Changing the Past

by Thomas Berger

  The odd thing is that the man did not for once seem to speak derisively: there was a suggestion of genuine feeling here.

  “Are you speaking from experience?”

  The other returned immediately to his usual style and said, with a disagreeable smirk, “All the world’s a stage…”

  Hunsicker felt a sudden pang. “My son was active in prep-school and college dramatics. I always thought he had a real talent, enough to have a professional try anyhow, and was willing to underwrite him, at least to the limits of my modest resources. But it’s Elliot who’s always been the conservative when it comes to financial matters. He wouldn’t hear of such a thing. Elliot has always been the fogy in our family.”

  “Then you’re back again to stay? You’re Walter Hunsicker, and you accept your lot in life.”

  But Hunsicker, on a surge of defiance, cried, “No! Certainly not. I’m going to beat this: I have to. But the next time I must be somebody I can be proud of—someone Martha and Elliot would have been proud of, had they known, though they can’t ever know…. It’s complicated. They will never have lived, but as of this moment they are back in existence, suffering…”

  The little man stirred impatiently. “So what will it be?”

  “I suppose it would make sense to go back to my earlier life for an idea,” Hunsicker said. “Maybe a bit later than when I wanted to ride the range with Hoot Gibson, though it too was probably partly influenced by the movies. I did read a lot as a kid and at some point began to think I might like to be a writer, but I also have memories of films I saw in which authors wore ascots and smoked pipes and holed up in quaint little cottages in Connecticut and wrote novels or plays—”

  The little man sniffed and asked, “Given your opportunity to choose any role in all of existence, your choice is one that does not act but rather represents?” He sniffed again. “Interesting.”

  “As a young chap I thought I might wait till I had some experiences and then write about them. But I was in the service between wars, at camps in the U.S., didn’t have any combat or foreign mise en scènes to write about. Then I got married, became a father, and had to make a living. My job has involved me with the other side of writing: they don’t mix, generally speaking. The way I have to read a manuscript is not conducive to creativity. Some of the most noted authors spell badly, make grammatical errors, real howlers, you wouldn’t believe it. In my job one doesn’t always have the respect for writers that one probably should have, that one started with. But many of them are so awful! Of course, they all think they’re Tolstoys and sometimes go so far as to insist that some incorrect usage is right because it’s theirs: that correct usage becomes so through being that of great writers.” Kellog cleared his throat, thickened with indignation. “Well, it does. But there’s a question as to who’s great.”

  He might have continued with another audience, but the little man, bored, said, “What you are is your business. Mine is concerned with what you’d rather be.”

  Kellog had to add, “My job doesn’t bring me as close to authors as if I were an acquisition editor. And just as well! The average writer is a self-pitying neurotic with some kind of addiction, most often alcohol though it can be anything else as well, drugs, sex, sometimes all of them at once, he’s usually in debt, a monster of vanity, wracked with envy…”

  “It sounds as though you’ve just about talked yourself into it,” said the little man.

  “The fact remains that without them there’d be nothing to edit or print. Even if what they produce is drivel, it didn’t exist before they produced it.”

  “That doesn’t sound especially valuable to me,” said the other. “The same thing could be said of excrement.”

  It might well have been the Philistinism of that remark that stung Kellog into making his decision. There was an ongoing need for all persons of culture to make common cause against barbarism.

  THE COLLEGE magazine, The Owl, had printed Kellog’s first fiction, the characters in which were soldiers in the war just ended. In response he received a note of commendation from the man who taught the creative-writing course which in fact John had not taken: one Brock Forrester, a professor of English but also a genuine author in that he had published several short stories in national magazines. John had seen one once in his dentist’s waiting room but hadn’t had time to read it before being called to the chair.

  Forrester wore a brushy mustache that concealed most of his mouth. His salt-and-pepper hair was wiry and abundant. He removed his horn-rimmed glasses when Kellog entered the office.

  “Yes,” said he, “I found much to praise in the story, but the reason I asked you to come see me was that you also made a lot of errors, which I didn’t like to mention in the note because I like to always accentuate the positive, like the song says.” He stuck a pipe under his mustache. It already had tobacco in it, for he proceeded to light it and puff smoke. “I’ll make an exception and let you join my class at midterm, if you want.” He took the pipe from his mouth, pointed the stem at John, and said jovially, “Now there’s an offer to conjure with.”

  Forrester’s class met at the same hour as the section of Spanish that John had been pressured into signing up for by his faculty adviser, who assured him that the language, unlike the two years of French with which he had already satisfied the requirement, would be invaluable now that the war was over, “with our increasing business with the up-and-coming nations south of the border, down Mexico way, like the song says.” Having no interest in Spanish, John was not reluctant to switch to Forrester’s course, which he had scarcely noticed heretofore, for he had not thought of writing as a subject to be studied. If it were, then Forrester, a professor of it, ought to be a celebrity in the field, like…actually, no names of living writers came to mind, all of John’s favorites being practitioners of the past like Edgar Allan Poe and Mark Twain. Surely Poe never made a formal study of writing. And perhaps was the worse for it, according to Forrester’s theory, which held that there was no worker in words, however exalted, whose text could not have been improved by extensive editing and rewriting in response to suggestions by such teachers as himself.

  John was thrilled, on the first day he attended the class, to hear Forrester read his college-magazine story aloud. It was astonishing to learn how one’s words might be improved by the human voice, and Forrester was a gifted actor, changing tones for each of the characters and sometimes even adding regional accents of which the author had made only slight indications if any. He was certainly being hospitable, to do this before a group of students all of whom, unlike John, had been with him for the preceding semester.

  But when the reading was done Forrester said, “There you have our new arrival. Now, who wants to be the first to assault him?”

  Assuming that this remark was facetious, Kellog looked eagerly from his seat in the back row to see who responded. Three or four hands were in the air, including that of a girl in a tight sweater of robin’s egg blue. She also had bright blond hair, worn in front in bangs that came just to her eyebrows. But it was not she whom Forrester chose.

  “Mr. Backlin?”

  Backlin was a stocky fellow with a low forehead and, at twenty, a five o’clock shadow. “Well,” said he, “it really doesn’t work in so many ways I don’t know just where to start. One, the characterization is poor; these are cardboard figures. You can’t tell one from the other.”

  But that was the idea, said John to himself. He tried to keep his expression from betraying the feeling he had against Backlin.

  A guy named Ross spoke next. He derided the story for its use of dashes for foul language. “Either we use the words and let the chips fall where they may,” said he, “or use other words that convey the sense of obscenity without being obscene. Oh, that may not always be easy, but then writing is supposed to require some effort. This is just laziness.”

  Next a skinny brunette named Kleemeyer said, “There are some very good things in it—”

  A general groan wa
s heard, and somebody said, “Name one!”

  “Come on now,” said Miss Kleemeyer. “The sergeant from Brooklyn, he’s not a badly drawn character.”

  “He’s out of every second-rate war movie Hollywood ever made!” jeered Backlin.

  “I didn’t say he was original,” noted Miss Kleemeyer. “I just said he has something.”

  “Anyone else, before I get my two cents in?” Forrester asked. He was ignoring the blonde’s hand, to Kellog the most conspicuous signal that had been made. “I’m surprised nobody has mentioned the obvious.” Ross put up his hand, but Forrester cried, “Too late now, sir!” He assumed a wide smirk and cried, “Structure!” He strolled to and fro. “Situation established, then conflict enters to threaten the status quo, and finally the resolution creates a new situation. In this story we just have these guys cowering in a foxhole. They are the same people at the end as they were on page one. Therefore nothing has happened. The story makes no point.” He lowered his head and plucked up another sheaf of papers from the desktop. “Now here we have another piece of work from the prolific Miss Daphne Kleemeyer.”

  “Excuse me,” said Kellog from the back row, redundantly raising and waving his hand. “Do I get to answer?”

  Forrester raised his head very slowly. “Answer what?”

  “These attacks?”

  Forrester sighed. “These aren’t attacks, Mr. Kellog. This is constructive criticism, to get which is presumably why you begged to be allowed to join this class in midstream, which ordinarily I wouldn’t permit.”

  John made no response to the outrageous lie, but he said with spirit, “The point is the deadly boredom of war. Yes, the situation stays the same, because the war is not over. The characters are all soldiers of the same age, so naturally they’d be a lot like one another. However, I did try to a certain extent to give them different voices. I admit I wasn’t being too original in the case of ‘Brooklyn.’ I guess I wrote that without thinking. As for rough language, I don’t know how to deal with it except as I did. I just don’t have the experience as a writer as yet to think up ways to make it seem dirty when it actually isn’t.”

  “This is not the debating team, Mr. Kellog,” acerbly said Mr. Forrester. He picked up the Kleemeyer manuscript and began to read from it. He managed to finish the story just as the period ended, but any discussion would have to be postponed for the next class.

  Still smarting, John decided to quit the writing course and return to Spanish. He waited outside the classroom door for Forrester to get free of the many students who clustered around him to claim manuscripts he had read and marked and leave others for his future consideration. One of these persons was the blonde, and another was Miss Kleemeyer, who now came out into the corridor, holding a burden of books as though it were a baby.

  “Hi! I just wanted to say I really liked your story.”

  Having no physical interest in her, he would probably not even have recognized her as a fellow member of the class had she not distinguished herself by being the only voice with anything positive to say about the story.

  “Thanks. I liked yours too.” It was fortunate he could so much as remember it was hers that Forrester had just read: preoccupied as he had been with his injuries, he had not heard a word of it.

  Staring earnestly through her glasses, Daphne Kleemeyer said, “Once in a while somebody says something useful, but mostly the criticism is worthless, just sounding off by people who think they’re impressing Forrester.”

  “He seems like a jerk to me,” said John.

  She hesitated. “Actually, he’s got some talent himself, but he’s been writing at the same novel for years and just can’t Finish it. Frustration makes him peevish. If you’ve got a minute and want to talk more about him, we ought to go somewhere else, because he’ll be coming out here in a moment.”

  “All right,” Kellog said. She was, after all, his favorite reader; he owed her something, and perhaps he was being over-hasty in wanting to leave the class.

  They went to the cafeteria in the basement of the Student Union building, where she had a mug of tea and he sipped from a tall glass filled with a ton of ice and a tot of Coke yet costing a nickel all the same.

  “My name’s John Kellog.”

  Daphne reached across the table and shook his hand, like a man. Her hand was delicate of bone. She brought it back to grasp the little tab of the teabag, which she removed to the tabletop, where it immediately exuded a good deal of brown liquid into the folded paper napkin she quickly brought into play. She asked him to use her first name.

  “You really liked my story?”

  “I did indeed,” she said. “But are you professional enough at this point to accept the fact that a lot of what Forrester said about it was right?”

  He did not welcome this turn, but she had proved her good will and was entitled to courteous treatment. “I know I have a long way to go.”

  “That’s true of everybody,” said she. “But generalities are pretty useless when applied to writing, where it’s particulars that matter. As for your story, I listened to your remarks and I think I know what you’re trying to accomplish, and you certainly did succeed in part, but Forrester was right in saying it lacked structure. You shouldn’t automatically reject what others say just because they are sometimes wrong—which I think you tend to do.”

  John was both irritated and flattered. He did not like to be criticized by a girl, but he was gratified to be the focus of her attention all the same. Changing the subject was his move to claim the initiative. “Who’s Blondie? Forrester ignored her.”

  “She’s his wife now,” Daphne answered. “She was his mistress first term, but he knocked her up (if you’ll pardon the language) and would have lost his job through the moral-turpitude clause, so they got married during winter vacation just ended.”

  The Kellog of those days was shocked. “God, how much older is he?”

  Daphne nodded with her firm chin. “She’s twenty and he just turned forty-two.”

  John chewed a piece of cracked ice as his sense of normality reeled. He had not himself known a female carnally. That a girl of twenty would copulate voluntarily with an old man was not acceptable to his reason.

  Slush in his mouth, he asked, “Why?”

  “Well, he is a published writer.”

  At the next meeting of the writing class, Daphne was awaiting his arrival. “Here,” she said, gesturing, “sit right here.” She indicated the chair to her left.

  “Doesn’t that belong to somebody?”

  She shook her head, her dark hair moving and calling attention to how short it was: now that he thought about it, she looked rather like a flapper of bygone times. He had seen pictures of his aunt with such a haircut, but he did not find it especially feminine. “Ross used to sit here, but I told him to take off.”

  Though annoyed, John stayed, setting a precedent with Daphne.

  She leaned close and whispered, “Remember, today’s the discussion of my story. Since you liked it, I hope you’ll make your opinion known.”

  When Forrester asked for comments on the Kleemeyer story, Jack raised his hand. He had not listened to a word of it when it was being read, but expected, as the newest member of the class, not to be called on first. By listening carefully to the remarks of his predecessors, he could surely learn enough to fake a comment of his own. For example, if Backlin attacked the characterization, he could defend it in a general way.

  The trouble was, neither Backlin nor anyone else competed with him for the teacher’s attention. His was the only hand aloft.

  “Good for you, Mr. Kellog,” Forrester commended him. “To accept the challenge singlehandedly that so many others have run away from. Now at long last we’ll perhaps have an interpretation of Miss Kleemeyer’s work, which I don’t mind telling you baffled everyone else, including your humble servant, last term.”

  There was no escape. John had to measure up. “What I thought was especially successful was the characterization
.”

  People laughed. By the sound of it, most of the class. Forrester snorted and asked him to give some examples.

  “I liked them all,” said John. “I thought all the characters were well drawn.”

  More laughter, this time with a derisive aftertone.

  “Oh,” Forrester said, his mustache quivering, “Name just one of the characters that you admire so much.”

  John looked at Daphne, sending the unspoken complaint: see what you got me into? Now, if it had been Blondie, he might have been capable of some superhuman effort…

  It was at this point that the miraculous event occurred. The blonde herself, Mrs. Forrester, suddenly and unexpectedly, came to his defense. “Oh, come on,” she said with righteous emotion, “don’t give him a hard time. At least he’s trying. He shouldn’t be laughed at, just because nobody else knows what she’s trying to do. Maybe she’s doing something no one ever did before, and we just can’t recognize it. Maybe it is a lot of different characters. Maybe he’s got something.” She turned and spoke in Daphne’s direction. “This has been said before, but you know, you might help. I still can’t see what harm it would do if you provided some interpretation of your own writing.”

  Daphne agitated her hair with a negative movement. “And I’ve said before that my work has to stand on its own. If it doesn’t mean anything to others, so be it. To explain it would be to announce its failure, in my opinion.”

  Forrester was seething. “Remember me?” he asked the ceiling. “I believe I’m the professional in this part of the forest.” He picked up a manuscript from the stack on the desk and began to read. ‘“Whether only because the chrysanthemums were crystallizing and the daisies were lackadaisical, or because the roses arose too early, the waters waited to subside or subvert, to preside or pervert, while down in the deep dusky dell the deer dashed, his mossy bossy horns akimbo like the spread legs of a bimbo.’” Forrester raised his head and stared at Kellog. “Now, are those your idea of characters? The bimbo, or the deer? Or both?”