Free Journal From Ellipsia: A Novel by Hortense Calisher Page A

front, the audience held up to him that massed sunflower face which all lecturers know—but his was not the simple platform fear. He had been born to this one, he thought as suddenly. He’d been born to this, to the right-here and the now, sent forth with eyes, ears, balls and ever-valiant tongue to function along his voyage of discovery, all to suffer pains or joys still unknown, including the adventure of the death that would be the end of him and them—and in all of this he was an amateur. To the end of this mélange that both frightened and beguiled, he would be one.
    He covered his eyes with his hands, wishing that all his organs had complementary sets of hands to cover them, or at least some more generally anonymous skin. If, at best, there were only some repository—of professionalism—to which he might apply. He understood quite well that this was merely the Fascist fear, possibly the God-making one also—and that only his flesh was feeling it. Hard lines that only his flesh was also understanding it. For meanwhile, he knew quite as well that in eighteen or so minutes by his watch he would be getting to his feet on performance of business which might be less daily than most, but had at its heart the same fear that was dormant in any, and might attack a man when he was merely staring at his own cuticle—the ordinary citizen’s stage fright and inner self-amaze. He wasn’t having any revelations, by God. Any clam-digger might have this sudden sense of fear, or any Linhouse—or any Anders—and probably not when Anders was belting the universe either, maybe when he was in the middle of a shave. It might come upon one on top of a mountain or a woman, on errand or in urinal, in the movie houses of crowd, or at the weekend sandbeaches of alone. No doubt everybody knew this particular sensation as well as Jack Linhouse. It might be called the oracle of the cuticle. It was the moment when the Muzak stopped, and more clearly than in any foreign land, one stood knee-deep in the utter fantasticality of right-where-one-was. The cure for it was obscure as any of his mother’s for heartburn or hiccups. Since he hadn’t a lump of sugar or a glass of water, he held his breath, then breathed deeply. And had his revelation. This was why one traveled. To get rid of just that.
    Just then, a knocking came, apparently at one of the upper doors. But, these doors, like those in any supermarket, were opened in the modern way, by crossing a beam of light with one’s body—the kind of door at which, when set up for entry, it was almost physically impossible to knock. Maybe it was the younger generation knocking, as in that line of Ibsen he’d always despised for its patness. Go away, he said to it silently— I am the younger generation. Or was, up to last week. Sure enough, this not being the theater, it went away. Besides, he said after it, we have enough people, all she wanted. Every seat he could see was filled.
    He checked his watch again—twelve minutes now—took from his wallet the engraved program with its carefully worded note of explanation, slipped under it the part of her letter she’d asked to have read, put the letter’s other sheet in his hip pocket, and stood up, remembering that at the near end of the basement passage which debouched backstage, there was a toilet. Just as he stood up—bless action for being the cure one always forgot about—a hand was placed on his shoulder. A bear or a ghost, which will you have it, he thought as he whirled. You know which.
    The old man seemed taller than he remembered him, unlike most old men. Since last seen, his skin had become the swart color that aged men come to by way of sun or liver. From his dress—the white tennis flannels and dark jacket of any number of first acts marked Summer: 1914 —it was hopefully the former. Which must mean that Sir Harry had been to Berkeley for his conference.
    “Why—!” Linhouse kept his greeting hushed, but held out his hand. It