A Choice of Enemies

  As soon as he heard the downstairs door slam Karp rose and licked the cream off a chocolate eclair. He began to poke at things with his cane. The little black suitcase, he saw immediately, was of a German make.

  X

  Ernst missed Charlie. A half hour earlier Charlie had driven off to pick up Winkleman’s two boys and, incidentally, a final copy of All About Mary. This morning Charlie was taking Winkleman’s boys, Jeremy’s little girl and Bob Landis’s boy and girl out for a trip to the zoo.

  Charlie was worried.

  Even though he had work, taking into consideration that if All About Mary was produced he would get his first screen credit, he still felt that he was not accepted by the group on the same level, say, as Bob Landis. He and Joey were only invited to the big parties. Charlie would have given almost anything to be able to say that he had been invited to all the more intimate dinner parties, get-togethers, and at homes. That, he thought, was a measure of your success.

  Joey was worried too.

  Although Charlie hadn’t enough cash for a second payment on his car, although Jeremy was far from pleased with Charlie’s work and Cameo had yet to accept one of his scripts, he had gone and bought a television set, a record player, and a tape recorder: all on hire purchase. His bank manager wanted to see him on Tuesday morning about his overdraft.

  Joey, looking forward to a morning alone, had laid out a pattern for an autumn suit on the rug and, a pair of scissors in her hand, she sat cross-legged on the floor in her black lace slip. When the door bell rang she cursed. Wasn’t it just like Charlie to forget something? It was Ernst, tall and resolute. Joey brought her hand to her mouth and said, “Oh!”

  Norman had phoned earlier to say that Ernst was coming and that he would be round for dinner himself, but she had forgotten. Ernst waited while she ran off and slipped into her pink, quilted dressing gown. Then he set down his saw and tool kit and took out his tape measure. “Where are the boards?” he asked.

  “In the cupboard. But wouldn’t you like some coffee first?”

  Ernst followed her into the kitchen and drank his coffee like a duty.

  “Charlie’s taken the kids out for the day,” she said. Then, annoyingly aware of the implications of what she had said, she added, “Why didn’t you bring Sally with you? We could have gossiped while you worked.”

  “I didn’t think of it.”

  “Are you and Sally planning to get married?”

  “Perhaps,” he said. “We’ll see.”

  Joey stooped to refill his cup. “That would be nice for you,” she said, “wouldn’t it?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Marrying Sally. You could go to Canada if you married her.”

  When Joey joined him in the living room a minute later he did not look up. “Am I intruding?” she asked sarcastically.

  “Would you mind if I cleared the floor. I have to saw.”

  Joey cleared the rug hastily. “I’d better spread papers on the rug before you start,” she said.

  “If you don’t mind.”

  Once he had begun to saw Joey sat down to sew in a chair by the window. Much as she tried to avoid it her gaze kept returning to the young, muscular body bent so purposefully over the boards.

  “Norman is very good to you, isn’t he?”

  Ernst nodded.

  “I hope you appreciate all he’s done for you.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He’s alienated a lot of his friends for your sake.”

  “Alienated?”

  “A lot of people have turned against him because he hit Mr. Horton.”

  “I didn’t ask him to hit Horton.”

  Every time he looked up at her he was confronted with a lip of black lace and a pair of crossed slender legs.

  “Have you built many bookcases before?”

  “No.”

  “Do you like building bookcases?”

  “It’s a job.”

  “But you’re something of a carpenter?”

  No answer.

  “Would you rather I left the room?” she asked.

  Ernst ceased sawing in mid-stroke. His shirt was soaked in sweat. “Do as you like,” he said. “It’s your flat.”

  Joey’s brown bony face hardened. “Mr. Lawson is a damned good carpenter. He would have built the bookcase for nothing. But Norman insisted on you.”

  Ernst returned to his work sullenly.

  “I didn’t mean that as an insult,” she said.

  “I ain’t insulted.”

  “I was just trying to illustrate how eager Norman is to help you.”

  Once he was through with the boards Ernst reluctantly asked Joey if she would hold up one end of the tape measure while he checked the wall measurements. Their bodies touched once or twice before the work was done.

  “Why don’t you take a break,” Joey said. “I’ll get more coffee.”

  When she came in with more coffee Joey sat down on the sofa and held out a cup to Ernst. He sat down beside her.

  “You’re a quiet one,” Joey said.

  No reply.

  “Aren’t you?”

  “What is there to talk about?”

  “Norman was really so sweet on Sally – before you showed up, I mean – that we rather thought they might marry.”

  Ernst cleared his throat. “I’d better clear up the mess,” he said.

  “Norman must be fifteen years older than Sally. They never would have been happy together.”

  Ernst tried to get up, but Joey pulled him back on the sofa. “Finish your coffee,” she said.

  Joey wanted him to make a pass. She would have liked Ernst to give her cause to slap him.

  Ernst showed her his empty cup. “I’m finished,” he said.

  “Oh, go ahead. Get back to work.”

  Ernst noticed the script lying on Charlie’s desk. “That’s a very funny story,” he said.

  The only script on the desk was an early copy of All About Mary. “How do you know?” Joey asked.

  “Norman let me look at it.”

  “I didn’t know that Norman had a copy.”

  “I don’t understand you. Norman wrote it.”

  “Wrote All About Mary? Don’t be stupid. This just so happens to be a script by Mr. Lawson.”

  “You are mistaken. I know Norman wrote this script.”

  Joey laughed at him.

  “He took a finished copy to Mr. Winkleman this morning,” Ernst said. “I know.”

  All at once everything became agonizingly clear to Joey. Norman was “the hack” who had been called in to touch up the script here and there. The day he left for Paris he asked Charlie not to tell Winkleman that he was going away, because Winkleman would not commit himself to anything as long as Norman was gone. Norman was the reason for Charlie’s “success” in London.

  “You’re lying,” she said.

  Ernst guessed that he had been indiscreet. “I could be mistaken. Come to think of it Norman’s script had a different title.”

  But Joey was not prepared to accept a kindness from a boy like Ernst. “Are you finished?” she asked.

  “I have hardly started. I would like to come back after lunch.”

  “Nobody will be here after lunch.”

  “Couldn’t you give me a key?”

  “No.”

  “I wouldn’t steal anything.”

  “How much do I owe you?” Joey asked sharply.

  The room that swirled around her no longer held Ernst. She saw the car unpaid for, the television set, the record player, the bank manager who would have to be faced. She saw Charlie broken.

  “Nothing,” Ernst said.

  “Will a pound do?”

  “You owe me nothing.”

  “I’ll give you two pounds; no more.”

  “I’m doing this for Norman. I don’t want any money.”

  “Look here, we happen to be the present occupants of this flat. Not Norman Price. I can do without his charity.” She squeezed
two one pound notes together. “Here.”

  “Is it O.K. if I leave my tools here?”

  “Take the money!” She threw the money at his feet as Ernst bent over his tool kit. “Take it you little Nazi bastard!”

  Ernst placed his things by the door, the money he left where it was. “Have you a broom?” he asked. “I will sweep up.”

  “I’ll sweep up.”

  Ernst shook his head sadly.

  “Get out,” Joey said.

  “Why do you hate me?”

  “Please go.”

  “Tell me what I’ve done to you first.”

  “GET OUT, PLEASE!”

  Joey crumpled up on the sofa, but no tears came. Remembrance came.

  An hour passed before the phone rang. Rang and rang. She picked up the receiver wearily. “Hello,” she said.

  “Hullo, darling. All alone?”

  Bob’s joke was smeared with purpose.

  “Yes,” she said, “I certainly am.”

  He had to get a script out in a hurry, he said, and he wanted to know if she could come right over and type it for him.

  “Oh, Bob, you’re such a child. Won’t you ever give up?”

  No answer.

  “Bob, Bob, what’s going to happen to me? I can’t bear to see other people happy.”

  “Come over,” he said. “We’ll talk about it.”

  XI

  Stout, red-haired Sonny Winkleman, his desk spreading like a shield before him, put aside his blue-bound copy of All About Mary and smiled as Bella entered the room. “I thought it was Norm,” he said, his smile lapsing. “O.K. Shoot.”

  The Winklemans had a rule. Bella never interfered with business. But they both knew that she was going to upset that rule now, which upset Bella even more than it did Sonny.

  “I want you to be gentle with Norman,” she said.

  It was only because of her that he had used to give old, has-been actors work in his films. The last one had turned informer. “Sure,” he said, “I’ll be nice.”

  The doorbell rang. “That must be him,” she said.

  “Maybe it’s Lord Moustache and Sir Mild & Bitter.”

  It was a private joke. An old one. For Winkleman had a permanent residence and the men from the Home Office didn’t call any more. But the joke worked. Bella leaned over and kissed him on the cheek before she went to answer the door.

  Norman came in. “Are we going to sit in the office?” he asked.

  “Business,” Sonny said uneasily, “is business.”

  Business, however, was usually conducted much more informally.

  “O.K., Sonny. The office it is.”

  It suddenly struck Norman that he hadn’t been invited to the Winklemans’ for dinner or a party ever since the incident with Horton.

  “Last week,” Norman began with a smile, “a complete stranger came up to me at a party and warned me to keep an eye open for a chap named Price. This Price, he said, was mentally unstable, he had beaten up Colin Horton, and was rumoured to be an FBI informer.”

  But Sonny didn’t even smile.

  “I haven’t seen Horton around since your party,” Norman said. “What’s become of him?”

  “He’s gone to Rumania for a youth conference.”

  “Youth conference. He must be forty-five.”

  “All right,” Sonny said sharply, “but I’ll bet he’ll talk a lot more sense than the kids there.”

  “But a youth con –”

  “Maybe he’s a chaperon.” Sonny frowned. He seemed anxious to repudiate his joke. “Horton’s a brilliant man. He’s had a fine education.”

  Sonny had first been drawn to Norman because he had once been a professor. Horton he admired because he wrote incomprehensible articles with titles like ‘The Error of the Historical-Relativists’ for Marxist journals which Sonny, and others like him, did a lot to subsidize. It hurt Norman to think that Sonny had probably been touched for a tidy sum before Horton had left for Rumania.

  “Well, Sonny, what about the script?”

  “You’ve done a first-class job as usual, Norm. Charlie was in earlier to pick up the kids. I gave him a copy of the script to take home.”

  “You didn’t tell him that I worked on it.”

  “Of course not.” Sonny scratched his head. “Look, Norm, I’ve made a deal with Graves. We’ve got an excellent property; a book. Graves has been able to bring in a big chunk of New York money. Would you be interested in working on the script?”

  “What’s the book?”

  “We’ll come to that.”

  Winkleman, Graves, and the other émigré producers spent a good deal of their time in the public libraries reading books – books that were in the public domain – but nevertheless books and not synopses for the first time in their lives. They were as secretive about their reading lists as uranium prospectors are about their trips out of town.

  “Come on, Sonny, you can trust me.”

  “There’s a rumour going around – and please don’t ask me where or how I heard it – that you told Charlie you never would have given up fifteen hundred a week for friends and ideas you didn’t believe in any more. Is that true?”

  “Not quite,” Norman said, startled. “What I told Charlie is that it was certainly a lot to ask of a guy.”

  “O.K.,” Sonny said, “so now I’ve got your version of the story.”

  “Somebody’s been twisting my words. What in the hell’s going on, Sonny?”

  Sonny cracked his knuckles. “You were seen coming out of Canada House three days ago,” he said timidly.

  Norman guffawed. “Jesus,” he said, “did you think I was filing my report with the RCMP?”

  “Nobody said anything like that.”

  “What are you saying, then?”

  “Look, Norm, these are crazy times.”

  “Yeah,” Norman said. “Tell me about them.”

  Sonny flushed. He knew that Norman had left the university because he wouldn’t say whether or not he was a communist. That was the story anyway.

  “Take Graves, for instance. He worked in association with a guy for fifteen years. They were like brothers. Then one morning Graves wakes up and sees in the paper that his partner has named him as a Red. Jeremy, Plotnick – all of us – have had somewhat similar experiences.” Sonny took a deep breath. “What were you doing at Canada House?”

  “Getting my monthly pay cheque.”

  “Ho, ho, ho.”

  “It’s the truth,” Norman said. “It so happens that I get a monthly pension from the RCAF. Since I move around so much I have it mailed to me care of Canada House.”

  But even as Sonny breathed easier Norman added:

  “That wasn’t why I was there, though.”

  “Oi.”

  “I’m not telling you why I was there. It’s none of your business.”

  “How come,” Sonny asked, “you’re seeing so much of that little Nazi punk?”

  “That’s my business.”

  “Not when you go around hitting people like Horton, it isn’t.”

  “Is that why I’m not invited here any more?”

  “People are talking,” Sonny said more meekly. “They’re saying things about you.”

  “I’m not trusted any more.”

  “No.”

  “Do you trust me, Sonny?”

  “Forgetting that this Ernie stinker is a former Hitler Youth, overlooking the fact that he probably fled the East because he was wanted for rape or worse, how come you’re so anxious to help the kid who stole your girl? It’s not normal.”

  Norman stood up. Sonny rose hastily and blocked his way to the door. “I’m sorry,” Sonny said. “I forgot myself.”

  “You certainly did.”

  “I said I’m sorry.”

  Norman sat down again. “She loves Ernst. There’s nothing I can do to change that. I’d like to see her happy.”

  Sonny spoke in a calmer, softer voice.

  “Look, Norm, in this world you’ve g
ot to make a choice of enemies or you just can’t live. The boy stands for everything you and I are against. Haven’t we suffered enough for our beliefs without bending over ass-backwards to help the other side?”

  “I don’t want to discuss Ernst here,” Norman said. “What about your book? Do you want me to work on the script?”

  “I do. Certainly I do. But Budd Graves –”

  “You mean you don’t want Graves to know I’m working on it?”

  “Does Charlie know that you worked on this one?”

  “If I’m going to write a picture for you and Graves then Graves has got to know. Understand?”

  “Be reasonable, Norm. I trust you. It’s only that Budd is bringing in the backing and that because of his unfortunate experience with this guy he worked with for fifteen years he –”

  But Norman was on his feet again. “Get Charlie to write your script,” he said. “Still better why don’t you get Horton?”

  Norman slammed the door and hurried out of Winkleman’s house. Bella pursued him down the street. “Norman,” she called. “Norman.”

  He stopped. “Yes, sweetie.”

  “What happened?”

  “I’ve just been blacklisted,” he said, walking away again.

  “Wait,” Bella said. “Don’t go away like this, Norman.”

  He walked back to her.

  “Don’t be too hard on Sonny,” she said. “He could have been in charge of production at a big Hollywood studio today, but he refused to give them names. He gave up everything, Norman – everything – all for a principle.”

  “Yeah,” Norman said, “I know. But would you mind telling me what that principle was?”

  “Freedom of speech. Freedom to believe in what you like.”

  “From where I stand it looks like his principle is the same as theirs. Freedom for Winkleman to speak. Freedom for Winkleman to believe what he likes. I’m beginning to see for the first time that the argument was not one of principle but of power. Right now they’re inside and Sonny’s out.” He hesitated. “I’m sorry, sweetie!”

  “All right,” she said in a fury, “be an intellectual. All I know is that my husband has given up more than you’ll ever have to give. All for a principle.”

  “You’re a very silly woman,” Norman said. Then, embarrassed, Norman turned about from Bella, walking towards Swiss Cottage. The sands began to shift under him again. Soon, he thought, I will no longer know where I stand. Or how to stand, he added, turning the corner.