The Misfortunes of Others

by Gloria Dank

  “Bernard is not aware that other people have feelings. He has demonstrated that to me on numerous occasions.”

  “Well, I’m all right, Snooky. I’m all right. Just put the hot chocolate down on that table and go away now, there’s a good boy.”

  He sighed and went away.

  The next morning Weezy woke up early. She got up, changed and went downstairs to find Bernard already sitting at the kitchen table drinking coffee and reading the paper.

  “Good morning,” he said politely.

  “Good morning, sweetie. Can I help myself to some coffee?”

  “Right there.”

  She poured herself a cup and stirred milk into it. “Anyone else up?”

  Bernard shook his head. He absentmindedly felt around the table, underneath the newspaper, for his coffee cup. “No.”

  “Then you’ll have to say good-bye and thanks for me. I’m going home.”

  He lowered the paper. “Are you sure?”

  “I’m sure.”

  “The men from the security alarm company should be there in a few hours. They said they’d come before noon.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Be careful.”

  “I will.”

  “And Weezy, one more thing before you go.”

  “Yes?”

  “Were you planning to clean up your studio today?”

  “Yes, of course. I can’t leave it looking like that. I have students coming later.”

  “How would you feel about letting them see it the way it is?”

  “Why, Bernard? To see if one of them looks guilty and screams out, ‘It was me, I did it’?”

  Bernard shrugged. “It might be useful, that’s all. To see how they react.”

  Weezy toyed with her cup. “Well … I want to get it cleaned up, but I guess they could help me. After I spring it on them, I mean. All right, I guess, if you say so.”

  “You could bring Snooky along.”

  “Snooky? Why?”

  Bernard shrugged and lifted the paper again. “He’s good at stuff like that. How people react. What they’re feeling. That kind of thing. It’s the only thing that seems to stick in that tiny reptile brain of his.”

  “Snooky is a creature of emotion and instinct,” agreed Weezy. She pulled part of the newspaper towards her. “Oh, my, look at all the terrible things going on in the world. This puts my own personal traumas into perspective.”

  “Does it?”

  “No. Not really.”

  Bernard, in an unaccustomed spasm of sympathy, said, “Can I make you some breakfast?”

  “Thank you, my dear, that’s the nicest thing you ever said to me, but no thank you. I’m going home now. Give Maya a kiss for me and tell her thanks very much. I’ll call her later. Oh, and tell Snooky if he wants to be present at the unveiling to be at my house by one o’clock. That’s when the class arrives.”

  “Okay.”

  “Oh, my God,” Alice said. Her eyes widened and her hands went up to her face. “What … what is this?”

  “This happened yesterday,” said Weezy, watching her steadily. “Yesterday afternoon.”

  “Oh, my God,” said Alice feebly, her eyes scanning the destruction. All at once she gave a little scream. “Oh, no, no! Not the ‘Girl’!”

  She went over to one of the slashed canvases and touched it with trembling fingertips.

  “The girl?” said Snooky in an undertone.

  “ ‘Girl in White,’ ” said Weezy, still watching Alice. “The painting I told you about. Elmo’s best. Something he’s been working on for a while, here and at home. Unfortunately it was here yesterday.”

  Snooky nodded.

  There was a wide and interesting range of reactions among the students. Mrs. Castor, who was the next to arrive, simply tightened her lips and nodded grimly as Weezy explained to her. She lowered her head over her torn paintings as if they were children. Jennifer, who came in soon after with Elmo, was horrified and teary; Elmo was enraged. He looked as if he wanted to put his fist through the wall.

  “Calm down,” snapped Weezy. “You’re not making it any easier for the rest of us.”

  “But Weezy, who would do this?”

  “I don’t know.”

  When he saw “Girl in White,” he shook his head in pain and turned away.

  Nikki, who came in last, gasped and turned pale when she saw the room. She stood wringing her hands as Weezy spoke to her, murmuring under her breath, “No … oh, no … how awful … who in their right mind would … oh, my goodness … not Elmo’s ‘Girl in White,’ how awful … I can’t think how … you mean, some of my paintings, too?”

  She went to where her slashed canvases lay on the floor, and stood over them, wringing her hands, muttering to herself.

  “Is she okay?” Snooky asked.

  “I don’t know. I guess so.” Weezy was wound as tight as a spring. She had her arms crossed, as if to protect herself.

  “How are you doing?”

  “Not good. I don’t like playing tricks on my students. I feel very low. I should have called the class off and cleaned up on my own.”

  “You could use the help cleaning up.”

  “No. I would have done better by myself. I should have called Sao, she and I could have done it. I should never have listened to Bernard.”

  “Well, that’s true in general.”

  “It’s not funny. I feel terrible. What a trick to play on them.”

  “Somebody,” he reminded her, “played this trick on you first.”

  “Yes, but it’s not one of them. Don’t you think so? I’m sure it’s not one of them. They all seemed really surprised.”

  “Ye-es,” he said slowly.

  “I hate not knowing who did it. I hate not trusting anybody.”

  “You can trust me.”

  She looked at him tiredly. “Don’t you ever lose an opportunity to insinuate yourself?”

  “Well, actually,” began Snooky, when suddenly a voice was raised from the other side of the room. It was Jennifer.

  “Look at this,” she said, sounding surprised. She lifted up a painting. “This hasn’t been touched. And neither have the rest of these.”

  There was a stirring and a mumbling among the other students, like the roaring of a distant, angry ocean.

  Alice was looking through the unharmed paintings. Her face was very white.

  “They’re all yours,” Elmo said at last. “They’re all yours, Alice.”

  “All right. So they’re all mine.” Alice swayed from foot to foot like an angry child. “What of it?”

  Jennifer hesitated and seemed about to say something; then she put the painting down. “Nothing.”

  “What of it?” repeated Alice, into the silence.

  “Nothing.”

  “They were in a corner by themselves,” Mrs. Castor pointed out reasonably. “You know, out of the way.”

  This was greeted by silence. The atmosphere suddenly seemed very thick, filled with waves of anger and hatred. Snooky could almost see them, vibrating with one lone figure at their center.

  “I didn’t do this,” said Alice. Her voice sounded oddly calm. “You can’t think I was the one who did this.”

  “No,” said Jennifer. She backed away from Alice, as if to get away from the lines of force converging in her direction. “No.”

  “If I had, I wouldn’t be stupid enough to leave my own paintings. Now would I?”

  “No.”

  “I wouldn’t be that stupid,” said Alice. She turned to Weezy in entreaty. “I didn’t do it! How can you all think—”

  They were silent, staring at her. Weezy started to move towards her. Alice sobbed once, a deep guttural sound in her throat, then ran out of the room. They could hear the front door open and slam shut.

  FIVE

  “WHAT A VERY good idea you had, Bernard,” Snooky said when he returned home. He sat down in a chair in Bernard’s study and stretched out his long legs.

  Bernard loo
ked up from his desk hopefully. “Did you find out anything?”

  “Why yes, yes I did, Bernard. I found out that your little idea traumatized one of the students and totally disrupted the class. Weezy hates your guts and probably mine, too, through association.”

  Bernard was silent, toying with a pencil. “What happened?”

  Snooky recounted the events of the afternoon. When he was finished, Bernard hunkered back into his leather chair, leaned back to look at the ceiling, and scribbled absently on a notepad. He stood up and went to look out the window.

  “I feel bad,” he said.

  “Who doesn’t?”

  There was a pause.

  “It’s interesting, though, about the girl Alice. Interesting.”

  “Weezy didn’t think so. She chewed me out afterwards, and told me to tell you she’s coming over later to chew you out.”

  “Oh, good,” Bernard said heavily. “Good, good, good, good, good.”

  “She said that Alice would probably never come back again. She said Alice’s trust had been violated. She said her students couldn’t create in an atmosphere of violence and betrayal.”

  “Did she say that, really, ‘violence and betrayal’?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Hmmmm.” Bernard turned back to the window.

  “She’s very articulate usually, and that’s nothing to her command of the language once she really gets going. Believe me. I was awed by her grasp of the subtleties of the English vocabulary and syntax.”

  “Yes.”

  “Plus, I read an article recently saying that only seven percent of communication is through words, and the overwhelming majority of meaning is communicated through tone of voice and body language. Well, it turns out she handles that very effectively also.”

  “I can imagine,” Bernard said in sympathy. He came back to his chair and sat down.

  “Very effectively,” Snooky repeated. He gave his brother-in-law an icy stare.

  “Well,” said Bernard.

  “Well.”

  “Yes. Well.”

  “Any more bright ideas?”

  “Let me just point out that the class would have learned sooner or later that Alice’s paintings were the only ones left untouched.”

  “That’s true.”

  “And it’s interesting that there’s so much hatred towards her.”

  “I could almost see it,” Snooky mused. “Lines of force coming towards her. The air seemed thick where she was standing.”

  “Oh, I’m sure.”

  “No, really. I mean it.”

  “The air seemed thick?”

  “Yes.”

  “What else, Snooky? What other New Age claptrap are you going to give me? Are you seeing auras now? Why didn’t you just read their palms to find out who did it? Which reminds me, how did they all look when they came in and saw the place?”

  “Distressed. Every single one of them. They all reacted differently, but they all seemed really upset.”

  “And surprised?”

  “Yes. And surprised.”

  “That’s too bad. I was hoping—”

  “We all know what you were hoping, Bernard. That somebody would drop to their knees and cry out, ‘I did it! Lock me up, I’m the guilty one!’ Right?”

  “No,” he said sullenly. “Not at all.”

  “Well, something more subtle, but along those lines. The guilty look, the furtive glance, the obviously fake reaction. Something like that?”

  “Tell me more about how they reacted.”

  Snooky obligingly told him in detail. His memory for conversation and body language was uncannily accurate. He detailed what had happened from beginning to end, to the final slam of the front door behind Alice.

  “It sounds like they were all surprised,” said Bernard.

  “Yes.”

  “Damn.”

  “Yes, too bad.”

  “We need to know more about these people. Why don’t you sit in on her class for a while?”

  “Well, I can think of a couple reasons why not. First, because I don’t know anything at all about art. I don’t think I could pass as a serious student. I already flunked being a model. Secondly, because Weezy isn’t speaking to me right now. I don’t think she’s going to let me sit in on her class.”

  Bernard sighed. “All right. Who else might have done it besides one of the students? How about the interviewer from People magazine?”

  “How about the gallery owner who was going to put on her show?”

  Bernard shrugged irritably. “What do you think, Snooky, the gallery owner wrecked her studio because she turned him down for a date?”

  “How do you know about the date?”

  “Maya told me.”

  “I didn’t think Maya bothered you with that kind of stuff. You know, interpersonal relationships and so on.”

  “Maya tells me everything,” Bernard said smugly. “So what do you think?”

  “Well, it doesn’t seem likely.”

  “He’d have to be crazy. Did he seem crazy?”

  “No, not really. He has very pale eyes, but I guess that’s not his fault. Heredity, you know. He seemed as normal as anybody.”

  “So we’re left with the journalist. What’s her motive?”

  “Jealousy?”

  “Of her boyfriend’s ex-lover?”

  “Maybe she’s a frustrated artist herself, and Harold always holds Weezy up to her about it.”

  “Maybe the sky is green and the moon is blue,” Bernard said kindly.

  “I agree, it doesn’t seem likely. The only thing that seems likely right now is that you’re going to get a very angry phone call from Weezy in the next half hour or so. What do you plan to do about it?”

  “Lay low,” said Bernard, turning back to his typewriter. “Lay very low.”

  Weezy, however, did not call. Snooky grew worried towards evening and dialed her number.

  “Oh, hi, Snooky.”

  “Hi. I thought you were going to call and chew Bernard out?”

  “Oh, I can’t do that. It’s not his fault he knows more about lobsters than about people, poor thing. And anyway, when I thought about it afterwards I realized that he’s not responsible for what happened with Alice and the others. That’s been brewing for a long time.”

  “How very rational of you. What a shame all these kind thoughts didn’t occur to you when you were screaming your head off at me.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Oh, that’s okay.”

  “No, I’m really sorry. It’s not your fault.”

  “I think I was trying to point that out to you at the time.”

  “I just needed somebody to yell at, and there you were,” said Weezy.

  “Ah well, there I am, whipping boy to the universe.”

  “Yes, your life is hard. Time to jet back to St. Martin, perhaps? Or the Côte d’Azur? Or wherever else you seem to spend most of your time?”

  “I’ve never been to the Côte d’Azur. What a good idea.”

  “Time to go, perhaps?”

  “Only if you go with me.”

  In reply, she slammed down the phone.

  When Snooky dropped by the next day, he found Weezy sitting in her kitchen, staring out the window thoughtfully. “Hi,” she greeted him.

  “Hi. Thought I’d come by and see how you’re doing. You’re not still mad at me, are you?”

  “No, no. Listen, I just called Edward Genuardi. You know, the gallery owner.”

  “Yes?”

  “Well, he told me the strangest thing, Snooky. I was struggling to spit out the words to tell him that there wouldn’t be a show—I know it’s not the end of the world, but it’s taken me this long to get my courage up to call him—when he told me that he knew already.”

  “What?”

  “He said somebody—a woman, he said—had called up this morning and told him that my paintings were destroyed and the show was off. Can you believe that?”

  “A woman,”
Snooky said.

  “She hung up before he could ask any questions. He called and left this cryptic message on my machine—he was sure it was a sick kind of practical joke, and he didn’t want to upset me by repeating something some loony said. He just left a message asking me to call him, there was something he had to ask me about. When I spoke to him, he said she didn’t even sound serious, she laughed as she hung up.”

  “She laughed as she hung up,” repeated Snooky. He sat down and took Weezy’s hands in his.

  “Yeah. Creepy, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah, it is. Do you believe him?”

  Weezy stared. “Believe him?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Yes, I believe him. Why would he lie?”

  “He would lie if he came up here and slashed your paintings himself.”

  “Oh, come on. Why? Because I turned him down for dinner? Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “No, no. I don’t mean to snap at you. It’s just that … it’s so sick. Who would do that to me? Who do I know who would do that to me? She laughed as she hung up, he said.”

  “That is sick.”

  “He couldn’t believe it when I said it was true. He thought for sure it was some kind of prank.”

  “How did he react then?”

  “Oh, well, he said he was sorry and so on. You know. What’s he going to say, for goodness sake? He said he was terribly sorry and he certainly hoped they could put on another show of mine very soon, etcetera, etcetera.” She shook her head. “The usual bullshit.”

  “I’m sure he means it.”

  “Oh, come on. It just makes me so angry. I want to find out who did this, Snooky. I want to grab whoever it is and slap them and shake them till their eyeballs fall out.”

  “Don’t you have any … any hint at all? Any intuition about it?”

  She considered this, tracing with her finger the pattern of the tiles on her countertop. “No. I don’t. I wish I did. It seems incredible to me. Nobody dislikes me. I’m such a friendly person. I can’t understand it.”

  “Does any of your students seem likely to you?”

  She shook her head. “If I was going to pick one, I’d say Alice, of course—she’s the most temperamental, and she certainly holds grudges. But it seems incredible that she’d go this far.”