But who could remember him for his talent? One night on an evening at Beda’s house, Beda had offered him his wife. Eitel had been out with a girl he barely knew and Beda suggested they switch for the night. It had been agreeable to all four, and Beda’s wife had said to Eitel, “I’d like to see you again.” So Eitel remembered it as an interesting night. It was Beda who had stayed away from him after that.
“Charley, I said, ‘Do we connect?’ ”
“What do you mean, do we connect?”
“I swear you’re drunk.” Beda looked at a woman who had been staring at him curiously, and when he winked, she turned away in embarrassment. “Oh, God, the tourists,” he said. “They’re ruining Desert D’Or. Zenlia was tired of New York and I promised her we’d find a ball here. ‘In the sun?’ she asked,” and Beda began to chuckle. “Look, Charley, you know we always dig each other’s taste. I’ve got a good idea of what Elena’s like. It’s that coarse sullen thing in her, just a touch of bawd and lots of energy. Am I right?”
They might have been discussing a local peasant wine. “You’re not quite right,” Eitel said, “there’s more than energy to Elena.” He did not know if he was defending her, or telling tales out of school. “Life gets confusing,” he had time to think.
“More than energy,” Beda repeated. “She knows, doesn’t she, Charley?” he asked, and answered himself, “Yes, now it comes through. She’s a very sensitive girl.” He laughed. “Charley, I tell you we have to get together. We’ll all know more when we’re done.”
“Stop pushing science,” Eitel wanted to say, but did not trust the inspiration. Using his drunkenness, he smiled enigmatically at Beda. “You know, Don,” he drawled, “in every gourmet there’s a lost philosopher.”
“Ha, ha. Ha, ha. As Munshin says, ‘I love you.’ ”
When Beda continued to grin at him, Eitel finally said, “Elena’s complicated.”
“What kind of talk is that?” Beda looked around the room. “I don’t know anybody who isn’t complicated. Why don’t we skip and go to my place?” When Eitel did not answer, Beda began to count. “There’s the four of us,” he said, “you, me, Zenlia and Elena, and then Marion and a couple of his brood, have you seen them here?—one of them’s very nice—only Marion could bring a call girl to Dorothea’s party, and then I was thinking of Lulu, and any odd jacks I could invite. I’d love to proposition Dorothea, she’s gotten so respectable.”
“Dorothea wouldn’t go.”
“How about Lulu?”
“No, Lulu would turn you down too,” Eitel said to gain time.
“You positive?”
“She thinks,” Eitel said, “about things like raids.”
“Well, the rest of us then.”
Eitel started to back out of the corner. “Not tonight, Don,” he said, “really not.”
“Charley!”
What sort of apology could he give? “Don, you’ll have to excuse,” he said lamely, “but I’m under the weather tonight.”
Beda looked at him carefully, eyes twinkling. “You want to make it another night for the four of us?”
There was a card Eitel kept turning over in his pocket. Whose was it, he wondered, and then remembered. It was the card of Congressman Crane. “I don’t know, I don’t think so,” Eitel said. “If I change my mind, I’ll give you a ring.”
“I’ll call you,” Beda emphasized, and let him slip away. In the upstairs bathroom, all the while Eitel was throwing up he had the kind of clarity which comes at such times. Everything had gained its proportion and was remote. “Do I really want to say no to Crane?” he thought to himself and then he retched again and added reflectively, “Why is my brain always so alive when I’m too drunk ever to do anything about it?”
Once he got downstairs he pushed his way to the bar and swallowed some aspirin before taking a drink. A little businessman from Chicago named Mr. Konsolidoy started to talk to him, and wanted Eitel’s advice on how much it would cost to make a documentary film about his business. It was yoghurt manufacture, Mr. Konsolidoy explained. “I want something cheap but with distinction.”
“That’s the way to want it,” Eitel said and poured another drink. Everything was idiotic, absolutely everything. “Can you smell the vomit on my breath?” he said somberly.
There was a familiar rustle behind him, and Lulu kissed his cheek. “Charley, I’ve been looking for you all evening. Isn’t it wonderful the way Crane took such an interest in you?” Eitel nodded and Mr. Konsolidoy saluted them. “My friend,” he said to Eitel with the pride of a courtier who has learned a foreign phrase, “I’ll leave you now to romance your doll.”
“Who’s that?” Lulu said.
“That’s a man who wants me to direct a two-million-dollar epic.”
“Charley, I’m glad for you. What’s he offering?”
“Half a grand.”
Lulu looked at him sideways and then laughed. “You had me,” she said, and put a hand on his shoulder. “Charley, are you in the mood to listen tonight?” Before he could answer, she went on, “I have the feeling that you’re the only one who could understand how I feel right now.”
“Why me?” he asked.
“Because, Charles, I was very much in love with you once. And you hurt me. I’ve always thought it’s the people who can hurt you who understand you the best.”
He was drunk in a way where nothing seemed to help. It could hardly matter whether he took more whisky or not; he would remain dizzy and oppressed and his stomach would be threatening.
“Yes, Lulu, it was the same for me,” he said. He could say anything, he felt.
“We were silly, weren’t we?”
“Silly.”
“You know I’m in love again.”
“With Tony Tanner?”
She nodded. “I think it’s for real this time.” When he did not answer, she went on, “Everybody’s against us. I’m the only one who understands a certain side of Tony.”
“What a marvelous way to describe being in love,” Eitel said.
“I’m serious, Charles. There’s a lot of potentiality in Tony. Underneath, he’s more sensitive than you think, and I like that combination in a man.”
“What combination?”
“Why, crude and sensitive. Tony’s a funny mixture of the two. If I can give him some polish, he’s going to be a very interesting person. You ought to understand,” she said.
“But when has all this happened?”
“In the last ten days,” Lulu said. “By the way, it was a ball from the start. Tony’s a walking encyclopedia. And you know what’s funny, I didn’t even like him at first.”
People were milling around them, and the noise of the party swelled against his ear. He was admiring a quality Lulu and he had in common. They were both adept at nodding to friends in such a way that no interruptions came.
“And Sergius?” he asked, “did you invite him tonight?”
She nodded. “Of course I did.” Lulu shook her head. “Only, he’s probably sulking at home.”
“You thought you were in love with him two weeks ago.”
She smiled. “Oh,” she said, “he has so much to learn,” and she put a hand on his arm again. “Charley, I wish you understood that I want only the best to happen for you. Really, you’re one of the nicest people I’ve ever known,” she continued, her eyes moist. “I’ve even come to see what you see in Elena. I think I like her.”
“So you’re in love with Tony?” he repeated.
“I’m practically positive I am.”
“You must want me to kill it for you.”
“Oh, you’re drunk.”
“No, I’m just wondering why you didn’t bring him along?”
“Because … I wanted to get away a little to think about him. And now I miss him.”
She was so lovely to look at, Eitel was thinking. All the while they were talking, Lulu’s violet-blue eyes smiled at him, they smiled their nuance, they seemed to say, “You and I may pretend, b
ut we also remember.” He felt like a middle-aged lush. Could it have been only a year ago, two years ago, that they had been married and everyone felt he married beneath himself? Now, she was beyond him, and new generations had come, Tony Tanners who once waited hours outside his office for a chance to say hello. “You going to Europe soon?” he asked out of a silence. But of course she would be going to Europe soon. Let there be an important enough party and she would be on her way.
“The wild thing,” Lulu said, “is I don’t think Tony is in love with me.”
“That’s all right. He will be if you make him respectable.”
“You’re getting old and sour, Charley.”
The worst of it, Eitel thought, was that he wanted her so much. He wanted her more than he ever had when they were married. Across the room, he could see Don Beda talking to Elena, and he knew that if he were to slip out of the party with Lulu, it was likely that Elena would leave with Beda and Beda’s beautiful wife.
“What are you thinking?” Lulu asked sharply.
He could feel himself swaying on the tips of his toes. “I was just deciding,” Eitel said, “that it’s impossible to remember what an ex-wife’s body looks like.”
Lulu laughed. “What happened to those pictures you took?”
“Oh, they’re destroyed,” he said.
“I don’t believe you, Charles.” In a casual caress, she pinched the lobe of his ear between her fingers. “I suppose this is very wormy,” she said, “but I don’t mind the idea that there are pictures of me, just a few of course.”
“Lulu, let’s leave the party,” Eitel said,
“What for?”
“You know exactly what for.”
“And leave Elena behind?”
He hated her for asking that. “Yes, and leave Elena behind,’ he said, and felt as if he had committed sacrilege. The sacrilege was that it had been so easy to say.
“Charles, I think you’re very attractive tonight, but I want to remain faithful to Tony.”
“Balls.”
“You’re mean to ask me. I have to learn one thing at a time.”
“Let’s get out of here,” Eitel said. “I’ll show you a new encyclopedia.”
Then he was aware of Elena at his shoulder. It was impossible to know if she had overheard what he said, but in fact it didn’t matter. He had been leaning toward Lulu in a way that was unmistakable.
“I want to go home now,” Elena said, “but you don’t have to come along. I know you want to stay.” She was close to a scene, and the thought of that at Dorothea O’Faye’s was unbearable.
“No, I’ll go with you,” he said quietly.
Lulu was talking. “Why don’t you stay, Charley? Elena gives permission.”
“You don’t have to go,” Elena repeated. Her eyes were glittering.
Eitel said the wrong thing. “Do you want to come home with us for coffee?” he asked Lulu.
“I don’t think so,” Lulu smiled.
“Sure, come on over to the pig-sty,” Elena said. “The pigs are looking for a jump in the hay.”
“Good night, Lulu,” Eitel said.
They left without saying good-bye to anyone. At the door, Dorothea caught them. She was very drunk. “Did it work out all right with my government friend?” she asked heavily.
“Do you expect thanks?” Eitel said.
“You going to be an arrogant phony son of a bitch all your life?”
Staring into Dorothea’s eyes, so angry, so leaden with drink, he remembered that once—for no matter how short a time—they had shared the same bed. It gave Eitel a pang. Where, in what cemetery of the heavens, did the tender words of lovers rest when they loved no longer?
“Let’s go, Elena,” he said, not answering Dorothea.
“You don’t deserve what any dog does for you,” Dorothea shouted as they escaped down the path.
Neither he nor Elena said a word on the drive to their house. After Eitel had put the car in the garage and followed her into the living room, he mixed himself a drink.
“You’re a coward,” Elena said. “You wanted to stay and you didn’t.”
He sighed. “Oh, baby, not you, too.”
“Oh, sure. Not me, too. You wanted to take Lulu somewhere and I ruined it, didn’t I?”
How much like a wife she had become, he was thinking. “You didn’t ruin anything,” he said automatically.
“You think I need you so much?” she flared at him. “Want to know something? When I get drunk I’m a million miles away from you.”
“I love you when I get drunk,” he said.
“Why do you lie to me this way?” Her face was furious with the effort not to cry. “I can live without you,” she said. “Tonight at the party I knew I could walk out and never miss you at all.” When he said nothing, she only became more angry. “I’ll tell you something,” she went on, “that friend of yours, that disgusting man Don Beda, asked me to go home with him and his wife, and he said things to me … he thinks I’m dirt. Well, maybe I like high society and the way it thinks I’m dirt. I wanted to go with him,” she shrieked, “I’m the same thing he is. So don’t think you owe me anything. If you want to have your fun, don’t think I’m the one who’s stopping you. I can have my fun, too.”
It was horrible to smile at such a moment, but he could not avoid it. “My poor baby,” he said.
“I hate you,” Elena shouted and went into the bedroom.
Oh, he was so drunk. Poor little underdog, he thought about Elena. She would never believe that he would marry her, but he would. He sat by himself looking for the words which would present his offer most attractively. Abruptly, he began to laugh. At the moment he felt as if he knew everything. It seemed so absurd that less than an hour ago he had wanted more than anything to sleep with Lulu. At that moment Elena must have been equally tempted by Don Beda. She would not have called him disgusting otherwise. Like a soft breath on the ash of his desire for Lulu, there came the thought that perhaps he might do worse than to accept Beda’s invitation. There was something very disturbing and yet not unpleasant at the thought of giving Elena up to such a party. With the bravery of a man who watches in an operating mirror while surgery is performed on his body, Eitel felt as if he were staring into himself. Once, how long ago? a girl had no more than to scratch him with a word, and out would run the blood of the shy, passionate adolescent he had been. He sighed, evolving drunken systems of philosophy where time was liquid, and liquid dried, and time was gone.
All this while, Elena was undoubtedly suffering. There was something comic about her, he thought; the essence of good comedy was always displaced drama, and she took herself very seriously. He would give her drama then; this was the time for his marriage proposal. So he got up and went into the bedroom and looked at Elena lying on the coverlet. Her face was buried in her arms, the classic pose of grief for the mediocre actress, and it was right that Elena being sincere and comic should lie in such a way. He touched her lightly on the back and she stirred. Probably she wanted to tell him she had not meant what she said about Don Beda.
“Go away,” Elena told him.
“No, darling, I want to talk to you.”
“Please leave me alone.”
He began to smooth her hair. “Darling,” he said, “I’ve ruined a lot of things, but you must know that I care about you. I can’t stand the thought of hurting you.” It was true in a way. “I mean, I want you always to be happy.” Indeed if he could have granted happiness to anyone, he would have granted it to her.
“Just words,” Elena blurted from the pillow.
“I want us to be married,” Eitel said.
She sat up then and turned her face to his.
“You see, what I thought is that we could go on like this, and when you felt that it wasn’t good any more, well, then, before we broke up we could get married and then we could get divorced. I mean I know how much you’d like to get married because you feel that no one cares about you that much, and I want to s
how you that I do.”
Tears came into her eyes, ran down her cheek, and slowly dripped onto her hands. She sat there limply with her hands in her lap.
“What do you think, darling?”
“You have no respect for me,” she said in a wooden voice.
“But I have so much respect. Can’t you see?”
“Don’t talk about it,” she said.
He felt the kind of mild dismay which comes just before a disaster. “You don’t understand,” he said. “You see, no matter what happens, we’ll get married.”
She shook her head from side to side in a slow bewildered way. “Oh, Charley,” she said, “I hate myself. I’ve been trying to get up the courage to leave you, and I can’t. I’m afraid.”
“Then you must marry me the way I said.”
“No. Don’t you know I could never do that? Don’t you realize the way you asked me?”
“But you have to marry me,” he said with panic. The exit had been prepared, and now she was closing it. If they didn’t marry, he would remain wedded to her.
“When you don’t want me, I’ll go,” Elena said. “But I don’t want to talk about it any more.”
Finally, she had gained his respect, and he could never explain it to her. With numb fingers he touched her foot. The essence of spirit, he thought to himself, was to choose the thing which did not better one’s position but made it more perilous. That was why the world he knew was poor, for it insisted morality and caution were identical. He was so completely of that world, and she was not. She would stay with him until he wanted her no longer, and the thought of what would happen afterward ground his flesh with pain as real as a wound. “I’m rotten,” he said aloud, and with the desire to prove his despair, he began to cry, clutching her body to him, his fists against her back, while his chest shook from the unaccustomed effort to weep.
Elena was tender to him. Like a sad mother, she stroked his hair. And in a wise little voice, she said, “Let it sneak up on you, darling. Don’t force yourself to cry.” As she caressed his face with her fingers, a slow unhappy smile played over her mouth. “You see, Charley, it’s really not so bad. I can always find another man.”
The Deer Park Page 26