Voice of our Shadow Read online

  I was twenty-four, and in some distant, mute part of my brain I had the notion it was time to try writing my world-beater, gargantuan novel. When I returned from America I started . . . and started again and started again . . . until I had worn out all my thin beginnings. That was all right, but too quickly I realized I had no middles or ends to work on instead. At that point I bowed out of the race for the Great American Novel.

  I am convinced every writer would like to be either a poet or a novelist, but in my case the realization that I would never be another Hart Crane or Tolstoy wasn't too painful. It might have been a couple of years earlier, but I was being regularly published now, and there were even a few people around who knew who I was. Not many, but some.

  After living a couple of years in Vienna, what I missed most was having a good close friend. For a while I thought I'd found one in a sleek, classy French woman who worked as a translator for the United Nations. We hit it off from the first and for a few weeks were inseparable. Then we went to bed, and the familiarity that had come so easily was pushed aside by the purple mysteries of sex. We were lovers for a time, but it was easy to see we were better as friends than as lovers. Unfortunately too, because there was no way back once we had turned the lights down low. She transferred to Geneva, and I went back to being prolific . . . and lonely.

  PART TWO

  1

  India and Paul Tate were movie crazy, and we originally met at one of the few theaters in town that showed films in English. Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train was being revived, and I had done quite a bit of homework preparing for it. I had read Patricia Highsmith's Thomas Ripley books before I tackled the novel on which the movie was based. Then I read MacShane's biography of Raymond Chandler with the long section in it on the making of the classic.

  In fact, I was finishing the biography while I sat in the theater lobby waiting for the show to begin. Some people sat down next to me. In a few seconds I realized they were speaking English.

  "Come on, Paul, don't be a dodo. It's Raymond Chandler."

  "Nunnally Johnson."

  "Paul –"

  "India, who was right about the Lubitsch film? Huh?"

  "Stop dangling that dumb movie in my face. So what if you were right once in your life? P.S., who was right yesterday about Fielder Cook directing A Big Hand for the Little Lady?"

  Normally that kind of argument between a couple is tacky and loud, but the tone of their voices assured you they were not really arguing; no lurking anger or bared fangs anywhere.

  "Excuse me? Uh, do you speak English?"

  I turned and nodded and saw India Tate for the first time. It was summer; she had on a lemon-yellow T-shirt and new dark blue jeans. Her smile was a challenge.

  I nodded, inwardly delighted to be talking to such an attractive woman.

  "Great. Do you know who wrote this movie? I don't mean the book, I mean the screenplay. I'm having a fight with my husband here about it." She shot her thumb in his direction as if she were hitchhiking.

  "Well, I've just read a whole chapter on it in this book. It says Chandler wrote it and Hitchcock directed, but then they ended up hating each other when it was done." I tried to phrase it so both of them would feel that they had won the argument.

  It didn't work. She turned to her husband and stuck her tongue out at him for a split second. He smiled and, reaching over her lap, offered me his hand. "You don't have to pay any attention to her. I'm Paul Tate, and the tongue here is my wife, India." He shook hands the way you should – strong and very much there.

  "How do you do? I'm Joseph Lennox."

  "You see, Paul? I knew I was right! I knew you were Joseph Lennox. I remember seeing your picture in Wiener magazine. That's why I made us sit here."

  "Recognized for the first time in my life!"

  I fell in love with her on the spot. I was already halfway gone once I'd seen her face and that wonderful yellow T-shirt, but then her knowing who I was . . .

  "Joseph Lennox. God, we saw The Voice of Our Shadow two times on Broadway and then once up in Massachusetts in summer stock. Paul even bought the O. Henry collection with 'Wooden Pajamas' in it."

  Nervous now and unhappy that the recognition was due to the play, I fumbled with the Chandler biography and dropped it on the floor. India and I simultaneously bent over to pick it up, and I caught a faint scent of lemon and some kind of good sweet soap.

  The usher walked by and said we could go in. Getting up, we made quick plans to go out for coffee afterward. Right away I noticed they moved ahead of me and sat in the first row. Who would want to sit there? Very little of the movie made sense to me because I spent most of my time either looking at the backs of their heads or wondering who these interesting people were.

  "Are summers here always this humid, Joe? It feels as if a big dog is breathing on me. I wish we were back at my mother's apartment in New York."

  "India, every time we're there in the summer you complain about the heat."

  "Sure, Paul, but at least that's New York heat. There's a big difference."

  She said no more. He looked at me and rolled his eyes. We were sitting at an outside table in front of the Cafй Landtmann. A red and white tram clacked by, and the colored fountains across the street in Rathaus Park shot their streams up through the thick night.

  "It does get pretty hot here now. That's why all the Viennese go to their country houses in August."

  She looked at me and shook her head. "It's nuts. Look, I don't know anything about this place yet, but isn't tourism supposed to be Austria's main source of income? Most tourists travel in August, right? So they get to Vienna and the whole joint is closed up for vacation. Tighter than anything in Italy or France, huh, Paul?"

  We had been there half an hour. Already I'd noticed India did most of the talking, unless she egged Paul on to tell a particular anecdote or story. But they both listened carefully when the other spoke. I felt a hollow rush of jealousy when I noticed their complete mutual interest.

  Some time later I asked Paul, who turned out to be a delightfully garrulous person away from his wife, why he clammed up when he was around her.

  "I guess because she's so wonderfully strange, Joe. Don't you think? I mean, we've been married for years, and yet she still amazes me with all of the weird things she says! Usually I can't wait to hear what's going to come next. It's always been like that."

  When there was a lull in the conversation that first night and everything was quiet, I asked how they had met.

  "You tell him, Paul. I want to watch this tram go by."

  We all watched it go by. After a few seconds, Paul sat forward and put his big hands on his knees.

  "When I was in the Navy I went out and bought this screwy Hawaiian shirt when my ship docked in Honolulu. It was the most hideous piece of clothing that ever existed. Yellow with blue coconut trees and green monkeys."

  "You stop lying, Paul! You loved every scrawny little palm tree on that shirt and you know it. I thought you were going to cry when it fell apart." She reached across the table and brushed her fingertips over his cheek. I looked away, embarrassed and jealous of her casual tenderness.

  "Yes, I guess I did, but it's hard to admit it now."

  "Yeah? Well, shut up, because you looked great in it! He really did, Joe. He was standing on this street corner in the middle of San Francisco waiting for a trolley. He looked like an ad for Bacardi rum. I walked up to him and told him he was the only guy I'd ever seen who actually looked good in one of those goony shirts."

  "You didn't say I looked good, India – you said I looked too good. You made it sound as if I was one of those creeps who read science fiction novels and carry five million keys on their belt loop."

  "Oh, sure, but I said that later – after we went out for the drink."

  Paul turned to me and nodded. "That's right. The first thing she said was I looked good. We stood on the corner for a while and talked about Hawaii. She'd never been there and wanted to know if poi really tast
ed like wallpaper paste. I ended up asking her if she'd like to go someplace for a drink. She said yes and that was that. Bingo."

  "What do you mean, 'that was that'? 'That was that,' except for the fact I didn't see you again for two years. 'Bingo,' my foot!"

  Paul shrugged at her correction. It was unimportant to him. No one said anything, and the only sounds were cars passing on the Ringstrasse.

  "See, Joe, I gave him my address and telephone number, right? But he never called, the rat. Ah, what did I care? I just wrote him off as some little twit in his ugly Hawaiian shirt and didn't think about him again until he called me two years later when I was living in Los Angeles."

  "Two years? How come you waited two years, Paul?" I wouldn't have waited two seconds to claim India Tate.

  "Hmm. I thought she was okay and all, but nothing to go nuts about."

  "Thanks, mac!"

  "You're welcome. I was still in the Navy and my boat put into San Francisco for Thanksgiving. We were given a couple of days' liberty. I thought it would be fun to call her up. She wasn't living in her old digs anymore, but I was able to trace her through a roommate to Los Angeles."

  If it's possible, India was glaring and smiling at him at the same time. "Yeah, I was working at Walt Disney Studios. Doing fascinating things like drawing Mickey Mouse's ears. Neat, huh? I was bored, so when he called and asked if I would come up and spend the holiday with him, I said yes. Even if he was a twit in Hawaiian shirts. We ended up having a good time, and before he left he asked me to marry him."

  "Just like that?"

  They nodded together. "Yup, and I said yes just like that. You think I wanted to draw Scrooge McDuck for the rest of my life? He shipped out, and I didn't see him this time for two months. When I did we got married."

  "You and Scrooge McDuck?"

  "No, me and twit." She hitchhiked her thumb his way again. "We did it in New York."

  "New York?"

  "Right. In Manhattan. We got married and had dinner at the Four Seasons and then went to a movie."

  "Dr. No," Paul piped up.

  We had ordered more coffee despite the waiter's having made it clear to us by his curtness that it was closing time and he wanted us out.

  "So, what are you working on now, Joe?"

  "Oh, I've been poking around this one idea I've had for a while. It would be a kind of oral history of Vienna in World War II. So much has already been written about the battles and all that, but what interests me is recording the stories of the other people who were involved – especially the women, and others who were kids then. Can you imagine living through years of that? Their stories are just as incredible as the ones of the guys who fought. Really, you'd be knocked out if you heard what some of them went through."

  I was getting excited because the project interested me and because I had told only a few people about it. Until that moment it had been one of those "gotta do that someday" dreams that never get done.

  "Let me give you an example. There is a woman I know who worked for an insane asylum out in the Nineteenth District. The Nazis ordered her bosses to get the whole bunch of cuckoos out of there. This woman ended up carting them out of the city and up to an old Schloss on the Czech border, and amazingly they survived until the end of the war. It was straight out of that film King of Hearts."

  India shifted in her chair and rubbed her slim bare arms. The night had grown suddenly cooler and it was getting late.

  "Joe, do you mind if I ask you something?"

  Thinking it would be about the new book, I was completely taken off guard by her question when it came.

  "What did you think of The Voice of Our Shadow? Did you like it? The whole play is so different from your short story, isn't it?"

  "Yes, you're right. And to tell you the deep, deep truth, I've never liked the play, even when I saw it with the original cast in New York. I know that's biting the hand that fed me, but everything was distorted so much. It's a good play, but it isn't my story, if you see what I mean."

  "Did you grow up with guys like that? Were you a tough guy?"

  "No. I was Charlie the Chicken. I didn't even know what a gang was until someone told me. No, my brother was tough and his best friend was a real juvenile delinquent, but I was the kind who hid under the bed most of the time when the going got tough."

  "You're kidding."

  "Absolutely not. I hated to fight, I hated to smoke, I hated to get drunk . . . blood made me gag . . ."

  They were smiling, and I smiled with them. India took out a cigarette – unfiltered, I noticed – and Paul lit it for her.

  "What is your brother like? Is he still a tough guy or does he sell insurance or something?"

  "Well, you see, my brother is dead."

  "Ooops, sorry about that." She dipped her shoulders and looked away.

  "It's okay. He died when I was thirteen."

  "Thirteen? Really? How old was he?"

  "Sixteen. He was electrocuted."

  "Electrocuted? How did that happen?"

  "He fell on a third rail."

  "God!"

  "Yes. I was there. Uh, waiter, could we have the check?"

  2

  Paul turned out to be kind and witty and scatterbrained. He could listen to the most boring person talk for hours and still look as if he was fascinated. When the person left, he would usually say something funny or nasty about them, but if they happened to come back later, he would be the same open, thoughtful listener and confidant.

  He was from the Midwest and had a friendly, slightly bewildered face that was prematurely jowly and made you think he was much older than his wife. The Tates were, however, exactly the same age.

  He worked for one of the large international agencies in Vienna. He would never be specific about his job, but it had something to do with trade fairs in Communist countries. I often wondered if he was a spy, as are so many other "businessmen" in that town. Once, when I pressed him on it, he told me even the Czechs, Poles, and Rumanians had things they wanted to sell to the outside world, and that these fairs were where they got a chance to "strut their stuff."

  India Tate resembled a character you see in 1930s or '40s movies played by either Joan Blondell or Ida Lupino: a pretty face, but a hard, tight pretty. On the surface she's a tough, no-nonsense gal, but one who becomes increasingly vulnerable the longer you know her. Like Paul, she was in her early forties, but it didn't show on either of their figures because they were manic about exercising and keeping fit. They once showed me the yoga they did together every morning for an hour. I tried some of it, but couldn't even lift myself off the ground. I knew they didn't like that, and a few days later Paul quietly suggested I start some kind of program that would put me back in shape. I did it for a while but quit when it started to bore me.

  On learning they were being transferred to Vienna from London, India decided to take a year off from teaching and learn German. According to Paul, she was naturally adept at languages, and a month or two after her classes at the University of Vienna began, he told me, she was able to translate the German news on the radio for him. I didn't know how much of this was true because she refused to speak anything but English whenever the three of us went out together. Once, when absolutely pressed, she stuttered out a slow, frightened question to a train conductor. It sounded grammatically correct, but it also had a strong Oklahoma accent tied around it like a bow.

  "India, how come you never speak German?"

  "Because I sound like Andy Devine when I talk."

  She was like that in so many ways. It was easy to see how talented and intelligent she was, and that there were a number of things she could have sculpted a life out of. But she was a perfectionist and avoided or played down almost anything she did that came out only "half good" as far as she was concerned.

  For instance, there were her drawings. Besides the German course, she had decided that during her "free" year she would do something she had had in mind to do for years – she was going to illustrate he
r childhood. When they were living in London she had taught art at one of the international schools there. During her free periods she'd made over a hundred preliminary sketches, but getting her to show them to me was impossible at first. When she finally did, I was so impressed I didn't know what to say.

  The Shadow was one of those humpbacked Art Deco radios with cozy round black dials and the names of a million exotic places on them that were supposedly at your beck and call. This radio was on a table set far back in the room toward the top of the drawing. Jutting out stiff and doll-like from the bottom were three pairs of legs set right next to one another – a man's, a child's (black patent-leather shoes and short white socks), and a woman's (bare with pointed, high-heel shoes). Nothing more of these people could be seen, but the most wonderful, eerie part of the work was that all three sets of legs were pointing toward the radio, giving you the impression the bottoms of their feet were watching the radio like a television set. I told that to India and she laughed. She said she had never thought of it that way before, but it made sense. In all her work, that one-quarter naive, one-quarter eerie quality came through again and again.

  In another one, an empty gray room was totally bare except for a pillow in flight across the middle of the picture. The hand that had thrown it was there in the corner, but in its frozen openness it had lost all human qualities and was suddenly, disturbingly something else. She said she planned on calling the final version Pillow Fight.

  Only one of her pictures was on actual display in their apartment. It was entitled Little Boy. It was a still life, painted in fragile, washed-out watercolors. On an oak table were a shiny black top hat (the type the Germans call a Zylinder) and a pair of spotless white gloves. That was all: tan wooden table, black hat, white gloves. Little Boy.

  The first time I went to their home I stared at it for a while and then politely asked what the title meant. They looked at each other and then, as if on cue, laughed at the same time.