The archivist, p.9
The Archivist, page 9
“Raymond Chandler lived in the La Valencia Hotel for a while, didn’t he?” remarked Emily.
“Did he? David would know. He wrote a book on Chandler.”
Emily swung her head to Helena. “Really?”
“Yes. I didn’t read it. I tried to. It went over my head.”
“I’ll check it out,” said Emily, struggling for conversation, uncomfortable in the director’s presence.
They drove in silence through downtown La Jolla, its narrow streets lined with a mélange of boutique clothing stores and fast-food eateries incongruously situated next to luxury-car dealerships. To Emily, it looked like the wealthy occasionally liked to slum it at Jack in the Box, while next door the lavishments of their caprices—clothing boutiques and the like—reassured them they still lived in a rarefied neighborhood, barricaded from any portents of a coming socialist revolution.
Off La Jolla Boulevard, Helena turned onto a shaded street colonnaded by mature pines. In the distance sparkled the Pacific Ocean, a flat deep-blue expanse flecked with whitecaps, which met a jaundice-tainted sky in a perfect horizontal line. In a world that was all hers, seemingly oblivious to Emily, Helena coasted toward it, her eyes roaming the quaint homes that retained a feel of a fairy-tale La Jolla, as if descending to a chimerical realm that ended where the surf crashed against the rocks, sending up spray over the few homes that jealously hugged the precious California coast. To Emily, a daughter of atheists, and an antideist herself, the solemnity of this final leg to the Wests felt like going to church. When Emily glanced over, Helena had the resentful gaze of someone who would never be rich.
Helena wheeled into a circular drive as if she had executed the turn many times before and settled in behind a sleek, two-door black Mercedes. She turned to Emily. “We’re not here to talk about the past,” she cautioned enigmatically. “Only the future.” Their eyes met behind the opacity of dark sunglasses and came to a wordless accord. “You realize Elizabeth West is probably the richest woman in San Diego.” Palm fronds chattered in the intermitted gusts of the Santa Anas as if to underscore her words, whose ominousness lingered in the cool air-conditioned car.
“I didn’t know,” Emily managed.
“She’s the only person who intimidates me,” she confided. “Let’s go.”
Helena opened her door and swung out of the car, Emily following suit. Helena’s heels clicked on the flagstone walkway that led to an eave hung over two massive doors. Helena pressed a button that rang a chime inside that evoked in Emily the image of an enchanted world. The waves exploding against the cliffs only intensified her vision of the world that awaited inside.
“Who is it?” a woman’s voice inquired over an intercom.
“Helena,” Helena spoke into a discreetly tiny speaker. “For Elizabeth.”
Looking into a compact held close to her face, Helena hurriedly finger-combed her hair. She reached into her purse to fetch her lip gloss, but the door opened before she could find it. Greeting them was a beautiful, slender Indian woman flowing in a pale lavender shirtwaist. Gold hoop earrings glittered beneath her moonless-night hair.
“Hi, Helena,” trilled the young woman, extending her hand.
Helena took her hand as if it bore the fragility of a small, injured bird and shook it lightly. She stepped aside and turned to Emily. “Sushma, this is Emily. She’s our new archivist.”
Sushma smiled and they traded hellos.
“Sushma’s Elizabeth’s über-assistant,” Helena said to Emily. “Without her, Elizabeth would be at a great loss.”
Sushma produced a humble smile at the flattering comment and pushed open the door wider. The great room mushroomed into view, much as the drawing back of a curtain might reveal a massive seascape by Turner. “Come on in,” Sushma beckoned in a honeyed voice. Helena and Emily followed her inside. Sushma craned her head over a delicate shoulder. “I’ll let her know you’re here. Have a seat in the living room, and I’ll be with you in a minute.”
The foyer was paved with inlaid blue mosaic tiles that looked precious enough to be eaten on and not stepped over. The walls were the palest of blue, replete with ghostly images of feathering waves, as if a graphic artist had taken the sky and lightened it almost to white in an ukiyo-e style. The vaulted beam ceilings gave a cavernous majesty to the room. Helena stepped out of her shoes, looked at Emily, and then pointed at her feet. Emily nodded and squatted down to untie her black leather tennis shoes that she now felt chagrined about having worn. When she stood, she was taller than Helena, whose heels abnormally magnified her height. It felt strange to suddenly find her so diminutive, given her stature at the university.
Helena wandered on the walkway, stopping to admire the Melanesian artifacts adorning the entryway wall. Weathered, hand-carved masks and other talismanic objects celebrating the rituals of some South Pacific tribe were mounted in antique frames. It represented a small gallery of priceless art that greeted the guests in an impressive but tasteful display of the collector’s opulence.
Past the entryway, two steps above the great room, Helena grasped the wrought iron balustrade to steady herself and imbibe the spectacular view. “Would you look at that,” she effused about the large picture windows that showcased the Pacific, which floated ethereally above an immaculately landscaped backyard and a white, weathered palisade that sloped toward the ocean before it dropped off into infinity.
Emily directed her attention to where Helena was staring trancelike, moving her head back and forth in quiet awe. The roar of crashing waves was now unmuffled, and it gave Emily the sense that Elizabeth West had deliberately wanted to marry the décor of her house with the ebb and surge of the sea.
“Stunning, isn’t it?” whispered Helena.
“I don’t think I’ll get here on my salary,” Emily quipped.
“Neither of us will ever get here, my dear,” Helena said with barely disguised resignation to her own station in life.
Emily pointed to a large painting mounted on the far wall. “Is that an O’Keeffe?”
Helena gazed at the wall. “I can’t believe she bought it,” exclaimed Helena. “Sky above Clouds. Yes, Georgia O’Keeffe.” She stepped down into the great room and, captivated by the painting, moved toward it as if it were a large magnet whose attraction she was powerless to resist.
Emily descended noiselessly into the great room on a pair of polished bamboo steps, but her eyes were on the ocean and the spray that the waves threw up like watery fangs before dropping below the sandstone cliffs.
“It’s one of a series,” Helena spoke to the painting. “I believe The Art Institute of Chicago has one.”
“It would have cost millions,” said Emily, turning her attention to the painting. The O’Keeffe was created on a dramatically large canvas that dominated the entire wall. It was, as the title described, an image painted above the clouds in a photo-realist style. But the clouds—a hundred or so—were shaped and contoured like biscuits spread apart in a vast, celestial pan, the lapis lazuli of the sky differentiating each and every one of them in a grid-like pattern.
Helena turned away from the painting. “She bought it for Raymond because the clouds look like the keys on a typewriter. And the horizon in the distance makes Elizabeth see the page on which his next masterpiece will be composed.”
Emily was taken aback by Helena’s eloquent explanation, deprecatingly surmising that she was echoing something Mrs. West had once said. “It sounds like they have a close marriage,” remarked Emily.
“Yes. They do.” She tore her eyes away from the painting and turned to Emily. “Shall we sit?” Helena beckoned Emily to the large, oyster-gray sectional that framed the center of the room. Emily sat down. The couch was so immense that when her rear reached the backrest, her legs wouldn’t fold to the floor. She elected to perch on the edge. “You can take your sunglasses off,” Helena chided.
Emily removed her sunglasses and set them on a glass-top table with a blue-oxidized brass frame that was the size of a small car. Oversized books on art and architecture decorated its surface and kept it from appearing barren. Amid the artfully arranged collection, Emily noticed a cookbook. She picked it up and leafed through it, as Helena studied her with watchful eyes. The book was Arzak Secrets by the eponymous chef of the world-famous Arzak restaurant outside San Sebastián, Spain. Leafing absently through it, Emily looked up from the colorful pictures of the sumptuous dishes. “Mrs. West likes to cook?”
Helena shook her head sharply. “It’s Raymond’s passion.”
Emily nodded. With both hands, she set the book back down on the table with the care of an archivist.
Sushma returned and leaned over the balustrade. “She’s on a call. She’ll be with you in a few minutes. Can I offer anyone some tea?”
“Do you have that Himalaya one?” inquired Helena. “That was so lovely.”
“I believe we do.” She turned to Emily with that gleaming smile of perfectly white teeth. “Emily?”
“I’ll have the same, thank you.”
Sushma evaporated as quickly as she had appeared, her figure silently receding.
Emily dreamed her gaze upward toward the picture windows, where, if you closed your eyes, the thunderous waves seemed to crash against the glass. “An extraordinary home.”
“Yes,” said Helena, glancing at her watch, venturing a backward look as if she had heard the footsteps of someone approaching, visibly anxious in Elizabeth’s house.
“How long have you and Mrs. West known each other?” asked Emily.
“We go way back to the beginning of Special Collections. I took an early interest in her husband’s work.” In lowered tones, she added, “Of course, I didn’t have her trust fund.”
Emily sensed that ripple of rancor, born of envy, rising in Helena, and she suppressed her urge to ask more questions. It was enough to know they had a history.
Sushma floated down into the great room and set two lightly clattering china saucers with cups of hot water nested in them. Muslin bags of the vaunted Himalayan tea rested on the lips of the saucers. “I hope you like it. It’s my favorite. The top leaves only.” She ran her thumb over her fingertips as if to underscore its rarity. “Give it a few minutes to steep,” she murmured.
“Thank you, Sushma,” said Helena.
Emily dipped her tea bag into the teacup and watched the hot water bleed a warm golden shade as she stirred in some honey from an accompanying tiny saucer with a delicate spoon. The tea whorled clockwise with mystery.
The sudden advance of hurried footsteps startled Helena and Emily, and their teacups rattled in their saucers when they automatically set them down. Elizabeth materialized like a woman comfortable in her affluence. She reminded Emily of Catherine Deneuve this afternoon, as beautifully regal as she was in Buñuel’s Belle de Jour, as if levitating above them on a floor different from the one everybody else came in on. The epitome of aplomb, she was a woman holding fast to what remained of her youth. She was comfortably but elegantly attired in black silk slacks and a billowy burgundy shirt that floated to midthigh. Her auburn hair framed her face with two complementary waves, as if created by whoever created the ocean. Jewelry dangled and gleamed from both wrists and a neck exposed to the sun. Her engagement ring refracted the sun, scintillating superciliously like a warning light. She eased onto the edge of the far side of the sectional, her back to the ocean, her warm smile radiating from a natural, seemingly ageless beauty. Midnight-blue eyes appeared bright and thinking as if she were always phasing in and out of something important or pressing.
“I love your shirt, Elizabeth,” Helena gushed.
“Thank you.” She spoke in a lower octave, as if half of her were, or yearned to be, somewhere else.
“You remember Emily,” Helena said.
“Of course.” Elizabeth turned to Emily. “How are you?”
“Fine,” replied Emily, feeling nervous again in her presence.
“How is San Diego treating you?” Elizabeth spoke to a thought in the distance without making eye contact with Emily.
“I love being near the ocean,” Emily said, just as another wave thundered against the cliffs.
“She was admiring your O’Keeffe.” Helena raised her head to the painting.
“Yes.” Elizabeth threw the massive canvas a perfunctory look. “My husband can see it when he comes in. Because it looks like a typewriter, it reminds him that he should never forget his calling.” She chortled, as if roused to life by something unspoken. “God forbid.” Helena gave Emily an imperceptible knowing nod. Elizabeth interlaced her fingers and covered her mouth with the small globe she had made. “I think only writing makes him truly happy. When he’s not writing, he feels like he’s dead,” she finished in what felt like a rare flush of honesty and heartfelt emotion.
“Does he still write on a manual typewriter?” Emily asked.
Elizabeth nodded, blushing in confessing he did.
“That’s so cool,” the millennial in Emily effused.
“And sometimes in longhand when it’s pulsing through him, when he needs the tactile connection between pen and paper more than the mechanical, rhythmic clacking of keys,” Elizabeth elaborated in phraseology that made Emily realize the woman’s devotion to her husband’s life and work was all-encompassing.
“Did you ever want to be a writer?” Emily ventured.
Helena darted a look at Emily, as if warning it wasn’t appropriate to get too personal with Elizabeth, but Elizabeth’s flash of a smile eased Helena’s anxiety. “I’ve dabbled,” Elizabeth admitted. “But when you’re living with the Great One”—she twirled an index finger and fashioned an imaginary dirt devil in the air—“it’s hard to pick up pen and paper without judgmental eyes paralyzing you.” She cast her eyes down and spoke in lowered tones. “Besides, I can’t go where my husband goes in his writing. And if you can’t go where he goes, you’re never going to be one of the remembered.” Her words hung in the air with the weight of solemnity and ineffable years. Who could ever know what it was like to live with a famous author?
“What’s Mr. West working on now?” Emily asked, youthfully eager for all the information she could mine.
“Oh . . .” A jaded lilt crept into Elizabeth’s voice as she raised her head. “He accepted an offer to adapt one of his novels for the cinema. He’s never written a screenplay before. He’s having a hell of a time with it. He’s not used to listening to punitively meddling voices, especially when they’re so . . . so contradictory to his vision. He prefers the theater when he’s not working on a novel.”
Emily’s brief brush with a Hollywood writer stirred some commentary in her, but she held back, sensing that she was monopolizing Helena’s time with Elizabeth and overstepping her bounds.
“How’s the tea?” Elizabeth spoke to the oceanic view.
“Lovely,” said Helena, relieved that the subject had shifted from Elizabeth’s husband and his mythical reputation.
“Like perfumed earth,” complimented Emily.
From her trance, Elizabeth smiled, but her thoughts were suddenly far away, as if her mind had become unmoored and drifted out to sea.
“It’s a beautiful house you have,” Emily said.
“Yes. But soon it will be like the lost city of Atlantis.” And as she fatalistically augured the future of her home another set of waves beat against the cliffs, sending fingers of seawater high over the lawn and the low palisade that was all that remained between the three of them and a watery blue void, lending more meaning to Elizabeth’s doomful prediction. “Which is why we’re moving.”
“You’re moving?” Helena asked, taken aback, her eyes torn with anxiety. “To the house in London?”
“No. God no. I love London, but the British drive Raymond crazy with all their carousing and socializing. He gets no work done there. No, we’re building a new house on the top of Mount Soledad.” She pointed eastward and up to an empyreal realm beyond the walls of this, in her society-ascendant view, nautical-themed relic of old La Jolla.
Elizabeth’s revelation transformed the features of Helena’s face into a relieved glow. Emily knew that Elizabeth was a major donor to the university, and to the library in particular, but she didn’t know to what extent. She was intuiting now that it was more than substantial, that Helena had worked indefatigably to cultivate this relationship to where it was now burnished to a delicate, if fragilely held-together, perfection. “When will it be done?” Helena enthused. “It sounds lovely.”
“Oh, it’s a big project,” Elizabeth in an exasperated tone. “We had to tear down the hideous structure that was there. We’re installing a small museum.”
“Your Impressionism collection?” Helena wondered.
“Yes,” Elizabeth qualified with modesty. “I should take you up some time. The views are extraordinary. And, of course, we’ll have a grand housewarming when it’s all finished.” She smiled at the visualization of its completion.
Helena beamed a radiance her soul didn’t own. Glancing back and forth between the two of them, Emily surmised that Helena was perhaps not always on the guest list for Elizabeth’s events, and that when she was invited it made her feel special. In every way—money, house, husband—Helena was envious of Elizabeth. However, her envy never bore the ashes of bitterness, only the second-class status of sycophancy. She needed Elizabeth. And, perhaps, she felt proudly, Elizabeth needed her. After all, Helena was the griffin hovering over her husband’s legacy and she, too, had a purpose in this money-and-fame configuration.
“I want to create new memories,” Elizabeth said dreamily. “New memories in a new house.” She painted the great room with roving eyes, as if abandoned by the old memories she had alluded to, but reluctant to elaborate.
“Many memorable, and enduring, books were written here,” Emily said.
