The Lost Weekend Read online

  On the mantel over the bar, tilted against the mirror, was a yellow card advertising the double-feature at the Select next door. Greta Garbo in Camille, and some other movie. It was like a summons, for God’s sake. He had seen the picture three times during the week it opened on Broadway, a month or so ago. All of a sudden (but no, it was too early, it would have to wait) he had to see again that strange fabled face, hear the voice that sent shivers down his spine when it uttered even the inconsequential little sentence (the finger-tips suddenly raised to the mouth as if to cover the rueful smile): “It’s my birthday.” Or the rapid impatient way, half-defiant, half-regretful, it ran off the words about money: “And I’ve never been very particular where it came from, as you very well know.” And oh the scene where the Baron was leaving for Russia—how she said “Goodbye.… goodbye” like a little song. (“Come with me!” The shake of the head and the smile, then; and the answer: “But Russia is so co-o-old—you wouldn’t want me to get ill again, would you,” not meaning this was the reason she couldn’t go, not even pretending to mean it.) He knew the performance by heart, as one knows a loved piece of music: every inflexion, every stress and emphasis, every faultless phrase, every small revelation of satisfying but provocative beauty. There was a way to spend the afternoon!—The bartender slid the bottle across the counter and this time he poured the drink himself.

  Of course they had let him go last night—of course they had! They didn’t want any trouble with the police, did they? Isn’t that what always happened when something like that occurred in a bar? They let the fellow get away with it, let him get as far as the door, and then nabbed him. They didn’t want to accuse him while he was at the table, not while he was still on the premises, inside and upstairs. That would mean a row, maybe, and calling the police, and probably frightening or upsetting everybody in the place and ruining business for the night. The customers would think it was a raid, like the old days. No, the thing to do was let him get as far as the very entrance, take the purse away from him there, and then kick him out. Nobody wanted to press charges anyhow—what was the good? Boot him into the street and be done with him.

  Quickly he picked up the bottle and poured another drink, then set it down again with a great show of relaxation. The bartender glanced at him out of the corner of his eye every few minutes, or turned his back and watched him in the mirror. It was plain that he couldn’t figure him out. Well, what of it, he couldn’t figure himself out, sometimes. Not often but sometimes.

  How the cab-drivers had watched the whole business in silence. Looked at him without a word as he straightened his coat and walked off. If they had only laughed or something. He couldn’t have taken one of those cabs for anything in the world. Faced the driver through a long drive uptown. Well, not had to face him, exactly. But sitting in silence in the backseat would have been worse, while the driver sat just as silent up front. Could he have maybe kidded the driver about his name, called him by his first name as it was revealed on the lighted card between the seats? And when they arrived, getting out, having to hand the driver his money, listen whether he said Thank you or not. Christ he couldn’t think of that now, mustn’t, wouldn’t. He felt the need to talk.

  “Are you a News fan?”

  “What?”

  “I see a News on the bar here.”

  “Some drunk left it last night.”

  A crack. But he wasn’t going to be thrown off, not by that.

  “What’s the matter, don’t you like the News?”

  “It’s all right.”

  “I always read ‘How He Proposed.’ I dearly love ‘How He Proposed.’ ”

  The bartender picked up a tumbler and began polishing.

  “Oh, and ‘Embarrassing Moments.’ Ever notice how they’re always about some poor dope of a stenographer with delusions of grandeur? She puts on the dog about her wonderful wardrobe or husband’s fine job or something, and of course always gets caught.”

  “Never noticed.”

  “How can they write such stuff about themselves. Signed and everything. They don’t seem to mind a bit.”

  “Ayuh?”

  “Maybe it’s the two dollars.”

  “Ayuh.”

  He looked searchingly at the bartender. “What’s the matter, you tired or something?”

  “I’m busy, Jack.”

  It had been the waiter upstairs, the waiter with the Charles Boyer accent. He must have seen it all along. From the beginning. But how could he? The waiter had never shown by the slightest sign that he knew what was going on—any more than he showed it. He knew he couldn’t have been smoother, cagier, more the master of his every smallest move—as only the drunk can be who is just drunk enough, just enough to know exactly what he is doing, with a clarity denied the sober. Oh, and not know, too. That was the humiliating and the dangerous part of it. Drunk enough to know what he was doing but not the others. Concentrating so closely on himself, studying his own performance so intensely, that he lost track of everybody else, forgot they were able to see too—able to see him and what he was up to in a way he couldn’t see at all. Why hadn’t they told him (as he would have done for another), why hadn’t somebody tipped him off that he was going too far, why hadn’t someone been decent enough to come over to his table and say “Careful there, friend, you’re headed for trouble, we see you”? But no, they had all sat by or sat back and let it happen, waited for it to happen—sure, why not, it wasn’t happening to them!

  It was silly staying on in this stinking place, the bartender was a suspicious crab, it was nine o’clock, the liquor store would be open by now. He paid and left.

  He stood in the middle of the wide clean liquor store and deliberated. A quart would be enough for now; he’d be out again later, probably half a dozen times. Scotch for a change. He named the brand, stopped himself just as he was about to say “Don’t bother to wrap it,” and put the money on the counter. Funny how you could say it when buying a tube of tooth-paste or a box of Shredded Wheat or anything else under the sun. But naturally you didn’t care whether or not the clerk would think you were too anxious to get at the tooth-paste or Shredded Wheat the moment you got home—which naturally the clerk wouldn’t think to begin with.…

  The purchase made, the fruits are to ensue.… How could he ever communicate to anyone the sense of luxury he felt as he came into the flat with the Scotch under his arm? The day was his, the drink, the whole place. And no one knew where he was and what he was doing. He opened the lid of the gramophone, released the switch, and set going the record that was on. He got a clean glass from the kitchen, tore off the paper bag and the foil wrapping of the bottle, and poured himself a decent drink. He carried it to the big chair in the corner and sat down.

  Schnabel was hammering out the Rondo of the Waldstein. As the music increased in volume and acceleration, as the new drink warmed his stomach, he lay back in the big chair and deliberately and consciously went into his favorite daydream, planning and plotting it out as if it were a delightful treat he had long promised himself and one of these days meant to get around to.

  It was a dream he could re-live forever and had already enjoyed many dozens of times. He came out on the stage of Carnegie Hall, smiled, bowed, sat down at the piano, and awaited the assignment. He did not wear white tie, tails, and a stiff-bosom. He was in grey flannels, comfortable sport-shoes, soft sleeveless sweater, and a white shirt. No jacket or vest, no tie. He glanced about the packed expectant house and wondered indifferently how many would stay to the finish, long after midnight. Most of them, probably; the evening had been announced in the paper for weeks, the house had long since been sold out, music circles talked of little else, everybody wanted to be in on this unique and extraordinary event.… The little group of critics were still in a huddle down front, just beyond the footlights. They had arrived long before anyone else (they were supposed to have gathered at six, he believed), they buzzed among themselves and conferred and whispered, exchanged notes and sneered at each other�
�s taste, got cross with one another, looked up things in books, finally came to a grudging agreement around nine-fifteen, and handed the finished list to a waiting typist. Then one of them climbed up onto the stage, turned about to face the auditorium, raised his hand and cleared his throat. “Ladies and gentlemen. As you know—” The vast restless mumble of the house died down. “As you know,” he began again, “we are gathered here tonight to witness how a great artist shall meet, if he can, a challenge unique in musical history. If he wins, the feat and the victory shall ring forever throughout Euterpe’s storied halls. Mr. Birnam has yet no idea what his program tonight is to be. He will not know until I read from this list which my colleagues and I have only just completed.” He waved the little paper. “I beg your indulgence and forgiveness for being a bit tardy, but we were at some pains to agree on just which works of which masters Mr. Birnam was to play to us. From Poulenc back to Scarlatti”—(Did he mean Alessandro the father, Don wondered, or Domenico the son?)—“from Buxtehude down to Copland, the literature of the pianoforte offers a range so rich that our task was, you may well imagine, most difficult indeed. To say nothing of Mr. Birnam’s task, I might add”—and he waited for the appreciative laughter and applause which obligingly swept the house. “Not to try your generous patience any further, then, perhaps I should announce the opening number without more ado. And of course, each succeeding work, as the program progresses, will be similarly announced—but only just before it is to be played.” He turned. “Mr. Birnam, are you ready, Sir?” Mr. Birnam nodded. “Very well: Sonata Number 12, in F Major, by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.” Mr. Birnam permitted himself a small smile and said, barely aloud: “Köchel Verzeichnis 331.” The critic murmured “Oh yes, yes of course; I meant to add—” He plucked in confusion at the black ribbon of his pince-nez, hurried back over the footlights, and Mr. Birnam began.…

  The Rondo was finished. He put the record back in the album and got out the 1st Movement. He set it on the revolving disk and went to his chair again. A dream indeed. Comic, to be sure; ridiculous, childish; but—most musical, most melancholy.…

  He couldn’t make up his mind, then, who he wanted to play. In the middle of a Debussy prelude he dragged out the album of Medtner, and before he got the first record out of its envelope he remembered a Schubert adagio that was certainly, God, the greatest moment in all music. But it wasn’t when he played it. Somehow it seemed oddly trite, oddly undeveloped, not rich in any way, not remotely satisfying like the one and only Beethoven. He went back to the Schnabel albums of the great Thirty-Two and turned the volume-button up full.

  Let the ladies in the front apartment pound on the wall and complain of the noise (noise!), let their dog Sophie bark her silly head off, this was Music! Just when was it Beethoven had gone deaf—before, or after, this particular opus-number? He reached for the Grove Dictionary and became absorbed at once in the description of the great Rasoumovsky household. Lord what a subject for a book. Or a play; a great play! Suddenly he was very hungry.

  Christ why wouldn’t he be? Wasn’t it noon? The little eight-day traveling clock and the generous Dutchman said it was. No wonder. Besides, as far as he could remember, he hadn’t eaten a thing all day yesterday, after his breakfast with Wick. Ordinarily he never thought of food when he was drinking. Now it was different; he hadn’t been drinking enough, yet; he wasn’t tight at all, not really; how could he be, if he was thinking of food? His stomach was beginning to need it. Why not? If he knew himself, he certainly didn’t eat last night at Jack’s, certainly didn’t order anything to eat there. Jack’s—

  He grabbed up his hat and coat. He’d go out and get himself a sandwich or two at the delicatessen, bring them back here and finish the bottle after he ate. There was a good pint left. Yes, he ought to do that. The food would help counteract the drink, keep him fit and upright for the rest of the day, fortify him enough to carry on and enjoy the whole afternoon and night. He carefully counted his money all over again, and went out.

  It was a wonderful day, oh wonderful! Cool and clear, my lord you could see way to the rivers at both ends of the street, October was certainly the best damned month of the year no question about it. Especially early in the month, right now, this very week, today! He almost felt like dropping in on somebody he knew, finding out how they were. Oh-oh, forget that. He knew better than to make any calls, even on the telephone. What the hell was he trying to do, spoil everything? let everybody know he was on the loose again? invite them to step in and ruin the whole weekend? Let them leave him alone! He was all right, perfectly able to handle himself, behaving just like anybody else, he meant to stay this way too, wasn’t he on his way to buy food for Christ sake? Could they ask for any better assurance than that? Did he ever buy food when he was drinking? Certainly not, they knew that as well as he did, he was sober as a Lackawanna judge.

  He knew better than to go to the good delicatessen at 56th. He still owed Mr. Schultz ten dollars he’d borrowed in the summer. Or did he? Maybe Wick had paid it back; anyway he couldn’t remember. No use taking a chance. He turned south to go to the one at 54th.

  He passed the Select. My God, Garbo! In Camille no less. This was luck. He stopped and looked at the stills tacked up on a board outside. There was the one on her knees before M. Duval (but not on her knees to him!); there was the one in the theater-box, smiling under raised opera-glasses as she first found Armand in the crowd below; and of course there was the unforgettable picture of Marguerite in death, the fabulous face looking already cold, white, more poetic and elusive than ever. What a performance that had been. Amid all the vulgarity of that garish noisy movie, how she had stood out, so right in every move and gesture, in every inflexion and emphasis of the thrilling voice (that last long scene, whispered throughout), in every wonderful expression of the wonderful face. Strange and moving the indescribable rueful melancholy she cast over the entire film—the acting art at its very purest, surely. He slid his quarter under the glass window of the box office and went in.

  “Smoking?”

  “Upstairs.”

  He went up the ramp into a dark smelly corridor but he scarcely noticed the smell. He was thinking of the time he had first read in the paper that Garbo was to do Camille and how he had said to himself: “God damn it, why do they have to put her in Camille of all things! Hasn’t it been done to death by every throbbing female who ever fancied herself an actress?” And how, when he finally saw it some weeks ago, he saw how she had made it completely her own, played the hackneyed role as if it had never been played before—and as far as he was concerned, that was the end of the Camilles: it had been done for good and all as it could never be done again. He turned at the end of the corridor and came out into the upstairs balcony.

  He groped his way to a seat near the front. He still couldn’t see but nothing was familiar—there was no music, none of the familiar dialogue he knew so well, nor the voice. He stared at the screen. Two men in drab cotton jumpers sat at a wooden table peeling potatoes. They couldn’t talk because a man with a rifle stood behind them, but one was trying to indicate to the other that a note had been dropped somewhere among the potato peelings.

  Damn it to hell, a prison picture, a gangster movie or something Double-feature? Why hadn’t he found that out before he came in, then made sure which one was on? Wouldn’t that happen, just as he was all set to enjoy Garbo? He hated prison movies and he knew only too damned well why. Every time he saw a movie about a prison, a guy behind bars, the death cell, he knew that one day he was going to be right there, in that same spot. Melodrama!—but he couldn’t shake the feeling nevertheless. He fidgeted throughout such films, looked away for whole sequences, tried to think of other things, and very often had to get up and leave.

  The scene had changed. A crowd of people, mostly women, waiting for big iron gates to open. Visiting day. An attendant approached, cranked up the gates, and the crowd surged in.

  Now the camera concentrated on a surly good-looking girl. She was shown
walking along a corridor toward the narrow entrance to the visitors’ room. She wore a beret and a polo coat, both hands in her pockets. Her face was expressionless. Two guards watched her coming toward them. One glanced at the other. Suddenly, just as she came up to the door, a loud stinging bell rang out in a frenzy of alarm. The girl stopped dead in her tracks, still expressionless. One of the guards smiled, turned off a tiny switch in the wall, and the bell ceased. “Okay,” he said, holding out his hand, “give us the rod.” She looked up at him without expression. “You’ve just passed through the metal-detector beam,” he said quietly; “we know you’ve got a gun on you.” Without a word she reached in her pocket and drew out a small automatic. She handed it to the guard. “Okay, you can go in now.” And expressionless still, she passed on in.

  He was getting uneasier by the minute. He knew he had reason to fear. The foolish psychiatrist had once told him something that stuck in his mind and would probably stick there forever and ever (not that he ever thought of it, except times like now): The alcoholic, to get liquor, will do everything that the drug-addict will do to get drugs, everything but one: and that is murder. Cut off from drink, he’ll lie to get it, beg, plead, wheedle, borrow, steal, rob—all the crimes in the catalogue. But he won’t kill for it. That’s the difference between the drunk and the drug-addict. But the only one.

  Maybe.

  Was he supposed to have found consolation and comfort in this dictum? He didn’t. The foolish psychiatrist had been too often wrong. Besides, he knew the alcoholic from the inside. He knew (not the other) to what lengths the drinker will go to get that desperately needed drink the morning after. Or that is (and this was worse) he didn’t know to what lengths he would go. If he knew, he could say then how right or how wrong the foolish psychiatrist had been, how safe he himself was, and what chances he had of not ending up in just such a place as this on the screen, the screen that he couldn’t look at, now, no not another minute. He slumped down in his chair, put his hand over his eyes, and tried to doze off. Maybe he could sleep until the opening music of Camille, the Traviata theme, told him Garbo was on.…