Humboldt's Gift (1976 Pulitzer Prize) - Saul Bellow [247]
“I’m going to sleep.”
“I’m just trying to make up. I know it’s hard for somebody like you having to share the earth with nuts like me. Well, let’s go and have a drink. You’re all ruffled and upset.”
But I wasn’t upset at all, really. A hard full day, even full of nonsense, acquits me of nonfeasance, satisfies my conscience. After four glasses of Calvados in the hotel bar I went to bed and slept soundly.
In the morning we met with Maître Furet and the American lawyer, a terribly aggressive man named Barbash, just the sort of representative that Cantabile would choose. Cantabile was deeply pleased. He had promised to deliver me and the evidence —I could see now why he had had such a fit about the check— and here we were, as prearranged, all beautifully coordinated. The producers of Caldofreddo knew that one Charles Citrine, author of a Broadway play, Von Trench, later made into a successful film, claimed to be the source of the original story on which their worldwide hit was based. They sent a couple of Harvard Business School types to meet with us. Poor Stronson now in jail in Miami hadn’t come within miles of the image. These two clean, well-spoken, knowledgeable, moderate, completely bald, extremely firm young men were waiting in Barbash’s office.
“Are you two gentlemen fully authorized to deal?” Barbash said to them.
“The last word will have to come from our principals.”
“Then bring the principals, the guys with the clout. Why are you wasting our time!” said Cantabile.
“Easy, easy does it,” Barbash said.
“Citrine is more important than your fucking principals, any day,” Cantabile shouted at them. “He’s a leader in his field, a Pulitzer winner, a chevalier of the Legion of Honor, a friend of the late President Kennedy and the late Senator Kennedy, and the late Von Humboldt Fleisher the poet was his buddy and collaborator. Don’t give us any shit here! He’s busy with important research in Madrid. If he can spare the time to come up here so can your crummy principals. He won’t throw his weight around. I’m here to throw it for him. Do this right or you’ll see us in court.”
To utter his threat relieved him wonderfully of something. His lips (not often silent) were lengthened by a silent smile when one of the young men said, “We’ve all heard of Mr. Citrine before.”
Mr. Barbash now got control of the conversation. His problem, of course, was to subdue Cantabile. “Here are the facts. Mr. Citrine and his friend Mr. Fleisher wrote the outline for this film back in 1952. We are prepared to prove this. Mr. Fleisher mailed a copy of the scenario to himself in January 1960. We have this piece of evidence right here in a sealed envelope, postmarked and receipted.”
“Let’s go to the US Embassy and open it before witnesses,” said Cantabile. “And let the principals get their asses down to the Place de la Concorde, too.”
“Have you seen the film Caldofreddo?” said Barbash to me.
“I saw it last night. Beautiful performance by Mr. Otway.”
“And does it resemble the original story by you and Mr. Fleisher?”
I now saw that a stenotypist sat in the corner at her tripod making a record of this conversation. Shades of Urbanovich’s court! I became Citrine the witness. “It couldn’t have had any other source,” I said.
“Then how did these guys get it? They stole it,” said Cantabile. “They might have to face a plagiarism rap.”
As the envelope was handed around to be examined, a pang passed through my lower bowel. What if distracted, mad Humboldt had stuffed an envelope with letters, with old bills, with fifty lines on an extraterrestrial subject?
“You are satisfied,” said Maître Furet, “that this is the unopened, original object? It will be so deposed.”
The Harvard business types agreed that it was on the up and up. Then the envelope was slit open—it contained a manuscript headed, “An original movie treatment. —Co-authors, Charles Citrine and Von Humboldt Fleisher.” As the pages passed