The Way of the World

I first met René Gascon at a party thrown in his honor in Calais in January of 1997. It was cold and wet as I came into the house that night. I was a struggling, young American actor trying to make my way in French cinema and René was... Well, everyone knows who René was so there is no long, boring introduction, save this one: His physical presence was even larger and more powerful in person than on the screen.
The room in which our host held the party that night was one of islands of light in a sea of darkness. Small lamps on small tables illuminated figures on couches, in chairs, and around tables laughing, drinking, and talking. At what wit they laughed, why they drank, or about what they talked, I did not notice. They were faces, some of which I knew from movies I had seen, many I had never seen. All of them faded to a babbling blur when I saw him.
He filled a chair with that magnificent physical presence, against one wall, but at the center of the room nonetheless. He brooded alone, a drink untouched in one hand, his eyes looking to each island in turn as a king on a dais surveys the feasting courtiers gathered to feed from his largess.
I found it odd that he sat alone. Even the kings of old had their sycophants and lackeys. So, squaring my shoulders, drawing in a deep breath, and blowing it quickly out of my mouth, I walked over to him. I held out my hand and gave him my best Nebraska grin, planning to blunder through the social graces as the straightforward, provocative American.
René rose to his feet and smiled. "My friend, you came," he said, his English thickly accented. He took my hand firmly in his massive bear paw. "I am so glad you could make it." I gasped, moving my mouth wordlessly for a beat. Then he continued. "When I told Angeline that my one, true friend from my American experience was coming for a visit, she insisted that you come tonight."
The babble of a moment before died and I did not need to look around to know that every eye in the room was upon us. It was René's gift, though perhaps it was more. When I did not speak, René leaned close to my ear, whispering as if to talk personally to an old friend, "What is your name? You are an old friend from America and if you are truly an actor, you will rise to the role."
I threw back my head and roared at the joke. Then I threw my arms about the man and whispered my name into his ear. When we broke our embrace and grasped each other by the shoulders, he said my name and added, "It is so good to see you, my friend."
"Oh, René," I said, "you have not changed at all. How long has it been?"
"Ten years, mon ami." Here, my laughter was unfeigned; ten years ago, I was just beginning high school. "So," he continued, "tell me of your life."
Someone, unnoticed, had brought another chair and a drink, so we sat.
I had long ago discovered that great acting comes from your own life, so I told him of my struggle trying to make it in Hollywood and how I had ended up here. I even added that wistful note about how modest was my ambition, how I just wished to make enough to live by acting and not have to go home a failure. René smiled, and though I thought at the time that it was at my misfortune, I now think otherwise.
"My friend," said René, "a good actor can make money, but a great actor," here he held up a finger, "a great actor can become another person." He paused and looked into my eyes as if steeling himself for something, though I knew not what. Then he tossed back the drink in his hand and instantly a waiter appeared with another, which he took. "Let me tell you a story."
I braced myself. I had heard, as we all have heard, how René can be a terrible bore with this one story, this story he insists on telling all who will listen. Though I did not know the story itself, as I could not pry it out of my friends at home for anything, the story went that René would tell this story at any and every opportunity. It got so bad, my friends would tell me, that they took to avoiding René, even as they worked with him on the great productions of the age.
René began: "There was once a rivalry between two actors. These two, The Actor and The Rival, met at a class or on a set or... somewhere, and at once became fast friends. They shared much in their temperaments, their struggles, and their poverty. They wanted, as you want, my friend, to make a living at acting. It was natural that they would take a room together and share expenses, as friends in their want often do.
"They also shared a similarity of physical appearance. This is not to say that each was the twin of the other, but that when they auditioned for roles, these roles tended to be the same ones.
"As time went by it became apparent that, of the two, The Rival possessed the greater talent. In the beginning, when a role came up and both went for the part, The Actor would get it some of the time, The Rival the other. Eventually, however, the superior talent of The Rival won over the producers and stage managers, and The Rival received more callbacks, more roles, and better reviews.
"At first, as The Actor saw his friend get roles that both had auditioned for, The Actor, as a good friend should, congratulated him.
"Yet The Actor could not escape the feeling that something was wrong. While it was true that, of the two, The Rival possessed the greater gift, it was also true that The Actor worked hard at what he loved. The Actor spent many a long night before an audition memorizing lines and rehearsing before a mirror or with another friend, only to have The Rival come in an hour before the call, often stinking of cigarettes and wine, go to the audition, and end up with the part. This nagged at The Actor.
"Weeks went by and The Actor's straits grew worse. Then, one cold, raw December day, almost a week before Christmas that year, as rain spat from the sky in drops the size of pigeon eggs, The Actor walked home from the market with food bought with the last of his savings.
"The street was narrow and flooded with the rain. On either side, little shops huddled like dowagers on a pew. There was, however, one spot of color on this street. It was a bright, warm cafe. As he passed it while the days grew colder and grayer, the splash of browns, reds, and oranges had always drawn his eye past the abandoned tables, under the shawl of its awning, to the plate glass window pied with condensation. He looked forward to seeing it now. His pace quickened and grew lighter as he approached. He always took the opposite side of the street, to get the full effect of the window.
"But this night...there he saw The Rival.
"The Rival sat behind that spot in the window where heavy drops of water had beaded together and ran down in thick runnels to form a spot of clarity in the otherwise translucent window. Someone, The Actor could not determine whom, sat across from The Rival and they talked, laughed, and gesticulated in animated conversation.
"The Actor crossed the street, heedless of the water, and stood in the flooded gutter. Through the pedestrian walking by, their heads obscured by the arcs of black umbrellas, he saw only The Rival. The condensation obscured The Rival's companion. The cold rain intensified. The Actor did not feel it. Only his desire to discover The Rival's companion mattered.
"Stepping up on the curb, The Actor started toward the window. Then he thought about this. What was wrong with him? It was only a meal. Why did he care?
"Yet he did.
"He started forward again, veering to the left. He would be behind The Rival, and thus able to see his companion through the spot where he had seen The Rival. It was an old man.
"At first, The Actor did not recognize the man. He had a wattled blade of a face, and thinning hair held back by pomade. Then the man laughed at something. The Actor knew when the man's thin lips curled back from his uneven teeth, that this was none other than The Producer.
"The Producer's name, The Actor knew, was somewhere in the mix in most of the productions in which The Rival had won recent roles. He also remembered that The Producer had served in the Resistance, earning the name Le Renard, and was a notorious pederast and a drunk.
"The Producer put his hand on The Rival's. The Rival did not move. The Actor stood in the pouring rain and understood. He was a fool. All of his work and all of his sacrifice meant nothing. The Actor's love for his friend turned to hate, and he swore revenge.
"Hunger and sleep forgotten, The Actor went home.
"The next day The Actor went to a call only to find it cancelled. He became angry and went home. There, The Rival was just finishing packing his share of their meager possessions. The Actor became enraged. He screamed at the one who had betrayed him. He became highly creative in the terms he chose.
"The Rival, for his part, accepted this quietly, as one who wins a long struggle and knows, no matter what his opponent does, that his victory is secure. At last, The Actor broke down and asked his former friend why he had done this.
"At this, The Rival became shocked. Why should it disturb The Actor? Did not this sort of thing happen all the time? In a world of beautiful people and people in positions of power, of life and death, it would be unnatural if this thing did not happen.
"Yet, somehow, The Actor had expected his rival, his friend, to rise above his Darwinian nature and play the better man. Perhaps it was the faith The Actor placed in the character of his friend that, more than anything, made the betrayal unbearable.
"As The Rival left, The Actor began to pace the room. As he paced, his mind turned to dark thoughts. Pain consumed him and with it thoughts of how to balance the scale, how to make The Rival, who had so recently been his friend and with whom he had shared great deprivation, pay for this great injustice.
"Still, The Actor had to eat and keep a roof over his head. Torn between life and revenge, The Actor, like many, would have let revenge turn into grudge and not have acted upon it.
"As it happened, one day not long after The Rival left, The Actor went to interview for a job. It was the day before Christmas Eve. It was bitter cold, but the sun was out and cast stark shadows through the bare tree limbs. The job was not what he wanted, but he must eat and have a roof over his head. He knew that the job would leave little time for acting and he could see his dreams slipping away from him. On his way to the interview, he cut across a park, afraid that he would be late.
"Then he saw him.
"The Rival sat on a bench wrapped in a new, woolen overcoat. He sat among the stark shadows, reading a manuscript, his hands clad in fine, kid leather gloves. The Actor clenched his cold fists in the pockets of his threadbare coat and felt the anger surge back. He thought of rushing The Rival. Perhaps of killing him, but he knew that the act would be fruitless.
"The Actor saw that his path would take him in front of The Rival's seat, and so he changed course. He took the path into the trees, behind the bench where The Rival sat. Still, he could not take his eyes from The Rival and watched him through the bare trunks as he circled behind him.
"Then something amazing happened. The Rival stood and walked across the dead grass of the park, toward another figure. It was The Producer. When the two drew together, The Rival grasped The Producer by the shoulders. The Producer, for his part, drew The Rival into an embrace. The Producer made as if to kiss his new friend, but The Rival put his head to one side and on The Producer's shoulder.
"The Actor felt his lips curl back from his teeth in disgust and anger. Then, a singular thought entered his mind.
"The Rival's hands were empty.
"The Actor stole through the trees, to the edge of the wood. He could see the manuscript and a satchel sitting on the bench. He looked at the two men. Arm in arm, they turned to The Actor's left and walked into the park.
"His heart quickening, The Actor ran the short distance to the bench. Looking up, he saw that the men, deep in their own conversation, paid him no mind. His hands trembled and his breath came in short pants as he reached out and took the manuscript. He began to turn away, but then stopped and took the satchel as well.
"He ran back to the woods. Reaching the trees, he went behind a thick trunk and looked back at The Rival and The Producer. They still walked arm in arm, unaware of his theft.
"The Actor knew that he could not stay there long, they would eventually return for The Rival's possessions. The Actor opened the satchel, put the manuscript inside, and walked back through the trees to the other path. He still trembled with fear, but forced himself to breathe normally and walked out of the park.
"Later that evening, after the interview and a brief dinner bought with a small advance given to him by his new employer, he opened the satchel, took out the manuscript, and began to read. It was bad. It was a variant of a genre known as the heist caper. The part about the heist itself and the escape was good, The Actor admitted. It was well thought out and written with more than enough detail to convince an audience of its verisimilitude. The writer, however, had only sketched out the rest of the script and the characters were very flat, except for that of the police inspector and the insurance investigator.
"The Rival was to play an actor who leads a life in which nothing goes right. The Rival's character then decides to master his own fate and goes to a place where he is not supposed to be. In doing so, The Rival's character stumbles upon a robbery, which he then foils. Exiting the building just ahead of the police, the character walks away from the scene of the crime. After a few blocks, the character comes across a lighted window that he looks into. There, sitting in the foyer of an office, is a beautiful woman. The character knocks on the door and the woman opens it. She ushers him inside, telling him that he should have come the other way. The character plays along and eventually, after a series of mishaps, which includes run-ins with the villains, gets the girl.
"Now The Actor sat and thought. He knew that The Rival, once secure in his part, employed a particular method of preparing for the role at hand. He would hire other actors, take the script, and enact it on his own as if it were happening in real life instead of upon a stage. He now had the part The Rival would play and so, The Actor reasoned, all that remained would be to find when and where this enactment would occur.
"The Actor turned back to the script. He had previously noticed the detail therein pertaining to the robbery itself. Perhaps this was more than interesting; perhaps it offered some clue as to where The Rival would go to perform his enactment.
"Yet The Actor was merely an actor. He knew nothing of banks or robberies. How was he to use this knowledge?
"Then he thought of The Turtle. The Turtle lived several floors below. An old gangster, if one believed his stories, The Turtle had helped The Actor prepare for several roles over the years. If anyone of his acquaintance could make this information useful, it would be The Turtle.
"The next morning, The Actor stood before the door of The Turtle. His rage had brought him to this point and there was no going back. Even before he knocked, a voice from within bade him enter. The Actor turned the knob. In the small living room an old man sat in an American-style recliner watching television. The old man looked up, his head swiveling directly on his shoulders, and his eyes lighted on the box of candies in The Actor's hand.
"'My doctor said no candies,' said The Turtle.
"'Then it is good that I will give you none,' replied The Actor.
"'No?'
"The Actor shrugged. 'Perhaps one.'
"'Perhaps I will tell you a little something.'
"'A trade?'
The old man made a little face. 'A little one. It is the way of the world. What are you looking for?'
The Actor pulled the manuscript from a bag and handed it to the old man.
"'This thing?' The Turtle asked.
"'You have seen it before?'
"'Your friend brought it to me two weeks ago. There is far too much detail in here, if you ask me. Most people don't know about this and I would think the bank would not be happy to have them know. No one tries to rob a bank they don't know exists. I would be surprised if they let this see the light of day.'
"'Where?'
The Turtle gave him an address.
"'I don't suppose you know when?'
"'Christmas Eve,' The Turtle replied. 'Didn't you read the thing?'
"As The Actor turned, The Turtle asked, 'If you're not going to eat those?' The Actor gave the old man the chocolates and left.
"It would happen tonight. The production would doubtless be some other time, when there was no Christmas break and when production costs would not be so high. The Rival, however, craved verisimilitude.
"Armed with this knowledge, The Actor arrived at the building before dark. The night was even colder, the sky had threatened rain or snow all that day, and as The Actor waited, rain began falling from the sky. The Actor looked for shelter and saw an alley across the street from the building. It was not much, but it might protect him from the worst of the storm and conceal him from the gaze of The Rival.
"Going home did not occur to him. His anger kept him there.
"He found a doorway that afforded him a view of the entrance to the building across the street. The rain fell in sheets and ice soon began to coat the world around him. Above him, lightning flashed in the clouds. Around him, the shadows offered the comfort of concealment.
"He hoped The Rival would not use another entrance.
"It was true that the script called for this entrance, but The Actor thought that even The Rival might not be so demanding. No one could get what he wanted every time.
"The wait seemed like hours, but he had no real idea how long he waited. It grew dark and streetlights flickered to life. Still the shadows grew and the sky became darker. He found himself imagining what he would do.
"Revenge is an acquired skill and most do not do it well. In truth, The Actor had not thought much beyond disrupting The Rival's rehearsal. His most destructive thought was to pummel The Rival until he begged for mercy. In truth, The Actor was quite petty in this regard.
"Finally, after what felt like midnight, The Rival appeared. True to the script, he went in the door to the right of the bank of doors on this side of the building. After The Rival entered, The Actor ran across the street, his cold muscles shivering with every treacherous step. Twice he slipped, once on the steps, but managed to keep upright.
"Opening the door, he entered just in time to see The Rival round a corner. He took a moment and wiped his feet on the doormats, not wanting the squeak of his shoes to give him away. His body shook and he tried to control it. He could not. His heart pounded in his chest. Even if The Rival did not see him, he would surely hear him rattle.
"The Actor steeled himself with a force of will fully equal to that which Judas must have needed to betray his Lord and set off in pursuit. The Actor ran and turned several corners, each the only way The Rival could have come, until finally, stopping, The Actor saw The Rival ahead of him. The Actor retreated behind the last corner and watched as The Rival opened a door and went through. The door closed and The Actor ran down the hall. Cracking the door, The Actor peeked inside.
"He saw a dimly lit wall a few feet away and cabling hung from overhead. It was a maintenance passageway. The Actor went through the door, into the inner workings of this little world.
"There was only one way The Rival could have gone. The passageway went on forever. The Actor followed. He came around a corner as The Rival passed through another door. The Actor pursued and opened a thin crack in the door. He looked out on the tableau The Rival had set.
"It was a staircase with a landing where the door opened. Before the door were three gunmen and The Rival. The gunmen wore ski masks. The Rival stood on the landing. One gunman stood on the landing with The Rival. Two more stood above him on the stairs. One of the gunmen above The Rival kept his weapon—a big, ugly, automatic affair—trained on The Rival while the other looked over the railing of the stairs at something else.
"The script called for The Rival to assault one of the gun-wielding villains, but he only stood on the steps, his hands in the air, and spoke to the gunman on the landing.
"This gunman had his back to The Actor. The Actor threw open the door he hid behind and flung himself on the nearest gunman. How dare The Rival, this miserable thief, disrupt even his revenge?
"The Actor heard The Rival scream his name, but then the automatic weapon in the hands of the gunman on the steps went off, drowning out what else The Rival might have said. The Actor, for his part, thought nothing of this, as he knew that all of this sound and fury was but an act played out with blanks, fake ammunition.
"A second gun sounded three times and the automatic stopped.
"Pounding on the head of the first gunman, The Actor hit him until he stopped moving, just as The Rival was supposed to do in the script.
"Rising, The Actor went to The Rival who, for his part, did not look to have broken character, and instead stood, leaning with one hand on the railing, the other clutching his stomach, looking as if he might become sick. The other two gunmen, actors as he knew, lay on the stairs, red liquid from their packs of fake blood running down the stairs.
"For some reason, this refusal to break character enraged The Actor even more. He became determined to make The Rival give up his game and throw himself back into the real world. Taking The Rival by the arm, The Actor hauled him bodily down the stairs and out the glass doors that resembled the ones through which he had entered the building, something crunching with each step.
"The rain hit them the moment they left the building. Heavy and thick, it soaked them both in an instant. In a high pique, The Actor turned them both to the right and they took off down the sidewalk. Behind him, he could hear the distant wail of sirens. At his side, The Rival leaned against him, breathing hard in the rain.
"The Actor began to suspect that, the scene not going the way called for in the script, The Rival had improvised, becoming the wounded enemy that The Actor's character was now compelled to care for. In part, The Actor admired The Rival for his tenacity. The Actor also found his fury building, seeing that The Rival refused to break character in this manner.
"They passed several blocks this way, The Actor becoming at once more admiring of, and angrier with, The Rival. The Rival leaned more and more upon him.
"After a time, The Actor and The Rival came to a part of the sidewalk where someone had cut a trench to let shops on the basement level, and had placed a steel grid over this trench so that foot traffic could go by overhead. The Actor descended a set of stairs into this trench.
"The Rival leaned very heavily on The Actor so The Actor decided to find a place to set the other man. Finding a bench against the building, The Actor set The Rival down. The Rival was almost as big as The Actor was, and very heavy. The Actor told him so.
"The Rival, for his part, panted heavily in the rain and took his hand from his side where, though The Actor had not noticed it before, he was sure The Rival had held it the entire trip. The hand was red in the streetlight before the rain washed the color away.
"The Rival's level of preparation made The Actor admire him even more, and yet he resented this. Here sat one who would not leave character. The Rival looked up at The Actor and, against whatever better judgment he possessed, The Actor decided right there to honor his friend and play his own part.
"The Actor cast about him and spotted a light coming from a window set in the basement wall. In the driving rain, The Actor went to the window and looked in. There, sitting in a foyer, an antechamber, sat a beautiful woman, apparently absorbed in a magazine she held in her lap.
"She possessed an exotic beauty found only, to his knowledge, in Gypsies and certain peoples of the Levant. She was a woman rich and lush, and in her imperfections shone a beauty no one else could ever touch. The Actor knew from that moment on that he had fallen under her spell. Then he remembered his friend.
"Going to the door, The Actor knocked and in an instant, he heard the woman moving the cover over the spy hole in the door. She spoke heavily accented French. 'You were supposed to come—'
"'The other way, yes, I know," replied The Actor. She was serviceable. At least she knew her lines. Not like the other amateurs René had hired. Dinner theater, most likely, or summer stock.
Here René paused; his eyes darted about, and then settled on me. He chuckled. "You see what happens, no? When you tell a story, it becomes a part of you. Your tongue slips between imagination and reality. It is perhaps worse for us actors, no?" He huffed out a breath and then he was all business, going back to his story.
"The Actor then told her that his friend was injured and needed help. The Beautiful Woman retrieved an umbrella and followed The Actor to where The Rival lay. The rain beat down around her but she showed no reaction to it. She crouched in the pouring rain beside The Rival and ran a hand over his face. In silhouette, The Actor could see where rain had fallen on her face and ran down one cheek.
She turned to The Actor and told him that they needed to take The Rival inside. Together, they put his arms around their shoulders and lifted him inside.
"The Beautiful Woman kicked the outside door shut behind them and they dragged The Rival between them through the offices. The Actor focused on the path ahead and soon they were exiting the offices into an underground garage. Going to the back of a van, The Beautiful Woman opened the rear doors and they laid The Rival down in the back, where he fell limply.
"The Actor paused to consider his onetime friend, his betrayer, his rival, and saw his eyes closed. He had never imagined that his friend could die. That they should have their fight and he his revenge, of course; but that The Rival should be dead had never occurred to him. Now he could see the red that stained The Rival's clothes from his side down to his shoes. Lunging forward, The Actor tore open the white shirt now stained with blood, and saw a red, angry welter around a small hole, garnet to a near blackness.
"The Actor turned to The Beautiful Woman, his voice rising, 'A hospital, we must get him to a hospital at once!' The Beautiful Woman pulled a kit from somewhere in the van and handed The Actor some bandages. She told him to put pressure to the wound to stop the bleeding. The Actor took her by the shoulders and screamed at her. 'A doctor! He needs a doctor!' The Actor felt something cold and hard pressed to his belly. Looking down he saw that The Beautiful Woman held a pistol.
"'Help your friend,' she said, her face as cold as the metal of the pistol. The Actor stepped back and looked in the van at The Rival. He could not see The Rival's chest move and no blood flowed from the wound, as it had not a moment before when he had discovered it.
"'He is dead,' The Actor said. The Beautiful Woman did not move. No emotion showed on her face. The two stared at each other from either side of the open doors of the van.
Time stretched on until finally The Actor was thinking of leaving. Then he heard a grating sound, of metal sliding over metal and concrete. Locating the sound The Actor saw a manhole cover slide to one side as a man wearing a ski mask and dressed in black emerged.
Two other men dressed the same accompanied him. They began hauling several large duffle bags out of the hole. There were over a dozen in all. When they were all up, three other men emerged from the hole. Then the men began carrying the bags over to the van. When the first man arrived at the van, he looked inside and saw the body of The Rival.
"'Everything was going according to plan,' said the man, pulling off the mask. He turned to face The Actor, 'Then this one showed up.' The Actor gasped: It was The Producer, the man in the restaurant with The Rival. The Producer put a hand in a pocket of his jacket
"'Where are the others?' The Beautiful Woman asked.
"'Jacques and Penne are dead. Richard may be-' a shot cut him short and an instant later blood came to The Producer's mouth. Five more shots followed in quick succession. The Actor looked around. Only he and the woman stood and a curl of smoke rose from the barrel of her gun.
"Putting the gun away, The Beautiful Woman began lifting bags and throwing them into the back of the van, careful not to place them on top of the body of The Rival. 'Help me,' she said. 'They will be here soon and we must hurry.' His mind numb, The Actor bent and helped The Beautiful Woman load the bags into the back of the van. When they were finished, The Beautiful Woman got into the driver's seat.
She drove forward and stopped. 'Get in,' she said. The Actor stood there and stared at her, his mind numb. 'Would it help if I waved the gun around?' she asked. The Actor got into the passenger side and The Beautiful Woman drove away into the rain which washes away all sin."
Around us the room shook with thunderous applause. "Bravo!" said someone.
"Oh, René," said someone else, a woman, "it gets better with each telling."
"When are you ever going to make that into a movie?" asked another voice.
René rose to his feet, swaying a little. "My friends," he said, grasping the half-full tumbler in his right hand. He pried his index finger from the glass and pointed in the direction of the crowd in the dark. "My friends," he said again, though perhaps the 's' sound at the end lasted a little too long, "This is a story best told to you, those who I love. "More applause and others laughed. René smiled.
"René," said a woman in exotically accented French, "we need to go. You have an early call tomorrow. It was Angeline. Her voluptuous, unconventional beauty and dark hair were iconic and always graced the tabloids whenever a picture of René appeared.
René followed the woman without comment. A week later, Angeline called and asked me to come and audition for a new movie that René was producing. I got the part.