“Did you want to come in?” she asked with a notable absence of conviction. “There’s someone else here.”
“Someone else and the corpse not yet buried?” He meant it to be amusing, but the words came out etched with bitterness.
“I didn’t mean it quite that way,” she said.
She preceded him in. The someone, a silver-haired man was sitting in the parlor on a yellow velvet love seat, aggressively smoking a cigar. The men nodded curtly to each other.
Max looked everywhere but at his former collaborator. “I was going to call you as soon as I got to the office,” he said. “The news of our project is not so bad, not at all despicable.”
Isabelle side-stepped her way into the small kitchen, vanished without explaining herself. “In a moment,” Terman said to Max, holding up a finger, and trailed Isabelle into the kitchen, his limp as he followed her insisting on its prerogatives.
“I thought I’d make a pot of coffee,” she said, “unless the two of you prefer to have tea.” Terman stood behind her and observed his knee brushing the back of her leg. “There’s not sufficient room for both of us,” she said.
“I want him out of here,” he said.
“Tell him that if you like.”
Her head bruised his mouth when he kissed her, was backing up as he was coming forward. It struck her as funny but then she apologized for laughing. Terman embraced her from behind, slipped by her, and returned to the sitting room. Max was writing something on the back of an envelope. “Tea about ready?” he asked.
Terman sat in a chair on the other side of the room, turned it so it faced away.
“Would you like a Cuban cigar?” Max asked him. “The real thing.”
Terman said, or thought of saying, that there wasn’t anything he wanted from Max.
“We’re still waiting,” Max said, “for the other shoe to fall. Actually there’s another project I want to sound you out on. Could you come by the office tomorrow first thing in the morning?”
“I don’t think so,” he said.
“Prior commitment, is it? Give me a ring at the office and we’ll arrange something else, cowboy.”
Isabelle returned and sat down at the apex of the imaginary triangle. She had a teapot, three spoons and a bowl of sugar cubes on a tray, but she had forgotten the cups and the pitcher of milk. “I can’t go back into the kitchen,” she said. “I really can’t.” She held the tray in her lap, the teapot balanced in the center. Tears overfilled her eyes. “I almost never cry,” she said.
“It’s true,” said Max from behind his cigar. “I’ve never seen her cry.” He rose abruptly from the loveseat as if propelled by this negative recollection. “This is something extremely rare we’re privileged to witness.”
Terman eased himself from his chair, crossed the room in two strides and, without prior indication of intent, knocked Max down. Max smiled, looked astonished. “I don’t understand what’s going on,” Isabelle said to no one.
Terman took the tray from Isabelle’s lap and put it down on an end table. “I’ll get cups from the kitchen for you,” he said. His thumb hurt and he studied it for signs of dislocation, held it to the light. Max was on his feet, pulling a sweater on over his head, when Terman, without thinking about it, knocked him into the couch.
“There’s no need for that,” Isabelle said, her head turned away like a partial secret.
Max sprawled on the couch with his fists in front of his face in mock defense. “He has a tendency to overstate,” he said. “The next time you hit me, I’ll cut your ears off with a razor.”
Isabelle came over and put her arms around him from behind. “Be a love,” she said, “and go home.”
“I haven’t finished,” he said.
A throw pillow, defining itself in flight, glanced off the side of Terman’s head.
Isabelle continued to hold on to him from behind. “I’ll come back tonight and stay with you,” she whispered, “if that’s what you want.”
He said yes and felt the death of desire, the small quenching of a still smaller passion. Only frustration was eased, necessity quieted. He struggled to feel love, to shake and burn with feeling.
His thumb ached. Disappointment arose unbidden, diminished him with its niggardly claim.
“You’re the love of my life,” he said to her at the door, her hand on his arm, steering him out.
Dismissed, he waited on the street for Max to follow, regretting that he had yielded his place for so small a price. Jealousy passed through him like a sweat of mild fever. In moments Max came through the door, scowling, hair askew from the first kiss of wind, and the former collaborators faced each other as adversaries.
Max pointed a finger at him. “You’re lucky I don’t bear grudges,” The director walked past him then came back, holding a rock the size of his hand. “I’d like to put your face through the other side of your head, you fucking degenerate,” Max said.
Terman grinned, though believed himself angry. He held up his walking stick in case the other meant business.
“I’m a civilized man,” Max said. “I abhor violence, though when a man abuses me the way you have I’ll go to any length to pay him back.”
Max backed off when Terman wagged his cane, feinted with the rock which he hefted behind his ear in throwing position.
Their confrontation embarrassed Terman — perhaps worried him too — and he looked for a way out. “An overdose of melodrama,” he said, a parody of one of Max’s remarks. “I’m sorry I punched you when you weren’t looking.”
“Apology unacceptable,” Max said, though his face relaxed into a self-mocking smile. “If you apologize for the second punch, perhaps we can come to terms.”
8
I ran, trying to make it look like a form of exercise and not, what it was, a display of panic. It was not the wisest course of action. I say that from the vantage of retrospection, though I thought at the time I could lose my pursuers. Before I had broken into a run, I had turned a few corners, had doubled back on myself, if only to demonstrate that their continued presence behind me wasn’t a coincidence. They were punks, my age or slightly older, parodies of some ideal of ugliness. They had been watching me at Selfridges and may have thought I had taken something to which they had some claim.
I shed them despite their tenacity until I made the mistake of turning up a side street that they happened to be heading down. They were at the far end of the block and may not have noticed me until I turned around and retraced my steps. What else could I have done?
I sprinted this time for about half a mile, and when I got tired I ducked into a crowded bakery and watched them rush by while I waited my turn. The punks were only gone a few minutes before they returned. I could see them in reflection, looking into the windows of shops across the street.
After I left the bakery, getting out I think without being seen, I took refuge in a phone booth and, to justify my act, made some calls.
It wasn’t so much that I was scared as that I thought I ought to be. I phoned Isabelle and got no answer, then I remembered the old guy that had taken me to lunch and I dialed the first of the two numbers on his card. A supercilious young man (or woman — it was hard to tell) answered and wanted to know my business with Mr. Fitzjohn. “Mr. Fitzjohn asked me to call him,” I said, reading the name off the card. “Yes, but may I ask on what business?” he said with the phony politeness of someone trying to brush you off without giving cause for complaint. “Just tell him the fellow he met at the bookstore is on the phone.” I gave him my name. A knock on the glass took me by surprise. A face peered in, mean and witless, the pasty pocked skin like a death mask. It hung there a moment, then disappeared. “Mr. Fitzjohn is in conference,” said my informant. “I’ll give him the message that you rang up.” “He wants to speak to me,” I said. “He’s been waiting for my call.” “Why don’t you leave your number with me, Mr. Terman, and I’ll have him ring you when he gets out of conference.” There was no number to leave and nothing I could say to break through his act. Before I could invent a new story, he had hung up. Holding the dead phone in my hand, I couldn’t think why I had called the old guy in the first place. I mean, what could I possibly have expected? Most likely, he would have advised me to call the police. What I wanted was an offer of sanctuary, some place to go where I was safe.