John Barth - Letters

Well. I wondered aloud how she thought to protect herself even if the culprit could be located, since any legal prosecution would necessitate her placing the photographs in evidence; no doubt the blackmailer would publish them anyhow if he or she felt threatened. All business and no tissues now, fair Jane reminded me coolly that as president of a multimillion-dollar corporation and potential contestant of two million dollars’ worth of testamentary articles, she was not naive about industrial spying and counterspying, however innocent she might have been about lewd invasions of personal privacy. She had a fair idea of what sufficient money could hire done. If I would help her find the guilty party, the rest could be left to her.

Quite taken aback, as they say, I asked her what she meant to do if the letter’s author turned out to be Drew or Jeannine? For while I couldn’t quite imagine Drew’s highly principled illegalities extending so far, two million was a lot of bread for the Revolution, and it seemed not unimaginable that his hand might be forced by some less scrupulous comrade. As for Jeannine, I had no notion whatever of what moral lines she drew, if any, but I couldn’t imagine her standing up to, say, Reg Prinz’s silent suasion. In any event, both could surely be said to have the motive for blackmail, if not the means or, on the face of it, the disposition. So too could her cousin A. B. Cook VI, a much likelier candidate now that I thought about it. Germaine Pitt, on the other hand, would seem to have readier means, at least for having somehow come across the earlier photograph among her late husband’s memorabilia; but she had truly cared for Harrison, and I couldn’t fancy her suing for a larger bequest, much less resorting to vulgar blackmail. For that matter, as representative of the major loser in a successful action on Jane’s part, I myself ought properly to be among the prime suspects, ought I not?

Death to all of you, Jane said affably. I was in her element now — sizing up the competition — and she had of course reviewed the lot of us plus other direct and indirect beneficiaries of the will as possible authors of that letter. That she’d then come to me spoke for itself, she declared. She suspected Prinz, whose scruples were dubious but whose photographic expertise was not, or some unknown colleague of Drew’s, certainly not Yvonne. In either case, Jeannine and Drew might well know nothing of it, and need never. Would I help her?

I told her I was afraid to say no. Was she truly capable of “putting out a contract” on the person responsible? That was not what she’d said, she said: there were surely more ways than one to neutralize a threat, once the threatener was identified. Photographic negatives could be located and destroyed; effective counterthreats or other checkmates could be devised. Where was my imagination? Meanwhile, she assumed I had other appointments that afternoon, as she did, and there was no particular hurry about this inquiry, since no payment was being demanded or deadline set. Why didn’t I think about it for a while? And would I agree at least not to rush the will into orphan’s court until I had so thought, and we’d talked again about it?

When Jane is being Madam President, her briskness is a little false, at least professional, as it surely wasn’t back there with the photos and the Kleenex. She was so pleased to have had our chat; we didn’t see nearly enough of each other since Harrison’s death; we must get together socially, and soon. I tried the most obvious double entendre: Indeed it had been a joy to see her again, so little changed since old times…

Well, she declared: we’ll certainly get together. Soon. Toodle-oo now.

Ta-ta.

I wanted to believe her so unrufflable that, perfectly aware of my irony, she declined to acknowledge it because she found it vulgar, at least inappropriate. Similarly, that she quite remembered her past visits to my office, and to my room, and simply saw no reason to acknowledge the memory. But my whole sense of her told me she was oblivious to both.

Now I’m less certain. (It’s Saturday sunrise. I fell asleep over the chart table. I’m sore in every joint. We 69-year-olds can’t do the Dear-Diary thing all night like a teenager after a big date.) Of anything. Except that, as best we wretched Andrewses can love, Todd Andrews loves Jane Mack; has never ceased loving her since 1932; has never loved anyone else. How stupid my life has been, old man: empty, insignificant, unmentionable! How full hers, however “oblivious.” And who am I to speak of her obliviousness, who scarcely realized until last night that I’ve been in love with that astonishing woman for 37 years?

As Jane suggested, we got together. Not exactly “soon”: seven Fridays later, yesterday. I’d thought about those photographs in the meanwhile; had seen a bit of Lady Amherst and Ambrose Mensch (who seem to be a couple these days; lots of horny gossip; more power to them) out at the college, where things have been popping. Watched Drew and Reg Prinz in action out there too, and reinforced a few tentative conclusions. Germaine’s a stable, decent woman in an unstable situation: I see in her neither cupidity nor vindictiveness. If she’s involved in anything like blackmail, it’s against her will, so to speak. Mensch is an enigma to me: erratic, improvisatory. I can imagine him, as Lady A.’s younger lover, obliging her to do something uncharacteristic — but I daresay they’re more likely candidates for prurient photography than purveyors of it. And what would they gain? Drew is, as ever, more principled than effectual. His surviving black colleagues haven’t been in evidence in the Marshyhope riots: either they have other fish to fry or he’s still on the outs with them since the bridge business. And he’s too aboveboard about his probate challenge-in-the-works to be feasibly underhanded. Prinz is a cipher, “Bea Golden” a blank — who, however, commutes between here and that quack sanatorium of hers up in Canada, not far from Niagara Falls. Of Cook I’ve seen and heard nothing except that he has declined without explanation an honorary degree from Marshyhope this spring, one which he’d previously either been pressing for or been being pressed for by John Schott. A minor mystery, from whose rough coincidence with the blackmail business I can make no plausible inferences. That Niagara Falls postmark had led me to consider also, fruitlessly, certain recipients of and rejected applicants for Tidewater Foundation grants up in that neck of the woods: no dice, except that at least one of the latter strikes me as a certifiable madman. Then there was Jane’s “Lord Baltimore,” who dwells somewhere in those latitudes: I even considered the possibility that the threat was bogus, some bizarre test of Yours Truly, administered — but what in the world for, unless to try whether his famous old heart is breakable at last? — by the Widow Mack herself.

Nothing. And during and between these reflections and distractions, as the kids tore up the campuses and the cops and National Guardsmen tore up the kids and the federal government tore up our country and the Pentagon tore up others, I hauled, fitted out, and launched the Osborn Jones for its 69th sailing season: 10th as a pleasure cruiser under my skippership. The prospect, and the work, didn’t please me this time as they usually do. It’s not a handy boat, either for cruising or for living aboard of. Never was meant to be, certainly not for an old bachelor. It’s clumsy, heavy, slow, too laborious to handle and maintain, comfortable but not convenient. The conversion — like my life, I’d been feeling all April — had been competently done but was basically and ultimately a mistake. I’d heard nothing from Jane since the Friday of the Photographs.