Mr. Apology

by Campbell Armstrong

  Why don’t I feel the way Harry does? she wondered.

  Why couldn’t she feel like that?

  It was the voice. It was the tone of the voice as much as any words it uttered, the menacing sense of someone out there making calls that didn’t remotely suggest to her somebody just letting off steam. It was more than that: Christ, you only had to listen! She turned up the collar of her coat. The problem with this uneasiness was how it spread, how it grew and spread through everything. Even as she moved along the sidewalk now she had the strange notion somebody was watching her. It was nothing tangible, an instinct picked up like a feeble radio signal. She looked around. The morning crowds, people hurrying toward offices: How could you ever detect one particular face among so many especially when you weren’t even sure that there was anybody looking at you?

  8:30. She headed in the direction of the subway.

  Then she remembered something else. The way Harry had replayed the message, the way he’d sat hunched forward listening to it as if it were the only thing in the whole world of any importance. The distance in his eyes, the way his whole being seemed concentrated upon the terrible voice coming out of the machine. I might have ceased to exist, she thought. My worries and concerns, my feelings—he might have been the only person in the world left alive, and everything else reduced to electronic echoes whispering through a machine. A distance, a chasm. He thought I was asleep but I wasn’t. I was listening, watching him … and it was just like he had drifted off into some other world, a place where he couldn’t be reached. Maybe that scared her even more than the messages; she didn’t know.

  She went down the subway steps. The feeling of being watched had gone, but not the sensation of uneasiness.

  He paused on the corner of 57th Street and Fifth Avenue and looked in the direction of the sign that carried his name. It was a brass oval with black lettering, and, smeared by rain, it had a blurry appearance, almost as if the name were beginning to run, to bleed. He walked slowly, wondering if the girl had opened up the gallery yet. Probably she had—she was very efficient. He gazed a moment at his reflection in the window of the gallery, then he went inside. Madeleine was standing in the office doorway, smiling at him. The rainbows that loomed over him looked especially grim today. He wanted to do something to them, something vicious. Destroy them.

  “Ah, Madeleine,” he said.

  “Good morning, Mr. Berger.”

  He took off his coat and hat, hung them up. For a second he didn’t want to look directly into the girl’s eyes because he imagined he would see something knowing there and he felt ridiculous now about having succumbed to the urge to call the number of that silly service her boyfriend provided to make what amounted to a confession. Maybe she hadn’t heard the tape—at best, if she had, perhaps she hadn’t recognized his voice, which he’d felt foolish disguising, talking like a gangster from the corner of his mouth. Why did you do such a thing, Bryant, old man? Are the marbles beginning to slip from the sweaty palms of your hands?

  “I was thinking, Madeleine, of a bonfire.”

  “A bonfire?”

  “Indeed. We take the rainbows from the walls and we drag them out to the sidewalk and we set a light to them. In this fashion, we might provide a useful service to passersby whose hands are cold. What do you think? Art as flame. The canvas as a means of physical rather than spiritual warmth.”

  She smiled at him. “I like the idea,” she said.

  “No more than I do, I’m sure.” He rubbed his hands together as if he were imagining the act of warming them over hot flames rising from melting paint, scorched canvas, twisted frames. He patted Madeleine gently on the shoulder, then walked inside his office.

  “There were two calls,” she said. “One was from Rudolph Vasco, with another of his hot new discoveries.”

  “Vasco’s discoveries rank with the realization that Baltimore is somewhat to the north of Atlanta in their dullness.” His throat was raw; he could hear a crack in his voice. “I won’t be returning that call.”

  “The other was from a woman. She didn’t leave her name.”

  A woman who didn’t leave her name.

  He sat down behind his desk. There are those moments in life when one has an encounter session with one’s own dark fears. When the only skeleton rattling in the closet is one’s own. He placed the tips of his fingers squarely on the desk blotter. A woman, no name. He tilted his chair back a little. He shut his eyes. George, George, why did you do what you did? Why did you make that telephone call? What kind of goddamn malicious game was that to play with other lives?

  He opened his eyes and realized Madeleine was watching him.

  “I brought this for you,” she said.

  She was holding something small and black in her hand. For a moment he couldn’t think what it might be.

  “It’s one of the tapes you said you’d listen to.”

  “Of course, of course.” He watched her place it on his desk and he stared at it.

  “You could play it through your dictating machine,” she said.

  He lifted the cassette and stuck it in the middle drawer of his desk. “And I will, I promise. But I’d like to listen at my leisure.”

  “Oh, sure.”

  He smiled at her. “You should be an artist’s agent, Madeleine. I can see you holding a knife at a dealer’s throat. Frankly, my dear, I think you would scare me to death in such a role.” He felt hot suddenly, fevered, flushed. “Do something for me, would you? I’d be grateful for a glass of cold water and a couple of aspirin. My throat’s a little sore today.”

  “A pleasure.”

  He watched her turn and go in the direction of the bathroom. He coughed a couple of times, got up from behind the desk, moved restlessly around the office. There was a dull pain behind his eyes. George, George. Why? In the name of God, why?

  What did you say to her, George?

  That’s for me to know and you to find out.

  Don’t be so goddamn childish with me! Tell me what you said to her!

  Bryant, I hate it when you raise your voice.

  (A killing urge, something rising in his blood and surging through him, he remembered this now, the overpowering desire he’d had to pick up something heavy and smash the boy across the skull with it and see him dead, see his blood run over his bare skin and seep into the crumpled white sheets of the bed. I have never had that feeling before in my life. Never. You run into a black aspect of yourself and you feel as mysterious to yourself as the far side of the moon … afraid of yourself, afraid of who you are and what you are capable of doing.…)

  Just tell me what you said to her, George.

  Well, I told her I was your lover. I told her it was my fault you never got home on time.… Did I say anything wrong, Bryant?

  How can you sit there and ask me a thing like that? How can you play this whole terrible game with me, George? You know what you’ve done!

  And then George hadn’t said anything after that. He’d risen from the bed and gone inside the bathroom, locking the door after him. The click of that lock turning: Why had it sounded so utterly sickening to Berger? It was almost as if he’d been shut out of George’s life, a perception that caused him panic, a tightness in his chest, a sensation of his heart swelling to a point where it might explode against the ribcage. Hating himself, trembling, he’d stood outside the bathroom door and begged George to come out. Pleading, whining, Angela doesn’t mean anything to me, George, only you. You’re the only person who means a goddamn thing to me in all this world.… Self-pity then, rushing in on him with all the random menace of a swarm of bees. You stand outside this locked bathroom door and you realize you’re nothing but a sad old queer who’d throw everything away for the charms of one boy. I’d like it if George died.

  George died.

  That thought had come into his mind then like an arrow to the center of a target. A vibrating, dreadful thing to think. An opening in the brain, defenses whittled away, and a certain thought comes flyin
g out of nowhere.

  He’d gone back to bed after that, waiting for George to come out of the bathroom. He’d lain awake for hours, turning this way and that, going over his life as if what he was surveying were the debris of some holocaust. What do you do when you look straight into the face of ruin? What do you do to cope after that? There were no quick answers. Somewhere around dawn George had crawled into bed beside him—and for a while after that the questions stopped, the worries ceased, the uncertainties were silenced in his mind.

  “Your water.”

  He raised his face to see Madeleine put a glass down on his desk blotter. A couple of ice cubes floated on the surface of the liquid, rattling against the side of the glass. When he raised the water to his lips the cubes knocked more loudly. The girl was gazing at him.

  “Excuse me for asking—have you been feeling sick lately?”

  “Is it so noticeable?”

  The girl smiled, shrugged, moved closer to the desk. “I’ve been a bit concerned about you, Mr. Berger.”

  “A seasonal cold, I believe. Nothing more. I catch the same virus every year at this time. I imagine it lies in wait for me, Madeleine.”

  The little bell in the gallery rang and there was the sound of the outer door closing. He watched Madeleine go out of his office. A customer, he thought. Someone come to look at the rainbows. Someone who will come back later, after he’s had time to check out a few other things. They always say that. He felt tense, rubbing his hands together. He pressed the tips of his fingers against his eyes.

  “Mr. Berger.”

  He looked at Madeleine. She appeared flustered, off-balance in some way.

  “There’s somebody to see you.”

  He was cold inside; a chill instinct touched him. He sat down in his chair and nodded his head. The girl was still standing in the doorway.

  “She says it’s important,” Madeleine was saying.

  Yes yes yes it’s important, he thought.

  Important enough for her to come all the way down here.

  “I trust I’m not disturbing you, my dear.”

  Berger looked past Madeleine. Angela, bless her heart, knew how to dress, knew how to look sharp and fashionable if at the same time a little gaudy: There was a gloss to her, a patina, but it was like the shine of crystal, cold sparkles of light radiating from expensive glass. He was dizzy a moment; he reached for his water, then looked up into Angela’s face.

  “It’s fine, Madeleine. Can you close my door, please?”

  The girl went out; the door was shut. Angela stepped inside the office. He stared at her for a minute. An expensive red suit, the pants of which were tight at her ankles. A silver and yellow scarf of some material that had all the substance of a spider’s web. A silver blouse, shimmering. And full warpaint—glossy red lipstick that made her mouth seem tiny and vindictive. Berger got up and smiled feebly. I’m sorry, my dear. I failed to catch my train.… I had a brief coronary occlusion… a false alarm, happily.… But there was nothing that would work now. Nothing he could grasp. Anything he said would have to be futile.

  Angela sat up on the edge of the desk. She opened her purse, took out a cigarette, lit it from a book of matches: She had always been careless with lighters. “Everything I say to you, Bryant, seems just to go in one ear and straight out the other. I wonder why. You didn’t listen to me the other night, did you? I gave you an ultimatum, as I recall. I told you …” She tilted her face to the side and looked at him curiously. She smiled; she had the kind of smile that suggested the naked point of a knife. “I thought I had made it clear I wouldn’t be put through all this garbage, Bryant. I thought I’d made it perfectly plain that I was sick of your absences. I was tired of being lonely. As for the humiliation you cause me—how would you like to sit around a dinner table with your guests and nobody wants to mention the empty chair? How would that appeal to you?” She looked around the small office with unconcealed disgust.

  George, he thought.

  Why hasn’t she mentioned talking with George yet?

  That should have been the first thing on her mind.

  He looked down at his desk; he could see a pale image of himself in the polished wood. A spectral picture. An ultimatum, he thought. Now the curtain was about to come crashing down. The drama was over.

  She said, “Why you invest so much of your energy in this ratty concern is beyond me, Bryant. But I was always very happy to humor you. I considered it worthwhile. I ignored the profit-and-loss sheets.” She shrugged, slid off the desk, began to rummage through his IN tray. “You certainly don’t appear to be very busy, Bryant.” And she let a few pieces of paper slip through her fingers.

  George, he thought.

  She’s working around to the subject of George.

  He couldn’t look at her. Presumably she’d already been talking with Duncannon, her lawyer, before she even came here. Presumably, given her predilection for tidying loose ends, she had even worked out details of the divorce with the crow-faced man who advised her on legal matters. An open-and-shut case, he’d say. We can cut Berger off without a penny. Leave it all to me.

  He put his hands into the pockets of his jacket.

  Angela said, “The funny thing is that I still love you, Bryant. It’s absurd, I know, but I still have feelings for you. I always imagined that between us we could make this marriage work. It was always my hope that eventually you’d be more considerate, less selfish, less …”

  Don’t cry, he thought.

  Don’t give me your tears, please.

  He stood up, looking upwards at the rain falling against the window. He felt miserable: He might have been standing outside unclothed, drenched by the relentless drizzle. He turned around when he heard Angela move, heard her clothes whisper against the wall.

  “I know this place is important to you, Bryant. I’ve tried to understand that. I really have. But how long can I go absorbing your kind of behavior? I don’t have the patience for that. I truly don’t.”

  She sniffled. Puzzled, he gazed at her. Where was any mention of George? Why hadn’t she raised the most devastating subject of all? Why? Something was shifting inside him, a vague notion turning over and over in his mind, a tiny suspicion. No—it couldn’t be like that. It couldn’t possibly be. He wished it were so—but hadn’t he been there, hadn’t he heard it all, even discussed the whole thing with George?

  “You’re not open with me, Bryant. You’re like a closed door at times. You don’t communicate with me. Sometimes I’ve thought you had a mistress tucked away somewhere. All your behavior points in that direction, doesn’t it?” She’d taken a tissue from her purse and was blowing her nose now. A mistress, he thought. What is she talking about?

  She dropped the wrinkled tissue in the wastebasket, then smiled at him. “Is there another woman, Bryant? You can tell me. If it’s true, then I’ll have to make certain adjustments.…”

  Another woman?

  He wanted to laugh. But it would have come out all wrong, twisted, loud, a little crazed. He said, “There isn’t another woman. I swear it.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’m very sure.”

  She was silent for a while. He reached out and laid his fingers very lightly on the back of her hand. Certain adjustments … He kissed her on the cheek, an abrupt pressing of lips against her skin, his nostrils filled with the perfumes of her makeup. Then he moved his face away.

  “The question is, Bryant—do I give you one last chance?”

  He looked down at the rug. It had to be true. Why hadn’t she mentioned George?

  Because George had never called.

  Because it had been a bad, spiteful joke.

  One big joke.

  “Well?” she asked. “Do I give you one last chance?”

  He looked at her. What would one last chance mean? Catching trains, sitting through insufferable dinners, being nice to her, being considerate, making love to her. Making love to her, he thought. He imagined her pale thighs spread for
him, her white arms uplifted and waiting, the dough-colored breasts glistening, he imagined the tuft of dark pubic hair about to open and swallow him inside.

  “Well, Bryant? One last chance to be good?”

  He spread his hands out in front of himself, gazed at them. One last chance to be a good boy, the bought husband, the tax write-off. One last chance for what exactly? Then he was thinking about George again: What kind of person makes a joke like that? What kind of person? Only somebody sick. Sick. Somebody demented. He clenched his hands: Were these hands capable of murdering George? Jesus Christ, what was he thinking?

  “I asked a question, Bryant,” Angela said. “One last chance?”

  “Yes.” He was hoarse again, the voice rough, like that of someone talking through a faulty microphone.

  “I didn’t quite hear you, Bryant.”

  “Yes,” he said again. What did she want? Did she want it served up on a silver tray accompanied by tiny bowls of truffles, caviar, goblets of fine wine? “I said yes, Angela.”

  He glanced at her. Her smile—God, how he hated the smile, the flinty look of triumph in her eyes. She was playing a game with him, a transparent game that was all part of her exercise of power: the sniffles into the tissue, the declaration of love (he wasn’t loved; he was nothing more than a possession she wanted to keep), the way she pretended she hadn’t heard him. George and Angela and their different games. For a moment he hated them both.

  “We stay together, then. We work things out. We arrive at a satisfactory conclusion,” she said. She might have been a company spokesman given to collective pronouns.

  “Yes,” he said.