I was looking back now on that Lexington Avenue Elevated ride as from some future incarnation. It not only seemed remote, it seemed unthinkable. Never again would that particular kind of gloom and despair attack me, that I was certain of.
Sometimes I think it was because I was so innocent. It was impossible for me to believe that I could be trapped that way. I suppose I would have been better off, would have suffered less, if I had married her, as I wanted to do. Who knows? We might have been happy for a few years.
You always say, Val, that it was pity which held you, but I think it was love. I think you really loved her. After all, you never quarreled.
I couldn't. Not with her. That's what had me at a disadvantage. I can still recall how I felt when I would stop, as I did every day, to gaze at her photograph—in a shop window. There was such a look of sorrow in her eyes, it made me wince. Day after day I went back to look into her eyes, to study that sad expression, to wonder at the cause of it. And then, after we had known each other some time, I would see that look come back into her eyes ... usually after I had hurt her in some foolish, thoughtless way. That look was far more accusing, far more devastating, than any words...
Neither of us spoke for a while. The warm, fragrant breeze rustled the curtains. Downstairs the phonograph was playing. And I shall offer up unto thee, O Israel ... As I listened I stretched out my hand and gently ran my fingers across her cunt.
I didn't mean to go into all this, I resumed. It was about Sid Essen I wanted to speak. I paid him a visit yesterday, at his shop. The most forlorn, lugubrious place you ever laid eyes on. And huge. There he sits all day long reading or, if a friend happens by, he will play a game of chess. He tried to load me with gifts—shirts, socks, neckties, anything I wished. It was difficult to refuse him. As you said, he's a lonely soul. It'll be a job to keep out of his clutches ... Oh, but I almost forgot what I started to tell you. What do you suppose I found him reading?
Dostoievsky!
No, guess again.
Knut Hamsun.
No. Lady Murasaki—The Tale of Genji. I can't get over it. Apparently he reads everything. The Russians he reads in Russian, the Germans in German. He can read Polish too, and Yiddish of course.
Pop reads Proust.
He does? Well, anyway, do you know what he's itching to do? Teach me how to drive a car. He has a big eight-cylindered Buick he'd like to lend us just as soon as I know how to drive. Says he can teach me in three lessons.
But why do you want to drive?
I don't, that's it. But he thinks it would be nice if I took you for a spin occasionally.
Don't do it, Val. You're not meant to drive a car.
That's just what I told him. It would be different if he had offered me a bike. You know, it would be fun to get a bike again.
She said nothing.
You don't seem enthusiastic about it, I said.
I know you, Val. If you get a bike you won't work any more.
Maybe you're right. Anyway, it was a pleasant thought. Besides, I'm getting too old to ride a bike.
Too old? She burst out laughing. You. too old? I can see you burning up the cinders at eighty. You're another Bernard Shaw. You'll never be too old for anything.
I will if I have to write more novels. Writing takes it out of one, do you realize that? Tell Pop that some time. Does he think you work at it eight hours a day, I wonder?
He doesn't think about such things, Val.
Maybe not, but he must wonder about you. It's rare indeed for a beautiful woman to be a writer too.
She laughed. Pop's no fool. He knows I'm not a born writer. All he wants me to prove is that I can finish what I've begun. He wants me to discipline my self.
Strange, I said.
Not so very. He knows that I burn myself up, that I'm going in all directions at once.
But he hardly knows you. He must be damned intuitive.
He's in love with me, doesn't that explain it? He doesn't dare to say so, of course. He thinks he's unappealing to women.
Is he really that ugly?
She smiled. You don't believe me, do you? Well, no one would call him handsome. He looks exactly what he is—a business man. And he's ashamed of it. He's an unhappy person. And his sadness doesn't add to his attractiveness.
You almost make me feel sorry for him, poor bugger.
Please don't talk that way about him, Val. He doesn't deserve it.
Silence for a while.
Do you remember when we were living with that doctor's family up in the Bronx how you used to urge me to take a snooze after dinner so that I could meet you outside the dance hall at two in the morning? You thought I should be able to do that little thing for you and wake up fresh as a daisy, ready to report for work at eight A.M. Remember? And I did do it—several times—though it nearly killed me. You thought a man should be able to do a thing like that if he really loved a woman, didn't you?
I was very young then. Besides, I never wanted you to remain at that job. Maybe I hoped to make you give it up by wearing you out.
You succeeded all right, and I can never thank you enough for it. Left to myself, I'd probably still be there, hiring and firing...
Pause.
And then, just when everything was going on roller skates things went haywire. You gave me a rough time, do you know it? Or maybe I gave you a rough time.
Let's not go into all that, Val, please.
Okay. I don't know why I mentioned it. Forget it.
You know, Val, it's never going to be smooth sailing for you. If it isn't me who makes you miserable it will be some one else. You look for trouble. Now don't be offended. Maybe you need to suffer. Suffering will never kill you, that I can tell you. No matter what happens you'll come through, always. You're like a cork. Push you to the bottom and you rise again. Sometimes it frightens me, the depths to which you can sink. I'm not that way. My buoyancy is physical, yours is ... I was going to say spiritual, but that isn't quite it. It's animalistic. You do have a strong spiritual make up, but there's also more of the animal in you than in most men. You want to live ... live at any cost ... whether as a man, a beast, an insect, or a germ...
Maybe you've got something there, said I. By the way, I never told you, did I, about the weird experience I had one night while you were away? With a fairy. It was ludicrous, really, but at the time it didn't seem funny to me.
She was looking at me with eyes wide open, a startled expression.
Yes, it was after you were gone a while. I so desperately wanted to join you that I didn't care what I had to do to accomplish it. I tried getting a job on a boat, but it was no go. Then one night, at the Italian restaurant uptown ... you know the one ... I ran into a chap I had met there before ... an interior decorator, I think he was. Anyway, a quite decent sort. While we were talking ... it was about The Sun Also Rises ... I got the notion to ask him for the passage money. I had a feeling he would do it if I could move him sufficiently. Talking about you and how desperate I was to join you, the tears came to my eyes. I could see him melting. Finally I pulled out my wallet and showed him your photograph, that one I'm so crazy about. He was impressed. ‘She is a beauty!’ he exclaimed. ‘Really extraordinary. What passion, what sensuality!’ ‘You see what I mean,’ I said. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I can see why anybody would be hungry for a woman like that.’ He laid the photo on the table, as if to study it, and ordered drinks. For some reason he suddenly switched to the Hemingway book. Said he knew Paris, had been there several times. And so on.
I paused to see how she was taking it. She looked at me with a curious smile. Go on, she said, I'm all ears.
Well, finally I let him know that I was about ready to do anything to raise the necessary passage money. He said—'Anything'? ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘anything short of murder.’ It was then I realized what I was up against. However, instead of pinning me down he diverted the conversation to other topics—bullfighting, archaeology, all irrelevant subjects. I began to despair; he was slipping out of my hands.