Being There (10 page)

“I'm Ronald Stiegler, of Eidolon Books. Delighted to meet you, sir.” The man extended his hand. “We watched your TV performance with great interest,” said Stiegler. “And just now, coming over here in my car, I heard on the radio that the Soviet Ambassador mentioned your name in Philadelphia …”

“On your radio? Don't you have television in your car?” Chance asked. Stiegler pretended to be amused. “I hardly even listen to my radio. With traffic so hectic, one has to pay attention to everything.” He stopped a waiter and asked for a vodka martini on the rocks with a twist of orange.

“I've been thinking,” he said, leaning against the wall, “and so have some of my editors: Would you consider writing a book for us? Something on your special subject. Clearly, the view from the White House is different from the view of the egghead or the hardhat. What do you say?” He drained off his drink in several gulps and when a servant passed by carrying a tray of glasses, grabbed another. “One for you?” He grinned at Chance.

“No, thank you. I don't drink.”

“Sir, I'm thinking: it would be only fair and it would certainly be to the country's advantage to promote your philosophy more widely. Eidolon Books would be very happy to perform this service for you. Right here and now I think I could promise you a sixfigure advance against royalties and a very agreeable royalty and reprint clause. The contract could be drawn up and signed in a day or two, and you could have the book for us, let's say, in about a year or two.”

“I can't write,” said Chance.

Stiegler smiled deprecatingly. “Of course—but who can, nowadays? It's no problem. We can provide you with our best editors and research assistants. I can't even write a simple postcard to my children. So what?”

“I can't even read,” said Chance.

“Of course not!” Stiegler exclaimed. “Who has
time? One glances at things, talks, listens, watches. Mr. Gardiner, I admit that as a publisher I should be the last one to tell you this … but publishing isn't exactly a flowering garden these days.”

“What kind of garden is it?” asked Chance with interest.

“Well, whatever it was once, it isn't any more. Of course, we're still growing, still expanding. But too many books are being published. And what with recession, stagnation, unemployment … Well, as you must know, books aren't selling any more. But, as I say, for a tree of your height, there is still a sizable plot reserved. Yes, I can see a Chauncey Gardiner blooming under the Eidolon imprint! Let me drop you a little note, outlining our thoughts and—-our figures. Are you still at the Rands'?”

“Yes, I am.”

Dinner was announced. The guests were seated around several small tables arranged symmetrically throughout the dining room. There were ten at Chance's table; he was flanked on each side by a woman. The conversation quickly turned to politics. An older man sitting across from Chance addressed him, and Chance stiffened uneasily.

“Mr. Gardiner, when is the government going to stop calling industrial by-products poisons? I went along with the banning of DDT because DDT is a
poison and there's no problem finding some new chemicals. But it's a damn sight different when we stop the manufacture of heating oils, let's say, because we don't like the decomposition products of kerosene!” Chance stared silently at the old man. “I say, by God, that there's a helluva difference between petroleum ash and bug powder! Any idiot could see that!”

“I have seen ashes and I have seen powders,” said Chance. “I know that both are bad for growth in a garden.”

“Hear, hear!” the woman sitting on Chance's right cried out. “He's marvelous!” she whispered to the companion on her right in a voice loud enough for everyone to hear. To the others, she said: “Mr. Gardiner has the uncanny ability of reducing complex matters to the simplest of human terms. But by bringing this down to earth, to our own home,” the woman continued, “I can see the priority and urgency which Mr. Gardiner and the influential men like him, including our President, who quotes him so often, give to this matter.” Several of the others smiled.

A distinguished-looking man in pince-nez addressed Chance: “All right, Mr. Gardiner,” he said, “the President's speech was reassuring. Still and all, these are the facts: unemployment is approaching catastrophic proportions, unprecedented in this country; the market continues to fall toward 1929 levels; some of the largest
and finest companies in our country have collapsed. Tell me, sir, do you honestly believe that the President will be able to halt this downward trend?”

“Mr. Rand said that the President knows what he is doing,” said Chance slowly. “They spoke; I was there; that is what Mr. Rand said after they were finished.”

“What about the war?” the young woman sitting on Chance's left said, leaning close to him.

“The war? Which war?” said Chance. “I've seen many wars on TV.”

“Alas,” the woman said, “in this country, when we dream of reality, television wakes us. To millions, the war, I suppose, is just another TV program. But out there, at the front, real men are giving their lives.”

While Chance sipped coffee in one of the adjoining sitting rooms, he was discreetly approached by one of the guests. The man introduced himself and sat down next to Chance, regarding him intently. He was older than Chance. He looked like some of the men Chance often saw on TV. His long silky gray hair was combed straight from his forehead to the nape of his neck. His eyes were large and expressive and shaded with unusually long eyelashes. He talked softly and from time to time uttered a short dry laugh. Chance did not understand what he said or why he laughed. Every
time he felt that the man expected an answer from him, Chance said yes. More often, he simply smiled and nodded. Suddenly, the man bent over and whispered a question to which he wanted a definite answer. Yet Chance was not certain what he had asked and so gave no reply. The man repeated himself. Again Chance remained silent. The man leaned still closer and looked at him hard; apparently, he caught something in Chance's expression which made him ask, in a cold toneless voice: “Do you want to do it now? We can go upstairs and do it.”

Chance did not know what the man wanted him to do. What if it were something he couldn't do? Finally he said, “I would like to watch.”

“Watch? You mean, watch me? Just doing it alone?” The man made no effort to hide his amazement.

“Yes,” said Chance, “I like to watch very much.” The man averted his eyes and then turned to Chance once more. “If that's what you want, then I want it too,” he declared boldly.

After liqueurs were served, the man gazed into Chance's eyes and impatiently slid his hand under Chance's arm. With his surprisingly strong forearm he pressed Chance to him. “It's time for us,” he whispered. “Let's go upstairs.”

Chance did not know if he should leave without letting EE know where he was going.

“I want to tell EE,” Chance said.

The man stared wildly at him. “Tell EE?” He paused. “I see. Well, it's all the same: tell her later.”

“Not now?”

“Please,” said the man. “Let's go. She'll never miss you in this crowd. We'll walk casually down to the rear elevator and go straight upstairs. Do come with me.”

They moved through the crowded room. Chance looked around, but EE was not in sight.

The elevator was narrow, its walls covered with soft purple fabric. The man stood next to Chance and suddenly thrust his hand into Chance's groin. Chance did not know what to do. The man's face was friendly; there was an eager look on it. His hand continued to probe Chance's trousers. Chance decided that the best thing was to do nothing.

The elevator stopped. The man got out first and led Chance by the arm. All was quiet. They entered a bedroom. The man asked Chance to sit down. He opened a small concealed bar and offered Chance a drink. Chance was afraid that he might pass out as he had done that time in the car with EE; therefore he refused. He also refused to smoke a strange-smelling pipe which the man offered him. The man poured himself a large drink, which he drank almost at once. Then he approached Chance and embraced him, pressing
his thighs against Chance's. Chance remained still. The man now kissed his neck and cheeks, then sniffed and mussed his hair. Chance wondered what he had said or done to prompt such affection. He tried very hard to recall seeing something like this on TV but could remember only a single scene in a film in which a man kissed another man. Even then it had not been clear what was actually happening. He remained still.

The man clearly did not mind this; his eyes were closed, his lips parted. He slipped his hands under Chance's jacket, searching insistently; then he stepped away, looked at Chance, and, hurrying, began to undress. He kicked off his shoes and lay naked on the bed. He gestured to Chance: Chance stood beside the bed and looked down at the prostrate form. To Chance's surprise, the man cupped his own flesh in a hand, groaning and jerking and trembling as he did so.

The man was certainly ill. Chance often saw people having fits on TV. He leaned over and the man suddenly grabbed him. Chance lost his balance and almost fell upon the naked body. The man reached for Chance's leg, and without a word raised and pressed the sole of Chance's shoe against his hardened organ.

Seeing how the erect extended part grew stiffer under the edge of his shoe and how it protruded from the man's underbelly, Chance recalled the photographs of the man and woman shown to him by the
maintenance man in the Old Man's house. He felt uneasy. But he lent his foot to the man's flesh, watched the man's body tremble and saw how his naked legs stretched out, straining tautly, and heard how he screamed out of some inner agony. And then the man again pressed Chance's shoe into his flesh. From under the shoe a white substance coursed forth in short spurts. The man's face went pale: his head jerked from side to side. The man twitched for the last time; the trembling and shivering of his body subsided and his muscles tensed under Chance's shoe, calmed and softened as if they had been suddenly unplugged from a source of energy. He closed his eyes. Chance reclaimed his foot and quietly left.

He found his way back to the elevator and on the ground floor walked down a long corridor, guided by the sound of voices. Soon he was back among the guests. He was searching for EE when someone tapped him on the shoulder. It was she.

“I was afraid you got bored and left,” she said. “Or that you were kidnaped. There are loads of women here who wouldn't mind making off with you, you know.”

Chance did not know why anyone would want to kidnap him. He was silent and finally said, “I wasn't with a woman. I was with a man. We went upstairs but he got sick and so I came down.”

“Upstairs? Chauncey, you're always engaged in
some kind of discussion; I do wish you'd just relax and enjoy the party.”

“He got sick,” said Chance. “I stayed with him for a while.”

“Very few men are as healthy as you are; they can't take all this drinking and chattering,” said EE. “You're an angel, my dear. Thank God there are still men like you around to give aid and comfort.”

When they returned from the dinner party, Chance got into bed and watched TV. The room was dark; the screen cast an uneasy light on the walls. Chance heard the door open. EE entered in her dressing gown and approached his bed.

“I couldn't sleep, Chauncey,” she said. She touched his shoulder.

Chance wanted to turn off the TV and turn on the lights.

“Please, don't,” said EE. “Let's stay like this.”

She sat on the bed, next to him, and put her arms around her knees. “I had to see you,” she said, “and I know—I know,” she whispered in short bursts, “that you don't mind my coming here—to your room. You don't mind, do you?”

“I don't,” Chance said.

Slowly, she moved closer; her hair brushed his face. In an instant she threw off her robe and slipped under his blanket.

She moved her body next to his, and he felt her hand run over the length of his bare chest and hip, stroking, squeezing, reaching down; he felt her fingers pressing feverishly into his skin. He extended his hand and let it slide over her neck and breasts and belly. He felt her trembling; he felt her limbs unfolding. He did not know what else to do and so he withdrew his hand. She continued to tremble and shiver, pressing his head and his face to her damp flesh, as if she wanted him to devour her. She cried out brokenly, uttered ruptured sounds, spoke in phrases which barely began, making noises that resembled animal gasps. Kissing his body over and over again, she wailed softly and began to half-moan and half-laugh, her tongue lunging down toward his flaccid flesh, her head bobbing, her legs beating together. She quivered, and he felt her wet thighs.

He wanted to tell her how much he preferred to look at her, that only by watching could he memorize her and take her and possess her. He did not know how to explain to her that he could not touch better or more fully with his hands than he could with his eyes. Seeing encompassed all at once; a touch was limited to one spot at a time. EE should no more have
wanted to be touched by him than should the TV screen have wanted it.