A Perfect Vacuum Read Free Page B

anything!—he says to himself immediately, for courage, and takes on Wendy Mae. She is, we conjecture, an allusion to the paradigm of Man Friday. But this young, really rather simple girl might lead the Master into temptation. He might easily perish in her marvelous—since unattainable—embraces, he might lose himself in a fever of rut and lusting, go mad on the point of her pale, mysterious smile, her fleeting profile, her bare little feet bitter from the ashes of the campfire and reeking with the grease of barbecued mutton. Therefore, from the very first, in a moment of true inspiration, he makes Wendy Mae ... three-legged. In a more ordinary, that is, a tritely objective reality, he would not have been able to do this! But here he is Lord of Creation. He acts as one who, having a cask of methyl alcohol, poisonous yet inviting him to drink and be merry, plugs it up himself, against himself, for he will be living with a temptation he must never indulge; at the same time he will be kept on his toes, for his appetite will constantly be removing from the cask, lewdly, its hermetic bung. And thus Robinson will live, from now on, cheek by jowl with a three-legged maid, always able—of course—to imagine her
without
the middle leg, but that is all. He becomes wealthy in emotions unspent, in endearments unsquandered (for what point would there be in wasting them on such a person?). Little Wendy Mae, associated in his mind with both Wednesday and Wedding Day (note: Wednesday,
Mitt-woch,
the middle of the week—an obvious symbolization of sex; perhaps, too, Wendy—Wench—Window), and also with a poor orphan (“Wednesday’s child is full of woe”), becomes his Beatrice. Did that silly little chit of a fourteen-year-old know anything whatever about Dante’s infernal spasms of desire? Robinson is indeed pleased with himself. He created her and by that very act—her three-leggedness—barricaded her from himself. Nevertheless, before long the whole thing begins to come apart at the seams. While concentrating on a problem important in some respects, Robinson neglected so many other important facets of Wendy Mae!
    It begins innocently enough. He would like, now and then, to take a peek at the little one but has pride enough to resist this urge. Later, however, various thoughts run through his brain. The girl does what formerly was Snibbins’s job. Gathering the oysters—no problem there; but taking care of the Master’s wardrobe, even his personal linen? Here already one can detect an element of ambiguity—no!—it is all too unambiguous! So he gets up surreptitiously, in the dead of night, when she is sure to be still sleeping, and washes his unmentionables in the bay. But since he has begun to rise so early, why couldn’t he—just once—you know—for fun (but only his own, Master’s, solitary fun)—wash
her
things? Didn’t he give them to her? By himself, in spite of the sharks, he went out several times to penetrate the hull of the
Patricia
and found some ladies’ frippery, shifts, pinafores, petticoats, panties. Yes, but when he washes them, won’t he have to hang everything up on a line, between the trunks of two palms? A dangerous game! Particularly dangerous in that, though Snibbins is no longer on the island as a servant, he has not dropped completely out of the picture. Robinson can almost hear his heavy breathing, can guess what he is thinking: Your Lordship, begging your pardon, never washed anything for
me.
While he existed, Snibbins never would have dared utter words so audaciously insinuating, but, missing, he turns out to be devilishly loose of tongue! Snibbins is gone, that is true; but he has left his absence. He is not to be seen in any concrete place, but even when he served he modestly lay low, kept out of the Master’s way and dared not show himself. Now, Snibbins haunts: his pathologically obsequious,