‘There’s no reason why we shouldn’t get one on the lick where Karl shot his. One day is as good as another.’
‘Quite.’
‘It’s the last damned day though and the lick may be rained out. As soon as it’s wet there’s no salt. Just mud.’
‘That’s it.’
‘I’d like to see one.’
‘When you do, take your time and make sure of him. Take your time and kill him.’
‘I don’t worry about that.’
‘Let’s talk about something else,’ P.O.M. said. ‘This makes me too nervous.’
‘I wish we had old Leather Pants,’ Pop said. ‘God, he was a talker. He made the old man here talk too. Give us that spiel on modern writers again.’
‘Go to hell.’
‘Why don’t we have some intellectual life?’ P.O.M. asked. ‘Why don’t you men ever discuss world topics? Why am I kept in ignorance of everything that goes on?’
‘World’s in a hell of a shape,’ Pop stated.
‘Awful.’
‘What’s going on in America?’
‘Damned if I know! Some sort of Y.M.C.A. show. Starry eyed bastards spending money that somebody will have to pay. Everybody in our town quit work to go on relief. Fishermen all turned carpenters. Reverse of the Bible.’
‘How are things in Turkey?’
‘Frightful. Took the fezzes away. Hanged any amount of old pals. Ismet’s still around though.’
‘Been in France lately?’
‘Didn’t like it. Gloomy as hell. Been a bad show there just now.’
‘By God,’ said Pop, ‘it must have been if you can believe the papers.’
‘When they riot they really riot. Hell, they’ve got a tradition.’
‘Were you in Spain for the revolution?’
‘I got there late. Then we waited for two that didn’t come. Then we missed another.’
‘Did you see the one in Cuba?’
‘From the start.’
‘How was it?’
‘Beautiful. Then lousy. You couldn’t believe how lousy.’
‘Stop it,’ P.O.M. said. ‘I know about those things. I was crouched down behind a marble-topped table while they were shooting in Havana. They came by in cars shooting at everybody they saw. I took my drink with me and I was very proud not to have spilled it or forgotten it. The children said, “Mother, can we go out in the afternoon to see the shooting?” They got so worked up about revolution we had to stop mentioning it. Bumby got so bloodthirsty about Mr. M. he had terrible dreams.’
‘Extraordinary,’ Pop said.
‘Don’t make fun of nie. I don’t want to just hear about revolutions. All we see or hear is revolutions. I’m sick of them. ‘
‘The old man must like them.’
‘I’m sick of them.’
‘You know, I’ve never seen one,’ Pop said.
‘They’re beautiful. Really. For quite a while. Then they go bad.’
‘They’re very exciting,’ P.O.M. said. ‘I’ll admit that. But I’m sick of them. Really, I don’t care anything about them.’
‘I’ve been studying them a little.’
‘What did you find out?’ Pop asked.
‘They were all very different but there were some things you could co-ordinate. I’m going to try to write a study of them.’
‘It could be damned interesting.’
‘If you have enough material. You need an awful lot of past performances. It’s very hard to get anything true on anything you haven’t seen yourself because the ones that fail have such a bad press and the winners always lie so. Then you can only really follow anything in places where you speak the language. That limits you of course. That’s why I would never go to Russia. When you can’t overhear it’s no good. All you get are handouts and sight-seeing. Any one who knows a foreign language in any country is damned liable to lie to you. You get your good dope always from the people and when you can’t talk with people and can’t overhear you don’t get anything that’s of anything but journalistic value.’
‘You want to knuckle down on your Swahili then.’
‘I’m trying to.’
‘Even then you can’t overhear because they’re always talking their own language.’
‘But if I ever write anything about this it will just be landscape painting until I know something about it. Your first seeing of a country is a very valuable one. Probably more valuable to yourself than to anyone else, is the hell of it. But you ought to always write it to try to get it stated. No matter what you do with it.’