Evening in Byzantium (20 page)

“I don’t mind,” Craig said. “I’ve heard worse about myself.”

“So have we all,” Teichman said, “so have we all. We’re living targets. But okay, so I made a lot of junk. I’m not too proud to admit it. Four hundred, five hundred pictures a year. Masterpieces don’t come in gross lots, and I’m not saying they do. Junk, okay, mass production, okay, but it served its purpose. It created the machinery the great guys found ready to their hand, the actors, the grips, the scene designers, the audience. And it served another purpose, too. It won the world for America. I can see by the look on your face you think I’m batty. No matter what the fancy intellectual critics said, in their dreams the whole world loved us, we were their mistresses, their heroes. Do you think I’m ashamed of having been in on that? Not for a minute. I’ll tell you what I
am
ashamed of. I’m ashamed that we pissed it all away. And if you want, I’ll tell you the moment we did it. Even if you don’t want.” He poked a strong finger into Craig’s shoulder. “The day we gave in to the yokels in Congress, the day we said, ‘Yes, sir, Mr. Congressman, Mr. FBI man, I will kiss your ass, you don’t like this writer’s politics or that actress’s morals or the subject of my next ten pictures, yes, sir, by all means, sir, they’re out. I will slit my best friend’s throat if you lift your pinky.’ Before that we were the lucky, beautiful people of the twentieth century, we made jokes the whole world laughed at, we made love the way the whole world wished they could, we gave parties the whole world wanted to come to. After that we were just a bunch of sniveling Jews hoping the guy next door would get killed in the pogrom instead of us. People turned to television, and I don’t blame them. In television they come right out and tell you they’re trying to sell you a bill of goods.”

“David,” Craig said, “You’re getting red in the face.”

“You bet I am,” Teichman said. “Calm me down, Jess, calm me down, my doctor would appreciate it. I’m sorry I came to this party. No, I’m not. I’m glad I got a chance to talk to you. I’m not finished yet, no matter how I sound. I’m in the process of putting something together—something big.” Teichman winked conspiratorially. “Some men of talent. With old-fashioned values. Discipline. Captains, not corporals. A man like you, for example. Connie told me you had something cooking, I should speak to you. Am I talking out of school?”

“Not really,” Craig said. “I have something in mind.”

“It’s about time. Call me in the morning. We’ll talk. Money is no object. David Teichman is not a maker of B pictures. I have to get out of here now, excuse me, Jess. I find it hard to breathe these days when I get angry. My doctor warns me against it constantly. Remember what I said. In the morning. I’m at the Carlton.” Rubbing his excellent gray wig, he marched off, defying ruin.

Craig watched the stiff, erect figure, patriot of defeated causes, historian of decay, shouldering toward the door and shook his head. Still, he decided, he would call Teichman in the morning.

Craig saw the man who was talking to Natalie Sorel get up and take Natalie’s glass and start toward the bar, threading his way through the crowd. Craig moved away from the bar in Natalie’s direction. But before he had covered half the distance, the door from the patio opened and Gail McKinnon came in with a small sallow man whose face was vaguely familiar. He was about thirty-five, with scruffy receding hair and unhealthy, grape-colored puffs under his eyes. He was wearing a dinner jacket. Gail McKinnon was wearing a cheap print dress, the skirt above her knees. The dress didn’t look cheap on her. She smiled at Craig, and there was no avoiding her. For some reason that he could not explain, he didn’t want her to observe him in conversation with Natalie Sorel. He hadn’t seen her since the lunch with the Murphys, but then he had stayed in his room most of the time nursing his cold.

“Good evening, Mr. Craig,” Gail McKinnon said. “I see we make the same stops.”

“It looks that way, doesn’t it?” he said.

“May I introduce …?” she started to say, turning to her companion.

“We’ve met,” the man said. His tone was unfriendly. “A long time ago. In Hollywood.”

“I’m afraid my memory isn’t as good as it should be,” Craig said.

“My name is Reynolds,” the man said.

“Oh, yes,” Craig said. He recognized the name, although he didn’t remember ever having met the man. Reynolds had written movie reviews for a Los Angeles newspaper. “Of course.” He extended his hand. Reynolds seemed to have to make up his mind to shake it.

“Come on, Gail,” Reynolds said. “I want a drink.”

“You go have a drink, Joe,” Gail McKinnon said. “I want to talk for a minute with Mr. Craig.”

Reynolds grunted, pushed his way toward the bar.

“Whats the matter with him?” Craig asked, puzzled by the man’s open antagonism.

“He’s had a couple too many to drink,” Gail McKinnon said.

“On all our tombstones,” Craig said. He took a sip from the champagne glass he was carrying. “What’s he doing so far from Los Angeles?”

“He’s been in Europe for a wire service for two years,” the girl said. “He’s been most helpful.” For some reason she seemed to be defending him. Craig wondered briefly if she was having an affair with him. Reynolds was an unprepossessing, sour-looking man, but in a place like Cannes you never could tell what a girl would turn up with. Now he remembered why the man’s face had seemed familiar to him. Reynolds had been the man who had sat down at the table with Gail McKinnon on the Carlton terrace the other morning.

“He’s a nut on movies,” Gail McKinnon went on. “He remembers every picture that’s ever been made. He’s a treasure for me. He’s seen all your pictures …”

“Maybe that’s why he’s so rude,” Craig said.

“Oh, no,” she said. “He likes them. Some of them.”

Craig laughed. “Sometimes,” he said, “you sound as young as you look.”

“That lady over there is waving at you,” the girl said.

Craig looked at the corner where Natalie Sorel was seated. She was beckoning him to come over. He had come within myopia range. He waved back. “An old friend,” he said, “if you’ll excuse me …”

“Did you get those questions I left at your hotel?”

“Yes.”

“Well?”

“I tore them up,” Craig said.

“Oh, that’s mean,” the girl said. “That’s the meanest thing I ever heard. I’ve heard a lot of bad things about you, but nobody said you were mean.”

“I change from day to day,” he said. “Sometimes from moment to moment.”

“Joe Reynolds warned me about you,” she said. “I wasn’t going to tell you, but now I don’t care. You’ve got enemies, Mr. Craig, and you might as well know about it. You know why Joe Reynolds was rude to you?”

“I haven’t the faintest idea. I never saw the man before the other morning,” Craig said.

“Maybe not. Although he says you did. But you once said something about him.”

“What?”

“He’d written a very good review of a picture of yours, and you said, ‘That man writes so badly, I get angry at him even when he gives me a rave.’”

“When did I say that?” Craig asked.

“Eight years ago.”

Craig laughed. “There’s no animal more thin-skinned than a critic, is there?”

“You don’t exactly go out of your way to be lovable, you know,” she said. “You’d better leave now. That pretty lady is practically breaking her arm waving to you.” Brusquely, she made her way through the crowd toward the bar where Reynolds, Craig saw, was waiting and watching.

How easy it was to make someone hate you for life. With one sentence.

He turned toward Natalie, dismissing Reynolds from his thoughts. Natalie stood up as he approached her, fair-haired, blue-eyed, luxuriously shaped, with dainty legs and feet, all like a lovingly made doll, too pink, white, and curvy to have any true semblance of reality. Despite her appearance and the soft, bell-like tone of her voice, he knew her as a woman of courage, determination, and lust.

“Take me into another room, Jesse,” she was saying, stretching her hand out in greeting. “The biggest bore in the world will be back with a drink for me any minute now.” She spoke English so well that anybody hearing her without knowing that she had been born in Hungary would only get a little echo of an unidentifiable accent. She spoke German, French, and Italian equally well. She looked no older than when he had seen her last. They had parted more or less by accident, without recriminations. She had had two pictures to do in England. He had had to go back to America. He hadn’t seen either of the pictures she had made in England. He heard that she had taken up with a Spanish count. As far as he knew, he and Natalie had never given each other anything but pleasure. Perhaps that was why they had parted so easily. She had never said she loved him. It was another aspect of her character he admired.

She held his hand as they wove through the other guests toward the library. She had a large diamond ring on her finger. When he had known her, she was pawning jewelry, and he had loaned her money.

“As usual,” he said, “you’re shining tonight.”

“If I had known that Lucienne Dullin was going to be here,” she said, “I would never have come. Anyone who looks like that should be forced to wear a sack over her head when she comes to parties with older women.”

“Never fear,” he said. “You’re defending yourself very well.”

They sat down side by side on a leather couch. They were the only ones in the room, and the noise of the party, the music and the conversation, was pleasantly subdued here.

“Give me a sip of your champagne,” she said.

He handed her his glass, and she drank all of the wine. She had avid appetites, he remembered.

She put the glass down. “You didn’t answer my call,” she said reproachfully.

“I got in late.”

“I wanted to talk to you,” she said. “And the other night there were too many people around. How are you?”

“Alive,” he said.

“There’s no news of you. I have asked.”

“I’ve been vegetating.”

“That isn’t like the Jesse Craig I knew.”

“Everybody’s too active. If we’d just stand still six months a year, we’d all be much better off. I stepped off the merry-go-round for a while. That’s all.”

“When I think of you,” she said, “I worry for you.”

“Do you think of me often?”

“No.” She laughed. She had small, very white teeth and a little pink tongue. “Only at obscene moments.” In bed, he remembered, just before she came, she often said, “Fock me, fock me.” He had found the mispronunciation endearing. She squeezed his hand affectionately. “How long has it been—five years?”

“More like six or seven.”

“Ach,” she said, “don’t remind me. Are you still as bad as ever?”

“What do you mean by that?”

“I saw you talking to that beautiful young girl. Hanging all over you.”

“She’s a reporter.”

“A woman isn’t safe anymore,” Natalie said. “Even reporters now look like that.”

“It would be unseemly,” he said. Natalie’s teasing made him uncomfortable. “She’s young enough to be my daughter. How about you? Where’s your husband?”

“He’s not my husband yet. I’m still struggling to land him.”

“The other night you told me you were getting married.”

“I will believe it when he puts the ring on my finger,” Natalie said. “Then no more getting up at five in the morning to get my hair done and my face made up. No more being treated like a beast by temperamental directors. No more having to be nice to producers.”

“I was a producer,” he said, “and you were nice to me.”

“Not because you were a producer, darling.” She squeezed his hand again.

“Anyway, where is the husband-designate? If I were going to marry you, I wouldn’t let you roam loose in a place like this just before the wedding.”

“Only you weren’t going to marry me, were you?” For the first time her tone was serious.

“I guess not,” he said.

“Like a lot of other people,” she said. She sighed. “Oh, well, little Natalie has had her fun. Now it’s the time for proper behavior. Or should we be wicked and slip off and find out if they still have that room over the sea in Beaulieu?”

“I’ve never been to Beaulieu,” Craig said, straight-faced.

“What a coincidence,” she said. “Neither have I. Anyway, it would hardly be worth it. He’s arriving tomorrow.”

“Who’s arriving tomorrow?”

“The husband-designate,” she said. “Philip. He was supposed to come with me, but at the last minute he had to stay in New York.”

“Oh, he’s American.”

“People tell me they make the best husbands.”

“I wouldn’t know,” Craig said. “What does he do?”

“He makes money. Isn’t that charming?”

“Charming. How does he make money?”

“He manufactures things.”

“How old is he?”

She hesitated, and the tip of her tongue showed between her lips. He recognized the signs. “Don’t lie,” he said.

She laughed. “Clever man. As always. Let’s say he’s older than you.”

“How much older?”

“Considerably older.” She spoke in a low voice. “He doesn’t know anything about you.”

“I should hope not. We didn’t exactly publish advertisements in the papers.” They had had to be discreet. She had had an official lover at the time who was paying some of her bills, and he was still trying to avoid scenes of jealousy with his wife. “And what if he
did
know about me?” he asked. “He doesn’t think he’s marrying a virgin, does he?”

“No, not exactly.” Her smile was a little sad. “But he doesn’t know the full extent.” She made a wry, childish little grimace. “Not by half. Not by a quarter.”

“Who does know the full extent?”

“I hope nobody,” she said.

“Just for the record,” Craig said, “in the next room there—how many?”

Natalie made a small grimace. “Would you settle for five?”

He grinned and shook his head.

“Six, then,” she said. “What do you expect—your little Natalie’s been around a long time. And being in the movies is a little like being on an island with the same group of castaways for years and years. A lady is liable to go to and fro—to and fro. A gentleman, too, my friend.” She touched Craig’s lips lightly with the tip of her finger.