Brightness Falls

by Jay McInerney

  The older man's regard meant much to him, and without stopping to examine the implications too closely, Russell decided that his admiration for Trina was another sort of benediction, a shared masculine enthusiasm. Meanwhile he was talking with the Italian novelist's wife about the Red Brigades and speculating on why so little fiction had come out of the sixties. Approaching forty herself, she had once been the lover of a famous terrorist. Her history as the lover of famous men dwarfed Camille Don-ner's and gave her an aura as palpable as her ancient husband's intellect. "It's an extremely complex business," Russell said, out loud, "balancing the need for social organization against the anarchic demands of the heart."

  "Back then, we thought it was very simple, very black and white," she said, thinking he was still talking politics.

  Pouring another glass of claret, he said, "I mean that I love my wife, but I sometimes wonder if it's... ungenerous not to love other women." He felt that she, as a seasoned mistress and a European, would know exactly what he meant.

  "Americans are like children," she said. "You believe this fantasy of true love, yes? You think marriage is only about love and it means you only must sleep with one person forever. No wonder you are having so many divorces." Looking over at her seventy-year-old husband, Russell could imagine that she probably had broader views of the motives for marriage. Was it a coincidence that she took this moment to smile sweetly and say that she would be visiting New York next month?

  Sitting on his other side, Trina squeezed his thigh. "Thanks for bringing me," she said, leaning into his ear and dipping to kiss the nape of his neck. It occurred to Russell that he should get to a phone to call Corrine; it would be awkward to call her from the room later, even more so if she called him. Hoffman changed places with Trina. He dropped a fatherly arm around Russell's shoulder and proffered a cigar. He asked Russell about plans for the new company. Russell began to explain the state of publishing in America, with hand gestures. One of these gestures intersected an inconveniently placed glass of red wine, which emptied itself across the table. "Yes, yes, you're quite right," Hoffman shouted. "This is no time for wine. Bring on the Armagnac!"

  The party continued in town at the Lipizzaner, the hotel piano bar. They were sitting at a table with some boisterous Scandinavians. A bottle of aquavit disappeared rapidly. One of the Swedes said, "The Finns, they drink like fish." Why fish? Russell wondered. The scaly, finny Finns.

  Moments later he was on his way to the men's room, which Trina, never one to wait in line, was about to exit. Instead she pulled him inside and pushed him against the sink, wrapping her face around his, her tongue probing the depths of Russell's throat, while her hands performed cartographic operations on his surface. So engaged, they were discovered by Harold Stone, who appeared suddenly in the doorway. In a moment he was gone, and Russell could almost believe he had imagined the encounter, except that Harold's expression of contempt seemed so unpleasantly real. Trina, however, neither recognized nor even noticed the intruder; her ardor was unabated. But Russell felt caught out and diminished under that gaze, however brief. He saw himself as foolish and weak, easily led by others, far too secure in his belief in his own decency. He feared, suddenly, that he was not serious, that while he shared their weaknesses, he lacked the gravitas of men such as Harold Stone and Hoffman. He didn't belong at the big table; he never would.

  Back in the bar, it took another drink to blur this perception. When he sent a bottle of champagne to the table where Stone was holding court with a group from Gallimard, it was returned. In defiance, he turned his full attention to Trina in her breathtakingly low-cut dress, his partner in youthful insurrection. As she leaned forward to whisper in his ear, he eagerly damned all rules and conventions to hell.

  Upstairs, lying on the bed, peeling silk from flesh, he saw a red light blinking across the room, reminding him of that line from "Love in Vain"—was it "the red light was my baby"? But it seemed to be far away across a body of water, and then Trina crashed over him like a wave that carried his scruples away...

  Several hours later the aquatic sensations had yielded to desert conditions, an acute drought having developed in Russell's mouth. A desolate gray light filtered through the white gauze drapes. Waking abruptly, he sensed instantly that something was wrong, although it took many seconds to assemble and weigh the evidence. He felt the body beside him, and hoped against hope that he was home, but the surroundings were unfamiliar and the body, for the first time in many years, proved not to be Corrine's.

  The blinking message light served to focus his senses and to unleash the hounds of guilt. The message that had been waiting through the night was undoubtedly from Corrine. The red light continued to blink waspishly, as the red digits on the bedside alarm clock became 6:55 a.m. Almost two a.m. in New York.

  Apparently carved out of clammy, pinkish stone, Trina didn't stir as he slipped out of bed, picked up the message envelopes under the door and retreated to the phone-equipped bathroom, where he first swallowed several liters of water directly from the tap.

  Although he wasn't sure exactly how he'd been caught, he wasn't really surprised. Bigamy still illegal here. See you in court. Sitting naked on the floor with his face pressed against the tiled wall, he considered his options. He had to call, certainly. Of all the things he might have been required to do at this moment, feeling the way he did, calling Corrine was about the last task he would have chosen to perform. It occurred to him that she might not even be there. Maybe she'd already left him.

  The machine picked up; he heard his own voice across the ocean telling him no one was home right now. After the beep he croaked into the machine, halfheartedly asking her to pick up. The tape stopped and the connection was broken. A second call produced similar results.

  He was scheduled to fly the following day and had five or six appointments scheduled in the meantime, appointments that, he decided, he could not afford to keep. He called the concierge and requested a seat on the next plane to New York. He wanted to get out of this room immediately.

  Lying on her stomach with her arms spread and her ass slightly aloft, Trina stirred eventually, lifted her head and looked around briefly before collapsing again. "What are you doing? Come back to bed. Ouch."

  "I'm packing."

  "Come back to bed and fuck me. "

  "It's a nice offer, but—"

  "Wait a minute." She rolled over onto her back. "I thought you were staying till tomorrow."

  "Corrine called."

  "Ah. The palpable click of the wedlock."

  He went into the bathroom to pack his shaving kit. When he came out she looked defiant. "So what's the big deal? She doesn't know anything."

  "She knows."

  "Well, so long as you're already convicted, you might just as well relive your crime."

  Russell decided not to ask for details, but the fact was, he couldn't remember the actual commission.

  Was it just German formality, he wondered, or did he sense a certain chilliness at the desk? Russell left-handed the assistant manager an envelope containing two hundred dollars, a bribe intended to ensure a room for the following year. The assistant manager inclined his head several millimeters in acknowledgment of the gift.

  Russell had never blacked out in his life. The lost pieces of the night before were all the more frightening because they seemed to signal a betrayal on the part of his body. Having since college enjoyed an extraordinary tolerance for alcohol, he could not understand this betrayal, nor did he think he had drunk so much more than on other occasions when he'd suffered no more than a hangover.

  In the cab to the airport he contemplated the wreckage he'd left behind as he compulsively patted himself down—the instinctive, panicked gesture of the befuddled traveler—and was unable to find his keys in any of his pockets. He feared that Corrine would not be home to let him in. At the airport he tore down all of his luggage and still couldn't find them. Sitting amidst the debris
of his luggage he might have cried, but his tear ducts were dried out, his eyes parched.

  It was only with some difficulty that he convinced the hotel operator to ring his vacated room, explaining that although Mr. Calloway had checked out, he had left a sleeping body belonging to the alleged Mrs. Calloway behind. After ten rings the operator came back on the line to tell him there was no answer; he asked her to keep trying. Finally Trina picked up. There was scant welcome in her voice.

  He explained about the keys.

  After several minutes she came back on the line to say she couldn't find them. "Losing everything, aren't we?" she observed. "Our keys, our nerve ..."

  "Why did the staff treat me like the Antichrist when I checked out. What did I do?"

  "I don't know. You did threaten to buy the hotel when they asked us to leave the Lipizzaner after last call."

  It seemed entirely meet and right that business class was overbooked, that the plane sat for three hours on the runway after the passengers had finally boarded, that Russell sat in coach next to a colicky baby.

  40

  "Do you think literature can save you?"

  These were the first words Jeff had heard Delia utter in weeks. They were at the supper table in Glover House, talking about suicide. Mac, a fat depressive who taught history at the University of Connecticut, was explaining how the rope broke when he tried to hang himself. Delia, however, seemed to be addressing Jeff.

  "Me in particular," Jeff asked, speaking softly, afraid that his voice might scare her back into herself. "Are you asking if it can save me?"

  "Anyone. Can it help people?"

  "It can't save you, but it can kill you. " He saw that his reflexive archness had disappointed her, and was sorry when she retreated back into silence.

  Having decided that Delia was no longer dangerous to herself, the authorities had finally dropped her down from Level Three, in which she was attended by special nurses twenty-four hours a day. And on this chilly October evening she was eating, or rather, failing to eat, her first unchaperoned meal.

  "What is this foulness," Mickey asked, holding a piece of meat impaled on his fork.

  "It's called veal," Jeff snapped. "Milk-fed baby cow."

  "I can't eat this. Do you know what they do to these animals? They like suspend them in slings in dark barns..."

  "Cruel food," said Delia.

  Jeff reached over and held her hand steady as she lit a cigarette. All the campers' hands shook because of the medications they were on, or the ones they were coming off. Mickey then explained that he was going to patent a slingshot-shaped stick designed for use in institutions such as this one. Designed to support the unsteady wrist, the crotch of the Y-shaped stick would be upholstered with fabric in a psychologically neutral color.

  "I'll make millions. And I'll fly my private helicopter over my father's terrace and piss on him while he's sunbathing."

  Dr. Taylor appeared in the food line, a rare public appearance, reminding Jeff of his absurd session this afternoon.

  "You think Caitlin left you because she didn't like your dog?" he'd said. "That seems a little simplistic."

  "'Any man that loveth me must also loveth my hound.' Sir Francis Bacon. Not the painter."

  "You're speaking metaphorically?"

  "Woof woof."

  Out in the sitting room amidst the other antiques, blue-haired Babs Osterlick and busty Evelyn Salmon sat at their usual stations observing the exodus from dinner.

  "There's that nice tall boy."

  "Jeffrey."

  "Hello, Jeffrey."

  Jeff waved.

  "That one comes from a good family," Babs said. "His people have a place next to ours on Mount Desert Island."

  "A lot of the drunks are from good people. Is he a drunk or a nut?"

  "Drugs, I think."

  "I like a tall man."

  "Such a pretty girl," said Babs as Delia wandered out a moment later. "Lovely hair."

  "But skinny," observed Evelyn. "The boys like more up top."

  "Where's everybody going," Babs asked presently. "Is it time for the movie yet?"

  "The drunks have to have their meeting first."

  "What is the movie?"

  "I hope it has that young actor... what's his name?"

  "Warren Beatty."

  "No, the other one. The naughty one."

  "Jack something."

  "That's it."

  Delia joined Jeffon the porch, where he was smoking a solitary cigarette before the evening AA session.

  "Do you hear voices," she asked.

  "Now?"

  "I've heard that writers hear voices."

  "I try to," he said. "Lately I don't hear much of anything."

  "I do."

  "What do the voices say?"

  "They tell me I'm a bad person. They tell me to do things."

  "What things?"

  "Sometimes they tell me to hurt myself."

  "I have a voice like that. The junk monster. Feed me, feed me."

  "Is it a boy or a girl voice?"

  "It's sort of a growl now, but it started out as this torchy feminine whisper that used to sing outside my window, lure me out into the night. Desire calling."

  "I like you," she said, with the unabashed directness of insanity.

  "I like you, too."

  "I like your friends Russell and Corrine, too. I didn't used to think so but now I do. They have a bright green aura."

  Jeff took a long drag from his cigarette, then looked into her eyes. "They're nifty," he said after a while. "Ah, yes."

  "There's somebody else inside my body," Delia said.

  Jeff nodded, as if to say that this was often the case.

  Then it was time for AA.

  After supper the depressives received their second meds: particolored pills in a Dixie cup. Delia got lithium, Nardil and Thorazine, plus a multiple vitamin. Hers was one of the heavier meds. The people in substance abuse, who were denied medication, envied her. The doctors were still tinkering with the balance on her meds. The week before, she'd almost gone through the roof of Glover House when the Nardil finally kicked in after eight days. When she failed to respond the first week they kept upping the dosage until finally she woke up at five one morning declaring that she was the handmaiden of the Lord, and she had to be kept under restraint for two days.

  The AA meetings were held in Carlyle House. Jeff, Delia and Mickey traditionally occupied the same chairs in the back right corner. It seemed important to observe a routine.

  Halfway through the hour Mickey elbowed Jeff's ribs. "Did he actually say his name was Brit Hardy?"

  The newcomer looked like a Brit, with his chinos, button-down pink oxford shirt, thick blond hair that looked as if it had been walked through by the athletic, unringed fingers of girls named Sloan and Kelsey.

  "There was one night that sort of nutshelled the whole thing," he was saying.

  "Nutshelled," Jeff queried.

  "I'd just done a huge deal where I brokered the sale of a bauxite mine and I realize I've made like a couple hundred in one day, and so of course I buy an eight ball to celebrate. So I'm sitting around my loft with my girlfriend, who happens to be Miss Brazil 1985..."

  Confession as another form of self-assertion, Jeff thought, indistinguishable from bragging. Each time the alcoholics recounted their war stories the bottles multiplied and the mounds of cocaine grew until the entire process seemed an extension of the intemperance and excess that had brought them here in the first place. It was bullshit just like therapy was bullshit just like everything else. We're all drowning in it, Jeff thought, and choking on it.

  That night, the day before he left for Frankfurt, Washington took the train up to visit, overcoming, he insisted, a profound fear of self-improvement and the philosophy of abstinence. "Do the visitors got to take a drug test," he asked on the phone. H
e and Jeff shot pool in the game room, talked about what a pain in the ass Russell had become. Jeff felt at ease for the first time in months. The mutual feeling was that he'd been busted.

  * * *

  Delia took a walk, her first unescorted stroll in weeks. Suspecting that her privileges would be revoked at any moment, she wanted to test her liberty more than savor it. She was not used to being alone, and she was not entirely sure she liked the idea.

  Half an hour before curfew she walked from Glover House up to the main house, taking the long way around, past the tennis court and the chapel. The air was cold and sharp, and the moon was nearly full. Little needles of frostiness pricked the insides of her nostrils and her lungs; the black metal posts of the lanterns that marked the footpath were glazed with white. The lanterns were spaced at ten-foot intervals, and when she half closed her eyes they seemed to shoot off rays of light, like picture-book stars in a long curving constellation that marked the bridge into another galaxy. She opened her eyes and continued up the path, passing a lantern in which the glass was broken. She walked by the tennis court and had almost reached the chapel before she turned back, without understanding exactly why, drawn almost against her will, telling herself she wanted just another look and imagining a purely theoretical aspect to her interest—curious that in an institution where such care was taken to banish sharp edges, here in plain sight was a potentially deadly weapon—thinking that she would take a look and make sure of what she had seen and of course if you tell someone they can't have something they will become fascinated by the proscribed object, even obsessed. She could feel a tingle of illicit anticipation as she approached the broken torchère, checking behind herself to make sure she was unobserved, feeling the rhythm of her steps to be inexorable now, as if she no longer had anything to do with her motion or direction. Something was guiding her. She could hear a voice calling her back. It was the sweet, seductive voice. The one that was nice to her.