"What do you think they"d say? That you were a nasty girl, or an angel of mercy? lezebel or Florence Nightingale?"
"There"s no need to be unpleasant."
"I don"t do it out of need. I just seem to be rather good at it. Which is why I find myself alone most of the time."
He was challenging her to meet his eye, but she wouldn"t.
"It"s remarkable how many friends a death sentence brings you. For instance, yourself. You"d never have let me have you if you didn"t think I was on my way to never-never land."
"That"s not true."
He snorted. "Oh, get off it. You"re not going to tell me you"re fond of me, or that you found me strangely irresistible. You f.u.c.ked me because you think I"m going to die."
"Nigel, there"s no need for this."
"You"re feeling quite good about the whole thing," he said. "You feel generous and mature, and womanly. You gave of yourself. The supreme sacrifice. Like wartime. Give him a little of what he fancies before the cannonball gets him. But suppose I told you it was all bulls.h.i.t? Suppose I told you the biopsy report came back and I was given a clean bill of health?"
"I don"t believe you," she said.
"Oh, my dear, it"s quite true. I did have a tumor. You see here." He took her hand and made her feel an indentation in his thigh. "The quacks said it was quite possibly malignant. Well, I was scared at that, and I fell apart, rather. And I told people, I thought, why the h.e.l.l not. And people were wonderful. I mean, f.u.c.king heroic. Better to me than they"d ever been. And of course whose parental bosom did I want to rest my head on but good old Helen and d.i.c.k? Normally, I wouldn"t have had the nerve to invite myself. But I called up, told them the news calmly, like a good soldier. So they said, of course, dear, come right over on the f.u.c.king car ferry. Only just before I left, the doctor called. Quite thrilled. Benign, old chap, he said. Apparently I"ll live forever.
"Well, I couldn"t tell Helen and Richard that. Think how disappointed they"d be. Dying, I had a certain tragic interest. Healthy, I"m just a pathetic pain in the a.s.s. And think how they"ve always loved being the still clear pond for the world"s lame ducks. Why, they wouldn"t know what to do with themselves if everyone"s lives were shipshape. They must know it. Certainly you know it. Still, they are a couple of old dears. And not as young as they once were. Which is why I know you"ll keep our dirty little secret. Won"t you, love?"
He reached over to kiss her.
"You"re disgusting," she said.
"That"s as maybe, but I"ve just f.u.c.ked you, haven"t I?"
"Get out," she said.
"Right you are. And I"ll clear out in the morning. Everyone will understand that I"m abashed after my little weeping fit last night. And I"ll let them know you were a real help. A great comfort."
She wanted to go to the bathroom to brush her teeth. Her mouth felt foul from his foulness. But she didn"t want him to hear her doing it.
She wondered if it were possible to make him believe that the whole thing meant nothing to her. That she went to bed with anyone, absolutely everyone, because it was easier than saying no. But she had no idea how she would do that.
He wasn"t stupid. He seemed to understand things very well. He"d even made her see the Morriseys in a way she must always have known was possible, but had always avoided. Were they parasites, feeding off the misery of others for their own prosperity? Was the misfortune of those they called their friends the elixir that kept them safe? That kept them from the kinds of risks that could distort or wreck a life? The kinds of risks she"d taken, and her parents had, and Nigel and his wife and his wife"s girlfriend? But not the Morriseys. And not their children.
She"d have to stay a couple more days so it wouldn"t appear that her leaving had to do with Nigel"s. Perhaps the day after tomorrow they"d all go to Coole Park. She"d take them out to a good restaurant. They"d talk about Nigel, the pity of it, the waste. They would say she must come back to Bishop"s House again soon. Perhaps next summer.
But she wouldn"t. She couldn"t now. And when the Morriseys came back to New York, what would happen then? They were getting older. They"d be needing help. But there would be hundreds of people who"d want to help them, grateful, eager people. They wouldn"t need her.
After a while they might say, "We haven"t heard much of Lavinia lately." They"d a.s.sume it was because she was happy.
The Translator"s Husband.
I never told Barbara about being married before. It didn"t occur to me that there was any point. It had happened long before I met her, it was very brief, and I couldn"t imagine they"d cross paths.
Brenda was very young when we married. So was I, of course. We were both students. She was over on a year"s exchange from Birmingham. She wasn"t too serious about her studies. She had an ear for languages, but that didn"t mean she was a real student. A kind of giggly girl, and there was a market for that kind of giggly English girl then, in the late sixties. The Beatles and all. You know that kind of blonde girl with milky skin and chunky calves, the kind that her own kind would have called "a thoroughly good sort." The kind who wouldn"t mind a friendly slap on the rump from a stranger who"d had an extra beer or two. The kind who wouldn"t take things the wrong way. She was really good-natured, Brenda.
She left me for someone else. A ski instructor. I was the one who"d hired him. I was the one who thought I needed help, she thought the whole thing was a big joke. She could have easily broken her leg and spent the entire time in the hospital. She was completely unprepared. Hans, his name was. He was Austrian. They spoke German to each other. I was completely in the dark.
I suppose I was always too serious for her. "You"re so serious, d.i.c.kie," she used to say. No one but Brenda called me d.i.c.kie. I used to be called d.i.c.k, but now everyone calls me Richard. She said she liked it, that I was so serious, but I think she got tired of it pretty soon. My mother"d warned me; she said Brenda was flighty. I was working hard; it wasn"t easy getting accepted in comp lit at Indiana in those days. I had to pa.s.s proficiencies in French and Spanish, which is how I met her: she was offering Spanish tutoring. I mean, I couldn"t be out on the town every night with the kind of exams I had to take. I don"t blame her, but it"s impossible not to connect my failing the prelims with her leaving me for Hans. Well, they were very compet.i.tive, a lot of people didn"t make it. I"m not the only one in the world with a terminal master"s. Barbara says that sounds like some kind of mortal disease, when I mention it. But it qualified me well for what became my job. I teach French and Spanish in a very fine prep school. One of New York"s very very best, and that means among the best in the English-speaking world.
That"s how I met Barbara: her son was failing Spanish. I really pulled him through. She was very grateful. A lot more grateful than Nathan was. He was never much of a student. Which is surprising in the child of two such accomplished parents. Barbara"s former husband is a neurologist and anyone who has the sense of literary fiction knows her name.
I hadn"t heard from Brenda in fifteen years when I met Barbara. We"ve been married for twelve years now, and we dated for three years before we tied the knot. "Tied the knot." That"s the sort of expression Barbara laughs at me for. She says I"m the only person she knows of who qualifies for the description "quaint." Sometimes she calls me her old-fashioned beau.
She teases me a lot, and I don"t mind it really. It"s all in good fun. All her friends join in, sometimes it might seem a bit rough, but I never let on when they"ve cut a bit close to the bone. I think her friends consider me a babe in the woods. They"d be surprised if they knew what a lively time Barbara and I have between the sheets, and they"d be shocked at the number of students" mothers who made their way into the foldout bed in the studio where I lived before I moved into Barbara"s duplex on Park and Eighty-ninth.
Barbara"s novels are translated into several languages. I used to keep track of the French and Spanish. You"d be appalled if you knew how many mistakes are let through the net. I used to make a list and send it to the translators, but Barbara told me to forget it, they wouldn"t change anything and it just made her look "compulsive." Is there a line between compulsion and accuracy, I asked. She said I should just relax, that she had better things in mind for my energy. And she pulled me into bed.
So I never even looked at the Spanish translation of her latest book, which is why it wasn"t till we were actually in Madrid that Brenda"s name jumped at me from the page. Or rather, hit me like a ton of bricks.
What were the chances of it happening? That my first wife should turn out to be the translator of my second? I mean, really. I couldn"t have antic.i.p.ated it. If I could I certainly would have told Barbara about Brenda. But it wouldn"t have occurred to me that Brenda would turn out to be that intellectual. Translating someone on Barbara"s level. I mean, she left me for a ski b.u.m. And Barbara is of the very first water. It only just dawned on me that both my wives have two-syllable names beginning with b and ending with a. I don"t suppose it means anything really.
I guess it"s a good sign that Brenda didn"t write to Barbara first crack out of the box to tell her what they had in common. But then it"s possible she didn"t know. Likely even. My name isn"t mentioned on the book jackets. Only "Barbara Hanover lives in New York." She thinks more information is vulgar.
It isn"t such a big thing really, except for that one little sentence. I mean, if Brenda had translated any of her other novels it wouldn"t have been a major event at all. And it"s only that one sentence, just a very small detail really. It"s very likely Brenda didn"t even notice.
Barbara likes me telling her things about the s.e.xual behavior of the women in my past. It isn"t that it turns her on. "Material" is what she calls it. I mean she is a novelist. Human behavior is her bailiwick. It would be like keeping the details of a disease to myself if I were married to a doctor. I simply wouldn"t feel I had the right to do it.
Brenda did have this odd little tic. She liked to be on top, that was the only way she liked it. There"s nothing so unusual in that. But when she climbed on she"d start saying this nursery rhyme. Quite a silly thing, really. "Ride a c.o.c.k horse to Banbury Cross / To see a fine lady upon a white horse." She would get more and more excited as she said, "Rings on her fingers and bells on her toes." And when she got to the word "ever" in "She shall have music wherever she goes," well, that was her point of climax. You have to admit it was noteworthy.
Barbara used it in this novel. The one Brenda translated. It"s not spoken by a major character or anything. Just a little fling of the protagonist. The whole episode between them is over in two pages. It"s hardly even there at all. And I was married to her less than a year.
I told Barbara"s Spanish publisher he didn"t have to have the translator come to Barbara"s interviews. My Spanish was flawless, I told him. I made a point of saying that Barbara and I were very much on a wavelength. He kept saying. "No, no, my dear sir. You must rest. Or see our beautiful city." I"d already told him I"d never been to Madrid before. There wasn"t any way I could unsay that. Water over the dam.
The day we were supposed to meet Brenda, I told Barbara I was feeling sick. She"s used to my having a jumpy stomach, particularly when we travel, so she didn"t bat an eye.
I"m sitting on the couch in our suite in the Ritz on the Place Cybele. Right down from the Prado. G.o.d knows how many thousands of pesos it"s costing a night. I"ve now finished the fourth little bottle of Glenfiddich in the minibar. I"m starting on the fifth.
I"ve been sitting by the window for an hour waiting to snap to attention the minute I see Barbara walking up the plaza, approaching the entrance to the hotel. It"s been a very long lunch. But I guess that"s a Spanish custom.
Oh, dear, Barbara doesn"t seem to be alone. She"s with another woman. It seems to be Brenda. I can see them walking up the plaza now, between the rows of plane trees. Their arms are linked. They are swinging their free arms, the ones that are holding their black purses, which are very similar.
That"s a relief. I"m sure now everything will be all right. I hadn"t remembered they"re exactly the same height. Barbara colors her hair platinum. For all I know Brenda might still be a natural blonde. I mean, it has been thirty years.
They don"t look a bit angry.
They"re both laughing.
Now they"re under the awning. Now I can"t see them. They must be waiting for the elevator. They"ll be here any minute.
I am casually but quite correctly dressed. Brooks Brothers khakis, yellow Lacoste shirt, Bally loafers with ta.s.sels. Brenda will be quite impressed. Last time she saw me I got my clothes in the Salvation Army. And I was thin as a scarecrow. I work out three times a week with Barbara at the gym. We"re both fit as fiddles.
I"ll be very casual when they"ll come in. I think I"ll say, "Of all the gin joints in the world, you have to come into this one." I"ll say it in a Humphrey Bogart voice. I"m sure she"ll laugh.
Now Barbara"s key opens the door.
I close my eyes. I hear them both still laughing.
"Richard, darling," Barbara croons.
"d.i.c.kie, love," cries Brenda.
I must say they"re both being marvelous about it. They both keep saying "what a hoot."
We all go out to supper. They say it has to be my treat. Which is a little hard, since the publisher was prepared to pick up the tab for all Barbara"s expenses. Under the circ.u.mstances, though, I suppose I have to go along with the gag.
Brenda introduces me to the waiter as "our husband." He looks puzzled, but he nods and smiles. I think they"ve both had a bit too much champagne. Dom Perignon. Of course, I don"t begrudge them. I really should be celebrating too when I think of what the situation could be.
Every now and then one of them breaks into "ride a c.o.c.k horse," and they both fall over laughing. They seem to get along like a house on fire. I"ve hardly got a word in edgewise the whole evening.
Not that I have that much to say.
The Epiphany Branch.
Florence Melnick went to the library every day. Well, not every day: the library was closed on Sundays and legal holidays. Christmas was considered a legal holiday although in her opinion there was nothing legal about it, it was religious, and Florence was Jewish and Christmas was nothing but another day to her. So she resented it that everything was closed up on that day. She thought it violated the principle of separation of church and state, which had been so important to the Founding Fathers.
The branch of the New York Public Library that was, unfortunately in her opinion, closest to where she lived was called the Epiphany Branch. It was on Twenty-third Street between Third and Lexington Avenue, or, as everyone who didn"t have something wrong with them said, Third and Lex. That was one thing she took comfort from when she moved there from Brooklyn: it seemed friendly that she"d be living on a street that had a nickname.
But she"d never been happy in the neighborhood, never. She"d never felt that she belonged. In the old days in Flatbush, she"d known everybody, but everybody had moved out when they had the chance. Including her, when her nephew Howard had presented her with the opportunity. Her sister Ethel had had a stroke. Ethel was a widow and Florence never married. Why exactly she never knew. She would have been willing with the right kind of man. But not a fool, not someone with nothing in his head except what was between his legs, not someone with no ideals who only thought about food and money. Florence loved to read, she always hoped to meet someone who loved to read, but it hadn"t happened. Not with any of the men she"d met in the forty-five years she"d worked as a saleswoman at Lerner Shops on King"s Highway. Of course, you could say, in her line of work, retail clothing for women, it wasn"t that likely that you"d meet so many men. Salesmen you"d meet, but rarely of the right type.
So she"d retired after forty-five years. They gave her a lovely party and a silver tray with her name engraved. Everyone said, "Keep in touch, Florence," but when she tried to think who she really wanted to keep in touch with, no one came to mind. Her parents had died. Ethel was in Manhattan, but she had a life of her own, they didn"t share too many interests. But when she had the stroke and Howard made the suggestion- tactfully trying to point out that Flatbush wasn"t what it had been, and that his mother had a two-bedroom apartment that he was paying the maintenance on, not chicken feed but nothing compared to what a nursing home would be, to say nothing that his mother would rather die first- well, it all seemed to make a great deal of sense.
And really there was nothing she really missed about Brooklyn except the Main Library at Grand Army Plaza. That was a library: marble and carpets and big ceilings and mahogany. They knew how to use materials in those days. They spared no expense. The library was right on the park, and the other side was a square with a statue of a soldier. When she walked into the door, the word "cavernous" came to her mind: empty s.p.a.ce, dark air. Even the air was scholarly. You could take a book off the stacks, walk up the stairs, and read it in the reading room. Real wood paneling. The Epiphany Branch was one big room, materials skimped everywhere. But what could she do; it was where she lived, she was seventy-eight, she wasn"t up to much traveling. Not in Manhattan.
Ethel only lived two months after Florence moved in. And there she was, in the middle of Manhattan, but no, not in the middle, it wasn"t really midtown. It was the middle in the worst sense. It was in the middle of a lot of things, downtown from the theater district and the museums, uptown from the village, which she"d always wanted to explore. She had come too old to Manhattan; the streets overwhelmed her and she never ventured uptown to the Forty-second Street Library or to the Metropolitan Museum, which she"d thought she"d visit quite often when she"d imagined herself a Manhattanite. She didn"t move far beyond a five-block radius. Even so, she didn"t really know anybody in the neighborhood. n.o.body seemed to speak English, or at least no English she understood.
Once she went into one of those coffee places, she thought maybe she"d meet people there. But they were very young and asking for things she"d never heard of- skim lattes, macchiatios. And they charged what she considered an arm and a leg. And the conversations were ridiculous, people talking about horoscopes: "Are you a Capricorn, that means you"re a warrior, but there must be something rising, because I not only see aggressiveness, I feel gentleness as well. You"re a person in conflict. Like, I see that you"re really a people person but sometimes you need to be alone." "I can"t believe you see that," the girl said. The man in his fifties with a ponytail and the girl no more than twenty-five, a lovely blonde girl. Scandinavian-looking, though she didn"t have an accent. She sounded well-educated, although Florence didn"t understand how a well-educated person could believe in something like astrology. "I see it completely," the guy said. Well, girlie, I hope you see he"s not interested in horoscopes, just hanky-panky, Florence wanted to say. She left the place disgusted. She would never go back.
The only good thing she could say about the Epiphany Branch was that it was convenient to her apartment. Other than that, it had nothing to recommend it. Although she thought the name was interesting. She thought it had some kind of other meaning, so she looked it up in the dictionary. It meant "manifestation," a sudden understanding or revelation. She loved dictionaries; she wondered if people would be surprised if they knew she personally owned four different dictionaries: a Webster, a Random House, the American Heritage, the New Collegiate. If she"d had a lot of money she would have bought herself a copy of the O.E.D. But that would be ridiculous. She wasn"t that kind of person. But she very much liked looking things up in it in the library. Although she sometimes worried who"d touched the magnifying gla.s.s before her. There were all kinds in that library, all kinds.
People you wouldn"t think belonged in libraries. People who didn"t even know how to be quiet. In her day, librarians were strict about enforcing quiet. And people respected them for it. They respected libraries as places of quiet. Now, people seemed to her to be making all kinds of noises left and right. When she complained about it once, the librarian said, "We think of a library as not just a place where people come to read, but a community resource center." What the h.e.l.l does that have to do with people keeping their voices down, she wanted to say. But she didn"t want the librarian to turn against her. She was very good at getting things from interlibrary loan.
But there really were all kinds. The boy who always wore one of those undershirts with the straps, winter and summer, with a kerchief on his head. Very well-built, like a lot of black fellows. Studying some kind of mathematics. But he"d say the problems out loud, and not quietly. She supposed he deserved credit for trying to better himself, but he disturbed her, and he frightened her a little, so she didn"t want to move, in case he took it the wrong way.
Some of the people in the library didn"t seem completely clean to her. A couple of the men never seemed to shave, and some of the older ones gave off that smell of old men who never wash their hair. She hoped she didn"t give off some kind of old-lady smell, but she showered every day, and also used deodorant and talc.u.m power, which she was sure these types had never heard of. Or if they"d heard, they"d long ago forgotten. Some of the Chinese people looked very respectable, but she didn"t know if they spoke English. Some younger people came in to use the computers, and sometimes they"d curse so loud everyone in the place could hear them. Because of having trouble with the machines. And some people just seemed crazy. They made big fusses about nothing. There was one man, a young man too, he never wore socks, whatever the weather, and he was always calling the librarians morons and idiots and saying, "Do you have to be an imbecile to work here, is it a requirement or does it just help?" She thought the librarians were very patient with him. In their shoes, she would have been tempted to kick him out for good. Forbid him entry forever. She wished they would, for her own sake. And she knew there were other people who agreed with her, but everyone pretended not to notice him, whenever he started up.
Some people, and mostly they were older, came in, went to the bathroom, sat down with a pile of books, and fell asleep on top of them. She was very careful about never falling asleep. At her age, she thought it made a bad impression.
No, it wasn"t the best, the Epiphany Branch, but still there was a lot to learn in this world if you applied yourself. She felt she was giving herself the education she"d never had a chance for when she was younger. Now everyone went to college; there was no doubt she"d be considered college material nowadays. But then it was a big deal, especially for a girl. She was determined to make up for what she hadn"t been given; sometimes she had a daydream that a very distinguished woman, someone about her age, would engage her in conversation about a book, and, after a few cups of tea, maybe a few lunches in the diner, she"d say, "Florence, even though you have no formal education, you have much more learning than many with a college degree." She could imagine the woman very clearly. She had fine white hair that she clipped to the back of her head with a silver bar-rette. She had eyegla.s.ses with silver frames that hung around her neck on a silver chain. She always wore gray sweaters or gray silk blouses that had a touch of lavender in them. Very well-made.
Florence would a.s.sign herself a subject and then read a lot of books on it until she felt she"d really got it under her belt. By which she meant ten books on the subject; she wouldn"t quit unless she"d read ten books, cover to cover, even if she was feeling a little bored. She"d make notes; write down words she didn"t understand, look them up in the dictionary and copy down all the various meanings. Now it was the Civil War. Before that, it was Ancient Greece. The cradle of democracy. She certainly would have rather lived in Athens than Sparta, she had no doubts about that.
She never talked to anyone at the library, but there were people that she recognized, people she thought of a better type. They kept to themselves and she kept to herself; they all seemed to like it that way. The last thing she wanted was to strike up a friendship with someone in the neighborhood who she"d never be able to get off her back. Sometimes someone looked possible at first, but she was always disappointed. Like the woman she thought looked so refined, but not stuck-up, wearing a very nice sweater set, Fair Isle, they called it. She wondered where Fair Isle was. She wondered where she could look that information up. The words "Fair Isle" kept going through her mind; she imagined it was an island somewhere in Scandinavia, but it was always green, in spite of the cold, and the ground was always covered with a light green moss and deer ate berries off the bushes there. Fair Isle. She thought she might get herself a Fair Isle sweater. Although maybe it was too late, she was too old for that. She considered asking the woman where she"d got her sweater set. That would be a good way of striking up a conversation.
But when the woman got up and put her coat on, Florence was glad she"d never spoken up. On her lapel was a very large b.u.t.ton that said "Lose weight now, ask me how." Florence knew that was ridiculous. She"d never had a weight problem, but she knew that if she did she would never just walk up to somebody, some stranger with a b.u.t.ton, tap her on the shoulder and say, "Excuse me, how do I lose weight now?" Any fool would know that wasn"t the way to go about it. And if the woman didn"t know that, she was a fool. Or money-hungry.
That morning she thought the older man in the plaid shirt and the tweed cap might be worth talking to. She thought he looked like a cultured gentleman; he wore tortoisesh.e.l.l gla.s.ses and his nails were nicely kept. Was coming to the Epiphany Branch lowering her standards? Did she now think anyone who looked like he bathed regularly was a gentleman? Because she was wondering why this man didn"t take off his cap. A gentleman wouldn"t wear a hat indoors. But maybe it was doctor"s orders. Maybe he had to keep his head warm at all times. Or he might have been some kind of intellectual. European. The plaid shirt and the tweed jacket, and then that tie in the abstract expressionist pattern. She had recently learned the term "abstract expressionism." Before, she would just have called it modern art. She learned it when she read that book on art by that nun. A very intelligent woman. Florence thought it was a shame she hadn"t done anything about her teeth. But maybe it was against her religion. Florence was glad that in Judaism there was nothing against looking your best.
She herself would never have mixed prints and plaids. But then she thought maybe that was the style in Europe and she shouldn"t judge. She wondered if he had a college degree from Europe, maybe a Ph.D. She wondered what he had done for a living. Probably not a doctor or a lawyer, not with that kind of mixing of plaids and prints. She thought he probably was some kind of college professor. Maybe some kind of scientist. Maybe he had worn one of those white coats to work every day so he wasn"t used to making choices about fashion. Maybe he was a widower, and his wife used to make sure his shirts went with his ties.
She sat across from him when she arrived that morning; she was pretty sure he"d know how to be quiet, that she wouldn"t be disturbed. As always, she was curious about what people were reading. Often she"d try to get a look, although sometimes she was sorry she did, like the time the week before when she saw the young blonde woman reading the "Alternate Therapies" section of Dr. Susan Love"s Breast Book. And then she had to think about the girl having breast cancer. A man came up and stood behind her, put his hand on her shoulder, and started reading along with her. Florence wondered if it would ruin their s.e.x life if the woman lost her breast. She kept thinking of what the breast would look like on the operating table after the doctor had cut it off. What did they do with cut-off b.r.e.a.s.t.s? Florence had made herself go back to her book on the Battle of Antietam. It did no good to dwell on unpleasant things. That had always been her motto, and she believed that it had served her well.
The European gentleman was reading a book called The Nothing That Is: A Natural History of Zero. So perhaps he had been a mathematician. But after fifteen minutes, he put that book down and walked around the room. She followed him with her eyes, trying not to. She saw that he went to another table, picked up a book that had been left there by someone else, and brought it back to the place where his coat and hat were, where he"d settled himself originally. This book was called Radical Walking Tours of New York. He sat down with a smile and a satisfied sigh, as if he were about to tuck into a good meal. But in about ten minutes, he got up again, walked around the room as he had before, and picked up another book that someone had left on another table. Again, he brought it back to his original place. This one was called How I Play Golf by Tiger Woods.
Florence could not concentrate on her own book, a history of women in the Civil War. She"d been very absorbed in it before she started paying attention to the European gentleman. But maybe he wasn"t a gentleman. A gentleman would not put a book down so quickly, having read so little in it, just leaving it aside for something else. She felt the disrespect in it. The way she figured it, an author had worked very hard on a book. Whatever you thought of it, it probably had a lot of information in it that someone had spent a lot of time putting together, and you had no right to put it down until you"d finished it to the very end.
It drove her crazy to see him flitting around like that. Every time someone left a book on one of the tables he picked it up and read it. And there were a lot of books on the tables; the librarians preferred it that you leave the books on the table rather than putting them back. Too much mis-shelving, one of them, a Puerto Rican girl, had told her. There was no rhyme or reason to what he did. Sitting down, picking up one book, putting it down. It drove her crazy.
Florence was trying to read her book on women in the Civil War. And not just nurses, either. Then she felt a call of nature. She never liked using the bathroom in the library; sometimes men didn"t put the seat down and she"d have to touch the seat herself when who knows who had been there before her. She didn"t know why some men didn"t have the consideration. It was beyond her, that kind of mind.
When she came back to the room, he was sitting in the chair next to hers, where her coat was, a place that was obviously still hers. He had taken the book off the top of her pile- underneath it was a dictionary of American history and one of American biography, and a book with maps of the Confederate states. He was reading her book on women in the Civil War. As far as she was concerned, this const.i.tuted a bald-faced theft.
She was a lady, though; she had no intention of stooping to his level.
"Excuse me," she said, "you seem to be inadvertently reading my book."
He gave her a very warm smile, she thought, considering the circ.u.mstances. "It"s not inadvertently, not inadvertently at all. I"m reading it precisely because it is yours. I spent a lifetime as a scholar, devoting myself to one specialty: Romance philology. Now, I"m picking up knowledge in a different way. I like to wander after people, like a kind of gleaner in the fields of knowing: I pick up what someone else has put down. I think of it as a kind of quilt made up in a community of learning. I just pick up a sc.r.a.p of what someone else has taken in, and with that sc.r.a.p I connect with that person. It seems much friendlier to me."
Florence didn"t know when she had ever been so angry. Romance philology. She didn"t even know what it was, but the man must have had to study for a long time to even be involved in something like that. So he had had all the advantages. Languages, probably. All those hours studying, with people who respected him, took him seriously. The greatest gift a person could be given in this world. And what did he do with it? Did he sit down and put his mind to something, his mind that had been trained like a professional"s? What did he do? He picked up and put down, as if it were nothing, as if books were toys, as if learning was just a game. He was nothing but a spoiled brat. Learning was sacred, and he was treating it like a game. You didn"t treat sacred things like a game, you just didn"t do it in this world. Not for her money. Or he could do it if he wanted to, but he wasn"t going to get away with it.
She tried to put on her most judgmental face. So he would know she had authority. Where her authority came from she wasn"t sure for a minute. Then she figured it out: she had authority because she knew what was important and what wasn"t. Because she knew what was what.
"You"re nothing but a b.u.t.terfly," she said. Even though it was a library, she was thinking of the movies. She was trying to sound like Bette Davis, when she talked to a man who wasn"t worthy to lick her boots.
But in the movies, the men always seemed to be crushed; they backed out of the room, or hung their heads. That didn"t happen with the gentleman from Europe. He did two things. Three things. He took his cap off. You could say he tipped his hat, or cap. And then he laughed. And then he put his cap back on.
"And if I am a b.u.t.terfly, then pray, dear madame, tell me, what are you?"
He was trying to insult her. She knew what he was implying. Because what was the opposite of a b.u.t.terfly? She tried to think. A caterpillar, no, that was a stage in the b.u.t.terfly"s development, it would suggest that one day she could become a b.u.t.terfly, one day she could become him. And that was impossible. No, the opposite of a b.u.t.terfly was something heavy, slow, and dull. That was what he was trying to suggest. That was always what people tried to suggest when they were lazy and careless and your hard work made them look bad. Well, what about the story about the gra.s.shopper and the ant? But she wasn"t buying into that one either. Whatever he had in his storehouse, the ant was still dull, still n.o.body you wanted to be around. She wasn"t going to fall into that. Because what she had stored up wasn"t just pieces of grain, it was treasure. Knowledge, learning, wasn"t just something you put in your mouth to keep alive, it was gold. Shining, precious, valuable. People like the European gentleman didn"t realize how valuable it was. They took it lightly; they felt they could take it or leave it. Or throw it away. Or flit around it.
No, she knew the real value of things. Knowledge was a treasure, and it had to be guarded, fiercely guarded. Thinking about it, she felt fierce. And it came to her then: that was who she was. If he was a b.u.t.terfly, she was a tiger, standing at the gates, guarding the treasure. Maybe one of those tigers with the turquoise eyes that come from Asia, that she"d studied when she"d studied Asia. She was a fierce tiger with turquoise eyes standing at the gates of knowledge, guarding. Guarding against who, against what? She didn"t know exactly. But that wasn"t important. What was important was that she was on guard.