After Gregory

by Austin Wright

  Is that so? I wondered.

  Of course. He’s the one recommended you to Jack in the first place. Found you hitchhiking, heard your story, told Jack. No one told you?

  It was supposed to be a mystery. Jack’s operatives, who know everything.

  Jimmy told Jack, Jack had his Ohio man check it out, the news, found out who you were, which roused his interest, you with that notoriety in your case, so he looked you up. There’s no secret about it.

  Except from me.

  She laughed. So you thought it was supernatural. That’s Jack for you.

  Is Sharon a reclamation project?

  Ask her yourself.

  All she says is Cowland, Indiana. Cowland? How nice.

  That’s all you remember of the outing on the lake, except at the end when you were helping Jane Delaware out, while Helen Copzik held the line. An impulse to push Jane Delaware into the lake. You didn’t do it. It wasn’t unfriendly or mean. As Peter Gregory you often had such impulses and never yielded to them. To drop the china plate, step on the cat, drive on the left, that kind of thing. There was no desire in them (you didn’t want to dump Jane Delaware in the lake), no animus. It was curiosity of some sort, about power and the connections between brain and muscles, and it was prevented by a most powerful intervention. This intervention was not you but external to you, protecting you like a bobsled chute.

  In a café overlooking a rushing river, the water green with glacial silt, you tried to tell Jane Delaware the story of your life. An outdoor table near the edge with a red and green umbrella, legs scraping in gravel. Citron pressé (diluted gradually by water to quench the sugar and slake the thirst) and the International Herald Tribune. Across the swirling current a grassy shore, with yellow buildings, a church, mountains beyond.

  This would be the fourth time you told it. She already knew the important things, so you looked for what she didn’t know. You gave anecdotes from Gregory family legend, the mythology of exile. Your father from Ireland with Uncle Phil in their teens, leaving loved ones behind and parents soon dead. Legend of old country, old days, which only bored you then. The old man saying, we’ll create new roots in the suburbs, which you can take with you across the world. Father the collector, storing for display in paneled basement rooms fossils and guns, old photographs, ship models, anchors. Followed by a new generation of exiles exiled by suburban flux with no one left at home, the town full of strangers.

  You wanted to tell her what led up to Peter Gregory’s jump, the clear consecutive view of things you had arrived at through the continuous polishing and erosion of the memory stream on the rocks, but when you tried to tell it, it all seemed kind of disgusting. An air of falsity created by telling, which had nothing to do with the facts, maybe. You tried to correct lies where you could. It was not true that you were cold to your wife, not true you had abandoned your children. The chief falsity was the tone and unspoken interpretation of things. Like whether what you had tried was suicide or something else, false whatever you said.

  The table wobbled on the gravel. She wasn’t interested in that. She preferred the adventure part, your trip across the country, Amy and Joe, the free enterprise man, Crazy James. She said, it’s not good to dwell on your mistakes. You’re a different person now. You said you would like to know yourself, like Socrates, to understand what made you do what you did, but she, unlike Amy and Joe, Jack Rome, Sharon Trace, didn’t believe in motives. She believed in the deep emotional causelessness of human acts. Jack Rome thinks you can define Stephen Trace and teach yourself to be him, but Jane Delaware thinks you’ll know only by what he does. Doing precedes knowing, she said. You won’t know what you’ll do until you do it and invent the reasons later.

  That conversation petered out, as they all do. She spotted a small item near the bottom of the page in her International Herald Tribune. Uh-oh, she said. What’s Jack up to now?

  The notice: someone shot, gang style, outside a delicatessen in midtown Manhattan.

  What’s Jack got to do with that?

  A company so large is into many things, they have to deal with all kinds. I wonder who got shot.

  It’s there in the paper, the name: Angelo Firenze.

  I wonder who it really was, she said.

  THIRTY

  Now comes the intrigue. Not much and not really necessary, but such as it is. At 2:00 p.m., you were sitting with Jane Delaware at a café table on the Piazza San Marco, waiting to find out why you were there. Right in the middle of the famous postcard, the colonnades, the onion domes, the stars on blue, the clock, Napoleon’s stolen green horses. A flare of pigeons. Jane Delaware whispered, There she is.

  You saw her, walking rapidly past the table. Short bob of carelessly dyed platinum hair, big broad-brimmed Spanish hat, black sunglasses, knee-length jeans, T-shirt reading CHICAGO BEARS. She went on into the arcade.

  Is that Miranda Landis? You wouldn’t have recognized her. Even with the television image in front of you, the raised eyes, the long brown hair, you could not have connected her. So how do you know?

  Because she described herself. Now we wait twenty minutes and then I call her at her aunt’s.

  Why call her?

  To arrange a meeting.

  Why not meet right here?

  Because she doesn’t want God’s Police to see. There’s a code. If the coast is clear, she’ll go by at two o’clock in that costume. If God’s Police are in town, her aunt will come instead and sit down at the next table with the Herald Tribune and a poodle. Since we saw Miranda, not her aunt, it means no God’s Police around. Jane Delaware looked amused.

  I see holes in that plan.

  It’s Miranda’s idea. She’s been watching spy movies during her virginal leisure. It’s very intricate. She skipped to Venice to elude the God’s Police who are watching her mother’s house in Paris, because they don’t know about her Venetian aunt. She cooked this up on the chance they might follow her here. How does she know they aren’t here? Why because she knows them all, she’s known them since childhood.

  Well now, Jane, if her going by here means God’s Police are not in town, why can’t she sit down with us?

  That’s because I’m a semi-public figure, and she doesn’t want to risk being seen with me. When she gets home, I’ll call her.

  Why couldn’t you have called her when we arrived in Venice?

  That’s because if God’s Police were here the phone might be tapped.

  What were we supposed to do if God’s Police were around?

  Then the aunt with the poodle and the Herald Tribune would sit at the next table, which would be a signal to pack off to Florence and try again next week.

  All right, so now she’s established God’s Police are not in town. Why couldn’t she call us on the telephone?

  Because this is a person we are dealing with. Her name is Miranda Landis. She watches spy movies, and she’s afraid of God’s Police. She’s making the break of her life, repudiating father, childhood, deep beliefs, and she wants everything to be just right. She wants to go by mysteriously with her dark glasses on. She may never have worn dark glasses before. She also wants to see if she likes your looks before making a final commitment. Since she’s going to be living in your house for a while. To make sure your picture didn’t lie.

  What picture?

  Your picture. She wanted to see what she was getting in for, so we sent her pictures, and she picked you. I hope, since you’ve come this far, you’ll do your part.

  You didn’t know what your picture had to do with it. You thought all you had to do was escort Miranda back to New York. You asked, does Sharon know the house has been requisitioned? (I’m sure she does, Delaware said.) Another question was why Jane Delaware couldn’t escort her by herself.

  One reason might be so she won’t be seen with me, because I’m too well known. We don’t want to risk her being snatched out of our hands. So you and she will go on a different flight from Helen and me. Another might be to make it more pleasant fo
r her. I hope you’ll help. Make her feel good. Treat her to Venice, take her to see things. The Lido. Murano. Gondola ride. Take her to dinner. Be nice to her.

  For how long?

  A few days. Enough to make up her mind and get used to us.

  You thought her mind was already made up. All these spy plans.

  It’s all tentative. She has to meet us. Negotiate the arrangements. That’s why I’m here, I’m the negotiator. You’re the escort. When we’re ready, back to New York in our separate planes. She goes to your house until she can go on her own.

  Nobody ever asked you about that. Well, I’m sure Jack cleared it with Sharon, Delaware said.

  She made her call in a public phone, came back and said, She’ll see us tomorrow. Come to the hotel, I want to show you something.

  You went with Jane Delaware past the sights, out of San Marco by the Campanile tower and the long row of white pillars in the Doge’s palace to the waterfront, with the gondolas and motorboats rubbing and squeaking against the pilings. A big rusty freighter from the outside world standing high and going fast out in the middle blocked the view of the church and tower across. She pushed through the brass edged hotel door, you following, and to the elevator. Come up to my room, she said.

  Her room was twice as large as yours, light and full of space, high ceilings, gold fittings, soft drapes over the windows. The carpet and carved chairs and mirrors, so big and free of personal debris it looked like a public room. You scarcely noticed the bed on one side between two polished mahogany chests, covered by a smooth tan spread. She picked up the white telephone and ordered desserts, ice cream with a wafer.

  To soften you up, she said.

  The window looked out on a small canal. A heavy-hulled motor barge swilled through the canal rolling a wake along the pitted stone foundations. A gondola bobbed behind. When the gondola approached the second canal, the gondolier sang out a warning, what they did instead of traffic lights.

  Why must I be softened up?

  She was fishing in one of her bags, found an envelope, and handed you a small black and white snapshot. This. A fuzzy, badly lit photograph of a nude woman in a chair. Leaning back, head averted, long hair over her shoulder. Her navel, puff of hair, left breast. Head turned away, you could not see her face.

  Miranda.

  This? She took it herself, Polaroid, and sent it to us. Gesture of good faith. To show she means business. Not much of a photographer, is she?

  No one would ever know that was Miranda Landis.

  Do you like her? Sit down, Stephen.

  Sit down means something is coming. You sat in a golden armed chair, and she in hers looked a shade uneasy, maybe. I want to soften you up. If you had to be softened up, it would be something you didn’t want to do. Soften me up for what? I have to soften you before I tell you. Tell me first.

  What does this picture mean to you? As you know the most famous thing about Miranda Landis is her virginity. That’s her public identity. But now she wants to leave her castle and sends us this crude naked picture. What’s your conclusion?

  She wants to lose her virginity.

  She selected your picture out of the ones we sent. See, I knew you’d need some softening.

  What she meant by softening, which could equally be called hardening, and which Stephen Trace would be unable to resist. Jane Delaware in a subdued purple dress, slim and well fitting and short, was looking at you with her diamond eyes, golden hair, smiling, sure of herself again.

  He’s not asking for anything you wouldn’t want to do. (Your marriage was universally understood as a concoction.) Just be nice to her while you show her around, be friendly, affectionate.

  In other words, screw her.

  Your words, not ours. Ease her out of herself, if you can manage it. If she’s willing, gently. Don’t frighten her. She’ll be willing, the picture proves it.

  And if she isn’t?

  Then don’t. We don’t want you to rape her.

  Your problem was not an aversion to making love to Miranda Landis, which you might enjoy. It wasn’t even your loyalty to Sharon, since this latest adventure had put your marriage into a strange light. It was trying to decide whether this was a problem. Being asked to do it for Jack Rome and Jane Delaware. The question of Stephen Trace’s moral independence. A dilemma, since the newness of Stephen Trace by liberating you from inherited restraints might liberate you also from qualms about moral independence.

  An Italian waiter in white coat brought the desserts she had ordered and set them on the scrolled table by the window. Well trained, silent, he left after his tip as if the ice cream had brought itself.

  So how are you going to soften me up?

  Now her most brilliant Delaware smile, interpreting you correctly. How would you like? Bringing you ice cream, she stood near you in her pale tight purple dress. Eat your ice cream. Italian ice cream is the best in the world. Another knock on the door. Helen Copzik, she had forgotten today is laundry. Take the afternoon off, Jane Delaware said. Go see the paintings. Helen Copzik, looking anxiously across the long room where they sat in decorum at the little table by the window.

  Now. Pull the light breezy curtains to exclude the blank wall across the canal. Come. Approach gradually the astonishing prospect of Jane Delaware taking off her clothes. Arms on your shoulders, shake her hair, eyes full of joke, kiss her royalty away. A hint of déjà vu, as if you had known her elsewhere.

  The light of the world was diffused by the curtains soft and white through the room. Jane Delaware sitting with you in your chair, sitting on your knees, legs, producing discovery, as if the discovery of Sharon had not been enough. She had bare shoulders with freckles, Jane Delaware. Her neck was thin, the muscles like wires. She had breasts, nipples, a bare smooth narrow belly. She had what she ought to have.

  You stood up sticking out like a direction sign. Your surge like a stuck valve was full of the repealed laws, scattering blasphemy, incest, suicide, and all your past. She escorted you politely to the bed. Naked, slim and athletic, she looked more like a water nymph than a First Lady. You were conscious you were being paid, but you didn’t argue. You descended into a flurry of names like Sharon and Miranda and Linda and Florry and Anita. Also Jack Rome and Louis the Lover. If Jack Rome really was above caring what his wife did and if it didn’t matter in the soft sheets, bare legs still tangled letting the diluted time drain away.

  After a while she came out of it. Miranda will like you, she said. You wondered if you would like Miranda. She wouldn’t be easy and relaxed like Delaware. She would probably be jittery and stiff. Jane Delaware sat up by your side and looked down at you. What did you say?

  Would you be willing to let a reporter interview you about Miranda, when we get home?

  A reporter?

  Alan Scanlon. A good journalist, working for Jack. Wants to write a profile for a national magazine, about her life, her growing up, her restlessness, her yearning, her need.

  Why interview me?

  Because you can describe this crucial turning point in her career. How we found her and brought her home. Insights none of the rest of us will have. And if she does give up her virginity—which she will—he’ll want to ask you. Her virginity is a famous commodity, and if she sacrifices it, that’s news.

  You must be kidding.

  Tasteful, tactful. Just a small part for you, her rescuer and initiator, telling the reporter enough to make it a step upward for her rather than just another banal affair. Ritual, deliberate sacrifice, which you can attest. You needn’t fear exposure, he’ll give you a fictitious name.

  Lying there naked, spent, on your back, looking up at her, the ornate ceiling over her head. That’s an outrage, you said.

  Is that what it is? Alan’s a good journalist. He won’t say anything you don’t like. Subject to Miranda’s approval.

  If he uses a fictitious name, why doesn’t he just invent the whole thing?

  It’s got to be right with her.

  You think s
he’ll approve a thing like that?

  She will if you talk her into it.

  Who’s going to talk me into it?

  She laughed, her soft hair all over you. Straddling you, bending over, her eyes dazzling in the shadow of her hair. She sent us that picture. She didn’t have to do that. She gave us hints. What do they mean? She wants to make it public, she is no longer the Virgin Miranda. I doubt she’ll need persuasion.

  I see now why you wanted to soften me up. Can’t she just quit and let the world draw conclusions?

  The individual eyelashes of Jane Delaware at close range, longer than normal, artificial superimposed upon original. Tiny pink blood vessel in the eyewhite almost invisible. You don’t have to if you don’t want to.

  She was in this position when she suggested taking pictures of Miranda. Voice muffled against your shoulders, you tried to comprehend, blind against the nape of her neck, the light in the room cut out. Pictures? She started to move again, laughing in rhythm. Sides of Jane Delaware you had never seen.

  Pictures, she said. Among my other skills I’m a pretty good photographer.

  She fell over and you lay sweating in the white curtained afternoon light of the Venetian hotel. You heard the warning call of a gondolier outside the window as he approached the other canal and thought how healthy traffic is, where the only problem was to get through the canals without a collision.

  Her picture suggests it. It says here’s the picture I took. You take a better one. What a magnificent setting this room would be.

  Nude pictures? What would you do with them?

  That’s up to Jack and Miranda.

  Miranda?

  I wouldn’t dream of doing it without her consent.

  But I am to suggest it to her.

  Not too quickly. When you have won her confidence.

  The way you did me, you mean. When we’re in the thick of things, pop it on her? You had never seen her eyes at such close range, the pupils large, the little pink tearducts in the corner, looking above your face at your hair which she was twiddling with her fingers.