The Autograph Man

by Zadie Smith

  Darvick was small and round and in slacks, indistinguishable from a civilian, an Ultra-Progressive like Rubinfine. Green was Orthodox, much taller and with the corkscrew curls of payess, pale-skinned and flame-haired, wearing a very sharp suit and a tallis.

  “Right. Of course. I was being rude. Rabbi Darvick,” said Alex, drawing a hand from his pocket, “it’s nice to meet you. Rabbi Green. I’m not sure . . . have we? We must have, at some point, I suppose. . . . Or maybe not?”

  Rabbi Darvick made the sound of having had something caught at the back of his throat, having released it and being pleased with the fact. Rabbi Green made a noise of acknowledgment which Alex, a young man without illusions, took for what it was: a grunt.

  “Alex-Li,” said Rubinfine, “we have a problem. Maybe you could help us with?”

  Rubinfine tilted his head and smiled.

  “What’s your hurry? Shift in the cosmos? Is someone selling a Kitty Whatshername or something?”

  Poor Alex made a fist in his pocket.

  “It’s Kitty Alexander. And no. All right? Just an important auction, and I’m already late.”

  “But, Alex-Li . . .”

  Fuming, Alex made a dance to the left, but Rubinfine met him. Alex moved to the right, and there was the rabbi again. Above them, two magpies flipped black and blue from one bare tree to another across the street, carrying nothing shiny in their beaks, no gems, no glass, for magpies rarely do. Realizing the battle was lost, Alex grabbed at his flask, uncapped it, and took a swig.

  “Hmmm, that smells great,” said Rubinfine, holding Alex by his elbow and ushering him towards the car boot. “Now. Do you see it?”

  It was a mahogany bookcase, grand and in the Georgian style. It was about six inches wider than the boot. It lay on its side on the pavement. This bookcase was not going to fit in the boot, Alex saw that much.

  “Rabbi,” he said evenly, “it’s just too big. I mean, it’s too big.”

  Green raised his eyebrows as if this were news. Following a recent cue of Darvick’s, he made a frame of his fingers like a cinematographer and peered at the bookcase. Rubinfine bent down and traced his finger along a shelf.

  “I suppose we’ll have to push it along the back seats . . . maybe even as far as the passenger seat! Or—wait a minute, now wait—what about your car?”

  Alex pushed both hands deep into the sad wells of his coat pockets. So he had been set up.

  “Yes, all right. Well done. Envelope opened. Best Actor awarded.”

  He made to walk away, but Rubinfine caught him by the wrist.

  “Yes, Alex, naturally I heard about Tuesday. And far be it from me to say I told you so, but. Now, what are my two rules? One,” he said, sticking up a thumb, “mysticism and theosophy of all kinds are to be avoided. Given the old heave-ho. And, two: illegal substances can’t help anyone get closer to God. I spend my whole life telling Adam this. I mean, don’t I? And now look.”

  “Why are you giving me the lecture?” asked Alex, sulkily. “Give Adam the lecture. It’s his thing.”

  “I’ve said it before,” intoned Rubinfine, shaking his head at the floor. “At best, it’s a thirteenth-century fake, Alex, at best. The letters, the lights, the mystic writing. The Zohar is a pretty good novel, no more no less. It’s also eleven hundred years later than they say it is. Yes. Basically, it’s a forgery. It’s up there with Shabbatai Zevi, the Loch Ness, Bigfoot . . .”

  During this little speech, a pensive look had come over Green’s long face, like the sad mask of Keaton in the silents. He knelt down and placed his hands on the bookshelf. Darvick was agitated, tapping his right foot against the monument, frowning at Rubinfine.

  “Rabbi, with all respect et cetera,” said Darvick sharply, “Kabbalah is the center of the mystery. The point is, surely, that it’s only for the truly learned men, for the really big fish.”

  “He needs us,” Green murmured. “Without us, He is incomplete. The world is broken. This is the whole of the Kabbalah, Rabbi. This is not to be made light of—or rather,” said Green with a smile at his own sudden pun, “this is made out of light. The Kabbalah is the light hidden within the Torah.”

  “Whoa, whoa . . . now stop, everyone,” said jumpy Rubinfine, laughing, trying to pat both rabbis simultaneously. “Now, everybody calm down. Am I an idiot? Am I? What I meant was that people shouldn’t meddle with what they don’t understand. Trust me about this, please, Rabbi. If the world is broken, Alex-Li Tandem is not the man to mend it.” Rubinfine laughed again and encouraged the others to laugh.

  “Well, one thing’s for sure,” said Darvick loudly. “It’s obvious he can’t help us.”

  Darvick pushed by Alex and stretched over the bookcase, opening his palm to reveal a measuring tape and pulling the ribbon from its cradle.

  “He just doesn’t look the type to me. Looks schloompy.”

  “He’s an intellectual,” explained Rubinfine irritably. “They all look like that.”

  “How’s Rebecca?” queried Alex in a loud and cordial tone, just for revenge. At the thought of his wife of five years, Rubinfine struggled with his face, and from among several more benign choices, a look reminiscent of Lenin after his second stroke won out.

  “Fine, fine. Busy. Arranging a fund-raiser, I believe. Charity. Barn dance . . .” Rubinfine’s voice began to disappear. “For midgets. Though I’m told they’re not called that anymore.”

  “People of restricted growth,” boomed Darvick with authority.

  Rubinfine looked desperate, opened his mouth and then shut it again.

  Alex smiled warmly.

  “Right. Well, send her my love. Always helping somebody, that’s Rebecca.”

  Rubinfine tried to restrain it but a noticeable shudder passed over him, the tremor of the target board after a bull’s;-eye.

  “Alex,” he said stiffly, “I’ve been meaning to ask . . .”

  Rubinfine loved nothing better than to end a sentence before it was actually finished. He thought it appropriately rabbinical. You could ride the awkward silence for as long as you liked with Rubinfine, but he would not speak again until you prompted him.

  “About . . . ?”

  “That book of yours. The insulting one. Regarding goyishness and what-have-you. I was wondering whether there’d been any recent progress? Or maybe you’ve come to your senses? Abandoned it?”

  Alex swore, very gently, at Rubinfine. Rubinfine gave Alex the International Gesture for not swearing in front of rabbi-looking rabbis (crossed eyes, flared nostrils). Alex gave Rubinfine the I.G. for not mentioning his book, ever (tongue curled behind lower front teeth, mouth open).

  “Fine. Well, another thing: have you any Harrison Ford at the moment? Maybe some Carrie Fisher?”

  Alex willed blankness onto his features. Rubinfine motioned to Darvick and Green that the bookcase might be lifted, and now each rabbi took a corner, leaving one corner lurching dangerously, until Rubinfine’s long thigh slipped underneath to support it.

  “Maybe some later Harrison?” repeated Rubinfine, straightening up, wiping his sweaty forehead with the underside of his wrist. “From circa Witness, maybe. A film still. Just an eight-by-ten.”

  Alex-Li felt a deep satisfaction at the thought of an eleven-by-fourteen color photo of Ford in the Millennium Falcon boldly signed, coincidentally,

  To Mark, keep up the good work,

  Harrison Ford

  which sat in his briefcase this very day and which he had no intention of selling to Mark Rubinfine even if he gave him twenty thousand pounds and his liver.

  “I don’t think so. . . .” began Alex, rubbing his chin. “I’ve got some Marlon Brando, one Brando . . . small, though, seven by five. And a bit late in the day. Honestly, he doesn’t look his best, but I don’t think that overly detracts. I could give it to you for about two hundred and fifty. Or thereabouts.”

  Rubinfine shook his head.

  “That’s not for me. It’s really Ford I want. I’m a Ford man, Alex-Li, now, yo
u know that.”

  Rubinfine’s unremittingly goyish taste in autographs was a hard one to get your head round. And it was never just a little bit goyish. It was goyish in the extreme. It was Harrison Ford in a film about the Amish type of goyish.

  “This is the Autograph Man?” said Rabbi Green.

  “This is the Autograph Man,” said Rubinfine.

  “You’re the Autograph Man?” asked Green.

  “For my sins,” said Alex-Li Tandem.

  “You collect autographs?” asked Green.

  “I’m not a collector,” said Alex-Li, loudly and slowly. “I’m a trader. It’s not really a personal thing. I prefer to think of it as a business.”

  Green frowned. The left side of his face hiked up as if some god, fishing for rabbis, had just hooked himself a juicy one.

  “You run around after people?” asked Green, wagging a finger. “You know, with a pen and paper? People deserve a little privacy. Just because people are on the television, this doesn’t mean they don’t have feelings. You should leave people alone.”

  Alex took a long, cleansing breath. “I don’t hunt. I don’t hunt anymore and I don’t collect. I collect only in so far as I trade. I buy, I sell. Like any other business. I don’t wait outside theaters at midnight. That’s kid stuff.”

  “Well . . .” said Darvick, going over his front teeth with a muscular-looking tongue. “If you’re so clever . . . have you got Bette Davis? You’re probably too young to remember Bette, but—”

  “No,” said Alex firmly, patting his closed case as if to ensure that Bette was absent. “No . . . I had an early still from Jezebel, but it went last week.”

  Darvick clapped his hands.

  “He knows Bette? Now, you see, I liked Bette. She had a certain flavor about her. People talk about divas these days, but they don’t really know. Well, well. A schloompy guy like this, you wouldn’t guess he knows Bette. But he knows Bette.”

  Tandem shut his mouth, thrust his free hand into his trouser pocket and felt his own testicles, a familiar action that had saved him from grievous misdemeanor in the past.

  “I kind of know everyone,” he answered quietly, admirably. “This is my card. I’ll write my home phone and my name. Look, phone me in a few weeks, Rabbi Darvick. I’ll keep an eye out in case any Bette turns up. She’s hardly obscure.”

  “Bub, I won’t be here in a few weeks, this is a flying visit,” said Darvick, reaching over and taking the business card anyway. “Call that a signature? Alex . . . what? I can’t read that.”

  “Li Tandem. I thought I wrote it perfe— Look, oh, well, it’s typed just there, Rabbi, on the other side. Alex-Li Tandem.”

  “Alex-Li Tandem? ‘Tandem Autographs: More Stars than the Solar System.’ Huh? What kind of a name is that, anyway? Tandem? You converted?”

  “The father, Li-Jin Tandem—may his memory be a blessing—was Chinese,” explained Rubinfine, and with so much phony solemnity Alex wanted to reach over and stab him in the eye with his house keys. “Tan, originally. Someone thought ‘Tandem’ sounded better. Odd—clearly doesn’t. Mother, Sarah. Lives in the country now. Lovely lady.”

  “Is that a fact,” said Darvick. “Chinese. Is that a fact.”

  “Those are the facts, yes,” said Alex-Li. “Now, gentlemen, if you’ll excuse me . . .”

  “You’re excused, you’re excused,” said Rabbi Darvick, petulant, bending down and hooking his fingers under the bookcase once again. “If you’re not a help, you’re a hindrance!”

  “If you’re not for us, you’re against us!” said Rabbi Green.

  “Well,” said Rubinfine, “maybe you’ll stop involving yourself with things beyond your understanding? Maybe. And maybe I will see you on Shabbat. We need to talk seriously, Alex. Maybe we will. Maybe a lot of things. But ‘maybe’ is a word for men, Alex. ‘Maybe’ is for Mountjoy. But in God’s mind, no man says ‘Maybe.’ ”

  “Yeah,” said Alex, “okay.”

  “Maybe,” said Rubinfine. “This word is not in His vocabulary.”

  “Right,” said Alex. “Got it.”

  “And Alex, if you . . .”

  Stress induced Alex-Li Tandem’s jaw to lock for a moment and it was some effort to free it.

  “If I what, Rabbi?”

  “If you get any Ford, remember me.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Hod

  SPLENDOUR • One tube, many people • Goyish mime •

  She who sees • Shadows • Jewishness and Goyishness •

  John Lennon was Jewish • The night in question •

  Enduring everyone • “The Ballad of Esther Jacobs” •

  The tragedy of Alex-Li • The fundamental goyishness of

  Leonard Cohen

  1.

  By the doors, a very old man who had made a dreadful smell. The carriage was putting on a brave face, though, for surely he could not help it. By the NO EATING poster, two schoolboys eating. Standing at the extreme other end, three women, dressed identically in bright polyester flecked, supposedly, with colorful paint. They were telling humorless anecdotes about their weekends. They were placed at regular intervals along the melancholy arc of sexual maturity and they knew it. They laughed frenziedly, jiggling on the hand straps, demonstrating what three women having fun looks like. They did not like each other, Alex thought.

  Sighing, he opened his flask, took a deep swig. The smell made his eyes water. Rather than ask him to close the flask, a woman to his right performed an elaborate goyish mime—watch-check, realization of missed stop, little gasp, up on balls of feet—then got out of her seat at the next station and left the train. Thirty seconds later, Alex spotted her in the adjoining carriage squished between a very fat man and a nun, such a very tidy example of karma that he found himself considerably moved.

  THE TRAIN WAS stuck overground between stations when Alex’s phone rang. Without thinking the thing through properly, he answered it.

  “The thing about a delusion,” Joseph was saying rather smugly, “is, if you allow it to continue, it develops, and then it can get very serious.”

  Alex could picture him, exactly. He had been to Joseph’s office, observed him in his cubicle. Even in that room of five hundred identical cubicles, Joseph’s was peculiar for its total absence of personalization. No photographs, no flags, no jokes. Just the neat package of Klein himself, his polished shoes, his compact computer, his hands-free phone. Always the only man in a suit and tie. One of the very few who arrived at his desk by a quarter to nine. Leant forward, both elbows on the desk, his fingers clutching each other in imitation of a church roof. Forehead pressed against the steeple.

  “Joe, I’m on a train.”

  “Yes. And I’m at work.”

  “I’m stuck between stations.”

  “Alex, I have to take a call now.”

  “Joseph, please don’t put me on hold. If you put me on hold I’m going to grow a tumor.”

  “We need to talk seriously.”

  “Everybody wants to talk seriously to me today.”

  “I’ve got to answer this—you’re going to have to listen to some music. I’m sorry about it. I’ve got a claimant on the other phone. Hold the line, please. Hello, Heller Insurance?”

  Joseph had been working for Heller since he left college, a fact that depressed Alex more than it did Joseph. In the world of Heller, as Alex understood it, the principles of Heisenberg were dangerously ignored: at Heller, certainty reigned. At Heller, effect was neatly traced back to cause. And someone always had to pay for it. So if a man tripped, for example over a paving stone, or burnt himself with a cup of hot coffee, he was encouraged to phone the number at the end of the advert so that Heller Insurance might sue somebody on a no-win-no-fee basis, the small type of which agreement involved a fee whatever the outcome. There were no accidents in the minds of Helleric employees. Only malevolent woundings. And by coincidence, whenever Joseph happened to be speaking of his work, Alex was usually thinking of some way to seriously injur
e himself.

  Tell me he’s lazy, tell me he’s slow, sang the phone.

  Bored, cradling phone between ear and chin, Alex eyed the youngest of the women in polyester, imagining what it might be like to see her in unlikely underwear and awkward positions. Against his will, his mind went along with the singing phone.

  Singer: Ava Gardner (1922–1990)

  Song: “Can’t Help Lovin’ Dat Man”

  Film: Show Boat (1951)

  I was married to Mickey Rooney!

  The marriage represented the biggest female-to-male height

  differential in Hollywood!

  As Alex saw it, the only fortunate aspect of Joseph’s job at Heller Insurance was the fact that Joseph himself never had to know what it was like to be put on hold by Heller Insurance.

  AS THE SONG finished and started once more, Alex remembered a sentiment from his favorite (and only) poet. Why let this toad called work squat on your life? Joseph should have been an Autograph Man. It was in his nature. He was careful, shrewd. But also passionate, also devoted. The perfect coalescence of collector and trader. When he was a boy, Joseph’s enthusiasm for the trade was so strong it was viral; Alex had caught it and kept it ever since. At fifteen Alex started to sell seriously, at twenty he had a business. But Joseph, ever under the spell of his father, never had the guts to make his hobby his career. There was cowardice in this, Alex thought, and he blamed it for the strained state of their relations. Alex thought Joseph resented him, and Alex resented Joseph for resenting him. Neither of them spoke of their resentments, real or imagined. And both of them resented that. As a formula for the slow disintegration of friendship, the above is practically mathematical.

  “Alex?”

  “Still here.”

  “What’s the music, out of interest? Vivaldi?”

  “No. Show tunes. Bad ones. Don’t put me on hold again, man. I barely got through the first time.”

  “Alex, have you spoken to Adam?”

  “This morning. Before I spoke to you. Regarding the car disaster. I drove Esther into a bus stop.”