Pity Him Afterwards

They were away from town now, but he couldn’t see any lake. It should be off to the right, but the road on that side was lined with tall fencing, broken now and again by iron gates at the entrance to private roads. Through the fencing he could see parklike expanses of lawn and trees. Estates along here, to go with the rich cars.

On the other side of the road, the country was wilder and scrubbier, sloping steeply upward from the road, blending into the mountains that ringed town and lake.

He closed his eyes. His instinct was to talk with her — she was female, and pleasant to look at — but he just didn’t have the strength. Faintly, he said, “Remind me to talk to you tomorrow.”

“All right.” From the sound of her voice she was smiling again.

“I’ll tell you the story of my life.”

“That’ll be nice.”

They rode the rest of the way in silence, Mary Ann Mc-Kendrick driving and Mel recuperating. The world was orange on his closed eyelids; down inside there, he was untying his nerves.

He opened his eyes when the smoothness of blacktop under the Ford’s tires gave way to the chattering harshness of gravel. Ahead of him was a red barn, but redder than any red bam he’d ever seen before, redder than Chinese red or fire-engine red, a bright bright red that made the barn look as though it were made of gleaming metal. Combined with the red were streaks and slashes of white trim, and great white block letters along the front that read:

Cartier Isle Theatre

The blue-gray gravel covered the entire expanse of ground between road and barn, and extended an additional pseudopod around to the right, between barn and house. The house — which he saw only after his eyes and brain got a little used to all that red barn — was a decrepit farmhouse, three stories high, bulging with bay windows. There had apparently been no paint left over, because the clapboard siding of the house was weathered gray, the color of driftwood.

Three cars were parked in front of the barn; a red MG — looking anemic in these surroundings — an old black dusty Dodge coupe, and a white Continental convertible. Mary Ann McKendrick stopped the station wagon next to the other three, and said, “Leave your bag here. You’d better go straight in and see Mr. Haldemann.”

“Whatever you say.” He put the clip-ons back in the glove compartment. “Is that where I live?” He pointed at the house.

“Uh huh.”

“I better buy a cross.”

She was properly baffled, like a good straight-woman. “What? Why?”

“I’ll tell you,” he said. “A vampire comes in, and you wave a Star of David at him, he laughs in your face.”

“Oh. I wouldn’t know about that.”

Was there a sudden chill in the air? Or was he just being oversensitive again? And why, he asked himself, did he always make a point of letting people know he was Jewish the minute he met them?

It was the wrong time for introspection; it just made his head ache more. Besides, Herr Haldemann was waiting.

He got out of the car. “Where do I find the young Mr. Haldemann?”

“Just inside. The office is to the right.”

“See you later.” But he had the feeling she didn’t like him.

He walked across the gravel to the entrance, which had been lifted entire from some defunct movie house and spliced into the front of this structure, looking odd and anachronistic and somehow tilted out of true. Eight glass doors across in a row, reflecting Mel as he came walking up.

Inside, the lobby was very shallow and functional, with a red carpet, and a ticket window on the right. There were only two doors from lobby to theater, at opposite ends of the lobby’s rear wall. The wall between was covered with a montage of black-and-white photographs of actors and actresses and scenes from plays. Posters on the left-hand wall proclaimed the season’s schedule and the names of the resident company, ten in all, six men and four women. Mel’s name was third from the bottom, with only two girls’ names beneath.

There was a juicy round blond girl behind the ticket window, smiling at him in grateful appreciation of the difference between girls and boys. He went over and said, “I’m looking for the office. I’m Mel Daniels.”

“Oh, you’re the naughty boy.”

“You ain’t seen nuthin’ yet. Where’s the office?”

“Through the door and to the right. I’m Cissie Walker.”

“You don’t look sissy to me.”

She giggled, and tried without success to look demure.

So the hell with Mary Ann McKendrick.

He went through the door and to the right, and saw a door with the word Office on it. “This must be the place,” he muttered, for his own amusement, and went on in.

It wasn’t a small room, but it was so crowded with furniture it looked tiny. There were three large tables and two large desks, an assortment of chairs, and filing cabinets and wastebaskets and coatracks filling the space left over. Papers and posters littered every surface.