Читать книгу Side-Stepping Normativity in Selected Short Stories by Sylvia Townsend Warner - Rebecca K. Hahn - Страница 13

After feeling the fine material the German was wearing and then imagining the silky texture of the German’s pyjamas, the attendant remembers that he has something he could give to the German, “Then all of a sudden it flashed on me he could have my shirt. It was a very nice shirt. […] I always like to buy my shirts in London. You get a better style” (“Mexico” 51). By giving the German a shirt he had bought in London that same day, the attendant seeks to make sure that his new acquaintance will always be wearing something that will connect them both. He is very pleased by the way the German accepts his gift:

But what I liked best was the way he opened the parcel and looked at the shirt most carefully – how the buttons were fastened and all. Examined it all over, he did. If he had just taken the parcel, that wouldn’t have been the same thing, would it? (52)

In the same way in which the attendant examined the German’s clothes, the German now examines the shirt the attendant gave him – the main difference being that the attendant is not wearing the garment. As with the silk pyjamas, the German’s action describes a possibility; that is, the possibility of him exploring the attendant’s body. The two men do not communicate their desires directly but allude to them by means of fine materials. The narrator and Valentine both understand the underlying message of this account and refrain from making any further comments.

Remembering the opening sentence of the attendant’s story (“‘I’ve got a shirt in Mexico’”, 51), the narrator and Valentine both assume that the German graciously accepted the attendant’s gift and took it with him to Mexico (“‘And now he’s in Mexico?’”, 52). Subsequently, however, they learn that the German gave the attendant’s shirt to someone else. The German writes to the attendant, “And the beautiful shirt you gave me, it is not ungratefully that I bestow it to a comrade going to Mexico when he has greater need than I. […] I thank you again” (52). The German sends the attendant a letter in which he acknowledges the gift – in this sense, the gift becomes an object of mutual exchange. First the attendant gives the German a shirt, and then the German sends the attendant a letter. This exemplifies Derrida’s claim that there is no such thing as a genuine gift. Derrida writes, “If he [the receiver] recognizes it as gift, if the gift appears to him as such, if the present is present to him as present, the simple recognition suffices to annul the gift” (13, emphasis in the original). To Derrida, a gift can only be a gift if neither the giver nor the receiver are aware of the fact that one person is giving the other a gift. In the case of the shirt, the giver as well as the receiver have cognizance of the act of gifting. Regifting the shirt, however, interrupts the cycle of gifting between the German and the attendant. As Mark Graham points out:

Exchanging gifts proceeds according to the rules and produces the system of gift giving on which it seems to draw, but, like gender, it might fail to produce the correct effects. […] There are no guarantees what will happen or that the results will be as intended. To some extent, this may even explain the pleasures of gift giving, which lie not in the meticulous calculation or even in the expectation of return, but in the openness and uncertainty of the exchange. (47)

The attendant had not expected his shirt to be regifted to someone else, but it fills him with joy to know that his shirt now resides in Mexico (“‘I’ve always wanted a shirt in Mexico’”, 52). By regifting the shirt, the German disengages himself from any obligations to the attendant; he no longer feels indebted to him and, subsequently, the attendant can no longer lay any claim to the German. Now their connection is no longer based on material objects, but on a mutual history triggered by sensory pleasures.

Wachman argues that “[r]eading ‘My Shirt is in Mexico’ requires a familiarity with codes – the moral code of life in the closet and the codes of writing within it. The verbal and literary codes are necessitated by social and legal oppression; […]” (“Lesbian Political History” 314). Rather than depending on an entirely queer readership, the story depends on a readership that pays close attention to what is being said and to what is not being said. The attendant is not communicating his non-heterosexual desires in a completely incomprehensible way. Notably, none of the characters is uncomfortable with their desires. This highlights the fact that the story does not aim at undermining straight speech and does not seek to define an identity different from the so-called norm. If anything, the story treats non-heterosexual desires in a casual, unconcerned way. Since they know themselves to be in a safe space, the characters are able to converse naturally and freely, without fear of oppression. Their conversation is fuelled by the pleasure of each other’s company and the intimacy they share in the empty buffet car. Like the eponymous heroine of Lolly Willowes, they succeed in creating a queer place in which they can forget the “useful props of civilisation”, including the law.