Sorry, no, Dex said again. I’m not interested.
I felt a little awkward about having brokered this meeting, which seemed on its way to engendering some bad feeling.
Does it have to be video? I said. Because maybe Dex is partial to film, or hasn’t done a lot of work in –
I’ve shot video before, Dex said. I have no prejudice against it.
He looked down and started scraping with his fingernail at some sort of stain on his shirt. Fiona and I watched him.
Well then, she said. What’s your fucking problem?
Dex looked distractedly around the walls of my office. He winced a little, as if thinking something over, but at the same time he was pretty unruffled.
I’d rather not say, he said.
The room buzzed with silence for a few seconds.
Yo, Bartleby, Fiona said. Why are you even here?
You know what? I said, smiling, rising from my seat. I think maybe it’s time to bring Mal into this.
WE MET IN the fourth-floor alcove at the small oval table where Mal has breakfast — where he and I sometimes get together to discuss things before the business day has started. Benjamin was just putting coffee out when Dex and I arrived. Mal had told me to leave Fiona out of it. He knows what kind of a temper she has.
Mal’s own face was slightly red, but not out of anger — his manner was quite friendly, expansive really, as if he were pleased to come upon this situation where his intervention was required. He also seemed a bit out of breath. You would have thought he’d just come from some sort of exercise, were it not for the fact that Mal — trim as a twenty-year-old — never exercises in any form. Maybe he ran up the four flights of stairs.
Dex, Mal said, I’m going to get right to it. You’re our guest here, you’re not an employee, and of course you’re as free to do what you like inside this house as you would be out of it. But even in all the time we’ve spent together the last week or so, I’ve sensed that we’re doing a little dance — not just you, understand; you and me both — in terms of what we discuss and what we don’t discuss. That’s kind of exhausted itself by now. Wouldn’t you agree?
Dex pursed his lips. I suppose it has.
I know Palladio has its detractors. And I know that, as a general rule, when an angry young man like yourself wants to make a film about something, it’s not to praise it, but to discredit it, to knock it down. See, I’m torn here; because the very thing that makes me admire you, as a person and as an artist, is also the thing that I have to protect this place against.
You have to be protected against me? Dex said. A smirk, of sorts, was beginning to emerge on his face.
Well, no, I guess that’s not it exactly. I mean, I love it that you continue to hang around here because you think that if you can just manage to snow me about your true intentions, I’ll relent and let you film here. But your presence is starting to disrupt the equilibrium of this place, and for that reason, I’m honor bound to tell you that there is absolutely no way I will ever allow you inside this place with a camera, ever.
Dex nodded. He picked up his china coffee cup and put it down again without drinking.
So I think your visit here has to come to an end now. And that makes me sad. For one thing, I think you could have done some excellent work here, we have all the facilities and you could have had carte blanche in terms of what interested you; but more than that I mean that on a personal level I’m going to miss having you around. Anyway, I’ve had my say. It’s only fair that before you go I let you have yours as well. Because I get the strong sense that you’ve been censoring yourself all the time we’ve been together, and the strain of that is beginning to show.
Dex tapped his fingers on the polished tabletop for a while. When he looked up, he did, in fact, as Mal predicted, appear to be in some way relieved.
My own view of this place, he said somewhat breathlessly, is that it is the absolute epicenter of corruption, and I would never do any work for you guys in a million years. You know? I mean, back before you got started, whoring was whoring; if you had to abandon your art for a while to go shoot a Coke commercial at least everyone knew what that was all about, and even understood how maybe it was necessary from time to time. But look at these people you’ve hired. They’re brainwashed. They don’t even know what it is they’ve been brought here to do. My film wouldn’t have condemned anything. It would have exposed this place, that’s all. That would have been enough.
Exposed it to whom? I said. We’re not exactly keeping ourselves a secret. We’re more popular now than we’ve ever been.
Dex shrugged, as if to say that he was baffled too.
Mal, I said, looking at my watch. What time’s your flight?
Shit, Mal said, and stood up. He was on his way to Bilbao for a board meeting. Dex and I stood with him. On the landing, he turned and put his arms around Dex and hugged him — a backslapping hug, a quick, masculine sort of hug, but
Dex could not have been more surprised — before continuing down the hall to his bedroom, to finish packing. Dex and I walked in silence down the stairs. Halfway down the hall toward my office, he started talking to me, without turning his head.
You know, he said in an intimate tone, you’re the worst of all. You’re the perfect toady. You bring nothing to all this that I can see except your eagerness to please. You make it all possible, so they never have to deal with him, and he never has to deal with them. So everyone stays in the dark. You would have made an excellent Nazi.
I just kept pace beside him, until we came to the door of my office. I sure did enjoy fucking your girlfriend was one thing it occurred to me I might have said to him. But that’s not me.
* * *
I CHECKED THE window on the third-floor landing periodically until I saw them loading up the car. I hurried downstairs; out in the driveway, there was nothing to help them with — they’d only packed enough, originally, for a stay of two or three days — so I waited until the trunk was shut and then I put my hands on Molly’s shoulders. She smiled at me, warmly, not concealing anything from anyone; her eyes did look a little red, but I didn’t know what that might be about.
I felt like I knew just what I wanted to say. Dex was on the other side of the car, staring at the mountains, but I didn’t particularly care if he overheard. I knew this would happen, I said to her. I knew I’d see you again someday. I did want it. I’m glad we had a chance to talk.
I’m sorry, John, she said. I’m so sorry for hurting you. You didn’t deserve it.
I shook my head. You don’t need to say that, I told her. That’s history. It’s all forgotten. I’m just glad I got the chance to see that you’re (I almost said that you’re still alive, but I caught myself), that you’re doing well.
She put her face against my chest, and I held her for a minute. Dex looked over at us with a modicum of interest. I can’t say it felt like old times, holding her like that; but there was something, some kind of phantom reminder of what had more or less enslaved me to her way back when: that shroud of silence, that incommunicable need, that sense that you could do whatever you could think of and still never get close enough. We said our goodbyes. I nodded to Dex, who ignored me, then I watched until their car had disappeared up the driveway.
That was that. I meant it when I told her that I knew we’d see each other again, and get the chance to fill in the blanks, solve the mysteries, hash it all out at a sane distance from our own youth. Fate is a word I don’t like; it’s more like logic, an aesthetic sort of logic, the logic of beauty. The logic of the story of us.