“Just a minute,” I said.
Suddenly, from the kitchen, I heard a scuttle of something—claws?—a weighty thud—a jump?” and then a crash, as if a whole bag of groceries had been knocked off the counter.
“Jesus Christ,” I said.
“What the hell was that?” asked Arthur.
I flipped on the light. There was a metal flashlight hanging on a hook by the door and I picked it up.
The kitchen was still but a bag of rice was emptying itself onto the floor. “I think we have a rodent visitor,” I said. I picked up a box of Cheerios and a stream poured out of the bottom of the box. “There’s a trap under the sink.”
“Doesn’t look like it’s working.” Arthur looked at the sink then back at me. I stood behind him while he opened the cabinet door. Arthur was squatting down to get a better look when the rat sprang out. There was a moment of complete stillness where I could see the rat—legs extended, teeth bared—suspended in the air. Then it landed on Arthur’s legs. Arthur yelled and so did I, but I still had the flashlight. I batted the rat into the cabinet door. It fell to the floor, momentarily stunned, and before it could come to I had beaten its head in, crushing the skull that fragmented with an audible crunch.
I was out of breath. It couldn’t have taken more that two seconds. “Kill it,” I said. “Kill it.”
Arthur looked at me. He was awed. The rat was beginning to ooze onto the linoleum. “Go sit down. Have a cigarette. I’ll clean this up.”
Arthur put the rat in a plastic bag and knotted it. The front door slammed and I heard the metal cover clang shut on the trash can. I was still trying to light my cigarette when he came back in, flicking and flicking a dead lighter. I didn’t notice him watching me.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“I’m fine,” I said. “Do you have a light?” Arthur took the lighter from my hand and shook it, then the thing flared into life.
“You’re shaking,” he said. I was. Trembling. Outside a stiff wind had started and the panes were rattling in the casing. Arthur sat down on the couch next to me. He picked up my left hand and held it.
“It’s cold in here,” I said. “Why don’t you light a fire?”
He didn’t move, just looked out the window for inspiration. A tree was losing its leaves. The tide was blowing in. The phone started ringing. It bleated and bleated, but I just sat there feeling the blood draining from my hand wondering what I should do. My heart was still pounding from the rat-slaying high. I pictured myself waging a battle against evil (rats) armed with the truth (the metal flashlight) in the name of virtue. I had no idea how to translate virtue to my life, but seeing Arthur there, feeling his warm hand—all of his warmth” projecting out to me, I felt that he was virtuous and somehow good. The phone stopped ringing. I thought of moving closer to him, resting against his chest, or some similar gesture that would have pushed the tension along, gear by gear, to who knows where, but I didn’t. I let the moment pass until the very gesture of holding hands seemed odd, as if our arms were a clothesline strung between two unfeeling trees.
“What are you thinking?” Arthur finally asked.
“I’m thinking about you,” I said. “What are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking that it’s been five days since I’ve bathed.” He raised his eyebrows apologetically. “It’s making me self-conscious.”
“Then you should have a bath,” I said.
The rain had started up again. I turned the tap off when the tub was full and steaming, and Arthur undressed. Water was coming through the ceiling and into the toilet in a constant trickle that made it seem as if the bathroom were subterranean, as if minerals were depositing themselves on the walls and curtain rod, creating slick, calcified sculptures. Arthur sank deep into the water and groaned happily. His face disappeared beneath the surface. He stayed submerged for a few seconds and I lit us cigarettes. I turned the light off so that our faces were only illuminated by their burning ends. I sat on the floor on the bathmat and leaned against the wall so we were side by side, divided only by the ceramic wall of the tub. I’d brought a bottle of wine in and I opened it and took a swig.
“This,” said Arthur, “is heaven.”
“Is it?”
“Yes. I’m sure it is.” He sighed and leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes.
The wind beat against the walls. Outside, the shed door had worked loose and slammed and slammed in the wind. “Have some wine,” I said.
Arthur slid up and took the bottle.
“Join me,” he said.
I stood up and undressed at a leisurely pace, then sank into the water at the opposite end of the tub.
Arthur and I had sex that night, which didn’t really surprise me. I knew Boris would be mad if he found out, but he knew I needed to make friends and meeting women was next to impossible if you weren’t doing something normal (work, school) and meeting men was next to impossible if you weren’t destined to fuck. Why would a man speak to me if he wasn’t trying to have sex with me unless he was gay and liked my clothes? Of course, this may sound as if I’m trying to justify my actions. No. Not really. I never felt any guilt about Boris. In fact, when I sat around and thought of monogamy as a concept, the whole thing seemed bizarre.
As a small child I had a game of repeating the same word over and over until it made no sense, until it became an unhinged sound and contemplating monogamy had much the same effect on me. I’d made peace with the fact that I had a hard time saying no to myself. If I desired it and it was in reach, I had it. And—strangely enough—the fact that Boris didn’t know that I was incapable of being faithful made me think he didn’t care to know me well, and this was a bit hurtful.
9
I remember that Friday for a number of reasons. First, it was the day that Intravenous was to play at Hole in the Wall with Arthur as drummer. Second, it was the day that my father found me.
My father had been tracking me for months, ever since I had disappeared into the north of Italy sometime in March. His money transfer had sat in the bank in Florence untouched, which had caused him enough worry to send someone to look for me. My mother was not well and the daughter whom he’d fathered specifically to fulfill such needs as looking after her had disappeared. For once in his life, he was at a loss about how to best proceed. So as my mother slowly drifted into her own lonely world, I was being pursued across Europe. I knew this from my old lover Silvano, who had been contacted by the detective in Florence. The detective had knocked on Silvano’s door on a Monday morning and Silvano had sent him flying into the street with one swipe of his mighty Fascist paw.
I can picture Silvano in his socks, underwear, and golden bath-robe—more reminiscent of the Medici than Montecatini, standing on the steps of his urban Oltrano villa bellowing the hair off the detective’s head. I could have told Silvano that anything to do with my father had nothing to do with love, but the detective was young and handsome, had come asking for me, and as far as Silvano was concerned (he hated the English since a bad experience in North Africa in 1940 and refused to learn their language) any young man asking for me was best communicated to with unmistakable physical violence.
After Italy I had headed into Amsterdam, where I purchased a fake U.S. passport from a nineteen-year-old Canadian. I traveled as Sarah Lowenstein until my return to the United States in the early fall. And for a while, my trail had gone cold and the detective had returned to New York. When he finally tracked me down, I was living three blocks from his apartment. In all likelihood, we had been using the same subway stop.
My father said he had a pressing need to get in touch with me. He also knew that my avoidance of him was intentional and so he decided that the matter was best handled by his lawyer and Boris, whose address was the one discovered by the detective.