The Novel

by James A. Michener

  Our plans were somewhat disturbed, because on Wednesday morning at eleven a monster truck pulled into our driveway, hauling behind it a huge three-part generator to provide the electricity required for what had to be done. Four electricians arrived in private cars to rewire our entire house, and when Emma shouted: ‘Why are you disconnecting our wires?’ they explained: ‘We can’t run the risk of a power blackout in the middle of the show.’ Black wires coiled through the house like cobras waiting to strike. Plans were made to disconnect the telephone and to substitute three different wires direct to the studio in New York.

  Just before dusk that day a truck, even larger than the first, the kind one saw at important football games, pulled into the farm, and when Emma cried: ‘Hey, what’s that?’ she was told by the driver: ‘We call it the command post. Everything operates out of here.’ And as night fell, an armed policeman on hire from the Dresden department rode up in his own car to guard these valuable properties till dawn.

  About ten on Thursday, three camera crews dispatched by C.B.S. in Philadelphia arrived, and there were now on the site two huge trucks, a smaller one and six private cars, but the director and her staff had not yet arrived. They flew down from New York, rented a car, and pulled in before twelve. They went right to work scouting the place and agreeing on camera positions and angles: ‘I see this as a three-part setup. First, Mr. and Mrs. Yoder in their gracious living room with colorful German decoration. Chat-chat-chat with New York. Then, of course, we see him at his desk, because, after all, he is a writer. Chat-chat-chat with New York. And then the surprise. We switch to the studio with him explaining what he does with the hex signs. Chat-chat-chat including an explanation from him about what a hex is.’

  When this program was agreed upon, she moved swiftly to the big decisions: ‘Obviously we’ll need three cameras. Living room, downstairs; study, upstairs; workshop, in the yard. Sounds simple. But I also want an outside shot, the Yoders inviting us into their house. We must have movement. Zig-zag-zoog, no static talking heads. So how can we have a camera out here to catch them inviting us in, and still maintain the three we need for the guts of the show?’ After some discussion it was agreed that the camera responsible for the workshop was best qualified to start at the entrance and then sprint over to the art area and be ready when I walked into it, prior to the closing scene, but for some reason I did not understand, the cameraman would have to run backward, so a helper had to be on hand to guide him over the wires and grass. They tried this several times and found it practical.

  At twelve-thirty that Thursday, waiters from the Dresden China appeared with elegant box lunches for everyone and a large icebox filled with canned drinks, nonalcoholic. The crew ate voraciously while Emma and I sat in the kitchen with the director and her principal assistant. ‘We do this every Thursday,’ the director said. ‘Wrap it Friday at ten, fly home to Long Island, fly out to the next assignment on Wednesday, or if it’s close at hand like this, on Thursday morning.’

  ‘Where do you head next week?’ Emma asked.

  ‘Where is it, Frank?’

  ‘Seattle. For that famous bone specialist. Speaks with a Viennese accent. Has a smile as big as a full moon.’

  After lunch the director wanted to run through the movements, not once or twice, but six or seven times, because the actions of half a dozen people besides Emma and me had to be coordinated, and although I did not have to memorize lines, I did have to establish a set path through the myriad wires and adhere to it, and this I was unable to do. Finally the director had to warn me: ‘Mr. Yoder, you are not strolling from this room to your study, and then on to your workshop. You must walk a carefully defined path.’ When I proved unequal to the task, she said calmly: ‘We’ve had this before. Great men can really screw up, Mr. Yoder, so as soon as we finish a scene, Frank here will grab your left arm, pull you back and guide you directly to your next shot and vanish before the camera catches him.’

  ‘That would be better,’ I said, but that night when everyone was gone except the policeman guarding the trucks, I said: ‘Emma, I’d hate to make a fool of myself before all the people who might be watching. Grab my left arm, pull me backward and lead me through the maze,’ and when she had done this five times I caught the rhythm and felt more secure.

  On Friday morning at six the director wanted to run through all the procedures once more, but as she was about to do so, Frank came in breathless: ‘We can get no signal from New York into Mr. Yoder’s earphone. Yours is all right, but he won’t be able to hear the questions New York will be asking. He’ll look very stupid if he just sits there not saying anything.’

  When Frank started to wring his hands she said: ‘Frank, remember our rule. We never have disasters, we have problems,’ and within a few minutes she was holding a huge sheet of cardboard on which she printed the questions she would direct the interviewer in New York to ask. Standing where I could see her, while the cameras could not, she assured me: ‘I’ll point in sequence to the questions being asked in New York,’ but this seemed so cumbersome that I asked: ‘Why not let me see her asking the questions, even though I can’t hear her. Then I’ll know when it’s my turn to speak,’ and the director gave me alarming news: ‘No good. You never see the people in New York. All you get is her voice. And today apparently you’re not going to get even that.’

  ‘Oh my God!’

  ‘Now, Mr. Yoder, I get the feeling that you’re a real pro. And I know you’ve faced emergencies before. Let me give you one hint. When I point to the questions you can’t hear, speak with great enthusiasm and keep on speaking, whatever you want to say, till I flag you for the next question. Then shut up. After a pause, I’ll point to what’s being asked and you bang into it again.’ When panic showed in my face, she leaned over and kissed me: ‘You’re going to look back on this as one of the triumphs of your life.’

  Staring at her in total confusion, I said: ‘This new problem has completely driven out of my mind how I’m supposed to walk backward into the next shot.’

  ‘That’s not your problem. That’s Frank’s. Words? You look to me. Feet? Rely on Frank.’ Then I asked: ‘But if I can’t hear through the earphone, why do I have to wear it?’ and she said: ‘To look good. If it wasn’t there, all the pros would know we were faking it.’ She stopped, stared into my quivering eyes and said grimly: ‘You and I are pros, Mr. Yoder. We do not screw up.’

  The interview ended at 0849 and before 0900 calls started on the reactivated lines. Acquaintances from all over the country, especially Emma’s Bryn Mawr friends, called to assure her: ‘You looked tremendous! Delivered your lines like an actor.’ Several people wanted to purchase one of my hex paintings, and an art magazine called to see if we had any color negatives of my work.

  By ten the wires were gone, normal electricity was restored, and the phone calls from people who had called C.B.S. had been forwarded by the very system that had not functioned while I was on the air. I could not remember who some of the callers were.

  At noon the mammoth trucks were gone, headed to the Interstate and their next assignment, and at a quarter to one the director and her personal staff were sitting around our kitchen table chatting, drinking beer and feasting on scraps from the refrigerator, including fried toast, honey and cold milk, followed by huge wedges of a German apple pie Emma had purchased the day before from the Diefenderfers at the Rostock post office.

  As the New York people drove off, the director gripped my hand: ‘You didn’t damage yourself this morning, old man. Anyone who saw you would say: “That son of a gun knows what he’s doing.” Books and paintings and polished speech, you’re a triple threat.’

  Just as I was about to tackle my final batch of galleys in mid-July I was sidetracked by an interruption I welcomed: the director of the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Collection in Williamsburg, Virginia, telephoned to say that they had an unexpected vacancy in their schedule of exhibitions and would like to display almost immediately eleven of my hex paintings th
at they’d been able to assemble, but only if I’d agree to add the three they understood I’d been working on and had not yet disposed of. I explained that I’d finished only XXII and XXIII, but I thought I knew where I could borrow back XVII. They were delighted: ‘We have a handsome brochure at the printer’s—a substantial pamphlet, really—and posters we had intended to use later. We’ll paste on the proper date and expect you and Mrs. Yoder with your three paintings on Wednesday next, for the opening on Thursday.’

  ‘We’ll be there.’

  I took pleasure in exhibiting my paintings in a fine museum like the Williamsburg, for to do so brought the art of my people to an entirely new population; as I explained to Emma while driving south to Virginia: ‘When they read my books, all they get is my impression of what our Dutch were like. When they actually see the hexes, torn bleeding from living barns, they see something that was a vital part of our experience,’ and I added: ‘Living in the Wallace House again isn’t an interruption of work, it’s a vacation. I don’t like to tear myself away from the galleys, they’re top priority, but the paintings also stand high.’

  When we drove up to the museum, we encountered a surprise, for the director said: ‘A delightful young couple runs a bookstore here in town, the Colonial. When the Cutworths heard you were coming to us for the exhibition tomorrow afternoon, they asked if they could arrange a small party at their shop tomorrow night, an informal affair at which local booklovers would drop in for cider, gingersnaps and good talk. I accepted on your behalf.’

  ‘I didn’t come here to peddle books. Folk art was the attraction.’

  ‘You’ll have discharged any obligation to us when you finish your presentation. I encouraged the Cutworths. Told them we rarely get a two-fer in town, artist and writer, and we should make the most of it.’

  ‘If you’re not doing it because you’re trying to please me.’

  ‘Mr. Yoder! I’m going to be at their party and looking forward to it. Their shop is one of the most civilized places in Williamsburg.’

  When we drove about the elegant town on our way back to the Wallace House, we saw several posters proclaiming that Lukas Yoder would be at Colonial Books on Thursday night for an informal discussion with booklovers familiar with his work.

  The fourteen paintings from my Hex Series made a striking display for the Thursday afternoon show, and the carefully prepared brochure with three of the older works reproduced in color gave an accurate account of what the writer called ‘Yoder’s dual personality, the author of the popular “Grenzler Octet” and the plastic artist who created the imaginative Hex Series.’ The show was a success, and after sharing a light dinner, the curator drove us through the quiet streets of Williamsburg, where every house seemed to be a museum, and to the main street leading down from William and Mary College, where a surprise awaited me.

  The section of the street near Colonial Books was so crowded with people that two policemen had been called to extra duty. When the curator asked one of the officers what the police were protecting, the man replied: ‘The bookstore. They’re all carrying books.’ When Emma from her seat in back inspected the people near her car window, she whispered: ‘They have your books, darling … some have shopping bags full of them.’

  What had been planned as a quiet literary evening had turned into something of a crisis, with many in the crowd pressing forward to buy whatever books of mine the store had for sale, while harried clerks tried to tell them that the stock had been virtually exhausted by three that afternoon. However, the enterprising husband of one of the clerks had jumped in his car and sped to neighboring communities to buy up what copies he could, and he had phoned from his last stop to say he had found about forty and would be bringing them in promptly. In the meantime the curator deposited us at the front door and drove ahead to find parking.

  Since I am not the kind of author who is easily recognized, when I climbed out of the car and started toward the bookstore, people in line protested and one man shouted: ‘Back to the end of the line, bub!’ to which Emma said with a wink: ‘He’s the bub who writes those books you’re carrying,’ and she tapped the two novels he was holding.

  ‘It’s Yoder,’ someone said in a low voice, and while no one cheered, there was scattered clapping of a restrained sort, which I acknowledged with some embarrassment.

  Inside the shop we encountered consternation, for the Cutworths, the owners, were engulfed by the crush of people, their hopes of a quiet evening of genteel discourse blasted. Their store was jammed, everyone waiting with books to be autographed that had not been purchased there, and there were no copies on hand to sell to those who had come empty-handed.

  When we saw the Cutworths, whom we identified by the anxiety on their young faces, practical Emma elbowed her way up to them and introduced herself: ‘Don’t you think you’d better arrange a table where he could sit and do some signing?’ and they said: ‘We hadn’t planned it this way,’ and indicated a circle of chairs in the back of the shop near which stood a table with gingersnaps and two rather small pitchers of cider. ‘We expected a few friends.’

  With a practiced hand, Emma cleared the table and directed Mr. Cutworth to move it forward to a spot at which the customers could be organized into a line. The announcement of the autographing had brought out not the fifteen or twenty booklovers the Cutworths had anticipated, but close to three hundred; some of them were motivated by mere curiosity, but many were true fans of the Grenzler books. After all, the books did deal with a colorful area not far to the north that many of them had visited. As with the case of the St. Louis autographs, most of the people in line had heard that this would probably be my last book, so they were lured here by two impulses: to say hello to a writer with whose work they were familiar and to get his signature on a first edition of one of his books in hopes that it might later be of value. When anyone told me of the latter reason I nodded gravely but did not point out that the book he carried had been issued in a first edition of 500,000 and it would be miraculous if one could find a copy that wasn’t a first.

  I signed till my right hand was numb, and since I liked to look directly at the person requesting my autograph and exchange a few words, the process went slowly. This irritated Emma, who whispered: ‘Sign the things. Don’t hold little cocktail parties with everyone who comes by.’ I could never explain to her or to bookstore people who gave the same advice that at such moments I was not in Williamsburg or St. Louis autographing books by the hundreds, I was back in the Hess store in Allentown on that terrible day when not a single customer showed up. The difference between then and now was that more than a million people had read each of my last three books and many of them had found them meaningful and their author a responsible man. They were people to whom I was indebted, and if they had come out on a warm evening for an autograph I had to give it in a way that was not perfunctory.

  The poor Cutworths had abandoned any hopes of this being a literary evening; this was book mania with no relationship to what they considered their civilizing function in the community. Intermittently they had seen in the street outside members of the local intelligentsia, especially certain distinguished professors from the college who had been invited to participate in the conversation, and were not surprised that these booklovers, shuddering at the sight of the mob, passed on.

  Now a cheer broke out, for the clerk’s husband who had gone scouting for books returned with word that he had brought back sixty-three Yoders, and he and Mr. Cutworth went out into the crowd and sold the lot as quickly as they could lift each book in the air.

  At such signings—Emma and I attended about two a year—she served one function that I applauded. When there was a long line, she moved back and forth bringing forward to the head any woman who was pregnant, or had a child, or anyone, man or woman, who was physically handicapped. Invariably when she did this, the queue cheered, as if she had done a good deed, but she declined credit by saying: ‘My husband insisted on this,’ even though the idea was hers
.

  At the end of two hours there were still many in line, so Mr. Cutworth and one of the policemen went to a certain point in the line and marked it with a chair: ‘We’ll have to stop here.’ Emma, hearing murmurs of complaint, went to those excluded and told them: ‘Give us your address and Mr. Cutworth will get you the books you want, if you have your own my husband will send you a special bookplate signed with your name and his.’ Cutworth, taken by surprise, eagerly agreed, and some forty people gave their names and left, reasonably content.

  I signed for another half hour, then indicated that the police should close the doors. When they did, Emma invited the officers inside, and they and the Cutworths and the man who had corraled the extra copies gathered about the table and finished the gingersnaps. ‘I’m sorry about what happened,’ I said. ‘It wasn’t planned that way.’

  ‘I should have anticipated this,’ Cutworth said. ‘We do sell a lot of your books.’

  ‘We rarely see such an orderly crowd,’ one of the policemen said. ‘Especially in a college town.’

  Mrs. Cutworth said: ‘I saw quite a few college students in line. Those who had no books always said: “I’m so sorry you ran out. I was going to buy one,” but I think they were just looking.’

  When Emma and I walked down the historic street to our private house, I was overcome by the solemn majesty of this town, rescued from thoughtless ruin by the imagination of the Rockefellers: ‘When Jefferson walked this street he saw it much as we do. George Wythe might have strolled here with his law students. It’s proper for a republic to maintain a memory like this,’ but when I entered the house I spoke only of this night: ‘I feel so sorry for the Cutworths. They’d planned a quiet literary evening and would have been so much happier if they’d had some proper author who sold eleven copies of his books in Williamsburg. What we had tonight was a riot, but I’ll not soon forget some of the things they told me.’