Straight Cut

by Madison Smartt Bell

  When I woke up I was lying on the bed in the apartment, possessed by that horrible feeling of not knowing how I’d got there nor what I might have done along the way. My shoes were off but my clothes were still on. My mouth felt like a graveyard and my head had turned to stone. I dragged myself into the kitchen and choked down a couple of glasses of water. It didn’t seem to have much effect. I attempted to smoke a cigarette but it made me so ill I had to throw it away. My watch said it was nearly noon. I decided I’d best go back to Strozzi’s for a hair of the dog and to apologize if that seemed to be necessary.

  The trattoria looked much the same as always. I could comfort myself with the thought that at least I hadn’t wrecked the place, or not beyond short-term repair. Strozzi didn’t seem hostile, compassionate rather. I asked him to bring me a coffee and a small grappa if there was any left from last night. He laughed when I said that, which I found encouraging.

  I drank the grappa. It made me twitch on the way down, but after a minute my hands stopped shaking. I had sipped away about half of my coffee, and was even beginning to contemplate food, when Mimmo walked in the door, looking a trifle anxious. He took a seat at the counter next to me.

  “So sorry,” he said. “I mean, I am glad to see that you are well.”

  “I have a feeling that I should be sorry, if anyone,” I said. “How bad was it? Will you have a drink?”

  “I think a coffee only,” Mimmo said. “It was not so very bad.”

  “Was it you who got me home? Thanks if you did.”

  “Yes.”

  “Dare I ask if I was walking?”

  “No,” Mimmo said. “Not walking.”

  “Oh. I hope I wasn’t too heavy then.”

  Mimmo giggled.

  “Not so heavy. Signor Strozzi carries your head. I carry your feet.”

  “Wonderful,” I said. “I’m obliged to both of you. Did I do any damage here? Break anything?”

  “No. Not really.”

  “The truth, now.”

  “Oh,” Mimmo said. “A bottle was spilled but nothing more.”

  “I paid for that, I assume. “

  “Yes. Everything was paid.”

  “Well,” I said. “I suppose it could have been worse.”

  “Oh yes,” Mimmo said. “It was not so very bad. Only, I was wondering whether you were quite all right.”

  “Oh you were?” I said. “I was talking, I suppose.”

  “A little.”

  “Anything interesting?”

  “I think my English is not so good to completely understand you.

  “All for the best, I would expect. “

  “You say many times that you have shot your dog. This is an American expression?”

  “No. Completely literal.”

  “Oh, why then?”

  “The dog was sick. Dying. It was a while ago. “

  “Ah. That will have been sad for you, no?”

  “Very sad. I didn’t talk about anything else?” A question that was beginning to bother me. It would have been embarrassing to have raved about Lauren. Worse than embarrassing if I’d gone into Lauren and Kevin and the briefcase.

  “No. Only the dog, as I remember it.”

  “That must have been a bit tiresome. I hope you got something to eat at least. “

  “Oh yes, certainly. The cooking here is very good.”

  “That’s something.”

  Strozzi brought another round of coffee. I offered Mimmo a cigarette and he accepted.

  “I find out this morning,” Mimmo said. “I will be interviewed for an editor at RAI.”

  “Why, that’s very good,” I said. “Give me a name and address and I’ll write a letter for you.”

  “Thank you,” Mimmo said. “You are very kind.”

  “Not at all. You deserve it. You did a good job on this picture. RAI will be lucky to get you.”

  “I hope. I have learned very much from you.”

  “I hope it won’t destroy your character.”

  “Please?” Mimmo said.

  “Never mind.”

  “I must go now,” Mimmo said, scribbling something on the back of a cardboard coaster. “It has been a great pleasure. What will you be doing now?”

  “I’ll be leaving tomorrow, probably. I’ll drop the key off here if that’s all right.”

  “Quite fine,” Mimmo said. “You will be going back to New York?”

  I nodded. Best to be vague on that topic, even with Mimmo.

  He stood up.

  “And you are sure you will be quite all right?”

  “Of course,” I said. “Don’t worry about me.”

  “Then, buon viaggio.”

  “Grazie,” I said. “Take care of yourself.”

  Mimmo went quietly out of the trattoria. I signaled to Strozzi for another grappa and turned over the coaster he’d been writing on. He’d left not only the RAI information but also his own telephone number and a note to call if I needed anything. I was touched by that. When I drank the second grappa I felt almost human again, and also I remembered a fragment from the night before. I saw myself crying in the bathroom, staring at myself in the mirror, an ugly sight. Mimmo must have seen the traces of it too, whenever I came out. Well, he was a nice boy. I put the coaster in my pocket. There was no reason for anyone to worry about me. I was set up. Even if I ran out of traveler’s checks I still had all the money in the world locked up in that briefcase back at the apartment. And I wasn’t going to worry about the situation. I was so afraid that someone might find out what I was doing that I didn’t even dare think about it myself.

  LAUREN

  TRACY TOLD ME ONCE in some sort of aside that it would make sense if I felt most at home in airplanes. It was meant for a joke, I suppose, but rather a bitter one. I forget the circumstances, but probably he’d had a skinful and probably we’d been fighting. I remember the remark now almost every time I fly, if only because it is so untrue.

  I am not afraid, I told myself again, squeezing the arms of the seat as the plane rose out of Rome. I am not afraid of this, reminding myself as always how few planes really crash, how much safer it is to fly than, for instance, to drive an automobile. I believe myself, because I am truly not afraid that the plane may crash. Indeed, I am not even interested in that possibility. That is not at all what matters. What does frighten me is that when the plane levels off above the clouds, finds its location exactly nowhere, then I myself seem also to have disappeared. There is nothing to confirm any sense of my individuality, my borders. I have become a ghost.

  After the aneurysm, it became not worse but more distinct. After the operation, once it had been determined that I could still work my arms and legs and organs and senses, the doctors began to wonder if I might be suffering any sort of mental problem.

  Why yes, perhaps, but it’s really nothing new.

  Then for a year or a little less I visited a mental doctor who asked me lots of questions. The therapy would have been called unsuccessful, I dare say. The symptoms, such as they were, did not go away, but I stopped going to the doctor once I discovered that it was no more futile and certainly a great deal cheaper for me to ask the questions of myself. Perhaps I even asked rather better questions; perhaps I was willing to answer them a little more honestly too.

  You have said that under certain circumstances — for instance, solitary air or train travel, or other periods of relative isolation — you are troubled by a sense of unreality, of your own nonexistence, as you put it.

  Yes. Or rather I feel disbelief in my own immediate past actions. Thoughts and feelings too. My memory seems unreal, not associated with myself I feel that I have come into possession of someone else’s recollections. I also do not believe in my own past or in my future.

  You say that these symptoms became worse after your brain aneurysm and the operation which corrected it.

  Not worse. Only more definite.

  Can you explain?

  It seemed to prove that there was really
nothing there.

  By “it” you mean the preoperative losses of consciousness?

  I was not unconscious. I could see and hear.

  Then how would you have described your condition?

  There is nothing to describe.

  Let me change the subject for a moment. You have suggested that you are not entirely happy with the direction which your career has taken. You’ve been quite successful as a model. A familiar face if not a famous one —

  Familiar to others. Not to me.

  We’ll get back to that. Modeling has begun to bore you, you now say. You would prefer success as an actress. A serious actress. Do you consider that to be a realistic ambition?

  As much as anyone else’s hopes of that kind. I have ability and training. I’ve been told that I have the looks.

  Over the past five years you have supported yourself primarily by modeling, and you have appeared in … in ... .

  Bit parts in a couple of off-Broadway plays, one strong supporting role off-Broadway, bit parts in two Hollywood features.

  Yes. Are you pleased or disappointed with that record?

  It depends on my mood.

  Do you believe in your acting talent? Have faith in it, so to speak?

  I do.

  Yet belief in your talent seems insufficient to provide you with a consistent sense of self?

  Sometimes I wonder whether a “consistent sense of self” would be helpful to my particular ambition.

  Let me change the subject. You said previously that your face is familiar to others but not to yourself. What do you see when you look in the mirror or see your photographs in magazines?

  A stranger.

  A beautiful stranger?

  I have never believed in my own beauty.

  Circumstantial evidence suggests that others do. Does that outside reinforcement help to convince you that you are beautiful?

  Sometimes. Briefly.

  Confirmation by others is sometimes meaningful to you, then. Does it generally come from men?

  Sometimes women also.

  Would you describe yourself as sexually promiscuous?

  Not anymore.

  But you would have done so at some time in the past?

  Up until about four years ago.

  That would roughly coincide with your operation. Do you relate the operation to your change in sexual behavior?

  No.

  You have said that you have had many lovers in the past, and often more than one at a time. At present, by your own account, you are romantically involved, if you’ll pardon the expression, with two men. Kevin Carter and Tracy Bateman.

  Yes.

  Tracy Bateman is a film editor and Kevin Carter is a producer and director. Of the two, which would you say could be more helpful to your career?

  Kevin. Possibly Kevin.

  You married Tracy Bateman about three and a half years ago?

  Yes. That’s correct.

  It was to some extent a marriage of convenience having to do with your immigration status?

  Yes. But I also loved him and wanted to live with him as his wife.

  Would he be surprised to hear that?

  Probably. It would be difficult for him to believe it completely.

  Can you tell me why?

  He has an analytical nature and often tends to be suspicious.

  Suspicious of you?

  Sometimes.

  With reason?

  Yes. Sometimes.

  And Kevin Carter? He and Tracy Batemen were acquainted, is that not correct, prior to your relationship with either?

  True. They were very close friends. I sometimes think that they might even have become lovers themselves if either of them had been … inclined that way.

  But neither was so inclined?

  Absolutely not.

  Interesting.

  Dangerous.

  How so? To you?

  More to each other. But I have sometimes felt —

  Used?

  Not exactly. But sometimes that they might be trying to … to approach each other through me.

  You hesitate on the word “approach.” Maybe you mean something else? “Attack”?

  Possibly.

  There has been some estrangement between them, then.

  Yes.

  Of what nature?

  A general mistrust. On Tracy’s side, I should say. Tracy believes that Kevin is too careless of other people’s interests and welfare. To the point of ignoring them altogether.

  Is his belief justified?

  I would prefer to think it is not.

  What do you think is Tracy’s feeling for Kevin now?

  Love and contempt.

  And Kevin’s for Tracy?

  Hatred and fear. No, I would like to retract that. I won’t say “hate.” I don’t know what it is.

  But fear, then? Why do you say that?

  Kevin doesn’t have a logical mind. He acts on impulse and emotion. Tracy knows him well enough that sometimes he can anticipate what Kevin is thinking and even what he will do in the future.

  Is there any concrete reason for Kevin to be afraid of that?

  Possibly.

  Does this situation frighten you?

  Yes.

  Do you hold yourself responsible for the estrangement between Kevin and Tracy?

  No.

  Do you think that you have affected their relationship?

  Only in a minor way.

  You said a moment ago that Kevin hated Tracy, and then you retracted the remark. What did you mean?

  It wouldn’t really be hate. It’s a kind of love with fear in it.

  Then there is a love-hate relationship between them.

  I don’t think that the term explains anything.

  How would you explain it, in that case?

  I can’t.

  Do you love Kevin Carter?

  Sometimes.

  Why?

  Often he can make me feel that I really am there.

  Why only sometimes?

  Because I suspect that the feeling is an illusion.

  Do you think that he loves you?

  I don’t know. Not all the time. I said he was impulsive.

  Your marriage to Tracy Bateman has not been a great success.

  No. Not really. He blames me for that.

  Do you blame yourself?

  No. Though my ...my withdrawals were part of the problem.

  By “withdrawals” you mean your sense of not really existing.

  Yes. But he does it too. Something similar. Usually when he’s drinking.

  His abuse of alcohol disturbs you?

  Yes. Very much.

  Why?

  He disappears inside it.

  Do you think that he loves you?

  I know that he does.

  Do you love him?

  Yes.

  Why don’t you stay with him?

  I don’t know.

  Does he also make you feel that you are, as you put it, “really there”?

  He makes me feel that I ought to be.

  Do you relate your sense of nonexistence with his withdrawals?

  In a sense.

  In what sense?

  I fear that it is the condition of all human life.

  Let me change the subject. You have said that sometimes you are troubled by very severe nightmares.

  Yes.

  Recently?

  Yes.

  Can you explain them?

  Not really.

  Try.

  I feel that there is someone inside of me trying to talk to me. Maybe it wants to get out.

  Do you associate your nightmares with your occasional sense of nonexistence?

  Yes.

  Recently, have these feelings of nonexistence got better or worse? .

  They’ve changed.

  In what way?

  I have realized that I am no longer only my own life but something else too.

  That’s rather cryptic. Could you elabora
te?

  I’d prefer not to. At least not now.

  Is this new sensation related to your nightmares? The idea that something inside of you wants to get out?

  Not at all. It’s much more concrete.

  And when did you first become aware of it?

  Gradually. But I became certain of it today. On this airplane.

  What do you plan to do about it?

  I haven’t the slightest idea.

  PART III

  CHOC EN RETOUR

  11

  “BETWEEN JULY 11 AND July 13, the accused (Tracy Bateman, a United States citizen) traveled in the north of Italy, ostensibly for the purpose of tourism, using as transport a rented automobile. On the morning of July 14 (Bastille Day — how do you like that?) he crossed the French-Italian border, again ostensibly for the purpose of tourism, but with a covert intention to …”

  To what? Even I didn’t know the answer to that one, though I was assuming it would all become clear in due course. But it did while away the time, when I was doing all that driving, to make up different police or prosecutors’ reports about my activities. The problem was that they were all rather inconclusive. Could I be guilty of committing a crime without knowing what it was? You bet I could.

  My big hope was that if I did get nailed it would be in a country where the judges and lawyers still wear wigs.

  Well. I hadn’t been far behind Mimmo, getting out of Strozzi’s. I went back to the apartment, drank some more water and two raw eggs, and slept for about twelve hours. In the morning I was fit to face the world again. Not knowing when I’d have another such convenient opportunity, I spent an hour doing some more tricks with the metalworking equipage. There was a creaky old manual typewriter in the apartment and I typed a couple of address labels and then went out to mail a package. There was a minor hassle about postage, because the mail clerk and I didn’t understand each other too well, but no problem over the customs declaration. “Books and papers.” No insurance required. I went back to the apartment.

  As always seems to happen, my gear had swelled or something during the time I’d spent in Rome. But I finally managed to get it all shut in the shoulder bag somehow. I went over to Strozzi’s to drop off the key, and drank a cappuccino while he called me a taxi.