The Merry Month of May (39 page)

Before anyone could answer, Harry held up his hand. “I can tell you that I am reasonably certain that if I shoot again tonight, with my two ‘principals’ here,” he grinned at Anne-Marie and Terri, “I can pretty well finish up the
personal
story I’ve been wanting to get. As a matter of fact, Anne-Marie’s broken arm ought to be a big aid to us. I never would have thought of faking that. I just wouldn’t have thought of it. In fact, if we had faked it it might have come out sentimental and have hurt us rather than helped us. But since it
did
happen, we can use it in all honesty.

“Now, I am not going to show you any of my film today. I’ll show it to you when it’s all finished. I’ll want to edit it a little. I may let a few of you help a little with the editing, if you want to learn it. I’ll bring a good cutter. A good cutter is vital to film editing. But for the moment I don’t want to show it to you, largely because it is so noticeably better than what you people have shot that I’m afraid you might all go off and commit suicide. Even the little bit of what you’ve shot that I may be able to save is going to look so different, so noticeably amateurish, that I may not be able to use it anyway.

“However, none of this solves the problem and the question about all the earlier material we are lacking. Without it, we won’t have any film. That’s for sure. It is up to you people to decide whether we want to go ahead and try or not.” He folded his arms across his chest.

At the back Daniel the Chairman rose to his feet. “Regarding that, I think I can speak for all of us to say that we want to go ahead. I don’t think we even have to debate it and vote on it. If there are any disagreements, will they please say so and enter their dissensions?”

Daniel waited, but the small room was entirely still. Nobody moved or uttered a word.

“Then I think I can safely say we are in agreement with your suggestion, M. Gallagher,” Daniel said. “Whether we can succeed in getting the material we need is another problem. But we want to try. We put ourselves at your disposal. If we don’t succeed, we don’t. But there is a chance we might. If we don’t try we might as well dissolve this Cinema Committee of the Sorbonne and Odéon for the Cultural Revolution, and forget it. I do not want to dissolve the Committee. So I guess we have to try.” He sat down.

Harry unfolded his arms. He did not grin, or even smile. “Okay. If that’s the way you want it. Now, I have something I have to do now, this afternoon. I will meet the two crews and the actors here about nine o’clock tonight. I’ll be wanting to shoot a few outdoor shots, in which we may have to fake a little rioting, and I’ll be wanting to shoot some indoor shots here at the Odéon—in the hallways, the hospital, and in the offices themselves upstairs. Okay? See you then. Come on, Jack.”

He was outside the door almost before I could follow him. “Fucking dumb pricks,” he said, as we went down the hall.

“What is it you have to do, Harry?” I said. “And where is it you are going?”

“Where do you think, dumbass?” he grinned.

When we were outside the Odéon and down the steps into the
Place,
he stopped and turned to me.

“Do you want a ride back to the Island? That’s where I’m heading.”

I hesitated. “No. I think I’ll wander around a while, and then walk on back,” I said.

“See you, then,” he grinned. “Will you be here tonight?”

“I don’t know. Probably.”

“See you then, then.” He marched off, his starched trenchcoat ballooning, the collar up around his ears. I thought briefly that he looked like Floyd Gibbons or Ernest Hemingway or some damned body. I started to turn away, and stopped.

“Harry!” I called after him sharply. “I guess you know I don’t approve of all this business!”

He stopped and turned back, trenchcoat ballooning, collar up around the bald head, and grinned. “I rather gathered that.”

That night Samantha Everton did not show up at the seven o’clock meeting of Americans at the Gallaghers’ apartment. But about eight-thirty, just as everybody else was leaving, she appeared suddenly, her short hair looking curly and cute.

When the rest of us left, she stayed behind, quiet and somber and reading another comic book. As we went out, Louisa went over to her.

22

N
OTHING HAPPENED ON
S
UNDAY.

Almost nothing happened on Monday, either. In Monday’s Paris
Herald
a piece by some reporter, Koven I think it was, stated that le Général had proclaimed himself winner in a serious test of strength against the Communists.

In Monday’s paper it also said that Helen Keller died in her sleep at 87. The item was datelined Westport, Conn., Sunday, June 2nd.

I thought that was kind of funny. Apparently, nobody else did. Or at least nobody mentioned it.

Also, in Monday’s
Herald-Tribune
a piece told how
Pravda,
the Soviet Union’s official organ (I like that phrase, official
organ)
, had stepped up its criticism of le Général. I confess I found that nearly as important as the fact that Helen Keller had died.

Then, in Tuesday’s Paris
Herald
there was an item datelined New York, June 3rd, stating that Andy Warhol, painter of the Campbell’s Soup can and underground film-maker, the rage of the Jet Set, had been shot and seriously wounded by some woman named Valeria Solanis, leader, and apparently sole member, of an organization named S.C.U.M. (Society for Cutting Up Men), who had once acted in one of his dirty movies. I was almost glad that Helen Keller had not lived to hear about that. It looked like it was going to be a good week all around. Meantime, the Pentecostal weekend was going on, went on, had been going on. Frenchmen by the millions picnicked in the country, or visited relatives there.

On Monday Prime Minister Pompidou went on TV for a 12-minute address, his first since le Général had dissolved the
Congrès
for new elections. He warned the strikers of the injury to the National Economy, stated that the strike had cost the nation six billion dollars so far. I could not help remembering what Harry had said that day, when we first walked over to the newly occupied Odéon.

On Tuesday there was the biggest traffic jam in Paris history. People coming back from the Pentecost vacation tried en masse to drive their cars in to work in town. The railroads, Métros, autobuses, and taxis were all still striking. Almost no policemen were available for traffic duty. In addition there was a Young Gaullist demonstration marching from Trocadéro to the Champ-de-Mars which further disrupted circulation. Some people actually sat in their cars in the same spot for three or four hours. I, of course, did not go out into the town. Neither did Harry. It was very pleasant and quiet, on the Island.

But all in all things seemed to be tapering off. Another point was that tobacco was again being delivered to tobacco stores, and the smokers’ crisis appeared to be easing.

It was on that Tuesday that Hill Gallagher called me. He called rather early, around noon, to make sure I would be there. I was. I was still in bed. As a matter of fact, I had waked up only about a minute before he called. When he ascertained that I was home, he said he wanted to come by and see me.

“Jack?” his voice said when I picked up the phone. “Jack?” His voice sounded peculiar, different.

“Yes?” I said. “Who is it?” I was still a little dopey.

“Hill,” he said. “Hill.” When I did not respond immediately he repeated it again. “Hill!”

“Yes, Hill, yes,” I said. “What is it?”

“Did I wake you?”

“Well, yes. Just about.”

“I wanted to make sure and catch you. I want to come by and see you, if I may. I was afraid you might go out. I’m leaving Paris. I wanted to say goodby, and talk a minute.”

That
I’m leaving Paris
woke me up a good deal more. “Well, can you give me an hour?” I said. “I’m not really awake yet. And I haven’t—”

“Oh, sure,” his voice said. “I’ll be over in an hour and a half, say, okay?”

“Fine. Do you want to have lunch?”

“No. I’ve eaten already.”

“All right. See you then.”

“Fine,” he said.

I hung up.

I could not place what it was about his voice that sounded so different. But there was certainly something changed. I buzzed my Portuguese and addressed myself to my coffee and juice and the morning papers. I do hate to be disturbed in my morning ritual. I suppose that sounds old-fashioned, even ridiculous, to a younger generation. But this meant I would have to hurry through the papers, if I wanted to shave at leisure.

When he came in I was ready for him though. He appeared to have put on a little bit of tan, as though he had been in the country for the Pentecost weekend himself. But under the new bit of color he looked extremely haggard, as if he had not slept at all since the last time I had seen him a week before. Also, he was clutching some book. Wherever he moved around the apartment he did not let go of this book, which was quite thick. I could not see the title, and preferred not to peer too obviously, but it was a blue board cover and it had what looked to be Chinese characters in red on the front and on the spine.

Well, we got into it all soon enough. It was when I offered him a drink.

“Do you want a bash of something?” I said. He was moving around restlessly.

“No. I’ve stopped d—” Then he said, “Oh, sure. Why not? Give me a Scotch. A Scotch on the rocks. A good big one.” There was a peculiar condescending tone in his voice.

“You don’t have to have a drink,” I said.

“No, no. No, no. I want one, I want one.”

I made them. I took a cold beer for myself. It was a little too early for me for Scotch. But not for Hill. He gulped his down like a man just returned from the desert.

“You’ve picked up a little sun,” I said. “Where’ve you been?”

“Sitting on the quai,” he said. “You know, the one out in front of Notre-Dame there. Below that little park with the statue of Charlemagne. On the lower level.”

“I see,” I said.

Well, I did. I knew the place. It had become a hangout for all sorts of hippy kids, in sunny weather. Penniless or drifting or perhaps both they would stretch out there and take the sun with their shirts off. I had always thought it charming. But not for Hill.

And that was when he brought the book forward.

“Do you know this book?”

He held the spine toward me and above the red Chinese characters, which I could not read, I read the English letters. It said:
The I CHING, or Book of Changes.
It was published by some American firm.

“I got it at Galignani’s,” Hill said.

“I think I’ve heard of it,” I said. But I was thinking to myself in dismay, Oh, no! I had been through that whole routine myself, in my youth. With us it was Annie Besant, and Madame Blavatski, and finally Paul Brunton.

“You just open it anywhere and get the answer to what you want to know,” Hill said. “Of course, you have to concentrate first. Empty your mind.

“Shall I show you?”

With us it was a book called TRISMEGATUS. It was even bigger. And for a subtitle it had,
Trismegatus Revealed.

“Well, sure,” I said. “But what if you get the wrong answers?”

“You don’t,” he said. “That’s what’s so marvelous. Here, let me show you.”

He held the book in his right hand, and placed his left hand flat on the cover, and frowned. After half a minute he opened it.

“Changes and movements are judged according to the furtherance that they bring,” Hill read. “Good fortune and misfortune change according to the conditions. Therefore, love and hate combat each other, and good fortune and misfortune result therefrom. The far and the near injure each other, and remorse and humiliation result therefrom. The true and the false influence each other, and advantage and injury result therefrom. In all the situations of the Book of Changes it is thus: When closely related things do not harmonize, misfortune is the result: This gives rise to injury, remorse, and humiliation.” He stopped and looked up. “Now, isn’t that
profound?
Isn’t that
great?”

“Well, it’s certainly profound,” I said, cautiously. “I don’t really see how anybody could quibble with a statement like that. But what was your question?”

“My question was: What shall I do? You see, that’s what I mean. It answers everything,” he said, and his eyes started to glow. “Guy I met turned me onto this. And now I wouldn’t be without it.” He wrapped his hands protectively around the book.

“Well,” I said, “you know.”

“You ever read Alan Watts?” Hill said. “Alan
W.
Watts? You know,
The Way of Zen,
for instance, and
Nature, Man and Woman?”

“Yes. I know his work. I’ve read some of it.”

“Well!” Hill said. “There! You see?”

“See what?” I said. “Watts is English, isn’t he?”

“Is he?” Hill said. “I didn’t know. What difference does that make?”

“I think he was English,” I said. “Maybe he’s American now. The English have a long history of association with, and immersion in, Eastern philosophies. That’s largely because their warrior race conquered so much of the East, and thus were brought into intimate contact with the stuff.”

“So?” Hill said.

“So nothing,” I said. “Do you know the
Zen in the Art of Archery
book? By this German Herrigel?”

“I’ve got that, too!” Hill said excitedly. “I’ve got that, too!”

“Good,” I said. “But have you got a bow?”

“I’m thinking of getting one. And some arrows. And a target. That’s what I came to talk about.”

“Archery?” I said.

“No, not archery. I mean, not just archery. I told you I was leaving Paris.”

“I used to be quite an archer,” I told him.

“Did you?” Hill said. “That doesn’t seem like you. It’s hard to believe.”

“Well,” I said. “It’s true, all right. Matter of fact, I could send you to a damned good archery shop on Avenue Malakoff just off the Place Maillot. They’ve got everything there, and bows from a 50 pound pull up to 140 pound pull, if anybody can go that high. And double reflex bows; they’ve got the lot.”