Two Weeks in Another Town

by Irwin Shaw

  “The next time you see me,” Jack said, “be careful. I may be carrying a gun.”

  “Will you?” Bresach nodded agreeably. “Yes, that would be the sensible thing to do, wouldn’t it?” He stood up abruptly. “I’m leaving,” he said, standing very erect and with extreme and self-conscious steadiness. “Pay the bill, Jack. I’ll call you tomorrow about the date with Delaney.”

  He turned on his heel and walked rigidly out of the restaurant.

  Max stood up, fumbling with his scarf. “It’s late,” he said. “Do not worry. I will bring you the script. Thank you for a most excellent dinner. Now, if you will excuse me…” He took his battered greenish hat off the hook and clamped it on his head and fled.

  18

  THE SLEEPING PILL. LOVELY transparent plastic tube, soluble, jade-green in the bed-table light, loyally carrying its cargo, three grains of peace, across the perilous dark hours. To make the voyage from night to morning navigable for twentieth-century man. But in that sleep of drugs what dreams may…Further measures are necessary. The bottle. Haig, Dewar’s, Black and White, Johnny Walker, reliable old friends, to be found at all good bars, in Rome or out of Rome. The steep, heavy-limbed midnight plunge into forgetfulness. Alcohol plus sodium-ethyl-methyl-butyl-barbituate equals six hours of oblivion, and, after all, what’s better than oblivion?

  Sleep now, pay later.

  Only for a moment, after the lights are extinguished, before the drug has put in its’ full claim on the exhausted, fretful body, is there the brief fingering of memory to be endured, a sense of loss, desire, guilt…

  And in the morning, a wild, quick rush of dreams, with the telephone ringing, and the operator waiting to say, as instructed, “Sono le sette, Signor Andrus,” to get you to the studio on time. And the Benzedrine to get over the sleeping pills and the Alka-Seltzer to get over the whisky and the black coffee for courage and to keep the hands from shaking too badly while shaving.

  Sleep now. Pay later.

  Sunday morning.

  Jack came down into the lobby late. Bresach was waiting for him, looking skinny, pale, well-shaven, disdainful of the over-dressed ladies who were passing through the lobby on their way to church. Jack looked at him with something close to hatred in his heart. Max had kept his promise. He had brought over the script that Bresach had written. And it was brilliant. It was about three Hungarian refugees and a young American student who lived in one room in Rome, given to them by a crazy old English spinster who had lived in Italy since she was a girl. Max’s experiences had obviously gone into the writing of it. It was sad and funny and violent, and there was a grotesque and pathetic love story between one of the refugees and an American girl touring Europe with her mother, and the whole thing was done in the simplest and cleanest of terms, with a stunning directness of images and language and with a certainty and control that made it almost impossible to believe that it had been created by a young man who had had almost nothing to do with the making of movies before this.

  Looking at Bresach across the lobby, and remembering the script, about which he had not yet spoken to the boy, Jack felt resentful and unfairly burdened by this new revelation of Bresach’s resources. Now he was not only responsible, almost through no fault of his own, for Bresach’s disaster with Veronica, but he was responsible for his excellence, his talent, his future.

  It was with a sense of being trapped and suffocated that he watched Bresach cross the lobby toward him, malnourished, vulnerable, demanding, haunting.

  “I am on time,” Bresach said. It was an accusation.

  “So I see,” Jack said. He went over to the desk and dropped his key there. The porter handed him two envelopes. Jack opened the first one. It was a communication from the Italian Telegraph Service informing him that his telegram to Veronica’s mother had not been delivered, because the recipient was not known at that address.

  There’s something for Sunday morning, Jack thought. To brighten the Roman Sabbath.

  As he and Bresach walked out onto the street where Guido was waiting for them with the car, Jack handed the opened message to Bresach, without comment.

  Bresach stopped and studied it, shaking his head. Jack opened the other envelope. It was a telegram. “Don’t worry, dearest,” it said, “Love, Veronica.” It had been sent from Zurich, at ten thirty the night before. Jack read it twice, searching for a code, a hidden message. All this means, he thought, is that last night at ten thirty she was alive and in Zurich. As Bresach came up to him, Jack stuffed the telegram into his pocket.

  “I can’t make anything out of this,” Bresach said, folding the communication from the telegraph company. “That’s the address she gave me, all right.”

  “Did you ever send any other telegrams or letters there?” Jack asked.

  “No,” said Bresach. “It was only for emergencies. There were never any emergencies. Until now. How about the other one? Was that about anything?”

  “No,” Jack said.

  They got into the car and sat back as Guido started down the sunny avenue, crowded, even this early, with its Sunday families.

  Later on, Jack thought, maybe I’ll show him the telegram. After I’ve had a chance to think about it. Zurich. Who goes to Zurich? Why does anyone go to Zurich?

  Bresach hunched into his duffel coat in a corner, glowering out the window. They were passing a newly built church, its pale stone raw and incongruous amid the weathered walls on each side of it. Latecomers were hurrying up the steps for Mass, and Bresach regarded them as though they had insulted him. “That’s what this town needs,” he said. “More churches.” He took off his glasses and wiped them on his necktie, violently, then put them back on again. “This is a waste of time,” he said, “going to see Delaney. We’re at opposite sides of an abyss.”

  “Why don’t you wait and see?” Jack said.

  “Did you give Delaney my script?”

  “Yes.”

  “Has he read it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Have you read it?”

  “Yes,” Jack said. He waited for Bresach to ask him what he thought of it. But he only snuffled a little in his corner and said, childishly, “I don’t know why I let you talk me into things.”

  “Do you want to get off here?” Jack asked, exasperated, knowing that it was only bad temper and rhetoric, that he could not let Bresach get off here or anywhere.

  Bresach hesitated. “What the hell,” he said. “I’ve come this far.” He peered out at the street. “I thought you said Delaney lived opposite the Circus Maximus.”

  “He does,” Jack said.

  “This guy’s going toward Parioli.” Bresach gestured toward Guido, in the driver’s seat.

  “Calm down,” Jack said. “You’re not being kidnapped. Delaney’s out there this morning. Taking riding lessons. It’s the only time he could give you.”

  “Riding lessons?” Bresach snorted. “What’s he going to do—gallop off to the Hundred Years’ War?” He subsided into sullen silence for a moment. “Do you sleep at night?” he asked.

  “Yes.” Jack said nothing about the pills, the whisky.

  “I don’t,” Bresach said gloomily. “I lie in bed and listen to Max’s nightmares and wake him up when he gets to a border. I’m going to tell you something. If I don’t hear from her this week I’m going to the police.” He glared over at Jack, challenging him, waiting for argument.

  “You don’t have to go to the police,” Jack said. “I heard from her.”

  “When?”

  “This morning.”

  “Where is she?” Bresach was watching him narrowly, suspecting him.

  “Zurich.”

  “What?”

  “Zurich.”

  “I don’t believe you,” Bresach said.

  Jack took out the telegram and handed it to Bresach. He read it, his lips tucked into a harsh, thin line, then crumpled it and put it in his pocket. “Dearest,” he said.

  “Have you any idea where she might be in
Zurich?” Jack asked.

  Bresach shook his head gloomily. “I don’t have any idea where anybody might be anyplace.” He took the crumpled telegram out of his pocket and flattened it out on his knee with great care and studied it. “Well, at least she’s alive,” he said. “Are you pleased?”

  “Of course,” Jack said. “Aren’t you?”

  “I’m not sure,” said Bresach, staring down at the paper on his knee. “I fall in love once in my whole life, and it has to be someone like this.” He tapped the telegram bitterly. “I had three months of happiness with her. What do you think—is that the limit? Is that the ration? And after that, limitless despair? Tell me, what about you? Supposing you never hear from her again? Supposing this telegram is the last word you ever get from her in your whole life—Zurich, escaped to Zurich—what happens to you? What do you do—just go back to Paris and live your nice bourgeois life with your wife and kids and forget about her?”

  “I won’t forget her,” Jack said.

  “Andrus,” Bresach said, “do you know anything about love?”

  “I know one or two things,” Jack said. “I know it doesn’t end with a telegram.”

  “What does it end with, then? I wish I knew. Do you know the story of the Spartan boy with the fox?” Bresach demanded.

  “Yes.”

  “There’s more to it than meets the eye,” said Bresach. “It’s an allegory, it’s crammed with symbols, it’s not what it seems to mean at all. The fox is love, and you have to hide it, and you don’t bring it out on parade because you can’t bring it out—it’s locked inside you—and first it licks you playfully, and then it takes a little tentative nip, then it likes the taste—and then it begins to eat away in earnest—”

  “Don’t be so full of self-pity,” Jack said. “That’s one of the worst things about your generation.”

  “Screw my generation,” Bresach said. “I don’t belong to it and it doesn’t belong to me. Me and the fox, that’s what I belong to.” Neatly, he folded the telegram, then threw it out the window. It swooped and twisted, leaflike and free on the windy, sunny avenue.

  “Don’t worry,” Robert said, “dearest. There’s a message for this year. Were you ever in Zurich?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?” Bresach asked.

  “I was on my way skiing,” Jack said.

  “Skiing.” Bresach grimaced. “You’re too godamn healthy for my taste. There are no exterior signs of rot. I can’t stand people like that.”

  “Shut up.”

  “Did anyone ever tell you you look like a Roman emperor?” Bresach asked. “I mean, women who wanted to flatter you, or artistic drunks at parties?”

  “No,” Jack said.

  “Well, you do. There’re a thousand busts in stone and bronze all over Rome that look as though they were made in your family. The big, powerful nose, the thick, brutal neck, the fleshy jaws, the sensual, self-confident mouth, the look of blank command. ‘All were skilled in religious discipline, expert in strategy, pitiless and rich.’” Bresach squinted behind his glasses, drawing on his memory with an obvious effort. “That’s from Flaubert,” he said. “He was describing the rulers of Carthage, I but it will do for the emperors of Rome, and for you, too. With a face like yours,” he said, “I’d be at least an army corps commander or the president of a steel company.”

  “Well, I’m not,” Jack said. “I’m an under-secretary in an under-bureau.”

  “Maybe you’re biding your time.” Bresach grinned provocatively. “Maybe next year you’ll blossom out and you’ll have forty thousand men under your orders. You’ll disappoint me if you don’t, Jack. ‘Expert in strategy, pitiless and rich…’” he repeated. “Do you think the American face is moving in your direction, Jack?”

  “You’re just as American as I am,” Jack said. “Do you think the American face is moving in your direction?”

  “No,” Bresach said. “I’m a reject. I’m off the main line. If they could do it by law, they would revoke my citizenship. I’m tortured, short-sighted, and skeptical. I’m the stuff that exiles are made of.”

  “Bull.”

  Bresach grinned again. “There’s something in what you say, Jack,” he said. The car swerved violently, to avoid a Vespa that came charging out of a side street, carrying a young man and a girl, both of them leaning far over to make the curve. Bresach shouted in Italian at them, angrily.

  “What did you say then?” Jack asked.

  “I said, ‘Why aren’t you in church?’” Bresach said. He was still angry. He took out a crumpled pack of cigarettes and lit one for himself. For the first time, Jack noticed that Bresach’s long fingers were yellowed from nicotine.

  “Have you thought about what you want to tell Delaney?” Jack asked. He felt responsible for the interview and wanted it to go well, or at least decorously, and Bresach’s mood now was disquieting. He had taken Bresach into the projection room with him the day before to see the film that was already assembled. He had watched Bresach while the film was being run, but Bresach for once had sat quiet and expressionless for an hour and a half and had left without venturing any opinion on what he had seen.

  “Are you afraid of what I’ll tell the great man?” Bresach demanded.

  “No,” Jack said. “I just want it to stay within the bounds of normal human intercourse.”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll be reasonable,” Bresach said. “If it kills me. After all, I want the job.”

  “What are you going to tell him about the picture?” Jack asked, curiously.

  “I don’t know,” said Bresach. “I haven’t made my mind up yet.” He threw his cigarette away. “How big a town is Zurich?” he asked.

  “Three, four hundred thousand,” Jack said. “Something like that.”

  “Everybody says the Swiss police are great at finding people,” Bresach said. “They know in which bed everybody in Switzerland is sleeping each night. Is that true?”

  “Approximately.”

  “I think I’ll fly to Zurich tonight,” Bresach said. “Catch her yodeling by the side of the lake. Will you lend me the money for the plane?”

  “No,” Jack said.

  “You sound like my father,” said Bresach. With that insult he slid down into his corner, his head turned, and spoke no more until they reached the riding academy.

  Delaney was taking two-foot brush jumps on a big, nervous roan. The horse hadn’t been nervous to begin with, but after fifteen minutes with Delaney, he was pulling at the bit, frothing, and backing and dancing sideways before each approach.

  He has the same effect on actors, Jack thought sadly. Give him a quarter of an hour with any living thing and terror and mutiny raise their heads.

  Jack and Bresach were leaning against the top rail of the fence that enclosed the big practice ring. Bresach had a slight, derisive smile on his face as he watched Delaney bump around on the roan. In contrast to the other riders, who were smartly dressed in whipcord breeches and boots and English tweed jackets, Delaney was wearing a worn pair of blue jeans, a red flannel shirt without a tie, and ankle-high suede shoes. The riding master, a small, sixty-year-old Italian, his boots brilliant, his flaring jacket faultlessly pressed, the stock around his thin neck tight and without creases, stood in the center of the ring, calling out patiently in English, “’eels down, Signor Delaney, ’eels down!” and, “Relax the grip on the reins, signore, if you please. Do not pull, if you please. The pressure always firm and even. Do not flap the ’eels. Do not confuse the animal, if you please.”

  Bresach chuckled at Jack’s side. “Do not confuse the animal,” he whispered.

  Delaney went over the jump again and lost a stirrup and pulled wildly on the reins and the roan skittered off to his left. Delaney nearly fell off and Bresach chuckled again.

  “For the moment, Signor Delaney,” the riding master said, “maybe it is time to take a little rest. Let the animal breathe.”

  A groom took the roan’s bridle and Delaney swung off, stiffly.
“Next time,” he said to the riding master, “I’ll take that one.” He pointed at a rail jump, three and a half feet high.

  The riding master shook his head. “I do not think,” he said, “that it is quite the…”

  “I’ll take that one.” Delaney patted him on the shoulder and took off his gloves and came over to where Jack and Bresach were standing. He was grinning, enjoying himself, and he looked flushed and healthy from the exercise. He was sweating and vapor was rising from his forehead into the crisp, sunny air. Jack introduced him to Bresach, and Delaney said, shaking Bresach’s hand, “I’m glad to see you. I haven’t read your script yet, but Jack says you’re a bright boy.”

  “Maurice,” Jack said, “what in the world are you doing learning how to jump horses at your age?”

  “That’s exactly why,” Delaney said. “My age. It’s to keep from growing old. Each year I try to learn one new thing. To make up for the things I’m losing, the things I can’t do as well any more. I figure I can go on improving as a rider until I’m sixty-five. The whole idea of being young is that you can feel yourself getting better and better at things. Am I right?” He looked at Bresach.

  “I’m getting worse and worse at everything,” Bresach said.

  Delaney laughed good-naturedly. “At your age,” he said, “you can afford to say things like that.”

  “What’re you going to take up next year?” Jack asked. “Parachuting?”

  “French,” said Delaney. “I want to direct a picture in French before I’m sixty. They’ve got a couple of actors in Paris I want to get my hands on before I die.”

  There was a pretty, dark girl in the ring now, on a tall, quiet bay. The girl didn’t look more than sixteen, small, serious-faced, erect and light in the saddle. She started making a circuit of the jumps, and all three men watched as she seemed to lift the horse effortlessly over the obstacles, a rapt, intent expression on her face.