“Milk?” he asked Eve.
“Just black,” she said.
Franca and Anthony came into the room.
“Would you like some tea?” he asked them. “Bring two cups.”
He poured theirs; they sat on cushions on the floor.
“There’s a certain kind of greatness,” Viri said, “Strauss’s, for instance, which begins in the heavens. The artist doesn’t ascend to glory, he appears in it, he already has it and the world is prepared to recognize him. Meteoric, like a comet—those are the phrases we apply, and it’s true, it is a kind of burning. It makes them highly visible, and at the same time it consumes them, and it’s only afterwards, when the brilliance is gone, when their bones are lying alongside those of lesser men, that one can really judge. I mean, there are famous works, renowned in antiquity, and today absolutely forgotten: books, buildings, works of art.”
“But isn’t it true,” Nedra said, “that most great architects were accepted in their time?”
“Well, they had to be, or they wouldn’t have built anything. There are many architects, though, who were very highly regarded and have passed into obscurity.”
“But not the reverse.”
“No,” Viri admitted. “No one has yet gone the other way. Perhaps I’ll be the first.”
“You’re not obscure, Papa,” Franca protested.
“He obscure but he was honest,” Viri said.
“What about Obscure, the Jude?” Nedra said.
“Ha, good, very good,” he said. He felt a touch of bitterness at the jokes they were making.
When they began to prepare supper late in the day, he went upstairs. He looked at himself in the mirror, suddenly without illusion. He was in middle life; he could no longer recognize the young man he had been.
He sat in the bedroom drawing figures, words, embellishing them, making them into designs. 1928, he wrote, and after it, Born June 12 in Philadelphia, Pa. 1930 moves to Chicago, Ill. He continued the entries, listing his life as if it were a painter’s. 1941 Enters Phillips Exeter. 1945 Enters Yale. 1950 Travels in Europe. 1951 Marries Nedra Carnes.
In the quiet the thoughts came streaming to him: days he had nearly forgotten, failures, old names. 1960 The single most beautiful year of my life, he wrote. And then, beneath, Loses everything.
He was interrupted by the calling of his wife: Arnaud was on the telephone. The chronology in his pocket, he came downstairs. The lights were on, evening had come. Eve, her knees bent to one side, her smooth, stockinged feet half out of her shoes, was talking on the phone.
“You know, I can’t decide whether I wish I were there or you were here,” she was saying. Arnaud had been visiting his mother, but now he longed to speak to his other family, the family of his heart. His affection was extravagant, he told funny stories, he begged for details of the day.
Viri took the phone. They were united, all of them, in the great, blue evening that reigned over the river and hills. They talked on and on.
Afterwards he sat with the paper, the Sunday edition, immense and sleek, which had lain unopened in the hall. In it were articles, interviews, everything fresh, unimagined; it was like a great ship, its decks filled with passengers, a directory in which was entered everything that had made any difference to the city, the world. A great vessel sailing each day, he longed to be on it, to enter its salons, to stand near the rail.
You are not obscure, they told him. You have friends. People admire your work. He was, after all, a good father—that is to say, an ineffective man. Real goodness was different, it was irresistible, murderous, it had victims like any other aggression; in short, it conquered. We must be vague, we must be gentle, we are killing people otherwise, whatever our intentions, we are crushing them beneath a vision of light. It is the idiot, the weakling, he thought, the son who has failed; once beyond that there is no virtue possible.
Night falls. The cold lies in the fields. The grass turns to stone.
In bed, he lay like a man in prison, dreaming of life.
“What was the joke Booth told that was so funny?” Nedra asked. She was brushing her hair.
“His smile is extraordinary,” Viri said. “It’s like an old politician’s.”
“Where was his wife?”
“She’s learning to fly.”
“Learning to fly?”
“So he says. Anyway, there were two drunks on an elevator. It was in some hotel…”
“This is the joke?”
“A woman got on—she was completely nude. They just stood there and didn’t say anything. After she got off, one of them turned to the other: ‘You know,’ he said, ‘s’funny, my wife has an outfit exactly like that.’ ”
13
THE MORNINGS WERE WHITE, THE trees were still bare. The telephone rang. A soft vapor was rising from the roof of the Marcel-Maas barn. His wife was there alone.
“Come and see me,” she begged Nedra.
“Well, I’m going into the city later. Perhaps on the way.”
“I want to talk to you.”
Nedra drove by at noon. The uncut grass was silent, the air cool. The stone walls of the barn shone in the clear April light. Still dry, still sleeping, the orchard sloped away.
“I’m having a kir,” Nora said. “Would you like one? It’s white wine and cassis.”
“Yes, I’d love one.”
She poured the wine. “Robert is living in New York,” she said. “Here. Don’t worry, I’m not going to tell you about it.”
She sat down and sipped. “It should be colder,” she said. She jumped up to get another bottle of wine.
“This is all right.”
“No, I want you to have it exactly as it should be.” She was filled with a pathetic energy. “You deserve it,” she said.
Nedra sat calmly, but she was uncomfortable. She dreaded confidences, especially those of strangers.
“Here,” Nora said again.
The glass was chilled. “Oh, it’s good.”
Calmly, like lovers raising their eyes, they exchanged unintentional glances.
“I’m glad you came. I just wanted to see you. You know, people around here are so boring.”
“Yes,” Nedra said, “why is that?”
“They’re sunk in their lives. I don’t know any of them anyway. We hardly ever entertained. Well, there is a girl named Julie,” she said. “Do you know her? She sells cosmetics. She used to be a stripteaser. Do you like the kir?”
“It’s wonderful. What is it again?”
“Wine and cassis, very little cassis.”
Nedra was inspecting the bottle in which it came.
“It’s made from berries,” Eve said.
“What kind of berries?”
“I don’t know. French. I was telling you about Julie. She’s had a fantastic life. Gangsters used to take her to the St. George Hotel. I mean, she can describe them. They sent her home with a bodyguard. Of course, you know what the bodyguard did. Now she’s selling face cream. Would you like another one? You haven’t finished.”
“Not yet.”
“Let’s sit near the window. It’s nicer there.”
As they were moving the phone rang. Nora picked it up abruptly. “Hello,” she said. She listened. “I’m sorry, Mr. Maas isn’t here. Mr. Maas is in New York.”
She listened again. “New York, New York,” she said.
“One moment, please,” the operator was saying. Then, “My party would like to speak to Miss Moss. Is Miss Moss there?”
“Miss Moss is in Los Angeles, California,” Nora said. “Who is calling?”