LIII.Joan
JOAN and 3 interns tweaked the maquette of the Freiberg Mem. It was huge — about 10 by 4—and Barbet kept saying how amazing it looked.
The finely detailed creation comprised the valley void itself, ringed with artfully xeroxed leaf cutouts of weeping spruces and blue elderberry. The “water grove” of green-veined marble was a rectangular trough, theoretically difficult to apprehend unless one were very close — not to the model, but the eventual elegant gutter itself — the set piece’s formal entrance being a walkway through a pair (representing Samuel and Esther) of yew-carved rooms. The tub was just 18 inches deep; through a complex computer-calibrated system of ducts, drains, and siphons, it would always remain level with the meadow floor, after, or even during, minatory Napa downpours. Joan got the idea from a book on the Ajanta caves in Western India — an early, stalwart survivor of her messy Freiberg archive — where 2nd and 3rd century artists used sunlight caught by centralized pools to illuminate the recesses of honeycombed darkness so as to be able to make filigreed paintings of gods and goddesses (the scholars’ theory, anyway). Barbet occasionally had a numbskully idea — like the notion of the grand groove periodically flooding over, à la human tears — something so asinine it made Joan question the forces of nature that had adroitly conspired in favor of their partnership, in both business of design and sexual congress.
Lew called from a bungalow at the Bel-Air.
She went right over.
MORE gifts — bangles and cuffs made from exotic maples and milo wood. Lew muttered that the Indian government had officially denied his request to uproot and export “the hangman’s (spirit) tree.”
He muted the TV. The tsunami anniversary was upon them, and CNN was rerunning Larry Kings.
“Larry’s such a horny old fuck! And he farts. I know people who’ve been on that show — he farts during breaks! Just lets it rip!” He rang room service for drinks and steak. “Look,” he said, pointing to the silent screen. “It’s that supermodel whose fiancé died in Phuket. Larry just asked if she was in the shower when the wave hit. The shower! Dream on, Larry! That musta got him farting, big-time! So Miss Supermodel says, No. She’s trying to be dignified. And Larry says, ‘I understand the force of the water tore off all your clothing.’ Look! Watch! He says ‘You’re nude during all of this?…nude out in the sun 8 hours. Did you have skin damage?’ ” Lew slapped his knees in jubilation. “Not only is ol Larry farting like a goat but now he’s got a righteous furry goat hard-on! Then he specifically asks about her pelvis.”
He was relishing his role as Human Subtitler.
“She says, ‘Vell, yes’—she’s got that supermodel accent—‘but, Larry, you don’t even sink about being nude.’ So she’s in a palm tree, in her birthday suit, and these guys come along and she says they try to lift her but she’s in too much pain — did you read about this chick, Joan? Remember her? She was all over the place, cover of People—really milked it. Broke her pelvis. Shattered it. Wrote a memoir, formed a charity—‘Give2Asia Happy Hearts.’ I’m serious. Give2Asia Happy Hearts! Give to Larry’s Happy Farts! Brilliant, huh? A real Vassar chick. So Our Lady of the Martyred Supermodel says the guys leave and she doesn’t think they’re coming back. She’s nude in a tree, looking the way she looks, probably shaves her bush, waxes her poo-hole, and she doesn’t think they’re coming back! Fuck no, course not! Why would they? They’re gonna go rescue some fatassed village women instead! They’re going to go save some babies. They’re gonna dig a cow out of the mud. So Supermodel says, Lo and behold—the guys come back! And she’s so shocked at their fucking kindness! You know how teary-eyed and grateful supermodels get when someone lends a helping hand. But this time, she says, not only Thai guys, but Swedes and Bulgarians and whomever show up! Like, a whole brigade. You know what’s funny, Joan? This stuff I always find fucking interesting. Larry asks about the fiancé, if they had a wedding date set, and Supermodel says no. But they talked about it, she says, on the night before the tsunami. The night before. Supposedly she says in the memoir that when the 2 of them met on a photo shoot, ‘there was no bolt of lightning.’ Like, a dead connection. Then, 6 months later in Majorca on another shoot, she suddenly realizes they’re soulmates! Soulmates, Joan! Did you ever notice how in big tragedies people always seem to be talking about really important shit the night before? Planning out their whole fucking lives together. Like that couple who died in the earthquake in Iran…I don’t know why this crap sticks in my head. That’s how whacked out I am, bet you haven’t noticed, huh. The Iran thing: this American couple — I think they were from the Bay Area, maybe that’s why I remember. Both kind of eccentric, not so young, been dating awhile, have a little money between them, love to travel, they’re on one of their chic weekend getaways strolling along the Champs-Élysées and one of em sees a poster in a travel shop. For Iran. So. Being the intrepid soulmates that they are, they decide to go to Iran for a fucking holiday. Where do they go? To the quaint city of Bam, right when the earthquake hits. And in every single interview — it’s all about the interviews, honey! — the woman — she’s the one who survived — why does it always seem to be the woman who survives? though I guess sweet Esther would argue with me about that one — the woman, in all the interviews, says that the guy proposed to her the night before. There it is again: the night before! Of course, the next day, the quake hits and a ceiling fan goes right through her fiancé’s chest. But at least he got the chance to get down on his knees and propose! I mean, it’s like all these victims have the same fuckin publicist! Look! Joan, look!” He pointed to the screen like a 10 year old on a sugar jag. “There’s Larry, asking Our Lady of the Martyred Shtupermodels about the funeral for her fiancé and she says — Joan, you gotta look at her! Dumb as a fuckin pony! — she tells that horny farting goat about the funeral. In her memoir, she says they toasted the deceased with some drink called a Slippery Nipple! Jesus! That’s what her memoir says, I am not shitting you! The guy is fully ignited and she writes about how she’s getting ‘tipsy’! I guess that’s what you call a Polish cremation! And by the way, I think she semi cops to being addicted to laxatives (I can’t believe this diarrhea is actually in my head) which her soulmate was in the process of detoxing her from right before the wave took him out! And the funeral’s in London or wherever and she’s going on about how Superfiancé wouldn’t have wanted anyone to be sad, he’d want everyone to have a good time—I hate that. When people — if you can call a shtupermodel a person — when people make that bizarre fuckin leap in their heads so they can feel better, you demean the dead by projecting how instead of mourning they’d have wanted you, you know, to have the big celebration and fight for your right to party! So they all go out and dance. I don’t even want to think about the motley crew who showed up for Shtuperfiancé’s burial. That’s too fuckin horrible. They dance through the tears! The poignance of it all! Yeah right, I’m sure, that’s exactly what Sir Soulmate would have wanted! ‘I died drowning, getting thwacked by garbage and dead babies breaking the bones in my face as I screamed and my lungs sucked in animal feces and gasoline — but party on! And now I’m in some kind of waterworld Dante-esque hell, but you should be dancin, dancin, dance the night away!”