She hesitated, handed some over.
Levy took them, thinking, dummy, first you ask for the cigarette, then you ask for the match. Now he was forced to mime searching through various pockets before he gave her what he hoped was his Cary Grant smile along with “I’ll need a cigarette too, I’m afraid.”
She hesitated a little longer, then gave him one.
Levy lit up. “Next you’ll probably think I’m going to ask you to smoke it for me,” he said, giving her as unforced a chuckle as he had around right then.
She half turned away from him.
Levy was more than contented with her profile. She was just so pretty. Not the greatest shape that ever came off the assembly line. Better than Grace Kelly but no Sophia Loren. Kind of more buxom than willowy but still short of zoftig.
They smoked in silence for a while.
“You don’t even inhale,” she said, surprising him.
“Not while I’m in training,” he managed, delighted he could come out with anything at all. Since she wasn’t interested enough to ask what he was training for, he told her anyway; he hated incomplete thoughts, a heritage from his father. “I’m a marathon man,” he said.
She seemed less interested than ever.
You’re losing her, Levy shouted where it echoed throughout his body. Not that you ever had her, but come on, hit her with a little something interesting, show her what a fool you’re not. “Cigarettes,” he shrugged desperately. “I can take ’em or leave ’em alone, but it’s a funny thing, though, women are really hooked on ’em, the Times had a big article on that just the other day, how women can’t stop smoking the way men can, wonder why that is.” You just insulted her sex, dummy, suppose she’s a Libber, how do you so effortlessly find just the wrong thing to say?
In the foyer, the Vision at last turned back to Levy, looked him dead on. “Why are you following me?”
Levy flung down his cigarette and stomped on it, just in time to avoid a coughing fit. “Following you? Following you! You must be some kind of crazy is all I’ve got to say. Who you think you are, Jackie Onassis? Why the hell should anybody follow you? I mean, I don’t want to crumble your ego or anything, lady, but you sat at my table, I was doing just fine until you butted in, I was all spread out and doing terrific research and then you came, so if anybody’s following anybody it’s you following me, and if you want to follow me, it’s no skin off my nose, people sometimes follow me, girls and like that, but you’d never hear me corner them with an accusation, I mean, when people act nutty you’ve got to leave them room to retreat in, room for diplomacy, that’s the way I am when people follow me, anyway, gentle, understanding, and ... He would have gone on, except there was no reason to: She just snuffed out her cigarette and hurried out of the library into the night.
“Lies,” Levy wanted to cry out after her, “I was following you because you’re just so pretty, I’m nothing, a schlepper, I can’t even run a whole marathon yet, but try me again, please, I promise I’ll make you smile.”
She was gone.
Another dazzling introduction executed by everybody’s favorite Casanova, the legendary T. Babington Levy. Levy stood there awhile, contemplating the entirety of his latest campaign. Rarely, if ever, had such ineptness been shown. Why, he got this target so ticked she’d fled without even her books, and when you got someone that mad—
—her books.
Levy dashed back into the libe, scooped up his own research, hers, bee-lined to the out-of-sight magazine area behind the librarian’s desk.
Five minutes later, the Vision was in the entrance to the room and heading fast toward the corner table, where her books had been. She hesitated, looked around, took a few steps, glanced back, left.
Fifty minutes later, Levy was buzzing her name in the foyer of her rooming house near campus.
She answered via intercom. “Who, please?”
It wasn’t the best connection in the world. “Miss Opel?” Her name was Elsa Opel; well, no one was perfect.
“Who is this?” Her accent—Swiss maybe? Maybe Slav, he was rotten at accents, for a great historian, anyway—was considerably more pronounced when she had to force her voice than it had been in the foyer.
“Tom Levy—the marathon man.”
“And you’ve come for another cigarette, is that it?”
Levy laughed. “No, no, it’s just you forgot your books and I figured they might be important, so after I was done studying I brought them on over—it’s right on the way to my place, no big deal or anything.”
“That’s very kind,” she said, and pushed the button, allowing the door to unlock.
Levy saw her standing in the doorway toward the rear of the place, on the main floor. “Here,” he said, and he handed them over.
She nodded. “Thank you. Good night.”
“Good night,” Levy said. Then he said, “Your name and address were on the inside of your notebook, in case you’re wondering how I knew where to come, Miss Opel.”
“I wasn’t, but again, thank you. And good night.”
“Good night,” Levy repeated.
“You say ‘good night’ but you don’t go anywhere.”
“I twisted my ankle on my way over here,” Levy explained. “I was just giving it a rest.”
“You weren’t limping when you walked down the hall.”
When it came to lying, he really was the worst. “If you’re a marathon man, you don’t like to give in to pain.”
“Where were you hiding?” she said then.
“Hiding?” Levy replied, wondering whether he should start to ready his supply of outrage again, as he had in the foyer when she’d first accused him of following her.
“I came right back when I realized my forgetfulness. The books were gone. Yours too.”
“Gee, I don’t see how that’s possible,” Levy said, “I was studying right there the whole time.”
“I must have gotten confused. Thank you, Mr. Levy. Good night.” She closed the door.
“Behind the librarian’s desk. I was hiding there,” Levy replied from the corridor.
She opened the door, looked closely at him. “Why?”
“It seemed like the best place to hide.”
“No, not why were you hiding there, why were you hiding at all?”
“Well, I couldn’t have you catch me making this million-dollar heist of your school books, it would have been too embarrassing.”
“Are you embarrassed now?”
“Oh yes. Humiliated.”
“Is that why you’re perspiring?”
“Partially. I ran over here. I run every place.”
“Why did you go to all this bother?”
“It wasn’t so much bother, really. You do live kind of on my way home. I mean, it’s not totally out of the way.”
“Do you always pursue people who sit at your library table, is it some kind of fixation?”
Levy shook his head, nodded, shrugged, nodded again. “Because you’re so pretty.” It was the wrong thing to say; he knew it the minute the words were gone.
“It just happened, I didn’t work for it.”
Levy made one last try for a retrieve. “Well, I can’t very well rave on about how smart you are, I don’t even know you, you may be a real dummy, and I’m done lying to you.”
“But you’d like to know me.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Because I’m so pretty?”
“That’s got a lot to do with it.”
“How old are you?”
“Twenty-five.”
“And are you always so incompetent with women?”
“Oh yes; this is actually way above average for me.”
“Well, I’m twenty-five too, and you’re probably very nice, and in ten years you may be twenty-six, but right now I’m a nurse and I haven’t got time.”
But I’d make you so happy, Levy wanted to say. Then he thought, Listen, schmuck, don’t keep news like that secret, tell her, you got nothing to
lose, she’s flushing you anyway. “I’d make you so happy.”
She was really stunned.
“I would, it’s true,” Levy hurried on. “I’d learn all about nursing—I’m smart as a whip—we could have these great long terrific talks about tourniquets—”
She burst out laughing.
“You will see me again, sure you will, say it.”
“You shouldn’t beg people—”
“I’m not begging, for Chrissakes, nobody’s begging, why the hell should I beg, I’m junior Phi Beta, I was tops in my Rhodes group, a first breezing, and lemme tell you something, people with that kind of record don’t go around begging things from dopey nurses who smoke—what kind of a nurse smokes, don’t you know anything? If you can’t tell begging from beseeching, you’ve got no chance with me.”
“If I do see you again, will you promise to shut up?”
I’m winning, Levy thought. Imagine that. He nodded his head.
“All right,” she said after a moment. “All right. I’ll see you again.” And then, surprisingly, she reached out and sadly touched his cheek. “But it won’t come to anything.”
“You can’t tell,” Babe said, watching her eyes. She looked so damn sad, she really did, so why did that make her even prettier?
Elsa rubbed her fingers against his skin. “Yes I can,” she answered softly. “Regret is the best we can hope for ...”
Alone, she lit a cigarette, smoked it all the way down, put it out, lit another. Then she picked up the phone and called Erhard. “He is terribly sweet,” she said. “Very naïve, very kind.”
She listened a moment.
“I’m sorry if I sound depressed. I’m not, I’m tired.” Another pause.
“Yes, I think it’s fair to say that he finds me attractive.” Pause.
“How much time do I have?” Long pause.
“I’ll do my best.” She closed her eyes. “With luck, in a week he’ll love me ...”
8
BABE GOT OUT HIS aging Remington and began to pound.
Doc? This is me and you better sit down. I mean it, it’s that important, that incredible, that gravity suspending. (Omigod, you’re thinking, he’s in love again—once more the kid brother’s head over heels.)
Right.
Doc, Doc, I don’t know where to begin—
(Begin with her buck teeth, you’re thinking; start with how her thin-haired skull glistens in the moonlight.)
Wrong.
(Nothing wrong with the teeth or the hair? Odd. The last one had fewer strands than bicuspids. Hmmm. No boobs but a great mind. Or maybe three boobs and a great mind, which?)
Neither, and go to hell.
(Must have been a field hockey champ back in school. Calves like Bronco Nagurski, shoulders like Larry Csonka, but a nice complexion from all the outdoor effort.)
Close your hole and listen to me—I’ve known her a little over a week, and each day when I go to pick her up I think I’m crazy, no one’s that terrific, but each day she’s more terrific, more tender, more divine, perfect, impeccable, immaculate, utopian, consummate, indefectible, sublime. And I’m understating.
(Probably I can get you a quick admission to Menninger’s.)
Let me start with the faults: her name, I’ve got to admit, is Elsa Opel.
(Nothing wrong with that, I once had a car named Opel.)
And she’s my age, Swiss, and a nurse—
(Look on the bright side, could have been a stewardess.)
—other than that, faultless. Other than that, a head-spinner. All my life, I’ve been drooling after other guys’ girls. You don’t know what it’s like to watch the other bastards drooling after mine.
(A drooler, is she? That what you’re trying to hint? Nothing wrong with drooling. One of the better things you can do with saliva, actually. Limited substance, saliva. Any other impediments? You better tell me now. Pin-headed maybe? Didn’t you get interested in a love at Denison who verged on being pin-headed?)
Everyone makes mistakes. But not this time. Oh Doc, Jesus, it’s so fantastic please get your ass down here to meet her. New York isn’t that far, come on. I want to see your head spin, I really do. See, there’s one thing I haven’t told you.
(Okay, hit me with it, I’m braced.)
She loves me back. She really does. A beautiful girl, a beautiful, non-competitive, sweet, sensible girl, and she cares for me. After all these crummy years, my cup is running over.
Sumbitch,
Babe
9
SCYLLA LAY IN BED blinking.
In his dream, he had been too slow, and that was not a good thing, even in dreams that had never happened before. And of all people, it had been Mengele who had beaten him.
Mengele, the chief of the Auschwitz experimental block, the doctor they called the Angel of Death, the one who had gone almost mad trying to breed blue-eyed humans as a kennel master tries to breed drop-eared dogs.
They were in Mengele’s lab it was Auschwitz, but Scylla was calm. He towered half a head over the death doctor’s five six, and more than that, the door was open, and the door led straight to freedom. Scylla had never been to Auschwitz, had never met Mengele, but in dreams such things happened, and this was happening.
“I’m in despair,” Mengele said.
“Why?”
“I cannot make the baby’s eyes come out with the proper shade of blue. Yesterday in frustration I threw a baby high into a fire. It was a terrible thing for me to do, letting my emotions get control like that.”
“Control is important for us,” Scylla agreed.
“I just thank God you’re here at this moment to help me.”
“How can I help you?”
“I need skin. I want to transplant skin, and you have just the shade I’m looking for.”
Scylla shrugged. “A patch of skin is nothing. Take it.”
“No, no,” Mengele explained. “A patch does me no good, I need all your skin, every bit of it, you must let me skin you.”
“I don’t think I’d like that,” Scylla told him, taking a quiet step toward the open door and freedom.
Mengele made no move to follow. “You must listen, it’s a great blessing I offer.”
Scylla shook his head. “Without skin people could see right through me.”
“That’s the blessing—don’t you understand, the world would see right through and you wouldn’t have to lie any more. Think of the weight that would lift—no more lies. No more point to lying, because there would be no skin to cover you and the world would know the truth when you spoke it. You have lied so much, admit it.”
“Yes.”
“And you long to end it, admit that too. You have so many fabrications going, don’t you want to sometimes scream the truth?”
“Yes.”
“Well, that is the chance I offer you. Everlasting truth. Peace. The rest only the honest ever know.”
“No.”
“Don’t let your emotions gain control.” He held out his tiny surgeon’s hands toward Scylla.
Scylla fled for the open door.
But he was too slow.
Mengele beat him to it, shut it, and it locked. They were alone in the lab now. Mengele began coming for him.
He, Scylla the rock, who could kill with either hand, began backing from the tiny lunatic. He, the great Scylla, retreating before nothing, a frail physician who couldn’t even make eyes come out the proper shade of blue.
“Why do you fear me?” Mengele wondered.
“I don’t. There is no fear in my body.”
Mengele held out his hands.
“I’ll use force,” Scylla promised.
“Oh please, please, none of that,” Mengele said, and with his tiny hands he led Scylla to a table, laid him down. “There will be no pain, I promise. I’ll just make a small cut from your forehead to the base of your neck and pull your skin right off. It won’t hurt any more than disrobing from a pair of pajamas.” He began to cut. “You see,” he sai
d as the knife split Scylla’s skin, “there isn’t even any blood,” and he put the knife down, pulled the skin off. “Let me get you a mirror, your veins are quite beautiful,” Mengele said.
“No!”
“Here,” Mengele said, and he handed the mirror over.
Scylla managed one look at himself before he woke up blinking.
Wow.
He lay still, concentrating on the ceiling, winded, empty. He had no idea of what the dream indicated about the state of his mind, but he did know this: Whatever it was, it was getting very dark down there.
He rolled his muscled body out of bed and sat, rubbing his cold hands together. Scylla the sponge, he felt like. Scylla the soft.
Cut it!
He stood, grabbed his Scotch bottle (had it really been full when he started to bed last night?), and moved to the window of his room in the Raphael. He drank while he looked out at the Arc de Triomphe. What was the time? He glanced at his watch. Coming up to half-past five. After midnight in America, Janey would be dead asleep. If they ever made an Olympic event of sack time, Janey was a cinch to qualify. Beauty sleep.
Scylla dressed, walked downstairs, woke the concierge, got a ton of tokens. It was all an unnecessary precaution, because if he was tapped back home, what difference did it make if they’d bugged the Raphael on him? Habit. He felt better on the move.
Anyway, he needed the air. It was dark when he stepped outside and began hunting up a pay phone. He never worried about the night; he was big and big-shouldered, and he could kill with either hand, and sure, a mugger wouldn’t have any way of knowing that last, but still, he moved like an athlete and he had size, and muggers had never bothered him.
He found a spot near the Arc and after a good deal of pidgin French and dials and beeps and king-sized waits, finally he could hear Janey’s sleep-filled voice coming through. “Huh? Wha?—who? What time is ... oh, never mind,” and then, finally, “Hi.”
“This is the answering service,” Scylla said. “Didn’t you leave a wake-up call?”
“A joke?” Janey wailed. “Three thousand miles in the middle of the night to make a funny? People have been jellied in aspic for less.”
The Novels of William Goldman Page 101