Felicity was no more than five feet four, if that tall. Her arms weren’t long. She had to lean with her whole torso as she moved about the chair. Her pelvis brushed against Nachman’s elbows, on either side of the chair. Merely inevitable given Felicity’s build, thought Nachman, but thinking about it, he wondered if there wasn’t a suggestion in her pelvis as she said, “My husband never talks to me. He comes home late. Tired. Never talks.”
Nachman’s heartbeat could be detected pulsing in the cloth that lay across his chest, and he felt himself hardening. He assumed Felicity meant that she had something in common with him: Nachman had no girl and Felicity had no man to talk to.
“Never talks?” said Nachman.
“Not touched me for many months.”
Nachman’s pleasure, which had been diffuse, suddenly concentrated. It became a feeling of urgency, as if Nachman was about to do something. He felt a rush of energy, a strong intention, a strong disposition to act. Nachman to the first power was becoming Nachman to the second, an entirely different creature, a stranger to himself, the agent of a potentiality. His hand jerked spasmodically and seized Felicity’s upper thigh, just below her crotch.
Hardly breaking the rhythm of her work, she twisted her hip to the side, and Nachman’s hand fell away. She’d experienced this before, apparently, and knew how to deal with it. There was nothing to say. She didn’t even interrupt her work. Nachman sat in the chair, rigid, vibrant, pulsing, burning with the unconsummated violence that had taken his hand, and burning with shame. In the mirror he and Felicity were all that he could see. The other chairs and customers and women didn’t exist.
Felicity said, “I could meet a friend sometimes, maybe.”
“Yes.”
“A man who would be gentle.”
Her voice was so gentle that Nachman hardly felt the reproach. He almost imagined that she was hinting, encouraging him to entertain a romantic supposition.
Soon the haircut was finished, and Felcity stood beside the chair as she had at the beginning, intently looking at Nachman’s head in the mirror.
“O.K.? Not too short?” she said cheerily.
Nachman said, “Perfect.”
He followed her to the cash register, his hand in his pants pocket feeling for bills. He felt a stick of gum, too, and pulled it out, nervously unwrapping it, and started chewing the stick of gum as he counted two tens and a five. She had appealed for a friend, and Nachman groped her. Money might make things worse, but he dropped the bills on the counter beside the cash register, and as Felicity started to give him his change, he said, “No, keep it,” and he looked at her with the face of a man chewing gum — somewhat cool, somewhat moronic — but Nachman didn’t know how to look at her, or what to do or say. His eyes were silent beggars.
Felicity said, “Oh, ha, ha. I like gum, too.”
She understood what he felt. Nachman realized she was trying to connect; trying to make him feel all right. Instantly Nachman searched his pockets for another stick of gum. He found none. Felicity’s smile saddened and became an ironical little pout, and she opened her eyes wide and shook her head No, No, as if sympathizing with a child, and then said, “Ha, ha, ha,” a high and utterly artificial laugh, but with such goodwill that Nachman laughed, too, and they laughed together as Nachman said goodbye, leaving the barbershop with a sense that he’d been forgiven.
Of Mystery There is No End
TRAFFIC MIGHT MOVE AT ANY MOMENT. He might still get to the dentist on time, but Nachman was pessimistic and assumed he would miss his appointment. He imagined himself apologizing to Gudrun, the dentist’s assistant, a pale Norwegian woman in her forties with white-blond hair. Nachman could almost hear his ingratiating tone. He was begging Gudrun to forgive him, swearing it would never happen again, when he felt himself being watched. He looked to his left. From the car next to his, a young woman stared at him. She looked away immediately and pretended to chat on a cell phone, as though indifferent to Nachman, who now stared at her. He saw heavy makeup and chemical-red hair. She was smoking a cigarette and tapping the steering wheel with her thumb, keeping time to music on her car radio. Nachman imagined reaching into her car, snatching away her cell phone and cigarette, turning off her radio, and ordering her to sit still. She would soon be reduced to quivering lunacy. Drivers in Los Angeles shoot each other for no reason, let alone rude staring.
Of course, Nachman would never shoot anybody. He pitied the woman who encumbered her head with a cell phone, cigarette, music, and unnatural colors. Compared to her, Nachman was a sublime being. He could sit for hours in silence, alone in his office, with only pencil and paper. Thinking. In fact, there was pencil and paper in the glove compartment. Nachman’s car could be his office. He would do math problems. Millions were stalled and rotting in their cars in Los Angeles, but Nachman had internal resources.
He leaned toward the glove compartment, and just as he touched the release button, his eye was drawn by a flash of black hair. He looked. Adele Novgorad, the wife of Nachman’s best and oldest friend, Norbert Novgorad, was standing on the sidewalk. Nachman wanted to cry out her name, but hesitated. He was sure it was Adele, though she was turned away from him. Few people in Los Angeles had such wonderfully black hair or skin so white. She was talking to a man who had an unusually large and intimidating mustache, and they stood close together — too close — facing each other in front of a motel, about ten yards from Nachman’s car. Horns blared behind Nachman. He heard the horns, but they meant nothing. Adele and the man had begun kissing.
Horns screamed, and at last they pierced Nachman’s trance. He looked away from Adele to the road, but for Nachman, still shocked by what he had seen, the avenue, the traffic, the buildings were all meaningless. He clutched the steering wheel. Fairfax Avenue was clear for a thousand yards straight ahead, but he didn’t step on the gas pedal. He looked back at Adele. She had stopped kissing the man, though she still clung to him; the man had now heard the horns and was looking over her shoulder at Nachman’s car. When the man’s eyes met his, Nachman stepped on the gas pedal and released the clutch. In the rearview mirror, he saw Adele separate from the man. He was pointing at Nachman’s car. Adele looked. Having seen too much, Nachman had been seen.
Driving south down Fairfax Avenue, Nachman felt something like the thrill of departure, as when a boat leaves the shore, but the thrill was unpleasant. He seemed to be departing from himself, or everything familiar to himself. Through the blur of feeling, a voice spoke to him: “You must tell Norbert what you saw on Fairfax Avenue.” It was Nachman’s own voice, commanding and severe.
He could drive to the community college where Norbert was a professor. And then what? Interrupt his lecture or a department meeting to tell him that he had seen Adele kissing someone? How ridiculous. Besides, if he told Norbert,Adele would hate him. She, too, was his friend. She had invited Nachman to dinner many times, and she always gave him a tight hug and a kiss when he arrived and again when he left, pressing her warm lips against his cheek. She cooked special dishes for Nachman. To please her, he cried out with pleasure at the first bite, and when she looked gratified, he took more delight in her expression than in the food. With her cooking and hugs and kisses, Adele made Nachman feel very important to her. He liked Adele enormously. The way she walked with her toes pointed out like Charlie Chaplin was adorable. He also got a kick out of her smile, which was usually accompanied by a frown, as if happiness were a pleasant form of melancholy. Nachman wanted sometimes to lean across the dinner table and kiss the lines in her brow. He suddenly heard himself speak again, in a cruel voice, as if he were a stranger to himself and had no regard for his feelings about Adele: “You must tell Norbert what you saw on Fairfax Avenue.”