story of his family was unfolded, as in a recitative according to the gospel of Arnold Taads. There was no place in this devastating account for the light relief of an aria. Instead, there came every now and again, welling up from an abyss of doom and sorrow, the deep sigh of the dog, which the anonymous composer had interpolated in masterly fashion; for exactly in the brief interval after the description of yet another Wintrop folly, aberration, or monstrous deed, the dog, with a perfect sense of timing, let a thrust of air escape from the subterranean labyrinths to which he was apparently connected.
Did they rehearse? wondered Inni. Dogs do not live all that long, and with one extra portion of goulash a week they clearly did not expect too many visitors. The only possible answer was that these lectures, sermons, recitatives, were also delivered in solitude, with the dog doing duty as continuo, punctuation, and emphasis. Light, air — this talented animal had learned to fill the invisible airstream that envelops us and partly flows through us, with affects and affirmations. He had discovered the meaning of destiny and disgust, not leaving them hanging in the indifferent surrounding air, prey to the destructive metronomics of the mantelpiece clock. On the contrary he filled the air in artistic convolution with his one-eyed master, with something that was at the same time the echo of what had just been uttered and a lighter, more vicious whiplash forcing the soloist to maintain the tension thus far achieved.
* *
This tension, Inni was to learn, was a negative force. He did not appreciate it immediately, though that first evening already contained the seed of his friendship with Arnold Taads. One of his characteristics — and this, too, he did not know at the time, because whatever his own views on the matter, he had simply not yet lived long enough — was that he could never turn his back on anyone in whom he had once become interested. Often these were what the outside world, the world of all other people combined, would call "odd fish", people who seemed totally incongruous with Inni's sarcastic or urbane style. "There's another one from Inni's sewer, madhouse, collection, underworld . . . Who on earth did I see you with at Schiphol yesterday? . . . How can you possibly spend an evening with her? ... Are you still seeing that same girl?"
But all that came later.
Now it was Arnold Taads, a man whose relations with the world had been unsuccessful and who therefore pushed the world away from himself in high-pitched, sharp tones as if he were still its master. If this messenger of renunciation had been the fifth Evangelist, he would have had a seagull as his symbol, a solitary grey shape on a rock, standing out against the darker shades of an ominous sky. Inni had seen them in nature films, stalked by telephoto lenses. How they suddenly threw their beaks wide open, let out a piercing cry of rage and warning, and with vigorous wingbeats, swept into the sky, where still alone, they sailed away on an invisible, gently heaving airstream. And then again, at intervals those cries, as if something had to be slashed, demolished.
The clock struck. The man and the dog stood up.
"I'll take you to the bus stop," said Arnold Taads.
From a stand in the hall he took a wooden, umbrellalike object covered with a kind of shiny parchment.
"This is a parong," he said. Indeed, no sooner were they outside than the rain was making loud tapping noises on the stretched surface. Everything fitted. As they walked down the garden path, Inni looked back at the house, and even more than when they were inside, he was conscious of the fierce loneliness to which this man had condemned himself. There are many different forms of suffering, and although Inni, in retrospect, must have had his fair share of unhappiness, it is nevertheless rare for the raw state of suffering to be revealed to someone of his age as clearly as happened now.
Did they rehearse? wondered Inni. Dogs do not live all that long, and with one extra portion of goulash a week they clearly did not expect too many visitors. The only possible answer was that these lectures, sermons, recitatives, were also delivered in solitude, with the dog doing duty as continuo, punctuation, and emphasis. Light, air — this talented animal had learned to fill the invisible airstream that envelops us and partly flows through us, with affects and affirmations. He had discovered the meaning of destiny and disgust, not leaving them hanging in the indifferent surrounding air, prey to the destructive metronomics of the mantelpiece clock. On the contrary he filled the air in artistic convolution with his one-eyed master, with something that was at the same time the echo of what had just been uttered and a lighter, more vicious whiplash forcing the soloist to maintain the tension thus far achieved.
* *
This tension, Inni was to learn, was a negative force. He did not appreciate it immediately, though that first evening already contained the seed of his friendship with Arnold Taads. One of his characteristics — and this, too, he did not know at the time, because whatever his own views on the matter, he had simply not yet lived long enough — was that he could never turn his back on anyone in whom he had once become interested. Often these were what the outside world, the world of all other people combined, would call "odd fish", people who seemed totally incongruous with Inni's sarcastic or urbane style. "There's another one from Inni's sewer, madhouse, collection, underworld . . . Who on earth did I see you with at Schiphol yesterday? . . . How can you possibly spend an evening with her? ... Are you still seeing that same girl?"
But all that came later.
Now it was Arnold Taads, a man whose relations with the world had been unsuccessful and who therefore pushed the world away from himself in high-pitched, sharp tones as if he were still its master. If this messenger of renunciation had been the fifth Evangelist, he would have had a seagull as his symbol, a solitary grey shape on a rock, standing out against the darker shades of an ominous sky. Inni had seen them in nature films, stalked by telephoto lenses. How they suddenly threw their beaks wide open, let out a piercing cry of rage and warning, and with vigorous wingbeats, swept into the sky, where still alone, they sailed away on an invisible, gently heaving airstream. And then again, at intervals those cries, as if something had to be slashed, demolished.
The clock struck. The man and the dog stood up.
"I'll take you to the bus stop," said Arnold Taads.
From a stand in the hall he took a wooden, umbrellalike object covered with a kind of shiny parchment.
"This is a parong," he said. Indeed, no sooner were they outside than the rain was making loud tapping noises on the stretched surface. Everything fitted. As they walked down the garden path, Inni looked back at the house, and even more than when they were inside, he was conscious of the fierce loneliness to which this man had condemned himself. There are many different forms of suffering, and although Inni, in retrospect, must have had his fair share of unhappiness, it is nevertheless rare for the raw state of suffering to be revealed to someone of his age as clearly as happened now.
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