His Wife Leaves Him Page 9

  He thinks the second date went something like the following. Anyway, he’s gone over it plenty of times in his head and also written about it and they talked about it, each confirming what the other had to say or in some parts giving a slightly different version of it, so it’ll be close. He called the next night and said “Hi, it’s Martin, how are you doing?” and she said “Fine, thanks, and you?” and he said “Great, couldn’t be better,” and she said “That’s good. Anything special happen to make you feel that way?” and he said “No, I just feel good; head, body, the works. I usually feel good. No, that’s not true, but also the writing went well today, so that helped. I wrote the first draft of a new story, and one I like, which means I have something to work on that I want to tomorrow and don’t have to worry I’ve nothing to write. Listen, I had a nice time with you yesterday; I hope you did too,” and he gave her time to speak and she said “It was very pleasant.” “Good. So I think we spoke about this. Would you like to meet again, maybe for a drink and, if you’re up to it, dinner after, but at a different place?” and she said “Why at a different place?” and he said “Well, you know; first we can meet at a bar near you, if that’s convenient; and then think about a restaurant, because a bar, I don’t think, is where you’d like to eat,” and she said, “I see. Sure,” and they arranged to meet at six this Sunday at the West End, a short walk from her building, and then, if she doesn’t still have a lot of preparing to do for her class the following day, have dinner somewhere else. Once they settled on when to meet, he got off the phone quickly. He’d run out of things to say and ask her and she wasn’t asking him anything either or volunteering to talk about herself and what she did that day and so on and he didn’t want there to be just silence on the phone. She might think “What, we’ve nothing to talk about already?” he thought. So he said “Terrific; the West End. Six, day after tomorrow; I know where it is. And at a table, not the oblong bar, if they still have it, which isn’t conducive for talk,” and she said “Okay, see you then, Martin,” and they said goodbye. He got to the bar first, right at six, looked around, she wasn’t there, sat at a two-table and ordered a beer. Domestic? Foreign? Just get the cheapest draft, he thought. Doubts he’ll finish it, mainly because he doesn’t want to have to pee soon after, as he did with the coffee at the drugstore. She might think he has a bladder problem or something and he also doesn’t want her thinking about his peeing so much. When he gets to the restaurant, if they go, that’ll be different, seem more natural. If she can’t go to dinner, then he’ll pee here, just to empty his bladder for the ride home, which could take a half-hour or more. She came a little after six—he was looking at his watch when she suddenly appeared at his table—and said “Hello, Martin; am I late?” and he said “Not at all,” and stood up and put his hand out and they shook hands and sat. “By the way, it wouldn’t matter if you were late. I’ve brought a book and ordered a beer, so I’m good for a long wait. Let me tell the waitress—I see her—what you’ll have,” and she said “A Guinness Stout, please, but in the bottle, not draft, and with a glass. Sometimes they bring it without one.” And he said “How do they expect you to drink it then? Straight from the bottle, which can cause burps, or through a straw?” and she laughed and said “That was funny—the image, drinking Guinness through a straw,” and he said “Thank you.” He got up and went over to the waitress. Then he sat down and said “I hope we can have dinner later,” and she said, “I’m free. I should have tried to call you about it in case you didn’t think we’d have dinner and wanted to make other plans,” and he said “No, I was counting on you. Didn’t work out, I’d just go home and read.” Their drinks came. They talked about lots of things. She asked what book he brought with him “for the long wait that never came,” and he said “Also for the subway ride up here and back—got to have something to read,” and she said “I hope meeting me here wasn’t too much of an inconvenience for you,” and he said “That’s nice of you; but it was easy.” He forgets what book it was. Knows it was small enough to fit into his not-too-large coat side pocket. An old paperback. When they went for 95 cents. He can almost see it: cover torn, pages dog-eared. He didn’t want to take the Solzhenitsyn hardcover he’d been reading at home, because then he’d have to put it on the table they sat at or a nearby chair and carry it when they walked, and displaying such a big serious book in front of her again seemed ostentatious. Chekhov stories, he thinks. If it was, then they spoke about some of them or just Chekhov in general, for she’d read for her thesis several of his stories he wrote in Nice and later a large collection of them to see if there was a Camus connection as there was for Camus in Dostoevsky’s fiction. “There wasn’t,” she said one time, “or none I could find, and after about fifty of his stories, I gave up. I’d thought there might be a groundbreaking article in it for me. They were a delight to read, so I don’t look at the project as a waste of my time.” No doubt something more about her teaching than she told him in the drugstore, or was it on the phone in their first call? What college she went to and what she majored in and more about her master’s thesis, and he the same: college, major, no graduate degree, and both of them born in New York, she at Mother Cabrini in the Bronx—“I’m a Bronx baby,” she said—he at New York Hospital’s Lying-In. Also their public high schools in the city: “Oh, you went to an elite one,” he said. “I did too, but flunked out in a year and had to transfer.” Jobs he’s had, travels. Her marriage and divorce. “You said you were never married,” she said, “right?” after she spoke about her husband and a little about why they broke up. Not her two abortions. That they spoke about weeks or months later. Second one ten years after the first. Her husband said the baby would interfere with their doctoral studies and teaching at Columbia. She didn’t think so but went along with her husband. “Besides, the marriage was already in deep trouble.” The first with another man. Actually, just a boy, she said. Both of them were seventeen. “Got pregnant the same time I lost my virginity. He was quite a skillful lover for someone so young.” “You mean he helped you reach orgasm,” and she said “Several in one afternoon. So it wasn’t, as they say, a total loss. Later, I’d pay. Going to a quack in Philadelphia and hemorrhaging and getting kicked out of his office with blood running down my legs. Lucky my boyfriend’s older brother was with us and drove us to a motel.” Her parents. What parts of Eastern Europe they were from. How they got to America. Her mother’s father was already living in New York, so he sponsored them. It’s a long story. The rest of her mother’s family starved to death in the Lód ghetto and all of her father’s family were murdered by the Nazis in Byelorussia. She was born five months after her parents got here in ’47. Conceived in Paris, a stopping-off place for them, which she said could account for her love of French language and culture. “I may be a Bronx baby, but before that I was a French fetus. I love humor but can’t make up or tell a joke. I think I’ve told you that.” In high school she wanted to be an actress and was the lead, “because I showed modest early talent and had good diction and could remember the lines, in all the musicals and plays. In elementary school, I played Alice because of my long blond hair.” She didn’t want her parents spending their hard-earned savings on her expensive college, so for the most part she paid it all herself by working in school dorms and their cafeterias for four years.” Her birthday. Eleven days before his. “So we’re both Geminis,” he said, and gave his birthday, “not that that or astrology, as a whole, is of any significance,” and she said “I’m not so sure. We’re talking here of stars and planets.” They finished their drinks and he said “Like another Guinness?” and she said “No, thanks. Two would unglue me.” “Does that mean no wine with dinner? Because I’m going to have another beer, if you don’t mind, and at the restaurant order some wine,” and she said “By then, on a full to medium-full stomach, I should be able to drink a glass of wine without later needing you to help me home. Please, have some more beer.” He got his beer and said “I was just thinking. I’m eleven years minus eleve
n days older than you. Do you think that number means anything?” and she said “A numerical coincidence, but that’s all. You might also happen to have eleven siblings in your family,” and he said “Because of the way it ended up, like you, none. The two of us, one and one.” About her living in the Bronx till she was around fourteen. It turned out that the high school he transferred to from Brooklyn Tech—“Transferred to illegally too; I didn’t live in the district, but the high schools I would have been forced to go to in Manhattan were even worse”—was near where she lived. “Maybe I saw you once or twice when I walked from the subway to school or back. I thought you looked familiar,” and she said “Come on.” “All right, that was silly, but we must have crossed paths a couple of times after your family moved to the West Side. Both of us in the same neighborhood, you 78th, me 75th? At Fairway, for instance, which I’ve frequented a lot over the years, the cheese and olive departments particularly. I have to admit that if I saw you there and you looked older than eighteen—no, I’ll be honest: sixteen—I would have stared a little or maybe just looked at you on the sly, so as not to alarm you. I’m saying, because of your looks,” and she said “Please stop talking about it. It makes me feel self-conscious, and I hardly see the point of all this.” “Again, that was stupid of me. I shouldn’t have brought any of it up,” and she said “Forget it. It was nothing.” How did her mother’s father—he asked—happen to leave his family in Poland and settle in New York? He wanted the entire family to come, but her grandmother said the Germans didn’t harm the Jews in the first war, they won’t hurt them in this one, and she also didn’t want to leave her own mother and home. “My mother was studying in Russia at the time, which saved her.” Her mother’s mother was Rose. Her middle name is Rose. Soon after her grandfather learned his wife and two sons were dead, he married a woman named Rose. “Rose, Rose, Rose,” he said. “A bouquet of Roses. It’s a pretty name.” She visits her second Grandmother Rose in Kew Gardens once a month. “She always makes a brisket of beef or roast chicken for me and a noodle kugel you can smell the sweetness of as you enter her apartment building, and sends me home with a shopping bag full of leftovers and other foods.” “She sounds like my Aunt Esther, my father’s sister, but she would travel from Flatbush to our apartment with these Jewish goodies. She died three days after my father, I wasn’t allowed to the Orthodox funeral because, technically, I was still sitting shiva.” “And your mother?” and he said “Bright and energetic and healthy and still interior decorating for a living.” Her mother’s a psychotherapist, her father’s a C.P.A. Some people see them in the same visit for therapy and taxes, her father in the dining room, which he’s turned half of into his office, her mother in Gwen’s old bedroom. Incidentally, she said, her father had been a lawyer in Minsk. But he felt because his English was so bad and nobody could understand his accent that he wouldn’t succeed at law in New York, so he switched to the universal language of numbers, if she can put it that way. “No,” he said; “nicely put. And the switchover must have been very difficult for him,” and she said “After going through what he did in the war, he said, nothing was.” She lived in Paris twice, once for a year. “Another possible place our paths might have crossed,” he said. “I lived there for half a year in ’64,” and she said “Before my time.” She married too young. Her ex-husband was even two years younger than she. But they got their Ph.D.s the same year at Columbia—his also in literature, but English—and attended the same graduation ceremony, but by then they were divorced for three years. He’s remarried, has twin infants and an assistant professorship at a college in Nebraska. “Nebraska,” he said. “It’s a good job,” she said. “Pays well, complete medical and dental coverage for the family, two-three course load”—he asked “What’s that?”—“and his children will get half their tuition paid for by his school to whatever college they attend. Tenure-track jobs are short in literature and you have to grab what’s offered, though I think I told you I’d never leave New York. That could easily condemn me to adjunct teaching and, if I hit it big, visiting assistant professorships for the rest of my academic life, but at least I get to keep my beautiful apartment.” “Oh, I’m sure you’ll do much better than that. You’re so smart and no doubt very good in your field,” and she said “And you’re so full of compliments.” “Too many?” he said. “I’m only saying what I believe. But all right, I’ll try to exercise some self-control.” She likes to cook. “I like to cook too,” he said. “Maybe one day we can cook dinner together, or it could just be an elaborate lunch,” and she said “I prefer cooking alone and taking all the credit and blame. What are some of the dishes you like to make?” and he said “Risotto with shitake or oyster mushrooms and artichoke hearts, lots of things with tofu, thick soups made with red lentils and various vegetables and Indian spices. But my favorite—you can call it my special specialty, since, as far as I know, I’m the one who devised it—is a meatless bratwurst with sauerkraut, baby Brussels sprouts—you can only get these frozen—and peas and corn and ground-up peanuts in a heated mustard sauce,” and she said “It doesn’t seem like something I’d like—the sauerkraut and sprouts—but the rest of it is okay.” “What do you like to make,” he said, “which I should have asked you before instead of going on about my own cooking?” and she said “That’s all right. Right now? Mostly French dishes you wouldn’t eat because they have some kind of meat in them. I’m sorry, but eating meat is more satisfying to me than its substitutes,” and he said “I can understand. Every now and then I get a ferocious urge for a slice of roast beef.” She’s translated, and a few have been published, a lot of French and Italian postwar poetry. “Italian too?” he said. “I’d love to read them. It’s been an unattainable goal of mine all my adult life to read and speak French fluently…what I went to Paris for in ’64 and eventually to get a news job there. Would you send me some translations with the originals, if it’s not too much of a bother?” and she said “They might take a while for me to find. I’m not the most organized person and I’m always forgetting to buy more file folders. I should just steal them from my department,” and he said “No rush; whenever you can. And the Italian.” She goes to Maine every summer for two to three months. Takes her and her parents’ cats along. “They’re one big happy Siamese family: mother, spoiled son and two sweet daughters.” She rents a car for the summer. “That can get expensive,” and she said because she takes their cats, her parents help out. “Where do you go, not that I know Maine?” and she said “A small coastal village, where every other summer person is a writer or professor or spouse or child of one—Brooklin with an ‘i.’” She started renting this cottage three years ago to be close to where her doctoral advisor spends the summer with his family. It had no water or electricity or gas—it had been vacant for more than five years—so she had to have all that brought in. “I learned how to prime a pump to get the water going, which I’ve had to do twice first thing after getting there because the caretaker forgot to or was drunk.” “How do you?” and she said “Please, you don’t want to know,” and he said “I’m a writer. I like being informed of obscure technical things I know nothing of so I can encumber my fiction with them,” and she told him and he said “Very complicated; I’d have to have your help.” He said “Two to three months in a cottage in the woods? Doesn’t it get lonely sometimes?” and she said “I have dinner a lot at my advisor’s house, my parents each come up separately for a week, and if I get lonely I invite other company,” and he said “Then you’re set.” He said “Another thing I always wanted to do—” and she said “What was the other one?” and he said “Learn French…was to rent a cabin or cottage—you know, I’m suddenly not sure of the difference, if there is one,” and she said “A cabin is more rustic and usually smaller and often doesn’t have the basic amenities a cottage does.” “Then just a cottage, but in Maine or Vermont for a month or two in the summer. A fantasy of mine since my early twenties. But I guess lack of money or that I was working summers at the time and that
I’ve gone to Yaddo three of the last six Augusts, stopped me from doing it, and I also didn’t know how to go about renting one.” “I’ve spent summers in both,” she said, “and I like Maine better. From my cottage I can see the ocean through the trees, or the bay of the ocean. It’s only a thirty-second walk down to it from the back porch, and the cottage comes with its own secluded cove.” “You’re making my mouth water,” and she said “Then one of these summers you should rent a place, while they’re still affordable, in the same area I go to. I could give you the names of a couple of real-estate agencies that specialize in summer rentals.” Most of her time in Maine is spent writing essays and poetry and also some translating and preparing her fall courses. “Do you send your poetry out? Or should I say, has any of it been published?” and she said “So far I haven’t had the courage. It’s different with the translations, because I only pick works I love. By the way, I’m sure I’ll find them and can send a few to you, but you’d have to give me your address.” He wrote his name and address on a piece of paper he tore out of his memobook and gave it to her. “I’d like to give you one or even three of my books that have been published,” and she said “Just one. You choose.” He said “Let’s start from the beginning, my first. Came out two years ago. Five stories, a hundred-twenty-eight pages, a cinch to read.” She asked what the title was and then said “I’m afraid I haven’t heard of it.” He said “It didn’t get around much and only a couple of reviews. Big pans. Both found it too scatological and one objected strongly to the couple in the longest story—they’d met in the hospital two days before—coupling in a chair in the room his father was dying in. I have your address but not the zip. Or maybe I’ll just give you the book the next time we meet, if we do,” and she said “We can do that. I’ll save my poems for then too,” and he said “No, send them, unless we’re going to see each other in the next two days,” and she said “I’ll send them, then. Do I have your zip?” and looked at the piece of paper with his address on it and said “Yes, I do. Let me give you mine,” and he wrote it down in his memobook. He said “May I ask you a personal question?” and she said “Depends. I don’t think we should speak too personally so soon.” “Then I won’t.” He was going to ask if she was presently seeing someone. They talked about something else. Then she said “All right. What was the personal question you wanted to ask? I have to confess; I’m curious,” and he asked it and she said “I’ll be honest with you, Martin,” and he thought Oh, shit; here it comes. “There is an English architect whom I see whenever he passes through,” and he said “And his name is David.” “Why do you say that?” and he said “I don’t know. I was once involved with a woman who began dating an English architect named David, so something in my stupid head assumed they were all named David.” “He isn’t. He’s Evan,” and he said “A good English name. How often do you see him?” and she said “Not very much, really. Every other month. Sometimes twice in two months,” “So why isn’t it more than that? Is he married?” and she said “No. I think it’s because his London firm flies him here on business and it’d be expensive for him to fly here on his own. And that both of us are quite satisfied with the arrangement as it is,” and he said “Do you ever go to London to see him?” and she said “Yes, once; it was fun. But I think we both knew things would never get that serious between us,” and he said “Well, that’s okay, then, not that I know what I mean. But it must be wonderful to go to London or Paris or a city like that to see someone. Anyway, thanks for answering me so frankly, and now we should probably drop the subject,” and she said “Good idea.” “What else do you like to do?” and she looked puzzled and he said “Do you like to go to plays, concerts, movies, opera, ballet?” and she said “All of them, when I have time, but opera the least. I like contemporary operas, though,” and he said “Same with me. Chamber music?” and she said “More on LP’s than in concert halls.” “Friends? I’d think you’d have lots of them,” and she said “I’m sure no more than most people.” “Hate to sound like a loner, but I really only have three. Two men—a writer and a filmmaker—and a woman whom I’ve been close to as a friend for years. She’s in publishing and we have lunch about every other week. She tries to fix me up,” and she said “That’s good,” and he said “Not for me.” She has two best friends. One lives in SoHo with her husband—both are artists—and the other’s moved to California with her husband, but they talk all the time on the phone. The one in SoHo’s been her best friend since their first day in college. “I was giving Melissa, my pet guinea pig, an outing on the campus green, and my future friend literally tripped over us.” “They let you keep pets in college?” and she said “Some of the girls brought their horses from as far away as Oklahoma and boarded them at the school’s stables.” He asked where’d she go for Thanksgiving and she said her parents don’t celebrate it, as they don’t Mother’s and Father’s Day, so she always goes to the SoHo couple’s loft. “Where’d you?” “I took my mother out as I always do, usually with her sister. Not easy finding a restaurant that’s open and serves something other than turkey and crab dishes and that isn’t Chinese, all three of which my mother and aunt don’t like.” He asked if she knew other poets and she said “You say ‘other’ as if I’m one,” and he said “Then just poets.” She mentioned a few, two very well-known. “If you decide to send your own work out,” he said, “all the names you gave should help get it to the best places,” and she said “I’d rather not use anyone for that. If the time ever comes, I’ll do all the submitting and coping. Who’s your publisher?” and he said he’s on his second and gave the name. “Oh-h, a very good house. Who’s your editor there?” and he told her and she said “I know Fern. Sat next to her at a dinner party a few months back and then bumped into her on the street and we had coffee and talked some more. I like her and she’s smart. She does all their poetry, so is someone else I’d never send to because that would be taking advantage of having sat in the right spot. Did they throw you a book party?” and he said Fern said they don’t do that anymore except for writers who get huge advances and their books are potential blockbusters and they expect a party. “For writers like me: too costly and parties never pay off, as don’t ads for the book. So I threw one myself. Made all the food and paid for the wine and booze and at the last moment, because it had started raining, ran out and bought a tarp and set it up over my large terrace. Otherwise, my apartment would have been too small for all the people I invited. Fern came with her husband and two kids. I also invited the publisher and executive editor—it was the wrong thing to do, Fern said; as if I was rubbing it in their noses that they didn’t give me a party—and they both sent courteous regrets.” Because she was an only child, she said, and her parents lost most to all of their families in the Holocaust, she got lots of attention and affection from them when she was growing up. “Same here,” he said, “from my mother. My father was from the old school. He basically ignored me and wanted affection but didn’t much care to give it, except for maybe pinching my cheeks and tweaking my nose and ruffling my hair, which I hated but couldn’t get him to stop, especially in front of his friends.” “This English architect,” he said. “Is it approaching the time when he might be making his next professional visit to New York? Just wondering,” and she said “I don’t keep tabs on him, and we rarely speak on the phone when he’s in London. But he usually lets me know a week or two before he arrives. In fact, that’s the only time he calls me from there.” “Gosh, you’d think he’d call more, but that’s his business,” and she said “I think it’s a subject we should rule out of our conversation, Martin. Like your recent romantic connections to women, if you’ve had any,” and he said “No, not of late, but I won’t go in to it.” He said “There’s a nonpersonal question I’ve been meaning to ask you. You had tea at the drugstore. You don’t drink coffee?” and she said “What a funny thing to ask. I love good coffee and I believe I already told you I had some with Fern. I just had enough of it for that day. But I never asked. Was the co
ffee there as dreadful as I once experienced and it looked? I should have warned you,” and he said “I think you did ask and warn me, and I think I said it was awful.” “Then why’d you have two cups?” and he said “Did I? I forget.” “I’m almost sure, two. And after, you said that was the reason you needed to pee before we left,” and he said “I always take that precaution, coffee or not, when I’m out for a while and think I’ll be walking in the cold—you know how that stirs it up…something, the precaution, I think I told you about too.” He asked where she went to elementary school—“Hunter, too?” and she said “Hunter was my next stop in my educational journey. PS,” and she gave the number of the school in the Bronx. “We were very proud that Bess Myerson graduated from it—you know, the only Jewish Miss America?” He said he went to PS 87. “A character in one of Bernard Malamud’s novels went there, but he didn’t. He came from Brooklyn.” “I think I’ve passed it. Between Amsterdam and Columbus?” and he said “The 87 I went to was torn down for the one you saw. We were very proud that it was a pre-Civil War building and reputed to be the oldest and most rundown grade school in Manhattan. When I first got my teacher’s license I per-diem subbed in the new 87 a few times. My last two years of subbing I mostly did in IS 44, the next block over, till I couldn’t take it anymore and quit in the middle of a class and never taught again.” “What’d they do about your salary that day?” and he said “I told them to keep it, keep my entire week’s pay; the kids who couldn’t be disciplined were driving me crazy.” Jobs she had, he had. She was a salesperson for Lord & Taylor, he at Bloomingdale’s and, when he was in college, Macy’s and Gimbel’s during the Christmas season. Both worked in bookstores and waited on tables in restaurants and he also at Catskill Mountain resorts. He was a bartender and cab driver and newsman, she a group leader of a bike trip in Canada. “Me too,” he said, “in Europe, but only half of it by bike.” Both were camp counselors. He was a technical writer in California, she a script reader for a film production company in New York. “When was that?” he said. “No, too early for you to have done any good for my second and third books, the two that were sent around as possible movies.” She’s never been to California. “I was heading there with my college boyfriend at the time and got as far as Nevada, when we had a terrible argument, decided we couldn’t stand each other, and drove silently home for four days. I think the only words we spoke, depending on who was driving, were ‘Like a pit stop?’” She had her appendix taken out when she was ten and was once so seriously ill with a bacterial infection that she nearly died. “Oh, no,” he said. “I’m so sorry,” and she said “Thank you.” He’s never really been sick. “I take that back. I had my gallbladder removed. Gallstones.” “That can be painful,” she said, “when they attack,” and he said “It was. Worst in my life. I don’t know how I could have forgotten it.” How she’s able to pay the rent for a one-bedroom apartment in an elevator and doorman building on Riverside Drive below a Hundred-sixteenth Street and with a river view? She was left some money by her godmother, her ex-husband invested it wisely in stocks that give a nice dividend each month, her parents help her out if she needs them to, she finished paying off her student loans two years ago, she occasionally does book reviews for The Nation and New Leader, which don’t pay much but they bring in something, she private-tutors a couple of times a month, which pays very well, and her fellowship money is pretty good. “Is it Andrew Mellon the fellowship’s named after, or Paul?” and she said “Who’s Paul Mellon?” “Maybe it’s ‘Walter’ I’m thinking of—the financier-philanthropist who helped found the National Gallery of Art in D.C. and gave it some of its most priceless art.” “Andrew,” and he said “Anyway, very impressive.” “Not if you know I had a well-connected faculty advisor who backed me unstintingly. Without him it’s unlikely I would have got a Mellon,” and he said “I’m sure that’s not true.” Like him, she likes to doodle on the phone. “What do you like to doodle most?” and she said “Nothing specifically. Whatever comes out of the pencil or pen. Doodles are like dreams to me: I only see what I’ve doodled, and start interpreting it, after I hang up. And you? What do you doodle?” and he said “Cubes upon cubes. Pedestals upon pedestals with a Giacometti-like figure on top. And self-portraits, with eyeglasses, less hair than I have, so I’m partly doodling my father, and always in a dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows, a pen in the shirt pocket, and a tie, though if I wear my one tie twice a year, it’s a lot.” He said “Hanukkah’s coming up, has passed, or we’re in the beginning, middle or end of it. Do you light candles for it? Obviously, I don’t,” and she said “My father always tells me when the first night is and gives me a box of menorah candies every year and sometimes a new menorah. It’s not that he thinks I don’t have one. It’s because he knows how hard it is scraping off the wax from previous years. If what’s holding you back from lighting candles is not having a menorah, you can have one of mine. They’re piling up and I might be breaking some Jewish law if I throw them out. But to answer your question, I light candles two or three nights out of the eight and usually dispense with reciting the candle-lighting prayer off the box and I never leave the apartment when they’re lit. The candles are so thin and unsturdy and often broken in the middle, that I’m afraid they’ll fall.” She said “What are you working on these days?” and he said “Didn’t I tell you? Just another story. You? Besides school work—scholarly paper or poetry or maybe a book review?” “My ex-husband also writes poetry,” she said. “He gets his in literary journals and last year he had a chapbook published by a small press, or maybe I told you. He’s much more aggressive than I in sending it out and competitive about writing it. He once called my poems sentimental shit, when they weren’t. He could get vicious when it came to poetry. He thought that’s what made his work strong.” “‘Desultory,’” she said. “I forget what it means,” and he told her. “Then I never knew what it meant. Or just assumed it was something else—‘lazy,’ for instance,” and he said “I should have said ‘random.’ So pretentious of me,” and she said “Not really. I like words like that. Not to use but to know them. Excuse me; I didn’t mean you. And you can be my one-new-word-a-day man. I’ll call you up at a designated time each day and you can give it. ‘The word for Tuesday is…’” and she laughed. She said “After you finish your beer—I don’t mean to rush you, but it must be fairly flat by now; it’s long stopped bubbling. But we should think about dinner.” He said “You don’t smoke, do you? Oh, I asked you that, and I remember you didn’t particularly agree with my reasons for not liking women who smoked, no matter how great they were in every other way,” and she said “No, I didn’t mind.” They both had something to do with Hubert H. Humphrey. She, when she was a guide in a USIA exhibit in Lyon and he was vice president and stopped at her booth and they chatted awhile; he, when he was a reporter in Washington and Humphrey was a senator and he used to call him off the Senate floor to interview him for the two biggest radio stations in Minnesota. Talking about Maine again, he said three of the things she seemed to like most about it, other than the scenery and cooler and drier air, he unfortunately doesn’t care for much: blueberries; sailing, because he gets seasick easily; and lobster, because he’s a vegetarian and he hates the brutal way they’re cooked. She said “The last two I can understand, but how can you not like blueberries?” and he said “Because I’ve heard the sprayed ones never quite get rid of their spray and unsprayed ones have little dead worms in them because they’re not sprayed.” “Nonsense,” she said. “I mostly eat the organic ones and I’ve never seen a worm. If I did, the one in a thousand blueberries, I’d just spit it out.” “Well,” he said, “I’m willing to give them a try.” Her ex-husband, who also went to City College, graduated ten years after him. “It would have been eleven,” he said, “but because I went to night school half the time—I worked full-time during the day—it took me five years instead of four.” He asked “Do you sing? I say that because you have such a beautiful speaking voice,” and
she said “That’s nice of you to say, but I have a perfectly terrible singing voice. When I do sing, it’s only in a large group, such as Christmas caroling around Columbia, so my voice doesn’t stand out. I do play unaccompanied pieces on the piano and take lessons from a world-class pianist. She says I’m not bad for a nonprofessional. She’s Austrian, lives here permanently now, and should have won the Tchaikovsky competition in Moscow. But that year the Soviet authorities, to improve cultural relations between our two countries, or something, decided an American should get it.” “Who was it?” and she told him and said “Oh, yeah, of course. And your teacher?” and she told him and he said “I have two of her Schubert recordings.” She asked which ones and then said “What a coincidence; I have the same two. I bet we have lots of the same things like that, especially books. That’s the way it was with my ex-husband when he was still my boyfriend and moved into my apartment. We must have had fifty of the same books, and he wasn’t a French scholar and didn’t even like French fiction and poetry of any era. Theory was okay.” “Who could not like Camus?” and she said “There are essays of his I don’t particularly admire,” and he said “It’s been a long time since I read any of them, but I think I recall feeling the same way. As for books, I don’t have many. I either get them out of the library or give away or leave on the street most of the ones I buy. I have this thing about keeping my possessions to a minimum. Two plates, two forks, maybe three glasses, one change of linen. A bit nutty, huh? And I never reread. The only book—no, I’ve reread Kafka and the stories of Hemingway and Joyce and the Beckett biography, so I’ll forget what I was going to say.” “What book was it, though?” and he said “Fathers and Sons. And only because I first read it as a kid—it was around the house—and I thought it was a young boy’s book. I got nothing out of it but I did read it through, and all I can remember from my second reading of it is someone getting out of a carriage. I don’t think I ever spoke about this to anyone,” and she said “I feel honored. But now, really, Martin, we should find a place to have dinner. I’m very hungry. And I’ll pay for our drinks,” and he said “No, no, that’s mine. I’m also taking care of dinner, wherever we end up eating.” And she said “We’ll see about that.” He went to the men’s room, paid up, helped her on with her coat, and they left. “Any special kind of food you want?” she said outside. “I think we can find something around here to satisfy your dietary restrictions. There’s always this place”—they stopped in front of Moon Palace—“although the food’s a bit of a throwback. Real old-time Chinese-American cuisine.” “I’ll take your word for it,” he said. “And it’s too brightly lit and they have only one table filled at peak dinner hour. Sad to see a restaurant doing so poorly, but not that sad to make me want to eat here.” “Do you like Middle Eastern food?” she said. “Because there’s always Amir’s. No wine or beer, though, and you can’t bring it in. And it’s very small and they’d want you to eat up fast and leave so other customers can sit,” and he said “They’d have plenty of what I can eat. But I can’t have dinner without a glass of wine or beer, can you?” and she said “It’s usually better with a good bottle of red, but sure.” They walked down Broadway on the west side of the street. A couple of places looked okay except their menus outside didn’t have a single nonmeat dish on them but different kinds of omelets. “I’d have one,” he said—“that’d solve our problem. But I’m trying to keep my cholesterol low—my father’s was very high—so I’m avoiding anything with eggs. I’m a real drag, aren’t I?” and she said “Don’t worry; we’ll find something.” “What I should do—seriously—is give up my prohibitions for a night and eat meat for the first time in years, or at least fish,” and she said “No fish restaurants in this neighborhood. Although Tom’s, across the street, always has one fish dish on the menu and a spaghetti in plain tomato sauce, and I think they have beer, but it’s a diner.” “Let’s see what they got,” and they crossed Broadway and looked at the menu on the window. “Maybe for lunch, if you’re in a rush,” he said, “but it doesn’t even look like a good place for coffee. Sort of like the drugstore we went to, but with more things on the menu. No Indian restaurants?” and she said “Not that I’m aware of. There used to be Aki, a Japanese restaurant, on one of the side streets between Amsterdam and Morningside Drive, I think,” and he said “Stop right there. I once ate at it—ate at it several times, the first time when I was in college—but once, a few hours later, this woman and I got violently sick from the food.” “So we’ll skip Aki, if it is still there, and too far a walk anyway. There is a Greek place up the block here—I forget its name, but its popular with Columbia students,” and he said “I’m sorry; I never cared for Greek food,” and she said “Dolmas? Moussaka? Well, not if it’s made with lamb. Unfortunately, this place isn’t that good, so it wasn’t the best suggestion, except that it was nearby. All the other possible restaurants are on the other side of Broadway, unless you want a slice of pizza.” “You’re beginning to think I’m acting peculiar about this,” and she said “I’m not. That was a joke, not a gibe. I knew you wouldn’t want a pizza slice at the pizzeria, and neither would I.” They crossed Broadway and continued downtown. It was getting cold. It was cold, but he was only now feeling it, so she was probably cold too. They both had on gloves and mufflers and watch caps, hers made out of mohair and pulled down over her ears. Her hair came out of the cap on both sides and covered her cheeks. “It’s gotten cold,” he said. “I’m putting you through too much. Let’s just go in someplace, I don’t care where, so long as it has food and wine or beer.” They were on a Hundred-ninth. “Big choice here: Cuban, Mexican or what’s called continental,” and he said “I don’t know Cuban food and the Mexican will probably be noisy, because a certain boisterousness and loud music always seems to go with their restaurants. Sometimes it can be fun, but I’d prefer a quieter place so we can hear each other talking. Straus Park Cafe looks good. Attractive, fair number of older customers; seems subdued.” He checked the menu outside, pointed to the cheese omelet on it and said “I’m going to have one. Comes with hash browns, which I love, and it’s been about half a year since my last egg. See how quickly I make decisions?” and she said “Good,” and they went inside. They talked. They ordered. They drank. She went to the restroom and came back with her hair in a ponytail. Maybe, he thought to keep it off her face when they walked. This way, that way; her hair always looked nice, he thought. They ate. She had liver and onions and a vegetable and salad. They both thought the bread was especially good. They laughed a lot. He felt comfortable with her. Felt she felt comfortable with him. She was cheerful, beautiful. Again, wonderful in every way. There wasn’t anything he didn’t like about her. Teeth, lips, nose. Her body was good. Her skin was the smoothest and clearest of any woman he’s known. If there was only a better word for it than porcelain, he thought. He’ll think of one but not use it on her. A word just for himself. Her nails weren’t polished. He liked that. No makeup, it seemed; definitely no lipstick. They finished a bottle of wine. He had about two-thirds of it. “More wine,” he said, “since we’re still eating?” “How’s your omelet?” and he said “Delicious. I don’t recognize the cheese. Want some?” and she shook her head. “Salad? I’m afraid I already finished the fried eggplant,” and he said “Is that what it was? No, thanks. Had plenty of salad for both breakfast and lunch. I love salad—yesterday’s, dressed, particularly, But no more wine?” and she said “Oh, I’m going to be in bad shape as it is, drinking so much. The Guinness, and then what I have, three glasses of wine?” and he said “Small glasses. But if you’re not, I won’t either. I’ve had enough,” and she said “You can always get it by the glass,” and he said “Nah, I’m fine. I’ll drink water. But if you think you drank too much, know what to do? Two aspirins with a full glass of water before you go to bed. Then drink two or three more glasses of water during the night—you can keep a carafe by your bedside—and you’ll be fine, no headache, no hangover.” “It really works?” and he said “With me
, almost every time. The only other helpful medical advice I have is for a nosebleed that won’t stop.” “I’ve had a couple of those,” and he said “If there’s a next time, roll a little piece of toilet paper into a wad—dampen it first. And any paper will do. And I know it must sound ridiculous, my talking about this, but something soft and absorbent like toilet paper’s the best, and put it between your front teeth and upper lip, right in the middle.” “Thank you, Dr. Samuel,” and he said “‘Samuels,’” but there’s more. Keep it there for a minute or two, no longer because you don’t want to stop the blood flowing to your head. I don’t know if that’s the reason, but it’s something like that. Then take it out. Still bleeding, put it back, same two-minute time limit. That cure is infallible.” “Where did you learn it?” and he said “I forget, but long ago. I’ve had a number of nosebleeds, and I’ve also used this procedure with other people, and it’s worked every time.” Sometime later, she said “Too bad you don’t eat meat. They gave me too big a piece.” “Just leave it,” and she said “You must never have had a cat. I’m going to get it bagged for home. It’s their favorite thing to eat, and here I have a nice piece without stinking up the kitchen cooking it. Could be why I ordered it, to make my cats happy.” “I actually did have a cat once,” he said, “on loan. It belonged to a woman friend, whom I lived with on and off till more than a year ago, first in her house in Rockland County and then downtown. When we broke up, she felt that the cat—well, it’s a story. She thought she was allergic to it, it was by nature an outdoors cat, I had a large terrace with lots of plants, and the adjoining terrace apartment had a friendly female cat whom she thought would make an ideal mate for hers. But then she got lonely for her cat and wanted him back. That was fine with me. The cat—Posey—scratched and bit. But I almost lost him on the IND Seventy-second Street subway platform, returning him to her. He got out of his carrier because I didn’t latch it well. Another story.” “What did you do to catch him?” and he said “Me? Nothing. For a minute or so, till he heard the train coming and ran back into his carrier, I was scared as hell he was gone for good and I didn’t know how I’d explain it to her. But we should go.” He paid for the dinner. She said “That was very generous of you. But you have to know I would have been glad to go Dutch and still would like to, if you’d let me,” and he said “I know. Thank you.” Outside, he said “If it’s too cold for you, I could get you a cab,” and she said “No, my coat’s really warm, and I like to walk after a dinner out. If you want to take a cab to your home, I’ll be okay.” He said “It is cold—I never seem to wear the right clothes—but I’d like to walk you to your building.” “Because of the wind, get set for it being even colder when we head down to the river,” and he said “It shouldn’t last too long, so I’ll survive.” They didn’t talk much while they walked. He thought because of the cold and that her muffler now covered her mouth. He did say—to break the silence—“What unusual weather,” and she said “December; I guess what we should expect,” and he said “But so early in the month?” and she said “I forget what the weather’s like one year to the next.” They started down the hill to the Drive at a Hundred-fourteenth Street. She put her arm through his and pushed her shoulder against his side and with her other hand held the bag with the liver, and they walked that way till they got to her building. “Well, again,” he said, “this has been fun. We should do it another time,” and she said “Like to come up for a nightcap? For you, not me, and it’ll have to be a short visit; my work,” and he said “I’d love to see—” and she said “Let’s talk inside.” They went through the revolving door into the lobby. She said “I’m sorry; what were you saying? The cold,” and he said “That I’d like to see your apartment and meet your cats. Two?” and she said “Natalie and Dominique. They’re probably asleep on a shelf in the linen closet, so they might not come out, even for their special treat,” and she shook the bag. “Do they also like onions?’ and she said “What do you mean?” and he said “Nothing,” and she said “Ah, it just registered. I’ll rinse the liver first and maybe heat it up. They don’t like frozen liver.” “You know,” he said, looking down the long lobby to the back of the building, “I’ve never been to this building—it’s enormous—but have been to the one we passed next door. A dreary New Year’s Eve party a few years ago,” and she said “That’s too bad. I hope it didn’t leave you with a bad feeling for this neighborhood.” “And a lit Christmas tree. Looks nice,” and she said “We have this tyrannical super who will only decorate it himself. No kids permitted near it, even when it’s done. The candy canes look real but aren’t and the wrapped empty boxes underneath are the same every year. But you’re right and what I failed to give him credit for: it makes the place more cheerful.” The front nightman was sitting behind an opened window in a small office with rows of tenant cubbyholes behind him and to his right three monitors showing another entrance to the building and the laundry room and a dim corridor in what looked like a basement. He was eating a noodle soup out of a large Thermos cup. Chicken, by its smell. “Good evening,” and she said “Hi, Cal. This is my friend Martin,” and he said “Nice to meet you, Cal…Calvin?” and Cal said “Cal. Something important from management for you, Gwendolyn.” There was a notice in some of the cubbyholes—keys, too, in a few, and other things: a rolled-up TLS squeezed into one—and he gave her hers. “Goodnight,” she said. “And don’t go out if you can help it. It’s bitter cold,” and Cal said “I’ll remember that.” She pressed the elevator button and looked at the notice. “I don’t know why he gave me this,” she whispered. “It’s for the D line, not mine,” and he said “‘Line’ meaning bottom floor to top, all the D apartments?” “Yes. Lots of breaking through bathroom walls to locate a water pipe leak, but fortunately for me on the other side of the building, where I used to live. Maybe that’s it. But I don’t want to embarrass him by giving it back. I hope he didn’t hear.” Elevator door opened and they went in. “So,” he was about to say, “we’ve gone down in an elevator and we’re going up,” but thought she’d think it stupid and just time filler, and what could she say to it: “That’s right”? What did holding his arm and snuggling up to him on the street mean? he thought. No snuggle; just using him against the cold. And inviting him up? Nothing to that either. A thank-you for walking her home, and also to give him time to get warm again before he started back. It also showed—but the elevator opened on the seventh floor. She trusts him, that’s all. Two apartments on this small landing and a fire door saying it led to two more: 7H and 7I. She unlocked 7J, turned on the hallway light, gave him a hanger from the coat closet opposite the front door, said “I suggest you put your scarf on the same hanger with your coat so you don’t forget it,” and he said “Good idea. I have a tendency toward amnesia whenever I leave a new place.” “I didn’t mean it like that,” and he said “Neither did I. Excuse me.” She hung up her coat, put her cap and muffler, or he now thinks it was a wool shawl, on the shelf above the coats. “Now, for your drink,” she said, “come with me.” She went into the kitchen—“Nice apartment,” he said, going through the living room-dining room, “and quite a view”—set the bag down on the stove and said “Unfortunately, the beer is warm and not very good—a six-pack left by my subletter two summers ago. Does beer go bad?” and he said “Only it it’s been opened and left around awhile, even if recapped.” “I do have red wine, uncorked, which you can open if you like, and Israeli brandy from my father. I haven’t tasted it, but he says it’s terrific, though he thinks everything made in Israel is better than from anywhere else. He travels there once a year to see some old school friends from Warsaw, and always brings me back brandy and chocolates and table napkins and things. He says he’s helping out their economy.” “How nice to have a father who gives you brandy. Mine thought I was a shiker—I wasn’t—and when he took my mom and I out to dinner, he didn’t even like my having a single beer. I’ll try the brandy.” She got a nearly full bottle of brandy off a side shelf in the refrigerator. He wa
nted to ask why she kept it there, but then thought she might not like the question. For instance, her father might have told her to. She got a brandy snifter out of a kitchen cabinet, washed it—“I hate to say it but we sometimes have little buggies here, clean as this building is and overfumigated”—dried it with a paper towel and gave it to him. “Pour as much as you want. I doubt the brandy’s up to the glass—four of them were a wedding present from Tiffany’s and this is the only one left—but it still might taste better in it. I’d even join you if I had some Benedictine.” He sipped, said “It’s quite good,” when it was a bit sharp, and she heated up the liver, sliced it into tiny pieces and put the plate on the floor under the sink next to a bowl of water. “Ah, I’ll give them fresh,” and she changed the water. “Watch this, if it works.” She made clicking sounds with her mouth and there were two heavy thumps from another room—had to be her cats jumping from somewhere to the floor, for right away they ran into the kitchen and started eating. “Siamese,” he said. “I love them,” and she said “Well, you can either stay here and shower them with affection or make yourself comfortable in the living room. But I have to attend to something in the back. Excuse me.” She went into the hallway that connected to the bathroom, he could see, and also to what was probably the bedroom, and shut the hallway door behind her. Going to use the toilet or something, he thought. Before she closed the door he also saw what was probably the opened linen closet the cats had jumped out of. He went back to the kitchen, finished what was in the glass, poured twice the amount he did the first time and put the bottle on the side shelf in the refrigerator. In the living room, he thought should he stand while he waits for her, sit? If he sits, where—the couch, which was really just a Hollywood bed with a corduroy spread over it and several large cushions against the wall? Morris chair, which was almost identical to the one he had in his apartment, but in much better shape? Not at the dining table, which was near the windows. That’d look ridiculous. She’d come out and see him sitting at the table with nothing on it but his glass, if he wasn’t holding it. And if he sat there he would hold it or put something under the stem if he set it down. Table looks like an antique and he wouldn’t want to mar its finish with a wet ring or even a drop of brandy on it. The view, he thought: river, moonlight on it, lights on the other side: it really is pretty. He thought he’d be able to see the George Washington Bridge from her windows, but he’d probably have to stick his head outside to do it. A crazy thought: say he were going to stay here awhile, where would he work? Not at this table, unless she has pads for it. And every time he wanted to write, he’d have to get them from wherever she keeps them—he guesses in the coat closet—and put them on? Otherwise, his typewriter could scratch the table, and just putting a place mat under it, the typewriter would slide around. The bedroom must be where she works, at a desk or table, for no sign of her working in this room. What he’d do is bring his typewriter table here—he only uses it now to hold house plants—and put it over the half-radiator under the kitchen window by the door. It’s light and compact enough to carry on the subway or bus, and has wheels, so he’d be able to wheel it part of the way, particularly in the street. The work space would be small and crowded and the chair he’d use would be a little in the way of anyone going into or coming back from the kitchen, but he’s worked in small and cramped spaces before and it’s never interfered in his writing. And he’s sure—let’s say it came to this, he thought—he’d grab her hand every now and then when she was trying to squeeze past him in the chair, and kiss it. He drank some more, got the brandy in the glass down to where he first poured it, looked at the books in the narrow floor-to-ceiling built-in bookcases on either side of the living room windows. Mostly poetry and fiction, none French, and all in English. Her French books, in English and French, and probably her academic books and scholarly journals, must be in the bedroom on bookshelves there. He felt the radiator cover under the windows. Warm, not hot, and he sat on it. Feels good. Wondered when he should leave. Maybe not till she asks him to or gives a sign she’d like him to. She does neither, then in half an hour; make that the limit. “Excuse me, you still have work to do, so I think I should go.” Something like that. So she knows he doesn’t want to overstay. If she says he doesn’t have to go yet, he won’t. She might say for him to stay till he finishes his drink, and he will. Maybe he should get some more. No. Had enough, doesn’t want to get sloppy in speech or have trouble getting out of a chair or walking, and he still has to get home. Heard the toilet flush. Few seconds after it stopped flushing—went on for a long time, as if it’d never stop, so it might need a new flushometer—the squeak of the sink faucet being turned on, same sound his makes in his bathroom. The sink must be against the wall separating the bathroom and living room, and she’s probably washing her hands. Radiator’s getting too hot for him no matter where he sits on it, and he got up. But he doesn’t want to just stand there, pretending to be admiring her books, when she comes out, or the view from her windows, so he sat in the Morris chair, which was at an angle across from the couch, and put his glass on the glass top of the coffee table between them. Looked at the artwork on the walls. Had to twist around a little to see all of it. Liked them. Modern, mostly abstract, except for a realistic pencil drawing of Camus’ face, it seemed. Wasn’t sure what to make of the Brancusi-like foot-and-a-half-high marble sculpture on the coffee table—Bird in Flight? Bird Taking Wing?—which, if it isn’t a Brancusi reproduction, he thought, is a rip-off of his style. He picked it up carefully—all he needs, he thought, is to drop and break it, and on the coffee table?—oh, my God—and turned it over and looked at the bottom. Etched into it was “A ma Gwendoline cherie. Jean-Luc Bertrand, Paris, 23.10.74.” Cherie. Dear? Was he a lover, friend? Anyway, four years ago. He put it back on the coffee table. She came out—“Sorry,” she said—and sat at the end of the couch nearest the chair. “Think I should take the aspirins now? It’ll also give me something to drink. I don’t want you drinking alone. You okay, Martin?” and he said “Sure, why? Anything wrong?” “No; just asking.” She went into the bathroom, same squeak from before but this time he heard water running, came back with a glass of water. “Oh, I don’t want to drink from the glass I rinse my mouth with. Using it for the aspirins is another thing,” and she went into the kitchen, came back with a different glass of water, sat in the same place on the couch—“This is my third glassful; you said to drink a lot”—drank some more and they talked. Camus. The drawing. Who did it? He wouldn’t know the artist, she said. And the other works? Most of them are by friends. Some she bought; some are gifts. And the sculpture? “Is it a real Brancusi?” and she said “If it were, I’d keep it behind Plexiglas in a vault and wouldn’t be able to enjoy it,” and he said “I didn’t think so. I like it. A little bit of forgery, but it’s good. Gift too?” and she nodded. “You’re lucky to have so many good artist friends.” Her work, his. The meal tonight. “I’d go back,” she said. How she might have drunk too much beer and wine, “but I told you that; hence, the aspirins and drowning myself in water. Are you all right in the armchair? You seem to be squirming. At least you’re not sneezing and tearing up from all the cat hair. It’s their favorite place during the day.” “I don’t mind,” he said. “And I don’t seem to be allergic to anything. Where’d they go?” and she said “There’s a shelf in the back of the kitchen that they usually stop off at before climbing into bed with me. I always have it set up with towels for them to lie on. Also, it’s an uncomfortable chair you’ve chosen, Martin. You should move to the couch.” “To be honest, it is a bit uncomfortable, but it’s a lot more comfortable than the Morris chair I have at home. Do you mind?” and he got up, and she said “It was my suggestion,” and he sat at the other end of the couch. “And that’s right,” she said; “it’s called a Morris chair. I knew it was some name like that, but I thought ‘Melvin.’ Only kidding, but I really wasn’t sure what name it was. A friend gave it to me with worn-down cushions. I meant to get the chair reupholstered, b
ut so much for what I want to do and do. I shouldn’t let anyone sit in it. I should put a rope across it, as they do in museums, and a sign on the seat that says ‘Please do not sit.’ Does yours also have an adjustable back?” and he said “I think they all do. It was designed and I think even first crafted by a nineteenth-century British poet,” and she said “I know. Melvin Morris. Quite the Renaissance man.” She’s funny, he thought. But why’d he have to act like such a pedant? Nineteenth-century. British poet. First crafted. What bullshit. She dealt with it nicely, though. He wanted to move closer to her and take her hand. It’d be a start. Wanted to end up kissing her. For the pleasure of it and to get the first out of the way. Does it mean anything that she invited him up here and then to sit on the couch with her? he thought. Doesn’t have to. Could be just what she said: that she wanted him to be warm before he headed home, and to get him out of an uncomfortable chair. Wasn’t that uncomfortable to him but it might be to her and other guests. Anyway, what should he say to get some action going? “Do you mind if I move a little closer, and not because this part of the couch is uncomfortable?” “Mind if I move closer to you?” he said. “I feel so far away.” “Sure, move closer,” she said, “there’s plenty of room,” and he moved to about a foot from her. He was on her right. She put her glass on the coffee table; it didn’t seem in anticipation of anything from him. He reached over for his brandy glass with his right hand and touched her right hand with his left. Did it intentionally, and immediately pulled it away. “Was my hand cold?” she said. “It feels cold,” and he said “No, it was fine. Actually, I barely touched it, so I really couldn’t tell. But funny you should bring it up, because it was something I was just wondering myself. If your hand could be cold from your glass. A thought that came out of nowhere.” “Oh, come on,” she said, “you didn’t think it,” and he said “I did, really; I don’t know why. Here,” and he sipped some brandy and put the glass back on the coffee table, “let me touch it once more.” “Why?” she said, and he said “I don’t know. To touch it. To make it warm.” “So it was cold,” and he said “No, it wasn’t, or only a little, but I only touched it a second, so I’m not sure. Let me make the definitive test. I’ll take your hand and tell you if it’s as cold as you think. Of course, it might be warm now and get cold from my hand having held the cold brandy, but I don’t think so.” “We’re being silly,” and he said “You mean I’m being silly, and I know. But is it all right? Your hand?” and she said “If you like.” He took her right hand in his and held it. “It’s warm,” he said. “Maybe it was cold before for some reason, but it’s warm now.” He put his left hand over his mouth like a megaphone and said “No cold hand, I have to report. And the other hand wouldn’t be cold because you didn’t hold the glass with it.” He put his left hand under the hand he held. “You have small hands. I do too, for a man my height, but mine are small and fat, while yours are not small, I’m saying, for a woman, and thin. Normal.” He took his left hand away, raised her hand to his face and kissed it. “I was about to say ‘You’re not going to kiss my hand,’” she said, “but you beat me to it.” “Did you mind?” and she said “Uh-uh.” “May I kiss it again?” and she said “No. Hands aren’t very clean, even after you wash them. They should be scrubbed with a brush and I didn’t do that.” “But is it still all right to hold it?” and she said “Yes, you can hold it.” “May I hold both?” and she said “If you want.” He took her other hand with his left. Then they just stared at each other and he smiled and she did and he inched closer to her, still holding her hands, and kissed her forehead a few times and then her cheek once or twice, all with his eyes open—she closed hers every time he kissed her—and then he closed his eyes and kissed her lips. When they came apart, he was no longer holding her hands. It had happened without him knowing it. Maybe she’d pulled her hands out of his. Maybe she did it without knowing it. They stared at each other again and then smiled at the same time. He put his arms around her, and she put her right arm on top of his left and around his shoulder and then took it away—it must have been uncomfortable for her or she thought it’d be uncomfortable for him—and they kissed again, a much longer one. Her lips were soft, breath sweet, skin soft, hair falling over her cheek smelled sweet. While they were kissing a third time, he opened his eyes and saw hers were closed. She looked like she was sleeping. They kissed some more. She said once when they were separated but he was still holding her “That was nice,” and he said “I know…I mean, it was.” During their last kiss—there must have been five, six—he put his hand under her shirt in back and rubbed her waist and lower back and then moved his hand to the side and up and a little over in front till it covered the left cup of her bra. She said “Please don’t,” and straightened up and took his hand out and held it and said “Too fast. And it’s getting late for me. And I don’t feel right about it just yet,” and he said “About me?” and she said “The fondling.” “That’s fine, there’s always another day, and this has been so nice, I can’t tell you how much. Being with you, the West End, dinner, having a brandy here; kissing, of course.” She let go of his hand and pulled down her shirt.” “The brandy was drinkable?” and he said “You bet. Not quite R.S.O.P., or whatever the initials are on the French brandy and Cognac bottles, but I’m hardly complaining. About anything, and it warmed me up for the outside.” “Want to finish what’s in your glass?” and he thought Should he? No, let it go so she’ll think he can leave some behind, and said “Thanks; I’ve had enough.” He stood up and said “I should get my coat.” “Let me get it for you,” she said, standing up. They went to the coat closet. She got his coat off its hanger and gave it to him and he put it on and buttoned up. “You should get a warmer coat,” she said. “It’s not even January,” and he said “I should; one down to my knees and maybe with a fleece-lined hood. So—” and then “My muffler,” and picked it up off the closet floor. “Sorry. I didn’t put it there. And your cap?” and he said “In my pocket. So, I’ll call you?” and she said “I’d like that.” “One more kiss?” and she said “Just one, a little one. Then you have to go.” They kissed, longer and deeper than a little one, but she let him. He should have just made it a quick little one, he thought; done what she’d asked. Well, it won’t ruin anything. He stepped back and said “I want you to know I really, really enjoyed myself tonight. I’ll even throw in another “really,’” and she said “Thank you.” “Now I have to, though it’s very difficult for me to, go,” and he turned around and tried opening the door. There were two locks and he tried several times but couldn’t get them unlocked at the same time. “It’s tricky,” she said, and unlocked and opened the door. “Bye,” he said, and touched her shoulder. “You don’t have gloves?” and he said “Did I leave them in the restaurant or bar, or did I even take them with me tonight?” “I don’t remember them,” and he said “I’m sure I left them home. If not, I have a duplicate pair, bought when I thought I’d lost the original one.” “Also,” she said, “thank you for not trying to push me into something. It wouldn’t have worked but I’m glad you didn’t try,” and he said “No, I like the way the evening ended.” “Goodnight. If you don’t mind, I won’t wait till the elevator comes. A breeze whooshes into the apartment from the broken window by the stairs there,” and he said “Not at all. Go inside. Stay warm. I’ll be fine.” He rang for the elevator a few feet away and she closed the door. The elevator came. Two women were on it. “Good evening,” he said, and one of the women said “Hello.” “It’s a nice night,” he said, as the elevator descended. “Brisk and clear and not harsh.” “Riverside Drive is always ten degrees colder than the rest of the West Side,” one of the women said, and he said “Is it? Probably because of the wind and river.” He stepped aside so the women could leave first. One of them said “Thank you,” and they both went through the revolving door. He said “Goodnight, Cal” to the nightman behind the cubicle’s window. Cal waved to him, and he went outside. I can’t believe I’m so lucky, he thought, feeling his jacket
pocket to make sure he still had his book with him. Again: hadn’t gone to Yaddo, wouldn’t have met Pati, wouldn’t have met her. The girl of my dreams and a great kisser. He doesn’t remember if he took the subway or the Broadway bus home. Knows he thought of waiting for the downtown bus across the Drive, but that might mean a long wait and it was very cold.