“Well, maybe you wavered a bit. Did you want me to worry?”
“Stop.”
She took the second coffee from my hand, no doubt in her mind that it was hers.
I also produced a roll of Mentos, which made her ecstatic. Or perhaps she was making up for not thanking me for the coffee by throwing profuse thanks for the candy.
“Want one?” she asked, tearing open the package. The first one was red. She always loved the red, hated the yellow. “I want the red,” I said. But she had already put it in her mouth with a teasing you’re-not-getting-this-one-unless-you-come-and-get-it-if-you-dare smile. I would have kissed her in the mouth, found the candy, stolen it with my tongue, and, after playing with it awhile, given it back to her. Suddenly, with our imagined kiss racing through me and the thought of her fingers passionately combing my hair, something arrested me: they may not have made love this afternoon, but they got very close, almost too close.
Meanwhile, not a word about where she’d been or what she’d done. Her silence on the matter confirmed my worst doubts. I stewed in them all through both of Rohmer’s films, poisoning both films.
By the time we were out at midnight, it was impossible not to sulk. “What’s eating you?” she asked. My “Nothing” was not even trying to be dramatic or visibly cryptic; it was a glum “Nothing,” and I didn’t care to hide it.
“You didn’t like the films?”
“I liked them.”
“You don’t feel well?”
“I’m fine.”
“It’s me.”
What lay ahead was a field of nettles that I wasn’t eager to cross barefoot.
“Did I say something wrong?” she asked. “Let’s have it. Let’s just put it out there.”
It took me a few moments to find the courage.
“I just wish you hadn’t left this afternoon. I felt terrible.”
“I had to see someone.”
I tried to put on a placid, indifferent face, but I couldn’t resist.
“Do I get to ask who?”
“Whom? Sure, ask away.”
“Who, then?”
“You don’t know him, but he’s a very dear friend. We talked about you. About us.”
I was trying to find my bearings, but didn’t know how.
“Everything confuses me. I’ve never been this confused. Nor have I ever told anyone I was so confused. Ever.”
This was the most honest thing about me that I’d ever managed to say to her. This way of speaking was new to me, and I wasn’t sure I liked it.
How was I going to let down my guard with her tonight and ever attempt to recapture last night’s kisses with this plague standing between us?
•
When we arrived at the bar, things couldn’t be worse. A man wearing a dark blue suit, a white shirt, though without a necktie, was sitting at the table next to what had become ours, and no sooner had he seen Clara than he stood up and embraced her. No introductions, of course, until he turned to me and introduced himself. On his table were what looked like loose galleys of a book of black-and-white photographs.
He was nursing an oversized martini with a bunch of olives skewered on a long toothpick that he hadn’t touched. There followed an awkward moment, during which Clara and I were trying to decide our seating arrangement. It only made sense that she should sit next to him on the banquette, which spanned from his table to ours, but this precluded my sitting next to her, as had become our habit. She would be in between us, but the men would be sitting too far apart. So I did the obvious: I sat across from her, facing the two of them. She hesitated for a moment, which I took as a positive sign, but then she opted to sit so close to him that we found ourselves occupying his table. I was furious with her for not insisting that I sit next to her. Yet Clara’s hesitation had pleased me, as had the waitress’s histrionic enthusiasm: Here they are! The man, whose name was Victor, didn’t seem to pick up on Clara’s momentary hesitation or on the waitress’s clamorous greeting.
I wondered what he knew about Clara and me. Were we just friends? More than friends? What were we anyway? And what were they? He explained he had decided to come here for a drink after spending the evening with his assistant. He wanted to go through the pictures one last time before turning them in in the morning. Somehow he wasn’t pleased. He’d just come back from two shows, one in Berlin — grand, just grand! — the other in Paris—sensationnel! — and London and Tokyo in three weeks — could you ask for more? What was the subject? I asked, trying to make conversation. Manhattan Noir, which, given his French accent, he pronounced Manattàn Noir. Clara threw me a quick squint. There was mirth and collusion in it. We knew we were putting this on hold for parody and demolition later on.
Victor, dapper blue suit and starched white shirt, French cuffs, couldn’t be happier with the project. Next year’s Christmas coffee-table sensation, he explained, trying to make light of the project. But he was clearly pleased with himself. Even the gleaming white shirt and wide-open sans cravate louque was going to be the subject of ridicule once we were alone together, to say nothing of his name in bold letters on the cover: Victor Francois Chiller. The initials made me want to laugh.
Talk of Manhattan Noir kept us animated and laughing way past midnight. Everyone had a theory about Manhattan Noir. We took turns: The noir city in each of us, even if we’d never seen a film noir before. The noir city we love to catch glimpses of, because it takes us back to another Manhattan that may never have existed, but exists by virtue of films and their afterimage. The noir city we sometimes long to live in. The noir city that disappears the moment you go out to find it. The noir city that is more in us than it is out there in the real city, I threw in. “Well, let’s not get carried away,” he said.
She corrected his pronunciation. Not Manattàn but Manhattan. Not aunting hower of ze nait but haunting hour of the night. He thought the joke and his English pronunciation very funny and, with confident hilarity, placed an arm around Clara’s shoulder, pulling her toward him each time he laughed out loud, which forced her to rest her head on his shoulder. Perhaps, sensing his arm around her, she had automatically leaned toward him as a way of being pardoned for joking at his expense. Or was it: press the touch button and she’s instantly yours?
His arm stayed there awhile. He caught me staring at it. I looked away and turned my eyes to her, only to sense that she too had caught me staring and, like him, had instinctively looked the other way. Neither of them moved; she didn’t lift her head away from his shoulder, and he didn’t remove his arm. It was as though both were independently frozen in that position, either because it was too late to undo the gesture or because they wanted to show there was nothing awkward or improper in it and that — come to think of it — they could do as they pleased, seeing they had absolutely nothing to hide or be ashamed of, and would stop if and when they were good and ready.
Were they, was she doing this to spite me — was she egging him on? Or was she too weak to stop him, or was this her message to me? You have no rights, no claims, and if I want to lean on his shoulder or touch his hand or feel his balls, well, I’ll do so in your face — live with it.
Was theirs perhaps the threadbare familiarity that lingers among ex-lovers?
Or was it a murky friendship between man and woman, the way ours was no better than a murky friendship between man and woman?
Was I perhaps misconstruing everything? Or had I not even scratched the surface? My doubts, like proofs of the Pythagorean theorem, suddenly outnumbered the stars.