St. Urbain's Horseman (56 page)

“Don't you dare.”

“Yes, she took me in her mouth, but I shoved her off.”

“She's pretty.”

He laughed dryly.

“Did you feel her breasts?”

“Yes.”

“She hasn't had any babies.”

“Oh, Nancy, my darling, please.”

“Did you touch her between the legs?”

“No.”

“Liar.”

“Ben's crying. You'd better get him.”

“We never go to a restaurant that you don't devour the other women with your eyes.”

“I'm human. Big news.”

“Do you find me ogling other men's crotches?”

“Ben's crying.”

“Would it excite you if I wore a blond wig?”

“You'd better get Ben.”

“What gave Harry the idea you'd want her in the first place?”

“I sent him out every night to fetch me girls. I can't find any myself. Now you'd better get Ben or next thing you know,
ketzelle
, we'll have my mother in here.”

“You are dreadful to your mother. You don't need her any more. What happens when you decide you don't need me any more?”

“Would – you – get – Ben – please?”

“Here,” she shouted, pulling out her dressing table drawer so savagely that it was knocked to the floor. “Here. And here. And here.”

They were letters from Harry, describing in lascivious detail all the acts Jake was supposed to have performed with Ingrid. Saying how they had gone to C. Bernard Farber's together, looking for cunt. When he was released from prison, Harry wrote, the three of them must go to bed together; he would lick her until she passed out, satiated, and then he would ram it up her ass. She would discover a real man in Harry and could taste him as far as the back of her throat. He would come with a riding crop. He would bring handcuffs. Anything she desired. If you beat a woman with wet towels, it left no marks. Ask Jake.

“Oh, my God, I'll kill him. Somebody must have smuggled these out for him. He's only allowed one letter a week.”

Nancy was rocking on the edge of the bed, whimpering softly as she nursed Ben. Even though it was dark, she sat with her back to him, so he could not look on her breasts. Her back was beautiful.

“It's all lies, Nancy. He's psychotic, you know that.”

“Yes. But you'd say it was lies anyway. Wouldn't you?”

“Yes.”

“You'd have to.”

The next afternoon, Luke didn't come, and, for the first time since the trial, Jake ventured out of the house, absently wandering as far as Swiss Cottage. When Ruthy rapped on the dress shop window, claiming him.

At the King's Arms
(their
pub, he mused), Ruthy peeled the label off an Orange-Kool bottle and announced that she had met a wonderful, wonderful man, highly sensitive, keen on classical music and well versed in Jewish lore. There was only one problem, she added lugubriously. “He's an inveterate masturbator. He can drive a woman bonkers until he satisfies himself and then she ends up in a frightful state. It's diabolical.”

“Ruthy, I am no longer interested in your love life.”

“Oh, that's nice. That's ever so nice. After all we've been through together.”

“I don't want to hear any more.”

“He says intercourse is not necessary, it's only the preliminaries that count. It's like climbing a mountain, he says, it's not necessary to reach the top, it's enough to look up and know that it's there. What's your frank opinion?”

“My frank opinion is you will survive, Ruthy. And now,” he said, rising abruptly, “goodbye.”

When he got home, Nancy said Luke had called to invite them both out to dinner.

“I'm too tired. You go.”

So she called back to say no. “Poor Luke. He's not saying anything, but I'm sure he's dying to know what you think of his script.”

Let him suffer, then.

“Couldn't you phone him?”

“Tomorrow.”

But tomorrow Jake didn't phone and Luke did not come in the afternoon.

“Couldn't you at least call to say you've read it?”

Sammy and Molly began to fight upstairs. “Mommy, mommy,” she hollered.

“Coming, precious one,” Mrs. Hersh replied.

“Haven't you ever behaved badly toward someone who trusted you?” Nancy asked just before she quit the living room.

Pouring himself a drink, Jake suddenly wondered if the Horseman, wherever he was, had read of his trial in a newspaper.

Stiff-collared, cherub-mouthed Ormsby-Fletcher came, lugging his black briefcase and looking severe. He and Jake conferred behind closed doors for more than an hour and then he strode out of the house, belted himself into his black Humber, and was off again.

“Guess what,” Jake said. “Hershel's appealing.”

“On what grounds?”

“Well now, for openers, I got my doctor to drug him before he went into court each morning. Then Ruthy was my mistress, which explains why I deposited seven hundred pounds to his account. I also bribed Ormsby-Fletcher to misrepresent him in his brief. He wants Ormsby-Fletcher disbarred.” Jake laughed, he shook his head. “I phoned Luke. He's coming tomorrow.”

Luke and Jake sat in the garden all afternoon. Nancy served them sandwiches and then slipped upstairs to nurse Ben. When she looked out of the kitchen window again, Luke was gone. He hadn't even said goodbye.

“Did you quarrel?”

“No. I even told him I liked the script.”

“With reservations, though?”

“Yes,” he snapped back.

“Are you going to do it, then?”

“I don't even know what I'm going to do tomorrow. I plan on waking up, that's all.”

“Did you say no, then?”

“I said I wanted time to think about it. Don't bug me, Nancy.”

In the morning they all piled into the car and drove Mrs. Hersh to the airport. She did not break down until she was alone with Jake at the passport barrier.

“When you were a child you needed my love and protection and now that I'm approaching old age, I'm going to need yours.”

“I'll do everything I can for you, Maw.”

“Oh, I realize you would protect me against illness and old age, with all that money can buy, but it goes deeper than that with me. I am not stupid. I am a woman with pride and dignity and intelligence. Isn't that right?”

“Yes, Maw.”

“So it goes deeper than money with me.”

“I understand.”

Her face erupting in tears, she grabbed him, pelting his face with kisses. He responded as lovingly as he could, but it was insufficient to the moment. Suddenly, Mrs. Hersh thrust her son from her, heaving, her eyes brimming with rage. “You have children too,” she declared fiercely. “You have children, Yankel,” and then she turned to pass through the barrier. He lingered, but she did not turn back. She didn't wave.

Then Duddy, prospering Duddy Kravitz, rode into London. Before lunch, he and Jake strolled down the King's Road together, the girls streaming past in their miniskirts and leather boots.

“
Oy
. Who could blame you? How can you stand it here?” Duddy asked. “All that quim out taking the air in those short skirts. Short? I tell you, Yankel, if one of those chicks had a Tampax inside, you'd see the string dangling. It's enough to drive you crazy. Walking down the street here, if you swung your arm like a hook, the fingers extended, you could lick hot pussy off your hand for hours.”

They ate at Alvaro's. Duddy, as was his habit now, ordered Beluga caviar for both of them, double portions, with a side order of chopped eggs and onions for himself. For the truth was Duddy didn't
care for caviar and only by mashing egg and onion into it could he make it taste almost like chopped liver.

“These skirts – Christ – when I think of the agonies we suffered in our day before you could get a girl to hike her skirt that high. When I remember the double features at the Rialto you had to sit through, the coaxing, the toasted tomato sandwiches you had to pay for, the sundaes, gaining an inch here, losing two there. Why, you could put in a month of blue-balls and lies, before you even got a peek at a stocking top, never mind some real stink-finger. But the kids today, shit, do they know what struggle is? They take out a chick and, for openers, her skirt is riding her crotch. All you have to do is flip it over and shove it in.”

Ordering another bottle of Veuve Clicquot, Duddy excoriated the new-style books and movies. “When you come down to it, I'm a traditional Jewish boy. For me to enjoy sex, I've got to feel, well, you know … a little bit guilty. The first time Marlene blew me I was actually ashamed for her. Never mind she wanted to kiss me on the mouth afterwards with all my come still dribbling down her chin. Feh,” he said, making a face. “What's the matter. Am I embarrassing you?”

“Certainly not.”

“Well, the first time she sucked me off I thought, oh boy, lucky Duddy, you're really marrying a hot one. This is something really special. Now you open a novel or go to a movie and they're all going down on each other from the opening chapter or scene. The whole world going gobble, gobble, eat, eat. So what's so special about my marriage any more? What makes my life such a rare item? It's ruining sex for me, I tell you. All this new outspokenness in the arts is taking the kicks out of it for me. Gone are the guilty pleasures, the dirty secret joys.”

“Duddy, I realize you're trying to make me feel better, but the truth is there's nothing in it. There was no orgy at my place.”

“In that case, you're a bigger prick than even I gave you credit for. You mean to say, after the trial, all you've been through, the whole
tzimmis
, you didn't even get laid out of it?”

Jake nodded.

“I hope I'm the only one you've bothered to tell. Because I remember from way back. I know you're a shmock. But nobody else would believe you.”

“Do you believe me?”

“Unfortunately, yes. But, you know, you give off a guilty smell. You look like shit warmed over, Jake.”

As Duddy leaned forward to light his cigar, Jake noticed the hair slicked back over the spreading widow's peak. His sideburns were gray. There were deep, dark pouches under his eyes.

“Is Nancy raising hell?” Duddy asked.

“She is somewhat displeased.”

“Buy her a coat.”

“Oh, for Chrissake, Duddy, she's not that kind of woman.”

“What's to be done with you? Crap artist. You broke?”

“I'll make out.”

“When I was up the creek in Toronto, you helped me out, remember? How much do you need?”

“What if I were to say ten thousand dollars?”

“In that case, I'll only have to dip into the petty cash.”

Jake laughed, incredulous, as Duddy wrote out the check. “It's good to see you again,” he said.

“Hoo haw. It's good to see anyone who would lend you ten bills. Here,” he said, thrusting the check at him, “and now tell me what your so-called best friend Lucas Scott, Esq., has given you recently?”

Jake told him about Luke's script and the conundrums it made for him.

“Do it, do it. If it's good, do it. Then tell him to get fucked.”

Jake laughed and called for a round of brandies, but Duddy said
no, not for him, he couldn't take it any more. It kept him awake. He swallowed a pill with his coffee.

“Hey, Yankel, what if I held a class reunion? Could I count on you?”

“Sure. But why would you want to do that?”

“I had my secretary check out everybody who was in room forty-one with us. Of all the guys, I'm the only millionaire. Let them come to my place and choke on it, don't you think?”

Duddy's check stuffed into his jacket lapel pocket, Jake felt resuscitated, even lighthearted, for the first time since the trial had ended. Driving home, he realized he did not have his mother to contend with any more.

Or lawyers.

Or Harry.

Or Mr. Justice Beal, in the morning.

Now he was no longer obliged to do Luke's script. If he wanted to say yes, O.K., but if he decided against it, he could cash Duddy's check. The trial's over, Yankel. You did not behave badly. Nancy won't leave you. She can't. He resolved to be good to Sammy when he came home from school. Molly wouldn't irritate him today.

Jake found Nancy in the kitchen. “These are called flowers,” he said, “and they're for you.”

“Oh,” she said, not displeased.

“If Duddy Kravitz believes me, why can't you?”

“But I do, most of the time.”

Jake scooped up the carton with his backlog of mail and sat down at the kitchen table. Bills, magazines, his bank statement. Letters from actors, scripts, some invitations. He read aloud to her whenever he struck anything outlandish. Once, she laughed aloud.

“You said you married me because you loved me. Do you still?”

“I love you too.”

Then he ripped open Jenny's letter, reading it impatiently, nodding, and, as she watched, he turned a page and all at once the color was sucked from his face. His hands began to tremble like an old man's. He moaned. He looked up at her, shaking his head, his eyes imploring, but unable to speak.

“What is it, Jake, for heaven's sake?”

“Joey's dead.”

“Oh, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.”

“He's been dead for more than two months. Oh, hell. Bloody hell.”

Nancy, coming up behind him to stroke his head, found him drenched in sweat.

“Better shut the kitchen door.”

“The children are in the garden,” she said. “It's all right.” She poured him a brandy.

“He's been dead for more than two months. Oh, Joey. Joey, Joey. There's so much I wanted to ask him.”

“I know, darling.”

“It took all this time for the Canadian consul in Asunción to contact Hanna.”