Schmidt Steps Back

by Louis Begley

  The quality of his grieving for Charlotte, the outrage that had been like a long shriek, gradually was transformed into a ritual of remembrance. When he was at home, he would look at the albums Mary had put together recording Charlotte’s childhood and adolescence and go over and over incidents that they recalled. The pictorial record stopped there, that fact offering a reminder of a different sort, attesting to how early she had grown away from them, even while Mary was still alive, well before the onset of open hostility after she and Jon decided to get married. When he was traveling, he carried a frame holding four photographs of her at different ages, always setting it on the nightstand, and he would think back, proceeding year by year but leaving out the bad times, until it seemed that her ghost had been appeased. Yes, Charlotte had been spared a lot. Inevitable disappointments in a new marriage, the ravage wrought by passing years, the constant menace of a return of her depression, illnesses, and pain. Doctors he had asked about sudden decapitation were unanimous: there would have been no anxiety, no possibility of conscious sensation. She had likewise been spared the knowledge of the Dark Age engulfing the country and the shame that Schmidt like many other Americans felt when going abroad, whether he went to Europe on foundation business or to South America or Asia on museum tours, for which he had resumed signing up.

  After the disgrace of Abu Ghraib and the still open sewer of Guantánamo, hope for his country began to stir in Schmidt with the first signs of strength in Barack Obama’s candidacy. He read hastily his autobiography, wondered whether anyone so angry at American racism could be the president of white as well as of black Americans, and decided to trust this skinny and brilliant young man, a man married to a girl who, in a simpler time, had she been white and single, would have been America’s sweetheart.

  It was in mid-September, after Obama had secured the Democratic nomination, that Schmidt and Gil Blackman met at Schmidt’s club for their first lunch in town that fall. The subjects of their conversations had changed little over the years, except that now Mr. Blackman avoided mention of his daughters and stepdaughter or Charlotte, a tactful omission for which Schmidt did not fail to be grateful. Another difference was that Gil no longer mentioned DT. The film business Aphrodite had decamped, pocketing a million dollars she had extracted from Mr. Blackman as the price of not telling Elaine about her abortion. It was money well earned and well spent, was Mr. Blackman’s stated opinion, with which Schmidt agreed, although he knew that behind the façade of his friend’s Olympian calm lay a lake of fury and resentment. The show must go on, and Mr. Blackman, not having had a hit since The Serpent, was thinking about another cooperation with the unbearable Joe Canning. One that would be truly difficult: the idea was to make a film based on Joe’s first book, the novel that had made him instantly famous.

  It will be hell, said Mr. Blackman. The story is about a woman called Magda, who, like Joe’s grandmother, emigrates with her parents from Belorussia. The family settles in Minnesota, but Magda leaves to lead her own life in South Dakota. From there on, the stories of the two women are very much alike, the only interesting difference being that the grandmother was Jewish and Magda is a shiksa. Joe’s line has always been that Magda’s story is fiction, and not the story of his grandmother. He claims it only follows the grandmother’s story in outline. You can imagine how this sort of hairsplitting goes over with journalists and other interviewers who are convinced he has written a barely disguised true story of the grandmother. True or not, it’s clear that there are things Magda does that Joe would have trouble admitting had been done by his beloved grandmother. On the other hand, if they are invented, that bastard is even sicker than we imagine. If they are true, he is a monster of indiscretion. Adding to the complications of fact versus fiction, there is the question of Joe’s surname. Canning doesn’t have much to do with the name of his Belorussian shtetl forebears on his father’s side, and none of his cousins has adopted it. There is no telling what his siblings might have done. He doesn’t have any. I have to hand it to him, though. After being badgered more often and far longer than he liked with questions about whether the book is a fictionalized biography of his grandmother, and about his Anglo-Saxon name, he finally came up with a reply that rings true: he said he doesn’t want to be thought of solely as a Jewish novelist. That’s fair enough. Who would want to stand in the shadow of Bellow and Roth?

  The die is cast, Mr. Blackman concluded. I’ve spoken to Mike, and he’s crazy about the project. Hot to trot. No turning back now.

  That’s wonderful, said Schmidt. I hope it does as well as The Snake!

  You and me both. Now I have some other news for you. Fasten your seat belt and open your mind. I don’t suppose you read Harvard Magazine. Do you?

  Schmidt shook his head. Can’t stand it, he said. Ever since they changed the format.

  That was a hundred years ago. Well, I read it, mainly for the class notes. Guess what I read about our class?

  Once again, Schmidt shook his head.

  Serge Popov is dead. Died last June. In Paris. Fell off his bicycle. No helmet. Boom boom: he’s dead.

  Goodness, said Schmidt.

  Schmidtie, please stick you know where your “my goodness” and “my my” and “good heavens.” That’s not the response I was hoping for. It’s your last chance, you old fart. You owe it to yourself to find out whether Alice is free, whether you still like her, and whether she can stand you.

  Gil, thanks for this news. But stop looking for a Hollywood ending. You do recall that Alice and I did not part on a good note. You’re asking me to make an even bigger fool of myself. Sending me to offer her an old fart with whom she can have the pleasure of living out the last ten years of his life? That’s one offer I bet she can resist.

  Why ten? What’s to stop you from living till you’re ninety-five?

  That would only make it worse.

  XXIV

  ARE YOU A VULTURE, or one of those pauvres types, losers, who can’t resist a funeral? I mean any funeral? Alice asked Schmidt when he finally reached her at home. Her voice was as harsh as her words. He had been trying her number for several days, without leaving a message. You heard that Tim was dead so you showed up. Now poor Serge is dead, and right away it’s you again. What kind of man are you?

  A desperately sad man. A man who fell in love with you many years ago and now wants a second chance. Please give it to me. Please agree to see me.

  I don’t see why.

  I want to come to Paris to explain to you why. Please let me. What possible harm would that do?

  It would upset me. I’m sad enough as it is. I don’t see why I should give you a chance to make it worse.

  He heard her stifling a sob.

  Alice, trust me, please! I won’t upset you. You’ll do us both a great injustice if you refuse to see me. Please think about it overnight, or longer—but not too long please! When may I call you again?

  All right, she said. Tomorrow, a little earlier. Call me at eight. Good-bye.

  That would be two in the afternoon, Schmidt’s time. He would be in New York, which was a good thing because work would keep his mind off the call he was to make. He ate a sandwich in the cafeteria, wished that he still smoked, and at quarter of two was at his desk, a triple espresso laced with hot milk before him. She answered on the first ring.

  Dear Alice, he said, please give me a favorable answer.

  There is no favorable answer. Anyway, I don’t know what it would be. If you do come to Paris, I suppose I can have dinner with you. When will you be here?

  The day after tomorrow, he said, this coming Thursday. October fourteenth.

  Very well. Call me at the office.

  It was close to noon by the time the plane landed. He could hardly contain himself waiting for the announcement that cell phones could be switched on. If it took much longer, she’d have gone to lunch, and there was no telling when she’d get back. He’d been an idiot not to agree with her where and at what time they would have dinner. At last!
She answered at once; he did not have to speak first to the secretary. Alice, we’ve just landed. I’m still in the airplane. I am so eager to see you, so happy that it will be in a few hours, I can hardly wait for this evening!

  Are you staying at that hotel? she asked.

  No, in an apartment the foundation rents on place du Palais Bourbon.

  What’s the number there?

  He gave it to her, slowly, and then also his cell phone number, asking her to read them both back and to try the landline first when she called.

  Look, Schmidtie, she said, the fact is you pressured me. I’m not at all sure that agreeing to see you was a good idea. I’m having lunch with a friend whose advice I trust. If after talking to her I decide to see you I’ll call. Otherwise, I won’t. Please don’t argue with me. In the worst case you will have a very good dinner somewhere alone. I hadn’t thought about you in a long time, and now that you’ve reminded me that you exist I’m furious.

  She hung up.

  Somehow he got off the plane, collected his suitcase, and took a taxi to his apartment. Would she call? He thought the chances were slightly better than even that she would. But to think that his fate would be decided by some biddy working in Alice’s publishing house! Probably not Claude, the wife of the pénaliste, at whose St. Cloud house she’d been on the “sleepover” that had caused Schmidt so much grief. If she were the trusted advice-dispensing friend, wouldn’t Alice have named her? It had to be someone else, and although the friend was French he thought he knew the kind, knew it intimately. Enough of them had come to dinner or lunch or drinks and God knows what else while Mary was still alive. Widowed, divorced, or lesbian, all permanently soured on men for one reason or another. Ugh! The thing to do was to go out and clear his head before it burst. As the chances of her coming to the apartment in the afternoon were close to zero, proper unpacking could wait.

  The sun had come out from behind some very high clouds. Walking quickly, he crossed the square and then the Seine at the Pont de la Concorde. He knew where he was going: to that spot in the Tuileries where he now knew that final chapter of his life, his rebirth under the sign of Alice, had begun. He found a green metal folding chair near the bassin. If it had been a Wednesday afternoon, when schools were closed all day, a flock of children would have been there taking advantage of this glorious October afternoon. They’d be launching their model sailboats and motorboats under the supervision of mothers, nannies, or retired grandfathers, all of them hovering just behind their charges, ready to restrain a child who was leaning too far over the water. Long ago he had dreamed of bringing a grandchild and the fancy sailboat that was a present from Grandpa Schmidtie to the pond in Central Park. Watching other people’s grandchildren was the best he could aspire to now. If he was still around on Saturday and the weather held, he could have his fill of children at this bassin or at the one in the Luxembourg Gardens, at the pony and donkey rides, at the carousel where they tilted at the brass ring, or at the remarkably well-appointed Luxembourg playground that charged admission. That was a practice that had never ceased to shock Schmidt: paying for the right to play in a public park! For that matter, if the grandparents were feeling flush in the midst of a financial crisis that could turn into a second Great Depression, they would perhaps be at the atrociously expensive aquarium at the Trocadéro. The day before, the Dow had closed at around 8,500, a dispiriting decline considering that a year earlier it had stood above 14,000. Not that Schmidt was worried. He still had more than enough money. No, as Mike Mansour had been fond of saying before the spectacle of Schmidt’s misery made the inquiry seem cruel, the question was: Did Schmidt have anything to spend his money on or anyone to spend it with? Did he have a life or only an estate plan? The answer to these unanswered questions now depended on Alice. Alice seeking lunchtime counsel from some feminist fossil who was surely one of Serge’s allies; Alice at her office, where everything, perhaps even a photograph on her desk, must remind her of Serge; Alice recalling the humiliation to which Schmidt subjected her in London.

  The dozen or so boats in the water were all piloted by elderly types—in Schmidt’s opinion, retired postal clerks, shopkeepers, and café owners, if café owners who did not retire to their native hamlets in Auvergne existed—hunched over their control consoles. A regatta, complicated by a puffy breeze, was in progress. The lead boat, which had been barreling wing and wing toward a notional buoy, its location fixed by a mysterious agreement of the owners, rounded it, jibing noisily, and continued, close hauled, on a port tack. Moments later, the other boats also cleared the marker, and the entire armada was beating toward the far shore. They still had a ways to go when Schmidt’s attention to the race slackened. The afternoon might be mild, but he was shivering. He knew the reason: nerves and fatigue. He should have worn a sweater under his heavy tweed jacket.

  What’s done cannot be undone. By him or by others. For instance: just then, coming about at the next buoy, the lead boat pinched its sails. In irons, the mainsail luffing helplessly, it lost precious seconds that Schmidt didn’t think could be made up. What had remained of his interest in the race vanished. The damage done in London, he suddenly concluded, was likewise beyond repair. He was insane to have come to Paris to plead his case. His reward would be a fiasco followed by the start of a new cycle of sorrow and remorse.

  He checked the cell phone in his jacket pocket and shrugged: it was turned on, the battery was fully charged; Alice was still at lunch confessing to the feminist director of conscience. Following the familiar route to Alice’s apartment, he left the Tuileries through a side entrance and walked along rue de Rivoli toward the gray vastness of the place de la Concorde. His reflection in the window of Hilditch & Key, before which he stopped because of the display of shirts and neckties on sale, frightened him. Red nose and bloodshot eyes, lips pursed up tight over the shame of stained and uneven front teeth, an expression so lugubrious, so pained, that it resisted his effort to smile. The features could not be rearranged; the mouth continued to droop. His mop of hair, once red and now discolored and streaked with gray, stood on end and stuck out over his ears. He knew who he looked like: the man, the monstrous chemistry teacher become a hobo reeking of carrion, Mr. Wilson, who had deflowered and would have, but for the strength of her character, perverted the fourteen-year-old Carrie! He had run over and killed Mr. Wilson in heavy fog on a Bridgehampton road. And now he had turned into the image of the man! Twinned with Mr. Wilson. Twinned with him in misery and disgrace.

  Should he run away, leave Paris without seeing Alice? Turn off his cell phone, let the phone in the apartment ring unanswered, run before she can grant him an audience or deny it. He could pick up his kit, head for Roissy, and take a plane for most any place on the globe. What good was having an American passport and money if not for just such an escape? Once he got wherever he had decided to go, he would sit and think and send her a postcard if he found one he liked. After all, people change their plans all the time, on a moment’s notice. Hadn’t Alice just done so herself? He had never stood up anyone before, but why let that stop him? Alice wouldn’t be shocked or disappointed. She would be relieved, her view of him as a cad royally confirmed. A childish wish formed in his head: he wanted to call Carrie and ask her what to do. But even he, stupid though he was in his panicked state, knew that would be a dumb move.

  In fact, the idea of running away was absurd. He did have to think, but he could think right here in Paris, and think fast, before it was too late. The first order of business was to brush his hair and then wash his face and hands in real hot water. It would help to have a drink too, something warm, a toddy, or even a cup of hot chocolate. Logically, he should jump into a taxi—if he retraced his steps he could find one at the stand on rue de Castiglione—and go home. But what had logic to do with how he felt? Here he was in Alice’s neighborhood, a circumstance that he found comforting and fitting, consistent with his status as a supplicant pilgrim. Besides, he wasn’t sure he could face the unpacked suitcase a
nd the edgy elegance of his apartment, the good pieces of furniture, the stately velvet curtains framing the windows, the sheen of the parquet floor. His present needs could be satisfied just as easily at the Meurice, three blocks away on rue de Rivoli, going in the wrong direction. He had never stayed there, but since it had been good enough to serve as command headquarters for the Wehrmacht all through the war, it would probably suffice as a place for him to pee. The old Continental was nearer but in his opinion was déclassé, having been renamed after it was bought by some midwestern chain; he’d have to make do there with paper towels in the washroom. He had reached the Meurice when a thought struck him. Eye drops! Is it Murine or Visine that gets the red out? Backtracking, he found both at the English pharmacy in the middle of the first block of rue de Castiglione and bought one of each. His spirits lifted.

  Nor did the toilettes at the Meurice disappoint him: huge mirrors and overhead lights muted to be flattering. His most urgent business done, he examined his face more closely. The furrows left by his habitual scowl were what they were, and he would not pay to have them erased. Besides, would anyone recognize him without them? The same went for the bags under his eyes, although he knew that shrinking them was a simple enough matter. Gil Blackman had had a polo-playing doctor on the Upper East Side, renowned for eye work, fix him up, but Schmidt did not direct big-budget films and unlike Gil at the time had no DT to look younger for. He would do without Hollywood-style improvements. His teeth were another matter. Gil had also had his front teeth capped, a procedure that was possible if, despite wretched appearance, they were still soundly rooted. Gil’s natural teeth were filed down and then covered with individual caps so cunningly fashioned from tinted porcelain that no one could guess they were an orthodontist’s handiwork. A major financial transaction would doubtless be required, especially in view of the dentist’s confession to Gil that he had been ripped off by Madoff. It stood to reason that the dentist would try to recoup from his patients by slapping a surcharge on his bills. So be it! Why skimp on the upkeep of his mouth while not questioning the need to stain the house or paint the trim whenever Bryan, his self-appointed cat sitter, handyman, and majordomo, told him that time had come again? He would let Gil’s dentist fix his teeth and still manage to cross the ocean anytime Alice beckoned and to be in Paris as long and as often as she liked, if only he could persuade her to take him back. Not that Schmidt expected to be making those trips and burning through his money for very long. The ten years’ estimate he had given Gil was 100 percent sincere. Albert and his little sister and any brothers and sisters to come would still receive the legacy he had promised Carrie and Jason, and there would be plenty left over for Alice if only …