"So you live inConnecticut?"
He shook his head. "We moved back five years ago when our youngest boy finished college. Well, dropped out of it, I should say. We're living half a dozen blocks from here, and I can walk to work on a day like today. It's beautiful out, isn't it?"
"Yes."
"Well,New York in June. I've never been toParis in April, but I understand it's apt to be wet and dreary. May's a lot nicer there, but the song works better with April in it. You need the extra syllable. ButNew York in June, you can see why they'd write songs about it."
When the waiter brought our food Hildebrand asked me if I'd like a beer with it. I said I was fine. He said, "I'll have one of the nonalcoholic beers. I forget which ones you stock. Do you have O'Doul's?"
They did, and he said he'd have one, and looked at me expectantly. I shook my head. The nonalcoholic beers and wines all have at least a trace of alcohol. Whether it's enough to affect a sober alcoholic is an open question, but the people I've known in AA who insisted they could drink Moussy or O'Doul's or Sharp's with impunity all wound up picking up something stronger sooner or later.
Anyway, what the hell would I want with a beer with no kick to it?
We talked about his work- he was a partner in a small public-relations firm- and about the pleasures of living in the city again after a stretch in the suburbs. If I'd met him at his office we'd have gotten right down to business, but instead we were following the traditional rules of a business lunch, holding the business portion until we'd finished with the food.
When the coffee came he patted his breast pocket and gave a snort of ironic amusement. "Now that's funny," he said. "Did you see what I just did?"
"You were reaching for a cigarette."
"That's exactly what I was doing, and I quit the goddamn things more than twelve years ago. Were you ever a smoker?"
"Not really."
"Not really?"
"I never had the habit," I explained. "Maybe once a year I would buy a pack of cigarettes and smoke five or six of them one right after the other. Then I would throw the pack away and not have another cigarette for another year."
"My God," he said. "I never heard of anyone who could smoke tobacco without getting hooked on it. I guess you just don't have an addictive personality." I let that one pass. "Quitting was the hardest thing I ever did in my life. Sometimes I think it's the only hard thing I ever did. I still have dreams where I've taken up the habit again. Do you still do that? Have yourself a little cigarette binge once a year?"
"Oh, no. It's been more than ten years since I had a cigarette."
"Well, all I can say is I'm glad there's not an open pack on the table. Matt"- we were Matt and Lew by now- "let me ask you something. Have you ever heard of a club of thirty-one?"
"A club of thirty-one," I said. "I don't suppose that would have anything to do with this club."
"No."
"I've heard of the restaurant, of course. 'Twenty-one.' I don't think-"
"It's not a specific club, like the Harvard Club or the Addison. Or a restaurant like 'Twenty-one.' It's a particular kind of club. Oh, let me explain."
The explanation was lengthy and thorough. Once he got started, he reported on that evening in 1961 in detail. He was a good storyteller; he let me see the private dining room, the four round tables (eight men each at three of them, six plus Champney at the fourth). And I could see and hear the old man, could feel the passion that animated him and caught hold of his audience.
I said I'd never heard of an organization anything like what he'd described.
"I guess you didn't hang out much with Mozart and Ben Franklin," he said, with a quick grin. "Or with the Essenes and the Babylonians. I was thinking about that the other night, trying to decide how much of it I believe. I've never really researched the subject beyond an occasional desultory hour in a library. And I never came across an organization anything like ours."
"And no one you've mentioned it to has been familiar with anything similar?"
He frowned. "I haven't mentioned it much," he said. "To tell you the truth, this is the first detailed conversation I've ever had on the subject with someone who wasn't a member himself. There are any number of people who know I get together with a group of fellows once a year for dinner and drinks, but I've never talked about the group's links to the past. Or the death-watch aspect of the whole thing." He looked at me. "I've never told my wife or my children. My best friend, we've been close for over twenty years, and he has no idea what the club is about. He thinks it's like a fraternity reunion."
"Did the old man tell everybody to keep it a secret?"
"Not in so many words. It's hardly a secret society, if that's what you mean. But I left Cunningham's that night with the distinct feeling that this thing I'd become a part of ought to be kept private. And that conviction deepened over the years, incidentally. It was understood early on that you could say anything in that room with the certain knowledge that it would not be repeated. I've told those fellows things I haven't mentioned to anyone else in the world. Not that I'm a man with a lot of secrets to tell or not to tell, but I would say I'm an essentially private person and I guess I withhold a good deal of myself from the people in my life. For Christ's sake, I'm fifty-seven years old. You must be close to that yourself, aren't you?"
"I'm fifty-five."
"Then you know what I'm talking about. Guys our age grew up knowing we were supposed to keep our innermost thoughts to ourselves. All the pop psychology in the world doesn't change that. But once a year I sit around a couple of tables with a bunch of men who are still virtual strangers to me, and more often than not I wind up opening up about something I hadn't planned on mentioning." He lowered his eyes, picked up the saltcellar, turned it in his hands. "I had an affair a few years back. Not a quick jump on a business trip, there have been a few of those over the years, but a real love affair. It went on for almost three years."
"And no one knew?"
"You see what I'm getting at, don't you? No, nobody ever knew. I didn't get caught and I never told anybody. If she confided in anyone, and I assume she must have, well, we didn't have friends in common so it's not material. The point is that I talked about that affair on the first Thursday in May. More than once, too." He set the saltcellar down forcefully. "I told her about the club. She thought it was morbid, she hated the whole idea of it. What she did like, though, was the fact that she was the only person I'd ever told. She liked that part a lot."
He fell silent, and I sipped my coffee and waited him out. At length he said, "I haven't seen her in five years. Well, hell, I haven't had a cigarette in twelve, and I damn well wanted one for a minute there, didn't I? Sometimes I don't think anybody ever gets over anything."
"Sometimes I think you're right."
"Matt, would it bother you if I had a brandy?"
"Why should it bother me?"
"Well, it's none of my business, but it's hard not to draw an inference. It was Irwin Meisner who recommended you. I've known Irwin for years. I knew him when he drank and I know how he stopped. When I asked him how he happened to know you he said something vague, and on the basis of that I wasn't surprised when you didn't order a drink. So- "