Sophie's Choice - William Styron [278]
I got hopelessly lost in the labyrinth of subway tunnels that connects the counties of Kings and Queens, took a wrong bus and found myself in the desolate sprawl of Jamaica, and thus was well over an hour late; but Larry greeted me with enormous courtesy and friendliness. He met me at the door of a large and comfortable apartment in what I took to be a rather fashionable neighborhood. I had almost never encountered anyone for whom I felt such an immediate and positive attraction. He was a bit shorter and distinctly more stocky and fleshed out than Nathan, and of course he was older, resembling his brother in an arresting way; yet the difference between the two was quickly apparent, for where Nathan was all nervous energy, volatile, unpredictable, Larry was calm and soft-spoken, almost phlegmatic, with a reassuring manner which may have been part of his doctor’s make-up but which I really think was due to some essential solidity or decency of character. He put me quickly at ease when I tried to apologize for my lateness, and offered me a bottle of Molson’s Canadian ale in the most ingratiating manner by saying, “Nathan tells me that you are a connoisseur of malt beverages.” And as we sat down on chairs by a spacious open window overlooking a complex of pleasant ivy-covered Tudor buildings, his words helped make me feel that we were already well-acquainted.
“I need not tell you that Nathan regards you highly,” Larry said, “and really, that’s partly why I’ve asked you to come here. As a matter of fact, in the short time I think he’s known you I’m certain that you’ve become maybe his best friend. He’s told me all about your work, what a hell of a good writer he thinks you are. You’re tops in his book. There was a time, you know—I guess he must have told you—when he considered writing himself. He could have been almost anything, under the proper circumstances. Anyway, as I’m sure you’ve been able to tell, he’s got very keen literary judgments, and I think it might give you a charge to know that he not only thinks you’re writing a swell novel but thinks the world of you as a—well, as a mensh.”
I nodded, coughing up something noncommittal, and felt a flush of pleasure. God, how eagerly I lapped up such praise! But I still remained puzzled about the purpose of my visit. What I then said, I realize now, inadvertently brought us to focus upon Nathan much more quickly than we might have done had the talk continued in respect to my talent and my sterling personal virtues. “You’re right about Nathan. It’s really remarkable, you know, to find a scientist who gives a damn about literature, much less has this enormous comprehension of literary values. I mean, here he is—a first-rate research biologist in a huge company like Pfizer—”
Larry interrupted me gently, with a smile that could not quite mask the pain behind the expression. “Excuse me, Stingo—I hope I can call you that—excuse me, but I want to tell you this right away, along with the other things you must know. But Nathan is not a research biologist. He is not a bona-fide scientist, and he has no degree of any kind. All that is a simple fabrication. I’m sorry, but you’d better know this.”
God in heaven! Was I fated to go through life a gullible and simple-minded waif, with those whom I cared for the most forever pulling the wool over my eyes? It was bad enough that Sophie had lied to me so often, now Nathan—“But I don’t understand,” I began, “do you mean—”
“I mean this,” Larry put in gently. “I mean that this biologist business is my brother’s masquerade—a cover,