Barney's Version by Mordecai Richler Read Free Book Online Page B

now, two thirds of you will be dead. Any stupid questions?”
    But Hymie survived, demobilized with some fifteen thousand dollars in the bank, most of it won at the poker table. He made straight for Paris, moving into the Ritz, he said, and not drawing a sober breath for six months. Then, down to his last three thousand dollars, he booked passage on the
Île de France
, and lit out for California. Starting as a third-assistant director, he bullied his way up the ladder, intimidating studio executives, who had served with honour in the War Bond drives on the home front, by wearing his flight jacket to dinner parties. Hymie churned out a
Blondie
, a couple of Tim Holt westerns, and one of Tom Conway’s
The Falcon
series, before he was allowed to direct a comedy featuring Eddie Bracken and Betty what’s-her-name? You know, like the stock-market brokers. Betty Merrill Lynch? No. Betty Lehman Brothers? Come off it. Betty like in those ads. When la-de-da speaks, everybody listens.
Hutton. Betty Hutton
. He was once nominated for an Academy Award, was three times divorced, and then the House Un-American Activities Committee caught up with him. “This sleaze-bag Anderson, my comrade,” he said, “a five-hundred-dollar-a-week screenwriter, was sworn in by the committee and told them he used to come to my house in Benedict Canyon to collect weekly Party dues. How was I to know he was an FBI agent?”
    Surveying our table, Hymie said, “There’s something missing.
Garçon, apportez-nous des cigares, s’il vous plaît
.”
    Then a Frenchman, obviously past it, well into his fifties, pranced onto the terrace. He was sporting a yachting cap, his navy-blue blazer with the brass buttons tossed over his shoulder like a cape: he had come to claim the young woman who sat two tables to our left. She rose to greet him, a butterfly disturbed, with a flutter of delight.
    â€œ
Comme tu es belle
,” he cooed.
    â€œ
Merci, chéri
.”
    â€œ
Je t’adore
,” he said, stroking her cheek with his hand. Then he called peremptorily for the waiter,
le roi le veut
, flashed a roll of francs bound with a gold clasp, and settled the bill. The two of them drifted toward our table, where she obliged him to stop, indicating the remnants of our feast with a dismissive wave of her hand, saying, “
Les Américains. Dégueulasse. Comme d’habitude
.”
    â€œWe don’t like Ike,” said the Frenchman, tittering.
    â€œ
Fiche-moi la paix
,” said Hymie.
    â€œ
Toi et ta fille
,” I said.
    Stung, they moved on, arms around each other’s waist, and strolled toward his Aston-Martin, the old man’s hand caressing her bottom. He opened the car door for her, settled in behind the wheel, slipped on his racing driver’s gloves, made an obscene gesture at us, and drove off.
    â€œLet’s get out of here,” said Hymie.
    Piling into Hymie’s Citroën, we sped to Hauts-de-Cagnes, Hymie and Boogie belting out synagogue songs they remembered as we charged up the all-but-perpendicular hill to Jimmy’s Bar on the crest, and that’s when my mood began to curdle. Wintry is my soul’s season. And that evening, perfect but for my fulminating presence, my heart was laden with envy. For Hymie’s war experiences. His charm. His bankroll. For the effortless manner in which Boogie had been able to establish rapport with him, their joshing now often excluding me.
    Years later, shortly after the murder charges against me had been dismissed, and Hymie was home again, now that the blacklist was a nightmare past, he insisted that I recuperate at the beach house he had rented for the summer in the Hamptons. “I know you don’t wantto see anyone, in your mood. But this is just what the doctor ordered. Peace and quiet. Sea. Sand. Pastrami. Divorcées on the make. Wait till you taste my kasha. And nobody will know anything about your