talent for metaphor, a certain transitional skill in both relationships and reminiscence and little else. Still, it may be enough. My father had only his notes and his utter lack of conscious irony to sustain him and it certainly worked out for the best; as his son it is to be expected that I will make equal use of the very different gifts given me.
I go toward the bathroom. There is a furious argument going on between the scholar, his friend and the guide, interrupted by hoarse cries of laughter from the albino’s father, and this is undoubtedly what I have already heard although it now appears—the argument that is, if not the sounds—to have reached some penultimate stage of termination. “Come now,” the scholar is saying, “there is absolutely no question of anal fixation whatsoever. I find it crude, base and completely uninformed of you to make those suggestions. People of that generation had a far less restricted attitude toward the bathroom function than do you or I, that is all. They performed their needs simply.”
The guide has the look of a man slightly at bay; he is standing to the right and slightly in front of the toilet, which has been flung open sometime during this discussion and now looks as if it might be on the point, that ill-shaped mouth, of seizing and devouring him. He is also sweating more than slightly and his eyes when they grasp me are those of a man who is in trouble perhaps more severe than even he can admit. “Ah,” he says. “You again. And where have you been this time? Perhaps you don’t find my services satisfactory; perhaps you find it necessary to do your own investigations. But why?”
“None of that,” the scholar says. “None of that diversion. Let him alone; he doesn’t matter anyway and he’s hardly been with us all morning. We were talking to the point. Talk to my point.”
“Coprophilia,” the guide says. I have no idea of what he is talking about but apparently the scholar does. “You’re crazy,” he says defiantly. “Insane.” The effort of saying this disjoints him somehow and his companion puts a steadying arm on his elbow, whispers something into the scholar’s ear.
“Ha!” says the albino’s father. “Ha, ha, ha!” It is the first enthusiasm the man has shown all morning and I wonder what turn events could have possibly taken to have put him in such a mood. “That’s a good one! Coprophilia! That’s a polite way of saying shit-eating,” he says quietly to his wife and she stiffens, turns away from him, her features a mask of distress, while this time it is the albino who strangles with laughter and gives his father an approving pat on the trousers. They look at one another in a comity of understanding and it is evident indeed that they are father and son; the albino’s father has dark hair and features but otherwise they are exactly the same. Perhaps this is the problem.
“Let’s have some order,” the guide is saying. “Let’s show some manners, ladies and gentlemen, a little routine courtesy; the purposes of the restoration do not embrace this kind of spectacle, you know. I’m only taking you through the rooms and trying to give you some understanding of the way that life was lived in those antique days; I’m not interested in getting into controversy and there’s nothing personal or scatological about any of this. I will remind you—I must remind you—that everything I say has been processed through the trustees, the curators and the foundation; exhaustive research has found it to be unarguable fact and it becomes then both premise and conclusion. There are many areas left dark, of course; many which we do not attempt to cover in this tour because they are controversial and still open for discussion and this is a popularization, not a methodology. I can only suggest to the specialists among you that if you find any of this so highly objectionable as to break courtesy, you take it up with the trustees themselves at their next annual meeting. I am only on a salary, I am only an employee and I am neither equipped nor willing to undertake this kind of thing.” He stands silent for a moment with rather pleased expression; it has obviously been a good speech and he knows it, but he is still sweating and the two Edwardians are in deep conference now, the harsh sibilance of their whispers knifing through the general area. “Well, then,” the guide says, “that pretty much covers the bathroom. I will finish by noting the fine assortment of objects in the medicine chest: toothbrushes, aspirin, oil of wintergreen, alcohol, Benzedrine compound and so on, but no prescription drugs since both Mr. and Mrs. Westfield had a horror of unprescribed medication and in the bargain lived in the constant fear that when antibiotics were in the house the children might be inclined to experiment with them and to do themselves unspeakable damage. Why the Westfields, who tried to live such an orderly existence involved with the denial of elementary human passions—why these Westfields, I am trying to say, would be quick to fasten upon the totally unreasonable but to them entirely credible fear that their children potentially were suicides—this is something, of course, that will have to be taken up in the further studies. It is sufficient to say that the medicine chest was always kept in perfect order, although the presence of severe toothpaste stains was a great concern to Mrs. Westfield, who found them there only minutes after performing the last cleaning; and their constant presence may have had something to do with the air of rather pernicious, snappish gloom into which she often fell. The question of her being the youngest child of a large, rather frenetic family also had something to do with this, however, and it would be unfair to look for a total or even partial explanation from the medicine chest. The toilet was always kept perfectly clean, the stall shower was a great pleasure to all of the Westfields, particularly young Michael, who used to sit down in it for hours, immersed in the slow falling stream of water and thinking such things as we will never know; and the bathroom indeed, in the presence of guests, won that hard-bought appellation of ‘spotless’ for which Mrs. Westfield worked so hard. One can say that although the Westfields did not spend the most important or pivotal moments of their lives in the bathroom, they never had reason to regret being there and often came out more knowledgeable than when they went in, an illusion of decor perhaps working along with the more natural biological processes, but all of it leading to perhaps the only philosophic experiences they had. If they had any they would have occurred in the bathroom. Mr. Westfield’s joke, which has been well-recorded for the archives, is particularly illuminating in that regard, so I will finish off this particular lecture with a recounting of that joke, then take what questions you may have and then, after a very short break, we will go upstairs and finish off the tour.
“Mr. Westfield’s joke. It is one of only three family jokes which have survived the passage of time, the obliteration of history, but its sources are indisputably authentic and it is quite clear that we are not dealing, as we do in so many other areas, with a question of apocrypha. Mr. Westfield’s scatological joke went as follows.” The guide rummages in his inner coat pocket, takes out a small bluish strip of paper and, affixing some glasses to his nose, begins to read. For the first time the albino has come to a kind of attention, his eyes are fixed steadily and unwaveringly upon the guide, but that is not necessarily any observation, so are the eyes of all of us.
“You have heard of the bird called the whee bird,” the guide says, reading. “Can any of you tell me why it’s called the whee bird? Well then, I will tell you. The whee bird only defecates one day a year but when it does ... whee!” The guide folds the paper and puts it back into his pocket, puts away his glasses. “There is an alternate version in which the name of the bird is the ‘oh boy bird’ which although probably funnier to the undiscriminating ear has never been verified, and this one probably does fall into the area of apocrypha.”
“That wasn’t very funny,” the albino says. “I’ve heard better jokes than that. It wasn’t very funny at all.”
“Well,” the guide says gently, “that is not an uninteresting point and I am happy to comment to it. The answer is that the joke is not funny but jokes, used as references of human behavior, do not have to be. It is revelatory, and that for the moment can be considered sufficient. If it were funny in the bargain it could be interpreted as a bonus.”
“Coprophilia,” the scholar says again. He seems to be in some kind of distress, tugging at his clothing while his companion chatters with dismay. “Coprophilia. But I won’t have it, I tell you. The interpretation does not admit it. Nothing is that simple. There must be more to it than that. Sheer metaphor. Absolute simplicity. But crude, cruel. May I have your permission? To go outside and be excused for a moment? I feel quite nauseous if you will excuse me.”
The guide looks discomfited but then bows his head, makes the tilting gesture once again with his palms. “If you must,” he says. “I mean, this isn’t a penitentiary, it’s only a tour. There’s so little compulsion involved that when we note it it looks like more than it is. Certainly go. There’s a bathroom adjoining the courtesy shop for public use, if you will.”
“Then, thank you very much,” the scholar says and, assisted by his companion, staggers off. We hear their footsteps for a moment, clattering through the halls adjoining the living room, and then one of them finds a door and they are gone. The guide sighs and adjusts his clothing, pats a shirt pocket delicately, looks at his fingernails. “Immaturity,” he says. “You find it from the strangest sources. Are there any questions now? I’d appreciate your keeping them brief and to the point; it’s almost lunchtime and we haven’t covered the upstairs yet, and the restoration closes at three so we really don’t have that much time left.”
“Well, yes,” the albino’s father says. “One question. How can I put this in the best fashion? You’ve just finished giving us an explanation of some of the scatology in the Westfield family as well as a dirty joke told by one of their members, but I remember you saying sometime earlier that these people lived in such a fashion as to believe that everything they did was ‘right’ and they were somehow moral exemplars if nothing else. How can you equate the two? Surely the Westfields did not think that this—”
“Oh, dear,” the guide says, “you’re missing the point. Entirely. In the first place, I am sure that it was made clear that Mrs. Westfield had absolutely no role to play in this bathroom scatology and had no taste for any of it; that her own use of the bathroom was confined completely to natural functions and she tried to make herself oblivious of her husband’s small indulgences. In the second and more important place it should be noted that Mr. Westfield’s joke was not declaimed but merely whispered, and even then under only two circumstances: when he had had his requisite one drink at a mixed gathering of adults or when he was trying to induce one of the children to enter or leave the bathroom to his convenience. And third and finally, any study of the period, any true apprehension of its history will certainly reveal that there is absolutely no conflict between the basic ruling assumption of the Westfields’ life and the small taste for scatology involved; they were, in fact, only two sides of the same coin in that both embraced the concept of a certain conscious delimitation of existence. Didacticism is, after all, only the reverse face of the scatological and the two qualities, in the type of person exemplified by the Westfields, exist simultaneously and quite easily, so much so that the afflicted are even aware of this and ration themselves out a small portion of pornography in order to find relief from the more oppressive moral qualities. I must be a terribly inefficient guide today if I cause such a question to even be raised. Really, there is absolutely no question of complication here.”
“What did they do in the bathroom?” the albino asks, giving his father a sidewise leer. It is apparent that he is out to make something of a sensation for his father’s approval and this brings to me the most peculiar feeling of poignance; I have done the same thing in my youth and I know what it is like, but on the other hand, I could tell the albino that it makes no difference at all because the only ways in which his father could be reached (if he is at all like my father) are in ways which the boy would himself find noxious, and when he did reach his father, he would find what he discovered to be not at all interesting, a banality of thought and feeling which would make him only apologetic. All this passion for a wink! All this lingering and loss for an absent reminiscence! It is too much, even for a man of my own finely-attuned capacity for irony.
“You know what they did,” the guide says. “I won’t repeat myself.”
“Did they like it?”
“Irrelevant,” says the guide. “Totally irrelevant. I’m sorry but we simply have no time for frivolity. Unless there are a few brief sensible queries remaining, I think we’ll now adjourn and go to the courtesy shop—”
“One question,” I say. “Just one fast question and then we’ll be on our way. Tell me, what is the purpose of this anyway?”
The guide gives me a look of such loathing that under other circumstances it would in itself be ripe for consideration, and says, “I don’t understand you. And why did you go off before? Haven’t you got any common respect?”
