– Are you making this up, Mary? I’m sure I recall that story from one of your pictures. There was nothing wrong with your grandparents, was there? They were perfectly loving. Perhaps a little strict, but not cruel.
– How dare you say such a thing? How dare you accuse me of lying? I know what my grandfather did! I hated that man! I laughed when he died. I laughed right in his face before he took his last breath and then I slapped his cold dead corpse! I slapped him and I danced on his grave! Phone my brother! He’ll tell you it’s true!
– That would be an expensive call.
– Charge it to my account. I don’t care what it costs.
– Is it so important that I believe your story?
– No one ever believes it when I tell the truth! I can lie and lie and lie and people say I’m the most convincing actress they’ve ever seen, but as soon as I try to tell the truth people accuse me of making things up. I don’t understand it. It’s the worst thing in the world, to lie in a way people think is true and tell the truth in a way people always think is false. I know the difference between lies and truth and I’m telling one hundred percent truth. I wouldn’t lie to you, because where would it get me?
– And if I said that I think you’re lying to me even now? That I think you’re a compulsive liar?
– You’re about to make me cry, Dr. Werth.
– I’ve heard stories of violent parents and grandparents a hundred times before, Mary. I know when it’s real and when it isn’t. You’re inventing. In the language of acting, you’re improvising and extemporizing, because, and this is my medical opinion, you are still too afraid to admit what’s really bothering you.
– And what is that, Dr. Werth, since you know so much?
– You’ve asked me the question you should be asking yourself. You’re not here because you don’t know whether to cancel your birthday party. You’re not here because you think, whether or not it’s true, that your grandfather was too strict with you as a child. You’re here because of your husband, Mrs. Marsh.
– Stop calling—
– You’re here, Mrs. Marsh, because of your husband and the ways you’ve betrayed him with other men.
– It isn’t that at all. It’s not about sex.
– What is it, then?
–
– Well, Mrs. Marsh? Or is it Miss Schumacher? No? Miss Dawn? Who do you think you might be, at this particular moment?
– You want it straight? Exhibit A: I wasn’t born in this country. I grew up poor. My grandparents nearly lost the farm and then my brother gave up everything to hold on to the land and bring it back to life. I really did hitch a ride with Okies to California. I saw things on that trip you wouldn’t believe, and if you know poor people and grow up poor yourself you believe in helping those who need it, but when you get a little success you want to protect what you’ve got and stop thinking so much about others. I tried to help people when I was younger. John showed me how to do that. I wrote letters and gave money and went to meetings and parades and I really believed I was doing something good. Plenty of us believed the same thing. Only now I start to see what a dupe I was and it was the Reds who were tricking me. Exhibit B: A foreign-born naturalized American can be stripped of her citizenship and deported. I’m not stupid. I can see what’s coming. That fellow just a couple weeks ago, what’s-hisname, committed suicide off Catalina because they were going to deport him. He was a naturalized American. And a German.
– That man was convicted of treason.
– You think they wouldn’t do the same to me? You think I want to go back to Germany? My people came from what’s now the East so who’s to say they wouldn’t make me go there? Sure, it’s right to help people, but not the way the Reds want it. You work hard you should get to keep what you make. If I want to help people with charity, that’s another question.
– You’re afraid for your wellbeing, is that what you’re saying?
– The only way I don’t get deported is if I give up my husband.
– And what happens to Mr. Marsh?
– He’s American born and bred. What can they do but put him in prison for a few months if he won’t cooperate? Me they can stick on a boat with a one-way passage to the wrong side of the Iron Curtain. All John has to do is give the Feds someone else. It’s easy. I don’t feel guilty about telling the FBI what John used to do, what he still does. Gives money to all these causes and doesn’t even know what they believe or where the money goes. He opens his checkbook every time one of his seedy friends comes asking for the orphans in Ruritania or the Spanish refugees or what have you. Exhibit C: If any of this goes public my career is finished. People don’t like a wife who rats on her husband even if he’s a traitor and they don’t like a foreigner who’s been keeping it secret. So, you see, I have no choice.
– That’s what this is really about?
– That’s it. It’s not sex. It’s not my grandfather. He didn’t ever kill a dog in his life that I know of but he did whip me, and plenty. I don’t care if people know I’ve had sex. I like it and I don’t mind who knows it. Americans have a complex about sex. The whole country does.
– Extraordinary.
– And even still I can’t help thinking that what I’m doing tomorrow is wrong. I feel as though I’m betraying John, and he’s never – I mean truly never – done a bad thing to me. He is completely, boringly good, and faithful. Like a drippy-eared, tongue-lolling, wound-up springer spaniel.
– I understand, Mary, and I want to put you entirely at ease. You are doing what is right. Sometimes loyalty to one’s nation trumps loyalty to one’s marriage. Your husband has been, so it seems, disloyal to his nation, however unwittingly. You must present yourself to investigators as an innocent, unjustly influenced by his beliefs. It is only right that you do what you can to protect yourself, your daughter, and indeed the whole country.
– So it’s okay what I’m doing, telling the FBI what I know?
– Absolutely correct. As you say, your husband will have the opportunity to clear his name and tell the authorities the names of others who have been disloyal. I will encourage him to do so at his next appointment. You must do what you know to be right, Mary. Choose nation over family, however high the cost. And now, I’m afraid we’ve come to the end of our time.
– How come I don’t feel any better than when we began?
– Truth scours and chafes and leaves us aching. Tomorrow, you will cleanse yourself, and happiness will return.
– I wish I was as sure as you.
– Trust me, your sacrifice will not be forgotten.
– Thank you, Doctor.
– Thank you, Mary.
– I’ll see you on Tuesday.
– Until then. In the meantime, I’d like you to try this, an experimental new drug sent to me by a colleague who works for the government. It shows intriguing therapeutic properties and I have a sense it may help you recover some of your repressed memories and may also assuage your anxiety. Strictly speaking I’m not supposed to give it to you to take home, but I trust you’ll use it responsibly. I’d like you to try taking two a day to start, an hour or so before bed. It may help you gain insight into your past, and may also give you clarity about the present. I think you’ll find its properties quite unusual.
– What’s it called?
– Lysergic acid.
August 4, 1955
PART TWO:
Night
11
For Easter, Alessio and I throw a party. We invite Néstor and the American writer Paul, we invite friends of Alessio’s, friends of mine, a Marchesa who brings with her a gaggle of actors and writers, so we are a gathering of nearly twenty for lunch, with hard-boiled eggs to decorate and legs of slow-roasted lamb and for the vegetarians a torta pasqualina so large it takes two people to carry it from the kitchen. Alessio and I sit at either end of the long table and in order to keep Paul within view I seat him next to me and Néstor opposite him, the two greatest rivals for my l
over’s affections, although I admit this rivalry may be only in my mind. Not long after we sit down, Paul says something that surprises me. My girlfriend would love all of this, he says, I wish she could be here.
His tone reminds me of the way you used to sound, Myles, in talking about Helen to journalists or strangers. In replying, I try not to sound incredulous. Your girlfriend, Paul? And what does your girlfriend do?
She’s a teacher, he says, and then begins a tedious story about this girlfriend, her interests and how they met, how they are engaged to be married, and I think to myself, You are fooling no one at this table, my boy. We can see exactly what you are, and here, among us, you have nothing to fear, you can be yourself, be honest. So why not?
As Paul is talking I glance at Néstor and know that he, too, is skeptical, perhaps has heard much about this girlfriend already. When I ask to see a picture, Paul hesitates, whips out his phone, swiping through several photos until finding one he feels he can present. She looks very American, Néstor says, and Paul bristles, not knowing how to take such a comment. She looks lovely, I say, not wishing him to be too uncomfortable.
He helps himself to another piece of torta pasqualina and we change the topic, Néstor ranting about Roberto Benigni’s spectacle Tutto Dante, which was on the television recently and that he finds, as so much else in modern culture, in exceptionally bad taste. How can Italians like this? he wonders, thousands upon thousands of them sitting in rapture as Benigni takes one of the greatest literary works in the history of civilization and makes of it something so cheap? And the audience clapping in time to the introductory music, it is all so low. Circus music! As if Dante were nothing but a clown. And that voice, Benigni’s voice, it makes me want to vomit.
Perhaps it is not so cheap as you think, I say. Benigni takes Dante, he brings the work to life, he gives some satire on the present, and his popularity does something good, does it not? Can we imagine thousands showing up to see Robin Williams performing Walt Whitman in New York? I cannot quite imagine it, but perhaps I no longer know. Anyway, Alessio tells me that Matteo Renzi was there this year, for whatever it’s worth.
Is the fandom of a politician a mark of aesthetic greatness? Néstor asks. No! It is horrible, but horrible, he says, and sticks out his tongue as if gagging.
Taste is subjective, Néstor.
I don’t know, he says, I think maybe it is just bad.
Once lunch is finished, Paul excuses himself. He has duties with his university, some Easter event for those visiting students who have no idea whether Somerset Maugham was a man or a woman. He is grateful for our hospitality, and I thank him for the flowers he brought, although as soon as he is gone Néstor says, But doesn’t he know that hydrangeas inside the house are bad luck? You don’t bring someone hydrangeas, you must let me take them away, Desmond, he insists, and because Néstor is so forceful in all that he says and does, I cannot refuse. What is the story with Paul, I ask, did you believe what he said about the fiancée?
But not for a minute, Néstor says, and now Alessio is listening too, and the Marchesa, who laughs when she hears that Paul claims to have a girlfriend. But he’s a homosexual, she says, does he not know it?
No, you see, I think maybe, how you say, he’s in denial, says Néstor. He is a marathon runner. He runs and runs. Sometimes I go running with him, and I think, vale, it’s going to be a nice five kilometers, and two hours later we’re still running and I can barely take another step and he says to me, Oh it’s so hot and takes off his shirt even if it’s a cold day and says, Néstor, aren’t you hot? And I say, What, so hot that you want to see me without my shirt? And he laughs and says, You gays are all the same, come on, don’t be shy, I know you’re an exhibitionist. So I take off my shirt, because anyway I am a little hot and I’m not shy, but not at all, and then he wants to stop for a rest before we run back into the city and he says, Here, let’s sit on the grass, and he waits for me to sit down, and then instead of sitting down next to me he sits across from me, so he can look at me, and he stares, but I mean really stares – he can’t keep his eyes off my tits or my crotch, and I can see he has an erection through his little marathoner shorts and I think, What, he wants me to suck him off right here in a field, although he’s totally not my type, way too effeminate – there is the irony – and so I don’t offer anything of the kind and when we finally get up to run back he touches my shoulder, his hand really lingering, he squeezes my muscle and says, Wow, you must really work out, and I think, You poor kid, you don’t see what you are, and all the way back he talks about his girlfriend and he runs and runs and runs, runs so fast I struggle to keep up. What are you running from, Paul? I ask him one day and he looks at me like he just doesn’t understand. But you know where his favorite place to run is? Parco delle Cascine, and we all know what happens there, Néstor says, raising his finger to punctuate the point.
But it astonishes me that a young man could find it impossible in this day and age to be true to himself, that he should feel he has to hide, perhaps most of all from himself, because of what other people might say. I thought that had all passed, that perhaps I belonged to the last generation for whom such charades were necessary.
If only that were true, Alessio says.
Néstor nods. And also, Paul is very Catholic, Desmond. Maybe it’s no more than that.
So was I at one point, but it never got in the way of me being myself. I don’t understand.
And think of all the sex the young man must be missing out on, the Marchesa says, laughing.
Néstor smirks. Or maybe not.
Maybe he knows exactly what he is, Alessio suggests. Maybe we don’t need to feel sorry for him at all.
But if he knows, then why would he not be honest with us, when he can see what you and I are, Alessio, when it is obvious what Néstor is, when he should be able to understand that there is nothing at all to fear in our company. Even tell us, I have a girlfriend and she doesn’t know and I can’t decide what to do about it? Why could he not say that? Or do I forget the terror of coming out? Has something changed in the world that a man such as Paul feels frightened even among allies?
No one at the table can answer, no one explain. Of course I understand, I remember the terror of the closet, and I am not so lacking in empathy as to suggest that things such as faith and family and background have no effect on the way one does or does not come to accept oneself, but the encounter with Paul hurts, and perhaps hurts more, Myles, because that boy continues to remind me of you, with his physical quickness, his leanness and muscularity, and what one might call his affective softness, his tenderness and vulnerability. Even if he got it wrong, I was touched by the gesture of the flowers, not inexpensive either, and the box of chocolates that accompanied them, and the bottle of wine. I was touched by the effort he made to do what was proper, and not just proper but thoughtful. I find myself touched by the way he listens, by his eagerness to take in all that he hears, his determination to learn from people older than he, to be taught by the Marchesa not to pass a salt shaker hand to hand for fear of falling out with the other person. He took note of everything in a way that someone like Néstor, who perhaps is more magnetic, even more beautiful, arrives with a brute confidence that allows for little in the way of adaptation or evolution. Néstor will always be Néstor, and I do find him charming, attractive, but also, ultimately, unknowable. Whereas Paul, I think, is only Paul for now. In two years or ten he might have made himself into someone else entirely, into Paulo or Pablo or Pol. If I did not have Alessio, whom I love, who is a creature of evolution and tenderness in his own particular ways, I might look at Paul and think, Yes, you, in you I will recapture what I long ago lost, what I allowed myself through my own foolishness, my own terror of compromise and insecurity, to relinquish when I should have held fast to it – held fast to you, Myles.
As I continued to pack my office, I was preoccupied by our last words and the way you left when Margaret and Stuart arrived. I phoned Max at the house to remind him
to prepare dinner for you and Helen and me, and then I phoned and left a message with your maid, Antonetta, telling her to remind you and Helen that you were expected for dinner at seven, and she said – always tart with me because she claimed I left messes in the guest room where I had never actually slept but pretended to stay for the sake of deceiving her – that no one had told her you were going out for dinner and what was she supposed to do with the boeuf bourguignon. They’ll need a hearty meal after tonight, I said, so put it in the refrigerator and reheat it tomorrow.
I was closing the last of the crates when John knocked on my office door. He looked nearly as hurt and surprised as you had earlier.
Were you going to say goodbye? he asked, closing the door behind him. When I heard the news I thought it couldn’t be true. I was sure you wouldn’t leave without coming to tell me in person, but Nick said you quit, or you’d been fired, I couldn’t make out which.
I explained Porter’s ultimatum, my subsequent confrontation with Krug, and my sense that I could not possibly do what they demanded as price for remaining in the employ of the studio. The costs were simply too great.
If it was only the political matter, I said, I could almost imagine myself buckling under the pressure for the sake of being able to stay here with Myles. But if ending things with Myles is also the cost of staying, or knowing that I would have to commit to an even more byzantine performance of deception, pretending we are not what we are and what we would wish to continue being for each other, then no. It wouldn’t be fair to either of us. Do you see how horrifying this is? They’re forcing me into a position where I can do only one thing, because to stay under the conditions they demand would destroy me, to say nothing of Myles. Even my leaving won’t save him from what they have planned.
Night for Day Page 31
