by Norm Sibum
‘Randall, me boy,’ Eleanor breathed, as she bent to kiss the back of my neck.
Marjerie’s eyes narrowed. And the gentlemen grunted their greetings, chairs being drawn along the surface of the terrasse, bodies falling into place. The evening commute was at its most intense, a steady stream of buses discharging passengers. Car horns. Trucks. Squealing brakes. Phillip hunched his shoulders and looked around. He had the air of a man who has just had his bliss and would now attend to other appetites. Ah, who is this girl? Moonface, you say. It was clear these interlopers intended to hang around.
Eleanor, too, was made up to party, and she looked rather lovely, her gilded curls crushed by a soft felt hat, a fedora of sorts; it was an item I had never seen on her head, and it imparted a celebratory aura to her open expression. There was a vulgar way of putting it: she had been well and truly treated with, no question, and quite recently. And yes, there was nothing bad in the woman, just trouble and foolishness. Meanwhile, for Moonface, there was nothing for it but that she had to step out, menus in hand. She wound up for her peculiar little shuffle, forcing her steps to bring her in our direction.
‘Emma,’ said Eleanor, good-naturedly, addressing the waitress by her proper name.
‘Eleanor,’ said Moonface, unsure what to say next, rolling her eyes up and to the side, expecting the worst.
‘A beer,’ said Phillip, cutting to the chase. He was the one entity in this party who did not believe anything out of the ordinary had taken place within the last hour or the last ten centuries; he may as well check this girl out as drift into some other, perhaps, more entertaining bar.
Eleanor smirked. What a braggart she could be. Moonface, at least, had a script to follow: ‘And for you?’
She rose nervously on her tiptoes and settled back down again on her heels, clasping those menus to her bosom as if they were protective layering. Beers all around, though Eleanor would have wine.
‘Of course,’ said Moonface, she knowing the woman’s preference.
I had always supposed it was best that we each follow our natures, that to resist would bring even more grief on our collective heads. It had been a code of conduct for me for quite a long while, but I further supposed that the dictum could not entirely hold all the time. If Eleanor were an eminently sexual being even to the point of regret, she was not one, however, to succumb to the machinations of others, sex or no sex, and she was under a spell.
And all my life I had grappled with the problem of evil, or so it seemed; and the funny thing was, and it was embarrassing, that when confronted with its reality, one gasped like a fish out of water; one was an idiot in a state of panic, words, let alone complex sentences, grossly ineffectual. What was I going to do? Shoot this woman who was Marjerie Prentiss, the author of a humdrum coup? Current President—here was a man, a being, an entity against whom charges could be laid for heinous crimes, though he was as innocent as the day was long; inasmuch as some people had to die and he had decided who was to die, and so forth and so on, like any warlord of ancient days. One shrugged, thoroughly conversant with the American Way. Marjerie Prentiss, on the other hand, was a different matter altogether. The ologies aside (and I had no great faith in their determinations as to what booted it for the human condition), I had no doubt that, in this woman, there was no regard whatsoever for the well-being of others, not a trace of it; and if it were not tantamount to evil, it was very close to the diabolical. And yet, to whom was she obviously bringing harm? And on what scale? And the proof? Was not Eleanor pleased with herself? Had not Ralph and Phillip worked out an arrangement between themselves even if, at times, the arrangement broke down, and jealousy and the humiliations of rage gained the upper hand between them? How had Marjerie convinced these people that there was no other reality but herself, no other way of proceeding in this world but that she was its lowest centre of gravity? She could see how upset I was. Yes, and from out of nowhere I heard the near repugnant voice of Vincent Price addressing his dog in a horror movie scene: You know they’re out there, don’t you, you poor driven thing. How driven was I? Marjerie Prentiss was amused. For all that, Moonface was not, and no further instructions forthcoming, she turned and went back inside. I could easily enough surmise that she was angry; it was the flush that had crept up her neck, the long but thin cascade of hair that had escaped its clasp, obscuring her countenance. It was her thin-lipped mouth drawn small, a hissy fit of a mouth suggesting that somewhere in her being there was a frustrated moralist. I doubted she knew why she was angry, though I supposed I should not doubt her capacity to divine intangibles such as spell out the obvious; that Eleanor was a sucker and the gentlemen were hosers, Marjerie Prentiss smug. Should the conversation fail or prove awkward, I for one, would not come to its rescue. Even so, there was rescue of a kind, Eggy hoving to, making the turn to the terrasse, his cane uplifted, his tough, old eyes excited.
‘Greetings,’ he said, pleased to see a crowd, especially one of familiar faces.
I set him up with a chair.
‘Moonface,’ he thundered, demanding service.
‘Well,’ he wondered, ‘what’s the occasion?’
And I was surprised to see, and perhaps it was too good to be true, that Marjerie looked scuppered of a sudden; this homuncular man—for all that he had been mean to his wives and yet, in his own way, was devoted to Traymoreans—was somehow an antidote to her person. Moonface was happy enough to see him, she bringing beer and wine and glasses on a tray, and setting them down in each their proper place with the fastidiousness of one warding off evil.
‘Who’s cooking?’ Eggy wished to know.
‘And why haven’t they got in those spinach pies, yet?’ he said, incensed.
‘They’ve got the cheese ones,’ Moonface suggested.
‘Don’t want cheese pies. Effing hell. Damn Greeks, Albanians. What’s the world coming to?’
But she would go and consult Serge, an Albanian, the worldly wise cook in the galley. Perhaps something could be arranged, and she would, while she was at it, get Eggy his wine.
‘Oh yes,’ he said, ‘please do.’
And when she was on about her self-imposed task, Eggy addressed me, saying: ‘You know what she needs? She needs to spend more time on her backside.’
‘It seems she has been, lately,’ Eleanor drolled, her turn to be amused.
‘Well, that’s what I’m saying,’ Eggy observed with some heat, his finger raised.
Ralph and Phillip grinned. Marjerie was fading away. I almost felt something like pity for her, she upstaged.
Jeu Blanc
Things got more interesting. There we were at table, Eleanor, Marjerie Prentiss and her swains, Eggy and I. Moonface kept clear, the Whistler and now Miss Meow her only customers inside.
‘Well, there he is,’ gushed Eggy, his arm pointing, the object of his attentions vain and handsome Dubois, his worn and venerable attaché case in hand. Perhaps, within it, was a neatly folded copy of the Globe and Mail, business page at the ready. And something like alarm manifested for the briefest of moments in the man’s glittering eyes, and then was gone. Marjerie slumped deeper in her chair.
‘Honey,’ gasped Eleanor, allowing a private endearment a public airing, suddenly sensible of what she had been up to that afternoon.
‘Honey what?’ asked Dubois, taken aback.
Oh, he knew.
‘Gentlemen,’ he said to various gentlemen, bringing over a chair from another table. ‘And ladies,’ he added.
I wondered if he could feel the heat of Marjerie’s watery, dead eyes.
‘Imitation,’ said Eggy, ‘is the sincerest form of flattery.’
‘And what’s this all about?’ Dubois wished to know, even if he was not so sure the knowing was worthwhile.
‘The Prime Minister,’ Eggy thundered, ‘well, you know, he’s just consulted Bay Street—’
‘Now wait a minute,’ said Dubois, attempting to play along.
And Moonface brought Eggy the pies that Serg
e in the galley had managed to prepare, and they were spinach pies, and, as Eggy noted, a little on the burnt side. But he would live with it.
‘I think you should,’ said Moonface.
‘Here it is,’ said Dubois, ‘her M-tone.’
‘M-tone?’ asked Eleanor.
‘It’s something new. Matronly Moonface,’ Dubois explained, choosing, perhaps, to remain oblivious to the fact that when the cat had been away, the mice had been playing.
Moonface, rolling her eyes up and to the side, noiselessly tapped her foot.
‘Bob?’ she said.
‘Well, I think I’ll have some wine,’ he said.
At which point Eleanor rose, and gripped Dubois’s shoulder, and it was a gesture that said she had had enough for now, and would see him, later. Dubois, apparently, had no objections. And Marjerie rose likewise, and her rising signalled her lover boys that it was time to go.
‘Was it something I said?’ Dubois guffawed.
‘Yes, Bob,’ said Eleanor in a mock display of pique, ‘it’s always something you’ve said.’
Ralph engaged Moonface in an earnest discussion regarding the bill, and he went inside with her.
‘What’s happening,’ asked Eggy, ‘why’s everyone going so soon?’
‘We must have the plague,’ Dubois suggested, and then, turning to me: ‘And you? What’s your explanation for this?’
It would take me an hour to provide him one, and he had not the patience, so I figured.
Ralph paid for a round of drinks, and then escorted his party down the street—to the Traymore, I assumed. We were alone now, Dubois, Eggy, and I. A slight chill had settled on the evening, though it was not yet chill enough to drive us inside where Moonface was now engaged in high level talks with Miss Meow. This woman always wore a heavy coat no matter the weather, had one wonky eye, was beefy, and did not much care for the presence of the Whistler. The louder he whistled and stomped the louder she miaowed. The only person missing for full-out cacophony was Blind Musician; a single bray of his could drown an entire performance of The Flying Dutchman. In any case, as amusing as these observations might strike me, my mood was strictly sombre. I did not know what Dubois had made of the scene he initially encountered; I did not wish to know. It seemed that good people were quite capable of inflicting pain, of atrocities, as well; it seemed, too, that bad people might pass through life without committing anything remotely resembling a violent act.
‘I think,’ I said,’ that we should hit upon a minimal definition of evil, at least.’
‘Say what?’ said Dubois.
Eggy’s chin had raised his chest.
‘Yes, it’s time. I propose that that which most minimally defines evil is what robs a human being of his soul.’
‘What has that got to do with anything?’ asked Dubois, genuinely confused.
‘I was just thinking aloud.’
‘Well, maybe you could, you know, provide some context.’
More miaowing. More whistling.
‘Boys,’ said Moonface, come upon us, clear of a cacophony for a few precious moments, ‘will there be anything else?’
‘Ah, the M-tone,’ said Eggy, his chin still on his chest.
‘I know. Matronly, matronly,’ Moonface sing-songed, her mouth tightly pursed.
Even so, I could tell she was happy, happy that no viper was now turning the heads of her boys; happy that her Champagne Sheridan was telling her how exciting it would be, Ecuador, that is; but that if her boys were imagining naughty thoughts in respect to her own charms, at least she was the object and not that Prentiss woman, most unpleasant and unwelcome person.
How get Eleanor back her soul now that I decided it had been stolen? I mulled it in a hot bath; I mulled it on the couch, Letterman jesting on TV. Eggy and Dubois, contented drunks, had already been a commotion on the Traymore stairs. There was revelry in Marjerie’s apartment. I wondered if from Moonface I would receive a visit, questions in her eyes. Otherwise, she was still half in situ and half the time at her Champagne Sheridan’s, perhaps because he was behaving as she wished it, having curbed his jealousy. I could hit on no stratagem that would return to Eleanor her errant identity, not that it was all that imperilled; but that, yes, Marjerie had made her inroads. I could not believe Eleanor would reach the point where she would desire all Arabs nuked and liberals and blacks strung from trees. But I could easily enough see her desporting herself among quite local and quite jaded Sybarites, Marjerie, to be precise, and her consorts. Was Dubois a born cuckold? If so, I had a hard time seeing it. But then, I was not, by nature, an out and out philanderer, and yet, here it was I had exchanged intimacies with his sweetheart, and with Moonface, too. And say I was right, and there was no guarantee that I was right, but say there was in the Prentiss woman a streak of evil, what was it on a sliding scale in regards to Iraq, the bombing of wedding parties in Afghanistan, Wall Street and its predatory scams? As I had already observed, there was nothing Marjerie was inviting Eleanor to do that was, on the surface, against Eleanor’s nature. But then one might argue that that was the thing of it, as when in some movie I had recently seen, one of the more smug characters suggested that the devil’s achievement lay in persuading people he did not exist. And was this good, this citing a less than memorable flick over and against, say, Reinhold Niebuhr? What of Aristotle (or was it Socrates, or was it, for that matter, Daffy Duck?) who asserted that no one would do bad who knew the good? Well, the ancients, as wise as they were, were in some matters remarkably naïve such as would give comfort to present day ologists for whom there are no mysteries. I did have a visitor.
And it was Eleanor, oddly but familiarly dishevelled, drifting over from Marjerie’s.
‘Randall, Randall, Randall,’ Eleanor breathed, ‘whatever are we going to do with you? You go to Rome. You come back a stuffed shirt. I try to boff it out of you and you get stuffier. Then you damn near commit incest with Moonface. And then I have a little session, you know, with-what’s-their-names, and you get this look, this sourpuss, judgmental look, this what-do-you-think-you’re-doing-bitch sort of look, and I say, man, who’s he to talk? Hell, I ought to haul your arse back there. What do you think they’re doing there? Got the mattress in the middle of the floor. The one is behind her, the other on his knees. Get the picture? Effing hell, Randall, don’t you hear what I’m trying to say? I can’t believe myself. And I was always such a good little girl.’
Letterman winked. Tears now—full throttle, as it were. She was drunk and she smelled of drink. She was on her knees at my side. One thing was going to lead to the next unless I put my foot down. I rose and got to my feet. I grabbed her by both arms and coaxed her up. She was pie-eyed. What would Mrs Petrova think? Orgies and out of control symposiums. Eventually, I got Eleanor to her bed, thought better of undressing her. I would advise Dubois of the situation, but when I knocked on his door, he either did not hear me or he would not answer.
Fifteen Per Cent Per Annum
I agreed to meet with Dubois downtown at Steerburgers at some appointed hour. He was in his business finery, all in black when the hour arrived and we met up. He studied the menu or endeavoured to, as something else was on his mind. We perched on counter stools, the restaurant cavernous, a friendly, middle-aged waitress fielding my English and Dubois’s French. Once every other month or so, I wound up here. Occasionally, I ran into Arsdell, one of academe’s finest examples of a tenured fraud. ‘Eleanor,’ said Dubois, eyeing me.
‘Who else?’
‘What to do with her?’
‘Well, what’s to do with her? Read her the riot act? Play the heavy? It won’t work.’
‘I think you’re right.’
‘Marry her, Bob.’
‘Marry her? Why on earth would I do that? I like my life the way it is.’
‘It’s what she wants.’
‘What she wants is beside the point.’
‘Is it really?’
‘Damn you,’ said Dubois, somewhat flustered.
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And then, after a pause for reflection: ‘And then what? We get married. And then she’s expecting fifteen per cent per annum. Utopia. And she likes her little assignations—’
‘I don’t know that she likes her assignations.’
‘What else has she been doing?’
‘Screwing around. But maybe she’s trying to get your attention.’
‘You think so? She’s always been like this. Long before you knew her. And even when I pay her plenty of attention. I don’t mind so much, so long as she doesn’t rub my face in it. I wouldn’t mind screwing around, myself, you know. It’s just that, well, it hasn’t happened. I can’t really say why, or rather, I won’t.’
The waitress made a great show of taking my friend’s order, obviously smitten with the man. Some bantering in French. She giggled. He guffawed. Our coffees served, I loaded mine up with sugar, worried, however, that my advice was less than sound.
‘What worries me,’ said Dubois, ‘is that she’ll want me to give Eggy up, and you.’
‘I doubt it. As it is, she’s practically the heart and soul of the crew.’
‘Not since Marjerie moved in.’
‘True.’