“The fact remains that you were decorated.”
“Honestly, I can’t imagine anyone more remote from the heroic than myself.”
“You were involved in the Spanish fiasco?”
“Yes, but –”
“There,” Haig said.
“You’re right,” Norman said. “I’m a hero.”
Haig retired with a triumphant, waspish smile. And Norman grasped for the first time that he was a character, an ageing pinko, ineffectual and a bore, and, as far as Haig’s crowd could see, the fossil of a sillier age, like the player-piano. Norman retreated to a comparatively unoccupied corner of the room.
Slumped glumly in the corner Norman recalled something he had once read in an atlas somewhere. Off Vancouver Island there was a vast area of sea known as the zone of silence. No sound penetrated this sea. A stillness prevailed. And since no siren or bell warned ships of dangerous reefs the floor of the zone of silence was strewn with wrecks. This, he thought, was surely an age of silence. A time of collisions. A place strewn with wrecks. This time of opinions, battle-stations, and no absolutes, was also a time to consolidate. This time of no heroes but hyperbole, where treason was only loyalty looked at closely, and faith, honour, and courage had become the small change of crafty politicians, was also a time to persevere. To persevere was a most serious virtue.
If there was a time to man the barricades, Norman thought, then there is also a time to weed one’s private garden. The currency of revolution is invalid as long as both tyrannies bank big bombs. Each age creates its own idiom. This was a time to drop a nickel in the blind man’s box and to recommend worth-while movies to strangers, it was a time to play their game but to make your own errors, a time to wait and a time to hope. The enemy was no longer the boor in power on the right or the bore out of power on the left. All alliances had been discredited. The enemy was the hit-and-run driver of both sides. The enemy, no longer clear, could still be recognized. His cause was just. He knew what was good for you and he was above small virtues. Charlie who hadn’t talked and Jeremy who had, Karp inside and Ernst out, Joey, the Winklemans, all moved unknowingly through the same ogre-like zone of silence, which made a necessary sacrifice of the Nickys and Sallys, leaving the less beautiful behind to pick at the bones of their discontent. So in this time of wrecks, Norman, at the age of thirty-nine, chose at last to lead a private life. Ernst was, as he had once told Joey, the creation of their own idealism. So wherever he is let him go in peace. Let him be.
Without actually taking part Norman shook hands and waved good byes to his guests. See you Henry, so long Jori, thanks for coming Tony, good bye Derek, don’t mention it John.
Vivian kicked off her shoes and went methodically through the living room, emptying ashtrays. “The Jarrolds,” she said, “have asked us to dinner next Sunday.”
“You got out of it, I hope.”
“No,” she said. “I thought you’d like to go. They’re going to have some of the others around later. It should be fun.”
“Well,” he said, “maybe.”
“I was hoping you might be able to do something for Cyril, actually. He’s the one with the coal board. He used to write the cleverest film reviews for Isis and he’d so much like to get on.”
“You seem to have forgotten that my old friends are no longer interested in me, darling.”
“Didn’t Mr. Winkleman send you a gift?”
“Yes.…”
“And your friend Bob sent a wire, didn’t he?”
“Yes. That was a surprise. But all the same –”
“Aren’t you pleased?”
“Certainly I am, but –”
“I knew you would be,” she said happily. “I phoned them.”
“You what?”
“I phoned to say you were getting married. Mr. Winkleman said he’d like to have a talk with you any time you’re free. He’s holding some money for you, or something, he said.”
“I’m to appear before them, am I?” He laughed. “I wonder if there are any names I can give them.”
“Oh, don’t pretend to be angry. I knew you were too proud to call them, so I did it myself.”
“Vivian.”
“You’re glad,” she said. “Admit it.”
Norman fiddled anxiously with his glasses. “I’m going back to teaching,” he said. “I’ve put films and all that behind me.”
“Nonsense,” she said. “You’d never be happy in some ghastly provincial university. I know you so well, Norman.”
“Look here, Vivian, there’s a book. Something I’ve been promising myself to finish for years, and I –”
“A novel,” Vivian said, excited. “You’re writing a novel.”
“No, not quite. It’s meant to be a scholarly – About Dryden and his period. You see –”
“Oh, Norman.”
“I know it doesn’t sound like much,” he said, “but it’s rather important to me.”
“I promised Cyril you’d introduce him to Winkleman.”
Norman looked at his wife and wondered if a year or two of these people would be enough for her. She’s an intelligent enough girl, he thought. “O.K.,” he said. “I’ll see what I can do.”
Vivian brought him a whisky and soda, his mail, the Saturday edition of the Montreal Star, and his slippers.
Norman immediately came across Ernst’s picture and the story. He read how one Joseph Rader had saved Hyman Gordon’s life, won awards, cheques, and was going to marry a German widow. Then, for the first time in months, Norman recalled Hornstein vividly. Once again the ferocious little man climbed back into his machine and dived it into the Thames. “Vivian,” Norman called thickly.
“Yes?”
“I’d like for us to have a child. Almost right away, I mean.”
“A child? Good Lord!”
“Yes,” he said. “As soon as possible.”
She tried to hide her displeasure. Norman was eleven years older than her, and that was plenty, but she hadn’t realized until now that he was middle-aged.
“Maybe next year,” she said.
He made no attempt to conceal his disappointment.
“I thought we might do some travelling first. A child, you know, is a full time job for a woman.”
“It doesn’t have to be, Vivian. I mean –”
“You’re being a bit selfish, I think.”
Norman got up, went into the kitchen, and threw the Star into the waste basket. When he came back he said, “We’ll wait one year for a child, but that’s all.”
Vivian abandoned her broom and fled into the bedroom. Sitting on the edge of the bed, she lit a cigarette. Vivian was scared. Gradually, however, she began to calm down. Flipping through an old copy of Life she came across a picture of Grace Kelly. I wonder, she thought, if I can persuade him to take me to the Cannes Film Festival next year.
Norman poured himself a stiffer drink. He wondered whether Vivian would object to asking Kate round to dinner tomorrow night.
Mordecai Richler was born in Montreal in 1931. The author of ten successful novels, numerous screenplays, and several books of nonfiction, his most recent novel, Barney’s Version, was an acclaimed bestseller and the winner of The Giller Prize, the Stephen Leacock Award for Humour, the QSPELL Award, and the Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best Novel in the Caribbean and Canada region. Richler also won two Governor General’s Awards and was shortlisted twice for the Booker Prize.
Mordecai Richler died in Montreal in July 2001.
Mordecai Richler, A Choice of Enemies
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