Unraveling

by Owen Thomas

  The great Blair Gaines looked at me in a silent, purple-veined fury. The script in his hand was rolled into a tight scepter and for a moment I imagined him hitting me with it. He dropped the script in the grass at the base of the tree and knocked off his hat. Where the hat had been was a scarlet band around his forehead, his yellow hair matted with sweat against his skin. He began to unbutton his shirt, his eyes never leaving me.

  “Don’t you ever condescend to me about this script, Tillyjohn. I hand picked this material. I’ve read it four dozen times. I know exactly what it’s about. Why do you think I’ve made such an effort to use the original dialogue?” He threw his shirt on the ground and started to roar at me. “Why do you think I have hacked this script to pieces?! Do you think I’m out here yanking my pecker?!”

  “No.”

  “No. You’re goddamned right, no! I know what I’m doing. And if I say you’ve got the wrong tone, then you’ve got the wrong bloody tone. I have asked you to act. And you’re doing a piss-poor job of it. I don’t need you to philosophize about Ivanova’s motivations. I need you to be convincing. One Sundance nomination in a year of slim pickings doesn’t make you an actress. So get over yourself. I need you to deliver the performance of your pathetic career. Do you understand me? You can either work with me or you can walk the hell right out of my picture!”

  Blair turned his back on me abruptly and stripped off his shorts. I watched him, mesmerized by his effrontery, as one watches an unpredictable beast that has come too close. He turned for a moment to look at me, his face an angry precipice of indecision, as though he was not yet done; an acknowledgement that there was still plenty of meat on the carcass. Then, in as graceful a dive as I had ever seen, he slipped naked beneath the surface of the pond. He was as beautiful and as harmless natant as he was savage on land.

  If I had had any idea of who I was at that age, I mean who I really was, or of what sickness fueled the great engines of my self-identity, then I would have been gone – from the lounge, from the tree, from the island – by the time Blair reemerged from beneath the floating carpet of Waterberry blossoms. But, incredibly, I did not know these things back then. And so I stayed, waiting patiently for him to finish me off.

  * * *

  When Blair had again hoisted himself from the water, slick and dap-pled in wet, white blossoms, he summoned Sunjata for a towel. He made no effort to cover himself, nor apologize for the rudeness that had preceded his swim.

  “Goddamned John,” he said, flicking petals from his shoulders and arms. “He’s always been a bit of a puss. Brits are always getting sick. Little hothouse flowers, the lot of them. We could have made a lot of progress today. We could’a been very productive.”

  It was as close to an apology as I would ever get. I knew he was telling me that his anger had more to do with expensive downtime, an idle crew, and the loss of a director’s momentum than it did with the way I was reading or interpreting the part of Elena Ivanova. I knew, or I should say that I thought at the time, that it was the sudden change of pace – from filming safaris and wild animals to suddenly backyard play-acting – that was under his skin. I knew this, though I did not feel it. What I felt, quite powerfully, was the meaning buried in the air between his words – that the great Blair Gaines did not view anything that we had been doing that afternoon as “productive.” I felt that I was a disappointment and a colossal waste of his time.

  Blair dried himself, redressed, and we began again, working through the Ivanova scenes in order. His composure had mostly returned, although I remember being regularly concerned that he would lay into me again. But the fulminations did not return, largely because I worked very hard to gauge Blair’s emotions and avoid offense.

  On the occasions that we worked on new scenes – those with no counterpart in the text of the original story – I found myself fighting to keep my opinions to myself. I was aware that a movie is never a book; that these are two distinct art forms that can mimic one another, but never occupy the same space in the world. So I understood the need to use the story as a starting point and to fill it out cinematically. Just the same, I did not like many of the scenes Blair had added; scenes in which Lieutenant Miller attempts to escape only to be thwarted by Ivanova; scenes in which Ivanova takes an obvious pleasure in the psychological cat and mouse by rather cruelly flirting with Miller; back-story scenes in which Ivanova is a sexual aggressor abusing her power and Miller a dutiful lieutenant out of his depth in the spell of this woman. While these added scenes improved the film, they did not resonate with the underlying story. A screenplay adapted from an original work, to be successful – no, to be true – is like adapting a musical composition into a different key, or for another instrument. The notes can be faster or slower or higher or lower, played on a banjo or by a fifty piece orchestra, but it has to be – somewhere deep inside where the rhythm woos the melody – it has to be the same song.

  As Blair and I worked through his improvements, I found myself oddly defensive of the text Angus Mann had written. I took offense on his behalf, as though I cared as much for the man as I did his little story.

  My last encounter with Angus had been that morning in line at the hotel sundry shop. We stood, one behind the other, for an inter- minable five minutes as the clerk struggled to install a new roll of paper in her adding machine. We did not speak to each other once; as though we were complete strangers. Certainly the clerk would never have guessed that we had spent all of the previous day in the other’s company, much of it in the back seat of a jeep, and much of it fighting over semantics and rolling our eyes at each other’s perspective on everything from film to literature to politics to the social scourge of politically correct speech. I feared that I might eventually come to associate the magnificent savanna with Angus’ sententious lectures.

  By the time the clerk had resolved to use a pencil, I had resolved to allow Angus to nurse his isolationist tendencies as long as possible. I was glad not to talk with him.

  And yet, there I was later in the same day feeling the urge to protect his creation; to protect Angus from a process that from his perspective was an assault to something true. But, in deference to my director, whom I did not wish to anger any further, I suppressed these dissonant feelings as quickly as they arose.

  Mottled by distant clouds, the sun darkened and sank into a horizon of deepening blue, flecked and streaked with ginger. The insects came in their vespertine clouds to reclaim the island and we moved inside. Sunjata and his daughters collected the detritus of our after-noon and cooked us dinner. Blair brushed aside my protestations against imposition as though he were swatting at insects. I stopped resisting and accepted his invitation to stay for dinner when I realized that my resistance was irritating him.

  That my resistance was actually perfunctory escaped us both.

  We ate in high-backed, velvet-cushioned chairs at a square wooden table in the center of a screened veranda. Kainda lit torches around the villa and the giant Waterberry loomed in the dusk as an imposing shadow that seemed to shift and dance with the flame. The aroma of fire-roasted meats was everywhere, mingling with the smell of baked earth and brine. Urenna brought us wine and fresh water, while Sunjata prepared a feast of more nyama choma, this time served with sukuma wiki, a mixture of local greens, and ugali, a stiff porridge of maize flour served in large, flat bricks eaten by breaking off pieces and using them like crude utensils to scoop up the meat. It was easily the best, most deeply satisfying meal I had in Africa.

  When we had finished, Sunjata and his daughters cleared the table and poured us an African dessert wine that was too heavy and sweet to drink accept in small sips, but which quickly became more agreeable.

  The insects and the ocean serenaded from the darkness beyond the torches and we drank and talked into the evening. We spoke mostly of The Lion Tree and of the challenges that Blair knew were coming up in the production. He was having some trouble with two executive producers who had had a falling out over another picture. On
e of the executive producers was threatening to pull out of The Lion Tree unless he got satisfaction. Blair was playing mediator, a role he loathed. He also alluded to what would become the insurmountable problem with the scriptwriters, suggesting that it had been a mistake to keep them on. If at that time Blair was already thinking of replacing them with Angus, he did not let on.

  We talked also of some of his other films, including Obsidian Iris, to which I confessed I had a deep and emotional allegiance when I was in college. He dished dirt about Russell Crowe (“a stumpy and immature hothead”) and Judy Dench (“ridiculously provincial for someone of her stature”) and Kate Winslet (“a bit weepy and unpredictable on the set”). Of Adrian Brody, he said, “that little prig seemed to think my movie was a workshop in extemporaneous acting. One minute I’m filming the confession of a murderous madman, and the next I’m watching Whose Line Is It Anyway?”

  We agreed that the success of the film was a testament to Blair’s unique ability to manage difficult talent. As I listened, I hoped, although not openly, that I was, as of that afternoon, on his list of difficult talent. It bothered me not at all that he might see me as insufferably difficult as long as he also saw this as the price of my abilities.

  Shortly after the wine was gone, Blair leaned back in his chair and looked at me with both of his hands in front of him, flat on the wooden table.

  “Can you spare one of those snappers?”

  I laughed in mid-reach for the still empty bottle of wine. “Answer my question,” I said, mockingly stern and pointing at him.

  “Ocean Park. At home. Four days before we left. That’s where I last saw her. Now gimme a bloody goddamned snapper!”

  We both roared at what was surely a release of bottled tension from the incivility of the afternoon. I fished my purse out from beneath my chair and extracted two cigarettes. I lit one of them by the candle on the table and held it out for him, turning it around in my fingers so the lit end was pointed back at me. My coordination was not what I imagined. The cigarette dropped to the table in a spray of orange ash. Blair nearly lunged for it before it rolled from the table and we both laughed harder than ever. Sunjata appeared with a telephone and whispered into Blair’s ear. Blair deflated a little, then shook his head and sent Sunjata away. He smiled and we smoked. I did not ask questions.

  * * *

  My most enduring memory of that day was the fish tank. Blair had made a point of showing it to me as he gave me a tour of the villa. It was a saltwater tank, large and rectangular, easily six feet long and three feet high, sitting on a shelf that glided on quiet rollers out of a well-lit notch carved into the wall. Pulling on the shelf brought the tank out into the room for easy cleaning and maintenance, although this had the effect of removing the water from direct lighting and made for poor viewing. Fully recessed, the tank was lit from all sides by multi-colored beams that pulsed and faded and slowly oscillated, enchanting the enclosed seawater. The tank was thick with plant life.

  A dozen varieties of fish and eel wafted among the fat, rubbery leaves, in and out of shadow.

  I remember hating them.

  I remember revulsion at their alien bodies and their relentlessly undulating movement; the way they disappeared and reappeared always the same and yet different; the way they traveled without moving. At a certain angle, if I bent my knees just so, I could see Blair’s reflection in the glass as he tossed his clothes into an ornate wicker chair with flowered cushions. The fish seemed to swim through the room behind me, swim through the flowers on the cushions, swim through the back of the chair, swim over and under and through the bed as Blair pulled back the sheets and slipped inside.

  I remember thinking, as the lights went out, that I had never owned any fish when I was a little girl.

  CHAPTER 11 – Susan

  “Did you actually ask him?”

  “I did. I asked him.”

  “Did he tell you why he didn’t want to come?”

  “No. Of course not. He’s said it so many times that he doesn’t have to.”

  “Why? What does he normally say?”

  “Something like, Susan, if you want therapy, then you go get some therapy. I don’t need therapy. It’s a waste of my time and money. I will not be coerced and manipulated, even by my family. I am not Tilly’s puppet – he says that a lot – I… am… not... Tilly’s… puppet! Oh! I’m sorry, Beverly. I shouldn’t have pounded.”

  “Don’t worry about it. Really. There’s a napkin behind you. No, other side. Other side. There. It’ll clean up.”

  “Glad I didn’t choose the Red Ginseng. I don’t think that would have come out.”

  “It’s fine, Susan. Really. See? No spots. Now, tell me this: does he acknowledge that there is anything wrong with your marriage?”

  “He’s married to me. He acknowledges that there is something wrong with me.”

  “Well, let me ask it this way. Does he ever acknowledge that he could be doing something different or better to help the marriage? Has he ever apologized for making the situation worse or has he ever told you that he needs to change in some way?”

  “Apologize? No. I can’t remember the last time that Hollis apologized to me about … about anything.”

  “I see. How does that make you feel?

  “Like I’m the only one working at it.”

  “Well, do you feel …”

  “And as for changing, he’s always into something new, you know. He always believes that he is changing to something better. Something even farther beyond me. Things I supposedly can’t understand. Things I supposedly can’t relate to. Music that’s beyond me. Literature that’s beyond me. Culture that’s beyond me. Wines. Bonsai trees. Meditation. Buddhism. He’s always on to some self-improving kick. But it’s never really about that. Improving himself, I mean. Mostly he just likes to improve himself out of my reach. Last year he spent months cooking his own food according to some diet that he had researched and determined was the key to superior health. He refused to eat anything I cooked, like it was unclean or something. And, of course, he wouldn’t let me in on what he was eating. I couldn’t share in his experience.”

  “How did that make you feel?”

  “Excluded.”

  “Did you want to try the diet?”

  “No. I really didn’t. It was a really pasty concoction, like porridge or something. Looked awful, smelled worse. I just wanted to be part of something, you know, that he was into. The diet looked terrible. It would have been a sacrifice.”

  “Why do you think he wouldn’t share the diet with you?”

  “First it was because it was balanced especially for men, not women. Then it was because I was so undisciplined that I would never be able to stick with the diet. I was too addicted to unhealthy foods. This from the late night cookie king. Then it was because I wouldn’t understand everything else that went along with the diet. Apparently this was a diet that came with an entire … oh, you know … a mystical lifestyle that was supposed to improve the mind and spirit; a lifestyle which as far as I could tell included a lot of wine, at least a bag of Oreo cookies every week, and the Spice Channel at low volume, all of which happens after midnight when he thinks I have gone to bed.”

  “Do you feel…”

  “Then one day he just started eating my food again, like he had never stopped. I asked him about the special diet thing and he wouldn’t answer and when I pushed he said that I wouldn’t understand and when I pushed some more he said that it is not supposed to be a continuous kind of thing, that it was a limited diet program. Something about portals of time when the mind and spirit are in the same cycle. Personally, I think he just got tired of eating bland sludge. But he never admitted to a mistake.”

  “Do you feel that you’re entitled to an apology from Hollis?”

  “Oh, God.”

  “Well, okay. Good. A lot of my patients can’t even admit that much. So, on your list of apologies that you’d like from Hollis, why don’t you give me the top five.”


  “The top five?”

  “Right.”

  “Like, in order, or … ”

  “Any order as long as they are the five at the top of your list.”

  “Hmm.”

  “Take your time.”

  “Okay, I want him to apologize for making me feel like I’m stupid.”

  “Like how?”

  “Like jumping all over me when I mix something up that I read in the paper. Dumb stuff like that.”

  “Okay.”

  “Although that’s the thing, see. I watch a lot more news than he does. He’s above television. You know what I mean? He’s too good for it. He calls it the idiot box. So he reads the papers – the Dispatch and the Wall Street Journal. And he reads a lot of books. He reads a lot. But I watch CNN and MSNBC and FOX and Good Morning America and the Today Show. So I am usually more up to date on things than he is. I get the news as it's happening. He reads about it all later. So he’ll insist I’ve got it wrong when actually he’s got it wrong. He’s behind. But he’ll just brush me away like I’m stupid. Well, first he’ll lecture me, then he’ll brush me away.”

  “Okay.”

  “The irony, Beverly, is that in college he was the one struggling to keep up. He was a jock. I was the smart one. I was the one who knew everything. Now he likes to think of me as less intelligent. But I was almost Valedictorian. I was kind of a big deal back then and Hollis knew it. I was a leader in that school. He followed me around like a lost puppy. It’s just that over the past forty years he’s managed to go out and turn his brain power into money while I stayed home. Don’t get me wrong. That was my choice and I’d do it again. I don’t regret it. But it’s like none of what I do counts and I don’t have a claim to intelligence any more.”

  “Okay. So, you want him to apologize for making you feel stupid. Good start. What’s next?”