Atdtda38: In some very odd and personal way, 1073

[Paul Nightingale]

Another arrival from 'the olden days', Colfax was last seen in Ch26, where
his relationship with Kit is shaped by the conflict between their respective
fathers. In the previous section Kit has met Reef for the first time since
their parting in Venice, a somewhat fractious affair; their relationship has
to get over the obstacle provided by Scarsdale Vibe, and the same might be
said for Colfax and Kit in Ch26. On 325 Kit 'want[s] to trust 'Fax, who [is]
a good skate all round', but he remains 'wary'. A few pages later, Colfax
admits that he has been reporting back on Kit (328), who remains '[n]either
surprised nor hurt but letting 'Fax think he might be' (329). Colfax's final
words down that page: '... he is my father'.

Subsequently, on 789, Kit meets Fleetwood Vibe, who provides an update on
his brother, apparently liberated ('It set him free') by his father's death;
and now Colfax's reappearance on 1073 is as an airman, 'as if to make up for
his father's purchased deferral fifty years earlier'. The explanation for
Colfax's presence in Torino might be war-related but, once established, his
behaviour has little to do with the war. The opening line ties him to Renzo
and, by extension, the technological development of warfare previously
described. Indeed, reference to '[t]he US Army Air Force' indicates the
awkward way in which the very notion of armed forces is being developed.
However, the 'habit of dropping into Carpano's ...'etc then echoes, above
the section break, Kit's regular visits to the Ristorante del Cambio; the
formation of habit in relation to leisure might be taken as resistance to
war. Colfax 'soon ha[s] a baseball league active in Torino': as an example
of cultural imperialism, this is another indicator of a coming alternative
to conventional war.

Direct reference to Scarsdale Vibe suggests a break with, or perhaps a
rewriting of, family tradition. Moreover, the section's concluding reference
to Vibe senior indicates , a refusal to even acknowledge the past insofar as
this might include acknowledging Vibe's relationship with Kit (not to
mention Reef, absent from this section): Colfax's failure to 'act apologetic
around Kit' is an allusion to Webb and recalls their relationship in Ch26.
Here, Colfax is apparently little aged, '[e]xcept for a little gray at the
edges ...' etc (1073). This denial of history, so to speak, takes in
Colfax's 'very odd and personal way' of dealing with, not just his father's
death, but his father's narrative function per se.


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