Celebrity Chekhov (2 page)

Chapter 3
A Lady's Story

S
OME YEARS AGO
J
USTIN
T
IMBERLAKE AND
I
WERE RIDING
toward evening in fall time in Louisiana to get some coffee.

The weather was magnificent, but on our way back from the coffee shop we heard a peal of thunder, and saw an angry black storm cloud coming straight toward us. The storm cloud was approaching us and we were approaching it.

Against the background of it my house and church looked white and the tall poplars shone like silver. There was a scent of rain. We should have gone inside but we stayed out in the front yard. My companion was in high spirits. He kept laughing and talking all sorts of nonsense. He said it would be nice if we could suddenly come upon a medieval castle with turreted towers, with moss on it and owls, in which we could take shelter from the rain and in the end be killed by a thunderbolt.

Then the first wave raced through the front yard, there was a gust of wind, and leaves went round and round in the air. Justin Timberlake laughed and twirled around in the weather.

“It's fine!” he cried. “It's splendid!”

Infected by his gaiety, I too began laughing at the thought that in a minute I should be drenched to the skin and might be struck by lightning.

Standing outside during a storm when one is breathless with the wind and feels like a bird, thrills one and puts one's heart in a flutter. By the time we decided to go inside, the wind had gone down and big drops of rain were pattering on the grass and on the roofs.

One of the front windows was open and needed closing. Justin Timberlake began to turn the handle rapidly. He was trying to beat the storm. I stood in the doorway waiting for him to finish and watching the slanting streaks of rain; the sweetish, exciting scent of wet grass was even stronger in the front hall than in the yard; outside, the storm clouds and the rain made it almost twilight.

“What a crash!” said Justin Timberlake, coming up to me after a very loud rolling peal of thunder, when it seemed as though the sky were split in two. “What do you say to that?”

He stood beside me in the doorway and, still breathless from closing the window so fast, looked at me. I could see that he was admiring me.

“Britney,” he said, “I would give anything only to stay here a little longer and look at you. You are lovely today.”

His eyes looked at me with delight and supplication, his face was pale. He had not shaven in days, and on his beard were glittering raindrops that, too, seemed to be looking at me with love.

“I love you,” he said. “I love you, and I am happy at seeing you. I know you cannot be my wife, but I want nothing, I ask nothing; only know that I love you. Be silent, do not answer me, take no notice of it, but only know that you are dear to me and let me look at you.”

His rapture affected me too; I looked at his enthusiastic face, listened to his voice, which mingled with the patter of the rain, and stood as though spellbound, unable to stir.

I longed to go on endlessly looking at his shining eyes and listening.

“You say nothing, and that is splendid,” said Justin Timberlake. “Go on being silent.”

I felt happy. I laughed with delight and ran through the drenching rain out of the house and then back to it; he laughed too, and, leaping as he went, ran after me.

Both drenched, panting, noisily clattering up the stairs like children, we dashed into the room. My father and sister, who were not used to seeing me laughing and lighthearted, looked at me in surprise and began laughing too.

The storm clouds had passed over and the thunder had ceased, but the raindrops still glittered on Justin Timberlake's beard. The whole evening till suppertime he was singing, whistling, playing noisily with the dog and racing about the room after it, so that he nearly upset the woman who was there cleaning. And at supper he ate a great deal, talked nonsense, and maintained that if you eat fresh cucumbers and then lemon, you will smell like springtime.

When I went to bed I turned on the small lamp beside it and threw my window wide open, and an undefined feeling took possession of my soul. I remembered that I was free and healthy, that I had put some songs at the top of the chart, that I was beloved; above all, that I had charted, had charted, what a feeling that was. Then, huddling up in bed at a touch of cold that reached me from the garden, I tried to discover whether I loved Justin Timberlake or not, and fell asleep unable to reach any conclusion.

And when in the morning I saw quivering patches of sunlight and the shadows of the lime trees on my bed, what had happened the day before rose vividly in my memory. Life seemed to me rich, varied, full of charm. Humming, I dressed quickly and went out downstairs.

And what happened afterward? Why—nothing. Justin Timberlake came to see me from time to time. He quickly became the kind of acquaintance who was charming in Louisiana or Orlando, in a storm, but lost his appeal in Los Angeles, in less dramatic weather. When you pour out iced tea for them in town, it seems as though they are wearing other people's coats. In Los Angeles, too, Justin Timberlake spoke sometimes of love, but the effect was not at all the same as in the country.

In Los Angeles we were more vividly conscious of the wall that stood between us. I had put songs in the chart, and at that time he had not, though he aspired to do so; both of us—I because of my youth and he for some unknown reason—thought of that wall as very high and thick, and when he was with me in Los Angeles he would criticize other chart-topping pop stars' society with a forced smile, and maintain a sullen silence when any of them called or texted me. There is no wall that cannot be broken through, but the heroes of the modern romance, so far as I know them, are too timid, spiritless, lazy, and oversensitive, and are too ready to resign themselves to the thought that they are doomed to failure, that personal life has disappointed them; instead of struggling they merely criticize, calling the world vulgar and forgetting that their criticism passes little by little into vulgarity.

I was loved, happiness was not far away, and seemed to be almost touching me; I went on living in careless ease without trying to understand myself, not knowing what I expected or what I wanted from life, and time went on and on. People passed by me with their love, bright days and warm nights flashed by, the nightingales sang, the grass smelt fragrant, and all this, sweet and overwhelming in remembrance, passed with me as with everyone rapidly, leaving no trace, was not prized, and vanished like mist. Where is it all?

My father is dead, I have grown older; everything that delighted me, caressed me, gave me hope—the patter of the rain, the rolling of the thunder, thoughts of happiness, talk of love—all that has become nothing but a memory, and I see before me a flat desert distance; on the plain not one living soul, and out there on the horizon it is dark and terrible.

A ring at the bell. It is Justin Timberlake. When in the winter I see the trees and remember how green they were for me that one summer, I whisper:

“Oh, my loves!”

And when I see people with whom I spent my youth, I feel sorrowful and warm and whisper the same thing.

Justin Timberlake has been through it too. He put some songs on the chart, and then left off for other pursuits. He looks a little older, a little fallen away. He has long given up declaring his love, has left off talking nonsense, dislikes some of his work intensely, is indifferent to other parts of it, is ill in some way and disillusioned; he has given up trying to get anything out of life, and takes no interest in living. Now he has sat down by the hearth and looks in silence at the fire.

Not knowing what to say, I ask him:

“Well, what have you to tell me?”

“Nothing,” he answers.

And silence again. The red glow of the fire plays about his melancholy face.

I thought of the past, and all at once my shoulders began quivering, my head dropped, and I began weeping bitterly. I felt unbearably sorry for myself and for this man, and passionately longed for what had passed away and what life refused us now. And now I did not think about the pop charts.

I broke into loud sobs, pressing my temples, and muttered:

“My God! My life is wasted!”

And he sat and was silent, and did not say to me: “Don't weep.” He understood that I must weep, and that the time for this had come.

I saw from his eyes that he was sorry for me; and I was sorry for him, too, and vexed with this man who could not make a life for me, nor for himself.

When I saw him to the door, he was, I fancied, purposely a long while putting on his coat. Twice he kissed my hand without a word, and looked a long while into my tearstained face. I believe at that moment he recalled the storm, the streaks of rain, our laughter, my face that day, he longed to say something to me, and he would have been glad to say it; but he said nothing, he merely shook his head and pressed my hand. God help him!

After seeing him out, I went back to my study and again sat on the carpet before the fireplace. The red embers were covered with ash and began to grow dim. The frost tapped still more angrily at the windows, and the wind droned in the chimney.

The maid came in and, thinking I was asleep, called my name.

Chapter 4
Bad Weather

B
IG RAINDROPS WERE PATTERING ON THE DARK WINDOWS.
I
T WAS
one of those disgusting summer rains which, when they have begun, last a long time. It was surprisingly cold and there was a feeling of raw, unpleasant dampness. The mother-in-law of the golfer Tiger Woods, Barbro Holmberg, and Tiger Woods's wife, Elin Nordegren, dressed in sweaters despite the season, were sitting over the dinner table in the dining room.

It was written on the countenance of the elder lady that she was well-fed, well-clothed, and in good health, that she had married her daughter to a good man, and now could, with an easy conscience, spend time shuffling and dealing from a fortune-teller's deck; her daughter, a beautiful woman in her late twenties, with a gentle face, was reading a book with her elbows on the table; judging from her eyes she was not so much reading as thinking her own thoughts, which were not in the book. Neither of them spoke. There was the sound of the pattering rain, and from the kitchen they could hear the prolonged yawns of the cook.

Tiger Woods himself was not at home. Many weekends he was playing tournaments in other cities or even distant nations; on those weekends, the damp, rainy weather made his absence seem greater than it was, especially if his tournament was taking place in good weather. This weekend, Tiger Woods was not out of town, but he was not home either. When Tiger Woods was at home during rain, he despised the conditions. He was of the opinion that the sight of the gray sky and the rain on the windows deprived him of energy he needed for golf. This particular weekend, because of the weather, he was at one of his other properties, a ranch in eastern Texas where he could practice all day at a driving range.

After two rounds with the fortune-teller's deck, the old lady shuffled the cards and took a glance at her daughter.

“I have been trying with the cards to determine whether it will be fine tomorrow, and whether Tiger will be home,” she said. “He hasn't been here all week.”

Elin Nordegren looked indifferently at her mother, got up, and began walking up and down the room.

“The barometric pressure was rising yesterday,” she said doubtfully, “but they say it is falling again today.”

The old lady laid out the cards in three long rows and shook her head.

“Do you miss him?” she asked, glancing at her daughter.

“Of course.”

“I see you do. I should think so. When I visited over the summer he might be out of the house two days in a row, maybe three. But now it is serious. Five days! I am not his wife, and yet I miss him. And yesterday, when I heard that the chance of rain was smaller, I ordered the cook to prepare a Cornish hen and a trout for Tiger. He likes them. Your poor father couldn't bear fish, but Tiger likes it. He always eats it with great relish.”

“My heart aches for him,” said the daughter. “It is not very exciting here most days, but it is less exciting still without him, you know, Mama.”

“I should think so! At the driving range for ten hours, and all by himself at the ranch at night.”

“And what is so awful, Mama, is that he's truly alone. He doesn't even keep house staff. There's no one to help him with physical therapy or prepare him food. Why doesn't he keep someone in Texas full-time? What use is that place at all if it makes him miserable? A year ago I told him that we should sell it, but no, ‘You are happy when we come here,' he said, but do I seem happy to you, Mama?”

Looking over her mother's shoulder, the daughter noticed a mistake in the rows of cards, bent down to the table and began correcting it. A silence followed. Both looked at the cards and imagined how Tiger Woods, utterly forlorn, was sitting now in Texas in the large, empty ranch, or driving balls into the hot afternoon sun, hungry, exhausted, yearning for his family. . . .

“Do you know what, Mama?” said Elin Nordegren suddenly, and her eyes began to shine. “If the weather is the same tomorrow, I'll take one of the other planes and go to see him at the ranch! At least I could find out how he is, have a look at him, and make him a meal or two.”

And both of them began to wonder how it was that this idea, so simple and easy to carry out, had not occurred to them before. It was only twenty minutes to the airstrip, and then two hours to the ranch. They said a little more, and went off to bed in the same room, feeling more contented.

“Oh, Lord,” sighed the old lady when the clock in the hall struck two. “There is no sleeping.”

“You are not asleep, Mama?” the daughter asked in a whisper. “I keep thinking of Tiger. I only hope he won't ruin his health in Texas. Where does he eat without a cook? Bars? Fast food? Pancake houses?”

“I have thought of that myself,” sighed the old lady. “May the Lord save and preserve him. But the rain, the rain!”

In the morning the rain was not pattering on the panes, but the sky was still gray. The trees stood looking mournful, and at every gust of wind they scattered drops. The footprints on the muddy path, the ditches and the ruts, were full of water. Elin Nordegren made up her mind to go.

“Give him my love,” said the old lady, wrapping her daughter up. “Tell him not to think too much about tournaments. And he must rest. Let him wrap his throat up when he goes out: the weather—God help us! And take him the Cornish hen; food from home, even if cold, is better than at a restaurant.”

The daughter went away, saying that she would come back that night or else next morning.

But she came back long before dinnertime, when the old lady was sitting in her bedroom and drowsily thinking what to cook for her son-in-law's supper.

Going into the room, her daughter, pale and agitated, sank on the bed without uttering a word or taking off her coat, and pressed her head into the pillow.

“But what is the matter,” said the old lady in surprise, “why back so soon? Where is Tiger Woods?”

Elin Nordegren raised her head and gazed at her mother with dry, imploring eyes.

“He is deceiving us, Mama,” she said.

“What are you saying? Christ be with you!” cried the old lady in alarm. “Who is going to deceive us? Have mercy on us!”

“He is deceiving us, Mama!” repeated her daughter, and her chin began to quiver.

“How do you know?” cried the old lady, turning pale.

“The ranch is locked up. The man who lives down the road tells me that Tiger has not been there once in these five days. He is not living at home! He is not at home, not at home!”

She waved her hands and burst into loud weeping, uttering nothing but: “Not at home! Not at home!”

She began to be hysterical.

“What's the meaning of it?” muttered the old woman in horror. “He texted you the day before last to say that he has been practicing hard. Where is he sleeping?”

Elin Nordegren felt so faint that she could not take off her hat. She looked about her blankly, as though she had been drugged, and clutched at her mother's arms.

“What a person to trust: the man down the road!” said the old lady, fussing round her daughter and crying. “What a jealous girl you are! He is not going to deceive you, and how dare he? We are not just anybody. I have held public office. You modeled. He has no right, for you are his wife. We can take him to court.”

And the old lady herself sobbed and gesticulated, and she felt faint, too, and lay down on her bed. Neither of them noticed that patches of blue had made their appearance in the sky, that the clouds were more transparent, that the first sunbeam was cautiously gliding over the wet grass in the garden, that with renewed gaiety the sparrows were hopping about the puddles that reflected the racing clouds.

Toward evening Tiger Woods arrived. The man down the road had called him to tell him that Elin had come to the ranch.

“Here I am,” he said gaily, coming into his mother-in-law's room and pretending not to notice their stern and tearstained faces. “Here I am! It's five days since we have seen each other!”

He rapidly kissed his wife on her lips and his mother-in-law on the cheek, and with the air of a man delighted at having finished a difficult task, he sat down in an armchair.

“So tired,” he said, puffing out all the air from his lungs. “What a week. The second I landed in Texas, I got a call from Charles Barkley, who just invested in this massive indoor golf facility in Nevada. I know that you don't like it when I spend time with him, but he said I had to see it. I got right back in the plane. I didn't spend a minute in Texas. And this place was just incredible. It's a huge room, bigger than a football field, with hydraulics under the ground so that the terrain can change to mimic any hole in the world. It was like a wonderland. I got lost in it. It's indoors, so I wasn't even sure if it was day or night. It was like I was in a casino, on some strange kind of bender, except we didn't drink or eat or anything. Only golf. I played so much that I think I might have overdone it.”

And Tiger Woods, holding his knee as though it were aching, glanced stealthily at his wife and mother-in-law to see the effect of his lie, or as he called it, diplomacy. The mother-in-law and wife were looking at each other in joyful astonishment, as though beyond all hope and expectation they had found something precious that they had feared was lost. Their faces beamed. Their eyes glowed.

“My dear Tiger,” cried the old lady, jumping up, “why am I sitting here? Let me get you something to drink. And are you hungry?”

“Of course he is hungry,” cried his wife. “Mama, bring a beer and some olives. Where is the cook to set a table? My goodness, nothing is ready!”

And both of them, frightened, happy, and bustling, ran about the room. The old lady could not look without laughing at her daughter who had slandered an innocent man, and the daughter felt ashamed.

The table was soon laid. Tiger Woods, who smelled of Krystal and cigars and who had been dining at fine restaurants all week, complained of being hungry, forced himself to munch, and kept on talking of Charles Barkley and his investment in the indoor golf facility, while his wife and mother-in-law could not take their eyes off his face, and both thought:

How clever and kind he is! How handsome!

All serene, thought Tiger Woods as he lay down on his bed. They are ordinary people. They bore me, in a way. And yet they have a charm of their own, and I can spend a day or two each week with enjoyment. He wrapped himself up to get warm, and as he dozed off, he repeated to himself, All serene!