Barney's Version Read online

  Making the arrangements for the wedding, I finally got a peek at Clara’s passport, and was startled to discover the name on it was Charnofsky. “Don’t worry,” she said. “You caught yourself a blue-blood shiksa. But when I was nineteen I ran off with him and we were married in Mexico. My art teacher. Charnofsky. It only lasted three months, but it cost me my trust fund. My father disinherited me.”

  Once we moved into our apartment, Clara began to stay up into the early-morning hours, scribbling in her notebooks or concentrating on her nightmarish ink drawings. Then she slept in until two or three in the afternoon, slipped out of our apartment, and was not seen again until evening, when she would join our table at the Mabillon or Café Sélect, her manner delinquent.

  “As a matter of interest, Mrs. Panofsky, where were you all afternoon?”

  “I don’t remember. Walking, I suppose.” And then, digging into her voluminous skirts, she would say, “I brought you a gift,” and would hand me a tin of pâté de foie gras, a pair of socks, and, on one occasion, a sterling silver cigarette lighter. “If it’s a boy,” she said, “I’m going to call him Ariel.”

  “Now that comes trippingly off the tongue,” said Boogie. “Ariel Panofsky.”

  “I vote for Othello,” said Leo, his smile sly.

  “Fuck you, Leo,” said Clara, her eyes hot, suffering one of her unaccountable but increasingly frequent mood changes. Then she turned on me. “Maybe Shylock would be most appropriate, all things considered?”

  Surprisingly, once Clara was over her morning sickness, playing house together turned out to be fun. We shopped for kitchenware and bought a crib. Clara made a mobile to hang over it and painted rabbits and chipmunks and owls on the walls of our nursery. I did the cooking, of course. Spaghetti bolognese, the pasta strained with a colander. Chopped chicken liver salad. And, my pièce de résistance, breaded veal chops garnished with potato latkes and apple sauce. Boogie, Leo with one or another of his girls, and Yossel often came to dinner, and once even Terry McIver, but Clara refused to tolerate Cedric, who had failed to appear at our wedding. “Why not?” I asked.

  “Never mind. I just don’t want him here.”

  She also objected to Yossel.

  “He has a bad aura. He doesn’t like me. And I want to know what you two are up to.”

  So I settled her on the sofa and brought her a glass of wine. “I’ve got to go to Canada,” I said.

  “What?”

  “I’ll only be gone for three weeks. A month at most. Yossel will bring you money every week.”

  “You’re not coming back.”

  “Clara, don’t start.”

  “Why Canada?”

  “Yossel and I are going into the cheese-export business together.”

  “You’re joking. The cheese business. It’s too embarrassing. Clara, you were married in Paris, weren’t you? Yes. To a writer or a painter? No, a cheese fucking salesman.”

  “It’s money.”

  “You would think of that. I’ll go crazy all alone here. I want you to get me a padlock for the door. What if there’s a fire?”

  “Or an earthquake?”

  “Maybe you’ll do so well with the cheese that you’ll send for me in Canada and we could join a golf club, if they have them there yet, and invite people in to play bridge. Or mah-jongg. I’m not becoming a member of any synagogue ladies fucking auxiliary and Ariel’s not going to be circumcised. I won’t allow it.”

  I managed to register a company in Montreal, open an office, and hire an old school friend, Arnie Rosenbaum, to run it, all within three febrile weeks. And Clara grew accustomed, even seemed to look forward to, my flying to Montreal every six weeks, providing I returned laden with jars of peanut butter, some Oreos, and at least two dozen packs of Lowney’s Glosette Raisins. It was during my absences that she wrote, and illustrated with ink drawings, most of The Virago’s Verse Book, now in its twenty-eighth printing. It includes the poem dedicated to “Barnabus P.” That touching tribute which begins,

  he peeled my orange and more often me,

  Calibanovitch,

  my keeper.

  I was in Montreal, hustling, and Clara was into her seventh month, when Boogie tracked me down in my room at the Mount Royal Hotel early one morning.

  “I think you had better answer it,” said Abigail, the wife of my old school friend who managed our Montreal office.

  “Yes.”

  Boogie said, “You better grab the first flight back.”

  I landed at oh whatever in the hell that airport was called before it became de Gaulle26 at seven a.m. the following morning, and made right for The American Hospital. “I’m here to see Mrs. Panofsky.”

  “Are you a relative?”

  “Her husband.”

  A young intern, contemplating his clipboard, looked up and regarded me with sudden interest.

  “Dr. Mallory would like to have a word with you first,” said the receptionist.

  I took an instant dislike to Dr. Mallory, a portly man with a fringe of grey hair who radiated self-regard and had obviously never treated a patient worthy of his skills. He invited me to sit down and told me that the baby had been stillborn, but Mrs. Panofsky, a healthy young woman, would certainly be able to bear other children. His smile facetious, he added, “Of course I’m telling you this because I take it you are the father.”

  He seemed to wait on my response.

  “Yes.”

  “In that case,” said Dr. Mallory, flipping his colourful braces, his riposte obviously rehearsed, “you must be an albino.”

  Taking in the news, my heart thudding, I delivered Dr. Mallory what I hoped was my most menacing look. “I’ll catch up with you later.”

  I found Clara in a maternity ward with seven other women, several of whom were nursing newly born babes. She must have lost a good deal of blood. Pale as chalk she was. “Every four hours,” she said, “they attach clamps to my nipples and squeeze out the milk like I was a cow. Have you seen Dr. Mallory?”

  “Yes.”

  “ ‘You people,’ he said to me. ‘You people.’ Brandishing that poor, wizened dead thing at me as if it had slid out of a sewer.”

  “He told me I could take you home tomorrow morning,” I said, surprised at how steady my voice was. “I’ll come by early.”

  “I didn’t trick you. I swear, Barney. I was sure the baby was yours.”

  “How in the hell could you be so sure?”

  “It was just once and we were both stoned.”

  “Clara, we seem to have an attentive audience here. I’ll come for you tomorrow morning.”

  “I won’t be here.”

  Dr. Mallory was not in his office. But two first-class airplane tickets to Venice and a confirmation slip for reservations at the Gritti Palace sat on his desk. I copied the number of the hotel reservation slip, hurried over to the nearest Bureau de Poste, and booked a call to the Gritti Palace. “This is Dr. Vincent Mallory speaking. I wish to cancel tomorrow night’s reservations.”

  There was a pause while the desk clerk flipped through his file. “For the entire five days?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “In that case, I’m afraid you will lose your deposit, sir.”

  “Why you cheap little mafioso, that doesn’t surprise me,” I said, and hung up.

  Boogie, my inspiration, would be proud of me. That master prankster had played far worse tricks on people, I thought, beginning to wander aimlessly. Raging. Murder in my heart. I ended up, God knows how, in a café on the rue Scribe, where I ordered a double “Johnnie Walkair.” Lighting one Gauloise off another, I was surprised to discover Terry McIver ensconced at a table in the rear of the café with an overdressed older woman who was wearing too much makeup. Take it from me, his “pleasingly pretty” Héloise was squat, a dumpling, puffy-faced, with more than a hint of moustache. Catching my eye, equally startled, Terry withdrew her multi-ringed hand from his knee, whispered something to her, and ambled over to my table. “She’s Marie
-Claire’s boring aunt,” he said, sighing.

  “Marie-Claire’s affectionate aunt, I’d say.”

  “Oh, she’s in such a state,” he whispered. “Her Pekinese was run over this morning. Imagine. You look awful. Anything wrong?”

  “Everything’s wrong, but I’d rather not go into it. You’re not fucking that old bag?”

  “Damn you,” he hissed. “She understands English. She’s Marie-Claire’s aunt.”

  “Okay. Right. Now beat it, McIver.”

  But he did not leave without a parting shot. “And in future,” he said, “I’d take it as a kindness if you didn’t follow me.”

  McIver and “Marie-Claire’s aunt” quit the café without finishing their drinks and drove off not in an Austin-Healey but in a less-than-new Ford Escort.27 Liar, liar, liar, that McIver.

  I ordered another double Johnny Walkair and then went in search of Cedric. I found him in his favourite café, the one frequented by the Paris Review crowd as well as Richard Wright, the Café le Tournon, high on the rue Tournon. “Cedric, old buddy of mine, we’ve got to talk,” I said, taking his arm, and starting to propel him out of the café.

  “We can talk right here,” he said, yanking his arm free, and directing me to a table in the corner.

  “Let me buy you a drink,” I said.

  He ordered a vin rouge and I asked for a Scotch. “You know,” I said, “years ago my daddy once told me that the worst thing that could happen to a man is to lose a child. What do you think, man?”

  “You’ve got something to say to me, spit it out, man.”

  “Yes. Quite right. But I’m afraid it’s bad news, Cedric. You lost a son yesterday. My wife’s. And I am here to offer condolences.”

  “Shit.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I had no idea.”

  “That makes two of us.”

  “What if it wasn’t mine either?”

  “Now there’s an intriguing thought.”

  “I’m sorry, Barney.”

  “Me too.”

  “Now do you mind if I ask you a question?”

  “Shoot.”

  “Why in the hell did you marry Clara in the first place?”

  “Because she was pregnant and I thought it was my duty to my unborn child. My turn now.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Were you screwing her after as well as before? We were married, I mean.”

  “What did she say?”

  “I’m asking you.”

  “Shit.”

  “I thought we were friends.”

  “What’s that got to do with it?”

  Then I heard myself saying, “That’s where I draw the line. Fooling around with the wife of a friend. I could never do that.”

  He ordered another round and this time I insisted that we click glasses. “After all,” I said, “this is an occasion, don’t you think?”

  “What are you going to do about Clara now?”

  “How about I turn her over to you, Daddy-o?”

  “Nancy wouldn’t dig that. Three in a bed. Not my scene. But I do thank you for the offer.”

  “It was sincerely meant.”

  “I appreciate that.”

  “Actually, I think it was awfully white of me to make such an offer.”

  “Hey, Barney, baby, you don’t want to mess with a bad nigger like me. I might pull a shiv on you.”

  “Hadn’t thought of that. Let’s have another drink instead.”

  When the patronne brought over our glasses, I stood up unsteadily and raised mine. “To Mrs. Panofsky,” I said, “with gratitude for the pleasure she has given both of us.”

  “Sit down before you fall down.”

  “Good idea.” Then I began to shake. Swallowing the boulder rising in my gorge, I said, “I honestly don’t know what to do now, Cedric. Maybe I should hit you.”

  “Goddamn it, Barney, I hate to tell you this, but I wasn’t the only one.”

  “Oh.”

  “Didn’t you know that much?”

  “No.”

  “She’s insatiable.”

  “Not with me she wasn’t.”

  “Maybe we ought to order a couple of coffees, then you can hit me if it will make you feel better.”

  “I need another Scotch.”

  “Okay. Now listen to your Uncle Remus. You’re only twenty-three years old and she’s a nut case. Shake her loose. Divorce her.”

  “You ought to see her. She’s lost lots of blood. She looks awful.”

  “So do you.”

  “I’m afraid of what she might do to herself.”

  “Clara’s a lot tougher than you think.”

  “Was it you who made those scratches on her back?”

  “What?”

  “Somebody else then.”

  “It’s over. Finito. Give her a week to get her shit together and then tell her.”

  “Cedric,” I said, breaking into a sweat, “everything’s spinning. I’m going to be sick. Get me into the john. Quick.”

  11

  The intense, hennaed Solange Renault, who once played Catherine in Henry Vat our Stratford, was obliged to settle long ago for the continuing role of the French-Canadian settlement nurse in my McIver of the RCMP series.

  (Private joke. I often request the weekly script that’s to be sent to Solange, and rewrite some of her lines for her amusement.

  NURSE SIMARD: By Gar, de wind she blow lak ’ell out dere tonight. Be careful de h’ice, everybody.

  Or, NURSE SIMARD: Look dere, h’it’s Fadder St-Pierre ’oo comes ’ere. Better lock up de alcool and mind your h’arses, guys.)

  Actually, I have made it my business to find work for Solange in just about everything done by Totally Unnecessary Productions Ltd., going back to the seventies. Sixty-something years old now, still nervously thin, she persists in dressing like an ingenue but otherwise is the most admirable of women. Her husband, a gifted set designer, was taken out by a massive heart attack in his early thirties, and Solange has brought up, and seen to the education of, her daughter, the indomitable Chantal, my personal assistant. Saturday nights, providing the new, improved, no-talent, chickenshit Canadiens are in town, each one a multimillionaire, Solange and I eat an early dinner at Pauzé’s, and then repair to the Forum, where once nos glorieux were just about invincible. My God, I remember when all they had to do was to leap over the boards in those red-and-white sweaters and the visiting team was a goner. Those, those were the days. Fire-wagon hockey. Soft but accurate passes. Fast-as-lightning wrist shots. Defencemen who could hit. And no ear-piercing rock music played at 10,000 decibels while a face-off was held up for a TV commercial.

  Anyway, it now seems that my traditional if increasingly exasperating Saturday night out with Solange is threatened. I’m told I behaved like a hooligan again last Saturday night, embarrassing her. My alleged offence happened during the third period. The effete Canadiens, already down 4–1 to the Ottawa Senators, for Christ’s sake, were on their so-called power play, scrambly, a minute gone and yet to manage a shot on the nets. Savage, that idiot, passed to an open wing, enabling a slo-mo Ottawa defenceman, a journeyman who would have been lucky to make the QSHL in the old days, to ice the puck. Turgeon collected it, glided to centre ice, and golfed it into the corner, Damphouse and Savage scrambling after, throwing up snow just short of the mêlée. “Goddamn that Turgeon,” I hollered, “with his contract, he’s earning something like a hundred thousand a goal. Beliveau was never paid more than fifty thousand dollars28 for the whole season and he wasn’t afraid to carry the puck over the blue line.”

  “Yes, I know,” said Solange, rolling her eyes. “And Doug Harvey never made more than fifteen a year here.”

  “I told you that. You didn’t know it.”

  “I’m not denying you told me that, I don’t know how many times. Now will you please be quiet and stop making an exhibition of yourself.”

  “Look at that! Nobody parked in front of the net, because he might have to take an
elbow. We’ll be lucky if Ottawa doesn’t score another short-handed goal. Shit! Fuck!”

  “Barney, please.”

  “They ought to trade Koivu for another Finnish midget,” I said, joining in the chorus of boos.

  A no-name Senator hopped out of the penalty box, gathered in the puck, skated in all alone on our petrified goalie, who naturally went down too soon, and lifted one over his blocker arm. Five–one Ottawa. Disgusted fans began to cheer the visitors. Programs were thrown on the ice. I yanked off my rubbers and aimed them at Turgeon.

  “Barney, control yourself.”

  “Shettup.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “How am I supposed to concentrate on the game with your nonstop chattering?”

  The game was almost over before I noticed that a touchy Solange had quit her seat. Ottawa won, seven–three. I retreated to Dink’s, grieving over a couple of Macallans before I called Solange. But it was Chantal who answered the phone. “I want to speak to your mother,” I said.

  “She doesn’t want to speak to you.”

  “She behaved childishly tonight. Walking out on me. I lost my rubbers, and tripped on the ice outside, and almost broke a leg before I found a taxi. Did you watch the game on TV?”

  “Yes.”

  “That prick Savard never should have traded Chelios. If your mother won’t come to the phone, I’m getting into a taxi and I’ll be at your place in five minutes. She owes me an apology.”

  “We won’t answer the door.”

  “You make me sick, both of you.”

  Guilt-ridden, and late as it was, there was nothing for it but to phone Kate to tell her how badly I had behaved. “What do I do now?” I asked.

  “Send flowers first thing tomorrow morning.”