The Genius (30 page)

I buttonholed one of her many assistants, who, after consulting a series of people on walkie-talkies, returned with the verdict that Marilyn had retired to the fourth floor.

In the elevator I prepared an apology. My heart wasn’t in it, but it was Christmas.

Marilyn has two offices, much in the way she has two kitchens: one for the world and one for herself. The big office with the high ceilings and the immaculate desk and the Rothko is downstairs, and she uses it to make deals and to impress her grandeur upon the uninitiated. The real one, with the Post-its and the coffee rings and the corner table mosaicked with slides, is off-limits to all but a few. I didn’t learn of its existence until we’d been dating for a year.

I found her slumped in her rocking chair, a quaintly mismatched piece of furniture and the only thing she kept when she sold the house in Ironton. Her fingertips dangled near a tumbler of scotch sweating into the rug. The room vibrated with the noise of the band four stories below.

“Where’ve you been?” I asked. “Everyone’s wondering what happened to you.”

“That’s funny. Lately people have been asking me the same thing about you.”

I waited. “Are you going to come downstairs?”

“I don’t really feel like it.”

“Is something wrong?”

“No.”

I wanted to deliver my apology, but I didn’t feel ready. Instead I knelt by her and put my hand on her arm, as hard as a crowbar. It occurred to me, not for the first time, that Marilyn’s beauty had a sharp, almost masculine edge to it, all strong features and sharp angles. She smiled, her breath scalding me.

“I hate these parties,” she said.

“Then why do you give them?”

“Because I have to.” She closed her eyes and leaned back in the chair. “And because I like them. I just hate them, too.”

“Are you sick?”

“No.”

“Do you want some water?”

She said nothing.

I went across the room to the mini-fridge and got a bottle of Evian, which I set on the floor near the scotch. She didn’t move.

“You’re not having fun, are you,” she said. “You wouldn’t be here if you were.”

I leaned against the edge of the desk. “I’d have more if you came downstairs.”

“I bet you’re seeing a lot of people.”

“I am.”

“People have been asking about you,” she said.

“You said.”

“Like you went off to war or something.”

“I haven’t.”

“Mm.” She sighed, her eyes still closed. “I tell them I don’t know a thing.”

I said nothing.

“What else am I supposed to tell them,” she said.

“You can tell them whatever you want.”

“They ask me like I should know. They assume I have a direct line to you.”

“You do.”

“Do I?”

“Of course you do.”

She nodded. “That’s good.”

“Of course you do,” I said again, although I don’t know why.

“Did you have a pleasant stay, living in my house?”

“You were wonderful,” I said. “You know I can’t thank you enough.”

“I don’t remember you trying.”

“If I didn’t say it before, then I’m sorry, and I’ll say it now: thank you.”

“I shouldn’t need any thanks, but I do.”

“Of course you do.”

“No,” she said. “I shouldn’t need anything from you. That’s not the way it’s supposed to be.”

I said, “It’s manners, Marilyn. You’re a hundred percent right.”

She said nothing.

She said, “Is it.”

"Is it what.”

"Manners.”

I said, “I don’t understand.”

“Is that how we’re supposed to behave toward one another? Decorously?”

“I thought so.”

“I see,” she said. “News to me.”

“Why wouldn’t we be polite to each other?”

“Because,” she said, looking at me, “I love you, you fucking idiot.” She had never told me that before.

She said, “When people ask me how you are and I can’t say, I am humiliated. But they ask and I’m supposed to know. I have to tell them something. Right?”

I nodded.

A silence.

She said, “You’ll never guess who called me.”

“Who.”

“Guess.”

“Marilyn—”

“Play along, will you.” The drawl crept into her voice. “Have a little holiday spirit.”
Holidee spurrut
.

“Kevin Hollister,” I said.

“No.”

“Who.”

“Guess.”

“George Bush.”

She snickered. “Wrong.”

“Then I give up.”

“Jocko Steinberger.”

“He did?”

She nodded.

“What for.”

“He wants me to represent him. He said he doesn’t feel like he’s getting enough personal attention from you.”

I was stunned. I’d known Jocko since he burst onto the scene as part of a group show organized by the late Leonora Waite. First her artist, then mine, he had always been a stalwart member of the gallery roster. I considered him moody but by no means treacherous, and the fact that he had gone to Marilyn, without speaking to me first, cut deeply. Losing Kristjana had been my doing, and no tragedy, but now I was down two artists in six months, an alarming rate of attrition.

Marilyn said, “He has new stuff and he wants me to show it.”

“I hope you told him no,” I said.

“I did.”

“Good.”

“I did,” she said, “but now I think I’m going to tell him yes.”

A silence.

“And why’s that.”

“Because I don’t think you’re doing a very good job of representing him.”

“Really.”

“Nope.”

“Don’t you think you should give me the chance to talk it over with him before you make that decision for me?”

“I didn’t make the decision,” she said. “He did. He approached me, remember.”

“Tell him to talk it over with me,” I said. “That’s what you’re supposed to do.”

“Well I’m not doing that.”

“What’s the matter with you, Marilyn.”

“What’s the matter with
you
.”

“Nothing’s the m—”

“Bullshit.”

A silence. My head throbbed.

“Marilyn—”

“I haven’t seen you for weeks.”

I said nothing.

“Where have you been.”

"Busy.”

"With what.”

“The case.”

“ ‘The case?’ ”

“Yes.”

“How’s that coming.”

“We’re making progress.”

“Are you? That’s good. That’s wonderful news. Hooray. Are you going to shoot any guns?”

“What?”

“You know,” she said. “Bang bang bang.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Yes you do.”

“I honestly don’t,” I said, “and if it’s all right with you, I’m not done talking about Jocko yet. Just where do you get off thinking you can—”

“Oh please,” she said.

“Answer me, how do you think you—”

“Stop talking,” she said.

A silence. I stood up to leave. “Drink some water,” I said. “You’ll have a headache if you don’t.”

“I know you’re fucking that girl.”

“Excuse me?”

“
‘Excuse me, ’”
she mocked. “You heard what I said.”

“I heard it, but I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Blah blah
blah
blah, blah blah
blah
blah, blah blah
blah
.”

“Goodnight, Marilyn.”

“Don’t you walk out.”

“I’m not going to stand here and listen to you make a fool of yourself.”

“You walk out of here and you do not know what I will do.”

“Please calm down.”

“Tell me you fucked her.”

“Who?”

“
Stop that
,” she screamed.

A silence.

"Tell me.”

“I fucked her.”

“Excellent,” she said. “Now we’re getting somewhere.”

I said nothing.

“You can’t lie to me. I know. I get reports from the field.”

“What are you talking about?” Then I said, “
Isaac
?”

“So don’t bother.”

“Jesus Christ, Marilyn.”

“Don’t act so goddamned entitled,” she said. “That’s your problem. You’re spoiled.”

“Yes, well, I hate to break it to you, but you’re not getting your money’s worth with him. I slept with her once, and that was before any of this got started.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Believe what you want, that’s the truth.”

“You weren’t fucking me,” she said. “You have to be fucking someone.”

“For God’s sake I was in the
hospital
.”

“So what.”

“So I wasn’t—I’m not going to indulge this.”

“Tell me you fucked her.”

“I already—do you have to keep saying that?”

“What.”

“ ‘Fuck.’ ”

She started laughing. “What would you call it?”

“I call it none of your business.”

In a single motion she was up out of the chair, tumbler in hand. I ducked and it shattered against the wall, bits of glass and water and scotch spraying across the top of her copy machine.

“Say that again,” she said. “Tell me it’s none of my business.”

I stood up slowly, my hands raised. In the carpet was a wet spot where the tumbler had been.

“When did you fuck her.”

“What’s the purpose of this.”

“When.”

A silence.

“About two months ago.”

“When.”

“I just tol—”

“Be more specific.”

“You want the time and date?”

“Was it during the day? Was it at night? Was it on a bed or a couch or the kitchen counter? Do tell, Ethan, inquiring minds want to know.”

“I don’t remember the exact date.” I paused. “It was the night of the funeral.”

“Oh,” she said. “Oh, well, that’s extremely classy.”

I quashed the impulse to snap at her. Instead I said, “You can’t be this upset. It’s not as though you haven’t slept with anyone else in the last six years.”

“Have you?”

“Of course I have. You know that.”

She said, “I haven’t.”

I didn’t know what to say. Under normal circumstances I doubt I would have believed her, but just then I knew she was telling the truth.

She said, “I want you to leave.”

“Marilyn—”

“Now.”

I stepped into the hallway, into the elevator, my head racing with esprit d’escalier. Obviously, there had been some sort of miscommunication, a root misunderstanding of the terms of our relationship. Someone had not spoken up. Mistakes were made. I reached the first floor. The doors parted and music flooded in. The party was in full swing. I got my coat and went into the street. The snow was like cream, and I could see we were in for a blizzard.

Like most people, doctors tend to fear him, and in that fear, they never come right out and say what they want. It drives him mad. The one on the telephone, the superintendent, keeps talking in circles, such that Louis cannot fathom the reason for the call. More money? Is that it? He can give them more money. Already he pays fees that Bertha deems extortionate, a peculiar position for her to take, considering that the arrangement was entirely her idea, and that those fees come out of bank accounts to which she has never contributed a penny.

Louis would not mind paying more. He would, in fact, be happy to pay much more, give and give and give until he has left himself bloody and shattered. But here is the punch line: he has too much money to ever be broken. Writing checks will never be an effective method of expiation, and unfortunately for him, he knows no other way.

As Louis listens to the superintendent, he tries to convey the message to Bertha, who stands nearby, grinding her teeth impatiently.

“He says—one moment. He says that she—what was that?”

Fed up, Bertha seizes the receiver. “In plain English, please,” she says. Over the next minute and a half, her face shifts from exasperation to incredulity to fury to determination and finally to the blank, chill mask she puts on during difficult times. She says a few short words and puts down the phone.

“The girl is pregnant.”

“That’s impossible.”

“Well,” she says, pushing the button for the maid, “obviously, it isn’t.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I don’t see what choice we have. She can’t stay there.”

“Then what do you inte—”

“I don’t know,” says Bertha. “You haven’t given me much time to think.”

The maid appears in the doorway.

“Call for the car.”

“Yessum.”

Louis looks at his wife. “Now?”

“Yes.”

“But it’s Sunday,” he says.

“What’s that got to do with anything?”

He has no answer.

She says, “Do
you
have a better idea?”

He does not.

“Then run along. You’re not dressed for an outing.”

AS HE PERFORMS HIS TOILET, he wonders how he has gotten here. The events of his life do not seem connected in any way. First he was there, then somewhere else; now he is here. But how did he arrive? He does not know.

He reaches for his comb; his valet steps forward and hands it to him.

“That’s all right,” Louis says. “I’ll be alone now, thank you.”

The valet nods and withdraws.

Once he has gone, Louis removes his shirt and stands bare-chested. The last eight years have aged him. Once he had ringlets so dense that the teeth of the comb would get stuck. He had smooth skin, not the elephantine wattles that appear at his waist as he bends. His is not the dense, cannon-ball belly men of wealth and power should have but a soft paunch, a loosening around the ribs. His hips are wide and feminine, and his trousers must be let out at the seat. He repulses himself. He did not always look this way.

He puts on his shirt and his shoes and descends to the foyer.

The Home is near Tarrytown, a few miles off the Hudson. Once they leave the city, the roads become lined with deep ruts that the car is ill equipped to handle. The drive takes several hours; his suit is stuffy and his back stiffens; by the time they arrive, he can hardly move. It’s hard to say what would be worse, getting out of the car or turning right around and going back to Fifth.

The superintendent stands outside the gate, indicating where they may park, a gesture that annoys Louis, insofar as it implies that this visit is the Mullers’ first. Bertha might not come, but he does, at least once a year.