Being Invisible (27 page)

But as a patient in a hospital he assumed he had gained the right to break the rule against calling Babe at work, and he dialed the number of the Guillaume Gallery. The phone was answered by Cleve. Wagner did not want him to know who was calling, so he lowered his voice and also assumed a style of speech other than his usual.

“Hiya. I wanna talk to Carla.”

“Who’s this?”

“Don’t you mind about that,” Wagner said. “Just you put her on the line.”

Guillaume said, “Pardon me, but I don’t think you have to be rude.”

Wagner’s patience was fraying. “Goddammit,” said he, “is she there?”

“Is it really Carla you’re after?” Cleve’s voice had gone very arch.

The last thread parted, and Wagner said, “Do you think I’d be calling for
you
?”

The gallery owner sounded full-throated laughter. “What a bitch you are, Ralphie! I trust you didn’t think you were fooling me. So where are we eating tonight?”

Wagner hung up in chagrin. He must wait awhile before placing a call in his normal voice. And now that his demon had been temporarily appeased, he was able to regret the manifestation of bad feeling against Guillaume, who was not the world’s worst, and he began to think about making it up to him, along with performing an act of atonement with respect to Roy Pascal, by perhaps bringing the two of them together in view of their common interest. However, Guillaume never seemed to lack for friends, well-to-do as he was, and Pascal was not all that attractive. It must be tough to be in his situation with so few resources.

On a generous impulse Wagner now phoned him at the office.

“Roy, Fred Wagner. Let me say this before I run out of nerve. I apologize for yesterday. I hope you can find it possible to disregard what I said: I realize now it was contemptible nonsense. You’ve always been more than decent to me.”

Pascal was obviously moved. “That’s awfully nice of you, Fred. It takes a lot of character to say such a thing. How are you?”

Wagner said flatly that he was OK. Squaring the account was one matter; he didn’t want the man to believe he was offering close friendship.

“I hope you’ll continue to keep in touch,” Pascal said. “This place’s not the same without you. In any event, I hope you will come to the reception next month. The invitation’s in the mail.”

“Reception?”

“I told you,” said Pascal. “I’m getting married. But now, please, no gift is expected.”

“What’s his name?” Wagner asked, fortunately in a voice that must have been so contorted as to render the possessive pronoun incomprehensible, for Pascal answered with no special emphasis.

“Dorothy Kilbride,” said he. “My childhood sweetheart. She got sidetracked for a while and married somebody else, but they’re divorced now and we’re getting together at last.”

Wagner’s annoyance now switched itself to focus on Mary Alice. How irresponsible she was! He had all but disgraced himself with Pascal.

“My congratulations,” he now said with shy heartiness. “I hope you’ll be very happy.”

“I trust we’ll be seeing a lot of you and Carla,” Pascal said. “I’ve certainly told Dorothy about my best friend and the terrific woman
he
married, and she can’t wait to meet you both.”

Wagner made some additional congratulatory comments and got away from him. This time he at last made telephone contact with Mary Alice.

“I’m in the hospital, of all places,” he told her. “I have a mysterious condition: that is, I mean I’m
in
one. Now, Mary Alice, with all respect, I am aware that in view of what happened last evening, you believe we are in a special sort of association, but you must realize that it had to happen eventually with someone of the male sex. Perhaps it was just by chance that I was at hand.”

“I don’t know what kind of crap you are pulling now,” said Mary Alice, “but I won’t buy it.”

Irritated by this response, Wagner asked, “Why did you say Roy Pascal was homosexual? He’s not. He’s getting married.”

“Now, let’s not go into that again. I
told
you: you and he were inseparable. He didn’t have a wife, and you had just lost yours. Neither of you seemed to know I was alive—in that way.
Fred
? When are you coming home? I
need
you, if you know what I mean: I don’t want to spell it out on the public wire.”

“Didn’t you just hear me say I am in the hospital?” He had originally intended to play down his “condition,” whatever it was, but now decided to exploit it. “I’ve got my doctor worried. I might have a serious disorder. In any event it looks as though I’ll be here for a while.”

“A
while
?” Mary Alice asked in whining incredulity. “You say that just as if it doesn’t mean anything to you at all. What about me in the meantime?”

“Aha,” said he. “I left some money in the blue bowl in the kitchen cabinet on the right of the fridge, for groceries and other household needs, or you can eat out. I’ve got a charge account at the deli two blocks down and also at the bakery around the corner: just mention my name.”

“I don’t care about
food
, for Christ’s sake!” Mary Alice’s voice had turned nasty. “You just get back here pronto or I won’t answer for the consequences.” She hung up.

After a moment Wagner realized that this had ended better than it had begun. The “consequences” were just what would be welcome:
viz.,
that Mary Alice would walk out on him. As to Sandra, he decided not to try again to reach her. He would simply stay out of touch so long that she would eventually have to infer that he was indifferent to her. It was unpleasant medicine to prescribe in the case of someone who had given him nothing but kindness, but he saw no alternative.

He refused to abandon a belief in the possibility of a permanent reunion with Babe, though no hope might be more unreasonable.

He now phoned the Guillaume Gallery again, and when Cleve answered he said, “Hello, Cleve. This is Fred Wagner. How are you?”

“I’m so sorry,” said Guillaume. “Do I know you?”

“Carla’s husband,” Wagner said. “We met once at an opening several years ago. No reason for you to remember.”

“I’m sure that’s true,” Guillaume said abstractedly. “But husband? Shouldn’t your name be Morgat?”

“That’s her maiden and professional name.”

“I’m so pleased we’ve got that cleared up,” said Guillaume. “Would you like to leave a message?”

“She’s not there?”

“She’s holding Siv Zirko’s hand. This show has him all frazzled. He’s an
artist
, you know. I warn you: never let one in your house.”

Wagner asked, as if with polite curiosity, “Isn’t the show sold out?”

“Of course,” said Guillaume. “And that’s just the trouble, you see. Siv feels he’s done it all, shot his wad with nothing left, never to sculpt again.”

“‘Sculpture,’” said Wagner. “The verb is ‘to sculpture.’ There is no such word as ‘sculpt.’”

“Why, sure there is,” Guillaume said enthusiastically. “I use it all the time.”

Wagner took a lungful of the medicinally scented air of the hospital and said quickly, “Siv is a titan.”

“Why so lukewarm?” asked Guillaume, making what Wagner at length identified as a joke.

“He’s changed studios, hasn’t he?”

“
Nobody
ever tells me anything,” Guillaume complained. “But I just saw him two days ago at the old place.”

Wagner got the address by pretending to want to verify an invented one: he had learned this technique from a movie. He hung up just as a tall nurse entered the room.

“Afraid you don’t get dinner, Mr. Wagner,” said she, prognathously inspecting the chart that hung at the foot of the bed. “We’ve got to take a look at your tumtum and the other things in its locality, and everything’s supposed to be emptied out by tomorrow morning.”

“Fine,” said Wagner.

She peered at him. “You can’t mean that.”

“Oh, but I do,” said Wagner, and then feigned drowsiness. As soon as the nurse left he found his clothes in the closet and put them on. Invisibly he left the room and the hospital, materialized to catch a cab, and then once again beat a furious driver out of the fare by disappearing: the difference this time was that Wagner felt no sense of triumph.

Zirko’s studio was in a sizable building in a district of wholesalers. A carpeting business occupied the ground floor, and a truck was pulled across the sidewalk at a loading door. Alongside stood three stocky persons who were airing contrasting opinions, one punctuating his remarks with the tiniest butt of a cigarette.

The board in the little lobby to the left of the carpet firm said a company with “Belting” in its name was on 2 and “SZ” was on the floor above that. Wagner used the iron stairs, for he assumed that the outsized elevator opened directly into Zirko’s studio.

On reaching the third floor he went to the available door, which was made of battered, dun-colored metal and unlabeled. Still invisible, he turned the knob and entered. He was in a large enclosure, which obviously had been designed for industrial use. It was now empty up front, near the wall of large, iron-framed windows, one of which was open on the street. At the distant rear were collected, in a crowded corner, the furniture and appliances pertaining to quotidian life: sink, fridge, stove, and not far from that cuisinatory complex, a couch, a canvas sling chair, and a kind of coffee table of which the base was a metal milk case and the top a rectangle of unpainted plywood. No works of art were in evidence throughout the vast loft, but that it was Zirko’s studio was confirmed by the artist’s presence on the couch.

Babe sat in the canvas chair. Wagner approached her, walking quietly on rubber-soled shoes.

The loft was so long that it took him a while before he was near enough to hear what Zirko was saying. The artist was barefoot. He sprawled on the couch in such a fashion that the protuberant crotch of his tight denims was projected towards his vis-à-vis.

By the time Wagner got there, Zirko was rounding off his latest comment with a sequence of “shits.”

“Oh,” said Babe. “I’ve heard all of that before. Bet you’ve already forgotten your depression after the last show. You’ll feel differently when your creative reservoir has been refilled, just as you did then.”

“But I didn’t jack off into a plastic bubble that time,” said Zirko. “That’s
all
of me down there, doll.”

“But now you must give even more,” Babe said with a piety that of course could have been bogus. “Isn’t that what we expect of the artist?”

Zirko sat up. “What bullshit you talk, lady. Why don’t you do something really meaningful? Come over here and sit on my face.”

Babe spoke as if he had been silent. “And, if we must be practical, much as you’ve made from this show, given taxes, et cetera, et cetera, the money goes, and you like money, Siv. I want to show as much of you as I can while you’re so hot.”

Wagner’s regard for her was returning after this nonsentimental speech. If making a profit was the point, then her obsequiousness towards this little rodent was probably permissible. But whatever Zirko spent money on, it obviously was neither his studio-home nor that of his wardrobe thus far seen by Wagner.

“That’s right, I
am
hot,” Zirko said petulantly. “I want to get laid.”

“Of course,” said Babe, “it
is
true that having too frequent shows can cause a critical backlash. You know for all the impression he gives of irresponsibility, Cleve is actually a master of timing. I’ve learned an awful lot from him. Underneath it all, he’s a natural businessman. That’s not apparent on the surface, but you should see him handle the museum people—and sometimes the private collectors are even tougher. You have to agree that he’s really done a fantastic job with you, Siv.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Zirko said, depressing both his heavy eyebrows and the corners of his mouth, “I always do well, whatever dealer I got. Now what Guillaume’s got going for him is the faggot connection: that’s who buy the pieces like ‘Artist’s Cock’ and my plastic ass: rich buttfuckers.” He made a seated bump-and-grind. “Hey, open us a bottle of champagne. Chilled glasses in icebox.” He pulled up his legs and stretched out full-length on the sofa, left wrist over his eyes.

Babe went to the refrigerator. When the door was open Wagner could see that, aside from several wide-mouth glasses on the uppermost shelf, there was nothing in the fridge but foil-necked bottles of champagne. Yes, to maintain that supply Zirko must obviously continue to have frequent shows.

Babe removed one of the bottles and struggled with the little wire cage that enclosed the bulbous head of the cork. On the rare occasions when she and Wagner had had a bottle of bubbly, it had been his job to open and pour, and Babe had paid no attention to the process. At the moment she was on the verge of breaking a nail on the wire.

Wagner was at her side. Without thinking, he said, “Take hold of the little loop and twist counterclockwise.”

“Oh,” said she and followed his instructions. She apparently took his voice for that of Zirko, though to his ear there was little resemblance. When the wire was off she worked at the cork. Suddenly, with a smart report, it popped out and struck Wagner in the forehead, for just at that moment he had been standing in a situation from which he might offer more help if needed. The metal cap had remained on the cork top, and the blow was medium-painful. Wagner rubbed vigorously at it as Babe poured a glassful of champagne and took it to the now apparently somnolent Zirko.

“Siv,” said she, speaking down, “are you asleep already?” She waited for a moment, but the artist displayed no sign of life. “I’ll put it right here on the floor,” said Babe, bending to do that. As she was on her way back up, Zirko’s forearm left his side, where it had been paralleled, and in a trice it was up under her skirt to the elbow.

She shrieked in surprise and kicked the champagne over; it foamed on the floorboards. Yet she did not appear to be outraged.

“Now look what you’ve done,” she chided. She retrieved the glass, which had not broken, and returned to the sink, where the bottle had been left.

Wagner was aching to do something violent to Zirko, but because his concern for Babe must always be preeminent, he restrained himself. Obviously she believed every indulgence must be offered to an artist so essential to the livelihood of a gallery owner. To recognize that truth was to embrace the kind of realistic morality for which Wagner had hitherto frankly lacked the stomach. But it seemed to be the fundamental way the world worked, and not even being invisible had any effect on it.