Big-mouth, I thought. Now you’ve gone and done it. Hughes-McNoughton will blow his top.
Getting down on all fours, I made it back to the sofa and fell into a contented sleep instantly. I had only been out for minutes, it seemed to me, when a roaring, like an airplane engine, shook the room, and I dreamt that my plane was going down. Shaking off my stupor, I was overwhelmed by confusion. Was I in Montreal? Miriam’s apartment? The cottage? Scrambling slowly to my rubbery feet, I staggered outside, trying to locate the source of that roaring. It had been a passing airplane, but it was now so far away I couldn’t tell whether it was one of those NATO fighters out of Plattsburg or a transatlantic jet. Then I saw that it was dusk. Glancing at my wristwatch, I was surprised to discover that I had been asleep for more than three hours. I slipped back into the cottage, splashed my face with cold water, and then stood at the foot of the stairs and called out, “Boogie.”
No answer.
“Wakey, wakey, Boogieman.”
He wasn’t in his bedroom, or anywhere else in the cottage. Passed out on the dock, probably, I thought, but he wasn’t there either. Oh, my God, he’s drowned. No, not Boogie. Please, God. The lake is shallow and clear for forty feet out from our dock. I leaped into our boat, got the outboard motor to start, and began covering water, searching the bottom, increasingly frantic. Finally I climbed back up to the cottage and phoned the provincial police. They arrived two endless hours later and I gave them an edited version of what had happened. I didn’t mention my quarrel with The Second Mrs. Panofsky, or even her earlier presence at the cottage. However, I did allow that Boogie and I had been drinking, and that I had pleaded with him not to swim.
Boogie’s body had not yet floated to the surface, and a police motor boat launched at Merkin’s Point, and covering the shoreline, could find nothing.
“Maybe he’s tangled in weeds somewhere,” I said.
“No.”
Late the next afternoon the provincials were back, accompanied by a detective. “My name’s Sean O’Hearne,” said the detective. “I think we should have a little chat.”
Boogie plunging into the lake was the last I ever saw of him. I’m willing to swear on the heads of my grandchildren that was exactly how it happened, but he’d disappeared more than once before, and I have never given up hope. Not a day passes when I don’t think there will be a postcard from Tashkent or Nome or Addis Ababa. Or, still better, that he will sneak up behind me at Dink’s and say, “Boo.”
Enough is enough. Boogie would be seventy-one years old now — no, seventy-two — and I can’t understand why he won’t appear to clear my name once and for all.
34 The Weizmann Institute in Rehovot.
35 It’s veal marrow.
36 Actually, “Itsy-Bitsy” was a hit in 1960.
37 Actually, “downsizing” didn’t enter the language until September 1975, when U.S. News & World Report informed its readers, “ ‘Longer, lower, wider’ is out. ‘Small, smaller, smallest’ is in. Detroit’s engineers call the current trend ‘downsizing.’ ” Six years later, when the recession struck in 1981, and companies began to lay off workers by the thousands, “downsizing” made the leap to its current meaning.
38 Ibiza.
39 Actually, this letter from Boogie was written in 1957 and mailed from New York, not Taiwan, after Boogie had been to his first rock ‘n’ roll concert.
40 As I was going through my father’s manuscript, limiting myself to correcting facts and filling in names, places, or dates, where memory had failed him, I also happened to be reading Peter Vansittart’s memoir of post–World War II London, In the Fifties (John Murray, London, 1995), and came upon the following passage on this page:
In 1938, a mildewed colonel about whom we gibed that he had lost one leg at Mons, another at Ypres, a third on the Marne, and the last of his wits on the Somme, had barked at me: “Your Mr. Auden’s no great lover of Herr Hitler, but will he be joining me to fight the bugger?” Many whom Auden derided — colonels, retarded public school boys, suburban golfers, trite-tongued mediocrities, romantic but goofy stuffed shirts — saved Western civilization. My vision of Auden as anti-Fascist commando could not be maintained when, with the barbarians at the gate, he departed to America.
I can’t add plagiarism to the many sins my father has to answer for. Rather, I prefer to think Kate was right when she insisted that this had to be an innocent error. “No doubt,” she said, “shuffling through his index cards, Daddy mistakenly took a thought of Vansittart’s that he had transcribed for one of his own.”
41 Chico. But there was also a fourth brother, Zeppo, who appeared in many of the films.
42 In Scotland, an advocate, or, following recent legislation, a solicitor-advocate, would have pleaded her case.
43 “Pepsi” is pejorative. Slang for French Canadians, who were reputed to drink Pepsi-Colas for breakfast.
44 Backstrom scored at 4:12, assisted by Geoffrion and Moore.
45 Actually, it was Ezio Pinza in South Pacific, which ran four years nine months on Broadway.
46 Geoffrion scored at 13:42, assisted by Backstrom and Harvey.
47 Johnson scored at 16:26, assisted by Backstrom.
7,8 Actually, it was Pulford who scored first, at 4:27, assists Armstrong and Brewer. Bonin scored at 9:56, assisted by Henri Richard and Harvey, and Geoffrion scored at 19:26, assisted by Backstrom and Johnson.
49 Toronto scored twice in the third period. Mahovlich, at 12:07, assisted by Harris and Ehman, and Olmstead, at 16:19, on a power play, assisted by Ehman.
50 My doubts about the chronology of these events were confirmed when I discovered that the hockey game, on April 9, 1959, ended at 10:29, but the overnight train to Toronto left at 10:25, which meant that it would have been impossible for my father to learn the final score and still have time to race to Windsor Station and board my mother’s train. However, when I confronted my mother with these troubling details, her lower lip began to tremble. “It’s true,” she said, “it’s true.” And then she began to sob, and I thought it insensitive to pursue the matter further.
I do not doubt my father’s veracity or my mother’s testimony, but I do believe Barney muddled things. Miriam probably left the Ritz at the end of the second period, at 9:41, and my father’s taxi was not tied up in Stanley Cup traffic until he returned from the Montreal West station. Another possibility is that the departure of the overnight train to Toronto was delayed. I have twice written to Canadian Pacific to ask for the departure time of the overnight train to Toronto, on April 9, 1959, but I am still waiting for a reply.
51 They are called Fruits of Islam.
52 Eugène Ionesco (1912–1994), Romanian-French dramatist of the Theatre of the Absurd, author of The Bald Soprano, The Lesson, and other plays.
53 Rhinoceros.
54 Described as “a tartan skirt” on this page.
55 The song was “Mair-zy Doats” on this page.
56 Glenn Close.
57 Fatal Attraction, co-starring Michael Douglas. Released in 1987 by Paramount. Its North American box-office gross was $156,645,693.
58 Cedar.
59 Monsieur Verdoux (Universal, 1947) was not Chaplin’s last film. His last one was A Countess from Hong Kong (Charles Chaplin, 1967), and it starred Marlon Brando.
60 Actually, the first issue of Playboy did not appear until December 1953.
61 $375 plus 6 times 20 actually equals $495.
62 On July 16, 1942, thousands of French police officers rounded up thirteen thousand Jews in Paris, invalids, pregnant women, and three thousand children among them. The Jews were locked into the winter Vélodrome without food or water to await deportation to an extermination camp. The round-up was part of an agreement Vichy’s Pierre Laval had made with the Nazis, who were hard put to cope with the transportation of so many Jews at one go.
63 Actually the quotation is from The Young Author, written when Dr. Johnson was twenty years old.
64 John Ogilby is long forgot
ten and so is Elkanah Settle, once the official “City Poet” of London.
65 Stephen Spender. Lines from “I think continually of those who are truly great,” p. 30, Collected Poems, 1928–1985. Random House, New York, 1986.
66 Srinagar.
67 Actually this observation was first and famously made by Truman Capote.
68 Dopey and Bashful.
69 Sloan Wilson.
3
Miriam
1960–
1
LIKE I SAID, it started out as a disaster. Jumpy as a teenager, counting the days to what I took to be my make-or-break lunch with Miriam, I decided to fly to Toronto the night before, checking into the Park Plaza, resolved not to stir from my room or drink a drop. But I couldn’t concentrate on the copy of Rabbit, Run that I’d brought with me. The New Republic’s account of Senator Kennedy’s triumph over Humphrey in the West Virginia primary did not thrill me — remembering that bastard Joe Kennedy, I was suspicious of the son. Neither could I get excited by that front-page photograph in The New York Times of an exultant Nikita Khrushchev displaying some debris from the demolished U-2 spy plane. Flinging book, magazines, and newspapers aside, I switched off my bedside lamp. But sleep wouldn’t come, and, inevitably, Mrs. Ogilvy materialized, running her tongue over her lips, beginning to unbutton that dress that was a size too small.70 “That will do you no good, you condescending imperialist slut,” I said. “I am not even unfaithful to Miriam with my wife, so why would I bother with you.”
I tossed. I turned. Remember, look directly into those blue eyes to die for, but DO NOT stare at her breasts. Or her legs. Animal. I polished anecdotes that might please, possibly rewarding me with that dimple in her cheek, and stories that inadvertently reflected well on me, and dismissed everything I could think of as self-serving horse-shit. Hoping to calm my nerves, I smoked a Montecristo and then hurried into the bathroom to brush my teeth, and even my tongue, fearful of bad breath. On my route back to bed, as luck would have it, I was obliged to pass my mini-bar. It would do no harm, I thought, to check it out, maybe munch a few cashews. Well, one quick snort wouldn’t do any harm. But, at three a.m., I was shocked to be able to count a dozen little empty bottles of Scotch, vodka, and gin on the glass table. Drunkard. Weakling. Charged with self-hatred, I slid back into bed and conjured up a picture of Miriam at my wedding, wearing a layered blue chiffon cocktail dress, and moving about with astonishing grace. Those eyes. Those bare shoulders. Oh my God, what if I stood up to greet her in the Prince Arthur Room and she could see that I had an erection? I made a mental note to jack off immediately before lunch, if only as a preventive measure. Then I slept, but only for a little while, literally leaping out of bed, cursing myself: you’ve overslept, you idiot, and now you’re going to be late. I started to dress frantically and then had the good sense to look at my watch. It was six a.m. Damn damn damn. I undressed, showered and shaved, dressed again, and went out to tramp the streets until seven a.m., when the Prince Arthur Room would open for breakfast. “I booked a table for two for lunch,” I told the maître d’, “and I want one by the window.”
“I’m afraid they’re already reserved, sir.”
“That one,” I said, slipping him a twenty.
Back in my room, I found the red light on my phone blinking. My heart began to thud. She can’t make it. She’s changed her mind. “I don’t lunch with grown men who jerk off in hotel-room toilets.” But the call was from The Second Mrs. Panofsky. I rang home. “You forgot your wallet on the hall table,” she said.
“I did not.”
“I’ve got it right in my hand with all your credit cards.”
“Count on you for good news.”
“It’s my fault, is it?”
“I’ll think of something,” I said, hanging up. And suddenly overcome by nausea, I fled to the toilet. Sinking to my knees, head hanging over the toilet bowl, I was sick again and again. Congratulations, Barney, now you’re going to smell like a sewer. So I undressed again, showered again, just about brushed the enamel off my teeth, gargled, changed my shirt and socks, and hit the street once more. I had only gone three blocks when I stopped short, remembering that I had asked the maître d’ to have a bottle of Dom Perignon in a bucket beside our table at 12:55. Show-off. A woman of Miriam’s quality was bound to consider that ostentatious. Pushy. As if I was out to seduce her. “Did you think that if you bought me a bottle of champagne, I’d leap into bed with you?” I certainly had no such impure notions. Honestly. So I doubled back to the hotel and cancelled the champagne. But what if, against all odds, she did agree to come back to my room with me? I do have some good points.
— This is a multiple-choice question, Panofsky. Tick off a minimum of three good character points out of the following ten.
— Fuck you.
Checking out my room, just in case, I saw that the bed hadn’t been made yet. I phoned housekeeping to complain, and room service to order a dozen red roses and a bottle of Dom Perignon with two glasses. “But, Mr. Panofsky, you cancelled your champagne order.”
“I cancelled the bottle for the Prince Arthur Room, but now I want a bottle for my own room, properly chilled, no earlier than two p.m., if that’s not too much trouble.”
Footsore come noon, badly hung over, weary, emotionally exhausted, I decided a cup of black coffee in the Roof Bar would be just the trick, but, on impulse, I ordered a Bloody Mary instead. Nursing it, I found I still had another three-quarters of an hour to kill when all that was left in my glass were ice cubes. So I ordered another. Then dug into my pocket for that list of interesting conversational topics I had prepared. Had she seen Psycho? Read Henderson the Rain King? What did she think of Ben-Gurion meeting Adenauer in New York? Should Caryl Chessman have been executed? Floating on new-found confidence after my third Bloody Mary, I glanced at my watch: 12:55. And was consumed by panic yet again. Hell, I had forgotten to masturbate this morning, and now it was too late. My props. I had forgotten them in my room. Her father had been a socialist, and so I had brought along the Penguin edition of Laski’s Liberty in the Modern State, as well as the latest issue of The New Statesman. I made a dash for my room, shoved The New Statesman into my jacket pocket, and got to my table in the Prince Arthur Room at 1:02, and there she was, Miriam being directed to the table by the maître d’. Rising to greet her, I managed to hide my compromising tumescence behind my linen napkin. O, how beautiful she appeared in her saucy black leather hat and black wool dress, her hair cut shorter than I remembered. I longed to compliment her on her appearance, but I feared she might consider that flirty. Gauche. “Great to see you,” I said. “Care for a drink?”
“What about you?”
“Oh, a Perrier will do. Say, this is an occasion, don’t you think? What about a bottle of champagne?”
“Well now …”
I summoned the waiter. “We’d like a bottle of Dom Perignon, please.”
“But you already can —”
“Just bring it, if you don’t mind?”
Lighting one Gitane off another, I groped for one of the bon mots I had rehearsed, but all I could come up with was, “Hot today, isn’t it?”
“I didn’t think so.”
“Neither did I.”
“Oh.”
“HaveyouseenHendersontheRainKing?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Henderson the — I mean Psycho?”
“Not yet.”
“I thought the shower scene — But what did you think of it?”
“I suppose I’d have to see it first.”
“Oh, sure. Naturally. We could catch it tonight, if you —”
“But you’ve obviously seen it already.”
“Oh yeah. That’s right. I forgot.” Shit, is he going all the way to Montreal to fetch that bottle of champagne? “In your opinion,” I asked, beginning to slide in sweat, “should Ben-Gurion have agreed to meet Eisenhower in New York?”
“I think you mean Adenauer.”
“Of course I do.”
“Did you invite me here to be interviewed?” she asked. And there it was, the dimple in her cheek. I’m going to die right here and go to heaven. Don’t you dare lower your gaze to her bosom. Keep it at eye level. “Ah, there he is.”
“Room service wants to know if you still want the other bottle in your —”
“Just pour, will you, please?”
We clicked glasses. “I can’t tell you how glad I am you could make it today,” I said.
“Well, it was good of you to fit me in between your business appointments.”
“But I’m just here to see you.”
“I thought you said —”
“Oh, sure. Business. Yes, I’m here on it.”
“Are you drunk, Barney?”
“Certainly not. I think we should order. Ignore the prix fixe. Have whatever you want. They ought to air-condition this place,” I said, loosening my tie.
“But it’s not hot.”
“Yes. I mean no, it isn’t.”
She ordered a pea soup to begin with and I, unaccountably, asked for the lobster bisque, a dish I hate. As the Prince Arthur Room began to tilt and sway, I groped for a witty remark, a knock-out aphorism that would put Wilde to shame, and heard myself say, “Do you enjoy living in Toronto?”
“I like my job.”
I counted to ten and then I said, “I’m getting a divorce.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry.”
“Wedon’thavetodiscussitnow, butitmeansyou’llbeabletoseemeagain, because I’llnolongerbeamarriedman.”
“You’re talking so fast I’m not sure I can make out —”
“Soon I’ll no longer be a married man.”
“Obviously, if you’re getting a divorce. But I hope you’re not doing this on my account.”
“What can I do? I love you. Desperately.”
“Barney, you hardly know me.”
Then, as luck would have it, a fulminating Yankel Schneider, whom I hadn’t seen since we had been ten-year-olds together in primary school, loomed over our table: not quite Banquo’s ghost, but close enough. “You’re the bastard who made my life a misery when we were children, imitating my stammer.”