Evening in Byzantium (26 page)

“I’ve read a couple of them, too,” Gail said.

“Praise them, dear, praise them,” Wadleigh said.

“They’re okay,” Gail said.

“My poor girl,” Wadleigh said jovially, “I’m afraid you’ve flunked the course.”

Wadleigh was being obnoxious, but Craig couldn’t help being offended by Gail’s offhand dismissal of a man’s life’s work. “I think perhaps you ought to reread his books, Gail,” Craig said. “When you grow up.” For once he could take advantage of the difference in their ages. “Perhaps you’ll make a more enthusiastic judgment.”

“Thanks,” Wadleigh said. “A man needs all the protection he can get from the young.”

Gail smiled. “I didn’t know you were such close friends, you two,” she said. “Now, Jesse, there’re a couple or so more questions I have to put to the maestro, and then you can have him all to yourself …”

“I’m sorry,” Craig said, standing. “I didn’t mean to interrupt. I just came down looking for Anne. You ought to go in now,” he said to Anne. “It’s beginning to get cold.”

“I’d like to listen to the end,” Anne said. “I’m not cold.”

“You stay, too, Jess,” Wadleigh said. “I’m at my most eloquent before my peers.”

Unwilling, for no sensible reason, to leave Anne there with Gail McKinnon, Craig said, “Thanks for the invitation,” and sat down again. “As long as I’m here,” he said, “I’ll take a whisky.”

“Two more,” Wadleigh said, holding up his glass to a passing waiter. Then to Gail McKinnon, “Shoot.”

Gail turned her machine on. “Mr. Wadleigh,” she said, “earlier in this interview you said that the position of the writer for films is being steadily eroded. Would you care to enlarge on that?”

Craig was conscious of Anne’s close, admiring attention to Gail as she worked. He had to admit that her manner was professional, her voice pleasant and unaffected.

“Well,” Wadleigh was saying, “in one way, the writer for films is more powerful than ever. I’m speaking of the writer who directs his own stuff and because of that controls the final result, the man who gets the critical attention and reaps the financial rewards. On the other side of the coin, however, the writer who is only a writer is lost in the shuffle.” He was speaking seriously now, not trying to amuse or play the great man before the two girls. “For example—at this Festival—there are rewards for actors, directors, composers, cameramen, etc., but not one for writers. This is a recent development, and it’s been brought about largely by the critical acceptance of the
auteurist
theory of film making.”

Now Craig was sure Wadleigh had written all this before, probably for an article that had been turned down by a dozen magazines.

Gail flicked off the machine. “Remember, Ian,” she said, “this is for American listeners. You’d better explain, don’t you think?”

“Yeah, you’re right,” Wadleigh said. He took a gulp of the fresh whisky the waiter had put down in front of him.

“I’ll ask you the question,” Gail said. She started the machine again. “Would you like to describe that theory for us, Mr. Wadleigh?”

“The
auteurist
theory of film making,” he said, “is very simple. It rests on the conviction that a film is the work of one man—the director. That in the final analysis the man behind the camera is the real author of the work, that the film, in essence, is written with the camera.”

“Do you agree with that theory?”

It’s like a charade, Craig thought, little girl wearing Mummy’s dress, or in this case, Mummy’s bikini, and going down to Daddy’s office and sitting at his desk and talking into the intercom.

“No,” Wadleigh said. “Of course, there are directors who are in fact the authors of their films, but all that means is that as well as being directors, they are also writers. If they deserve a prize for their work, they deserve two prizes—one for the script and one for the direction. But the truth is that in America, at any rate, there are only five or six men who are really both. Of course, directors being the self-deluding beasts they are, there are plenty of them who
think
they are writers and impose their written efforts on the audience.”

The same old whine, Craig thought.

“We are fortunate enough,” Gail said calmly into the microphone, “to have Mr. Jesse Craig, the eminent film producer with us here on the beach in Cannes. I wonder if I could ask you, Mr. Craig, if you agree with Mr. Wadleigh. Or if you disagree, why?”

Craig’s hand tightened on his glass. “Cut out the jokes, Gail,” he said.

“Oh, Daddy,” Anne said, “go ahead. You were talking to me for half an hour about the movies in the car. Don’t be sticky.”

“Shut the damn machine off, Gail,” Craig said.

Gail didn’t move. “There’s no harm done. I splice together what I want later and throw out the junk. Maybe,” she said, smiling agreeably, “if I can’t have you, I’ll put Anne on the air. The confidences of the daughter of the abdicated king, the Life and Loves of the one after the last Tycoon, as seen through the clear young eyes of his nearest and dearest.”

“Any time you say,” Anne said.

“I’m sure your listeners in Peoria,” Craig said, making an effort to keep his temper and sound offhand at the same time, “are waiting with bated breath for just that program.” I’m going to wipe that dancing smile off your face, lady, he thought. For the first time in his life he understood those writers who regarded the penis as an instrument of revenge.

“We’ll just keep it in mind, Anne,” Gail said. “Won’t we? And now Mr. Wadleigh—” She resumed her professional voice. “In a conversation with Mr. Craig some days ago on the same subject, when I asked him why he had not directed any of the films he had produced, he replied that he didn’t think he was good enough, that there were perhaps fifty men in Hollywood who were better at the job than he thought he could be. Similarly,” she went on, staring coolly at Craig as she spoke so that it was evident to him, if not to the others, that she was maliciously playing with him, using their presence to ensure that he suffered in silence, “similarly, is it an equally admirable modesty on your part that prevents you from working behind the camera?”

“Shit,” Craig said. “Shit, shit. Send
that
out to the homes of America.”

“Daddy!” Anne said, shocked. “What’s the matter with you?”

“Nothing. I don’t like to be trapped, that’s all. When I want to give an interview, I’ll give it. Not before.” He remembered the title Gail had said she was going to use on the piece about him, “The Once and Future Has Been,” but he couldn’t tell that to Anne. He also couldn’t tell Anne that he had slept with that cool, smiling girl in the pink bathing suit the night before and that if he could, he would sleep with her in the night to come.

“If you recall my question, Mr. Wadleigh,” Gail said, “has it been due to modesty, as in the case of Mr. Craig, that you have not directed any of the scripts you have written for films?”

“Hell, no,” Wadleigh said. “If I couldn’t do better than ninety-nine per cent of those bums out there, I’d shoot myself. It’s just that the bastards in the front offices won’t hire me.”

“I think that brings us to the end of this program,” Gail said into the microphone. “Thank you very much, Mr. Wadleigh, for your frank and enlightening discussion of the problems of the writer for the motion pictures. I am sorry that Mr. Craig was unexpectedly called away so that we were denied the benefits of his long experience in the field. Perhaps we shall be lucky enough in the near future to have Mr. Craig, who is an extremely busy man, with us at greater length. This is Gail McKinnon, broadcasting from the Cannes Film Festival.”

She flipped off the machine, smiled brightly and innocently. “Another day, another dollar.” She started to pack away the machine. “Isn’t Daddy the
funny
one?” she said to Anne.

“I don’t understand you, Daddy,” Anne said. “I thought you and she were friends.”

There’s a description, Craig thought.

“I don’t see what harm it would do to say a few words,” Anne persisted.

“What you don’t say can’t hurt you,” Craig said. “You’ll find that out eventually, too. Ian, what the hell good do you think you did yourself just now? Can you figure out why you did it?’”

“Sure,” Ian said. “Vanity. A trait not to be taken lightly. Of course, I know you’re above such human failings.”

“I’m not above anything,” Craig said. He wasn’t arguing for himself but for Anne, for Anne’s education. He didn’t want her to be taken in by the American craze for publicity, for self-congratulation, for flattery, for the random, glib chatter on television whose real, dead serious purpose was to sell automobiles, deodorants, detergents, politicians, remedies for indigestion and insomnia. “Ian,” he said, “I know why Gail goes through all this nonsense—”

“Careful, careful,” Gail said mockingly.

“She makes her living out of it, and maybe it’s no more discreditable than the way you and I make our living …”

“Blessings on you, Daddy,” Gail said.

I’m going to lock the door tonight, Craig thought, and stuff cotton in my ears. With a wrench he made himself look away from the lovely, teasing face and talk to Wadleigh. “What possible good did babbling away here this afternoon do you? I’m serious. I want to know. Maybe you can convince me.”

“Well,” Ian said, “first of all, before you came, good old Gail plugged my books. Gallant little liar, she had a good word to say for all of them. Maybe her program’ll get one person to go into a bookstore to buy one of them or two or all of them. Or since they’re out of print, maybe it’ll get a publisher to bring out my collected works in paperback. Don’t be holy, Jess. When you make a picture, you want people to see it, don’t you?”

“Yes,” Craig admitted.

“Well, how does that make you different from me?”

“Do you want me to use the machine, Jesse?” Gail said. “It’ll only take a minute. We can start the interview right now.”

“I’m not selling any pictures at the moment,” Craig said. “Leave the machine alone.”

“Or some producer or director might happen to tune in on the program,” Wadleigh continued, “and say, ‘Hey, I thought that guy was dead. If he isn’t dead, he might be just the guy to write my next picture.’ We all depend on luck, you, I, Gail, even this beautiful young girl who has turned out to be your daughter. A switch of the dial on the radio might mean the difference in life or death for somebody like me.”

“Do you really believe that?” Craig asked.

“What do you think I believe in?” Wadleigh said bitterly. “Merit? Don’t make me laugh.”

“I’m remembering all this,” Gail said. “I’m sure it’s going to be useful for something. For the piece I’m doing about you, Jesse, for example. The public figure who refuses the public role. Is it for real, I’ll ask my readers, or is it a clever play to titillate, to invite while seeming to reject? Is the veil more revealing than the face behind it?”

“Mr. Wadleigh is right,” Anne broke in. “He’s written these wonderful books, and he’s being neglected. And I listened to the whole interview. He said a lot of things that people ought to hear.”

“I’ve told Anne,” Gail said, “that you’re being difficult about cooperating.”

“You two girls seem to have managed to cover a lot of ground in two hours,” Craig said sourly.

“There was an instant bond of sympathy,” Gail said. “We bridged the generation gap between twenty and twenty-two in a flash.”

“People your age, Daddy,” Anne said, “are constantly complaining the young don’t understand you. Well, here you have a perfect chance to get whatever it is you want to say to
hordes
of people of all ages, and you turn the chance down.”

“My medium is film,” Craig said, “not indecent public exposure.”

“Sometimes, Mr. Craig,” Gail said with a straight face, “I get the feeling that you don’t approve of me.”

Craig stood up. “I’m going in,” he said. He pulled some bills out of his pocket. “How many drinks did you have, Anne?”

“Forget it.” Wadleigh waved grandly. “I have it.”

“Thanks,” Craig said. On my three hundred dollars for Spain, he thought. “Coming, Anne?”

“I’m going to have one last swim.”

“Me, too,” Gail said. “It’s been hot work this afternoon.”

“I’ll join you girls,” Wadleigh said. “You can save me from drowning. Oh, by the way, Jesse,” he said as he finished his whisky and stood up, “I suggested we all have dinner tonight. Shall we say eight o’clock at the bar?”

Craig saw Anne looking appealingly at him. Anything, he thought, rather than have dinner alone with Dad. “Don’t you have to see the picture tonight for your article?” he asked Wadleigh.

“I read the synopsis,” Wadleigh said. “It’s something about raising hawks in Hungary. I think I can skip it. My fairies in London aren’t mad about Hungarian hawks. If it’s any good, I can quote from
Le Monde.
See you at eight?”

“I’ll see what my schedule is,” Craig said.

“We’ll be there,” Anne said. “Come on, let’s hit the water.”

He watched the two girls, one tall, one short, both swift and young, silhouetted against the evening light, run down the beach and dive into the water. He was surprised that Wadleigh could run so fast as he followed and plunged into the sea in a huge splash of foam.

He climbed up from the beach slowly. As he stepped off the curb of the Croisette, a car nearly ran him down. There was a squeal of brakes, and a policeman shouted at him. He smiled politely at the policeman, apologizing for almost having been killed.

In the lobby, when he picked up his key, he asked for messages. There were none. Klein hadn’t called. Of course, he told himself, it’s too early. In the old days when Jesse Craig sent anybody a script, there was a call within three hours.

Going toward the elevator, he met Reynolds. Reynolds had a big fresh bandage on his forehead, a huge lump, yellow and green, over one eye, and his cheek had jagged scabs on it as though he had been dragged through broken glass.

“I’m looking for Gail,” Reynolds said without saying hello. “Have you seen her?”

“She’s swimming in the direction of Tunis,” Craig said. “How do you feel?”

“About the way I look,” Reynolds said.

“You can’t be too careful in the movie business,” Craig said, and went into the elevator.