"That was amazing. I never even saw your hands move," she said.
"What are you happy about? I've got to face the man who taught me," said Remo. "No one's better than him."
Chapter 16
She could sense his eyes on her, and her body almost tore itself away from her will to throw itself at his feet. Thousands of men, perhaps millions of men, had loved her from afar, had seen her on the screen. She got hundreds of flattering letters a week from men and women, begging to be near her cool beauty. And never before had she responded.
But just minutes ago she had met a man at the most important party in New York. He was short with sad brown eyes, and spoke with a Russian accent that could stop your breathing if the onions he had just eaten didn't do it to you first. Everyone was saying he was the most important man in America. And no one knew why. He knew everything about everyone. Actress Berell Neek had been told not to cross him. Cross anyone in the room but him.
Berell had that perpetually sensitive face that was always playing sensitive roles. Directors gave her plenty of screen time to be silent with her warm sensitive eyes and her full sensitive lips, and sometimes they would have wind blow through her soft blond sensitive hair.
But Berell Neek had the soul of a calculator. She had been in front of audiences since she was five, and the only spontaneous orgasms she had in her life came during dreams about being raped by gold Oscars while reviewers tauntingly screamed how great an actress she was. Men held no appeal for her. Women held no appeal for her. Even fans held no real appeal for her. She preferred to be worshiped loudly, but from afar.
The only food for her soul was applause. And so when she met the man smelling of onions downstairs at the party, she endured his gross mannerisms, his onion smell, his too loud laugh, because he was important. She had decided to give him a whole fifteen seconds of her sensitive, nodding approval, then move her sensitive, caring face and body off toward other important people. She had never seen so many in one place before as at this party. It had truly lived up to its name. It was The Party. Not just the party of the year, or the party of the decade, but The Party.
Everyone who was anyone was here, and those who were not here would forever feel some shame if they thought themselves of any significance. All the cabinet members had attended, and the President was supposed to arrive later. The five biggest producers in Hollywood were here as well as a half-dozen scientists Neek had recognized, and if she recognized a scientist he had to be colossally important because she knew so few of them, even though her sensitive picture had appeared in scientific magazines.
She even recognized major industrialists. And they had to be major for her to recognize them, although Berell Neek's sensitive beautiful face had appeared in many business magazines.
Everyone talked of power, of a man who could do anything, knew everything. She had heard stories about this man who could tell if you cheated on your tax return fifteen years ago and what the soil was like on your Darien, Connecticut, estate. He knew everyone there was to know, and everything about them there was to know. And so the party was more than just electric. It was thunderous.
Like a storm, it fed on itself. The more important people saw other important people, the more they felt their power and the power of others.
There were comments about the invitations too.
"I got mine at my winter hideaway which no one but me and my wife knew about and she died five years ago," said the inventor of a new generation of computer technology.
"I got mine on my own computer terminal that no one could get into," said another.
"I got mine from my banker, who said I had better go," said a Hollywood producer.
This party was for the powerful and by the powerful, thrown by someone who might be more powerful than all of them combined. The noise was incredible as people who could make decisions by themselves met others of the same stripe, and almost by the sheer impact of their ability to get things done by colliding in this room, began to change the world they lived in on their own.
It was in this exhilarating atmosphere that Berell Neek tried to get away from an onion-smelling sad-eyed man with a Russian accent, even though she knew he had thrown the party.
But at that moment, she couldn't get enough of him. She wanted him more than William Shakespeare telling her she was the greatest actress of all time (one of her most erotic dreams). She wanted him more than a Broadway smash in which applause for her lasted over ten minutes. She wanted him more than all the Oscars lined up end to end, even more than the three she kept in her bathrooms, kept there of course to be used in interesting ways.
And so she left with him for a private room upstairs where, slowly and tantalizingly, she unbuttoned her blouse and revealed her bosom, never shown on the screen because that would have ruined her sensitive image, when in fact she would have posed nude mounting a giraffe with an umbilical cord in her teeth if it would have furthered her career. As she exposed these wonderful breasts, Berell Neek was barely able to keep from leaping on the magnificent Vassily Rabinowitz. Even his onion breath was sexy.
"Get with it. I don't have all day, already," he said. And the passion of his voice sent rapturous vibrations through Berell's quivering body.
"You're going insane with lust for me," said Vassily as he felt her perfect body on his. "Hurry up," he said, while watching her smooth pink flanks work against him. "Whoopsa daisy. That's it," he said on his quick completion. "Okay, get off, and tell the world, especially that good-looking redhead downstairs, about the best sexual experience of your life."
"It was magnificent," gasped Berell Neek.
"You're going to kiss and tell about this all over Hollywood. Get my phone number from my assistant, Smith, and give him any details about anything or anyone he wants to know. He's the morose gaunt one."
"Everyone is morose and gaunt after you, darling." Berell Neek wept the first real tears she could remember. It had been such a strong experience, she could not stop her crying.
"And zip," said Vassily, picking up a magazine as he lay on the soft couch underneath the soft lights of brass and gold lamps.
"What?" she asked.
"Fly," said Vassily. "You unzipped while getting on. Now you're off. Zip back up."
"Oh, yes, dear. Yes, dear. Yes," she said, kissing him even as she delicately, and with the sensitivity only Berell Neek could show, pulled the metal zipper over his magnificent love organ.
"Don't make a production of it, already. It's a zipper. Zip it and get out. "
Vassily Rabinowitz sighed as she left. He was really alone. At last he was alone. No one would dare come up to him, the man who had drawn the most powerful people of America to his Fifth Avenue duplex. The President would arrive soon and then he would control the presidency as well, doing whatever he wanted.
And so he would control America. Then what? Maybe he would go for Russia too. Have a big summit meeting and get them in line also. And then what? China? He didn't want China. The truth was, the world was beginning to be boring.
Vassily Rabinowitz had discovered what the Romans found when they had conquered the world and organized it. What every businessman felt after he achieved a goal he had set for a lifetime, Vassily now felt.
Everything he wanted was his whenever he wanted it, and the human animal, designed to struggle for its existence, and now without that struggle, began to malfunction in massive gloom. He understood now why people stayed in Dulsk and warned him never to leave.
"You'll be unhappy, Vassily. None of us is ever happy outside. Here we work. We have to work. And it's good. We have peace, and we have winter, which is hard. But we have spring, which is sweet. And as the holy man said, a spring without winter lacks taste and joy, but is just the weary weather of our souls."
Vassily remembered these sayings from Dulsk, and understood now why it was important to have a woman able to say no, to make the yes worthwhile. He understood it was important to have someone actually be your friend instead of being tricked into friendship. He understood the importance of hard work to make play fun. He understood now, he thought, even the meaning of death, to make life so precious.
And so in his own pain, he understood that to make his days even bearable now, he would have to bring the world to the brink of destruction because then he might be destroyed also, and stepping toward this edge was the last excitement the world allowed a man who could instantly hypnotize anyone.
At first he only wanted to be left alone; but that was when he left Russia. Now he wanted excitement. And a nuclear war would actually do that. It was perhaps the last thing that would do that.
He called in Smith. He liked the man's mind, what was left of it. Smith came in with his hair neatly combed, smiling as though he were back in Putney Day School. Rabinowitz liked the way this genius who could get to the insides of every organization would often raise his hand for permission to go to the bathroom.
"Smith, I'd like a nuclear war. What do you think?"
"It would destroy everything, Miss Ashford. Do you really want that, ma'am?"
"No. Not destruction of everything. But how could we risk destruction of everything? You know. How many missiles would have to be fired in order to risk starting a nuclear war? Is it one nuclear warhead? Three? Fifteen? Ten fired at Moscow, what?"
"Could it be none of the above?" asked Smith. "Might."
"I would say three would be a real risk, and two would be a minor risk. Everyone knows that one would not do it, although almost everyone who isn't aware of nuclear strategy thinks one would do it."
"Yes, one is a warning."
"No. One is an accident. Two is a warning. "
"And I always thought one was a warning."
"No, Miss Ashford. I would estimate two was a warning. One could be an accident, and in a secret agreement made years ago between the Russian premier and an American president, each gave the other to understand that they were not going to go to nuclear war over a possible accident. I believe the Russian said: 'We're not going to destroy the Communist party for a few hundred thousand deaths.' "
"And the American president?"