Everything Happened to Susan

by Malzberg, Barry

  “No,” Susan says, “that’s all right. Maybe I’m missing something in the script. I haven’t had a chance to really work with it, to give interpretations. Everything has been rushed right through.”

  “Well you don’t worry about that,” Phil says soothingly. “You don’t worry about that at all, that’s a technical problem. You just go out there and do your job and everything will look fine after the editing. This is a business of editing anyway. Everything will come out perfect and you’ll look wonderful.”

  “All right,” Susan says. She feels better since she has sat in Phil’s office. Heavy objects wink at her from the desk and the walls; the drawn curtains and vague smell of smoke give an air of consequence and finality to the setting. Even a kind of dignity. “All right, I’ll try to finish it. But can I get the rest of the day off, at least?”

  “No, that’s impossible. We’re on a very tight schedule and the work is moving right along. I think that we can finish this whole thing up tomorrow — we’re that far ahead, and that would be good, wouldn’t it? You’ll only have to come in one more day. Besides, we have a date tonight.”

  “What?”

  “Well,” Phil says, with a faint smile, “we’ve gotten into a kind of schedule, as far as I can see. I look forward to our dates in the evening. I hope that you aren’t going to stop now; there’s only a little time left before the picture is all over.”

  “I can’t,” Susan says. “I mean, I’ll go back and try to finish it somehow, but I just can’t see you tonight. You’ve got to let me have that.”

  “Why? You don’t like me?”

  “You don’t understand. I’m tired. This is doing things to me. I just can’t — ”

  “Well,” Phil says. “That’s very disappointing. I had really begun to look forward to our little get-togethers. They really mean something to me, even though we haven’t known each other very long. It hurts me to feel that you don’t have the same emotions.” He takes out a nail file and begins to work on his fingers impassively. Susan looks at him intently, tries to stare through him; it is a glint of humor that she thinks she is seeking, some indication in Phil’s eyes or face that he is not serious about any of this, that all along their relationship has not only been subterranean but complex. She feels that they have been parodying other relationships that they might have had. Now Phil can, with a wink, put all of this into its proper context and assure her that from the first he was merely collaborating, never demanding, that they were, after all, pursuing the same ends. His face, however, remains stolid and his eyelids, closing slowly, seem to shut him off further. He looks petulant, even accusing. “I can’t,” Susan says. “I mean, I’d really like to but it’s impossible. You’ve got to show some understanding.”

  “It works two ways, you know,” Phil says. “Understanding has to come from both sides. If it hadn’t been for me, you wouldn’t have even been in this film. Or you would have been dropped today. I’ve kept you going on it.”

  “You’re not even interested in me,” Susan says. “I have a feeling of just being used.”

  “Now,” Phil says gently, “now sweetheart, you just leave the feelings to me. You let me decide how I feel about you and what I want and what I mean and you just do your job which is acting. I wouldn’t try to spend too much time figuring out what anything means; you can only get into trouble that way. That’s the trouble with you children these days; you try to understand everything and then problems develop. You just stay with me; I know what’s best. I’ll meet you right here after work.”

  “There’s got to be an end to this,” Susan says. “To this routine — ”

  “The shooting could be finished tomorrow,” Phil says. “It won’t go beyond Friday. So you see, everything works out.” He stands quietly, more relaxed, more dominant and puts a tentative but firm hand on her elbow, leading her out the door. “You just go back and finish the day. You really should be quite pleased at your progress. I looked at you last night in the rushes and you’re showing up very nicely; you’ve come a long way. This is an opportunity, a career opportunity,” he points the way out and expels her through the door cleanly and quickly, closing it behind her. Susan is left in a small, damp hallway through which she meditatively moves. It is not a very long walk but she feels herself passing through literal levels of insight and experience so profound as she makes her way back to the loft that she truly believes she is a different Susan who comes back on the set. The actors are in the middle of a take. The director looks at her carefully, a forefinger raised, as if he were about to say something. The technicians chatter. Susan walks back to the small space along the wall which has become hers, removes her clothing deftly and perches on her thighs, reading the script, waiting for the call to her next scene. She has decided upon a mode of action.

  CHAPTER XXXVII

  Susan has always had an abiding faith in the police. She believes that they are fundamental, benevolent extensions of a society which still believes in reason and that they would, if ever faced bluntly with the choice, opt for the right to expurgate the wrong. Part of this faith may have come from her family background in which her mother and father were always threatening to call the police upon her or one another as the answer to misbehavior; part of it may have come from Susan’s experiences in college which had taught her that people who had a contempt of authority were fundamentally uncontrollable. Many times in her relationship with Timothy she had had to resist a childish impulse to call the police, identify herself, and ask for help. “I really can’t take this anymore; you’ve got to show him that he can’t push me around this way. He’s making impossible demands and asking me to perform sexual acts which are illegal in this state,” she had imagined herself saying into the receiver, and a calm voice across the wire would say to her, “I understand perfectly, miss; tell me where you are and we’ll settle everything.” She would hang up and the police would come and deal with Timothy in the way that he deserved, straighten him out, clean up the apartment, tell him the truth about his novel, tell him the facts about Susan’s real needs and then leave them both set on the path to a higher, more reasonable life. The police could do that; they were there to enforce order. Any disorder, any fault of behavior or human suffering was their business; they existed to keep society at the status quo.

  Of course her experiences in New York and, most particularly her recent experiences in the film business, have made her belief in the law somewhat shaky — if the cops would stop something like this, why weren’t they here, and, if they weren’t here, did that mean that they approved? But she does not think that this lapse is really a fault in the system. The lawmen are so busy, nowadays, they are attacked by unreason on so many sides that they simply cannot keep tabs on every situation. They need the help of information. If the police truly knew what was going on, they would do their level best to stop it. Susan knows that she is thinking unrealistically, is aware that the pattern of Supreme Court decisions all the way through the 1960s, to say nothing of public desire, makes what is going on in the loft perfectly legal. It is not even worth remarking on any more; but she cannot, with some stubborn pattern of thought somewhere in the center of her head, get over the feeling that if she were to call the local precinct, the police would arrive in droves. If she wants it brought to an end.

  CHAPTER XXXVIII

  In late afternoon, while she is working on a difficult and delicate scene having to do with John F. Kennedy, Timothy arrives at the loft in an unpleasant mood. How he has found her so easily and exactly, how he has actually been able to get into the shooting area with the kind of security Phil must have is beyond her, but there he is, standing in one of the doorways carrying his welfare worker’s attaché case and looking at the situation in utter amazement. The setting is certainly worth regarding by this time of day; the technicians have been smoking cigars and working the lights for eight hours and the loft is full of an acrid bluish haze which smells of sweat and metal; the actors have abandoned even the barest amenit
ies and simply sprawl nakedly on the side while they are not being filmed, some of them inspecting their genitals for the possibility of lice. Susan, who is trying to read a part which she deduces to be that of Jacqueline Kennedy although the script here is so obscure that it is difficult to tell exactly who she is portraying, sees Timothy before he catches sight of her and reacts with a gasp. She backs out of the lighted area where Frank, playing a junior senator from Nevada had been attempting to win her electoral support. She reels through cables and stumbles into a wall. At the same instant Timothy recognizes her and shortly after that everyone notices Timothy. The lights go up to full blaze and the director begins to shout rich curses through the chatter of the technicians. Her view of Timothy is suddenly blocked by a wall of actors rising to snatch their clothes. Timothy has always had such an official look about him that they assume he represents the authorities.

  Susan who knows better turns to run. That would be the best idea; the technicians will be responsible for getting Timothy out of the place and she will not have to deal with him. Her own way is blocked, however, by actors sprinting to the rear, talking about the cops at the same time she hears Timothy’s roar. She knows that he is about to charge upon her. There is nothing to do then but face him. Then she sees that he is already being held in check by four or five technicians who have literally fallen upon him. His attaché case drops helplessly to the floor. Timothy shrieks with rage. “Susan! What are you doing?”

  “Get out of here, Timothy.”

  “I’m going to kill you, you son of a bitch. You have no permit,” the lowest technician says with flat seriousness and trips Timothy by the leg, bringing him to a scrambling heap on the floor. The remainder of the technicians seem about to leap on and devour him when Susan says, “Stop it! I know him! He’s a friend of mine.” Susan looks at Timothy coldly and timelessly. She sees something in his eyes that she has never before suspected. It has nothing to do with her nudity although that spurs him on and he emits a cry of primitive and most un-Timothy like fury. “Get out of here!” he shouts, struggling under the technicians, “Susan, you get out of this place right now or I’ll call the police; you can’t do this kind of thing.” Suddenly Phil appears; he comes from the same portion of the set that he always seems to inhabit and faces Susan glaringly, hands on hips, a cigarette held like a cigar between his teeth. Everything stops. The technicians shrug, arise. Timothy staggers to his feet, grabbing hold of his attaché case, and says with terrible calm, “Susan, it took me all day to find out where you were and I’m not going to give up now. I’m taking you out of here. Right now.”

  “No you’re not,” she says. “I’m working.”

  “I don’t care what you’re doing. You can’t be in this kind of situation. If you don’t come with me, I’ll call the police.”

  “This your boyfriend?” Phil says to her.

  “Not really. Not any more.”

  “Just shut up, Susan,” Timothy says furiously. “I’m not going to go into our relationship now.”

  “Get out of here,” Phil says.

  “Who are you? What’s your authority?”

  “I think I’m going to waste this guy,” Phil replies earnestly. “I am a temperate man and I do not make waves but this is too much. Get out of here.”

  “Tell them, Susan,” Timothy says, a fascinating flush spreading from one cheek to the next. He looks older, grips the attaché case frantically. “Tell them you won’t have any more to do with this obscenity. Get dressed.”

  “I’m sorry, Timothy,” she says. “I can’t do a thing for you.”

  “I told you, I don’t want to discuss our relationship now. This has nothing to do with our relationship. Just get dressed and get out of here.”

  “I hold you responsible,” Phil says to her, “for every second of time that we’re wasting here. For every minute we lose in the shooting I’m going to dock you twenty.” He puts his hands on Timothy with enormous facility, wrenches the attaché case from his grip and hurls it out a doorway. Then he begins skillfully to move Timothy out of the area of the loft. The technicians assist him. Phil with a flourish waves them off and says something about doing the job himself; it is his pleasure. Timothy begins to wail, a high keen wail like the sounds he makes during sex and resists hopelessly. Then he goes limp and allows himself to be pushed off the set. The technicians follow Phil at a distance; Phil seems to be arm-twisting. Susan watches all of this with interest and not without feeling. “He cares,” she finds herself mumbling. “He really cares.”

  “Your boyfriend?” one of the girls asks. She does not regard Susan with compassion.

  “Not exactly. I was living with him though until yesterday.”

  “Oh,” she says. “I understand.”

  “Do you?”

  “Men can’t be matter of fact about these things. It blows their cool. They take this kind of stuff far more personally than we do. You’ll learn about that.”

  “Will I?”

  “Of course you will. You’ll learn about a lot of things; you’re pretty young now.”

  “Stop patronizing me!” Susan says. “Stop it! Stop it!” She has meant to disagree with the girl quietly and then drift back to the scene but some element of her control seems to have snapped. “You can’t do this to me!” she shrieks, “someone, finally, has got to take me seriously!” And then there are hands on her, soothing hands, and remonstrative voices but they only increase her rage; she begins to struggle against them just as Timothy had been struggling, to fight for some area of quiet in which she can come to terms with herself slowly and with dignity. But they will not listen, none of them will listen, and, the louder she screams, the more unreasonable they become. She throws her script against the wall to quiet them, kicks to quiet them, begins striking out to quiet them but they are simply not reasonable. They throw her to the floor and Susan finds herself buried under a mass of bodies, most of them naked; flesh is to all sides of her and it has no identity other than its own. The bodies are indifferent, expressionless, pressing upon her and Susan wants very much to faint again. Fainting would be fine, fainting would be a great release — it had helped her very much once already and she could look forward to a career of fainting with ease — but she remains very much conscious as the director wrenches her to her feet. Lights cut her right and left. Technicians are pushing her down a hall and she finds herself once again in Phil’s office. Phil is not nearly so pedagogical this time but he is looking at her with hatred bisecting his face in the way that sex had torn her body. As he leaps forward to confront her with terrible accusations, she sees behind his left shoulder a very shrunken, very confused Timothy regarding her from a corner. On his face is a look of mild, bland fright which seems to sum up everything that she has ever thought of him, everything that she has thought of herself.

  CHAPTER XXXIX

  “I thought we had everything nice and settled,” Phil says, “but we had nothing settled so we’re going to take it from the top. We’re going to set this up once and for all. I want to know what you two are up to.”

  “Nothing,” Timothy says. Somehow he has become an agreeable, reasonable Timothy; he hangs on to his attaché case and looks out a window. “I just lost my temper, that’s all. I thought I’d come down and get her out of here. But it’s her life and your film and I’m sorry about the whole thing and just want to leave.”

  “In time,” Phil says. He sighs, sits behind the desk, checks Timothy’s location carefully, and looks at Susan. “There’s one thing I don’t like,” he says, “and that’s falling into complicated situations with people who aren’t professionals. I can’t stand that kind of thing and we’re going to settle it once and for all.”

  “May I leave?” Timothy says. He looks at Phil imploringly, a beaten expression around his mouth. “Really, I don’t want anything more to do with any of this. If you just let me go, I won’t make trouble again.”

  “When I’m ready to let you go, I’ll let you go. Until then you sit. No
one asked you to come here, did they?”

  “No,” Timothy replies.

  “You come busting into a business situation and break up our set and now you want to leave. That isn’t very reasonable, is it?”

  “No, I guess it isn’t.”

  “We like people to be reasonable. Reasonable people give us our happiest moments. We’re going to make you reasonable by the time you leave. We call it shock therapy.”

  “All right,” the new, mild Timothy says. Perhaps this new Timothy is not even a novelist. “I understand that. Okay. I don’t want anything more to do with this.”

  “I want to ask you a question,” Phil says, putting his palms flat on the desk and turning to Susan. “Ignore him; he don’t matter. Pretend like he’s not here, which in every sense he isn’t. We’ll take care of him later if we have to. What I want to know is something of you.”

  “I don’t want to talk anymore,” Susan says dully. “I’ve been talked at all day.”

  “That’s your problem. Remember who set up the situation; it wasn’t me. Remember who wanted to be the actress to begin with. I didn’t clobber you and take you down here.”

  “I want to act then. Let me act.”

  “When I’m ready. In my time. Let me ask you something and I want it straight. There are no halfway measures here, Susan. Do you want to be in this business or don’t you?”

  “I don’t know,” Susan says. She looks for a place to sit, finds no chairs, backs against a wall. Timothy sees her gesture, stumbles to his feet, motioning that his chair is available. She shakes her head; she wants nothing from Timothy and, understanding this, he sits down again and puts his head in his hands as his attaché case drops to the floor. His shoulders seem to shake; he seems to be in even more of an emotional state than she is. “I really don’t know,” she says again. “I wish I could answer that but I don’t think I can. It’s not so easy.”