‘Mind your lousy business and your dirty tongue, big mouth,’ Abner said as lightly as he could, and got to his feet. ‘Listen, thanks for loaning me the car. It made a difference. I’ve got some great stuff — the guy Lippner as well as this Brazel.’
‘My pleasure. Make sure you send me in a decent piece of work tomorrow — Friday, I mean. I’ve got a few more jobs here I can put your way, make you a living if not a luxury bankroll. You’ll have to wait a month or two yet to get on Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous but I’ll see meanwhile you don’t go without the beer that keeps body and soul together. Listen, you’ve got to move. The man’s waiting and taxis are thin on the ground this cold weather — ’
‘I’m not due there for half an hour. I’ll walk it.’
‘Who’d ever think you were a guy from Manhattan? Walk it? It’s in Mayfair, the other side of Piccadilly.’
‘I looked on the map. I can walk it. Listen, I’ll see you Friday, OK? And Dave, thanks for everything — I suppose you’re right. Why get so excited about who the guy is? It doesn’t really matter, I’ve got the best part of my story.’
‘I always knew you were a clever guy,’ Dave said heartily and got to his feet to come round the desk and throw one arm over Abner’s shoulders. ‘It makes a pal feel real good when his advice gets listened to. And I wouldn’t give you the old three card trick, believe me. If I know what’s what, I’ll tell you. If I don’t, I just call the cards the way they fall. On your way, buster. See you around.’
As he pushed his way through the crowded streets of Soho on his way to Shaftesbury Avenue so that he could weave a route on through Piccadilly to Shepherd’s Market, he went over it again and again, just as he had during the night when he’d woken from fitful sleep to see Brazel’s grin glimmering at him in the darkness and heard his silky voice repeating it. I’ll bring him down when I’m ready — when I’m ready — when I’m ready. But now the edginess that had filled him half the night had gone. Dave was right; what did it matter who the man was now? He wasn’t trying to do a Wiesenthal and hunt down quarry to wreak revenge on them. His task was elucidation, not blind vengeance. He had to tell everyone what had happened and why it had happened and how it had hurt the children of the people it had happened to. People like Miriam.
That helped a lot, thinking of Miriam. He had shied away from conjuring up her presence in his mind during the night. He didn’t know why, except that somehow it had felt wrong to do so, but now it felt right and he re-ran their conversation at the Old Swan over and over again, against the background of Piccadilly’s crawling traffic and the reek of diesel. I wouldn’t want to make you so angry with me that you went away — I wouldn’t want you to go away.
He hugged it to him, that memory, wrapping it round his fatigue to ease it, and soothing his hot eyes and slightly aching head with it. Soon he’d call her and see her again, and they’d move a little further along their tortuous path. It was like playing that silly game his grade teacher had shown him, ‘Giant’s Footsteps’ where you had to get across the schoolyard without being caught by the guy who was ‘It’. ‘Two steps forward, one step back, that’s the way you win in this game,’ she’d told them. ‘It’s true in life too, sometimes, never forget that.’
Well, it was certainly true with Miriam and though it was maddening in some ways, it was exciting too; and he held the thought of the excitement warm in his belly as he reached Half Moon Street — such names these places had! — and turned into it. From now on Miriam belonged safely tucked away at the back of his mind together with Brazel, in a different corner, of course; while he concentrated on the meeting ahead of him.
And then, as he reached the corner of Shepherd’s Market, he stopped and stared blankly ahead. Miriam had reacted to Brazel’s name, he remembered now. She knew it from somewhere, she had said, and that had to be looked into. A good reason for contacting her, he thought joyously. He’d call her tonight, this afternoon even, as soon as he’d got this meeting over; and whistling softly between his teeth he went on along the narrow street, looking for the building he needed.
The office was perfect, he decided, just what an office should be. It was in a small and inconspicuous building that was clearly part of an old dwelling house. The room he was shown into was a perfect cube, as high as it was wide as it was long; the walls were panelled with plaster in beautiful satisfying shapes, and each one bore a small but elegantly made light-fitting in crystal and gilt. Everywhere had been painted in pale blue and white, except for the ceiling on which a number of highly unlikely plump women and cherubs, all with carefully flowing draperies arranged over groins and at least one breast, gambolled amid pink and gold edged clouds under the benevolent eyes of a large bearded man in a long white robe sitting on a throne with his legs spread wide. It looked innocent and lascivious in equal measure and Abner was straining his neck to look at it all when, at last, the door opened and the man came in. He would cheerfully have waited longer for him if he had had to, for there were other things to look at and enjoy; the sound of music, coming from some hidden source, and filling the room with rich orchestral cadences, above which a violin wept and laughed deliciously; shelves full of books that looked as though they were actually read, and a painting on an easel that was a riot of colour and excitement. But he jumped to his feet as the door opened and looked at the arrival expectantly.
A small man, he thought, small and dapper, with a mane of thick white hair that looked as though it had been carved out of alabaster which was why, surely, he made Abner think of some sort of sculpture. But then as the man moved into the room and closer to him Abner saw what it was; he had a massive head and shoulders and a broad chest, but then his body dwindled away to the most delicate of hips and legs and feet, so that he looked rather like a bison; and the thought amused him and made him more hearty than he meant to be as he thrust out his hand.
‘Hi, Mr Mayer. It’s good of you to see me. I appreciate it.’
The man seemed to flinch a little from his bonhomie but held out his own hand and shook Abner’s with a fastidious air and then went to sit down behind his desk, an elegant affair of mahogany and brass, on which was arranged a blotter and pens in red Florentine leather, also brass studded. It was all so very tasteful that Abner felt like an oaf straight off a Kansas farm as he sat down again in the Chippendale chair into which he had been shown by the quiet secretary who had greeted him. He didn’t know for sure it was Chippendale, but it certainly had that air, he told himself. The whole place looked too cultured to be true.
‘I trust the music doesn’t bother you?’ the man said, and Abner shook his head at once.
‘Oh, not — it’s great. Really. I’m not sure I know it.’
‘Symphonic Espagnole — Lalo. That’s Henryk Schering on the violin. Splendid, isn’t it?’
‘Great.’ Abner said and tried to think of what to say next. Mayer seemed to understand and smiled slightly, a faint movement of the lips that went as soon as it arrived.
‘So, Mr Wiseman, you are a friend of Dave Shandwick.’
‘Known him for years,’ Abner said, trying not to sound hearty again. ‘He was my sound man on a film I made called Uptown Downtown — ’ Shut up, he thought then, for Christ’s sake shut up! You’re showing off, making a complete ass of yourself. And went on, ‘It did rather well — ’
‘Oh, indeed, you don’t have to remind me, Mr Wiseman. I remember the film well. As well as Yesterday’s Babies and Wall of Silence.’
‘Oh!’ He was nonplussed and then was annoyed with himself. Why should he be surprised this guy knew his work? Wasn’t he supposed to be interested in the film business? Didn’t he have partnerships in all sorts of firms that were in the industry? ‘Well, it’s no secret,’ he said then, a little ungraciously. ‘I guess I’m in most of the right reference books.’
‘Ah, but I remembered you before I looked you up,’ the man said and smiled widely.
At once Abner felt better. He was a pleasant enough guy, for he
aven’s sake. The problem was he’d been told so much about the man that he’d built him up in his mind to some sort of ogre, and impulsively he said, ‘It’s good to meet you, Mr Mayer. I’ve been very curious about you.’
‘Oh?’ The neat eyebrows made circumflexes over intelligent eyes. ‘For any special reason?’
‘I saw your name attached to so many companies, it seemed to me that everywhere I looked there you were, and — ’
‘Everywhere?’ Mayer murmured.
‘Well, Jo Rossily and then Simmy Gentle and — oh, dozens. I saw a list on Monty Nagel’s computer — your name cropped up over and over.’
‘Dear me,’ Mayer said mildly. ‘Monty Nagel has me on computer? I wonder why?’
‘Oh, it’s not just you. It’s only because he’s got lists of all the people he deals with and how the companies are made up.’ It seemed suddenly vital to explain, to reassure this man that there was nothing underhand in his knowledge. ‘The thing is, I have this crazy eidetic memory. Well, sometimes it is — it’s not entirely reliable. But quite often I can see things and then remember them in every detail, and it just so happened when I looked at the computer screen I retained it in my head and I could see your name bobbing up on it, over and over.’
‘An interesting gift to have,’ Mayer said.
‘Oh, I’m not so sure. It kinda clutters you up sometimes, you know what I mean?’
‘Not entirely, but I can imagine,’ Mayer said with great courtesy. ‘Well, here we are. You’ve come to see me, and you can see, I trust, that there is nothing odd about me!’ He waved his hand comprehensively round his office and Abner smiled.
‘It’s a beautiful place to work,’ he said. ‘It’s more like a sitting room than a working area.’
‘I like to treat my work as a hobby, and my life as my work,’ Mayer said. ‘I spend more effort on music and painting and books that I read for pleasure than I ever do on the things that matter to most people. Like money making.’ He sighed. ‘That is why it is so wise for me to join forces with eager young people who are very interested in money making. They need cash, which I like to provide, they do the work and enjoy it, and then my share of the cash they make buys another painting for me to relish, or perhaps, just perhaps, a new partnership somewhere to help another eager young would-be money maker. It’s an excellent system, I do assure you, and I’ve been using it for a long time.’
‘That would mean you do get involved in a lot of companies,’ Abner said, and couldn’t keep the eagerness out of his voice. ‘More than actual film makers might — if you’ve just the financial involvement and not too active — ’
‘Precisely,’ Mayer murmured and smiled at him over hands which he now held clasped in front of him. ‘And I have the distinct impression, Mr Wiseman, that you want to persuade me to get involved yet again, hmm?’
Abner reddened. ‘Hell, I didn’t mean to — ’
‘My dear chap, it happens all the time. I do my best to save as much of my time as I can for my real work — the music and paintings, you understand — but sometimes someone bursts through the fences and I think, ah well, here we go again!’ He turned his head slightly to the side towards the easel and its painting. ‘Tell me, Mr Wiseman, could your project bring me enough for a companion piece to that?’
Abner looked at the painting and its profusion of reds and yellows and greens, almost bursting off the edge of the canvas.
‘It depends on how much it costs,’ he said cautiously.
‘It’s a Dufy. Raoul Dufy.’ Mayer got to his little feet and at once the massiveness of him dwindled to a manageable size as he crossed the room to stand in front of his easel. ‘Such joy, such love, such blood there is in this! Don’t you agree? Is it worth over a million pounds, you might ask? But me, I ask you, what else could you buy with your million that would have the richness that this has? And now I own it.’ He looked over his shoulder at Abner and said almost shyly, ‘Tell me you envy me.’
‘Anyone would,’ Abner said. A million pounds? This guy must be gold dust. Oh, Christ, come on Abner, sell yourself, get yourself in there with Dufy!
Mayer came back to his desk and sat down and once more became a version of Mount Rushmore, solid and reliable and above all massive. ‘But enough of this; you have no time to waste on such nonsense, have you?’
‘It isn’t nonsense!’ Abner said. ‘It’s just that — ’
‘I know. You’re one of the eager hungry ones. Like my dear Jo, and Simmy Gentle and all those other people whose names run alongside mine on Monty Nagel’s computer. And you would rather talk of money for your project than about my paintings.’
‘No — I mean, dammit, yes. But not at the moment,’ Abner said and shook his head ruefully. ‘Hell, I can’t win at this one, can I? Whatever I say I’m in shtooch. Look, I can enjoy paintings as much as anyone else. Goddammit, I’m a film maker! How could I be otherwise! I prefer Renoir and Manet to Dufy, mind you, but all the same — ’
‘Ah!’ Mayer took a deep breath and positively beamed at him. ‘I couldn’t be more delighted to know that! So, you understand the importance of balance and scale in a picture, have a taste for richness of surface texture as well as content of subject, understand the importance of the depth of lighting and the careful use of colour — your films show this, but it is good to know that you use a trained eye and not merely an instinctive one. Instinct is useful but it badly needs the moderating influence of education. And I am happy to know that if I do get involved, as you express it, with your project, whatever it is, I shall be with a man who understands the difference between Renoir and Dufy. I am indeed comforted.’
‘Ah, well, I’m glad to hear it,’ Abner said and stopped, unable to say more. After that, he thought, how can I get back into mundane matters like front money and budgets and —
‘Well, shall we spell it out, Mr Wiseman? What is it you want to do, and how much money do you need? Have you any development money up front? Have you a working script? Tell me what there is to tell. I’m listening.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘For perhaps ten minutes or so more. After that I must go to a very important sale of music manuscripts.’ He smiled. ‘There is rumour that it may contain an unattributed but very likely autographed Mozart piece — very exciting. Ten minutes, Mr Wiseman. Think concisely.’
He took a breath and did just that. ‘Guilt, Mr Mayer. That’s my theme. The guilt of those who survived the labour camps is my first step. But I want also to tell a story — the story of pain suffered by their children who never saw a gate with ‘ARBEIT MACHS FREI’ over it and who never smelled the reek of the ovens. For them the guilt can be even more overwhelming in its own way. I’ve uncovered two — no, three — real life stories that will be the basis of my film, using actors who will improvise after spending intensive time — perhaps a month or more — being with me and the material, talking it, living it, breathing it. That’s it, the core of the film I want to make. Postscripts. The thoughts that come after the main story is told and done.’
There was a long silence as Mayer stared at him and then nodded, never taking his eyes from Abner’s. ‘So tell me, what are the real life stories?’
He told them, carefully and simply, using no names, but speaking of Barbara and David, of the way Miriam’s grandfather had walked all through Europe looking for his child, of the painful legacy of loneliness and hatred that had been left in Barbara’s daughter. And he spoke too of the Rats of Cracow, of the boy and the apples and the man in the wheelchair, though he said nothing about Brazel. To admit dealing with a blackmailer would be difficult to say the least. He could consider how to use Brazel’s story later; right now he’d better be kept under wraps. And all the time he talked, Mayer watched him and showed no reaction.
When Abner had finished he stirred at last and then nodded slowly. ‘You tell an elegant story, Mr Wiseman. Perhaps you should write it down. It would make an excellent script of the usual sort, I’m sure. With it you could raise your finance without too much
trouble, I’m sure.’
Abner shook his head with some vehemence. ‘I don’t want elegance. I want truth.’
‘Ah, truth. Is that to be found in the inventions of actors more than in the written words of a man as passionate about his theme as you seem to be?’
‘Well, thank you for that. Yes, I’m passionate. And I’m convinced I can do it with actors better than I can if they have to learn lines. And I’ll use the voices of the real people, too. A voice-over technique. You get real emotion that way — it’s not impossible.’
‘Oh, I know, I know. John Cassavetes, wasn’t it? And others — no, not impossible. Interesting. Indeed, Mike Leigh does it on stage as well as on film, as do so many others. Well, now, what do you want of me?’
‘Money,’ Abner said after a moment. ‘As much as I can get.’
Mayer laughed. ‘My dear boy, how can I just give you money? It is, I grant you, an enthralling theme when you tell it, but I need more than that! The story of the Rats of Cracow for example, unfinished! You have not completed your research, have you? I need to be sure the story is complete before I can offer finance.’
Abner felt hope deflate as surely as if it had been a real substance that had been filling his chest and belly as he had talked to this man. He had seemed so urbane, so thoughtful, so real a thinker, with his paintings and his music, and yet now he was talking like any of the fat cats in LA or New York, and the sour taste of disappointment made him twist his lips.
Mayer laughed. ‘I’m not turning you down, you know,’ he said gently. ‘Far from it. Just asking for a little more. I can give you a little support while you complete your research, but my further financing depends on what you get. You understand?’
Abner blinked. ‘You’re — what did you say?’
Mayer sighed, deeply amused. ‘I said, I can finance the research stage — and am willing to do so — as long as you let me know what you find. I don’t want to be faced with a fait accompli that is not what I would be proud to be involved with. Continue your search for these people — the story of the Rats of Cracow fascinates me. I want to know who the boy with the apples was, for example. I can’t imagine a film being made of that story that doesn’t include the end of it. Can you?’
Postscripts Page 28