Gorgeous East by null Read Free Book Online

bundles of unpublished compositions, several masterpieces among them; the dozen mauve velvet suits Satie had worn in his Velvet Gentleman years around the turn of the century, when he had refused to wear anything but mauve velvet suits; every letter, every scrap he’d ever received from his only lover, Suzanne Valadon, including images of himself that she’d cruelly snipped from those few photographs showing them together and sent back to him—these kept in a somber black envelope, its surface splotched with the tears wrung out of Satie’s broken heart. Also, carefully arranged in cigar boxes, thousands of neat squares of paper covered in the most exquisite calligraphy: drawings of imaginary Gothic buildings, poems written in an unknown language, illustrations for novels that didn’t exist. And a series of absurdist advertisements Satie had placed at great expense in the major Paris newspapers:
    Glass Castle for rent—needs curtains, reasonable rates. Talking cat for sale—bores easily, plays “Chemin de Fer.” Puppets of God made upon request.
    Not long after Satie’s room was cleared for its new tenants, several of his friends were visited by the same strange dream. They were walking on a wooded path in the Bois de Boulogne on a dark day, storm clouds brewing above the tree line, when they met Satie coming along in the opposite direction. There he was, in evening dress, wreathed in his own sunlight, smiling, trademark bowler hat raised, beard neatly trimmed, pince-nez sparkling, his teeth gleaming like pearls, and a pair of pink wings neatly folded against the back of his cutaway.
    “Tell me something, my friend,” asks the glittering, pink-winged Satie (the same question in each dream!), “does everyone still suppose I’m dead?”
    It was pleasant for Phillipe to think about Satie and the beautiful, lost Paris of 1900 all the way out here in the barren wastes of the Sahara. Thoughts of Satie and Paris were inextricable from thoughts of Louise. Phillipe had brought along a CD player and two discs of Satie’s music; they contained, among other compositions, Mémoires d’un amnésique , Messe des Pauvres, Trois Morceaux en forme de poire . But the machine’s batteries had exhausted themselves, forcing Phillipe to reconstruct these complex compositions in his head, a strenuous and time-consuming mental exercise. Hours passed like this in the devastating heat, with Phillipe squatting motionless in the shadow of the tent but thoroughly occupied on an imaginary piano, scrupulously trying to recall every last note, his fingers moving across a keyboard sculpted out of sand that kept blowing away.

    7.
    O n the afternoon of the third day, Dr. Milhauz emerged from the tent flap, terribly hungover, having privately consumed both bottles of Johnnie Walker. He padded around to the east side of the tent in his socks and sat next to Phillipe in the sand, contrite and smelling strongly of alcohol. For a while neither of them spoke.
    “I’m afraid I drank all the whiskey,” Dr. Milhauz confessed.
    “And how do you feel now?”
    “Terrible.”
    “Ah.”
    “What have you been doing all this time?”
    “Nothing much.” Phillipe shrugged. “Thinking. Writing letters. Do you know the music of Erik Satie?”
    “No,” Dr. Milhauz said. “I’m an economist, not a musician.” He paused. “And basically a coward, I might as well admit that. I have been rude to you, Colonel de Noyer. I apologize.”
    “Don’t mention it.”
    “I’m beginning to think we won’t get out of this,” Dr. Milhauz continued, his mouth turned down, grim. “Clearly, something’s going on in the camps. I have my suspicions but . . .” His voice trailed off.
    “What kind of suspicions?”
    Dr. Milhauz shrugged. “They’re trying to teach us a lesson, I think. They’re softening us up.”
    “For what?”
    Dr. Milhauz looked at Phillipe, tears brimming in his eyes. “For a terrible blow of some kind. Actually, I think they’re going