Herman Wouk - Don't Stop The Carnival

by Don't Stop The Carnival(Lit)

  "What book is this?" Norman said to him. "I didn't know that you were writing a book. What's the title?"

  "I'm afraid that's classified information," Klug said with a smile.

  "Oh, I know," Henny said. "It's The Homosexuality of Balzac."

  Norman, pouring wine, was so startled that he splashed some on the table. "Balzac?" he said, peering at Klug in disbelief. "Surely not Balzac?"

  Klug turned an annoyed look at Hazel, who was blushing. "That wasn't for broadcast, dear. It's a half-finished thesis."

  "Oh, mother," said Hazel angrily.

  Norman said, "I mean, my dear fellow, Balzac did absolutely nothing but boff women all his life. Surely you know that. I think that was what he died of. That, and eating like a hog."

  "It was the women who killed him," Henny said. "Too much shtoop. However, that's Sheldon's theory."

  Klug shrugged and smiled, his good humor restored. "The satyriasis was a familiar pattern. Overcompensation, plus a flight from self-knowledge."

  "It's an interesting idea, anyhow," Norman said. "Balzac must be about the only one left."

  Klug's smile faded into a tolerant, pitying look. He said to Norman, smoothing his hair, "There's always resistance to these discoveries. Read A Passion in the Desert again. And Louis Lambert."

  "Thanks. I'll wait for your book. I did Balzac in my twenties. You say this is going to be published?"

  "I'm hoping to finish it on a Guggenheim fellowship next year. And I have a publisher interested, yes."

  Norman briefly cast his eyes at the ceiling.

  Henny carried in the turkey, browned and fragrant. Norman carved it and Henny, dishing out the meat, the stuffing, and the vegetables, piled Klug's plate with an enormous, insulting mass of food. It was not a dinner for a person at all; it was garbage heaped up for a Great Dane. Klug took no offense, and serenely proceeded to eat.

  But if the Sending wasn't offended, Hazel was. She kept switching her head this way and that, glaring at her parents with huge hurt eyes. Paperman found himself feeling sorry for her. With her shiny shell of self-confidence, created by her power over boys and by the egotism of an only child, she had been patronizing her parents for years. All at once she was vulnerable, because she really cared about a man. She could not help seeing him this evening, Norman thought, through her parents' eyes; and from that viewpoint, Sheldon did have the clear imperfection of being an eager free-loader.

  Hazel's defiant-doe look melted his resentment. She was lovely. She was his daughter. She was all they had. It caused him sharp pain to think that this pudgy, supercilious young man was almost certainly violating her crystalline young body at will and that-manners today being what they were-there wasn't a thing in the world he could do about it. Not a thing. Shotguns were too obsolete even to be funny. No, he had to accept this ravisher at his own table, at his own anniversary dinner -and even smile at him!

  "Hazel, turn on the radio." He wanted to shut out these stabbing thoughts.

  Henny said, "Oh, please, no, Norman. It's too depressing." Hazel leaped for the portable radio on the buffet, glad of the distraction. It was just past the hour. The announcer was speaking with resonant relish, the voice of oncoming doom:

  ". offshore islands, the United States Seventh Fleet off Formosa will he ready for all eventualities, the President gravely declared. Meantime Soviet Premier Nikita S. Khrushchev warned that the Soviet Union now has rockets with thermonuclear warheads capable of reaching any target on the planet, including slow-moving fleets at sea, and he added quote any unprovoked aggression against the brave Chinese people will bring down on the aggressors swift reprisals of INCALCULABLE. MAGNITUDE.. Unquote."

  There was a short silence. The announcer chirruped gaily:

  "In other developments, the nationwide teamsters' strike, now scheduled for Thursday, will totally paralyze the economy of the nation, according to."

  "Oh, that's nothing, turn it off," said Henny.

  Norman said, "Hell. What I wanted to know was whether the Chinese bombed the Seventh Fleet. They said they would."

  "He didn't sound that excited," Hazel said. "I guess they didn't."

  "How could they? What bombs have they got?" Henny said. "Chow-mein bombs?"

  "Russian bombs," said Hazel. Do you know the best thing about Amerigo?" Norman said to

  Henny. "Down there they don't know there's a Chinese crisis. They have no television. You can't buy a paper that isn't five days old. The radio just plays records and commercials. In the three days I was there I heard one news broadcast. The announcer did start to say something once about the Chinese islands, but he couldn't pronounce their names. Do you know what he did? He giggled. I swear, he just giggled and dropped the whole thing, and went on to something else, something about a PTA picnic! And the strange part was, I didn't care. I laughed like hell myself."

  "Jesus, let's all move there," said Henny.

  Klug had finished his gigantic plateful. He said, "The calculations are that the fallout from the first thermonuclear exchange will poison everybody in the Northern Hemisphere down to latitude nineteen. What's the latitude of Amerigo?"

  "Who knows?" said Norman. "It's near the equator somewhere. It's an improvement over Fifty-seventh Street and Seventh Avenue."

  "Indubitably. We're probably sitting on Ground Zero, right here at this table, for H-bomb number one," said the Sending. "Cocked and ready at this moment, somewhere on a Siberian tundra, to shoot over the North Pole and land here in about twenty-six minutes. A full hundred megatons."

  "Coffee, anybody?" Henny said, her face extremely pugdog-like.

  Norman said uneasily, "I'm not really worried. There's not going to be any atom war. Who would be so crazy as to start it?"

  Klug smiled at him, as at a student giving a bright answer. "You put the exact question. Who would be so crazy? But, alas, all of history is the case report of a deepening mass neurosis, and at this stage-if one cares to face the truth-the record points straight to an imminent and cataclysmic nervous breakdown of the entire human race."

  Norman shrugged. "I suppose the Russians are goofy enough, with their bizarre Dostoevsky make-up, to do almost anything, but even they-"

  "Oh, there isn't the slightest danger from the Soviet Union, clearly," Klug said with calm assurance. "It's a naive optimistic society, full of the simple cheery myths of Marx, and quite pacific. It's only the United States that's threatening to destroy the world." Klug smiled blandly at everybody, and drank off a glass of wine. "The United States, you see, has reached the psychoneurotic dead end of the industrial culture. We've actually created the abundant society. We've found that it's a mirage, a dead end, a paralysis of tense frustration. No country in history has ever become so totally polarized to the thanatos instinct, or-"

  "The what?" said Henny.

  "The thanatos instinct, dear. The death urge," Norman said wearily. "Eros instinct, life urge. Thanatos instinct, death urge. Late Freud."

  Klug arched a surprised eyebrow at Norman. "Exactly. Late Freud. And sheer prophecy. Look at us. We build giant highways and murderously fast cars for killing each other and committing suicide. Instead of bomb shelters we construct gigantic frail glass buildings all over Manhattan at Ground Zero, a thousand feet high, open to the sky, like a woman undressing before an intruder and provoking him to rape her. We ring Russia's borders with missile-launching pads, and then scream that she's threatening us. In all history there's never been a more lurid mass example of the sadist-masochist expression of the thanatos instinct than the present conduct of the United States. The Nazis by comparison were Eagle Scouts." The Sending arched an eyebrow again at Norman. "If I were you I'd buy that hotel in the West Indies tomorrow."

  "Tell me this," Henny said. "With those ideas, how do you feel about getting married and bringing more vicious, dangerous Americans into the world?"

  With a roguish lift of his brow, Klug replied, "Well, there's always some hope in a new generation, and anyway, the life process is its own
categorical imperative. I've never been sorry about Russell, for example, and I'm sure he isn't."

  "Russell?"

  "My son." you have a son?" Henny peered at Hazel, wrinkling her brows.

  "Of course." Klug also glanced at Hazel, whose eyes had gone oddly blank. "He's three. Russell lives with his mother in Chicago. I seldom see him, but I'm very fond of him."

  This statement brought a pause.

  "You're divorced," Norman said.

  "No."

  "You're still married?"

  "My wife teaches. So do I. A divorce is complicated and expensive. I can't just pick up and go to Reno for six weeks. Besides, there are many unresolved things-Anne is still in analysis, and we're both hoping that maybe-"

  Hazel said loudly, "It's nobody's business but yours, Shel. Why discuss it?"

  "There's a mince pie," Henny said to Klug in brutal tones, "if you have any room left, that is."

  Klug hesitated, and grinned. "Well, I can certainly try to do it justice-"

  Hazel switched her head wildly at her mother. "I can't eat another bite. Neither can he, so don't go forcing pie on him. We want to see this French movie at the Fifty-fifth. It's late. Let's go, Shel." She started to rise.

  Klug laid a hand on her arm. "Your folks seem surprised, Hazel. Surely you've told them about Anne."

  "Who cares? What's it got to do with them? Come on."

  "Now, now. Calm down." He turned benignly to the glowering parents. "I trust you're not actually upset. I don't have to justify my way of life to you, any more than you have to explain yours to me, but I do have a code. I live by it. It's an honorable code, though it may not be yours. I live by my autonomous choices. I married a bit too young. Well, that's part of my identity now, which I accept and affirm. This doesn't mean I have to forego other feminine company such as Hazel, not in the least. My chief task is to discover and affirm myself, to say yes! to myself. It's a process in which I'm still engaged."

  "Will you say yes to the pie?" growled Henny, standing. "I'll just trot out and get it-"

  Hazel shrilled, "You bring that pie, and I'll throw it at you. Sheldon, let's GO."

  "Perhaps we had better run along," Klug said to the parents, with an affable smile.

  The outside door closed hard, with a metallic chonkl-a. familiar Hazel farewell.

  4

  They were in a taxicab on the way to Sardi's, and they were caught in the after-theatre jam on Forty-fourth Street. Henny was still trying to calm Norman. "But I ask you-America's thanatos urge!" he shouted, flinging out both hands and sawing the air. "The homosexuality of Pershing's horse! The mythos and the ethos of Athos and Porthos! Jesus Christ, Henny! My daughter taken in by one of those! And the son of a bitch has a wife and child, and she knew it all along! The girl is schizoid!"

  "She is not. She's in love, the poor jerk. Stop working yourself up. We're almost there now. Anyway, there's not a thing we can do about it."

  'Why? Why can't we try? She was going out with some nice kids, wasn't she? Wet behind the ears, but-"

  "Listen, Norm, the one thing that made me stick to you through five lousy years was the way Mama kept fighting against you. All my self-respect got tied up in it, and-" Norman was making an extremely sour face. She said hastily, "Not that I'm comparing the two of you, but-all I'm trying to tell you-"

  "I was lean," said Norman. "I was wiry. I was gay. I made jokes. I never took myself seriously, like this fat pontificating slob. I was no angel, but I never slept with another man's wife, and I never deflowered a virgin, even though-"

  Henny said tartly, "Okay, dear."

  "Look, I mean no offense. I was glad you'd had some experience, and I-"

  'Shut up." The pugdog jaw jutted at him, and Norman subsided. Henny stared through the steamy window at the fluttering snow. When she turned to him, after a minute or so, he was surprised and sobered to see tears running down her face. "We brought her into the world, didn't We? She's our daughter. If she's screwing around, who's to blame? He's a drip and let's pray she gets over him, that's all."

  "Look, suppose we did go to the Caribbean? Maybe she'd come along.

  She's learning nothing at N.Y.U., and as for the ballet lessons, she's never been serious-"

  "Forget it, Norman. She wouldn't come. She's trying to marry the bastard, that's why she brought him to dinner, and so far he's not having any. He's got the oldest and best out." Henny struck a little fist on the armrest of the cab. "Letting her be is our best chance. He's pretty rich. I think she's going to get fed up and puke. I just hope he doesn't hurt her too much."

  The cab stopped. Henny put a hand on the back of Norman's neck and rubbed, an old intimate gesture. "Here we are. Listen, kid, I want some fun tonight, do you hear? Not another word about the Sending. Not tonight. Henceforth, joy and wassail."

  "It's a deal," Norman moaned, passing a dollar bill to the cab driver. "Joy and wassail."

  There was an opening-night mob in the restaurant, all buzz, jewels, white bosoms, black ties, and alert clever faces, but the headwaiter bowed the Papermans to one of the better tables in the middle of the room. Norman expected this. He entertained clients and columnists here; here too he exchanged jokes and gossip with Broadway friends; his monthly bill came to a couple of hundred dollars. The purpose of all this activity was to get the names of his clients printed in the papers.

  "I wonder how the Olivier opening went?" Henny said as they walked to the table.

  Norman's cronies at various tables were making small cabalistic signs to him: a faint hitch of a shoulder, a roll of the eyes, a flat hand rocked back and forth on the table. "I think they're in trouble," he said. "But you know something? I don't care. I don't care, Henny, if this show is a hit or a flop. I really don't. I don't give one good god damn. Any more than I do about some show that opened last night in Copenhagen."

  "Something's happening to you," she said.

  After ordering drinks he took up tomorrow's News, which he had bought from a street vendor, opened it to the theatre columns, and with glum pleasure saw the names of four of his clients in print. He had always been a good workman, even if his work was contemptible. He turned to the front page. The headline was about a brunette beaten to death in her apartment. In the story on page three, the "brunette" as usual was fifty-four, just another aging lady done in by bungling thieves. He sat erect, startled. "Hey, Henny! Did you know about this?"

  He showed her the story. She exclaimed, "Gosh yes, I remember! There was a crowd across the street this afternoon. Ambulance, and cops, and all that. I thought somebody had had an accident. Ye gods, murder!"

  "Across the street from us, Henny. A hundred yards away."

  "I know. I wonder what part of New York is safe any more."

  "The cemeteries are safe," said Norman, "for the customers."

  At the front of the restaurant there was a commotion, for Sir Laurence Olivier was entering with a large party. Sometimes on a first night the diners applauded the star of the new show but tonight, perhaps because Olivier awed them, there was no handclapping. Olivier's party filed to the large vacant table at the front.

  "Wait a minute!" said Paperman hoarsely. "Henny! Henny, do you see what I see?"

  Henny was staring, her face all wrinkled up tight. "Ye gods. I think I do."

  "But-how come? Is it possible? What's happening to this town? To this world?"

  The unlikely sight that the Papermans were beholding was a huge apelike figure in a bulging dinner jacket and a frilled dress shirt, with a bald cone-shaped head, taking a chair beside Sir Laurence Olivier, throwing an arm over his shoulder, saying something in his ear, and guffawing loud enough to be heard all over the restaurant. "Haw haw haw!"

  Lester Atlas was in the Olivier party, without a doubt in the world.

  "I'll be goddamned," murmured Norman. "I really will be goddamned! I think my life is over."

  Her face still wrinkled, Henny said, "Who produced the Olivier thing? Dan Freed? That's Freed at the table."
>
  "Sure, Freed."

  "Well, that's it, then. You introduced Lester to Freed, Norm, back in March. Don't you remember? The night of the Boyer opening. Lester cross-examined him about play financing for an hour. Lester's got money in this show. That's all."

  "But why has he never mentioned it? Never even hinted it! How could he resist? Olivier! Lester always runs off at the mouth about himself like a five-year-old."

  "That's how much you know about Lester," said Henny. "When he wants to, he talks. When he doesn't want to, he can keep mighty quiet. If it's a flop, he won't mention it. Lester Atlas never loses."

  Paperman watched Atlas and Olivier laughing together, with stricken gloom. He had spent his days in the service of glamour. Nothing had ever been more real or more important to him than the radiance of a stage star. All his work, all his life long, had been an effort to generate tiny sparks of that radiance for his clients. Here was Olivier, the most effulgent of living actors, in the embrace of the squarest of squares, Lester Atlas. It was a total collapse of values. Brightness had fallen from the air.