A Choice of Enemies

  “Look,” Norman said, “he killed my brother.”

  “You see,” Sally said. “He has principles.”

  “Jesus.”

  “Can’t you see she wants you to go,” Karp said.

  Sally seemed to notice the smashed guitar for the first time. “Why did you have to go and do that?” she asked.

  “I’m sorry.”

  Sally began to sob. “I always knew that it could never be,” she said. “I always knew you’d come for him in the end. But now that it’s happened – He’s worth ten of you,” she shrieked.

  “I ought to slap you so hard,” Norman said, “that –”

  “You’re right. That’s it,” she said. “Don’t you see? You’re always right. He never was. He never had a chance.”

  “You,” Norman said, grabbing her, shaking her. “You and I,” he said, “we could have been so happy together. I loved you Sally. Oh, how I loved you. But – How could you prefer scum like Ernst over me? And he ran out on you in the end, didn’t he? You thought he wouldn’t. You thought he’d stay with it. Oh, Sally, Sally. Think what you’ve done to both of us.”

  “You lonely, foolish man,” she said. “All that’s left for you is hatred.”

  “I’ll find him,” Norman said, letting her go, “no matter where he goes.”

  “Find him,” Sally said. “I don’t care any more.”

  After Norman had gone Karp stared morosely at the guitar. “It’s broken,” he said.

  “Yes,” Sally said. “It’s broken.”

  4

  I

  HALE WAS SHOCKED.

  Seated opposite Norman in a frayed easy chair the next spring, Thomas Hale squeezed his big black beard and shook his head mournfully. He had been warned in Toronto, of course. Charles Lawson had described Norman’s condition as psychotic. But Hale, well aware of the knack creative men have for embellishment, had not taken Lawson’s story very seriously. Norman had always drunk more than was good for him – another vice of the creative, Hale reflected – but you would not have described him as an alcoholic.

  “… and ever since,” Norman continued thickly, “I’ve been looking for him. You ought to see the size of my correspondence. Once or twice I even had private investigators work on it. It seems to me that he must have gone back to East Germany. I’m thinking of going to Berlin this coming fall, if I can afford it.” Norman smiled loosely. “Another drink?”

  “No thanks,” Hale winced as Norman poured himself another stiff one. “It’s rather early in the day, don’t you think?”

  Norman’s flat looked seedier, more disordered, than ever. Norman was greyer. He looked plump, puffy and, if you took the lack-lustre eyes into account, a little unbalanced. Hale wished for Norman’s sake that he had not told his story to many people. What an incredible fantasy, he thought.

  Hale knew the truth.

  Norman had fallen in love with a young Canadian school teacher who had turned him down in favour of a German boy, someone closer to her own age group. The boy, a political refugee from the East, had proven an anathema to Norman’s friends. Norman had tried to ingratiate himself with the girl by standing up for her boy friend. At the same time, desperate for money, he had made an underhand deal with an émigré producer which, had it worked, would have robbed Lawson of credit for All About Mary. When it was discovered, Norman, unable to cope, had taken refuge in temporary amnesia. Then – and this was the most reprehensible part of the whole sordid business – Norman had driven the German boy away somehow, hoping to rehabilitate himself in the eyes of the émigrés. Hale was deeply moved. The human predicament, he thought.

  Norman drank his whisky neat. “I’ve never told anyone the truth about Ernst before,” he said. “I couldn’t stand the idea of people gloating over what a fool I had been.…”

  Hale stroked his beard. This latest fantasy, that the German boy had murdered his brother, was a clear case of mental compensation. Hale decided that he would never repeat this hallucination to anyone. For Norman, he was sure, would be himself again one day.

  “What,” Hale asked, “do you think of the Khrushchev revelations?”

  Norman lazily reverted to an earlier habit of mind. “As far as I know,” he said, “the speech you read was released by the American State Department.”

  Better not argue, Hale thought. “Well,” he said, “I guess I’d better get moving.…”

  Norman smiled a drunken magnanimous smile. Hale came to Europe annually in the spirit of a boy visiting Coney Island. Maybe, Norman thought, his is the right attitude after all.

  Hale noticed that the newspaper scattered over the floor was the Montreal Star. He poked a section of it with his foot. “Homesick?” he asked.

  “It’s the Saturday edition. A friend at home has been sending it to me for years.”

  “You ought to come home. I still think it’s a waste. You ought to come home and teach.”

  “Even if I wanted to,” Norman said, “I haven’t got the fare.”

  “I’d gladly lend you the money.”

  “Thanks.” At the door Norman pressed Hale’s arm, delaying his departure. “I mean that. Your offer is very kind.”

  “I meant it.”

  “I know you did. What about Charlie? How is he?”

  “He’s doing extremely well.” Hale clutched the doorknob tight and risked an indiscretion. “This may be none of my affair,” he said, “but I’d like you to know that Charlie bears you no grudge. If that’s what’s stopping you from going home, I mean.”

  “It’s none of your affair,” Norman said. “That’s true.”

  After Hale had gone Norman poured himself another drink. It was already 4.15. He would be late for tea with Kate and Vivian. Just this drink, he thought, and then I’ll take a taxi. Once outside, however, Norman decided to take the tube. He couldn’t really afford a taxi and besides he preferred tubes and buses these days. There was always the off-chance that he might run into Ernst, Sally, Winkleman, somebody, anybody, absolutely anybody, who had once been his friend. Norman saw nobody these days outside of Vivian and Kate. He had even given up travelling. He slept in until twelve most mornings, read newspapers, magazines, a book occasionally, and then he had his first drink. His money was running out.

  Walking down the King’s Road Norman suddenly felt a hand pressing on his elbow.

  “Norman! Norman Price! You’re just the man I want to see,” Colin Horton said. “I was going to ring you tomorrow morning.”

  Horton didn’t look well. His bony face had filled with intricate little lines, the black hair had lost its shine. They went to the Eight Bells together. “You saw the light before any of us,” Horton said meekly, “so if you want to say I told you so, you’re entitled to it.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Stalin,” he said.

  “Oh, the speech, you mean.”

  “I wrote articles against POUM in Spain, you know, and in New York in ‘41 I helped to get a couple of Trotskyites dismissed from their jobs.”

  “Not because of their political opinions,” Norman said.

  “I told you,” Horton said, “if you want to say ‘I told you so’ then –”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Norman, listen Norman. I’ve got a boy of seventeen in the States. I’ve branded him for the rest of his life. I used to consider that part of the price you paid, but now … What am I to write him?” Horton asked. “He’s my son.”

  “Let’s have another drink, eh?”

  “When I think of the murders, when I remember the whitewashing articles I wrote, I’m sick to my stomach.”

  “Take heart, old boy. They would have gone ahead without your permission.”

  “I’m forty-five,” he said. “I used to be so damned sure of myself. I –”

  “Here, drink up,” Norman said. “This sounds cruel – I know – but I don’t want to hear about it. I’ve had mine, Colin.”

  “The worst is,” Horton said, “that I suspe
cted the truth all along but kept quiet for the sake of the greater truth.” He paused to wipe his eyes. “I had thought that the whole nature of man had been changed in thirty years.”

  “Did you really believe that?”

  “I was in Spain, you know.”

  “The next guy who says that to me is going to get a punch in the nose. What, exactly, were you doing in Spain?”

  “I was a journalist.”

  Norman turned to go.

  “Wait,” Horton said, “talk to me a little. I – Excuse me.” He blew his nose. “I – Oh, who do you apologize to?”

  “Take it easy.”

  “I’d like to start by apologizing for picking on your friend that night. I was being unfair. I see that now.”

  “Skip it,” Norman said stiffly.

  “What’s become of him?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Anyway,” Horton said, “I was wrong that night and you were right. You’re a much better judge of character than I am.”

  Norman smiled lamely. “I’m late for an appointment,” he said.

  “Well,” Horton said, “I’ll see you at the party tonight. We can talk some more there.”

  “What party?”

  “Aren’t you invited to Bob Landis’s place tonight?”

  Norman realized that Horton had probably been away for some time and didn’t know that nobody invited him around any more.

  “Sure,” Norman said. “I’ll see you later.”

  Norman hurried over to the flat on Oakley Street. Kate, and Roger and Polly Nash sat around the coffee table. Kate was wearing a cashmere sweater and toreador pants. She looked lovely. Vivian saw immediately that Norman was drunk, but she made no comment.

  “Sorry I’m late,” Norman said. “I ran into an old friend. We had a few drinks together.”

  Vivian, who was wearing a smart cocktail dress, poured tea. She served Norman first.

  “Have you noticed Vivian’s new outfit?” Kate asked.

  “I think it’s very nice,” Norman said weakly.

  “You men,” Polly said.

  “Aren’t they all alike,” Kate said vehemently. “Thoughtless, selfish, and blind to a woman’s more serious virtues.”

  Norman realized that Kate was annoyed with him. He wondered why.

  Vivian passed Roger his tea. “Norman is working frightfully hard on a new film script,” she said.

  “Oh. How interesting.”

  Norman winced. He imagined that Vivian had suffered more than a fistful of insults to have come to baiting Roger so blatantly, but, however just her cause, he wished she wouldn’t do it. Besides she knew he wasn’t working on a script.

  “Roger is ever so anxious to get into film work,” Polly said. “He has some wonderful ideas.”

  Norman smiled understandingly at Roger, but before he could say anything friendly Vivian called out to him from the kitchen. “Norman,” she said, “can you give me a hand for a moment?”

  Norman excused himself. Once in the kitchen he kissed Vivian mildly on the forehead.

  “I hadn’t counted on the others,” Vivian said. “I thought we’d have the flat to ourselves. I know you can’t bear them.”

  “But I like Roger.”

  Vivian shut the kitchen door softly. “Kate’s got a new boy friend. She’s out most nights. Why don’t you come around later this evening?”

  “I’ll try.”

  “The Hungarian State Opera Company will be at the Palace next Wednesday. Shall I get two tickets?”

  “That would be nice,” he said. “But don’t you think we ought to get back and join the others?”

  II

  The flat Bob had rented for Sally when she had returned from Paris in April was on a little street of shrinking grey buildings off Baker Street. She abhorred being left alone there. The combination record player and television set, a recent gift from him, was more of an encumbrance than a solace. The other gifts – the plants, perfumes, and lingerie – were not all from him. This made her feel guilty. For Bob gave so very much and, as she could not give him anything like love in return, it seemed to her that the very least she could do was remain faithful to him. He was soft. His vanity at times was insufferable. But in spite of the daily handball, the morning exercises and the occasional swim, he was beginning to spread around the middle. He was kind. He never mentioned Ernst’s name unless she brought it up first. He was merely a boy. Flattering remarks were jam to him and compliments he ravished like cookies. He was kind, merely a boy, but he was also flabby with middle-age.

  Once or twice maybe she asked him about Norman. He didn’t see Norman. Nobody saw him.

  As Sally sat by the window watching the black tree opposite, as she glanced three, four times at the puffy grey sky, the tears swelled and broke. These days the tears came easily and by surprise. Against the tears Sally took phenobarbital, gin, and double features.

  One of those incongruously young, pink-cheeked bobbies passed below. Next came a black boy on a bicycle. Trixie, the sly terrier, led Miss Langlie down the spotted black pavement. They were late. The Volunteer must have been open for twenty minutes or more. Sally poured herself another gin and tonic. No doubt, she thought, I should have married Norman. But between them like a sore there would always have been Ernst. And Norman would have acted so correctly, with so much dignity and compassion, that he would surely have driven her out of her mind. Yet, she thought, I could have been happy with him.

  “Ernst,” she called suddenly.

  I mustn’t, Sally thought. He’ll be angry if I’m drunk when he comes. Remembering Sally got up and tottered into the bathroom and returned with a glass of water and the bottle of sleeping tablets. It was a low, desperate trick, that much she was ready to confess, but she was not going to submit to an abortion. This child she would not lose. The pill Sally swallowed went down with difficulty. She coughed and turned back to her gin. He was soft, a boy merely, and when he came to pick her up at eight – he was a most punctual man – and found her with the half-empty bottle of gin and the empty bottle of sleeping tablets beside her he would rush her to the hospital – it was nearby – and he would be so moved by her plight that he would promise her she could have the child.

  A cunning, filthy stunt; that’s what it was. But even as she swallowed the third pill Sally knew that this melodramatic deceit, this “attempted suicide,” was in his idiom, would do better than tears and arguments, and would win her the life of her unborn child. So Sally took another pill.

  III

  It was their habit to relax with a martini together before a party, so a little later Bob Landis sat down to drink with his wife.

  Dark, spare Zelda Landis looked more than her thirty-nine years. Her simple black dress, the jewelled earrings which clung like bites to her ears and even the black court pumps, all added to the severity of her manner. She sat down to rest. The canapés and the hors d’oeuvres and the chipolatas were all ready and covered with napkins on the kitchen table. She had prepared a cold dinner plate for the two of them to eat before the others arrived. Zelda was a splendid hostess, but she always gave the impression that she had been specially put together just to last out one particular evening. You felt that after the last guest had gone Zelda fell apart on the floor. Bob always knitted her together again, of course. But each time there was a spare part like a chip of china left over, and so when you next saw Zelda she seemed older and more prone than last time to disintegrate before the evening was done.

  The living room was furnished in the best of taste. Two pictures hung on the wall. One was a Chinese print of a horse and the other a drawing of a Mexican peasant hanging from a tree by his thumbs. They were both obligatory, like pictures of the Queen or crucifixes were in homes with other loyalties.

  Then, just as Bob set out to refill the glasses, the door bell rang. It was only six-thirty: nobody was expected until nine. “Oh, I know,” Zelda said, “it must be Mrs. Deacon. The old dear offered to come round to help with the se
rving tonight.”

  “There’s a Mr. Price here to see you,” the maid said.

  Bob had wanted to ask Norman to their party for old time’s sake, but Zelda had said no, positively no. “Shall I ask him to stay?” Bob asked, rising.

  “Certainly not.”

  The number of men at Zelda’s parties always equalled the number of women. Norman was extra.

  “What’ll we say?”

  “I don’t care what you say. As long as you get rid of him.”

  Norman entered the room, smiling shyly. “I was just passing by,” he said, “and I thought I’d see if you were in.…”

  Zelda recognized the lie at once.

  “Sit down.” Bob smiled his most affable smile. “What’ll you have to drink?”

  But Bob, too, felt that Norman had not merely been passing by, and that embarrassed him for Norman’s sake.

  “Whisky,” Norman said. Then, sensing Zelda’s hostility, he added, “Look, if you’re expecting people for dinner or … I can come by another time.”

  What a cheap way to wangle an invitation, Zelda thought. But Bob was touched, he was fond of Norman, and he showed it by pouring him a very stiff drink. Then, turning to Zelda, he said, “I’m glad you came by tonight. I’ve been meaning to call you for weeks and weeks.”

  Zelda’s cheeks flushed. “How have you been keeping, Norman?”

  “Oh, fine. Just fine.”

  She noticed that Bob had poured a very stiff drink for himself too. Get drunk, she thought. You just go ahead.

  Bob observed with sadness that Norman was wearing the same clothes as when he had seen him last. The cuffs of his jacket were worn. “I hear you’ve been fraternizing with the natives these days,” he said with forced gaiety.

  “I’m going out with a British girl. But it’s not serious.”

  Norman asked about the Winklemans.

  “All About Mary was a smash,” Bob said. “It’s doing great in the provinces. Sonny and Budd have formed an independent unit and they’re going to make two films a year now.” Bob refilled the glasses. “What are you working on these days?” he asked.