The Troubadour
By Peter Michael
Sherman
There was something odd about
the guest attraction, Mr.
Fayliss, and something
odder still about
his songs.
So far as parties go, Jocelyn'swere no duller than any others.I went to this one mainly to listento Paul Kutrov and Frank Alvabait each other, which is usually moreentertaining than most double features.Kutrov adheres to the "onward andupward" school of linear progress,while Alva is more or less of a Spenglerian.More when he goes along byhimself; less when you try to pin himdown to it. And since the subject oftonight's revelations would be the pre-MohammedArabian Culture, I'd findAlva inclined toward my side of thedebate, which is strictly morphologicaland without any pious theories of"progress".
I'd completely forgotten that Jocelynhad mentioned something abouthaving a special attraction: a "Mr.Fayliss", who, she insisted, was a troubadour.I didn't comment, not wantingto spend a day with Jocelyn on thephone, exploring the Provence.
The night wasn't too warm for August,and there were occasional gustsof air seeping through the layers oftobacco smoke that hovered over theassemblage. As usual, it was a heterogeneouscrowd, which rapidly formednumerous islands of discourse. Thetrade winds carried salient gems ofintelligence throughout the entirearchipelago at times, and Jocelynwalked upon the water, scurrying fromone body to another, sopping up theoverflow of "culture". She visited ouratoll, where Kutrov's passionate expositionhad already raised the meantemperature some degrees, but didn'tstay long. Such debates didn't suggestany course of social or political action,and couldn't be trued in to any of hercauses.
My attention was wandering fromthe Kutrov-Alva variations, for Billhad only been speaking for ten minutes,and could not be expected to arriveat any point whatsoever for atleast another fifteen. From the east ofus came apocalyptic figures of nuclearphysics; from the west, I heard thestrains of Mondrian interwoven withPicasso; south of us, a post mortem onthe latest "betrayal" of this or that aspirationof "the people", and to thenorth, we heard the mysteries of atonality.It was while I was lookingaround, and letting these things rollover me, that I saw the stranger enter.Jocelyn immediately bounced up froma couch, leaving the crucial problem ofatmosphere-poisoning via fissionand/or fusion bombs suspended, andmade effusive noises.
This, then, was the "troubadour"—Mr.Fayliss. The Main Attraction wasdecidedly prepossessing. Tall, peculiarlygraceful both in appearance andmanner, dressed with an immaculatenessthat seemed excessive in this post-Bohemiancircle. There was a decidedmusical quality to his speech, as hemade polite comments upon being introducedto each of us, and an exactnessin sentence-structure, word-choicesand enunciation that bespoke the foreigner.Jocelyn took him around withthe air of conducting a quick tourthrough a museum, then settled himmomentarily with the music group,now in darkest Schoenberg, only partiallyilluminated by "Wozzek". Iwatched Fayliss long enough to solidifyan impression that he was at easehere—but not merely in this particulardiscussion. It was a case of his beingsimply at ease, period.
Kutrov was watching him, too, andI saw now that there would be a most-likelypermanent digression. Too bad—I'dhad a feeling that when he cameto his point, it would have been astrong one. "Hungarian, do you supp