The Chrysanthemum Palace

by Bruce Wagner

  This one, I’d truly earned.

  I put Clea’s things in storage.

  Her landlord quickly leased the Venice house—I knew, because I’d become a bit of a Peeper. I watched a hip couple move in, barely in their thirties. I actually drove by for a few months, hoping to bump into Clea’s unquiet ghost. Sometimes I’d pull up to the curb and sit there in darkness. I wondered if the new tenants were in the business.

  For a while I dreamed about her. I guess Clea’s last “visitation” came when I finished reading Chrysanthemum. I was startled by the power of Michelet’s novel—and its vengefulness. How strange that until recently I hadn’t known the scandal behind it, a cause célèbre at the time of publication. My father never spoke of it; he presumed I already knew.

  The book’s protagonist is “Jack Michelet” (this, prepostmodern). “Michelet” has been short-listed for every literary prize known to man—winning most. He’s married to a dilettante who takes artsy photographs of animals in zoo-cages, worldwide. Their son (“Tad”!), an unsuccessful writer of advertisement copy, and his fiancée, a onetime hooker turned day-care center operator, arrive at the house in the Hamptons for a weekend visit. “Michelet” seduces the bride-to-be in the nursery, where he gardens during writing breaks.

  Tad and Melanctha could be overheard arguing about something in the kitchen, a friendly dispute over a recipe his mother was preparing for dinner. (They knew Michelet was giving Cly [short for Clytemnestra!—BK] a tour of the greenhouse.) The minute he said, “Show me,” the girl’s neck blotched and her chest began to heave. He watched a vein pound the way fishermen read the swells of a coming storm. He squatted down as she held herself open. It was musty and he leaned in to take a draught as mother and son bantered—good as having her. The cunt looked like a chrysanthemum. He knew from folklore that the flower’s boiled roots could be used as a headache remedy, its violet petals brewed as potion. He would make it his official crest and seal. Michelet knew the mum needed darkness as well as light and that Tad did not have a taste for its cultivation, nor for autumnal colors, unaware even that such a thing blooms in the fall, as the days grow shorter. No, his son would never tap the balmy unskirted elixir for the migraines that had always plagued him, nor have the patience to read up on basics, chapter-and-verse: “As with all gardening efforts, it is not luck or the so-called green thumb that achieves results, but rather hard work and dirty fingernails.” It was then that Michelet resolved to make the thing his corsage, and a cortege for her husband-to-be—and her mother-in-law too—but for now this floral, florid arrangement would be their secretum. Mum was the word, indeed. He stared at the petals with great keenness while kitchen voices grew mock-contentious and Cly’s carotid beat furiously until without being touched, she came.

  GITA ASKED ME TO DINNER at the Benedict Canyon pied-à-terre—as she wryly referred to all 17,000 square feet of it—on the night “Prodigal Son” was televised. She had taped it off an East Coast feed so we could fast-forward through commercials. Because of the deaths, the network had publicly brooded over whether to postpone, but in this, the time of love and media, a decision was made that to air was humane. Besides, the morbid hoopla had already been diluted by endless radio and TV talk-show dissections, now harmlessly joining the piss-stream of global atrocities and local horrors-of-the-week.

  As I watched, I resolved to contractually extricate myself from the Demeter and its far-flung frontiers—I didn’t think heart or ego could survive another tour. It was easier to watch Clea than I thought it’d be, her features subsumed in the latex cubism that was the Vorbalidian hallmark. The comically ghoulish effect took the edge off my sorrow. Watching with Mom was a comfort too (Perry was in New York). She was spare and solicitous, speaking only when spoken to. Not once did she acknowledge the silly sacrilege of this showcase for the dead. We’d grown closer through the ordeal, and that was the greatest comfort of all.

  Ensign Rattweil dutifully defeated his twin. (At the moment it happened, I suppressed an unexpectedly gruesome image born of my recent trip to the Playa.) At hour’s end, his crew safely aboard the starship, Captain Laughton plotted a course for Darius 9.

  Dr. Chaldorer informed that if anyone needed him, he’d be in his quarters.

  “A little primping and preening, X-Ray?” asked the captain.

  “I’d be remiss,” said the medic, “if I didn’t look my best for those Darian showgirls.”

  “You might just find yourself a pair of platform shoes. Remember, they’re seven feet tall. You wouldn’t want to be stuck at . . . chest level.”

  “You know,” he said lecherously. “I did order a pair. But they never came in!”

  He whooshed out. Laughton asked Cabott what activities he planned to indulge in upon shore leave. The android said he was anxious to visit the famous Darian library of antiquities, rumored to contain a billion paperbound volumes. I innuendoed at what he’d be missing and was about to be admonished when Shazuki grew serious, asking the captain what it had been like to walk among Vorbalids.

  He grew pensive, adopting that patented pose of brooding, poetic self-reflection honed over the seasons (just now as I write, the haunting “e le morte stagioni” comes back to me), usually reserved as a summing-up of lessons learned during whichever episode’s excellent adventure.

  “What was it like? A world of contrasts and extremes . . . of great savagery and unexpected kindness . . . of Machiavellian intrigue and humble, deeply human gestures. You ask me what it was like, Shazuki? Majestic and impoverished, ennobling and depressing—in short, a little bit of heaven and a little bit of hell. Under the Great Dome resides a place where man is forced to face himself, and learn unpleasant—vital—truths. A universal experience, so it seems.”

  “Thank you, Captain,” she said, in simple gratitude.

  Laughton began dictating his log.

  “Star Date 41-17-7. We are now back on course, heading toward Darian 9 after an unprecedented diversion to the Vorbalidian System. Unwitting players in a political power struggle, myself and my crew were held prisoner, ultimately becoming spectators at a gladiatorial battle between Prince Morloch and his twin: our own Ensign Rattweil. The despotic pretender suffered death at his brother’s hands—this, the happiest of outcomes. As we returned to the city, its streets lined with the joyous populace, it became clear that—”

  “Receiving images, Captain!” interjected Shazuki.

  X-Ray made a timely reappearance to the bridge as the crew gathered before the staticky starscreen. After a few moments, Thad appeared, flanked by Clea and the revivified Queen Mother. He wore a bejeweled crown, clutching a tall scepter. The three waved at their subjects. Thad turned to look directly at the Demeter, mouthing something which couldn’t be understood.

  “What’s he saying?” said the frustrated captain.

  The lieutenant commander furiously worked her controls. “I don’t have audio . . .”

  Laughton relaxed, drinking in the starscreen triumvirate.

  “It isn’t important,” he said.

  “The king isn’t there . . .” noted X-Ray curiously.

  “The king is dead,” said the captain, with resolute benevolence. “Long live the king! Having defeated Morloch, our humble ensign has assumed the throne.”

  “Without a doubt,” said the droid. “The emblem on his tunic denotes rulership of their world.”

  “Which emblem?” said the captain, straining to look.

  “Above his heart, sir,” I offered. “The ‘chrysanthemum,’ if you will.”

  Shazuki did her best to read the royal lips.

  “He’s thanking us, sir—both in English and his native tongue.”

  “Looks like Rattweil and the ambassador finally hooked up,” I karped, back to horny, flyboy form. “Soon she’ll be queen.”

  “Send a message,” said the captain, all business. “From the crew of the USS Starship Demeter. Tell him that . . . as his shipmates, we were most honored to have served with him. That we shall al
ways think of him, and forever hold him in our hearts. Wish the monarch and his people well. And tell him . . .”

  He paused, searching for the proper words. His eyes grew moist.

  “Tell him he is every inch a king.”

  Lights on the bridge lowered as camera dollied toward starscreen. The frame tightened until only an ebullient Thad and Clea could be seen, arm in arm, as at the moment rice is thrown at a wedding. I threw grains with all my might, across light-years of time and constellatory space.

  AS I WAS SAYING AT the beginning of these pages: I was at the bakery awaiting a latte when a young father came in, holding a babe in arms. But let me paraphrase, and even add some detail, so the reader needn’t thumb backward.

  It was on a Thursday afternoon when I found myself at the Sugar Plum confectionary (now defunct), hand poised on legal pad, dog-eared copy of Jack Michelet’s Chrysanthemum spread—forgive the word—before me. Something wasn’t sitting well. I had consented to adapt the book for a welter of reasons which I hope I’ve made clear. But I didn’t like the novel; in fact, I’d grown to hate it. Worse, I didn’t feel wonderful for having taken the job in the first place.

  I was on a third latte, this one by necessity decaffeinated. I’d mentioned earlier, one may recall, how experience had shown that I was somewhat of a “magnet for babies’ eyes”—the bundle now before me proving no exception. He fussed and squirmed in Daddy’s arms while fixing me with the expected stare, just long enough to get my attention.

  His view then shifted somewhere beyond. I glanced, as did his father, to see where he was focusing, but the end point was amorphous.

  That was when the infant, gaze unwavering, giggled with ineffable ecstasies—he was communing with the infinite, and like a bodhisattva, tried showing us the way.

  “What do you see?” said his father. “What do you see?”

  I looked and suddenly did see: the design of baby-faced Thad, and Clea too—and of the twins the coroner said were in her belly waiting to be born—saw Castor and Pollux, Leif Farragon and little boy Me. I looked and looked until the gooey sumptuous Badwater stillness lifted up behind them, behind all machinations, no matter how luxurious, threadbare, desperate, or giving, saw the selfless scrim that rose and ceaselessly fell upon this earthly stage of triumph and trespass, saw it there, in the eyes of this melodious sweetshop angel, cooing and gurgling like a desert fount, the fancifully ridiculous, idiotic heartbreak of the whole damn thing—and knew I could never face myself without at least trying to set it down as best I could.

  So that’s what I’ve done.

  And I couldn’t be more grateful you’ve stayed to the end. Maybe—maybe—I should have followed the advice of Jack Michelet when he said in that vile interview how certain pages should be burned. But I’m throwing my pages, and caution, to the wind.

  Because as Mother loves to say, life’s too short.

  Don’t you think?

  About the Author

  BRUCE WAGNER is the author of Force Majeure; I’m Losing You; I’ll Let You Go, which was nominated for a PEN USA fiction award; and Still Holding. Two movies (I’m Losing You and Women in Film) adapted from his books have been shown at the Telluride, Toronto, Venice, and Sundance film festivals.

  ALSO BY BRUCE WAGNER

  Still Holding

  I’ll Let You Go

  I’m Losing You

  Force Majeure

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  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2005 by Bruce Wagner

  All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

  SIMON & SCHUSTER and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  The author gratefully acknowledges permission to reprint the following material: “The Infinite” from COLLECTED POEMS by Robert Lowell. Copyright © 2003 by Harriet Lowell and Sheridan Lowell. Reprinted by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC. LEOPARDI, G; LEOPARDI. © 1997 Princeton University Press. Reprinted by permission of Princeton University Press.

  Designed by Paul Dippolito

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Wagner, Bruce.

  The chrysanthemum palace / Bruce Wagner.

  p. cm.

  1. Hollywood (Los Angeles, Calif.)—Fiction. 2. Triangles (Interpersonal relations)—Fiction. 3. Motion picture industry—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3573.A369C49 2005

  813'.54—dc22 2004043059

  ISBN 0-7432-4339-0

  ISBN 13: 978-1-439-12939-5 (eBook)