Son of Rosemary

by Ira Levin

  “Oh God, Andy,” she said, “all right, you win.”

  She got up from the chair as he stood up straight, smiling, taking her by the shoulders with both hands. “I’m glad it worked out this way,” he said. “It’s like you showing me things in Ireland. These are my roots, sort of, some of them. I never thought I’d be able to let you see.” He kissed her cheek; she kissed his, where his beard began.

  “I’m only going to stay two minutes,” she said. “It’s been a long day and I’m very tired.”

  He watched her, smiling, straightening his robe, cinching his belt, as she went to the women’s dressing room, her reflection walking upside down above her, in sync with the beating drum.

  16

  SHE STOOD hand in hand with him by the wall at the side of the stage, her eyes seeing farther into the dark, into the dusk of candle flames, pastel spotlights, dimmed red exit signs. A dozen feet away, cowled robes, sleeve to sleeve, sidestepped slowly back and forth, a circle wheeling counterclockwise. Voices trailed the airborne voices’ undulant chanting, the drum leading, a fife or flute piping along, all entwined in reverberent echoes. Rust robes, brown robes, darkly the same in the forest shade, swaying, sidestepping—only the violet robe’s wearer known for sure.

  And the shortest robe’s wearer, Jay.

  And the tallest robe’s, Kevin. Oops.

  She glimpsed, beyond linked sleeves, the highlights of a dark chair. Whispered, leaning closer to Andy, “Is that Hank in the center?”

  “No,” he whispered, “I sit there. He’s in the circle.”

  She turned her head, letting go his hand, drawing the cowl farther aside to look at him.

  His bearded face wrapped in black, he nodded. “It’s the only time he can stay on his feet more than a few minutes,” he said. “I gave him a pep talk before.” He smiled at her. “Stay till this is over, okay? Ten minutes, tops. They won’t leave the circle.” He kissed at her, and turned and went, his robe swirling about his bare heels, his Achilles’ tendons.

  She watched dark sleeves part and lift to let the black robe through; the sleeves slid down from pale arms, a wide silver bracelet glinting on the slim arm on the left. The robe’s cowl turned her way—darkness, a shadow face—as the sleeved arms linked again. The cowl faced the other cowl; that one leaned its shadow face toward her as the circle of dancers wheeled farther counterclockwise.

  Andy was sitting now, stage center, facing front, all black robe, glossed with pastel by the overhead spots— all black except the tip of his beard and his left hand on the chair arm. The violet robe lowered itself to a seat before him. Cowl facing cowl, they linked sleeves, while the chanters sidestepped to the beating drum. The cowls stayed facing, violet and black—then met, and parted. The violet robe rose, Andy’s hand helping. He beckoned before him. A dark robe, brown, moved in from the circle; violet and brown changed places. The chanters sidestepped, the drum beat on.

  Rosemary swayed with the drum, her sleeved arms away from her sides so the nubbly silk could brush her skin—incredibly sensitive all over. Maybe from the pill—or could it be the tannis? Or the combo; she hoped there was no danger there.

  But she felt super, as fresh and loose as if she were in some disco with Guy, the bastard, back in the good times. Cowls turned shadow faces toward her; she smiled at them, knowing she was as faceless as they, if not more, beyond the spotlights’ glow, the nearest candles yards to her side.

  Had they guessed who she was? Or did they think Andy had found a new girl already—perfectly understandable haste in someone who had to project so much conventional goodness. She swayed more freely with the chant and the drum—a foreign visitor he’d picked up in the lobby. Italian. No, Greek. Melina Mercouri. Swaying, silk brushing her skin...

  Pale fingers beckoned from two or three sleeves in the circle. She shook her cowled head, smiling, swaying. Never on Christmas...

  The dance was simple—two steps forward and one step back, with a variation on every fourth drumbeat. A slow-motion folk dance, steady, unhurried. Hardly a challenge for Ginger Rogers. She tried the step anyway, the carpet soft under the soles of her feet.

  What would Joe make of the scene? A case for the Vice Squad? Maybe . . . but maybe not. She could also see him looking for a robe. He had an adventurous spirit that she really liked, and lacked herself. The Alfa-Romeo, for instance.

  Oh what the hell.

  She snugged the robe, cinched the belt, fixed the cowl for maximum coverage. Took a deep breath—and walked slowly, slowly, along with the drumbeat, to the circle of robed dancers, to parting sleeves, hands that took her hands warmly.

  She danced with the circle, sharing its rhythm, finding its steps, watching black-robed Andy and a rust-robed woman holding hands, talking. She circled sidestepping past his shoulder, holding Vanessa’s cocoa hand, greenish in the forest light, its usually clear nails painted black or near-black. When their arms swung, a chain bracelet rolled in and out under Vanessa’s rust sleeve—large round silver links.

  The brown robe following Rosemary was tall— William or Craig. She kept a firm grip on his hand, in case it was William the Groper. Closing her eyes, she hummed with the chant, not caring to parrot the syllables, dancing comfortably, answering some kind of mammalian herd instinct, all her senses awake . . . “Pssst!” Vanessa’s hand squeezed hers and let go. “Andy wants you!”

  He beckoned; she was almost in front of him, a brown robe rising.

  She went with the drumbeat to a backless black seat; gathered the robe around her, sat on flat warmth.

  Their robed knees touching, she gave him her hands, looked at him smiling at her in his black cowl. “I was hoping,” he said.

  “You knew damn well, you bastard,” she said.

  “My own mother? Shame...”

  She said, “What do you say when they sit here?”

  He looked at her, his smile fading. “I thank them,” he said. “For everything they do for GC and for me. And I tell them how glad the rest of us are that they’re part of the circle. And they say whatever they feel like—air a gripe or admit a mistake or just say ‘Thanks, same here.’ In the coven, they knelt before Roman, vowed undying loyalty to Satan and him, and he pricked his finger with a dagger and they drank a drop of his blood. You can see why it didn’t grab me.”

  She sat silent, holding his hands, looking at him as he smiled again. “Here we kiss each other on the lips,” he said. “Chastely. The ball’s in your court.”

  She said, “Chastely is easy.” Leaned, pecked his lips, was up, hands free, before he could help her.

  The “good eats”—laid out by the rust robes after the dance, along the amphitheater’s first high curving step—were only so-so: warmed-over standards from the kitchen downstairs and icky-looking pâtés. There was a terrific eggnog though, with a bit of a kick and a hint of tannis, served up at center stage out of a handsome silver punch bowl—not the hotel’s plated stuff but the unmistakable real thing, simple, shining, sterling—stabbed with six or seven pastel light-beams on a table draped in forest green, where Andy had sat.

  Violet-robed Diane did the serving, her cowl back from her feathered, lately darkened hair—looking great, flushed from the dance and obviously fully recovered from her bout with sciatica. She silver-ladled the creamy cream into everyone’s silver cups as the robes all mingled and chatted, all the cowls back, Hank in his chair laughing red-faced at something William was saying, each with a silver cup in hand.

  Sitting in near darkness on the top step, at the greenroom side of the curve, Rosemary kept her cowl up, though there was probably no need to. No one had so much as glanced at her since Andy had shepherded her up there when the dance was ending. The two of them had eaten there, from plates he had gone down and gotten, along with cups of the terrific eggnog. They had both been ravenous, not having had much more than the pastrami sandwiches all day.

  He came mountain-goating up the steps now with refills, a cup in each hand, all black against the light of the
stage. She looked away anyway.

  The robes had a tendency to slide open—which had become apparent when the dance sped up a bit after everyone had sat and talked with him.

  He gave her a silver cup, sat on the step a few feet from her, closer to the curve’s center, tucking his robe around him. “You can take the cowl off if you want,” he said. “You’re almost invisible, and anyway they know. Nobody thought I’d bring a date-date so soon, so who else could it be? Vanessa was sure.” He sipped from his silver cup.

  She lifted the cowl back, fixed her hair. “What’s their reaction?” she asked.

  “They’re glad you’re here,” he said, “and they understand if you don’t want to mingle. They hope you’ll join in another dance but won’t be hurt if you don’t.”

  She sipped from the silver cup. “Meaning at another party or tonight?” she asked.

  “Tonight,” he said. “There’ll be two or three more. Faster, different.” He sipped from his silver cup.

  “Oh,” she said. Took another sip from hers.

  “If you’re tired, I’ve got some pills.”

  “No, no, I’m fine,” she said.

  “Harmless,” he said. “I get them from Al downstairs.”

  “No, I’m fine,” she said. “Second wind.”

  “Andy!” Sandy stood at the rim of the stage, peering up toward them. “Can I speak to you for a minute?” Sounding peeved.

  He groaned, putting his cup down, getting up. “Back in a minute, I hope.” He jogged down the steps, holding his robe around him.

  Rosemary lifted herself, hitched at the silk, shifted, settled into a more comfortable position against the carpet at her back and beneath her, snugged the robe. She picked up the silver cup and sipped, watching Andy on the softly lit stage listening to some disagreement between Sandy and Diane. He strolled with them, his hands on their shoulders, to the far side of the stage, followed them through the door to the offices and storerooms.

  She savored the creamy nog, sweet-tart and tannissy; savored the shimmery old-new music idling all around her, the druidic forest-primeval flavor of the candlelit stage—the spotlights dimming now as dark robes, Kevin and Craig, lifted the table with the punch bowl on it— beautiful silver bowl, Diane’s or GC’s?—and carried it into the corner beyond the green-room door. Clearing the stage for the next dance . . .

  Faster, different. . .

  Jimmy Durante had put it so well: Did you ever have the feeling that you wanted to go and still have the feeling that you wanted to stay?

  She chuckled, recalling him.

  High. You are very high. Slightly high, anyway. The rum or vodka or whatever was in the nog. Or maybe it was the tannis—in there and in the air. She hardly noticed the smell now, but braziers smoldered at the corners of the stage, their smoke swirling up into pastel pillars. Beautiful. . .

  Like the time she’d smoked pot with Guy and it worked, that’s how she felt—the music so ultra-clear, her skin so ultra-tingly, sensing the silk against it, the carpet through the silk—but in this instance with her mental faculties completely unfogged, sharp as a tack. She sipped from the silver cup. Could tannis and cannabis be related? A dark climber stopped two steps below. Bowed. “Please pardon me, Rosemary,” Yuriko said. “I’m so happy to see you here. May I speak with you a moment while Andy’s away?”

  Sitting straight, putting the cup aside, she smiled and said, “Of course, Yuriko, please sit down!” She closed her robe more snugly. “I’ve been hoping we’d get another chance to talk.”

  “Thank you, so have I,” he said, seating himself on the step below her, a few feet to her left, the angled planes of his cheek and jawbone gleaming in the light from the stage.

  Extremely handsome. Forty-nine, divorced, two married children. She had checked with Judy the day after the impromptu party in Andy’s office.

  She’d seen Hiroshima Mon Amour not all that long ago, or so it seemed; the man in that had been an architect too. Yuriko was GCNY’s, the amphitheater’s designer; he oversaw the design of all of GC’s worldwide projects and headed his own firm too, one of the most highly regarded in the profession.

  “How go the computer lessons?” he asked, smiling up at her.

  “They’re one of my New Year’s resolutions,” she said. “Top of the list.”

  “I have only one,” he said. “To slow down. I’m going to be fifty next year; that makes a man think. GC has no upcoming projects for me, I’m fortunate in having surrounded myself with capable associates—and so I’ve resolved to take some time off and ‘smell the roses.’ ”

  “I’m all for that,” Rosemary said, smiling down at him, leaning forward, her hands folded on her knees.

  “I watched part of the ‘All-Holy-Days Special’ tonight,” Yuriko said, looking up at her. “Andy’s part. I always do, even though I have everything on tape; it’s somehow not the same, is it? I came away from it, as always, as from everything he does—I speak as if I’m unique”—he smiled—“I came away from it with a renewed sense that he truly is a celestial being, no matter how he tries to pretend he’s a mere human. And of course, sitting with him tonight only strengthened the feeling. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for him.” He sighed. “I truly believe he’s going to be ranked among the immortals,” he said. “The Lighting, I believe, is going to be a watershed event in the history of humanity, and at the same time a magnificent work of art, all the greater because of its transitory nature.”

  “That’s just how I feel, Yuriko,” Rosemary said, leaning down closer to him. “I’ve told Andy that; I’m so glad you agree.”

  “Seeing you here tonight,” he said to her, “makes me more certain than ever that he—and you too—are true divinities. I mean that with all my heart. What ordinary mortal could share this with his mother?” He gestured around them. “What ordinary mother could share it?” He smiled at her, dazzlingly. “Myths will grow around you. Does that make any sense?”

  She smiled back her dazzlingest. “No,” she said.

  “I suppose the tannis is speaking,” he said, still smiling.

  “The tannis?” she said.

  “The incense,” he said, pointing. “It’s derived from the leaves of an Egyptian plant that’s a kin of the Indian hemp plant, the source of cannabis.”

  “I thought I was getting a little high,” she said.

  “Everyone is by now,” he said, “but even when I’m not, I regard you as a celestial being—and so I sit below you. At your feet.” His head of jet hair bent.

  She gaped. Her toes kissed by surprise—a first, and not bad.

  Yuriko stood, offered a hand to her, smiling. “Come dance again,” he said. “This one is fun.”

  The robes were forming a circle in the candlelit, pastel-pillared dusk—violet and black robes coming onto the stage, Andy looking at her as she stood.

  She watched her feet, holding the robe closed with an arm as Yuriko helped her down the steep steps. The music grew louder, a twining woodwind, a driving drumbeat faster than before.

  When they reached the corner of the stage and stood face-to-face, he slightly taller, she said, “I’m sorely tempted, Yuriko, but I’m very, very tired, I’ve had an incredibly long day.”

  He bowed to her hand and kissed it, something touching the backs of her fingers. She said, as he stood straight, “What a handsome pendant.”

  “Isn’t it?” he said, holding it forward from the V of his robe: a circle of silver, a teardrop bent on itself, hanging on a black cord.

  She leaned to it in the forest shade. “Does it have a special significance?” she asked.

  He said, “I don’t know what the designer intended; to me it suggests life’s continuity, the continuity of all things.” He let the pendant fall against his chest.

  “It’s lovely,” she said.

  He smiled. “It caught my eye,” he said. “I have another resolution now: to invite you to dinner in the new year.”

  She smiled and said, “I resolve to accep
t.”

  They smiled at each other as he withdrew toward the circle, bowing. She looked for Andy’s black robe. No cowls for this dance, and a pale green rope or vine held in everyone’s both hands.

  No Andy, no black robe. Violet though, amid the dark ones. The drum jumped louder; the vine-linked circle stepped to its beat, began turning clockwise.

  She watched a moment, then turned and went into the green room, winced against its light as she drew the door closed. The music shrank into the speaker on her right.

  Andy sat looking at her, sitting on the sofa in his black robe, a cookie in his hand. “I thought you and Yuriko—”

  She shook her head, blinking. Glanced above, headed across the room toward the snack table. “Why aren’t you?”

  He shrugged. “This dance can get raunchy,” he said, “and Diane must have gone heavy on the rum. I was coming to get you, but then I saw you coming down with him, and I felt...” He shrugged. “I figured I’d wait,” he said.

  She took a handful of cookies, walked back toward the sofa.

  He moved over.

  She sat down, put the cookies on the trunk in a heap between them. Sat back and nibbled one. “Do you know that tannis is related to cannabis?” she asked.

  “You’re kidding,” he said. “I’m shocked. Shocked.”

  She gave him a look. “No wonder you’re hooked on all this stuff,” she said. “I never, never should have let you go over that first time, to Minnie and Roman’s.”

  “I’m not hooked on anything,” he said, turning to her, “and don’t start blaming yourself; you had no choice.” He watched her a moment as she drew a breath. “Plenty of women,” he said, touching her shoulder, “would have just taken off as soon as they could, and left me with them, period.”

  She sighed. “Some, I guess,” she said.

  “Plenty,” he said. Kissed her temple. She touched his hand on her shoulder; they smiled at each other.

  He turned and picked up a Coke, drank.

  She reached. He gave her the can; she put it to her lips, drank. Gave the can back to him. He put it to his lips, drank.