Barb looked at him in some surprise. "The be?ginning turns me on," she said. "More than usual, I mean." She began to have some faint hope, and sat down on the sofabed.
"Do you want me to read you the end or dont you?"
"It does not contradict what is known," Edgar assured her.
"Thank you," Edgar said. "Do you want me to read you the development?"
"Thats why I didnt know them, then."
"This is very exciting," Barb broke in, her eyes showing genuine pleasure and enthusiasm.
"Edgar I dont believe in that examination any more," she told him coldly.
"It isnt you who has to pass this National Writ?ers Examination," he shot past her. Then, to mol?lify, he gave her another answer. "Brand, tuck, glave, claymore."
This remark filled her with remorse and anger. She considered momentarily letting him have one upside the head but fear prevented her from doing it so she turned her back again and thought about the vaunted certificate. With a certificate he could write for all the important and great periodicals, and there would be some money in the house for a change instead of what they got from his brother and the Unemployment.
"I dont think you can pass the National Writers Examination with what you have on that paper," Barb said then, with great regret, because even though he was her husband she didnt want to hurt him unnecessarily. But she had to tell the truth. "Without a middle."
She tried to think of another anecdote to deliver to him.
"Well, do you want me to read you the end?" Edgar asked.
"Here is the answer," Edgar said. "The answer is Julia Ward Howe. What is the question?"
"Do you want me to read you the end?" he repeated.
"I havent got a title yet," Edgar said. "Okay, this is the beginning." He began to read aloud. "In the town of A--, in the district of Y--, there lived a certain Madame A--, wife of that Baron A-- who was in the service of the young Friedrich II of Prussia. The Baron, a man of uncommon ability, is chiefly remembered for his notorious and inexplic?able blunder at the Battle of Kolin: by withdrawing the column under his command at a crucial mo?ment in the fighting, he earned for himself the greatest part of the blame for Friedrichs defeat, which resulted in a loss, on the Prussian side, of 13,000 out of 33,000 men. Now as it happened, the chateau in which Madame A-- was sheltering lay not far from the battlefield; in fact, the removal of her husbands corps placed the chateau itself in the gravest danger; and at the moment Madame A-- learned, from a Captain Orsini, of her hus?bands death by his own hand, she was also told that a detachment of pandours, the brutal and much-feared Hungarian light irregular cavalry, was ham?mering at the chateau gates."
"During these events Friedrich, to console him?self for the debacle at Kolin, composed in his castle at Berlin a flute sonata, of which the critic Guilda has said, that it is not less lovely than the sonatas of Georg Philip Telemann."
"Yes, read me the end." The possibility of a semi-professional apartment, which she had entertained briefly, was falling out of her head with this news, that there was no middle.
"Its swift-moving," Barbara complimented.
"Is this historically accurate?" Barbara asked.
"I wouldnt have been great, even with the cer?tificate," he said.
Edgar tried to think of a way to badmouth this immense son leaning over him like a large blaring building. But he couldnt think of anything. Think?ing of anything was beyond him. I sympathize. I myself have these problems. Endings are elusive, middles are nowhere to be found, but worst of all is to begin, to begin, to begin.
"Ive got the end but I dont have the middle," Edgar said, a little ashamed.
This answer was too provocative for Barbara to resist long, because she knew the question. "Who wrote the Battle Hymn of the Republic?" she said. "There is not a grown person in the United States who doesnt know that."
"Obviously," said Edgar with some malice, for Barbara was sometimes given to saying things that were obvious, just to fill the air. "You put a word like that in now and then to freshen your line," he explained. "Even though its an old word, its so old its new. But you have to be careful, the context has to let people know what the thing is. You dont want to be simply obscure." He liked explain?ing the tricks of the trade to Barb, who made some show of interest in them.
Barb said yes, with a look of pain, for she still felt acutely what he was trying to do.
"Assigned to the staff of Baron A--, and much in the tatters house in consequence, he was thrown in with the lovely Inge, Madame A--, a woman much younger than her husband, and possessed of many excellent qualities. A deep sympathy estab?lished itself between them, with this idiosyncrasy, that it was never pressed to a conclusion, on his part, or acknowledged in any way, on hers. But both were aware that it existed, and drew secret nourishment from it, and took much delight in the nearness, one to the other. But this pleasant state of affairs also had a melancholy aspect, for Orsini, although exercising the greatest restraint in the matter, nevertheless considered that he had, in even admitting to himself that he was in love with Madame A--, damaged his patron the Baron, whom he knew to be a just and honorable man, and one who had, moreover, done him many kind?nesses. In this humor Orsini saw himself as a son of jackal skulking about the periphery of his bene?factors domestic life, which had been harmonious and whole, but was now, in whatsoever slight de?gree, compromised."
Rose, the child, stood in her white bathrobe look?ing at her father who was talking for such a long time, and in such a dramatic shaking voice.
Edgar paused to breathe.
"Go ahead."
"Yes," Edgar agreed, impatient. He was as vola?tile as popcorn.
"The oral part," Edgar continued encouragingly, "is A-okay. I can for instance give you a list of answers, I know it so well. Listen, here is an an?swer, can you tell me the question?" Barbara, who was very sexually attractive (that was what made Edgar tap on her for a date, many years before) but also deeply mean, said nothing. She put her mind on their silent child, Rose.
"The Baron, on his side, was not at all insensible of the passion that was present, as it were in a con?dition of latency, between his young wife and the handsome Sienese. In truth, his knowledge of their intercourse, which he imagined had ripened far beyond the point it had actually reached, had flung him headlong into a horrible crime: for his with?holding of the decisive troops at Kolin, for which history has judged him so harshly, was neither an error of strategy nor a display of pusillanimity, but a willful act, having as its purpose the exposure of the chateau, and thus the lovers, whom he had caused to be together there, to the bloodlust of the pandours. And as for his alleged suicide, that too was a cruel farce; he lived, in a hidden place."
At that moment the son manque entered the room. The son manque was eight feet tall and wore a scrape woven out of two hundred transistor ra?dios, all turned on and tuned to different stations. Just by looking at him you could hear Portland and Nogales, Mexico.
"I dont know," she admitted, slightly pleased to be put back in a feminine position of not knowing.
"-- and served ten years in the regiment of giants. On the death of Friedrich Wilhelm, the regiment was disbanded, among other economies; but the former priest, by now habituated to military life, and even zestful for it, enlisted under the new young king, with the rank of captain."
"The written part is where I fall down," Edgar said morosely, to everyone in the room. "The oral part is where I do best." He looked at the back of his wife which was pointed at him. "If I dont kick it in the head this time I dont know what were going to do," he repeated. "Barb?" But she failed to respond to this implied question. She felt it was a false hope, taking this examination which he had already failed miserably twice and which always got him very worked up, black with fear, before he took it. Now she didnt wish to witness the spec?tacle any more so she gave him her back.
Edgar stopped.
Barbara got the grass which was kept in one of those little yellow and red metal canisters made for sending film back to Eastman Kodak.
"The man who brought this terrible news en?joyed a peculiar status in regard to the lady; he was her lover, and he was not. Giacomo Orsini, second son of a noble family of Siena, had as a young man a religious vocation. He had become a priest, not the grander sort of priest who makes a career in Rome and in great houses, but a modest village priest in the north of his country. Here be?fell him a singular misfortune. It was the pleasure of Friedrich Wilhelm I, father of the present ruler, to assemble, as is well known, the finest army in Europe. Tiny Prussia was unable to supply men in sufficient numbers to satisfy this ambition; his re?cruiters ranged over the whole of Europe, and those whom they could not persuade, with prom?ises of liberal bounties, into the kings service, they kidnapped. Now Friedrich was above all else fond of very tall men, and had created, for his personal guard, a regiment of giants, much mocked at the time, but nonetheless a brave and formidable sight. It was the bad luck of the priest Orsini to be a very tall man, and of impressive mien and bearing withal; he was abducted straight from the altar, as he was saying mass, the Host in his hands --"
"Yes."
"Something has to happen between them, Inge and whats his name," she went on. "Otherwise theres no story." Looking at her he thought: she is still streety although wearing her housewife gear. The child was a perfect love, however, and couldnt be told from the children of success.
"The end? Is it the end already?"
"No grass in the house?"
"Thats ironic," she said knowingly.
"Those are four names for a sword. Theyre archaic."
"But what about the middle?"
"Your views would have become known. You would have been something."
"Is that an answer?" she asked from behind her back.
Barb then began telling a story she knew that had happened to a friend of hers. This girl had had an affair with a man and had become pregnant. The man had gone off to Seville, to see if hell was a city much like it, and she had spontaneously aborted, in Chicago. Then she had flown over to parley, and they had walked in the streets and visited elderly churches and like that. And the first church they went into, there was this tiny little white coffin covered with flowers, right in the sanctuary.
"What is the title?" Barbara asked. She had turned to face him.
"Ive got to get that certificate!" he suddenly called out desperately.
EDGAR WAS PREPARING TO TAKE the National Writ?ers Examination, a five-hour fifty-minute examina?tion, for his certificate. He was in his room, fright?ened. The prospect of taking the exam again put him in worlds of hurt. He had taken it twice before, with evil results. Now he was studying a book which contained not the actual questions from the examination but similar questions. "Barbara, if I dont knock it for a loop this time I dont know what well do." Barbara continued to address her?self to the ironing board. Edgar thought about say?ing something to his younger child, his two-year-old daughter, Rose, who was wearing a white terry-cloth belted bathrobe and looked like a tiny fighter about to climb into the ring. They were all in the room while he was studying for the examination.
"I dont believe in you Barbara," he countered.
"Banal," Edgar pronounced.
"The last paragraph is this:
"It is indeed. Whats the question?"
"I dont have the middle!" he thundered.
"This is the beginning," Edgar said, preparing his yellow manuscript paper.
"Thank you," Edgar said, and continued his read?ing.
Edgar drank some water from a glass near to hand.
"You dont have the middle?"
"Do you want me to read you what Ive written for the written part?"
"Youre right," Edgar said unhappily, for he would have preferred that the answer had been a little more recherche, one that she would not have known the question to. But she had been a hooker for a period before their marriage and he could resort to this area if her triumph grew too great. "Do you want to try another one?"
