Mr. Apology Page 3

  “A question, Mr. Berger,” she said. “Why do we have these paintings anyhow? If you can’t stand them, and nobody seems to want to buy them, why do we have them in the gallery at all?”

  “A good question, Madeleine,” he said. He stood up, surveyed the surface of his desk, took a nail file from the middle drawer, held it poised over his left hand. “In horse-racing, in any kind of gambling, you experience this strange and mysterious thing called instinct. An intuition that tells you what’s going to win. So what do you do? You put your money on the nose, don’t you? And, for my sins, my instincts told me that Tahiko was about to become fashionable. In this instance, those small secret voices at the back of my head were terrible liars. I placed my wager on quite the wrong horse.”

  “Then we should get rid of them,” she said.

  Just like that, he thought. Direct and to the point. He smiled at her in an avuncular way. “I wish to God we could, my dear. However, the ink probably hasn’t dried on the contract yet. And the world is filled with those carnivorous creatures called lawyers, who simply love to instigate lawsuits. Does that explain it?”

  “I guess.” She looked at him a moment. “How long are we contracted for?”

  “Another three weeks—”

  “You could go bankrupt in three weeks.”

  He came around the front of his desk and patted the back of her hand. “I think we can hold on a little longer,” he said. Thanks to Angela. Courtesy of my dear wife. Courtesy of the woman who sees the Bryant Berger Gallery as something of a tax scam. He didn’t want to think about Angela now, even if it were only a case of delaying the inevitable. He would have to call her sooner or later. There were excuses to be made.

  “What are our plans after we’ve gotten rid of Tahiko?” she asked.

  “I don’t have anything definite in mind yet,” he answered. “I’m still fishing, as they say.” Still fishing still trudging around those strange stuffy little lofts in the Village and SoHo and Tribeca, still looking at things concocted out of the bones of old birds and pieces of iron and plastic, at canvases which seemed to have been drooled over rather than painted. Still hoping. He drew the nail file across the fingertips of his left hand. The girl, standing in the office doorway, was gazing out thoughtfully at the gallery. She had an expression which he thought of as contemplative, almost as if something had just occurred to her. But she didn’t say anything. He moved out of the office and into the gallery, where he walked to the window; he stared out to 57th Street. A strident nagging voice inside his mind was harping at him: Call Angela, call your wife, you must get in touch with her. On a morning like this one, he thought, it was difficult to avoid facing the fact that you were nothing more than a middle-aged queer called Bryant Berger who operated—at considerable loss—a gallery in the center of Manhattan. A man hopelessly devoted to a certain school of painting, a man trying to stay afloat on those treacherous windblown tides of changing fashions in art. A man in search of a winner. He glanced around at the rainbows, conscious of the girl watching him from across the gallery. She had her arms folded. That look—one would call it purposeful.

  “What’s on your mind, Madeleine?” he asked.

  “Oh, nothing.”

  “Then I wouldn’t like to see your expression when you did have something going on inside that head of yours.”

  She laughed and vanished inside the office. After a moment he could hear her flicking through the pages of a ledger. Was she checking, perhaps, to remind herself of the time—the joyous day—when the Bryant Berger Gallery actually sold a painting? Three weeks ago, he remembered. Before Tahiko. Back then he’d had some rather pleasant pastels done by a young Israeli artist whose name escaped him now. He wished he still had them. He moved slowly towards the office. He remembered that tonight there was some opening he was supposed to attend.

  “Where am I invited to tonight, Madeleine?” he asked.

  “Hirschl and Adler,” she replied. “Figurative paintings done by Fairfield Porter.”

  “Ah, yes.” He sat down behind his desk. He continued to file his nails. Little parings of nail clung to the metal—it was like seeing flakes of yourself as you fell apart, particle by particle. He put the file down. Too depressing. Then he looked at the telephone. Call Angela, tell her something. Anything. Felt a little queasy, my dear. Stayed at my club last night. Would she still buy that old melancholy tune? Got my finger stuck in a rainpipe and it took firemen five hours to cut me free.

  He gazed at Madeleine a moment, as if he might find an answer to his dilemma in her face. But then she wasn’t the type who would lie unless perhaps it were a matter of life and death. She just didn’t have the face for it. He watched her as she went out to the gallery where the bell above the door had just rung and two people had come in. Definitely hicks, obviously good folks from Polyesterland. They had the stamp of Kansas or Oklahoma on them. Still, they might be looking for rainbows, God knows. He listened as Madeleine greeted them cheerfully. Then he put out his hand to pick up the telephone. Hesitation: He couldn’t think.

  You say the guy that did these is a Jap?

  I understand he lives in Brooklyn now.

  Brooklyn, huh? What do you think of them, Madge?

  Berger moaned to himself, then he punched a number into the telephone. After a moment he heard Angela’s voice—hoarse, distant, emerging from the deep dreamless sleep of Placidyl or whatever her current balm might be. She scares me, he thought. Why does she frighten me? Because she could just snap her fingers and take your gallery away from you, Bryant. She could pull the rug from under your feet, deprive you of your plaything.

  “Angela,” he said.

  She didn’t answer.

  “Angela?”

  “I’m still here, Bryant. Where are you?” A chill in the larynx. Chips of ice rolling off her tongue.

  “About last night, my dear,” he said.

  “Of course, last night, when you were conspicuously absent.”

  “I had one of those business meetings. Dreadful affair. With an artist and his agent. You know how those things can just drag on and on.…”

  “And you missed your train, didn’t you?”

  “I had to stay at my club.” An old chestnut. But what if she’d checked? What if she’d called his club? He shut his eyes, wondering what new fabrications might lie ahead of him then.

  “It happens too damn often,” she said. Arctic now. He tried to imagine her sitting up in bed, face puffy from pills, cluster of bags beneath the eyes, sagging neck. “I’m left on my own too many times, Bryant.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “You’re always sorry.”

  Pause. Silence. He wondered if she believed him. Over his head he pictured the looped shadow of some imaginary noose. A scaffold of his own making. He rubbed his eyelids.

  How old is this Jap guy?

  He’s quite young. About thirty.

  I don’t know.… What do you think, Madge?

  “I trust you’ll make your train tonight, Bryant. I hope you’ll be on time. We’re having the Feldmans.”

  Dear God, the Feldmans, the accountant and his chintzy little wife and the entire conversation circling such arcane subjects as tax shelters and municipal bonds. “I’ll be there, Angela.”

  “Which would indeed be a pleasant change, my dear.”

  After he’d hung up he sat back in his chair and looked through the open door to the gallery where Madeleine was showing the hicks out. He rose and, with a sense of some small relief, went inside the gallery.

  “They liked the rainbows,” Madeleine said and smiled. “They weren’t happy about having some ‘goddarn’ Jap painting in their house, though.”

  “They didn’t buy one, of course.”

  She shook her head. “But they said they’d be back. They had some other things to look at first. They come from Nebraska.”

  Berger looked out into the street. “Whenever anybody tells me they’ll be back, they invariably never return. I suspect som
e black hole out there into which potential buyers simply vanish. Besides, can you honestly see one of those paintings adorning the wood panels of a den in some farmhouse out there in the heartland, my dear?”

  Madeleine smiled again. “I’ve heard of stranger things.”

  Such as? he wondered. He glanced at her. He understood how little he knew about the girl’s personal life. Was there a lover somewhere? He guessed so: Otherwise, how would one explain the kind of cheerful aura she always seemed to emit? Nobody was that happy-looking if they were lonely. He turned his face once more to the street, hands clasped behind his back. Then he realized someone was watching him through the window—

  Dear Christ.

  Why did he choose to come here, right to the gallery?

  Why? It was embarrassing.

  He stared at George’s face, the close-cropped red hair, the big grin that suggested all manner of mischief, the yellow windbreaker with the collar turned up under the chin. Was it obvious George was gay? Could somebody look at him and just know?

  Berger felt a flush of blood at the back of his neck. He cleared his throat, turned to Madeleine, and said: “I have to go out for a while, my dear. You can handle things here, of course.”

  “Of course,” she said.

  He moved quickly towards the door and stepped out into the street, thinking of another door he might have to open one day very soon—the door of that strangling claustrophobic space called a closet.

  The thought distressed him.

  3.

  Billy Chapman stared into the window of a store plastered with signs that said FIRE SALE. Handheld calculators and watches that played “Dixie” and video games and miniature cameras no bigger than cigarette lighters. He could see a customer inside, a guy examining an electronic chess game under a fluorescent light strip. He ran a hand through his thick black hair and looked along the sidewalk—but he didn’t really see the Times Square lunchtime crowds just shuffling along; he didn’t see the dopers looking glazed or the pimps scrutinizing their territory like they were lords of everything they surveyed. He turned his face upwards—a couple of gulls flapped towards the clouds. She’s gotta be home, he thought. She’s gotta be home about now. He sniffed a few times, found a crumpled Kleenex inside his jacket, blew his nose. Somebody inside the store, a guy with a salesman’s name-tag, was giving him the old fisheye. What the fuck you looking at, jack? You wanna step out here and say something like get your ass outta my doorway? Go ahead, try it, baby!

  Billy stuffed the wet tissue back inside his pocket but he was still sniffing. Cocaine burn. Like they cut the shit with Ajax these days. The salesman turned away and Billy Chapman moved along the sidewalk. The air was filled with the sudden smell of pizza—but he didn’t want to think about food right now. He couldn’t handle the idea.

  He turned out of the Square, his eyes watering. He rubbed them with the sleeve of his jacket. Things in front of him—people and traffic and storefronts—every damn thing just seemed to shimmer, like the world was dissolving in front of him. They had a name for this, he thought. They called this being strung-out. Being burned-out. It was like all your nerves were dancing at one time and your body wasn’t working properly and you couldn’t think of a goddamn thing except how the fuck to score.

  He stopped on a street corner and looked at the tenement building across the way. Yeah, she was sure to be home now. When he’d called earlier nobody had answered the door. Maybe she’d stayed out all night long, casually screwing somebody, somebody she’d let pick her up and take home—like she was some kinda goddamn takeout order from a deli. He turned up the collar of his jacket and started to move across the street. He thought: People are looking at me. People are kinda looking at me sideways. Maybe because my eyes are watering.

  Holy shit, nobody’s looking, Billy.

  What the hell would they see anyhow?

  Just this guy with long black hair and a pale face and a thin moustache, a guy in an old sportscoat and jeans and scuffed brown leather boots worn outside the pants. Nothing. Just a guy crossing a street.

  He went inside the building. It was dark in the lobby. He stepped towards the stairs. He missed his mark as he climbed, stumbling a little, knocking an elbow against the hard edge of a step. Sweet suffering Jesus. You get to the second floor, then the third, then the fourth—and that’s where she lives. Floor number four. A radio was playing. He could hear the voice of that chick who sang up-front for Fleetwood Mac—what the hell was her name? He reached the fourth floor, paused, looked the length of the hall like he was afraid somebody might see him. He leaned against the wall because he felt weirdly weak. Strength just running out of him. Face it, Billy baby, whyn’t you face it? This cunt ain’t gonna give you jack shit.

  He moved towards the door of her apartment. He rapped lightly a couple of times. She comes to the peephole, she sees me, she ain’t gonna open the door. Sure she will. Sure she’ll open the door for her own fucking flesh and blood. Waiting, he felt lightheaded, like part of his brain had turned into a bird and was flapping against the bone of the skull. Come on, come on, sister.

  He heard a movement from inside the apartment, then the sound of a chain being drawn and the door slipped open. She was standing there in nothing but a slip, a pink slip; she was wearing stockings that were baggy at the knees. What does she look like, Billy? A slut, a goddamn slut. The way she holds her cigarette, like some hardassed hooker you might see strutting her stuff over on Times Square.

  “Little brother,” she said. “What brings you here?”

  “I gotta talk with you, Camilla.”

  She started to shut the door. He forced his knee against it, holding it open. She stared at him, giving him a mean look, then turned away and he stepped inside the apartment. He followed her through the small living room and into the kitchen, where she picked up a knife and began to slice at some vegetables. A dump, he thought. She lives in a fucking dump.

  “Only time you come here, little brother, is when you need bread. Well, let me say this straight off, man, I ain’t got any. Dig? I am flat broke.” Chop chop chop—a green pepper was sliced into strips. He stared at her fingers. They were long and pale. Something about the way she held the knife in those fingers made him remember … but the goddamn memory was slippery and elusive and he couldn’t pin it down. He looked past her at the kitchen window—why did it seem so bright outside? Why did there have to be all this light? It pained his eyes.

  “Billy, what are you doing to yourself? Look at your condition, man. You are capital w wasted. You are a sad guy.”

  “Hey, I didn’t come here to talk about how I appear, Camilla. You ain’t precisely what I’d call a Rembrandt yourself.”

  “I had a long night, little brother.”

  “In whose bed?”

  “Man,” she said. She put the knife down. She shook her head from side to side, as if she were disgusted with him. “Something else, Billy. You smell. You smell of real old sweat. Jesus, when did you last shower? When did you last change your clothes?”

  “I don’t know. What difference does it make?”

  “Lemme guess, Billy. Lemme see if I can make a guess about what you been doing lately. Hmmmm.” She put a finger up against her lower lip and looked like she was puzzling over something. “It begins with the letter c. It goes up your nose and into your bloodstream. And wait—I’m getting something else. It costs more than a hundred bills a throw. Right?”

  Billy Chapman didn’t say anything. The window was still too bright; he had to shut his watery eyes. He felt his sister touch him lightly on the shoulder and when he opened his eyes her face was real close to his and there was a look of sadness in her brown eyes. He couldn’t stand the way she stared at him.

  “Billy, listen to me. Listen to your sister. You’re making a fuck-up of everything, you understand me? You’re just throwing your goddamn life away. Okay, so I know I ain’t exactly on the hit parade with my own life—but right now I’m only talking about you. Slow down,
Billy. Take it easy. You’re just a bag of nerves, babe. Come on, Billy. Don’t get so strung-out.”

  He looked into her eyes. Cow eyes. Dark brown and deep. He remembered. Something about the time when they’d been kids together. What was it?

  “I need some money, Camilla,” he said. “That’s what I need. Like a loan.”

  “What do you need it for? So you can stuff it up your nose?”

  “A loan,” he said again.

  “You’re pathetic, babe. Real sad.”

  He knocked her hand away from his shoulder. “Where do you keep your bread, sis? Huh? Where do you keep it?” He slammed around the kitchen, knocking against the table, hauling open drawers and rummaging through them. She was moving behind him, clawing at his shoulders, trying to keep him still.

  “Billy, come on, kid. This ain’t the way to behave. Sit down, sit down at the table, I’ll get you a beer or something.”

  He stopped beside the stove. She had to have money. Tucked away someplace. Hidden. Stuffed inside a canister or stashed under a mattress. Somewhere she had to have some bread. Christ, she got good tips at that restaurant where she worked; she’d said so herself. So what did she do with them? He realized he was trembling, that his eyes were still watering, his nose running. He rubbed the tip of his nose with his sleeve.

  “Can’t you see what you’re doing to yourself, Billy? Huh? Can’t you step back and take a long hard look? Come on, Billy. Sit down at the table—”

  He knocked her hand away. “I got a meeting soon. I need the bread, you understand that? I got a meeting! I got to have the money!”

  What would he do if Sylvester came and he didn’t have the jack? How the fuck could he let Sylvester go and take the merchandise with him? I need the goods, I need Sylvester, I need to make that appointment. He shut his eyes. He leaned against the stove. He realized he was sweating heavily, his shirt sticking to his skin. “Please, Camilla. A loan, that’s all.”