Straight Cut (13 page)

Lauren, being no fool, could tell that something was the matter, though she didn’t bring the subject up. Some nights I found her out when I returned, though always she came back before morning, but more often she was absent while being there, which was worse. If one is to be isolated, it is better to be truly alone. The whole situation reminded me uncomfortably of the last bad weeks in Tennessee before she left. I understood, I thought, that the cycle of her presence was running down again, so that soon it would take her away from me. But wasn’t I the cause of it this time? I realized, with some dismay and self-disgust, that perhaps I really wanted her to leave me, only I wanted it to be her fault this time.

The day the film was finally finished, my predicament reached the panic level. There was no place left to hide. I walked a long way around the sweep of the river, under the tall trees on the west bank. When I began to tire I crossed the bridge which runs over the Isola Tiberina and stood looking down at the pretty little church on the island. It gave me no inspiration. At the tip of the island, on the tarmac directly below the bridge, someone had painted pictures of the fish which were to be found in the river, labeling each by name. I stared at the painted fish for a long time, though without particular interest. What I wanted, it occurred to me, was to snap my fingers and be translated back to the country, back home, to doze amid the splendor of the land’s decay, content enough with the dog’s mute company, but the dog was dead.

“I think we have to talk,” Lauren said when I came in, just as if she’d read the writing on the wall inside my mind.

“Sure,” I said. I lay down on the bed, sat up and took my shoes off, and then lay back again. “What shall we talk about?”

The door to the courtyard was open and Lauren was standing in it. She was behind me, so that I couldn’t see her. What I could see was the Halliburton, which I’d attempted to replace at its exact same angle there beside the door. I shut my eyes.

“Well, what are we going to do? When you’re done with the job, I mean.”

“The job got done today. Except for a few loose ends.”

“What next, then?”

“I was thinking of taking a nap. “

That got the reply it deserved. Nothing.

“You’re out of character, Lauren,” I said. “I thought it was ‘seize the day and to hell with tomorrow.’ Also, the reference to ‘we’ is a little confusing. “

“I wanted us to be together,” Lauren said, her voice shaking a bit, with anger I guessed. “Don’t you want to?”

“Does it matter? Yes. Of course I do. But soon enough you’ll want something else more, and you’ll be gone. It gets tiresome after a while, you know, for me that is.”

“You can’t say that to me now,” Lauren said. I heard the snap of a match, she was lighting a cigarette. “I haven’t done anything to make you say that this time. “

“Not yet.”

“Well,
what’s wrong with you?
It’s like living with a zombie. You don’t come home, you don’t say anything when you do. You’re drunk all the time, do you think I don’t know?”

“No,” I said. “I don’t think you don’t know.”

“You’ll
drive
me away, is that what you want?”

“No. I’m sorry. I’ve just … I’ve got things on my mind. “

“Then why don’t you tell me about some of them.”

“Because you wouldn’t like it if I did.”

“Try me.”

“Okay.” I sat up on the bed and turned around. Lauren was smoking, fast and hard, with her free hand tensed on her hip.

“For instance,” I said. Here came the difficult part. “What have you got in that briefcase?”

Lauren looked away across the courtyard.

“I can’t tell you that.”

I got up.

“Why not? Why can’t you tell me? We got married. We’re one flesh. But you’re gone for months at a time and I don’t know what you’re doing. Now you’re here and I don’t know what you’re doing. And I love you. Dammit —”

I walked over and took the cigarette away from her and threw it into the courtyard, where it rolled and fell apart.

“I love you and I don’t even know what’s going on with you. That’s what’s wrong.”

I put my hands on her shoulders and she fell into me, pressing me against the door frame. One flesh. For the moment it seemed not an allegory.

“I know,” Lauren said. “I know you do.” She drew back.

“Okay,” I said. “Why can’t you tell me what’s in the bag?”

“Because I don’t know what’s in it.”

“Well,” I said. “Why don’t we just open it up and find out?”

“I don’t know the combination.”

“Terrific,” I said. “Would you like to elaborate on that?”

“I’m only carrying it,” Lauren said. “Kevin told me —”

“I love this,” I said. “I love it already. Kevin?”

“Kevin’s making a feature,” Lauren said. “It’s a good script. I’ve seen it. Only, well, there were some complications, he said.”

I became so dizzy from the shock of sudden comprehension that I had to sit back down on the bed.

“Wait a minute,” I said. “Let me guess. Kevin says, I’m going to do a feature, I’ll make you a star and so forth, only first would you just take this bag full of God knows what and drop it off in Italy for me?”

That seemed to sting a bit.

“Of course I know it’s all some wretched little stunt. You don’t suppose I think that bag is full of chocolates, do you?”

“I was beginning to wonder, yes.”

“Maybe I just wanted to share all the excitement, had you thought of that?” Lauren pulled out another cigarette so jerkily she broke it. She could be a terror when she was really angry, but then I was really angry too. “And it’s not supposed to be Italy anyway —”

“Of course not,” I said. “Not Italy. Belgium maybe? Brussels?”

“How did you ever know that?” Lauren said, subsiding.

I could almost taste the tequila again, hearing Kevin’s voice repeating as if on a tape loop.
It would be a trip to Brussels if I can work it out.

“I’m clairvoyant,” I said. “Under certain circumstances. Then Kevin says, ‘Oh, it could be a little tricky. What about a vacation in Rome to loosen up for it? Don’t worry about the expense, baby, this is the big time. You can visit some film people who won’t come across with anything except Campari and saltimbocca and maybe a pass at you, and by the way, Tracy’s in Rome, maybe you two could get together.’ Am I right?”

“Close.”

“Then you’re here and time is starting to run out and you start to have nightmares and you wake up afraid. Are you afraid?”

“Yes. I am.”

“Thank God for that, at least. Lauren, Lauren, how did you ever fall for it?”

“Kevin’s my friend. He’s also your friend.”

“Wrong. Kevin is Kevin’s friend. You’re better off if you never forget that. Don’t you remember Jerry?”

“You know he never felt responsible for that.”

“Exactly. When he gets you killed he won’t feel responsible for that either. But you’ll be just as dead.”

“You make it sound so awful.”

“I make it sound like what it is.”

Lauren came and sat down beside me. I put an arm around her, rubbed her shoulders till she began to relax.

“Look,” I said. “Suppose we just walk away from it. Leave the bag right on the floor here. We could go back to the farm. I made enough money this trip to last a while. Would that suit you?”

“Would it suit
you?”

“Not especially.”

“I think I just have to go through with it.”

“No.”

“What else?”

“Tell me what you’re supposed to do. Tell me the whole thing, now.”

“There’s not much more. I really don’t know what’s in the bag. I don’t know what the combination is. Kevin booked me a ticket from here to Brussels. I have a number to call. That’s all. You were pretty close to the rest of it.”

“When?”

“Some time next week. There’s a ten-day bracket.”

“You have a name?”

“No. I’m just supposed to say that Anne Morrison has come to town.”

“Then?”

“Somebody comes and gets the bag.”

“Okay,” I said. “I tell you what. I’ll do it.”

“No.” Lauren stood up. “It’s my problem.”

“Not anymore.”

“Yes, it is.”

“You don’t know how to handle it.”

“Then I have to learn.”

“No, you don’t. You can’t. Look,” I said. “It’s a miracle you even made it this far. You’re not going to make it any further. They have currency regulations in Italy, you know. They open bags and look inside when you cross the border. You’re in a lobster trap. Easy in, but not easy out. How are you going to get that bag out of the country? I won’t even ask how you got it in.”

“I don’t know.”

“I thought you might not. Look. I’ve done this kind of thing before. I know what to do about it. I mean, I wasn’t counting on anything like it this trip. But basically it’s routine for me. “

“Then I’ll go with you.”

“No. You’re going home.”

“Make me.”

“If you insist. Lauren, anything’s better than you going any further down this hole. Even if I take that bag to the
carabinieri
and tell them everything I know about it. “

“You’d never do that.”

“Sure? Go home, Lauren, go back to New York and forget about it. It’s safer for you and safer for me. I’ll be back myself before you know it if it all works out okay. “

“And if it doesn’t?”

“Do me a favor. Don’t argue. Not about this one. Pretty please?”

Lauren walked to the door and back.

“All right,” she said. “All right. I don’t believe you’d really turn the bag in, though. But I’ll go. Because you asked me to. But one thing.”

“What?” I said. Lauren sat down beside me again and kissed me like it was supposed to mean something.

“You’ll make sure it does work out. If there’s trouble,
you’ll
drop it and walk away. Promise me that?”

“I promise,” I said, though even at the time I knew it probably wouldn’t hold.

The pressure was off for the moment, and I felt that we’d survived something, though exactly what I couldn’t have said. We had a pleasant evening after that, out to dinner and out for a walk, an ice at a bar on the way home, and then early to bed — together, for the first time in a while. The morning was a little dreary, but for ordinary reasons.

I took Lauren to the airport, not entirely out of sentiment. I don’t like long good-byes. But I did want to be sure that she actually got on the plane. I couldn’t be sure how completely she’d bought my blackmailing her into stepping aside and leaving me in charge of the mystery bag. It had never been part of our pattern for me to hand down direct orders like that, so I had my doubts whether she’d be inclined to follow them. And whatever her other faults might have been, I thought a regard for her safety at the expense of my own was unlikely to be among them. While I did have that queasy feeling of being maneuvered neatly through the stages of someone else’s plan, it was definitely more my problem than hers, and the first thing I wanted was to get her out of it.

That was the main reason I took the trouble to personally pack her onto the plane. I’ve never been able to generate much passion in an airport, and in this case I became a little impatient for her flight to be called, partly because I had to keep resisting the impulse to look over my shoulder for that courteous young customs inspector. Lauren felt much the same, I imagine; she’d always gone in for the cleanest of partings, often with no notice given whatsoever. There wasn’t a great deal for us to talk about that hadn’t already been said. After a short argument about my own future movements, I finally agreed to check the American Express in Brussels in case she wanted to send me a card. Not that I really expected or wanted to hear anything during the short time I planned on spending there. Lauren would just go home and sit tight, I hoped. I also hoped she’d stay the hell away from Kevin, but her plane began to board before I could decide whether or not to bring it up. One last clutch and a brush of cheeks, and Lauren was gone again.

It was a midday flight, so it was afternoon by the time I got back to the city. I was beginning to feel a little peculiar, retroactively. It had begun to rain sluggishly by the time I got off the bus at Lepanto, but I decided to walk home in spite of that. The distance was greater than I’d guessed it and by the time I got there I was wringing wet. The apartment was cold and dark and seemed shabbier, robbed as it was of her presence. There was nothing to do. Outside on the terrace rainwater dripped miserably from the ceiling of vines. I wished then I had managed to be more demonstrative at the airport. I almost wished I hadn’t made her go.

There was no more real business to be done on the film. I’d settled up with Dario, who was reasonably pleased with the cut, so my official obligations were over. But as a hastily conceived excuse for my fading out rather suddenly on the previous day, I’d invited Mimmo for dinner at Strozzi’s that night. The crisis with Lauren had made me forget it, and when I remembered I wasn’t very enthusiastic about it anymore. I decided to go early to Strozzi’s to try to get more in the mood.

Since I was staying through to dinner I took a table instead of a seat at the counter. Strozzi inquired after Lauren when he set up my first glass of grappa. I told him she had left for New York. Strozzi seemed not to approve.
A man and his wife
s
hould stay together,
I seem to remember him saying, as he poured my second glass or possibly my third. The euphoria, however, would not come this time. I remember that Strozzi put a bottle on my table to save himself so many trips back and forth from the shelf. I don’t remember when Mimmo showed up, or much of anything else at all.

When I woke up I was lying on the bed in the apartment, possessed by that horrible feeling of not knowing how I’d got there nor what I might have done along the way. My shoes were off but my clothes were still on. My mouth felt like a graveyard and my head had turned to stone. I dragged myself into the kitchen and choked down a couple of glasses of water. It didn’t seem to have much effect. I attempted to smoke a cigarette but it made me so ill I had to throw it away. My watch said it was nearly noon. I decided I’d best go back to Strozzi’s for a hair of the dog and to apologize if that seemed to be necessary.