He always kept his eyes closed when he touched me. I always watched him, and I always let him do all the work. I would never touch him voluntarily. He would have to take my hand and move it as if it were asleep, as if I"d fallen asleep from boredom. He"d hold my hand and place it on his body, then he would move underneath it. He was fair and freckled, and his p.e.n.i.s seemed wrinkled and unfresh to me, like the white of a fried egg cooked in a too-hot fat. Finally, in a kind of stoic despair at my lack of response, he would let go of my hand, enter me, and satisfy himself. Before he satisfied himself, though, he would work hard at satisfying me. And he did. But I was never grateful to him, as I was to the boys who took only their own pleasure and then hurried out the door. After he separated himself from my body, he would lie next to me and hold my hand. We would be on our backs, looking at the ceiling as if we were shipwrecked, as if we were waiting quietly for help to come.
After a few months of sleeping with Walt, it became clear to me that it hadn"t become a topic of conversation among my new friends. They hadn"t even noticed. I was beginning to find my own behavior to Walt insupportable; all his wanting was exhausting me, making me feel inadequate and cruel. And I was cruel to him all the time; I couldn"t stand any longer how easy he made it for me to be cruel. I told him we shouldn"t see each other over the summer so that we could think things over, just cool off.
He came to my house on the Fourth of July. "A friend of yours is on the phone," my father said. I hadn"t let my friends know I was staying in Queens for the summer, working for Con Edison in the billing department. When they"d asked what my plans were, I"d said vaguely, "Traveling, I guess." So I heard my father with an alarm, an alarm that turned to irritation when I heard that it was Walt.
"I"m in your neighborhood," he said. "I"m on your corner."
He tried to make it sound casual, as if it weren"t an hour subway ride from his house to mine.
I said absolutely nothing because I couldn"t think of what to say.
"Can I come over?" he asked. "I"m at the candy store on your corner."
"Well, if you"re here, you have to come, don"t you?" I said in the cruel voice I always used.
In ten seconds he was at the door. He was unshaven, his eyes were red, and his breath smelled as if he hadn"t eaten or slept in days. He had a harmonica in his back pocket, and he kept whipping it out and playing s.n.a.t.c.hes of melodies, then wiping his mouth with a handkerchief and putting the harmonica away. He didn"t say anything. He kept walking around the kitchen table, around and around it like a dog trying to find a comfortable place to rest. My mother stood by the kitchen sink offering him various things to eat and drink which he refused. Finally she just stood in front of the refrigerator wringing her hands.
"I came out here to tell you something," he said, pacing around the table. "You, I mean," he said looking at me. "You two can stay and listen to it, you"re her parents, I mean. I don"t have anything to say that you can"t hear."
I was terrified that he was going to tell them we"d had s.e.x. I believed that my parents could deal with my being a college student, traveling in an orbit that would take me from them, once and for all, only if they could convince themselves that I was still a virgin.
"I mean, you"re her parents, you"re the people in the world that care the most about her. Even if she doesn"t understand that, I understand it."
My parents thanked him for saying that. This gave him the signal to address his remarks only to them.
"This is why I"m here: because I figured something out. You know, I always thought she was better than I was. She treated me like she was better than me, and I believed her. I mean, she"s so beautiful, and she knows everything, and everybody likes her. And she"s a great artist. I mean, she"s a really great artist. In a hundred years everyone will know her name. Everyone. So I always believed she was better than me. But now I know she isn"t. Now I know I"m just as good as she is. l.u.s.t as good. I always was and always will be. l.u.s.t as good."
He sat down at the table, and he put his head in his hands. He began to weep. He wept in a way that told us he had forgotten we were there, as if he were in the room by himself. My parents and I looked at one another. None of us knew what to do. We just let him sit there, weeping, his whole body shaking with sobs. None of us went near him, or said anything to him, offered him anything: a handkerchief, a drink, a phone call, an embrace. Finally, my father stood up. He put his thumbs in his belt loops and walked over to the chair where Walt was sitting. He put his hand on Walt"s shoulder. "I"m going to take you home now, son," he said.
Walt pulled himself together. He took his handkerchief out and blew his nose. He began playing his harmonica, some song like "Home on the Range." My father backed the car out of the driveway to the front of the house. My mother shook Walt"s hand at the door. I don"t remember what I did.
That was twenty-five years ago, and I hadn"t seen him since then. He"d dropped out of school. I didn"t know where he went, and since I didn"t know anyone who knew him, I thought there was no way of my finding out. There might have been ways for me to find out about him- I could have called his parents" home- but I"d had no inclination to try.
I looked at him standing at the other side of the counter. He hadn"t changed in twenty-five years. He was still boyish, amateurish in his body, as he had been then. I remembered what his body looked like without clothes, that it had been inside mine, had taken pleasure from my body and given pleasure to me. I remembered that I had not been kind to him. Not once.
I understood that if he"d come to the store to hurt me, it would have been, somehow, his right. I showed him into the office. I closed the door. I told the young man working in the front of the store that we were not to be disturbed.
Looking more closely, I could see that his hair had thinned, and it made the bones of his skull seem a feature as expressive as eyes or lips. I kept trying to decide if I liked his looks, if other people would consider him attractive, if his looks would appeal more to women or to men. But I couldn"t bear to rest my eyes on him too long. He looked so unhappy; most people try to hide their unhappiness as if it were a wound that should be bandaged, covered up. Walt looked at me, freely exposing his unhappiness as if he thought it was something I had a right, or a duty, perhaps, to see.
"I know you"re married," he said. "You said so once on television. Who"d you marry?"
"A man."
"What man?"
"A lawyer. We live near Battery Park. I like the view."
"Does your husband like your food?"
"Everyone asks me that. He"s usually on a diet."
I looked down at the papers spread on the table. I shuffled them to indicate that I didn"t have much time.
"That"s nice that you live near the water. You always liked the water. You always wanted a view."
He mentioned the names of all my friends, and he sounded pleased when I said I still saw some of them.
"Keep that up," he said. "It"s important to keep up old friendships."
I said I thought it was.
"Do you think I should get married?" he asked. "I never can get married. I would like to."
"Anyone can get married," I said. "It"s the easiest thing in the world."
"I wanted to marry you," he said. "But I don"t anymore."
"That"s good," I said.
"You never wanted to marry me. Not for one minute."
He looked at me with great fixity, as if he were daring me to say yes or no. Then I began to feel again what I had always felt when I was with him. It was anger, anger that I could never feel only one thing with him, that it was always two, and always at the same time, and always exactly the opposite of each other. I knew perfectly well that he was right, that I hadn"t ever wanted to marry him, but at the same time, I seemed to have some fleeting sense that I"d thought it would be comfortable to marry someone who could understand my parents so that I wouldn"t have to tell funny stories about them, savage tales that would make them comprehensible. I could tell him that, that part of it. He would be happy, and I always partially wanted to make him happy. Then I remembered that he would always ask the kind of question that no one with good manners would ask and then not listen for the answer. While I was worrying about what to say, his attention had wandered to something else. So I just waited, looking down at the papers on my desk.
"I bet your parents are really glad about the way things turned out with you," he said. "That you have a good business, secure and everything."
"My parents are both dead," I said, hoping the words were brutal enough to banish their image, which I didn"t want right then.
"Well, they"d really be impressed with this food if they were alive. That"s some terrific food you have out there," he said, turning his back toward me, staring at the closed door.
I could tell by the way he"d looked at the food that he was really hungry, that hunger had perhaps been a problem for him, and might be once again. That he was hungry in a way that none of my customers was: a hunger that could lead to starvation. I didn"t ask him what he"d been doing all those years; if I had seen the details of his life, the small disasters following one after the other, piling up, I"d have entered his life and allowed him to enter mine. As it was, I had to allow the possibility that someone who had entered my body actually needed my food to keep alive. He was clean, but except for that he might have been one of the people who ripped open the garbage bags and made such a mess on the street that the other storeowners were complaining. One of the people who went to the shelter where we gave our leftover food.
"It isn"t my fault," I wanted to say. I escorted him out of my office. I was about to ask him what he might like to take home. Truffles? Eggplant terrine? Chicken with olives and artichoke hearts?
As I was imagining the combination of foods he might like, planning their arrangement in the dish, my eyes fell on his hands, freckled, hairless, dried out a little now with age. I began to wonder what they would feel like on my b.r.e.a.s.t.s, the rough surfaces twisting my nipples, teasing them into arousal. I thought of sitting on the floor, taking my shoes off first, and then my panty hose, then slowly, tantalizingly my bra, holding my b.r.e.a.s.t.s in my hands, proffering them to him like two floury potatoes. Then I thought of lying back, my arm underneath my head, opening my legs, gradually, deliberately, revealingly, watching him want me, listening to him say he"d do anything, anything, opening my legs a bit more, thrusting my hips up so he"d have to see, so he"d be able to see everything, so everything he wanted would be available to him, and he"d only have to approach and enter, that would be all he"d have to do. Abject, trembling with hunger for me, he would shudder soon inside me, and I would demand some satisfaction, indicating with an angry, imperious gesture (and no words) what I would have him do. I"d make him go on and on till I was finished, then I"d make him leave.
He was drumming his fingers on the counter, whistling noiselessly, then rubbing his hand over his mouth. I couldn"t stand the sound of it; I just couldn"t stand it one more minute. I was going to have to make him leave.
"Well, I hope you"ll be able to try some of our stuff sometime. Maybe sometime if you"re having a party, give me a call."
He looked at me in shock, almost in horror. "A party"s not the kind of thing that I would have."
"Yeah, well, you never know," I said, looking down at my papers. "It"s been great seeing you, but I"m up to my neck in work. Stop by again some time."
He turned his back and walked out of the store.
"Who the h.e.l.l was that," asked jasmine, six feet tall, from Madagascar.
"Honey," I said, "let that be a lesson to you. Be careful who you f.u.c.k in a moment of youthful carelessness. They can keep turning up for the rest of your life. I mean, like forever."
"Yeah, remember that T-shirt your friend Charlie had. Some guy with a beard and granny gla.s.ses and underneath it said "Someone I slept with in the sixties.""
"Please," I said, "spare me the story of my life."
I hated myself for the words I"d just said. I wanted to call Walt back, to tell him I was sorry, to give him a particularly extravagant package of food to take home with him, wherever it was he would go. But then my glance traveled out the window and I could see him, a little to the side of the gla.s.s door, peering in to get a glimpse of something of whose nature he was already far too well aware. I saw him watching jasmine and Armando laughing with me, our heads thrown back too far, our mouths too wide, too open. I knew that he knew exactly what was being said, exactly what was being laughed at. There was no reason for him to be seeing it. If only he had left and gone home when I sent him, he wouldn"t have had to know. He was always doing it to himself; it was always his fault; he was always seeing more than he needed to, more than would do him good. And that is why I never could forgive him. I could pity him, but I would always want to hurt him, and I would always find a way of doing it, and, however long it took- it could be thirty years next time, or fifty, or a hundred- he would come back. He would always come back.
I had to act as if I didn"t see him and walk into the back office, pretend to pore over the numbers printed on the spreadsheets, seeing him in my mind"s eye, alone on the sidewalk, watching the people coming into my store, carrying out in their full hands the things he couldn"t have. He must have known what I was thinking. He was only standing there to make me think these things; it was why he did the things he did, to make me do things, to make me think things that were even worse than the things I"d done.
I couldn"t help it. Nothing was my fault.
I let jasmine and Armando close up, clean out the showcase, take home what couldn"t be salvaged, put the rest into the refrigerator, swab the white enamel surfaces, mop the white-tiled floor, the occasional tile imprinted with a dark blue, pompous-looking fish. I pretended to be working on accounts; occasionally I would write down a false number, something with no connection to anything in the world. I waved to Jasmine and Armando when they said good night, not looking up, as if it would be fatal to remove my attention from what was spread before me even for the second that a civil farewell might require.
I must have sat there for two hours. The silvery twilight of a steamy June changed all at once, turned yellow blue, and then blue black. I called the car service. I stood for a while in the front part of the store, trying to breathe in what I could usually rely on: the satisfaction of knowing that all this was mine. I tried to revel in the calligraphy on the labels of the mustards and jams, the roseate and amber vinegars, the chocolates in the shapes of mermaids and sh.e.l.ls. But my eye kept falling on the empty showcases, which looked as if they had been stolen from, as if an invading army had entered and, at gunpoint, cleared them out. Their emptiness seemed shameful to me, ruinous. I turned the lights on in the store, inhaling the sage, the cinnamon, the cardamom, the chaste hominess of the peach pies sleeping underneath their plastic sheets.
Outside the store, the driver was waiting for me in the car. He was reading a book; the light falling on him from the car ceiling illuminated him and the book as if they were onstage. I didn"t know if he could see me. I was afraid to do one thing or another: leave the store or stay inside. Anything I would do seemed dangerous. Finally, the driver looked up, saw me, and waved. I knew what his hair oil would smell of: a fruity yet bracing smell, suggesting his determination to both cut a swathe and better himself and his family. I would be all right with him.
As I walked out to the sidewalk, the breeze lifted my skirt a bit and blew some papers past me, and a plastic bag. The driver opened the door for me, nodded a polite greeting, waited for me to settle myself, then closed the door with a civilized and plosive thud. I looked around to see if anyone was lingering. If Walt was.
The block seemed empty. But I knew better than to trust that. He might not seem to be there. He might have pretended to have gone. But he was there, even if I couldn"t see him at that moment. He was there; he was waiting for me. He always would be.
Storytelling.
I went to Florida to see my brother Ted because I was tired of reading and writing. I"d just finished the first draft of a novel- a labor of two years. I knew what was wrong with it- everything that was wrong with it- but I couldn"t think of how to fix it, or even how to take the first step. It came upon me that I had misspent my life: all those years laboring over words, words, words, and for what? What difference did it make to anyone? Who cared what I had to say? I had lost the appet.i.te for telling.
I wanted to visit Ted because, whatever else shifts in my life, one thing is constant: I have always loved my brother. Is this really so unusual or does it just seem so to me, that there should be a person you have loved and been loved by your whole life? What does this say, my finding it so unusual, about the age we live in, or the way I live?
Perhaps it isn"t love I"m talking about, constant love, but rather constant enjoyment, which is even more rare. I guess there must have been times in childhood when Ted and I didn"t get along, but I don"t remember them. I remember always a sense of safety with him, a safety of a rather special kind, because although he was older than I, he wasn"t the oldest child. Our parents had, in effect, had two families: three older children who were like aunts and uncles to us, whom we seemed hardly to know, who had moved out of the house and married before we started school, whose children were a bit of an embarra.s.sment to us, and whom we embarra.s.sed.
Our parents were worn-out by the time we came and it seemed to me later (though it"s nothing I would have thought of as a child, or even while they were alive: they died when Ted and I were in our twenties, in a car accident) they were a little abashed by our existence, proof as it was of their untimely fecundity. They tended to us- we were physically well cared for- but they had no interest in our entertainments. Mostly, they left us alone. We had the orphan"s luxury without the orphan"s anxiety. We understood that our parents didn"t think about us much, and so we couldn"t go to them for understanding. Ted guessed, though I don"t think it dawned on me, that our parents couldn"t be looked to as a source of pleasure, either. We divided the world up, then, into kingdoms or protectorates of which he and I were in charge. His domain was pleasure; mine was understanding. That meant that the smooth movements of home life- that which made it more than bearable: decoration, desserts, no hurt feelings, no anger that lasted after sundown- were his charge. He made things happen and later I would suggest what they had meant.
He was popular in school, an astonishing social success, but his grades weren"t good. I had no friends but was valedictorian. So he went to a poor state school and I to Radcliffe on a scholarship.
We were proud of each other in those years, but our orbits didn"t touch. Happily, I watched him drive by in convertibles, picked up for tennis or for swimming by bronzed G.o.ds, their golden hair absorbing more than its fair share of light. Sweetly, every year he drove me to Cambridge in our sky blue Rambler, the only family car. Then after college he came back to New York and worked for an advertising agency, where he met Pete.
It would be wrong to say that Ted came out to me: there was no need. That he would have a man seemed to me unremarkable. That we could keep it from our parents the expected thing. Pete and I liked each other; we liked to laugh at the same things, and we both loved Ted. Ted was twenty-five when they moved to Fort Lauderdale and opened a wallpaper business. They"ve been there ever since. Twenty-five years.
They enjoy their comforts. And I travel to see them when I want comforting. Their house (which, as Ted says, is a living hymn to wallpaper) looks over a golf course. It has all the things I enjoy that I wouldn"t think of having: a refrigerator with crushed ice that appears, magically, through the door, a swimming pool, a hot tub, a shower as big as my Upper West Side kitchen.
Ted picks me up at the airport. He takes my winter coat: "You still own one of these?" He carries my bag, complains about the weight of my laptop.
"We"ll bury all this under a palm tree while you"re here. But I"m not even going to give you the time to unpack. We"ll lock everything in the trunk. We"re having lunch by the water. I want to introduce you to jean-Claude."
"So who"s Jean-Claude?"
"Jean-Claude is an expert on bathroom lighting. Particularly boat bathroom lighting. He works on our upmarket jobs. That"s where we met. He"s from Gren.o.ble. If he"s not from outer s.p.a.ce. I"m never quite sure. There"s something a little extraterrestrial about him. But as our grandmother would have said, he"s good for what ails you. At the very least, he"s awfully pretty."
He pointed to a table where a man was sitting alone, a man of about our age, fifty or so. He was attractive, certainly, but I wouldn"t have called him pretty; there was nothing fine or fresh about his looks, and nothing girlish. His hair was thick, dark brown with a few strands of gray. His eyes were bluish green and gave the simultaneous appearance of being hooded and alert, as if he couldn"t decide whether to succ.u.mb to something or spring for its throat. His shirt was Polo, navy blue, tucked into khaki trousers. He wore loafers without socks.
"So," he said, before I had sat down. "You"re wondering whether to start coloring your hair. Don"t. I love the silver. It makes you look experienced. People aren"t going to want to take advantage of you. But with that wonderful skin, those fabulous eyes, of course they"ll be intrigued. And, you begin dyeing, it"s nothing but enslavement."
"This is Jean-Claude," said Ted.
"I"ll bet you want her to color her hair," he said. "So you look younger."
"I want her to start when I start."
"Edward, please. I can"t begin to tell you the calamity of someone with your complexion embarking on such a course. So, you"re depressed," he said to me. "What happened? Have you lost your lover?"
"I don"t have a lover," I said. "I"ve been married for twenty years."
"And how old is your husband?"
"Fifty-eight."
"You need a lover."
"My problems aren"t about love. They"re about work. I"m tired of my work."
"I understand completely. Then you must travel. When I"m tired of my work, I go somewhere completely new. That"s how I got to America."
The waiter came by and took our drink order. lean-Claude ordered Beaujolais nouveau, which had just arrived that week.
"Tell me about your coming to America," I said. Recognizing that I was feeling curiosity, I realized how long I"d gone without.
"Yes, tell me," my brother said. "I"ve never known."
"First, we take a moment to appreciate the beautiful young waiter. If you"re young, you don"t have to do anything. l.u.s.t your health and youth is beautiful. Look at the fresh color of his lips, even his gums are beautiful when he smiles. Because everything of him is healthy it says, "Nothing will grow old and sick and dead.""
"How"s Ray?" my brother said.
"Terrible. Suffering. Dying."
"lean-Claude volunteers with the AIDS crisis center. He takes people to their doctors" appointments, helps them with meals. This guy Ray that he helps is, what is he, lean-Claude, twenty-three? You"re very good to him."
"Well, what I am feeling is it"s the least I can do. It"s my way of saying "Thank G.o.d," when I am spared. I am not sick, and really I deserve to be sick, so much more than these other people. I mean, I was really promiscuous. Not only that, I made a living off it."
"Being sick isn"t something anyone deserves," I said.
"I know what you mean. But I did all the things you are supposed to do to get it. And I"m spared. So I do this in grat.i.tude."
"You were telling us how you came to America."
"Well, of course, it starts in Gren.o.ble. I"m a b.a.s.t.a.r.d, I mean literally. Let"s say that right away, because it isn"t something that bothers me or something I try to hide. It"s like the color of my eyes: just something that"s there, that I was born with. So why try to hide it? My mother was very young when I was born and she left for Canada with a man when I was six. My grandparents were kind and good, but too old for a wild boy like I was.