Later, in the dark, his arms in their habit around her as she listened through his skin to his slowing heart, he blew a strand of her hair from his lips and said: “Joe and Monica are back. Did you talk to them?”
“Yes. You?” she said. He nodded.
“Same old story,” he said. “You know, I’m getting very tired of being Above All That, but it’s still true; I just don’t see lopping a month off my life—I have a life, you know— watching some goddamn movie. If only they didn’t come out looking so noble, smelling at every pore of having been through a transmogrifying experience.” He removed an arm from her, groped, found cigarettes and lit up. He breathed a cloud of smoke out into the dark, carefully aiming it away from her hair.
“You know what Monica said to me?” he asked. “She said, ‘It was the greatest experience of my life.’ My God, if I had had a life like Monica’s, I would be sitting on a mountain wearing a yellow robe, shuddering whenever a man came within fifty miles.”
“Clinty, Monica’s not very bright. You should be kinder to her.” And then, reflectively, “Not exactly a movie; they all tell us that. Somehow I get the impression it isn’t anything like a movie at all.”
“Movie, shmoovie,” he said. “Besides, think of the result. Can you imagine me going around being Calm, Dignified and Noble? I’m not the type. And you know, it would be more of a consolation if it weren’t so damn obvious that an awful lot of people are the type.”
She stirred then, half sitting up. She said: “Clinty, you know how Noordberg does? The way he looks at you as if he were a mad scientist and you were the retort in which he was going to mix something dirty?” Clinton chuckled in spite of himself; whither politeness now?
“Good old Noodle,” he said.
“Well, he was one of the first to go, and ever since he came back, he doesn’t.” In the darkness her face could tell him nothing, nor his, her; he frowned.
“Are you kidding? I’ve seen him a dozen times since he came back, and believe me, he’s the same as ever. If anything, he’s worse.” But mentally he began to tote and tally, wishing for a better memory.
She continued: “No, Clinty, it’s not the same at all. He tries to, but it’s just going through the motions. As if he thought you expected him to, and didn’t want to hurt your feelings, or make you anxious about him.”
“Kiddo, go to sleep; you’re already dreaming. Still, it’s a nice idea. Everybody doesn’t have to end up noble?”
She made an affirmative noise, reclining, choosing her own side of the bed. He settled back to wait for the extinguishing breath of sleep, and for tomorrow, which would be a better time to wonder whether it was reassurance he had harvested, after all.
“They must be government approved,” she said suddenly. “Mustn’t they?”
“Mustn’t who? Oh.” Clinton blinked; it was an odd thought. “I guess so,” he said. “Otherwise somebody would have raised a stink. Unless you’re thinking about the money, how much it costs? Financing, friendly banks; sure it’s government approved.”
“Umn,” she said; he felt her falling away, diminishing, receding into the void of sleep. At the last possible instant before total unconsciousness, she murmured:
“Joe and Monica don’t need to hold hands all the time, now.”
He had thought himself worried before; now he worried. She was cool and calm and resolutely considerate always; he had taken her to his bosom perhaps in some measure because, when he trumpeted at the world his I’ve got problems of my own, her unverbalized answer had been, Enough for both of us? In a world where everybody depicted love in comic-strip colors, they found richer expression in halftones; they did not make scenes. Gone back over, the conversation was the closest she could ever come to telling him she was deeply troubled.
It was some little while before Clinton fell asleep.
Clinton worked as an account executive in an advertising agency. He had a radical and extremely personal view of his situation; he thought it was like being a Boy Scout in a large room filled to the ceiling with cotton candy. You could breathe, it was delicious, and there was plenty of it— but you could not see your hand in front of your face, much less find two sticks to rub together. He told this to everyone; they thought, How original, how bitter, and laughed, sometimes a little vaguely. By the law of averages, he ought to have met somebody who would have said, What have you got against contentment? so that he could have replied, Contentment with what? But he never had.
He lived seven blocks from his office, and always walked home, smiling devilishly as he outpaced the taxicabs of his trapped superiors enroute to Sutton Place. The evening after the party, on impulse, he walked a couple of blocks out of his way to the converted brownstone in which Bernie lived. Bernie was an artist, and would have been an exceedingly expensive one, if he had not been rich. It did not matter that he was really an artist, and painted the large, disturbingly whorled emptiness he would have painted if he had been starving in a loft; in their repertoire of smiles, gallery owners have a special one reserved for the very rich, and it was the only one Bernie ever saw.
Clinton walked up, on deep plush; the door opened to his knock. Bernie, half-dressed and carrying a dirty rag in one hand, greeted him with a broad smile.
“Clint! Come on in. What have you been doing, anyway—I haven’t seen you since—”
“Since the Movie,” Clinton said easily, entering. As always, he stopped in front of the painting that faced the entrance. It was a large thing, covered with countless overlapping concentricities that seemed to diminish infinitely amid bitter smoke. Bernie had a title for it, but like most artists, Bernie was a literary imbecile; Clinton called it Kinsey in Hell, and found it tenaciously disquieting. As usual, it held his attention for some seconds; when he turned, it was to find Bernie seated on the floor, working on something in his lap. Clinton smiled; it was exactly his idea of how an artist should polish something—tailor-fashion on the floor, lovingly absorbed. Then he made out what it was Bernie was polishing. He strolled over and sat on the floor, facing Bernie.
“Going hunting?” he asked, and wondered why his voice sounded so odd.
Bernie held the rifle out to be admired. He did not hold it clumsily—artists, whatever their faults, do not hold things clumsily—but between the way its essential function dictated it be held, and the way he held it, there was an enormous and unbridgeable gap. Yet, somehow, Clinton did not find this sufficiently reassuring.
“Isn’t it beautiful?” Bernie asked. “All my life, I never realized the . . . depth to these things. Do you know they’re almost a perfect symbol for power? Pure power? Think of it, curled up dormant in there, sleeping in its little nest in a cave of steel, ready to burst out instantly at the slightest call. Think of it! The perfect symbol for power; hard and cold but turgid with latent flame and noise.”
“Bernie . . .” Clinton began.
“They get dirty, though. The minute you hang them up, they attract dust like a magnet.” Clinton exhaled—why was it, with relief?—and tried again.
“Bernie, you’ve been listening to the wrong salesman.”
“Huh? What? You mean you don’t approve? Clint, you’re the last person on earth I would have thought . . .” His face was so crestfallen that Clinton had to laugh.