“Isn’t that a crazy sound!” he says. “It blew me away.”
“Where did you get this?”
“Wait!” Greenwood touches a key. “Listen.”
The elk snorts. And there it is … faintly in the background: a different sound. A new sound, so low you wouldn’t hear if you weren’t already straining your ears.
“But that’s …”
“Look!”
The elk has arched its swollen neck. It’s scanning the horizon, then it vanishes.
A lion takes its place: a huge male lion, sleeping in the swaying grass of an African savanna. Its jaw rests on a forepaw, a slight breeze ruffles the strands of its enormous mane. There’s the soft, low buzz of insects; a fly lands on its golden flank, pauses, flits away. Haunches shimmer in the heat, but the lion does not stir. And then the roar. Roebuck is expecting it, but still the volume startles him. One moment the animal is asleep, inert, at peace, the next it’s standing on its tiptoes, quivering as its eyes rake the grasslands, searching, searching …
“Where did …?”
“Wait!”
The lion’s tongue snakes across its muzzle. And there is again … that sound—so anomalous—rhythmic like a drumbeat, but not … something else … Roebuck feels a shiver, literally, running up his own spine.
“Amazing,” he says.
“I’m thinking we can start to jack the volume here.” Greenwood kills the picture.
“There’s more?”
“Not yet.”
“Where did all this come from?”
“Well, you know, it’s all out there on YouTube. Though so far no usable moose, which surprised me. You’d think moose videos would be a dime a dozen, but not compared to elk.”
“This is very effective, Daniel. The elk is perfect.”
“Thanks. I’m pretty sure we’ll be able to buy that clip. Fairly cheap too, if you want it.”
“Want it? Those vapour trails out the nostrils … Fantastic!”
“What I couldn’t believe was the sound those guys make! They call it bugling.”
“Reminds me more of a string section, fortissimo, all sawing at once.”
“You like it … so far?
“Like is not the word!” To his surprise, Roebuck is standing, pacing up and down Anne’s span of bootlegged hardwood. He doesn’t remember getting to his feet. “This is far beyond the concept stage …”
“It’s not like in the old days, pencil and paper and all that crap. Everybody and his mother puts stuff up on the web. You can cherry pick what you want. This didn’t take me long at all.”
“Can we use it?”
“Most of it. If not, I’ll download something else. Of course for the last scene we talked about—the guys at the café—that’ll need to be original footage. We’ll have to shoot that segment ourselves.”
“And the soundtrack? That background, your drag and clop rendition? I can’t believe how exactly it matches the sound I had in mind.”
“That was Zhanna.”
“Our Zhanna?” Roebuck self-corrects. “Zhanna Lamb, I mean?”
“Walking up and down the foyer of her condo. Nice marble floor, ridiculously good acoustics. She brought six different pairs of shoes to try. The track you’re listening to are the ones that sounded best.”
“But …”
“I recorded it myself, then took it over to the sound engineer. We enhanced it here and there, cleaned it up a bit …”
But Roebuck’s concentration has suddenly faded. Something like this always seems to happen when Greenwood and Zhanna Lamb are brought together in his mind. “Amazing …” he says, still adjusting.
The enthusiasm seems to have leaked out of Greenwood too.
“She’s leaving, you know.”
“Leaving?”
“India, Nepal, those kind of places. Backpacking!” Greenwood is shaking his head. “A year. Maybe two she says. By herself! I just can’t imagine Zhanna with a backpack.”
Roebuck can. He can imagine Zhanna in anything. “The world is that girl’s oyster,” he says softly. For reasons that he can’t quite come to terms with, this piece of news has revived his spirits.
Not Greenwood’s. “That’s such a stupid expression.”
“Sorry?”
“The world is your oyster. It’s disgusting.”
“That’s only because you don’t like oysters.”
“What makes you think I don’t like oysters?”
Roebuck pulls a stool out from under Anne’s teak tabletop. “I don’t know,” he says. It’s just that Greenwood strikes him as the kind of person who would not like oysters.
“I love oysters. And you’re wrong about women, too.”
“Wrong?”
“About what women really want.”
“Oh,” says Roebuck, sighing. “Please. What do women really want?”
“What they want is to be truly seen. To be understood for what they really are …”
“Right. Sure. Beautiful and good and smart …”
“No! That’s the part you’re wrong about. That’s what needs to be said! That she’s beautiful and smart and good. That she’s totally unique. You can’t repeat that too often. It’s what every woman needs to hear.”
“And you don’t think she’ll pick up the irony?”
“Irony? What are you talking about?”
“That every woman is unique? Every woman.”
“Women don’t like irony.”
“Well, you’re on to something there. Also I’ll agree it’s standard practice. Tell her she’s beautiful and smart and good. Then say it again. Then say it again and again and again and again and then, when you think she can’t possibly fail to see where you’re going, say it again a half a dozen more times because you’re absolutely right, most women can never hear it enough. But it gets tedious, doesn’t it? I mean from our perspective? The messenger’s?”
“What are you saying?”
“It’s like a form of sexual patriotism. Like America. You tell Americans they’re exceptional. You tell them they’re brave and true and good. You keep on saying it. You’re the best. You’re the best. You’re the best. Because they never get tired of it. Never. Sure, you can attach that message to your brand, and they’ll wear it as proudly as they do their flag. But doesn’t it get boring? Doesn’t it get just, so … easy?”
“But that’s our job! That’s … Jesus, Julius.”
“Please don’t get me wrong. I love women. Truly. But at least we can add a little nuance. If not for their sake, then for ours.”
“You are making me worried.”
“Remember that lesson you learned, back when you started, that it really does work? Flattery. That she really will believe it? It’s a hard lesson—that you honestly can shoot fish in a barrel. I remember it with sadness.” Roebuck stoops and leans against the table. “But maybe you haven’t got there yet …” he’s searching Greenwood’s face. “No,” he says, deciding. “Not possible. But it was depressing, wasn’t it? When you realized the truth of it. That if you tell a woman what she wants to hear, she really will buy into whatever you’re selling.” He draws a breath. “It’s demotivating.”
Greenwood is staring as if Roebuck has admitted some communicable disease.
“Anyway,” Roebuck says—he is fading—“there are other ways of saying the same thing, but at least more indirectly. Ways that involve at least a little more … complexity. A little more interesting, maybe, somehow. A little more … fair.” Still leaning on the table, a bit light-headed, now, Roebuck throws a leg over the stool, drops into the seat and then, too late—far, far too late—recalls the terrible unwisdom of this act. A white-hot blast has detonated upward from his groin and echoes through the sudden vacuum in his chest. It takes all of his willpower not to reach between his legs and c
radle the shriek in his scrotum. He stops the hand—barely—and presses it instead into his abdomen.
“Are you all right?” Greenwood has jumped to his feet.
Roebuck can’t speak. He nods, sucks air.
“Jesus, that’s one bad case of stomach flu!”
“It’ll pass.” Roebuck’s lungs are beginning to function.
Greenwood is folding up his laptop. “Have you seen a doctor?”
“Oh yes …” The worst of it is nearly over. Roebuck draws a ragged breath. “This is terrific work, Daniel. I’m extremely impressed …”
Greenwood has stuffed the laptop back inside his bag and drawn the leather strap across his chest. He looks like some kind of Mexican bandit about to saddle up and vamoose across the border. “I hope you’re not contagious.”
He is out the door and gone before Roebuck can remind either one of them that they don’t even have this hypothetical account; still don’t even know if it’s available. But on the other hand, that’s how you pursue things in life—isn’t it?—in the hope of expectation. Roebuck pours himself a cup of coffee and seats himself more carefully this time, testicles thrumming like a hive of frightened bees.
13
Art for art’s sake is like cooking for cooking’s sake.
We don’t cook for the sake of cooking; we cook for the sake of eating.
The Collected Sayings of Julius Roebuck
The rest of the weekend flows by almost pleasantly. He could get used to this, if he isn’t careful, life in his pyjamas. In the eyes of his household Roebuck remains an invalid, though convalescing well. He is excused from most domestic chores. Anne even drives Zach to his Sunday morning baseball practice. Roebuck feels genuinely guilty, though it’s only just this once. She’s back now, making lunch; another task that most weekends would fall to him. All three kids are partial to grilled cheese with a side of dilly gherkin, thinly sliced.
Working upstairs where things are quiet, he has just discovered a new email from Lily. “Hear you’re down with a bug. Worn out?” He is formulating his reply when the doorbell chimes. Lily, too, will need some careful managing, which in turn reminds him that above all he must come to terms with the challenge of his new Brazilian. Roebuck understands that there are men in this new era who shave their bodies like women. But he also knows that Lily knows he is definitely not a member of that demographic. The only safe solution is to avoid her altogether until everything has grown back. Besides, the No Fuss Clinic website reminds him that he’s still fertile, technically, for a minimum of eight weeks and twenty ejaculations until the last of the swimmers are safely cleansed from his system. Roebuck has promised himself that Lily’s eggs and his departing sperm will, from this point forward, have zero opportunity to meet and greet. He foresees a lot of unexpected business travel in the weeks ahead and a wealth of headaches. This will take some honest creativity.
“If I’m not mistaken,” he writes, “you were the one unconscious before I even left the house …”
Anne and Yasmin walk into his room together.
“Look,” Anne says brightly. “You have a visitor!”
Yasmin is carrying a bouquet of flowers. They are exactly the variety of roses he sent to Helen at the clinic. Roebuck hits “Save” and closes down his mail. To give himself more time, he coughs, then coughs again. He will have to work around that Karma at some time in the future.
“Poor sick man!” Yasmin shapes her lips into a sympathetic pout.
“Just between the two of us, I think he’s starting to enjoy it.”
Roebuck coughs a third time, more forcefully, and reaches for his Kleenex.
“Well, I’m sure he deserves it.”
Anne shoots Yasmin a look. Roebuck’s senses go on high alert. “Are those for me?” he asks, swallowing.
“You see! His voice is so crackly!”
“Actually,” says Yasmin, “they’re for both of you: Yellow roses … for friendship, a precious thing I almost threw away.” She extends the bouquet—after a moment it becomes clear that Yasmin is asking for someone to take the flowers off her hands. Roebuck draws the sheets more tightly to his body; he is feeling seriously chilled.
“I’ll get a vase,” Anne says, though it’s also clear that she is hesitant to leave the room.
“Don’t worry,” Yasmin tells her, “I promise to wait until you’re back.”
The two women smile. Anne takes the flowers in her arms, “I won’t be a moment.”
Roebuck feels a dampness spreading in his armpits, a quivering of nerves between his shoulders.
Yasmin stands in the middle of his room; Roebuck lies with his back against a mound of pillows piled against the headboard. The two of them listen to the sound of Anne receding down the stairs. Yasmin takes a quick step back, quietly, and then another, leaning out the door to scan the hall. Her skirt rides high and stretches taut.
An instant later, she’s on top of him.
“It’s now!” she says kneading the back of Roebuck’s neck.
Yasmin’s hair falls against his cheek; he feels the swelter of her breath against his skin. “Now!” Her hands go sliding up and down his arms like she’s squeezing something out of him, silk blouse gaping open. Roebuck breathes the waves of puckered heat. “Wouldn’t you know! It’s right fucking now!” Yasmin’s bra is yellow, too, like the roses but with leopard spots. She straightens abruptly, listens—nods—then twitches something from her purse. “Look!” A pink thermometer gleams between her fingers then slides into her mouth. Roebuck watches, blood-hot, as Yasmin’s lips close then part again as it emerges, dewy and glistening. “See! A full degree above my basal body temperature!” She groans and drops it back into the purse. “Do you think …? No, too late!” Her hand slips back into the bag and emerges with something else. “Yes” she says, deciding. “No. Not this time.” There is now an orange-lidded sample jar clasped against her breast. Yasmin’s eyes have closed; she’s counting days. “And anyway, you might still be contagious.” He can feel the mattress vibrate as she slithers off the bed. “We’ll just have to wait another month.”
Her hearing must be sharper than his because a few seconds later Anne comes through the door with his roses arranged in a vase. Yasmin has already smoothed her skirt and returned to the spot where she was standing. “There!” says Anne, setting the flowers where he can see them on his nightstand. “Aren’t they beautiful?” She is looking at Yasmin, who returns the warmth.
Roebuck’s knees are drawn up almost to his chin in order to conceal the enormity of his arousal.
“Well, then,” says Yasmin, rubbing a dab of sanitizing gel between her palms. “I’ll say what I came to say and leave you two to enjoy the rest of your weekend in peace and harmony.” Roebuck looks at Anne, who is watching her friend as if she’s part of an audience awaiting its cue to applaud.
Yasmin clears her throat.
“I just wanted to say how sorry I am … Anne, Julius … I’ve been so selfish. I know how uncomfortable this has made you. Anne, both of you …” She turns, here, and looks soulfully at Roebuck whose erection oscillates like a sentient metronome with each contraction of his heart. “I promise you,” Yasmin has locked eyes again with Anne, “I promise you that you won’t have to worry about this anymore! Can you forgive me?” Roebuck slides a pillow from behind his back, drops it in his lap, and rests his elbows on the hump. Anne’s eyes are gleaming. “Oh, honey, of course I do!”
The women embrace.
Thank God he’s on his sickbed, because for a second Anne looks like she wants him to get up and join the hug. Roebuck thunks another pillow on the heap. It takes a while, but in due course Yasmin dabs the corner of her eye with a tissue winkled from the box beside his bed and announces it’s time she’s on her way.
“I’ll see you out,” Anne tells her fondly.
“Thank you for the flowers,” murmurs Roebuck
.
“Oh, listen to that voice! He’s still so hoarse.”
“Make him take his vitamins.” Yasmin wets her lips again and Roebuck has to look away.
He listens to them chatting as they make their way downstairs. “While you’re here,” Anne says, “I should show you the engineer’s report for Russell Hill …”
“It’s back already?”
“Last week.”
“Oh God, Anne! I’m so sorry! I haven’t been paying attention. It’s like I’ve been insane.”
“Don’t worry. We’ll put all that behind us now …”
It’s the last thing he hears before they’ve moved on out of earshot. Cautiously, Roebuck makes his way into the bathroom. Although the clinic website has advised that sexual intercourse, per se, ought to be avoided, it also says that “gentle sex” (defined as “getting an erection and ejaculating”) should be safe to undertake at any time. He locks both bathroom doors and turns on all the faucets.
“If I’m not mistaken,” Roebuck continues, much relieved though still extremely tender, “you were the one unconscious before I even left the house. But be that as it may …”
There’s an empty, tingling kind of soreness, a vacant after-throb—but now at least his mind is clear, and it’s a great relief to know for certain; he was genuinely anxious that he’d blown some kind of valve. There must still be water in his ear, because he hasn’t heard Anne at all until he glances up and sees her standing by the corner of his bed. Roebuck closes down his laptop.
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