Paul Theroux - Picture Palace

She didn’t reply when I said, “Phoebe?”

She was reflective; and fear, making her thoughtful, gave her a look of weary intelligence. The strain of fright had dimmed her sparkle and made her seem wiser than she was. I had regarded her as rather frivolous — a flibbertigibbet, in fact. But this look of piety and panic in her scared me. She had been quick to shift the blame onto me (“You’re the unusual one around here”), but that was momentary; now she ignored me. She mooned around, taking walks on the lonely beach to Gammon Point, as if trying to decide whether to take the plunge. And if she did do herself in we’d all be at fault, for suicide is usually just another way of having the last word, inevitably, Take that!

She could not see that what she had done with Orlando was pure genius, love’s perfect fit. But I could, and I vowed to defend her. Several times, shadowing her on the beach, I came within an ace of rushing up to her and crying, I know all about it! Don’t give him up! I’m on your side!

Because, of course, I was grateful to her. If I couldn’t have him, it was only right that she should. She was my double and so I throbbed for her, I shared their passion, hidden like a photographer. My sight had originated with their love. Then, I saw what my life had been and what my work must be. My photographs expressed nothing of this; they told no story. There had been no link between what I was and what I saw. In a picture I never took, called Portrait of the Artist , a grizzled prospector squats in a gully sluicing sand, a cadaverous geezer panning for gold. There is a shadow on his face, but in his rusty skittle there is a knucklesized nugget gleaming among the dull pebbles and grit. He might be on the point of snatching it up, or else he could be preparing to dump it back into the gully. But you see it: you are the artist. I described this picture to Phoebe to tell her how much I needed her.

She would not be drawn. I hoped when the day came that she would say So what? and go on loving.

She stared at the December sea, that plowed field of fugitive furrows under a mammoth sky.

Papa arrived without warning one frosty afternoon just before Christmas. We heard Mr. Wampler’s beach wagon in the drive, then saw Papa — tanned the hue of varnish and in his long fur-collared coat — striding up the front walk. Behind him, Mama supervised the unloading of the suitcases. Mama looked uneasy, Papa resolute, in his brisk brass-tacks mood, spanking his hands for warmth.

Phoebe said, “Damn that Ollie. He said he’d be here.”

“He’ll come,” I said. “He’ll stick up for you.” Though this was incautious (I had nearly given myself away), she nodded. But she was trembling and looked terribly worried.

“Well, well, speak of the devil,” he said in the front hall, shrugging out of his coat. “Didn’t think you’d have the guts to face me.”

But he went right past us, through the house, shuffled his mail, and did not say another word until about six o’clock, when he had changed his clothes and set the logs alight in the fireplace. One thing about Papa: he had a sense of occasion. He stood there in his black tuxedo, his back to the fire, a stiff drink in one hand and a big cigar in the other, as if he’d just been elected mayor.

We took our seats — Phoebe and I on the sofa, Mama in her wing-chair.

Papa said, “Too bright in here for you, Maudie?”

“It’s just fine,” I said.

“I was referring to your goggles. Mind taking them off? They’re distracting me.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, “but I’d rather keep them on.”

“May I ask why?”

“Phoebe bought them for me. She says they suit me.”

“Just because Phoebe has a crazy notion,” he said, “it don’t mean it’s right.”

Phoebe groaned, dreading what was to come.

Mama said, “They make you look awful funny.”

“Let’s drop it,” said Papa. “I’ve got a question to ask and I want a straight answer. Have I done right by you — ever let you down or given you any reason to complain?”

“No, sir,” I said.

“Phoebe?”.

She shook her head guiltily. “Course not.”

“Look at me, both of you. What do you see?”

“Papa!” said Phoebe, and she was on the verge of blubbering.

I said, “There’s something wrong, isn’t there?”

“You bet your boots there is! If you’d take those goggles off you’d see it.”

“I don’t want to hear this,” said Phoebe, but I propped her up and kept her on the sofa. I couldn’t face this alone.

Papa said, “No, it’s not your father you’re seeing. Know what it is?” He bared his teeth. “It’s a jackass.”

“Don’t be silly,” I said.

“How can a jackass help looking silly?” he said. “Know what I was asking myself all the way home from Florida? Why — I was asking — why does a daughter of mine, whom I’ve loved and respected ever since she was yay high, go out of her way to make a jackass of me?” And as if calling a witness he said, “Mother?”

Mama was looking at Phoebe and me. She said, “You’ll never know.”

This got us nowhere. It was theater. When your back is to the wall, the people you love most, believing themselves to have been deceived, take their time and enumerate their grumbles instead of rushing in for the kill. They make it a production. They toy with you, taunt, reminisce, and destroy you, not with one clean thrust through your heart but by slapping one petty grievance after another into your face. What makes it so painful and peculiarly nasty is that only they know your weaknesses. Other people can hurt you, but only those you love can make you suffer.

“God,” Papa wheezed, striding up and down before the fire — there was an actor in this man, “I recall when it was all different. You girls were pipsqueaks. Your mother and I would take you out in the boat—”

I suffered for Phoebe. She was there beside me, petrifying with shame, dying a slow death, sinking. And I was getting angrier. How dare he? I thought. But he wouldn’t wind it up.

“—never thought any daughter of mine would go out of her way to humiliate me. It’s not natural!”

Phoebe just sat there, and because she was stone she didn’t tremble, she didn’t move. The tears were rolling down her cheeks and the tearstains gleamed in the firelight.

“—given you a good home and I’ve had no regrets. I’ve always had reason to be proud of you. I’ve given you a lot of freedom, but you’ve abused it.”

Papa, for all his puffing and blowing, seemed curiously happy. Banality followed banality, and I thought: Yes, this is his satisfaction. His discovery of what Orlando and Phoebe had done had wounded him, but he was taking pleasure in roasting her slowly by the fireside, pacing in front of the flames and letting his vengeful shadow jump all over the walls.

“—it’s pretty painful to think of yourself as a man for sixty-two years and then wake up one morning and discover that everyone’s laughing at you.”

I said, “No one’s laughing, Papa.”

He smiled. Mama was somber, Phoebe still weeping softly, and I suppose my own face looked fairly grim behind my dark glasses.

“Listen,” he whispered and cocked his head to the side and let the cigar smoke trail around his face. “If you listen hard you can hear them. Laughing to beat the band. Hear it? ‘Pratt’s daughter’s gone and made a jackass of him!’ Oh, sure, they’ll forgive the daughter, but old men get no mercy.”

I said, “I don’t hear a blessed thing.”

“You ain’t listening hard enough,” he said. “Because if you were you’d hear each particular voice. ‘Kick the jackass,’ they’re saying. Hee-haw, hee-haw. There’s a lot of people who wanted to see me down. And I fought them. Mother?”