Stone Mattress: Nine Tales(60)

Jaffrey garbles on about that slummy brick house where they’d had such carefree times: does Jack know there’s a historical plaque on it? Commemorating Jack and The Dead Hand, of all things! How amazing that people now mistake that clumsy, cliché-ridden book of his for some kind of artistic accomplishment! Trust the French to do that, they think Jerry Lewis is a genius, but other people? Jaffrey has always found The Dead Hand side-splittingly funny, and he can only suppose Jack wrote it with that end in view. But great that it turned into such a gold mine, right? For all concerned. Chuckle, wink.

“Irena didn’t find it funny,” Jack says. “The book. She was pissed at me. She thought I’d led her on. She wanted me to be writing War and Peace, when all along it was about …”

“She knew what it was about,” Jaffrey says with that I’ve-scored-a-point philosophy-student grin of his. “While you were writing it.”

“What?” says Jack. “How do you mean? I never told …”

“Irena’s the nosiest woman alive,” says Jaffrey. “I should know, I was married to her. She’s got a sixth sense. I only cheated on her seven or eight times, ten max, and she caught me out immediately every time. She’s hell to play golf with too. You can’t steal an inch.”

“She couldn’t have known,” says Jack. “I kept it under wraps.”

“You think she wasn’t peeking at the manuscript every chance she could get?” says Jaffrey. “You’d go to the can, she’d flip a few pages. She was riveted by it. She wanted to see if you were going to kill Violet. And she knew a pop-culture hit when she saw it.”

“But then she gave me shit,” says Jack. “I don’t get it.” He’s feeling a little addled. Maybe it’s the sun: he’s not used to being out in it. “She broke up with me because of that book. Betraying my true talent and yadda yadda.”

“That wasn’t the reason,” says Jaffrey. “She was in love with you. You didn’t notice that? She wanted you to propose to her, she wanted to get married. She’s very conventional, Irena. But you didn’t come across. She felt very rejected.”

Jack is surprised. “But she was in law school!” he says. Jaffrey laughs.

“That’s no excuse,” he says.

“If that’s what she wanted,” says Jack sulkily, “why didn’t she say so?”

“And have you turn her down?” says Jaffrey. “You know her. She’d never put herself in such a vulnerable position.”

“But maybe I might have said yes,” says Jack. His life would have been very different if only he’d guessed, and then taken the chance. Better, or worse? He has no idea. Still, different. He might not feel so alone right now, just for instance.

He never did marry any of those other girls; none of the fangirls, none of the actresses he’d met through the films. He’d suspected all of them of loving his book and/or his money more than they loved him. But Irena, he now reflects, came before The Dead Hand hit the stands; before his success. Whatever else, he couldn’t accuse her of ulterior motives.

“I think she’s still carrying a torch for you,” says Jaffrey.

“She gave me holy hell for years,” says Jack. “Over the royalties. If she hated the book that much, she should’ve refused any profit from it.”

“It was her way of keeping in touch with you,” says Jaffrey. “Ever thought of that?” His divorce settlement with her – he tells Jack– was bizarre: Irena insisted that it had to include Jaffrey’s share in The Dead Hand Loves You, the proceeds from which are paid over to her as soon as Jaffrey himself receives them. “She thinks she inspired you,” he says. “So she has a right.”

“Maybe she did inspire me,” says Jack. He’d been contemplating the various methods he might use to eliminate Jaffrey. Ice pick in the men’s room, radioactive dust in the beer? It would have taken some planning, as Jaffrey must have made some powerful enemies during his backroom-boy decades and is surely alert to danger. But it seems Jack won’t have to implement any of these schemes, since Jaffrey is out of the picture as far as The Dead Hand is concerned: he no longer benefits from it at all.



Jack sends Irena a note. Not an email, a note, with a stamp and everything: he wishes to create an aura of romance, all the better to lull her into a sense of security so he can lure her into an out-of-the-way place and shove her over a cliff, figuratively speaking. Why don’t they meet for dinner? he suggests. He has some news about the future of their mutual book that he would like to share with her. She should choose the restaurant, cost no object. He’d really like to see her after all this time. She’s always been very, very special to him, and she still is.

There’s a hiatus; then he receives a reply: Certainly, that would be appropriate. It will be so pleasant to recall the long and complex journey we have been on, both together and then on the parallel paths we have travelled along in our different but similar ways. There are invisible vibrations that have attached us to each other, as you yourself must realize. Cordially, your very old friend, Irena. P.S.: Our horoscopes have predicted this reunion.

How to read this? Love, hate, indifference, camouflage? Or is Irena going batshit?



They meet at the upscale Canoe, far away from tuna-and-noodle casseroles. The venue is Irena’s suggestion. They have one of the best tables, with a view out over the brightly lit city that gives Jack vertigo.