Before My Life Began (33 page)

I felt as if I were adrift on a clear, still lake—without cares or worries, without either a past or a future. I had no idea of time, or how long I'd been sitting there in the chair, staring at her, studying her face, drawing her picture. I'd taken the gift wrapping from the present she'd given me—her own copy of
The Diary of Anne Frank
, her favorite passages marked lightly in the margins, in pencil—and turned the paper over and used that. When she was twelve she had read
The Diary of Anne Frank
for the first time. Since then she had read it once a year, and she had asked me if we could read it to one another once a year for the rest of our lives. Long before she'd worked up the courage to approach me, she said, she'd thought of me as Peter, of herself as Anne.

I set my drawing on the bed, opened the book to the passage she'd asked me to read aloud to her.
I think a lot, but I don't say much. I am happy if I see him and if the sun shines when I'm with him. I was very excited yesterday; while I was washing my hair, I knew that he was sitting in the room next to ours. I couldn't do anything about it; the more quiet and serious I feel inside, the more noisy I became outwardly
.

Which parts of Anne Frank were like me? Which like her? If Anne Frank had survived, Gail wondered, what then? Had she lived, would we read her book in the same way? Why had she perished only a few days before Auschwitz was liberated?

Gail's dark curls were spread out against the pillow, brown doggie peeking out next to her bare shoulder. How was it possible, I wondered, that she was so still now and had been so wildly passionate only a few hours before? The back of her wrist was across her eyes, her hand toward me, cupped slightly, slack. Did I dare to lift it so that I could see her eyes better, so that I could finish drawing them? I set
The Diary of Anne Frank
on the bed, next to the drawing. I wanted to run my tongue along her forearm, her wrist, the shadow of her palm.

I went to the window. I thought of Anne Frank in her family's secret apartment, looking out at the roofs of Amsterdam, at the horizon that was so pale there seemed to be no dividing line between earth and sky. As long as that world existed, she wrote—the city, the sunshine, the cloudless skies, the heavens—and as long as she was alive to see it, she believed that she could not be unhappy. I reached behind the lace curtain, pulled the shade sideways and looked into the street. We were on the third floor. It was just beginning to be light out. A Borden's milk truck was parked across the street in front of the Elkton Fancy Diner. The milkman came out of the diner dressed in white, looking as if he were an orderly in a hospital. Behind the diner was an open field, tall grass mostly, with several large climbing rocks and, near the far end, a flatter section. Boards and tires were set up for a backstop, a large area cleared of grass and stones for an infield, and beyond the backstop a high wall of slate-colored rock and scrubby trees. A single four-storey apartment house sat on top of the small rise, and the television antennas crowded together on the rooftop, like bright silver framing for box kites, caught the morning light and shimmered.

“David?”

I turned.

“What are you doing?”

“Nothing. Just staring.”

“No. I mean what are you doing here, with this?”

She sat up, pulling the sheet with her. She held the piece of paper in the air.

“Oh that.”

“It's me.”

“I was just sketching a little, to pass the time. I couldn't sleep.”

“You were just sketching a little to pass the time. You mean you drew this while I was sleeping? I'm not dreaming?”

“I didn't mean for you to see it yet.”

“You didn't mean for me to see it yet. Are you
serious?”
She came to me. “You did something like this for me and you weren't going to let me see it?”

“I don't know. Maybe when I was done.”

She pulled the shade up halfway so that the daylight could shine on the paper without hurting her eyes. I'd drawn her in profile, just a few curving lines near the bottom to capture the way her head rested in the pillow. I loved the shape of her head, the hard, perfect oval of her skull. I was pleased that I'd been able to suggest that shape—its weight—with just a few strokes.

“Oh, I do like it, David. I do. Only—”

“Only what?”

“Only somehow you seem to have left out all my imperfections. The moonlike craters in my cheeks. Here.” She touched the paper. Her nipples grazed my forearm. “You shaded in the space around my eyes and under my lip, but you left my cheeks white and smooth—embossed in egg-shell white, I'll grant—but smooth. Did you do it to flatter me? Were you afraid of hurting my feelings?”

“I was drawing you in profile. Haven't you ever seen the way—?”

She cut me off by kissing me. She began pushing me backwards, toward the bed, but without taking her lips from mine. She reached down, slid her hand inside my underpants. I felt her falling, stumbling—our teeth clicked—and I realized that, our eyes closed, we'd forgotten about the chair I'd been sitting on. We laughed. I pushed her onto the bed, pinned her wrists, spread her legs apart. I was breathing hard, and all I wanted was to be inside her again, to feel the wonderful moist tongues there gripping me. Her eyes opened and closed, almost as if she were in pain. She whimpered slightly. Could she, when she started to go wild this way, even remember having done it before with me? I sometimes found myself hesitating for an instant when she was like this, wondering if it mattered that it was me on top of her, or if
any
body would have served. She was lifting my shirt, moving her hands across my stomach, straining toward me. I knew what she wanted and I kissed her breasts, her throat, her mouth. Her hands moved along my sides, over my breasts, up into my armpits. She grabbed me there, thumbs pressing in, tongue going wild around mine.

“Careful. The paper. My drawing—”

“What?”

I moved sideways so that I could reach across, push the drawing from us. It fell from the bed. I stretched, lifted the drawing from the floor, placed it on the night table. Her head flopped backwards and she lay there, eyes closed, fists opening and closing. She pushed me sideways, rolled on top, licked my stomach, sucked on my breasts, then sat up straight suddenly—her back arched, her hands behind her on the bed, bent at the wrists for balance.

“David?”

“What?”

“Do you think we'll ever be able to just neck anymore?”

“What do you mean? We—”

“I mean, now that we're free and legal, do you think that in the future, every time we start to kiss we'll feel obligated to go all the way?”

“How should I know?”

I tried to pull her down, to get my legs out from between hers, but she pressed down hard on me, leaned forward, arms extended, palms braced against my chest.

“David?”

“Jesus! What
now?”

“Do you like the way I kiss? I mean, do you
really
like the way I kiss? Do you think I'm talented at kissing? In the eighth grade, when we passed slam-books around and everybody filled things in, I was never selected by anyone as Prettiest or Sexiest, but when we gathered in the bathroom to open the folded pages and look at the results I was surprised to learn that I was frequently selected by the guys as Best Kisser. And David?”

I sighed. “Yes?”

“Would you mind very much if we didn't do it again? I want to—I know I started it this time—but I think I'm getting a little raw inside. I don't know if…”

“Terrific.” I covered my eyes with my hand. “That's really terrific.”

“I can make him come again if you want.” She slid backwards, reached down and gripped me. “What small attentions can I pay to you, sweetheart? It
is
different for women, you know. I'm very happy. Would you like me to turn over? They say it's easier that way when you're pregnant, that the muscles are more relaxed there. Just tell me what you'd like me to do, all right?”

“How the hell should I know?
Jesus!”

“Shh,” she said. “Here.” She climbed off, pulled down my underpants, slipped them over my feet, tossed them to the floor, then bent over me sideways, on her knees, and began sucking, her thumb and forefinger holding me tight at the root.

I looked down, to watch her move up and down on me, but all I could see was a moon of black curls floating on my stomach. I asked her if there was something I could do for her, but she just told me to relax and enjoy myself. She said she loved to feel me swell, to feel the skin stretch. The one thing I might do for her, though, since I'd asked, was to kiss her again. Sometimes she thought she could be happy just kissing me, hour after hour. She'd worried about that at times. Was it some strange kind of perversion, to like kissing me more, at times, than having me inside her? Did I mind if she told me things like that?

She nibbled along the insides of my legs, but each time she came near my penis, she slid back down. She said she loved to see the small rushes of goose flesh move up and down my legs and thighs. She let her head rest on my chest.

“God! Your heart is beating so fast, David. Look—you can even see it—you can actually see it going thump thump. Thump thump thump…”

She licked downwards along my breastbone and across my stomach, and this time she took so much of me into her mouth that I gulped myself, afraid she would choke. I groaned, felt the shiver begin somewhere near the bottom of my spine and pulse through me, explode slowly. I pushed down on her so that she wouldn't take her mouth away. I wanted her to squeeze and suck on me forever, to draw the long, shuddering thrill out of me and into her and never, never to stop. The spasm went on and on—I couldn't believe it—and she pressed up now with her index finger, from below, and then she sucked more slowly, drawing the fluid from me.

I heard my own voice, strangely high-pitched, telling her how wonderful it felt, and for a brief second I also recalled the sound of Avie Gornik's voice, pleading with Abe. But the memory drifted off. Numbness sifted through me, spreading like warm water. Her head was over my heart again, and I put my hand there, spread my fingers as wide as I could, pressed down.

“Here—where it surges—is that the part the guys call the power vein?”

“I suppose.”

“I love making you happy. I love watching your face when you come. Doesn't it stun you, David, that we can do anything we want? I mean, isn't it an extraordinary idea, to be able to do
anything
you want, and not to feel embarrassed or guilty? Tumescence. Listen: did you know that in Japan and other Eastern cultures it's considered the height of pleasure for a man
not
to come, for him to have the frustration drawn out indefinitely. ‘Karazza'—that's the word for it. Tumescence and karazza. Great words. Don't say anything. Shh. You doze off if you want. Don't worry about me. I like looking at you. How many times did we do it together tonight? Five? Six?”

“I wasn't counting.”

“Neither was I, but I think it was six.”

She talked. I dozed, slept, woke, listened to her. She wondered if what people said was true, if it wouldn't be as thrilling for us now that the act was no longer forbidden. She said that according to literary critics nobody had ever written a good novel about family happiness, about married love, not even Tolstoy. In the Western tradition, romantic love was always portrayed as existing outside marriage—as illicit or tragic or stolen or star-crossed. I felt myself slipping into dreams, into long tunnels where gleaming black tiles lined the walls, where light speckled toward me.

I heard Gail talk about Ellen and it was as if I was sliding along a smooth, enamelled tunnel into the very
sound
of her voice. She was talking about books and I heard myself ask her if she'd read about the things we did in books, if that was where she'd learned so much.

“When I was sweet sixteen,” she said. “I went through a period where I read all the dirty books I could find—
The Story of O
and the
Kama Sutra
and
Lady Chatterly's Lover
and lots of Henry Miller's books and some books that were, as they say, totally without redeeming social value. Ellen hadn't read any of them, even though she was older, and she startled me by asking me to read
Lady Chatterly's Lover
to her, by pressing me for details. So for once, you see, I had her where I wanted her.

“What I'd do was to read aloud to her and then stop suddenly just when we were coming to the really hot parts. She'd go nuts. She'd swear and threaten and try to whack me. But what could she do, really? Tell our parents? All I ever had to do to quiet her down was to warn her that if she told on me she'd never hear another word from the books she herself could never read. There was no smut industry in the world of Braille as yet.”

Her words came to me as if filtered through gauze. I saw steam, rising from cold water. I saw myself on a pier on Red Hook. I was with Abe and we were watching large derricks, cranes dipping down to pick up crates. There were guns and ammunition inside the crates, wrapped carefully in straw and raffia. The longshoremen joked with Abe. Guns
for the Arabs, sneakers for the ]ews
, they said.
Not anymore
, Abe replied.
Never again
. They laughed at him, winked at me, made jokes about Jews. Abe paid them off with enormous rolls of bills and he laughed with them. But his eyes were ice cold. The guns were going to Palestine, he told me afterwards, smuggled there to help the Jews fight against the British and the Arabs. I imagined myself on the pier without Abe. I was talking to Tony. Tony had his hands in his jacket pockets. He was inviting me to come to his house for dinner, to meet his children. Would Gail and Regina like one another? Would Tony and I watch a Knicks game on TV together? Would we pretend we were happy? Family happiness. Sure.