Franny and Zooey Page 8

  Quite probably Zooey hadn't intended to send his razor crashing into the wastebasket but had merely brought his left hand down with such suddenness and violence that the razor got away from him. In any case, it was certain that he hadn't intended to strike and hurt his wrist on the side of the washbowl. "Buddy, Buddy, Buddy," he said. "Seymour, Seymour, Seymour." He had turned toward his mother, whom the crash of the razor had startled and alarmed but not really frightened. "I'm so sick of their names I could cut my throat." His face was pale but very nearly expressionless. "This whole goddam house stinks of ghosts. I don't mind so much being haunted by a dead ghost, but I resent like hell being haunted by a half-dead one. I wish to God Buddy'd make up his mind. He does everything else Seymour ever did--or tries to. Why the hell doesn't he kill himself and be done with it?"

  Mrs. Glass blinked her eyes, just once, and Zooey instantly looked away from her face. He bent over and fished his razor out of the wastebasket. "We're freaks, the two of us, Franny and I," he announced, standing up. "I'm a twenty-five-year-old freak and she's a twenty-year-old freak, and both those bastards are responsible." He put his razor on the edge of the washbowl, but it slid obstreperously down into the bowl. He quickly picked it out, and this time kept it in the grasp of his fingers. "The symptoms are a little more delayed in Franny's case than mine, but she's a freak, too, and don't you forget it. I swear to you, I could murder them both without even batting an eyelash. The great teachers. The great emancipators. My God. I can't even sit down to lunch with a man any more and hold up my end of a decent conversation. I either get so bored or so goddam preachy that if the son of a bitch had any sense, he'd break his chair over my head." He suddenly opened the medicine cabinet. He stared rather vacuously into it for a few seconds, as though he had forgotten why he opened it, then put his undried razor in its place on one of the shelves.

  Mrs. Glass sat very still, watching him, her cigarette burning low between her fingers. She watched him put the cap on the tube of shaving lather. He had some difficulty finding the thread.

  "Not that anybody's interested, but I can't even sit down to a goddam meal, to this day, without first saying the Four Great Vows under my breath, and I'll lay any odds you want Franny can't, either. They drilled us with such goddam--"

  "The four great what?" Mrs. Glass interrupted, but cautiously.

  Zooey put a hand on each side of the washbowl and leaned his chest forward a trifle, his eyes on the general background of enamel. For all his slightness of body, he looked at that moment ready and able to push the washbowl straight through the floor. "The Four Great Vows," he said, and, with rancor, closed his eyes. "'However innumerable beings are, I vow to

  save them; however inexhaustible the passions are, I vow to extinguish them; however immeasurable the Dharmas are, I vow to master them; however incomparable the Buddha-truth is, I vow to attain it.' Yay, team. I know I can do it. Just put me in, coach." His eyes stayed closed. "My God, I've been mumbling that under my breath three meals a day every day of my life since I was ten. I can't eat unless I say it. I tried skipping it once when I was having a lunch with LeSage. I gagged on a goddam cherrystone clam, doing it." He opened his eyes, frowned, but kept his peculiar stance. "How 'bout getting out of here, now, Bessie?" he said. "I mean it. Lemme finish my goddam ablutions in peace, please." His eyes closed again, and he appeared ready to have another try at pushing the washbowl through the floor. Even though his head was slightly down, a considerable amount of blood had flowed out of his face.

  "I wish you'd get married," Mrs. Glass said, abruptly, wistfully.

  Everyone in the Glass family--Zooey certainly not least--was familiar with this sort of non-sequitur from Mrs. Glass. It bloomed best, most sublimely, in the middle of an emotional flareup of just this kind. This time, it caught Zooey very much off guard, however. He gave an explosive sound, mostly through the nose, of either laughter or the opposite of laughter. Mrs. Glass quickly and anxiously leaned forward to see which it was. It was laughter, more or less, and she sat back, relieved. "Well, I do," she insisted. "Why don't you?"

  Relaxing his stance, Zooey took a folded linen handkerchief from his hip pocket, nipped it open, then used it to blow his nose once, twice, three times. He put away the handkerchief, saying, "I like to ride in trains too much. You never get to sit next to the window any more when you're married."

  "That's no reason!"

  "It's a perfect reason. Go away, Bessie. Leave me in peace in here. Why don't you go for a nice elevator ride? You're going to burn your fingers, incidentally, if you don't put out that goddam cigarette."

  Mrs. Glass put out her cigarette against the inside of the wastebasket again. She then sat quietly for a little interval, without reaching for her cigarette pack and matches. She watched Zooey take down a comb and re-part his hair. "You could use a haircut, young man," she said. "You're getting to look like one of these crazy Hungarians or something getting out of a swimming pool."

  Zooey perceptibly smiled, went on for a few seconds with his combing, then suddenly turned. He wagged his comb briefly at his mother. "One other thing. Before I forget. And listen to me, now, Bessie," he said. "If you get any more ideas, like last night, of phoning Philly Byrnes' goddam psychoanalyst for Franny, just do one thing--that's all I ask. Just think of what analysis did for Seymour." He paused for emphasis. "Hear me? Will you do that?"

  Mrs. Glass immediately gave her hairnet an unnecessary adjustment, then took out her cigarettes and matches, but she merely kept them for a moment in her hand. "For your information," she said, "I didn't say I was going to phone Philly Byrnes' psychoanalyst, I said I was thinking about it. In the first place, he isn't just an ordinary psychoanalyst. He happens to be a very devout Catholic psychoanalyst, and I thought it might be better than sitting around and watching that child--"

  "Bessie, I'm warning you, now, God damn it. I don't care if he's a very devout Buddhist veterinarian. If you call in some--"

  "There's no need for sarcasm, young man. I've known Philly Byrnes since he was a tiny little boy. Your father and I played on the same bill with his parents for years. And I happen to know for a fact that going to a psychoanalyst has made an absolutely new and lovely person out of that boy. I was talking to his--"

  Zooey slammed his comb into the medicine cabinet, then impatiently flipped the cabinet door shut. "Oh, you're so stupid, Bessie," he said. "Philly Byrnes. Philly Byrnes is a poor little impotent sweaty guy past forty who's been sleeping for years with a rosary and a copy of Variety under his pillow. We're talking about two things as different as day and night. Now, listen to me, Bessie." Zooey turned full toward his mother and looked at her carefully, the flat of one hand on the enamel, as if for support. "You listening to me?"

  Mrs. Glass finished lighting a fresh cigarette before she committed herself. Then, exhaling smoke and brushing off imaginary tobacco flakes from her lap, she said grimly, "I'm listening to you."

  ."All right. I'm very serious, now. If you--Listen to me, now. If you can't, or won't, think of Seymour, then you go right ahead and call in some ignorant psychoanalyst. You just do that. You just call in some analyst who's experienced in adjusting people to the joys of television, and Life magazine every Wednesday, and European travel, and the H-Bomb, and Presidential elections, and the front page of the Times, and the responsibilities of the Westport and Oyster Bay Parent-Teacher Association, and God knows what else that's gloriously normal--you just do that, and I swear to you, in not more than a year Franny'll either be in a nut ward or she'll be wandering off into some goddam desert with a burning cross in her hands."

  Mrs. Glass brushed off a few more imaginary tobacco flakes. "All right, all right--don't get so upset," she said. "For goodness' sake. Nobody's called anybody."

  Zooey yanked open the door of the medicine cabinet, stared inside, then took down a nail file and closed the door. He picked up the cigarette he had posted on the edge of the frosted-glass ledge and dragged on it, but it was dead. His mother said, "Here,"
and handed him her pack of king-size cigarettes and her match folder. Zooey took a cigarette out of the pack and got as far as putting it between his lips and striking a match, but the pressure of thoughts made the actual lighting of the cigarette unfeasible, and he blew out the match and took the cigarette down from his mouth. He gave a little, impatient headshake. "I don't know," he said. "It seems to me there must be a psychoanalyst holed up somewhere in town who'd be good for Fran-ny--I thought about that last night." He grimaced slightly. "But I don't happen to know of any. For a psychoanalyst to be any good with Franny at all, he'd have to be a pretty peculiar type. I don't know. He'd have to believe that it was through the grace of God that he'd been inspired to study psychoanalysis in the first place. He'd have to believe that it was through the grace of God that he wasn't run over by a goddam truck before he ever even got his license to practice. He'd have to believe that it's through the grace of God that he has the native intelligence to be able to help his goddam patients at all. I don't know any good analysts who think along those lines. But that's the only kin.d of psychoanalyst who might be able to do Franny any good at all. If she got somebody terribly Freudian, or terribly eclectic, or just terribly run-of-the-mill--somebody who didn't even have any crazy, mysterious gratitude for his insight and intelligence--she'd come out of analysis in even worse shape than Seymour did. It worried hell out of me, thinking about it. Let's just shut up about it, if you don't mind." He took time to get his cigarette lighted. Then, exhaling smoke, he put the cigarette up on the frosted-glass ledge where the old, dead cigarette was, and assumed a slightly more relaxed stance. He began to run the nail file under his fingernails--which were already perfectly clean. "If you don't yak at me," he said, after a pause, "I'll tell you what those two little books are about that Franny's got with her. Are you interested, or not? If you're not interested, I don't feel like--"

  "Yes, I'm interested! Of course I'm interested! What do you think I'm--"

  "All right, just don't yak at me for a minute, then," Zooey said, and rested the small of his back against the edge of the washbowl. He went on using the nail file. "Both books are about a Russian peasant, around the turn of the century," he said, in what was, for his implacably matter-of-fact voice, a rather narrative tone. "He's a very simple, very sweet little guy with a withered arm. Which, of course, makes him a natural for Franny, with that goddam Bide-a-Wee Home heart of hers." He pivoted around, picked up his cigarette from the frosted-glass ledge, dragged on it, then began to file his nails. "In the beginning, the little peasant tells you, he had a wife and a farm. But he had a looney brother who burned down the farm--and then, later, I think, the wife just died. Anyway, he Starts on his pilgrimage. And he has a problem. He's been reading the Bible all his life, and he wants to know what it means when it says, in Thessalonians, Pray without ceasing.' That one line keeps haunting him." Zooey reached for his cigarette again, dragged on it, and then said, "There's another, similar line in Timothy--'I will therefore that men pray everywhere.' And Christ himself, as a matter of fact, says, 'Men ought always to pray and not to faint.'" Zooey used his nail file in silence for a moment, his face singularly dour in expression. "So, anyway, he begins his pilgrimage to find a teacher," he said. "Someone who can teach him how to pray incessantly, and why. He walks and he walks and he walks, from one church and shrine to another, talking to this priest and that. Till finally he meets a simple old monk who apparently knows what it's all about. The old monk tells him that the one prayer acceptable to God at all times, and'desired' by God, is the Jesus Prayer--'Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.' Actually, the whole prayer is 'Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me, a miserable sinner,' but none of the adepts in either of the Pilgrim books put any emphasis--thank God--on the miserable-sinner part. Anyway, the old monk explains to him what will happen if the prayer is said incessantly. He gives him some practice sessions with it and sends him home. And--to make a long story short--after a while the little pilgrim becomes proficient with the prayer. He masters it. He's overjoyed with his new spiritual life, and he goes on hiking all over Russia--through dense forests, through towns, villages, and so on--saying his prayer as he goes along and telling everyone he happens to meet how to say it, too." Zooey looked up, brusquely, at his mother. "You listening to this? You fat old Druid?" he inquired. "Or are you just staring at my gorgeous face?"

  Mrs. Glass, bristling, said, "Certainly I'm listening!"

  "All right--I don't want any party poops around here." Zooey gave a great guffaw, then took a drag on his cigarette. He kept the cigarette stationed between his fingers and went on using the nail file. "The first of the two little books, 'The Way of a Pilgrim,'" he said, "has mostly to do with the adventures the little pilgrim has on the road. Whom he meets, what he says to them, what they say to him--he meets some goddam nice people, incidentally. The sequel, 'The Pilgrim Continues His Way,' is mostly a dissertation in dialogue form on the whys and wherefores of the Jesus Prayer. The pilgrim, a professor, a monk, and some sort of hermit all meet and hash over things. And that's all there is to it, really." Zooey glanced up, very briefly, at his mother, then switched the nail file over to his left hand. "The aim of both little books, if you're interested," he said, "is supposedly to wake everybody up to the need and benefits of saying the Jesus Prayer incessantly. First under the supervision of a qualified teacher---a sort of Christian guru--and then, after the person's mastered it to some extent, he's supposed to go on with it on his own. And the main idea is that it's not supposed to be just for pious bastards and breast-beaters. You can be busy robbing the goddam poor box, but you're to say the prayer while you rob it. Enlightenment's supposed to come with the prayer, not before it." Zooey frowned, but academically. "The idea, really, is that sooner or later, completely on its own, the prayer moves from the lips and the head down to a center in the heart and becomes an automatic function in the person, right along with the heartbeat. And then, after a time, once the prayer is automatic in the heart, the person is supposed to enter into the so-called reality of things. The subject doesn't really come up in either of the books, but, in Eastern terms, there are seven subtle centers in the body, called cha-kras, and the one most closely connected with the heart is called anahata, which is supposed to be sensitive and powerful as hell, and when it's activated, it, in turn, activates another of these centers, between the eyebrows, called ajna--it's the pineal gland, really, or, rather, an aura around the pineal gland--and then, bingo, there's an opening of what mystics call the'third eye.' It's nothing new, for God's sake. It didn't just start with the little pilgrim's crowd, I mean. In India, for God knows how many centuries, it's been known as japam. Japam is just the repetition of any of the human names of God. Or the names of his incarnations--his avatars, if you want to get technical. The idea being that if you call out the name long enough and regularly enough and literally from the heart, sooner or later you'll get an answer. Not exactly an answer. A response." Zooey suddenly turned around, opened the medicine cabinet, replaced his nail file, and took down a remarkably stubby-looking orange stick. "Who's been eating my orange stick?" he said. With his wrist, he briefly blotted his perspiring upper lip, and then he began to use the orange stick to push back his cuticles.

  Mrs. Glass took a deep drag on her cigarette, watching him, then crossed her legs and asked, demanded, "Is that what Franny's supposed to be doing? I mean is that what she's doing and all?"

  "So I gather. Don't ask me, ask her."

  There was a short pause, and a dubious one. Then Mrs. Glass abruptly and rather pluckily asked, "How long do you have to do it?"

  Zooey's face lit up with pleasure. He turned to her. "How long?" he said. "Oh, not long. Till the painters want to get in your room. Then a procession of saints and bodhisattvas march in, carrying bowls of chicken broth. The Hall Johnson Choir starts up in the background, and the cameras move in on a nice old gentleman in a loincloth standing against a background of mountains and blue skies and white clouds, and a look of peace comes over everybo
dy's--"

  "All right, just stop that," Mrs. Glass said.

  "Well, Jesus. I'm only trying to help. Mercy. I don't want you to go away with the impression that there're any--you know--any incon-veniences involved in the religious life. I mean a lot of people don't take it up just because they think it's going to involve a certain amount of nasty application and perseverance--you know what I mean." It was clear that the speaker, with patent relish, was now reaching the high point of his address. He wagged his orange stick solemnly at his mother. "As soon as we get out of the chapel here, I hope you'll accept from me a little volume I've always admired. I believe it touches on some of the fine points we've discussed this morning. 'God Is My Hobby.' By Dr. Homer Vincent Claude Pierson, Jr. In this little book, I think you'll find, Dr. Pierson tells us very clearly how when he was twenty-one years of age he started putting aside a little time each day--two minutes in the morning and two minutes at night, if I remember correctly--and at the end of the first year, just by these little informal visits with God, he increased his annual income seventy-four per cent. I believe I have an extra copy, and if you'll be good enough--"

  "Oh, you're impossible," Mrs. Glass said. But vaguely. Her eyes had again sought out her old friend the blue bathmat, across the room. She sat staring at it while Zooey--grinning but perspiring freely at his upper lip--went on using his orange stick. At length, Mrs. Glass heaved one of her premium sighs and returned her attention to Zooey, who, pushing at his cuticles, had pivoted a half turn toward the morning daylight. As she took in the lines and planes of his uncommonly spare unclothed back, her gaze gradually de-abstracted. In a matter of only a few seconds, in fact, her eyes appeared to jettison everything that was dark and heavy and to glow with fan-club appreciation. "You're getting so broad and lovely," she said, aloud, and reached out to touch the small of his back. "I was afraid all those crazy bar-bell exercises would do some--"

  "Don't, willya?" Zooey said, quite sharply, recoiling.