by Susan Dunlap
‘I don’t know.’
‘Oh.’ It was all he said. Not even a sigh with the sound. His teacher had given it to him. It was a symbol not only of his own worthiness as a teacher, but also their bond. I wanted to say the police were on the hunt, but they probably weren’t. If the assailant had had it in the hospital it could be under any table, bed or pile. If he’d tossed it before … ‘We’ll scour the neighborhood.’
‘Life as it is.’
Before I could reply, the slit of his eyes disappeared. This time they did not open.
I eased up to standing, found his address book and called Nezer Deutsch. I got him, not his service. Deutsch wasn’t a-bubble with enthusiasm, but I’d already been through Gracie vanishing into Las Vegas and I wasn’t about to cut this doctor slack. ‘Leo asked specifically for you,’ I said. ‘How soon can you be here? Someone’s already attacked him. I don’t want to be leaving the outside door open forever.’ He hemmed, and I added, ‘If anything happens to Leo it’ll be on your head.’
He caved. ‘Within the hour.’
Then I pulled my sleeping bag into the hall, lay down by Leo’s door and waited. I listened while he breathed, on edge for any gasp or cough, for any sign his face wasn’t giving me.
If I hadn’t fallen asleep I might have conjured a picture of Leo’s chosen physician. I might have known if he arrived within the hour. But sleep turned out to have been foremost for both Leo and me. I make it a point never to tot up the inadequate number of sacked-out minutes I’ve had the previous night. I just charge on into the coming day.
Whatever, I was zonked. When shoe leather smacked the wooden stairs it took me almost the entire flight to realize what that noise was. And the first thing I saw of Nezer Deutsch was his tan sock.
‘Leo?’
‘You are?’ I snapped, matching his testy tone. I wriggled warp speed out of my bag and shoved myself up to standing.
‘Doctor Deutsch.’
‘He’s in his room.’ I knocked.
A pale sound came from inside. I opened the door and peered around.
Leo looked just as I’d left him, as if he hadn’t moved at all, hadn’t had the strength to. His face was the same purple on gray, but his hands weren’t quivering and his skin wasn’t as sweaty. I took that as a ridiculously good sign.
In fact, Dr Deutsch looked not much better – like an intern who’d been on duty for the last ninety-six hours. Older, though – maybe mid-thirties. His too-thin body hung on a frame which was meant to be meaty. His straight brown hair screamed, Cut at a kid’s barber. And he had a wary look that’s the last thing you want in the person assessing you for life or death. I had intended to give Leo some privacy with his physician. Now I motioned to Deutsch to follow me in.
Leo’s eyes eased shut. The doctor knelt, shifting the brown blanket Leo had so proudly acquired from a catalog sporting Swedish army blankets for twenty dollars. I’d wondered more than once just which war or wars it had been through. Knees on wood, Deutsch assessed Leo, like a surgeon triple-checking before the first cut. He inhaled, closed his eyes and picked up Leo’s wrist – in that order.
Then, as if he’d burst through a wall, he opened his eyes and gently palpated Leo’s forehead, fingered the sides of his neck, pulled back the blanket, lifted Leo’s white T-shirt, listened to his heart, felt his flesh.
The floor was hard against my own knees but I didn’t dare move. The air seemed clammy from all our exhalations. There was no incense. If I’m here making tea, Leo always burns incense. He’ll be OK, I told myself. After all, the doctor’s not panicked.
‘I’m going to check your abdomen,’ the doctor said to Leo.
I was on the verge of demanding why when it struck me that he was really asking Leo if he wanted to be laid out bare in front of me.
‘I can wait outside the door.’ In earshot.
‘Fine. You—’
‘Go downstairs. Make us tea.’ Leo’s eyes remained closed but his voice was surprisingly firm. It did not invite questions.
‘OK. Bang on the floor if you need me.’ I pushed up gratefully and stiff-legged it down the stairs.
We have a makeshift kitchen behind the staircase. At some point in its history the building had been the kind of restaurant that had a cloakroom. It had to have had a serious kitchen, too, but there’s no trace of that now. What we inherited was a one-person space that accommodates a sink, a refrigerator under a counter that I could span with my forearm, a narrow cabinet and one of those slits of glass that says, ‘Code insists we put in a window. Take this!’ There’s no place to store the kettle but that doesn’t matter because it’s always on one of the two electric burners that we consider a stove.
The process of making tea cannot be rushed. Leo might as easily have told me to give him ten minutes’ privacy. This was hardly a tea ceremony but I approached it with the same focus, giving my full attention to the pouring of the water, the lifting of the black iron pot, the spooning of the flaky leaves. I did not indulge the ‘what ifs’ that were clawing at the roots of my hair. I listened to the burble of water in the pan. I listened to my own breath. As the Zen teachings say, I did the next thing.
When I carried the tray upstairs, the doctor was standing in Leo’s doorway.
Ignoring his eagerness to leave, I herded him back in, knelt, placed the tray on the floor beside Leo, rocked back on my heels and stood.
‘How is he?’
‘Not terminal,’ Leo said, preemptively silencing Deutsch.
‘What instructions—’
Deutsch held out a paper. ‘Here.’
‘Do you—’
A phone rang. My phone. I’d forgotten it was in my pocket. I shrugged a sorry, blocked the door lest the man tried to escape and checked the display, hoping this was the moment Gracie had chosen to call back. Hoping she could give me advice about Leo and the lowdown on Deutsch.
‘Who is it?’ Leo asked.
‘My agent. I’ll call—’
‘No. Take it.’
I hesitated but there was no if in his voice. Tight as the movie market was in San Francisco, which he’d heard about from me just yesterday, he didn’t want to be responsible for me missing a gig. I nodded, stepped into my room and heard the golden words: big gag set-up, action movie, actress asked for you. The crookedest street gag! ‘But …’ An eternity passed before my agent’s new assistant, Mel, said, ‘It’s Dainen Beretski.’
‘Wow! Didn’t he do Surreptitious? With that great triple transfer? Bike to plane to raft?’
‘Uh huh.’
‘But …?’ Spit it out, man!
‘I’ve heard … well, you’re a seasoned pro. Just be careful.’
‘Of my neck or my ass?’
‘Both, honeybun. If you don’t have a good ass, your neck’s not going to matter.’
‘Can you be more specific?’
‘Nothing concrete; I’m just shooting the shit with you.’
I could have pushed him, but I gave up. No matter what he said I wasn’t about to turn down this gig. Not in a million years! I wanted to jump, to shout, to race in and grab Leo by the shoulders and dance around the room. A gig! Not only a gig, but one on a picture with a high-powered, innovative, attention-getting hot-shot second unit director! Not even the cut-rate pay but the full SAG rate. Yesterday I was sure I’d have to give up my career or my place here with Leo. Yesterday my career was in the past. Now I was headed to the fast lane!
Leo was back home, he’d be OK. I had a job. My problems were over! I said into the phone, ‘What time?’
‘Be there at five.’
‘At night?’
‘Before dawn.’
I grabbed a pad, wrote down names and numbers, then clicked off.
And in that time Dr Nezer Deutsch had moved his gaunt and oppugnant self down the stairs and was gone. Leo lay with the covers over his chin and his eyes shut, breathing like he could be asleep in two seconds.
I hated to keep him awake. ‘What did he say, the do
ctor?’
‘Fine,’ he muttered. ‘I’ll be fine.’
‘In the meantime? Specifically?’
‘Rest.’
‘Leo!’
‘Darcy!’
Mocking me – a good sign.
I’d seen concussions, even had one or two. But they’d been mild and all I remembered in the way of treatment was the medic on the set waking me up when I was desperate to sleep. ‘Will he be checking on you tomorrow?’ I asked Leo.
‘Sure. I’ll be fine.’
‘You bet.’
The rest of the day I devoted to sleep, waking, waking an ungrateful Leo, making soup, hunting down what I could about the movie company, Dainen Beretski, the second unit director and the script. The high point of adventure was a walk to Columbus and back on the other side of the street, eyes scanning the ground for Leo’s kotsu, which I did not expect to find and, indeed, did not find.
By the next morning, I felt normal. Or what passes for normal when dawn is just a distant hope.
‘I hate to wake you, Leo.’
‘What time is it?’ He looked, of course, groggy, but he’d regained some color.
‘Twenty after four.’
‘You better get going!’
He remembered my five o’clock call! Good sign. He really was getting better. ‘Let me check your bruises.’
‘They’re fine. Just ugly.’
‘Still, I—’
‘Doctor Darcy? Nezer’ll be here.’
‘When?’
‘Before work.’
‘Still—’
‘I’m fine.’
I stared pointedly at the wounds and laughed. And in a moment he smiled, sort of. ‘I’m adequate,’ he said.
‘I’ll be the judge of that. I’m not leaving till I see you stand up.’
He grunted, then nodded toward the bathroom. I’d helped him there twice in the evening and once a couple hours ago, and had been encouraged that he was steady enough to handle the trips. ‘Prospect of the bedpan,’ he’d said, ‘makes miracles.’
‘I’ll be back by the end of zazen,’ I said.
‘I’ll be fine by myself. Go!’
So, I went. Hesitantly, uneasily, and with guilt for desperately wanting to be out and on the set.
Leo’s a grown man; he’s survived this long, he can take care of himself, I told myself. Then insisted, It’s only a concussion. I’ve had worse.
The outer door was locked. The doctor was coming. In less than two hours Renzo would check on him before he hit the clappers for morning zazen. What could happen in two hours?
NINE
Wind smacked my hair in my face. Big-time wind.
San Francisco is built on seven major hills, though it has forty-nine named hills. I was standing atop Russian Hill, so called after a long-gone cemetery for nineteenth-century Russian sailors. But what it’s famed for is the ‘crookedest street in the world’ – Lombard, the block between Hyde and Leavenworth. It’s the lemon to lemonade of street reconfiguration. Transformed from a death-on-brakes descent to eight colorfully landscaped switchbacks. Steering down it is akin to doing a square dance with a long line of do-si-dos until you exit at Leavenworth Street.
Russian Hill is a pretty, downtown neighborhood and Lombard may be its prettiest block – charming stucco houses stand shoulder to shoulder, and meticulously maintained peninsulas of hydrangeas are surrounded by low hedges to create the curves. It’s definitely the busiest street. One does not maneuver tight corkscrews fast. Thus, in summer, tourist vehicles line up for blocks, engines idling, backing up traffic on cross-streets, impeding intersections, waiting to first-gear it down the winding red brick block.
There has been controversy. Block it off? Prohibit cars? Close it on weekends? Deny tourists – funders of the city’s most important industry – the free fun-for-the-family experience they came for? One that they’ll film on their phones, post on Facebook and show on YouTube or Vimeo through eternity? Do that and they won’t be leaving their hearts in San Francisco anymore.
‘How,’ I asked Dainen Beretski, the second unit director, ‘did you ever get permission to shoot here?’
‘San Fran’s not so hot any more.’
Other cities … Other countries … tax incentives … sweeter deals. The familiar story. ‘Still—’
‘Some questions are better not asked.’ Beretski grinned and half-turned to finish with a guy wearing a jacket over his de rigueur black T-shirt. I took him to be a liaison with the city. But he was smart enough to wear black in case – God forbid – he stepped into an expensive or precious shot. He might go unnoticed.
Beretski’s grin looked at home on his angular face. He was tall, thin, blue-eyed, loose and lanky like a Gumby without the bell bottoms. Despite the cold wind, the fog settling like snow on our heads and shoulders, he was only wearing jeans and a sweatshirt, and the sleeves of that were cropped. Each arm looked like it could hoist me over his head and hold me up like a globe on a lamppost, all while he chatted on his cell phone. To both of us, he announced, ‘We’ve got to be out of here by seven. Everything stowed, all vehicles moved. Or—’ He drew his finger across his neck. Then he grinned. ‘Here’s the secret. Open access to the lunch wagon. Not just crew and talent. Neighbors welcome. They love it.’
‘Genius!’ I over-the-top’d. In the world of up-and-coming, bursting onto the scene, hotter-than-hot envelope pushers and edge players, Dainen Beretski was the supernova. My agent’s watch-your-ass-and-your-neck warning might be on target – still, getting a gig in one of his productions was a coup.
I didn’t ask about my predecessor and why she wasn’t here. Later, I’d find out if she’d left for a family emergency or a personal one – broken engagement or a broken neck. But no way was I going to hex myself on my first day on the set. There was too much to learn. I grabbed coffee and a scone – nothing too gooey or sweet just in case – from the lunch wagon and began glancing at the Side – dialogue, scene description, bare bones need-to-knows – all on a half-page in a booklet I couldn’t keep. No full script, nothing on an iPad that could be used to leak the story before the filming was even done. I wasn’t surprised when Beretski delegated an assistant to tell me the plot of Kite Flight: girl meets boy at Berkeley Kite Festival, moves in with him in San Francisco and finds madcap problems.
Our gag followed a fight with the boyfriend. The girl runs out of her apartment a block away from our set, skirts the Hyde Street cable car at the top of Lombard and ends up on a moving van dolly, a four-foot-square, foot-and-a-half-high rolling wooden platform on four wheels. She has to surf down Lombard till she falls head over heels into a passing truck. A three-part gag.
‘Are you the stuntwoman on this?’
I was so intent on picturing the gag I didn’t recognize the woman’s voice. Then I did one of those what-are-you-doing-here double-takes. ‘Aurelia?’ Aurelia Abernathy? What was Leo’s little friend from his Japan days doing here?
‘This is so cool. You’re doing the stunts. When I saw the notice about this movie shoot here, I figured, “Watch and learn,” right? But I didn’t dream I’d get to see you do the stunts. See how you do them. ‘S’Kay if I get some coffee? Something to eat?’
I stood, stunned. In the business hustling your way onto a set, even one like this, was frowned upon – how did the production heads know you weren’t going to spy and leak secrets? Cadging food was pushing it. She hadn’t waited for an answer and the speed with which she downed the first doughnut made me wonder how long it had been since she last ate.
The wind was rustling her short brown curls like beach grass in a storm. Whatever she thought the temperature would be atop this hill, she wasn’t prepared for it. Her black tunic with bright green leggings gave her the look of a frog on the way to yoga class. Her polyester sweater (black with green polka dots) screamed looks not warmth. One thing I’d learned about a location set like this: adorable is adorable but icy is forever, or near enough to it. I was decked in sweats over tights, a
ll black like everyone else in the crew, my long red hair stuffed up into a wool cap. ‘How’s Leo?’ Aurelia asked, now sipping coffee.
‘Asleep. The doctor saw him yesterday.’
‘And said?’
‘Bed rest.’
‘And he’ll be back to normal? Bouncing around like he was in Japan?’ She said it with such delighted relief I couldn’t help but smile.
‘He was bouncing around in Japan?’ I said, amazed. The Side was still in my hand. I needed to be studying. But this would be just a tiny, short tidbit from a period Leo had never mentioned.
I hadn’t focused on her constant movement, but now her sudden stillness was startling. It made me wonder if it had been she, not Leo, doing the bouncing. ‘You know, I didn’t know him well,’ she said. ‘“Know” is too strong a word. Kinda knew. But yeah, he was very focused – that kind of energy, like he could get all excited about a dog face call—’
Dog face call? Dōgen face call? Oh, fascicle of Doˉgen! Essay of the great thirteenth-century Japanese Zen teacher. I nodded to her.
‘He was the only American at his temple. Maybe the only newbie priest. The old guys had him sweeping and shoveling and hauling stuff and cleaning the toilets all day long. Sitting on his cushion must have been a real break for him.’
‘Did you see him back in this country? At his monastery up north?’
She stuffed the end of a cruller in her mouth and chewed. ‘The place in the woods? No. I mean, I thought I would when I came back from Japan later, but he didn’t let me stay.’
‘Really?’ That didn’t sound like Leo. The monastery was barebones, backwoods. People weren’t lining up to get in. Though if she’d been in Japan and didn’t know the difference between Master Dōgen and a cocker spaniel, maybe she wasn’t monastery material.
‘Darcy!’ Dainen called sotto voce and motioned me to a plump woman dressed down to movie crew plainness – clothes black and baggy, hair streaked with gray and pulled back into a clasp halfway up the back of her head. Her whole being said: behind the scenes. I followed her into the wardrobe wagon, spent half an hour trying on a yellow print dress and donning the hip pads I’d be wearing and standing while she fitted the dress to hide them so it wouldn’t look like the character had gained ten pounds since the previous scene.