Erasure (37 page)

“How’s work?”

“Good.”

“How’s—” I searched for his friend’s name.

“Gone.”

I have often stared into the mirror and considered the difference between the following statements:

(1) He looks guilty.

(2) He seems guilty.

(3) He appears guilty.

(4) He is guilty.

“Are you all right?” Bill asked. He was out of the shower and had returned downstairs to join me in the den. I was lighting a cigar. “You shouldn’t do that,” he said.

“Yes, I know.” I watched the tip glow orange and shook out the match. “Are you about ready to go?”

“It’s sort of late now, don’t you think?”

It was in fact nearly six. “It’s a little late,” I said, “but it is her first day there. I’d like to check up on the old lady.”

Bill nodded.

Mother had not eaten, we were told. She did not recognize Bill, pulled away from him when he took her hand and tried to look at her eyes. She did not recognize me. She might have if we had stayed another sixty minutes, another fifteen, another five. But we didn’t.

“About the money,” Bill said.

“I’ve got it covered,” I told him.

It had become my practice (at least I wanted it to be) to let such conversations wither and die of their own accord, to not offer any appropriate or inappropriate comment, but to simply shut up and let the words become vapor.

Only appearances signify in visual art. At least this is what I am told, that the painter’s work is an invention in the boundless space that begins at the edges of his picture. The surface, the paper or the canvas, is not the work of art, but where the work lives, a place to keep the picture, the paint, the idea. But a
chair,
a chair
is
its space, is its own canvas, occupies space properly. The canvas occupies spaces and the picture occupies the canvas, while the chair, as a work, fills the space itself. This was what occurred to me regarding
My Pafology.
The novel, so-called, was more a chair than a painting, my having designed it not as a work of art, but as a functional device, its appearance a thing to behold, but more a thing to mark, a warning perhaps, a gravestone certainly. It was by this reasoning that I was able to look at my face in the mirror and to accept the deal my agent presented to me on the phone that evening.

“His name is Wiley Morgenstein and he wants to pay you three million dollars for the movie rights,” Yul said. “Monk? Monk?”

“I’m here.”

“How’s that sound?”

“It sounds great. Are you crazy? It sounds terrific. It makes me sick.”

“He insists on meeting you.”

“Tell him I’ll call him.”

“He wants to meet you. He wants to pay you three mil, the least you can do is have lunch with the guy. I haven’t told him that there’s no Stagg Leigh yet.”

“Don’t. Stagg Leigh will have lunch with him.”

Yul laughed. “You’ve lost your mind. What are you going to do? Dress up like a pimp or something?”

“No, I’ll just put on some dark glasses and be real quiet. How’s that?”

“Three million for you means three hundred thousand for me. Don’t screw this up.”

“Yeah, right. Gotta go.”

“Wait a second. Random House says there’s so much excitement about the book that they’re going to try to bring it out before Christmas.”

Bill asked if everything was all right when I walked into the kitchen after having been on the phone. I told him that all was well and he told me that he was going out with an old friend. He told me that his friend was coming to collect him shortly. He told me not to wait up.

I hadn’t noticed before the box containing the letters from Fiona to my father smelt of lavender and rose-leaves. This time, without actually reading the letters, I attended to the script, the hand at work, and found a purity there that perhaps reflected the depth of feeling. I imagined that nurse had had small but strong hands with trimmed nails, a weaver’s hands perhaps. I opened each letter, then thumbed through the pages of the curiously chosen novel. With
Silas Marner
I found a slip of paper and on it was written the lower East Side Manhattan address of Fiona’s sister. Her name was Tilly McFadden.

Editor: What a surprise.

Stagg: I just called to ask if I need to make any changes in the manuscript since you plan to bring the book out earlier.

Editor: No, it’s just perfect as it is.

Stagg: Will I see galleys soon?

Editor: No need to bother with that.

Stagg: There is one change I’d like to make.

Editor: Certainly.

Stagg: I’m changing the title. The new title is
Fuck.

Editor: Excuse me?

Stagg:
Fuck.
Just the one word.

Editor: I so love
My Pafology
as the title.

Stagg: We’ll call the next book that. This one is called
Fuck.

Editor: I don’t think we can do that.

Stagg: Why not?

Editor: The word is considered obscene by many.

Stagg: The novel has the word
fuck
all through it. I don’t care if
many
find the word obscene.

Editor: It might hurt sales.

Stagg: I don’t think so. If you like I can give you back the money and take the book elsewhere.