You or Someone Like You (40 page)

I tell these two that I will miss them all terribly, and that I need them. I didn't need you before, I say sternly, and we laugh. Now I do. It's a bloody awful thing, I say, I had always managed to avoid it, my entire life, I'd always very carefully managed not to need people, but there you are.

They smile. We sit together and just talk, about everything.

 

I OPEN THE DOOR, AND
it is Justin.

“I came to pick up my things,” he says. He is steeling his voice. It's a brave little effect.

I smile. I say, Come in, and I walk with him to the office. He is a young man with the Hollywood disease, but it is explained by his youth and counterbalanced maybe (maybe) by his character. When he realizes what I'm offering, he is astonished, not by the content of the offer—we both know it is not a plum position anymore—but because he never expected it. He has braced himself for an impact and is spinning from the lack of one. He convulses once, the way boys sob, his face in the tight contortion of crying, then releases it in a gasp of air. “I'm sorry,” he whispers. Before he can go on, I say, It's OK. Just please don't do that again. (It has become obvi
ous to me where it was not obvious before that some things are so ephemeral.)

We let this sink in for a moment. He looks exhausted now, but calm. He takes a deep breath. He can't possibly tell me he wants to be in my corner while I need him, so he clears his throat and just says, “Four more weeks?”

Certainly. That should be just right. I deleted a lot of emails. I perhaps shouldn't have.

He nods, he'll look at it. “Hey, Sam.”

Sam is frozen midstep. “Hey!” says Sam, pleased, then, suspiciously, “You, uh—?”

“Shut up,” says Justin, laughing, and wipes a wrist rapidly across an eye.

 

Justin has a lot of work to do. I want things closed down correctly. Michael Schnayer and Carrie Fein, my young Internet entrepreneurs, have both moved to Warners, and my website has disappeared. Justin calls Michael about it, Michael doesn't return the calls, and then he does and says that, well, you know.

“Yeah,” says Justin.

When Justin recapitulates this, he tells me, “You never owned the URL, Anne.” Then he explains what that means. I just nod.

I compose an email. I can't decide between “canceled” or “finished.” I choose “canceled,” then change it to “ended.” Justin sends it to everyone.

He gives me my call list, and I make the few calls, but everyone happens to be out. This makes us both smile.

 

AT CLOSE TO
2:00
A.M.
on West 72nd and Amsterdam, Howard sits in the booth of a Greek diner. Alex sits opposite him. The large Formica-covered interior is empty except for the cook and a
waitress. The buildings around them are filled with cleaning staff and sleeping people.

Stuart sits next to Howard. “Comin' on business,” Howard had announced to him the previous evening on the phone.

“So, Howie,” Stuart says, “there's something Alex thought you'd find interesting.”

Howard has not asked why nor how his brother would have been talking to Alex Ross, nor what they discussed. He's asked nothing at all.

Alex glances over at Stuart. Almost imperceptibly, reassuringly, Stuart nods.

“Howard, I was thinking,” Alex begins. “This odd thing. Did you know that Wagner isn't played in Israel?”

Howard lifts his coffee cup. He seems to be focusing on the coffee.

“The music is considered tainted. You can't put your finger on the taint, but it's in there, in the notes, infesting the chords.”

Howard is motionless. Relaxed as a cat, Stuart's head is slightly tilted, he focuses on Alex.

“And Wagner was an anti-Semite,” says Alex, “no question. In 1850 he wrote of Jews: ‘a swarming colony of worms in the dead body of art.' The man is clear.” He adds, “But there is, of course, an irony.”

Howard is listening. Not looking, but listening.

“The irony,” says Alex softly, “is that the Israeli ban seems to follow the same logic as Wagner's own edicts on Jewish music.” He quotes a musical scholar: “‘If we dismiss Wagner's diagnosis of “Jewishness” in music as the bigoted drivel it seems to be, how do we go about ascertaining “anti-Semitism” in music?'”

Howard picks at something on his sleeve. Far away in Los Angeles, I have no idea this conversation is going on. Stuart has always been extremely discreet. With a translucent clarity Howard has, inexorably, come to a stop before the only possible conclusion: Perhaps you don't get to do both.

In the white fluorescent light, Alex seems to be contemplating something, searching for a small bit far away. Stuart wears the trace of a smile. The meaty palms of Howard's hands are pressed to his temples, his elbows on the Formica.

Alex returns, offers the small point. “When Pfitzner, the raving anti-Semitic German composer, tried to persuade Mahler the Jew that the most essential feature of Wagner's music was its ‘Germanness,' Mahler responded that the greatest artists leave nationality behind,” says Alex. “This, the secret of artists dropping outmoded identities, was elucidated by a Jew.” After a brief moment Alex adds, rather boldly, considering the context, “A nonobservant one.”

Howard takes a deep breath in. He grunts a laugh. Exhales. He gets Alex's point.

They wait for Howard's response. Two taxis flow past outside. Howard says to the black diner window, “I miss the earth so much. I miss my wife.” He sits in the booth, the song's lyrics a murmur. “It's lonely out in space.”

Alex puts a finger on a spoon. Turns it slightly, examining the angle. He hums the next few notes of the melody.

Stuart says nothing. He is sitting next to his brother. It is after 2:00
A.M.
and Howard's eyes are bloodshot watching the taxis, flashes of yellow in the dark over the pavement.

 

THERE'S A MESSAGE FROM WEST
85th Street Films. Mark's first call in a week.

There are some problems with the screenplay, says the answering machine. He lists them, cursorily.

I replay the message, twice, just to experience my own uncontrolled descent. I close my eyes and listen to the violent rush of the wind against my wings of feathers and wax.

 

I dial Paul's number. Paul, it's Anne.

“You heard from West 85th,” he says.

I'm so sorry.

He laughs, briefly. Sighs.

I say, It's not dead yet, you know.

“Anne
,” he says flatly.

I'm
so
sorry….

(He's smiling, I can tell.)

But you were collateral damage, I say.

“Yeah,” he says. It's a shrug.

I think about what I want to say to him. I want to take him in my arms. Or I want him to take me in his. I say: I don't deserve you, Paul.

“Yes,” he says firmly, “you do.”

 

I FIND A LETTER IN
the mailbox. A single sheet of paper is inside. Written out by hand is a careful description of a man slowly drowning. It is (I look it up) from Byron's “Don Juan, Canto the Second.”

It is Howard's handwriting.

 

“ANNE,” HE SAYS QUICKLY, “IT'S
Paul.”

I think: Is this panic in his voice or laughter?

“Listen,” he says. “Howard just came by.” He pauses as if out of breath.

I wait for more. I realize he's waiting for me to respond. I manage, Ah.

“He sat at the breakfast counter. Chatted a little with Steve.”

Yes?

“He just left.” He pauses.

Sam wasn't there?

“No. I think Howard thought he was, but when I told him he wasn't, he hung around anyway. He had three cups of coffee.” Paul hesitates. “I don't think he's OK.”

I think he knows that, I say.

 

THE PHONE RINGS. SAM ANSWERS.
He listens for a moment, then hangs up. He goes to the door. “Dad wants to talk to me,” he says. “He's in his car down the driveway.”

OK, I say. I nod.

Sam is gone a long time. I go to the window once and crane my neck, trying to see the car, but I can't.

 

When Sam comes back, he is different. The word that comes to mind is
soft
.

 

Howard sits before me. The car keys are in his hand. His mouth is closed and I can hear the breath moving in and out and in his nostrils, making a very, very tiny whistling noise. Do you remember “When You Are Old” by Yeats, I ask him. He says, “No.” The breath goes in and out and in.

I've done nothing but wait, I say.

He nods briskly. “Well,” he says. And then he starts to cry.

 

I wake up. It is night and the living room is dark. We are squeezed onto the sofa, fully clothed. Howard has both his shoes on, one of mine has fallen off. He is snoring into my left shoulder. My arm is asleep. I shift it and almost fall off the sofa. He startles awake. He stares blankly, panicked, and when his brain realizes it's me he clamps me in his arms.

 

HOWARD IS GOING TO REPLACE
the basketball hoop next weekend, although Denise can't see the point, and I agree with her.

He has gotten phone calls. Some people are vehement, a few plead. They call from the temple, mostly, but they call from elsewhere as well. Howard puts the receiver down slowly, a calm, distant look in his eye, and the voices, still insisting electronically as they pour like birds through the wire, are cut off, leaving us in peace. Against the voices he seems armored. He seems in fact oddly burnished by the friction. He glows. But he doesn't smile. He hasn't recently. I asked why not. He thought about it and said maybe people don't smile after suffering a great fright.

Once, as he lowered the receiver, the only word I heard was “…
fuck
?” Here, I said, taking his hand, leading him out the French doors to the garden, look at the moon vine. The stars are out, and it's just the right time for the blossoms to open.

Sam had a few volcanic blowups with Howard. The normal detritus, I said. It will pass. Howard merely nodded; he absorbed the blows.

I told Stuart that Howard and I had escaped from nations. Our own tiny new virtual country is located in a house on a hilltop up a curving drive, the hilltop populated by some lovely palm trees and a well-tended garden, overlooking a large desert valley, high above the 101.

West 85th stopped using my name. Justin called from his new job at Endeavor to let me know. A number of them have not called or spoken to me, but it's only been a few weeks. It concerns me. “Don't worry about it,” Ellie says very firmly.

I'm not.

“I know you're not,” she says. “But don't anyway. It'll work out.”

I don't know, I say, and we leave it there.

Ellie says I am a clairvoyant who can see the past.

Howard marvels at first how easily the system moves on, but then he just shrugs. There is a new star on the cover of
Vanity Fair
in an ivory sheath, UTA got a director an astronomical deal at TriStar, and Stacey was reported to have a falling-out with Mark Gordon over a property represented by Bruce Vinokour, and the town took sides until the three of them lunched together at a new place in Century City to quell it.

Jennifer has Howard on a 7:20
A.M.
to New York next Thursday. A meeting with David on
The Afterlife
movie. Natan is trying to rearrange his schedule and may be there.

Howard told Paul that his old screenplay was “DOA for obvious reasons, but,” he said, “what else you got?” Paul took a breath and made a pitch and has written sixty-seven pages, mostly in Howard's office, though a few times Howard and I have gone to Paul's house, and Steve and I made dinner while the two of them worked. They sit and argue about characterization, but on the plot they are in complete agreement, and that, says Howard, is what will count for the sale. I comment that plot is the least important part.

“Thank you for sharing,” says Howard and exchanges a look with Paul.

“So, Howard,” continues Paul from the sofa as if I haven't said anything, “this goddamn problem on page thirty-six.”

Sam has gone. He packed and he flew away, as they do. He's cautiously excited about his roommate. He embraced us both at LAX as they called final boarding, Howard a moment longer than me. Howard's shoulders didn't heave until we were just outside the terminal, and I put a hand on the small of his back, gently but firmly, and my hand rode his shoulders as they rose and fell. Sam, who these days has to lean down a bit toward Howard when he hugs him, had whispered “I love you” into his father's neck.

Howard, I say. Listen:

English words that do not exist in French: Infatuation. Mind. Picture.

Assorted vocabulary: tabescent, coruscating, propinquity (“nearness of relationship or kinship”).

A line from a Walter de la Mare poem: “Our dreams are tales told in dim Eden by Eve's nightingales, silence and sleep like fields of amaranth.”

The anecdote concerning Samuel Goldwyn and Maurice Maeterlinck
is adapted from A. Scott Berg,
Goldwyn
(New York: Knopf, 1989), p. 96.

Anne's comments on James Boswell
are informed by Adam Gopnick's “Johnson's Boswell” (
The New Yorker
, November 27, 2000).

Aspects of Anne's Mamet book club and her statements on elitism
are paraphrased and quoted from John Lahr's “Fortress Mamet” (
The New Yorker
, November 17, 1997) and Calvin Tomkins, “The Importance of Being Elitist” (
The New Yorker
, November 24, 1997).

Anne's visit to the Juilliard class and, later, her comments on punctuation to her book club at Orso
both use ideas and quotes from John Lahr, “Speaking Across the Divide” (
The New Yorker
, January 27, 1997).

Anne's conversation with Howard about her taking U.S. citizenship and her lecture on “Why People Fear Art”
adapt ideas and quote from Nicholas Jenkins, “Goodbye, 1939” (
The New Yorker
, April 1, 1996).

Anne's book club discussion of homosexual writers
adapts sections and quotes from Nicholas Jenkins, “Goodbye, 1939” (
The New Yorker
, April 1, 1996) and two pieces by Anthony Lane, “Rhyme and Unreason” (
The New Yorker
, May 29, 1995) and “Lost Horizon” (
The New Yorker
, February 19 and 26, 2001).

Alex Ross's comment to Anne regarding the Salzburg Festival
is a quote from Ross's “Portfolio” (
The New Yorker
, May 25, 1998).

Howard and David Remnick's discussion of Natan Sharansky
is adapted and quotes from David Remnick, “The Afterlife” (
The New Yorker
, August 11, 1997).
The letter from Avital Sharansky to Howard
is, with the exception of Howard's name, a direct quote from this Remnick piece.

Howard guarding the entrance to Hollywood as described by Mark Singer
quotes from Mark Singer, “Sal Stabile, for Real” (
The New Yorker
, August 11, 1997).

Both of Anne's book clubs on Edward Lear
are adapted and use quotes from Anthony Lane's “Rhyme and Unreason” (
The New Yorker
, May 29, 1995).

Donald Kuspit's quotation at the Jewish Museum
is from Simon Schama, “Gut Feeling” (
The New Yorker
, May 25, 1998).

The quotation about Jews being held to a higher moral standard
is from Lawrence Weschler, “Mayhem and Monotheism” (
The New Yorker
, November 24, 1997).

The Ba'al Teshuva text
is from: https://www.hineni.org/inspirations_view.asp?id=17&category=15&CatName=Jewish%20 Issues.

Alex Ross's discussion of anti-Semitic classical composers
is adapted and quotes from three pieces by Ross: “The Devil's Disciple” (
The New Yorker
, July 21, 1997); “The Unforgiven” (
The New Yorker
, August 10, 1998); and “The Last Emperor” (
The New Yorker
, December 20, 1999).

Nancy Franklin's comments about Arthur Miller's
Death of a Salesman
are adapted from Nancy Franklin, “The Cost of Success” (
The New Yorker
, June 2, 1997).

Discussion of Bibi Netanyahu and Israel
is adapted and quotes from David Remnick, “The Outsider” (
The New Yorker
, May 25, 1998).

The Shidduch profile
is from http://www.yibrookline.org/shidduch_profile.html.