The Autograph Man (18 page)

“What’s the question?”

Duchamp laughed at this as if Alex had just told the oldest joke.

Duchamp had a flask under his chair and a spare cup. Alex now poured out tea for both of them. He spotted a stall for homemade cakes and came back with two fruit slices, moist and fat with raisins.

“Ta.
Well.
This is a bit of a turn-up. Fruit
slice.
Dear me.”

Duchamp turned it over in his hands a few times and smiled at it with a mixture of fondness and awe, as at a family heirloom. It was a few minutes before he seemed willing to eat it. They sat side by side. To make his fruit slice soft enough for his gummy mouth, Duchamp had to soak each piece in tea and then slurp it from the cup.

“That was a
treat,
” said Duchamp finally.

“Brian,” said Alex, “there
is
actually something you can do for me. I wondered if you could take a look at this for me.”

Duchamp neither moved nor made any sign of comprehension. Alex removed his Kitty Alexander from the pocket of his bag. He took Duchamp’s cup out of his hands. He placed the autograph on Duchamp’s lap.

“Brian, could you . . . ?”

Brian brought the autograph within inches of his eyes. “Oh,
yes.
”

“Brian?”

“Yes,
yes.
”

“What, Brian?”

“Kitty Alexander. Worth a bundle.”

“You think it’s real,” said Alex, very quickly.

Duchamp shrugged. “Looks real. But needn’t be. ’S like you said. Sometimes birds ain’t the answer, they’re the fahkin’ question. Ha!”

“But in your opinion,—do you
think
it’s real?”

“I think I’ve seen some bloody good forgeries in my time. See that lot?” Duchamp pointed to the box Alex had just been working through. Alex picked it up.

“This?”

“Mostly forged.”

Alex raised his eyebrows. “
Your
forgeries?”

Duchamp nodded.

“Well, they’re bloody good, Brian.
I
couldn’t tell the difference.”

“Yeah, well . . . there’s not many that can. I’ve sold
you
a few in the past. Ha! Now . . .” he said, not looking at Alex but reaching out to him with his stubby arm, physically trying to connect him to a memory, “you . . . you’re the Kitty man, int ya?”

He bent over the box Alex held on his lap, thumbing through the papers in it with a real expertise. He pulled one out. A photograph.

“A Kitty Alexander, squire . . . forged, of course, I did it meself—but I did it back then . . . back in fifty-summink . . . so the age of the ink is fine. No bugger in the world spot that for a fake.”

Alex studied the thing closely. Taking it out of its sheath and bringing it under the light. He placed his own Kitty by its side. They were almost too close, and with dread he placed them now one on top of the other and held them up to the light. Maybe Brian was confused—maybe his was a later forgery, an Autopen? And if Alex’s fitted Brian’s perfectly, then they were both Autopens, for no man can sign exactly the same way twice over. We are not so precise. But no. Alex’s
A
slanted a little further to the left. The sweeping, Elizabethan tail of Brian’s
X
came lower than it did on Alex’s.

“Looks so real,” said Alex with admiration.

“ ’Tisn’t, mate. I did it meself. You forget, Tandem, I worked in these studios. There weren’t no one better than me.” Duchamp wiped down the photo with a piece of chamois from his pocket.

“I met her once. Beauty. None like her. But, mate, you’re twenty-five, and then”—Duchamp clicked his fingers, incompetently—“you’re sixty. Nobody told you that, did they?” He laughed, grimly. “People like her should disappear. Poof! Them on the screen like that, they ain’t meant to get old. No one wants to see an old bitch, do they? The people don’t want that.”

They’re not too keen on old buggers like you, either,
said Alex’s brain, but he shut his mouth and stretched out his fingertips for the treasure. Duchamp drew it back from him with an unpleasant smile.

“I know what you’re thinking. Bet you could sell this on to them mugs in Neville Court, eh? Or down Jimmy’s Antiques? If
you
can’t tell, they ain’t gonna be able to, is they? Three thousand quid or more, no doubt! Cut yourself a percentage, eh?”

“Well,” said Alex, blushing, “
you’re
not even allowed into those shops anymore, are you? I could sell it for you. I’ll just take fifteen percent of whatever I get.”

“Why don’t you sell your own, if you’re so keen, eh?”

“Brian, mine’s the real thing. I’m a big fan. The biggest. I’d like to keep it.”

Duchamp tutted. “Oh dear, oh
dear.
That’s no good in this business. You can’t get sentimental. Just ink. Just letters. The
real thing
. . .” he said. “As if it mattered! The little difference that makes all the difference. What a way to make a living, eh?”

“I’ll take it, then?”

“You sign an agreement first. I know this business, mate. Here—here’s some paper. I’ll write it. You sign it. So.
I, Alex-Li Tandem, agree to keep no more than ten percent
—”

“Ten percent?”

“Ten—
of the sale of Brian Duchamp’s Kitty Alexander.
That’ll do, wunnit? Ain’t the bloody Magna Carta, but it’ll do. There—sign it, then.”

Alex took the piece of paper. The handwriting was atrocious.

“Just—read me that bit, Brian.”

“Bloody hell, you deaf as well as stupid? Ten percent—and that’s all you’re getting, so just sign it.”

Alex signed his name. As soon as he was finished, Duchamp whipped the paper from him.

“Call that a signature? Looks like a bloody scrawl to me. Never trust an Israelite. In Hebrew, is it? Eh? Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!”

Alex felt a heave of disgust. He stood up.

“All right, all right—that’s enough. Give me the Kitty. Ten percent. You canny bastard.”

And for a moment, he did look canny. Ugly, smelly, laughing that filthy death rattle—but still here. Still dominating the scenes. Not yet accepting the role we all get cast in, eventually: the walk-on (fall-down) part with no lines.

2.

Somebody at a tube station wanted to be famous. They wanted to be known, all over the city, if only for fifteen minutes. They let their heels cross the white line, they took a quick breath, they leapt into forever. Thanks to this
passenger action
(a truly majestic new euphemism, emphasizing the inconsideration), it took Alex almost two hours to get from the South to the center of town. At the mouth of the tube exit an unsmiling Adam met him, opened a giant candy-striped golfing umbrella and gruffly instructed Alex to take his arm. And so they set off through a downpour, dependent on a colorful piece of canvas like two men in a balloon. Past a grand theater and a seedy bar, straight past the girls paid to beckon at them, the Left-handed Shop (
Yes, Al, very goyish. You can make a note later, all right?
), the gay bars, the mixed bars, the strippers—like two determined Hasidim, straight past all temptation! They reached a favorite cake shop. Adam stood in the doorway to draw in the umbrella while Alex hunted for an indoor table. A minute later they were back outside, being led to a miserable archipelago of tables standing in dirty water, their tops barely covered by the awning of a barbershop. A lean Italian waiter tried to make a run for it the second the two young men were seated. People in the center of the city were known to be callous and impatient.

The cakes and coffee arrived. Soon they were speaking quickly, with nothing extraneous, in the semaphore of old friends. Except they were not merry today. They were off-key. It had begun with lateness and now stretched to a lack of choreography—each took his turn spilling a perfectly solid sugar bowl—and then the same disease spread to the conversation. Neither could make himself understood. Each seemed to the other vain and self-centered. To each it seemed as if this man sitting opposite spoke only about himself. Adam talked excitedly and incomprehensibly about his latest studies. He stood up to demonstrate to Alex how the ten
sefirot
also corresponded to points of the body; he stretched his arms out like a madman. Alex cringed.

“You see, my
spine,
” said Adam, “runs where Tif’eret—that’s Beauty, Compassion—my spine runs where Tif’eret lies. So to get from Netsah—which is my right leg—to Tif’eret I meditate on the idea of my spine. That’s the Path of Yod. There are thirty-two paths, according to Ari. But
here
”—he thrust the base of his spine, and with it his backside, into the air. The pretty boys across the road smiled, pointed—“here is where the soul goes beyond its earthly place to find better seed. I feel I’m halfway there, man. After all these years.” He pointed to the air above his head. “I’m moving towards the crown, to Ayin, to Nothingness. To the
essence
of God.”

“Yep. That must be great for you. Waiter! A bottle of red please, two glasses.”

They sat without talking. A wind was getting going. Adam looked wistfully at another table, as if he wished he were at it. Alex took out his tobacco and tried to roll a cigarette in the manner of a man who has been unjustly wronged. He had been betrayed—this is how he felt. Why tell Esther about Boot? What kind of friend does that?

Just as he was about to make the accusation, the wine arrived. Adam sent his glass back; Alex filled and drained his as if it were grape juice. Adam watched him, one hand scratching his head violently between two dreads. Alex poured himself another and began to speak of the Boot development, subtly, hoping to detect some guilt in Adam’s gestures. Nothing. Not a dicky bird. But maybe the total absence of guilt was in itself a sign. No one can appear so innocent all of the time, can they? Can they?
Someone
must have traduced Alex T. And if it wasn’t Adam, then who?

Alex continued to drink, talking rapidly about he knew not what. Fifteen minutes later he knew his mouth was still moving, but it had been a while since his brain was attached to the words. Bored, Adam exploded a glazed strawberry under his fork.

“But all these women,” he said, cutting Alex off, “they’re all the same woman, really. Don’t you
see
that? Kitty, Boot, Anita—they just overlap each other. Think of an art restorer peeling the paint off a portrait to find other portraits underneath. You ruin a perfectly good painting out of some misplaced curiosity—the possibility of other portraits. It’s a kind of endless substitution—and all because you don’t know how to deal with things as they are.”

Alex made an International Gesture: the throwing back of head, the slight indent of front teeth on lower lip, the making of the sound
pfui.
He raised a glass, his third.

“Thanks, Sigmund.”

Adam shrugged. “Take it as you like.”

“No, no, it’s fascinating. And Esther—the first face? The last?”

“Well, that’s obvious, mate,” said Adam, coldly. “She’s the paint.”

Alex dug with his tongue at a sludge of pastry on his molars. “Right. Beautiful analogy. It’s truly your style: everything’s a symbol of everything else. Which helps me
how
?”

Adam looked quizzically at Alex. “You have the weirdest idea,” he said, shaking his head, “that everybody’s here to help
you
!”

For a while they spoke of The Trouble With Other People, an aggressive substitute for the conversation they wanted to have, namely: The Trouble With
You.
Rubinfine was obsessive. Joseph was repressed and miserable. Alex looked at his watch. He was due in Neville Court in ten minutes.

“Late are we?”

“Bit.”

Alex upturned the rest of the bottle into his glass and then went through the motions of swirling and sniffing, as if only now realizing what it was.

“Is that necessary? Really?” asked Adam, mopping up a puddle of red where Alex swirled too hard.

“Oh . . .
Jesus
. . . You know? Why d’you bother coming out if you’re . . . I mean, why aren’t you drinking? You just gonner watch me? What is this? I feel like a bloody painting: Fat Man with Red in Rain. Study of Loser in Process of—”

“You’re drunk, stop it.”

“Can’t stop being drunk, Ads. One-way journey. Chug chug chug to the end of the line.”

“Slow down, then.”

“Aye-aye, Cap’n.”

“You’re angry with me. Why?”

“Because. Next question.”

“Esther tells me you’re not going to be with her on Sunday. I’m trying to understand that, but I’m having difficulties.”

“Not my fault—I’ve got to go to New York. It’s booked—I can’t get out of it. I’m
sorry.
”

“When do you leave?”

“Friday night. Look—why don’t you come?” asked Alex in the spirit of peaceful resolution. But Adam looked away to where a man wrapped in a duvet was doing a jig in the rain.

“The center of
this
city is hard enough. I don’t want to be in the center of the center. Too hard for this bredrin.”

“Right, well. No one’s forcing you. Just an offer.”

“It’s your father’s yahrzeit on Thursday,” said Adam, turning back. “Are you intending to be in the country?”

“Not that it’s any concern of yours, but I’m back on Tuesday.”

“Well,” said Adam, tapping a spoon on the rim of Alex’s cup, “I’ve spoken to Rubinfine. His shul can’t do it on the day you need, but he thinks he knows one that will. For the minyan you could have me—though you don’t deserve me—you could have Joseph, Rubinfine, your mum, Esther maybe, if she can make it. People are happy to do it—all you have to do is just stop pissing everybody off for one second. So you’re not going to her operation, is that right?”

By some horrible accident Alex had lifted his wrist to look at his watch at the moment of this word,
operation.
He opened his mouth now to explain, but then could think of nothing and closed it again. He couldn’t see how there could be any accidents in the world of gestures. Don’t our bodies say exactly what they mean to?

“No. If you have to go get on with it,” said Adam, unhappily. “I’ve got to find a shower, anyway. I’ve just been sitting in that room. I haven’t washed in days. I’ll call you later.”