The Diamond Lane (6 page)

Tony sometimes annoyed her. The same kind of even temperament that made him a good co-producer made him a lousy partner in misery. “Two weeks the rainy season starts. We won't be able to get back here until next spring. We need this ceremony. I didn't realize it until it looked like it wasn't going to happen. The Bantu and the Pitishi are so similar. We really needed this one for balance. And the camera loved Marie-Claire. She would have been great. All that great red makeup.”

“
C'est le documentaire
.” He sung it to the tune of “
C'est la guerre
.” “I don't suppose you'd consider staging something.”

“We could get them to go through the ceremony for the camera. It's completely ethical. Even if Marie-Claire isn't getting married this time, she will eventually, and this is what her wedding will be like, when she does.”

“Try explaining that. We want you to go through it, but it doesn't mean anything. It's not real. You aren't really married. These things are sacred, Tony. More sacred than a film they've halfheartedly agreed to participate in.”

“'Fraid we're sunk, then. How did Ovumi phrase it? Wedding off?”

“Dead,” said Mouse. “Wedding dead.”

Tony wrote it in his notebook.

“Don't go losing any sleep over this.”

Tony looked up. He put the cap on his pen and closed his notebook. “I'm terribly frustrated, Mouse, just like you.” He pinched his blond eyebrows together in what he hoped was sincerity. From the inside the expression felt dangerously close to scowling.

He was lying. Or not lying. He wouldn't say it was lying. It was a matter of degree. He cared. Yes. Of course. It was just, face it, the films meant more to her than they did to him, they always had. He wanted them to be
good
. Yes. Of course. But if they weren't good or if, as in this situation, unexpected and uncontrollable events conspired against the production, it was no skin off his soul. It was simply part of his African Experience. After London Film School his father, a retired officer in the British Foreign Service, had pulled strings to get him on at the BBC in Nairobi. Grip, assistant editor, location sound man. Without too much effort he'd worked his way up, and finally out, finding a niche as a co-producer and sometimes director of less prestigious documentaries made by penny-pinching foreign governments, universities, corporations that either wouldn't or couldn't attract the attention of the much-hallowed BBC, the much-envied
National Geographic
. This rankled Mouse. She said it made her feel like the tray under the toaster that captured all the crumbs.

“We should have seen this coming and lined up another wedding in another village,” said Mouse.

It was nearly dark. The night shift of sounds in the canopy relieved the day shift. Caws and screeches segued into singing chirps and buzzing. Tony laid his hand, Pope-like, on the top of Mouse's head. He slowly stroked her thick hair. He wished he had an answer, something to cheer her up. He hated to see her
so blue. And that crack about noted marriage expert. That was brilliant.

Somewhere a tree hyrax screamed. It sounded like someone being murdered in an overwrought horror film.

“God,” he said, “that noise.”

“Oh,” she said, “I thought that was you.”

He pulled her hair. She reached up and pinched his wrist.

“We could shoot the wedding
not
happening,” said Tony, only half sure of what he meant.

“Yes,” said Mouse. “Yes. Like Herzog. The volcano thing. What was it called? He goes to shoot the volcano erupting, but it never does. He shoots the steam seeping out of the cracks. He shoots the old guy – remember that old villager? – who refuses to leave. But never the volcano. This is
great
.” She leaped to her feet. “We could get up early and interview Terese, Marie-Claire. Talk to the villagers. And how about the groom? Does he even
know
?”

“– it's the last minute and the bride's uncertain. The groom has fled – we don't have to say that's part of the wedding ceremony do we? We do, I know, I know, it was just a thought – anyway he's rather a jerk. She's been going along with it all this time to please her family –”

“Of course! I'm sure that's a common thing among the BabWani. It happens all the time in western culture. People live their entire lives to please their mothers.”

“Can't imagine you'd know much about that. Tramping about Africa with a man you're not married to, exposing yourself to AIDS and malaria and God knows what else.”

“You forgot political uprisings and possible hostage situations. Maybe we can get the groom just as he's finding out. He comes back from his outing with the other guys, expecting his bride to be there waiting for him –”

“That'll spice it up a bit.”

“This is
great
,” Mouse yelped.

“Sorry I snapped at you earlier. That marriage expert business.”

“That's okay. This is great. This'll make the film even better.” Mouse stood in front of Tony, playfully bouncing her knees against his, slapping at mosquitoes.

“I love you,” said Tony.

“You are so brilliant,” said Mouse. “You know what it's like?”

“What?”

“This! Our lives! You know that saying about you can only be happy when you realize that the object of life is not happiness? What it should be is, doing docs you can only be happy when you realize the object of documentary filmmaking is not happiness. We wanted this to be easy. Straightforward. But that's the whole point of doing films like this, isn't it? I mean if it was just talking heads, just boring professorial types yakking in their book-lined studies what would be the point?”

He ran his freckled hands up the side of her legs and under her T-shirt. “Let's think.” He rested his forehead against her stomach.

“…
IT WENT BEAUTIFULLY
,” said Mouse. The call had finally come through from the Office of Native Affairs.

Next to the bench there were two cubicles equipped with old black rotary-dial telephones. The telephones sat on a low, narrow shelf. There were no stools, so you were forced to choose one of two tortuous positions: squatting or standing bent over like a swimmer preparing to spring from the starting block. Mouse preferred the latter.

Tony slouched on the bench, cleaned his fingernails with the nailfile on his Swiss Army Knife, listening to wisps of the conversation.

“…rethink the African view of marriage. It's not all it's cracked up to be. Marie-Claire wanted something more for herself…”

Mouse talked as though Marie-Claire was setting about to
become Zaire's answer to Betty Friedan when all the stupid girl really wanted was to hitch her wagon to someone less repulsive.

“…we've come up with ideas for other projects, particularly, I was thinking, the dilemma of the tribal teenager…”

He finished with his nails, closed up the knife and, on impulse, offered it to the circle of children. One of them pounced on it, and the rest pounced on him. Their shrieks awoke the snoozing sentry, who chased them off. Mouse had given him that knife, on his thirty-fifth birthday.

“They were very pleased,” said Mouse, rejoining him on the bench. She threw her arms over her head and stretched noisily.

“I gave my Swiss Army Knife away to those kids,” he said.

“Great,” she said, patting his knee.

“You gave that knife to me for my birthday. Have you forgotten?”

“I know.”

“Christ, you're a hard nut.” That was it.
She was a hard nut in an iron glove
. He reached into his back pocket for his notebook.

“Me? You're the one who gave the knife away.”

“Mowz FitHenry? Mowz FitHenry?” The operator yelled from behind the counter. “Number one.”

“Here it is.” Mouse took a deep breath before returning to the cubicle. “Hello?”

“Solly, get off the phone! It's my sister in Nairobi!”

“Hello? Mimi? I can hardly hear you. It's Mouse.”

“Mouse! It's Mimi!”

“I'm in Kisangani.”

“Kissing who?” said Mimi.

“What's going on?” said Mouse. “I can hardly hear –”

“It's Mom!” yelled Mimi. “She has a, there's been an accident. They're doing surgery this morning, drilling some hole in her head.”

“Oh God. Is she, will she be all right? We're in the middle of this film on tribal marriage customs, and I –”

“You are? You must be thrilled. I remember how I felt –”

“– it's really hard for me to come home now. How serious is it?”

“It's a hematoma thing she's got. They're drilling a hole in her head. You got to come home, Mouse. It's bad.”

3.

SOLLY HAD A MEETING AT COLUMBIA AT FIVE, SO MIMI
snuck out early, hoping to get over to the hospital before traffic started. Alyssia said she'd cover the phones. If Solly called in for messages she'd say Mimi was in the bathroom. If he called in twice, she'd say Mimi had cramps. This always worked. Men like Solly never knew what to say when confronted with a gynecological excuse.

Anymore, there was traffic from early morning until late at night. Morning rush hour began at six and went until ten, when Early Lunch rush hour took over. Evening rush hour began at three, half an hour after Late Lunch rush hour ended. This went both for freeways and for popular side streets. The diamond lane, the car pool lane on the freeway, didn't help. Single drivers whizzed up the diamond lane all the time and never got caught.

Normally Mimi didn't mind the traffic. It gave her a chance to listen to National Public Radio. It was the only time she paid attention to what was going on in important places in the world to which she had no desire to travel: Israel, Libya, Pakistan.

She bumper-to-bumpered over Laurel Canyon. It was late September, still light outside. The sky was red at the bottom, yellow at the top. Sad sooty twilight. A sticky breeze blew in from Santa Monica. On the radio was a story about a couple who recently got married. The groom was in a minor plane crash on his way to his wedding in Florida. When he finally arrived he
found out the wedding had to be postponed; the church had been wiped out by a recent hurricane. What were the odds of this happening? What were the odds of a father dying at the bottom of an on-ramp, run over by a two-ton converter gear, a mother permanently brain damaged from getting bonked on the head with a ceiling fan? Big, those were the odds. And how come it never worked the other way around? How come you didn't win the lotto in the morning, meet the man of your dreams that night?

Mimi was anxious to get to the hospital, anxious to see Shirl. Anxious to get it over with. She wished Mouse was home. Mouse would arrive just in time to help out with the boxes of candy, toss out the flowers sent to the hospital.

Dr. Klingston, the neurologist, said Shirl should be out of surgery by seven o'clock. He said it was a standard procedure. As if getting a hole drilled in your head could ever be standard procedure. She idly wondered if she couldn't accidentally drive off the edge of the narrow canyon road, nothing fatal. Just something where she'd be fed by tubes for a couple of weeks, lose a little weight. Then Shirl would be forced to recover and come to visit her.

Mimi turned off the AC and rolled down the window. She had read that air conditioning uses up gas. She ticked off her monthly expenses, a habit she had when she was driving, the awake equivalent of counting sheep. Rent, Hair Care, Gas, Food. Hair Care included cut, color, and perm. Rent she shared with a roommate. Food she tried not to waste money on. There was no way to get around Gas. Outside it smelled of eucalyptus and exhaust fumes and going back to school. Except there was no school to go back to. Except How to Write a Blockbuster at Valley College, but that didn't really count.

Crawling through Laurel Canyon at this time of day reminded Mimi of the time Shirl took her and Mouse to see the Beatles at the Hollywood Bowl. Shirl hated to drive. She had never driven on a freeway in her life. She never drove faster than
thirty-five miles an hour. She never parallel parked. If the choice was between parallel parking and not going to the grocery store, the dry cleaners, the craft shop, she gave up and went home. But she had driven Mimi and Mouse to see the Beatles. Over the hill, she drove them, through the Cahuenga pass. In traffic. In the dark. That was the kind of sacrifice Mimi hoped to be able to one day make for her daughters.
If
she had daughters,
if
she had children. Not that she was interested in getting married. Although she wouldn't mind having a boyfriend who wasn't. Married, that is.

It had been nineteen sixty-eight or –nine. Along with pierced ears, Shirley thought the Beatles were barbaric, except “Norwegian Wood,” and any other song that could be successfully translated into Muzak. She got dressed up in a black and white op-art dress and dangling red plastic earrings she'd found at Pic ‘n Save. She had her hair frosted.

It was close, the Hollywood Bowl, just over the hill, but it seemed like such a trek to them, then. The Cahuenga Pass, Laurel Canyon: it was all wilderness in nineteen sixty-eight or –nine. There were no streetlights. In the summer there were scorpions and coyotes. People who were hippies before there were hippies lived there. They lived in shacks, with steep twisty narrow driveways. Now you couldn't touch a place there for less than a million.