Karoo

by Steve Tesich

  3

  Drunk is what I wanted to be, dead drunk, or dead even, but since none of those choices was available to me, I slipped into the role of a drunk, a role familiar to both Laurie and Cromwell from the days when I didn’t have to pretend. I played it for all I was worth.

  Either my reputation as a legendary alcoholic rewriter had preceded me or Cromwell had made a point of acquainting his male attendants with it, because the more I drank and the drunker I pretended to be, the more I seemed to confirm their expectation.

  The way I thought I was deceiving and manipulating Cromwell with my parody of myself. After all, I knew the truth, that I was cold sober, and he didn’t. The way I thought that the possession of truth gave me an advantage.

  The Asian girl sitting across the table from me, next to Cromwell, was the only one keeping up with me. For every drink I ordered, so did she. Whenever she noticed that her glass was empty, she raised her arm in the air and rang her little bell at our waitress. The drunker she became, the more she laughed. When she laughed, her eyes disappeared completely and she seemed to laugh for the pleasure it gave her to be temporarily blind. I had never before seen laughter used as a blindfold.

  4

  We ordered dinner, all except Laurie. She couldn’t eat, she told me. Not even a little something? No, she shook her head. I ordered a country salad to start and lamb chops, medium rare, as my entree.

  And then Cromwell explained about the bells.

  He spoke to me, but he looked at Laurie while he spoke.

  Prior to coming here, they had all been at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, to attend the tribute to Vaclav Havel and the celebration of democracy in Czechoslovakia. (The Asian girl roared with laughter.) As part of the program, Cromwell went on, hundreds of little bells were distributed to those in attendance, so that when Havel made his entrance into the cathedral he could be greeted by the sound of all those little bells ringing in his honor. This part of the program was called the Ringing of the Bells for Freedom.

  The food arrived as ordered.

  Throughout dinner, somebody at the table rang one of those little bells.

  When Laurie excused herself to go to the ladies’ room, somebody rang a bell. When she came back, somebody rang a bell. When a waitress, not ours, dropped some dishes on the floor and they broke, almost everyone at our table rang their bells. It became a compulsion, and the compulsion finally resulted in a kind of crescendo.

  The Asian girl became inspired. She gathered up all the bells at our table. They had little key chain clips on them, and she clipped them together into two clusters of four bells to a cluster. She looped the clusters over her earrings. One cluster of bells on the left earring, one on the right. And then she shook her head, making the bells ring. All of us except Laurie exploded with laughter and applause.

  Laurie excused herself to go to the ladies’ room. I don’t know how many times she went. I lost track.

  In her absence, we played a parlor game with her and my relationship to her.

  Where did I find her, Cromwell wanted to know. She was delicious, he thought. She really was.

  I made a big show, in Laurie’s absence, of denying all the innuendoes and insinuations. Laurie, I told them, was like a daughter to me.

  The way I said what I said. The way I smiled when I said it. The incestuous connotations of my defense of our relationship. The remarks with which it was greeted. The way the Asian girl shook her head, ringing all those little bells dangling from her ears, the way she shook and shook her head, laughing with an eyeless face.

  “Really, really,” I insisted. “She used to come and watch me shave when she was a little girl.”

  “And I bet she still does,” somebody said.

  The way we all applauded the remark and laughed. The way I laughed. The way Cromwell laughed. The way he flung back his head and laughed, so that all his teeth showed.

  Laurie’s return.

  The way she looked, walking back toward us, her long neck seeming not so long anymore. The way in which, and the speed with which, our laughter subsided when she sat down again next to me. The way she looked when she absorbed, as she couldn’t help absorbing, the smarmy leftovers of the conversation that had prevailed during her absence.

  Her eyes. The way she didn’t know what to do with them. Where to look.

  5

  After dinner, over after-dinner drinks, another parlor game began.

  Could anyone guess, Cromwell wanted to know, his Asian girlfriend’s country of origin.

  We all took turns playing the game, all except Laurie.

  Cromwell gave a hint. It was Southeast Asia.

  Thailand?

  No.

  Laos?

  No.

  Vietnam?

  No.

  Cambodia, somebody finally guessed. Yes, she was from Cambodia. We all burst into applause.

  The way in which, and the ease with which, the banter turned from her country of origin to movies. Somebody wanted to know, maybe it was me, if she had seen The Killing Fields.

  6

  Later, and only when asked, Cromwell regaled us with details of the various movies he was planning to make and the various stages of development of each of the projects.

  The ravenous, empty hunger he created in me for an assignment, a rewrite job on one of them. A hunger for something for which I had no need, or use, or desire, but a genuine hunger nonetheless.

  As an entertaining finale to our dinner, Cromwell told the story of our last collaboration and the last time we saw each other. His reenactment of the young writer’s attack on us in the lobby of the theater in Pittsburgh. The way the writer wept and cursed and called us names. Cromwell’s interpretation of that event as comedy. The way everyone laughed and applauded his performance. The way I laughed and applauded with the rest.

  7

  The parting outside Cafe Luxembourg. The waiting limos. The way I staggered as if drunk. The way Cromwell took me aside and asked me to meet him for lunch at two at his hotel tomorrow. The way he told Laurie how much he had enjoyed her. The Cambodian girl with the bells still dangling from her earrings. The way she laughed and laughed when she caught herself staggering toward the wrong limo.

  The almost balmy February night.

  8

  The seemingly endless limousine ride with Laurie, back to her apartment on the East Side.

  The way she either refused or could not bring herself to look at me.

  The silence between us.

  My memory of our limo ride to Cafe Luxembourg. Our limo conversation. My memory of Laurie as my guardian angel. The last person on earth who could speak on my behalf. The way it all seemed so long ago. The same night, but so long ago.

  The memory of that sweet seriousness of life I had seen in her face.

  My growing desperation, the closer we came to her apartment, to part with her on terms that would enable me to call her again.

  When the limo finally stopped outside her building, she recoiled in horror when I tried to give her a good-night kiss on her cheek.

  The way she fled from me, out of the limo, as if running for her life.

  The way the limo driver took notice of everything but, being a professional, made it seem he was oblivious to the whole thing.

  The way I tried to chat him up.

  The taste in my mouth. The way my saliva tasted like somebody else’s.

  Moods, I thought, moods was all I had. Waxing moods. Waning moods.

  I could not hold on to anything.

  I was not, I realized, a human being anymore, and had probably not been one for some time. I was, instead, some new isotope of humanity that had not yet been isolated and identified. I was a loose electron, whose spin and charge and direction could be reversed at any moment by random forces outside myself. I was one of those stray bullets of our time.

  CHAPTER TEN

  1

  MY LUNCH APPOINTMENT with Cromwell is at two, but I am earlier than usual, early even
for me. It’s one thirty by the large antique clock in the hotel lobby. I have half an hour before I pick up the house phone and call him to tell him I have arrived.

  There is a lot of wood and wing-backed chairs in the lobby. Next to the chairs, there are large stand-up ashtrays. I sit down in one of the leather wing-backed chairs studded with shiny brass upholsterer’s tacks and light a cigarette. For once I’m not the only one smoking. The well-to-do of Europe love this hotel, and the well-to-do of Europe still smoke. The lobby is fairly teeming with them. I hear Italian, German, and Spanish being spoken. The English I do hear has a heavy British accent. I smoke and let my free hand glide over those shiny brass tacks in my chair, whose heads are as large as the hobs on hobnail boots. I control the urge to count them.

  The elevator is directly in front of me and the elevator doors open and close, bringing down new people, taking up the ones I have already seen. The perfumes of departed women linger for a while, and then are replaced by the perfumes of others.

  2

  I’m not just early, I’m way ahead of Cromwell in every respect.

  He will come, I know, with a manila envelope in his hands. In the envelope will be either a script in need of rewriting or a videocassette of a film in need of recutting. The manila envelope will lie there while we talk of other matters.

  I need nothing from him. I have no need of money or of an assignment. I have no ambitions. I cannot be flattered because I know the narrow limits of my so-called talent and, if anything, I resent others, as I resented Guido, who try to convince me that I’m better than I think I am. I’m not. I’m as good as I can be, as good as I’ll ever be. I know all that.

  If anyone is leading anyone on, it is I who am leading on Cromwell by being here when I haven’t the slightest intention of working with him ever again.

  My mascot, the moral man within me, is busy putting the finishing touches to his harangue, the moral monologue he plans to disgorge into Cromwell’s face.

  “Listen to me, Cromwell, and listen well …”

  3

  At exactly two o’clock I pick up the house phone and call him. He apologizes profusely and informs me that he is running a little late and suggests, not knowing that I have already waited for him for half an hour, that I go and wait in the restaurant adjoining the lobby. The reservation is in his name. He won’t be long.

  “Have a drink, relax, I’ll be down as soon as I can. And sorry about the delay. I really am.”

  And he sounds as if he really means it.

  4

  The hotel restaurant is old-world elegance itself. It’s barely a third full and the ratio of waiters to customers is heavily stacked in favor of the customers. Cromwell doesn’t smoke, but he’s reserved a table for us in the smoking section out of consideration for my habit. He can be very thoughtful that way.

  The old-world atmosphere of elegance and dignity makes me feel, as I light my cigarette, that I am here not in some personal capacity but as a representative of some country or some cause and will shortly be signing an important treaty at The Hague, which is just across the street.

  My waiter comes and, like one world-class diplomat to another, inquires if I would like a drink. It’s an important question and he gives me time to think. I thoughtfully answer that yes, I would. A Bloody Mary. In his dignified way, he seems pleased by my decision and betakes himself toward the bartender to give him the happy news.

  The walls of the restaurant are decorated with lithographs of old sailing ships. Schooners. Frigates. Men-of-war. Some of them seem to be the work of primitive, self-taught artists with bizarre notions of perspective. The hull of one clipper ship is shown in its entirety above the water, as if the weight of the ship could not make so much as a dent in the sea.

  My waiter brings my Bloody Mary, bows, and departs. I light a cigarette.

  5

  Cromwell appears. His back is turned as he waves to somebody in the lobby. Then, turning around, he scans the restaurant. He sees me. He smiles. In his left hand he’s carrying a yellow manila envelope.

  I stand up. We shake hands. Pat backs. Chit our chat.

  “I am really sorry …” He apologizes yet again for being late. What can he do? He’s in town for only a few days and there are so many loose ends to tie up before he departs for Europe. Oh, didn’t he tell me? Monday, he flies to Europe. He wants to see what’s happening over there for himself. Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, Poland, Czechoslovakia. The whole thing. Then on to Moscow. The world is changing and he wants to see the changes for himself. It’s an exciting time to be alive, don’t I agree?

  I do.

  He keeps the yellow manila envelope in front of him for a while and then moves it casually aside, where it stays. Whatever is in that envelope is meant for me, but we will not discuss it right now. Whatever is in that envelope will cause somebody great harm, because whatever Cromwell does causes somebody great harm. Being an old pro with manila envelopes, I can tell by its outward shape that the object inside is not a script but a videocassette.

  Once again, I’m way ahead of him. Thanks to Guido’s trip to LA and the gossip he brought back, I feel pretty sure, positive almost, that the cassette inside the envelope is a video transfer of the film that Cromwell had taken away from its director, Arthur Houseman. The Old Man. The national treasure of American cinema.

  Meanwhile, we banter about the night before, the dinner at Cafe Luxembourg. How nice it was. How nice to see each other again after all that time. How great it is for Cromwell to be in New York again, Cafe Luxembourg is his favorite restaurant. They just don’t have restaurants like that in LA, he laments. He wishes he could live in New York himself, but his job makes it impossible. I sympathize. He compliments me for living here and staying away from the LA rat race unlike so many other screenwriters. He thinks it’s very wise of me.

  It’s like a sit-down waltz, our banter. The rhythm is familiar. The dance steps are second nature. We chit our chat in three-quarter time and I feel as if I’m the one who’s leading.

  We chat on. Our remarks become interchangeable. He tells me, or I tell him, how good he looks. How I’ve never, or he’s never seen me look so good. And I reply, or he replies that he feels good. The whole secret to looking good is how you feel.

  I have a great affinity for this kind of mindless babble. Only my mouth is involved, leaving my mind free to think its thoughts.

  I ponder the nature of evil while we waltz. The nature of Cromwell’s monolithic evil. What makes it so attractive?

  No, it’s not merely that in comparison to him I come out feeling semidecent, virtuous almost, although that is one of the fringe benefits of associating with evil.

  There is something else at work here.

  I focus on the problem at hand (babbling along meanwhile) like Einstein performing one of his thought experiments. I seek a larger theoretical framework for Cromwell’s irresistibility.

  The answer I arrive at is this: Monolithic evil is irresistible because it raises the possibility of the existence of monolithic goodness as a compensatory force. I become aware of this only when I’m in Cromwell’s company. It’s his evil that makes goodness come to mind.

  The same principle is involved in my chronic lying. I lie not because I’m afraid of truth but, rather, as a desperate attempt to preserve my faith in its existence. When I lie, I feel that I’m actually hiding from truth. My dread is that were I ever to stop hiding from it, I might discover that truth does not exist.

  The same principle yet again is involved in my penchant for mindless babble. By saying nothing over and over again, in a variety of ways, I seem to be nurturing a hope that I have something essential to express at the right occasion. The one brings the other into focus.

  And so while I waltz with Cromwell and match his banalities with banalities of my own, I feel positive that the next time I see my son, I will have something deeply felt and genuine to tell him. This man, Cromwell, whom I’m dying to hate, brings to mind the son I’m dying to l
ove.

  6

  We order a light lunch. The soup du jour is clam chowder, Manhattan style. Soup du jour it is for both of us. Soup and salad.

  Cromwell sticks to mineral water.

  I order another Bloody Mary.

  “You writers.” Cromwell, impressed by my drinking, sighs and shakes his head. “I don’t know how you do it, Saul. I really don’t. After what you had to drink last night, I’d still be in bed. I would. And here you are, picking up where you left off last night, while I’m still trying to get over my hangover. You artists,” he sighs, throwing up his arms in admiration. “You’re made differently from the rest of us, you really are.”

  I go along with being called an artist so he’ll think he’s leading me on. Nothing he does or says can catch me off guard. I’m way ahead of him.

  The talk turns, or rather, he makes it turn, to art. Literature.

  He thanks me for recommending The Asiatics to him. It is a novel I had recommended to him over two years ago and he has finally found the time to read it.

  “Brilliant,” he says, “absolutely brilliant. I’ve never read anything like it.”

  Do I think The Asiatics could be a movie? The way he asks the question makes it seem that everything hinges on my answer. If I say yes, a movie it will be. If no, it won’t.

  We discuss the pros and cons of Prokosch’s novel, the ultimate road novel, and the problems associated with trying to turn it into the ultimate road movie.

  Cromwell is a well-read man, a man who has read as much as if not more than I have, despite my many years of graduate school and my PhD in comparative literature. He has read the great Greek and Roman writers of antiquity. He has read the Russians, and not just the Russian Trinity of Tolstoy, Chekhov, and Dostoyevsky, but Andre Biely as well, and Sologub and Kuprin and the poetry of Blok and Akhmatova.

  He knows classical music. His ear can discern the difference between a good recording of one of Beethoven’s piano concertos and a definitive recording. He can talk for hours about Wanger’s influence on Thomas Mann. He loves the poetry of Elizabeth Bishop and has been known to quote long passages from her work. I know, because I know him so well, that when he visits those Eastern European countries he will spend a good portion of his time going to museums, theater, concerts, ballet.