Joan Didion - A Book of Common Prayer

“Some theory,” Warren said. “Did you get the K? Did you spell it with a K?”

“To push on for a moment, Mrs. Douglas, the office raised one other question. Did your daughter ever mention a Russian, name of, uh, let’s see.”

The FBI man examined his notebook.

“Those old Amerikan blues didn’t come up the river from New Orleans, they K-O-M-E up the river from New Orleans. Get it? Charlotte? Did he get the K?”

“He got it.”

“Gurdjieff,” the FBI man said. “Russian, name of Gurdjieff. Marin ever mention him?”

“In the first place he was an Armenian,” Warren said. “Otherwise you’re on top of the case.”

“I’m not sure I get your meaning, Mr. Bogart.”

“Not at all. You’re doing fine.”

“Excuse me. The Gurdjieff I’m thinking of is a Russian.”

“Excuse me. The Gurdjieff you’re thinking of is Bashti Levant.”

“Warren. Please.”

“Don’t you think that’s funny, Charlotte? ‘Excuse me, the Gurdjieff you’re thinking of is Bashti Levant’?”

“It’s funny, Warren. Now—”

“You used to think I was funny.”

“Let me try to put this on track.” The FBI man cleared his throat. “Marin ever mention a Gurdjieff of any nationality? Ever mention reading about him?”

“No,” Charlotte said.

“Marin can’t read,” Warren said. “She plays a good game of tennis, she’s got a nice backhand, good strong hair and an IQ of about 103.”

Charlotte closed her eyes.

“Charlotte. Face facts. Credit where credit is due, you raised her. She’s boring.”

“I’m not sure this is a productive tack,” the FBI man said.

“Irving’s not sure this is a productive tack.” Warren rattled his ice. “Hear, hear, Charlotte. Listen to Irving.”

“Bruno,” the FBI man said. “The name is Bruno Furetta.”

“Don’t mind me, Irving, I’ve been drinking.”

“I happen to know you’re not all that drunk, Warren.” Charlotte did not open her eyes. “I happen to know you’re just amusing yourself. As usual.”

“You get the picture.”

Charlotte stood up. “And I want to tell you that I am not— ”

“She’s overwrought,” Charlotte heard Warren say as she fled the room. “Let me give you some advice, Irving. Never mind the Armenians, cherchez le tennis pro. ”

“BOO HOO,” WARREN SAID WHEN HE CAME UPSTAIRS AN hour later. “What happened to your sense of humor?”

Charlotte said nothing. Very deliberately she closed the book she had been trying to read since the day after the FBI first came to the house on California Street. The book was a detailed analysis of the three rose windows at Chartres, not illustrated, and every time Charlotte picked it up she began again on page one. She did not want Warren in the room. She did not want Warren to be in any room where she slept with Leonard, did not want him to see Leonard’s Seconal and her hand cream together on the table by the bed, did not want to see him examining the neckties that Leonard had that morning tried, rejected, and left on the bed. In fact she did not want him to see the bed at all.

“We don’t have anything in common any more.” Warren picked up a yellow silk tie and knotted it around his collar. “You and me. Leonard won’t miss this, he’s jaundiced enough. You ever noticed? He’s got bad color?”

“One thing we have in common is that we both agree that as far as having anything in common goes—” Charlotte broke off. She was watching a tube of KY jelly on the table by the bed. She did not see any way to move it into the drawer without attracting Warren’s attention. “As far as having anything in common goes we don’t have anything. In common.”

“You sound like you had a stroke. You had a stroke?”

“I happen to have a headache.”

“You mean I happen to give you a headache.”

“I mean I want you to leave this room.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll leave this room.” Warren sat on the bed, picked up the tube of KY jelly and put it in the drawer. “I don’t like this room.”

Charlotte said nothing.

“I only flew out here to see how you were.”

Still Charlotte said nothing.

“I don’t like your room, I don’t like your house, I don’t like your life.” Warren picked up a silver box from the table by the bed. The box held marijuana and played “Puff the Magic Dragon” when the lid was lifted. Warren lifted the lid and looked at Charlotte. “I bet the two of you talk about ‘turning on.’ See what I mean about your life?”

“Go away,” Charlotte whispered.

“Excuse me. I mean your ‘life-style.’ You don’t have a life, you have a ‘life-style.’ You still look good, though.”

“Go away.”

Warren looked at her for a while before he spoke.

“I want you to come to New Orleans with me.”

Charlotte tried to concentrate on meeting Leonard for lunch. Very soon she would walk out of this room and down the stairs. She would walk out of this house and she would take a taxi to the Tadich Grill, alone.

“I said I want you to come to New Orleans with me, are you deaf? Or just rude.”

She would go in the taxi alone to meet Leonard at the Tadich Grill.

“I want you to see Porter with me. Porter is dying. Porter wants to see you. Do this one thing for me.”

Charlotte tried to keep her mind on whether to order sand dabs or oysters at the Tadich Grill. Porter was a distant cousin of Warren’s. During the five years Charlotte and Warren were married Porter had invested $25,000 in an off-Broadway play that Warren never wrote, $30,000 in a political monthly that Warren never took beyond its dummy issue, and $2,653.84 in ransoming Warren’s and her furniture and Marin’s baby clothes from the Seven Santini Brothers Storage Company in Long Island City. Charlotte did not even like Porter.

Sand dabs.

No.

Oysters.

“If you won’t do it for me you’ll do it for Porter. Or you’re a worse human being than even I think.”

“I can’t just leave. Can I.”

“You’re not leaving, you’re paying a visit to Porter. Who is dying. Who loves you.”

“I can’t forgive Porter what he said to Leonard. At dinner out here. Two years ago. He behaved badly.” In fact Charlotte could not even recall what Porter had said to Leonard, but whenever she talked to Warren she fell helplessly into both his diction and his rosary of other people’s disloyalties. “I just can’t forgive Porter that at all.”

“Porter loves you.”

“Leonard had to ask him to leave the house.”

“What’s that got to do with you.”

There did not seem to Charlotte any ground on which this question could safely be met. She put it from her mind.

“I said what’s that got to do with you.”

Charlotte stood up, walked to the dressing room, and took a coat from the closet.

“Porter’s dying, Charlotte.”

Charlotte put the coat over her shoulders.

“Porter’s dying and you’re putting on your mink coat. You got Hadassah today? Mah-Jongg? You get the picture about your life?”

“It’s not mink. It’s sable. I have a lunch date.”

“Say that again.”

“I said: I have a lunch date . With Leonard.”

“Don’t let me keep you. Somebody who loves you is dying, your only child is lost, I’m asking you one last favor, and you’ve got a lunch date.” Warren opened the lid of the silver box again. The mechanism began to play. “You getting it? You getting the picture? You’re never going to see Marin again but never mind, you’ve got a lunch date? And maybe after your ‘lunch date’ you and your interesting husband can, what do you call it, ‘get stoned’?”