REGARDING MR. SMITH
_______________
After two years of ignoring his letters, I took a meeting with Theodore Smith, at X’s request, to put an end to his nonsense.
“I can’t believe it’s really you,” he said, “I can’t believe it. X’s wife—incredible.”*
Though it was 1992, I was unaccustomed to such fawning, as she and I avoided the places where such people lingered. The sole purpose of this meeting, which I recorded for legal purposes, was to inform Mr. Smith that X would not cooperate with his supposed biography; she would not authorize it, would give no interviews, and would allow no access to her archives. As my wife’s messenger, I encouraged Mr. Smith to abandon the project immediately, for he would suffer greatly trying to write a book that was ultimately impossible.
“If you truly want to write a biography,” I told him, “you must first select a subject who is willing to comply, advisably a ghost.”
Mr. Smith sat there blinking as I explained, in slow detail, our total disapproval of this endeavor. The estate would not license any reproductions of any of X’s work, nor would he be allowed to use any of the portraits of X to which we held the copyright. We would not give permission for him to quote her lyrics, essays, scripts, or books, and of course X had no time to answer any of his questions, as she had no interest in his interest, nor any respect for anyone who intended to exploit her work in this way.
“It is her explicit wish not to be captured in a biography, not now and not after she’s gone,” I reminded him, my tone absolutely cordial, or at least judicial. “She asks that you respect this wish.”
But Mr. Smith refused to believe that X would choose to be forgotten, to which I explained that X had no such intention and already had plans for what would happen to her archives in the event of her death; all I knew of those plans at the time was that access would require forfeiture of the right to biographical research.
“Her life will not become a historical object,” I explained, as X had explained again and again to me. “Only her work will remain.”
“But she’s a public figure,” Mr. Smith said, smiling in a sad, absent way. (How odd to remember the face of someone I hate, when so much else is lost to the mess of memory.) He slipped a page in a plastic sleeve from his briefcase. I glanced down—it was unmistakably her handwriting, dated March 2, 1990, and addressed to My Darling, and though I should have been that darling, given the year, I had a way of overlooking certain details back then.
“I have several others,” he said. “The dealers always call me when they come across one, though they’re rare, of course, and quite expensive.”
“A forgery,” I said. “Someone has ripped you off.”
“It’s been authenticated. They’ve all been authenticated,” he said.
I thought I knew what he was doing—dangling false artifacts to entrap me and compel my cooperation—but I would not budge. The letters must have been (or so I wanted to believe) all fakes, and even if X had written such a letter to someone else, which she most likely had not, she would’ve never associated with anyone treacherous enough to sell her out. This pathetic boy—no biographer, not even a writer—was simply one of X’s deranged fans. I don’t know why she attracted so many mad people, but she did, all the time: stalkers, obsessives, people who fainted at the sight of her. A skilled plagiarist had merely recognized a good opportunity and taken it, as people besotted with such delusion hold their wallets loosely.
“You must understand that my wife is extremely busy,” I said as I stood to leave. “She has decades of work ahead of her and no time for your little project. I must insist you move on.”
“She won’t always be alive, you know.”
I did not believe myself to be such a fool, but I was, of course, that most mundane fool who feels that though everyone on earth, without exception, will die, the woman she loves simply cannot, will never.
“Whether she wants there to be a biography or not,” Mr. Smith went on, “there will be one, likely several, after she’s gone.”
I told Mr. Smith, again, to cease all attempts to contact us, that we would file a restraining order if necessary, that I did not want to ever see or hear from him again; I was certain that would be the end of it.
* * *
Four years later, on November 11, 1996, X died.
I’d always thought of myself a rational person, but the moment she was gone I ceased to be whoever I thought I was. For weeks all I could do was commit myself to completely and methodically reading every word of the daily newspaper, which was filled with articles about the Reunification of the Northern and Southern Territories, a story so vast that I felt then (and still feel now) that we might never reach the end of it. I gave my full focus to reports of the recently dismantled ST bureaucracies, the widespread distrust of the new electricity grids in the South, and all the sensational stories from inside the bordered territory—details of the mass suicides, beheadings, regular bombings—and even though my personal loss was nothing in comparison to the decades of tyrannical theocracy, I still identified intensely with this long and brutal story, as I, too, had been ripped apart and was having trouble coming back together.
Reading the paper gave a shape to my boneless days: each morning I walked the length of the gravel driveway, retrieved the paper, walked back, and read it section by section in search of something I’d never find—sense, reasons, life itself. Immersed in the news, I felt I was still in the world, still alive, while I remained somewhat protected from the resounding silence she’d left behind.
In early December of that year, I read something in the arts section that I could not, at first, comprehend. Theodore Smith had sold his biography of my wife to a publisher for an obscene advance.* It was scheduled to be published in September of the coming year. For a few days I succeeded in putting it all out of mind. I thought, No—no, it is simply not possible, it will fail, they’ll realize the letters are frauds, that it is a work of obsession, not of fact, and when I, executor of X’s estate, deny them all the photo and excerpt rights, that will be the end of it. How could there be a biography without any primary sources?
As it happened, the editor who’d purchased the book was someone with whom I shared a close friend. She called me that winter—a courtesy, she said, as she was under no obligation to gain my approval. She insisted the research was impeccable. Scrupulous but respectful, she said, whatever that means. She assured me that Mr. Smith truly revered and understood X as an artist, as a woman, and that he had so many wonderful insights about her work, but of course, some would find the book a little controversial, wouldn’t they?
Your wife never shied away from controversy, the editor said.
Is that so?
The editor suggested I come to her office to meet with Mr. Smith while there was still time to correct the text, that I might want to dispel some rumors he’d been unable to detangle, and though I’d been sure I’d never see Mr. Smith again, by the time I’d hung up I’d agreed to the meeting.
Two days later I was sitting in a conference room with Mr. Smith, his editor, and two or three lawyers. The cinder block of a manuscript sat on the table, practically radiant with inanity. I asked for a few moments with our author, and once alone, I asked him how he’d done it.
Oh, just, you know, day by day, he said, the false modesty so pungent it could have tranquilized a horse.
But what could you have had to say about her? What could you have possibly known?
He insisted he still had plenty to go on without the archive, as she’d given thousands of interviews since the 1970s, that she rarely repeated herself, and of course there were the ex-wives, ex-lovers, the collaborators, others. They all had plenty to tell him, and lots of original letters to share. It had all gone quite well, he said, except for his interactions with me, of course, and the fact that he’d never been able to speak with X herself—a miscarriage he still regretted. But I did not care what he wanted from me and only wanted to know who had given him interviews. He listed a few inconsequential names—hangers-on and self-important acquaintances—then, surprisingly, Oleg Hall.
Copyright © 2023 by Catherine Lacey