by Grand, David
To which Bloom said, Yes.
Stern deliberated a moment longer and then, without looking at Bloom, signed the documents in all the places that required his signature.
All done. Bloom advised Stern to follow Simon’s instructions, to do everything he asked of him today and whatever he might ask of him in the future. It is only money, said Bloom. Had he thought to ask me for it, I would have insisted you give him whatever he needed.
Yes, but he was well aware I would have never permitted it. He knew I would never have allowed you to take such a risk. He was well aware I would have felt obligated to protect you from his folly. He’s a shrewd man, your brother. I’ll give him that. After a long silence, Stern said, You were good to come in, Joseph. I don’t know if I could have gone through with it had you not shown yourself.
For Stern’s sake, for the sake of his family, Bloom said he would keep today their secret. And for this, Stern said he was in Bloom’s debt, and the poor man started to weep all over again. I should have known when Simon sent her to me. I surely should have known when she took an interest in me. In me, Joseph? I know what I am. But she was just so, so … young and glamorous and … liberated. Stern opened his mouth and bit down on the palm of his hand and cried some more, this time, thought Bloom, not from humiliation but because he would miss Miss Merriweather.
* * *
How does one reconcile something like this? Bloom wondered all the way home. He tried to rationalize the events he’d just witnessed as a necessary deception rather than an act of betrayal. It was an act of a desperate businessman. It wasn’t personal. Simon did love him. He heard him say as much to Gus. He loved Bloom and didn’t wish to hurt him. There was simply no other way, not without damaging a project years in the making, a project bound to the fates of countless lives, Bloom’s being only one of them. It was a Machiavellian maneuver, he thought, one that would have likely been considered tepid in the time of the cutthroat Borgias. No one had been murdered. No one had been irredeemably harmed. Stern, as a matter of fact, had enjoyed exercising a middle-aged man’s passion. He reveled in his indulgence, felt the thrill of his lapse in judgment, which, in the end, if he was being frank with himself, significantly endeared Stern to Bloom, who found Stern only tolerable before. A little money would be shifted from one investment to another, there would likely be a handsome return, so, really, what harm had been done?
Bloom tried to be a man about it. He tried all the way home to be as strong-willed, as thick-skinned, as his brother. But the only problem with that: he wasn’t Simon. He wasn’t nearly as malleable or pragmatic. He wasn’t practiced in the art of playing roles, and he hadn’t yet experienced enough of life’s compromising positions to hold a relativistic view of the world. Was it really too much to ask, he wondered, to expect his own brother’s loyalty?
By the time he entered the estate’s gates, he had relived the days after his father had revealed the omitted truths of their family history, and as he reflected on that period of time he couldn’t mitigate the dull ache of disappointment he now felt in his brother; it rivaled the disappointment he had held for his father. He had been used by Simon to set up Stern, was made to be his unknowing accomplice. He had written that letter, given him his entrée. For months Simon had been planning this, in a cold and calculated manner. And for a young, sensitive man like Bloom, it was all too much. Too, too much. There had been too much sadness, tragedy, and disenchantment compounded in too short a time. Bloom wanted to overcome it all, but he simply wasn’t equipped to sufficiently distance himself. Not with humor. Not with irony. Not with philosophies whose bedrock relied on humanity’s innate moral shortcomings. When the driver dropped Bloom at the villa’s entrance, he discovered Gus sitting on the stone bench beside the front door. He was dressed in powder-blue slacks and a white shirt unbuttoned at the collar. Bloom sat beside him and asked him why he had chosen to reveal Simon’s betrayal, and betray Simon in the act of revealing the betrayal. He’s gone too far, said Gus. I thought maybe he’d see sense. I thought maybe his heart would overcome his head, but it didn’t, and, well … I have something at stake here, don’t I? Gus looked off in the direction of the kitchen, from which they could hear the sounds of Meralda preparing dinner.
You love her that much that you would do this?
Gus inhaled a big whiff of air through his cavernous nostrils. What would you say if I asked to continue on here? To keep the grounds, look after your general well-being, and such?
I would say, Yes, of course. This is your home now. But what about Simon? You won’t have anything to do with him?
Gus shook his head. To do so would mean I would need to deceive you. To deceive you would be to deceive her. To deceive you would be hard enough. To deceive her? I just couldn’t do that. I don’t have it in me. Not anymore.
But by making this choice, you’ve deceived him.
That I have.
Why?
For his own good.
Because he’s gone too far?
Because he’s gone too far.
And now that I know? What am I supposed to do?
I don’t know. You should speak with him. Tell him what you know, what you saw and heard.
I’m not sure that I can.
And why not?
I promised Mr. Stern I would keep his secret. If Simon learns that I know what he’s done, he might not believe it was you. He might choose to believe it was Mr. Stern who told me.
It will make no difference. He needs Stern’s cooperation. It’s not in Simon’s interests to make trouble for him. So, you let him know, and then …
What?
You can choose to forgive him. Or not. If not, I do wonder who will be left to redeem him.
* * *
Meralda was delighted to spend more time in Gus’s company. She often joined him in the grove and in the rose garden, where they lunched together on a picnic blanket, on which Meralda would linger afterward, to watch the enormous man delicately work his pruning shears around the garden’s lattices, along the muscular limbs of the fruit-bearing trees. On the few occasions Bloom noticed Meralda’s full figure sneaking across the courtyard in the early morning, he was tickled by the need she felt to protect Bloom from her liaison by upholding the pretense that she had slept in her own bed.
Why, he asked Gus one day, didn’t he ask her to marry him?
Gus said he had. She refused him.
Why?
She’s waiting for you.
For me to do what?
To marry. To find love and happiness.
But she doesn’t need to delay her own happiness on my account.
No, but she is anyway. She feels responsible for you. Loves you like you’re her own. Mi’ijo, she says when she talks about you. My boy. My son. Bloom wondered if he should have a word with her, and Gus said no, he shouldn’t, absolutely not. She doesn’t know you know about us. If you let on, she’ll call it quits for sure. As it is, she’s down on her knees every night with her Dios mio, praying to Jesus to forgive her for loving a big-nosed Christ killer. No need to complicate things any more than they are. Our lives are complicated enough, are they not?
They are, indeed.
* * *
Simon had been to and from the estate several times since Gus had taken up work on the grounds, and so far as he let on, all was right with the world. Pangloss couldn’t have been more convincing, thought Bloom. Simon couldn’t be more pleased to see Gus taking a well-deserved break from the business. The rate of production on the lot and the progress they were making up north was moving along at pace. The construction of his housing development in the basin would soon begin. The spirit of Scott Joplin and Eubie Blake had returned to the syncopated palaver of his brother’s speech and their music once again amplified across the lot. Simon related the details of his business to Bloom while taking photographs of him building a miniature replica of Death’s fortress out of stones he and Gus had collected on the estate’s grounds. Gottlieb had shared the dir
ector’s credit with his young protégé on Mephisto’s Affinity and there had been some inquiries about him by The Motion Picture Story Magazine, by the Answer Man himself (a herself, if you must know, Simon told him), and knowing Bloom wouldn’t enjoy sitting for an interview, and knowing Gottlieb wouldn’t permit it, Simon took it upon himself to send them a few publicity photos, along with a page or so of hyperbole about the reclusive teenage genius of Mount Terminus Productions—unequaled scenarist, unrivaled production designer, director extraordinaire.
On each of these short visits, Bloom had every intention of telling Simon that he knew what he had done. There was a part of him that wanted to tell him in order to relieve him of the need to put on a false front. But every time Bloom thought to draw the curtain on his brother’s performance, he couldn’t bear the thought of the consequences. He wondered if their brotherly bond would survive Simon’s feelings of shame and embarrassment. If he wouldn’t recoil from having been made the fool by Gus. The irony, of course, was that because Simon had been relieved of the financial burdens that had been weighing him down and occupying so much of his time and energy, his visits to the estate had become more frequent. He began to show up for dinner once, sometimes twice a week, which required Bloom to perform his own false role, to pretend that nothing had happened to alter his perception of his brother. After three or four meals like this, in which Bloom did what he could to hide the displeasure he felt about his brother’s deception, without really meaning to, without having planned the moment, Bloom interrupted the silence they shared in the parlor after dinner, and said, I know what you did.
Simon, who was sitting in Jacob’s chair, smoking a cigarette and reviewing his handiwork in The Motion Picture Story Magazine, turned to Bloom and said, I’m sorry?
I know what you did, said Bloom. To Mr. Stern. To me.
How do you …
I was there. In the adjoining room. Watching through a crack in an open door.
Simon set the magazine down in his lap and began to nod slowly as he searched his thoughts as to how Bloom could know. How he would have been there. And then it came to him. Gus? he said.
Bloom now nodded.
Gus, he said again, as if in a state of disbelief. Simon discharged a heavy sigh.
Bloom wasn’t certain what to say next. So he said nothing. He waited for Simon, but for the first time since he had known his brother, Simon, it seemed, was at a loss as well. He sat there tapping his finger against the chair’s armrest. And then it occurred to Bloom to say, I heard enough to know why you did it. And Mr. Stern explained why you hadn’t come to me in the first place.
You weren’t the obstacle.
I know, said Bloom. Nevertheless …
Yes, said Simon. Nevertheless, I should have spoken with you first. I should have thought more of you.
I would have done everything in my power to help. I would have done what I could to influence Mr. Stern to help you. The money, said Bloom, I don’t care about the money. All you needed to do was ask for it, and it would have been yours.
Simon returned to nodding and tapping. He was unable to look at Bloom. I’m sorry, he said as he stood up and walked away. At the threshold of the parlor door, he stopped, and said, I truly am sorry.
Wait, said Bloom.
What is it?
Promise me something before you go?
Yes.
Promise me no harm will come to Mr. Stern.
No, no harm will come to Mr. Stern. He’s done what I’ve asked of him. There’s no reason for it. Simon now walked off in the direction of the front door. Bloom considered going after him. He stood up, and when he was about to start out, Gus stepped into the parlor and told Bloom to leave him be. Let him live with his shame for a while. It’ll do him some good.
There’s no need for him to suffer, said Bloom.
Yeah, said Gus, yeah, there is.
* * *
If living with his shame did Simon any good or harm, Bloom wouldn’t know about it for quite a while. Simon ceased his visits to the estate for the time being, and from what he had heard from Gottlieb, he was keeping himself busy making frequent journeys to the offices of the water authority, to his various construction sites. Besides, from Gottlieb’s perspective they had more serious concerns than Simon. Not long after Simon made his somber departure from the villa, Gottlieb barged into Bloom’s studio carrying an enormous canvas sack on his back, proclaiming, I have paused! I have thought! I have reached my conclusion! He dropped the bag on the studio floor and announced, Love! An intimate knowledge of love! Death, Forlorn would be significantly longer than Mephisto’s Affinity, he said, and Gottlieb insisted love was the key to bringing the story to life.
Love? said Bloom.
Love! cried Gottlieb. For this picture, you must begin to understand what it is to be in love. Truly in love. Deeply in love. Blinded by love. If the creator of this sort of picture hasn’t been undone by the visceral upheaval only a tormented heart can provide, it will be nothing more than a hollow fantasy. And what do you know of such a love? Gottlieb scoffed.
To this, Bloom could only say he had witnessed the aftermath of this kind of love. Lived in its shadows. If he had his way, he told Gottlieb, he would rather not love if what he observed in his father was the result of abiding love and devotion.
Nonsense! Gottlieb shouted. You would feel blessed if you were ever lucky enough to be cursed by such love!… No. We must find you a woman you can sink your teeth into. Isn’t there anyone on the lot who moves you?
No, said Bloom. The only women he had known well were Hannah Edelstein and Constance Grey, and Hannah, he was certain, had no romantic feelings for men whatsoever, and Constance was twenty years his senior. He had loved Roya for a long, long while, but when he considered the kind of love Gottlieb spoke of, their love wasn’t that. Their love was unconditional and unspoken, secret, familial. It was a love he relied on to sustain his spirit and his art. It was the love of a muse, not a love through which his body would be overcome by passion or heartache, jealousy or rapture. It wasn’t the type of love that had the potential to tear him asunder. He knew nothing about that kind of love. That category of infectious love he had distrusted and avoided for good reason.
Well, said Gottlieb, the hunt is on! He kicked the bag at his feet. Bloom asked what was inside. Letters, said Gottlieb. From admirers. Your admirers. Readers of that yenta column your pimp brother put you in.
I don’t understand. What am I to do with them?
Find a goddamned woman, of course.
Like this?
Why not? Can you think of any better way? You go nowhere. You see no one.
I know. It’s just … I wouldn’t know how to begin.
For chrissake! Get up! Pick it up! Give it here! Bloom lifted himself up from his collection of stones, from Death’s fortress, lifted the heavy bag from the floor, and handed it back to Gottlieb. Come along! Gottlieb marched down into the courtyard and made his way to the kitchen, where he dropped it between Meralda and Gus, who were sitting at the table, drinking tea and playing cards. Gottlieb said to them, Find this virgin Apollo a woman and turn him into a Dionysus.
Mr. Gottlieb? said Meralda.
It’s time he knew the true purpose of his heart. And here, said Gottlieb as he turned to Bloom. He removed an envelope from his jacket pocket and pressed it into Bloom’s hand. From your brother.
From Simon?
Who else? Remember this well. This, Rosenbloom, this is why for men like us we enjoy the work when we make it, and abandon it to the dustbin of history after the fact. The work! The work is essential! Whatever comes of it is ephemeral, momentary, a flicker on a screen, no more! he said as he made his exit.
As Bloom made his exit and walked back to the studio, he opened the envelope, thinking perhaps his brother had written some further explanation or apology, but the letter Gottlieb had pressed into Bloom’s hand was from Georges Méliès, the magician whose inimitable pictures Bloom so admired that afternoon
his brother took him up in the balloon. Méliès had addressed the letter to Simon, thanking his old protégé for having sent the print of Mephisto’s Affinity to him. He was pleased to see his efforts had not been entirely wasted on Simon, that here, finally, was a picture he had produced worthy of his admiration. Mr. Méliès was pained to report that his production company had failed and that he had been insolvent for some time. Bankrupted beyond bankrupt. To feed and clothe himself, to pay his creditors, he had been forced to cede all the film in his archives to the courts. He believed one day it would be returned to him, but now, with his country preparing for war, someone in some ministry, some pecuniary functionary, had decided the film stock should be scrapped and melted, shaped into heels to be cobbled onto the boots of soldiers. All has been lost, he wrote. Nearly every trace of me, of our work together, will soon be marching into oblivion. Only children appreciated magic these days, he contended. And so he had taken to making toys for them. Stuffed into the corner of the envelope, Bloom discovered a tiny metallic moon whose face spun about on a spool when its string was pulled.
* * *
Bloom was informed by Meralda that he had received many letters from many young women expressing in refined penmanship a keen interest in making his acquaintance. She was in agreement with Gottlieb, as was Gus. It was time Bloom began a proper courtship. It is what your father would have wanted, she said to him when serving him one evening. And so she took it upon herself to respond to his letters and make invitations. For a period of a month—while Bloom continued cementing his rocks into the shape of the fortress—the young Rosenbloom dressed for dinner and sat in the dining room across from young women whose appearance and manners were as fine as the lines of their handwriting, and with each passing meal Bloom felt himself growing fat and bored. He thought the dozen women to whom Meralda and Gus had extended invitations priggish and prudish and self-possessed to such an extent they might as well have been dead. Not one appreciated the beauty of his birds or his view of the sea; they didn’t enjoy a senseless meandering through the maze of the front gardens; they complained about the steep grade of the trail leading to Mount Terminus’s peak; they thought it morbid that he would introduce them to his father’s burial site; and they all insisted he walk them down to the lot so they might catch a glimpse of their favorite idols, actors, so many of whom Bloom found dull and uninteresting. And Bloom, who, to one degree or another, had discovered the beauty and life within every life model Gus had delivered to his studio some years earlier, Miss Merriweather included, found it deeply troubling that there existed women into whose eyes he could look and see nothing at all. How, he asked one afternoon while standing at the foot of his father’s grave, before the eternal lovers, can I love if I’m not moved to love?
