“It’s convertible,” Sandra said. “You’ve got to have things like that to eke out the room in such a tiny apartment. Else you’d have to eat at the kitchen counter.”
“Yes,” said Wagner, “that’s what we’ve always done.” He had thought it nice and cozy, but he realized that if he confessed as much to Sandra she might think him soft.
“We can sit here now,” said Sandra, indicating the adjacent sofa.
Wagner would have preferred to keep his chair, which was still in reach of the now stunted table, but he did not wish to offend. He sat down on the sofa.
Sandra retrieved the Scotch bottle from the floor, leaving behind the plate from which he had eaten the pie. “Won’t you join me now?”
“No thanks,” Wagner said. “I never drink much. I have a low tolerance for alcohol.”
“So have I,” said Sandra, pouring whiskey into her glass. “That’s why I drink.” Apparently this was not intended to be a joke, for she turned to him, glass in hand, and said soberly, “You might have medical problems.”
“I just can’t drink much without feeling it more than I like to.”
“I don’t mean that,” said Sandra. “I meant the sex thing.”
Wagner actually asked, “What sex thing?”
She gestured airily with her left hand while drinking from the right.
After an instant it occurred to him that she was referring to impotence, and he said heatedly, “There’s nothing wrong with me!”
She smiled benignly. “Except the woman.” She stood up and stepped before him, bent, and took his hand.
Sandra led him into a fancy bedroom, a place of satin coverlets and skirts on the vanity, and alternately undressed him and herself. Wagner had no taste for this enterprise, but it was now too late to become invisible without causing more trouble than he was having. Given the situation, he would have liked to be impotent at this moment, but Sandra simply would not permit it. Though having subordinated herself to her husband, she had become, perhaps in overcompensation, almost tyrannically assertive. In any event, she had her way with Wagner and, inconveniently for him, she found the result so satisfactory that even while he was still engulfed, she enthusiastically anticipated their ever more intimate association.
It was obvious that from now on he would do well never to be visible in the public areas of the building.
7
SANDRA WAS MOST RELUCTANT TO let him escape. It appeared that her original invitation to dinner had tacitly comprised plans for breakfast as well, for which she had provisioned her larder with crumb cake and sticky caramel rolls. But though Wagner had been docilely led to bed, his panic on learning of her assumption that he would spend the night there, wearing the late Miles’s striped pajamas, as well as the golden terrycloth robe and heelless calfskin slippers—these garments were handily laid out on the nearby chair, demonstrating a shameless premeditation—gave him the strength to be very firm in insisting he must return to his own apartment and remain there till morning. You see, he expected a late phone call from his sister, who was in transit someplace, unreachable. His situation must be known and fixed, since hers could not be. There could be no argument against him at this point, and as to his returning to Sandra after the call, Nancy was an inconsiderate nightowl: she might phone anytime at all, and he had to go to work next day.
An extraordinary thing happened: what had been said as a polite and somewhat elaborate lie became truth: Nan did indeed telephone him, and furthermore at 2:15 A.M.
It had been ever so long since he had spoken with his sister, and her voice was now contorted with rage, but he knew no other female who would have called him in the wee hours and therefore recognized her immediately despite her failure to provide identification or, for that matter, greeting.
“You’ve really done it now, haven’t you?”
“Hi, Nan,” said Wagner. “How are you and Steve and all?” He could never remember all the names of her children and had to look up this information at Xmastime, when he sent each a piece of paper money enclosed in one of those cards made for the purpose, with an oval cutout through which the engraving of the appropriate President can be seen: in the case of those sent to extremely young people, he included in the holiday wishes a suggestion that the money might be banked for later use.
She now ignored his attempt to be civilized and more or less repeated, “You’ve gone and done it, haven’t you?”
“You received my letter?” She had not awakened him, for as yet he had been unable to get to sleep, what with the amount of food in his stomach, not to mention the session in bed with Sandra.
It was typical of Nan to say nothing of his letter and not so much as acknowledge any of the argument within.
“Apparently she finally had it up to here, is that it?” she was asking, and because it was hardly a sincere question, went immediately on. “It might interest you to know, and if it doesn’t, I’m going to tell you anyway: I saw this coming from the first. Carla was obviously too good for you, Freddy. I’m not being cruel: you know me too well for that. I wouldn’t be saying this if I thought you lacked the ability to make something of yourself, but you don’t, or anyway you didn’t in college. You were an honors student, if you can remember that far back. We had reason to expect a great deal from you. Frankly, never till now had I given up all hope.”
“I wish you’d actually read what I wrote,” said he, “instead of, a continent away, arriving at a conclusion of your own. I told you she and I remain close. Only last night, for example, we went to dinner at a favorite restaurant of ours. Today I visited her at the gallery. Don’t talk as if we’re divorced. I explained the whole thing carefully, but of course you dismiss it, as usual.”
“I’ve had your number for many years, Freddy. For example, I know it was you, and not Carla, who if she were permitted to be herself would be quite maternal, it was you who didn’t want children. Carla’s Italian: God, she’s a natural mother, yet you—”
“Babe’s not Italian,” Wagner said in exasperation. “Where did you get that idea?”
But Nan, talking on through what was therefore not his interruption, continued. “And don’t tell me her heart wasn’t broken when you turned down that magnificent offer Steve got for you, at some cost to himself.”
The reference here was to the editorship of the house organ for the corporation of which his brother-in-law was legal counsel. A four-page monthly, printed on a shiny stock from which they took the courage to call it a magazine, it consisted of photographs of the employees’ bowling team, which had once again whipped all competitors from factories of a similar size and had all but held its own against the county championship squad from the sheriff’s department. Aside from the relevant captions identifying the persons by department, and a headline, “Go, Hewco Keglers!” the only text in the specimen copy furnished to Wagner had been an encomium on a vice-president of marketing. Notwithstanding the breezy tone—“Ken’s golf might not be quite up to the National Open, but he sure has fun at it”—this was a composition informed by little but rank obsequiousness. The fact was that Wagner’s existing job did require the exercise of a gift for verbal expression; one had to write with precision. He might have been joking irreverently when he referred to Flaubert in his remarks to Mary Alice Phillips, but he had to believe that the great master, more than most, would have appreciated what was at stake in any use of language however humble the end to which it was directed.
“You know very well,” he told Nan now, “that all of our professional connections are here. I won’t go into that again.”
“Ha!” jeered his sister. “And just what are your professional connections? When Grammuh Wilkie was a girl they had an outdoor privy where mail-order catalogues were used as toilet paper.”
The reference was to their maternal grandmother. Wagner always winced at Nan’s affected pronunciation of “Grandma,” which she had assumed only since marrying into Steve’s family, who were or pretended to be regionally genteel.
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“All right, Nan,” Wagner said, “once again you’ve proven unworthy of being sent any serious information. In future I’ll confine my messages to those synthetic printed comments on commercial greeting cards. ... For God’s sake, I’m a writer. Why can’t you ever just read what I’ve written?”
“You’ve been making that claim for years, and yet I have never seen a word of yours in print—I don’t count that kitchen-appliance catalogue you sent me once! I’m afraid you’re a phony, Freddy, and now Carla has confirmed that fact by walking out on you. How long can you keep telling yourself the same old lie?”
It was not a baseless question, and it found its mark in Wagner. Therefore he could survive only by compounding the falsehood.
“Goddammit, Nancy, I had intended to keep this a surprise for a while, but you’re really forcing me to lose patience. My book has been accepted by Burbage.”
His sister was silent for a long moment, and then she said, “That means nothing to me, Freddy. Who or what is that silly name?”
With a derisive stage laugh, Wagner said, “Only the most distinguished publishing firm in the country. Their authors include Theodore Wulsin, who’s widely considered a living classic.”
“Uh-huh,” grunted Nan, who had never, so far as he knew, read a book whose primary purpose was not didactic. “Does he make a living?”
“For God’s sake, of course! He’s won all the prizes, visits the White House, and so on. You know, Nan, someone at your well-to-do level of society really should be more conversant with the serious culture of our time.”
He wasn’t getting far. She responded to his gibe by groaning, “So says the voice from the cheap seats! Tell me this, Freddy: why were you keeping this so-called news as a surprise? On what occasion did you intend to reveal it?”
“As soon as the movie deal was finalized,” said he, so desperate he was able to use, without a tremor, that word he had always thought an abomination. But perhaps it was the very term that evoked Nan’s credence now: “finalized” of course was one of the basics of the jargon of her milieu. And when he added another—“hopefully”—he had begun to hold his ground.
For the first time a note of other than self-righteous certainty could be detected in her voice. “You’re kidding now, Freddy, aren’t you?”
“Would I joke when I finally have a good answer to the vicious attacks you’ve been making on me for years?”
“You have sold this story to the movies?”
“I’m being cautious,” said Wagner. “I haven’t signed the contract yet.” He hastily added, “They have, though, so the deal is up to me to accept, but there are some clauses I want to think about awhile.”
Nan cried, “You rush a copy to Steve before you sign a thing, you hear? Make use of this wonderful legal expertise at your disposal!”
Wagner sighed audibly. “Don’t you think I have my own movie lawyer? These contracts are very special, require an expert.” What a good time he was having now!
His sister’s tone was softening as she spoke. “I suppose a thing like this can be profitable, Freddy?”
“Very,” said Wagner. He then coolly specified an outlandish figure.
Nan obviously heard this, but had an emotional need not to acknowledge it directly, saying instead, “Malcolm’s the one with the writing talent: the other day he produced his own newspaper with those letter-stamps and a stamp pad. It was all about the life of the family, including Spunky naturally.”
Wagner could not remember whether Malcolm was the youngest or the middle child. Spunky was probably a dog or cat.
“Of course,” he said, “the share of the box-office receipts could be a lot larger than that, providing the picture is a commercial blockbuster. Sid thinks it can be, but who knows?”
“Sid?”
“Sidney Gunman,” he said. “The studio head.”
“I’m sure I’ve heard of him,” said Nan, who was now even prepared to swallow this invented personage.
Having done so well thus far, Wagner went further. “And Bill Fontina loves the script. He’s dying to do it, if Sid will meet his terms, which are just about the stiffest in the Industry.”
“Who?” Nan’s question was respectful. She did not keep current with the cinema.
“William Z. Fontina. He won the Oscar last year.”
Her breath could be heard. “Well,” said she, “this is certainly good news. Tell me, Freddy, this book of yours: it’s make-believe?”
“In a sense,” Wagner said easily. “It’s fiction, after all.”
“What I mean is...” Nan paused for a moment, and then she blurted, “Freddy, might I ask if your story has anything to do with our family?”
Wagner was briefly silent: his ad hoc fantasy had as yet made no provision for plot or theme, for he had not been thinking of the fragment of novel he had called his own for some years and had apparently (for he had no memory of so doing) mentioned to most of his co-workers. That project could in this new light be dismissed. There should be no limitations on an imaginary narrative.
“There are certainly families in it,” said he. “But lots of other things as well. It’s a broad canvas. I suppose it’s really about life, lives, in our time.”
“Because,” said his sister, still occupied with the matter of her question, “real people could be hurt, even if you weren’t being malicious on purpose.” She cleared her throat. “Dad’s gone now, of course, but it would be too bad to hurt his reputation even so, and it certainly would be embarrassing to us out here.”
“Dad? What are you talking about, Nan?”
“You know, that thing at church, when he was treasurer. After all, he returned most of the money, and it was hushed up at the time. Why reveal it after all these years?”
This was news to Wagner. After a moment, he said, “I agree, and I haven’t referred to it.”
“Good,” said Nan. “You’re a decent man, Freddy. I’m sure I don’t have to ask if you have used the unpleasant incident involving, uh, you know George Monrovey.”
Wagner vaguely recognized the name as being that of a high-school teacher of long ago, but he had no other associations for the name, Monrovey having gone before he himself had reached high school.
However, some instinct now restrained him from assenting too readily to whatever Nan was pleading. “Well, not quite. Maybe I’ve used certain elements in, uh, a montage, a rearrangement of course—”
“Oh no, you can’t,” Nan all but wailed, though in a voice with lowered volume, indeed almost a whisper. “He’s an old man now, if he’s alive at all. Look, he lost his job and his wife of twenty years. Isn’t that punishment enough? Let it stay under the rug, I beg you, Freddy. It would sound so sordid at this late date, but it wasn’t that ugly at the time. George was a sensitive man.” Her voice had become tender.
Wagner had never suspected that his sister could have been sexually attractive to anyone at any age: without consciously thinking about it, he somehow assumed that Steve had been interested in her organizational abilities and had fathered her children as the performance of his role in a rite.
At length, having enjoyed the suspense, he said, “OK. But I wouldn’t do it for anyone else but you, Nan.” For the first time in his life he now found it possible to say, “I owe you a lot. I haven’t forgotten how you stayed behind till I grew up. Thanks, sis.”
Nancy was sobbing: another thing he had not suspected she had in her was tears.
After an assurance by Wagner that the family must certainly assemble for the premiere of the movie, the conversation reached its end, and when it had so done, Wagner’s heart made a breathtaking descent. Alone in a bedroom that without a partner seemed vast as an empty gymnasium, he was left with only the truth, in which there was no place for anything he had said in the foregoing remarks except perhaps the expression of gratitude to his sister, but denied the pretext for such expression, viz., a personal success, he could not even maintain that feeling for long. Indeed, within an
instant his resentment towards Nan had compounded and returned: his outlandish lies were all her doing.
He spent a sleepless night, in the course of which he at one point rose, went to the little desk in the corner of the room, found his so-called manuscript in the bottom of the lowest drawer, under the rubber-banded bundles of canceled checks preserved for years should he be challenged to confirm routine payments made long ago, and taking what existed of his “novel” to the bathroom, tore it page by page into strips and sent it into the maelstrom of a flushed toilet.
When the last fragment had been devoured by the gulping water closet he knew a moment of liberation—this was a beginning; the new could not have got under way so long as the route was blocked by the old. As the Orientals know, creation and destruction are symbiotic, if not synonymous... but the moment was left behind as he stepped over the threshold of the bathroom, as if across an abyss, and he returned to bed with haste, so that he would not be tempted to go back to where his cutthroat razor was housed.
Sleepless and still dyspeptic at the time he would ordinarily have begun to prepare to leave for work, he decided to stay home. The company was intolerant of employees not sufficiently ill to enter a hospital: migraines, lower-back aches, flus with temperatures under 100, nonbandaged un-slung limbs however bruised or strained, these were officially assumed to be but symptoms of the proscribed disease of malingering. He was well aware that if he phoned in to Jackie Grinzing he would be challenged to defend himself, and the fact was that he would not be staying away from the office had he not felt peculiarly defenseless this morning.
Therefore when the time came, about a quarter after nine, allowing Delphine to get through half the first cup of coffee and to light a second cigarette, he placed a call to his nearest office neighbor.
After an extra ring, the extension was answered by a voice that said, “Delphine Root’s phone.”
“She’s not there?”