The Vixen

by Francine Prose

  I didn’t know why I said that, why I thought of it then, why I hadn’t thought of it earlier. Something or someone was speaking through me. Please let that someone be Anya.

  Another long look passed between them. Nurse More-in-Charge said, “That might be lovely. Preston used to get visitors, but he doesn’t anymore, and human contact is so important. He’ll miss Anya terribly. They became great friends. We often see unpredictable things. Unexpected connections forged. The heart wants what the heart wants. Sometimes the heart wants friendship. Someone to talk to. What did you say your name was? Should I say you’re a friend of Anya’s?”

  “Simon. Simon Putnam. Can you please tell Mr. Bartlett that I’m an editor at Landry, Landry and Bartlett? Wait. No. Just say I’m a friend of Anya’s.” The nurse took off down the corridor lined with shut doors that, just as Anya had said, looked like Van Gogh’s asylum.

  I would never again meet anyone so original, so intriguing. Oh, Anya! Where had you gone?

  Chapter 10

  The victim enters the pitch-dark room. Hello-o? Is anyone here? A faint sound, the creak of chair legs, the sudden glint of the blade. The metallic voice of the killer, the flash of the knife, the blood. It’s the meat and potatoes of horror films, a foolproof jolt to the limbic brain.

  No one answered when I knocked, so I eased open the door. Some counterintuitive impulse made me close it behind me, losing the light from the hall. If Anya’s room was a jungle hothouse, all opium and musk, Preston’s room was glacial, suffused with the sweet antiseptic perfume of rubbing alcohol masking something less sparkling clean. Blobs of pale multicolored light jiggled and pulsed in the dark, and a dusty glow seeped in through the single window shrouded in black.

  I had never before and would never again feel the hair on my forearms rise the way it’s said to, in the presence of the uncanny. I remember thinking that I had left the land of the living and entered the antechamber where the newly dead wait for further direction.

  From the depths of the gloom, a quavering voice said, “Who the fuck are you?”

  The light that flashed on was sudden and blinding, though—as my eyes adjusted—I saw that it wasn’t all that bright, and that it came from a small, old-fashioned hurricane lamp on a desk.

  Preston Bartlett sat in his wheelchair, facing the window. I recognized him at once, though from the back he looked more like a buzzard than a man: the ornithological rake of his shoulders, the winglike elbows jutting over the arms of his chair, the dry unruly crest sprouting from his domed head. In one of Crowley’s revenge tales, a miserly landowner is reincarnated as a vulture, subsisting on the scraps thrown away by the villagers whom he almost starved when he was a human being. Those stories were coming back to me lately, more often and more clearly. I found it consoling to think that my experience was part of a pattern, ancient narratives of lying and heartbreak not unique to me.

  I felt, as I had with Anya, that I’d left my century and wandered into a time that never existed. Maybe Elmwood catered to patients with delusions of having been born into the wrong era. How foolish I’d been to assume that Anya would always call me, that she would always be there when I wanted to see her, or at least when she wanted to see me so we could “work on her book.” I heard myself utter a cry of despair. That was my real voice escaping at this highly embarrassing moment.

  Preston wheeled around and regarded me with blistering irritation. I’d seen him in the office, asking to see Warren, but up close he looked more forceful. Intimidating, even. An old buzzard maybe, but a hungry one eyeing its dinner.

  “Close the goddamn door,” he said. “And quit that goddamn sobbing.”

  “It’s already closed.” I’d made a noise. I wouldn’t have called it sobbing.

  He motioned for me to sit on the ottoman near his feet, then kicked it as far away as he could. It was awkward, lowering myself onto a seat that my host had just punted. The ottoman had landed on its side, and I had to right it.

  “Come closer.” He scooped the air toward him. I moved the ottoman nearer to where it was before he’d kicked it.

  Sitting at his feet like a disciple, staring up into his dried-apricot face, I found it hard to believe that Warren and Preston were college classmates. Preston could have been Warren’s father near the end of a long hard life. Sunk deep in their sockets, his eyes were ringed with indigo. He stared at me with the fixity of a madman, a part he clearly enjoyed, from his tufted scalp down to his bony fingers clenching a silver-topped cane. His posture was aggressive and defensive at once, as if, like a toddler with sharp scissors, he feared that someone would take away his cane. He pounded the cane on the floor. I slid as far away as I could without falling off the ottoman. His piercing gaze and glassy eyes made him look gaga, but only a genius of sanity and Machiavellian cunning could have made me feel so cornered and so at a disadvantage.

  Preston turned up the lamp a notch, and I saw that his face was more canine than avian, an elongated dog’s head on a rachitic bird’s body. As my eyes adjusted, I took in more of the room, its institutional awfulness unspoiled by any attempt to make it homey. A desk, a lamp, a bed. It reminded me of my office, which made me feel marginally less jittery.

  I said, “I’m Simon Putnam. I—”

  “I know who you are. You work at my former firm. Why do I say former, when I hold a controlling interest, as you doubtless know? Where my name is still on the door, behind the reception desk, and most importantly on the spines of the increasingly inferior books we publish.”

  I bristled at that inferior. Then I remembered: The Vixen.

  “What do you do there, Mr. Putnam, if that is your real name? Fetch coffee? Empty wastebaskets? Draw on the floor with colored chalk? Or do you work in reception? I hear it’s become fashionable to hire attractive young men for positions that used to be filled entirely on the basis of breast size.”

  Thanks to Warren, I was used to men talking that way about women’s breasts. It still made me uncomfortable, but less than it might have if Warren hadn’t made a point of not hiring the tequila sunrise drinker regardless of her breast size. Mom would have been disappointed in me for going along with the joke, for not finding a firm, polite, but manly way to say that this was insulting to women.

  “Simon,” I said. “Call me Simon.”

  “Fine. Simon it is.”

  “I’m a junior assistant editor.”

  “I don’t expect you get paid.”

  “Modestly. Very modestly.” I chuckled. Preston’s face stayed blank.

  “If this social call is about money, if that bastard Warren has sent you to wring one more dime out of me, forget it. They charge thousands of dollars in this place so I can have fresh pineapple with my dinner. What do you think fresh pineapple costs, were one to buy it in a shop?”

  “I don’t know that much about pineapple,” I said lamely. “Mr. Bartlett, I promise this isn’t about money. I’m not even here on business. I’m a friend of Anya’s. I mean, not a friend exactly.”

  “You’re her friend, but not her friend. Then what are you exactly?”

  “I’m her editor.”

  “I see. I assume you’re working on her so-called bestseller. Her lurid fantasy about the Rosenbergs. What a grotesque idea.”

  So Preston knew the story, or some of it. Not the details of my relationship with Anya, I hoped. Would anyone, even Anya, tell this ailing elderly gentleman that she’d had sex with her editor in the Terror Tomb? I was encouraged to hear that Preston believed that Anya had written the novel.

  “I was wondering if you knew where Anya went.”

  “Be careful. Very careful. You don’t know who’s listening. Dollars to doughnuts they’ve got this deathtrap wheelchair bugged.”

  “Who has?”

  “Don’t play innocent,” he said. “So you’re the selfish son of a bitch who broke Anya’s heart?”

  “No. I mean, no, I don’t think so.” I hated feeling flattered by the suggestion that I might have broken Anya’s hea
rt and gratified by the image of myself as a selfish son of a bitch. How could I have broken her heart when she had broken mine? What pleased me was the implication that I’d meant something to her, that she’d seen me as more than just a guy who droned on about a book she did or didn’t write, a guy she had sex with in semipublic places. The fox scratching me under my jacket was momentarily exciting.

  I had The Vixen in my briefcase, in the hopes that I might find Anya. But now I was alone with the problem of the novel—and Warren’s deadline. The exciting part of my job had vanished along with Anya, leaving only the question of what to do now. Warren and Elaine would track Anya down, the novel would come out, and I would be fired for getting my author spirited off to Greece, if that was where she’d gone. Warren should have known that it was risky to award a book contract to a bright, unstable young actress in a mental institution. But The Snake Pit made a fortune. A beautiful mad-as-a-hatter author wasn’t an automatic no.

  Preston said, “I’m pretty sure you’re the guy she talked about. Though honestly, to look at you, I’m beginning to wonder if Anya was as intelligent as she pretended.” His wide, slack mouth froze into a rictus half-smile. “I’m joking. Some men came and took Anya away. Last night. Or maybe the night before that. Or the one before that. They do strange things to time, in this place.”

  Anya had said something similar. The memory shouldn’t have lifted my spirits, but the thought of her did.

  “They threw her possessions in a moving van. She was crying. All us lunatics watched from the front door. They didn’t care. Who would believe a gaggle of mental patients, if we even knew what we were seeing? I assumed her parents hired the goon squad. She was gone in one night. Something convinced them to spirit her out of here. I heard she went to Corfu.”

  “Corfu?” That was what Anya had said in her letter, though she’d spelled it wrong. I deserved what I was getting for being the kind of snob who, under the circumstances, would critique his beloved’s spelling. I needed to feel superior. It was all I had.

  “Greece. You do know where Corfu is, don’t you? One never knows what young people know these days. God help me. I sound like Warren.”

  He did. I tried to imagine them discussing books or business. Preston must have been a different person. I wondered about their falling-out, their fight, about why Preston wound up here and ceded control to Warren. If I was patient, lucky, or clever enough, Preston might explain.

  His room was musty, airless. Cloying. I felt like a deep-sea diver watching the dial on his oxygen tank sink dangerously low.

  “How long do you think you have?” he said.

  “How long do I have?” Was I in danger? Was there some threat to my well-being, my life, of which I was unaware? Anya’s defection had so upset me, anything seemed possible.

  “Unlike me, you have a lifetime, young man. I mean: How long do you think the company has before Warren runs it into the ground? Which at this point may not be a bad thing.”

  I felt the stirring of pride I hadn’t known I possessed. Wasn’t that the point of publishing The Vixen? So the firm wouldn’t go under? That was why I was here. Anya was a footnote. The Vixen could still be fixed. The gods of literature and even Mom would have to understand.

  “I think that Warren believes The Vixen will make money. Enough to float us until he can bring out a French novel he thinks will sell—and steer us into the black.” I was conscious of speaking in the plural, as if I were a partner in our shipwreck of a publishing company. The Titanic sailed through my mind, tipped sideways, and disappeared.

  “You believed Warren? And what were you supposed to do? Pray for a publishing miracle?”

  “I hadn’t thought about it,” I said, though I’d thought about little else since Warren dropped the manuscript on my desk.

  “No one thinks about anything until they find themselves institutionalized, with plenty of time to think. Let me get this straight.” Preston jackknifed so far forward I worried he might tip out of his wheelchair. Grim scenarios ran through my mind, all involving my calling the nurses who knew I shouldn’t be there. The only reason they’d let me visit Preston was so I’d briefly keep the old buzzard out of their hair.

  “You think this is Warren Landry’s plan: Every semiliterate housewife from Bar Harbor to Santa Barbara is going to rush out to pay full price for a hardcover book that will do for the Rosenbergs what Scarlett O’Hara did for the Civil War? And the pennies these women spend will sustain the business without massive infusions of cash from me?”

  Scarlett O’Hara. How extensively had Preston discussed The Vixen with Anya?

  “I did,” I stammered. “I mean I think . . . I thought . . . I . . .”

  “Is that where you thought the money would come from? Salvation, rescue, paid for, dollar by hard-earned dollar, by American readers starved for a thriller about a nympho Soviet spy. And that’s why you believe that Warren is publishing this book?”

  “Yes, I guess I do. No?”

  “Bullshit,” Preston said.

  I knew I should have been horrified, but I felt hopeful. Maybe I could have an honest conversation about The Vixen, the Patriot, and the Fanatic with a certified madman.

  I said, “Can I tell you a secret, Mr. Bartlett? Will you promise not to tell?”

  Preston’s shrug was as good as a promise.

  “Anya claimed that she didn’t write the book.”

  Preston said, “Who cares who wrote the goddamn book? The only thing that matters is who wants it published.”

  “And who is that?”

  “Young man! I’m astonished! Are you mentally defective? Surely even in your brief sheltered naive life you’ve heard of the CIA!”

  Chapter 11

  By now many readers will have figured out what took me so long to realize in those more trusting and innocent times, namely that the Central Intelligence Agency was covertly masterminding the publication of The Vixen, the Patriot, and the Fanatic.

  Since then, we have learned how many cultural products and events—literary magazines, art exhibitions, concert tours, and so forth—were founded and mined for “soft power.” This was the so-called “cultural cold war,” when literature, music, and art were deployed to fight the spread of Communism by glorifying the American way of life, our intellectual superiority and unfettered freedom of expression. The traveling show of Jackson Pollock and other American artists, orchestras and theater groups on international tours, journals like Encounter and the Paris Review would, it was hoped, convince our allies, our enemies, and the undecided masses that America was a paradise and that Americans, if not all angels, were squarely on the side of liberty and justice.

  I could tell that Preston loved wising me up, educating me. “Some genius at the Agency must have decided that a lurid bestseller was the best way to persuade all those misguided ninnies upset by the Rosenberg execution. If world opinion disapproved, why not show the world how treason looked from the inside, from the traitors’ evil commie perspective?”

  “Have you read The Vixen?”

  Preston grimaced. “A chapter or two. As much as a sentient being could stand.”

  “Did Anya know who was funding her book?” I almost didn’t want to know, but I needed to find out how deep the conspiracy went.

  “If she did, she truly was a marvelous little actress. She seemed to believe in her awful novel. But I never asked her directly. These days, I often think, the less we know, the better.”

  I struggled to keep from slipping off Preston’s ottoman as I tried to decide how credible or delusional he was. We were, after all, in a madhouse. A luxury asylum, but an asylum nonetheless. I knew that the disturbed often imagined being spied on.

  Even the sanest of us had reason to be paranoid at that time. Washington was in the grip of men who believed that our country was overrun with Russian agents masquerading as loyal American citizens. But it was one thing to know that such men existed and another to listen to an old man making outrageous accusations about
a boss I admired and respected and longed to emulate.

  Preston ranted on, listing Warren’s crimes against humanity, some more unlikely than others, but none of them—given what I knew of Warren—entirely beyond belief.

  “Another inspired scheme: Attach incendiary devices to starlings and send them to blow up the parliaments of Europe—terrorist attacks from the sky that we could blame on the far left—and install puppet dictators. But the birds exploded in the agents’ hands, resulting in painful third-degree burns and bloody, feathered ceilings.”

  “Really?” was all I could say. “Can that be true?”

  “I swear it on what’s left of my life. Not much collateral, I admit, so you’ll have to take my word. I swear on what’s left of my shrinking patrimony after I pay the bills here. Did Warren tell you he’d planned to spread a rumor that the bubonic plague was sweeping Eastern Europe? Supposedly the disease had been preserved by mad monks in the Caucasus, and now the Russians had set it loose to subdue the restive Eastern Bloc nations. They alone had the antidote, the cure, and if the Czechs and Poles and Hungarians didn’t get in line . . . well, you can imagine.

  “The success of these operations never mattered to Warren. He just liked planning them. He didn’t care about the results. He gave two shits about consequences. He only cared about means.”

  I recalled Warren saying something like that. I forgot the context. But I remembered the phrase: two shits about consequences.

  * * *

  Narrative turns on those moments: The shock of finding out, the quickened heartbeat when the truth rips the mask off a lie. The friend who is our enemy, the confidant revealed as a spy. The faithless lover, the demon bride. The maniac faking sanity. The deceptively innocent murderer. We enjoy these surprises. We demand them. They delight the child inside us, the child who wants to hear a story that turns in a startling direction.

  In life, it’s less of a pleasure. There’s none of the bubbly satisfaction of finding out who committed the crime. An opaque curtain drops over the past, obscuring whatever we thought we knew. Hearing Preston rant about my boss, I felt no exhilaration. No So that’s it! I always suspected. I felt unhappy and confused by Preston’s allegations. It was important not to panic. I rejoined the conversation, having missed a few of Warren’s sins.