(1961) The Chapman Report (39 page)

He looked at her oddly, and she felt uncomfortable. “Okay, Ma’am,” he said at last, and then he left to join the others.

Pleased with having accomplished what she had set out to accomplish, Teresa hastily gathered her few belongings, made her way to the car without once glancing at the other three, and drove swiftly to The Briars.

Once home, she efficiently made lunch and ate it. She discharged a half-dozen household phone calls. She wrote several thank-you notes, and one letter. She wrote checks for the bills. At three, she lay down for her daily nap-to which she attributed her continuing youth-but now, instead of dozing, she permitted herself the luxury of fantasying the divine union with her aboriginal. (In a way, she regretted that her meeting with Ed Krasowski had not occurred before the advent of Dr. Chapman. For now, she was permanently in his history as merely healthy; had Ed preceded the interview, she would have been immortalized as healthy and lusty.) At four, she was still wide awake, and rose to make up and dress meticulously for the Boris Introsky show. Minutes before five, she drove toward Westwood and the art shop.

Reaching the vicinity of the shop, she saw that parking places were difficult to find. Possibly it meant the show had drawn a large turnout, and she was pleased. She left her car in a nearby lot and walked to the shop. Approaching it, she saw several groups of people enter. Geoffrey was usually successful with these cocktail previews; his embossed announcements, mailed to a select list of opinion-makers (art critics, professional hostesses, wealthy divorcees, and film stars), were impressive and well received.

The small gallery was, indeed, crowded. Teresa swept in, her short cocktail dress rustling against her petticoat, nodding at some people she did not know, waving at some people she did know. Geoffrey, champagne glass in his left hand, stood center stage, like a captain in the pilot house-or was it fo’castle? No, rather like his idol, Ambrose Vollard at the old Galerie. Teresa pushed toward him, and took his hand, proffering a cool, wifely squeeze and her cheek, which his mustache brushed. He drew a small, emaciated, Rabbinical young man into their hub. The young man, perspiring profusely, was ridiculously immature for his shining bald head and

short beard. Whenever she met a young man with a beard, Teresa always decided that either he had no chin or no talent. Geoffrey introduced him as Boris Introsky. Teresa did not mask her surprise. The name had evoked, when first she heard it, a grizzly, bearish Ukrainian, muscular, uncompromising, insulting. But this Boris, she guessed, had been born William, and raised in Coney Island, and been to Paris on the GI bill. His voice was thin, his eves watery, and his opinion conventional. He will not sell, she decided.

Always, on these occasions, she had been valuable to Geoffrey. She mixed. She knew the patter. But now she had no stomach for it She remained beside Geoffrey, until he whispered to her. Then she went to the punch bowl, and then she circulated through the overfilled, stifling room. The garish abstracts on the wall, no Duchamp or Kandinsky our Boris, gave her the impression of a nursery school, progressive, not of an art gallery, avant garde. She greeted Kathleen Ballard and a tall, serious young man named Radford, and she shook hands with three critics, and she shook hands with Grace Waterton and the Palmers. She circulated and circulated, dimly aware of the priestly Aramaic language of creativity (“but it’s his sense of color harmonies … the texture, my dear … those rich blue areas … it draws you inside it … motion through multiple images, darling … new boundaries … sense of form … ultramarine … texture … inner eye … Montparnasse … vermilion … rebel … Hiroshige”), and wondered why Geoffrey had exiled the lovely ferrets of Pieter Brueghel for this, but knowing that this was a commodity available, to be bought cheaply and sold high, and had been made the fad.

Two hours had passed, and four champagne cocktails, and she decided that she should have a headache. Briefly, in the crowd, she had Geoffrey’s ear. He was with buyers and nodded absently.

She pushed outside, where it was night and alive and not in the least abstract, no broken lines, and dabs, and dotted planes, and she thought of Ed Krasowski, who was closer to true Art, and wondered what he might make of all this. He would have seen it with her eye, she knew, and she felt closer to him. How many of these beastly false shows had she ornamented? Where were those nights, those years?

Later, Geoffrey returned home an hour before she had expected him. She had intended to be fast asleep when he returned, since.

this was their night, and she was not in the mood for it. But here she was on the sofa, in the conversation group near the window, wide awake, and plainly well.

“It was a marvelous show,” she said. “But you look so tired. How did it go?”

Geoffrey shook his head. “Disappointing. We only got rid of

six.”

She was pleased. “I’m sorry,” she said sympathetically. “I was afraid of that. His work demands too much. People out here simply don’t have that much to give. In Paris-“

“Ah, yes, Paris.”

“Or even Rome.”

“Mmm, yes.”

“But you’ll just have to concede something to mediocrity, my dear.”

He nodded, staring at the beige carpet, then suddenly looked up.

“How’s your headache?”

“Better now.” Then she added quickly, “I’m afraid it’s that time of the month-“

She had never lied about that before, but, she told herself, this was an extraordinary transitional period in her growth. She would make it up to him tenfold, one day soon, and they would both be the happier.

“I’m sorry,” he was saying. “Perhaps you should lie down.”

She was on her feet, almost gay. “You’re the one we’re to worry about. Now, let’s take your coat, and I’ll get your slippers, and then we’ll have a brandy.”

She loved him so. And really, he would be happier.

Benita Selby’s journal. Wednesday, June 3: “… extraordinary thing that’s ever happened to me, and I wouldn’t write it down on paper except I think he’s all right and will be my husband. After he became so drunk on those bourbons, I drove us back to the Villa Neapolis. We sat, and he started reciting his life-Mom’s an angel next to his-and then he admitted being in analysis two years, and then he said he was a latent homosexual, which most men are anyway, but had never done anything wrong, and the analyst was curing him. He put his head on my chest and cried and said he hoped to many me. I was so sorry for him and wanted to take care of him always, and said we would talk about it. After a while, I agreed we would decide in Chicago, and when he left

this morning, after we had breakfast, he was so nice. He needs me, there is no doubt, and since he is normal, as Dr. Chapman has proved, I think it may work out fine. We shall see. He makes $13,000 per annum. It is one-thirty, and my mood is good. In four days, we leave. There was a letter from Mom, and I don’t blame her for quitting Dr. Rubinfeer. Who ever heard of a dislocated hip being psychosomatic? I’ll write her tonight to give her moral support. I felt so good, I splurged at The Crystal Room. I was passing the table where Paul and Horace were eating with an attractive woman when he (Paul) stopped me and introduced me to her, Mrs. Ballard, and asked me to join them. I did. It was very friendly. When I was first passing the table, though, I heard Horace discussing his wife, which is why I slowed down, and they saw me, because since I have been with Dr. Chapman, I have never heard Horace discussing his wife. Of course, everyone at Reardon knows why. I mention it because a strange deductive fact comes to mind, which is, could Mrs. Ballard have been Horace’s wife and now be married again? It could be, except she was so reserved, and the picture I have of Horace’s wife …”

Naomi Shields sat woozily at the table beside the dance floor, where Wash Dillon had placed her after he had received her message, and with effort she brought the highball glass to her lips and downed the last of the gin.

She turned, scraping her chair, to call the waiter for a refill, and then the large dim room came into focus, and she saw that all of the tables in Jorrocks’ Jollities were empty. A waiter was unbuttoning his white vest, and a Mexican in overalls had entered with a broom, and there was no one left, no one left, except herself and the orchestra.

She wrenched her face back to the dance floor and peered across it at the bandstand. The figures had a fuzzy quality, but she recognized Wash kneeling, laying away his saxophone, and there were the four others putting away their instruments and sheet music. She felt that they were her only friends, Wash especially, especially Wash.

Twice in the last eight days, three times counting tonight, she had come to the bar of Jorrocks’ Jollities, which was in the room next to the entrance, and had some drinks and wanted Wash to know and changed her mind and taken a taxi back to The Briars. Each successive morning, she had felt pride in her new chastity,

the reformation, and each afternoon and night she had felt sick lonely and ache lonely and had realized that she could not go on unloved. Earlier this night, in her kitchen, food had revolted her, and she had begun to drink mildly (to work up an appetite), and more (to drown desire), and at last, at ten, she had phoned for a cab and come here the third time. This time, she had told the bartender, who was a trusted friend by now, to tell Wash, and after the medley, Wash had appeared and led her to the table.

She liked being one of the family. Twice, during breaks, they had trouped to the table behind Wash and pulled up chairs, acknowledging her, complimenting her, making amusing remarks to Wash (who always winked), and finally talking in a crazy way that she did not understand at all. About music, she thought. And musicians. Their names were … well, Wash … Perowitz … Lavine … Bardelli … Nims … no, Sims . ‘. . Kims, whims, hymns.

She squeezed her eyes between forehead and cheeks and tried to match the names to the faces of the friends … the pasty face with the cigarette dangling … the Roman face with curled hair and jiggling knee . . , the black Negro face with scraggly goatee and all the rings on the fingers with long nails … the chewing gum face with thick beaked nose and twirling rabbit’s foot … the long, long, long jaw face, sunken eyes, long, long body, arms, legs that matched Wash Dillon, arm around her, tickling her ear lobes with his lips.

She saw him coming across the slippery floor, ugly, desirable, in his tuxedo, and she tried to sit straight.

He was above her. “How’s my baby?”

She lifted her head. His toothy, pock-marked visage doubled in her vision.

“You feeling all right, honey?” he asked.

“All right.”

“Night’s young. Like to have some more fun?”

Give the baby a toy, she thought, read her a bedtime story, put her in her trundle bundle, beddy-bed. Her mouth was cotton candy, pink. “Like to.”

“You’re mighty pretty, honey child, mighty delectable.”

“If you like me.”

Wash’s smile was lipless. “Like you? Honey, ol’ Wash isn’t one of your talkers. He likes to prove what he preaches. Honey, maybe

you couldn’t tell, but up there I was going crazy every minute wanting you.” She nodded. “I’m tired,” she said.

She tried to rise, but it was impossible until he reached under her arms and easily hoisted her to her feet.

“On your feet,” he said. He grinned. “Not for long, I’m hoping.” He folded her arm inside his. “Come on, honey. We’re going home.” His arm around her was strong, and she felt better.

He started her through the empty tables, with their spotted cloths, half-filled ash trays, balled moist napkins, like all those mornings after. “Hey, Wash!” someone was calling. He stopped, and glanced over his shoulder. “Havin’ a game tonight?”

“More than that,” he answered. “Little jam session, too.” He looked down at Naomi. “Aren’t we, honey?” “Wash, I just want to lie down.”

“You will, honey child. OF Wash’ll take care of his baby good.” Outside, the cold air was a wet rag on her face, but although she partially revived, the universe remained invisible except for the towering, moving form beside her. Somewhere off far, the traffic hummed anonymously. High above, the twinkling dome of heaven tilted, and far, far below, the pavement was a concrete slide. On the leather of his car, it was easy to let herself be pulled toward him, until she smelled the satin and broadcloth of his suit, and the vague scent of some round flower in his lapel.

She was aware of being carried forward, of rocking on the turns, and bobbing gently, and his hand massaging the sweater over her breast.

“I knew you were it,” he said, “the day I brought that post card over. Bet you felt it, too.” She lay her head back on the seat, eyes still shut. “How long has it been, honey?” “What?”

“Since you were loved?”

If she told him an eternity, since the cradle and since, he would think her mad. Besides, she was too tired. She said nothing.

The space ship went on and on, and then it was still, and she opened her eyes. “Here we are,” he said.

After a while, the door opened, and he helped her out. Arm around her, he helped her across the sidewalk, through the glass door, into the building. The rows of name plates and buzzers and brass-lidded mail boxes. The shadowed corridor past the staircase to the rear. The number five on the door.

The lights were on, and she stood unsteadily beside the green felt poker table in the center of his living room. He had returned from somewhere with two glasses, and one was in her hand. “Come on, honey, drink up. We haven’t got all night.” “I’m drinking gin.”

“It’s gin.” He swallowed the contents of his glass in a single gulp. “Put it away, hon. It’s for the road. We’re going the mile.” She drank. The liquid was tasteless.

He set the glasses on the poker table, took her elbow, and firmly led her through the open door. He flipped the switch, and the overhead bulbs glared. She was beside the maple bureau, and beyond the chair was the double bed with the low maple headboard. An orange chenille spread neatly covered the bed.

“You’re neat,” she said thickly as he closed the door behind her. “They throw in maid service. Mulatto broad. She puts out for a fiver.”