I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: MOLOTOV-¿Dónde Jugarán las Niñas? (1998).

Molotov was the last Rock en Español band that I really bothered to check out.  They were probably most notorious for the cover of the album.  Interestingly, the cover is actually a four sided cover which you can flip to three other far less sexist scenes, so yes, that was pretty much a sales gimmick.  And it certainly attracted attention (and a law suit!).  So they reissued the title with the far less offensive, but very different cover below.

My Spanish is poor at best, but this album is a mix of Spanish and English.  And, of course, I know some bad Spanish words, so I get a sense of what this album is about. But here’s the thing–it rocks really hard and has some really great elements of the metal/rap/funk hybrid genre, regardless of whether you know what they’re talking about (although don’t go singing “Chinga Tu Madre” around the office, capiche?).

The opening song  “Que no te haga bobo Jacobo” has a very Rage Against the Machine vibe–heavy guitars and sound effects with militant rapped lyrics.  The riff is great and the vocals are smoother than Rage’s Zach–“Tito” Fuentes has great flow.  There’s also some good funky bass in the middle section.  “Molotov Cocktail Party” is a mix of English and Spanish, a pretty straightforward rap, not unlike Kid Rock.

“Voto Latino” has a more alt rock vibe in the guitars, although the vocals are pretty straightforward rap style.  The song title means Latino Vote, so perhaps there’s a politics context to it.  And “Gimme Tha Power” is a political song, too.  A rap (in Spanish) over some nice acoustic guitars.

There definitely isn’t in “Chinga Tu Madre” which has more of those cool guitar effects and group chanting, although it’ probably not worth investigating the lyrics much more.  But the chorus is catchy as anything.  “Matata Tete” and “Mas Vale Cholo” return to that Rage Against the Machine style, with vocals that are a bit more cookie monster-y (I’m not sure who sings lead on which songs, actually) although “Mas Vale Cholo” has some fun with the vocal delivery.  And there’s a spirit of early Red Hot Chili Peppers at work, too.

“Use It or Lose It” is rapped in mostly English.  It has a very cool acoutsic-feeling chorus (and a quote of the line, “what cha gonna do rap is not afraid of you.”).  “Puto” is presumably an anti-gay song (I suppose I should find that out before I say so).  “Porque No Te Haces Para Alla?…Al Mas Alla!” has a fun chorus and cool guitar effects once again.  “Cerdo” has a cool 70s vibe, with funky bass and scratchy guitars–it’s got a sexy feel, although the title means “pig,” so who knows.

The final track also rocks very well.  According to Wikipedia, the translated title of “Quitate Que Ma’sturbas (Perro Arrabalera)” is “Stay Away Because You Masturbate (Suburban Bitch)” which seems weird .  But maybe they had nothing better to write about.  Sometimes ignorance of a subject is not a bad thing.

¿Dónde Jugarán las Niñas? is not the classiest album around, but it’s got some really interesting sonics.  And I’m led to believe their later albums are even better.

[READ: Week of April 9] Gravity’s Rainbow 3.16-3.24

Last week ended with sex and this week opens with the way I felt–like a voyeur who can’t look away.  The exhausting orgy was exhausting to read about as well.  And I’m starting to wonder if Pynchon is making a point about sex rather than just enjoying writing about it.

This week’s read also brings back two characters from way way ago.  Well, one from not too long ago, but another from what seems like an eternity.  I assumed we’d see Pirate Prentice again, but I assumed that it wouldn’t be until Section 4. So that was a nice treat, even if it’s a less than happy return for him.

Section 3.16 opens with a Japanese soldier Morituri (whom Captain Antoni alluded to when he met Slothrop): “We’ve even got a Japanese on board” (462).  Morituri has been watching Slothrop and Bianca, but he’s not a voyeur, there is no thrill for him (this is the second impotent voyeur in the book).  He says it makes him feel less alone to watch.  When asked why he doesn’t join in, he says that that would be even worse!

Slothrop and Morituri chat more and when Morituri grabs for a bowl of porridge, Slothrop accuses him of being an Anglophile to which he responds, “Yes, yes. I’ve been o the wrong side for years” (473).  But when Slothrop asks if he ever tried to defect, Morituri replies “And find out what you people are really like? What if phile changes then to phobe?” (473).

Morituri says that he also knows Margherita–through a mutual friend.  He watched her as Slothrop was pulled up from the water.  He warns that Slothrop should stay away from her for a while.  And the he begins “Ensign Morituri’s Story.”

It’s also some backstory on Marherita.  Her people had tried to talk Margherita out of going to Hollywood.  But she went and failed.  Rollo was there for her when she returned in disgrace–he hid the sharp objects and the drugs.  Then Rollo brought her to Sigmund who also tried to help but wasn’t terribly useful either.

At some point she had gotten an idea that she was part Jewish and was terrified of being found out.  She heard the Gestapo everywhere and began suffering from symptoms–tics, hives, nausea.  Specialists were called in but no one could help.  So she suggested going to the spas at Bad Karma.  She and Sigmund went to Bad Karma together.  The mud there is supposed to have some kind of radioactive healing power.

Eventually Sigmund started noticing her absences.  She had plausible excuses–medical appointments, or visiting old friends, u.s.w.  All the while Morituri had watched them.  They would bow and allow Morituri to practice his German.  He looked forward to running into them (especially since his family was half a world away) because they seemed as lost and alien as he did.  And then one time he saw Sigmund alone.  Sigmund said that he had caught Greta in a lie but he didn’t have the courage to confront her.

So Morituri decided to follow her.  He watched her go to all different functions.  On the last night that he followed her, she went to a black mud pool.  She was dressed in black, [looking a  lot like the woman who spooked Greta when they landed in Bad Karma last week–the one who was dressed in black and asked Slothrop for a cigarette, so that explains that].  And then Morituri hears her talking:  “The offering was to be a boy” (477).  It appears to be some kind of sacrifice.  She grabs the boy calls him a piece of Jewish shit and tells him not to run away.  Before it was too late, Morituri committed his only act of heroism of his career and recused the boy.  She and Sigmund left Bad Karma that night.

After the story, Slothrop asks if Bianca is safe with Greta.  Morituri asks Slothrop just what he thinks he can do for Bianca.

Slothrop puts it all together–his arrival from the mud, the woman in black, it’s too close for Margherita to handle.

Slothrop tries to change the subject by saying that in two days they’ll be in Swinemünde.  But he needs to know if Morituri really just wants “to keep moving.”  You’ve got kids at home, he says, you must want more.  Morituri says he just wants to go home to Hiroshima and never leave:

I think you’d like it there.  It’s a city on Honshu, on the Inland Sea, very pretty, a perfect size, big enough for the city excitement, small enough for the serenity a man needs (480).

[I checked the date of the Bomb dropping to get an idea of when Morituri would learn what happens there.]

They head across the ship and lose each other, but Slothrop spots Stefania (the Captain’s wife) and heads over to her.  I liked this bit of light humor:

It takes him five minutes to thread his way to her, by which time he’s picked up a brandy Alexander, a party hat, a sign taped to his back urging whoever reads it, in Low Pomeranian, to kick Slothrop, lipstick smudges in three shades of magenta, and a black Italian maduro someone has thoughtfully already lit (480).

Stefania tells him that Greta has locked herself in the bathroom and Thanatz and Bianca are missing.  She tells him to go look for Bianca.

He calls around for her, but instead he finds Greta, locked in a room.  She tells him to go away, that he posed as Max to mess with her.  But he says he’s done with Them, that he needs her (which is bullshit, but whatever).  She accuses him of being one of Them which he says she knows he is not.  And then she begins to spill her story out (as he feels a wave of nausea building).

Section 3.17 is Greta’s story  but it seems to be told from someone else’ point of view.  It details her filmography.  Like Weisse Sandwüste von Neumexiko [White Sand Desert of New Mexico], in which she claimed she could ride a horse and was promptly filmed on a horse called Snake (nice call back there).  She was also the dizzy debutante Lotte Lüstig in Jugend Herauf! [“Youth Arise!”] with Max Schlepzig.  She never got to go out on the river to film the famous bathtub scene though, it was just her double, an Italian man in a wig (later, she wouldn’t go to bed with him unless he wore the wig).

She also explains her fondness for the whippings–afterwards she would settle with Thanatz and feel, almost, safe.

She thinks about her dear Bianca, and thinks about her as a ghostly double exposure compared to other children “very clearly in Gottfried, the young pet and protegé of Captain Blicero” (484).  Indeed, she and Thanatz knew Blicero at the Schuβstelle.  Blicero could have banished them, but he wanted them to stay and gave them the best of everything.  And it was clear that Blicero had something planned involving Gottfried, but he wouldn’t say what.

Sadly, Greta was taken away before she (and thus we) find out what happened to Gottfried, although Thanatz knows (she’ll have to ask him one day.  Except, we know from a little later that she never will).  But Blicero grabbed Greta and drove away with her.  He started calling her Katje.   “You’ll see your little trick won’t work again, Not now, Katje” (486). [What must Slothrop have thought of THAT?].  But he’s more interested when she says he heard people discussing the f-Gerät?  When he says S-Gerät she concedes, okay “S”.  [I just noticed the anagramming possibilities of Great and Gerät (and Great of course)].

And she describes S-Gerät as–“an ectoplasm–something they have forced, by their joint will, to materialize on the table” (487).  When the substance was invoked it was like a séance, everyone was transfixed and erections abounded.  Someone said ‘butadiene’ (which is a colorless gas) “and I heard beauty dying” (487).  They dressed her in

an exotic costume of some black polymer, very tight at the waist, open at the crotch.  It felt alive on me.  ‘Forget leather, forget satin’ shivered Drohne, ‘this is Imipolex, the material of the future…’  The moment it touched them it brought my nipples up swollen and begging to be bitten…Nothing I ever wore, before or since, aroused me quite as much as Imipolex (487).

And then after days of being there, she awoke outside of the building, naked and alone.  She walked back to the firing site but no one was there, only a note from Thanatz telling her to go to Swinemünde.  Something must have happened there.

Section 3.18 returns us to the Anubis in a pretty big storm.  There is lots of staggering and vomiting.  Amidst the chaos, Slothrop has a moment of clarity:

Now that Margherita has wept to him, across the stringless lyre and bitter chasm of a ship’s toilet, of her last days with Blicero, he knows as well as he has to that it’s the S-Gerät after all that’s following him, it and the pale plastic ubiquity of Laszlo Jamf. That if he’s been seeker and sought, well, he’s also baited, and bait. The Imipolex question was planted for him by somebody, back at the Casino Hermann Goering, with hopes it would flower into a full Imipolectique with its own potency in the Zone-but They knew Slothrop would jump for it (490).

He realizes that even as recent as a month ago he was like a dowsing rod for Imipolex G.  But now he has becomes something else–he is less anxious about betraying those who trust him.  He is…numb.

But as the ship continues on in the stormy river and the pilot has turned off all of the lights to avoid detection by Russian soldiers, Slothrop spots Bianca.  And as he chases after her, she slips and goes overboard.  And Slothrop follows.

Section 3.19 sees Slothrop is rescued by a German fishing boat.  The pilot is Frau Gnahb and her son is Otto Gnahb.  When they make introductions, he asks if she knows “a man in a white suit…who’s supposed to be on the Strand-Promenade in that Swinemünde every day around noon?”  She replies that everyone does: “He’s the white knight of the black market.” (492).

Upon verifying that he will see Der Springer, and ensuring that he still has the knight in his pocket (but alas not the hash which he left on the Anubis) Slothrop falls asleep.  Later he wakes up with Bianca cuddling next to  him.  In the morning, he and Otto disembark for Swinemünde.  But he doesn’t see the Anubis anywhere on the water.

Soon enough, Slothrop finds Der Springer, Gerhardt von Göll.  When he shakes Springer’s hand he says that they know Marghertita in common.  She’s supposed to be dead, Springer replies (494).  While Otto chases seagulls, they are joined by a man with a lumpy nose, oversized trenchcoat and no pants.  His name is Närrisch–the same Klaus Närrisch that Horst Archtfaden fingered for the schwarzkommando.  Närrisch is carrying a dead turkey by the neck and the locals are beginning to gather, hungrily eying it.

Springer reaches inside his white suit jacket, comes out with a U.S. Army.45, and makes a casual show of checking its action. His following promptly dwindles by a half.
“They’re hungrier today,” observes Närrisch.
“True,” replies the Springer, “but today there are fewer of them.”
“Wow,” it occurs to Slothrop, “that’s a shitty thing to say.”
Springer shrugs. “Be compassionate. But don’t make up fantasies about them (495).

He concludes by saying that it’s always “Bright Days for the Black Mar-ket” (FoxTrot).

After the singing is over, Springer Närrisch an Otto invite Slothrop (who Springer has known about all this time) to go up the coast with the cargo.

The cargo includes: six chorus girls, a small pit band, lots of vodka and trained chimpanzees.  The chimps belong to G.M.B. Hauftig and he is concerned for his prize chimp Wolfgang who is fighting with Otto’s mother (they cost 2,000 marks each).  There’s a wonderful joke about Otto’s mother:

“Ach, she’s fantastic.  She knows by instinct–exactly how to insult anybody.  Doesn’t matter, animal, vegetable–I even saw her insult a rock once” (496)

The boat loaded, Frau Gnahb takes off, heads right at a ferry, then veers off at the last second, cackling like mad and singing a Sea Chanty.

Slothrop finds Springer and Närrisch and asks where they are going.  They are off to the island of Usedom, bounded by the Baltic Sea and two rivers: the Swine and the Peene.

They are heading to Peenemünde where the Russians have taken over everything–stuff that Springer and Närrisch would rather like to have. While they’re talking, there’s this very informative discussion about the S-Gerät

“Jeepers,” clever Slothrop here, “do you reckon they’ve found that S-Gerät yet, huh, Mr. von Göll?”
“Ah, cute,” beams the Springer.
“He’s an OSS man,” groans Närrisch, “tell you, we ought to rub him out.”
“S-Gerät’s going for £10,000 these days, half of that in front. You interested?”
“Nope. But I did hear at Nordhausen that you already have it.”
“Wrong.”
“Gerhardt-”
“He’s all right, Klaus.”  The look is one Slothrop’s had before, from auto salesmen signaling their partners got a real idiot here, Leonard, now don’t spook him please?  “We planted the story deliberately in Stettin. Wanted to see how a Colonel Tchitcherine will respond.”
“Fuck.  Him again?  He’ll respond, all right.”
“Well, that’s what we’re going up to Peenemünde today to find out.”
“Oh, boy.” Slothrop goes on to tell about the run-in at Potsdam, and how Geli thought Tchitcherine didn’t care about Rocket hardware nearly so much as working out some plot against that Oberst Enzian. If the two marketeers are interested, they don’t show it (499).

Then they speculate about what Tchitcherine is up to regarding Enzian and what Geli is up to regarding Tchitcherine.  And Slothrop throws up over the side of the boat: “‘Öööööö’ goes Slothrop over the side” (500).

After navigating their way in, the ship docks and a staff car driven by Major Zhadev comes in.  He grabs Springer and says they are detaining him.  Frau Gnahb is freaked out wondering about her cut of the delivery.  As they wonder what to do, the drunk, vomiting chimpanzees escape–biting and clubbing Russians while Haftung hollers to not let them get away!

It is chaos, and finally the book sums up the chaos succinctly: “It is difficult to perceive just what the fuck is happening here” (504).

Frau Gnabh proposes a diversionary feint–while the chaos is going on outside, the three men go in and grab Springer.   Otto and Närrisch are in, but Slothrop wants out.   Of course, they go ahead with it anyhow.  And as the ship pulls away Närrisch and Slothrop discuss their plans (while Otto makes out with one of the chorus girls: “Five minutes away from his mother he’s a Casanova” (505).

Otto explains to the chorus girl, Hilde, his (hilarious) Mother Conspiracy:

The Mothers get together once a year, in secret, at these giant conventions, and exchange information. Recipes, games, key phrases to use on their children. “What did yours use to say when she wanted to make you feel guilty?”
“I’ve worked my fingers to the bone!” sez the girl.
“Right! And she used to cook those horrible casseroles, w-with the potatoes, and onions-”
“And ham! Little pieces of ham-”
“You see, you see? That can’t be accidental! They have a contest, for Mother of the Year, breast-feeding, diaper-changing, they time them, casserole competitions, ja-then, toward the end, they actually begin to use the children. (505).

The scene ends with the Mother of the Year Competition which is an amusing way to end.

Section 3.20 picks up a little later in the evening.  Otto has his girl and an ape while the tuba and clarinet players share a banana.  Everyone–girls, apes, Slothrop, Närrisch execute their plan:

Girls are to go in from the front singing, dancing , vamping the woman-hungry barbarians. Otto will try to knock out the car, Haftung will get everybody rounded up and ready to rendezvous with the boat.
“Tits ‘n’ ass” mutter the girls, “tits ‘n’ ass,” that’s all we are around here (507).

Meanwhile Närrisch and Slothrop will go after Springer.  And they’ll bring fake Molotov cocktails made of vodka bottle (a tribute to Säure).  There’s a nice call back as they approach the site:

In fact, no two people have been so ill-equipped to approach a holy Center since the days of Tchitcherine and Džaqyp Qulan, hauling ass over the steppe, into the North, to find their Kirghiz Light. That’s about ten years’ gap (508).

There’s a bit of  a digression about Slothrop’s scatteredness.  It relates to Mondaugen’s theories on temporal bandwidth “Δt.”

The more you dwell in the past and in the future, the thicker your bandwidth, the more solid your persona. But the narrower your sense of Now, the more tenuous you are. It may get to where you’re having trouble remembering what you were doing five minutes ago, or even-as Slothrop now-what you’re doing here, at the base of this colossal curved embankment… (509).

Slothrop is totally losing it–doesn’t remember what they’re doing or even that the Molotov cocktails are just vodka.  Närrisch tries to ignore this.  And then in a “subtly” homosexual scene, Slothrop bumps into a Russian soldier.  Närrisch ties to get the soldier to go check out the women who are vamping but he responds, “I suppose that’s all perfectly divine…for some people…And besides this is out of bounds, you big sillies.”  After more abuse he calls them “mean…beasts…Oh, nasty, awful” (511).  I guess it’s comic relief.

Now, with the guard’s guns, they haul ass into the building where they find a secretary transcribing Der Springer’s words–more Sodium Amytal at work.

They grab Springer (who can barely stand) and run him down a dark hallway.  As they try to escape, they see up ahead that Major Zhadev is now looming along with another man.  Who is…

“Tchitcherine!  Hey.”
“Rocketman!” Tchitecherine says while raising his hands in what seems like, but isn’t, mock-surrender.

They chat about the hash and Rocketman’s timing (and his Schwarzphänomen” –particularly the nice touch about the black apes) and all the while, Slothrop is tying them up and exchanging clothes.  When more guards come, Tchitcherine agrees to tell the guards the wrong info.

Then the three escape to the outside where Otto and Hilde are waiting with the car.  They push Springer up the hill (a little fart joke in there as they push him from behind).  And they are joined by chorus girls and chimpanzees.

And then Närrisch says that he can hold off all the guards with his two guns.  They think he’s nuts, but off he goes.

Then someone notices some morse code from the other river bank spelling out SEES.  No.  OTTO.   Frau Gnahb pulls the boat in to the water and everyone piles on.  Slothrop tries to go back for Närrisch but everyone grabs Slothrop and ensure he’s on board.

We zoom back to Närrisch alone, waiting for the guards.  Von Göll promised him glamor and jackpots.  And as Närrisch heads to what must be certain death, the scene gets very technical and then a little confusing (who is speaking out loud?) and then it ends.

Section 3.21 opens with Enzian, Andreas and Christian crashing into the basement room, but the woman they are expecting is not there.  Christian’s sister Maria and her husband Pavel meant to have a child but the Hereoes have swooped in on them.  [See Marco’s comment below, in which this is most likley backwards.]

And as they continue to look Enzian grows very philosophical (so much so that in the margin of one section I wrote “woah”).  He has an extraordinary understanding.  The refinery they are on is not rubbish at all, it is made to look that way but is just awaiting a few connections to become operational.  They had assumed that the Holy Text was the Rocket.  But what if that is wrong.  What if it is something else.

My woah moment:

It means this War was never political at all, the politics was all theatre, all just to keep the people distracted… secretly, it was being dictated instead by the needs of technology… by a conspiracy between human beings and techniques, by something that needed the energy-burst of war, crying, “Money be damned, the very life of [insert name of Nation] is at stake,” but meaning, most likely, dawn is nearly here, I need my night’s blood, my funding, funding, ahh more, more… The real crises were crises of allocation and priority, not among firms-it was only staged to look that way-but among the different Technologies, Plastics, Electronics, Aircraft, and their needs which are understood only by the ruling elite… (521).

It’s all a bit confusing but I think it comes down to Technology being only something that can respond.  “Do you think we’d’ve had the Rocket if someone, some specific somebody, with a name and a penis hadn’t wanted to chuck a ton of Amatol 300 miles and blow up a block full of civilians” (521).  And more…  “Go ahead, capitalize the T on technology, deify it if it’ll make you feel less responsible–but it puts you in with the neutered, brother” (521).

The story backs away somewhat from the profundity here by saying that all this time Enzian has been taking Nazi Pervitins like popcorn and that now he is into some new paranoid terror.  [Pervitin is like speed, which was indeed given to German soldiers].

The story returns to reality sort of, with them finding Pavel and his amazing collection of friends who always seem to show up whenever he comes to sniff Leunagasolin (like The Moss Creature, the Water Giants, Fungus Pygmies).  They create wonderful Leunahalluziationene.

Maria is nowhere to be found, although Pavel gives them an address to investigate.  What any of this has to do with anything I do not know.

Section 3.22 returns us to Frau Gnahb’s boat. Everyone is gone except Slothrop and Springer.  Springer tells Slothrop they are leaving in 15 minutes.  If Närrisch was still with them he would go instead, but since he’s not, it’s up to Slothrop.  Slothrop asks for something in return–a discharge.  Springer sighs and asks him where he wants the discharge delivered.  Slothrop answers Cuxhaven (to contact the Operation Backfire people).  Springer tells him it will be at a place called Putzi’s

Slothrop feels bad about Närrisch, but Springer tells him not to worry about the guy.  The Russians know who he is, and how valuable he can be.  They will let him live.  The Russians are offering fantastic salaries now, too.  But Slothrop wants him to get real, “this ain’t the fuckin’ movies, now, come on” (527), what if they shot him?

Springer gets in an amusing technological speculation (probable inevitable, but still spot on). “Someday, when the film is fast enough, the equipment pocket-size and burdenless and selling at people’s prices, the lights and booms no longer necessary, then… then…” (527).

The ship continues through the fog until they see the white ghost ship in the distance.  They catch up to the Anubis, ram her and climb aboard.  Slothrop and Springer find Antoni in the captain’s chair and Antoni gives up whatever the precious cargo is.  As Slothrop leaves to get the cargo (in the engine room) he sees Stefania again and apologizes.  She says she’s glad to meet him and that he should help himself to anything on board.

He climbs down the stairs and the lights go out.  He says he can’t do this in the dark.  “You can,” says a voice which then smashes him at the base of the neck.  His arm is numb and he is further pummeled.  He crawls around in the dark looking for his package, but what he discovers is far worse.  A body, dressed in taffeta is hanging from somewhere above.  And he knows who she is.  And I assume from the long hair on her thighs that it is Greta.

Slothrop gets off at Stralsund, with friendly good byes from the Frau and Otto and a nod from Springer.  And I have to admit I’m glad we’re off the damn boats, I was getting a little tired of the sea-life.  And that’s all we’ll hear from Slothrop for this week.

Because as Section 3.23 opens, we learn about Brigadier Pudding, who has died from an E coli infection.  This leaves Katje more or less alone in the facility.  She soon discovers the rolls of film that Webley Silvernail left around.  She hooks up the projector and starts watching…herself.

First she sees the scene of her and Prentice when Osbie is making those mushrooms.  She barely recognizes herself.   And then she sees that Octopus Grigori was shown these clips as well–and that his reflexes were monitored.

At the end of all of this is a screen test by Osbie Feel.  It’s a scene that he has written and improvised called “Doper’s Greed.”  The movie features Basil Rathbone, the midget from Freaks (1932).  It appears to be mostly a chat about hallucinations and “cectus” and it goes on for 90 minutes.  At the end Osbie talks to the camera and says that the theme of greed must be introduced somewhere to justify the title.

Katje realizes that the screen test was deliberately planted by someone who was not loyal to Pointsman–Silvernail, maybe?  And she decodes:

Basil Rathbone=young Osbie; S.Z. (‘Cuddles’) Sakall=Pointsman; Midget=the whole dark Scheme.  And, somehow, she gets a message from the plot.  So she packs her bags and heads out.  And she wonders where Pirate is right now.

She makes it to Osbie’s house, where he is shooting up, and he is thrilled that she figured out the code.  He apologizes that it was so vague.  And she asks where Prentice is.  Osbie tells her that he’s scouting up some transportation.

And the ending of the scene is clearly a set up for the next scene, although I’m not really sure what it all means.

Section 3.24 sees the return of Pirate Prentice!  Strangely he is in some kind of candy factory–with piles and piles of all kinds of desserts.  Then someone hands him the end of a line of taffy.  He eats some and then decides to follow it.  Turns out that the taffy trick is a standard orientation device here–the tangled taffy is a good way for newbies to meet.

In the courtyards are Erdschweinhöhle delegates in an argument over Heresy, there’s also a band of acrobats and kazoo players.  At the same time a young woman starts guiding him around, eating his taffy.

On Beaverboard Row, he sees offices for: A4…IG…Oil Firms…Lobotomy…Self-Defense… Heresy.  The only one set apart, in its own shack, is Devil’s Advocate.  Inside is a Jesuit who is preaching about the dangers of reaching critical mass.  You can hear to the preaching from anywhere.  It’s called “Critical Mass” (no one got that joke it in 1945).

The preacher says it is possible that They will not die–Death has been the source of Their power.  But is it their most powerful lie that They too will die, so we should not begrudge Them?  Perhaps if we cannot kill them we can hide our own fear of Death.

Prentice enters a room and there is Sammy Hilbert-Spaess and Gerhardt von Göll (What? How?).  And then a black man whom he doesn’t recognize say Hullo, Prentice.  His name is St.-Just Grossout (whom the others call Sam Juiced).

He admits that he was sent to infiltrate Schwarzkommnao but he felt like he was the only one.  Taken aback by this breach of confidentiality, Prentice asks what’s going on.  Herbert says that summarizing would take too long and that all the rules would change by then anyway.  Prentice just needs to look around to see what’s going on. The room is full of “political informers”

Who else is here: Stephen Dodson-Truck (looking better than ever and actively at peace).  There’s Jeremiah (“Merciful”) Evans with a pompadour as high as his face is.  He sings a prayer to the common informer.

Pirate says he’s not sure he’ll like it here.  Stephen admits the worst part is getting through the shame.  But Dodson-Truck says he’s involved in a Nature of Freedom drill wondering if any action is truly his own or if everything he does is what They want him to do (with a Radio-Control-Implanted-in-The-Head-At-Birth problem as a kind of koan).

Prentice is freaked out and realizes that if they knew everything, then he didn’t really defect at all.

He was watching a government newsreel: From cloak and Dagger to Croak and Stagger.  It appears to be a kind of re-education film.  It shows Lucifer Amp, a former Special Operations Executive making “a spectacle of himself” in Smithfield market.  He says it only took a week to learn to be half-naked, verminous and hairy picking scabs in the street and that the people have been wonderful.  Someone behind Pirate says, “used to work?” that’s rich.  No one ever leaves the Firm alive.

Pirate can barely say the words–become a double agent?  Sammy says, get your shame and sniffles out of the way, you’re one of us now.  Merciful Evans says to think of the freedom that brings.  If you think, “I can’t even trust myself, can I?   How much freer than that can a man be?” (543).

Pirate says he doesn’t want it, but Dodson-Truck says he doesn’t have a choice.

Pirate begins to cry–he’s never cried in public before–crying for his past, Scorpia Mossmoon living with her husband Clive…and for everyone is his past and future who will ever foolishly trust him.  And he also knows fully well that there will always be a contract on his head–but he’ll never knowing when it will be executed.

And then he hears a question, “Is there room here for the dead?” (544).  It is Katje!  The room grows jealous (a women-on-ship-is-bad-luck chill).  Katje means, can she bring the peoples whose deaths are attributed to her.  Someone jokes that Katje could teach a thing or two about genocide.  Prentice leaps to her defence but the room tells him to relax: “She doesn’t want you to fight for her” (545).

He says to Katje that he promises he could never betray her.  But she argues that anything he promises might never happen–there’s no real risk: a pledge doesn’t cost a thing.

Eventually she reveals that her little brother left home at 18.  Then he started hanging around with the street kids, young Catholic males camp followers, becoming a faithful dog to a priest–going to Rexist meetings.  He even went to a soccer field and listened to Degrelle.  And now he’s living in Antwerp with an older man.  They were once so close, but are now strangers.

They retreat to a balcony and recite the anonymous How I Came to Love the People, which is basically a list of sexual acts by various people in various places.  But, she concludes, the people will never love us, “we will always be bad” (548).  And as the scene ends, Pirate and Katje dance (even though Pirate has never danced before)… and they dissolve, and innocence fades…

—–

It was nice to move back to some of the original characters again.  I see that the next Section is about Slothrop again, so he hasn’t been abandoned. But I like that we seem to be moving back and forth between Slothrop and some other characters.  I’m really looking forward to what Section 4 has in store.

For ease of searching, I include:  Swinemunde, Sandwuste, Lustig, Schustelle, Schubtelle, von Goll, protege, seance, S-Gerat, F-Gerat, Narrisch, Saure, Dzaqyp, Peenemunde, Schwarzphanomen, Erdschweinhohle, Donde Jugaran las Ninas, Espanol