What's with Baum?, page 11
“He’s a dear, sweet man with a temper but his temper is on the side of the angels. You’d love him. I’m surprised Thane didn’t bring you two together. He trusts Thane’s judgment.”
“I had a falling out with my publisher, so I left them. Or should I say, they asked me to leave them.”
“Well, you have to meet Henry. I remember he once had some nice things to say about your book to Thane.”
“I’d love to meet him,” Baum said, beginning to feel a little hope about his prospects.
“Ask her to lunch.”
“I was going to.” There was Baum talking to Baum.
“What?” Sam said. “Did you say something?”
“Me?”
“Just now.”
“I was asking if you were free for lunch.”
“I’m free all day. I’d love to have lunch.”
“Then it’s a date. After our meetings I’ll pick you up.”
“Just call first. If my meetings run long.”
Baum dropped Sam on Madison and Thirty-Third and watched her hurry into her office building.
“What do you expect to happen, Asher?” he said to himself as he pulled off and drove to a parking garage.
“You mean with Roadhouse?”
“Not Roadhouse, boob, Sam. Roadhouse is a business meeting.”
“Nothing with Sam. I was just planning to spend some time with her. Lunch if she’s free, possibly catch the Pissarro show at the Met if she’s up to it, and then back to Connecticut.”
“Uh-huh.”
“If you think I have anything else on my mind, you’re wrong.”
“Just don’t make any more sudden lunges. Did you check the paper to see if you’re in there?”
“The minute I got up. So far nothing. Meanwhile I’ve got enough on my mind. I have a meeting with a publisher and now Sam says she can set me up with Henry Cobb. Wouldn’t that be a coup.”
“I agree Henry Cobb is a prestigious house. Roadhouse is okay but nothing by comparison.”
“Can you believe Cobb was interested in me and that little bastard Thane never told me? He never brought us together.”
“Why does this come as a surprise to you, Asher? You know what he thinks about you. So why would he want to recommend you to his publisher, Cobb, who publishes major authors?”
“Maybe I’ll take Sam for lunch at Balthazar. I know Keith and I could call him and get a quick reservation. Nice quiet table in a corner.”
“You poor thing.”
“What does that mean?”
“You can’t relive the past.”
“Did I tell you she reminds me of Tyler?”
“Only a thousand times.”
Baum pulled into a garage and parked his car for the usual king’s ransom, scooted over to the building that housed Roadhouse Publications and decided on the staircase. I’ll take my chances with eleven flights and a possible heart attack rather than die stuck between floors in a vertical coffin, he thought.
He arrived at eleven out of breath but still certain he’d made the right choice. He was ushered wheezing into the office of Banerjee. Banerjee was an older, gray-haired, nice-looking man, very well mannered, who apparently saw something in Baum’s writing which he felt had not yet come off.
“Clearly you have a talent and clearly you were for some years a journalist,” Banerjee said. “You are full of facts, details, editorial points of view instead of human emotions. This is where you fall down. You are so intent on taking on big themes, the ones that answer the unanswerable, you fall over yourself philosophizing. Leave the fate of mankind to the true intellectuals, of which clearly you are not. Your job is to create living, breathing human beings, not vehicles to espouse your cliched ideas or vent your weltschmerz or like Job’s wife, curse God, or if there is none, impotently flail at empty space. I get the feeling from your books that though you profess to not like people, you actually care a great deal about them.”
“In my heart I feel a huge sadness for my species,” Baum said, trying to match Banerjee’s lofty pronunciamientos. “They act the way they do out of fear and panic and if I could find some redeeming loophole to soothe them and accept their fate if not with joy at least without terror, I would do so.”
“This is not your job as an artist. Your job first and foremost is to entertain. Then, if you also have something of value to say, fine. But a message delivered in an unentertaining way is death for the artist.”
“But I’m not in show business. I admit my goal may turn out to be too ambitious, but I want to try and change the reader’s life.”
“But boring him with a book he’s just spent twenty-six dollars on only adds to his suffering.” Banerjee lit a cigarette. “You are not Dostoevsky,” the publisher continued, “though it is clear you would like to be. And even he had great humor. As did Kafka. But why talk about geniuses. You are not one. I’m sure you realize that. I don’t mean to imply that you don’t have your own limited gift, occasional flashes of wit and imagination. My candid opinion is that you have too much anger and it is another reason your writing becomes dull. Turgid is the word everybody uses when talking about you. By the way I hope I’m not offending you.”
“Don’t be silly—I love being run through a paper shredder.”
“I’m frank with you because there is something in your work worth nurturing. I hate to see it drowned in bile and pedantry.”
“Unfortunately bile and pedantry is my strong suit,” Baum said rising. “I appreciate your interest in me but I’m double-parked.”
“Did you ever think that perhaps unconsciously you wanted your book to have small sales so you can say you have a select public and in some distorted way, tell yourself that makes you an artist?”
“Any other criticism? You haven’t said anything about the way I’m dressed.”
“I see I have offended you,” Banerjee said. “Tell me what is it you’re so angry about?”
For a moment Baum’s eyes lost focus. “Because I was born without the ability to self-deceive.”
“I understand,” Banerjee said, nodding. “One of the tools of survival. Still, one must cope.”
Baum sat silent, a bit transfixed. “Look,” the Indian said, “think about it. If anything I said makes sense to you and you’re willing to consider it next time you write, perhaps we can work together. I leave you with this advice: To write a great novel, one must at all costs keep the reader interested in what happens next. If you also want to enrich his mind, to make a statement that is truly wise—go over the book with an editor and take out the wisdom.”
Baum left unsettled. He had expected a much different encounter and began to realize that his agent had probably had to talk Banerjee into meeting with him and not because the Indian was champing at the bit. The Roadhouse publisher may have agreed because he did a lot of business with Bell and respected him as an agent. Baum couldn’t process what he was getting from Banerjee who had a commanding presence but did nothing to temper his criticism or ingratiate himself. The fact was he was brutal. And yet Banerjee did not come across as a con man or a fool. Perhaps it was the Hindu veneer, calm, sage, profound. What the hell did he mean by that last remark, to take out the wisdom? Baum now considered himself very lucky Sam was setting up a meeting with Henry Cobb who would either publish him or not but would spare him the yoga on his approach to literature. Still, priding himself on his open-mindedness, he vowed to consider what Banerjee had said, painful as it was. Take out the wisdom. What an insight. What an absurd insight. And yet…
But now trumping Baum’s thoughts was not advice from an Indian publisher but a nice lunch at Balthazar and maybe an afternoon at the art galleries as he once loved doing with Tyler. Lunch was confirmed for him by Sam, who loved Balthazar, and Baum said he’d be by to pick her up. She was tied up in one meeting after another and would be at least an hour late. She said she spoke to her boss and as soon as he could, he would meet with Baum, hopefully next week. This sent a wave of positive electrolytes through Baum’s head.
Now he had time to kill. What a phrase, Baum thought. That’s life. You kill time till it kills you. Strolling downtown on this unimaginably beautiful autumn day, he had time to think, to hum “I’m wild again, beguiled again,” and enjoy the New York streets. Intruding on his pleasant walk were thoughts about his marriage, Connie, allegations bound to hit the fan, Jerry Mack eyeing Connie. He thought of how nice it was to be able to spend a day in Manhattan with Sam Taylor and relive memories of the woman who taught him what it meant to be in love and who caused him to lose control. He thought about why it had been so hard for him to make the transition from journalism to fiction. Every time he ventured into the world of made-up plots and complex humans, he got lost; lost in the stars, in the reasons for everything, he got lost in time and dark matter. But what could he do about it? Write? Try harder? Write better? But take out the wisdom. He wondered if the gray-haired publisher from India was deep or just an Indian.
Baum loved downtown Manhattan. He walked from Chelsea to the beautiful West Village, adoring every tree-lined block. After a while he found himself wandering into a bookstore. He browsed among his betters, thumbing the Russians, the poets he loved, Eliot, Wallace Stevens, Philip Larkin. Naturally, in one section there was Thane’s book on display. Owner has to make his nut, he thought. As for the author’s picture on the back cover—not since Truman Capote lay siren-like on his divan was there such a study in self-love by an author waiting to be ravaged by praise. Thane had posed on the grass, white shirt unbuttoned to the navel, tanned chest, tight blue jeans, bare feet, wildflowers framing the tableau and a couple of swans on the pond behind him. Definitely to puke, Baum thought. Still, there he was being sold right alongside Proust and Flaubert.
A small roach-like man with big round glasses picked up a copy of Thane’s bestseller.
“You don’t want that,” Baum said. “I read it. Much overhyped. Very boring.”
“I don’t doubt it,” the roach man said. “I got the whole scoop on this book. I have a friend, a literature nerd who told me all about it.”
I wouldn’t talk about nerds if I were you, thought Baum.
“Whoever wrote this book stole it all. I hear it’s one of the worst cases of plagiary my friend ever saw.”
“Really? What makes you say that?” Baum said amused.
“I’m saying it’s plagiarized.”
“Yeah, so why hasn’t anybody said anything?”
“The original is too obscure. The nineteen fifties. Even then few read it.”
“So why doesn’t your friend say something?”
“He would have maybe but for a massive stroke.”
“He had a stroke?”
“In midtown traffic. He was coming from his AA meeting.”
“An alcoholic.” Baum was by now humoring the little creature.
“The book is blatant thievery. Stole another man’s work.”
Baum could see the roach man was quite intense and wondered, could this nonsense have a molecule of reality?
“Are you telling me this is plagiarized, and no one has called him out on it?” Baum had thought the roach man was a street crazy who wandered into a bookstore, but he was clean shaven and respectably dressed.
“Sentences, paragraphs, the whole concept he stole, the idea, the people. My friend, unable to speak, paralyzed, was quite upset over it. He said he never saw anything so disgusting.”
“The nerd said this? The literary nerd?”
“Yes, yes, Pinchuck, my friend Pinchuck. He’s dead.”
“What’s the book he stole?”
“Oh, what he plagiarized?”
“Yes, what book? By who?”
“Some obscure thing. A title from the bible. Yes. Impossible for Man. That’s the title. You know the line from the bible, ‘impossible for man, possible for God.’ You know that line?”
“I don’t. No, I don’t. Where can I get a copy of this book? Who’s the author?”
“I don’t know. It’s out of print. You’d have to go to a place that sells out of print books.” The roach man held up Thane’s novel. “So, you read this and it’s no good. Doesn’t surprise me because you’re reading fraudulent merchandise. It’s like buying a piece of furniture that’s a Grand Rapids reproduction of a genuine antique. Pinchuck told me he modernized it but stole everything. Pinchuck said practically nobody bought the book years ago when it came out. He said the plot is more relevant today than it was then. Didn’t mean anything to the critics or the reading public back in the nineteen fifties, but times change. Publisher’s long out of business. Amazing someone can get away with something like that.”
“Why haven’t you said anything?”
“To open a can of worms? I’ve got other things on my mind. My firm is moving to Vienna. I’m starting a job in a new country. Much more responsibility. Lucky I speak German.”
Outside on the street with a fresh breeze cooling down his face, Baum was googling Impossible for Man, which was indeed a book by Harry Eastman. Not much about it. So who was this roach-like nerd who talks of yet another nerd who was an alcoholic that had a stroke, who’s dead? Would Thane be so conniving and so brazen as to steal plot, characters, dialogue from a dead writer? Hard to believe. Thane’s not stupid. And why has it gone unnoticed? On the other hand, he did say the book is very obscure, and plagiarism happens all the time, Baum believed, and we only know of the ones who are caught.
Baum lit out for the Strand where they had every book since Gutenberg showed up at the patent office. Could it be possible? he wondered. What a turn of events! To unmask this phony genius as a hustler, a fake, a scammer. Somehow, Thane could’ve come across the book, stolen it, given it a little cosmetic makeover and, according to Pinchuck, the roach man’s friend, done a clumsy theft at that. Sure enough the Strand had one single copy of Impossible for Man and Baum snatched it up. He would bring it home and go over the two books side by side at leisure, developing an incriminating case if all the roach man said was actually true. But the problem was, he couldn’t wait. He had time before meeting with Sam. He was reluctant to buy a copy of Thane’s book, The Beveled Heart, and fatten the sales by twenty-six dollars, yet impatience forced him to pop for the bestseller.
On a side street in the West Village, he found a townhouse with a stoop, made himself comfortable with both hardbacks and began reading Impossible for Man by Harry Eastman and comparing it with Thane’s book. He was so rapt he never noticed a man coming down the steps to walk his Afghan, stepping right through him and saying excuse me. He read laser-like for an hour and the more he read the more astonished he became over the enormity of the theft. The roach man was right. It was one of the worst cases of plagiarism one could imagine. And for all Thane’s brilliance, it was handled ineptly. The attempt at adding contemporary touches was painfully obvious if you saw the original. The whole grift was based on the assumption that no human would ever know of the existence of this out-of-print dead author’s obscure novel. What the crafty schemers never realize is that you may be able to fool the brilliant people, the educated, but the world is full of nerds and roach men and them, you won’t fool.
But now it was getting late and he had to pick up Sam. He dumped the books in the trunk of his car, bolted up out of the garage and leaving his car there, grabbed a cab to fetch her. He was in possession of a terrible secret.
“What should I do?”
“Don’t ask me,” he replied to himself. “Takes a little thought.”
The cabdriver asked if he was talking to him. He said no and the driver shrugged and drove on. She was there waiting in the curved arch of her office building’s entrance, waiting for him with a great smile on her great face which cheered him up no end. The cab ride to Balthazar was a smorgasbord of small talk.
“How’d your meeting go?” she asked.
“He’s quite a character, that Indian.”
“To say the least. I spoke to Henry Cobb about you. He wants to meet you next week.”
“I’m very thankful and anxious to meet with him.”
“Isn’t today beautiful?” she said. “My horoscope said today would be a special day. I don’t believe in it, but I read it every day. ‘Autumn in New York,’” she said, “I’m sure you know that pretty song.”
“Clifford Brown. Ever hear his recording of it?”
“No,” she said.
“You’d love it.”
“Tell me about your meeting with Shivay.”
“I’m still recovering from it.”
“You look all shaken up. Are you okay?”
“I’ll tell you over french fries.”
What he would tell her was that his meeting with Banerjee had been disturbing and left him a bit shaken up. That people had told him many of the same things before but hearing them from an Indian resonated more.
“Yes,” Sam said. “He’s a total triumph of style.”
What he would not tell her was what he had learned about Thane’s book. He wanted so much to share the information with her but he could not bring himself to. This will come as a nasty shock, he thought, and my god, what about Connie? Or does Connie know? Could she be in on it? A mother-son conspiracy. But that’s not Connie. She’s going to be knocked for a loop. A crushing loop. But could she be aware and just be looking the other way? No, mustn’t get carried away. So far nobody’s said anything, and very possibly nobody will. If this gets out it will destroy Thane. Goodbye career. To paraphrase a certain Danish prince, it is not nor it cannot come to good but break Sam and Connie’s heart so I must hold my tongue.
“Must I hold my tongue?” he said out loud.
“Did you say something?” Sam said.
“Me?” he said, embarrassed.
“Yes. Didn’t you mumble something?”
“I was just trying to remember a line from Hamlet, ‘Rest in reason, move in passion.’”
