Free Mao II by Don DeLillo Page B

be helpful, someone to handle the mail (he had experience), a quiet individual who would type and file, even prepare meals if there was no one doing this, a person who would try to ease the writer’s beleaguerment (he drew a trace of grim amusement here). And then on instinct simply stopped and let Bill absorb the offer while he stood there looking earnest and dependable. Watching Bill’s face begin to change. How the jaw muscles slackened and the eyes grew calm. A great man’s face shows the beauty of his work.

5
    K aren was in the bedroom looking at the gift Scott had brought back from the city. It was a reproduction of a pencil drawing called Mao II. She unrolled it on the bed and used objects in reach to hold down the corners. She studied the picture to see what was interesting about it or why Scott thought she might like it. The face of Mao Zedong. She liked that name all right. It was strange how a few lines with a pencil and there he is, some shading in, a scribbled neck and brows. It was by a famous painter whose name she could never remember but he was famous, he was dead, he had a white mask of a face and glowing white hair. Or maybe he was just supposed to be dead. Scott said he didn’t seem dead because he never seemed real. Andy. That was it.
     
     
    Scott was washing coffee cups.
    Bill came in and said, “What are you doing?”
    Scott looked into the basin, running a sponge around the inside of a cup.
    “We could walk up to the mill. It’s a nice enough day.”
    “You have to work,” Scott said.
    “I’ve worked.”
    “It’s early yet. Go back and work some more.”
    “I’ve put in some good time today.”
    “Bullshit. You were having your picture taken.”
    “But I caught up. Come on. We’ll get the women and hike to the mill.”
    “Go back up.”
    “I don’t want to go back up.”
    “Don’t start. I’m not in the mood.”
    “We’ll get the women,” Bill said.
    “It’s early. You ruined your morning with picture-taking. Go back up and do your work.”
    Scott held the sponge under warm water, rinsing out the soap.
    “We have three hours of light. Ample time to get there and back. ”
    “I’m telling you for your own good. It’s your idea to write this book forever. I’m only saying what I’m supposed to say. ”
    “You know what you are?”
    “Yeah yeah yeah yeah, ”
    “Yeah yeah,” Bill said.
    “I don’t think you did ten good minutes.”
    “Yeah yeah yeah.”
    “So go back up and sit down and do your work.”
    “We’re wasting all this light.”
    “It’s really very simple.”
    “It isn’t simple. It’s everything in the world that isn’t simple wrapped up in one small bundle.”
    Scott was finished at the sink but stayed there looking into the basin.
    “It’s simple all right. It really is. You just go back up and sit down and do your work.”
    “The women would enjoy it.”
    “I’m only saying what we both know I’m supposed to say.”
    “I could go back up and just sit there. How would you know I was working?”
    “I wouldn’t, Bill.”
    “I could sit there tearing stamps from a twenty-five-dollar roll of stamps with the fucking flag on every stamp.”
    “As long as you’re in the room. I want you in the room, seated.”
    “I’ll tell you what you are,” Bill said.
    Scott reached for a towel and dried his hands but didn’t turn around. He hung the towel on the plastic hook and waited.
     
     
    Brita stood outside Bill’s workroom, in the open doorway, looking in. After a moment she reached in and knocked softly on the door even though it was clear the room was empty. She stood motionless and waited. Then she took one step in, looking carefully at the ordinary things inside as if compelled to memorize the details of whatever had escaped the camera—the placement of objects and titles of reference works, the number of pencils in the marmalade jar. Gazing for history’s sake, for the obsessive record of what is on the desk and who is in the