I left the door to my apartment ajar and walked her to the end of the corridor, where we waited in an awkward silence for the elevator to arrive. We never made plans when saying goodbye, and this was no different, except that not saying anything about tomorrow had strained the air between us and given an unnatural, almost hostile cast to our silence, as though what we were hiding was not our reluctance to formalize our friendship or to reinvent it each time it brought us closer; what we were hiding was the guilty diffidence of those who have no intention of meeting again and are desperately avoiding the subject. When the elevator did come, we were back to an abrupt and hasty peck.
“Soon,” I said.
“Soon,” she mimicked.
As the door began to shut between us, I knew I was seeing her for the last time.
“The fucking door,” I heard her yelp once the door had slammed into her. I’d forgotten to remind her about the door again. I could hear her laugh all the way down.
•
Once in my apartment, I was back to that moment earlier this morning when I didn’t know if we’d ever speak today, let alone continue this hybrid friendship for another day. The late-afternoon hour, which I remembered having set as that time of day when I’d finally let myself break down and make the dreaded phone call, had come and gone, and yet I was no better off now, after spending a few hours with her, than I’d been in the morning when my resolution stood out like the last beacon, the best morsel you leave for last, because after that there’s nothing left to look forward to.
I looked out the window. Dreary, dreary, dreary.
Teatime, I thought. But I had just had tea with her. I could feel the air closing in on me, as it does in everyone’s image of London in this unnamed, predusk hour that could last anywhere from fifteen minutes to an entire day. Time to get out. But there was nowhere to go. I should call a friend. Half of them were out of town. The other half might not be free. There were Rachel and her sister, but the first thing they’d do was give me a hard time for lacking courage, gumption, and, above all, honesty. Besides, I didn’t want to see them again without bringing Clara to meet them.
I decide to head out to the gym, take a book, get on the treadmill, maybe swim a few laps, and by 7:10 be where I had always planned to be, except that now it felt as though I’d be doing it failing anything better. Maybe I’d have dinner after the movie — ironically at Thai Soup, of all places. Sometimes it’s not bad to be alone.
She had cut the avocado into thin slices and superimposed a series of green half-moons obliquely on the baguette, then added two layers of ham, then the cheese, then a drop of hot mustard, finally flattening the bread down a bit under the panini grill, licking the excess mustard that had stained her fingers. “This is for you, Printz,” she had said, handing me the sandwich on a plate with something any halfwit wouldn’t have called just friendship.
But there was the caviar too. She insisted on spreading it on the sour cream herself. Why? I’d asked. “Because you don’t know how to do it.” “I can do it just fine.” “Then because I want to.”
•
The words Because I want to simply undid everything protecting me from her and shot straight to my heart.
•
The afternoon went faster than I expected. What surprised me was the sense that things hadn’t turned out as badly as I’d feared. One could always live through this. All I needed was to overcome the haunting regret of having come so close, only to lose her. I’d live. Or was she, like John the Baptist, a sign, a precursor of worse things to come, of sorrows, like photographs, that hadn’t even been developed yet, much less hung out to dry?
When I arrived at the movie theater, I noticed that the line was shorter than usual. These were not Rohmer’s better films, and the thin audience tonight confirmed it. After purchasing a ticket, I decided to get a grande coffee next door and, without bothering to ask myself why, bought a candy bar. Then I bought her brand of cigarettes. Time, I wanted to think, had stopped last night at the movies, and like a sports trainer, I was intentionally holding the stopwatch down to mark the moment when the race ended, to mark the high point of the week, of the year.
Phildonka Madamdasit was there, unchanged and stout, same haircut, same scowl, same shirt. Without her, though, he was not funny, simply smug and thuggish. He took my ticket, stared me down with a Stood you up, didn’t she? then grabbed someone else’s ticket.
I found a spot three seats away from people at either side and sat down. Coffee at the movies was her invention; I’d always had a cold drink, never coffee, and certainly not a nip. I wondered which of her many ex-boyfriends had taught her to bring nips to a movie theater. How many times had she resurrected with me habits picked up with old flames?
In the dark before the film started, I suddenly remembered how I had put my coat on the seat next to mine the first time with Clara when she’d gone to make a phone call, trying to pretend that I had come alone that night the better to enjoy waking up to her presence when she returned. Had I squirreled away the memory for this evening, the way a time traveler on a mission to alter history buries an automatic pistol now, to retrieve it in Ancient Rome tomorrow?
Then came the film credits, and my mind tried to drift and think of someone else with whom I’d been to see this film a few years earlier. This was not bad — not great, but not bad. The opening sequence was exactly as I recalled it, and I was happy to see that for all my ability to recall it in detail, the film still seemed very fresh and would have carried me exactly where I wished to be taken had there not been more noise than usual in the theater, a latecomer unable to decide where to sit, a couple chitchatting about changing seats, Phildonka’s beam traveling over my head, and finally the banging of the door, and behind it the repeated clank of a soda dispenser that seemed to be stuck. There was a rumble of voices. I heard someone try the dispenser again — clank, clank, and clank again — then I heard the thud of several cans crashing into the dispenser’s bottom tray. “You’ve hit the jackpot,” someone shouted. The audience laughed. This should have been Clara’s line, I thought. But just as the film was starting, the door opened once again and another couple walked in, both their heads cowered in typically considerate, Upper West Side self-effacement. The light from outside intruded for a second but disappeared when the door shut. Another intruder was having a hard time finding a seat — that too distracted me. Then I heard the cough. Not a nervous cough, but an intentional cough, as when people cough to remind others of their presence in a room. Again the damned cough interrupted both the credits and the voice-over that had begun as soon as the credits had run their course. Cough, cough. I was convinced I was making it up — but the cough was whispering, “Printz Oskár”—I couldn’t be making it up, but what wouldn’t I give. . Seconds later, without the cough this time, but whispered all the same, almost as an inquiry to mean, Are you there? Can you hear me? “Printz Oskár?” The whole audience turned in the direction of the door. This was unbelievable, but who else would say such a thing in a movie house once the film had started? I raised my arm, hoping she’d spot it. She did, and walked immediately in my direction. “Very sorry, most very, very sorry indeed,” she said in mock-apology to those standing up as she tried to reach my seat. “The fucking Phildonka wouldn’t let me in”—and right there and then she burst out into uncontrollable laughter, arousing universal hisses from everyone in the theater, while I couldn’t let go of her as soon as I embraced her, holding on to her head and kissing her head and pressing her head against my chest as she quietly began to remove her shawl.