VINCENT BANDINE. I believe in candor. I have a theory about this town, this place: we don’t put enough stock in candor. I am into candor in a big way. So I take Aurélien aside, gently, and I say, “Aurélien, or whatever your name is, I think your film is goatshit. I think it’s a disgusting boring piece of Grade A manure. I wouldn’t give the sweat off my balls for your goatshit film.” That’s what I said, verbatim. And I have to give it to the kid, he just stood there and looked at me, sort of a slight smile on his face. Usually when I’m this candid they’re in deep shock, or weeping, or vomiting by now. And he looks at me and says, “I can’t blame you for thinking like this. You’re not a man of culture, so I can’t blame you for thinking like this.” And he walks. He walks out jauntily. I should have had his fucking legs broken. I’ve got the biggest collection of Vuillard paintings on the West Coast of America. I should have had his fucking legs broken. We had to pay the waiter fifty grand not to press charges, keep the Alcazar name out of things. The girl went to a clinic for three weeks to dry out … Aurélien No. Not a man of culture, eh?
KIT VERMEER. Ah, Lanier took it badly. I don’t think that. Do you mind? Thank you. Bats and lemurs, man, wow, they didn’t get a look in. Bats and lemurs. Story of my life. Weltanschauung, that’s what I’m up for. No, Weltschmerz. That’s my bag. Bats and lemurs. Why not owls and armadillos? No, I’m not looking at you, sir, or talking to you. Forsooth. Fuckin’ nerd. Wank in a bath, that’s what an English friend of mine calls them. What a wank in a bath. Owls and armadillos.
MATT FRIEDRICH. Aurélien came to see me before he left, which was gracious of him, I thought, especially for a film director, and he told me what had happened. I commiserated and told him other sorry stories about this town, this place. But he needed no consoling. “I enjoyed my visit,” he said. “No, I did. And I made the film. It was a curious but interesting experience.”
“It’s just a dance,” I think I remember saying to him. “It’s just a dance we have to do.”
He laughed. He found that funny.
END ROLLER
BOB BERGER
is working from home,
where he is writing several screenplays
DELPHINE DRELLE
plays the character “Suzi de la Tour” in NBC’s Till Darkness Falls
KAISER PREVOST
works for the investment bank Harbinger Cohen in New York City
MARIUS NO
is in his first year at l’Ecole Supérieure des Etudes Cinématographiques
BERTRAND HOLBISH
manages the Seattle band “Morbid Anatomy”
NAOMI TASHOURIAN
has written her first novel, Credits Not Contractual
MICHAEL SCOTT GEHN
is chief executive critic and on the editorial board of film/e
KIT VERMEER
is a practicing Sikh and wishes to be known as Khalsa Hari Atmar
LANIER CROSS
is scheduled to star in Lucy Wang’s film Charles Baudelaire’s Les Fleurs du Mal
GEORGE MALINVERNO
has opened a third pizzeria in Pacific Palisades
VINCENT BANDINE
has announced Alcazar Films’ eighteen-picture slate for the coming year
BARKER LEAR
lives in San Luis Obispo
MATT FRIEDRICH
has taken his own life
“NATHALIE X AUX ETATS-UNIS”
has been nominated for an Academy Award in the “Best Foreign Film” category
AURÉLIEN NO
is not returning your calls
Transfigured Night
From my tenth or eleventh year I remember the following incident:
SELBSTMORD
In this city, and at this time, you should understand that suicide was a completely acceptable option, an entirely understandable, rational course of action to take. And I speak as one who knows its temptations intimately: three of my elder brothers took their own lives — Hans, Rudi and Kurt. That left Paul, me and my three older sisters. My sisters, I am sure, were immune to suicide’s powerful contagion. I cannot speak for Paul. As for myself, I can only say that its clean resolution of all my problems — intellectual and emotional — was always most appealing; that open door to oblivion always beckoned to me and, odd though it may seem, suicide — the idea of suicide — lies at the very foundation of all my work in ethics and logic.
THE BENEFACTOR
I came down from the Hochreith, our house in the country, to Vienna especially to meet Herr Ficker. The big white villa in the parks of Neuwaldegg was closed up for the summer. I had one of the gardeners prepare my room and make up a bed, and his wife laid the table on the terrace and helped me cook dinner. We were to have Naturschnitzel with Kochsalat with a cold bottle of Zöbinger. Simple, honest food. I hoped Ficker would notice.
I shaved and dressed and went out onto the terrace to wait for him to arrive. I was wearing a lemon-yellow, soft-collared shirt with no tie and a light tweed jacket that I had bought years before in Manchester. Its fraying cuffs had been repaired, in the English way, with a dun green leather. My hair was clean and still damp, my face was cool, scraped smooth. I drank a glass of sherbet water as I waited for Ficker. The evening light was milky and diffused, as if hung with dust. I could hear the faint noise of motors and carriages on the roads of Neuwaldegg and in the gathering dusk I could make out the figure of the gardener moving about in the allée of pleached limes. A fleeting but palpable peace descended on me and I thought for some minutes of David and our holidays together in Iceland and Norway. I missed him.
Ficker was an earnest young man, taller than me (mind you, I am not particularly tall) with fine thinning hair brushed back off his brow. He wore spectacles with crooked wire frames, as if he had accidentally sat upon them and had hastily straightened them out himself. He was neatly and soberly dressed, wore no hat and was clean-shaven. His lopsided spectacles suggested a spirit of frivolity and facetiousness that, I soon found out, was entirely inaccurate.
I had already explained to him, by letter, about my father’s death, my legacy and how I wished to dispose of a proportion of it. He had agreed to my conditions and promised to respect my demand for total anonymity. We talked, in businesslike fashion, about the details but I could sense, as he expressed his gratitude, strong currents of astonishment and curiosity.
Eventually he had to ask, “But why me? Why my magazine … in particular?”
I shrugged. “It seemed to be exemplary, of its sort. I like its attitude, its, its seriousness. And besides, your writers seem the most needy.”
“Yes … That’s true.” He was none the wiser.
“It’s a family trait. My father was a great benefactor — to musicians mainly. We just like to do it.”
Ficker then produced a list of writers and painters he thought were the most deserving. I glanced through it: very few of the names were familiar to me, and beside each one Ficker had written an appropriate sum of money. Two names, at the top of the list, were to receive by far the largest amounts.
“I know of Rilke, of course,” I said, “and I’m delighted you chose him. But who’s he?” I pointed to the other. “Why should he get so much? What does he do?”
“He’s a poet,” Ficker said. “I think … well, no man on this list will benefit more from your generosity. To be completely frank, I think it might just save his life.”