One of the books I picked up in the library was Aristotle’s Poetics. Aristotle says that when we watch a tragedy we feel pity and terror as the protagonist falls, and that when the play is over we feel cleansed, pure, a catharsis.
But what about the guy on stage? What about Oedipus, standing there with the gore running down his cheeks after he’s plunged Jocasta’s brooches into his eyes? Aristotle goes home, whistling, feeling better, feeling glad the tragedy happened to some other poor schmuck, but how does Oedipus feel?
What if the shepherd bringing the final message hadn’t said, Oedipus, the reason all the crops are failing and everything is going to shit is because you killed your father and married your mother, you poor fool? What if instead he had looked out into the audience, pointed to, say, Aristotle, and said, "You-you’re the reason we’re in such a mess. You don’t know it, but you’ve killed your father and married your mother, and now we’re all doomed." Would Aristotle have gone home whistling then?
I don’t think so. We feel better when we watch someone else suffer. But Oedipus, if there really was an Oedipus, and I think there must have been, he doesn’t feel better at all.
The first thing that happened was that I didn’t get the part of the Messenger in Oedipus. Well, I thought, I don’t get most of the roles I audition for-you could hardly call this ill fortune.
The second thing was far worse. My mother called the hotel I was staying at and told me that my father had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. He’d had stomach aches and nausea for months, but by the time he’d finally gone to the doctor it was too late. They gave him a day or two at the most. I took the next flight out.
He died before I could reach him-I never even got the chance to say goodbye. My father, my funny, caring, supportive father, the man who gave me his blessing when I said I wanted to be an actress. I called the company in Berkeley, told them I was staying for the funeral.
My mother wanted a closed casket. Because of this, and because I’d never seen him ill, I couldn’t really bring myself to believe he was dead. I had dreams where I’d talk to him, laugh at one of his silly jokes, and then suddenly realize that he wasn’t supposed to be there. "But you’re dead," I’d say, horrified. Sometimes he’d disappear at that moment, sometimes he’d put his finger to his lips, as if to tell me that these were things that shouldn’t be spoken of. Once he told me that he wasn’t really dead, he’d just been away on a secret mission somewhere. And every time when I’d wake up my cheeks would be wet with tears. I hadn’t known you could cry in your sleep.
The third thing that happened-well, it wasn’t as bad, I guess. Certainly no one died, I didn’t lose anyone I loved. I got back to Los Angeles to find out that Jessie had auditioned for a part in a major motion picture, and that the director wanted to see her again.
We rehearsed together. I took the part of the boyfriend, which Jessie told me would be played by Harrison Ford. I barely remember what the movie was about, to tell you the truth. I was numb with grief, still coming to terms with all the holes in my life left by my father’s death. And I was depressed over my career, the way it seemed that everyone was getting ahead but me.
Jessie tried to be supportive, but she was too excited about the direction her own career had taken. I couldn’t blame her, really. The morning of her audition she rented the white BMW and left for the studio. I didn’t hear from her until she called at five o’clock that evening.
"I got the part!" she said, a little breathless. "They all loved me, said I was perfect. I did those scenes we practiced with Harrison -what a sweetie he is!"
"That’s nice," I said. "Listen, I’ve got to go-I’ve got some reading to do."
"Sure," she said. She sounded a little puzzled. Did she really not understand my jealousy? Was she really that naive?
So I got to watch as Jessie became the next hot actress-this year’s blonde, she joked, brushing back her masses of dark hair. Her conversation became thick with the names of famous actors, directors, producers. She rented a condo in Malibu. I thought for sure she would buy that damned BMW she was so proud of but she went one better and showed up at my apartment complex in a silver Jaguar.
"I couldn’t resist," she said. "Do you like it? You know how the British pronounce Jaguar? They say Jay-gu-ar," and she told me which famous British actor had taught her that.
"It is not enough to succeed," someone in Hollywood had once said, I think Gore Vidal. "Others must fail." I tried to feel happy over Jessie’s success, I really did, but I was sunk so deep in misery I couldn’t do it.
It all started with that damn book, I thought. It’s all because I took that book down and opened it. "And he who reads the following words will be plagued by ill fortune for all his life," it had said. "Trogro. Trogrogrether. Ord, mord, drord. Coho, trogrogrether."
You look up a moment. The birds have stopped singing, a cloud has moved in front of the sun. You thought you were reading a story about someone struggling with death, with bad luck, with her own inner demons-Hamlet’s outrageous fortune. You certainly had no idea you would become involved this way. It’s too late, though-you’ve read the words, just as I have.
No, you think. She’s imagined the whole thing. Sure, a lot of bad things have happened to her, but it’s probably all just coincidence. A bunch of words in an old book-how could that possibly affect me?
It can, though, take my word for it. It happened to me. I know my life went downhill just as soon as I read those words.
You thought you were reading about someone going through a hard time. One of two things would happen-either things would get better for her, or they wouldn’t. You were prepared to follow the story from the beginning through the middle to the end, and then you were going to put it down and get on with your life. You were prepared to feel better after it was all over-if it ended happily you’d feel good, of course, but if it didn’t you’d still experience the catharsis Aristotle talked about. You were going to feel good watching me suffer.
And now you’re the one who’s going to suffer. What do you think of that?
I stopped going out. I skipped auditions. I sat on my floor and stared at my carpet, which was a truly hideous shade of brown. I spent a lot of time wondering why anyone would make a carpet that color. And when I wasn’t worrying about my carpet I thought about Jessie.
I couldn’t turn on the television without seeing her. There were ads for her movie, there was Jessie herself being featured on some entertainment show or talking to Jay Leno about what a sweetie Harrison was. And when her movie came out it got worse. I didn’t go see it, of course-there was my carpet to think of-but just about all the critics liked it. The skinny guy on that Sunday evening movie review program practically fell in love with her, though the fat guy didn’t go that far. No one noticed that she wasn’t a very good actress, that she was missing something. I wondered if, in addition to all my other problems, I was going crazy.
Whenever I went to the supermarket, there was her picture waiting for me, on the cover of People or some tabloid. One month she was even featured in a house and garden magazine, with pictures of the interior of her Malibu condo. I couldn’t help myself-I paged through the article while standing in the check-out line. She’d told the reporter that she wanted to create a space filled with light. I doubted it-she had terrible taste, could barely even dress herself. Probably that was something her interior decorator had said.
I’d been invited to that condo, not once but dozens of times. She urged me to come along with her to parties, told me about the directors and producers who would be there. She offered to take me to dinner. I made excuses, stopped returning her calls. All I needed, I thought, was to owe Jessie my career. No, I’ll be honest here-I just didn’t want to see her.
I thought a lot about envy. In college I had been in a production of Marlowe’s Dr. Faustus, in the scene with the seven deadly sins. I’d played Envy: "I am Envy, begotten of a chimney-sweeper and an oyster-wife… I am lean with seeing others eat. Oh, that there would come a famine over all the world, that all might die, and I live alone, then thou should’st see how fat I’d be!"
If I tried I could remember the six other sins-pride, anger, gluttony, sloth, lechery, and greed. Envy was definitely my sin, though. I thought I would have taken almost any of the others: pride, lechery, even gluttony. Sloth would be good. Here I was, I thought bitterly, envying other people their sins.
The phone rang. I worried that it was Jessie, full of more cheerful good news, but for some reason I answered it. It turned out to be Ellen, a friend of mine from college, and I relaxed.
"Hey, isn’t that woman in the movie Jessie What’s-her-name?" Ellen asked after we’d caught up on news. "I met her once at your house, didn’t I?"
"Yeah," I said.
"Well, give her my congratulations. It must be exciting for her."
"Yeah," I said again. There was silence-a puzzled silence, I thought-at the other end of the line. "I guess this proves beyond a doubt that Hollywood values looks over talent," I said finally.
Ellen laughed. "I thought she was a friend of yours," she said. "I guess not."
"I guess not," I said.
I felt briefly better, and then a whole lot worse. What was I saying? Jessie was a friend, wasn’t she? Didn’t she deserve better from me? What was wrong with me?
Envy. Envy was wrong with me. I realized when I hung up that I couldn’t get rid of it, that it was part of me, the way the other sins were part of other people. That’s why people in the Middle Ages had named them, why the terms had stayed around for so long. No one was perfect. I would have to come to terms with my sin, domesticate it. I would have to make it mine.
It felt like hard-won wisdom. I would call Jessie, I thought, meet her somewhere for lunch. I’d even congratulate her-congratulations were long overdue. I reached toward the phone I had just hung up.
I stopped. This wasn’t taming my envy. This was covering it up, sweeping it under the rug, pretending it didn’t exist. I knew what I had to do. I opened my phone book and looked up Jessie’s new number.
I got her secretary. I should have expected that. The secretary had me wait while she looked through a list of approved callers. I was on the list, she told me, in a voice that suggested I’d just won a car. I felt absurdly grateful.
She put me on hold and then Jessie came on. "Hi, how are you doing?" she said. "It’s been far too long." She sounded cheerful, happy to hear from me.
"Not too good," I said. I told her the whole story, the book in the library, the calamities that had happened soon after, the terrible envy I had felt over her success. I very nearly recited the words from the book to her, but something stopped me. That wouldn’t be coming to terms with envy-that would be giving it free rein.
"You ninny," she said when I finished.
My heart sank. She hadn’t understood. She had never been bothered by envy-she couldn’t know how devastating it could be. Any minute now she would say, "Why on earth should you envy me?" or something equally inane.
Instead she said, "What about the book?"
"What?" I said stupidly. I couldn’t imagine what she might be talking about.
"The book in the library. You said it was called Fortune and Misfortune. If it has a phrase that brings bad luck, it probably has one for good luck as well."
I stood still for long seconds, dumbfounded. "Oh my God," I said finally. "Listen, I’ve got to go."