I don’t know, Roger thought to himself. If that was what you wanted to do that was quite practical. You didn’t just make up a story about it. And the other part of him thought: You must be slipping you bastard if the absinthe can bring the heel in you out that quickly. But what he said was, “I don’t know, daughter. I think the story business is dangerous. First you could make up stories about something innocuous, like me, and then there could be all sorts of other stories. There might be bad ones.”
“You’re not so innocuous.”
“Oh yes I am. Or the stories are anyway. Saving me is fairly innocuous. But first you might be saving me and then next you might be saving the world. Then you might start saving yourself.”
“I’d like to save the world. I always wished I could. That’s awfully big to make a story about. But I want to save you first.”
“I’m getting scared,” Roger said.
He drank some more of the absinthe and he felt better but he was worried.
“Have you always made up the stories?”
“Since I can remember. I’ve made them up about you for twelve years. I didn’t tell you all the ones. There are hundreds of them.”
“Why don’t you write instead of making up the stories?”
“I do write. But it’s not as much fun as making up the stories and it’s much harder. Then they’re not nearly as good. The ones I make up are wonderful.”
“But you’re always the heroine in the stories you write?”
“No. It’s not that simple.”
“Well let’s not worry about it now.” He took another sip of the absinthe and rolled it under his tongue.
“I never worried about it at all,” the girl said. “What I wanted, always, was you and now I’m with you. Now I want you to be a great writer.”
“Maybe we’d better not even stop for dinner,” he said. He was still very worried and the absinthe warmth had moved up to his head now and he did not trust it there. He said to himself. What did you think could happen that would not have consequences? What woman in the world did you think could be as sound as a good secondhand Buick car? You’ve only known two sound women in your life and you lost them both. What will she want after that? And the other part of his brain said, Hail heel. The absinthe certainly brought you out early tonight.
So he said, “Daughter, for now, let’s just try to be good to each other and love each other” (he got the word out though the absinthe made it a difficult word for him to articulate) “and as soon as we get out where we are going I will work just as hard and as well as I can.”
“That’s lovely,” she said. “And you don’t mind my telling you I made up stories?”
“No,” he lied. “They were very nice stories.” Which was true.
“Can I have another?” she asked.
“Sure.” He wished now they had never taken it although it was the drink he loved best of almost any in the world. But almost everything bad that had ever happened to him had happened when he was drinking absinthe; those bad things which were his own fault. He could tell that she knew something was wrong and he pulled hard against himself so that there would be nothing wrong.
“I didn’t say something I shouldn’t did I?”
“No, daughter. Here’s to you.”
“Here’s to us.”
The second one always tastes better than the first because certain taste buds are numbed against the bitterness of the wormwood so that without becoming sweet, or even sweeter, it becomes less bitter and there are parts of the tongue that enjoy it more.
“It is strange and wonderful. But all it does so far is just bring us to the edge of misunderstanding,” the girl said.
“I know,” he said. “Let’s stick together through it.”
“Was it that you thought I was ambitious?”
“It’s all right about the stories.”
“No. It’s not all right with you. I couldn’t love you as much as I do and not know when you’re upset.”
“I’m not upset,” he lied. “And I’m not going to be upset,” he resolved. “Let’s talk about something else.”
“It will be wonderful when we’re out there and you can work.”
She is a little obtuse, he thought. Or maybe does it affect her that way? But he said, “It will be. But you won’t be bored?”
“Of course not.”
“I work awfully hard when I work.”
“I’ll work too.”
“That will be fun,” he said. “Like Mr. and Mrs. Browning. I never saw the play.”
“Roger, do you have to make fun of it?”
“I don’t know.” Now pull yourself together, he said to himself. Now is the time to pull yourself together. Be good now. “I make fun of everything,’ he said “I think it will be fine. And it’s much better for you to be working when ’m writing.”
“Will you mind reading mine sometimes?”
“No. I’ll love to.”
‘Really?”
“No. Of course. I’ll be really happy to. Really.”
‘When you drink this it makes you feel as though you could do anything,” the girl said. “I’m awfully glad I never drank it before. Do you mind if we talk about writing, Roger?”
“Hell no.”
“Why did you say ‘Hell no’?”
‘I don’t know,” he said. “Let’s talk about writing. Really I mean it. What about writing?”
“Now you’ve made me feel like a fool. You don’t have to take me in as an equal or a partner. I only meant I’d like to talk about it if you’d like to.”
“Let’s talk about it. What about it?”
The girl began to cry, sitting straight up and looking at him. She did not sob nor turn her head away. She just looked at him and tears came down her cheeks and her mouth grew fuller but it did not twist nor break.
“Please, daughter,” he said. “Please. Let’s talk about it or anything else and I’ll be friendly.”
She bit her lip and then said, “I suppose I wanted to be partners even though I said I didn’t.”
I guess that was part of the dream and why the hell shouldn’t it be? Roger thought. What do you have to hurt her for you bastard? Be good now fast before you hurt her.
“You see I’d like to have you not just like me in bed but like me in the head and like to talk about things that interest us both.”
“We will,” he said. “We will now. Bratchen daughter, what about writing, my dear beauty?”
“What I wanted to tell you was that drinking this made me feel the way I feel when I am going to write. That I could do anything and that I can write wonderfully. Then I write and it’s just dull. The truer I try to make it the duller it is. And when it isn’t true it’s silly.”
“Give me a kiss.”
“Here?”
“Yes.”
He leaned over the table and kissed her. “You’re awfully beautiful when you cry.”
“I’m awfully sorry I cried,” she said. “You don’t really mind if we talk about it do you?”
“Of course not.”
“You see that was one of the parts of it I’d looked forward to.”
Yes, I guess it was, he thought. Well why shouldn’t it be? And we’ll do it. Maybe I will get to like it.
“What was it about writing?” he said. “Besides how it seems it’s going to be wonderful and then it turns out dull?”
“Wasn’t it that way with you when you started?”
“No. When I started I’d feel as though I could do anything and while I was doing it I would feel like I was making the whole world and when I would read it I would think this is so good I couldn’t have written it. I must have read it somewhere. Probably in the Saturday Evening Post.”
“Weren’t you ever discouraged?”
‘Not when I started. I thought I was writing the greatest stories ever written and that people just didn’t have sense enough to know it.”
“Were you really that conceited?”
“Worse probably. Only I didn’t think I was conceited. I was just confident.”
“If those were your first stories, the ones I read, you had a right to be confident.”
“They weren’t,” he said. “All those first confident stories were lost. The ones you read were when I wasn’t confident at all.”
“How were they lost, Roger?”
“It’s an awful story. I’ll tell it to you sometime
“Wouldn’t you tell it to me now?”
“I hate to because it’s happened to other people and to better writers than I am and that makes it sound as though it were made up. There’s no reason for it ever happening and yet it’s happened many times and it still hurts like a bastard. No it doesn’t really. It has a scar over it now. A good thick scar.”
“Please tell me about it. If it’s a scar and not a scab it won’t hurt to will it?”
“No, daughter. Well I was very methodical in those days and I kept original manuscripts in one cardboard folder and typed originals in another and carbons in another. I guess it wasn’t so cockeyed methodical. I don’t know how else you’d do it. Oh the hell with this story.”
“No tell me.”
“Well I was working at the Lausanne Conference and it was the holidays coming up and Andrew’s mother who was a lovely girl and very beautiful and kind—”
“I was never jealous of her,” the girl said. “I was jealous of David’s and Tom’s mother.”
“You shouldn’t be jealous of either of them. They were both wonderful.”
“I was jealous of Dave’s and Tom’s mother,”
