A Book of Common Prayer by Joan Didion Page B

mention a Gurdjieff of any nationality? Ever mention reading about him?”
    “No,” Charlotte said.
    “Marin can’t read,” Warren said. “She plays a good game of tennis, she’s got a nice backhand, good strong hair and an IQ of about 103.”
    Charlotte closed her eyes.
    “Charlotte. Face facts. Credit where credit is due, you raised her. She’s boring.”
    “I’m not sure this is a productive tack,” the FBI man said.
    “Irving’s not sure this is a productive tack.” Warren rattled his ice. “Hear, hear, Charlotte. Listen to Irving.”
    “Bruno,” the FBI man said. “The name is Bruno Furetta.”
    “Don’t mind me, Irving, I’ve been drinking.”
    “I happen to know you’re not all that drunk, Warren.” Charlotte did not open her eyes. “I happen to know you’re just amusing yourself. As usual.”
    “You get the picture.”
    Charlotte stood up. “And I want to tell you that I am not— ”
    “She’s overwrought,” Charlotte heard Warren say as she fled the room. “Let me give you some advice, Irving. Never mind the Armenians, cherchez le tennis pro. ”

10
    “B OO HOO,” WARREN SAID WHEN HE CAME UPSTAIRS AN hour later. “What happened to your sense of humor?”
    Charlotte said nothing. Very deliberately she closed the book she had been trying to read since the day after the FBI first came to the house on California Street. The book was a detailed analysis of the three rose windows at Chartres, not illustrated, and every time Charlotte picked it up she began again on page one. She did not want Warren in the room. She did not want Warren to be in any room where she slept with Leonard, did not want him to see Leonard’s Seconal and her hand cream together on the table by the bed, did not want to see him examining the neckties that Leonard had that morning tried, rejected, and left on the bed. In fact she did not want him to see the bed at all.
    “We don’t have anything in common any more.” Warren picked up a yellow silk tie and knotted it around his collar. “You and me. Leonard won’t miss this, he’s jaundiced enough. You ever noticed? He’s got bad color?”
    “One thing we have in common is that we both agree that as far as having anything in common goes—” Charlotte broke off. She was watching a tube of KY jelly on the table by the bed. She did not see any way to move it into the drawer without attracting Warren’s attention. “As far as having anything in common goes we don’t have anything. In common.”
    “You sound like you had a stroke. You had a stroke?”
    “I happen to have a headache.”
    “You mean I happen to give you a headache.”
    “I mean I want you to leave this room.”
    “Don’t worry, I’ll leave this room.” Warren sat on the bed, picked up the tube of KY jelly and put it in the drawer. “I don’t like this room.”
    Charlotte said nothing.
    “I only flew out here to see how you were.”
    Still Charlotte said nothing.
    “I don’t like your room, I don’t like your house, I don’t like your life.” Warren picked up a silver box from the table by the bed. The box held marijuana and played “Puff the Magic Dragon” when the lid was lifted. Warren lifted the lid and looked at Charlotte. “I bet the two of you talk about ‘turning on.’ See what I mean about your life?”
    “Go away,” Charlotte whispered.
    “Excuse me. I mean your ‘life-style.’ You don’t have a life, you have a ‘life-style.’ You still look good, though.”
    “Go away.”
    Warren looked at her for a while before he spoke.
    “I want you to come to New Orleans with me.”
    Charlotte tried to concentrate on meeting Leonard for lunch. Very soon she would walk out of this room and down the stairs. She would walk out of this house and she would take a taxi to the Tadich Grill, alone.
    “I said I want you to come to New Orleans with me, are you deaf? Or just rude.”
    She would go in the taxi alone to meet Leonard at the Tadich Grill.
    “I want you to see