Barbara and Abe Rabin arrived first. Heather hugged each of them at the door. “Thanks so much for coming all the way up here in the snow,” she said, taking their coats.
“Where do you want our boots?” asked Rabin, adding in a whisper, “Is he here?”
“Not yet.”
“I don’t know exactly what it is you want us to do,” said Barbara, removing her hat and finger-combing her hair. She was wearing her contacts, high-heeled boots, and despite the cold a thin low-cut sweater.
“Nothing, really. I have no more idea of what he’s planning than you do. I was flabbergasted when he called this meeting. I just need you for moral support.”
Barbara gave Heather’s hand a supportive squeeze. “Is he really refusing to leave?”
“So far.”
Rabin harrumphed. “How can he? It’s your house.”
“Not to him it’s not. He says it’s Mack’s house, though I told him it’s in my name. Which it happens to be. I also told him Mack agrees with me.”
Rabin snorted, “Typical schnorrer maneuver.”
Heather led them to the fireside. “Why don’t you sit over here, okay? This will be our side. They can sit over there.”
“They?” said Rabin, easing his large bearish frame into a chair.
“Yes. Zoltan is bringing his girlfriend. That’s one of the reasons I need you here. So as not to be outnumbered.”
Rabin was wrestling his sweater over his big head when the doorbell rang. Everyone braced up. Heather wondered if she ought to count it a victory that Zoltan had not let himself in with his key. She laid a finger against her lips for silence, then walked to the door.
“Come in, come in.”
Zoltan averted his eyes, refusing to look at her. Adorned again in his signature black cape, with rubber galoshes, fur hat with earflaps down, and long striped scarf wound around his neck, he again appeared utterly strange to her, even after three months and a swanky new wardrobe. By contrast, the woman beside him looked quite ordinary, in a blue parka and high, black, thick-soled boots, if a bit too skinny and blond and made-up to please Heather, who watched her stamp her feet on the mat and drop her car keys into her pocket.
“Heather, may I present Elaine Glinka?” said Zoltan, laying on the accent. “Elaine, please meet Heather McKay.”
“Glad to meet you,” said Elaine. As they shook hands Heather noted with satisfaction that Elaine’s mouth was asymmetrical, giving an impression of lurching slightly to the left, and her fingernails were deeply bitten.
“Me too.” Heather held out her arms for their garments, but Zoltan waved her off. “Will keep them, thank you.”
In the living room Zoltan stopped short at the sight of the Rabins. He looked around. “Where is Mack?”
“He had a slight accident on the road, but he should be along any minute,” said Heather. “Barbara Rabin, Abe Rabin, Zoltan Barbu, and, uh, Elaine, uh …”
“Glinka.”
“Glinka,” repeated Heather. “Can I get you guys a drink? Or some coffee?”
“No thank you,” said Zoltan. “We will wait in my room until Mack arrives.” He executed a little bow. “Come, Elaine.”
“Did you hear that?” whispered Barbara when they were out of earshot. “ ‘My room,’ he says.”
“Quel nerve!” said Rabin, laughing and smacking his right fist against his left palm.
“Didn’t I tell you?” said Heather, pouring out three glasses of Pinot Grigio, Rabin’s with ice. Even without the wine she felt positively giddy.
“Very strange-looking fellow, I must say,” said Rabin. “Like a visitation from a vampire movie.”
“But I see the attraction,” countered Barbara. “That amazing nose. And of course the accent.”
“It’s his voice, too, so deep,” said Heather, “even if you don’t always quite get what he’s saying. That and the unnerving way he can cast a spell by fixing you with his eyes.” She was embarrassed to be touting Zoltan’s charms, when she knew they worked only on the susceptible, among whom she no longer counted herself. She suspected that to the Rabins his posturing must appear more bilious than brilliant, more pompous than profound. How typical of their odd ménage that no one else she knew had laid eyes on this man, on whom the family had so recklessly fixated for three remarkable months.
“What did you think of the girlfriend?” asked Barbara.
“Prrsh,” said Rabin, blowing air through his lips dismissively.
“Not you, Abe. Heather.”
Heather—who had several vivid thoughts about the girlfriend, though admittedly they had so far exchanged hardly more than gratuitous smiles—suddenly heard a thumping noise and frantically gestured for silence.
But the sound came from the back door, not Zoltan’s room. Mack stamped his boots on the mat and entered, red-faced and puffing, trailing Tina behind him.
“COFFEE? A DRINK? SODA?” said Mack. “We have everything.”
Zoltan and Elaine exchanged a secret look. “No, thank you,” said Elaine.
“We’re all set,” said Barbara.
“Scotch, please,” said Zoltan, “with soda and a twist, if you don’t mind, thanks.”
Mack fixed the drink and handed Zoltan a tall glass. “So,” he said, pouring a finger of Scotch over ice for himself and sitting down beside Heather. “I understand you called this meeting, Z, so why don’t you begin?”
Zoltan, who tightly clutched a messenger bag in his lap, cleared his throat, squared his shoulders, and blinked the lights on in his eyes, fixing Mack with the look that had once inspired confidence and hope. “Has your wife told you what she proposes?”
“Why don’t you go ahead and tell me yourself,” said Mack expansively. In the corner of his eye he saw Heather sitting cross-legged near the edge of her seat, the top leg moving rapidly up and down from the knee, her arms folded over her fuzzy white sweater, her face flushed and defiant. This bickering was like children’s, like family, with Mack the Solomonic judge and the Rabins the requisite witnesses. He leaned back and spread his arms along the back of the sofa.
“One day she loves me and the next day she proposes me to leave,” Zoltan began, testing.
Slowly stroking Tina, who was curled up in her lap, Heather smiled impassively. She knew who was luxury in Mack’s life, who necessity.
Mack nodded.
“And you go along with her?”
“Heather’s the one who’s home with you, so it’s her call.”
“Why? Is big house. I try not to bother her. In fact, Heather sees me only when for her own reasons she chooses.” He glowered. “Did she tell you her reasons?”
Mack shrugged. “Heather’s reasons are her business,” he said, with a vague wave of the hand.
“I think you will find they are your business too.”
Heather glowered back. “Mack knows my reasons. Right, Mack?” If Zoltan dared to spell out the details, she would simply dispute them. Her word against his. No contest—especially since nothing had actually happened.
Mack patted Heather’s knee.
Seeing the smug gesture, Zoltan was tempted to tell Mack all about his lovely little wife. But with Elaine there to witness, he chose to take the moral high road rather than sink to Heather’s level. If there was any chance of salvaging his position in the house it would be by appealing to Mack’s sense of justice. Or his mercy. He wasn’t evil, like her, only weak. A weak wretch. (Weak wretch: he liked the sound of it; he must remember to write it down.)
“You realize, of course, I have no money. And if I leave here I have no place to go. I can’t go back to L.A., my apartment is long ago gone to landlord’s relative. And until I sell my book I can’t pay rent. As you well knew when you invited me here to live and sent me my airline ticket.”
“Pooh. You could always sign a contract and get some money,” said Mack. “You have a name to sell. Or apply for a stipend from that Balkan Freedom Fund of yours, get them to use my donation.”
Zoltan crosse
d his arms and raised his nose haughtily. “You think such money sits wasting in some drawer or bank? It is already spent for good purpose.”
“Oh, really? For what, I’d like to know. Would you happen to have the records?”
“You have so many friends, Zoltan,” interrupted Heather. “Some of them must be dying to put you up. What about Elaine here? Why don’t you move in with her?”
Zoltan looked triumphant. Heather had sprung the trap. With his eyes he signaled to Elaine.
“Excuse me. He can’t possibly move in with me,” said Elaine.
“Why not? He’s there most nights anyway,” said Heather, focusing on the oddly crooked mouth.
“For one thing,” said Zoltan, “she has not invited me.”
“My place is much too small for two. It’s just a studio, really, and it’s also where I practice.”
“Not too tiny for two at night, though, is it?”
Elaine rolled her eyes at Zoltan, as if Heather’s outrageous behavior confirmed everything he had said about her, while Mack could barely suppress a laugh over Heather’s chutzpah. He had to admit his wife was one cool brazen bitch.
“You’re welcome to come and see it, if you don’t believe me,” offered Elaine.
“Really, this is preposterous,” exploded Zoltan. He turned to Elaine and clasped her hands. “You don’t have to do this. You don’t have to defend your choice to live alone.”
“What about Rebecca Shaffer, then?” said Heather. “She has a huge loft. Right in the middle of Soho, very convenient.”
“That is the problem,” said Zoltan, finally looking at Heather. “It is also only one room, though very big one. But this is moot. No one invites me there.”
“She would in a minute if she knew you were interested.”
“Maybe, maybe not. It is also her husband’s place. In any case,” he continued, “I could not work there, in same house with another writer. She would eat me up alive.”
“Well, you don’t seem to be able to work here either,” mumbled Mack.
Heather was too proud to point out that in this house, too, another writer lived, since Zoltan had never acknowledged it.
“Fact is, my man,” said Zoltan, “you are the only person who invites me to stay. No one else has offered.”
“Well, now we’re withdrawing our offer,” said Heather.
“Does she speak for you?” Zoltan asked Mack.
“I’m speaking for myself,” said Heather.
“Why, may I ask?”
“Why what?”
“Why are you withdrawing invitation?”
“I told you why this morning.”
“And did you tell also your husband?”
“Yes, more or less.”
“More or less.” He spat it out with his familiar sneer. “Will you tell him now please exactly what you told me this morning, exactly why you ask me to leave? Would you repeat in front of your husband?”
“Sure.”
Barbara Rabin sat entranced at the edge of her seat trying to follow the words slamming back and forth like Ping-Pong balls, while her husband jiggled the cubes in his glass with an expression of amused distaste.
“I’m asking you to leave,” said Heather, determination in her raised chin, “because in your three months with us in this house you haven’t come through for me.”
“And how is that, please? What do I withhold?”
“Everything.”
“Meaning?”
“Didn’t you come here promising to teach us something important, the secret of happiness or something like that? But you can’t teach us anything when you’re gone all night and you sleep all day. Why should we keep you here when there’s nothing in it for us anymore? Why? What claim do you have on us? That’s what I’d like to know.”
Zoltan shook his head and sent a long eloquent look to Elaine. Then he took a sip of Scotch and taunted Heather with “Pardon me, I fail to see how my sleeping arrangements concern you.”
“After you move out they won’t. Which is why I want you to leave.”
Zoltan turned to Mack with an exasperated shrug. “Can’t you do something about this, my good man? You invited me here, not she. You have not said for me to go. It means you are unconvinced. At least ambivalent.”
It was this Mack would miss—how easily Zoltan saw through him. Now, with Zoltan backed into a corner, Mack couldn’t help feeling sorry for the guy. Talk about ambivalence! Even if he did pocket the donation, which wasn’t all that much, the fellow had to live somehow. Whatever he did or didn’t do, he was still the author of “one of the landmark works of the twentieth century,” according to the New Republic, still a scintillating presence, and admired for that prison time—if it was true. And if not, one had to admire a guy who could put it over on the world.
All the same, it was Mack’s duty to back up Heather. “I’m afraid you’re wrong there, Z. I happen to agree with her.”
“I see. You fall back on marriage and let your wife decide for you. You give up responsibility. I thought you were more man than that. I see I am wrong.”
“Responsibility?” Heather blurted out. “You want to talk responsibility?”
“Certainly. Who is responsible should take consequences. Mack cannot leave me stranded, he must make good on his promise. If not, he is a weak wretch, cowardly fool like Samson—”
“Come, now,” interrupted Mack. “There’s no point getting personal. Fact is I promised you a place to write, but you aren’t writing, are you?”
“Yes I am.”
“Oh? Then where’s the book?”
“Book is not finished. But I have many pages of notes and drafts. Probably too many. That is my problem. Writing is harder than you imagine.”
While Mack sipped his drink and the Rabins sat in their front-row seats in riveted silence watching the drama unfold, the room’s only sound was the crackle of logs reducing to embers.
“Anyway,” said Mack, “it’s really not a question of who’s responsible. Let’s just say we all gave it a decent trial, and it’s nobody’s fault if things aren’t working out anymore, that’s all.”
“Things not working out. What you mean is, certain people do not allow things to work out. Matter of fact,” said Zoltan, “it is very personal. Matter of fact, your wife wants me to go because you are not enough man for her. Not man enough to control her.”
“Slow down, Z,” said Mack. “You’re starting to get out of line here.”
Heather’s heart was thumping. Zoltan was coming dangerously close to the edge. She saw the vein pulsing in his neck, as it always did when he was seriously worked up. Still, whatever he said, it was her house, and she had the final say. Let him insult Mack and threaten her all he liked, nothing would change her mind. If he shut up right now, she’d give him as much time as he needed; if he stepped one more inch over the line, she’d kick him out tonight.
As moments passed in portentous silence, the kind Zoltan could orchestrate to perfection, Abe Rabin wondered if he as resident psychiatrist shouldn’t be doing something to defuse the tension. Barbara and Elaine watched Zoltan and Heather, arms crossed over their chests, glaring ferociously at each other. Mack leaned his head back waiting to see which one would back down first.
Zoltan suddenly stood up, raised his glass high, and with flaming eyes vaulted across the hearth toward Heather.
Mack sprang to his feet. “Whoa!” he cried, as Rabin leaped in front of Heather and grabbed Zoltan’s arm. The two stood clinched for a moment, pumping arms, like fake TV wrestlers, until Zoltan’s Scotch began to spill on the rug and Rabin stepped back. In that instant Zoltan hurled his glass into the flames, where it shattered, the remnants of liquid fizzling into steam.
Elaine cowered. Mack downed his drink. Barbara rushed to embrace Heather. But Heather, having seen this shattered-glass melodrama one too many times, knew that the curtain had been pulled aside to reveal the wizard’s sham. Out of danger, she laughed with relief.
“C
ome, then,” said Zoltan softly to Elaine, regaining enough dignity to offer her his hand. Anything more he might say would be anticlimactic. He pulled her to her feet, all courtesy and calm. “Come. We will get our coats and I will take you home.”
As they left the room Rabin whispered to Barbara, “What he means is, is she’ll take him home.”
“I APOLOGIZE TO YOU, my dear, for subjecting you to this ugliness,” said Zoltan, as he and Elaine loaded his bags into the trunk of her car.
“Forget it.”
Snow quickly powdered their hats and boots. When they were done, she cleared off the windshield while he returned to the house, where his hosts and their guests sat gossiping.
Wordlessly he walked up to Mack, who was just then poking the fire. Slivers of broken glass sparkled on the hearth. Suddenly alert, Mack turned around, clutching the poker in both hands. Zoltan stood before him wearing a twisted, superior smile. With an exaggerated flourish he handed Mack the house keys, then bowed deeply, Karamazov style, his long forelock sweeping the floor and his boots leaving little puddles on the hearth. The flames shot up; except for the fire, the room was again silent. Then without so much as a glance at Heather or the Rabins, Zoltan raised himself to his full height, elevated his nose, turned, and left. Silence reigned until the outer door slammed closed. Still no one spoke as the car motor started, died, started again, warmed up, and finally receded as the car drove away. Then a collective sigh relieved the tension, and Mack traded the poker for the hearth broom and began sweeping up glass.
“Here, let me do that,” said Barbara, taking the broom from Mack while he got the dustpan. When all the broken glass had been swept up Mack carried the dustpan to the kitchen.
“So what did you think of him?” asked Heather.
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