The Bonfire of the Vanities

by Tom Wolfe

  Chester Whitman and Ed LaPrade? Two old federal judges who were either retired or close to it. The likelihood of their knowing anything about the machinations of a Bronx district attorney or a Harlem rabble-rouser was so remote…And all at once Sherman felt sad, not so much for himself as for this old man before him, clinging to the power of connections that meant something back in the 1950s and early 1960s…

  “Miss Needleman?” The Lion was already on the telephone. “Would you ring up Judge Chester Whitman for me, please?…What?…Oh. I see. Well, when you’re through, then.” He hung up the receiver. As an old partner, he no longer had a secretary of his own. He shared one with half a dozen others, and obviously she, Miss Needleman, did not jump when the Lion opened his mouth. Waiting, the Lion looked out his solitary window and pursed his lips and looked very old.

  And in that moment Sherman made the terrible discovery that men make about their fathers sooner or later. For the first time he realized that the man before him was not an aging father but a boy, a boy much like himself, a boy who grew up and had a child of his own and, as best he could, out of a sense of duty and, perhaps, love, adopted a role called Being a Father so that his child would have something mythical and infinitely important: a Protector, who would keep a lid on all the chaotic and catastrophic possibilities of life. And now that boy, that good actor, had grown old and fragile and tired, wearier than ever at the thought of trying to hoist the Protector’s armor back onto his shoulders again, now, so far down the line.

  The Lion looked away from the window and straight at Sherman and smiled, with what Sherman interpreted as a kindly embarrassment.

  “Sherman,” he said, “promise me one thing. You won’t lose heart. I wish you’d come to me sooner, but that doesn’t matter. You’re going to have my complete support, and you’re going to have Mother’s. Whatever we can do for you, we will.”

  For an instant, Sherman thought he was talking about money. On second thought, he knew he wasn’t. By the standards of the rest of the world, the world outside of New York, his parents were rich. In fact, they had just enough to generate the income that would support the house on Seventy-third Street and the house on Long Island and provide them with help a few days each week at both places and take care of the routine expenses that would preserve their gentility. But to cut into their principal would be like cutting a vein. He couldn’t do that to this well-meaning gray-haired man who sat before him in this mean little office. And, for that matter, he wasn’t at all sure that’s what was being offered.

  “What about Judy?” asked his father.

  “Judy?”

  “How has she taken all this?”

  “She doesn’t know about it yet.”

  “She doesn’t?”

  “Not the first thing.”

  Every vestige of an expression left the face of the old gray-haired lad.

  When Sherman asked Judy to come with him into the library, he had every intention, every conscious intention, of being completely honest. But from the moment he opened his mouth he was aware of his clumsy secret para-self, the dissembler. It was the dissembler who put that portentous baritone into his voice and who showed Judy to the wing chair the way a funeral director might have done it and who closed the door to the library with lugubrious deliberateness and then turned about and wrapped his eyebrows around his nose so that Judy could see, without hearing the first word, that the situation was grave.

  The dissembler didn’t sit behind his desk—that would be too corporate a posture—but in the armchair. And then he said:

  “Judy, I want you to get a grip on yourself. I—”

  “If you’re going to tell me about your little whatever it is, don’t bother. You can’t imagine how uninterested I am.”

  Astounded: “My little what?”

  “Your…affair…if that’s what it is. I don’t even want to hear about it.”

  He stared at her with his mouth slightly open, ransacking his mind for something to say: “That’s only part of it”…“If only that’s all it was”…“I’m afraid you’ll have to hear about it”…“It’s gone beyond that”…All so lame, flat—so he fell back on the bomb. He’d drop the bomb on her.

  “Judy—I’m going to be arrested in the morning.”

  That got her. That knocked the condescending look off her face. Her shoulders dropped. She was just a little woman in a big chair.

  “Arrested?”

  “You remember the night the two detectives came by here. The thing that happened in the Bronx?”

  “That was you?”

  “It was me.”

  “I don’t believe it!”

  “Unfortunately it’s true. It was me.”

  He had her. She was staggered. He felt cheap and guilty all over again. The dimensions of his catastrophe once more hogged the moral terrain.

  He started in on his story. Until the very words came out of his mouth, he meant to be completely truthful about Maria. But…what good would it do? Why devastate his wife completely? Why leave her with a completely hateful husband? So he told her it had been just a little flirtation. Known the woman barely three weeks.

  “I just told her I’d pick her up at the airport. I just all of a sudden told her I’d do that. I probably had—I guess I had something on my mind—won’t try to kid you or kid myself—but, Judy, I swear to you, I never even kissed the woman, much less had an affair. Then this unbelievable thing happened, this nightmare, and I haven’t seen her since except that one night when all of a sudden there I am sitting next to her at the Bavardages’. Judy, I swear to you, there was no affair.”

  He studied her face to see if by any chance she believed him. A blank. A daze. He plunged on.

  “I know I should have told you as soon as the thing happened. But it came right on top of that stupid telephone call I made. And then I knew you’d think I was having some kind of affair, which I wasn’t. Judy, I’ve seen the woman maybe five times in my life, always in a public situation. I mean, even picking somebody up at an airport is a public situation.”

  He halted and tried to size her up again. Nothing. He found her silence overwhelming. He felt compelled to supply all the missing words.

  He went on about the newspaper stories, his problems at the office, about Freddy Button, Thomas Killian, Gene Lopwitz. Even as he droned on about one thing, his mind raced ahead to the next. Should he tell her about his conversation with his father? That would win him her sympathy, because she would realize the pain it caused him. No! She might be angry to know he had told his father first…But before he reached that point, he realized she was no longer listening. A curious, almost dreamy look had come over her face. Then she started chuckling. The only sound that came out was a little cluck cluck cluck in her throat.

  Shocked and offended: “This strikes you as funny?”

  With just a trace of a smile: “I’m laughing at myself. All weekend I was upset because you were such a…dud…at the Bavardages’. I was afraid that might hurt my chances of being chairman of the museum benefit.”

  Despite everything, Sherman was pained to learn that he had been a dud at the Bavardages’.

  Judy said, “That’s pretty funny, isn’t it? Me worrying about the museum benefit?”

  With a hiss: “Sorry to be a drag on your ambitions.”

  “Sherman, now I want you to listen to me.” She said it with such a calm maternal kindness, it was eerie. “I’m not responding like a good wife, am I. I want to. But how can I? I want to offer you my love, or if not my love, my…what?…my sympathy, my closeness, my comfort. But I can’t. I can’t even pretend. You haven’t let me near you. Do you understand that? You haven’t let me near you. You have deceived me, Sherman. Do you know what that means, to deceive someone?” She said this with the same maternal kindness as the rest.

  “Deceive? Good Lord, it was a flirtation, if it was anything. If you…make eyes at somebody…you can call that deceit if you want, but I wouldn’t call it that.”

  S
he put on the slight smile again and shook her head. “Sherman, Sherman, Sherman.”

  “I swear that’s the truth.”

  “Oh, I don’t know what you did with your Maria Ruskin, and I don’t care. I just don’t. That’s the least of it, but I don’t think you understand that.”

  “The least of what?”

  “What you’ve done to me, and not just to me. To Campbell.”

  “Campbell!”

  “To your family. We are a family. This thing, this thing affecting all of us, it happened two weeks ago, and you said nothing about it. You hid it from me. You sat right next to me, in this very room, and watched that news report, the demonstration, and you didn’t say a word. Then the police came to our home—the police!—to our home!—I even asked you why you were in such a state, and you pretended it was a coincidence. And then—that same night—you sat next to your…your friend…your accomplice…your sidekick…you tell me what to call her…and you still said nothing. You let me think nothing was wrong. You let me go on having my foolish dreams, and you let Campbell go on having her childish dreams, of being a normal little girl in a normal family, playing with her little friends, making her little rabbits and turtles and penguins. The night the world was learning of your escapade, Campbell was showing you a rabbit she made out of clay. Do you remember that? Do you? And you just looked at it and said all the right things! And now you come home”—all at once her eyes were full of tears—“at the end of the day and you tell me…you’re…gonna…be…arrested…in…the…morning.”

  The sentence was gulped down in sobs. Sherman stood up. Should he try to put his arms around her? Or would it only make it worse? He took a step toward her.

  She sat up straight and held her hands up before her in a very delicate, tentative way.

  “Don’t,” she said softly. “Just listen to what I’m telling you.” Her cheeks were streaked with tears. “I’m going to try to help you, and I’m going to try to help Campbell, in any way I can. But I can’t give you my love, and I can’t give you tenderness. I’m not that good an actress. I wish I were, because you’re going to need love and tenderness, Sherman.”

  Sherman said, “Can’t you forgive me?”

  “I suppose I could,” she said. “But what would that change?”

  He had no answer.

  He spoke to Campbell in her bedroom. Just walking in was enough to break his heart. Campbell was sitting at her table (a round table with about eight hundred dollars’ worth of flowered cotton fabric from Laura Ashley hanging to the floor and a piece of beveled glass costing $280 covering the top) or, rather, she was halfway on top of it, with her head close to the surface, in an attitude of intense concentration, printing some letters with a big pink pencil. It was the perfect little girl’s room. Dolls and stuffed animals were perched everywhere. They were on the white-enameled bookcases with their ribbed pilasters and on the pair of miniature boudoir chairs (more flowered fabric from Laura Ashley). They were perched up against the ribbon-back Chippendale headboard of the bed and the ribbon-back footboard and upon the lacy and carefully thought-out clutter of pillows and on the pair of round bedside tables with another fortune in fabric falling to the floor. Sherman had never begrudged a cent of the stupendous sums of money Judy had put into this one room, and he certainly did not now. His heart was lacerated by the thought that he now had to find the words to tell Campbell that the dream world of this room was finished, many years too soon.

  “Hi, sweetheart, what are you doing?”

  Without looking up: “I’m writing a book.”

  “Writing a book! That’s wonderful. What’s it about?”

  Silence; without looking up; hard at work.

  “Sweetie, I want to talk to you about something, something very important.”

  She looked up. “Daddy, can you make a book?”

  Make a book? “Make a book? I’m not sure what you mean.”

  “Make a book!” A bit exasperated by his denseness.

  “You mean actually make one? No, they do that at a factory.”

  “MacKenzie’s making one. Her dad is helping her. I want to make one.”

  Garland Reed and his damnable so-called books. Avoiding the issue: “Well, first you have to write your book.”

  Big smile: “I writed it!” She gestured toward the piece of paper on the table.

  “You wrote it?” He never corrected her mistakes in grammar directly.

  “Yes! Will you help me make a book?”

  Helplessly, sadly: “I’ll try.”

  “You want to read it?”

  “Campbell, there’s something very important I want to talk to you about. I want you to listen very carefully to what I tell you.”

  “You want to read it?”

  “Campbell—” A sigh; helpless against her single-mindedness. “Yes. I’d love to read it.”

  Modestly: “It’s not very long.” She picked up several pieces of paper and handed them to him.

  In large, careful letters:

  The Koala

  by Campbell McCoy

  There was once a koala. His name was Kelly. He lived in the woods. Kelly had lots of friends. One day someone went on a hike and ate Kelly’s food.

  He was very sad. He wanted to see the city. Kelly went to the city. He also wanted to see bildings. As soon as he was about to get hold of a nob to open a door, a dog rushed by! But he did not get Kelly. Kelly jumped in a window. And by mistake he pressed the alarm. Then the polees cars were zooming by. Kelly was scared. Kelly finly escaped.

  Someone caught Kelly and brought him to the zoo. Now Kelly loves the zoo.

  Sherman’s skull seemed to fill with steam. It was about himself! For an instant he wondered if in some inexplicable way she had divined…picked up the sinister emanations…if it were somehow in the very air of their home…By mistake he pressed the alarm. Then the police cars were zooming by!…It couldn’t be…and yet there it was!

  “You like it?”

  “Yes, uh…I, uh…”

  “Daddy! You like it?”

  “It’s wonderful, darling. You’re very talented…Not many girls your age—not many…it’s wonderful…”

  “Now will you help me make the book?”

  “I—there’s something I have to tell you, Campbell. Okay?”

  “Okay. You really like it?”

  “Yes, it’s wonderful. Campbell, I want you to listen to me. Okay? Now, Campbell, you know that people don’t always tell the truth about other people.”

  “The truth?”

  “Sometimes people say bad things, things that aren’t true.”

  “What?”

  “Sometimes people say bad things about other people, things they shouldn’t say, things that make the other person feel bad. Do you know what I mean?”

  “Daddy, should I draw a picture of Kelly for the book?”

  Kelly? “Please listen to me, Campbell. This is important.”

  “Ohhhh-kayyy.” Weary sigh.

  “Do you remember one time MacKenzie said something that wasn’t nice about you, something that wasn’t true?”

  “MacKenzie?” Now he had her attention.

  “Yes. Remember, she said you…” For the life of him, he couldn’t remember what MacKenzie had said. “I think she said you weren’t her friend.”

  “MacKenzie’s my best friend, and I’m her best friend.”

  “I know. That’s just the point. She said something that wasn’t true. She didn’t mean it, but she said it, and sometimes people do that. They say things that hurt other people, and maybe they don’t mean to do it, but they do it, and it hurts the other person, and that’s not the right thing to do.”

  “What?”

  Plowing on: “It isn’t just children. Sometimes it’s grown-ups. Grown-ups can be mean like that, too. In fact, they can be worse. Now, Campbell, I want you to listen to me. There are some people who are saying very bad things about me, things that aren’t true.”

  “They are?”r />
  “Yes. They’re saying I hit a boy with my car and hurt him badly. Please look at me, Campbell. Now, that isn’t true. I didn’t do any such thing, but there are bad people who are saying that, and you may hear people say that, but all you have to know is, it isn’t true. Even if they say it’s true, you know it isn’t true.”

  “Why don’t you tell them it isn’t true?”

  “I will, but these people may not want to believe me. There are bad people who want to believe bad things about other people.”

  “But why don’t you tell them?”

  “I will. But these bad people are going to put these bad things in the newspaper and on television, and so people are going to believe them, because they will read it in the newspapers and see it on television. But it isn’t true. And I don’t care what they think, but I do care what you think, because I love you, Campbell, I love you very much, and I want you to know that your daddy is a good person who didn’t do what these people are saying.”

  “You’ll be in the newspaper? You’ll be on television?”

  “I’m afraid so, Campbell. Probably tomorrow. And your friends at school may say something to you about it. But you mustn’t pay any attention to them, because you’ll know that what’s in the newspaper and on television isn’t true. Don’t you, sweetie?”

  “Does that mean you’ll be famous?”

  “Famous?”

  “Will you be in history, Daddy?”

  History? “No, I won’t be in history, Campbell. But I’ll be smeared, vilified, dragged through the mud.”

  He knew she wouldn’t understand a word of it. It just popped out, prodded by the frustration of trying to explain the press to a six-year-old.

  Something in his face she understood well enough. With great seriousness and tenderness she looked into his eyes and said: