Paul Theroux - Picture Palace

“You fought them.”

“I never fought dirty, I never broke the rules — didn’t have to. I fought fair. I had friends then. But I never thought I’d get my rump kicked, and so hard, by my very own daughter.” He tapped an inch of cigar ash into the fire and repeated, “By my very own daughter.”

I knew then that Phoebe was lost. She had given in, she wouldn’t defend herself or Orlando. She’d let this nagging old comedian bully and bluster her into a full confession. I said, “Hold on, Papa.”

For it was my crisis, too. I never could take another picture without bluffing, as I had fluked Firebug . Though blindness was no handicap to perceiving the world around me, I was incapable of seeing pictures — my own or anyone else’s. I could not read or write. So my career was at an end, and good riddance. But I positively would not be denied the satisfaction of witnessing Phoebe completing what I could not in loving Orlando. If you have no life, I thought, the next best thing is to be near someone else’s. Obviously my blindness was a reaction. It wasn’t simple shock — it was resignation. If I couldn’t have Orlando, then I didn’t want any other lover. But they had taught me to see love and that was reason enough to live.

“Aren’t you interested,” I said, “in Phoebe’s side of the story?”

“I know what Phoebe will say — that’s why I don’t want to hear it.”

“Give me a chance, then.”

“Pipe down,” he said, and he began to chuckle, a kind of ominous mirth. He was performing, taking his time. I had never seen him so jolly or known such desperate gaiety in his speechifying. There was something final about this comic effort, the flourish of a farewell, his last bow.

Mama said, “Phoebe’s crying,” but Papa ignored this remark.

“Bet you think I’m going to a party,” he said, giving his cummerbund a jaunty tug. “Am I going to have a high old time in this monkey suit? No, I ain’t. Know why? Cause there ain’t going to be no more parties. This whisky,” he said, swishing his glass, twirling it to his lips, and sipping. “Best bottle there is in the house, pre-war — I didn’t even drink it during Prohibition. Know why I’m drinking it now? No? Cause there ain’t going to be no more whisky. No sir.” He straightened and raised his cigar to admire it. “What have we got here? Not a five-cent El Ropo from the candy store in Hyannis — this here is a Havana, like the King of England used to smoke. Aromatic, no veins on the wrapper, you want to keep the fumes up your nose until you bust. One puff and you’re in Congress, two puffs and you’re President. When I lit it up an hour ago it was a foot long. Want to know why I’m smoking this here big cigar?”

“Cause there ain’t going to be no more big cigars,” I said. “I get the message.”

He came close to me and said, “Or nothing else. The party’s over. Understand?”

I said, “Say something, Phoebe. For pity’s sake, don’t just sit there like a bump on a log.”

“She’s too ashamed and I don’t blame her. I’m ashamed myself, aren’t you, mother?”

Mama said, “I’m sick.”

“Back in ’twenty-nine, they were dropping like flies,” said Papa. “Foreclosures, liquidations, bankruptcies, hell and high water. Times were bad, the market had a hernia, the country went to the bitches. People with college degrees selling apples. But not me—”

This was a familiar speech: the Depression, Roosevelt, shanty Irish with their hands in the till, people pissing their money away; and the last ringing phrases about loyalty and friendship.

He poured himself a slug, the last of the whisky, and said, “Now I ain’t got a friend. My name is mud.”

I said, “Why?”

He tried to laugh, but his voice had grown hoarse and strangely hollow. He wasn’t acting anymore. He said, “Girls, this is it. You’re looking at a carcass. You did what Wall Street and Congress and every Irishman in the state couldn’t do. And that’s the last of that”—chucking the cigar butt into the fire—“and that”—draining the whisky and gasping—“I’m ruined, thanks to you. And all I can say is, how do you like them apples?”

I said, “I find it hard to believe.”

“Mother?”

“He’s telling the truth,” she said. “We got the bad news in Florida. All his clients closed their accounts, emptied out their portfolios, or whatever the expression is. He’ll never work again, at least not as a broker.”

“Sure,” he said with rueful reasonableness, “it doesn’t prevent me from starting up a chicken farm or selling greeting cards door to door.”

“I don’t see why,” I said.

“I’m a leper, that’s why! No one wants a leper.” Then he raised himself and as he towered over us he bellowed, “And what I want to know is, what in the name of God got into you, sister!”

At this, Phoebe collapsed. She was in an agony of regret; she choked, and throwing herself at Papa’s feet, and in a beseeching voice, she sobbed, “We didn’t mean it, we didn’t know you’d find out, we’ll never do it again—”

“Stop!” I said and tried to shut her up. I glared at Papa. “There. Are you happy now? See what you’ve done?”

Papa was confused. I helped Phoebe back to the sofa and he said, “I knew she’d stick up for you, but I’m not going to listen to her. I’m not talking to her — I’m talking to you, Maude. You’re the one who ruined me, damn your eyes.”

And in one of those exalted moments of lucid guilt I understood everything. I could think of nothing to say.

“Those pictures! How could you do it to me? And not only me, but all the others at that dinner. You ruined a lot of good men, sister. You’ll never know how many people you put in the poorhouse. Carney’s fit to be tied. He drove us out — I won’t repeat what he said. Mother?”

“He drove us out, bag and baggage,” she said. “There were words.”

Phoebe stirred beside me, revived. Her crisis had passed — she had come close to destruction, but she was reprieved and she said coolly, “Maude’s pictures? Is that what’s wrong?”

“Didn’t think I’d find out, did you? You ought to be horsewhipped,” he said, his red face an inch from mine. “But it’s going to be worse than that. You thought you brought me down, but you’ll see — we’re all going down together.”

“Maude isn’t down,” said Phoebe. “Why, she’s famous. She gets telephone calls from New York City.”

“I take it you stopped there,” I said.

“I didn’t stop in New York. They would have torn my head off. Carney’s people got the news. And I only hope you made a little money out of it, sister, because you’re going to need it.”

Phoebe said, “Maude didn’t mean to do it, isn’t that right?”

I looked hard at her and said, “I did mean to do it. I took those pictures on purpose. I’m sorry it turned out this way, but maybe there was no other way it could turn out.”

“She doesn’t know what she’s saying,” Phoebe said. “She hasn’t been right since she came back.”

Papa said, “She never was right.”

“I’m right! I know what I’m saying. I wanted those pictures. It was too bad Papa was involved, but what was he doing there anyway?”

“Not a word of apology,” he said.

I said — but I was still looking at Phoebe—“No one has to apologize for doing what they have to do.”

“Hear that, mother? Just doing her duty.”

“My own duty,” I said. “I’m not ashamed of it.”

“Then keep on doing it,” he said. “Everyone thinks you’re so great. But no one knows what you put me through so you could get there. You can show them, can’t you?”

“I don’t follow.”