“That’s an idiotic idea,” said Lewis Braudel. “He’ll have competitors who know what they’re doing. Why doesn’t he just write for your paper? Why don’t you give him a little air?”
They argued about Samuel’s selfishness, and the man named Dewberry who would visit soon, the things Lewis might read in a few minutes, more things Samuel thought he should write about. It was the first time Dulcy had been able to study Lewis Braudel since the train, and she glanced and looked away, glanced and looked away, until she worried people might think she had a tic. He looked healthier now than he had back in January. She noticed that he had a pattern of tiny blue metallic specks on his left cheekbone.
He turned and caught her. “I did not stab myself repeatedly with a pencil.”
Samuel kept on: “Why not write about Siegfried?”
“Because he’s my friend. Because I don’t want to shit on my own sidewalk. Because everyone should be able start over ten times.”
“Why would you write about Mr. Durr?” asked Margaret.
Durr was readying his camera on the far side of the room, using his cane to position a banker who struggled to hold both a cocktail and Mrs. Woolley. “There you go,” said Lewis. “My point exactly. What do you see? An alcoholic Prussian, right?”
Possibly, thought Dulcy, but Margaret looked like she would knife him.
“And I see someone who’s survived more than any of us could imagine,” said Lewis. “Did you know he was in China?”
“Of course I didn’t know that.” Dulcy was beginning to be annoyed.
“Because you haven’t stuck it out in a tavern with him. You haven’t put your life on the line for friendship.” Lewis smiled and looked away. She wondered what he thought about her and Margaret, or about Mrs. Woolley’s crowd. Disdain, affection, curiosity—his eyes floated away, but she couldn’t pin it entirely on boredom or alcohol or sadness.
But Margaret was waiting, and losing all humor, and Samuel realized it. “He was with the German contingent in Peking, in 1900. He was with that idiot who killed the Boxer boy, and opened the whole mess up. He and Joe Wong barely survived.”
“Siegfried Durr brought Joe Wong here?”
Lewis cut back in. “Siegfried brought him to Berlin, and Joe Wong brought Siegfried here. Not what you’d expect, is it? So no, Samuel, I don’t want to write about him, or about your friend who jumped off the ship, or your other people who jumped off mountains or trains.”
“Think of pretty Louisa Peck—you’ve met her.”
“I did, and she was beautiful, but dumb as a box of rocks.”
Walton would have loved that phrase. “Is,” said Samuel. “Please, have respect.”
“Dead,” said Lewis.
“The Remfrey girl, then,” said Samuel. “You said you heard a rumor about Victor Maslingen not believing it was true.“
“Dead and mangled. I did hear, but consider the source,” said Lewis. “And by the way, I believe he’s engaged again, and selling the paper. You should point Rex in the direction of Seattle.”
Dulcy’s skin crept with the strangeness of it all. Her life, not her life; how rotten was her body on that prairie? How many days had it been? When Samuel lit a cigarette, she wanted to rip it out of his hands. “You need a soulful topic,” he said.
“I may need it, but I don’t want it,” said Lewis. “I’m planning a piece on what Pinkertons actually do to earn money—mostly a matter of following women who’d rather not be followed—and another long series on bullshit medicine. Write your own soul.”
At the front of the room, Mrs. Woolley waved a smooth arm, and Lewis took the lectern. He began with an essay about why he hadn’t intended to enlist in the Spanish War—he felt America’s involvement was bullying, manipulative, and crassly financial—but he’d fallen prey to pride and curiosity.
Things had devolved on arrival. A questionable mission, poor planning, boys dropping like insects because of insects. Dulcy could feel unease in the room. “Wasn’t Edgar in that division?” whispered Mrs. Whittlesby, craning her chubby neck.
“I don’t believe they were acquainted,” she whispered back.
“It’s a mistake to bring up bravery when you bring up this war,” Lewis Braudel continued. “The bravest thing many soldiers did was to sleep in a camp that would likely kill them. You can’t underestimate the damage done by disease, by the climate—”
Mrs. Whittlesby waved her arm and broke in. “You have so much in common with Mrs. Nash, both of you out of New York, after all. Perhaps you knew her husband, Edgar.”
Everyone stared, and Dulcy felt her chest thud. “I regret that I did not,” said Lewis politely, “but the point is really that I don’t recall much of Cuba at all, because I was sick as a dog two months after arriving. I tried to warn Mrs. Mallow that this is not an heroic story.”
“And the rumored novel—”
“No,” said Lewis firmly, pulling out a sheaf of pages. “You wouldn’t enjoy it, and the polite bits are scarce. I’ll read another piece from the new collection.”
Dulcy drained her glass and held it to a burning cheek, and while Lewis read about rich men given to bad deeds and young men given to stupidity, she tried to pluck her mind from the novel’s autobiographical exploits, the evidence that he was good or at least practiced at many things. Walton had liked to say that well-behaved men tended to be boring, and even though the line was self-serving, and even though Dulcy wanted to disagree (hence: Victor), she had to admit that Lewis was not boring at all, even during the long, inane wrap-up. Do you travel? Have you met Thomas Edison Teddy Roosevelt Jack London Nellie Bly William Jennings Bryan?
Rex kept his arm up stubbornly throughout, and Dulcy wondered how he’d add to the inanity. “How was your hand damaged, Mr. Braudel?”
“Fireworks. Like any ill-behaved child.”
“And how and why did you decide to become an expert writer?”
“I doubt there are expert writers,” said Lewis. “There are only people who try it, and keep at it.” Rex waited, a stoic, and Dulcy watched Lewis’s amusement fade and his face go flat. “I needed to make a living, and I liked to write, and when I fell sick, I tried it again for the sake of a living.”
Mrs. Whittlesby, whose questions had finished pickling, took over. “But surely you had no financial restraints. Your mother is a Weyden, I believe. I am confused by your name.”