Book Doctor. Esther Cohen

want to sound mournful or pitiable, only interested. “What changed between us? And if it’s all the same, why did we both agree so easily to divorce?”

      “Nothing’s changed,” she said, and then she added very familiarly, “Harbinger.” She rarely used his name.

      “I see,” he said, and then decided that he would rewrite this altogether. They’d both be crying, unable to eat, and they would decide that parting would be a horrible mistake. Then they’d return to their old apartment, warm, dark, full of rugs and Indian music, and make love in a way that surprised them both. Maybe the book should end there.

      Harbinger thought of this as he rang Arlette’s buzzer. He wanted the word wild in the title. He read somewhere that it was one of those words, like dogs and whales, that people always liked. Wild End, he thought. Wild Whale, Wild Dog, or even Wild Taxes. Taxes were something he knew well. Even so, he felt wedded to Hot and Dusty. He would ask Arlette Rosen her opinion.

      Arlette had dressed for Harbinger Singh. She tried to look officially artistic for her writers, knowing and literary, reasonably in charge, and sure enough of what she was doing. Aspiring writers, she knew, concentrated on these details. She imagined herself a book doctor, and so she often wore white, even in winter. For Harbinger Singh, a lawyer with literary ambitions, Arlette wore a white cotton skirt, plain, nearly Victorian, and a French cotton T-shirt, very simple. She was tall and thinnish, and her face, in the right light, had a handsome cast, like a Russian feminist explorer on a silver coin. But she could look impenetrable too, the kind of woman who’d be too hard to please. She wore earrings, thin silver snakes from Bali that decorated her ears. On her wrist was a silver bracelet, old and foreign looking, surprisingly soft. It moved across her wrist in a light and girlish dance.

      Harbinger looked at her and thought to himself, Not Too Bad. Arlette looked at Harbinger and wondered about his suit. She tried not to be as judgmental as she was, but this was an effort.

      “Do come in,” she said, and he extended his hand first, to shake.

      “Harbinger Singh,” he said unnecessarily, and pumped her hand up and down for a minute. His hand was straightforward and strong.

      “Well, hello,” he said again, when she didn’t seem to respond right away.

      “Please come in,” she said. “Right in here, if you don’t mind. I only have two rooms. I’ve thought about renting an office for years.” Here her voice trailed off, as though reasons why not were not of their concern right now. “But this is enough,” she added.

      He did not look around her living room. He just sat down. The couch was a faded velvet, a pinkish that once might have been more red. The cushions were small satin squares with pieces of embroidery she’d gathered on her trips. She’d sewn them on herself. He did not look at them. She could tell right away that he didn’t care much about visual details. Usually, writers who came just began to talk and Harbinger was no different. Arlette sat across from him in an old rocking chair. She leaned forward with her spiral notebook and a pen.

      “I’ve always had the intention of writing,” he said. “A book primarily, although there are other possibilities when that is finished. A play is in my head,” he said. “I call it Queens, referring to one of my homelands. A biography of Gandhi.” Then he added. “And the poems.”

      “What about them?”

      “There are the poems,” he said, shyly. “I haven’t written them yet. But of course, I am a poet. Aren’t we all? It’s in our souls, I believe.”

      “I see,” said Arlette. “And where would you like to begin?”

      “With the novel,” he replied. “I just need a little help. A push in the right direction, because I know it is right in my head. The story is there in front of me. I just need time to put it down. And a little help with the process. I am sure.” Here he smiled at her, and crossed his legs, swinging his right foot nervously back and forth arhythmically. Arlette tried not to stare at his moving leg.

      “What will your book be about?”

      “Well,” he replied, leaning into the cushions on her couch as though he were preparing to tell a very long story. “Well,” he said again. Then he looked at her earnestly, as though she were a client of his, someone with a minor but troubling problem with her taxes. Underpayment, perhaps. Or avoidance for three years. Without the personal resources to rectify her problem right away. Coming to him for advice.

      “Well,” he said a third time. “Here I go. I’ve been thinking that I would like to call the book Wild. Wild Taxes, possibly. Although Hot and Dusty has always been in my mind. A year or so ago, when I started conceiving this novel, it was very different. Then I called it At the Bench, or Up to the Bench. Or even just Bench. At first, it was a courtroom novel, which all took place in a small dark room, very formal, presided over by a woman judge from Calcutta,” he said, and smiled. But he paused for a minute, almost lost. Unexpectedly nervous. He recovered quickly, though, and continued. “She had her training in England. Very smart. You can’t put one over on her. Her name, for your information, is May. Un-Indian, that. But we have had many influences. The first book, not actually the first, but last year’s book, we’ll call it for clarity’s sake, was about a murder. A man murdered his wife because she made his life impossible. After her death he found a master plan in her top stocking drawer in the closet. It was to murder him. She had enlisted the support of his mistress, who’d secretly become his wife’s lover. I know this plot is not a first. But I intended to make it different through my choice of particulars.”

      Arlette nodded.

      Harbinger suddenly seemed very confident. He looked Arlette in the eye, and spoke a little too loudly.

      “Now, though, something else has replaced this idea. Now I would like to try something we can call for today just Wild Taxes. Not a murder. A simple love story, of a passionate love that failed. Circumstances wouldn’t allow it to be,” he added, and looked satisfied with his own explanation, as though he’d finally said something he’d wanted to say for years.

      “What were those circumstances?” Arlette asked, and wrote the word circumstances under Harbinger’s name. Her authors’ files were only words, jotted here and there.

      “If I were to say now, I might lose the impetus to begin,” said Harbinger Singh. “I don’t know that I am able to tell you just like that. There are only two characters, however. Their relationship is set against corruption all around. Incest, murder, death, homelessness, war, the world,” he said vaguely. “Big corporations, the British, others whose motives are less than admirable. You know,” he added, and she nodded. “A difficult world,” he said. Moslems, Christians, Hindus, Jews.” His voice trailed off.

      “Yes,” said Arlette. “Very difficult.”

      “One of the reasons why I have in mind to write a novel,” he continued, “is that the tax business, while it is lucrative enough, is not very satisfying on a spiritual level. I’m sure you understand this.”

      “Yes,” said Arlette. She was trying to keep an open mind. She knew all writers were nervous, particularly in the beginning. Still she felt a twinge of contempt for Harbinger Singh. And taxes. There was something about choosing to do taxes that bothered her.

      “I enjoy my work,” he said, as though he knew what she was thinking. “It gives me a chance to see many people. To ask them questions, and hear about their lives. To help them,” he said, then added, “even somewhat. I have no illusions on that score.” He looked at her and smiled, as though she were the client, not him.

      She liked him a little better.

      “And you?” inquired Harbinger. “And you?” he repeated. “When I meet new people, I often explain myself, to put them at ease. Perhaps we can do the same. Let’s begin with your process, and your fees. I am interested in both. I can describe more of my character if that will help you. I collect takeout menus. One of my few idiosyncrasies.