“How’s business?”
“Fine. How about your priests? Did they give you the money?”
“Yes. Last night. They also gave me a book about missionaries. I’m reading it now. I just found out the most missionaries ever murdered were in China.”
“Listen, do you still want a broad? I have an idea.”
“What?”
“Come with me. You won’t have to pay anything.”
He looked doubtful. “You mean it?”
“Sure. We’ll play a complicated joke on somebody.”
“Wait, I’ll just take some charcoal pills. My goddamn stomach …”
When we arrived at Azderbal’s apartment, the lights were already out. The hunchback slipped quickly into her bed, and I left. I woke around eleven, feeling much better. I thought of the girl; she must have had a terrible hangover and a hunchback was just what she needed in 105° heat. Then I decided I wouldn’t split the money she gave me with Robert, and my mood improved even more. I’m always sublimely happy when I hit on a scheme to con a partner. Nothing can quite compare with that state of bliss and contentment. I showered and went downstairs for breakfast, bowing to all the ladies I met on the way. I ordered four scrambled eggs. Robert looked sleepy and pale and had big circles under his eyes; sharing a bed with the bouncer wasn’t the most comfortable way to spend the night. After breakfast we walked out to the beach. Azderbal’s girl friend must have wakened by then and discovered it wasn’t me who had returned in the middle of the night to cover her with caresses. God knows what is really funny.
In the afternoon we took the bus to Jaffa. Robert knew a fellow there who had a dog for sale, but somehow we couldn’t find him. We went to a cafe we knew he frequented and ordered coffee. The man finally showed up and said he’d get the dog.
“You know something, Robert?” I said after the man left. “Last night I forgot my lines and since you weren’t there, I made them up myself.”
“What did you tell her?”
“I told her it’s all an act, that we’re after the money.”
“You didn’t!” he exclaimed, turning pale.
“I did. But don’t worry, she didn’t believe me. It came out beautifully. I’ll always do it from now on.”
Robert sat motionless, not saying anything.
“You’re upset because it was my idea. Come on, Bobby. Admit it. You’re jealous.”
“You could have ruined everything.”
“But I didn’t. Why, it only improved my psychological makeup. I’m a complicated and unhappy person, my pride is hurt, interpret it any way you want.”
“Did you tell her everything?”
“Enough.”
“Did you tell her about the girl from Boston?”
“No.”
“You didn’t tell her she committed suicide?”
“No.”
“You should have told her everything. That first she had to be locked up in a nuthouse and that a year later …”
“I don’t like to talk about it.”
“Then don’t talk about it at all. Look, I haven’t forgotten what kind of person you are. A man at odds with himself, even slightly unbalanced, but the idea that you could take money from a woman should be so abhorrent to you it shouldn’t even cross your mind. The way I present you is different and much more modern. Don’t forget the times we live in. I show you only in those situations which are essential to your character— when you’re in despair, in love, or seething with fury. The rest she can fill in herself. Look how Americans make films. They show only the key situations, the most important ones which move the action forward, and that’s why it’s all so convincing.”
“Then you have to come up with some new lines for me. There’s something missing from my performance, Robert. There’s a vacuum at one point. I felt this yesterday, and that’s why I departed from the script. Just after I refuse her offer to take me to the States — I don’t know how to go on.”
“At this point you should play a man at peace with himself. You’ve made up your mind. You’re like a man condemned to death being led to the firing squad, a man fully in control of his senses who knows this is the end. Understand? Ask her to tell you something about America, ask about unimportant details, like the price of ice cream or the speed limit in California. This should lead up to the climax in which no words are necessary and which must come out perfect.”
I lowered my eyes. “Okay.”
But he went on with the lecture and I had only myself to blame; I should have known better than to tell him the truth. Once he started on his favorite subject, there was no shutting him up.
“You have no sense of timing and that’s bad. And you don’t see the whole act, just the separate scenes. I’ve read that Marlon Brando said an actor has to also be a poet. There’s wisdom in that. Brando is always in command of all the material and it shows. The principle you have to base your performance on is very simple, really; if you’re locked up in a dark room, you become accustomed to the darkness after awhile. But if someone keeps turning the light on and off, your suffering is unbearable, because each time you’ve got to get used to the light and darkness. That’s why when you tell her you won’t go to America you have to follow with a period of peace, of quiet. You’re both aware that the problem remains, but you’re afraid to broach it so as not to hurt each other’s feelings. It’s like the moment of quiet before a storm, a silence terrible to bear. Haven’t you ever read books about the sea and sailors?”
“No,” I said. “As a kid I only read Ken Maynard’s adventures, slim paperbacks which we devoured in class, hidden under our desks.”
“Where did you go to school?”
“In Warsaw. A school run by nuns,” I added quickly, eager to change the subject. “I was a lousy student. One nun came up with the idea of making a dunce cap and I had to wear it for almost four years.”
“She must have been a sadist.”
“All of them were. When the bishop of Warsaw diocese died, the kids from Catholic schools had to go and pray for him. There he was, laid out in state, one gloved hand hanging limply from the open coffin, and we had to kneel down and kiss that cold, rigid hand. When my turn came, I said I won’t do it, and the nuns dragged me over by force. So I bit into that dead hand with such a fury that it took several nuns to pry me off. They almost overturned the coffin.”
“How old were you?”
“I don’t remember. Maybe nine.”
“It’s a good story,” Robert said. “Tell it to that broad. Americans love analyzing experiences like that. Let her exercise her brains. A small thing, but what joy it can bring to a woman! Just like a prick.”
8
THE MAN RETURNED WITH HIS DOG, A BOXER. BOTH OF them looked like cheats. Robert started bargaining with the man while I played with the dog. It was very thin; we knew we’d have to fatten it up before going to Tiberias. The problem was we had no place to cook. Oh well, I thought, we can always move back to the hotel on Allenby Street and borrow an electric hot plate from somebody. Maybe even Harry would agree to cook meals for the dog if we paid him extra.
“What’s it called?” I asked.
“Call it anything you like,” the man answered. “It’s yours.”
“Not yet,” Robert said. “We haven’t bought it yet. This isn’t a dog, it’s skin and bones. What have you been feeding it? Barbiturates?”
“This is a purebred. Purebreds shouldn’t be fat. Just like good fighting cocks.”
“We’ll pay you eighty pounds for the dog, but you’ll have to keep it three or four days longer. Here, fifty pounds in advance, but be sure you take good care of it.”
“Who said I’d sell it for eighty pounds?”