Evening in Byzantium (39 page)

The worst thing was the headaches that came after the transfusions. That was normal, he was told. Naturally, in a hospital, pain must seem normal to the people who work there.

Thomas had been perfect. He visited the room twice a day, not overdoing his concern. “There’s a good chance,” he said on the third day, “that you’ll be out of here in less than two weeks, and then we can get to work.” He had not wasted any time. He had secured an O.K. from United Artists, and they were talking of a budget of a million and a half dollars for the picture. Thomas had already found a great old mansion in Sands Point where they could shoot on location. He took it for granted that Craig would be the co-producer. If he had heard the surgeon’s fifty-fifty estimate, he gave no hint of it.

He was in the room on the third day when the door swung open and Murphy strode in. “What the hell is going on, Jesse?” Murphy asked loudly.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Craig said. “I thought you were in Rome.”

“I’m not in Rome,” Murphy said. “Hi, Bruce. Are you two guys fighting already?”

“Yes,” Thomas said, smiling. “Art is long and ulcers fleeting.”

Craig was too tired to inquire how Murphy had found out that he was in the hospital. But he was happy to see him there. Murphy would arrange everything. He himself could just drift into his doped and not unpleasant dreams in which night and day blended, pain and pleasure were impersonal abstractions. Knowing that all was now in safe hands, he could concentrate merely on dominating the rebellion of his blood.

“They told me I could only stay five minutes,” Murphy said. “I just wanted to see if you were still alive. Do you want me to fly in my guy from Beverly Hills? He’s supposed to be the best in the country.”

Everything that Murphy touched was the best in the country. “No need, Murph,” Craig said. “The men I have here are fine.”

“Well, you just don’t worry about anything but getting better,” Murphy said. “By the time you get out of here, I’ll have a contract ready for you to sign that’ll have United Artists screaming in anguish. Come on, Bruce. We have things to discuss that are not for invalids’ ears.” Murphy patted Craig’s shoulder roughly. “You mustn’t scare your old friends like this,” he said very gently. “Sonia sends her love. All right, Nurse, all right, I’m going.” The ex-captain in the Nursing Corps was glowering blackly at him and looking dramatically at her watch.

The two men went out. The nurse fussed a little with a pillow. “Business,” she said, “kills more men than bullets.”

For a man who has begun his working life in the theatre, Craig thought, a hospital room is a fitting place to end it. It is like a stage. The hero is in the center with all the lights upon him. The doctor is the director, although he doubles by playing one of the parts. He watches mostly from the wings, preparing to intervene when necessary, whispering to the other actors that they can go on now, that they must enter smiling, that they are not to prolong their scenes unduly. The nurses, like stagehands, move the props around—hurry on with thermometers, trays, bed-pans, syringes, instruments for the taking or infusion of blood.

The hero has a long part to play—the work is constructed around him, he never leaves the stage, he has a run-of-the-play contract. Ungratefully, he sometimes grumbles at his prominence, is quick to criticize the manner in which other actors play their scenes with him, would replace them or cut them if he could.

The first one he would have eliminated, if he could, was Belinda Ewen. By the fourth day in the hospital she had decided that he was going to recover and that his recovery would be speeded by forcing him to stop brooding, as she described it, and occupy himself with the business of everyday life. She reported that she had checked him out of the hotel and packed his things. His suitcases were now thriftily stored in the office. Mail and messages were to be forwarded. People had been notified. She had called the
Times.
When he protested weakly about this, she said, firm in her concept of orderly, civilized behavior, that friends and family and the public had a right to know. He refused to ask her what friends and family she had selected. The telephone in the office rang all day. He’d be surprised how many people were interested in him. With her efficiency it was likely that hundreds of well-wishers would soon be thronging through his room. He pleaded with the doctors for release, plotted escape.

In fact, by now he felt strong enough to see people. They had removed the needles from the battered veins, there were no more transfusions, he could sit up and take liquid nourishment. He had even shaved. His face in the mirror had shocked him. It had the same greenish pallor as the Russian taxi driver’s. He resolved that until he left the hospital he would allow Miss Balissano, his military day nurse, who had offered to do so, to shave him.

The mail Belinda brought him included a bill from his wife’s lawyer for five thousand dollars. On account. He had agreed to pay her lawyers in the first burst of generosity and relief when he had finally made the decision to get a divorce and realized that, with money, it was possible to obtain one.

A letter from his accountant reminded him that he had to make up his mind about what he wanted to do about the seventy thousand dollars that the Internal Revenue Service was demanding from him. They were becoming menacing, his lawyer wrote.

Belinda had found the copy of
The Three Horizons
in his hotel room and had read it. She was favorably impressed by it and brought over large casting books with the photographs of actors and actresses in Hollywood and New York for him to glance through and think about who might play which part. He fingered through the books languidly to please Belinda.

She had brought over his checkbook. There were bills to be paid. He had no Blue Cross or Health Insurance, and the hospital had asked her discreetly for an advance. She had made out a check for a thousand dollars. Obediently, he signed it. He signed checks for office rent, telephone and telegraph bills, the Diners’ Club, the Air-Travel Card. Dead or alive, he must maintain his credit rating. He hoped Anne’s psychology professor would never see his signature.

Now that he was back in business, Belinda said, she had brought over the scripts of two plays by prominent authors that had come into the office in the last week. She had read them and hadn’t thought much of them, but the prominent authors would expect a personal note from him. She would bring her pad the next day, prepared to take dictation. He promised to read the plays by the prominent authors. She admired the flowers that the Murphys and the Thomases and Walt Klein had sent, all lavish displays from the most expensive florist on Fifth Avenue. She was shocked when he said, “They make me feel as though I’m on my own bier. Send them down to the children’s ward.”

She warned him darkly about Miss Balissano. The woman was callous, she said, and at the same time maniacally overprotective. She practically had to fight her way with physical force to get into his room each time she came. Fanatical overprotectiveness was dangerous. It was negative thinking. He promised to indulge in no negative thinking, to consider replacing Miss Balissano.

Miss Balissano came in at this point, and Belinda said, “I see my time is up,” her tone suggesting that she had been struck across the face with a weapon. She left, and for the first time since Craig had met Miss Balissano, he was glad to see her.

Miss Balissano took one look at the manuscripts and casting books piled on his bedside table and picked them up and put them on the floor out of sight. She had learned something in Korea.

He was lying in his bed with a thermometer in his mouth when Anne came in. It was a gray day, almost evening, and the room was dark. Anne opened the door tentatively, as though ready to flee at the first word from him. He waved a dumb greeting to her, indicating the tube in his mouth. She smiled uncertainly, came over to the bed, leaned over and gave him a little nervous peck on the forehead. He reached out his hand and held hers. “Oh Daddy,” she said. She wept softly.

Miss Balissano came in, turned on the light, took the thermometer, made a notation on his chart. She always refused to tell him what his temperature was.

“This is my daughter, Miss Balissano,” Craig said.

“We’ve met,” Miss Balissano said grimly. But then she said everything grimly. She took no notice of the girl’s tears. She fussed with his pilows, said, “Good night. Sleep well. Don’t be long, miss.” She marched out, the sound of guns over the horizon. The night nurse would be in soon. The night nurse was a Puerto Rican young man who was a student at City College. He sat in a corner of the room all night reading textbooks in the glow of a carefully shaded lamp. His only duty was to call the intern on the floor if he thought Craig was dying. So far, he had not called the intern.

“Oh, Daddy,” Anne said, her voice trembling. “I hate seeing you like this.”

He had to smile a little at the youthful egotism of her first words to him. I, I, I.

“It’s not my fault, is it, Daddy?” she said.

“Of course not.”

“If it’s too much trouble to talk, don’t talk.”

“I can talk,” he said irritably. He was irritated with his illness, not with Anne, but he could see that she thought his temper was directed at her.

“We came as soon as Ian got Mr. Thomas’s cable,” Anne said. “We were in London.”

Craig wondered from whom Wadleigh had borrowed the money for the voyage. But he didn’t ask the question. “It was good of you to come,” was all he said.

“You’re going to be all right, aren’t you?” Anne asked anxiously. Her face was pale. Traveling didn’t agree with her. He remembered all the times he had had to stop the car on trips when she was young and prone to carsickness.

“Certainly, I’m going to be all right,” he said.

“I talked to Dr. Gibson yesterday, I came right to the hospital as soon as we got in, they said I should wait a day to see you, but Dr. Gibson wouldn’t say yes or no when I asked him about you. ‘Only time will tell,’ he said. I hate doctors.”

“He’s very good,” Craig said. He felt a great affection for Dr. Gibson, quiet, efficient, modest, lifesaving man. “He just doesn’t like being asked to be a prophet.”

“Well,” she said childishly, “he might at least try to be a little bit encouraging.”

“I guess he doesn’t think that’s his business,” Craig said.

“You mustn’t try to be too stoical,” Anne said. “Ian says that that’s what you are—stoical.” She was already quoting her lover, Craig noted. “He says it’s an unprofitable attitude in this day and age.”

“Will you pour a glass of water for me please, darling,” Craig said. He wanted no more quotations from the accumulated wisdom of Ian Wadleigh. He wasn’t really thirsty, but Anne seemed embarrassed and uneasy with him, and asking for a small service from her, even one as minute as pouring water out of a thermos, might make a dent in the painful barrier between them. He saw that the “darling” had pleased her. He sipped a little from the glass she offered him.

“You’re going to have more visitors,” she said. “Mummy’s arriving tomorrow and …”

“Oh, God,” Craig said. “How does she know?”

“I called her,” Anne said defensively. “She was terribly upset. You don’t mind that I told her, do you?”

“No,” he said, lying.

“It’s only human,” Anne said.

“I agree,” Craig said impatiently, “I agree. It’s only human.”

“Gail is on her way, too,” Anne said.

“You called her, too?”

“Yes. I only did what I thought was right, Daddy. You’re not angry at me, are you?”

“No.” Craig put the water tumbler down and lay back resignedly, closing his eyes, to show Anne that he was tired and wished to be alone.

“I have something to apologize to you about,” Anne said. “In my letter I was too much in a hurry to say anything about your script. I don’t know whether it means anything to you or not, but I love it, and I should have told you …”

“You had other things on your mind,” he said.

“I suppose you have a right to be sarcastic with me,” Anne said humbly. “But, anyway, I love it. So does Ian. He wanted me to tell you.”

“Good.”

“He’s talked to Mr. Thomas already. He and Mr. Thomas agree on a lot of things about the script. They’re both wildly hopeful.”

“Good,” Craig said again.

“Of course, Mr. Thomas doesn’t know anything about me yet,” she said. She hesitated. “Ian is afraid that because of me you’re going to be against him. About working on the script, I mean.” She waited for Craig to speak, but he kept silent. “I told Ian you’re too big a man to stand in his way just because …” She trailed off.

“I’m not quite as big a man as I was last week,” Craig said.

“Ian needs the job badly,” Anne said. “It’ll get him off the ground, he says. He’s been having such a bad time … You’re not going to say no, are you, Daddy?” She was imploring now.

“No,” he said, “I’m not going to say no.”

“I knew it,” she said. She was his happy little daughter now, being promised a treat, oblivious of the world of hospitals, pain, blood. “Ian’s downstairs,” she said. “He’d love to come up and say hello. He’s terribly worried about you. Can I tell him to come up? Just for a minute?”

“Tell Ian to go fuck himself,” Craig said.

Anne took in her breath sharply. It was the first time, as far as he could remember, that he had ever said the word in front of her. “Oh, Daddy,” she said. “How can you be so unjust!” She turned and ran out of the room.

She’s a big girl now, Craig thought as he sank deeper into the pillows. She knows all the words. I’m going to move into a public ward. Where they don’t allow visitors.

They operated on him that night. There was no enormous hemorrhage like the night in the hotel, but the tests had shown that he had begun to bleed again, a slow, steady seeping away in his gut whose source they couldn’t locate, dangerous and life-sapping.

Before he was given the preoperative shot of morphine, while they were shaving his chest and abdomen, he realized that he wasn’t afraid. Fifty-fifty, the doctor had said. A man couldn’t ask for fairer odds.

Faces came and went, briefly, silently, seen obscurely, through haze—Murphy, Thomas, Dr. Gibson, noncommittal, no warnings or encouragement, his wife, his daughter Marcia, grotesquely plump and weeping, Gail McKinnon, sea-fresh, Constance, almost unrecognizably stern, Edward Brenner … But Edward Brenner was dead. Were they all a dream? He spoke only once. “Marcia,” he said, “you’re a good size.”