Trust, page 17
I was comforted by the idea of order in their novels. It all started with crime and chaos. Even sense and meaning themselves were challenged—the characters, their actions and their motives seemed incomprehensible. But after a brief reign of lawlessness and confusion, order and harmony were always restored. Everything became clear, everything was explained and everything was well with the world. This gave me enormous peace. And, perhaps more importantly, these women showed me I did not have to conform to the stereotypical notions of the feminine world. Their stories were not just about romance and domestic bliss. There was violence in their books—a violence they controlled. These writers showed me, through their example, that I could write something dangerous. They showed me that there was no reward in being reliable or obedient: the reader’s expectations and demands were there to be intentionally confounded and subverted. They were the writers who first made me want to become a writer.
In fact retelling these books was an essential part of my literary education. Over dinner I would narrate entire novels to my father, footnoted with conjectures and predictions. Spellbound, he followed every little detail of the plot, and I learned how to lead him down false trails and make him chase red herrings to heighten his surprise at the final revelation. He would be so captivated that he forgot to eat. “Look! My food! Cold again! All your fault,” he often said at the end, mock-scolding me as we laughed.
Eventually, just like in the detective novels I read at the library, a new order of sorts arose from the devastation following my mother’s death, one with its own logic and rituals. This new regime, for lack of a better word, was the result of need.
My father had never done any household chores, except for cooking his “special dishes,” which created an extraordinary amount of work for everyone around him. His press was in the middle room of our railroad apartment, and soon the boundaries between his work and our family life, between bathroom and kitchen, between food and garbage, between clean and dirty, faded and disappeared. It fell on me to keep things going. Eight years old and fully in charge of the house. If I did not do the washing, there were no fresh linens; if I neglected to sweep, our footprints became visible in the dust; if I left the dishes in the sink, they remained in the sink; if I went without putting my father’s tools and supplies away, gunky dots of contagious ink multiplied all over the walls, beds and clothes.
After my mother’s death I found this new role, which I performed inexpertly and in an improvised fashion, natural. I had become the woman in the house. My father, the anarchist, found the fact that child labor was required to keep the gender status quo intact equally natural.
Aside from this photograph not much was left from my mother. I remember her few possessions in her drawer—a pewter hairbrush, a manicure kit, a few medals of saints hidden behind her underwear, a broken watch with a mother-of-pearl dial, the gold-plated ring with a watery-blue stone she never dared to wear (and I never take off) and some clothes. I have no doubt my father, who never lived with another woman after my mother, loved her very much. But it was not out of love or because of his inability to “let go” that he had left the things in her drawer untouched. It just never occurred to him to clean them out.
8
During my tests and interviews at Bevel Investments I first learned something I had the chance to corroborate many times throughout my life: the closer one is to a source of power, the quieter it gets. Authority and money surround themselves with silence, and one can measure the reach of someone’s influence by the thickness of the hush enveloping them.
In the reception area on the top floor there were four secretaries, two of whom were uninterruptedly on the phone. People went in and out two side doors, occasionally stopping for brief, whispered conversations. Clerks picked up and delivered documents. Yet nothing above isolated murmurs could be heard. It was as if, together with the intimidating furniture, the carpets one avoided treading on and the oppressively ornate wood panels, the room had been provided with a soft pedal.
I was glad to see that the painfully shy girl in the brown suit from the last round of interviews had made it to this stage as well. We smiled at each other as I sat across from her and a young woman in a lavender dress, clearly also an applicant. My gaze wandered from one to the other. They looked remarkably alike. Identical straight black hair, same dark brown eyes, comparable height, similar build. Their faces were slight variations on the same idea of a face. My face. Because by looking at them, I realized that I, too, was a variation on that idea. The three of us were different embodiments of the same type.
The shy girl was told she was expected in the office. As she left, I caught the applicant in the lavender dress staring at me, and from her intense expression, fusing disbelief with outrage, and the vehemence with which she looked away after we paused on each other’s eyes, I could tell that she also had noticed the disturbing likeness between us. But this uncomfortable moment was fleeting. Almost as soon as she had entered the room, the shy girl came out, once again with her downturned, mortified gaze. I was called in next.
At the other end of a colorless office that made me think of a swimming pool (and stepping into it felt like immersing myself into a different element), behind a desk, with the back of his swivel chair turned to me, sat a man looking out the window, while out there, looking back at him, was a welder sitting on a beam that seemed to be floating in the sky. A cold wave of vertigo washed over me, and I froze by the door. Each man appeared to be hypnotized by the other. But when the welder adjusted his cap and his coat, always staring at the man in the chair, I realized that, to him, the window was an impenetrable mirror.
The welder’s audacity and his unknowing irreverence (oblivious of the abyss, he kept fixing his attire while staring, without realizing it, at the powerful man in the swivel chair) might have inspired me to proceed as I did. Whoever was sitting in that chair surely was tired of his subordinates’ stuttering genuflections. I decided he would welcome a bold approach—someone taking the reins of the conversation.
“Soon you won’t have much of a view,” I said.
“I expect to be unable to see the river by the end of the month.”
“And it looks as if that building will be taller than this.”
“It will be,” he said as he swiveled around to look at me.
There was no meaning in Andrew Bevel’s face. Just like in the pictures I had seen so many times in the paper, it was a face that had given up on expression. Mimicking his impassiveness, I pretended to be unaffected by his presence.
“Sorry to hear that.” I was surprised to discover that my voice did not tremble.
“Don’t be. I own both of them and will be moving to the new one as soon as it’s done. Please.” He gestured to the chair across his desk.
It was a long walk.
“You’re not Ida Prentice,” he said as I sat down.
I felt myself blush and could see I would soon lose the ground gained with my initial show of confidence.
“Somehow I thought I wouldn’t have gotten here as Ida Partenza.”
“Somehow I think you’re right. But I’m certainly glad you did get here.”
“Thank you.”
Up close I discovered that Bevel’s face was almost two faces: the surprising boyishness of the upper half, with its very blue eyes and almost imperceptible freckles, was rebuked by his thin lips and exacting chin.
“Your father is a printer. You live with him roughly over there.” He pointed across the river, in the general direction of Red Hook. “I’m so sorry about your mother. I, too, lost my parents, both of them, at an early age.”
I hoped my face did not show that he had managed to intimidate me.
“The story you made up for yourself in your little essay was very convincing, though.” He held up the cream-colored sheet that had been lying on his desk.
“It seems my life is almost as public as yours.”
He laughed, motionlessly, through his nostrils.
“Oddly, you’ve managed to get straight to the point. This is, indeed, all about my public life. Having one is an unwelcome offshoot of my work. I’ve tried to nip it, stamp it out. It grows back. Always. With renewed strength. So I’ve decided to take control over it. If I’m to have a public life, I’d rather have my version of it out there.”
The beam with the welder on it moved behind him. Noticing my eyes shift and focus beyond him, Bevel turned around.
“I was wondering why that was taking so long.” He turned back to me. “Anyway. This is not about me, actually. It’s about my wife.”
“I am so sorry for your loss.”
“Thank you. The fixation of the public on my life is one thing. But when this obsession touches and sullies my wife, that’s a whole different business. She—her image, her memory—won’t be desecrated.” He pursed his lips as if to make sure his indignation remained sealed within him and then took a book out from a drawer and placed it on his desk. “Have you read this?”
He slid the book over the desk. I picked it up. The dust jacket was sage green and the font was black and gray—a palette reminiscent of a dollar bill. There were no illustrations or adornments of any kind. It simply read:
Bonds
A Novel
HAROLD VANNER
As I type these words, I am looking at that very book that Andrew Bevel gave me that day. The dust jacket is now brittle with age, its flaps holding on by a thread to the sun-bleached spine. But underneath these tatters the cover retains the colors that have faded from the jacket. Some of the bound sections are slightly separated from the rest, like little booklets. I find this fragility becomes the book.
“No,” I answered, leafing through the pages.
“Well, you are one of the lucky few, then. It came out about a year ago. This scribbler, Mr. Harold Vanner, had almost been forgotten. Not that I would know. But they tell me he had a bad run. After a few moderately successful novels about ten years ago he fell into disfavor. His books didn’t sell. Drink. Dipsomania, it seems. The regular squalid story. And then, shortly after my wife’s death, he started writing this thing. He met her, Mildred, a few times. Socially. Superficially. Like so many other people. I think he may even have met me on one of those occasions.”
He turned around to take a quick look at the beam’s progress. It was out of sight, but uncannily, given the height, voices could be heard out the window.
“At all events, he wrote the book. It came out to favorable reviews. Everyone I know seems to have read it; everyone is still talking about it. I’m not a critic. I’m not interested in literature. I haven’t even read the reviews. But I can tell you why this book is a sensation: because it’s patently about my wife and me. And because it makes us look bad.”
He looked at me, perhaps expecting a reaction. I thought my silence would be better than any questions or remarks.
“Friends and acquaintances tell me how sorry they are about the book. Do you understand how irritating that is? Because through their show of sympathy they’re letting me know they’ve read this garbage. Everyone seems to have read this garbage. And everyone can tell it’s about us. You’ll see for yourself. It couldn’t be anyone else. Maybe because there are a few vaguely correct details in there, people think this is a creditable source. There even are reporters following leads and clues in the book, trying to corroborate certain scenes and passages. Can you believe it? The imaginary events in that piece of fiction now have a stronger presence in the real world than the actual facts of my life.”
Something like anger started to gather behind his face. He took a deep breath.
“Let me be plain. This is nothing but libelous trash. Opportunistic defamation. My business practices are grossly misrepresented. I come off as a gambler. As a con man. And he claims that I’m done. That I’m old and my time is over. That I’ve lost my touch and am in frank decline. Look out the window. Does that new building speak of defeat?” He made a somber pause. “Anyway, this is all irrelevant. I’m used to being smeared. But Mildred . . . What this scoundrel has done to Mildred . . . The gentlest of women portrayed as a raving . . .” He shook his head. “I won’t allow for this opprobrious fabrication to become the story of my life, for this vile fantasy to soil the memory of my wife.”
I put the book back on the desk, not wanting to be associated with it by proximity.
“My attorneys are already taking care of Mr. Vanner. But I fear the time has come for me to speak up. Rumors of all sorts have surrounded me all my life. I’ve grown accustomed to them and take care never to deny gossip and tales. Denial is always a form of confirmation. I’m loath to make public statements of any kind, but this fiction demands to be countered with facts. And facts I shall provide. I would like you, Miss Partenza, to help me write my autobiography.”
We looked at each other for a moment.
“But, sir, I’m not a writer.”
“Goodness knows the last thing I want is a writer. Damn them all. A secretary is what I need. I know you are an extraordinary stenographer and typist. I shall speak; you will take dictation. And from your essay here I can see you have a way with words.” He looked at the page again. “‘Carve our present out of the shapeless block of the future.’ You also have a penchant for storytelling that may come in handy.”
He looked at his watch.
“Let’s start next week. At my house. In the meantime I must demand your discretion. Not a word of this to anyone.”
“Of course.”
“Talk to the girls outside. They’ll give you all the details. Thank you.” He attempted a smile. “And take the book.”
As I was walking back to the door, I heard Bevel pick up a receiver.
“Let the other girl go.”
9
Jack was having beer and sandwiches with my father when I got home. I just could not get used to his moustache. It looked fake, as if it had been pasted onto the face that otherwise had remained unchanged since our childhood.
I had known Jack since the time he was Giacomo. His family moved to the neighborhood shortly after my mother died. Back then, in my grief, I was beyond reach and uninterested in making new friends, but some years later, in our early teens, we dated for a short while. At the time, this meant going for long weekend walks along deserted streets by the river, during which he silently calculated what the best spot for the next kiss would be while I tried to figure out whether I wanted to be kissed again or not. This lasted for a few weeks, and then we grew apart and mostly avoided each other around the neighborhood. Eventually he left for college in Chicago, which I found impressive. He returned two years later, a different person. Like in a dream, it was him but not him. He had acquired a new wardrobe, a larger vocabulary and that moustache. A whole new persona for a whole new Jack: he was a journalist now. College had become a waste of time, he said. The truth was out there, in the streets. He was impatient to get out into the real world and leave his mark. We started seeing each other in a loose, unclear way. I think my desire for being smitten was stronger than my desire for him.
My father’s brow clouded for a moment when he saw me in my mother’s clothes again, but he immediately raised his glass and asked me to join them. Jack gave me part of his sandwich.
“Anyway. I’ll finish the story quickly,” my father said. “They’ve captured Paolo, so I can’t go back, and right ahead of me is this group of people by the road. One of them is a carabiniere. I can see him. But he hasn’t seen me.”
Jack listened with an enraptured half smile.
“What can I do?” My father shrugged.
“Yes, what did you do?”
“I move forward, hoping for the best. I need a story for the carabiniere. Maybe that I left my bag at the market for a moment and someone just planted those pamphlets in it. But remember I also had the gun. Maybe I could explain one of those things. But both? No.”
“But the carabiniere hadn’t seen you. Couldn’t you just ditch the bag and the gun and pick them up later?”
Jack did not notice the flash of irritation in my father’s eyes.
“No,” my father said quickly, cleared his throat and resumed his story with his previous enthusiasm. “So I walk on, holding the gun open over my arm like this.” He hung a kitchen towel over his forearm. “Like I’d seen hunters do. ‘I’ll walk by the carabiniere,’ I think, ‘and wave like I’m a hunter on a stroll,’ you know?”
“Nice.”
I asked Jack to pass the salt, and he handed it to me.
“Ah! No, no, no, no!” my father yelled at Jack. “Put it down, put it down, put it down! What kind of Italian are you? Never pass salt from hand to hand. Terrible luck! And you spilled some, too!” He tossed a pinch of salt over his left shoulder. “There. That should do it.”
He collected himself.
“So I’m getting closer. They notice me. I’m sweating. The carabiniere now looks straight at me. I’m smiling and sweating. The carabiniere starts walking toward me. And it’s not just those pamphlets in my bag. It’s also all this information about my group. So I’m sweating. I can see now the carabiniere has his gun in his hand.”
“No!”
“We keep walking toward each other. He waves at me. The people by the side of the road move. I see now they’re standing around a big black bulk on the ground. ‘Is that gun loaded?’ the carabiniere asks. He’s agitated. ‘No, sir,’ I say. ‘Do you have bullets?’ he asks. I decide to stick with the hunter story. ‘Of course,’ I say. ‘I’m hunting.’ ‘Good,’ the carabiniere says. ‘Come with me.’ And as we approach the people by the road, I can see they’re standing by a horse. A fallen horse. Wounded.”
