Night of Fire and Snow

by Alfred Coppel

  “Come in and sit down. Karl will be right back.”

  Miguel did as he was told. He laid his brief case on an oak table and sat down, watching the girl’s back. There was a tiny smear of lip rouge on the fold of her immaculately white collar.

  She stopped typing and took the sheet from the machine, adding it to a pile in the basket on her desk. Then she turned and said, “You must be Miguel Rinehart. I’m Miss Woods.” Miguel nodded gravely.

  “Is that the new script? I’m dying to read it.”

  Olinder’s appearance in the doorway saved him from having to answer.

  Miguel stood up and Karl put a hand on each shoulder and said, “Michael, its good to have you back.”

  “Good to be back, Karl.”

  “You’ve met Miss Woods?”

  Miguel nodded.

  “You look a little tired.”

  “I didn’t get much sleep on the plane. Somehow I manage to wake up every time the pilots change prop pitch.”

  Olinder’s appearance never changed, Miguel thought. Men such as he were the kilometer stones of life, standing like markers to tell you how far from youth you had strayed.

  His head was bald, but no balder than it had been in 1938. Hairless was not a comparable adjective. His face was no more wrinkled, and even the rumpled gray tweed suit looked like the suit he used to wear at Roslyn.

  “Tell me about your trip,” Olinder said, decently avoiding a direct look at the brief case Miguel had laid on the golden oak table.

  “Nothing to tell, Karl. Just what I wrote.”

  “Two letters. Two in nearly a year.” Olinder lit a fresh cigarette from the stub in his hand and sucked smoke deep into his lungs. Miguel could close his eyes and remember the dark schoolroom at Roslyn, the scribbled blackboard, and Karl with a cigarette between his lips pacing the floor and reading Milton aloud to six drowsing juniors.

  “How’s J. C.? Well, I trust.”

  “At the top of his form. He got me a couple of assignments from Réalités. The motor race in Monaco and a fiction piece.”

  “I saw them.”

  “That’s about all. He asked to be remembered.”

  “Want to tell me about the new script?”

  Once again, Miguel had that feeling of being a schoolboy with a faultily prepared assignment. “I was afraid that was going to come up.”

  “We can go over it, if you like,” Karl said.

  “It stinks, Karl.”

  “Are you sure? You never were much of an editor, you know.”

  “I hope I’m wrong. I would love to have you tell me I’m wrong. Only I don’t think you will. And I haven’t finished it.” He indicated the brief case. “It’s there. If you don’t mind, I’ll leave it with you. You can write me on the coast and tell me what you think in a week or so.”

  Olinder ignored the script and said, politely questioning, “You’re going home, Michael?”

  Miguel could feel the empty feeling in the pit of his stomach growing. “I don’t know yet.” He looked out the window at the blank glass faces of the buildings across the street. The expanses of window, reflecting the pale sun, gazed blindly back at him. “I’ve had the offer of a picture job,” he said.

  “Oh? For how long?”

  “Indefinitely.”

  “What does Magnussen think?” Olinder asked. “But what am I thinking of? He’d be pleased, naturally.”

  “He hasn’t made much money off me lately,” Miguel said.

  “So he’s all for it.”

  “It means a hundred a week for him if I sign the contract.”

  Olinder’s eyebrows arched. “A thousand a week to start?”

  Miguel said, “Yes.” He knew what Olinder was thinking—that even with his previous experience a thousand a week was high starting pay. And of course, the reason for the special treatment was Nora.

  “It won’t leave you much time for serious writing,” Karl said.

  “Don’t be such a snob.”

  “I am a snob about writing, Michael,” Karl said, brushing a fall of ashes from his trousers with care. “Particularly about your kind of writing. I always have been, and I pray I always shall be.”

  “Now you really sound like the Classical Lit teacher.”

  “What else am I, really?” Olinder spread his long hands in an almost delicate gesture of inquiry. “If Roslyn hadn’t closed down, I would still be packing adolescent skulls with Donne and Milton. I liked teaching, Michael, and I was good at it. All good teachers are snobs at heart—though the nature of their job demands they hide their snobbishness. The nature of an editor’s job, however, makes no such demand, so I am telling you frankly. You are better than this. For you to go to Hollywood and spend your time writing adaptations of other people’s work is a criminal waste.”

  “It’s a perfectly valid medium.”

  “It could be, but it isn’t. And in any case, it’s not for you. There are few enough creative writers left, Michael. If the entertainment business keeps swallowing them up, what’s going to be left?”

  “Of literature?” Miguel asked scornfully. “If Miss Woods weren’t here I’d tell you what I think of that.”

  “Don’t let me bother you,” Miss Woods said. “I’ve proofread four-letter words you never heard of.”

  “I’m really sorry about the book, Karl,” Miguel said. “As soon as I collect a few checks maybe I can return the advance.”

  “I want that book, Michael.”

  Miguel closed his eyes for a moment and almost surrendered to fatigue. He couldn’t argue with Karl about it now. His brain seemed clogged with weariness.

  “Let’s go to lunch,” Olinder said. “You look as though you need a drink. And I can’t discuss this rationally without something to eat.” He told Miss Woods that he could be located at the Oak Room of the Plaza, but not to disturb him unless it was absolutely necessary. “If the downstairs office calls,” he said, “tell them I’m protecting an investment.”

  At the Oak Room, Olinder ordered chilled consommé and coquille St. Jacques for both of them. He sipped his martini appreciatively and regarded Miguel over the table crowded with silver and glassware. “This is one of the few compensations of no longer being a teacher,” he said. “You can drink what you please when you please and no Burroughs Hamner to say thee nay.”

  “You’re becoming something of a gourmet, Karl. Did Hillyer raise your salary?”

  “Taste,” Olinder said, “need not be expensive. Nor cheapness inexpensive. It depends on the palate, the eye, and the point of view.”

  “I’ll bet Wilde was sorry he didn’t say that,” Miguel remarked with a touch of irony. “Or did he?”

  “No. It is an original Olinderism. You can use it in your next. I’ll make you a present of it.”

  Miguel frowned. “I don’t know if there will be a ‘next,’ Karl. That’s one of the things I wanted to talk to you about.”

  “Go on, Michael,” Karl said quietly.

  “It isn’t something easy to discuss, really. I tried hard to work in Europe, Karl. I really did. I even went to see an analyst in Paris. I couldn’t talk to him. I guess I have a prejudice against wig-pickers. I knew he’d start talking about ‘writer’s block’ and sure as hell he did. But I couldn’t keep myself on the project. I ran away from it. You know, I was never satisfied with The Exile—I always felt I’d failed to do what I wanted to do with that story and this one was going to be the one that set things right. That’s a goddam laugh. I got so I hated the thought of working on it. I’d try to work and the least distraction would ruin the whole day. I skipped to Rapallo, you know, thinking maybe it was Paris that had me tied up. Memories or some idiotic thing like that. Only in Rapallo it was worse. I spent all my time drawing pictures of that old watchtower just off the breakwater. Phallic symbolism, maybe. But my God, I wasn’t even much interested in women. I’d just sit and stare at the sea and the time would slip by and I’d have done nothing at all and I’d be wondering what happened to the da
y.”

  He toyed with the stem of his untouched cocktail glass and looked up at Olinder without moving his head. “You know one of the things I kept remembering? My sister Esther. The nun. There was something that happened a long time ago—just after my mother died—Well, it goes back farther than that, really. To a summer I spent on the Russian River back in thirty-two or three—“ He broke off abruptly. “Look, do you really want to hear all this? I’m bushed and feeling sorry for myself and I feel like talking. But there’s no reason to make you listen if you don’t want to.”

  Karl smiled faintly. “Michael, when are you going to learn no one is ever completely alone? Go on with it. I’m interested.”

  “Well, I was roaming one day—alone. I used to do that a great deal. And one afternoon I stumbled onto a secret cove in the river and a couple—hell, I might as well tell you the whole thing. It was Ella Eubanks—Tom’s mother. And the father of one of the other kids up there. Billy Alberg. I don’t think you ever met him. He was in the Navy during the war. Anyway, no matter. Ella and Martin were having at it and I watched. I didn’t even know what the score was, but I knew it was something unusual. So I wrote it all down in my journal—I used to keep a journal—actually—with a picture, a sketch. I got the word from Tom about it. I told him it was a couple from a French resort they used to have up there. I couldn’t tell him it was his mother, for God’s sake. But that’s part of another story.

  It’s the diary thing. About a year later, just after my mother died, my sister was getting ready to leave for the convent and she found the damn thing. There was hell to pay—”

  He could remember the stinging humiliation of Essie with the book in her hand, open to the damning pages, and her voice, strident and shrill: “Slimy, filthy, hateful little boy—“ And that moment had been all he needed to know that Esther had never loved him, had never even liked him. His sister, the flesh of his flesh, and all the jealousy and disgust for his maleness, and the loathing, sickening awfulness of knowing that she was going away now with this void to be filled with his humiliation....

  He passed a hand over his eyes. The memory almost made him physically ill. “I don’t know, Karl. What has all this to do with not being able to work, anyway?”

  Olinder’s voice was very gentle. “Do you want to keep on writing, Michael?”

  “It’s all there is for me,” Miguel said bleakly.

  “No. There must be more, but I’ll agree it’s important. I know. But have you ever wondered why it’s important?”

  “It’s a little late to start questioning, isn’t it? I’m thirty-three.”

  “Thirty-three isn’t the end of life, Michael,” Olinder said. “When you’re over sixty as I am, you’ll understand that.”

  “I feel a hundred and thirty-three,” Miguel said.

  Olinder finished his drink and dipped a spoon into the consommé. “You’re feeling rather sorry for yourself.”

  “Yes, perhaps I am. Yet what’s to be done about it? There are two sorts of writers, Karl. The storytellers and the flagellant penitents. Do I need to say into which category I fit?”

  “Storytellers and penitents,” Karl said. “That’s an interesting notion. I wonder if your Catholic background has anything to do with it?”

  “It’s possible, but I doubt it. It’s more likely the hyena tradition. Did you know that a gut-shot hyena will eat his own entrails?”

  “Let’s get back to this penitent idea of yours. It’s intriguing.”

  “You’ve heard the old literary joke, of course. ‘She wasn’t his first affair—she was his first novel?’ The penitent at work, Karl. Raking his flesh and screaming mea culpa at the top of his lungs. It’s a kind of therapy—an anodyne for living. But what happens when it jams up, when you want to scream and can’t? Sure, I feel sorry for myself. I’d feel sorry for any poor son of a bitch who was suddenly stricken mute. I start work and I can hear my father asking me what I have to say that’s so important that it must be huckstered to the public at three-fifty a copy. What can I say to the dear, departed shade? Nothing. Not one word. I’m not sure any more. I was once, but not any longer. So what shall I do? Look for the big, bright, obvious Causes? I can’t. They’re out of date. This is the year of the big book and I’ve defecated on the analyst’s couch. Give me an answer, if you can.”

  Karl shook his head. “You know I can’t. You’re the only one—“

  “To thine own self be true—Balls, Karl.” Miguel could feel frustration thick in his chest. “You know, you should really have known my father. He was a good businessman. A striking-looking guy. I used to worship him. Actually. Like a god.” He drew a triangle on the tablecloth with the tines of his fork. “His capabilities were limitless. Among other things, he killed my mother.”

  “Michael,” Olinder said. “There’s no need for this.”

  “I’m sure there isn’t. The skin crawls a bit, doesn’t it? The mind withdraws. I’ve gone too far and I’ve sickened you a trifle, haven’t I?”

  “No.” Olinder paused, searching for the proper words. Finally he said, “I have known you for a long while, Michael. You might even say I have a stake in you. That gives me the right to meddle. I think I can read you well enough.”

  Miguel smiled dryly “Leer y no entender es casar y no cojer. That’s a proverb. It’s also a double pun. The first part means ‘to read and not to understand,’ and casar means both ‘to hunt’ and ‘to marry.’ Cojer means ‘to retrieve’ and it also means ‘to cohabit.’ End of Spanish lesson.”

  “You can be as sarcastic as you like,” Olinder said.

  “I’m sorry, Karl. My control is really marginal today. This morning I damned near hit a man—a poor repellent slob just trying to do a job.”

  “Listen to me.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “Stop running, Michael. For your own sake, stop running away. I’ve seen the things that have happened to you and I’ve seen your reaction to them. Twice now, you’ve taken off for Europe—and not really to work. That was only the excuse. Both times you were running from something you didn’t think you could handle. The behavior pattern is typical of you. It won’t work, Michael. It can’t work and you ought to know it. Consider this. Every ugly situation you’ve been involved in had another side. The other person’s side. To begin with, you’ll have to make yourself accept that before you can worry about your own. It might not be a simple case of mea culpa, after all. Have you examined that possibility?”

  “Go on,” Miguel said.

  “How can I say it? Lay the ghosts. Find out what you have to do and then do it. If you decide to go to Hollywood, I’ll be sorry—but who is to say it’s wrong for you? I think you’re a good writer, Michael. But as a man, you’re pretty badly fouled up.” Olinder fell silent and Miguel sat frowning at the tableware.

  Karl asked, “Are you going to San Francisco?”

  Miguel looked up. “I don’t know yet. Why?”

  “I assumed you would, that’s all.”

  “Have you heard anything from Alaine?”

  “She was here for five days last May.”

  Miguel’s brow knit and he said, “Oh. I didn’t know that. What was she doing in New York?”

  “She’s working again. For that store in San Francisco. It was some kind of business trip. Buying or selling or something of the sort. I don’t know. I didn’t ask. I took her to see Tea and Sympathy. We had a marvelous time.”

  “Congratulations.”

  “Do I detect a note of jealousy, Michael?” .

  “Of course not. Alaine is a free agent. She can do what she likes.”

  “You hurt Alaine more than you’ll ever know, Michael.” Miguel said nothing.

  “Of course,” Olinder said, tapping his yellowed fingers lightly on the tablecloth, “it is only natural for me to be prejudiced. I am very fond of Alaine.”

  “I know you are. I also know you dislike Nora intensely.”

  “On the contrary. I don’t dislike Nora. I wasn
’t going to mention it, but now that you’ve brought it up, I’ll simply say that she and I have different ideas about what you should be doing with your talents.”

  “Talents, crap.”

  Olinder sighed. “All right. Put it down to the meddlesomeness of encroaching age. Only I’ve often wondered what happened with you and Alaine. You seemed so well suited to one another. What was it? Domesticity too much? Nora’s appeal too great?”

  “Let’s just say I found out we deserved one another. In every way,” Miguel said.

  “That doesn’t sound like an avowal of love to me,” Olinder said.

  “Who said anything about love?”

  “There is a very simple method of dealing with Gordian knots, Michael.”

  When Miguel did not reply, he continued, “There’s someone we have assiduously avoided mentioning in the course of this psychoanalysis.”

  “Let’s keep it that way,” Miguel said.

  “All right, Michael. But may I warn you? You’re heading into a dangerous situation right now. I mean personally dangerous. You are in a peculiarly self-destructive mood. No, I don’t mean that in the physical sense. There are other ways. You, I’m afraid, are an expert at all of them. Be careful, please.”

  “You make me look forward to the next twenty-four hours with interest,” Miguel said.

  Olinder shrugged. “Be as flip as you like about it. The very least that can happen to you is that you’ll get tangled up with some woman. You do that regularly, you know. If something starts troubling you, you like to bury your head in some female breast. A return to the womb. That’s just what it is, you know.” “Christ, but we’re really Freudian today.”

  “I’ve seen you do it more than once. It’s easy for you. Because it can be any woman, I think. And then she starts making claims on you and you feel trapped. I may be an old bald coot, Michael, but I know people. I know you. And it’s my guess you’ll subconsciously arrange something to allow you to put off tying yourself to Nora and her world for as long as possible.”