A Book of Common Prayer by Joan Didion Page A

“Off the flight of the living dead.”
    Dwelling on the past leads to unsoundness and dementia , my aunt also advised.
    And, Don’t cry over curdled milk, Grace, make cottage cheese of it .
    And to the same doubtful point: Remember Lot’s Wife, avoid the backward glance .
    “Wish me happy birthday,” Warren said. “Have a drink on my forty-fifth birthday.”
    “Your birthday was October 23rd,” Charlotte said.
    “She doesn’t drink before breakfast,” Leonard said. “It’s hard and fast with her, she never does.”
    “She did on my thirtieth,” Warren said.
    “ Which was on October 23rd nineteen-hundred and —oh shit.”
    “Watch your language,” Warren said.
    Avoid the backward glance .
    Until Marin disappeared Charlotte had arranged her days to do exactly that.

9
    I KNOW WHY CHARLOTTE LIKED TALKING TO THE FBI: the agents would let her talk about Marin. Their devotion to Marin seemed total. They were pilgrims pledged to the collection of relics from Marin’s passion. During the days before Warren arrived in San Francisco the agents had taken Charlotte to see Marin’s apartment on Haste Street in Berkeley. The agents had taken Charlotte to see the house on Grove Street in Berkeley where they had found the cache of .30-caliber Browning automatic rifles and the translucent pink orthodontal retainer Marin was supposed to wear to correct her bite. In both those places the gray morning light fell through dusty windows onto worn hardwood floors and Charlotte had remembered for the first time how sad she herself had been at Berkeley before Warren came to her door.
    “Let’s flop back to one of the theories you were espousing yesterday, Mrs. Douglas. When you—”
    “Let’s flop back to all of them,” Warren said. Warren had been sitting in the same chair ever since he walked into the house and dropped his shopping bags. He had gotten up only to get himself drinks and once, perfunctorily, when the FBI men arrived and Leonard left. “I’m the felon’s father,” he had said to the FBI men. He seemed bent now in a fit of laughter. “I want to flop back to every one of these theories Mrs. Douglas has been espousing. In my absence. I’ve been out of touch, I didn’t know Mrs. Douglas had theories. To espouse.”
    “When I what?” Charlotte said.
    “Flip flop. We need ice, Charlotte.”
    “When you—” The FBI man glanced uneasily at Warren. “When you said yesterday that Marin ‘might have been sad,’ what exactly did you mean? Normal everyday blues? Or something more, uh, out of the mainstream?”
    “Just your normal everyday mainstream power-to-the-people latifundismo Berkeley blues.” Warren was still bent with laughter. “Just those old Amerikan blues. Spell that with a K.”
    “I don’t know what I meant,” Charlotte said.
    “Some theory,” Warren said. “Did you get the K? Did you spell it with a K?”
    “To push on for a moment, Mrs. Douglas, the office raised one other question. Did your daughter ever mention a Russian, name of, uh, let’s see.”
    The FBI man examined his notebook.
    “Those old Amerikan blues didn’t come up the river from New Orleans, they K-O-M-E up the river from New Orleans. Get it? Charlotte? Did he get the K?”
    “He got it.”
    “Gurdjieff,” the FBI man said. “Russian, name of Gurdjieff. Marin ever mention him?”
    “In the first place he was an Armenian,” Warren said. “Otherwise you’re on top of the case.”
    “I’m not sure I get your meaning, Mr. Bogart.”
    “Not at all. You’re doing fine.”
    “Excuse me. The Gurdjieff I’m thinking of is a Russian.”
    “Excuse me. The Gurdjieff you’re thinking of is Bashti Levant.”
    “Warren. Please.”
    “Don’t you think that’s funny, Charlotte? ‘Excuse me, the Gurdjieff you’re thinking of is Bashti Levant’?”
    “It’s funny, Warren. Now—”
    “You used to think I was funny.”
    “Let me try to put this on track.” The FBI man cleared his throat. “Marin ever