Rick Moody - The Diviners

“That’s right, Mr. Maiser, what we’re talking about today is a multigenerational saga, but not one that’s confined to a particular disenfranchised population, like Roots was or like Holocaust was back in 1978, a story that reaches out to every population and confers honorary disenfranchised status on it, the disenfranchised status of thirst, Mr. Maiser. Every group wants to be the group out of power, so that it can be restored to power through the capacity of the Moroccan pitcher to slake its metaphorical thirst, but with legitimacy and through acclamation, Mr. Maiser. The Jews, a people reviled in Europe, were driven out of Morocco, I can’t remember exactly when, but I know they were driven out of there at some point, because that’s history, am I right? And the one thing the Sephardim took with them, in addition to their sacred texts, was the knowledge of the manufacture of these sacred pitchers. Well, in fact, Mr. Maiser, they also took with them the kabalistic knowledge of divining, Mr. Maiser. You didn’t know this? Divining is a highly secretive skill still taught in some ultra-Orthodox sects, Mr. Maiser. Divining. You saw it going back to the reign of the Hun, Mr. Maiser, and the proposal I’m going to be e-mailing you directly, so that you can have it on the desks of your people in your department on Monday morning, Mr. Maiser, will deal with the first episode of a thirteen-part miniseries I’m proposing that will depict the ancient times, Mr. Maiser, when the Hun first descended from the plains and began to rout Western civilization. The Hun brought destruction to the eastern edge of the Roman Empire, the Hun brought rape, the Hun pillaged, Mr. Maiser, and the Hun also brought, as marauders do, magic, in the person of the diviner. So when the earth was scorched, and the Romans were driven out of their empire, what they received in compensation was the diviner, leading them over the hill to the place of water.”

“Uh —”

“So this is a proposal that confronts thirst on a historical basis, but it’s also a proposal that actually slakes thirst. What you’ll notice, Mr. Maiser, is that as you begin to contemplate the proposal, you’ll see greater and greater conjunctions in your own life. Things will begin to line up. For example, I know that when I began thinking about thirst, and about how I needed to place this call to you directly, Mr. Maiser, as I began to see that you and you alone needed to receive this call, to have this electrifying opportunity to finance a miniseries that could change television history, that could change the distribution system, that could give independent cinema the place it rightly deserves in the history of cinematic storytelling, at the moment it couldn’t escape my notice, Mr. Maiser, that a certain young performer was really born to play Nurit, the daughter of a Jewish shopkeeper and the love interest in this story. What is thirst, Mr. Maiser, but another name for erotic need? Am I right, Mr. Maiser? When we have the itch, we need it scratched. Why else, Mr. Maiser, are we so thirsty ourselves, here in this land rich with water? Where does this thirst come from? Why else those advanced embraces? Why do they leave us so in need of a good swim and a cool drink? I know you know, Mr. Maiser, and I know that you know how a certain young performer could bring in the teenage audience that so badly needs to slake this particular kind of thirst. We want young, charismatic performers, we need them, the perfect curve of a breast, that ephemeral thing that only lasts for a few years, the rippling muscles of a young buck striding across a high-definition screen, and this is the story that can really deliver to the network a teenage audience because every generation has an attractive thirsty teenager who finds the truth with a forked stick, do you hear what I’m describing, Mr. Maiser?”

“Listen, I —”

“The hydrophobia passage in, what was that movie, with the, To Kill a Mockingbird, right? The dog is mad? Right, it’s a hydrophobia passage, serving as a metaphor for exile, the exile that the African American characters feel from white society. The hatred of water? The recoiling from water, such that water creates a kind of madness in the person or animal until they go wild, trying to spread an illness, after which they themselves die. Did you know that it has two phases, Mr. Maiser? Hydrophobia? The dumb phase and the furious phase, exactly coincident with the two kinds of political disenfranchisement? Well, The Diviners, Mr. Maiser, is a story that does the opposite. It works a metaphor of inclusion, a metaphor of, well, I guess you’d call it spiritual renewal, like night swimming, Mr. Maiser, a spiritual renewal that fully recognizes the importance of carnal appetite. We’ll be getting a prominent A-list writer to bring to the screen the thirteen two-hour episodes we’re proposing for this miniseries, Mr. Maiser, and we know, because we have admired your accomplishments at UBC, that you are the man for the story, the man who recognizes thirst as a historically urgent theme and who knows how to bring this story, with modern music, a sound-track spin-off, maybe some divining-rod merchandising opportunities at some of the fast-food chains, like maybe we could have a McDonald’s promotion that would feature divining rods with the hamburgers, Mr. Maiser, or a Krispy Kreme divining rod, a little plastic divining rod that has some knots carved into it so it looks like a bough from a birch tree or a maple or something. What do you think, Mr. Maiser? Do you realize what an opportunity this would be for your company, especially since it would bring you close to the world of independent cinema, which has the critics and pundits on its side? Don’t you and your friends want to get involved with a project that will lend you indie credibility and a mass audience? Can’t you see a poster for a project like this, Mr. Maiser? Isn’t a poster for a project like this materializing in your mind right now, a poster that can be run on the crowded subway lines of New York City and on city buses across the nation? Can’t you see tie-ins, movie spin-offs, novelizations? Can’t you see magazine profiles, the front covers of weekly newsmagazines, Mr. Maiser, can’t you see third-world feature films, can’t you see spinning off The Diviners into a thirteen-part cinematic extravaganza to show in all the relevant countries, like Hungary, or perhaps in countries like Bulgaria that can’t afford the rental fees for new Hollywood releases? What about an edited, feature-length edition of The Diviners ? With voice-over commentary for the DVD release? What about a director’s cut with nine hours of additional footage? Don’t you think, Mr. Maiser, that this is an opportunity that your company can’t afford to miss? Can’t you imagine that if you turn down this opportunity some other network will instantly jump on it, such that your job with the president of the network will be jeopardized and your stock will plunge and you will go down in history as the man who refused to sign up The Diviners when he might have, Mr. Maiser? Don’t you just want to say yes now, Mr. Maiser? Don’t you want to say yes now to this historic television narrative?”

“Stop!” Maiser cries out. There is approximate silence, cellular phone static standing in for silence, a stunned, faintly sublime silence. “I’ve got stuff to do. Just send me the damned proposal, for godsakes. I’ll get back to you on Monday.”

After which, Vanessa again takes to her bed.

It’s Monday midday in Santa Monica, and Melody Howell Forvath, writer of novels of international intrigue, doesn’t give a goddamn what anyone thinks. She’s going ahead with the party. Melody Howell Forvath hasn’t given a good goddamn for many years, except about the state of her pool, the newest restaurant in her neighborhood, and the best beaches within driving distance. And this is because she has paid her dues with novels of international intrigue. She’s published twenty-seven, the first twelve she wrote herself, up until Double Dutch (1973), the one about the twin spies operating as prostitutes in an Amsterdam brothel. They broke open a heroin case, et cetera. Then, beginning with Envoy of Desire (1975), she hired a string of well-educated and presentable graduates of Smith and Wellesley to write the books according to her instructions. Here’s how she works. Melody goes to the magazine store and plucks from a well-thumbed Travel & Leisure a few promising locales. Then she sits down with whoever is the ghostwriter, and they hash out a thrilling story that features adultery, champagne, a hail of bullets, and a sexually independent woman. That’s her stipulation, that the novels have sexually independent women in them. She’s certainly not writing these books for men, who only care about how big the warheads are.