MY LUNCH APPOINTMENT with Cromwell is at two, but I am earlier than usual, early even for me. It’s one thirty by the large antique clock in the hotel lobby. I have half an hour before I pick up the house phone and call him to tell him I have arrived.
There is a lot of wood and wing-backed chairs in the lobby. Next to the chairs, there are large stand-up ashtrays. I sit down in one of the leather wing-backed chairs studded with shiny brass upholsterer’s tacks and light a cigarette. For once I’m not the only one smoking. The well-to-do of Europe love this hotel, and the well-to-do of Europe still smoke. The lobby is fairly teeming with them. I hear Italian, German, and Spanish being spoken. The English I do hear has a heavy British accent. I smoke and let my free hand glide over those shiny brass tacks in my chair, whose heads are as large as the hobs on hobnail boots. I control the urge to count them.
The elevator is directly in front of me and the elevator doors open and close, bringing down new people, taking up the ones I have already seen. The perfumes of departed women linger for a while, and then are replaced by the perfumes of others.
I’m not just early, I’m way ahead of Cromwell in every respect.
He will come, I know, with a manila envelope in his hands. In the envelope will be either a script in need of rewriting or a videocassette of a film in need of recutting. The manila envelope will lie there while we talk of other matters.
I need nothing from him. I have no need of money or of an assignment. I have no ambitions. I cannot be flattered because I know the narrow limits of my so-called talent and, if anything, I resent others, as I resented Guido, who try to convince me that I’m better than I think I am. I’m not. I’m as good as I can be, as good as I’ll ever be. I know all that.
If anyone is leading anyone on, it is I who am leading on Cromwell by being here when I haven’t the slightest intention of working with him ever again.
My mascot, the moral man within me, is busy putting the finishing touches to his harangue, the moral monologue he plans to disgorge into Cromwell’s face.
“Listen to me, Cromwell, and listen well …”
At exactly two o’clock I pick up the house phone and call him. He apologizes profusely and informs me that he is running a little late and suggests, not knowing that I have already waited for him for half an hour, that I go and wait in the restaurant adjoining the lobby. The reservation is in his name. He won’t be long.
“Have a drink, relax, I’ll be down as soon as I can. And sorry about the delay. I really am.”
And he sounds as if he really means it.
The hotel restaurant is old-world elegance itself. It’s barely a third full and the ratio of waiters to customers is heavily stacked in favor of the customers. Cromwell doesn’t smoke, but he’s reserved a table for us in the smoking section out of consideration for my habit. He can be very thoughtful that way.
The old-world atmosphere of elegance and dignity makes me feel, as I light my cigarette, that I am here not in some personal capacity but as a representative of some country or some cause and will shortly be signing an important treaty at The Hague, which is just across the street.
My waiter comes and, like one world-class diplomat to another, inquires if I would like a drink. It’s an important question and he gives me time to think. I thoughtfully answer that yes, I would. A Bloody Mary. In his dignified way, he seems pleased by my decision and betakes himself toward the bartender to give him the happy news.
The walls of the restaurant are decorated with lithographs of old sailing ships. Schooners. Frigates. Men-of-war. Some of them seem to be the work of primitive, self-taught artists with bizarre notions of perspective. The hull of one clipper ship is shown in its entirety above the water, as if the weight of the ship could not make so much as a dent in the sea.
My waiter brings my Bloody Mary, bows, and departs. I light a cigarette.
Cromwell appears. His back is turned as he waves to somebody in the lobby. Then, turning around, he scans the restaurant. He sees me. He smiles. In his left hand he’s carrying a yellow manila envelope.
I stand up. We shake hands. Pat backs. Chit our chat.
“I am really sorry …” He apologizes yet again for being late. What can he do? He’s in town for only a few days and there are so many loose ends to tie up before he departs for Europe. Oh, didn’t he tell me? Monday, he flies to Europe. He wants to see what’s happening over there for himself. Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, Poland, Czechoslovakia. The whole thing. Then on to Moscow. The world is changing and he wants to see the changes for himself. It’s an exciting time to be alive, don’t I agree?
I do.
He keeps the yellow manila envelope in front of him for a while and then moves it casually aside, where it stays. Whatever is in that envelope is meant for me, but we will not discuss it right now. Whatever is in that envelope will cause somebody great harm, because whatever Cromwell does causes somebody great harm. Being an old pro with manila envelopes, I can tell by its outward shape that the object inside is not a script but a videocassette.
Once again, I’m way ahead of him. Thanks to Guido’s trip to LA and the gossip he brought back, I feel pretty sure, positive almost, that the cassette inside the envelope is a video transfer of the film that Cromwell had taken away from its director, Arthur Houseman. The Old Man. The national treasure of American cinema.
Meanwhile, we banter about the night before, the dinner at Cafe Luxembourg. How nice it was. How nice to see each other again after all that time. How great it is for Cromwell to be in New York again, Cafe Luxembourg is his favorite restaurant. They just don’t have restaurants like that in LA, he laments. He wishes he could live in New York himself, but his job makes it impossible. I sympathize. He compliments me for living here and staying away from the LA rat race unlike so many other screenwriters. He thinks it’s very wise of me.
It’s like a sit-down waltz, our banter. The rhythm is familiar. The dance steps are second nature. We chit our chat in three-quarter time and I feel as if I’m the one who’s leading.
We chat on. Our remarks become interchangeable. He tells me, or I tell him, how good he looks. How I’ve never, or he’s never seen me look so good. And I reply, or he replies that he feels good. The whole secret to looking good is how you feel.
I have a great affinity for this kind of mindless babble. Only my mouth is involved, leaving my mind free to think its thoughts.
I ponder the nature of evil while we waltz. The nature of Cromwell’s monolithic evil. What makes it so attractive?
No, it’s not merely that in comparison to him I come out feeling semidecent, virtuous almost, although that is one of the fringe benefits of associating with evil.
There is something else at work here.
I focus on the problem at hand (babbling along meanwhile) like Einstein performing one of his thought experiments. I seek a larger theoretical framework for Cromwell’s irresistibility.
The answer I arrive at is this: Monolithic evil is irresistible because it raises the possibility of the existence of monolithic goodness as a compensatory force. I become aware of this only when I’m in Cromwell’s company. It’s his evil that makes goodness come to mind.
The same principle is involved in my chronic lying. I lie not because I’m afraid of truth but, rather, as a desperate attempt to preserve my faith in its existence. When I lie, I feel that I’m actually hiding from truth. My dread is that were I ever to stop hiding from it, I might discover that truth does not exist.
The same principle yet again is involved in my penchant for mindless babble. By saying nothing over and over again, in a variety of ways, I seem to be nurturing a hope that I have something essential to express at the right occasion. The one brings the other into focus.
And so while I waltz with Cromwell and match his banalities with banalities of my own, I feel positive that the next time I see my son, I will have something deeply felt and genuine to tell him. This man, Cromwell, whom I’m dying to hate, brings to mind the son I’m dying to love.
We order a light lunch. The soup du jour is clam chowder, Manhattan style. Soup du jour it is for both of us. Soup and salad.
Cromwell sticks to mineral water.
I order another Bloody Mary.
“You writers.” Cromwell, impressed by my drinking, sighs and shakes his head. “I don’t know how you do it, Saul. I really don’t. After what you had to drink last night, I’d still be in bed. I would. And here you are, picking up where you left off last night, while I’m still trying to get over my hangover. You artists,” he sighs, throwing up his arms in admiration. “You’re made differently from the rest of us, you really are.”
I go along with being called an artist so he’ll think he’s leading me on. Nothing he does or says can catch me off guard. I’m way ahead of him.
The talk turns, or rather, he makes it turn, to art. Literature.
He thanks me for recommending The Asiatics to him. It is a novel I had recommended to him over two years ago and he has finally found the time to read it.
“Brilliant,” he says, “absolutely brilliant. I’ve never read anything like it.”
Do I think The Asiatics could be a movie? The way he asks the question makes it seem that everything hinges on my answer. If I say yes, a movie it will be. If no, it won’t.
We discuss the pros and cons of Prokosch’s novel, the ultimate road novel, and the problems associated with trying to turn it into the ultimate road movie.
Cromwell is a well-read man, a man who has read as much as if not more than I have, despite my many years of graduate school and my PhD in comparative literature. He has read the great Greek and Roman writers of antiquity. He has read the Russians, and not just the Russian Trinity of Tolstoy, Chekhov, and Dostoyevsky, but Andre Biely as well, and Sologub and Kuprin and the poetry of Blok and Akhmatova.
He knows classical music. His ear can discern the difference between a good recording of one of Beethoven’s piano concertos and a definitive recording. He can talk for hours about Wanger’s influence on Thomas Mann. He loves the poetry of Elizabeth Bishop and has been known to quote long passages from her work. I know, because I know him so well, that when he visits those Eastern European countries he will spend a good portion of his time going to museums, theater, concerts, ballet.
He is an enlightened man. Cultured, well-bred. Well-read. Civilized. But evil. He is evil neither for lack of enlightenment nor because of it. He is evil in addition to it.
“This,” he says, alluding to the yellow manila envelope to my left and his right, “is a real tragedy. It doesn’t happen often, but every now and then a project comes along that’s close to my heart and when it doesn’t work out, it hurts in a way that a heartbreak hurts.”
He’s lying to me, of course. But he’s doing it in his own way. He wants me to know that he’s lying. He wants me to know that every single word he’s telling me is a blatant lie. I sit across from him, feeling hopelessly old-fashioned, out of touch with current trends. When I lie, I still try to deceive others that I’m telling the truth. When Cromwell lies, he asserts that there is no truth.
The waiter has cleared away our lunch debris and brought the coffee we ordered. I drink mine and light another cigarette as Cromwell goes on.
“I not only produced this film,” he alludes again to the yellow manila envelope, “I financed it with my own money. I almost never do that, but this was a special case and a special film. This was, after all, not just any film by any director, but a film by Arthur Houseman.”
He pauses, as if out of reverence for the name he has just uttered. Looking right at me. Reading me. Gauging my response. I congratulate myself for having guessed right the content of the envelope and raise an eyebrow in mock surprise at Cromwell’s revelation.
“The Arthur Houseman,” I say.
“The one and only.” Cromwell sighs. “The Old Man himself. The last living giant in our line of work. If I can’t invest my own money in one of his films, then what’s the point of calling myself a producer? The man’s not only a genius, he is a seminal genius. I’m not a religious man, Saul. I don’t believe in God, but I believed in Arthur Houseman.”
(Maybe it’s the light in the restaurant, or the absence of any other bright color to compete with it, because the yellow of that yellow manila envelope seems yellower than any manila envelope I have ever seen. It’s as yellow as a highway warning sign illuminated by headlights in the dead of night.)
“But,” Cromwell goes on, “I had to protect myself. The Old Man’s age. His health. He was a little shaky even before the shoot began. The deal we made was meant to be a mere formality. Something to satisfy the insurance boys. As you well know, every film has to be insured against unforeseen contingencies. So we signed a document stating that should the unforeseen occur and should he be either physically or mentally incapable of delivering a satisfactory first cut of the film, the ownership of the film would revert to me and then I, as a producer, would do with it whatever, in my opinion, was best for the film.”
He pauses. He shakes his head.
“Did I ever dream that such a thing could happen? No. Do I now enjoy being in this painful position of having to take away a film from a man I revere? You know the answer to that, Doc. It’s tearing me apart. It’s literally tearing me apart.”
He sips his coffee. I sip mine.
“But what can I do?” He goes on. “This thing—” he gestures with his hand toward the manila envelope “—this chaotic thing he calls his final cut, not his first cut, mind you, but his very final cut, is not even a respectable assemblage. It’s like confetti, Doc. I swear to you, that’s what it’s like. Celluloid confetti strung together at random. I tried talking to him, but there’s no talking to the Old Man anymore. The combination of old age and disease, I don’t know. The only thing I do know is that he’s lost it, I’m afraid, but please, not a word about this to anyone.”
I nod, signaling my pledge of silence. And then, as if in eulogy for the Old Man who’s lost it, a respectful and full moment of silence follows. And then Cromwell goes on again.
“Like I told you, I’ve put up my own money to make this film, but you know me, Doc. You know me probably as well as anyone and you must know that I don’t give a damn about money. I’ve lost money before and I’ll lose it again. It’s not a question of money. This man”—he points with his index finger at the yellow manila envelope—“was one of my idols. He’s the reason I’m in this business in the first place. I grew up, as so many of us did, on his films, and now I feel like the guardian of his name and his reputation and his place in history. This will be his last film. He doesn’t have much longer to live. Six months to a year tops. I just can’t let him go out like this. He deserves better. It’s a case where we have to save him from himself.
“I don’t want to kid you, Doc. This is not just another easy fix. For all I know, and God knows I’m not an artist like you, but for all I know, the film may be unfixable. But if there’s anyone who can salvage this great man’s last work and let him enter the Pantheon in peace, it’s you. You have an uncanny facility with celluloid and a genius for the spine, the story line. Yes, you do. You know you do, so spare me your modesty. If there is a story in all this confetti, only you can find it and bring it to life. It’s not much of a plot …”
He tells me a little about the plot of the film, but I’m only pretending to listen. I’m so far ahead of him that I know that there are always two plots in any project with which Cromwell is associated. There is the plot of the movie itself and then there is the plot of Cromwell’s motives and maneuvers as a producer of that movie. If I accept the assignment, I will work on one plot. The other plot will work on me.
I am way ahead of him, but being way ahead of him is a problem in itself. I am mesmerized by my own foresight. Everything that is happening conforms with my predictions and my seerlike ability to foresee it all.
“I’ve transferred the film to a videocassette,” he says, and moves the yellow manila envelope to table center. “In addition to what’s on the cassette, there are thousands of feet of raw footage that the Old Man shot but never even bothered to edit. He wanted it destroyed when he found out what I was doing, but fortunately we managed to rescue it just in time. If and when you want to see any of it, just give Brad a call and he’ll take it from there. Meanwhile, take the cassette home and have a look. Maybe it is hopeless. Maybe even you won’t be able to fix this one. Think it over. There’s no rush. I’ll be in Europe for four to five weeks. We can talk when I come back or, if you want to reach me, just give Brad a buzz. He’ll know where to find me.”
He signals to the waiter for a check.
He winks at me while signing.
“That was some little girl you were with last night, you old goat,” he compliments me.
I shrug.
He smiles.
I smile.
He checks his watch and gestures that we still have a few minutes. No need to rush my coffee.
I light another cigarette. I sit there and wait for something to happen. For some act of man or God to keep me from forming another alliance with Cromwell. For something or someone to intercede.
If knowledge is power, then all the power is on my side. I know Cromwell so well that a fraction of the information I know about him should suffice to make me recoil from the offer on the table.
There is something about being fully informed that’s so satisfying that it becomes an end in itself. Instead of begetting a response, being informed precludes having a response.
We walk out together. I am carrying the yellow manila envelope in my hand.
We part in the lobby.
It’s a little after four o’clock when I walk out of the hotel. Park Avenue is jammed with cabs going in both directions. The yellow of the manila envelope in my hand is yellower than any cab I see.