Joan Didion - A Book of Common Prayer

“Lower Pelham,” Warren said. “She was the Maharanee of Lower Pelham.” He dropped the shopping bags on the floor in front of the fireplace. An aerosol can of shaving cream and a balled seersucker suit stuffed with dirty socks rolled out. “Get somebody to wash and iron that, Charlotte, all right? The suit just needs pressing.”

“We don’t have any washers and ironers on the place today.” Charlotte retrieved the aerosol can before it hit the open fire. “Or any pressers.”

“I can see you’re in one of your interesting moods. Tell me what else you can’t do for me today, Charlotte. You think you can give me a drink? Or can’t you.”

Charlotte filled a glass with ice and splashed bourbon into it. Her hands were shaking. The veins on her arms were standing out and she did not want Warren to see them. When she finally spoke her voice was neutral. “Who exactly was on this plane?”

“All friends of yours, I have no doubt. Which reminds me, you look like hell, your veins show.” Warren took the glass and drained it. “This Levant creature, whoever he is.”

“Bashti Levant controls three out of five pop records sold in America.” Leonard seemed amused. “As you know perfectly well.”

“Yeah, well, I had some fun at his expense, I don’t mind telling you. I had a little fun with him and this fat castrato he had along to bray at his jokes. This pasty Palm Beach castrato. ‘P.L.U.,’ he kept saying. ‘People Like Us.’ I let him know what category that was, don’t think I didn’t. Fawning capon. French cuffs. Parasitical eunuch.”

“You didn’t like him,” Leonard said.

“Palm Beach trash hanger-on. I let the women alone.”

“The last Southern gentleman,” Leonard said.

“Not that they deserved it. Two terrible women. Terrible voices, terrible brays. The castrato only brayed when the Levant creature snapped his fingers, but the women brayed all the time. 3,000 miles of braying. Le island. Le weekend. Les monkey-gland injections. Le New York trash.” Warren held out his glass to Charlotte. “I believe one of them was married to the Levant creature. Whoever he is, I have no idea.”

“That surprises me. Since Leonard just told you.”

“That surprises you, does it.” Warren rattled the ice in his glass. “You surprise easier than you used to. I suppose this creature is a client of Leonard’s.”

“As a matter of fact he is.”

“Leonard’s got all the luck. Arabs. Jews. Indians. Bashti Levant.”

“Niggers,” Leonard said. “You forgot niggers.”

“How exactly did this creature come to your attention, Leonard? He rape an Arab? Or is that possible. Actually I believe that’s a solecism. Raping an Arab.”

“You’ve had that Arab in the wings, I can tell by your delivery.” Leonard took Warren’s glass and filled it. “I got involved with Bashti on a dope charge a few years ago. Involving certain of his artists.”

“I don’t believe what I’m hearing. Bashti’s artists.”

“There was a civil-liberties issue.”

“Of course there was.” Warren choked with laughter and slapped his knee. “I knew there was.”

“There was,” Charlotte said.

In the silence that followed she could hear her voice echo, harsh and ugly. She fixed her eyes on the ring Leonard had brought her from wherever he had gone to meet the man who financed the Tupamaros.

The square emerald ring.

The big square emerald from some capital she could not remember.

“Listen to that voice,” Warren said. “Let’s have that tone of voice again.”

Leonard looked at Charlotte and shook his head slightly.

Charlotte picked up a cigarette and lit it.

“No wonder your daughter left home,” Warren said.

The red rose Warren had given Charlotte fell from the table to the floor.

Charlotte said nothing.

“All I hold against your daughter is she didn’t catch Bashti Levant with that pipe bomb. Bashti and certain of his artists. That’s the only bone I want to pick with your daughter. Your daughter and mine.”

“He doesn’t mellow,” Leonard said finally.

“What did you expect, Leonard? You expect I’d hit forty-five and start applauding the family of man?” Warren drained his second drink. “It’s my birthday, Charlotte. You haven’t wished me happy birthday.”

“I’ll tell you something I expected, I expected—” Charlotte broke off. She did not know what she had expected. She concentrated on the emerald.

Bogotá.

Quito.

She had no idea where Leonard had met the man who financed the Tupamaros.

“Today’s not your birthday,” she said finally. “Your birthday was last month.”

“Your husband expected a humanist.”

“Leonard,” Leonard said.

“Pardon?”

“Her husband’s name is Leonard.”

“I stole that rose for you,” Warren said. “Off the flight of the living dead.”

Dwelling on the past leads to unsoundness and dementia , my aunt also advised.

And, Don’t cry over curdled milk, Grace, make cottage cheese of it .

And to the same doubtful point: Remember Lot’s Wife, avoid the backward glance .

“Wish me happy birthday,” Warren said. “Have a drink on my forty-fifth birthday.”

“Your birthday was October 23rd,” Charlotte said.

“She doesn’t drink before breakfast,” Leonard said. “It’s hard and fast with her, she never does.”

“She did on my thirtieth,” Warren said.

“ Which was on October 23rd nineteen-hundred and —oh shit.”

“Watch your language,” Warren said.

Avoid the backward glance .

Until Marin disappeared Charlotte had arranged her days to do exactly that.

I KNOW WHY CHARLOTTE LIKED TALKING TO THE FBI: the agents would let her talk about Marin. Their devotion to Marin seemed total. They were pilgrims pledged to the collection of relics from Marin’s passion. During the days before Warren arrived in San Francisco the agents had taken Charlotte to see Marin’s apartment on Haste Street in Berkeley. The agents had taken Charlotte to see the house on Grove Street in Berkeley where they had found the cache of.30-caliber Browning automatic rifles and the translucent pink orthodontal retainer Marin was supposed to wear to correct her bite. In both those places the gray morning light fell through dusty windows onto worn hardwood floors and Charlotte had remembered for the first time how sad she herself had been at Berkeley before Warren came to her door.

“Let’s flop back to one of the theories you were espousing yesterday, Mrs. Douglas. When you—”

“Let’s flop back to all of them,” Warren said. Warren had been sitting in the same chair ever since he walked into the house and dropped his shopping bags. He had gotten up only to get himself drinks and once, perfunctorily, when the FBI men arrived and Leonard left. “I’m the felon’s father,” he had said to the FBI men. He seemed bent now in a fit of laughter. “I want to flop back to every one of these theories Mrs. Douglas has been espousing. In my absence. I’ve been out of touch, I didn’t know Mrs. Douglas had theories. To espouse.”

“When I what?” Charlotte said.

“Flip flop. We need ice, Charlotte.”

“When you—” The FBI man glanced uneasily at Warren. “When you said yesterday that Marin ‘might have been sad,’ what exactly did you mean? Normal everyday blues? Or something more, uh, out of the mainstream?”

“Just your normal everyday mainstream power-to-the-people latifundismo Berkeley blues.” Warren was still bent with laughter. “Just those old Amerikan blues. Spell that with a K.”

“I don’t know what I meant,” Charlotte said.