by Brian Morton
So he ended up thinking that he’d been had. She’d probably always known that Landau was a friend of his. She’d probably asked him to take part in the discussion in D.C., he thought, only because she hoped he’d deliver Landau. Maybe that was the only reason she’d selected one of his pictures for the show in the first place.
This was probably paranoid. He wouldn’t be thinking like this if he weren’t feeling so demoralized.
It was time to go. He went to the pay phone near the men’s room and called Nora. She answered. Obviously, she’d forgotten about their date.
He didn’t say anything.
He remembered the night she’d called him and he’d recognized her silence. She didn’t recognize his. He hung up.
Isaac walked east toward the library. It was a cold night in October, the first night that year that truly felt like fall. There was an end-of-everything feeling in the air.
When he got to the library, the reception was already in full swing. The room was dotted with photojournalists, each of whom was in the midst of a little cluster of friends. Photo-journalists: a curious tribe. The most successful, the most famous of them were those who had traveled to the world’s danger spots. Some of them did it out of political conviction, some out of a sense of journalistic calling, some because it seemed one of the best ways, one of the only ways, for a photographer to become a celebrity. They went into it for many different reasons, but all of them shared a certain style. They all seemed like swashbucklers. Most of them smoked, as if they believed they’d soon meet with violent ends and therefore didn’t give a damn about cancer. None of them went so far as to wear safari jackets, but they all seemed to be in safari jackets just the same. There were about twenty of them in the room, and there wasn’t one of them who couldn’t have been a big-game hunter in another life.
The first thing he did, of course, was look for his picture. The photographs were arranged in groups that made no sense to him. “Witnesses,” “Visionaries,” “Redeemers,” “Mourners,” “Avengers.” How can a photojournalist be an avenger? The tragedy of photojournalism is that you can’t avenge anything. You can only watch.
His own photograph was of an elderly victim of the Tuskegee Experiment—in which the government had secretly left untreated a group of syphilitic black men, in order to study the long-term effects of the disease—confronting one of the bureaucrats who’d dreamed it up. He looked through Witnesses and Mourners, and his picture was in neither group. It must have been lumped in with the Redeemers somehow.
But it wasn’t among the Redeemers, or the Avengers, or the Visionaries. Or at least he couldn’t find it. I must have walked right by myself, he thought. He noticed a table with a stack of brochures about the exhibit, picked one up, and scanned the list of photographers. His name wasn’t there.
He leaned against a wall and tried to breathe normally.
A tall and embarrassed-looking young woman in a vest came by, bearing a tray of fried zucchini sticks. As she held it out to him she said something that sounded like, “You look like the one person here who isn’t verifying the mumps.” He thought of asking her to repeat herself, but he was so disconsolate that he couldn’t form the words. He smiled and nodded, hoping that this added up to an appropriate response, and he felt old. This is what old deaf men do: they smile and nod at everything.
He looked around the room for Nadine, but he couldn’t see her. Finally he caught sight of her underling, a jolly-bearded man named Freddy. Isaac took another moment to collect himself, and then bore down on him. He was glad to be so tall, glad that he could use his height to intimidate people when he chose to.
“What’s the deal here, Freddy? Where’s my picture?”
Freddy looked stricken with concern; he had the same expression Isaac’s grandmother used to have when Isaac had a fever. “Oh gosh. Oh my gosh. You were supposed to get a fax. There were space problems, and we had to cut about ten pictures out of the show. Don’t worry, though—you’re still going to be in the book. And the book’s the thing that lasts.”
“Freddy, that’s bad.” He put his hands on Freddy’s shoulders and for a moment considered picking him up and letting him dangle in the air. But then he remembered that Freddy had nothing to do with the decision, so he let him alone, and Freddy slipped away.
A few minutes ago, he’d been excited about mingling with the people in the room, but now he felt he didn’t belong here. Over the years he’d met a fair number of these people, but though some of them passed their eyes over him, none gave any sign of recognition. It wasn’t that they were snubbing him: they didn’t remember him. He wasn’t important enough to snub.
Nathaniel McCall, who’d made a name for himself with his photographs of the aftermath of ethnic cleansing in Bosnia, was heading Isaac’s way. He was a large man with long and lovingly tended hair. For reasons Isaac had never been able to fathom, McCall had always disliked him.
“Hello old man,” McCall said. He had somehow acquired an English accent over the last few years. “Wouldn’t have expected to see you here. Are you still with—what is it? The Bergen Bugle?”
The insult was like a chess move you couldn’t parry. The name of the paper was the North Jersey Register, so if Isaac were to correct him, he’d merely be humiliating himself a second time.
If you can’t parry an attack, launch one of your own. “How are you, Nathaniel? Still carrying around that curling iron?”
Nathaniel, a legendary fop, had traveled to North Korea for Newsweek at a time when relations with the United States were particularly tense, and when the border guards had come upon a portable hair dryer in his luggage, its vague resemblance to a gun had given them a (completely spurious) excuse to detain him for two days.
“I’m serious, Isaac. I’ve often wondered about you. I’m really curious as to why you decided to hide your light under a bushel.”
Isaac began to search for a comeback, but then decided that it wasn’t worth it. McCall must not have gotten the news that I’m not even worth being hostile to anymore, Isaac thought. He patted him on the arm and walked away.
He ended up at the bar and ordered his usual: club soda. He liked to order club soda rather than, say, Coke, because it seemed more romantic. A man who orders a club soda, one must assume, is an alcoholic, waging a lonely war against his demons. He’d never quite been an alcoholic, but he wasn’t above playing the lonely tragic haunted alcoholic card—as feeble as it was, since no one was watching.
Someone was waving to him. Earl, his former assistant, Renee’s semi-boyfriend. Earl was here.
He was wearing overalls and a Nike cap. He looked like a country bumpkin, gawking at the city slickers, all agog. He looked as if he was astounded to be in a room where there was free food.
“Wow,” he said to Isaac. “Great party.”
Isaac had invited Renee and Earl to the show a few weeks ago. He’d invited Earl only because he wanted Renee to come, and if you asked one you had to ask both. He’d thought—this was before Renee got her New Yorker news—that she’d be impressed. He’d had a fond picture of Nora and Renee standing next to him, bearing witness to his success, bearing witness to the fact that he was good enough to play with the big kids. Which, it had turned out, he wasn’t.
“Renee asked me to tell you she’s sorry she couldn’t be here. She’s leaving for Indonesia on Sunday and she has a lot of packing to do.” He tugged on his cap, looking like Huntz Hall in the old Bowery Boys movies, except that Huntz Hall used to wear a beanie. “Man,” he said. “This is great.”
Isaac felt embarrassed to be standing here with him. Where was Nora? Where was Renee? How had he ended up like this—squiring around a coarse twenty-three-year-old boy at a social function where you’re supposed to have an interesting woman on your arm?
Isaac was actually glad that Nora and Renee weren’t here to witness his evening of defeat. But he would have liked it if Earl wasn’t here either.
Isaac finished his club soda, excused himself,
and went to the men’s room. When he returned, Earl had a drink in his hand and was chumming around in a little cluster of young people. He’d already made friends. Isaac felt relieved, because Earl was off his hands, but also strangely angry: insulted, because Earl had already found some other grown-ups, assuredly more successful than Isaac, to latch on to.
Someone had made a joke, and Earl was laughing, with a high, horselike laugh. Maybe later he’ll bark like a dog for them, Isaac thought, and felt ashamed of himself.
Another young woman came around with a tray; she looked arch and remote.
“What are those?” Isaac said, grinning, trying to flirt, although “What are those?” wasn’t much of a line.
“Stuffed mushrooms,” she said. “They’re superb.” And then, before he could take one, she moved on.
She was probably heading over to McCall—hurrying, so the mushrooms wouldn’t cool off before he could taste them.
Earl seemed to be at home around the “superb” hors d’oeuvres and the inflated reputations. No, Isaac thought, that idea was not only unkind, it was inaccurate. Even if some of these photographers weren’t as good as their reputations, the fact was that they’d stuck with it, as he hadn’t. They deserved their success.
He finally spotted Nadine, but he didn’t approach her. She was talking with a man he didn’t recognize, a broodingly unshaven man in his twenties. Although he looked quite grave, she was laughing at something he’d said. She threw her head back, baring her throat in a gesture of animal invitation.
Susan Becker, an editor from the Boston Globe, came up to say hello, and she and Isaac small-talked for a few minutes. Isaac had always liked her; she reminded him of his sister.
Susan was unhappy because three people who worked for her were leaving: two to have babies, one to travel the world. “If you hear of anybody good who needs a job, let me know.”
“Do they have to have experience?”
“Young, old. Doesn’t matter. They have to be competent, and they have to be reliable. No flakes. But that’s about it.”
The job would be perfect for Earl. The Globe would be a great place to start off. And he could handle it. He was a talented, hardworking, responsible young man.
When Isaac was in his twenties, he’d once said to his sister that every time he’d gotten a break in life, it was because one old Jewish guy or another had helped him out. “What’ll I do when they’re all gone?” “By that time,” his sister had said, “you’ll be the old Jewish guy.”
Glancing over Susan’s shoulder, Isaac could see that Earl was still having a fine time, and he realized that he didn’t feel like doing him a favor.
“If I think of anybody, I’ll let you know,” he said.
There are times when you know what you should do, but you don’t do it. During the two years it took him to quit smoking, almost every time he picked up a cigarette he would think, “This is wrong,” and then he would light it.
The opening, the public part of the event, was coming to an end; the dinner, which was invitation-only, was beginning.
People were beginning to drift off toward the dining room. Isaac didn’t want to go in. He thought he’d just give the ticket to Earl.
“Well, buddy,” he said, “I’ve got to get going a little early. Why don’t you take this.” He gave him the ticket.
“Really?” Earl said.
“Really.”
“I can’t believe this. You’re awesome!”
The poor kid had no way of knowing that Isaac had screwed him. Would never know.
“You’re a true mentor,” Earl said.
Isaac shook his hand, leaning backward to ward off a possible hug.
After he left the building, walking past one of the great stone lions, he thought that he’d not only let Earl down, he’d let himself down. He had obeyed his baser instincts.
If Earl had been a young woman, would Isaac have done the same thing? If he’d been an attractive young woman . . . ?
He remembered how, a few weeks ago, he’d forced himself to behave generously toward Renee—forced himself to appear delighted by her success—and how, at the end of that evening, he’d felt a little more human.
He turned around and went up to the dining room, found Earl, found Susan Becker, and introduced them. “Here’s your man,” Isaac said, clapping Earl on the back with a false heartiness.
Leaving the building for the second time, he didn’t feel better. He felt worse. He would have felt better if he’d hurt someone. Nadine, Freddy, McCall, Earl, Susan. Almost anyone.
35
HE FOUND A PAY PHONE on the corner, called his answering machine, and got Nora’s message. She’d remembered the exhibit after all; she’d just been too tired to attend it. He didn’t know if that made him feel better or worse.
She’d invited him over. He took the subway to the Upper West Side—his car was in the shop. Nora’s doorman, Arthur, greeted him by name, and Isaac had to be personable.
When he got out of the elevator, Nora had her door open. She was leaning against the doorjamb, looking welcoming but tired.
“Hi,” she said. “I’m really sorry about the library thing. I’m glad you came.”
He nodded. Somehow her calling it “the library thing” made him angrier.
“How was it? What did I miss?”
“You missed some superb mushrooms.”
“How was Nadine? Did she spend the whole night flirting with you?”
“Nadine. Yes. Nadine and I are thick as thieves.”
The upright bass he’d picked up for his nephew was still in the corner—he kept forgetting to take it to his brother’s, though he lived only about fifteen blocks away. Against the wall, sitting on its little card table, Nora’s computer was on. She had a Star Trek screensaver: silver stars slipping slowly through space. To the right of the computer was a stack of printed pages. He thought of Nora at her computer, thoughtfully replacing a semicolon with a comma while he waited for her at the diner, his mouth full of mushy wet grape leaves.
“You been writing?”
“Yeah.” She swept her hand in the air in a gesture that seemed to indicate the poetic difficulty of writing.
She’d been too tired to join him at what they both thought would be a special occasion for him, but she hadn’t been too tired to write.
“You know, I haven’t read anything of yours in a long time,” he said.
“I know,” she said. “I know.”
“Why don’t you let me read what you’re writing?” Let me see what was so much more important than coming to the reception with me.
“It’s funny you should ask. I was just thinking I’d like you to read it.” She didn’t look as though she’d been thinking this; in fact she looked as if the idea made her ill.
He was oddly disappointed. It was as if he’d wanted her to say no, so he could have another reason to be angry with her.
“Great,” he said. He walked toward the card table.
“I didn’t mean now.”
“Why not? If not now, when?”
“If not now, later. It’ll be weird being in the same room while you’re reading it. I’ll wonder what you’re thinking about every sentence.”
“I’m sure I’ll be loving every sentence.”
He didn’t know what he was after. He wanted the story to be great or terrible. If it was great, he could punish himself with the reflection that Nora, like Renee, was artistically out of his league—the thought of how untalented he was. If it was terrible, he could be angry with her for staying home to write instead of keeping her date with him.
He picked up the story and sat on the couch.
“I can’t sit here while you’re reading,” she said. “I’m too nervous. I have to take a walk.”
“Okay.” He looked down at the story and then looked up at her again. She seemed to have more to say. “Yes?”
“I need you to keep in mind that it’s a story. And I need you to keep an open mind. I know you’re
going to have your reactions, but I hope you won’t make up your mind what you think about it until we talk.”
“Fine. Of course.” He was beginning to wonder what he’d gotten into.
She picked up her wallet. “I’ll be at the bookstore. I’ll see you in half an hour.”
She left, and he read the first paragraph of her story. It was about him.
He read the story slowly. When he read the first page, he was flattered. She was describing his appearance, and she evidently thought he didn’t look bad. She’d always told him she thought he was handsome, but you can never be sure.
When he got to the third and fourth and fifth pages, he was touched. She was writing about him and his sister. She’d never met Jenny, but she’d captured her on the page. He was touched that Nora had listened so well; he was touched that she cared enough about him to put him at the center of a story.
When he came to the middle of the story, he started to feel uneasy.
When he had finished the story, he felt stunned. Stunned and unloved and alone.
The story was about the trip he took to New Haven to reason with Jenny about her decision to join the cult. Nothing in the story took place the way things had actually happened. The train had never broken down; the friends of Jenny’s who’d cowed Isaac into silence didn’t exist. But at the same time, Nora’s intuitions were uncanny. His failure of nerve hadn’t taken the form it took in the story, but he had had a failure of nerve. And he had let Jenny down.
He closed his eyes and thought about the way it had really happened—the argument about the cheeseburger, the lost keys. The way things had really happened was so undramatic that a year from now he’d probably remember Nora’s version more vividly than his own.