Wrong? she said brazenly, nothing, nothing.
But at the same time she was looking into my eyes so tenderly, imploringly, retreating into the role of the weak woman with girlishly sly and coy humility, illuminating the role with the mastery of a real professional; and this mockery, making our involuntarily assumed roles look ridiculous, was so much to my liking that slowly, gradually, I eased my hold on her wrist, though I didn't let go of it completely.
What was she trying to tell me? I asked, and the sound of my voice told me how reluctantly I was making my way from promising silent touches toward false and loud words.
But in fact I started to speak because I didn't want my mind to let go of my instincts; at the very least the mind should follow closely and understand what these instincts are after and why, and instincts and feelings should operate neither against nor instead of the mind; if there was something between us, if such a thing was possible, it shouldn't be some sort of supplement, a working off of other emotions, or a round of common sexual gymnastics; and she must have felt the same way.
Everything that had happened between us so far could still be seen as friendly banter, though it was hard to tell where good-natured rough-housing ended and the pleasure of amorous touching began; the borderline was carefully guarded by sober intelligence, even if the situation itself, precisely because of its delicious inherent possibilities, seemed irreversible; we'd either crossed the line already or simply didn't know where we were.
She'll tell me another time, she said dryly, now I should let her go.
No, I won't, I said, not until she explained what she meant, I don't like this kind of nonsense.
But reason could no longer help our feelings, because the words themselves were trying to decide about something startling and final, yet we no longer had any idea of what we were talking about — again an unmistakable characteristic of a lovers' quarrel.
Angry and impatient, she jerked her head sideways, hoping perhaps that a change of position would also change the situation.
Come on, let go, she said, almost spitefully, Arno had no idea where she might be, he was waiting for her, he'd get all crabby from so much waiting, it was very late.
As she jerked her head away, a ray of light fell on her face, the harsh light of a streetlamp; it was perhaps this light that defeated me.
Pretty funny that she should think of Arno right now, I said with a laugh.
Because in the harsh light from the street — and there is no other way I can put it — his face appeared on hers.
For a moment her face did seem to resemble Arno's long, dry, mournful face, yet it wasn't so much his features that showed through as a feeling, or the shadow of a feeling, just a trace of sadness belonging to that strange man to whom she felt she belonged, and whom, simply by pronouncing his name, and therefore not unwittingly, she now placed between us; he wasn't just the old husband she had to think about even at the moment she was unfaithful and whom she treated like a father or a son; no, it was this man's sadness to which she had to remain faithful, so she could remain faithful to the abiding, all-encompassing sadness that was the basis of their life together — could this be the reason she mentioned being Jewish? — a sadness that was not only his but hers as well, it would appear; was there something between them that was truly unbreakable? could their common bond be the fact that she was a Jew and he a German?
I should have overcome, wiped away, or at least banished temporarily this hitherto unfamiliar, never-before-seen sadness, except that Arno's sadness confounded me; it was the sadness of a man I didn't feel close to, a man I couldn't touch, and I couldn't pretend I didn't see that they shared this sadness — hence her victory, or theirs, over me.
And now I knew even less just where my place was in this somber situation, but the stark sadness that broke through all her possible masks and faces, now illuminated by the harsh streetlight, was like a sudden violent discharge, a clash of the most opposite forces.
All right, I'll let her go, I said, but first I will kiss her.
It seemed that by simply saying it, the act had become impossible, and then we could consider it done.
And then that famous whole that should pervade all details of a relationship must also include what in the ordinary sense does not take place yet is a reality.
She turned her face back toward me slowly and with a surprised look on it, as if she were amazed on behalf of that other person as well, I was faced with the astonished gaze of two people.
As she turned, the light vanished from her face, but I knew that the strange face would not leave her, and the half-open mouth said or rather moaned from behind that face, No, not now.
I let go of her; some time passed.
This moan issuing from their shared sadness did not mean what it seemed to mean, it had to be translated: in the language the two of us had in common it meant just the opposite, it meant that she felt as I did, and if not now, she did mean maybe later.
If it had meant next week or tomorrow perhaps, that would have meant not now and not later either; but that's not what she meant.
Our faces began to undulate between yes and no, between now, the next moment, and any time.
With my casual statement I seemed to have awakened our mouths, and now we had to look at them.
Yes, the features of our faces were undulating, wavering, the skin trembled as our faces relaxed and tensed again, and the next moment did arrive, but without turning into now or anytime, what remained was the uncertain later, yet what was vibrating on her lips was a definite yes— only its when was unknown.
But this began to be painful, because if it didn't happen now then the yes must have meant no, after all.
Like a pendulum, our faces swayed between the subtle pain of tentative rejection and the equally subtle joy of tentative consent; I might even say that our faces oscillated between self-defense and self-surrender; and because this was true oscillation — when pain flitted across one face, the other flickered with joy, and when one was suffused with joy, the other showed pain — even when the long-awaited decisive moment seemed at hand, yes and no could still not be separated.
So to avoid having to wait for the next moment, I cut through our shared time by making a move; and I did it simply because I was in pain, and while one escape route was closed to me, the car door behind me was open; the pain, unable to turn into joy, sought relief at any price.
But true to the movement of the pendulum, Thea was ready to swing forward as I was about to pull back; and she wouldn't allow her joy to turn into pain either — this was her yes moment — and with her hand she had to turn the anytime I created with my move into a now.
When we are awake and fully alert, our jaws are conditioned to keep the mouth closed, the upper teeth resting on the lower set, and the upper lip lying neatly on the lower one; at this point, however, the jaw relaxed and reverted to its original, preconditioned state, easing the alertness and discipline which, except in the hours of sleep, maintain tension in the facial muscles; regulating the extent and nature of this tension gives character to the face, which, in turn, causes the tongue inside, arching sensitively from the rim of the lower teeth, to hover, and the saliva collecting on the tip of the tongue and around the impeding row of teeth to trickle back into the hollow of the mouth.
Heads tilt sideways, if one to the left, the other definitely to the right, because when two human mouths seek each other out they must avoid the collision of noses protruding from the facial terrain.
Once the eyes measure the distance, from the features of the terrain estimate the angle of the tilt, and from the speed of the mutual approach can also determine the moment of contact, then the eyelids slowly and softly drop over the eyes — seeing at such close range becomes impossible and unnecessary, which of course should not lead to the conclusion that everything impossible is also unnecessary — but the eyes do not close completely, a narrow slit remains, so the long upper lashes need not descend and mix with the lower, shorter ones; in this way the eyes put themselves in a perfectly symmetrical position with the mouth; one is fully conscious now, but not quite aware; the amount of tension relinquished from consciousness equals the loss in awareness; whatever opens up here, but not completely, will shut down there, but not completely.