The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz Read online

  Mr. Friar checked his smile. Irving Thalberg, he remembered, had been only twenty-two when he took over MGM, and besides, the most surprising people had money in Canada. “Why don’t we have a drink together,” he said.

  They went to a bar around the corner and Mr. Friar immediately ordered a double gin and tonic.

  “Your talk was a pleasure,” Duddy said. “It was very educational.”

  “Jolly decent of you to say so.”

  Duddy hesitated. The palms of his hands began to sweat. “I hope you like it here. Montreal,” he said, “is the world’s largest inland seaport.”

  Mr. Friar lifted his glass and gave Duddy an encouraging smile. “Cheers.”

  Peter John Friar was a small, pear-shaped man with a massive head and a fidgety red face. His graying hair was thin but disheveled and there were little deposits of dandruff on his coat collar. He seemed especially fond of stroking his graying vandyke beard, knitting his fierce eyebrows, and — squinting against the smoke of a cigarette burnt perilously close to his lips — nodding as he said, “Mm. Mm-hmm.” He wore a green tweed suit and a shirt with a stiff collar. Duddy figured him for forty-forty-five and something of a lush maybe. He had those kind of jerky hands and the heavily veined nose.

  “Have another on me,” Mr. Friar said.

  “No, thanks. But you go right ahead.”

  Duddy wanted to ask Mr. Friar for advice, but lots of drinks were consumed before he got a chance to say anything. Mr. Friar, stammering a little, told him about the documentary he made for an oil company in Venezuela. It had been shown at the Edinburgh Festival and had won a prize in Turkey, but even though he had directed it his name was not actually on the picture for a dark reason he only hinted at. Mr. Friar had come to Canada from Mexico to work for the National Film Board, actually, but he was having trouble again because he was a left-winger. An outspoken one. Temporarily, he said, he was at liberty. “Grierson,” he said, “is madly determined for me to come to Ottawa, but…”

  “Jeez,” Duddy said, “I feel a bit embarrassed now to bother such a B.T.O. with my plans.”

  “Dear me. Why?”

  “Naw. You wouldn’t like it. They’re what you called… commercial.”

  “Let’s have another. But this one’s on me, old chap.”

  Duddy said there was plenty of money around these days. He told him about his idea to make films of weddings and bar-mitzvahs.

  “A splendid notion.”

  But that, Duddy said, would only be a beginning. He wanted to investigate the whole field of industrial films and one day he hoped to make real features. He had under contract, in fact, Canada’s leading comedian, and next week he was going to meet a potential big backer. “Listen,” Duddy said, “I’m no shnook. I can see you’re a very sensitive man. I know you couldn’t care less about making films of weddings and bar-mitzvahs but if you could help me with advice about equipment and costs I would certainly appreciate it. I’d be willing to show my appreciation too.”

  Mr. Friar waved his hands in protest. “Have you any interested clients?” he asked.

  “I have two orders in hand,” he said, “and a long list of weddings and bar-mitzvahs that are coming up soon. I spent some time in the hotel business and I know lots of people in Outremont. All I need is to get started,” Duddy said, leaning back in his chair with his hands resting on his knees.

  “I just might be interested. You see,” Mr. Friar said, “it so happens that for years I have been absorbed in folklore and tribal customs in every shape and form. I’m not unfamiliar with Hebraic rituals, you know. Your people have suffered so much. The lore is rich.”

  “Wha’?”

  “The record of a wedding or bar-mitzvah needn’t be crassly commercial. We could concentrate on the symbolism inherent to the ceremony.”

  “They’d have to be in color. That would be a big selling point.”

  “I say,” Mr. Friar said, “there’s one thing I like to warn every producer about before I start on a project. I demand a completely free hand. I will tolerate no interference with my artistic integrity.”

  “I don’t know a camera lens from a horse’s ass, so stop worrying. But look, Mr. Friar, I’ve got a feeling that the important thing about this kind of movie is not the symbolism like, but to get as many relatives and friends into it as humanly poss —”

  “That,” Mr. Friar said, “is exactly what I mean,” and he leaped up and started out of the bar.

  “Hey, wait a minute,” Duddy shouted, starting after him. The waiter stepped in front of Duddy. “You a minute, buster.”

  The bill came to eight dollars. Duddy paid it and hurried outside.

  “Have you ever got a temper. Jeez.”

  “In my day, Kravitz, I’ve thrown more than one bloody producer off a set.”

  “No kidding?”

  “If I could only learn to be as obsequious as Hitchcock I wouldn’t be where I am today.”

  Duddy could see that Mr. Friar’s eyes were red. He took his arm.

  “I have no home,” Mr. Friar said. “I’m a vagabond.”

  “Listen, I’m starved. Why don’t we go in here and grab a smoked meat? My treat.”

  “I’m going back to my flat.”

  “Where is it? I’ll walk you.”

  “You are tenacious, Kravitz, aren’t you?”

  “Aw.”

  “I’d really like to be alone now. Sorry, old chap.”

  “Aren’t you interested in my project any more?”

  Mr. Friar hesitated. He swayed a little. “Tell you what, Kravitz. You come to my flat tomorrow at four. We can talk some more then.” He gave Duddy his address and shook hands with him. “Hasta mañana,” said.

  “Sure thing.”

  Mr. Friar lived in an apartment on Stanley Street and Duddy was there promptly at four the next afternoon. He had brought a bottle of Booth’s Dry Gin with him. There was no bell on the door and Duddy had to knock again and again.

  “Avante.”

  Mr. Friar was in the nude, his fallen belly thick with curly gray hair.

  “Hiya!”

  Every drawer in the living-room-cum-bedroom was open and dripping underwear or shirtsleeves. One wall was completely covered with bull-fighting posters.

  “It’s not my flat, actually. It belongs to Gilchrist. He was my fag at Winchester. A proper bastard. Well, Kravitz, sit down.”

  Mr. Friar freed a couple of glasses from the pile of pots and pans in the sink, wiped the lipstick off one with the corner of his sheet, and poured two drinks. He knocked all the magazines off the coffee table with a scythelike sweep of hairy leg and set down a tray of icecubes beside the bottle.

  “Cheers,” Duddy said quickly.

  “Prosit.”

  But Duddy continued to stare. Mr. Friar sighed, retrieved an old New Yorker the floor, and covered his genitals with it.

  Duddy began to talk quickly, before Mr. Friar could begin on his reminiscences once more. He told him that he had no equipment and not the vaguest notion of the production costs of a bar-mitzvah picture. Mr. Friar, speaking frankly, could be of invaluable service to him. Duddy explained that he was the one with the connections and it was he who would risk his capital on equipment. “But you’re the guy with the know-how,” he said, and he offered Mr. Friar one-third of all the profits. “We can help each other,” he said. “And if you don’t trust me the books will be open to you any time you like.”

  “Your glass is empty.” Mr. Friar poured two stiff drinks.

  “Prosit,” said quickly.

  “Chin-chin.”

  Mr. Friar told Duddy that he was not interested in money. All he wanted was enough to keep him and a guarantee of noninterference.

  “You’ve got a deal,” Duddy said.

  “One moment, please. There’s another stipulation. I won’t be bound by any contract. I’m a vagabond, Kravitz. I’ve got the mark of Cain on my forehead. I must be free to get up and go at any time.”

  And then Mr.
Friar became very businesslike. He told Duddy that to begin with they ought to buy their own camera but rent everything else they needed. He said that he knew lots of people at the Film Board in Ottawa and he was sure that they would let him edit and process the film there. That, he said, would be a substantial saving. He told Duddy he’d need five hundred dollars down towards equipment and he asked for an advance of one hundred dollars against personal expenses.

  “Agreed.”

  “Let me refresh your drink.”

  Duddy told Mr. Friar that he had his eye on an office in the Empire Building. First thing tomorrow morning he would put down a deposit on it. He would have DUDLEY KANE ENTERPRISES printed on the glazed glass door and, since the Empire Building was in the Monarch exchange area anyway, he would pay a little, if necessary, to get a phone number that spelt MOVIES and then he could advertise “Dial MOVIES” in all the newspapers.

  “Brilliant.”

  Another thing, Duddy added, was that he wanted Mr. Friar to give him a write-up on his past work and stuff. He hoped to get a story in the Star maybe a paragraph in Mel West’s What’s What.

  After a few more drinks Duddy could see that Mr. Friar’s eyes were red again and he began to worry.

  “I should have followed my brother into the FO,” Mr. Friar said. “Winchester and King’s did me no good in Hollywood. I couldn’t speak Yiddish.”

  “Jeez.”

  Mr. Friar wiped his eyes and poured himself another drink, straight gin this time. “It’s no good, Kravitz. I can’t do this to you. You’re young. I have no right to ruin what promises to be a brilliant career even before it’s begun.”

  Duddy looked puzzled.

  “I’m afraid I’ve been concealing something from you, old chap. I’m a communist.”

  “So?”

  “I believe in the brotherhood of man.”

  “Me too,” Duddy said forcefully. “Do unto your neighbor… Aw, you know.”

  “I am a card-holder,” Mr. Friar said in a booming voice. He stood up and the New Yorker to the floor. “I tell you that here but no committee could drag it out of me with wild horses. Do you realize what that means?” Mr. Friar touched Duddy’s knee. He lowered his voice. “I fled the United States one step ahead of the FBI. I’m on the blacklist.”

  “No kidding!”

  “I must I’ve never attempted to conceal my beliefs.”

  “So?”

  “Don’t you see, Kravitz? I will not direct again without a credit. But if you hire me it’s likely that you’ll never be able to work in Hollywood. Don’t hesitate. I’ll understand perfectly if you want to call the deal off.”

  “We’re partners, Mr. Friar. Shake.”

  Duddy saw Mr. Friar daily after that, but the next time he came he only brought a half bottle of gin. On Monday he moved into his office. He took out a subscription to Variety quickly adapting himself to the idiom of the trade, learned to think of himself as an “indie.” Duddy waited until the paragraph he wanted had appeared in Mel West’s column before he went to see Mr. Cohen about his son’s bar-mitzvah. He had kept putting the visit off because if Mr. Cohen was not interested he was in trouble. Mr. Friar was anxious to get started. “You told me you had two orders,” he said.

  “Sure. Sure thing.”

  If Mr. Cohen didn’t bite Duddy would be in bad trouble. The office cost him a hundred dollars a month and, added to that, there was the price of standard office equipment. He had to give up driving the taxi when Max was off. One night he had just avoided getting Farber for a fare. He could not approach people as a budding businessman by day and take their tips by night. Duddy carried on selling liquid soap and other factory supplies, but that didn’t bring in a hell of a lot. He continued to pursue his father about the Boy Wonder, and soothing Mr. Friar consumed lots of his time. He kept in close touch with Yvette, too. A week after he had returned to Montreal she sent him a large envelope by registered mail. It was a map of Lac St. Pierre with all the bordering fields subdivided into farms and listing the landowners. Duddy was relieved to find that they were all French-Canadians. Farmers, probably. The largest landowner was a man named Cote and Brault, the man Yvette had spoken of, owned a good-sized pasture round the bend of the lake. Duddy hid the map under his mattress. Later he transferred it to his office, where he kept it locked in a desk drawer. A week after it had arrived the map was already greasy from too much handling. Sometimes Duddy would wake at two in the morning, drive down to his office, and study the map until he could no longer keep his eyes open.

  Yvette had sent a letter with the map. A notary she trusted had estimated that the land had a market value of four to five hundred dollars an arpent and if Duddy wanted all of it and could pay the price he needed twenty thousand dollars cash. He would have to assume mortgages for the balance — probably another thirty thousand dollars. He could pay these mortgages off over the next five to ten years, at five per cent interest, if he were lucky. But the notary also said that the land was good for nothing better than a pasture. If somebody was foolhardy enough to want to invest in a development of summer cottages there then he’d better count on buttering up more than one member of the town council to get them to bring in electricity and sewers. The half-owner of one large farm was in an insane asylum. Her brother couldn’t sell until she died. Two other farms were owned by a fierce nationalist who would sell to nobody but another French-Canadian. Yvette also wrote that the notary said it would cost thousands of dollars to build on the land. In a postscript she added that Duddy, in any event, was still a minor and that made for other difficulties. It’s true that he could legally own land. But a minor couldn’t enter into most contracts without being assisted by his tutor, unless the purchase and sale of land was his business. So it would be best to have somebody act for him. His father, perhaps.

  Two days later another large envelope came. Maybe Yvette felt she had been too discouraging. Anyway, this one contained sixteen photographs of the lake that Yvette had taken herself. Duddy drove up to Ste. Agathe that Friday night and took Yvette to a bar where they would not be seen. “I think I’m going to be fired,” she said. “Linda’s taken a dislike to me. She finds fault with everything I do.”

  Duddy tried to change the subject, but Yvette persisted. “She asked me a lot of questions about us one afternoon. I pretended not to understand what she was talking about and that made her angry.”

  “About us?”

  “She likes you. You needn’t look so pleased.”

  “Who gives a damn?” Duddy told Yvette about Mr. Friar. He said that he wanted her to quit the hotel, anyway, and learn to type and take shorthand because any day now he was going to need her in Montreal. He had to have somebody he could trust in the office. He had thought that would please Yvette and he could not understand why it only made her angrier.

  “What makes you think I want to go to Montreal to work for you?”

  “Why not?” he said. “Jeez,” and he made a mental note to bring her a gift next time he drove out.

  “You’re too sure of yourself,” Yvette said.

  “Aw.”

  A day before Duddy was supposed to see Mr. Cohen about the bar-mitzvah picture Yvette phoned. She called early in the morning and he was startled when she told him she was actually waiting for him in a drugstore around the corner. Duddy hurried down there.

  “Brault wants to sell right away.”

  “Wha’?”

  She told him that Brault’s wife had died and he was going to move to Nova Scotia to live with his son. He wanted to sell out for cash and just as quickly as possible. Yvette had gone out with the notary and offered him four hundred and fifty dollars an arpent; half cash. That came to thirty-two hundred dollars down. He had accepted, and Yvette had put down a deposit of two hundred and fifty dollars. “If you can give me a check for the rest,” she said, “I can be back in Ste. Agathe before the banks close.”

  Duddy began to bite his nails.

  “What’s wrong? I thought you’d b
e pleased. Look,” she said, “there were two other people interested. I had to act quickly. Maybe we could have got it for less, but —”

  “No. The price is O.K.”

  “The land will have to go on my name. You’re still a minor. Is that what’s bothering you?”

  “How long have we got to pay the balance?”

  “Three weeks. Haven’t you got the money, Duddy? You told me you had nearly three thousand dollars in the bank. You mustn’t lie to me.”

  He told her what the camera and other equipment had cost and that he had rented an office. He had six hundred dollars left in the bank, maybe less. He would need money for film too.

  “Sell the car,” she said.

  Duddy laughed. “The car isn’t even paid for. Look, don’t worry. We’ve got three weeks and I’ll raise the rest of the money even if I have to kill somebody for it.”

  But Duddy was obviously worried himself. He drove her back to Ste. Agathe and all the way there he hardly spoke.

  “Stay the night with me,” she said.

  “I can’t. I have to see that bastard Cohen at nine tomorrow morning.”

  “You don’t have to make excuses.”

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake.”

  Duddy couldn’t sleep. He smoked one cigarette after another. Lennie hadn’t come again, he had told Max he was spending the night at a friend’s house. Duddy knew better, but he didn’t care. All he could think of was that if he was Lennie and needed three thousand dollars he’d only have to say pretty please Uncle Benjy. Son of a bitch, Duddy thought. If he was Lennie he’d probably even be able to get the money from the old man. But for him there was not a hope. Max would say he was too young and too dumb to buy land. He wasn’t even proud that Duddy had an office. “Go ahead,” he had said. “Throw your money away. It’ll teach you a good lesson.” His grandfather might have that much money. He’d lend it to him too. But Duddy had promised him a farm and he wasn’t going to go crawling to Simcha for the money to buy it with no matter what.