by Zadie Smith
Alex made an International Gesture: the throwing back of head, the slight indent of front teeth on lower lip, the making of the sound pfui. He raised a glass, his third.
“Thanks, Sigmund.”
Adam shrugged. “Take it as you like.”
“No, no, it’s fascinating. And Esther—the first face? The last?”
“Well, that’s obvious, mate,” said Adam, coldly. “She’s the paint.”
Alex dug with his tongue at a sludge of pastry on his molars. “Right. Beautiful analogy. It’s truly your style: everything’s a symbol of everything else. Which helps me how?”
Adam looked quizzically at Alex. “You have the weirdest idea,” he said, shaking his head, “that everybody’s here to help you!”
For a while they spoke of The Trouble With Other People, an aggressive substitute for the conversation they wanted to have, namely: The Trouble With You. Rubinfine was obsessive. Joseph was repressed and miserable. Alex looked at his watch. He was due in Neville Court in ten minutes.
“Late are we?”
“Bit.”
Alex upturned the rest of the bottle into his glass and then went through the motions of swirling and sniffing, as if only now realizing what it was.
“Is that necessary? Really?” asked Adam, mopping up a puddle of red where Alex swirled too hard.
“Oh . . . Jesus . . . You know? Why d’you bother coming out if you’re . . . I mean, why aren’t you drinking? You just gonner watch me? What is this? I feel like a bloody painting: Fat Man with Red in Rain. Study of Loser in Process of—”
“You’re drunk, stop it.”
“Can’t stop being drunk, Ads. One-way journey. Chug chug chug to the end of the line.”
“Slow down, then.”
“Aye-aye, Cap’n.”
“You’re angry with me. Why?”
“Because. Next question.”
“Esther tells me you’re not going to be with her on Sunday. I’m trying to understand that, but I’m having difficulties.”
“Not my fault—I’ve got to go to New York. It’s booked—I can’t get out of it. I’m sorry.”
“When do you leave?”
“Friday night. Look—why don’t you come?” asked Alex in the spirit of peaceful resolution. But Adam looked away to where a man wrapped in a duvet was doing a jig in the rain.
“The center of this city is hard enough. I don’t want to be in the center of the center. Too hard for this bredrin.”
“Right, well. No one’s forcing you. Just an offer.”
“It’s your father’s yahrzeit on Thursday,” said Adam, turning back. “Are you intending to be in the country?”
“Not that it’s any concern of yours, but I’m back on Tuesday.”
“Well,” said Adam, tapping a spoon on the rim of Alex’s cup, “I’ve spoken to Rubinfine. His shul can’t do it on the day you need, but he thinks he knows one that will. For the minyan you could have me—though you don’t deserve me—you could have Joseph, Rubinfine, your mum, Esther maybe, if she can make it. People are happy to do it—all you have to do is just stop pissing everybody off for one second. So you’re not going to her operation, is that right?”
By some horrible accident Alex had lifted his wrist to look at his watch at the moment of this word, operation. He opened his mouth now to explain, but then could think of nothing and closed it again. He couldn’t see how there could be any accidents in the world of gestures. Don’t our bodies say exactly what they mean to?
“No. If you have to go get on with it,” said Adam, unhappily. “I’ve got to find a shower, anyway. I’ve just been sitting in that room. I haven’t washed in days. I’ll call you later.”
They split the bill.
STUMBLING DOWN A famous road to a monument, and then turning back on himself, up a forgotten lane. But before going where he needs to go, Alex slips into an alleyway called Goodwins, slides down a wet wall until he is crouching. In this position he is covered by the protruding windowsill of somebody’s flat. Here he rolls a joint, a really big joint, and smokes it. Instead of relaxing him, it adds a new dimension to his drunkenness, a thicker layer of smog between him and the world. Soon enough, with stinging eyes and a manic, stammering heart, he takes out a pencil and succumbs to paranoia. He makes notes in his pad about the lunch he has just had, the scraps of conversation he is already forgetting, the perceived deviousness of his best friend, the significances of this and this, the symbolism of that and the other. It is all a sort of horrible betrayal of himself, of his whole life. Life is not just symbol, Jewish or goyish. Life is more than just a Chinese puzzle. Not everything fits. Not every road leads to epiphany. This isn’t TV, Alex, this isn’t TV.
Oh, so now, thinks Alex, you’re having an epiphany about the importance of not having epiphanies. That’s great.
Feeling glum and muddled, Alex begins walking at a clip, wishing he could get over himself, get out of himself, out of this skin, just for a minute. That’s probably all that they want, those famous passengers who take action. But they can’t get just a minute—not by means of extraordinary strong skunk like this, or alcohol, or a microdot or anything else. There are no shortcuts. You’re always there. So instead they cut their losses. They opt for forever. “And that’s something else,” says Alex to himself, feeling for the first time the weight of suicide, the depth of that proposition. “That takes some serious balls.”
Alex sways down the street, under the enormous sky, feeling humbled by those passengers who leap into the path of trains. The very least he can do, in the face of this kind of serious balls, is be a person of substance himself. At the roundabout, waiting for a safe moment to cross the street, Alex tries to imagine his defense if his life were on trial, that is, if he had to prove its worth. It is a kind of imaginary text he carries around with him, along with his obituary, because somewhere in Alex’s head he is the greatest, most famous person you never heard of. And as such must defend himself from both slander and obscurity. Who else is going to do it? After all, he has no fans.
Tandem is knocking on the window of Cotterell’s Autograph Emporium, a charming little gabled shop located halfway down Neville Court Road in London’s fashionable center. Inside he sees first editions, collectible glassware, signed portraits and the worn brocade of a chair seat upon which a stitched Chinese dragon leaps to freedom. Inside he sees cigarette cards and stamps. Theater programs and Christmas cards. Birth certificates and monogrammed handkerchiefs. On the walls he can see photographs of the very famous, photographs which the very famous themselves had touched and marked and which a man might purchase. A man could own these photographs and partake (in however minor a way) of the famousness of these people and their remarkable ability to cheat Death of its satisfaction: obscurity. A man wavers between awe and rage at the very famous, as he does at the idea of God. This afternoon Alex feels rage. He is having a psychotic interlude.
Inside he sees some people, real people. A tall handsome girl with a strip of black velvet round her white throat. A red-faced fat man in tweed wearing a pocket watch and waving his arms. Inside he sees an audience.
3.
So. One moment you are very stoned, you are having a psychotic interlude. The next—particularly if it is raining and you have a pretty girl screaming at you in the middle of the street—you are not. And Boot was full of questions today. Questions like:
What was that about?
Are you completely mad?
Are you trying to get me fired?
What kind of a person turns up in that state?
Do you realize he could press charges?
What goes through your mind when you’re like that?
Do you think that insulting people helps anything?
Is it broken?
Do you need a doctor?
“What was that last one, again?” asked Alex, pinching his nose to stop the blood.
“Oh, Jesus. Look, come on. I’ll take you. I’ve got an uncle on Harley Street. You complet
e nutter.”
She grabbed his hand and took a stride forward, but Alex wouldn’t move.
“What? What’s the matter? Are your legs hurt?”
“I don’t go to Western doctors,” said Alex gruffly, maddeningly aware of himself bleeding, red-eyed and soaking wet before a girl who wished all this and more upon him, “I know a place in Chinatown. Be better. We’ll go there.”
Leaning on Boot’s impressive biceps, Alex negotiated the raised cobblestones, moaning softly to himself. How strong Boot was, and how beautiful! Since he’d last seen her, her hair had been cut short like a young boy’s, emphasizing her rather masculine jaw. Her skirt was made out of a rough brown material that itself resembled hair, and her legs were controlled by a pair of long black boots which squeaked when the two sides met. A tall girl, well-bred like a posh horse. She could take almost all of his weight and trot along at full speed, unhampered by the raindrops streaming down her face.
“What I don’t understand,” she said furiously, as they reached the commotion of a popular square, framed on every side by giant cinemas, “is how you had the bare-faced gall to come in to the shop so messed up, make such a total fool of yourself—and then—and then—try to sell him an Alexander. God knows, you deserved a punch for that. Really, Alex. After the last time!”
Two years ago Alex had successfully sold on to some suckers a group of forged Kittys he had himself been suckered into buying. He had forgotten that Sir Edward Cotterell had been one of these secondary suckers.
“Ug,” said Alex. “That was two years ago.”
“Leopard, spots.”
Boot stopped. The rain was easing off. She pushed him up against a wall. Above them, the movie houses pressed down, lit up like royal cities, cathedrals. Huge across the street, over Boot’s shoulder, Alex could see the twenty-foot face of the popular actress Julia Roberts, the persistent vein in her forehead, the smile more radiant than Buddha’s. Alex had a strong urge to kneel, but Boot held him fast by the elbows. Alex stared at Boot, trying to get a sense of what she looked like. The nearer you get to adverts for the cinema, he found, the harder it is to understand people’s faces. But the sight of Boot was not as disappointing as one might have imagined. There were correspondent points: something similar around the jaw, the eyes.
She said: “Well, you can kiss me now, if you like.”
“Excuse me?” said Alex.
Very close to him now was Boot’s wide, angular, open face, a pair of extravagantly lashed brown eyes, a hundred faint freckles and a big striking nose. She touched her teeth with her tongue.
“I said, you can kiss me. I presume that’s what this is all about. Your way of expressing your love, et cetera. Your awkward way.”
“Boot,” pleaded Alex, putting his arms up in defense, “I may have broken my nose.”
Boot retracted her head in genuine surprise and bit her bottom lip. She was a great moviegoer, Boot. She always expected to get kissed, sooner or later.
“Oh. Okay. No, no, that’s fine, really. That’s fine. Actually, I’m not embarrassed. I suppose you think I should feel . . . Oh dear. I don’t know. I just thought—”
“No, it’s okay, Boot, really—”
“It’s just . . . you know, I thought you really—”
“Yes, I see that, Boot. I’m . . .”
“Well, anyway,” she snapped, taking control of her wobbling chin, “this is just like when she tried to kiss Lytton once—or was it Lytton who tried to kiss her? Anyway, they didn’t bother feeling silly about it. So don’t you think that I will.”
Alex’s face was aching.
“Who?”
“Virginia Woolf. Her diaries. I’ve been reading them. Do you listen to anything I say?”
Yeah, some things. Say, about twenty-five percent on a good day. And much more than that, much more, when he was trying to convince her to lie down with him somewhere and make the beast with two backs. But this was not one of those occasions. She grabbed his hand again and marched him under the fake Oriental archway that heralded the beginning of Chinatown.
“I must say, for somebody who’s meant to be in love with me, you don’t make much effort.”
“But, Boot . . . Boot, I’m not in love with you. I never said I was. We barely know each other. I have a girlfriend.”
Boot gave him an indulgent smile. Two cross-currents of blood met at Alex’s chin. Boot took a tissue from her purse and dabbed at it.
“Silly. You don’t have to say it. It’s all in the eyes. In your funny Chinese eyes. And where is this girlfriend? No one ever sees her. She’s the ghost in the machine, if you ask me. I’ve been thinking a lot about suicide, recently,” mused Boot, in one of the frequent conversational U-turns she was famed for. “Because of Virginia and everything. And because of Sylvia. Why are brilliant women always doing that? And then I was thinking about your book—oh! Can you smell that! Gorgeous duck thingy with pancakes. I’m so hungry.”
She stopped again and looked longingly through a window at a duck, glazed and hanging from a hook.
“What was I saying?”
Alex leant over an outdoor menu and spat blood onto the floor. Opposite him a cat-faced Peruvian played a pop ballad on an ancient pipe.
“Oh, I remember. You know how you split things into Jewishy-type things and the other type things? You know, in that funny little book you’re writing?”
And you had to say yes. Even if she asked: You know how the sky’s blue? You know how I’m a human being?
“You know, in that book of yours?”
“Yes, Boot.”
“So, I was wondering which one it was. Which category it fell into. Suicide, I mean.”
Now, that was a pretty good question. Alex pointed to Dr. Huang’s medical center, its little sign jutting out from the wall one story above a restaurant called Peking Nights. “That’s a good question.”
Boot smiled, showing a line of huge, perfect teeth, her Panavision smile.
“Yes, I know.”
They reached the side entrance. Boot pressed the bell, and a second later Dr. Huang’s terrorized, screaming falsetto told them to push the door and come up.
“Goyish on the whole . . .” said Alex, slowly, as Boot helped him up the stairs. “Stones in pocket, head in oven, all of that. But there’s another kind, I think. A sort of rapture . . . your death runs towards you with her arms open, and sort of . . . embraces you. You leap over a fence to meet her. You dance towards her. She explodes over you like a raincloud or a burst of sunshine. You don’t have to do any shabby struggling. No complicated knots or car exhausts—you know—with the vacuum cleaner hose. It’s more like a, sort of a, melding.” By the time he’d finished this little speech—really off the top of his head—he found he was beaming. Boot’s face was scrunched up in the frown of a child.
“Right. I don’t know if I understand that. Sounds a bit . . . sexy. And that’s Jewish, is it?”
Alex nodded his heavy head. Dr. Huang opened his office door.
4.
“You take this,” said Huang, and passed Boot a cold compress. It was damp muslin stuffed with something unidentifiable, smelling dimly of mint. It was not closed apart from the twist at its neck. A naturally enterprising girl, Boot removed the piece of black velvet from her throat and used it to bind the package. She held it to Alex’s cheek. Her hand was shaking from the cold.
“You put it on his nose, on bridge of nose!” cried Huang, and shuttled towards his dingy back rooms, from which, soon after, the sound of a flush could be heard.
“The things I do for you!” trilled Boot, gaily.
Head tilted back, Alex looked at the ceiling. He had been coming here since he was a teenager and knew the progress of the damp; it had long risen, saturating the plaster. Nodules of dripping water and stalagmites of mold were everywhere. It was a room which seemed always to be crying. He came here first a week after Li-Jin had died, when the room was fit for the feeling. In the morning Sarah had found a bottle of Dr.
Huang’s in the house, and that same afternoon Dr. Huang found himself confronted by a beautiful young woman, hysterical, in tears. She wanted to know why Mr. Huang had poisoned her husband. Look at my son! she said. Explain it to him! she said. Her hair was everywhere. Her socks did not match. In her left hand, she held the paw of a sullen, odd-looking boy, in her right, an herbal remedy Huang had not prescribed in years. It took some time to straighten things out. For Dr. Huang to explain how long it had been since he had seen Li-Jin, for Sarah to fall into a chair and weep and accept an offer of tea. That was the first time Alex drank green tea, or at least the first occasion he remembered. He remembered, too, that Dr. Huang had told his visitors a story. After hearing it, Alex had felt confused, both by the story and by the sight of his mother, weeping afresh:
Dr. Huang’s Story as Told to Alex and Sarah
A rich man, famous throughout the court, asked Sengai to write something for the continued prosperity of his family so that it might be treasured from generation to generation.
On a sheet of paper, Sengai wrote:
Father dies, son dies, grandson dies.
The rich man was angry. “I asked you to write something for the happiness of my family! Why do you make it into a joke!”
“No joke is intended,” explained Sengai. “If before you yourself die, your son should die, this would grieve you greatly. If your grandson should pass away before your son, both of you would be broken-hearted. If your family, generation after generation, passes away in the order I have named, it will be the natural course of life. I call this real prosperity.”
He seemed not to have aged since then, the doctor. He remained sprightly, slim, with tight skin. He wore a faded blue sweater celebrating a Vienna Jazz Festival at which the last horn sounded some twenty years previous, a pair of jeans covered in logos for imaginary racetracks and ski lodges, and an orange baseball cap so old and worn that the famous winged heel of the victorious goddess had been obliterated.