Book -The Breaking Point
From The Breaking Point:
– At the same time, things were changing in the friendship of America’s two most promising young writers. Without knowing quite how, they too were moving toward some sort of breaking point. When it came at last, it wasn’t exactly over career. And it wasn’t exactly over politics. And it wasn’t exactly over sex, ei¬ther. Yet come it did, and when it did it was somehow about every one of those things, each merging into the other. The breaking point between Hem and Dos came one day in the early spring of 1937, when a group of armed men, not fas¬cists and not outlaws, not the enemy and not police and not men from the Republican army either, came knocking at the door of Pepe Robles’s modest apartment in Valencia. They were secret policemen of some sort, and though they refused to identify themselves, they seemed somehow connected to the government. They entered the apartment without a warrant, and without of¬fering any explanation, they ransacked the place. They were looking for something: a notebook in which Robles had been jotting down his impressions of the war. After they had found that notebook, they slapped handcuffs on Robles, and, while his wife Margara watched helplessly, they took him away. There was no talk, no discussion. They left no record of any arrest. There is no record of any charge. There was just that knock on the door—just the knock on the door. After Robles was taken away, they—whoever “they” were—held him briefly in Valencia.
And then, for reasons that even now remain totally obscure, and always working in complete secrecy, this squad without a name took Jose Robles Pazos to some unknown place, where, acting without any inquiry or any trial or any legal proceeding whatsoever, they blew out his brains.
Now let me tell you what David is going to see. Look up the dark street—peer down the whole distance, past the street light into the cross street. In the intersection you will see a building eleven stories high, narrow, tall, old. At its base you will see a brilliantly lit entryway, a complex structure of carved white stone, illuminated by hidden lights. The building you see is called either the Conduit Building or the Bayard Building (as it was originally named) or else it is left nameless—and it was designed in 1905 by Louis Sullivan. The scrollwork on that illuminated entryway is extraordinary, the best example of Sullivan’s art to be seen in New York. The relief is perfect, graceful, and surprisingly (given where the place is and the extreme delicacy of the carving) it is undamaged. Not exactly the kind of thing you expect to see in a neighborhood like this, but there it is… Walking steadily and slowly, David is moving toward the light, his hands hanging still and easy at his sides, and his eyes resting on the building’s dulcet, narcotic allure, drawn by its whiteness, led. Something is enthralling David with some kind of gentle, lulling charm, seducing him with some feeling we can only guess by sensing the utter pacification that just now passed over him like a shadow passing over a green lawn to darken it. Something has hypnotized David; the black air around him is soothing him and the light is drawing him as it might attract insects, dopy with their narcotic craving for illumination. David is getting very near the building and the expression on his face is new. His eyes are at peace. His lips are full and still.
Now that David has come so close to the steps of the office building, he doesn’t see Sullivan’s lush, ingenious designs any more. He sees a Throne. –