The Soul Thief_ A Novel - Charles Baxter [60]
“Suit yourself,” he said.
At the corner, someone with an odd, doughy face was hawking maps to the stars’ houses. Coolberg and I—it was unnerving—hadn’t really spoken. He had bragged that the day seemed unusually clear for L.A. (true) and that you could see the hills (also true). Maybe, he said, we should drive up to see “the vista” for ourselves. I had nodded. Sure, whatever. But he hadn’t asked me about myself, or my flight, or my past or present life, and I hadn’t asked him about American Evenings, or his health, or his personal arrangements—whether he was married or partnered or single. We hadn’t said a word about the period of antiquity in Buffalo we had shared. Buffalo possessed a drab unsightliness, a thrift-shop cast-off industrialism, compared to L.A., the capital of Technicolor representations. People were leaving there to come here. They were giving up objects for images. Besides, it was as if neither of us had the nerve to start a real conversation.
I looked down at the books in the car. Luminaries: Paul Bowles, Goethe, André Gide, Kawabata, Bessie Head. Books from everywhere, it seemed, many of them old editions with yellowed pages. A notebook was also there on the floor. I picked it up.
The outside of the notebook displayed my name in my own handwriting, Nathaniel Mason, and the date, 1973. I dropped the thing back on the floor as if I’d been slugged. Of course I was meant to see it; I was meant to toss it back onto the floor; I was meant to stare off into the distance, toward the maps of the stars and the brilliantly shabby street, lit by the perky late-afternoon sun.
On our way up one of the canyons—I think it must have been Beachwood, snaking upward just under the Hollywood sign—he kept his silence, but it was one of those silences in which you imagine the conversation that is simultaneously not occurring.
Where are we?
Oh, what a question! We are where we are.
Whose houses are these? Whose castles? What are these hairpin turns?
Don’t you admire the camellias? They bloom about this time of year. Those bushes can be pruned into any shape. Note the rose-petal-like flowers, in cream, white, red, or striated colors. Note how they’re surrounded by waxy green leaves?
Yes, very nice. We don’t have those at home in New Jersey.
What happened to you, Nathaniel? Whatever became of you?
My life changed, that’s what. What is my notebook doing on the floor of your car?
Eventually we reached the end of Beachwood Drive, stopped, looked (yes yes, I agreed: an impressive view), turned around, and began to creep back down the canyon on the same hairpin turns. I noticed that he was a rather disordered driver, slow to react, a poor calculator of distance. He was also unobservant, and, I could tell, wearied by the sights. The truth is that L.A. is a company town, and there isn’t all that much to show to tourists. Its arid provincial beauty quickly stupefies the innocent and bores the initiate.
“Shall we go to Santa Monica?” he asked, evidently bereft of other ideas. “Should we head out there?”
“Yes,” I said. “Let’s do that.”
41
HE HAD MADE a reservation at a restaurant on Ocean Boulevard, where we had a relatively clear line of sight to the palisade and the Pacific beyond it. It was a coolly perfect late afternoon, with faint wisps of cirrus clouds drifting in from the west. Around us, the cheerful chirps of the local song-birds mixed with slow pensive jazz. A saxophone, played live, from somewhere nearby, curlicued its way through “Satin Doll.” From the restaurant’s terrace, we were presented with a bright parade of in-line skaters, lovers, and their audiences, and they, too, made me think of tropical birds in brilliant colors, not a crow among them. There was no better place to be. Seated close to us was the usual mix of tourists, domestic and foreign, and local swells, most of them dressed in the gaudy clothes of joy. If you strained to listen, you could hear French and German spoken here and there in the restaurant. No Spanish, though,