I was busy over by the fabric, she was bullshitting on the phone in Zhigulin's sector, and gradually that began to irritate me. She might at least have the decency to sit with me while I work, I thought. Sit with me, hell – she soon donned a red hat and took off completely. "I'm going to work," she said. All her work, what was it worth? She didn't have a cent.
She left, Zhigulin fiddled with his lights, and little Eddie, rejoicing that there was no supervision, immediately abandoned the cutting and quickly reoriented himself, found something to do. He pinched from her bookshelf a suspicious black notebook, opened it, and saw Elena's notes. Eddie knew these notebooks of hers, he himself had once given her such notebooks. This one was hardly filled in, almost clean. Eddie thrust the notebook under his jacket and walked past Zhigulin into the bathroom, then closed the door behind him, settled down on the edge of the tub, and with sinking heart began to read.
What was in it was murk. That's a good word, I love it – it expresses her notes well. Isolated expressions apparently pertaining to me: "Why do you love me?" "What forces drive me?" There were grass, trees. George was mentioned. "George came, George went," and did some other things.
Murk, murk, and more murk. Breakfasts with a king. Everything much worse than it used to be, not poetry but a hash of semicoherent sentences, the theme of which was primarily self-adoration. Something about the hotel in Milan, where she had had no money; thoughts of death in this connection; and again murk, turbidity, the heavy vapors of a loveless soul.
But suddenly I stumbled upon this note: "…and Eddie, I am guilty before you. My poor, poor baby! And God will punish me; when I was a child I read a story that had the words, 'You are responsible in life for all whom you have tamed…'"
I read this and felt so sorry for my girl that I could have cried. When had she written this, evidently in Milan? Poor creature, you feel bad because you don't know that love exists. My unhappy girl who made me unhappy, how can I blame you! The loathsome loveless world is to blame, not you.
Zhigulin asked to come into the bathroom. I summoned my strength, walked out of the bathroom, talked with Zhigulin, drank more whiskey, and thought about her. She understood almost everything, it turned out. But what had made her kill her poor baby? Nature's blind imperative to have many males? I did not know. All the same, I cut out some slacks from her crazy fabric for her, then took what I had cut and went to my hotel…
One of my most recent encounters with Elena was poetic and sad. I called, she said in a strange dark voice, "Come, but hurry." We had made prior arrangements to meet; I was supposed to get the rest of the crazy fabric from her. I arrived, she was tearstained, barely restraining fresh tears. She was sitting on the bed studying a heap of old photographs of her childhood; her father had just sent them to her from Moscow. She was sobbing, tightly buttoned into black slacks and a red blouse, this was the same red blouse in which she had brazenly and self-assuredly, in February – she had spent the night away from home – when she showed up in the morning she had proddingly told me that I didn't know how to enjoy myself. Me, a man out of his mind with grief. Now, six months later, she was bawling in front of me in this same blouse. "Not yet has she worn out the blouse" – the poetic image flashed through my mind. She doesn't notice these details, of course. Only I – close observer, attentive scholar, self-mocking subtle Eddie – remember all these rags, blouses, bagatelles, and photographs.
"Do you want to look?" she said through her tears.
"Yes," I said, "only don't cry. Why are you crying, is there some reason?"
"What's new?" she sobbed. "Everything's fucking lousy – work, work, work. If I'd been born here, it would be easier for me. But I'm a woman, not a man," she moaned. "I'm tired!"
I reflected that in terms of sexual characteristics I was a man, but fucking shit, I was sure that no woman had ever experienced such torment as mine. As you know, my considerable scorn for women had by now spread to Elena too. I pitied her, however; I did not see her as an unsuccessful model, a woman embroiled in difficulties, as she was in reality. I saw the little girl from the wooden house in Tomilino, a sly, mysterious little girl. And of this little girl only I in all the world – no one else, gentlemen, I am sure of it – was worthy.
Of the Russian model Elena, George was fully worthy. Jean was a bit lower, yet he too was worthy of her. But of this little girl, with her braid, in her little white stockings, standing in her garden, and behind her, like scenery in a pastoral opera, birches, shrubs, a segment of a wooden house – only I was worthy. The little girl had dreamed of a prince, as does many a little girl in Russia and probably here too. But when Prince Eddie arrives, evil intervenes. Chaos hates love, it whispers to the little girl that this is not a prince: "Princes do not live in Lexington Avenue apartments, nor go to work in the morning at emigre newspapers," whispers Chaos. "This is not he!" whispers Chaos.
Eddie is driven out, and they go debase themselves before the Georges and the gentlemen who follow in their turn. Such were my reflections as I studied her photographs. This too was a painful pastime, gentlemen, no good at all,
"Only don't steal the photos," she said through her tears, holding the next packet out to me.
"Why not?" I said. "You'll lose them anyway, or you'll get ripped off. Don't be afraid, though, I'm not about to steal them."
She had stood up, meanwhile, and set about looking for something. Suddenly she let out a loud wail. "Fucking shit," she said, "why do I live in this abominable dirty place, where's my little book? Some motherfucker's already pinched it, everyone here steals and swipes things. Why am I so unhappy?"
Weeping, she undertook to wash the dishes. I went and tried to touch her shoulder. "Take it easy!" I said. She shook off my hand. She's afraid of intimacy. Fool! I had wanted to soothe her. She thinks I enjoy watching her weep! Unhappy beast! Lonely beast, thinking to build happiness for herself out of casual caresses. But why wail now? After all, she had wanted to be a lonely beast.
"Quit crying," I told her distractedly. "Everything's going to be all right."
"You always say everything's going to be all right!" she said spitefully through her tears.
Oh, once I had known how to soothe her. Both her anger and her tears. Nowadays I couldn't use those means. I merely said, "If you want we can go down to the bar and have a drink. It'll relax you, make you feel better."
"I can't," she said, "I have to go out. George is picking me up, we have to go see a famous designer." She mentioned a name. "Zhigulin didn't want to go, the bastard. He said, 'I don't have anybody to fuck there. You'll be fucking George, but there's no woman there for me.' We aren't going there to fuck, I have to work, we're going there to shoot."
It was quite absurd, but she was sobbing. She was sobbing.
The phone rang. It was her economist calling. I heard her keep repeating to him through her tears: "It's horrible, it's horrible!"
I thought, What kind of a bastard is he, that he can't do it, even seeing how she suffers without an apartment, living in this passageway? What kind of a bastard is he? A millionaire, and he can't rent her an apartment so that she can live there awhile, rest, have a normal good sleep. That, for him, would be like me throwing away a penny on the sidewalk- "He's cynical and clever," Zhigulin had said of him; others said so too. Cynical and clever man, where's your kindness? What the fuck is anything worth in this world without kindness?
To me he was an intolerable shit because he didn't help her live, he used her. She was alone in this city – what did I count for, to her I didn't exist, therefore I couldn't help in any way – she was alone, she was cold, she felt lousy, and she didn't even have a coat, but he limped on his lame leg and said nothing.