My Father More or Less

by Jonathan Baumbach

  Terman went up Camden Hill Road to Holland Street, thought to turn but couldn’t without going against himself, made his way to Peele Street where Isabelle had her two room flat. He passed Isabelle’s building, went on to the next street, then crossed over and doubled back. He was studying the windows of her aparment when a man working in a garden asked him if he knew the time. He wasn’t listening and offered the man a cigarette, which the other accepted with some reluctance. “Ta,” said the gardener. “And what’s the hour, mate?”

  “Eleven o’clock,” Terman said without looking at his watch.

  “Can’t be right,” said the other and turned his attention to a wheelbarrow filled with cement.

  Giving the time away, Terman felt, was like losing it irretrievably. It was a perception he had had when he was five years old that he had never fully shaken off.

  He shadowed her house for hours in his imagination, this shadow of her former lover, accumulating evidence of infidelity and betrayal.

  Waiting for Isabelle to answer the door, he could think of nothing to say that would explain the presumption of his visit, trusted to crisis and native wit. He waited five or six minutes—his private clock accurate to a fault—perceiving her continuing absence as further evidence of her contempt. When he knocked the door was opened to him. “You didn’t say you were coming over,” Isabelle said. “How was I to know?” She was wearing a bathrobe over a slip and looked like she had just taken a bath or been in bed. He embraced her clumsily. “I didn’t realize how much I missed you,” he said. Her arms circled him without pressure. He was overwhelmed with affection for her, spoke her name with the care one gives a sacred object.

  “Did you want to come in?” she asked with a notable absence of conviction. “There’s someone else here.”

  “Someone else and the corpse not yet buried?” He meant it to be amusing, but the words came out etched with bitterness.

  “I didn’t mean it quite that way,” she said.

  She preceded him in. The someone, a silver-haired man was sitting in the parlor on a yellow velvet love seat, aggressively smoking a cigar. The men nodded curtly to each other.

  Max looked everywhere but at his former collaborator. “I was going to call you as soon as I got to the office,” he said. “The news of our project is not so bad, not at all despicable.”

  Isabelle side-stepped her way into the small kitchen, vanished without explaining herself. “In a moment,” Terman said to Max, holding up a finger, and trailed Isabelle into the kitchen, his limp as he followed her insisting on its prerogatives.

  “I thought I’d make a pot of coffee,” she said, “unless the two of you prefer to have tea.” Terman stood behind her and observed his knee brushing the back of her leg. “There’s not sufficient room for both of us,” she said.

  “I want him out of here,” he said.

  “Tell him that if you like.”

  Her head bruised his mouth when he kissed her, was backing up as he was coming forward. It struck her as funny but then she apologized for laughing. Terman embraced her from behind, slipped by her, and returned to the sitting room. Max was writing something on the back of an envelope. “Tea about ready?” he asked.

  Terman sat in a chair on the other side of the room, turned it so it faced away.

  “Would you like a Cuban cigar?” Max asked him. “The real thing.”

  Terman said, or thought of saying, that there wasn’t anything he wanted from Max.

  “We’re still waiting,” Max said, “for the other shoe to fall. Actually there’s another project I want to sound you out on. Could you come by the office tomorrow first thing in the morning?”

  “I don’t think so,” he said.

  “Prior commitment, is it? Give me a ring at the office and we’ll arrange something else, cowboy.”

  Isabelle returned and sat down at the apex of the imaginary triangle. She had a teapot, three spoons and a bowl of sugar cubes on a tray, but she had forgotten the cups and the pitcher of milk. “I can’t go back into the kitchen,” she said. “I really can’t.” She held the tray in her lap, the teapot balanced in the center. Tears overfilled her eyes. “I almost never cry,” she said.

  “It’s true,” said Max from behind his cigar. “I’ve never seen her cry.” He rose abruptly from the loveseat as if propelled by this negative recollection. “This is something extremely rare we’re privileged to witness.”

  Terman eased himself from his chair, crossed the room in two strides and, without prior indication of intent, knocked Max down. Max smiled, looked astonished. “I don’t understand what’s going on,” Isabelle said to no one.

  Terman took the tray from Isabelle’s lap and put it down on an end table. “I’ll get cups from the kitchen for you,” he said. His thumb hurt and he studied it for signs of dislocation, held it to the light. Max was on his feet, pulling a sweater on over his head, when Terman, without thinking about it, knocked him into the couch.

  “There’s no need for that,” Isabelle said, her head turned away like a partial secret.

  Max sprawled on the couch with his fists in front of his face in mock defense. “He has a tendency to overstate,” he said. “The next time you hit me, I’ll cut your ears off with a razor.”

  Isabelle came over and put her arms around him from behind. “Be a love,” she said, “and go home.”

  “I haven’t finished,” he said.

  A throw pillow, defining itself in flight, glanced off the side of Terman’s head.

  Isabelle continued to hold on to him from behind. “I’ll come back tonight and stay with you,” she whispered, “if that’s what you want.”

  He said yes and felt the death of desire, the small quenching of a still smaller passion. Only frustration was eased, necessity quieted. He struggled to feel love, to shake and burn with feeling.

  His thumb ached. Disappointment arose unbidden, diminished him with its niggardly claim.

  “You’re the love of my life,” he said to her at the door, her hand on his arm, steering him out.

  Dismissed, he waited on the street for Max to follow, regretting that he had yielded his place for so small a price. Jealousy passed through him like a sweat of mild fever. In moments Max came through the door, scowling, hair askew from the first kiss of wind, and the former collaborators faced each other as adversaries.

  Max pointed a finger at him. “You’re lucky I don’t bear grudges,” The director walked past him then came back, holding a rock the size of his hand. “I’d like to put your face through the other side of your head, you fucking degenerate,” Max said.

  Terman grinned, though believed himself angry. He held up his walking stick in case the other meant business.

  “I’m a civilized man,” Max said. “I abhor violence, though when a man abuses me the way you have I’ll go to any length to pay him back.”

  Max backed off when Terman wagged his cane, feinted with the rock which he hefted behind his ear in throwing position.

  Their confrontation embarrassed Terman—perhaps worried him too—and he looked for a way out. “An overdose of melodrama,” he said, a parody of one of Max’s remarks. “I’m sorry I punched you when you weren’t looking.”

  “Apology unacceptable,” Max said, though his face relaxed into a self-mocking smile. “If you apologize for the second punch, perhaps we can come to terms.”

  8

  I ran, trying to make it look like a form of exercise and not, what it was, a display of panic. It was not the wisest course of action. I say that from the vantage of retrospection, though I thought at the time I could lose my pursuers. Before I had broken into a run, I had turned a few corners, had doubled back on myself, if only to demonstrate that their continued presence behind me wasn’t a coincidence. They were punks, my age or slightly older, parodies of some ideal of ugliness. They had been watching me at Selfridges and may have thought I had taken something to which they had some claim.

  I shed them despite their tenacity until I m
ade the mistake of turning up a side street that they happened to be heading down. They were at the far end of the block and may not have noticed me until I turned around and retraced my steps. What else could I have done?

  I sprinted this time for about half a mile, and when I got tired I ducked into a crowded bakery and watched them rush by while I waited my turn. The punks were only gone a few minutes before they returned. I could see them in reflection, looking into the windows of shops across the street.

  After I left the bakery, getting out I think without being seen, I took refuge in a phone booth and, to justify my act, made some calls.

  It wasn’t so much that I was scared as that I thought I ought to be. I phoned Isabelle and got no answer, then I remembered the old guy that had taken me to lunch and I dialed the first of the two numbers on his card. A supercilious young man (or woman—it was hard to tell) answered and wanted to know my business with Mr. Fitzjohn. “Mr. Fitzjohn asked me to call him,” I said, reading the name off the card. “Yes, but may I ask on what business?” he said with the phony politeness of someone trying to brush you off without giving cause for complaint. “Just tell him the fellow he met at the bookstore is on the phone.” I gave him my name. A knock on the glass took me by surprise. A face peered in, mean and witless, the pasty pocked skin like a death mask. It hung there a moment, then disappeared. “Mr. Fitzjohn is in conference,” said my informant. “I’ll give him the message that you rang up.” “He wants to speak to me,” I said. “He’s been waiting for my call.” “Why don’t you leave your number with me, Mr. Terman, and I’ll have him ring you when he gets out of conference.” There was no number to leave and nothing I could say to break through his act. Before I could invent a new story, he had hung up. Holding the dead phone in my hand, I couldn’t think why I had called the old guy in the first place. I mean, what could I possibly have expected? Most likely, he would have advised me to call the police. What I wanted was an offer of sanctuary, some place to go where I was safe.

  I wasn’t without resources. I made a pretend call to the police, shouting into the phone that there were these three punks menacing me. Wherever they were hiding—I couldn’t see any of them from the phone box—they were probably too far away to hear my bluff. I was ranting into the phone like some kind of madman, saying whatever came into my head. I couldn’t understand why they didn’t come at me in the booth. One of them could pull the door open while the other two rushed in and grabbed me. If they charged me, I would have to use the gun to protect myself and I was considering whether it would be enough to show it to them. The idea of teaching them a lesson attracted me, of letting them know they had fucked with the wrong person. I felt a surge of outrage (I was a guest in their country, wasn’t I?) and imagined their astonishment when I pointed the gun at them and opened fire. The rat-faced one with the purple hair, the most unpleasant of the three, would fall first, a look of total disbelief on his face, then the tall loose-limbed one with the pocked faced. The fat one, who couldn’t keep up with the others, who seemed content merely to hang around with them, would run for his life. And maybe then, I would understand what they were about, would feel their loss like the death of someone close I had wanted to love but hadn’t been able to until it no longer mattered. It gave me a lift for the moment, a fast-fading high, to imagine the danger I represented to them.

  “I have my motor parked just around the corner,” Max was saying. “Why don’t we go over to my office, old son, discuss the future of our longstanding collaboration.” He dropped the rock he was holding, put an arm around Terman’s shoulder and led him to a red Corniche parked illegally just where the street turned on itself.

  Although distrustful, Terman offered no resistance, let himself be taken in tow to Max’s car. He had no doubt that Max would find some way to exact vengeance when the time was right. The director would not forgive being knocked down, particularly in front of a woman he wanted to impress.

  The red Corniche pulled up in front of the Holland Park house.

  “This isn’t your office, Max,” he said.

  “It isn’t, is it?” said the director who seemed surprised that it wasn’t. “I just remembered there’s someone hanging out at my office I’m trying to avoid. You don’t mind, do you? We’ll conspire in one of the unused rooms.”

  Terman pretended he had lost his key or left it behind, went through each of his pockets for Max’s witness, feigning distress.

  “That was stupid of you,” Max said.

  “A human error,” he said, forgiving Max his crude remark.

  “I seem to remember a kitchen window that has a broken lock. Do you know the one I mean?”

  “The lock’s been repaired,” Terman said.

  Max studied the situation, removed a key from his wallet. “This just might do the trick,” he said.

  “A skeleton key?” Terman asked.

  Max opened the door. “I have learned, my friend, to be prepared for any emergency that might arise.”

  In a moment they were inside, shoulders bumping as Max pressed on ahead, moving Terman out of his way. Stationing himself at the kitchen table, Max made seven phone calls to let those who might want to be in touch know where he was staying. After that, they settled in the study, Max behind the desk, Terman on the couch, their habitual configuration.

  Max took off his coat, rolled up his sleeves. “To work,” he said, withdrawing a script from his briefcase.

  “How many nephews does the producer have?” asked Terman, a remark he remembered having made at least once before, and which he promised himself he would never make again.

  “Regard,” said Max.

  It was not, as he expected, another version of The Folkestone Conspiracies (AKA “The Last Days of Civilisation”), but something else altogether, an unsigned screen treatment of a moderately popular English novel of two years back. “What am I supposed to do with this?” Terman said. The phone interrupted them, as it would, at approximately eight minute intervals for the next hour. “I want the benefit of a lucid intelligence,” Max said.

  “Wherever you go,” Terman said when Max was free momentarily, “you carry with you the seeds of distraction.”

  “That doesn’t sound quite right,” said Max who seemed to be waiting for the next phone call to deliver him from a conversation he had no inclination to continue.

  I continued moving south, avoiding the mob scenes whenever I could, though also careful not to be caught alone on a side street. I no longer made any effort to get away from them, pretended indifference to their pursuit. They kept out of sight much of the time so when one or another appeared, popping out of some storefront as I passed, it was always a shock.

  Max was lordly on the phone, threatened, cajoled, dispensed rewards, talked in voices Terman had never heard him use before. On one occasion he seemed to be offering the Holland Park house for someone else’s use. “What’s going on?” Terman asked.

  “This doesn’t concern you, cowboy,” said Max. “Not to worry. I’m going to take a bath and change my shirt if it’s all the same to you. You might use the time to review the script I showed you.” He sailed the thick envelope at the couch, Terman ducking under it as it approached his head. “If anyone rings up while I’m in the bath, would you take the number down and say Mr. Kirstner will ring back in a bit. I’d appreciate it if you could do that.”

  “Is the Henry Berger project dead?” he asked.

  “Chancy,” Max said. “Hanging on.”

  “Are we going into production?”

  “Max made a gesture with his hand that indicated the remotest of possibilities. “Some of the money we expected has dried up. The script has got too many private jokes that only you and I understand. Do you get what I’m saying?”

  When the phone rang Max asked Terman if he would answer it and take the caller’s number.

  If that was all that Max wanted, it was easily enough done, yet he held back, letting the contemplation of a response suffice for the response itself
.

  “What are you waiting for?” Max asked.

  “I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop,” said Terman. “I’m waiting for all the money to be in place.”

  Max yawned, turned his back to him. “If you don’t want to work with me on this project,” he said, “you’re perfectly free to go your own way.”

  The moment Terman lifted the phone to say hello, it had silenced.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Max said, his abruptness belying the remark. He left to take a bath like a man leaving on a flight into space.

  Terman stepped out into the hall and listened to the sounds of Max wallowing in his bath. When it was quiet he imagined that Max had fallen asleep in the tub, that leonine head slipping by degrees into the steamy water. The melodrama of Max drowning in his own bath gave him a certain satisfaction like a bad film that fulfills the crude expectations it has itself set in motion. He knocked on the door of the bathroom. “Find your own,” Max said. “This one’s mine.”

  What else might happen? The ringing of the phone recalled him to his study. “Dad,” the voice said, “I’m glad I reached you. I’m having some kind of trouble with these three guys.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Broadwick Street, I think. It’s about a mile southwest of Oxford Street.” He had difficulty catching his breath.