The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz (20 page)

“Duddy, you look terrible. Look at the circles under your eyes. You’ve got to stop driving that taxi and get some sleep at night.”

Three weeks after the bar-mitzvah Mr. Friar was ready. He arranged a private screening for Duddy and Yvette. “I’m beginning to think we’d be making a grave error if we sold this film to Mr. Cohen. It’s a prize winner, Kravitz. I’m sure we could get distribution for it.”

“Will you turn out the goddam lights and let me see it, please?”

Duddy didn’t say a word all through the screening, but afterwards he was sick to his stomach.

“It’s not that bad,” Yvette said. “Things could be done to it.”

“You think we’d be making a mistake?” Duddy said. “Jeez. I could sell Mr. Cohen a dead horse easier than this pile of –”

“If you so much as cut it by one single frame,” Mr. Friar said, “then my name goes off the film.”

Duddy began to laugh. So did Yvette.

“Timothy suggested we try it at Cannes.”

“Jeez,” Duddy said. “Everyone’s going to be there. But everyone. The invitations are all out.”

Duddy took to his bed for two days. He refused to see anyone.

“I’m so worried,” Yvette said.

Mr. Friar kissed her hand. “You have a Renaissance profile,” he said.

“He won’t even answer the phone. Oh, Mr. Friar, please!” she said, removing his hand.

“If there were only world enough and time, my love …”

“I’m going to try his number once more,” Yvette said.

But Duddy was out. On the third day he had decided that he could no longer put off seeing Mr. Cohen. He went to his house this time. “Ah,” Mr. Cohen said, “the producer is here.”

“Have you got the movie with you?” Bernie asked.

Mrs. Cohen poured him a glass of plum brandy. “If you don’t mind,” she said, “there are a few more names I’d like to add to the guest list.”

“I’ve got some bad news for you. I’m canceling the screening. Tomorrow morning my secretary will call everyone to tell them the show’s off.”

“Aw, gee whiz.”

“Is it that bad?” Mr. Cohen asked.

“It’s great. We’re going to enter it in the Cannes Festival.”

“I don’t understand,” Mrs. Cohen said.

“You won’t like it. It’s what we call
avant-garde.”

“Watch it,” Mr. Cohen said. “This is where he begins to lie. Right before your eyes the price is going up.”

Duddy smiled at Mrs. Cohen. “I suppose what you expected was an ordinary movie with shots of all the relatives and friends … well, you know what I mean. But Mr. Friar is an artist. His creation is something else entirely.”

“Can’t we see it, Maw?”

“Aren’t you taking a lot for granted, young man? Don’t you think my husband and I can appreciate artistic quality when we see it?”

“Don’t fall into his trap,” Mr. Cohen said.

Duddy turned to Mr. Cohen. “I’ll let you in on a secret,” he said. He told him that Mr. Friar had been a big director, but he had had to leave Hollywood because of the witch-hunt. That was the only reason why he was in Montreal fiddling with small films. He wanted
to make his name and get in on the ground floor of the Canadian film industry, so to speak. Turning to Mrs. Cohen, he added, “Please don’t repeat this, but if not for Senator McCarthy I wouldn’t have been able to hire a man as big as Friar for less than five thousand dollars. Not that he isn’t costing me plenty as it is.”

Mr. Cohen started to say something, but his wife glared at him. She smiled at Duddy. “But why can’t we see the movie? I don’t understand.”

“It’s different. It’s shocking.”

“Oh, really now!”

“Mr. Friar has produced a small screen gem in the tradition of
Citizen Kane
and Franju’s
Sang des Bêtes.”

“How can we cancel all the invitations at this late date? We insist on seeing it.”

Duddy hesitated. He stared reflectively at the floor. “All right,” he said, “but don’t say I didn’t warn you first.”

Mr. Cohen laughed. “Don’t believe a word he says, Gertie. It’s good. It must be very good. Otherwise he wouldn’t be here talking it down. But listen here, Kravitz, not a penny more than I promised. Wow! What a liar!”

Duddy gulped down his plum brandy. “I’m not selling,” he said. “That’s something else. You can see it, but …”

“Hey,” Mr. Cohen said, “hey there. Are you getting tough with an old friend?”

“I want it, Daddy. I want the movie! Gee whiz, Maw.”

“You outsmarted yourself, Mr. Cohen. You wouldn’t give me an advance or put anything in writing.”

“Sam, what’s the boy saying?”

“You gave me your word, Kravitz. A gentleman doesn’t go back on his word.”

Bernie began to cry.

“You can’t blame him, Mrs. Cohen. He didn’t want to take too big a chance on a young boy just starting out.”

“All right,” Mr. Cohen said hoarsely, “just how much do you want for the film?”

“Money isn’t the question.”

“Such a liar! My God, never in my life – Will you stop crying, please. Take him out of here, Gertie.”

“I’m not going.”

“Well, Kravitz, I’m waiting to hear your price. Gangster!”

Duddy hesitated.

“Please,” Mrs. Cohen said.

“I can’t sell outright. I’d still want to enter it in the festival.”

“Of course,” Mrs. Cohen said warmly.

“We can’t talk here,” Mr. Cohen said. “Come up to my bedroom.”

But Duddy wouldn’t budge. “For fifteen hundred dollars,” he said, “I’ll give you an excellent color print. But you’d have to sign away all rights to a percentage of the profits on Canadian theater distribution.”

“What’s that? Come again, please?”

“We’re going to distribute it as a short to Canadian theaters.”

“Gee whiz.”

“For twenty-five hundred dollars in all I’ll make you a silent partner. I’d cut you in for twenty per cent of the net theater profits. My lawyers could draw up the agreement. But remember, it’s a gamble. This is an art film, not one of those crassly commercial items.”

“Would my husband’s name appear anywhere?”

“We could list him in the credits as a co-producer with Dudley Kane Enterprises.”

Mr. Cohen smiled for the first time. “A boy from the boys,” he said, “that’s what you are.”

“Maybe you’d like to think it over first.”

“Moe.”

“All right. O.K., I’ll write him a check right now.” Mr. Cohen looked at Duddy and laughed. “Look at him. He’s shaking.”

After Duddy had left with the check Mr. Cohen said, “I could have got it for less if you and Bernie hadn’t been here.”

“Then why are you smiling?”

“Because yesterday I spoke to Dave in Toronto. He’s with Columbia of Canada now and he told me a screen short is worth up to twenty thousand dollars. I could have got it for less, it’s true, but in the end it still won’t have cost me a cent for the color print. And think of the publicity. It must be terrific, you know. Otherwise he wouldn’t have talked it down like that. He’s still got a lot to learn, that boy.”

Duddy met Yvette at a quarter to ten the next morning. He told her what had happened while they waited for the bank to open. “But that’s wonderful,” she said.

“Yeah, sure, until they see the damn thing. Then the lawsuits start. And nobody in town will ever want me to make a movie for them again.”

“Maybe they’ll like it.”

“Are you kidding? Listen, I’m taking cash for this check. Pay Brault and put the rest in your account. If they sue I’ll go into bankruptcy.”

“All right.”

“I hope the check’s still good. Maybe he’s stopped payment on it.”

“So far so good.”

“Would you mind taking off your hat please, Elsie?”

“Sh.”

“Hey, what’s that he said about niggers being clipped? I thought –”

“– Comparative religion. I take it at McGill.”

“Comparative
what?
I’ll give you such a
schoss.”

“Hsssssss …”

“O.K., smart guy. Shettup!”

“Like a chinchilla.”

“One more crack out of you, Arnie,” Mr. Cohen said, “and out you go.”

In the darkness Duddy smiled, relieved.

“What’s that?”

“His bar-mitzvah I would have liked to have seen. Trotsky!”

“Lock the doors. Here comes the dirty part.”

“Shame on you.”

“Awright, Sarah. O.K. You’ve seen one before. You don’t have to pretend you’re not looking.”

“Wow!”

“Are you all right,
Zeyda?”

“If you don’t feel well,
Zeyda
, I’ll get you a glass of water.”

“Good,” Duddy said. “Excellent.” He had asked Mr. Friar to work Rabbi Goldstone into every possible shot.

“Look, there I am! Did you see me, Mommy?”

“You see Harry there picking his nose? If he’d known the camera –”

“A big joke!”

Rabbi Goldstone coughed. “That means priest in the figurative sense.”

“He’s gone too far,” Duddy whispered to Yvette. “Jeez.”

“There,
Zeyda
, isn’t that nice?”

“Oh, leave him alone, Henry.”

“Leave him alone? I think he’s had another stroke.”

“It’s not me,” Bernie shouted. “Honest, guys.”

“Atta boy.”

“Do you think this’ll have a bad effect on the children?”

“Never mind the children. I’ve got such a pain there now you’d think it was me up there.”