216
DAVID JACKSON
posed
in
his
mind. He had better write a postcard to Walter. He
opened the myth book again and there (along the margin next
to Robert Graves' imaginative interpretation of the creation of
the Dactyls from Rhea's fingertips) were the names of four
Munich bars and Meredith Wilder's address. The bars were
marked as Walter had marked them in a small black book kept
in a nearly secret drawer. The code, which had probably some–
thing to do with sex or some other interest, Nicolas was deter–
mined to find out and put to use. A card to Walter would get
him an introduction to this Meredith, and that might be good
for something. Nicolas called on his muse, a line came back:
Squaresville, man, and all the
palazzos
are crummy
Palasts.
That ought to draw a laugh, Nicolas reasoned, as he stored
the line away on the wax tape that was
his
mind.
And, indeed, his postcard did draw from Walter a letter
recommending
his
friend, the poet Nicolas Manas, to his friend
Meredith Wilder. Five days later, on receiving it, Meredith sat
drumming
his
dactyls on
his
writing table. Dammit! he inwardly
cried.
His hand was large and square and heavily tanned. The
voice crying in him was the voice of guilt. His four weeks in
Italy had turned into nearer three months. He had returned to
the pension a week ago. Now, he was just in the late poems of
HOlderlin and therefore had most of the nineteenth century
before him-plus next semester's class preparation. He was deter–
mined to spend an industrious summer. Well, maybe Manas
wouldn't call. Meredith's fingers slowed and stopped over a line
before him:
Sie liicheln, die Schwarzen Hexen.
The menace of
Manas gradually faded as Meredith asked himself should he
translate it, 'How the dark fates laughed'? or, more rhythmically,
'The swarthy witches are laughing'? And he missed the point
that the swarthy witches might be laughing at him for hoping to
escape Nicolas Manas.
But Nicolas, too, was being interrupted, that morning.
Not by the 11: 00 sun which had spread a warmth around
