The Fourth Hand (40 page)

They were the kind of not-the-news stories that would end up as jokes on the Internet—they were already jokes. They were also business as usual, the bizarre-ascommonplace lowlights of the twenty-four-hour international news. Even Mary Shanahan was embarrassed to have brought them up.

“I was thinking of something
about
Germany, Mary,” Patrick said.

“I know,” she sympathized, touching him in that fondly felt area of his left forearm.

“Was there anything else, Mary?” he asked.

“There was an item in Australia,” she said hesitantly. “But I know you’ve never expressed any interest in going there.”

He knew the item she meant; no doubt there was a plan to fol ow up this pointless death, too. In this instance, a thirty-three-year-old computer technician had drunk himself to death in a drinking competition at a hotel bar in Sydney.

The competition had the regrettable name of Feral Friday, and the deceased had al egedly downed four whiskeys, seventeen shots of tequila, and thirty-four beers—al in an hour and forty minutes. He died with a blood-alcohol level of 0.42.

“I know the story,” was al Wal ingford said.

Mary once more touched his arm. “I’m sorry I don’t have better news for you, Pat.”

What further depressed Wal ingford was that these sil y items weren’t even
new
news. They were insignificant snippets on the theme of the world being ridiculous; their punch lines had already been told.

The twenty-four-hour international channel had a summer intern program—in lieu of a salary, col ege kids were promised an “authentic experience.” But even for free, couldn’t the interns manage to do more than col ect these stories of stupid and funny deaths? Somewhere down south, a young soldier had died of injuries sustained in a three-story fal ; he had been engaged in a spitting contest at the time. (A true story.) A British farmer’s wife had been charged by sheep and driven off a cliff in the north of England. (Also true.)

The al -news network had long indulged a col egiate sense of humor, which was synonymous with a col egiate sense of death. In short, no context. Life was a joke; death was the final gag. In meeting after meeting, Wal ingford could imagine Wharton or Sabina saying: “Let the lion guy do it.”

As for what better news Wal ingford wanted to hear from Mary Shanahan, it was simply that she wasn’t pregnant. For that news, or its opposite, Wal ingford understood that he would have to wait.

He wasn’t good at waiting, which in this case produced some good results. He decided to inquire about other jobs in journalism. People said that the so-cal ed educational network (they meant PBS) was boring, but—especial y when it comes to the news—boring isn’t the worst thing you can be.

The PBS affiliate for Green Bay was in Madison, Wisconsin, where the university was. Wal ingford wrote to Wisconsin Public Television and told them what he had in mind—he wanted to create a news-analysis show. He proposed examining the lack of context in the news that was reported, especial y on television. He said he would demonstrate that often there was more interesting news
behind
the news; and that the news that was reported was not necessarily the news that
should
have been reported.

Wal ingford wrote: “It takes time to develop a complex or complicated story; what works best on TV are stories that don’t take a lot of time. Disasters are not only sensational

—they happen immediately. Especial y on television, immediacy works best. I mean ‘best’ from a marketing point of view, which is not necessarily good for the news.”

He sent his curriculum vitae and a similar proposal for a news-analysis show to the public-television stations in Milwaukee and St. Paul, as wel as the two publictelevision stations in Chicago. But why did he focus on the Midwest, when Mrs. Clausen had said that she would live anywhere with him—
if
she chose to live with him at al ?

He had taped the photo of her and little Otto to the mirror in his office dressing room. When Mary Shanahan saw it, she looked closely at both the child and his mother, but more closely at Doris, and cattily observed: “Nice mustache.”

It was true that Doris Clausen had the faintest, softest down on her upper lip. Wal ingford was indignant that Mary had cal ed this super-soft place a mustache!

Because of his own warped sensibilities, and his overfamiliarity with a certain kind of New Yorker, Patrick decided that Doris Clausen should not be moved too far from Wisconsin. There was something about the Midwest in her that Wal ingford loved.

If Mrs. Clausen moved to New York, one of those newsroom women would persuade her to get a wax job on her upper lip! Something that Patrick adored about Doris would be lost. Therefore, Wal ingford wrote only to a very few PBS

affiliates in the Midwest; he stayed as close to Green Bay as he could. While he was at it, he didn’t stop with noncommercial television stations. The only radio he ever listened to was public radio. He loved NPR, and there were NPR stations everywhere. There were two in Green Bay and two in Madison; he sent his proposal for a news-analysis show to al four of them, in addition to NPR

affiliates in Milwaukee, Chicago, and St. Paul. (There was even an NPR station in Appleton, Wisconsin, Doris Clausen’s hometown, but Patrick resisted applying for a job there.)

As August came and went—it was now nearly gone—

Wal ingford had another idea. Al the Big Ten universities, or most of them, had to have graduate programs in journalism. The Medil School of Journalism, at Northwestern, was famous. He sent his proposal for a news-analysis course there, as wel as to the University of Wisconsin in Madison, the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, and the University of Iowa in Iowa City.

Wal ingford was on a rol about the unreported context of the news. He ranted, but effectively, on how trivializing to the real news the news that was reported had become. It was not only his subject; Patrick Wal ingford was his argument’s bestknown example. Who better than the lion guy to address the sensationalizing of petty sorrows, while the underlying context, which was the terminal il ness of the world, remained unrevealed?

And the best way to lose a job was not to wait to be fired.

Wasn’t the best way to be offered another job and then
quit

? Wal ingford was overlooking the fact that, if they fired him, they would have to renegotiate the remainder of his contract. Regardless, it surprised Mary Shanahan when Patrick popped his head—
just
his head—into her office and cheerful y said to her: “Okay. I accept.”

“Accept what, Pat?”

“Two years, same salary,
occasional
reporting from the field—per my approval of the field assignment, of course. I accept.”

“You
do
?”

“Have a nice day, Mary,” Patrick told her.

Just let them
try
to find a field assignment he’d accept!

Wal ingford not only intended to make them fire him; he ful y expected to have a new job lined up and waiting for him when they pul ed the fucking trigger. (And to think he’d once had no capacity for long-range scheming.) They didn’t wait long to suggest the next field assignment.

You could just see them thinking: How could the lion guy re s i s t
this
one? They wanted Wal ingford to go to Jerusalem. Talk about disaster-man territory! Journalists love

Jerusalem—no

shortage

of

the

bizarre-as-

commonplace there.

There’d been a double car bombing. At around 5:30P.M.

Israeli time on Sunday, September 5, two coordinated car bombs exploded in different cities, kil ing the terrorists who bombs exploded in different cities, kil ing the terrorists who were transporting the bombs to their designated targets.

The bombs exploded because the terrorists had set them on daylight-saving time; three weeks before, Israel had prematurely switched to standard time. The terrorists, who must have assembled the bombs in a Palestinian-control ed area, were the victims of the Palestinians refusing to accept what they cal ed “Zionist time.” The drivers of the cars carrying the bombs had changed their watches, but not the bombs, to Israeli time.

While the al -news network found it funny that such selfserious madmen had been detonated by their own dumb mistake, Wal ingford did not. The madmen may have deserved to die, but terrorism in Israel was no joke; it trivialized the gravity of the tensions in that country to cal this klutzy accident
news.
More people would die in other car bombings, which wouldn’t be funny. And once again the context of the story was missing—that is,
why
the Israelis had switched from daylight-saving to standard time prematurely.

The change had been intended to accommodate the period of penitential prayers. The
Selihoth
(literal y, pardons) are prayers for forgiveness; the prayer-poems of repentance are a continuation of the Psalms. (The suffering of Israel in the various lands of the Dispersion is their principal theme.) These prayers have been incorporated into the liturgy to be recited on special occasions, and on the days preceding Rosh Hashanah; they give utterance to the feelings of the worshiper who has repented and now pleads for mercy.

While in Israel the time of day had been changed to accommodate these prayers of atonement, the enemies of the Jews had nonetheless conspired to kil them.
That
was the context, which made the double car bombing more than a comedy of errors; it was not a comedy at al . In Jerusalem, this was an almost ordinary vignette, both recal ing and foreshadowing a tableau of bombings. But to Mary and the al -news network, it was a tale of terrorists getting their just deserts—nothing more.

“You must
want
me to turn this down. Is that it, Mary?”

Patrick asked. “And if I turn down enough items like these, then you can fire me with impunity.”

“We thought it was an interesting story. Right up your al ey,”

was al Mary would say.

He was burning bridges faster than they could build new ones; it was an exciting but unresolved time. When he wasn’t actively engaged in trying to lose his job, he was readi ng
The English Patient
and dreaming of Doris Clausen. Surely she would have been enchanted, as he was, by Almásy’s inquiring of Madox about “the name of that hol ow at the base of a woman’s neck.” Almásy asks:

“What is it, does it have an official name?” To which Madox mutters, “Pul yourself together.” Later, pointing his finger at a spot near his own Adam’s apple, Madox tel s Almásy that it’s cal ed “the vascular sizood.”

Wal ingford cal ed Mrs. Clausen with the heartfelt conviction that she would have liked the incident as much as he did, but she had her doubts about it.

“It was cal ed something different in the movie,” Doris told him.

“It was?”

He hadn’t seen the film in how long? He rented the video and watched it immediately. But when he got to that scene, he couldn’t quite catch what that part of a woman’s neck was cal ed. Mrs. Clausen had been right, however; it was not cal ed “the vascular sizood.”

Wal ingford rewound the video and watched the scene again. Almásy and Madox are saying good-bye. (Madox is going home, to kil himself.) Almásy says, “There is no God.” Adding: “But I hope someone looks after you.”

Madox seems to remember something and points to his own throat. “In case you’re stil wondering—this is cal ed the suprasternal notch.” Patrick caught the line the second time. Did that part of a woman’s neck have two names?

And when he’d watched the film again, and after he’d finished reading the novel, Wal ingford would declare to Mrs. Clausen how much he loved the part where Katharine says to Almásy, “I want you to ravish me.”

“In the book, you mean,” Mrs. Clausen said.

“In the book
and
in the movie,” Patrick replied.

“It wasn’t in the movie,” Doris told him. (He’d just watched it

—he felt certain that the line was there!) “You just thought you heard that line because of how much you liked it.”

“You didn’t like it?”

“It’s a guy thing to like,” she said. “I never believed she would say it to him.”

Had Patrick believed so wholeheartedly in Katharine saying “I want you to ravish me” that, in his easily manipulated memory, he’d simply inserted the line into the film? Or had Doris found the line so unbelievable that she’d blanked it out of the movie? And what did it matter whether the line was or wasn’t in the film? The point was that Patrick liked it and Mrs. Clausen did not.

Once again Wal ingford felt like a fool. He’d tried to invade a book Doris Clausen had loved, and a movie that had (at least for her) some painful memories attached to it. But books, and sometimes movies, are more personal than that; they can be mutual y appreciated, but the specific reasons for loving them cannot satisfactorily be shared.

Good novels and films are not like the news, or what passes for the news—they are more than items. They are comprised of the whole range of moods you are in when you read them or see them. You can never exactly imitate someone else’s love of a movie or a book, Patrick now believed.

But Doris Clausen must have sensed his disheartenment and taken pity on him. She sent him two more photographs from their time together at the cottage on the lake. He’d been hoping that she would send him the one of their bathing suits sideby-side on the clothesline. How happy he was to have that picture! He taped it to the mirror in his office dressing room. (Let Mary Shanahan make some catty remark about
that
! Just let her try.) It was the second photo that shocked him. He’d stil been asleep when Mrs. Clausen had taken it, a self-portrait, with the camera held crookedly in her hand. No matter—you could see wel enough what was going on. Doris was ripping the wrapper off the second condom with her teeth.