No World Concerto (31 page)

The screenwriter strikes the cane hard against the pavement as he walks. A pedestrian appears to challenge him with a stare, upbraid him for this cudgeling to his ears, but once the screenwriter works up the moxie to scold him back, the man’s already too far away to hear the tirade. He leans against a wall directly in front of a telephone booth and has a rest, waiting for his pulse to die down. With the money the brilliant composer gave him, he managed to buy back most of the things he’d sold. Unfortunately, he must now carry them all in his large plastic bag, which, along with the typewriter, is weighing him down. He can’t call his wife, but it doesn’t matter, there’s no way she managed to survive. It’s been a month since he left her bound and gagged on the bed, and no one, not even a woman, could last that long in such a predicament. Why call her, he asks himself, if she can no longer hear the phone ring, knowing it’s him taunting her, reminding her she’s going to die all alone in the marriage bed, like a dog. The handles of the typewriter and the plastic bag are digging into his hands. No, he’d never do that to a dog. He puts his belongings on the ground and thinks about the black prostitute. He wouldn’t mind seeking refuge in her arms and crying a little. If he wasn’t practically done with his screenplay, he’d probably do so. But he feels invigorated and wants to continue his work to the end. He’d like to make a few calls, he thinks while staring at the telephone booth, but he can’t. The brilliant composer gave him just enough to buy back his things, little more. Once again, he’s left with just a few coins rattling in his pocket. What a rip-off. Those photographs are worth millions. As he approaches the river, he starts asking passersby for spare change. He needs something to eat, even a slice of bread will do, a single slice of bread folded around a piece of cheese, or something. He could have sold himself to the highest bidder, but he wouldn’t have known how to organize the auction, and in attempting it, would have probably ended up in jail. By midday he’s content at having received quite a bit of change. The cheapest food is at a place mainly frequented by indigent immigrants. He takes his meal, which is wrapped in a paper bag, and heads for the park to eat under a tree. A beggar sits down beside him. The screenwriter wonders why, with all the available seats, he chose to sit right there. The beggar would like him to share his meal in exchange for some of his wine. The screenwriter doesn’t quite understand why this gesture is being made until the beggar asks him how long he’s been living on the street. Then the screenwriter hands him what’s left of the meal, and goes away, dragging his leg and belongings behind him, struggling to hide the fact that he’s crying. He needs to find a phone to call his son. He needs to ask for more money. He doesn’t even remember where he spent the money he already sent him. According to the bill, he paid for twenty-eight days at the hotel. But the sums don’t add up, because he thought he’d already paid for that as well as other services. He must’ve spent the rest somewhere, he thinks while tearing the bill up and letting the pieces fall to the ground. He finds a phone booth and dials his son’s number. He’s not at home, and his daughter-in-law isn’t being very helpful. In the old days he’d have barraged her with insults, but now his situation’s desperate. I need to speak to my son, he whispers weakly into the phone. She keeps saying she doesn’t know where he is, or when he’ll be back. The woman’s intractable, even the modulation in her voice is unwavering when she answers him, and the words strike the screenwriter as rehearsed. I’ve had to resort to begging in the streets! he says, raising his voice, before lowering it again for a final supplication, Please, I need to speak to my son. She says she needs to go, and he should try calling again later in evening. The screenwriter struggles to compose himself, but manages to concentrate his fury into a strong knock of his cane against the floor. He won’t call again. His son can keep his damn money. If he does call, he says to himself, it’ll be to suggest he go check on his mother; to collect the present waiting for him on the bed. His mouth waters when he imagines the look on his son’s face after opening the bedroom door. The screenwriter decides to finish his script once and for all, although all this will prove is that he’s able to keep a deadline, and that this is a reflection of the kind of man he is.

It is night, and he has no idea where he’s going to sleep. He feels a little less agitated, having managed to collect some change, but with his mobility already hampered by a limp, the weight of the typewriter and the large plastic bag only worsens the claudication. When he was young, he’d have accepted the situation as providing a wellspring of experiences to draw on later, when he came to write about suffering — for they’d help him to do so more convincingly. But if he were young now, he wouldn’t be talking about suffering at all; he’d be too busy looking for a job so he could afford a roof over his head: a means of securing himself against future suffering. Perhaps he shouldn’t have stayed in a hotel, he thinks, rebuking himself, however cheap it was. He could have rented a room or an apartment. All he really needs is a desk and bed, and something to keep the rain off his head. He could’ve cooked his own meals instead of eating at so many restaurants. So he pursues this line of second-guessing, knowing he’d always commit the same errors again, because it’s the kind of man he is. The screenwriter returns to the vicinity of the hotel, near the local church where he’s often seen friars and chaplains speaking to the homeless. Maybe they’ll know where he can spend the night. On arriving, however, he discovers the church is closed, and when he goes looking around the neighborhood, sees no sign of a priest, nor any of the homeless who used to roam around or sit on the church steps. He’s beginning to despair, and yet he ignores the ways of the homeless, those well-established shibboleths and practices for procuring room and board. Instead, he tries pushing the door; then he tries knocking against it a few times with his cane; then he tries looking through the keyhole. Finally, he gives up, and returns to the steps to sit down. Right now, the only place he’ll find any sign of life is in the plaza where he usually has a coffee. He’s tired of walking around holding out one hand asking people for spare change while carrying the typewriter and large plastic bag in the other. He has a hard time getting there, and has to stop several times for a rest, but at last he finds himself exhaustedly flumping into a chair at the café in the plaza. The price of a coffee and a sandwich exhausts all his funds, and he makes them last as long as he can, until closing time, when he asks one of the waiters if he can leave his typewriter and large plastic bag in the premises until the following morning. He’ll be around to collect them first thing, he says. No problem, the young waitresses have often seen him at breakfast time having his coffee, and some of the older ones also recognize him, although he rarely came in the evenings. The plaza’s almost empty once he sits down beside the fountain, quite close to a miserable vagrant primped in rags. He doesn’t appear conversationally inclined, for his mouth’s periodically stopped by a bottle of liquor. His face is an arid landscape that’s been battered by meteors, and all the dirt there makes his complexion seem darker than it is. The screenwriter stands up. If he must sleep next to a tramp, he’ll do so under a bridge where the owner of the café and the waitress he likes won’t see him. He’d rather they think of him as a bohemian writer who’s down on his luck than a derelict hobo who begs for spare change. He thinks about the girl. All in all, wherever he ends up tonight, it won’t be a good place for her to visit him.

He wakes up with his back against the wall, his jacket fully buttoned, lapels raised, and yet he’s shivering with cold. It’s no surprise. By the river, after midnight, the damp starts turning into ice. Sitting on some newspapers one of the tramps gave him, he listens to the loud crepitations of vehicles moving overhead, and to the bridge rumbling in resonance with them, which itself resonates with the membrane of his eardrums. He slept badly, but at least he has his cane, and he’s still in one piece. He checks his top pocket to make sure no one stole his wallet, and finds some newspaper stuffed between his shirt and jacket. He reckons he must have woken up in the night and unconsciously lined his body with this insulation to keep warm. With the help of his cane, he stands up to remove the pieces of newspaper from his person and leaves them to one side. His new cohorts are fast asleep, one here, another there, two or three huddled together in a corner — he can’t tell exactly, because they’re almost completely covered by a cardboard box that at one time carried a fridge. His stomach is growling with hunger, and he knows he must brace up before climbing the stair and going in search of a fountain to wash himself. As his body starts coming to life, something tells him the worst is already past, that he’s finally taken the crucial step. So he must finish his screenplay at last, because his mind has never been sharper, and he has the story in the palm of his hand. He knows where he’s going, but he takes a detour, in case someone he knows sees him begging in the street. He asks anyone he crosses paths with, people going to work, others pulling up store shutters. And if they don’t have any change, he asks for food, anything they can afford to throw away. After drinking some water at the fountain, a fruit vender offers him a peach. The screenwriter looks down and sees it’s covered in bruises. Anything they can afford to throw away. Within an hour, he’s collected enough change to last the day. But now he has the story in the palm of his hand, and that’s all that really matters. He wonders if his sudden determination to end his script is his psyche compensating him for all he’s lost. He’ll ask a psychologist about it some day. In the meantime, he goes back to the café in the plaza and decides to call the girl. This time she answers. I can’t write, she complains. Ever since I found out I was hypnotized, everything’s gone wrong. This is all too familiar to the screenwriter, who’s so dizzy with excitement to hear her voice that he asks her to just keep talking. Her voice is as necessary to him as bread and water. Perhaps he needs it to finish his script. No, in reality, he knows how it’s going to end. He’s only just figured it out, but he has a good idea how he wants it to end. He’d like to see her again. Perhaps they could make love in some hidden corner of the plaza, in a bar’s bathroom, or under a bridge. Time is running out. Do you still believe they’re following you? he asks, as the last coin drops. Not since I changed my look, she says. It’s a pity he couldn’t hold onto his camera. He could’ve photographed them making love under a bridge, and in some other strange places — places that are hidden, places no one’s ever heard of, he thinks, as the line cuts out. He feels he’s nearing the end, and that he could finish his work at any of the tables in the café. He collects his typewriter and takes a seat in a well-lit corner inside, thinking he’ll more than likely croak at his writing desk. Die with his boots on.

It’s not going to be easy. Although he knows exactly where he left off in his story, he first has to organize the potpourri of loose pages and index cards that are stuffed in the large plastic bag. Perhaps he should forget about the notes and just grab the script itself, whose pages are bound with an elastic band. After finding it near the bottom of the bag, he’s soon holding the last typewritten page in his hand. Where the hell have you been? asks a voice in the lobby of the hotel in front of the Grand Central Station. The girl quickly turns. It’s Cousin McGregor, who’s been waiting some time for her. We’re leaving, he says. Let’s go. We’ve already checked out of our rooms. He leads her through a back door into an alleyway where a car is parked. On the way, the cousin asks about her work, but she can only repeat what she’s already told him about the No World, while he, in turn, cannot see past the comparison he’s already made with Leon Kowalski, the replicant. She may as well be writing his untold story, about his false, implanted memories. For the rest of the drive, both are silent. The cousin is now staying in a room in the suburbs, where her luggage and her father are waiting for her. Her father says he’d prefer if she stayed a few more days before going back home. Your mother’s concerned, he tells her, before insinuating she should keep her mouth shut about whatever he and the cousin are up to. So that’s it, mutters the girl, knowing deep down that she was right, but thinking they’ve gone right back to the beginning, to the endless waiting for someone to contact them, perhaps even the scientist in the classically-cut suit. All that’s changed is the address. The screenwriter feels he’s never been more in tune with his writing. The words are flowing out of him like a torrent, and he attributes this to the state of mind of someone who, having been cast out of the world, has relinquished all worldly concern. To write, then wait to die: there’s nothing more for him to do. The story was once beyond his reach, just beyond the tips of his fingers, but now he has it in the palm of his hand. He looks around for the waitress and asks for another coffee. He leans back in his chair and readies his fingers on the keys of the typewriter. First, a coup d’oeil at his new office: not bad. He’s never written properly in a café before, but now it seems to him the perfect place to be writing, especially when the words are flowing out of him like a torrent, meaningful words that are more than just a series of mellifluous incoherencies. He wouldn’t even deign to call it a mere screenplay anymore, but that doesn’t matter now. He’s writing a story, and that’s enough. He’d love to call his wife right now and gloat, but the poor dear must smell awful. Probably full of maggots too. You never can tell with the variable August weather. All the screenwriter has to sustain himself is coffee, water, a sandwich every now and then, and if he’s lucky, a pastry. He’s clinging in his mind to the old cliché that nothing can prevent progress, thinking this as his story rushes through his mind from start to finish, his fingers poised, tempted by the keys. He doesn’t even need his index cards or notebooks. He knows every turn in the labyrinth, where to introduce a new scene, where to speed the action up or slow it down, where to find the answer to some central question. He holds his script in the palm of his hand, and sees it as a bird would see it, or perhaps an aerial photographer. He knows he doesn’t have much time left to traverse it, but things will move along faster now that he knows exactly where he’s going. Writing the screenplay no longer seems like a chore, and although it may be hard to believe, considering what’s become of him, for the first time in years, he actually feels young. He even feels that things are starting to go his way. Perhaps he’s finally lost his marbles. He nods his head without realizing, as if unconsciously approving the possibility. Perhaps he’s gone mad and doesn’t know it. It’s as if he’s the one who was hypnotized and not the girl. But there’s no way someone with his experience could be that suggestible. Besides, he doesn’t remember attending any sessions with a hypnotist — neither recently nor when he was still living with his wife. But what if he was hypnotized to forget he was hypnotized? What if it was a practical joke? No, there’s no way it was joke, or a vendetta either. She’s dead, and dead people don’t make jokes. If he had to attribute it to something, he’d say it was the fasting. Not eating has somehow purged him, distilled and strengthened his faculties enough to conclude his story. He’s not thinking about it in terms of a screenplay because he knows it’s a story, first and foremost, and he must write it down as it flows out of him, and not stop writing until the end. Occasionally he stops typing and wonders if he’ll wake up at some point and realize it was all a hallucination, and that everything he’s writing in the café is only a product of that hallucination, if he’ll snap out of it and read over what he’s written and see only complete gobbledygook. Fortunately, this sort of thing happens to him very rarely — seeing what he’s done as worthless — and the feeling only lasts a very short time. The compulsion driving him now is something quite different. Then he cleans his glasses and keeps typing. The only other times he will allow himself to remove his fingers from the keys are to light a cigarette or to order more coffee from the waitress. He only asks for two more days, as if requesting an extension, two more days and he’ll be finished. Then he can roll over and die. The waitress watches him keenly as he says these words, and he looks back at her indifferently. He knows it’s too late now for there to be anything between them. “I had a farm in Africa, at the foot of the Ngong Hills,” he says, and she smiles at him, a proper smile for the first time, a sincere smile. And although the screenwriter’s face is haggard, piteous, he still manages to smile back at her. The clack and plink of the typewriter is unrelenting, rising above the sound of the music over the speakers or the murmurs of customers conversing, some of whom stare at him, a beggar working like a man possessed, and he knows they’re watching him and think he’s a beggar possessed, but he doesn’t care, because he knows they’re absolutely correct. He strikes the keys demoniacally, his two hands moving as if there were three, sounding like a trio of tap-dancing feet, or two with the help of a cane. He sees himself as if he were in a dream from which he cannot be awoken. When he eventually runs out of cigarettes, he goes to the vending machine and buys another pack. A writer works all the time, he never stops working. To think is also to work, and when he’s not writing, he’s thinking. And can a man stop himself from thinking?