Norman laughed.
“O.K. Let’s say there is a second flood. What about the first payment?” Winkleman asked.
“The storyline was worth what you paid for it.”
“Not if you won’t work on it. Like you promised.”
“Let Charlie rewrite it.”
“Ixnay.”
“Why?”
“Don’t be an ockshmay, Norm.”
“Why?”
“Because Charlie can’t rewrite it. He writes dialogue like it was for New Masses. Sober up, Norm, and write something that’ll spark me.”
“I’m not drunk.”
“Then get drunk. One minute. Bella wants to talk to you.”
Norman adored Bella. He didn’t want her to think that he was doing Sonny dirty. He told her about his trip to Spain. She told him about the children.
“How’s your girl?” Bella asked coyly.
“My girl?”
“Sally. Isn’t that why you rushed home?”
Norman stiffened. “Well, I –”
“Who’r’ye trying to kid?”
“Nobody,” Norman said weakly.
“Bring her around Saturday night. We’re having a party.”
“Sure. I’ll bring her. Tell Sonny I’ll be around tonight, though. I’m serious. I won’t be able to do that script. I’m going away again.”
“Tell him yourself, darling.”
Charlie, though, would have to be told first.
Norman was invited to lunch by Charlie and Joey. He bought a bottle of wine and took the album of flamenco records with him. Norman always came with gifts. Gifts were a proof against eviction. And considering the nature of the news he had for them a gift was clearly in order.
Charlie had been having a hard time while Norman had been away.
Charlie ran, he ran, he ran, he ran from television to stage to movie maker. He picked up a penny’s worth of hope here, the bone of a promise there, a smile from somebody big and a cry from somebody small; an if and a maybe and a promise to call soon; he gulped down a coffee with Graves who called Huston John, waited outside Cameo Production’s offices so that he could run into Pearson casually, told the director of A Gun for Julia a joke that the director had told somebody else earlier in the day, had a quick crap, ate a sandwich standing up, and arrived too late at the restaurant where Boris Jeremy was supposed to eat; he huffed, he puffed, he combed his hair, he slept for half an hour in a newsreel cinema, phoned his agent, phoned home, turned around three times for luck, changed a line of his play while queuing for a bus, had a drink in somebody’s office, picked up some “additional dialogue” to write for Pirates of the Spanish Main, read his horoscope in the Star, hurried home to see if there was any mail, ran upstairs to see if he could catch his wife in the act of being unfaithful to him, opened up a bottle of beer, and settled down to wait for the next mail delivery.
Charlie’s favourite uncle had drifted from failure to failure. Charlie had written a play about his tragedy, but nobody wanted it.
But yesterday, beginning with Winkleman’s phone call, everything had gone right for once. So Charlie was in an expansive mood when Norman arrived. “Quick,” he said to Norman, “come to the window.” Norman came to the window. “See it,” Charlie said.
There was an unmistakably new car parked downstairs. A Morris Minor.
“I bought it this morning,” Charlie said. “We gave you as a credit reference. Do you mind?”
“Of course not. But I thought you were broke.”
“Have a seat, old chap.”
Joey immediately perched on the arm of Norman’s chair.
“Yesterday morning,” Charlie began, “Rip Van Winkleman finally came through on my script. I got another two-fifty. I’m starting on a rewrite tomorrow.”
A long ash dropped from Norman’s cigarette end. As he looked around searchingly Joey indicated the ashtray held tightly in her lap just about where her tight brown skirt creased into a V-shape.
“Winkleman is a big noise, you know. As soon as the deal came through I got in touch with Boris Jeremy and told him I had a sensational story for him. He liked the story but was a bit wary of having me do the shooting-script until I told him that I was doing one for Winkleman. My contract with Jeremy is now being drawn up. On the strength of these two contracts I went to see Cameo Productions and got three Sir Galahad scripts to do. Armed with all this I went to see my bank manager and there below –” Charlie tapped the window – “is the afterbirth. A month from now I’ll trade it in and get me a new Jag.”
Norman responded as best he could to Charlie’s febrile talk at lunch. He was alarmed because Joey, who usually acted as a brake at times like these, seemed to be even more excited than Charlie. But he could understand. It was hell to be a failure’s wife in the émigré colony.
“Hey,” Charlie said, “I got a letter from Tommy Hale this morning. He heard that I had to leave the States and wants me to come back to Toronto. There’s loads of work there, he says. But here’s one guy who doesn’t want to be a whale in that little fish pond. No CBC panel games for me, Norman. I’ll make it here or nowhere.”
Norman nodded and told them they could keep the flat for a while. He was happy where he was.
“Have you seen Sally yet?” Joey asked.
“It’s all right,” Norman said. “I know about the German boy.”
“It’s a shame. I thought that she was such a nice kid.”
But Joey kicked Charlie under the table and he quickly changed the subject. “What are you hoarding all that wood in the cupboard for?” he asked.
Norman explained that he had bought the boards because he intended to build a bookcase. Charlie offered to do the job for him, but Norman said no, he was going to get a carpenter to do it.
“I think I’d better be going,” Norman said.
Joey offered to walk with him for a bit. Outside, they wandered up to Notting Hill Gate.
“I’m happy for Charlie,” Norman said.
Joey hooked her arm through his.
“Me too. This all means so much to him,” Joey paused. “I was just about ready to accept a typing job from Bob Landis. And you know what typing for him means.”
“Bob’s a boy,” Norman said affectionately. “He wants to make every woman he meets.”
“And you?”
Norman’s face darkened.
“O.K.,” Joey said gaily, “I won’t tease.” But she stopped him short in front of a smart lingerie shop. “There,” she said, pointing out a wooden blonde in the window warmed by a lacy black negligée, “why doesn’t anyone buy me something like that?”
“Joey,” he said, as they walked on again, “do you think I’m a prude?”
Joey laughed. Her laughter spread. She held her hand to her mouth as though her laughter, like an egg, might fall and break, and all at once she was serious again.
“No,” she said, “but if you ever let yourself go I’m sure you’ll be worse than Bob.”
“I’m tired of being a bum, Joey. I want to get married and have children.”
She tightened. “So does Charlie. He wants kids too, I mean.”
“I’m sorry, sweetie. No crack was intended.”
“I know,” Joey said, angry with herself. “Oh, why must it always be so hard for two friends to talk without apologizing to each other every second minute?” She reached up and straightened Norman’s raincoat collar. Her smile was rich in tender concern. “Norman,” she asked, “did you ever tell Sally how you felt about her?”
“I told you,” he said sharply, “she was just a – a girl to me.”
“Oh, Norman, really!”
He stooped and kissed her gently on the forehead. “See you,” he said. “God bless.”
“If you want her that badly,” Joey called after him, “then put up a fight.”
When Norman got home Karp was waiting on his bed. He held a half-stripped banana in a little hand. One of his cheeks was swollen, like he had a bad tooth.
“How did you get in?” Norman asked.
Karp stretched out an arm mutely, a little hand open wide, as though to protect himself from a gust of wind. Norman waited while Karp swallowed his banana.
“I’ve got the keys to all the rooms. I’m the landlord, remember?” Karp rose wearily. “Mr. Sonny Winkleman called three times.”
Norman phoned Winkleman. “It’s O.K., Sonny,” he said. “I’ll write you your script. Would you put on Bella for a minute, please?”
Bella came to the phone.
“If it’s all right with you,” Norman said. “I’d like to bring Sally and her boy friend to your party.”
“And her boy friend?”
“That’s right. If it’s all right with you.”
“Sure.” Bella said, “if –”
“Thanks,” Norman said, hanging up.
“An excellent idea,” Karp said. “I was going to suggest it myself.”
“Just what do you mean by that, Karp?”
“Your friends are refugees from the West. Ernst is a refugee from the East. Once Sally sees what your friends think of Ernst she may think again.”
“Nonsense,” Norman said. “I’m trying to make a gesture, that’s all.”
“Of course,” Karp said, and he was gone.
V
“Don’t you see?” – Sally flung Ernst down on the bed and jumped on top of him – “This means that Norman wants you to be his friend. He’s changed his mind about us.”
Ernst, too, was delighted. In the three days to go until the party Sally told him all about the people who were likely to be there. He helped her to select a dress and on Friday, as a surprise, Sally took him out and bought him a new sports jacket.
At night Ernst lapsed into a world of impossible dreams. Nicky, and other nightly horrors, did not drift away obligingly, but stood off like sharks preparing for a more deadly assault. Ernst was determined to make a good impression on Norman’s friends and for three days he considered all possible approaches. He might even tell them about his father.
Karl Haupt.
Ernst visualized the old man wandering from zone to zone, dependent on the irregular money forthcoming from a disowned son, seeking something lost – his family and his self-respect – and being suspected by both sides. The Jews had justice and their considerable dead. Karl Haupt’s legacy was compounded of weakness and a dubious pride in the fact that he had objected to Hitler slightly, but not enough. Ernst recalled that when the old man had at last been picked up for questioning in Saxony the communist police official turned out to be the same one who had used to question him for the Nazis. The cell had been an old gestapo cell. Ernst had kicked up a row about the incident at the time and there – if he went back and put his finger on it – his doubts about the FDJ, about communism, had come to a head and burst like a boil.
From that day onwards Ernst was a suspected man. All the same he had scraped some money together, taken his father back to the Western Zone, and found him a room.
“You’re with them,” the old man had said. “You’re dirty.”
“Enough.”
“You’re no better than a thief.”
“Foolish old man,” Ernst had said. “What do you know?”
“I never joined them.”
“The Nazis, you mean.”
“The Nazis.…”
“No, you never joined the Nazis. But neither did you ever work for the underground.”
“I am your father. Speak with respect.”
“My group was with the underground. We are different. We are fighting for a better world.”
“Again?”
Ernst had said nothing.
“You are with them,” his father had said, “and you are dirty. They are not so different.”
“Foolish old man,” Ernst had shouted, “what do you understand of history?”
The dazed, inconsolable eyes had hardened with an old man’s rancour. “Don’t come back to see me again. You are no longer my son.”
Ernst had settled his father’s rent for a month. Back in the Eastern Zone a week later he discovered that he was being followed by the SSD. He went through the gestures of belief for another month and then all at once even one more day would have been insufferable. So he fled. His father wouldn’t see him again, but he wrote asking for money from time to time.
Sally warned Ernst not to repeat this story at the party. A lot of Norman’s friends were fellow-travellers; they would not believe him anyway. A better approach, she said, would be not to say anything about Germany. It might be best to avoid political discussions altogether.
Ernst didn’t sleep the night before the party.
For years he had dreamt that one day he would be introduced into an intelligent society of artists and professional people. In this fantasy he saw himself as a man with a faithful wife and children, giving small dinner parties and being invited to others. There were no uniforms. All crimes, all hungers, and penniless days were done. People like Norman enjoyed his company. They did not think of him as a German. He was well-liked. Honourable. Another happy conformist.
And here, at last, he was going to be introduced into just such a society. Ernst calmed himself with two drinks before they left for the party.
“Don’t worry,” Sally said, “they’ll adore you.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Ernst said stiffly. “I’m not interested in their opinions.”
But seated in the taxi with Norman and a smiling Karp, too anxious to take part in the small talk, Ernst, unaware that he was interrupting a conversation, suddenly blurted out, “I’m a very good carpenter, Norman. If you like I’ll build you a bookcase. I will do that for you as a gift.”
Norman fidgeted with his glasses; he shifted uneasily in his seat.
Sally pressed Ernst’s hand to caution him, but he couldn’t stop talking. He turned to Karp. “I’m a good electrician, too. From now on I will do all your electrical work free of charge.”
It was at times like these that Sally felt small and uninjured beside him. She tried not to weep.
“Here we are,” Norman said.
Ernst insisted on paying the taxi fare. He would have it no other way.
VI
The party was in honour of Colin Horton. Horton, a progressive journalist, was the most recent arrival in London. He was a heavy man, in his early forties, with a tight bony head, shiny black hair and flat black tack-head eyes. Norman suspected that his humility, like a panellist’s groping after the right word, was a professional’s mannerism. But the fact was that Horton was a highly skilled journalist and, had his politics been other than what they were, he could have been entrenched in an executive position with one of the big news magazines today.
“I had the most interesting experience in a taxi this morning,” he said. “The driver, who recognized me from my newspaper pictures, refused to allow me to pay my fare. He said anybody who wasn’t wanted in America could ride free in his taxi any day. After all the abuse that my wife and I” – he acknowledged his wife with a stab of his pipe – “have suffered in America I was genuinely touched. I’m telling you this because I thought it would please you to know that among the working-class our stand against creeping fascism has not gone unnoticed.…”
Norman turned away; he headed for the bar.
“I’m anxious to visit the People’s Democracies as soon as possible,” Horton said. “It would certainly be pleasant to be in a country where peace isn’t a dirty word.”
“Ah,” Karp said, “I must introduce you to Ernst later. He’s from East Germany. One would think you two would have a lot to talk about.”
Sonny took Norman aside. “O.K.,” he said, “now tell me why you brought that little goon into my house.”
Bella joined them with her gentle smile. “Spain seems to have agreed with you, Norman. You look wonderful!”
“Hey,” Sonny said, “did you know that he was bringing that goon here?”
“I forced him on Be
lla,” Norman said. “I wanted you to meet him. I thought maybe you could help him get some work.”
Winkleman’s face flamed. “Who do you think I am? Jesus Christ.”
“Look, Sonny, you don’t even know the boy. He –”
“Who wants to know him? Are you seriously asking me, a Jew, to be tolerant of a little Nazi punk?”
“He’s not a Nazi.”
“You are asking rather a lot,” Bella said.
“Look here,” Sonny said, “Bella loves you. You want money, you want a lay, you want I should get you the best head-shrinker in London, just ask me. But if you want me to play a son-of-a-bitch Christian, book a run for your own place, kid. This here house is one hundred per cent un-American Jew-land.”
“Take it easy,” Norman said.
“Ask me a favour,” Sonny insisted. “Test me.”
“He’s teasing,” Bella said.
“Come.” Sonny took Norman into his office and gave him a cheque for two hundred pounds.
“Why did you bring me in here?” Norman asked. “I could have waited for the money.”
“Joey was listening. You told me you didn’t want Charlie to know that you were working on the script.”
“Do you think she heard anything?”
“No.”
“Joey is very penetrating.”
“The only thing penetrating about that girl is the looks she gives her husband. Listen, what’s the score on Charlie?”
“What do you mean?”
“Drazin tells me he isn’t even listed in Red Channels.”
“Charlie’s O.K. I’ve known him for years.”
“All I want to know is why a guy who could earn a living in a civilized country would ever come here.”
“He was blacklisted, that’s why. He just isn’t important enough to have been listed in Red Channels.”
Back in the living room Sonny introduced Norman to Joyce Drazin. Joyce was having lunch with her agent tomorrow.
“Tomorrow,” Bob Landis said, “I’m going to get myself a new analyst. This one never laughs at my jokes.”
“I’m having lunch with an important backer tomorrow,” Budd Graves said. “If things work out you and I may have something to talk about.”
“You’d better take it easy on those lunches,” Charlie said.
A Choice of Enemies Page 9