Evening in Byzantium

by Irwin Shaw

  He awoke in pain. His stomach was contracting spasmodically. The bed was soaked in sweat. The pains came and went, sharp and stabbing. Christ, he thought, this must be something like what women go through in childbirth. He had to go to the bathroom. He put on the light, swung his legs carefully over the side of the bed, walked slowly into the bathroom, sat on the toilet. He could feel what seemed like gallons of hot liquid gushing out of him. The pain went down, but he wasn’t sure he would be strong enough to get back to bed. When he finally stood up, he had to hold onto the shelf over the basin for support. The liquid in the toilet bowl was black. He pulled the chain. He felt a hot wetness dripping down the inside of his legs. It was blood, blackish red. There was no way in which he could control it. He wrinkled his nose in disgust. He knew he should be afraid, but all he felt was disgust at his body’s betrayal. He got a towel and stuffed it up between his legs. Leaving his stained pajama bottoms on the bathroom floor, he made his way back to the bed and dropped on it. He felt weak, but there was no pain. For a moment he thought that he had dreamt it all. He looked at his watch. It was four-thirty in the morning. New York time, he remembered. Zone of blood. It was no hour to wake anyone. If he was still bleeding by eight o’clock, he would call a doctor. Then he realized that he didn’t know the names of any doctors in New York. The penalty of health. He would figure it out in the morning. He put out the light and closed his eyes and tried to sleep. If I die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul … Childhood formulas.

  Anne’s psychology professor had seen something in his handwriting. Had he seen this night in New York?

  Then he fell asleep. He slept without dreaming.

  He was bone-tired when he awoke, marrow-tired. But there was no more bleeding. It was almost nine o’clock. There was pale, smog-diluted sunlight outside the window. The city shimmered in a haze of heat.

  He took the towel out from between his legs. He had obviously bled for a while during his sleep, but by now the blood was caked and dry on the towel. Old, unsolved, interior murders. He moved with care, showered for a long time but did not have the courage to turn the water cold. As he dressed, his body felt broken, as though he had fallen from a great distance.

  He went downstairs and had breakfast among the tourists and traveling salesmen in the coffee shop. The factory taste of frozen orange juice. No Mediterranean outside the window, no daughter, no mistress across the table, no leer from the waitress. The coffee of his homeland was like dishwater. He made himself eat two pieces of toast for strength. No croissants, no brioches. Had he come to the wrong country?

  He read The New York Times. The casualty count was down in Vietnam. The vice-president had made a provocative, alliterative speech. A plane had fallen. He was not the only one who traveled too much. A critic he had never heard of scolded a novelist he had never read. Teams that had not been created when he still went to baseball games had won and lost. A pitcher who was nearly as old as he still made a living throwing the knuckle ball. The men and women who had died the day before were people he had not known. Informed now, he faced the day.

  He went from the world of air conditioning out into the climate of New York. He winced on the sidewalk. Remembering his secretary’s warning, he was wary of muggers. If he announced, I have bled this night, would a boy scout find him a taxi? He had no quarter for the doorman, so he gave him a dollar bill. He remembered when doormen were grateful for dimes.

  Getting into the taxi was like climbing a cliff. He gave the address on East Seventieth Street. The taxi driver was an old man with a greenish complexion who looked as though he were dying. From the permit on the back of the driver’s seat, Craig saw that the man had a Russian name. Did the driver regret that he, or his father before him, had left Odessa?

  The taxi inched, spurted, braked, missed other cars by inches on its way across town. Near death, the driver had nothing to lose. Forty-fourth Street, going East was his Indianapolis. He was high in the year’s standings for the Grand Prix. If he survived the season, his fortune would be made.

  Bruce Thomas lived in a brownstone with newly painted window frames. There was a little plaque near the front door that announced that the house was protected by a private patrol service. Craig had been there several times before, to big parties. He remembered having enjoyed himself. He had wandered once into Bruce’s study on the second floor. The shelves of the study had been laden with statues, plaques, scrolls, that Thomas had won for his movies. Craig had won some statues, scrolls, and plaques himself, but he didn’t know where they were now.

  He rang the bell. Thomas opened the door himself, dressed in corduroy slacks and an open-necked polo shirt. He was a neat, graceful, slight man with a warm smile.

  “Bruce,” Craig said as he went into the hallway, “I think you’d better get me a doctor.”

  He sat down on a chair in the hall because he couldn’t walk any farther.

  HE was still alive after three days. He was in a bright room in a good hospital, and Bruce Thomas had found him a soft-voiced old doctor who was soothing and taciturn. The chief surgeon of the hospital, a cheerful round man, kept dropping in as though he just wanted to chat with Craig about the movies and the theatre, but Craig knew that he was watching him closely, looking for symptoms that would mean that an emergency operation might be necessary at any moment. When Craig asked him what the chances were after an operation like that, the surgeon said flatly, without hesitation, “Fifty-fifty.” If Craig had had any relatives the doctor could talk to, the doctor would probably have told them instead of the patient, but the only people who had come to his room so far were Thomas and Belinda.

  He was under light sedation and suffering from no real pain except for the bruised places on his arms where the needles had been placed for five transfusions and for the varying intravenous feedings of glucose and salt. For some reason the tubes kept clogging, and the needles kept falling out. The veins in his arms had become increasingly difficult to find, and finally the hospital expert, a lovely Scandinavian girl, had been called in to see what she could do. She had cleared the room, even shutting the door on his private day nurse, a tough old ex-captain in the Nursing Corps, a veteran of Korea. “I can’t stand an audience,” the expert had said. Talent, in a hospital as elsewhere, Craig saw, had its imperious prerogatives. The Scandinavian girl had pushed and prodded, shaking her neat blonde head, and then with one deft stroke had inserted the needle painlessly into a vein on the back of his right hand and adjusted the flow of solution to it. He never saw her again. He was sorry about that. She reminded him of the young Danish mother by the side of the pool in Antibes. Fifty-fifty, he marveled, and that’s what a man thinks of.

  The worst thing was the headaches that came after the transfusions. That was normal, he was told. Naturally, in a hospital, pain must seem normal to the people who work there.

  Thomas had been perfect. He visited the room twice a day, not overdoing his concern. “There’s a good chance,” he said on the third day, “that you’ll be out of here in less than two weeks, and then we can get to work.” He had not wasted any time. He had secured an O.K. from United Artists, and they were talking of a budget of a million and a half dollars for the picture. Thomas had already found a great old mansion in Sands Point where they could shoot on location. He took it for granted that Craig would be the co-producer. If he had heard the surgeon’s fifty-fifty estimate, he gave no hint of it.

  He was in the room on the third day when the door swung open and Murphy strode in. “What the hell is going on, Jesse?” Murphy asked loudly.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” Craig said. “I thought you were in Rome.”

  “I’m not in Rome,” Murphy said. “Hi, Bruce. Are you two guys fighting already?”

  “Yes,” Thomas said, smiling. “Art is long and ulcers fleeting.”

  Craig was too tired to inquire how Murphy had found out that he was in the hospital. But he was happy to see him there. Murphy would arrange everything. He himself could ju
st drift into his doped and not unpleasant dreams in which night and day blended, pain and pleasure were impersonal abstractions. Knowing that all was now in safe hands, he could concentrate merely on dominating the rebellion of his blood.

  “They told me I could only stay five minutes,” Murphy said. “I just wanted to see if you were still alive. Do you want me to fly in my guy from Beverly Hills? He’s supposed to be the best in the country.”

  Everything that Murphy touched was the best in the country. “No need, Murph,” Craig said. “The men I have here are fine.”

  “Well, you just don’t worry about anything but getting better,” Murphy said. “By the time you get out of here, I’ll have a contract ready for you to sign that’ll have United Artists screaming in anguish. Come on, Bruce. We have things to discuss that are not for invalids’ ears.” Murphy patted Craig’s shoulder roughly. “You mustn’t scare your old friends like this,” he said very gently. “Sonia sends her love. All right, Nurse, all right, I’m going.” The ex-captain in the Nursing Corps was glowering blackly at him and looking dramatically at her watch.

  The two men went out. The nurse fussed a little with a pillow. “Business,” she said, “kills more men than bullets.”

  For a man who has begun his working life in the theatre, Craig thought, a hospital room is a fitting place to end it. It is like a stage. The hero is in the center with all the lights upon him. The doctor is the director, although he doubles by playing one of the parts. He watches mostly from the wings, preparing to intervene when necessary, whispering to the other actors that they can go on now, that they must enter smiling, that they are not to prolong their scenes unduly. The nurses, like stagehands, move the props around—hurry on with thermometers, trays, bed-pans, syringes, instruments for the taking or infusion of blood.

  The hero has a long part to play—the work is constructed around him, he never leaves the stage, he has a run-of-the-play contract. Ungratefully, he sometimes grumbles at his prominence, is quick to criticize the manner in which other actors play their scenes with him, would replace them or cut them if he could.

  The first one he would have eliminated, if he could, was Belinda Ewen. By the fourth day in the hospital she had decided that he was going to recover and that his recovery would be speeded by forcing him to stop brooding, as she described it, and occupy himself with the business of everyday life. She reported that she had checked him out of the hotel and packed his things. His suitcases were now thriftily stored in the office. Mail and messages were to be forwarded. People had been notified. She had called the Times. When he protested weakly about this, she said, firm in her concept of orderly, civilized behavior, that friends and family and the public had a right to know. He refused to ask her what friends and family she had selected. The telephone in the office rang all day. He’d be surprised how many people were interested in him. With her efficiency it was likely that hundreds of well-wishers would soon be thronging through his room. He pleaded with the doctors for release, plotted escape.

  In fact, by now he felt strong enough to see people. They had removed the needles from the battered veins, there were no more transfusions, he could sit up and take liquid nourishment. He had even shaved. His face in the mirror had shocked him. It had the same greenish pallor as the Russian taxi driver’s. He resolved that until he left the hospital he would allow Miss Balissano, his military day nurse, who had offered to do so, to shave him.

  The mail Belinda brought him included a bill from his wife’s lawyer for five thousand dollars. On account. He had agreed to pay her lawyers in the first burst of generosity and relief when he had finally made the decision to get a divorce and realized that, with money, it was possible to obtain one.

  A letter from his accountant reminded him that he had to make up his mind about what he wanted to do about the seventy thousand dollars that the Internal Revenue Service was demanding from him. They were becoming menacing, his lawyer wrote.

  Belinda had found the copy of The Three Horizons in his hotel room and had read it. She was favorably impressed by it and brought over large casting books with the photographs of actors and actresses in Hollywood and New York for him to glance through and think about who might play which part. He fingered through the books languidly to please Belinda.

  She had brought over his checkbook. There were bills to be paid. He had no Blue Cross or Health Insurance, and the hospital had asked her discreetly for an advance. She had made out a check for a thousand dollars. Obediently, he signed it. He signed checks for office rent, telephone and telegraph bills, the Diners’ Club, the Air-Travel Card. Dead or alive, he must maintain his credit rating. He hoped Anne’s psychology professor would never see his signature.

  Now that he was back in business, Belinda said, she had brought over the scripts of two plays by prominent authors that had come into the office in the last week. She had read them and hadn’t thought much of them, but the prominent authors would expect a personal note from him. She would bring her pad the next day, prepared to take dictation. He promised to read the plays by the prominent authors. She admired the flowers that the Murphys and the Thomases and Walt Klein had sent, all lavish displays from the most expensive florist on Fifth Avenue. She was shocked when he said, “They make me feel as though I’m on my own bier. Send them down to the children’s ward.”

  She warned him darkly about Miss Balissano. The woman was callous, she said, and at the same time maniacally overprotective. She practically had to fight her way with physical force to get into his room each time she came. Fanatical overprotectiveness was dangerous. It was negative thinking. He promised to indulge in no negative thinking, to consider replacing Miss Balissano.

  Miss Balissano came in at this point, and Belinda said, “I see my time is up,” her tone suggesting that she had been struck across the face with a weapon. She left, and for the first time since Craig had met Miss Balissano, he was glad to see her.

  Miss Balissano took one look at the manuscripts and casting books piled on his bedside table and picked them up and put them on the floor out of sight. She had learned something in Korea.

  He was lying in his bed with a thermometer in his mouth when Anne came in. It was a gray day, almost evening, and the room was dark. Anne opened the door tentatively, as though ready to flee at the first word from him. He waved a dumb greeting to her, indicating the tube in his mouth. She smiled uncertainly, came over to the bed, leaned over and gave him a little nervous peck on the forehead. He reached out his hand and held hers. “Oh Daddy,” she said. She wept softly.

  Miss Balissano came in, turned on the light, took the thermometer, made a notation on his chart. She always refused to tell him what his temperature was.

  “This is my daughter, Miss Balissano,” Craig said.

  “We’ve met,” Miss Balissano said grimly. But then she said everything grimly. She took no notice of the girl’s tears. She fussed with his pilows, said, “Good night. Sleep well. Don’t be long, miss.” She marched out, the sound of guns over the horizon. The night nurse would be in soon. The night nurse was a Puerto Rican young man who was a student at City College. He sat in a corner of the room all night reading textbooks in the glow of a carefully shaded lamp. His only duty was to call the intern on the floor if he thought Craig was dying. So far, he had not called the intern.

  “Oh, Daddy,” Anne said, her voice trembling. “I hate seeing you like this.”

  He had to smile a little at the youthful egotism of her first words to him. I, I, I.

  “It’s not my fault, is it, Daddy?” she said.

  “Of course not.”

  “If it’s too much trouble to talk, don’t talk.”

  “I can talk,” he said irritably. He was irritated with his illness, not with Anne, but he could see that she thought his temper was directed at her.

  “We came as soon as Ian got Mr. Thomas’s cable,” Anne said. “We were in London.”

  Craig wondered from whom Wadleigh had borrowed the money for the voya
ge. But he didn’t ask the question. “It was good of you to come,” was all he said.

  “You’re going to be all right, aren’t you?” Anne asked anxiously. Her face was pale. Traveling didn’t agree with her. He remembered all the times he had had to stop the car on trips when she was young and prone to carsickness.

  “Certainly, I’m going to be all right,” he said.

  “I talked to Dr. Gibson yesterday, I came right to the hospital as soon as we got in, they said I should wait a day to see you, but Dr. Gibson wouldn’t say yes or no when I asked him about you. ‘Only time will tell,’ he said. I hate doctors.”

  “He’s very good,” Craig said. He felt a great affection for Dr. Gibson, quiet, efficient, modest, lifesaving man. “He just doesn’t like being asked to be a prophet.”

  “Well,” she said childishly, “he might at least try to be a little bit encouraging.”

  “I guess he doesn’t think that’s his business,” Craig said.

  “You mustn’t try to be too stoical,” Anne said. “Ian says that that’s what you are—stoical.” She was already quoting her lover, Craig noted. “He says it’s an unprofitable attitude in this day and age.”

  “Will you pour a glass of water for me please, darling,” Craig said. He wanted no more quotations from the accumulated wisdom of Ian Wadleigh. He wasn’t really thirsty, but Anne seemed embarrassed and uneasy with him, and asking for a small service from her, even one as minute as pouring water out of a thermos, might make a dent in the painful barrier between them. He saw that the “darling” had pleased her. He sipped a little from the glass she offered him.