Fictional Lives (15 page)

(She made herself stop calling him at the office; and after
she had stopped, he started to call her. Sometimes twice a day….)

And probably she wouldn’t have thought again about that book—at any rate not until it was finished, and she read it; but then she would have been able to think about it, and judge it, on purely literary grounds—if, two months after she had been told the story, she hadn’t, very faintly at first, and then more persistently—started to suffer from pains in the stomach.

Even so it took her almost a week to admit to herself that she was thinking about it; and to admit that she was wondering whether Gerhard was poisoning her….

*

She had never, she thought, as she left her doctor—he couldn’t discover what was wrong—been so angry with herself in her life. Here she was, Fran Niebauer, suspecting her husband of trying to murder her. It was pitiful. I am a forty-six-year-old woman living in New York City, she told herself, who is fortunate enough to have a wonderful son, a husband whom she loves, a great many friends, abundant money, and a life that is interesting and enjoyable. And I am wondering whether I am being poisoned! It was preposterous; and she had been right, she added, to despise murder mysteries. Oh sure—it was perfectly possible that she would be killed in an accident, or might suddenly have a stroke or develop cancer—it was even possible that she would be attacked by a madman in the street. These things she was prepared to accept as the normal risks of day to day living. But she was not prepared to accept the idea that her husband, whatever he thought of her, was tipping little powders into her food, or into her wine, or—or—she didn’t know. She
didn’t
have any imagination, and she was thankful for it. All she did know was that she was a civilized human being, married to another civilized human being, and that as far as she was concerned civilized human beings did not go round killing one another. If Gerhard wanted to leave her he
would, once he had taken his decision, tell her, and then proceed to do so. She would be upset naturally—more than upset; she would be bitterly unhappy—but she would accommodate her unhappiness just as she had accommodated her unattractiveness, and she would go on living. She did love her husband, and she hoped he would always be with her—but he was not the be all and end all of her life. Apart from anything else, she thought—staring the absurdity in the face—he had no reason to wish her dead. All right, she did support him in a life-style he couldn’t have afforded without her; but on the other hand he also earned plenty himself, in the fashion importing business she had set him up in. He could have lived on that, even with Lucie Schmidt, in more than adequate comfort.

And really to clinch the matter, even if, for some inconceivable reason, Gerhard did want to kill her, he could hardly have done so now; not after she had told him the story of David Chezzel’s book. Because not only would she know what he was doing, but, when the book was published, the whole world would know what he had done. After all, it would be pretty obvious….

She was so angry with herself that instead of walking home from the doctor’s, as she would normally have done on such a warm, sunny April morning, she took a taxi. And then, which was still less normal, as she was paying the driver, she changed her mind; and told the man that she wanted to go to the West Side. She gave him David’s address.

She never called on people unannounced; it wasn’t fair, or civilized. She also had never disturbed any of her writers in residence—not even with a phone-call—during the day; or during the night, if they told her that that was when they worked. Today however was an exceptional day; and since David had so disturbed her, she felt she had an excuse for her behaviour. What she was going to say when she saw him—if
he were in, and if he answered the door—she wasn’t sure of. All she was sure of was that she wanted to speak to him; and, possibly, to see if he wouldn’t replace the genie that he was in the process of conjuring up back into its bottle. Or to see, if he himself were the genie, whether she couldn’t in some way persuade him to return to captivity.

Once again—and it came to her with another attack of her stomach cramps—the idea of threatening the writer with eviction entered her head. Once again, and for the same reasons as before, she rejected it. But she did so with less conviction than before. After all, she thought, if—But then she stopped. There were no ifs. She was
not
being poisoned. And she was being incredibly stupid….

She didn’t, however, change her mind a second time as regards her destination.

David was in; and he answered the door. He also assured her he wasn’t working—he had done his four hours for the day—and offered her a drink. Which she accepted.

When she was sitting, glass in hand, looking at the author, she realized he was looking at her; wanting an explanation for her visit.

She had thought, coming up in the elevator, that she would start by being perfectly straightforward; telling David that she had been hurt by the story he had told, and now, absurdly, had got the notion that Gerhard was trying to poison her. And she was about to do it. But all at once she hesitated. Which made her feel more angry with herself than ever. For God’s sake, she ordered herself, say what you have to say. But whether because she was suddenly too ashamed to reveal her stupidity, or whether because she suddenly felt that certain things were better not talked about, she couldn’t, when it came to it, do it.

Instead she looked around the high-ceilinged, red-carpeted, well-proportioned living room, and murmured that David had made it look very nice, with the paintings he had put on the
walls, and the plants he had placed all around. (She provided the furniture, and paid for the apartment to be painted every other year; decorations of whatever sort, and—as in this case—plants, she left to the discretion of her tenants.)

Then she went on to remark that David himself was looking well. (Which she supposed he was; though to be honest she found his looks unpleasant. He wasn’t very tall, and while his face wasn’t ugly, there was something distasteful about it. His brown eyes were a little too sincere and frank. His thick black hair was a little too glossy. And his lips were a little too eager to break into a self-deprecating smile. He ranked, in fact, in her canine terminology, as a lap-dog; and lap-dogs disgusted her.

Which made it all the more ironic that he should promise to be her first champion; whereas all those other rangy, fierce, spirited young things had turned out to be creatures of little or no worth; with empty barks, an unoriginal and undistinguished way of holding themselves, and no staying power.)

Finally she said that she had been passing, had realized that it was quite a time since she had seen him—which was true; she hadn’t wanted to, and hadn’t invited him to any of her parties over the last two months—and had thought she would drop by to make sure everything was all right. No problems with the plumbing, with the neighbours, or anything like that….

But then, since there were really no more topics available to her, and since David was still watching her, waiting for her to say what she had come to say, she could put it off no longer. And telling herself that it didn’t matter how foolish she sounded, and how even the unspeakable at times had to be spoken—she plunged.

She delivered the speech she had prepared in the elevator; and David listened to her in silence. When she had finished he told her, as he had on the phone, and with the same
self-righteous 
indignation, that she was being paranoid. This time, however, there was no laugh afterwards.

‘For heaven’s sake, Fran,’ he said, ‘it’s just a book. Just a story.’

He was small; but she was smaller. And he was looking down on her.

‘Maybe your telling me about Gerhard and his Frenchwoman gave me the idea, but how I develop that idea is nothing to do with Gerhard or you or any Frenchwoman. It’s to do with me. It sounds as if your pains are psychosomatic.’

Fran wasn’t sure if she believed in psychosomatic pains; at least not for herself. If she did, she certainly didn’t approve of them.

‘David, I’m not an idiot. You know that.’

The brown eyes were wide now; the mouth severe.

‘Yes, Fran, I do know that. Which is why I don’t really understand what you’re talking about. Do you think that Gerhard and I worked all this out together?’

‘No, of course not. I just thought—’ she shrugged. ‘Maybe, after I told Gerhard the story, he decided it was quite a good one.’ She shook her head. ‘No. That’s not true. I don’t believe it for a minute. And you’re right not to understand me. I’m being ridiculous. I guess I’m upset because Lucie is in New York, and presumably Gerhard is seeing her occasionally. That’s probably why I’ve got these cramps.’

David relaxed slightly, and did allow himself a smile now. It was condescending.

‘Gerhard’s not about to leave you,’ he murmured. ‘Apart from your cash, I’m sure he likes you.’

Fran would have liked to smile too. She couldn’t.

‘Yes, I think he does. What I don’t understand is what
she
gets out of it. Just sex?’

‘I don’t know. I’ve never met her.’

‘What about in the book. What are the motives of the “other woman” in that?’

David paused, and Fran thought he wasn’t going to answer. But eventually, with a frown of irritation, he did.

‘She is a bored woman who doesn’t have enough brains to see why she’s bored, or enough energy to seek a genuine remedy for her boredom. So she travels as much as she can, and has the occasional affair, and persuades herself she is having fun. She isn’t really, she knows she isn’t, but—the married man in New York she is going with does, essentially, just represent sex to her. Or a little adventure. Something to do when she is in New York. She has no intention of getting seriously involved with him.
He
even bores her slightly. Until, that is, he proposes killing his wife. Then he becomes more interesting. The adventure promises to be more fun than she’d imagined. Of course she doesn’t want to have anything to do with the actual murder—she doesn’t like trouble—any more than she wants to marry the man if the plot succeeds. Once the deed is done the fun will be over; and she isn’t interested in the money the man will get from his wife. Though he of course doesn’t realize this.’

Fran remembered Lucie saying, ‘I don’t give a damn about money. I was born poor and I’ll die poor. In between I’ll get by as best I can.’

‘Does,’ she asked David, ‘the woman work?’

‘Yes, I think so. But I’m not sure yet. I’m not really very far into the book. And I’ve hardly touched on the character of the Frenchwoman. I’ve been concentrating on the wife so far.’

‘Does she know she’s going to be killed?’

‘She suspects. But—’ David smiled again. ‘In that respect she’s like you. She refuses to believe her own suspicions. She tells herself it’s ridiculous. That “civilized” people don’t kill each other.’

‘They don’t,’ Fran said sharply.

‘Oh Fran dear, do stop it. Of course they don’t.’

Fran wondered….

‘And what happens in the end?’

‘There again I’m not certain yet. Maybe the husband does it, and gets the money, or maybe—he doesn’t. I don’t know.’

‘Why,’ Fran asked finally, ‘doesn’t the wife change her will, leave her money to someone else, when she starts to suspect what is happening?’

‘Because that would be an admission that she
does
believe it is happening. And being a convinced rationalist, she cannot bring herself to make this admission. She would rather die than allow the irrational to enter her world. Indeed she would die if she did, because her entire life is built upon the premise that one must deny the irrational, and without this premise she couldn’t go on.’

Fran nodded. She looked out of the window. She remembered that she was taking Cyrus to Hunter College this afternoon, to see a children’s show. She remembered she had an English publisher and his wife coming for drinks at six. She remembered that she had to finish reading two books; and that Gerhard had promised to drive her to Princeton tomorrow, to see a young woman they had recently met who wrote short stories.

She remembered that she was a woman who lived in a small body in a small world, and had always, more or less, controlled both.

She stood up and said ‘David, I know I
am
being ridiculous, and that my pains probably are imaginary, and that I have no right to ask you this. But will you please do me a favour and not write any more of your book.’

There was no hint of apology in her voice; no trace of weakness. She wanted something; and she had asked for it.

For a while then there was silence. David looked at his
hands. He looked round the room—round
her
room—and up at the ceiling. He looked at her, and made her feel that while she had never been more unattractive in her life, she had never cared less. He looked back at his hands. And only after perhaps half a minute did he speak.

‘No,’ he said, with a directness that equalled, briefly, her own. ‘No, I’m sorry.’

Then his directness collapsed. The eyes shone with sincerity. The generally smooth forehead crumpled with concern. The lips were about to utter some self-condemnation. He came over to her and put his arms around her. He kissed her cheek. He said ‘Oh Fran, I wish I could. Honestly. I know how upsetting all this must be for you. But you don’t really mean it. You don’t really want me to give it up. You just think you do. But really, my dear, I can’t. It’s—’ he gave a soft laugh—‘it’s as if you were asking me to have an abortion. And I can’t.’ He paused. ‘Why don’t you and Gerhard take a vacation? Go to Europe. Go to Mexico. Go anywhere. I’m sure your pains would stop then. Gerhard does love you, you know that. And I love you. Everyone loves you. Really. You’re wonderful. So don’t be silly now. Please.’

He could fawn all he liked. He could go down on his knees in front of her. His eyes could fill with tears. But he was, now, stronger than her, and he knew it; and she knew he was not about to renounce his strength. She stood there, stiff between his arms, and told herself that she despised him. She told herself she should say ‘in that case I must ask you to quit this apartment.’ (Though she knew even now that she wouldn’t.) She told herself that since she had nothing more to say she should leave. She wanted to go home.