Pinball

by Jerzy Kosiński

  Domostroy forced himself to step closer and bend over Andrea. With his thumbs he closed her eyelids. Then he touched her neck. She was warm, as if resisting surrender to the void. He thought of her when she had been his, filling the space and time around him with vibrant beauty, her flesh—so doomed now—a source of joyous surprise each time she let him touch it. If it were in his power, he wondered, would he want to bring her back to life? To embark with her on yet another adventure?

  A stern inner voice told him the question was an idle one. She was dead. The kitchen’s fluorescent lighting gave her loosened hair a bright sheen; her lips, parted by her last breath, were pale, her face white. He turned to Chick Mercurio. Faithful to his pose in life, even in death the singer had kept his eyes covered by the dark glasses, and his hand was still holding on to his gun. Nearby the two dead toughs lay grotesquely still.

  Osten’s strangled moan brought Domostroy back to full awareness. Gagging, swallowing sour bile that suddenly filled his throat, Domostroy found the switch to the freezer, turned it off, and began soaking towels in warm water and applying them to Osten’s tongue, gradually freeing the delicate tissue from the metal surface.

  Shaking, Osten turned and looked at the four bodies, his face as pale as theirs; then, without a word, he skirted the pool of blood and walked out of the kitchen.

  Domostroy followed.

  In his room, Domostroy helped Osten, his body still racked by shivers, to apply an antiseptic to his tongue and his burned lips.

  “I have to call the police,’” said Domostroy, trying in vain to control his own trembling. “You’d better take off—fast.”

  “Won’t you need me as a witness?” mumbled Osten, barely able to speak with his swollen tongue and torn lips.

  “One witness should be enough,” said Domostroy.

  “What will you tell the police?”

  “I’ll tell them,” said Domostroy, “that my old friend Chick Mercurio and his girl friend, Andrea Gwynplaine, came to visit me. And that some Born Free members, friends of mine who keep an eye on the place for me because I live alone, arrived unexpectedly. Each side thought the others were intruders, and before I managed to intercede, they panicked, pulled out guns, and opened fire. The police can see the rest. That’s all.”

  “Won’t the police wonder why all your friends were armed?”

  “Maybe. But they also know that plenty of people are armed in the South Bronx,” he said.

  “I suppose that’s good enough,” said Osten. “Before I go, will you answer one question?” He looked Domostroy in the eye.

  “What do you want to know?” asked Domostroy.

  “Were you in on this?” asked Osten. “Did you help Andrea and Mercurio find Goddard?”

  “Only Andrea,” said Domostroy. “All she told me was that she wanted to meet you.”

  “And the letters?”

  “I wrote them,” said Domostroy.

  “You wrote them all?”

  “Yes. All. Except for the quotes from Chopin’s letters.” He smiled.

  Osten gave him a long look. “Then—” he faltered for a moment, visibly moved, “you have understood me, and my music, better than anyone else ever has.”

  “Maybe there’re others who understand you just as well! Think of what insights you might be missing in all the fan letters you have no time to read!” said Domostroy. “By the way, what made you think that I had anything to do with the whole thing? All the clues in the letters led to Andrea. There was nothing—and no one—except Andrea that could possibly have led you to me.”

  “Yes, there was. Just one thing. The pictures,” said Osten.

  “The pictures? But they were all of Andrea. There wasn’t a single trace of me in them!”

  “There was one. The uncommon angle in one of them,” said Osten.

  “What angler

  “You once photographed Vala Stavrova from the same angle—the camera’s angle—from low, near the floor, in order to catch her thighs, I guess. I’d seen the picture you took of Vala; it’s in my father’s bedroom. I even thought you might have repeated that strange angle on purpose, to lead me to you if I didn’t find Andrea!”

  “I didn’t,” said Domostroy. “I wasn’t even aware that the angle was strange! But Vala! What a slim chance!”

  “No slimmer than any other,” said Osten. He picked up the battered tape recorder and carefully put it into Andrea’s attaché case.

  “Are you sure you won’t need me to back you up with the police?” asked Osten.

  “Positive,” said Domostroy. “In any case, you have your name—Goddard—to protect.”

  Osten looked at him. “You won’t tell anyone what you know about me?” he asked quietly.

  “What for? What I know about you won’t make me or my old music any hotter,” said Domostroy.

  “Thanks,” said Osten. “My father tells me that Etude sales have picked up substantially in recent months. And in spite of that old bogus exposé, your records are still the pride of their Contemporary Classics list!”

  “Good,” said Domostroy. “Too bad I don’t write music anymore. Where will you make it next?”

  Osten picked up his jacket and the attache case. “In the New Atlantis,” he said. “The House of Sounds.”

  “Francis Bacon’s?” Domostroy asked. “I once lived there too!” He laughed.

  “How about you? What will you do?” asked Osten.

  Domostroy stood up and buttoned his jacket. “Ill just stay here—and wait for Donna,” he said.

  “I hope she wins in Warsaw,” said Osten. “Tell her I wish her luck.”

  He walked out of the ballroom, and only when Domostroy heard his car leave and knew Osten was safely away did he pick up the phone to call the police.

  There was no TV at the Old Glory, and Domostroy wanted to catch Donna on the late-night talk show she was scheduled to appear on, so he went over to Kreutzer’s. It was his night off, and to avoid being recognized by reporters, who had been hounding him for days for a statement about the murders, he wore dark glasses, a false mustache, and a hat. Even though the initial impact of the shooting of Chick Mercurio, Andrea Gwynplaine, and the two Born Free gang members had died down—GORY AT OLD GLORY one early headline had read—the police investigation was still going on, and Domostroy’s name and occasional pictures of him were still appearing in the press.

  As he thought of Goddard—now that he knew who he was—Domostroy imagined him quite secluded in his daily life, even though as a musician he was in touch with millions of people. Like Domostroy, he probably had few acquaintances and fewer real friends. Yet by remaining hidden from his public, Jimmy Osten could at least make what he wanted of his life and keep his art in the jukebox. Domostroy, on the other hand, because of his former celebrity as a performer and composer, could never separate his life from his art; and since his composing had ended, his life had become his only art—aimless as the path of a steel ball in a pinball machine. To Goddard, the public success of his music undoubtedly would always be a source of pleasure and reassurance; for Domostroy, bereft of his will to compose, the sources of pleasure and reassurance had narrowed to an occasional feat of sexual intimacy—as challenging now in its originality as writing music once had been.

  With a painful twinge, Domostroy recalled the time in his own career when he was pursued around the clock by interviewers, music company executives, TV and film producers, and fans. What if he, like Goddard, had decided then or earlier to escape all publicity and live his life in seclusion, or in disguise? Would he have done this to save his music, or by appeasing his enemies and detractors save himself from the notoriety of a public scandal? But such speculation seemed useless. Yeats was well aware that the artist’s notion of his life was, by nature, inseparable from his art, when he wrote:

  O chestnut-tree, great rooted blossomer,

  Are you the leaf, the blossom or the bole?

  O body swayed to music, O brightening glance,

  How c
an we know the dancer from the dance?

  Now he began to ponder what his life would be like if he were Goddard. Would he withdraw to the safety of a remote estate by the sea or to a faraway country retreat? Or would he, out of perversity, prefer to inhabit the Old Glory? Would he, out of boredom or creative necessity, challenge his fate from time to time by performing in public, perhaps in the very same pinball joints he was forced to perform in now?

  The more Domostroy imagined himself as Goddard, the more convinced he became that, were he indeed the mystery star, he would live his life just as he lived it always, giving in to what was natural in him. For life lived against the spiritual prompting that gave rise to it was like a stream running uphill, bound in time to flood its own source.

  To Karlheinz Stockhausen, whose electronic compositions so clearly influenced Goddard, a musical event was without a determined beginning or an inevitable end; it was neither a consequence of anything that preceded it nor a cause of anything to follow; it was eternity, attainable at any moment, not at the end of time.

  Whether one liked it or not, weren’t life’s events like that too? Domostroy wondered.

  The TV suspended over the bar was on, but no sound came from it. Tuning to Time had just started, but Donna was not scheduled to appear until later in the show.

  On the stool next to him sat Lucretia, a hooker he had often noticed in the place, who, for reasons that escaped him, had never in any way encouraged him to make use of her charms. Lucretia was black, good-looking, in her late twenties, and she always dressed in the subdued manner of an eastern coed. Owing to her discreet manner and proper appearance, the management of Kreutzer’s tolerated her hanging out there. In spite of Domostroy’s disguise, Lucretia recognized him instantly, and putting her hand on his arm and assuring him that he was her guest that evening, she ordered him a Cuba Libre and a champagne cocktail for herself. After taking a few sips of her drink, she moved closer to him. “I’m sorry about that freaky accident at your place,” she said. “What a terrible thing, having your friends kill each other like that! And that Chick Mercurio—he was so cute!”

  Domostroy lowered his head as if in grief.

  “I read in the paper about Donna Downes, that black piano player,” she resumed in a confidential tone, “and how she said that you helped her quite a bit. She said you were like her guiding spirit, that without you, there was no way she could have won that big prize in Warsaw.” She paused. “That was a nice thing to do—help a black girl make her way in the world.”

  “Donna Downes is a hard worker,” said Domostroy a bit harshly. “Believe me, she owes nothing to anybody.”

  Lucretia gave him a skeptical glance. “Was there something between you two that you don’t want to talk about?”

  “There was nothing,” said Domostroy, annoyed.

  Lucretia assumed a conspiratorial look. “Tell me,” she said, “are you married?”

  “I’m not,” said Domostroy.

  “Any kids?”

  “None.”

  “Is your family still alive?”

  “No. All dead.”

  She thought for a moment. “How did they all die? I mean—from a disease?”

  “Some from War, others from old age,” said Domostroy. “Why do you ask?”

  “Never mind,” she answered firmly. “How old are you?”

  He told her his age.

  She gave him an appraising once-over. “You’ve got too many wrinkles for your age!” she said. “And you look tired. How do you feel?”

  “No complaints.” He was amused.

  “That’s because you don’t smoke and don’t eat a lot, and you take good care of your body,” she said. She hesitated. “Now, I’ve got something you just might be interested in,” she blurted out.

  “What’s that?” he asked, struck by her determination.

  “I’m thinking,” she said, “of having a baby. I’m the right age to have one.” She gave him a long look.

  He said nothing.

  “And I want my baby to have the best of everything,” she said. “I can afford it. I’ve worked the streets ever since I was twelve, and I’ve saved a lot. Now, I mean, a lot,” she repeated. “It’s all safely stashed away,” she reassured him, a slight warning in her tone.

  He watched her as she spoke.

  “I could get married,” she said, “but the guy would surely want to know what I’d done before. Mind you, I’m not ashamed of being a professional girl. It’s just that I don’t need a hassle. All I want is a father for my kid. That’s all. A father—not a husband.”

  “I understand,” said Domostroy, nodding.

  She gulped the rest of her drink. “Now, if you and I were to go on a trip—” She paused to see if she was going too fast for him, but he smiled at her. “Just the two of us. A trip to some of those countries you see on TV. Like Hong Kong or Brazil? Maybe even around the world. In eighty days!” she added with a laugh. Then becoming serious, she went on. “I’ve got enough money for both of us to enjoy everything. Boat, plane, train, first-class travel, iancy food, the best hotels, the nightclubs—you name it. And I’m healthy. I’m clean. No herpes. No clap. None of those female infections. I take good care of my body. I know I’m also a good lay—that’s one thing you learn to do well in my line of work—no John has ever complained.” She paused. The bartender handed her another drink and she sipped it. “You wouldn’t regret making a baby with me. I’D even show you my money in advance if you don’t trust me.”

  “I’ve seen you around,” said Domostroy. “I know you’re not a cheater.”

  “You get what I mean, don’t you?” she asked.

  “You want me to stick with you until you’ve got a baby in you.”

  “I want you to stay with me until my kid is born, mister,” she stated firmly. “All nine months. And then I want to have my baby in the best clinic there is, in one of those countries—Switzerland or Sweden, right?—where they treat all babies, black and white, alike. A baby, white or black, needs a lot of love right from the start.” She stared at him steadily.

  “And then what?” asked Domostroy. “What do we do after that?”

  “We come back here,” she said as if she had already lived the experience, “and you go your way—and I go my way. The lad stays with me.”

  “Do I get to see you and the baby—afterwards?” he asked.

  She sighed. “No, you don’t. It’s my baby then. As far as you’re concerned, we never had it. That’s the deal. What do you say?”

  He waited a moment. “Why me?” he asked.

  “You’ve got music in you. It said in the paper that you used to write music, play the big time, make big dough, be on TV, even in the movies! I want my kid to be like that—to make it on his own, depend on no one. But I ain’t no piano player; I’ve got no talent to give him.” She paused. “Also, I bet you’d be good to a black girl. You helped that Donna Downes!” Again she paused. “The paper also said you’ve traveled a lot and knew important people—you’d know where to go and what to see. You could get the best doctors and the best clinic. And if you took me there as your lady, they’d respect me and the baby right from the start. All I know”—she moved her hands in a weary circle—“is the South Bronx. I haven’t even been to Atlantic City!” She finished her drink. “We could leave anytime. All you’d need to do is tell me what kind of clothes and suitcases I should buy. For both of us, I mean—”

  “I’ll be frank with you, Lucretia,” he said, moved by her candor. “I would like nothing better than to go with you, but I can’t. I wouldn’t be good enough company anyway. You deserve the best.”

  He could see that she was hurt, but she tried to cover up her feelings by striking a pose and applying fresh lipstick. She paid for the drinks, tipped the bartender, and slowly turned to Domostroy.

  “Is it,” she asked, “because of me?”

  “It-is not,” he said with utter conviction. “Believe me, it is not.”

  She looked at him
long and hard. Satisfied, she asked, “Another woman?”

  He nodded, and a smile softened her face.

  “Would it be that girl—Donna Downes?”

  He nodded again.

  “I thought so,” she said, and she got up and walked over to the jukebox. She read through the list of selections, then dropped a coin and pressed a button. As she headed out of the bar, the room filled with the soft sound of the blues of Champion Jack Dupree:

  I woke up this morning, found my baby gone,

  I woke up this morning, found my baby gone.

  Well, she wrote me a letter,

  sayin one day ftt be back home.

  Domostroy’s eyes returned to the TV set over the bar, its sound still turned down because of the jukebox. He watched the host of the show make signs of introduction and point at a curtain upstage. The TV audience applauded and Donna entered—all in silent motion. Once more, looking at her from afar, as if he had never met her, he became aware of her unequaled beauty. In a Ions black gown, her hair swept into a crown, she could have been a star on a Hollywood movie set. Domostroy watched as she sat down to chat with the host, an affable, good-looking Californian, as also an amateur musician known, on occasion, to play the piano to amuse his viewers. Although no sound came from the TV set, Domostroy could tell Donna was talking about her victory in Warsaw and her plans for the future.

  Even before her return, Domostroy had watched television news clips of the competition, including shots of Donna’s astounding victory, and he had read numerous newspaper accounts of it. In contrast to the chilly demeanor of the other competitors and the aura of rigor that permeated the recital hall, Donna, from her first appearance on the stage, had been herself, entirely at ease, more spirited and more lissome than any other player, but also the most finished as an artist and the most dependable; and from under her fingertips music had emerged that was just as lusty and exciting and immediate and emotionally charged as she was.

  From the start she had dominated the piano—and the audience and judges—with the astounding dynamics of her musical stride, her thorough knowledge and control of the score, and her rare ability to convey her feelings fiercely and directly to her listeners.