The Tragedy of Arthur: A Novel (33 page)

“What if it was for his daughter, though?” I said. “For someone he loves. Judith has been distracted with melancholy ever since her twin brother died, she’s hanging out down by the river, making bouquets of symbolic flowers. You think Shakespeare wouldn’t run down to the apothecary for some Zoloft?”

“And some Mucedorus for his cold.”

She had a double that day—matinee and evening shows—so I dropped her at the theater, hugged her, and flew to Petra.

I came in talking, a little buzzy. “Are you going to tell her, or should I? I think she knows already, on some level. I think she senses a shift is coming. I think she’s okay with it. I think she’s going to be happy in a way. We’re all going have to work on this, obviously, but—”

“This isn’t where you should be,” Petra said. “There’s nothing more here. We’re done.”

It’s a storytelling puzzle, really. What breakup has ever occurred that is dramatic to anyone other than the participants? In
A Midsummer
Night’s Dream
, it makes for a passably entertaining show because the lovers are driven literally insane by fairies, and their breakup talk is unhinged and vicious. In my case, I just went into a state where I didn’t hear her, and hoped if I didn’t acknowledge it, she’d stop saying it.

“Are you going to tell Dana?” I asked again.

“Of course not. Why would I want to hurt her?”

“Because you—She thinks you’re seeing someone else. Are you going to stay with her?”

“I don’t know. No. I don’t know. Please go.”

“You’re going to change your mind.”

“I won’t.”

“This is just nerves. Jitters. This is just before the ending. We decide the ending.”

“It’s not nerves.”

“This will pass. We just have to get to—we have to decide, or it won’t—the ending is ours to decide.”

“No.”

“I love you. Petra, I love you.”

“That will pass.”

“No. It won’t. It won’t pass.”

“But it will. Of course it will. It always does. And then something else can be the ending instead.”

“I’m going to prove to you that we work. Just wait. Just promise me you’ll wait.”

T
HE NEWS OF THE FIRST
scholarly authentication came by voicemail. My editor called, jubilant. She whooped, “It’s happening! It’s really happening! You
knew
it and they’re proving it! Congratulations!” and some other people cheered in the background, an office full of pigeons celebrating because they’d stumbled onto a bag of poisoned corn. I pitied them for how they would feel when they learned the truth. I knew this had to be stopped; I’d put it off long enough.
Although, yes, true, the temptation was to keep my mouth shut. I won’t deny it. Especially upon learning that we had at least one professor on our side, which moved me around the board game’s path to another payment. “A check will go to Marly’s office this week. I’ll make sure of it,” Jennifer said, signing off. I confess: I wanted the money. I like money. There.

I didn’t really expect there would be any more assenting professors after this; I assumed we’d only brought aboard some junior adjunct monkey from Podunk Polytech, probably an anti-Stratfordian anyhow and thus easily deluded, or some tenure-famished conniver ready to authenticate just to make a name. The payment for first authentication wasn’t all the money in the world, and I figured there wasn’t going to be any more money since we would never achieve the next benchmark. And so I decided to—shall we say—think a bit longer. Guilty.

But other impulses were stronger: pride in my own career, for example. I did not aspire to be famous only by dint of my father’s crimes, even if we were never caught. And I was plenty afraid we would get caught, which would be worse for my career and pride: I’d be unmasked and unread. Nobody reads Clifford Irving’s novels anymore. (Look him up.) Even if we weren’t caught, and my millions typhooned in, I’d be earning criminal revenue, just as my father would have done. This was my shoulder angel’s conclusive, pitchfork-bending argument: I refused to resemble my father in any way. Also, let’s not forget vindictiveness: I was not going to let him get away with it, even if that cost me $10 million. A display of virtue might also impress Petra, whose faith in me could be restored and who occupied those thoughts of mine that were not wrestling the play.

D
ANA TURNED UP
at the apartment, now a dull bachelor pad, an hour after I’d left her a voicemail saying I was going to call off the publication. “Oh, how could you?” she asked at the door, and I feared she was talking about Petra.

“He played me. He played both of us,” I moaned, hoping we would land in comfortable old patterns of emotional discharge, hoping she wouldn’t say Petra was taking her back. “He thought he could put this past me? He didn’t know me.” I showed her the index card, which didn’t interest her for very long.

“That? Are you kidding? Have you even read the play? He gave it to you. Have you read it? What sort of person—How can you back out now?” She was very angry, which triggered my own anger in response.

“
You
didn’t want to do it at all. You told me you wouldn’t do it.”

“Yeah, but
you
did do it. He counted on you. You promised him. He was making it up with you. I didn’t need that. And he wrote the will before you two made your—You can’t take the will as an insult. You and he hadn’t yet—Besides, you have Glassow to deal with now. If he thinks you’re degrading the value of our shared property? He’ll sue you. You think he’s in this for your reputation? Or literature? You debunk his money at your own risk. Mom could probably use the money, too, you know. If you care. You can keep my share if it soothes your issues.”

“I’m not negotiating for more money. Thanks. And I don’t have issues.”

“Have you read it? Really read it? You didn’t notice that it’s about you?”

“Oh? So you agree he wrote it.”

“You chuckleheaded, whinnying, braying
ass
. It’s about you, like a dozen other books I can think of. So either Dad wrote it for you, or he asked you to make it famous because he recognized you in it. So don’t come wailing that he didn’t know you. He gave you this, this
everything
. What do you still want?”

(That’s an illusion, of course, a trick of perspective, the idea that the play is in any way “about” me. It can equally be said to be about a man born in Stratford in 1564—maybe on April 22 or 24, by the way—or about an apocryphal boy king in Dark Ages England or about my father or his idea of me or my grandfather or Dana in armor or or or.)

“Who wrote the play, Dana?”

“You promised Dad.”

“But it’s a fake. It’s a crime.”

“What a Puritan prig! What do you care?”

“My reputation?”

“You believe your press kit now? Your reputation? From those novels?”

“Nice.”

“Sorry. But come on. Seriously. I don’t care who wrote it. It’s beautiful. I’ve loved it since we were ten. Dad gave it to me first anyhow, you know. It’s not yours to humiliate. It’s beautiful. It’s part of my life now. More than
Measure for Measure
. More than
Cymbeline
. More than
Pericles. Henry VI
. It’s better than
Edward III
, you shit, which everyone is canonizing as fast as they can, and that doesn’t even have his name on it. What’s wrong with you? Seriously, answer that: what is wrong with you?”

“He gave it to you first? That’s grotesque. He gave you a forgery. With his father’s forged dedication. An heirloom of bullshit. How can you forgive him for all that?”

“Forgive him? I don’t think—It’s not an issue here.”

“And you know that this is all a scam. For money. He’s dancing in Shakespeare drag to make money.”

“But he didn’t sell it when he was alive. He sat on it. If he forged it, he forged it for you. It’s his love for you.”

“So you admit it’s a forgery.”

“I don’t care. You’re going in circles. If Shakespeare wrote it, then you’re a dick. You’re going to lose Mom a pile of money, and you will go down in literary history as that moron who couldn’t tell the real thing when he read it. Or if Shakespeare didn’t write it, then you’re still a dick, because you’re throwing Dad’s love for you—and for me, by the way, if you care—back in his dead face. And why? Because your feelings are hurt? You want me to tell you that
Angelica
is as good as
Othello
? Fine: ‘Arthur,
Angelica
is as good as
Othello
. Dad thought so, too.’ Good enough? No? You have to kill both fathers at once: that’s what this is. You’re the first person ever to suffer from a double oedipal complex, and one of your dads is four hundred years old. Quick: muster up a grievance against Sil and you could do a triple lutz. Man.
If Dad wrote it, he’s got you bound up but
good
. You have to say
Arthur
isn’t good enough to be Shakespeare, don’t you? And you
hate
Shakespeare! Or are you going to say
Arthur
’s not bad enough to be Shakespeare?”

“It’s a fake.”

“It’s a gift.”

“If it’s a gift, why didn’t he admit he wrote it?”

“You are such an ingrate! He had Shakespeare write a play about his boy! Like when he got that baseball player you idolized to sign a ball for you.”

“That was a fake, too, Dana. I threw it out years ago.”

“Oh, my God. You are such a bastard. I was there when he signed it. I was
with
him.”

“Well, there you go then.”

“No.
Him
. Dad saw your guy downtown, in front of the IDS, and he asked him to wait while he went and bought a baseball. The guy—Crew?—”

“Rod Carew.”

“—Carew. Carew was in a hurry, and he said, ‘No, sorry, mister, let’s just do it at the ballpark,’ all that, and Dad could see he was going to lose this opportunity
to make you happy
, and so he said, ‘Guard my little girl, Mr. Carew!’ and then Dad just ran off and left me there with a strange baseball player. First, your hero was a little annoyed, then I got him to see it was funny, and he laughed about it, and then I talked to Rod Carew for fifteen minutes, told him about you, and then Dad came back with a ball, and Rod Carew signed it for you.”

“I don’t believe you. Why have you never told me that?”

“What’s the matter with you?”

“Who wrote the play, Dana?”

“Ask your professors.”

“I’m asking you. You can’t tell who wrote it? I thought Shakespeare was a god, the giant, head and shoulders better, the greatest writer ever to touch English,
inimitable
!”

“No. The plays are inimitable.
Arthur
included.”

“Who wrote it? Come on, who wrote it?” I kept demanding, more and more aggressively, the best words available to express my anger at
her for taking Dad’s side, for standing between me and the love of my life. “Come on, Dana. Billion-dollar question. Who wrote it? Who? Teach me, smarty. Who?”

She stood up, picked up her coat, and walked out, yelling from the hall, “Shakespeare wrote it! Dick.”

She cooled off enough to write me a few hours later: