by Louis Begley
A little Merlot that goes with anything, I get it directly from the Sonoma Valley producer, Gil informed him; would Schmidt like to be included for a couple of cases in the next order? Thereupon, he resumed needling Elaine about the education of teenage girls, Lilly in particular. Unless they had talent—and he challenged Elaine and Schmidt to point to a single case of a talent that lay in hiding, waiting to be discovered—they should not be allowed to fool themselves into thinking they were special. The proper question was: How could they make themselves useful and financially independent?
It occurred to Schmidt that Gil had not applied this theory with full rigor to his own daughters. But it was not for him to bring that up. He was to be a buffer state. That was why they were having dinner à trois. Therefore, taking another gulp of wine, he asked, Who else is going to be at the Monaco?
Then you will come with us, cried Elaine. It will be so much fun! We even have another lawyer!
She named a partner in the most profitable firm in New York, the husband of one of her cousins, a man Schmidt disliked but didn’t know, although they had been at law school at the same time; a writer and his wife who also wrote, both of whom had been published by Mary; and a man whose name Schmidt recognized as being that of a movie producer. I don’t know whom Fred will bring, she added, but I hope it will be Alice. She is such a good sport!
I don’t think I can. You see, I’ve made all kinds of nice overtures to the parents of Charlotte’s fiancé, and they have asked me to spend Christmas with them—in Washington, of all places! I said I’m not up to it this year, which is quite true, and everybody—the parents, Charlotte, and Jon—will take it badly if instead I go off on a party in Venice. Besides, I’m not sure I am up to Venice either.
It was Gil’s turn to be practical.
Then what will you do, old friend? he asked.
I don’t know. To put an end to the discussion, I told them I would go away to someplace that has no associations with Christmas. The trouble is I can’t think where that would be. And it’s kind of late. Christmas is practically here. Perhaps I will just stay here and pretend I am somewhere else—let’s say Kyoto!
That won’t work. They’ll ask for your telephone number, they’ll want you to call them, they’ll expect presents from Kyoto when you return.
That was the practical side of Elaine.
I think you are right.
Kyoto is not a bad idea, said Gil. Of course, it will be cold and humid and the gardens won’t seem like much—except the Moss Temple, which is best in the winter. I shot some scenes there one January. Why don’t you go to a place like Bali? You will be in a marvelous hotel, you will have the beach, and you will get a real rest.
And have all those couples all around me, enjoying the best years of their lives?
He’s right, said Elaine. It would be like going alone on a cruise in the Caribbean.
How do you know? You’ve never been on a cruise. That’s just where people go to find a lover. Bali’s the thing. There must be lots of men who go alone to study the topless Balinese, and women too. I don’t mean only lesbians; women who don’t mind being near men who have been put in the right frame of mind.
You are really disgusting. I know what Schmidtie should do. Let’s send him to our Amazon island.
What’s that?
Gil, you tell him about it.
That’s exactly the place for you, and I think it can be done. We went there in the summer, which is not the right season, three or four years ago, after my film opened in Rio. You remember Marisa, the Brazilian who played the mute whom Jackson finally marries?
Certainly.
Her family arranged it, when we told them we were exhausted and needed a place to be alone and rest. It was the best thing we have ever done. We flew to Manaus from Rio, and there we chartered a tiny plane that could land on a tiny clearing in the jungle on an island in the middle of the Amazon, about an hour west of Manaus. The island itself is the size of your hand and the river is very wide; I think the shore was almost two miles away, on either side. At one end of the island, near the landing strip, there is a village of caboclos—that’s the word for Indians of mixed blood who have more or less joined the twentieth century. They live by fishing and are obviously very poor, but there are a couple of television sets in the village and so forth. Toward the other end of the island, completely surrounded by jungle vegetation, is the guest house. It’s owned by some Brazilian company that runs it like a club for invited guests—usually not more than two couples. But I think you could have it all for yourself, as we did, if it hasn’t been booked. An amazing structure: imagine an octagonal house, made entirely of native Amazon woods and very airy. The walls don’t quite reach either the roof or the ground—no nails, indeed no metal components in the construction, except in the bathrooms and in the kitchen. Caboclo servants, very silent, moving like polite shadows. You only see them when you want something, and they seem to know it without being called. And rather wonderful food. Strange fruit juices and jellies that are supposed to prolong your life and do other things for you that are even better, flat bread, and river fish. For a couple of days, we had chops, that’s really what they were, carved from a fish like a huge river monster. An absolute delicacy! To drink, there is beer and pinga—a Brazilian rum with the kick of a buffalo. If you want anything else, you will have to bring it.
Did they speak English? Or is speaking Portuguese another one of your attainments?
You don’t need to speak. The other thing is that you won’t have to stay in the house all day and all evening reading and listening to the parrots and the monkeys. We had a guide who met us on the island and acted as the majordomo as well as guide. He told the caboclos what to do. He is German—in fact I wonder if his name wasn’t Herr Schmidt!
My Doppelgänger.
Gil, his name was Lang, and you never called him Herr.
That was just a nice idea. The man’s name is something else; more like Oskar Lang. He is a biology student from Hamburg, who came to Manaus right after the war. He intended to study Amazon fish—actually, he says Studien instead of study—but in the midst of Studien he got hooked up with an Indian woman and never left, except for funerals, when his mother and then his father died. He married his Indian. She became a nurse in Manaus and he became a river guide, working for people doing documentary films and scientific expeditions. He is quite an expert on fish.
And breasts! He kept on pointing out to Gil that white women’s breasts fall as they get older—here he would look at me—while his Indian woman has boobs that stayed small and hard. Like mein fist only nice, so nice and small, was how he put it!
That’s true. He showed us a photo with boobs he had taken of her in one of those round backyard pools made of blue plastic, right behind his house in Manaus. Anyway, Schmidt—I mean Lang—had a comfortable long rowboat with an outboard motor. He also had an assistant, the most beautiful young Indian boy you can imagine, who paddled when we went out in the canoe instead. And what eyesight that boy had! He would say something very quietly to Lang and point and, there, in absolutely impenetrable foliage or hidden in the reeds near the riverbank was just the bird we had said to Lang the day before we especially wanted to look at. Every morning, Lang and he took us out on these nature trips or to visit another caboclo village, which was more primitive, on an island nearby, and once to a village that was pure Indian and pure Lévi-Strauss. That was probably the most remarkable experience we had during our stay. A place of complete serenity: huts on stilts, women grinding food in wooden bowls, naked children dozing in the dust under the huts, and then the arrival of the men in canoes filled to the rim with fish. The women met them at the edge of the river, and the men threw them the catch, still jumping. They didn’t have to ask for the fish—we couldn’t see any connection between the givers and the takers. It was distributed like manna. Then, at night, Lang would take us out to look at alligators. We would drift near the bank. Suddenly, he would turn on his flashlight an
d there would be those burning red eyes. The whole bank seemed to come alive!
Remember when the Indian boy caught one?
Yes, that was quite a trick. Lang put the boy on shore, and we pushed off and drifted a little. Then the boy gave a sort of whistle, Lang turned on his lamp, and in the beam we saw the boy on the bank holding up an alligator by the gills. He had crept up on him from behind. Why the other alligators didn’t eat him is beyond me. We never understood it, because Lang showed us they can move really fast on land. It’s a weird, terrifying kind of sprint.
It all sounds quite splendid, but do you think it’s for me? Alone? I have never had a powerful interest in nature—bird-watching or anything like it.
This is different. It’s not like sneaking around in the brambles surrounded by Yalies with binoculars and skin cancer on their noses. Nature is quite simply there: overpoweringly beautiful and omnipresent. You are in it. Besides, we were there in the bad season, when there really are no flowers, but you will have amazing orchids in the trees, other blossoms covering the water as far as you can see. But if you want company, come to Venice with us. We would really like that.
Venice is out of the question. Let me think about the island.
Think fast. I would hate to find it had been reserved for someone else.
The woman in felt slippers served coffee in the library—that is, served it to Schmidt. Both Blackmans drank chamomile and both sat on the sofa facing the fire, which was fit to roast an ox. Felt Slippers must have added logs to it during dinner. The room was so warm that Schmidt didn’t worry about blocking the fireplace. He stood again with his back to the fire.
This stuff isn’t decaffeinated? he asked.
No, we would have warned you.
Then I would like some more.
If he couldn’t sleep, he would take a pill. It was nice of Gil to remember his addiction to coffee. He should reciprocate by drinking an unreasonable amount of it. With a new and insistent feeling of benevolence, Schmidt surveyed the neat bookshelves, the Fairfield Porter watercolor of Gil done in the garden behind the house where Gil had lived when he was still married to Ann, the predictable but sound arrangement of the furniture, and Gil and Elaine themselves. Couldn’t consolation be drawn from this scene, regardless of his actual distance from it? Keep envy at bay. The small aches in his neck and shoulders, and also in his left ankle, which, twisted so often, became sore as soon as the cold weather began, were melting away. He eyed the bottles on the silver tray on the coffee table and the snifters and was about to ask for a brandy when he realized that neither Blackman had spoken for some minutes. That must mean they thought the evening should end.
Beautiful Elaine, he said. Thank you! I had better return to my Schloss.
Forgive me. I know my eyes are closing. It must be Gil’s all-purpose Merlot.
Nonsense! It’s the bliss of having given your old pal the first home-cooked meal he has had in a week—one he hasn’t cooked himself.
He stooped to be embraced by two arms in black angora and kissed her. One would not have thought it looking at her across the dinner table: the cheek felt rough. Rigorous diet, too much sun all year-round, not enough face cream under the powder and the rouge, or just the ordinary death march of the cells? For the third time that evening, a fist busied itself with Schmidt’s heart. Until the end, he had marveled at the softness of Mary’s skin, even when she had lost so much weight that it had become puckered around her mouth and on the neck, like a child making a monkey face.
Wait, said Gil. I am coming with you. I don’t feel sleepy at all and I can tell you want a drink. We’ll have it at your house.
The Ottoman moon was hidden. Schmidt drove west faster than was usual for him on country roads, keeping Gil’s Jaguar in his rearview mirror. It had gotten even colder. Puddles he hadn’t noticed on his way to the Blackmans’ had turned into shiny mirrors of ice. Whenever Route 27 was visible at a crossing, he would see the headlights of a car hurtling this way or that. Nothing else; along the polite, clean roads south of the highway, the houses had been deserted, the thermostats turned down, the alarm systems set. Why shouldn’t he spend the ten thousand dollars or more and give the Amazon a try? He would be lonely but warm, and perhaps not that lonely. It might be a nice change to doze over a drink in his room, or in the salon if there was one, knowing that well-meaning brown persons with eyes like worlds of sadness were but a few feet away, busy with his dinner. There would be candles or some sort of lamp on the table. He could read while he was eating: Almayer’s Folly, or some other suitable Conrad in paperback. Probably, the humidity there made books curl; no need to expose his good edition to it. Long Island air was bad enough.
He slowed down for the sharp left turn into the driveway to his house and crept along on the gravel. When the front of the house came into view, he braked so suddenly that Gil’s bumper touched the rear of his car. As always when he went out in the evening, Schmidt had turned on the lamps on both sides of the front door and the reflectors on the front porch. In the harsh light he saw a large figure, like a melting snowman, squatting on top of the steps. Its exposed buttocks were fat and exceedingly white. One arm was raised, perhaps to shade the face against the glare. Very slowly, tugging at its clothes, the figure straightened itself. Then, as though to signal satisfaction with the result, it made a little bow in the direction of Schmidt’s car, dashed like a startled pig to the end of the porch, vaulted over the balustrade, became a shadow jogging toward the back lawn, and disappeared behind the honeysuckle hedge. There could be no mistake: it was the man.
Gun the motor, make a U-turn around Gil’s car, and to hell with the grass, spend the night at the Blackmans’ or at a motel?
Gil was already striding toward the house, flashlight in one hand and some sort of stick in the other. All right, let it be. Schmidt turned off the ignition, and got out, holding on to the door to steady himself. He caught up with Gil.
Gil, that’s a lunatic. I’ve seen him before. I don’t want to deal with it. Let’s get away. We’ll call the police on your car phone or from your house.
We can’t just leave your house because we’ve seen a marauder. How do you know he hasn’t broken in?
I told you: he’s a nut, not a burglar. A big, unpleasant nut.
That’s all right. I can take care of him.
Gil held up the object that looked like a stick.
A crowbar! Are you mad too?
I keep one under the car seat, just in case. It steadies the nerves. Come on, Schmidtie, we’ll check the doors and windows and, if nothing is broken, we’ll have our drink. I don’t feel like chasing that guy around the pond either.
The moon had reappeared, so bright one could have read the newspaper. A house well put away for the winter: not a dead leaf or broken branch to be seen, garden hoses and wheelbarrows stored, storm windows intact. Schmidt looked at the house as though it were a stranger’s, ready to congratulate the old fellow who lived in it, and ask about his yardman. They circled back to the front door. He felt no surprise. On the doormat, still steaming, lay the fruit of the white buttocks.
We should kill the bastard, whispered Gil.
Getting him back to the loony bin would do it for me. I’ll tell you something shameful: I’m glad you are here. Go on into the house, and light the fire in the living room. The liquor is on the sideboard. I’ll get rid of this.
He flushed it down the toilet off the kitchen and put the snow shovel back in the garage. Then he washed his hands. His face was green, as though he had just vomited. Perhaps the light in that bathroom was also too harsh. He could change it for a soft, pink bulb. The other solution was to do nothing. Why not leave it for Jon Riker to worry about?
That’s taken care of, he told Gil. Really, no worse than dog shit. You might have thought it would bring back fond memories—like picking up your dog’s mess from the middle of the front lawn, while everybody else is eating lunch on the porch, but somehow the effect on me was different.
&nb
sp; That’s because malice is so uniquely human.
Debasement, too.
Look, I really want to hear what you know about this guy, because what happened isn’t funny, but not right this minute. In fact, I asked to come here to talk about me.
That was pretty clear.
I am in a strange situation. I’m involved with this girl—she is all of twenty-four, in fact her birthday was last week—and I don’t know what to do about it. It’s not the usual thing. First of all, it wasn’t my idea. She engineered it all by herself, from the unexpected pass she made to the daily sex when I am in New York. Second, she is really beautiful. Third, she isn’t after anything—you know, getting to have a part in some television show, presents, whatever. I can’t even take her out to lunch or dinner! Where would we go without being noticed? Fourth, she may even be intelligent; anyway, she doesn’t bore me. And fifth, the sex is irresistible. It isn’t so much what she does—though she does plenty—it’s her unbelievable enthusiasm. She makes me feel I am some kind of god of love, capable of magical feats. This would be very nice if it weren’t for Elaine. You saw me give her a hard time at dinner. But that’s an act. I love her. She loves me. We have a good marriage.
I know.
A marriage with good sex. We haven’t stopped. It’s not one of those once-a-month arrangements you read about in women’s magazines—if such things do in fact exist. I’ve always wondered. Unless we are tired or I am drunk, we make love. Another curious fact is that the thing with the girl hasn’t had a bad effect on the thing with Elaine.