23 The case of Gina George was not the first one in the practice of Paul Kruger, MD, FACS, in which cancer appeared some years after the insertion of breast implants. In fact, the threatened malpractice suit against him involved just such a case. All available studies showed no increased breast-cancer risk in women with implants, but a clever malpractice lawyer could use the recent case of Stern vs. Dow Corning, which, though it did not involve cancer, resulted in a settlement in which the company’s records were sealed, and the lawyer might suggest to the jury that something is being hidden. Since the settlement made it difficult to sue the company, a case had to be somehow made against the surgeon for not exercising due diligence. In Gina’s case the mammogram proved positive, and so the decision was made to proceed with a lumpectomy in the shortest possible order. As regarded post-operative treatment, the choice proposed by Jerry Hanley was between minimal radiation combined with tamoxifen and somewhat greater and longer-term radiation without tamoxifen; because the cancer proved to be in situ and encapsulated, there would be no need for chemotherapy. When Gina was told that a side effect of tamoxifen might be reduced libido, she adamantly refused it. “Sex is my life!” she told Jerry Hanley, and then “Without sex I’m nothing!” and “Sex is who I am!” She consequently agreed to be subjected to a six-week course of radiation, daily at first but with the frequency decreasing after the first week. The upshot was that Gina would not be able to go to Park City. After the radiation, if further tests were to prove negative, then Paul Kruger, whose criminal lawyer was still negotiating a deal with the district attorney’s office, could begin to look into reconstructive surgery. From the moment of the initial diagnosis, however, his part in Gina’s treatment was not that of a physician and surgeon but of a friend. Gina did not want the news of her condition to get out into the press, but she nonetheless received well-wishing, support and caring from her mother, from Barry, and from Mario. But no one stood by her as steadfastly as Paul Kruger. As she was recovering from the operation, Gina could not help speculating about his motives for this unexpected, seemingly selfless, devotion: maybe he needed a distraction from his problems, or maybe he felt some guilt or responsibility. But in the end she felt grateful. When she got home, she found her answering machine full. The messages were all – except one – from well-wishers. For some of them she had no idea how they had found out. Sofia and Montse in Barcelona had evidently been informed by Mario, and her old colleagues at BB Productions – including Lili and Melissa – by Barry. The exception was a message from Albert Bosch. “Hello, Gina,” it said, “this is Albert. I hope all is well with you. My situation here is such that I will after all not go skiing in Utah but go there only for the festival. I hope to see you there. Also I hope to hear from you, at this number...” And he left another eleven-digit number, beginning with 4121. So he’s still in Switzerland, she said to herself, but in a different town. Margaret, she remembered his telling her, lived across the border in France, so her number would be 33-something. Who’s he with? she wondered, but not for long. She was tired, she was weak, she didn’t care. Screw him, she thought. She would not call him back. Let him do what he wants with his fucking movie... oops, film. Let him be on his own in Park City. If Barry’s project came through – and Barry seemed quite serious about it – then she didn’t need Albert Bosch to become a legitimate movie star. Albert Bosch was pleased with the improved tone of his hamstrings, but his quadriceps seemed to resist exercise. They felt sore, and he was wondering if they would be ready in time for the beginning of ski season, which was now only a few days off. It had cost him an additional five hundred francs to postpone his flight to Utah by a week. Of course, he thought, he would save the money by not needing to pay for a week’s stay in Park City. Once the festival started, his expenses would come out of what was left of the Lady G budget. Money, money... a famous filmmaker like him shouldn’t have to worry about money; it was downright embarrassing. Especially now that he was with Sylvie, who enjoyed both commercial success and family wealth. Sylvie would periodically joke about the scant monetary rewards of un grand cinéaste like Albert Bosch, and she did so this time as well. The plan proposed by Julian Burroughs and Geoff Scrivener seemed more and more seductive. He would make some real money. The critics would probably not even find out about it. And with that money he could start another project, one that would be pure Albert Bosch. Of course there would be a failed love story, and someone torn between two loves. But there would be more. He wanted Sylvie to see Lady G in Paradise, but it was not showing in French Switzerland. Michel had not made any additional prints with French subtitles, and so, for now, the only place in Albert’s homeland where his new film could be seen was Zurich, with German subtitles. Sylvie did not know German, though she was born a few kilometers from the language boundary, and her mastery of English was the practical one of a world traveler. Still, he decided to show her the videotape that he had with him, with no subtitles except the English ones for the Catalan dialogues that took place when Gina was not present. During the viewing he could sense, from the way she stroked his thigh as they sat side by side on her sofa, that she got sexually excited. She also laughed at inappropriate places, as the cinema audience in Paris had done. “Mais c’est du porno,” she said after it was over, turning to face him and giving him a big, wet kiss. “Le grand cinéaste est un pornographe.” She took his hands in hers. “Le pornographe du cinématographe,” she added with a hearty – smoke-free – laugh in an allusion to George Brassens, who had sung about being le pornographe du phonographe. She got up from the sofa and began to pull him in the direction of the bedroom. “Bravo,” she said after he got up with a false show of reluctance, “tu vas enfin être riche.” He had not told her about Julian and Geoff’s plan, but it was evident that Sylvie was taking it, or something like it, for granted. But she clearly liked his being un pornographe! He had never known her so excited. Much of the time she kept her eyes shut, and he wondered if she might be fantasizing about Mario. Well, he thought, if women fantasizing about Mario were to help him get rich, what harm would there be in that? Afterwards she told him that for her, his pose as a great filmmaker had always been just that, a pose, but that she had liked it. She was a photographer, and poses were her world. So he was a pornographer and a poseur. And his girlfriend liked him for it. “You know, sweetheart,” Barry Bergman said to Nancy Fishman (she was moving to drop Kruger from her name) when their wine glasses were filled, “we’ve been friends for a long time, but we’ve never talked about what I do.” “You mean porn?” Nancy asked, lowering her voice as she picked up her glass. “Well,” he answered with a smile, “of course I wouldn’t call myself a” – he dropped his voice to a whisper – “pornographer, but” – he continued in a normal voice – “that’s the label that’s stuck on me, and that, roughly speaking, is what I mean.” “First of all, cheers!” she said. They clinked and took sips of their wine. “Okay,” she went on, “I like to think of myself as a feminist, and I’ve read Andrea Dworkin and Catherine MacKinnon. It sort of made sense, but I hadn’t yet actually seen any of your work, so I went to see... what was it called... oh yes: As the Romans Do It. And I loved it.” “Really?” He was amazed. “You never told me.” “Well, that was around when you and I stopped doing it, so it didn’t feel right to bring it up. But I thought that Gina George’s character, the priestess, was a real feminist role model. And that’s when I decided that Dworkin and MacKinnon were full of crap.” “Are you saying that you like my stuff?” “If Gina George is in it, yes. I did see one of your movies without her, and it did nothing for me. But Gina... I’ll confess: I actually studied her technique. I didn’t want to use it with Paul, and when I tried it with some of the younger guys that I had flings with, it got them scared. But with you, the other night...” “I knew it.” “I thought you might. You of all people.” “You were fantastic.” She took another sip of wine and a deep breath. “I love you, Barry,” she said. Barry pushed his wine glass and straw-covered bottle aside and leaned halfway over the table. Nancy did likewise and their mouths met in a Chianti-flavored kiss. Just then their antipasto platter was delivered and placed on the table directly under their chins. They broke their kiss as the waiter walked discreetly away. “Tell me,” Barry said after spearing an olive with a toothpick and placing it in his mouth, “would you like to go to Mexico with me?” “When?” asked Nancy as she wrapped a piece of provolone in a slice of salami. “Some time in late January. It’s the best time to go.” “I know. Sure, I’d love to; it’ll give me enough time to notify clients. Where are you thinking of going?” “First Mexico City, to talk to some movie people. You see, I have a project in mind for a movie set in Mexico, so I might as well shoot it there. It should be some place that has gringos living alongside old Mexican families.” “A project?” “It’s based on an old French novel, but set in the present. It occurred to me – at your house, in fact – that it would work if I set it in Mexico. And it would be a film for adults, with realistic sex, but not what we euphemistically call an adult movie. I would like to get out of that business.” “Wow – just as I told you that I don’t mind you being in it,” said Nancy with a smile as she took more food. “But wouldn’t the movie still be rated X?” she asked after swallowing her mouthful. “I’ve heard on the grapevine that Jack Valenti – he’s a liberal, after all, and doesn’t like Meese any more than you and I do – that he would like to create a new rating, that would mean absolutely no kids allowed, say under seventeen, but not porn. This would be a test case: a film based on a classic novel.” “What’s the novel?” “It’s called Les liaisons dangereuses in the original; I would call it ‘Dangerous Acquaintances,’ which is how one of the translations is titled. Have you heard of it?” “Vaguely.” “It’s got everything: love, betrayal, revenge, humor, you name it.” The main dishes arrived, scaloppine al marsala for her and osso buco for him. “Have you got a cast in mind?” she asked after her first bite of veal. “For the leads, yes. Mario and Jenny, plus” – he put down his knife and fork and crossed his fingers on both hands – “Gina George and a girl named Carla Ortiz. For the rest I’ll use Mexican actors. And speaking of the devil...” he said as he looked in the direction of the entrance. Nancy followed his eyes, and saw Mario Farga and Jenny Galvin coming into the restaurant, holding hands and looking intently at each other. “What a beautiful couple,” Nancy said. “Let’s leave them alone.” “We’re not so bad either,” Barry said as he raised his freshly refilled wine glass, through which he looked at Nancy. But after he took another sip and set the glass back on the table, she still looked to him as though bathed in a wine-red glow.