Atdtda30: Pretend to be fascinated, 854-860

[Paul Nightingale]

Reef, no longer marking time, thinks he is "get[ting] his eye back". Here,
in contrast to his earlier "drift[ing] around Nice for a while" (849), he
has "wandered around various fondamente at different hours of day looking
for Dally Rideout" (854). Ostensibly purposeful, this journey, it might be
said, is continued prevarication; for Reef cannot explain ("... before he
knew why") his return to the place "where everything had gone off the
rails". This is an attempt to both revisit and revise the past, as though
"some practice shooting" will call forth an earlier self. However, he
doesn't return to the Venice he recalls, ie one that includes Dally; and the
absence of Dally is juxtaposed to the absence of a target, ie "the old sorry
unfinished saga ... of Scarsdale Vibe" (850). That particular "target" has
been replaced, strategically, by "distant targets" that are part of the
"practice shooting" (854).

If Dally is already not-here, the Nice explosion (850-851) is reproduced in
"enormous blasts from shore" (855) signalling a shift from Reef's pov. For
also "back in town" (854) are Pino and Rocco, "their journey eased by never
in their hearts having left to begin with". Whereas Reef has been "pursuing
the life of a flaneur" in Nice (849), Pino and Rocco have occupied "bars of
San Marco hotels" (854), where they might be found "arguing about
association football": that the sport is given its full title here might be
a reminder of its recent arrival as an organised (ie profit-making)
distraction for working-class males. The content of said discussions isn't
given here, of course.

Previously, inscrutable texts; here, Reef's misreading of "the lampless mass
of the Excelsior" (855). Rocco and Pino are allowed to pity ("... they only
pretended to close") his ignorance. Within, "lights [are] blazing" and Reef
recognises Yashmeen, albeit her mirror image. As it begins, this section is
simultaneous with, or hidden behind, the two brief earlier sections dealing
with Yashmeen-as-reader. Reef is playing catch-up.

Up the page, Rocco and Pino have demonstrated superior knowledge regarding
local drinking customs; as Yashmeen appears, the reader is positioned as
privileged regarding the "tall, good-looking galoot from someplace across
the Adriatic". The chapter opens on 849 with the coincidence of Reef's
meeting with Flaco, whose account of Frank updates both Reef and the reader;
here, the reader is distanced from Reef, although repositioned when Yashmeen
updates him on Theign (857).

Alone on the Lido, Reef's "practice shooting" is an end in itself given that
"his target" remains elusive. However it leads him to Yashmeen, who provides
him with a suitable target: "I'll cover you folks ..." etc (856). Vlado
disappears from the narrative, as Reef and Yashmeen are brought together,
even if he remains "cautious" (857). Down the page he can't explain how he
"turned his back and walked away" from her. If Yashmeen has provided Reef
with agency ("I'll go out, ask around a little"), he is hardly a knowing
agent at this point. Returning, he "somehow [finds] himself with this
erection" (858). Until speaking, and taking the initiative, she remains
objectified, as much an image as in the hotel mirror (eg "everything looked
sketched in chalk"). A conventional reading of the encounter is that he
'takes' her; but, throughout, Reef is a beat behind, "surprising himself,
for he was not that much of a kisser" (859), then "expecting reproaches".
Eventually he "fall[s] into snoring oblivion": the scene opened with his
return from the bar, "Yashmeen [having] fallen asleep on the divan" (858).

The section ends with Yashmeen's disguise, her hair's "peculiar and not
altogether dishonourable fate" (860), the conclusion to her association with
a series of men. Fabrizio's "penis pleasantry" replaces Reef's "disgusting
activity" (858), which in turn had replaced Pino's "lecherous intentions"
(856). Vlado is introduced as "a tall, good-looking galoot" (855), then
disappears ("Where'd your partner get to?") without contributing anything to
the scene (856). Reef tells her to "[m]ake a run for it", but she appears
alongside him, as she had been alongside Vlado in the cinema (854). At the
outset, Reef is linked to Dally and Scarsdale Vibe, ie the family feud, what
Flaco dismissed as "retribution. Personal. Not a tactic in the bigger fight"
(852). By the end of the section the focus has shifted to Yashmeen and
European politics, something akin to Flaco's "nice normal shootin war with
peons like me I can shoot back at".