by Louis Begley
One o’clock sharp. Mr. Blackman has been delayed. A matter of minutes. He has telephoned from his car. Mr. Schmidt will not complain, provided he can have at once his dry martini with an olive. After all this time, he has come to savor the pleasures of a retirement unencumbered by obligations. If you want a martini before lunch, have it. Two martinis? That’s all right too. Similarly, there’s no need to be worked up because you are made to wait. It’s time you have to yourself, when you can think your own thoughts undisturbed, and observe your more active fellow human beings. In this season, they aren’t very numerous during lunch at O’Henry’s. Of the monstrous Weird Sisters, widows of writers once resident in the East End, who used to be there almost every day, sometimes with an equally aged and seedy male intellectual, two are dead. The survivors have taken their business to a greasy spoon as yet undiscovered by summer people and tourists, or are bedridden or too impoverished to afford the newly inflated prices, or, quite simply, aren’t there because this is not the day when they meet. Schmidt’s connection with local gossip has become too tenuous; he couldn’t venture a guess. In fact, there is no one in the restaurant he knows except the barman and the florid real-estate man with a bad case of shakes, eating at the bar. The rest of his fellow lunchers seem to be retired bodies, no more active than he, former lawyers and doctors probably, for whom, just as for himself, a summer house has become a year-round residence. Had he remained a member of the stubbornly anachronistic tennis club, so unwelcoming to Jews and the likes of Carrie, where these good people probably play golf, they might be his friends. The privilege wouldn’t seem worth the cost of the yearly dues. But en garde! Pushed with more than usual vigor, the front door flies open, and into the restaurant strides Gil Blackman.
Schmidt gets out of his chair. Quite untypically they embrace. Seated again, they begin to order lunch—no mean affair, since habit has put them, already at first sight of each other, into a high, expansive mood.
Schmidtie, you old scoundrel, said Mr. Blackman, I’ve done it. Chocolate Kisses is ready to go. The reaction, each time we’ve shown it, has been fantastic. And I’m not just talking about studio drones. Real people! It’s just possible we’ve got a winner. You should hear Elaine. And for that matter, your best friend, Mike Mansour. That guy’s over the moon. He hasn’t even noticed we haven’t taken a single one of his suggestions. I tell you, it’s a dream. You still own a dinner jacket? Yes? Stupid of me to ask. Well, get it ready. You’re coming to the opening of openings. With Carrie, of course. We shall feast!
God bless you. That’s really fantastic. What the hell, you’re great.
I am. By the way, Elaine is arriving tonight. She wants you at dinner tomorrow. Can you come?
With bells on. There’s nothing I would rather do.
Good. By the way, you’ve got Mike bent out of shape—I mean nothing serious, it’s just that the guy is going ape. No kidding.
Oh?
Absolutely. He’s flummoxed. First, he offers you the presidency or whatever it is—the top job—at his foundation. You know he’s bananas about it. The foundation’s going to get most of his money because he’s cut out his kids and so forth. He thought you were going to fall into his arms and weep from happiness, gratitude, whatever. Instead, you turned him down. Apparently he’s got Holbein working on how they can coax you into changing your mind. I must say, I think you’re nuts. This is a great opportunity. The greatest. Then, and this he told me in strictest confidence—I’ve got to hand it to him, I never knew he had any sensitivity or tact—he’s worried that Carrie and his head gorilla, that blond fellow, you know, his Nordic Ajax, may have a little thing going. He thinks you’re on to it, but isn’t sure. Anyway, he doesn’t know what to do. Fire the guy, because that’s against house rules; keep it quiet, because why rock the boat, maybe it’s nothing; speak to you and ask you what you want him to do; and on and on. It’s a funny thing. I think Mike Mansour has a crush on you—I don’t mean anything sexual, that boychick is queer all right but not that way. You know what? He likes being with you. So what do you say?
You know? I’m at a loss—completely. The stuff about the foundation is a crock. No, it’s weird. Of course, I’ll take the job if he really means to offer it. I thought he was pulling my leg, so I kept my distance so as not to come out looking like a presumptuous ass. And as for Holbein! He wrote to me what I thought was a buzz-off letter. If that’s his idea of coaxing someone into doing something, he’s got to have his head examined.
You’ll see Mike tomorrow night. You can straighten it out then.
I’ll try. Honest.
You do that. If you don’t, I’ll think you should have your head examined.
Schmidt nodded. He would have to tell Gil about Carrie. With some omissions.
The stuff about Carrie is very complicated, he said. She is having—frankly, I’m not quite sure whether it’s still going on—an affair with your Ajax. Jason’s his name, actually. I talked to her about it kindly and calmly, because I can’t blame her. She’s not even twenty-five! So I offered to have her stay on with me if she wants—as a friend, no sex, no problems. She liked that. Still likes it, I guess. Thereupon I had a visit from Jason. Nice. Polite, didn’t beat me up or anything, just tucked away a half of a big pizza. I explained the situation to him and in a sense tried to get him to take her away. I don’t mean that I necessarily expected him to ask for her hand—why ask it of me anyway?—but at least to get her out of my house into his, or however they can arrange it. But nothing came out of him. Nothing. Didn’t even rise to the bait when I asked whether he wanted perhaps to start some business I might invest in. Or maybe I would have gotten a nibble out of Jason with that if Carrie hadn’t come down on it like a ton of rocks. She really snarled at him!
Amazing.
She’s a remarkable girl. I realized immediately that she didn’t want me to buy him for her. Can you believe it? How do you bring up kids to be like that? For example, where did Mary and I go wrong with Charlotte? One way or another, that one wants me to buy her everything and everybody.
Where does that stand?
It depends on your point of view. Objectively, I have to say it could be worse. It seems that she and Jon have patched things up and gotten back together. He’s become a partner in one of those pushy small firms that’s trying to be a boutique, but you don’t know what they’ve got to sell.
Pushy, you said. Schmidtie, I know your code. You mean it’s Jewish.
You guessed it. On the other hand, do you know how I got the news? Charlotte sent me two printed announcements, one that she was moving back into their apartment and the other of Jon’s partnership in that firm. Not the tiniest personal note. Zero. I got the background briefing from the ineffable Dr. Renata.
Holy mackerel!
Precisely. Now you’re up-to-date. Do you understand it? You’ve always been a man of imagination. All these personages in your films you manage to think—feel—your way into. What is one to think of a child like that? You observed her being brought up, from a distance to be sure, but still. You know that she was loved, by me as well as Mary. Of course, Mary did a better job. Charlotte has brains; she’s been given all the opportunities; we’ve denied her nothing. Why is she treating me this way? In the process, she is making her own life less agreeable, surely she realizes it. Why is she so bitchy?
You know, it won’t surprise you that I’ve turned that problem over and over in my head—not apropos of Charlotte but of my own cutie pies and also darling step-Lilly. Actually, the closest I’ve come to dealing with it in a film was when I made Rigoletto. Funny, isn’t it? I was too young then to get even near the bottom of the question, and anyway I wasn’t exactly writing on a blank page! Little Gilda is quite a number, including as a daughter, when you think of it. The girl who fucks and sings too much! The truth is that I haven’t got an answer, just some observations. One: I don’t think it’s mostly in upbringing. There is some genetic fatality at work—don’t ask me what it is, I don’t kno
w beans about genetics. More and more, though, I don’t see upbringing, the way you and I have understood it, and the circumstances of childhood as the dominant influences on a kid’s strength and serenity. Hell, being able to be happy and having a good character. Two: I wonder whether the upper class—if I may have the chutzpah to include myself and my two wives—hasn’t lost the knack of bringing up kids. I realize that this goes in the opposite direction from point one, but all you’ve got to do to test my thesis is to go sometime to the candy store, next door from here, order a nice rum-raisin ice cream, and watch the little waitresses. They’re fourteen? Sixteen? A couple may be no more than thirteen. I’ve gotten out of training when it comes to kids’ ages. You’ll see those terrific genuine smiles, a sparkle in the eyes, politeness to take right to Buckingham Palace, and they’re working their tails off without feeling sorry for themselves. Who are their parents? I’ve never asked, but I would bet it’s the local, more established blue-collar types or people just a tad above. The smalltime painting contractor, the hardware-store owner, maybe the exterminator. They’ve managed somehow to keep a balance for themselves, and anyway for the kids, between expectations and personal effort. And a space for a sense of personal achievement and gratitude. Quite frankly, I love them. There is some of that in Carrie, I think. Three: This is the most bizarre, heartbreaking part. I’ve noticed that being good to your kids isn’t rewarded. You can see this in divorced couples. It isn’t the mother or the father who have broken their backs for the little buggers—always responsible, always there when they are needed—on the contrary, it’s the awful parent, the one who never stops making scenes, gives them a birdhouse out of the L. L. Bean catalogue or wool socks for a wedding present, who is the mummy or daddy they treat with tenderness and respect. Anyway, they’re scared of those bad mothers and fathers. They pussyfoot around them for fear of provoking an attack of rage. That’s already something—better than what you and I get. So what are you going to do about Carrie?
I don’t know. More and more I think it’s her call.
That evening he told Carrie about Chocolate Kisses and the invitation to dinner at the Blackmans’. Gil and she got along. Right away, she telephoned to congratulate him, spoke instead to the answering machine, and afterward fell to thinking. One could always tell. She would curl up on the big sofa in the library with her legs under her and her arms crossed over her head as if she were doing a baby version of the backstroke. After a while, she said she was going to the kitchen to telephone. When she returned she thought some more and said, Hey Schmidtie, it’s OK with you if I don’t go to the dinner? I talked to Jason. He’s not driving for Mike tomorrow evening. I’d kind of like to see him. Go to a movie or something.
That was all right, he told her.
You’re going to call them?
Yes, but not right now. I’d rather not have to leave a message.
You’re not going to forget?
Promise. Anyway you can stick a note on the kitchen telephone. It’s not a big deal, you know. He said they were inviting only Mike Mansour. They’ll have Blue Felt Slippers put out four settings instead of five.
It’s a big deal to me. I don’t want to screw it up for you with your friends.
Don’t worry.
He went over to her, knelt down, and kissed her hands, because it had become clear how she felt trapped, and how in fact she might be wondering whether she hadn’t screwed it up for herself. Poor little tramp! There were so many ways he thought he could help her, but he feared that if he made one false move most of them, perhaps all, might be refused. For instance, if she would only change her mind and agree to marry him. He knew that the chances were close to but not quite zero. She too would be better off if she had a few more decent years with him, no different really from the way they were living, and then she could leave him with a good settlement, if that’s what she wanted. Alimony or capital, it didn’t really matter. A few years wouldn’t make a dent in her looks or figure and she was capable of learning a lot fast—not only at courses. He had worried about her being a fish out of water if she became his wife. Quite right, just as she had been as his mistress. But a corner of the curtain had been lifted, he had had a peek at what her life might be as Mrs. Jason. Putting aside Jason’s qualities as a stud—he was willing to assume they were at least average and, therefore, given Jason’s age, superior to his own—and the joy of worshiping at the temple of his body, there wasn’t anything he saw to recommend such a life. Perhaps he should renew his own suit officially. Cool it, Schmidtie, he admonished himself. Haven’t you learned, beginning with Charlotte, that kids want to be with other kids and do what other kids do, even if old Mom and Dad are up to something much more interesting, and above all more refined?
Perhaps because Carrie had begged off from the dinner, and the light of the candelabra would not be transforming into a theater of Chinese shadows the nervous play of her long magician’s fingers, the Blackmans decided to add to their table an ornament of another sort. They invited Caroline and Joe Canning, a writing couple with a house on the way to Sag Harbor and an insouciant habit of displaying in public their fondness for each other and stony if polite indifference toward everyone else. In fact, in Joe’s case, the politeness was only intermittent. The layer of his good manners was considerably thinner than Caroline’s, and his own person clearly the principal subject of his attention. Lord Harry, said Schmidt to himself. What’s Gil trying to do? Snow Mike? It won’t work; he doesn’t know who these two are. Broker a deal for Joe’s novel? He doesn’t need to ask him to dinner for that; a call to the agent will do it. Or is it a deal for Caroline’s book? The last one was a biography of Louis XIV’s mother. They’d have to turn it into the untold story of the Three Musketeers! He shook Caroline’s hand and noticed that her fingers were no shorter than Carrie’s and pleasantly warm. Unlike the other women he used to see around the baked ham and runny Brie of his and Mary’s Fourth of July parties, she had become more handsome with the passing years. Her bearing did it, and her laughter, which carried you along irresistibly even if you couldn’t make out the joke. The intriguing question was how Canning, whom Schmidt remembered from college as a turkey with literary pretensions, had gotten this splendid woman to marry him in the first place, after their divorces, when they must have both already been in their forties, and how he had kept her. It couldn’t be his looks or reputation—she shone brightly enough herself—and he had no money. Besides, at the time of their marriage, he hadn’t written the novel of his grandmother’s invented life that got short-listed for every prize and even won a few. He was a busy something or other in the upper management of New York’s stodgy biggest insurance company. Depending on one’s point of view, the marriage was a colossal piece of luck or a colossal injustice.
A small drink that looked like vodka in hand, Canning lurked between a large Chinese vase and Gil and Mansour without seeming to be included in their conversation. Their physical proximity may, nonetheless, have given him countenance, like a sideboard to lean against or an artifact on a wall that can be made the subject of a prolonged examination. Schmidt felt Canning’s eye pass over him and flee. That was par for the course. Undeterred, he headed in their direction and shook Gil’s and Mansour’s hands.
Congratulations!
Accepted. Has Gil told you how we worked together? You didn’t believe it, that I had it in me. Huh?
No, I mean yes, I did think so.
Pas de problème, the question to ask yourself is this, Do I have talent or is it just force of will or a freak accident? What do you think, Mr. Canning?
Joe, please call me Joe. I’ve no idea. I’ve not seen your work.
You’re going to see it. Gil will get you an invitation to the opening. I want you there. Your wife too. You’ll tell me what you think later. Schmidtie’s going to be there, I hope with his girlfriend. By the way, Gil’s been telling me about your books. You should pay him a commission. I began one on the plane back from the Coast and it’s on my de
sk now, in my office. What’s its title?
That depends on which one you’re reading.
It’s about this older guy who’s screwing a young girl. Ha! Ha! Ha! What we all want to do.
Gil laughed too.
All his books, except the first one, are about that.
Then I don’t want to read the first one. Schmidtie, you know Joe? Mr. Canning?
Schmidt and Canning nodded.
No kidding.
We were all in college together, explained Gil, except that Joe is younger. Two classes behind us.
I see. A Harvard reunion. Myself, I went to NYU, which taught me all I needed just then. Now what I don’t know I don’t need. Joe, you should talk to Schmidtie about your favorite subject. He’s quite an expert. Screwing little girls! You’re killing me. We’ll join the ladies.
Evidently, Canning had come to the same conclusion as Schmidt, that there was no acceptable way to part company at once. He was the first to collect his wits and break the silence. I am truly sorry about Mary. I might have told you sooner.
We haven’t seen each other.
No big loss. We’re making up for it this evening.
Elaine had Mr. Mansour on her right and Canning on her left and gave Caroline to Mr. Mansour, which put Schmidt between Caroline and Gil. Canning’s parting shot preoccupied him. Unless he had misunderstood, it was a piece of insolent nastiness. Gratuitous, or was there a reason? He would have liked to ask Caroline, but the table was too small and Canning’s hearing, he was sure, acute. His own silence weighed on him. It was too bad, he wished he had refused the invitation to this dinner. Carrie might have made her date with Jason anyway, but if he had to eat and drink in such isolation, he would just as soon do it at home. Just then taking part in the general conversation became unnecessary and even impractical. Mr. Mansour was questioning Canning about the art of fiction.