Thief of Words (13 page)
Naturally, Pablo came to the rescue. “My dear,” he said, “we can’t let this accident spoil your night. Here, let me take away the sting of it.” And he took a glass from the waiter’s tray and splashed the front of his tuxedo jacket with the contents. There was a collective gasp. What a gesture. “Now,” he said, “you’re not alone.”
People applauded. Everybody in our group took a glass and toasted to “spilled champagne.” Of course, you thanked him; of course, the two of you chatted; of course, one thing led to another, as it always does with Pablo Neruda, and three nights later we were heading to his house for dinner.
From Valparaiso, it took us more than an hour to drive to his house, Isla Negra (that’s what he called his place, “Black Island”). It sat on a cliff overlooking the ocean. The air smelled of seaweed and earth. On the horizon, the setting sun turned the undersides of the clouds a dusky orange.
Pablo came out to greet us. He shook our hands and, making an offhand gesture to the clouds, he said to you, “How delightful, they’re turning the color of your hair.” Big deal, I thought, I could have said that.
He opened the front door for us. “Welcome to Isla Negra,” he said. The room was filled with fantastical things. The mermaid prow of a ship jutted from a staircase. The window ledges were lined with crazy bottles of every color. Devil figurines hung from the ceiling; a collection of beetles hung on a wall. Grinning African masks surrounded a fireplace. There were telescopes, astrolabes, signs for eyeglasses, signs for a grocery, a collection of costume hats. It was like stepping into a poet’s mind and finding the place where all the images are stored.
“Pablo, it’s wonderful,” you said. “Where did it all come from?”
I looked at you. Where did this “Pablo” come from? What happened to “Senor Neruda”?
Pablo shrugged. “Here and there, I travel so much. These are my toys, I find them everywhere. As I got older I discovered I couldn’t live without them. The child who doesn’t play with toys isn’t a child. But the man who doesn’t play has lost forever the child who lived within him. So I built Isla Negra like a toy house. I can play here all day long.”
You laughed and clapped your hands, and spun round like a little girl.
“Yeah, it’s terrific,” I said. “Whaddya got to drink?” Pablo thumped his forehead lightly with the heel of a hand. “You’re right. Forgive me. Let’s go to the dining room.”
He led us through more rooms, each one filled with stuff. Butterflies, canes, carved frogs, crystal vases, a huge paper mache horse, desks made from doors. It took us forty-five minutes to get to our destination. You had questions about everything and he had a story about everything.
The dining room was extravagant, too. In the center was a heavy oak farm table that seated twelve. At one corner were three place settings, each different from the other. There was a Dutch door at the far end of the room leading to the kitchen; an ornately carved sideboard held wines and liquor bottles. The left wall of the room was filled with paintings, including a portrait of his wife
Matilde signed by Diego Rivera; the right wall sprouted twenty little shelves, each one displaying an antique pistol.
Pablo took three glass tumblers from the sideboard and poured a cola-colored liqueur into them. “What’s this?” I asked, holding it up to the light of a chandelier made from colored beads.
“An elixir from the Orient,” said Pablo, looking impish. He raised his drink and we again toasted to spilled champagne. The liqueur was bittersweet and had an aftertaste of walnuts. He filled the tumblers again. This time we toasted old friends and new acquaintances. We toasted many things that night.
You and I were the sole dinner guests. The only other person in Isla Negra besides Pablo was a cook who, from time to time, popped open the top of the Dutch door to deliver another dish.
The food was not ornate. One course consisted simply of fresh tomatoes with coarse salt; another was a plate of marinated mushrooms. We ate grilled sea bass sprinkled with herbs, small red potatoes roasted with garlic, a crusty bread. The flavors exploded in my mouth. At least, that’s how I remember it, thinking back through the haze of years and alcohol. One thing is certain: we had a lot to drink that night. Liqueurs, wines, and—for old time’s sake—champagne.
The food and drink and hours flowed on and Pablo did, too. In his measured, sleepy voice, he told us tales of his youth, his diplomatic years in Asia, his love for the people and mountains and rocks and trees of Chile. Everything Pablo did was an adventure; every famous person his friend; everything was poetry. He was a raconteurial tidal wave.
But you weren’t intimidated at all. You were bold and brazen and uninhibited. You also were more than slightly drunk. You matched him story for story. He told us about winning the Nobel Prize, you told him about winning your fourth-gade poster contest. He talked about Che Guevara and his rebels; you talked about the She-Devil and her rebels.
It must have been almost 2 a.m. when it happened. You had started to tell him about our night with Renatta Vega-Marone, when Pablo looked up to the ceiling and slapped his hands against his chest. “Ah, Rennie,” he said, “what a woman.”
“You knew her?” we exclaimed together.
“Oh, yes,” Pablo replied. “We met, maybe twenty years ago. It was in a little hill town behind Cordoba. She and her gypsy friends kept me captive for two days.”
“Captive?” I said.
“Perhaps I exaggerate a little. It was complicated. Anyway, she said she would dance for me if I would write her poetry.” He put out his hands, palms up. “What could I do? I said, ‘Yes.’ She danced. I wrote.”
“How many poems did you write her?” you asked him. “Many, many. I don’t remember. In the end, I exchanged the poems for my freedom.” He said all this with such a sly expression that I wondered if any of it was true.
Pablo must have seen the look on my face, for he said, “I see you doubt this story, Pablito. Do not doubt it.” And abruptly he stood up.
Moving with inebriated care, Pablo climbed onto his chair and, from there, stepped to the top of the big table. Tiptoeing deftly past the glasses and plates, he reached the middle of the room. Turning to face us, he slowly arched his back and dramatically raised his arms above his head. He began dancing, deliberately at first. A clap of the hands above his head, a stomp of the boot heel against the tabletop. Clap. Stomp. Clap. Stomp. Then faster. Clamp/stomp, clamp/stomp, clamp/stomp. And faster, making the plates and glasses rattle to the rhythm. Then, with a wild yodeling sound, he stomped to a halt.
We cheered like he’d just scored a game-winning touchdown. You put two fingers in your mouth and whistled like a stevedore.
Pablo bowed, grinning broadly. “You see, Pablito?” he said. “I was a captive.” Then he motioned to you. “Come, red-haired Annie. Be my Renatta. Dance with me.”
Before I could blink, you were on the table facing Pablo, hands over your head, matching him clap for clap, stomp for stomp. I don’t remember how long it went on— the dancing, the laughter, the tipsy bodies entwined—but when the two of you nearly fell off the table following a particular flourish, I said, “Okay, you two. Let’s call it a night. Come on, Annie, we should go.”
“Ah, Pablito,” he said, “the night is still dark. Stay. Learn. Learn to live a little.”
“I don’t think so,” I said. “It’s time for us to go.” I reached up a hand to help you down.
“No, Pablito. I won’t let you take her. She’s my captive,” he said, and stepped down onto one of the chairs, braced himself against a wall, took a pistol from one of the shelves, and pointed it at me.
Things happened very quickly after that—though I can still see each moment clearly, as if in a sequential series of photographs.
You grabbed a wine bottle from the table. “Don’t do it, Pablo!” you shouted. And you threw the bottle at him. The bottle hit Pablo a glancing blow on the head. I ducked. The gun fired.
Well, the gun didn’t exactly fire. Pablo pulled the trigger and a little flag, with the word “BANG” on it, came out the end of the barrel.
Pablo collapsed on the chair. We rushed over to him, but he was okay. In fact, he was laughing. Laughing so hard he couldn’t speak.
Oh, yes. Pablo was trouble. And I wouldn’t have had it any other way.
Jack
T
hat night, instead of reading the day’s writing samples from the students of the ninth annual Tar Heel Writers’ Conference, Annie was staring into space. Or more accurately, time.
The fact that it was a time that never existed was irrelevant. Now a copper silk dress with a champagne stain down the front hung in her memory as clearly as the white shorts she’d worn to Friday night services at Camp Reeta. And Pablo Neruda would forever be just Pablo to her.
Annie replayed the scenes at Isla Negra—dancing on the table was her favorite, but the grin on Pablo’s face as the “BANG” flag popped out was unforgettable. Such mischief in one pair of lips.
She knew she should be writing comments on the stack of papers in front of her. Instead, she hit the reply button on Jack’s e-mail.
Subject: Dancing Devils
Pablito,
Pablo called last night. To tell me I was doing God’s work: encouraging would-be writers, even if they have no more talent than a termite. And after today’s session at the conference, termites aren’t looking very talented.
If only it were true, that Pablo Neruda could call me. I could use some sage words from the master about now. He’d have known what to tell the man who wrote “Glock Speaks,” a first-person mystery from the gun’s point of view. And he’d have known how to answer your e-mail, how to match you word for exquisite word.
Instead you’ll have to do with my words. Two to start with: Thank you.
I loved our trip to Chile.
Though I’d forgotten about the devils hanging from the ceiling. Did I ever tell you I dreamt about them? That night in my drunken stupor? Remember when we got back to our hotel room, I’d cocked my fingers into a gun, pointed at you, and said, “Bang, bang.” We fell on the bed laughing. Then I passed out—way too much elixir— and the next thing I saw were Pablo’s devils, dancing around me.
At first they were laughing. Then they started dancing closer and closer—they definitely weren’t laughing anymore. I tried to run away, but one of them grabbed my foot. I should have been scared, but I was mad.
When I was eleven there was a bogeyman who waited for me in my dreams nearly every night. He looked like Jethro from the Beverly Hillbillies except he was mean and hairy and half his teeth were missing. He’d always chase me, getting so close I’d wake up in a panic. Then one night, just as he was about to pounce, I got tired of being scared. I yelled at him as loud as I could, “Get out of here!” The bogeyman froze, looked at me in surprise, and melted just like the Wicked Witch of the West.
The night after our dinner with Pablo, I did the same thing with the devils. But instead of melting, they sulked away, a silly bunch of red-faced demons dragging their tails between their legs. The next thing I remembered was waking up with a very bad headache, snuggled in your arms.
Annie
S
nuggled in your arms.” A sweet phrase, Jack thought. Sweet as a Krispy Kreme. (His stock of similes was low: it was 9:15 in the morning and the coffee hadn’t kicked in.)
Jack would have preferred to meditate on the last four words of Annie’s most recent e-mail but he had to postpone the luxury. First thing on the morning’s agenda: Arthur Steinberg.
Steinberg’s desk was at the far end of the Features department. Jack worked his way there circuitously, as if he were sneaking up on a wild mustang. First he popped in on the managing editor, next he talked to the family editor about a Father’s Day story, then he tried to convince the classical music critic that the Persuasions coming in behind Phoebe Snow on “San Francisco Bay Blues” was a sublime moment in musical history (a discussion that only got him committed to the next concert by Baltimore’s Handel Society), and then he chatted with a Features reporter about a story on the Chesapeake Bay’s crab patrol. Only after all that did he finally approach Steinberg himself.
“How’s it going, Arthur?” he asked.
Steinberg flinched like a rabbit that’s just felt the raptor’s shadow. “Fine,” he said with a wary smile. “Fine.”
Jack leaned on Steinberg’s computer terminal. The desk below him was piled with files and clippings, as well as crumpled tissues, wrappers, and mummified bits of food. Steinberg was a dour pack rat with frizzy hair and wire-rim glasses; he had a pack rat’s irritating diligence and personal hygiene. If he weren’t such a smart and elegant writer, the paper and the city fire marshal would have evicted him years before.
Jack smiled down; Steinberg tensed. He knew what was coming next.
“What’s the status of the Camden Yards story?”
“Almost done, Jack. Maybe another week.”
“Arthur, I know this will come as a shock to you, but the
Star-News
has decided to publish daily, not monthly.”
“You were the one who wanted Camden Yards to be a big Sunday blowout, Jack. It takes time.”
“Yeah, yeah, Arthur, but in between Camden interviews I want you to start on this ‘Thief of Words’ thing that I told you about. At least get the library going on a Nexis search for other newspaper plagiarists.”
“I did that already,” Steinberg said in a voice full of righteousness. “And the Camden interviews are done. I’m starting to write.”
Jack was about to say something snide about taking a week to write the Camden Yards story, but decided Steinberg’s eggshell ego couldn’t take it. Instead, he updated him on Ellen Gammerman’s part of “Thief.” It seems that the
Pittsburgh Press
plagiarist had only reluctantly agreed to an interview; he wasn’t going to give them much. Gammerman had decided to broaden the story with experts and other cases.
Jack headed back to his desk, this time in a straight line. After he attended the morning editors’ meeting and gave the lobbyist story a final read-through, it was nearly noon. So he grabbed his gym bag and headed out to the Athletic Club. He would pedal the stationary bike for forty-five minutes, watch the lunchtime basketball players, and think about Jack-and-Annie e-mail.