Уильям Голдман - The Princess Bride

"I don't like the end all that much, either," I said. "Blame Mr. Morgenstern."

"No, no," Peggy explained. "He didn't dislike the ending. He didn't like that it ended. "

Pause. We walked in silence.

"I told him about the sequel, Poppa," Jason said then.

Peggy nodded. "He got really excited."

And then my Willy said the words: "Read it to me?"

I knew at that moment I was losing it. I remember exactly my fear—what if I couldn't bring it to life this time? What if I failed? Failed us both?

"That's the request, Dad. Willy wants you to read him Buttercup's Baby. We all want you to do it."

"Well it's too bad about what 'we' all want, isn't it," I started, my voice too loud. "It's sure too bad 'we' can't have everything, isn't it? You all better get used to disappointment," and before I did anything even worse, I looked at my watch, gestured that I had to go, took off, went home, stayed there, didn't answer the phone, had early Chinese sent in from Pig Heaven, started drinking, was gone by midnight.

And woke before dawn with a dream, so vivid; I went out to my terrace, paced, started trying to figure out the dream, and more than that, I guess, my life and how had I screwed it up.

It was a memory of that second pneumonia, and Helen was reading the screenplay of the movie to me—only this time she was young and wonderful, and she was also crying.

On the terrace I knew why—we are all the writers of our own dreams—she was me, she was me crying for me, for what I had become. And then I remembered she wasn't reading The Princess Bride, she was reading about Fezzik and the madman on the mountain, the start of Buttercup's Baby, and I realized that twice I had almost died and Morgenstern had come to save me and now here he was again, saving me again, because I knew this, standing there looking out at the city as the sun rose: I would be a real writer once more, not just some schmuck with an Underwood, as screenwriters are still thought of Out There.

I didn't think I was ready to go from zero to sixty, to start a novel from scratch. I didn't feel confident that I could make everything up, as I had done for my thirty novel-writing years.

Let me explain what I was not ready to do.

Take Szell, the Nazi dentist in Marathon Man (Olivier in the movie, and wasn't he great? Remember the "is it safe" scene with the dental tools?). There is this street in Manhattan, 47th between Fifth and Sixth, and I was walking along it one day, decades back, on my way somewhere, can't remember, doesn't matter, but that block is called the "diamond district." It is filled with an amazing number of diamond shops, most of them run by Jews, and on a lot of them, you could see they still had their concentration camp numbers. I thought that day what a great scene it might be if I could have a Nazi walking on that street.

Which Nazi I didn't know, but probably I started doing some mild research, reading and asking people, and I finally came across the most brilliant of them all, Mengele—the double doctor, Ph.D. and M.D.—then thought to be living in Argentina, the guy who did the heartless experiments on twins.

OK, great, I've got my guy—but why does he risk everything to come to 47th Street? I knew this much: it couldn't be to go to the prom. The most wanted man on earth had to have an unshakable reason.

Years go by, with Mengele stuck in the corner of my head and gradually Babe started to appear, the marathon man of the title. Then I caught a break: I read about a surgeon who had invented a heart sleeve operation, somewhere, maybe Cleveland, but I could put him in New York.

Yesss. Mengele came to America, to New York, because he had to, to save his life.

Brilliant.

I am flying for the next little while because I have solved my most difficult problem and then it hits me— fool! —what kind of a villain is it who's so frail he needs heart surgery? My God, if someone chased him he might keel over from the effort.

Obviously, a couple of years later I figured out some things and wrote the book and wrote the movie and the scene that still works best, along with the dental scene, is Szell wandering among the Jews.

On the terrace that morning I knew I wasn't ready to take on that kind of trip. But this shaping of Buttercup's Baby was a perfect middle step for me. Bringing it to life as I had The Princess Bride would give me the confidence to at last go back to being what I once was.

So I would do the abridgement of the sequel and then do my own novel and ride off into the frigging sunset, thank you very much. Once offices opened for the day I called Charley (still my lawyer) and told him that I wanted more than anything on earth to abridge the sequel and was there any way he thought the Morgenstern estate would put an end to hostilities?

He said the most amazing thing: "They contacted me today. The Shogs. Kermit's daughter did. She's a young lawyer for the firm, sounded nice and bright, and let me quote her: ' We want to settle for peace with your Mr. Goldman. '"

Tennessee said it best: "Sometimes there's God so quickly."

I MET KARLOFF Shog the next morning for breakfast in the dining room of the Carlyle Hotel, none prettier in all New York. Charley set it up and decided not to be there, no point, this was a "look-like" where we would both try on our charm and see if we could do business.

So I sat waiting for her to appear. With a name like Karloff Shog, I figured a mustache was a sure bet and don't even think about her armpits. (In case you don't know—and you don't know, nobody knows stuff like this—Karloff is the most popular girl's name in Florin. Make of that what you will.)

This dreamboat walks in. Mid-thirties, dressed to kill, long loose blonde hair, gorgeous. She comes right over and she holds out her hand. "Hi, Carly Shog, this is so great meeting you, you look just like the pictures on your books, only, may I say, younger."

"You may say that as loudly and as often as you want." I tend to be a little thick-tongued when sweet young things are around, so that was pretty smooth for me. The nutty thing is, at that moment, when we had met on earth for all of ten seconds, I thought she wanted me. "Want" in the sense of "desire." And if you know me at all, you know I don't think anybody ever wants me. Not wants in the sense of desire anyway. "What brings you to America?"

"We're doing a lot of legal stuff in the States now. I just moved here." Now a pause. "Thank God." She looked at me. "I can tell you've never been in Florin." I said I hadn't. "It's a little inbred. I mean, in Florin if you marry your first cousin, that's considered good." Another pause. "An attempt at humor. Sorry."

I have dated some terrific women since Helen left me a decade past. But this one here, this blue-eyed lawyer with the body and the brains, on any list, was special. She reached across the table then, took my hand—

—Let me run that by you again: she took my hand!

And looked into my eyes and said, "I'm just so glad our legal troubles are done."

"It's been awful," I agreed. "I was only sued once before in my whole life." (It's true.) "And that was by an actor so it doesn't really count."

Need I tell you her laugh was bell-like? Then, to only improve her bank account came this: "You won't believe me, but I've read every novel you've ever written. Including the Harry Longbaugh." (No Way to Treat a Lady was first published under a pseudonym, Harry Longbaugh, the real name of the Sundance Kid.)

I am so in love at this point it is ri dic ulous. "The lawsuits your guys filed—you'll drop them?"