Barney's Version - Mordecai Richler [33]
“It would help if you bathed occasionally.”
“You’re not an artist, like the rest of us here. You’re a voyeur. And when you go home to make money, which is inevitable, given your character, and you’ve married a nice Jewish girl, somebody who shops, you’ll be able to entertain the guys at the United Jewish Appeal dinner with stories about the days you lived with the outrageous Clara Chambers.”
“Before she became famous.”
“If you don’t enjoy me now, you will in retrospect. Because what you’re doing here is loading up your memory bank. Terry McIver has got you down pat.”
“Oh yeah? What does that creep have to say about me?”
“If you want to know what Boogie was thinking yesterday, listen to Barney today. He calls you Barney like the player piano. Always playing somebody else’s music because you have none of your own.”
Stung, I belted her one, hard enough to bang her head against the wall. And when she came at me with her fists, I knocked her to the bed. “Were you with a guy called Carnofsky?” I asked.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I’m told somebody by that name has been showing a photograph of you here and there, making inquiries.”
“I know no such person. I swear to God, Barney.”
“Have you been shoplifting again?”
“No.”
“Passing bad cheques? Anything I should know about?”
“Oh, wait. Now I’ve got it,” she said, her eyes filled with guile. “I had an art teacher in New York called Charnofsky. A real sicko. He used to follow me to my loft in the Village and stand outside and watch the window. There were obscene phone calls. Once he exposed himself to me in Union Square.”
“I thought you didn’t know anybody called Carnofsky.”
“I just remembered, but it was Charnofsky. It has to be him, that pervert. He mustn’t find me, Barney.”
A week passed before she would leave our hotel room again, and even then she was furtive, her face obscured by shawls, and avoiding our usual haunts. I knew she was lying about Carnofsky, or Charnofsky, but I didn’t twig to what was going on. Had I understood, I might have been able to save her. Mea culpa yet again. Shit. Shit. Shit.
6
“Saul, it’s me.”
“Who else would phone me this early in the morning?”
“It’s ten-thirty, for Christ’s sake.”
“I was up reading until four. I can feel the flu coming on. I had a very soft bowel movement yesterday.”
Once, when he was only eighteen, a raging Saul opened the front door of our house, dropping his books, and exclaiming, in that disgusting manner of his, “Shit. Shit. Shit,” before barging into the living room, where I sat with Miriam. “This has been a godawful day,” he said. “I got into an argument with that cretin on tenure who is my philosophy professor. I stupidly ate lunch at Ben’s and my stomach’s been upset ever since. I’ve probably got food poisoning. I just about punched out a damn fool librarian and I don’t know what I’ve done with my English 240 notes, not that it’s worth writing down anything that babbling idiot says. I had to wait forty minutes for my bus. I quarrelled with Linda. I’ve got another fierce headache. I hope we’re not eating pasta for dinner again.” Only then did he notice that Miriam’s leg, propped up on a hassock, was in a cast. “Oh,” he said, “what happened?”
“Your mother fractured her ankle this morning, but you mustn’t let that worry you.”
Now I said, “Remember I once took you and the others to see Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs? There was Sneezy, Sleepy, Doc, Grouchy, and —”
“Grouchy? You mean Grumpy, don’t you?”
“That’s what I said. The other three, please.”
“Happy.”
“I know that. And?”
“I can’t remember the other two offhand.”
“Think.”
“Damn it, Daddy. I haven’t even brushed my teeth yet.”
“I hope I didn’t waken Sally.”
“Sally’s toast. You mean Dorothy. Naw, she’s already left for work. Shit. Shit. Shit.”
“What’s wrong now?”
“She didn’t leave the Times on my bed and I can see she forgot to take my laundry with her. Look, I’m going to try to get back to sleep now, if you don’t mind?”
He’s brilliant, my Saul,