Paul Theroux - My Secret History

“I’m a communist,” I told my brother Louie, when he said he had joined Students for Kennedy.

“You don’t like him because he’s a Catholic,” Louie said.

“I don’t like him because he’s a bad Catholic,” I said. “I’m voting for Gus Hall. American Communist Party. It’s legal!”

It was wonderful to see how this little pronouncement shocked him. I tried it again with Mimi Hardwick at Kappa Phi. She had said she couldn’t go out with me. She made excuses, and when I badgered her she said, “I’m afraid of you.” It was simply that she didn’t want to sleep with me.

I said, “I’m a communist,” because I knew I would probably never see her again, and I wanted to leave her with a worry.

“I don’t believe you,” she said. “What do you mean?”

I was looking at her and thinking: Girls get up in the morning and wash themselves carefully and put on four different types of underwear, not including a girdle, and choose a certain color sweater and clean socks and a matching skirt. They take the rollers out of their hair. They put in ribbons, they do their eyes, they rouge their cheeks, put on perfume and lipstick, earrings, beads, a bracelet on one wrist, a tiny watch on the other, and all day they go on checking themselves in mirrors. It was an amazing amount of trouble, but it worked. Why were they so surprised when we wanted to squeeze them and feel them up? Mimi Hardwick smelled of lavender and I wanted to push my nose against her.

“We have meetings. Secret meetings. We’re all socialists.”

“But what do you stand for?”

“Destruction,” I said.

On another occasion, to get her to sleep with me, I had told her that I had twice tried to kill myself. And I said that I took drugs — cough syrup with codeine in it, the Family Size bottle, chugalugged the whole thing. I told her I had hitchhiked to Florida, getting rides with maniacs. Anything so that she would remember me. But it just frightened her.

Telling her I was a communist was my way of saying goodbye.

“Can I help you?”

That woke me from my reverie. It was a security guard. His question meant: What’s a kid in an army jacket and sunglasses and torn sneakers think he’s doing here at the Maldwyn Country Club?

I said, “I have an appointment with Mr. Kaloostian.”

“Go ahead.”

But I was angry with myself for giving him this information. I should have said, It’s highly confidential and let him figure it out.

The clubhouse ahead of me at the top of the driveway was a white building with a roof of green shingles. It was surrounded by fat trimmed bushes, and geraniums in plump pots, and in the bulgey bay window there were fat golfers going haw-haw! This was all supposed to be English. Another fat car went past and almost clipped me. I felt small and skinny. I smelled roasting meat. I was hungry, and being here made me feel hateful. I imagined starting a fire in the clubhouse and watching the golfers run out with burning hair. Help! they’d scream as I turned my back.

The secretary’s signboard said MISS A. BERBERIAN.

She said, “Is it about the lifeguard job?”

I was annoyed that she guessed it and so I said, “That’s partly the reason. The rest is highly confidential, I’m afraid. You can tell him I’m here.”

There were two men in the office. Mr. Kaloostian was the purple-faced man in the suit. He introduced the man next to him in the sports shirt. “This is Mr. Mattanza, our pool superintendant.”

“Vic Mattanza,” the man said and squeezed my hand too hard.

Standing up added very little to his height. He was short and dark. His black hair was pushed straight back. He was one of those Italians who looked to me like an Indian brave — dark, brooding, and with tiny eyes very close to his big nose. He was short, yet I could see from the way his shirt was stretched that he was muscular. But he was too muscular for his size. He reminded me of a clenched fist.

“Sit down, Andrew.”

“Andre,” I said, and they frowned at me.

“It says here you live in Medford, you go to UMass, nineteen in April, you’re a medical student—” He was reading from my application in a way that embarrassed me. All these trivial facts made me feel small. I had the urge to tell him I was a communist.

“Pre-med,” I said.

“Hey, that’s great,” Mattanza said, “but we’re looking for someone who can swim.”

“I can swim. And I thought a knowledge of first aid might be an asset.” I smiled at Mattanza. His close-set eyes were fixed on me. He was thinking: Wise-ass.

“That’s a very good point,” Kaloostian said.

“Except we need a lifeguard.”

Mattanza’s teeth were very white and large and doglike.

“That’s why I’m here.” I could tell he hated my smile.

“It says here you worked at Wright’s Pond.”

“Right. I was a lockerboy. Then I got my Red Cross lifesaving certificate and became a lifeguard. After the intermediate I got the advanced.”

“You mind if we see your badge?” Mattanza said. “It’s not that we don’t believe you.”

“My mother sewed it on my bathing suit.”

Mattanza looked at Kaloostian. “His mother sewed it on his bathing suit.”

“That’s where it’s supposed to go,” I said.

He flashed his snake-eyes at me.

“Is that the only proof of your proficiency?” Kaloostian said.

“I’ve got the certificate,” I said, and pulled it out of my book and unfolded it.

“You’re a reader, I see,” Kaloostian said, and he leaned over to look at the title. He couldn’t see.

“The Flowers of Evil ,” I said.

“Gatz,” Mattanza said under his breath.

“What did you do to earn this?”

“Swam a mile. Learned the rescues. Rowed. Surface dived. Picked up weights from the bottom. Jumped in with my clothes on and made a flotation device with my pants — you knot the cuffs and inflate the legs. And the first aid.” Kaloostian had asked the question but I was speaking to Mattanza. “That’s the advanced certificate.”

Mattanza said, “Great. But what kind of practical experience have you got?”

“Two years at Wright’s Pond.”

“We’re talking about a swimming pool.”

“It’s tougher at a pond,” I said.

He moved his mouth at me. His lips said: Prove it. His teeth said: I’m dangerous — I bite.

I spoke to Kaloostian. “In a pond you’ve got poor visibility, deeper water, noise, greater density of swimmers, and weeds. Last summer I pulled three people out. One of them went about two hundred pounds. I used a cross-chest carry on him.”

“So why aren’t you still there at Wright’s?” Mattanza said, in a challenging way.

I could just imagine this little twerp strutting in a tight pair of trunks.

“This seems a nicer place,” I said, and when Kaloostian smiled smugly at this I said, “More congenial, and a kind of English atmosphere.”

“We’re very proud of our club,” Kaloostian said. “It’s like a family here. The members, the employees. We’re all part of a winning team.”

What bullshit, I thought. But I needed the job.

“I guess I want to be part of the team.”

Mattanza winced and put his finger on my application. “It says here your hobby is shooting. You got a gun?”

“Not on me,” I said.

“I hate guns,” Kaloostian said, and shook his face so that his eyes rattled at me.

Everyone said I hate guns in the most virtuous way, as if all guns were murder weapons.

“I shoot beer cans,” I said. “I think some of your members might be interested in marksmanship.”

“Why do you want to work at Maldwyn Country Club?” Kaloostian said, putting his elbows on the table. I could not understand why his face was so purple — was it a tan or high blood pressure?