Camp Concentration by Thomas M. Disch by Camp Concentration(v2.0)

Author:Camp Concentration(v2.0)[htm] [Concentration, Camp]
Language: zho
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Later:

I did not expect the catastrophe so soon. The play is all but over, and I'd thought we were somewhere in the middle of the second act. There is nothing left to be done now but to bear the bodies from the stage.

As always, I was in my seat well before curtain time, though not in advance of Haast, who as I came in was worrying the maintenance crew about the ventilators, which had developed a sudden autism. He had shaved the afternoon's white stubble from his face and changed into a black double-breasted suit. Though of the latest cut, the suit seemed dated. Visiting Stuttgart in the early sixties I'd noticed how many of the businessmen were wearing the styles of their youth; for them–and for Haast–it would always be 1943.

The few prisoners not playing an active role in the rites arrived next, some in formal wear, others in their eclectic but no less sober attire. They took their seats not en bloc but scattered throughout the small auditorium so that when they were settled the theater seemed scarcely less empty than it had been.

Busk too had chosen to dress as though in mourning. She took the seat behind mine, and began immediately chainsmoking Camels. In a short while she had woven a little cocoon of smoke about the two of us, aided by the vents' malfunction.

Mordecai, the Bishop, and a small host of censers, ostiaries, etc. (looking like the first act of Tosca at the Amato Opera) arrived last, or rather, they entered, with oleaginous pomp. The Bishop was goldenly decked out in Matissely symbolatrous vestments, though even he preserved one touch of the funereal. His mitre was dead black. Mordecai had exercised a certain macabre economy in choosing his costume for the ball: It was the same black velvet suit with a gold lace collar that George Wagner had worn as Faust. It stood all too evidently in need of dry cleaning, but even fresh it would have been wrong on Mordecai, whom it caused to seem almost uniformly black. Worse, its cut emphasized the narrowness of his chest, his rounded back and bandy legs, his ungainliness walking as much as his gracelessness in repose. He resembled, on an enlarged scale, one of Velasquez's pathetic dwarfs, the rich costume serving only to set off the grotesque frame. This was, doubtless, the effect intended. Pride will flaunt its ugliness quite as if it were beauty.

Haast hurried up to this monkey Hamlet and grasped him, albeit gingerly, by the hand. "This is a historic occasion, my boy." His voice was husky with deeply felt self-importance.

Mordecai nodded, removing his hand. His eyes shone with a fierce attentiveness, uncustomary even for him. I was reminded of van der Goes's "painful eyes" in "Portrait of P."

"Thirsty for light, his gaze would keep returning to the sun." The Bishop, duly ceremonious and followed by two supernumeraries who supported the glittering cope, preceded Haast up the four steps to the stage. Mordecai lingered in the aisle, scanning the faces in the audience.

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