Paul Theroux - Picture Palace

“Do put it away,” said Greene.

I let it drop. It jerked my head forward. I said, “I want to tell you about my brother.”

“Later,” he said. “Tomorrow.”

In the Ritz lobby he kissed me good night. I went upstairs, and as soon as I opened the door the floor gave way under me, the ceiling caved in, and I was rolling over and over, down a long bumpy slope, dragging my heart behind me. Still tumbling I yanked the phone down by its cord and gasped into it.

Days later, a British doctor said to me, “You’re a jolly lucky girl,” but what I clung to was what Greene had said in the restaurant: Let this be your first memory .

SADNESS is ramshackle, but mourning is formal, such a buttoned-up ritual of shuffling and whispers that I wished on arrival that I hadn’t cabled Frank about my spot of bother at the Ritz. Wheeled from the little plane across the Hyannis runway and looking towards the terminal with its silly WELCOME sign, I saw ten of the gloomiest creatures I had ever laid eyes on. I felt like a latecomer to my own funeral, and it struck me that at my advanced age every acquaintance is a prospective mourner. They’re sticking around to bury you. That’s their secret; but you’re not supposed to know.

The irritating aspect of a mourner is the look of satisfaction. He is not ghoulish enough to be glad, just bursting with relief — that weird self-congratulation over being spared. They had warned me that I might snuff it, but a warning is the cheapest form of abuse: it was still ringing in my ears. And their expressions proved it. I told you so is one of the most gleeful expressions in the language, and yet no one actually says it in so many words. It is a cautioning wobble of the head, a suppressed smirk, the fish-1 ips of reproof and a hectoring silence.

Well, I wasn’t dead, which was even better from their point of view, because the story was that I had had a massive heart seizure (and I could hear them saying, “—all those waffles”). This was a lesson to me; I’d listen to them from now on; I wouldn’t be so fractious. But the advantage was mine. I didn’t like being treated like a stiff; however, since everyone knew that I’d croaked in London there was nothing they could decently refuse me.

“Here I am,” I said. “The Dong with the Luminous Nose.”

Frank gave me a kiss and introduced me to the other mourners — neighbors, well-wishers, shutterbugs, characters I scarcely knew. They were all trying to buck me up and at the same time were touching me and peering into my face as if attempting to discover whether I had learned my lesson. In my anger I mentally named them: Grippo, Saliva, Shuffles, the Beeny sisters, Bushrag, Cootie, Prickett, and Munt; and Frank, who had been Thunderbum to me ever since his farty farewell. Naming them was like portraiture and made me feel better.

I said, “I feel like a pizza.”

Prickett grunted, but Frank said, “She’s the boss” and helped me out of the wheelchair the airline had provided.

“Look,” said Shuffles, “a Garry Winogrand.” He pointed to the pathetic wheelchair stenciled New England Airways .

At the Leaning Tower of Pizza I drew out the envelope I had carried from London and put it on my lap.

“What’s that, sugar?” asked the hairy one I thought of as Bushrag. He was wearing army gear — flak jacket, khaki shirt, combat boots, everything but the medals. Dressed as a soldier in the insincere fashion this racket considered stylish. He wouldn’t have been able to fight his way out of a pay toilet.

But he had risked fragging me with the question the rest of them had wanted to ask. I pretended I didn’t understand. I sipped my Shasta.

“That,” he said, jabbing with his finger, “down there.”

“Don’t point that thing at me. There’s a nail on the end of it.”

Cootie snorted, and Grippo — who had nearly broken my hand to show me how glad he was to meet me (quite a problem there: I’ve never trusted hand-squashers) — Grippo said, “In the folder.”

“What folder?”

“Looks like a picture, Miss Pratt,” said Munt. Another untrustworthy one. It was his dark basted-looking skin: the vanity of the sunbather. I could almost hear him saying, I think I’ll go work on my tan .

“Sure does.” This from Saliva, smacking his lips.

I picked up the envelope. “This? You wouldn’t be interested in this.”

Bushrag said, “Yeah, but what is it?”

“Souvenir from London,” I said. “Just a picture.”

“I’d be very interested,” said Frank, putting on his studious Thunderbum expression.

“Came out with fur on it,” I said.

Bushrag nodded. “Flaky. Sometimes they’re the best kind.”

“It wasn’t deliberate,” I said.

“What’s the difference?”

“Pretty big,” I said. “I’ve never held with your blurry photographers. Some characters have lenses that cost three grand, maybe more. They shoot their cuffs, then exhibit them and call them — what? — mood pieces, fragments, dream-sequence, textures, or some nonsense like that. They don’t know what they’re doing. That’s fatal — they’re fogbound Guggenheim art.”

“Maude’s right,” said Frank, and in a matter of seconds they were all agreeing with him, fueling my argument so strenuously I couldn’t get a word in. They were making off-the-wall generalizations and overstating everything I had said. Running dogs, wagging their tails at me. It is the worst danger of fame: everyone agrees with you, even when you’re wrong. But maybe, I thought, they were doing it because I had come unstuck in London, and that made me feel like a bigger dope.

“You can spot the phonies,” I managed to put in. “ Untitled —that’s a cry for help. All my pictures have titles.”

“What’s the name of that one, then?” asked Cootie, indicating the one on my lap.

“This?” I fussed and delayed until they were all listening, then I said, “This here’s a portrait of me. I’m thinking of calling it Maude Pratt . You might give it another name.”

“I thought you didn’t allow anyone to take your picture,” said one of the Beeny sisters, pushing her moon-dog face at me. “So you could preserve your anonymity kind of.”

“I’ve preserved it long enough.”

“It’s really you?” said Shuffles.

Grippo said, “Hey, that’s historic.”

Frank said, “But why?”

“I don’t need it no more.”

“Don’t need it?” Frank’s eyes grew tiny in disbelief. “But you said all photographers needed it.”

“I ain’t a photographer no more,” I said. I detached a wedge of pizza and took a bite.

No one was eating. They were staring at me.

Frank shoved his plate aside with the back of his hand. He wanted a little drama. He said, “Maude!”

“Your pizza’s getting cold,” I said.

“I’d really like to see that picture,” he said in a small voice.

“You don’t want to see this.”

“No, I sincerely would. It’s something for the museum. I’ve got the ear of the guy in Acquisitions.”

“Don’t bend it on my account. Like I said, this picture’s got fur on it.”

“We’d still pay.”

“For this?”.

“Sure. Give us world reproduction rights and your worries are over.”

“Frank, do I have worries?”

He winced. “We paid a lot for those Diane Arbus pictures.”

“That freak show,” I said. “Poor gal needed her engine tuned.”

The smaller of the Beeny sisters said, “Her pictures were really strange. I mean, tragic.”

“Quite the reverse,” I said. “Arbus is all comedy, or at least farce. She was like Weegee. She thought those people looked funny. Now get off the pot.”