The Body Of Jonah Boyd (6 page)

“Mom, stop,” he said.

“Lucid,”
she whispered. “Right there, the double letter score—”

“Will you please not help him?” Daphne asked.

“Sorry. What time is it?”

“Five past one.”

“I wonder why they haven’t gotten here. Maybe they had an accident. Or got lost.”

“Then they’d have called.”

“Or maybe they pulled in for gas in a bad neighborhood and got held up,” Ben interjected helpfully. “That happened to Hettie
Longabaugh’ sister, remember? People who don’t know L.A.—”

“But if they rented a car, it would have a full tank.”

“It’ my fault,” Nancy said. “I should have sent Ernest to pick them up.”

Daphne switched on the television. “Poor mother, always so worried,” she said, with the easy gravity of a girl whom sex has
endowed with delusions of maturity. “Anyway, a few hours in Compton would probably do them some good. Let them see how the
other half lives, while we stuff ourselves with turkey.”

“Maybe I should call the highway patrol—”

“Just give them another hour. They could have stopped for lunch.”

“On Thanksgiving?”

Little Hans started to bark. “Oh, I hope that’ them,” Nancy said.

“It could be Glenn,” Daphne said, adjusting her hair. “He said he might come early.”

We all hurried to the front hall. Little Hans had his paws on the stained glass of the door, which Nancy opened. Outside a
man and a woman in heavy East Coast coats were pulling luggage out of the trunk of a red Chevrolet.

“Anne, thank goodness!” Nancy cried, and ran to embrace her. They kissed and wept, and Anne introduced Jonah Boyd. Nancy reached
for his hand; he pulled her closer and kissed her on both cheeks, which seemed both to fluster and please her. “Kids, come
help with the luggage!” she yelled, and Daphne and Ben shuffled over to the car, pretending annoyance but obviously curious
and not unhappy to see Anne again, and to meet her new husband. At first Anne held them at a distance, expressing astonishment
at how much they had grown. Then, that convention dispensed with, she hugged them both.

Burdened with luggage, the group made its way into the house, Little Hans picking up the rear.

As for me, I hung back. No one had yet asked me to do anything.

I was introduced. Jonah Boyd appeared to be about forty-five. He had pink cheeks and a carefully groomed, salt-and-pepper
mustache. His hair, given his age, was surprisingly luxuriant, his clothes immaculate—dark suit, white shirt, and striped
tie. By contrast, Anne was wearing a wool coat that had been torn near the pocket and then clumsily restitched, and she carried
an enormous, shapeless handbag. She had shaggy red hair that was graying at the roots, nicotine-stained teeth, a thick middle.
Also, her eye makeup was smudged in a way that suggested she had been weeping.

All at once a sensation of misplaced triumph welled up in me. This Anne was a far cry from the willowy creature Nancy had
described. Certainly they could never have shared clothes! I admit, my rival’ sordid demeanor—not to mention the expression
of concern and disappointment that claimed Nancy’ face as she gave Anne the once-over—sparked in me an unexpected confidence,
and I shook Anne’ hand heartily. “I’m Denny, Dr. Wright’ secretary,” I said. “Welcome to California.”

“So you’re the new four-hand partner.”

“Why yes,” I answered with surprise. Until that moment, I’d had no idea that Nancy had even mentioned me to Anne.

“We all rely on Denny,” Nancy said. Then she said, “Let me show you to your room,” and led the Boyds down the hall. Daphne
and I followed. “Ernest’ in his office. He has a new office above the garage. He should be down in a few minutes.”

“This is a wonderful house,” Boyd said, in a rich, slightly cracked baritone.

“Oh, thanks. It’ nothing fancy, but we like it. And here’ the guest room.”

Daphne winced.

We crossed the threshold into the newly made room, which indeed looked quite guest roomish. “Very nice,” Boyd said.

“Wait a minute—” Anne stopped in her tracks. “I knew someone was missing. Where’ Mark?”

“Oh, he’ in Vancouver.”

“Vancouver!”

“Yes. He went in July to assert his opposition to the war.”

“You mean he’ a draft dodger?”

Nancy’ smile collapsed into a sort of tremble of the lips.

“Sweetheart, that’ not a very nice way of putting it,” Boyd said, resting a hand on his wife’ shoulder in a gesture that might
have been protective and might have been a warning. “Anyway, I, for one, stand completely behind the draft resisters. I fought
in Korea, you know. A brutalizing experience. If I were in his shoes, I’d do the same thing.”

“Thank you, Mr. Boyd.”

“Jonah.”

“Jonah. I appreciate that.”

“Oh, Nancy, you must miss him,” Anne said, sitting down on the bed. “And on Thanksgiving!”

Tears rimmed Nancy’ eyes. “I do miss him,” she said. “But I also respect that he’ doing what he feels he has to.” She straightened
her back. “Well, you two must want to wash up. I’ve got the turkey to attend to. Whenever you’re ready, just come into the
living room, and Ernest will make everyone drinks.”

We left, closing the door behind us. Back in the kitchen, Nancy blotted her eyes, gave Daphne an unwanted hug, and checked
to see if the turkey’ thermometer had popped. (It had not.) Then she arranged some crackers around a cheese ball rolled in
pecans and a pile of rumaki, and we adjourned to the living room, where Anne was settling herself on the cat-stained leather
chair, Boyd on the sofa. By now it was fairly obvious, at least to me, that the Boyds had been fighting, and that this was
probably why they had been late. You could tell from the puffiness of Anne’ eyes, the slight rasp in her voice—a weeper’ rasp,
as opposed to a smoker’. And Boyd himself was smiling too broadly and talking too loudly, in that way of men who believe in
always putting on a brave face, even when the house is falling down around them. Every now and then he shot a glance of irritation
at his wife, who was clearly incapable of such emotion-masking niceties.

Soon Ernest came down from his eyrie. He kissed Anne, and shook Boyd’ hand manfully.

“The Boyds would like drinks,” Nancy said. In those days, women did not mix drinks.

“Certainly,” Ernest said. “What’ll it be?”

“Just Coca-Cola for me, thanks,” said Boyd.

“And you, Anne?”

“Gin and tonic. And make it strong. After that trip, I need it.”

“Oh, was there turbulence?” Nancy asked.

“Only in the car on the way from the airport.”

Nancy gave a trill-like laugh. “Anne, always such a card!”

“No, but seriously, Ernest, I want your professional opinion on something.”

“Honey, do we really have to go into all that?” Boyd asked.

“Be quiet, Jonah—it’ about a problem that arose on the way here from the airport, and not for the first time, and frankly
I’m very, very upset about this, even though my husband insists on pretending nothing’ the matter.”

“Oh yes?” Ernest said. (As a rule, psychoanalysts loathe being asked to give free advice.)

“Darling,” Boyd said, “I really can’t imagine why Dr. Wright should be remotely interested in our trivial little—”

“Ernest, you’re a shrink. Wouldn’t you agree that there’ sometimes more to the trivial than meets the eye?”

“I suppose,” Ernest said, handing Anne her drink, “though of course, as Freud himself noted, not everything has a hidden meaning.
Sometimes a cigar and all that. Well,
cin-cin.”

“Cheers,” said Nancy.

“This really is a beautiful house,” Boyd said. “Why, do you know this is the first time in my life I’ve been to California?”

“He keeps losing them.”

“Losing what?”

“Sweetheart—”

“His notebooks. That’ why we were late. He left them on the plane, in the seatback pocket. We were halfway here in the car
when suddenly he says, ‘They’re not in my briefcase.’ And then we have to turn around and make a mad dash back to the airport
and run screaming down the concourse to stop the plane before it takes off again.”

“Notebooks?”

“Sorry, I should have explained. He writes in notebooks. His new novel.”

“My lady wife is making a mountain out of a molehill,” Boyd said. “It’ true, in a moment of inattention, I left the notebooks
in the seatback pocket, thinking I’d already put them in my briefcase. But then I realized they were missing, we went back
to the airport, and I retrieved them. The cleaners had taken them off the plane and left them with the gate agent. All this
running screaming down the runway—”

“The concourse.”

“—running screaming down the concourse is my wife’ somewhat hysterical embellishment.”

Tears were suddenly streaming down Anne’ cheeks. “You just don’t understand,” she said. “You don’t realize how this is torturing
me—”

“Excuse me,” Ernest said, “but didn’t you make a spare copy?”

“No, he did not! He refuses, simply refuses, no matter how much I beg him. See, Jonah? I’m not the only one who thinks this
is craziness. Tell him it’ craziness, Ernest.”

“I’m not sure it’ anything so grave as that,” said Ernest, who was evidently becoming interested in spite of himself. “But
I do think it would make sense—that it would be, well, practical—to keep a copy safe somewhere. As a precaution.”

“Whenever we go on a trip, if Ernest’ working on an article or something, he puts a copy in the refrigerator,” Nancy said
brightly, “because there, at least, it should be safe in case of a fire.”

“I suppose it has always been my folly,” Boyd said, “to trust to the protection of the muse.”

Ernest raised his eyebrows, perhaps in response to Boyd’ antiquated way of speaking, which could be charming or off-putting,
depending on your point of view.

“Do you see what I’m up against?” Anne asked. “I mean, here we are talking about this novel for which he’ been paid a lot—I
mean,
a
lot
—of money, and that he claims to care about more than anything in the world, even more than me, he said once. And what does
he do? He ‘trusts to the protection of the muse.’ Only the muse is falling down on the job! This spring, for instance—we were
getting off the train in New York, when he dropped one of the notebooks between the platform and the train, right onto the
tracks.”

“Yes, and the stationmaster climbed down and got it for me, didn’t he?”

“It must be terrifying to think you’ve lost something pre­cious,” Nancy said to no one in particular.

“Dropping something is not the same as . . . I mean, my wife makes it sound like a pattern, which it isn’t. Just those two
incidents, which, when you look at them closely, have nothing whatsoever to do with each other.”

“Let’ ask Ernest if they have anything to do with each other. Ernest?”

“I really couldn’t say,” Ernest said, scratching the back of his neck, “although I will repeat that I think it would probably
be a smart idea to start making copies.”

“And you know what?” Boyd said. “I agree.” He held up his right hand. “How does this sound? I, Jonah Boyd, being of sound
mind and body, vow that from this day forward I shall make copies of my notebooks thrice weekly.” He put his hand down again.
“There, does that make you feel better, darling?”

A quiet fell. Anne nursed her drink.

“Well, isn’t it lovely to be witlrold friends for the holiday?” Nancy said.

“Yes indeed,” I said.

“It is lovely to be in the hands of such a charming hostess, and to spend the holiday in such a charming house,” Boyd said.

“Oh, Jonah!” Nancy said, blushing with pleasure and a susceptibility to Boyd’ rather idiotic pleasantries that I must admit
made me think less of her.

As for Anne, she was turning her glass round and round in her hand, staring into the ice. Even from across the room I could
see the smudge marks where she had pawed it.

A silence now ensued that was like the ash end of a cigarette—mesmerizing in its gradual attenuation, coming each second closer
to collapse, until Nancy did the conversational equivalent of rushing in with an ashtray. “Well, I’m afraid that I, for one,
need to be getting back to the kitchen,” she said, and jumped up. “You’ll excuse me, won’t you?”

“I’ll help,” I said, rising to follow her.

“Me too,” Anne said.

We all strode into the kitchen, where we found Glenn Turner sitting at the tulip table with Daphne and Ben. They were watching
Bonanza.
Nancy introduced Glenn to Anne. “At Thanksgiving, I always invite some of Ernest’ grad students,” she explained, “the ones
who can’t afford to fly home. I call them my ‘trays.’”

“You look like a miniature version of Ernest in that bow tie,” Anne said to Glenn, reeling a bit from her drink. “Oh, can
I do the gravy? I love doing the gravy.”

Nancy gazed at me—a little helplessly, if truth be told.

“Well, Denny, isn’t that nice of Anne?” she said. “She’ offered to do the gravy.”

“Lovely,” I said.

From inside the oven, a ping sounded. The turkey had popped.

Six

A
NNE’ GRAVY WAS lumpy. I say this out of neither jealousy nor anger, but rather because I am determined to report these events
truthfully, and not veer from the perspective of what I witnessed—what I knew at the time. Anne’ gravy was lumpy, yet Nancy
made a big fuss over it, saying that it was the best gravy she’d had in years, and asking what was her secret. All the while
I sat in my usual place, two seats down from Nancy on the left, between Glenn and Phil Perry, who had arrived, as if by instinct,
just as Ernest was cutting the first slice from the turkey breast. (Phil Perry was to me something of a nonentity in those
years, which in retrospect I find frightening. That year the girl with the bangs was absent.)

I made no mention of it. I was very good. I even took a ladleful of the gravy myself, letting it dribble over my mashed potatoes,
and pushing the little coagulated flour pellets to the side. Too much salt, too. All told, it was appalling gravy. It would
have been a kindness if Nancy had said something to me to that effect, even just a few words in private, but she didn’t.

At dinner, the conversation focused once again on Jonah Boyd’ novel. It seemed that Ernest had filled Glenn in on what had
happened, and now Glenn, too, was curious to learn more about these mysterious notebooks that Boyd had earlier mislaid—although,
as Boyd now informed us, “notebook” wasn’t really the right term. “The Italian word is
quaderna,”
he explained. “They’re actually blank books, of the most fantastic quality, bound in leather. I’ll show you.” And he leapt
out of his chair, returning a few seconds later with an exemplar, which he passed around. “I first found these maybe six years
ago, in Verona. It was my Guggenheim year, and I was on my way back to France from Venice, when I happened upon this amazing
little shop in the medieval quarter. Leather and paper goods. The owner was a very aristocratic lady, very beautiful and ancient,
and wearing a pair of snow-white gloves. She showed these to me, and I really thought they were the most beautiful things
I’d ever seen. Works of art in themselves. So I bought up the stock—there were half a dozen—and ever since then I’ve had a
standing order. Now I find I can’t write in anything else.”

“Excuse me,” Glenn said, “but do you mean that literally—that you
cant
write in anything else—or that you
prefer
not to?”

“To tell the truth, I’m not absolutely sure. So far, thank heavens, I haven’t found myself in a situation where I’ve had to
do without.”

“But what if the stock ran out? Or the notebooks stopped being manufactured?” Ernest asked.

“I pray that shall never happen. But if it does, I suppose I shall have to make do with plain old legal pads, as in the old
days.”

“It’ worse than he says,” Anne said. “Now he can only write with one pen. This very particular, very expensive Waterman fountain
pen. He’ lost that, too, and had to replace it.”

“Aren’t the ways of writers fascinating?” asked Glenn, and handed me the notebook, which I inspected. The paper was gold-edged;
the soft, cappuccino-colored leather gave off a scent of cloves. I passed it to Phil, who passed it to Ben, who opened it.

“Ben!” Nancy said. “Shut that at once! Mr. Boyd didn’t give you permission to read his novel.”

“Oh, but I don’t mind,” Boyd said. “He’ welcome to read it. I love to share work-in-progress. Actually, I was thinking that
if you were all amenable, perhaps after dinner I could read some of it aloud.”

“Well, that would be wonderful,” Nancy said—her voice a little hesitant, though, as if she were debating the social suitability
of the proposition. “Only please don’t feel that you have to.”

“So long as you speak up if you get bored. It’ important for writers to know when they’ve ceased to provide pleasure to an
audience.”

“What is your novel about?” asked Daphne.

“A good question, young lady, though difficult to answer. I suppose,” he said after a moment, “that it’ about the conflict
between the Apollonian desire to touch the sun and the forces that seek to suppress it, to push us earthwards—”

“It’ about balloons,” said Ben, who was reading.

Anne laughed. I craned to get a look at the pages in the notebook: creamy in tone, the blue prose unfurling like ribbon, with
hardly a blot or crossing out to be seen.

“Now Ben, you’ve held onto that for long enough. Pass it to your sister,” Nancy said. “Besides, it’ rude to read at the dinner
table.”

“He’ right, though, it
is
about balloons,” Anne said in a slur. “About a balloon crash, actually, that happened outside of Paris in the late nineteenth
century.”

“How fascinating.” (Was Nancy relieved to learn that there was no way her sheets might enter into such a novel?) “I can promise
you, Mr. Boyd—Jonah—we’ll be the first to buy it. I’m an avid reader myself—mostly biographies. I love history. And Ben, my
youngest, is a poet. He’ very talented. He won a prize last year.”

“A poet!” said Boyd. “How wonderful.”

“Can I read one of my poems?” Ben asked.

“Oh, now, Ben,” Nancy said, laughing.

“What’ so funny? If he gets to read part of his book, I don’t see why I shouldn’t get to read one of my poems.”

“But Mr. Boyd is a professional writer. I’m sorry,” Nancy added to Boyd. “Sometimes Ben can be a little—”

“It’ no skin off my back,” Boyd said mildly. “If he wants to read, let him.”

“Yes, why not?” Anne agreed. “After all, youth should have its say.”

Ben—who had just handed the notebook, somewhat reluctantly, to his sister—looked imploringly at Nancy, who looked at Ernest,
who was looking, rather unhelpfully, at the kitchen door.

Only later would I realize what a difficult moment this was for Nancy. The dilemma was this: Should she allow her child to
read aloud his adolescent and sometimes asinine poetry, if by doing so he might bring embarrassment, even opprobrium, upon
her? On the one hand, she didn’t want to discourage him. On the other—and despite her newfound penchant for making scenes
at the faculty club—she was at heart a woman who believed in subscribing to the public forms; otherwise invisible arbiters
might make derogatory notations in immense volumes from which nothing could be erased. And just as earlier she had feared
Jonah Boyd mocking her sheets, now she must have envisioned him incorporating into one of his novels some humiliating sequence
in which a boy read bad poetry while his lamebrain mother smiled on.

It was all too much for her, and she answered, I am sorry to say, with a muddle. “Oh, Mr. Boyd—Jonah—that’ so kind of you,”
she said. “But Ben’ poetry . . . well, of course his father and I think it’ very good . . . Still, I’m sure he wouldn’t want
to impose—”

“Yes I would,” Ben said.

Anne laughed, sputtering a little wine.

“I assure you, Nancy, it would be no imposition at all,” Boyd said. “Poetry comes as such a relief when you’re mired in prose.
Besides, there can be something so—refreshing—about a young voice.”

Nancy looked doubtfully toward Ernest. “Well?”

“I don’t see what harm it would do.”

She smiled tightly. “All right, in that case, I guess there’ no problem, is there? Thank you, Jonah. Ben, say ‘thank you’
to Mr. Boyd.”

“Thank you. Can I go now and decide which poems to read?”

“But we haven’t had dessert. And you said ‘poem,’ not ‘poems.’”

“I don’t want dessert.”

“Just wait until after dessert. Denny?”

Nancy got up and went into the kitchen. I followed.

“Oh, I just don’t know about this,” she said as she arranged the pumpkin pie on its plate. “I mean, do you think his poetry’
any good? I hope Boyd’ not expecting some little genius. It’ not that I’m not supportive of Ben, it’ just—well, you don’t
follow up a dinner of beef Wellington with Twinkies, do you?”

“I wouldn’t worry. It’ just a casual thing. And who knows? Maybe Boyd will think Ben
is
a genius, and take him under his wing, and the next thing we know, he’ll be the toast of New York.”

“Dear Denny, so young and so idealistic,” Nancy said, plunging a spoon into a gallon of vanilla ice cream. That shut me up.

The desserts were now ready—in addition to pumpkin pie, banana cream pie, apple pie, and a chocolate pecan pie that Daphne
had made. We returned to the dining room, bearing trays piled high with plates as well as the tub of ice cream. Nancy sliced.
I scooped.

No one talked much, except to compliment the pies.

“Can I go now?” Ben asked after a few minutes.

“May
I go now,” Nancy corrected. “And yes, you can.”

He dashed from the table.

“Well, who’ for coffee?” Various hands shot up. Nancy hustled off to make the coffee—Boyd said he would help her—and the rest
of us retreated to the study, where Phil went to work arranging chairs, and Ernest set up a makeshift lectern, using a plant
stand and a dictionary holder. I sat on the sofa, next to Daphne and Glenn. Anne, holding a fresh glass of wine, had claimed
a spot next to Ben, who was sitting on a sort of daybed pushed up against the bookshelves, going through his sheaf of poems.
“How you’ve grown!” she said, tousling his hair. “Remember when you were just a little tyke? I used to give you back rubs.”

He didn’t answer.

“You used to squirm around and say it tickled, but then you’d relax into it,” Anne said, her fingers moving to his shoulders.

“Stop, I’m trying to concentrate.”

She laughed. As the evening wore on, her laugh had grown harsher, with an almost granular edge. And now Nancy came in, apronless,
and bearing a tray with cups, saucers, and spoons piled on it, followed by Boyd with his four notebooks, the coffee pot, the
cream, and the sugar: an accident waiting to happen that, fortunately, didn’t. Nancy poured and handed out cups. “Might I
just squeeze in?” she asked when she was done, insinuating herself into the narrow space that separated Anne from Ben.

“Be my guest,” Anne said. “By the way, Nancy, I love those sheets.”

“Oh, thanks.”

Daphne rolled her eyes.

“Well, shall we begin?” Ernest ejected Little Hans from the leather rocker and claimed it for himself. “Who goes first?”

“Oh, you, of course, Jonah,” Nancy said.

“I don’t know, I think my wife is right, we should let youth have its say.”

“Or perhaps it should be age before beauty,” Anne said, this time laughing so loudly that her laugh turned into a coughing
fit.

Giving her a look that might not have been affectionate, Boyd stepped to the lectern, and opened one of his notebooks. “I
think I’ll simplify matters by reading from the first chapter. That way I won’t have to go through all the rigmarole of explaining
who everyone is and what’ already happened and so on.” He cleared his throat. “By the way, the novel is called
Gonesse.
As our young poet so astutely noted, it is about ballooning. I got the idea from some wallpaper I saw in Paris once—a ballooning
toile de Jouy.”
He gazed hard at the notebook. “Oh, and the hero—Agostinelli—was a real person. He was Proust’ chauffeur, and probably his
lover.”

“Interesting,” Nancy said.

“All right, Chapter One.” Again, Boyd cleared his throat. And then, in that soothing if slightly cracked baritone, he read:

“To make love in a balloon . . .”

For all sorts of reasons that will later become obvious, I wish today that I could remember more about that reading. Many
years have passed, though, and all that remains with me—aside from a general recollection of the story—is that line.
To
make love in a balloon .
. . Already it was clear to me that Boyd, for all his foppishness, was a man who knew how to give pleasure to a woman. Anne
had said as much in her letters, and I had seen it for myself, in the ease with which, when Nancy had reached to shake his
hand, he had swept her into an embrace. And now here he stood, in the study, a room that had heretofore, for me, held not
the slightest erotic connotations, reading aloud a description of his hero, Agos­tinelli, making love to a French noblewoman
in the basket of a balloon five hundred feet above Paris: a splendid and literally panoramic set piece, in which the complex
undoing of hasps and petticoats, the arranging of limbs within a confining and in no sense stable space, and the gymnastic
difficulties involved in simultaneously keeping the balloon aloft and the woman in ecstasy, are juxtaposed with what seemed
to me at the time to be fabulous descriptions of Paris as seen from the air, its waterways and churches, its towers and gargoyles
and green patches of park swirling as the balloon gyrates in cold gusts of wind. As he read, Nancy blushed, while over Ernest’
face there stole a flush of amusement that intensified whenever our eyes met. I don’t think anyone had expected anything like
this from Jonah Boyd, and later, I wondered if he had chosen to read that particular scene in order to shock us.
To make
love in a balloon
. . . He read for a long time, for what seemed like hours. I didn’t get bored. I don’t think anyone got bored. Nancy’ face
was responsive and alert. Ben, too, appeared rapt, as well as oblivious to Anne’ fingers, which were now stroking his neck.
And then the balloon landed, and the noblewoman, rearranging her layered motley of undergarments, stepped out of the basket
and into a waiting
caleche,
and Agostinelli, rather dispiritedly, went off to meet Proust.

Boyd closed the notebook. We applauded. “Oh, that was wonderful, thank you,” Nancy said. “You made it all seem so . . . real.”

“He did a lot of research,” Anne said with more than a touch of pride. “During his Guggenheim year. That was just before we
met.”

“I hope it doesn’t seem—I don’t know—too historical novel-ly. You know, with that arid, over-researched, museumish kind of
air.”

“Not at all, not at all,” said Ernest. “In fact, if it hadn’t been for the sex, and the language, and the present tense, and
I hadn’t known it was yours, I probably would have assumed that this was written at the same time that it took place.”