The Deer Park (46 page)

The education I had delayed and delayed again was pressing at me with all its attractions, and I was becoming more aware of all the things I did not know. So for most of that year when I was not working or writing, I would spend my days in the public library, often giving as much as twelve hours at a time if I had the opportunity, and I read everything which interested me, all the good novels I could find, and literary criticism too. And I read history, and some of the philosophers, and I read the books of psychoanalysts, those whose styles I could tolerate, for part of a man’s style is what he thinks of other people and whether he wants them to be in awe of him or to think of him as an equal. And I read a few anthropologists, and I studied languages, French and Italian, even a little German, because languages were natural for me, and two months I spent reading
Das Kapital
and might have thought of myself as a Socialist if Munshin had not been right and when I cut it all away, I was still an anarchist, and an anarchist I would always be. Or so it seemed. There were bad days when I thought I would go back to the Church. Anyway, my education went on, and although I do not think I can measure it, I had months where I thought
about what I read in books with more excitement than I had ever done anything, and ever since that year, I don’t suppose I have met the expert who was altogether impressive to me. Which, after all, may seem a small boast to make, but in the years when I was in the orphanage, the kind of people who went to college were as mysterious as the titles who got together on a yacht to sail the Mediterranean.

I found as I continued to study, that there was an order in what I sought, and I read each book as a curve in some unconscious spiral of intellectual pursuit until the most difficult text at the proper moment was open, and yet the more I learned the more confident I became, because no matter the reputation of the author and the dimensions of his mind, I knew as I read that not one of them could begin to be a final authority for me, because finally the crystallization of their experience did not have a texture apposite to my experience, and I had the conceit, I had the intolerable conviction, that I could write about worlds I knew better than anyone alive. So I continued to write, and as I worked, I learned the taste of a failure over and over again, for the longest individual journey may well be the path from the first creative enthusiasm to the concluded artifact. There were nights in the library when I would look at the footnotes in some heroically constructed tome, and know that the spirit of the rigorous scholar who had written it must know its regret, for each footnote is a step onto deeper meaning which terrifies the order of progression of the scholar’s logic, until there is no point in experience, nor any word, from which one cannot set out to explore the totality of the All, if indeed there be an All and not an expanding mystery.

It was not often so metaphysical as that, and I lived weeks of desperation when I would wish to fall in love, and would go through one girl after another, my local prestige as a bullfighter helping me no little, and there would be months when I conducted my classes and could do no work at all, but I had changed since I came to Desert D’Or, and so I could always think of
Eitel, and I could see his life, and Elena’s life, and the life of the capital, until at times my imagination would take me to all the corners I would never visit again, and their life became more real to me than anything of my own, and I would see them on the round of their days.…

 … Eitel on a particular night, a period of years after he returned to the capital. It was evening, and he had been busy since eight in the morning on his latest film. Now, as the cameramen were storing their equipment for the following day, and the electricians were wheeling the floor lamps into position on the set which would be used tomorrow, and the actors were quitting their portable dressing rooms and nodding good night to him, Eitel felt the gentle melancholy which always came over him when work was ended and the giant sound stage began to close down, almost as if he were recapturing a mood from childhood when he was hurrying back from school on a winter afternoon and a gray wind carried him in its path, blowing him home before the approaching night. One of his assistants was holding a scratchboard at his elbow with some mimeographed requisition that he was supposed to sign, and the wardrobe man was beckoning to him from a yard away, expressing an odd frustration in the little dance he made, as though for weeks he had been trying to get a word with Eitel. Actually, they had had a five-minute conference at lunch, but the wardrobe man was changeable, and whatever they had decided was probably to be decided again.

“No, that’s all, that’s all,” Eitel shouted, “we’ll work everything out in the morning,” and then with a wide wave of his hand which included the scenery and the equipment and the cave of the sound stage as much as any of the film crew who still were left, he pulled away from the ten minor decisions which nipped at his attention, clapped another of his assistants on the back, and pushed through one of the sound-proofed doors out to the studio street. In their Cadillac convertibles, studio executives were moving by at ten miles an hour, and the stenographers and secretaries were coming through the wide marble exit of the administration building, while along one of the alleys, quitting still another sound stage, a covey of lascars and pirates with their make-up vivid in the twilight came brawling toward him, talking with loud voices, their bright rags of costumes soon to be shucked in the studio’s storage rooms. A dozen or more said hello to him. Like a politician, Eitel accepted their greetings, nodding to one, smiling to another, catching a confused and tired view of bloodstained handkerchiefs wound about their heads, and crimson shirts, and full bloused pants with cinematic patches.

When he got to his office in one of the private bungalows reserved for directors he told his secretary to get Collie Munshin on the phone, and then Eitel poured himself a drink and began to shave.

Before he was done, the call came through. “How’d it go today, lover?” said the producer in his high-pitched voice.

“It was all right, I think,” Eitel said. “We’re still on schedule.”

“I’ll be down tomorrow on the set. I saw H.T. today, and I told him this picture was going to be good.”

“Everybody’s aware of that, Collie.”

“I know, I know, baby. But this has got to be good.”

“They all have to be good,” Eitel said irritably. As he spoke, he continued to shave with his free hand. “Look, Collie,” he said in a somewhat different tone, “I called Elena at lunchtime
and told her you wanted a story conference with me tonight. I don’t believe she’ll call you, but if she does, will you run interference?”

He could feel Munshin’s hesitation. This was the third time in a month he had asked such a favor. “Charley, I’ll do whatever you want,” Munshin said slowly, “but don’t forget that tomorrow’s important too.”

“Stop being a bully,” Eitel said sharply. “Why do you think I’m going out tonight?”

Munshin sighed. “Give the lady my regards.”

By the time Eitel reached the executive parking lot and stepped into his car, it was already dark. He maneuvered through the few streets of heavy traffic which circulated about the studio, and then accelerated his automobile onto one of the wide boulevards which led to the ocean. In her beach house, Lulu would be waiting, and she would be annoyed that he was late.

He had been having an affair with her for half a year, and they would see each other sometimes as often as once a week. The biggest problem was to find a place to meet. Lulu’s home, in one of the suburbs of the capital, had proved impractical, there were always friends coming in for a drink, and they had been obliged to settle for the beach house. Since it was winter, the weather was rainy, and most of the film colony who lived at the beach had moved back to the city. This left the house more or less secluded, yet it was not impossible that someone he knew would see him enter, and Eitel would park his car a distance away and walk up on foot. By another month, spring would come, and they would have to arrange some other meeting place.

On the drive, Eitel tried not to think about the movie he was making. It was the fourth picture he had directed since
Saints and Lovers
, and it was nothing remarkable. A comedy about two people who find themselves married by accident, there was very little which was not cliché, but the film had a large budget, the largest of any picture which had been assigned to him since he
had returned to the capital, and two of the biggest stars at Supreme were acting in it. His career depended to an extent on this comedy, for the partial success of
Saints and Lovers
and the middling returns on his other three pictures had not hurt him, but they had not helped him either. Given the situation, there was more than enough pressure. So, as he rode to Lulu’s house, Eitel brooded over what he must face in the next few days, worrying about the animosity which was developing between the female star and a young actress who was giving a good supporting performance, too good—it could overshadow the star—thinking that over the week end he would have to work with the writer on the dialogue of a climactic scene, it was just not comic enough, and all the while Eitel was wondering with a dull fear whether the pace was too fast or too slow. That was the question one could never answer until the cutting was done, but if his instinct was not serving him right, he could only hope it would be possible to patch the picture. Eitel sighed. He had come in sight of the beach house, and still had not rid himself of the day’s work.

Lulu was waiting impatiently. “I thought you’d never get here,” she said.

“It was an awful day,” Eitel said. “You don’t know how much I was looking forward to this.”

Lulu did not react properly. “Charley,” she said, “would you be very angry if we let things go for tonight? I’m sort of upset.”

He controlled his resentment. He had gone to considerable trouble to arrange these few hours and she should realize that. However, he merely smiled. “We’ll do whatever you want,” Eitel said.

“Charley, you know I have a tremendous physical feeling for you. My God, you’re the only man I have outside of Tony, and I don’t have to tell you what that’s like.”

Eitel gave his tender smile again. He had heard she was having two other affairs, but then, one never knew.

Lulu began to walk up and down the living room, picking her way through the beach-house furniture. “I need your advice,” she said abruptly. “Charley, there’s a crisis on.”

“A crisis?” Eitel was on guard. Could Lulu be about to make demands?

“Tony’s in trouble.” Quietly, Lulu began to cry. “I could kill him,” she said.

“What happened?”

“My press agent, Monroney, was on the phone for half an hour just now. He says I’ve got to release a statement to the papers, but he doesn’t know what I should say. Charley, I don’t either, and I have to give the statement in the next ten minutes.”

“But what is it?”

“Tony beat up a waitress in a restaurant in Pittsburgh.”

Eitel clicked his tongue. “That is a mess.”

“It’s terrible,” Lulu said. “I knew Tony would get in trouble on his tour. Why does the studio send him out on personal appearances? They ought to keep him in a cage. He’s been drunk for two days, Monroney said.”

“Well, what do you think you ought to do?”

“I don’t know. If I make the wrong move, this could finish my career.”

“More probably, it’ll finish Tony.”

She shook her head. “Not with his luck. He’s the biggest thing in town. The studio has to save him. But I can’t afford this.” Lulu cried out in anger, “Why does Tony have to do these things?”

“Don’t you think you ought to get in touch with Supreme?”

“No,” she said, “Charley, you’re not thinking. Don’t you see it’s Tony they’re going to protect. They haven’t even tried to call me. That’s the proof. They’re going to spread the story that I drove Tony to it because I’m a bad wife.”

“Supreme can’t afford to sacrifice you,” Eitel said.

“The hell they can’t. Tony’s Bimmler is higher than mine.”

“That’s only temporary.”

“Charley, stop giving me a sermon,” Lulu shrieked.

“Don’t scream at me, Lulu.”

By an effort she calmed herself. “I’m sorry,” she muttered.

“What does Monroney say?”

Lulu put her drink down. “He’s an idiot. I’m going to fire him when this is over. He thinks I should make a statement that I wash my hands of Tony, and that Tony’s brutal, and that I know exactly what that waitress went through, and so forth and so forth.”

“People won’t like it,” Eitel said.

“Of course they won’t. But Monroney says that’s the best I can do. His theory is that I have to attack before Supreme attacks me.” She threw her arms out widely. “Charley, I can’t think straight.”

“Lulu, baby,” Eitel said, “let me fill your glass. It’s not as bad as you think.”

“I’m so wound up, Charley. Please help me.”

He nodded. “I’m no expert on public relations but I have picked up a little bit.” Eitel smiled. “Offhand, I’d say it’s a mistake to try to fight Supreme’s publicity. They’re too strong for you.”

“I know they are,” she shouted in exasperation.

“But you don’t have to oppose their strength. You can use it.” Eitel paused significantly. “They don’t want to lose you unless they have to. If you make it possible, Supreme will be happy to save Tony
and
you.”

“Charley, be specific.”

“Well, you know, people love certain kinds of confessions,” Eitel said. “What I would suggest is to take the blame on yourself. Only do it in such a way that everybody feels sympathy for you.”

“I think I see what you mean,” Lulu said. “But will Monroney know how to exploit it?”

“Have you got a typewriter?” Eitel asked. “I can work it out in five minutes.”

She sat him down at a desk in her den, and he lit a cigarette, took a swallow of his drink, and began to write: