Bruce Wagner - The Chrysanthemum Palace

Thad, the Gemini, showed us Castor and Pollux. When Castor was killed in battle, the twin’s grief was so great he wanted to die, but instead, Zeus made him immortal. With great tenderness, Thad said it was their fate to be separated for eternity, adding with a private smile — I didn’t understand it at the time — how they were beacons of good luck for sailors. Then the same abstracted shadow that befell him at Badwater settled over us like a tent made of gossamer. The stone-girdled fire sparked and popped.

We grew quiet, cousined to the stillness that lay beyond.

“WHAT WAS HE LIKE?”asked my father.

There was something animated and slightly off-color about his query, as if wanting to be reminded of a dirty joke he already knew.

“I didn’t really know him all that well,” said Clea. “I knew Thad —from when I lived in New York. We went to his dad’s place in the Vineyard a few times.”

I’d finally gotten the nerve to ask Clea to dine at the family seat, deep in the canyon wilds of Benedict. The bones of the house were the same that she knew as a girl, though the bracketing properties had long ago been seized from neighbors, razed, and developed in architectural harmony with the ancestral home.

“I would have thought you’d have met while your mother was still alive,” said Perry, the glint evacuating his eye. “Seems they would have crossed paths — or swords.”

The glint came back. Most of the time, when Dad thought he was being suave, he wasn’t.

“Not to my knowledge,” said Clea, good-naturedly. “I’m pretty sure Jack was a fan but I don’t think they ever had an encounter. Though anything’s possible.”

“How is it,” I asked, “that a Starwatch episode was developed exclusively for Michelet Junior? Did you have a hand in that?”

“Absolutely. I was in New York some years ago and saw Rhinoceros,” he said, in the even tones of an egotist on Charlie Rose.

“You’re kidding. You actually saw that?”

“I’m not the Philistine you think I am, Bert.” He used “Bert” when he wanted to bring me down a peg. “I’m in New York three times a year, for the auctions and the theater— primarily, the theater. I thought the play quite remarkable. Thad was wonderful. Saw it again, with Nathan Lane, but Thad was better. I had some awareness of his work in film at the time, but not much. I’m not a big moviegoer. The Playbill said he was the son of Jack Michelet and that got my attention.” He turned to Clea. “I have all Jack’s first editions, signed — he doesn’t sign many, believe me — some watercolors too. Have you seen them? Pretty racy! I’ve wanted to adapt one of his books for the longest time. Chrysanthemum. Do you know it?”

“Yes,” said Clea, affably indifferent.

“I’ve renewed the option ten years running.”

“Then you’ve met him,” she said, opening the anecdotal door. She had more than a touch of geisha in her and knew it was probably a story our host would like to tell.

“Only once. Briefly. I don’t think he was all that well.”

My father clasped his hands, pursed his lips and grew uncharacteristically still, as if to humbly convey that what he was about to impart — the surprising lack of any personal relationship between these two cultural totems — redounded not to him but rather to the quirks, genetic meanness, dipsomania, lunacy, or legendarily demented psychopathology of that towering figure of American letters, Black Jack Michelet. The unspoken implication was that something ugly must have happened to cause Perry to retreat after initial introductions — some horrific scene, for Dad was no piker. In short, he was game. He’d long ago bagged Mailer, Updike, Vonnegut, Styron, Roth and Bellow, with framed letters and carefully mounted correspondence to prove it. In his defense, I’ll admit that as he spoke he took the high road, deferring to Genius, withholding the spiteful remark or characteristic caustic quasi-witticism, choosing to reside in a state of benevolent patronlike neutrality. At the end of the day, I think he was superstitious about speaking ill of the elder Michelet, fearing he might jinx whatever hopes he had of making Chrysanthemum into an Oscar-winning film.

Mother arrived à table via wheelchair to wish Clea well. (After depositing her, Carmen — Gita’s favorite nurse — hung back on the living room couch and flipped through the Star. ) Parkinson’s had wreaked havoc with Mom’s body, leaving spirit untouched; the greeting to my childhood love was predictably incandescent. I could tell she’d done her Internet homework, as per custom, thoughtfully counterbalancing the sometimes jarring effect her frail physicality could have upon guests, particularly those who knew the elegant woman in her prime, with details and carefully nuanced trivia from their own lives — a congenial parlor trick as likely to be employed with visitors she’d been briefed on yet never met. Gita was very First Lady that way. She nimbly conjured persons, places, and things from that long-ago time, and Clea, thrown off guard, searched her mind to recall. The very act of mental inventory distracted and leveled the playing field. Mom had been busy on IMDB as well, boning up on movie credits. It was terribly dear, and I knew Clea thought so too. It touched the heart.

We adjourned to the library where my father showed us the aforementioned watercolors — splashy, pornographic studies, all — and the hastily inscribed novel Perry had not yet managed to bring to the screen.

After supper, Clea wanted to stroll the grounds and smoke.

We took the sloping path toward the pool (its flaky, unrefurbished bottom painted years ago by David Salle), talking of tribal gatherings and make-out sessions that once took place on the hormonal, hallowed ground underfoot. “I remember this tree!” she’d shout, or, “This part is so different ”—a faraway look in her eyes. Then, moving on, a reinvigorated, convivial affirmation: “This part’s exactly the same!” Like a necromancer, she doused for mood and memory, a naked-hearted empath invoking spirit of place, aching to be reinfected by the magical virus of childhood.

“Leif loved that pool,” said Clea as we got closer. She pointed to the darkness of the adjacent property. “What is that ?”

“Dad bought the Freiberg house then knocked it down. I don’t even know if he’s ever going to build. Right now, it’s a garden they let grow wild.”

“Whoa! Amazing. ”

“It’s not ‘wild’ wild — it’s made to look that way. It was designed by this famous woman, Katrina Trotter.”

“That is so your father! Perry’s a trip.”

“Hey… remember the time upstairs at your mom’s?”

“I remember lots of times.”

“I was feeling you up and Leif came in?” She actually giggled. “He didn’t knock.”

“God forbid!”

“He was drunk. He grabbed you and kissed you—”

“You’re kidding!” said Clea, with a flush of prudery.

“You don’t remember him doing that?”

She shook her head, in Victorian outrage.

“Well, actually… he asked me first.”

“He asked permission? How kinky! What did I do? Slapped him, I hope. I should have slapped you. ”

That she had no recollection should have been comical but instead I felt sad and hollow, disconnected from the world.

“How did you meet Thad?”

“We were doing The Master Builder, in New York.”