“Everyone?”
“In the Canyon. There are a lot of people here who are feeling exactly like you tonight.”
“And how’s that?”
“Oh, just wishing they’d had a few prizes for their efforts.”
“Well they don’t give Oscars to actors like me.”
“Why not?”
“I guess they don’t think I’m very good.”
“And what do you think?”
He mused on this for a moment. Then he said: “Most of the time I’m just being me, I guess.”
“That’s a performance,” Katya said. “People think it’s easy. But it’s not. Being yourself … that’s hard.”
It was strange to hear it put that way, but she was right. It wasn’t easy, playing yourself. If you let your attention drop for a moment, there was nothing there for the camera to look at. Nothing behind the eyes. He’d seen it, in his own performances and in those of others: moments when the concentration lapsed for a few seconds and the unforgiving lens revealed a vast vapidity.
“I know how it hurts,” she said, “not to be appreciated.”
“I get a lot of other stuff, you know.”
“The other stuff being money.”
“Yes. And celebrity.”
“And half the time you think: it doesn’t matter, anyway. They’re all ignoramuses at the Academy, voting for their friends. What do you want from them? But you’re not really convinced. In your heart you want their worthless little statues. You want them to tell you they know how much you work to be perfect.”
He was astonished at this. She had articulated what he’d felt on a decade of Oscar Nights; an absurd mixture of contempt and envy. It was as though she was reading his mind. “How did you figure all that out?”
“Because I’ve felt the same things. You want them to love you, but you hate yourself for wanting it. Their love isn’t worth anything, and you know it.”
“But you still want it.”
“You still want it.”
“Damn.”
“Meaning yes?”
“Yes. That’s it. You got me.”
It felt good, for once, to be understood. Not the usual nodding, what-ever-you-say-Mr.-Pickett bullshit, but some genuine comprehension of the mess inside him. Which made the mystery of its source all the stranger. One minute she was telling him lies (how could she possibly have known Brahms as a child?) the next she was seeing into his soul. “If you really do own this house,” he said, “why don’t you live in it?”
“Because there are too many memories here,” she said simply. “Good and bad. I walk in here and,” she smiled, though the smile was thin, “it’s filled with ghosts.”
“So why not move away?”
“Out of Coldheart Canyon? I can’t.”
“Are you going to tell me why?”
“Another time. This is a bad time to tell that story.” She passed her delicate hand over her face, and for a moment, as the veil of her fingers covered her features, he saw her retreat from her beauty, as though for a moment the performance of selfhood was too much for her.
“You ask me a question,” he suggested.
Her hand dropped away. The light shone out of her face again. “You swear you’ll answer me truthfully if I do?”
“Sure.”
“Swear.”
“I said so.”
“Does it hurt behind the bandages?”
“Oh.”
“You said you’d answer me.”
“I know. And I will. It’s uncomfortable, I’ll tell you that. But it doesn’t really hurt anymore. Not like it used to. I just wish I’d never messed with this. I mean, why couldn’t I be happy the way I was?”
“Because nobody is. We’re always looking for something we haven’t got. If we weren’t, we wouldn’t be human.”
“Is that why you came spying on me?” he said, matching her mischief with some of his own. “Looking for something you haven’t got?”
“I’m sorry. It was rude of me: watching you, I mean. Spying. You’ve as much right to your privacy as I have to mine. And it’s hard to protect yourself sometimes. You don’t know who’s a friend and who’s not. That can make you crazy.” Her eyes flashed, and the playfulness was back. “Then again, sometimes it’s good to be crazy.”
“Yes?”
“Oh sure. Sometimes it’s the only thing keeps you sane.”