Boyle Coraghessan - East is East

Two hours later they brought her in. The horse had gone down on her and broken her right leg in three places. Jane’s face was a snarl of pain, there was blood on her jodhpurs where the jagged face of the bone had sliced through the flesh. They rushed her into the parlor and laid her out on the couch, the Swedish oaf and Owen, who came away with a smear of the anointed one’s blood on his shirt. Jane shrieked like a woman giving birth to triplets, she shrieked breathlessly and without remit, save to break down in the occasional throaty rush of curses and sobs. Ruth moved aside while the whole colony fluttered round. She was horrified, she was, genuinely horrified. She could never take joy in another’s pain, no matter how despicable the person nor how much that person had it coming, could she? No. No, she couldn’t. And yet there was a thin tapering thread of satisfaction in it—even as Jane writhed and screamed and cried out for her mother and cursed the Swedish oaf: “Oh god, oh god—don’t you touch me, Olaf, you pig, you—aiee, Mommy, Mommy, it hurts, it hurts!”—and the thread raveled out like this: now Jane would be out of action. At least for a while. It was a pity, a real pity. Ruth was already thinking up her billiard-room routine.

They took Jane to the hospital. Dinner that night was subdued, a joyless affair that ran to hushed conversation and furtive glances, the colonists numbly lifting Armand’s lobster tortellini to their lips in a state of shock over the events of the past few days. Septima took her meal in the old wing of the house. Jane’s place was conspicuously vacant. Somber rumors circulated—about Hiro, about Ruth, about Jane. After dinner, while Saxby—who alone of all the company remained ebullient and irrepressible—tended to his fish, Irving Thalamus took Ruth aside.

“So tell me,” he said, swirling amber liquid in a snifter, “how’d it go with Marker?”

McGill had called just after the excitement over Jane’s accident had subsided; he was taking Ruth on. He was sure he could sell the book. He’d made some calls and was fielding offers. “Oh, Irving”—she clapped her hands like an ingénue, like Brie—“he’s taking me on.” And then she gave him a look of such melting gratitude, such starry-eyed, humble and worshipful thanksgiving, that he set down his snifter and took her hand in both of his. “Irving,” she repeated, her voice appropriately raw, “how can I ever—?”

“It’s nothing,” he murmured, and he was studying her, giving her a long sly look from beneath the hooded Thalamudian eyes. “Terrible about Jane,” he said after a moment. He still had hold of her hand.

Ruth searched his eyes. What did he want her to say? Was he on her side after all, was that it? “Yes,” she said. “Terrible.”

He looked away then, patted her hand and set it free. He lifted the snifter to his nose, took a deep breath and then set the glass down. “Ruthie”—and he hesitated, went for her hand again—“Ruthie, I’ve been meaning to ask you … you know I’ll be leaving in two weeks?”

Ruth nodded. Her heart began to accelerate. She was acutely conscious of the pressure of Irving’s hand on her own.

“I’ve got this place I’m renting in Key West—greatest weather on earth—it’s about three blocks from the beach. Big open room, windows all over the place. Hemingway lived there one winter.”

She nodded again.

“Look,” he said, watching her from deep within the folds of his hooded eyes, “what I’m saying is this: I want you to come with me. Live there—rent free, no obligations.” He paused. “With me.”

She couldn’t help herself, the names just leaped into her head: Ruth Thalamus, Mrs. Irving Thalamus, Ruth Dershowitz-Thalamus. She saw herself at his side in New York, cruising the literary salons, sashaying into Bread Loaf on his arm, saw herself in bed with him, all that hair, those strong white New York teeth. Her pulse was racing, her eyes were bright. And then she thought of Saxby, sweet Sax, with his fish and his shoulders and the way he smiled out of the corner of his mouth, thought of Thanatopsis House and Septima, of Laura and Sandy and all the rest. She was queen of the hive: this was her home. “You’re sweet, Irving,” she said finally, “and I’ll always love you. You’ll always be my best friend, my mentor, my advisor—”

Irving had retreated behind his eyes, the meager bunch of his lips. “But—?”

“But”—she sighed, and she could look down now, and up, she could scan the room before she came back to him, all the time in the world—“but I can’t leave Sax.”

The first call the following morning was from Marker McGill. He had a deal for her and he wanted to know what she thought of it. He’d gotten an offer from a major publisher—he named the house—for a $500,000 advance against a fifteen percent royalty, first serial rights going to one of the leading women’s magazines—he named it—for $75,000, to run in three installments. How did that sound?

And so, here she was, a guest of the Fortunoffs, contracts in the mail, new clothes spread out on the bed, a journalist on her way to the hospital to interview Hiro Tanaka and take some notes. It was warm, but she would wear the coat anyway—the fall season had begun, after all—and yes, she thought she would highlight her hair just a bit, to bring out some of the reds and golds. Then she would slip into her stockings and heels, don the new suit, collect her tape recorder, notepad and pens, and call a cab. There would be photographers outside the hospital and she would look smart for them—seductive, yes, attractive, yes, but in a mature way, a chic and businesslike way. She was a journalist now, after all—like Joan Didion, like Frances FitzGerald—and she had an image to maintain. Journalism—and she said it aloud to herself as she stepped into the shower—it was a noble profession.

At the hospital, ruth reconfirmed that the saga of hiro Tanaka was still very much in the public eye. There were reporters everywhere, pumping hospital staff, lawmen, doctors, nurses, even the janitors, for word as to Hiro’s condition. He’d refused steadfastly to speak to anyone—not even his court-appointed attorney and translator. He was suffering from septicemia (which had elevated his temperature to 104 degrees), shigellosis and hookworm, and he was facing twenty-two criminal charges brought by the State of Georgia and twelve others at the hands of the INS.

Ruth posed for photos on the hospital steps—not to be mercenary about it, but they were money in the bank—but she brushed off the reporters. Why give them anything? This was her story now. She was aware of the trouble Hiro was in and she felt bad about it, and she knew that some people—the Jane Shines of the world—would say that she was being mercenary, capitalizing on his misery, sailing out the courtroom door while he was left holding the bag. Especially since the charges against Saxby had been dropped and she’d been given immunity, as per her arrangement with Abercorn and the district attorney. But that wasn’t it at all. That was just a malicious distortion of the facts. Of course she felt bad for Hiro, but as she rode up in the elevator she tried to harden herself just a little. No one had asked him to jump ship or take up residence on her front porch, after all—they had to understand that. He had to understand it. And if she’d agreed to testify in exchange for immunity, she was going to go up there and do everything in her power to convince them how innocent Hiro was, how the whole thing was just an escalating series of misunderstandings, how he was nothing more than an overgrown boy, an innocent, a naif, how all he really wanted was to live in a walk-up in Little Tokyo and blend in with the crowd. It wasn’t criminal, it was pathetic, that’s what it was.