The Paper Dragon (41 page)

Talented, yes, the very talented Jonah Willow who defended a pair of Communist adolescents trying to change the world by blowing up Gracie Mansion, and then found himself defending similar unpopular clients and causes in the years that followed. Talented, yes, and bright enough to recognize the public need for a champion, clever enough to set out to fill that need. A man loses his innocence once and for all time when he makes a calculation he knows is even slightly dishonest, makes it (he will tell himself) for the sake of Survival, or Ambition, or Health or Sanity, or for the sake of Honesty to Oneself (the most dishonest reason) but makes it coldly and shrewdly and with malice aforethought. Jonah was bright enough and clever enough to recognize that he had successfully defended two rather unsavory individuals (because their Rights Were Being Violated, he told himself, and perhaps was being Honest to Himself) and that his less than brilliant courtroom display had put his name before the public eye, where he intended to keep it. It was no accident that the firm of Gauthier and Willow defended in the next several years a succession of individuals accused of murder, rape, pornography, spying, draft evasion, government manipulation of contracts, obscenity, and other such exotic and lofty activities executed by believers, fanatics, followers and fools of every persuasion.

But if a man loses his innocence only once, a woman surely loses it twice, and neither time has anything to do with her defloration. Christie lost her innocence for the first time when she realized her father wasn't God, and she lost it for the second time when she realized Jonah wasn't God, either. She realized this in the early years of her marriage and was not bright enough to find any solace in historical precedent. She only knew that she had married someone who pretended to be what he was not. What she expected Jonah to be was never clearly defined to him, although she repeatedly told him he was a fraud and a fake, even
before
the succession of unpopular wrongdoers began parading to his office door. He quite naturally regarded this condemnation as unfair and a trifle hostile, even though he suspected it had nothing to do with professional ethics or personal ambitions, but only with Christie's image of him as a man, an image he was somehow destroying. He once asked her, "
Why
am I a fake and a fraud?" and she answered, "Because you
are
," which was considerably enlightening and which helped to ease tensions between them that week, especially since she was in her sixth month of pregnancy by that time, and had begun denying him connubial rights in her fourth month. "You're insensitive," she told him. "You don't know what a woman feels."

Amy came on the seventh of May, 1954, and the birth was every bit as painful and as horrible as Christie knew it would be, an ordeal for which she never fully forgave Jonah. She made it clear the day she came home from the hospital that this was to be their one and only venture into parenthood, and that if he so much as looked at her before she was properly prepared for "having sex," she would strangle him without remorse. Her preparations for "having sex," as she invariably referred to it ("Do you want to have sex?" she would ask, not without a wicked glint in her eye) assumed ritual proportions in the months that followed. She would spend what seemed like hours in the bathroom before coming to him. Once he fell asleep waiting for her, and once he sent her a memo on a Tuesday, actually mailed it from his office to the house, reading: "Thursday night! Get ready!" But despite these rigorous preparations, they "had sex" often and with apparent satisfaction, and the only time he ever thought of getting himself another woman was in the year just before the divorce, by which time things had become really impossible.

Christie was a beautiful woman, and most beautiful women can say or do anything they wish, as long as they perform with a certain amount of style. She possessed style in abundance, from the tips of her Bendel shoes to the top of her Victor Vito coiffure. Her eyes snapped with whiplash certainty whenever she delivered another of her absurd banalities. She would stand with hands on narrow hips, flatchested but sinuous and sexy as hell, splendid legs widespread as though she were trying to maintain balance on the deck of a lurching yawl, head tossed back, tiny beauty spot penciled near her lips, a spirited laugh (her mother's) erupting after each of her own half-witticisms. "Craparoo," of course, was her identifying theme, and was repeated with the regularity of the NBC chimes. But she knew other devastatingly funny catch phrases, too, and she used them with similar frequency, to the amusement of all their new friends.

Nor was her comic virtuosity limited to verbal thrusts alone. She began drinking too much, and told Jonah to go to hell whenever he brought this failing to her attention. He once found her in the bedroom with a young actor whose nose he punched, her skirt up over her knees, oblivious to what the son of a bitch was attempting. (On the night he decided to end it, she kept sipping a glass of sherry which she finally left on the dresser, and which the next morning had its surface covered with a scum of floating dead fruit flies.) Figuratively, Christie rode her mother's horse into every living room, theater, restaurant, concert hall, and night club in New York — and because she had a good seat and remarkable hands, everyone applauded her performance. Except Jonah. Jonah wondered what had happened to the little girl who used to pick her delicate way through the forsythia bushes.

Maybe she grew up too soon, or maybe she never grew up at all, or maybe they both grew up simultaneously but in opposite directions. This too shall pass, she assured him, but of course it did not. By the tenth year, of their marriage he was ready to agree with her that it was all craparoo. The odd thing about it, he thought now as he struggled with his pajama top, his wrist throbbing, the odd thing about it was that he had loved her all that time, and probably had still loved her when they decided there was no use going any further with it. He could remember watching her undress one night, here in this bedroom, taking her time with her underthings, and then floating a nylon gown down over her slender body while he watched from the bed, delighting in her presence, could remember the sidelong glance she gave him as she turned out the light, could remember his intense excitement, and her cold "Put that away, buster. We're calling it quits, remember?" Yes, he could remember.

And remembering, could not understand. Or perhaps understood it all.

He pulled back the covers and climbed into bed.

On impulse, he reached for the telephone, lifting the receiver, and began dialing Christie's number. No, he thought, and hung up. He sat staring at the phone for a moment. Then he lifted the receiver, waited for a dial tone, and called Sally Kirsch.

Her phone rang six times before it was answered. Sally's voice, edged with sleep, started to say "Hello," but the receiver must have slipped from her grasp. He heard a clatter as it tumbled onto a hard surface, and then heard her mutter, "Oh, god
damn
," and then heard her recovering the receiver, and then her voice again, hardly more awake this time, "Hello?"

"Sally?"

"Who's this?" she said flatly, and suspiciously, and somewhat angrily.

"Jonah."

"Who?"

"Jonah." He paused. "Willow."

"Oh." *

There was a silence.

"What time is it?" she asked, and yawned.

"Two o'clock, something like that."

"Mmm?"

"Were you asleep?" he asked.

"Mmm."

"Are you awake now?"

"Mmm."

"Would you like to have lunch with me tomorrow?"

"
What
time did you say it was?"

"Two o'clock."

"In the
morning
, do you mean?"

"That's right."

"Mmm," Sally said, and again was silent.

"How's your lip?" he said.

"Haven't you got court tomorrow?"

"Yes, I have."

"Don't you think you ought to go to bed or something?"

"I
am
in bed."

"To sleep, I mean."

"I wanted to ask you to lunch first."

"It's two o'clock in the morning," she said.

"I know.
Will
you have lunch with me?"

"Yes, I'll have lunch with you."

"Good. How about dinner?"

"When?"

"Tomorrow night."

"Tomorrow night," she repeated.

"Yes."

"What is all this, Jonah?"

"I want to have lunch with you tomorrow and dinner with you tomorrow night."

"All of a sudden."

"Yes. All of a sudden."

"All right," she said, and he was sure she shrugged.

"Can you meet me at Gasner's?"

"What time?"

"Twelve, twelve-thirty, give me a chance to get from the courthouse."

"Listen…" Sally said.

"Yes?"

"Aren't you married or something?"

"No."

"Somebody told me you were married."

"Who told you that?"

"A friend of mine. The night we met. At that party."

"Said I was married?"

"Yes."

"No, I
used
to be married," Jonah said. "That was a long time ago."

"How long ago?"

"Why?"

"Because I don't kid around," Sally said.

"I was divorced in 1962."

They were silent.

"You mean you thought I was married when you went up to Vassar with me?" Jonah asked.

"Yes."

"Do you usually go out with married men?"

"No. Well, once before I did."

They were silent again.

"Well," he said.

"Well," she said.

"They turn off the heat in this building at eleven o'clock," he said.

"Here, too."

"It's like an icebox."

"Yes, here too."

"Well," he said.

"Well," she said.

"Well, I'll see you tomorrow."

"I'm looking forward to it," she said.

"Good night," he said.

"Good night," she said.

Chickie did not come into the apartment until two-thirty a.m., using the key he had given her. He was asleep in an armchair near the bookcase, and he was startled into wakefulness by the sound of the key being turned in the lock, the tumblers falling. He opened his eyes and looked toward the door just as it opened. Chickie stood there for a moment, silhouetted by the light burning in the hallway. With one hand on the doorknob for support, she lifted first one foot and then the other to remove her shoes. Holding the shoes in one hand, she closed the door behind her and tiptoed into the room.

"Hello, Chickie," he said.

"Ooooo," she answered, "you scared me."

"Put on a light."

"I thought you were asleep."

"I was."

"Did I wake you?"

"Yes."

"You poor dear man."

"I thought you'd be here before midnight."

"What?"

"You said you'd be here before midnight."

"Oh, yes, I know, but we got all hung up. I'm terribly sorry, Sidney."

"I've got to get some sleep, you know," Sidney said. "Driscoll goes on the stand tomorrow morning."

"I know. Sidney, do you have any milk in the fridge? I'm dying for a glass of milk?"

"I think so. What's today?"

"Wednesday."

"I think they deliver on Wednesday."

"Don't go away, you dear man," she said, and she padded out of the room and into the kitchen.

"What time did you leave the office?" he called.

"What, dear?"

"What time did you leave the office?"

"Oh, I don't know. It must have been six or six-thirty. Why?"

"I just wondered."

Chickie appeared in the doorway to the kitchen, holding a glass of milk in one hand and a cookie in the other. She took a bite of the cookie and then drained half the glass of milk. "Mmmm," she said, "that's good. Would you like some milk?"

"No, thanks. Where'd you go from the office?"

"We went out to eat."

"Where?"

"Oh my, listen to the lawyer," Chickie said. "How's the trial going?"

"Pretty well, I think. Where'd you eat?"

"Pavilion, where else?"

"Come on, Chickie."

"Lutece."

"Chickie…"

"The Four Seasons."

"I'm trying…"

"The Forum."

"I want to know where you and Ruth went."

"We went to eat at a restaurant on Madison, a few blocks from the office. I don't even know the name of it. It's a tiny little dump."

"And then where did you go?"

"Up to Ruth's, where we worked on the trip."

"What trip?"

"The trip I was telling you about."

"The one you said might materialize?"

"That's right. Only now it looks as if it might very
well
materialize. How's the trial going, Sidney?"

"I told you. Pretty well."

"Does that mean you'll win?"

"I don't know."

"Well, you must have some indication, Sidney."

"I think it's going our way. They put on a witness today who was a real
shmuck
, he did them a lot of harm."

"Who was that?"

"Ralph Knowles."

"I never heard of him."

"He's a movie director."

"What did he direct?"

"What difference does it make?"

"I'm only trying to understand what happened, Sidney. Do you mind if I take off my dress?"

"I've got to get some sleep," Sidney said.

"Are you afraid I won't let you sleep?" Chickie asked, and smiled.

"No, but…"

"I'm very tired myself, darling," she said. "Unzip me, will you?" She walked to where he was sitting, and then turned her back to him. He lowered the zipper. "Thank you," she said, and walked away from him into the bedroom. "It's very smoky in here," she said. "Were you smoking in here, Sidney?"

"What?"

"In the bedroom here."

"Yes, I had a cigar when I got home."

"What time did you get home?"

"About eight," he said. He paused. "I got a lift." He paused again. "In a Cadillac." He could hear her rustling around in the bedroom.

"I'm just exhausted," she said.

"Those Cadillacs are very nice."