John Irving - Until I Find You

Of course it wasn’t the interview that would bother him; such things aren’t truly damaging, not for long. But that Emma’s last words to Jack were about her will— well, that would hurt him forever.

By the time the interview was published, Emma would be dead—and the Italian journalist from the Hollywood Foreign Press had figured out that he couldn’t have been having a relationship with Maria Antonietta Beluzzi, the big-breasted tobacconist in Fellini’s Amarcord. (Ms. Beluzzi would be old enough to be Jack’s grandmother!)

It had to have been Emma Oastler Jack was talking to, the journalist wrote—he and Emma, who were “just roommates,” were known to be living together—and anyone who’d seen the famous author recently knew at a glance she was overweight, if not that she weighed as much as two hundred and five pounds. (In this context, Jack’s use of the word voluptuous appeared to mock Emma for becoming so fat.)

Besides, the Italian lady concluded, Emma was said to have been depressed that her third novel—after many years, it was still only a work-in-progress—was growing too long.

“How long is it?” all the journalists would ask Jack, after Emma’s death. But by then he had learned, the hard way, to be more careful with the press.

That trip to New York, Jack was staying at The Mark. He had registered in the name of Billy Rainbow—the character he played in the soon-to-be-released film he was promoting at the press junket. He usually registered in hotels in the name of the character he was playing in his most recent, not-yet-released movie. That way, the Jack Burns fans couldn’t find him.

They weren’t all exactly fans. Some of the “chicks with dicks” had taken offense that Jack repeatedly denied he was a transsexual or a transvestite. In almost every interview, Jack said he was a cross-dresser only occasionally—and only in the movies. Real transsexuals and transvestites were offended; they said that Jack was “merely acting.” Well—of course he was!

So Jack was registered at The Mark as Billy Rainbow; the front desk screened all his calls. Jack always told his mom where he was staying—and who he was, this time—and of course Emma knew, and his agent, Bob Bookman, and his lawyer, Alan Hergott. And the publicist for whichever studio was making his most recent movie, in this case Erica Steinberg from Miramax. Naturally, Harvey Weinstein knew, too. If you were making a Miramax movie, Harvey knew where you were staying and under what name.

At the time, Jack was sleeping with the well-known cellist Mimi Lederer, so she knew where he was staying, too. In fact, he was in bed with her—asleep at The Mark—when Emma died.

That night, after dinner, Mimi had brought her cello back to his hotel room; she’d played two solos naked for him. It had been awkward at dinner, because Mimi wouldn’t check her cello. The big instrument, in its case, occupied a third chair at their table; Mimi would look at it from time to time, as if she expected the cello to say something.

Jack didn’t tell Mimi that he’d met another cellist when he was a little boy—Hannele, a music student at Sibelius Academy and one (of two) of his father’s girlfriends in Helsinki. Hannele had shared a tattoo with her friend Ritva. Hannele got the vertical left side of a heart torn in two; it was tattooed on her heart-side breast. And Hannele’s armpits were unshaven—Jack would always remember that.

When Mimi Lederer was playing for Jack in his hotel room at The Mark, it made him shudder to remember how Hannele had sat for her tattoo—like Mimi, maybe like all female cellists, with her legs spread apart. That was when Jack wondered if Hannele had ever played naked for his dad, which again caused him to wonder if he was like William. (The way William was with women, especially.)

Jack would remember what Mimi Lederer played for him that night at The Mark, when Emma was still alive—a cello solo, part of something from a Mozart trio. (Jack had made a point of learning as little as he could about classical music because it reminded him of organ music, or church music, which reminded him of his derelict dad.)

“Divertimento—E Flat Major,” Mimi Lederer whispered to him, before she began to play. Like Hannele, maybe like all female cellists, Mimi was tall with long arms and small breasts. Naturally, Jack wondered if your breasts got in the way when you were playing a cello.

The second piece Mimi played naked for him was part of something from a Beethoven string quartet. “ Razumovsky Opus Fifty-Nine,” Mimi murmured to him, “Number One.” Just the names of pieces of classical music made Jack’s teeth ache. Why couldn’t composers think of better titles? But it was wonderful to witness Mimi Lederer’s control of that big instrument she so confidently straddled.

They were still asleep when the phone rang. It was way too early in the morning for it to be Emma—that was Jack’s first thought. Toronto, like New York, was on Eastern time; that was the second idea to pop into his head. He saw it was a little after six in the morning—too early for it to be his mother, either, or so Jack thought.

Erica Steinberg was both too nice and too tactful to call him this early in the morning, and Erica knew that Jack was sleeping with Mimi Lederer—Erica knew everything. Jack thought maybe it was Harvey Weinstein on the phone. He would call you when he wanted to; he’d called Jack early in the morning before. Maybe Jack had said something in one of his interviews that he shouldn’t have said.

Mimi Lederer and Jack had to get up early, anyway—although not quite this early. Jack had another day to go on the press junket, and Mimi was teaching a class at Juilliard; then she had to catch a plane. Mimi was a member of some trio or quartet; they had a concert in Minneapolis, or maybe it was Cleveland. Jack didn’t remember.

“It must be room service,” Mimi said. “It’s probably about your breakfast order. I told you last night, Jack—you should order a normal breakfast.”

Mimi had made an issue of Jack’s breakfast order—his “breakfast manifesto,” she’d called it. The room-service staff at The Mark (as in most New York hotels) was struggling with English as a second language. Jack should have just checked what he wanted for breakfast, Mimi had said; he should not have written a “thesis” on the little card they hung on the door.

But you have to be specific about a soft-boiled egg, Jack had argued—and how complicated is it to understand “nonfat yogurt or no yogurt”?

“It’s Harvey Weinstein,” Jack told Mimi, finally picking up the telephone. “Yes?” he said into the mouthpiece.

“It’s your mother, Mr. Rainbow,” the young man at the front desk said.

In the movie, Billy Rainbow doesn’t have a mother, but Jack said, “Please put her through.” Where is she? he was wondering. (According to Mimi Lederer, he was still half asleep.)

There’d been a tattoo convention in Santa Rosa. Had his mom come to see him in Los Angeles on her way to it, or on her way home from it? She’d been on her way home, Jack dimly recalled—she’d told him all about the convention.

It had been at the Flamingo Hotel, or maybe it was the Pink Flamingo. She’d said something about a blues band—possibly the Wine Drinkin’ Roosters. She’d told Jack everything about everyone who was there.

By his mother’s own admission, it had been a three-day party; tattoo artists party like underage drinkers. Alice was a wreck on her way back from Santa Rosa. How could Jack have forgotten her telling him about Captain Don’s sword-swallowing act? Or Suzy Ming, the contortionist, writhing her way into indelible memory—if not exactly art. (So his mom wasn’t calling from Santa Rosa.)