Nachman stood in the large room. It was maybe forty by twenty feet, with a gleaming maple floor. No rugs. A bar counter separated a kitchen area from the rest of the room. Furniture was clustered in the middle, floating in space. A glass-topped coffee table was set lengthwise between two red sofas, with black chairs at either end. Nachman noticed an imposing desk against a wall, and a library table carrying stacks of papers. The room had tall windows that looked across the avenue toward the windows of other buildings. Near the farthest wall there was a dresser and a bed with night tables and reading lamps. To the right of the bed a spiral stair led to an opening in the ceiling, apparently the second floor of the apartment. A suitcase was on the bed. It sat in the middle of a bulky white comforter that had been flung back, revealing silky cobalt blue sheets. At the foot of the bed was a large television on a wheeled aluminum stand that held magazines on a shelf above the wheels. In the ceiling there were two rows of track lights.
Who was in the shower? Helen or Benjamin Ferris? In answer to his question, Nachman heard voices. They were amplified in the largely hollow space of the room, as in the barrel of a drum. The man’s voice was emotionally neutral. The woman’s voice was strained, higher pitched. It was Helen Ferris. “I’m not finished. Why don’t you get out and let me finish.”
They are showering together, Nachman realized.
“I don’t want to have to talk to him alone.”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake. You can talk to him until I come out. Fix him a drink. Turn on the TV and watch the ball game. Men like sports. You won’t even have to talk to him. Be nice for once in your fucking life.”
“Hey hey, hey. I’m supposed to be nice? Like I invited the schmuck to the apartment? I’ll pick up the check at dinner, baby, but that’s where it ends. This is your affair.”
“Don’t start with the affair business. He’s not my type.”
“You have types?”
“I’m nice to your friends, Benjamin, even when they bore me to death.”
“Friend? You said he didn’t even recognize you.”
“So what? He’s drifty. Not your average New York cocksmith, like some persons I could name. I’ll remind him who I am at dinner.”
“I’ll be sitting there, for Christ’s sake. He’ll die.”
“He won’t know I told you anything. Besides, he probably doesn’t remember that, either. He’s practically certifiable. I think his fly was unzipped.”
“Don’t make me jealous.”
Helen Ferris laughed.
Benjamin Ferris went on: “What’s the guy’s name? Nachman?”
“What’s wrong with Nachman?”
“I didn’t say there was anything wrong with it.”
“It’s your tone. You think Ferris is so beautiful? People are always saying, ‘Like the Ferris wheel?’ It bores me.”
Nachman walked past the bathroom, crossing the thirty feet or so to the television set. He put the key on top of the TV. He’d heard enough. He was leaving. As he drew his hand away, the key fell to the floor. It had stuck to his fingertips, which were slightly damp. So were his palms. He was perspiring. The key made a sharp clink when it hit the floor. Nachman bent quickly to retrieve it, as if to undo the noise. If they had heard the key, they knew he was in the apartment. He couldn’t leave. He would have to confront them. No. He would shout hello, pretend he’d just arrived. They would pretend that they didn’t know he’d heard them talking about him. Every word the three of them said would be a lie. He put the key back on the television, and it remained there as he drew his hand away.
He’d never before overheard people talking about him. It was unnerving. He’d been radically objectified, like an insensate rock, while his soul floated in the air. A general hurt spread within his chest and began to seep like a poison throughout his body. He couldn’t think clearly. It was hard to breathe. Again Nachman felt an impulse to leave, but he couldn’t simply walk back to the door. If they heard the door shut behind him, they’d feel terrible, knowing Nachman had heard them. Why should he care? Nachman cared.
The open suitcase on the bed was large and old-fashioned, made of yellow leather like a beautiful Gladstone, with straps and metal corners. Looking at the suitcase, Nachman felt as if he were doing something, not merely suffering. What he saw in the suitcase told him that Helen and Benjamin were packing for a trip. How nice. They did things together — showered, traveled, bickered, and said vile things about people who had never done them any harm. Their conjugal solidarity was daunting.
If Nachman had stayed in California, he’d have gone to work in his office at the Institute of Mathematics and never heard himself described as a drifty man who walks about with his fly unzipped. Nothing she had said was true, but she had said it. She actually said it. We were all going to die, but Helen Ferris had to kill people.
The voices persisted, but Nachman focused on the suitcase and tried not to listen. Shirts, underwear, dresses, trousers, and tennis shoes lay in a confused pile, and a stack of papers had been tossed on top. Nachman admired the indifference with which the expensive-looking clothes had been flung into the suitcase. He saw passports and airline-ticket envelopes among the papers and reached out to open them. His hands were shaking. His heart swelled as he intruded upon the privacy of strangers. How could he do this?
Before he’d engaged the question, he felt a soft pressure against his lower leg. He looked down and saw an exceptionally fat Siamese cat. It must have hidden under the bed, frightened of Nachman, but then decided he was no threat and emerged to brush against his leg. The cat leaped onto the bed and stepped into the suitcase, settling on top of the papers, as if it knew that Nachman had been about to look at them. The cat wanted Nachman’s attention. Nachman stroked its back. A fat purring friend come to comfort and console him. While he stroked the cat with one hand, he tried to lift the corners of the papers with the other.
There were no rugs or drapes in the room, nothing to absorb the voices, and the moisture in the air only sharpened them. Nachman wasn’t listening, but then, abruptly, the water noise ceased.
“He’s had a hard time,” Helen Ferris said. “He flew across the country to meet someone at the conference and he was stood up. I felt sorry for him.”
“If I were stood up, I wouldn’t tell anyone. Word gets around. People think you’re a schmuck.”
“He tried to be cheerful, but I could tell he was furious. The minute I said hello, he started venting like a maniac.”
Helen Ferris’s voice changed, becoming husky and teasing.
“Tell me, Benjamin,” she said.
“What?”
“That I am beautiful.”
“Come here.”
She laughed. “No, no, no.”
Nachman glanced toward the bathroom door. He imagined Helen Ferris’s dark-brown hair, cut level with her chin, now a wet black shining cap about her eyes and cheeks. Her mouth, free of lipstick, was softened and bloated by hot water. Nachman thought she’d look better without lipstick. He remembered her motherly sexy eyes. Barefoot, she was maybe five two. She stood as high as his chest. She had wide hips. Did she have large breasts?
She squealed. The note was pitched so high that Nachman thought — terrified — that she had entered the room and was staring at him with shock and revulsion.
He shut the suitcase instantly. On the cat. It thrashed against the leather. Instead of flipping the case open, Nachman pressed the lid down harder, as if to hide the evidence. Not too hard, not hurting the cat, but thus, unintentionally, Nachman gave it time to piss.