by Paul Auster
ON THE STUPIDITY OF MEN
I wound up buying a necklace that cost something in the neighborhood of a hundred and sixty dollars (thirty dollars off the original price because I paid in cash). It was a fine and delicate piece of work, with bits of topaz, garnet, and cut glass strung along a thin gold chain, and I felt certain it would look attractive sitting around Rachel’s slender neck. I had lied about her birthday – which was still three months down the road – but I figured it wouldn’t hurt matters to send an additional peace offering as a follow-up to the letter I’d written on Tuesday. When all else fails, bombard them with tokens of your love.
Nancy’s workshop was in a back room on the bottom floor of the house, and the windows looked out on the garden, which wasn’t a garden so much as a tiny playground, with a swing set in one corner, a plastic slide in another, and a host of toys and rubber balls in between. As I sifted through the various rings, necklaces, and earrings she had for sale, we chatted in a comfortable sort of way about any number of topics. She was an easy person to talk to – very open, very generous, altogether warm and friendly – but, alas, not so terribly bright as it turned out, since it wasn’t long before I learned that she was a devoted believer in astrology, the power of crystals, and all kinds of other New Age hokum. Oh, well. Nobody’s perfect, as the old movie line goes – not even the Beautiful Perfect Mother. Too bad for Tom, I thought. He was going to be sorely disappointed if he ever managed to get into a serious conversation with her. But then again, perhaps that was all for the best.
I had figured out some of the essential facts of her life, but I was still curious to know if my other Holmesian theories were valid or not. I therefore continued to question her – not making a big point of it, but jumping in whenever the opportunity presented itself, trying to go about it as subtly as I could. The results were somewhat mixed. I had been right about the matter of her schooling (P.S. 321, Midwood High, Brooklyn College for two years before dropping out to test her luck as an actress, which hadn’t come to anything) but wrong about inheriting the house from her deceased parents. Her father was dead, but her mother was very much above ground. She occupied the largest bedroom on the top floor, rode her bicycle through Prospect Park every Sunday, and at fifty-eight was still working as a secretary for a law firm in midtown Manhattan. So much for my infallible genius. So much for Glass’s unerring eye.
Nancy had been married for seven years and referred to her husband as both Jim and Jimmy. When I asked if he was Mazzucchelli or if she’d kept her maiden name, she laughed and said that he was pure Irish. Well, I answered, at least Italy and Ireland both began with the letter I. That got another laugh out of her, and then, still laughing, she told me that her mother’s first name and her husband’s last name were identical.
“Oh,” I said. “And what name is that?”
“Joyce.”
“Joyce?” I paused for a moment in a kind of addled wonder. “Are you telling me you’re married to a man named James Joyce?”
“Uh-huh. Just like the writer.”
“Incredible.”
“The funny thing is, Jim’s parents don’t know the first thing about literature. They hadn’t even heard of James Joyce. They named Jim after his mother’s father, James Murphy.”
“Well, I hope your Jim isn’t a writer. It wouldn’t be much fun trying to publish work with that name branded on your head.”
“No, no, my Jim doesn’t write. He’s a Foley walker.”
“A what?”
“A Foley walker.”
“I have no idea what that is.”
“He makes sound effects for movies. It’s part of postproduction. The mikes don’t always pick up everything on the set. But say the director wants to have the sound of someone’s feet crunching on a gravel driveway, you know? Or turning the page of a book, or opening a box of crackers – that’s what Jimmy does. It’s a cool job. Very exact, very interesting. They really work hard at getting things right.”
When Tom and I met for lunch at one o’clock, I duly reported every scrap of information I’d managed to glean from my talk with Nancy. He was in particularly jovial spirits, and more than once he thanked me for having taken the initiative that morning and coerced him into his face-to-face encounter with the B.P.M.
“I didn’t know how you’d react,” I said. “By the time I got to the other side of the street, I was pretty sure you’d be angry with me.”
“You took me by surprise, that’s all. You did a good thing, Nathan, a brave and excellent thing.”
“I hope so.”
“I’d never seen her up close before. She’s absolutely stunning, isn’t she?”
“Yes, very pretty. The prettiest girl in the neighborhood.”
“And kind. That most of all. You can feel the kindness radiating from every pore of her body. She’s not one of those stuck-up, standoffish beauties. She likes people.”
“Down to earth, as the saying goes.”
“Yes, that’s it. Down to earth. I don’t feel intimidated anymore. The next time I see her, I’ll be able to say hello, to talk to her. Little by little, we might even become friends.”
“I hate to disillusion you, but after talking to her this morning, I don’t think you two have much in common. Yes, she’s a lovely kid, but there ain’t too much going on upstairs, Tom. Average intelligence at best. College dropout. No interest in books or politics. If you asked her who the secretary of state was, she wouldn’t be able to tell you.”
“So what? I’ve probably read more books than any person in this restaurant, and what good has it done me? Intellectuals suck, Nathan. They’re the most boring people in the world.”
“That could be. But the first thing she’ll want to know about you is what your astrological sign is. And then you’ll have to talk about horoscopes for the next twenty minutes.”
“I don’t care.”
“Poor Tom. You’re really stuck on her, aren’t you?”
“I can’t help it.”
“So what’s the next step? Marriage, or just a plain old affair?”
“If I’m not mistaken, I believe she’s married to someone else.”
“A minor detail. If you want him out of the picture, all you have to do is ask. I have good connections, son. But for you, I’d probably take care of the job myself. I can see the headlines now: EX-LIFE INSURANCE SALESMAN MURDERS JAMES JOYCE.”
“Ha ha.”
“I’ll say one thing about your Nancy, though. She makes very nice jewelry.”
“Do you have the necklace with you?”
I reached into my inside breast pocket and pulled out the long, narrow box that contained my morning’s purchase. Just as I was opening the lid, Marina arrived at the table with our sandwiches. Not wanting to exclude her from the unveiling, I slid the box in her direction so she could look as well. The necklace was mounted lengthwise on a bed of white cotton wool, and as she leaned over to examine it, she promptly announced her verdict. “Ah, qué linda,” she said, “such a pretty thing.” Tom seconded her opinion with a silent nod, no doubt too moved to speak because he was thinking about his darling Nancy, whose celestial hands had wrought the small glimmering object that sat before him.
I lifted the necklace from the box and held it out toward Marina. “Why don’t you put it on?” I said. “So we can see what it looks like.”
That was my original intention – simply to have her model it for us – but once she took the necklace in her hands and held it up against her light brown skin (that small area of exposed flesh just below the unfastened top button of her turquoise blouse), I suddenly changed my mind. I wanted to give it to her as a present. I could always buy another necklace for Rachel, but this one suited Marina so perfectly that it already seemed to belong to her. At the same time, if I gave the impression that I was coming on to her (which I was, of course, but with no hope), she might have felt that I was putting her in an awkward position and refused to accept it.
“No, no,” I said
. “Don’t just hold it up. Put it on, so we can make sure it hangs right.” As she fumbled with the clasp in back, I hastily tried to think of something that would overcome her resistance. “Someone told me it’s your birthday today,” I said. “Is that true, Marina, or was that guy just pulling my leg?”
“Not today,” she answered. “Next week.”
“This week, next week, what difference does it make? It’s coming soon, and that means you’re already living inside the birthday aura. It’s written all over your face.”
Marina finished putting on the necklace and smiled. “Birthday aura? What’s that?”
“I bought this necklace today for no particular reason. I wanted to give it to someone, but I didn’t know who that person was. Now that I see how good it looks on you, I want you to have it. That’s what the birthday aura is. It’s a powerful force, and it makes people do all sorts of strange things. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was buying the necklace for you.”
At first she seemed happy, and I thought there wasn’t going to be a problem. From the way she looked at me with those vivid brown eyes of hers, there was no question that she wanted to keep it, that she was touched and flattered by the gesture, but then, once the initial surge of pleasure had passed, she began to think about it a little, and I saw doubt and confusion enter those same brown eyes. “You’re a terrific guy, Mr. Glass,” she said, “and I really appreciate it. But I can’t take presents from you. It ain’t right. You’re a customer.”
“Don’t worry about that. If I want to give something to my favorite waitress, who’s going to stop me? I’m an old man, and old men are free to do what they want.”
“You don’t know Roberto,” she said. “He’s a very jealous guy. He won’t like me taking things from other men.”
“I’m not a man,” I said. “I’m just a friend who wants to make you happy.”
At that point, Tom finally added his two cents to the discussion. “I’m sure he doesn’t mean any harm,” he said. “You know what Nathan’s like, Marina. He’s a nutty person – always doing crazy, impulsive things.”
“He’s crazy, all right,” she said. “And also very nice. It’s just that I don’t want any trouble. You know how it is. One thing leads to another, and then boom.”
“Boom?” Tom said.
“Yeah, boom,” she replied. “And don’t ask me to explain what that means.”
“All right,” I said, suddenly understanding that her marriage was far less tranquil than I had supposed. “I think I have a solution. Marina keeps the necklace, but she doesn’t take it home. It stays here in the restaurant at all times. She wears it at work, and then she stores it in the cash register overnight. Tom and I can come in every day and admire the necklace, and Roberto will never know a thing.”
It was such a preposterous, underhanded proposal, such a devious, rawboned bit of chicanery that Tom and Marina both cracked up laughing.
“Wow,” Marina said. “You’re one hell of a sneaky old man, Nathan.”
“Not as old as all that,” I said.
“And what happens if I forget I’m wearing the necklace?” she asked. “What happens if I go home one night and still have it on?”
“You’d never do that,” I said. “You’re too smart.”
And so I forced the birthday present on the young and guileless Marina Luisa Sanchez Gonzalez, and for my efforts I received a kiss on the cheek, a prolonged and tender kiss that I will remember to the end of my days. Such are the perks allotted to stupid men. And I am nothing if not a stupid, stupid man. I got my kiss and my beaming smile of thanks, but I also got more than I’d bargained for. Its name was Trouble, and when I reach the point in my story when I was introduced to Mr. Trouble, I will give a full account of what happened. But it is only Friday afternoon now, and there are other, more pressing matters to attend to. The weekend is about to begin, and less than thirty hours after Tom and I left the Cosmic Diner, we were both sitting in another restaurant with Harry Brightman, eating dinner, drinking wine, and wrestling with the mysteries of the universe.
A NIGHT OF EATING AND DRINKING
Saturday evening. May 27, 2000. A French restaurant on Smith Street in Brooklyn. Three men are sitting at a round table in the rear left corner of the room: Harry Brightman (formerly known as Dunkel), Tom Wood, and Nathan Glass. They have just finished giving their orders to the waiter (three different appetizers, three different main courses, two bottles of wine – one red, one white) and have resumed drinking the aperitifs that were brought to the table not long after they entered the restaurant. Tom’s glass is filled with bourbon (Wild Turkey), Harry is sipping a vodka martini, and as Nathan downs another mouthful of his neat, single-malt Scotch (twelve-year-old Macallan), he wonders if he isn’t in the mood for a second drink before the meal is served. So much for the setting. Once the conversation begins, further stage directions will be kept to a minimum. It is the author’s opinion that only the words spoken by the above-mentioned characters are of any importance to the narrative. For that reason, there will be no descriptions of the clothes they are wearing, no comments on the food they eat, no pauses when one of them stands up to visit the men’s room, no interruptions from the waiter, and not one word about the glass of red wine that Nathan spills on his pants.
TOM: I’m not talking about saving the world. At this point, I just want to save myself. And some of the people I care about. Like you, Nathan. And you, too, Harry.
HARRY: Why so glum, boy? You’re about to eat the best dinner you’ve had in years, you’re the youngest person sitting at this table, and as far as I know, you still haven’t contracted a major disease. Look at Nathan over there. He’s had lung cancer, and he never even smoked. And I’ve had two heart attacks. Do you see us grumbling? We’re the happiest men in the world.
TOM: No you’re not. You’re just as miserable as I am.
NATHAN: Harry’s right, Tom. It’s not as bad as all that.
TOM: Yes it is. If anything, it’s even worse.
HARRY: Please define “it.” I don’t even know what we’re talking about anymore.
TOM: The world. The big black hole we call the world.
HARRY: Ah, the world. Well, of course. That goes without saying. The world stinks. Everyone knows that. But we do our best to avoid it, don’t we?
TOM: No we don’t. We’re right in the thick of it, whether we like it or not. It’s all around us, and every time I lift my head and take a good look at it, I’m filled with disgust. Sadness and disgust. You’d think World War Two would have settled things, at least for a couple of hundred years. But we’re still hacking each other to pieces, aren’t we? We still hate each other as much as we ever did.
NATHAN: So that’s what we’re talking about. Politics.
TOM: Among other things, yes. And economics. And greed. And the horrible place this country has turned into. The maniacs on the Christian Right. The twenty-year-old dot-com millionaires.
The Golf Channel. The Fuck Channel. The Vomit Channel. Capitalism triumphant, with nothing to oppose it anymore. And all of us so smug, so pleased with ourselves, while half the world is starving to death and we don’t lift a finger to help. I can’t take it anymore, gentlemen. I want out.
HARRY: Out? And where are you going to go? Jupiter? Pluto? Some asteroid in the next galaxy? Poor Tom-All-Alone, like the Little Prince marooned on his rock in the middle of space.
TOM: You tell me where to go, Harry. I’m open to any and all suggestions.
NATHAN: A place to live life on your own terms. That’s what we’re talking about, isn’t it? “Imaginary Edens” revisited. But in order to do that, you have to be willing to reject society. That’s what you told me. It was a long time ago, but I think you also used the word courage. Do you have the courage, Tom? Does any one of us have the courage to do that?
TOM: You still remember that old paper, huh?
NATHAN: It made a big impression on me.
TOM: I was just a wee undergraduate back t
hen. I didn’t know much, but I was probably smarter than I am now.
HARRY: We’re referring to what?
NATHAN: The inner refuge, Harry. The place a man goes to when life in the real world is no longer possible.
HARRY: Oh. I used to have one of those. I thought everyone did.
TOM: Not necessarily. It takes a good imagination, and how many people have that?
HARRY (closing his eyes; pressing his forefingers against his temples): It’s all coming back to me now. The Hotel Existence. I was just ten years old, but I can still remember the exact moment when the idea occurred to me, the exact moment when I found the name. It was a Sunday afternoon during the war. The radio was on, and I was sitting in the living room of our house in Buffalo with a copy of Life magazine, looking at pictures of the American troops in France. I had never been inside a hotel, but I had walked past enough of them on my trips downtown with my mother to know that they were special places, fortresses that protected you from the squalor and meanness of everyday life. I loved the men in the blue uniforms who stood in front of the Remington Arms. I loved the sheen of the brass fittings on the revolving doors at the Excelsior. I loved the immense chandelier that hung in the lobby of the Ritz. The sole purpose of a hotel was to make you happy and comfortable, and once you signed the register and went upstairs to your room, all you had to do was ask for something and it was yours. A hotel represented the promise of a better world, a place that was more than just a place, but an opportunity, a chance to live inside your dreams.
NATHAN: That explains the hotel part. Where did you find the word existence?
