East Into Upper East (27 page)

“I bet if you had finished school you'd have done something,” Pauline assured her. “I think you have a lot of talent.”

“Oh really?” Sylvie's interest was stirred enough for her to turn her face and focus her eyes, vague but luminous, on Pauline. “For what? Or are you just saying it?”

“I mean it. I think you could do anything you put your mind to.”

“You think I could paint?”

“I'm sure . . . And you'd be very good at business too.”

For a moment Sylvie looked at Pauline as if she were crazy. Then she lost interest in her and the subject completely; she turned away her face again and let her eyes wander, filling them with the light
filtered through the glass roof and through the springing silver cascades of the fountains.

Pauline, in her anxiety to recapture her attention, became lightheaded: “If you were to come with me in the office, you'd learn the business in no time.”

“Real estate?” Sylvie laughed but was quick to explain: “I'm laughing at me, not you. I mean, it's so fantastic, me learning real estate.”

“What's fantastic about it? Only you'd have to come in the office with me every day. To see how things are done,” Pauline explained.

There was a moment's silence between them; then Sylvie did turn her face toward Pauline again: “Are you offering me a job?”

“Yes.” Pauline spoke resolutely, although the thought had never till that moment occurred to her. And she went further—she heard herself offer Sylvie a full-time job in her office, and when Sylvie asked, “With a salary and all?” she said, “Oh yes, and commissions. That can work out to a lot of money.”

“How much?” Sylvie said, not so much out of interest as out of courtesy, to keep the conversation going.

“It depends on the sale. For instance, if you were to sell a two-bedroom, two-bathroom in a good location at 450K—but I don't want to confuse you with figures—”

“No, don't. I was never any good at sums. Arithmetic and stuff. Hopeless.”

“You wouldn't have to be. Nowadays, with computers and calculators, you hardly need a brain—I'm not saying you don't have one, Sylvie, on the contrary, I think you're a very intelligent person and that's why I'd like you to come work for me. With me,” Pauline said, like a suitor ready to promise the earth.

“Let's not talk any more now. It's so wonderful just sitting here.” Sylvie raised her face to the glass roof, letting the light stream down on herself. “It's like being under water. Like we were two mermaids,” although it was only she who looked like one.

They did not mention the subject of Sylvie working in Pauline's office for several days. But Pauline found herself thinking about it
more and more—especially in the afternoons, when she suspected, or rather knew, that Theo was with Sylvie in her apartment. What did they do there? She supposed they made love—and yet, it was difficult to think of them doing so, at least not in the way other people did it. There was something otherworldly about them; they seemed to talk to each other on an ethereal level—when they talked at all. Mostly there was a charged silence between them, which neither of them seemed to want to break with anything more substantial than “Divine, isn't it,” while the other breathed back, “Out of this world.”

Yet their problems were substantial. They were divorced, for one thing, or separated—Theo's mother had insisted on this, and she had also arranged the settlement, which gave Sylvie nothing more than child support. Sylvie and Theo had had to agree to everything because Theo himself had no money and was completely dependent on his mother. In any case, his mother had suggested that they weren't really married at all—which was ridiculous, as far as Theo and Sylvie were concerned, for no one could have had a more beautiful marriage ceremony. This had been in India, where they had met, in a holy place in the Himalayan foothills, with a holy river running through it. This river was turgid and had all sorts of suspicious things floating in it—the funeral pyres were built on its banks—but nevertheless everyone bathed in it, including Sylvie and Theo. They had first seen each other in this river, at dawn, pouring water over themselves out of brass vessels and praying to the rising sun. As this rose, it suffused part of the river in a pool of light; Theo saw Sylvie standing in such a pool, as if she had just risen out of it and was pouring not water but light over herself.

Sylvie was alone—she had taken a room in the town, in a hotel given over mostly to pilgrims. She ate food in the bazaar, even raw fruits, and never got sick. Theo lived with a guru in an ashram; he had quite a high position there, as one of the guru's right-hand men. But after he met Sylvie, he was no longer so interested in the teaching, although it was what he had come to India for. He put his case to the guru: how it was through their love that he and Sylvie could achieve the ascent to the Good and the Beautiful, which the guru himself taught was the purpose of all human life. The guru was not quite convinced by this interpretation of his own message, but he
was sympathetic, and in fact performed the marriage ceremony. This was very beautiful, with all the members of the ashram singing while the guru chanted the benediction and Sylvie and Theo walked around the sacred fire. They were completely covered in flowers, strings of marigold and jasmine hung down over their faces, but nevertheless at the end everyone threw more flowers at them, showering them with fragrant blossoms. After all that, it was ridiculous to say they were not really married.

Pauline became restless, and it got worse every afternoon when she thought of Sylvie alone with Theo in the apartment. One day she decided she had a headache and needed to go home. Unfortunately she had an appointment with a client, which she had to cancel, but that couldn't be helped. She did have her health to consider; and it was just one more proof that her business was simply getting too big for her to handle alone, and she really needed an assistant. She decided to reopen the subject with Sylvie as soon as she got home—but when she did, there was only Amy there, back from school and lying on Pauline's bed, eating corn chips and watching an adult program on TV. Pauline's entrance did not disturb her—she gave her a friendly little wave, then settled herself more comfortably on the white chenille bedcover.

“Where's Sylvie?”

Amy pointed at the screen, indicating that what was going on there precluded conversation. It was only when Pauline insisted that she answered, “She's out . . . Do you mind?” she said, pointing at the screen again.

“Yes, I do mind.” Pauline was grim: she minded Amy lying on her bed, she minded the greasy corn chips she was scattering over it, and most of all she minded Sylvie not being home. “Is Theo with her? . . . Where've they gone?” When Amy didn't answer, Pauline turned off the TV.

Amy was silent for a while. Then she said, “Well. That wasn't very polite.” She spoke with quiet reproach so that Pauline felt a bit ashamed and began to make excuses: “I don't think it's the sort of program you should be watching. And I have a headache,” she remembered.

“Oh, I'm sorry.”

“Yes. That's why I came home. Why aren't you at school?”

“They sent us home early. Someone died . . . I could give you a head massage. I do it for Sylvie all the time.”

“No thanks. I don't think you should be eating on my bed. Making crumbs.”

“Oh, sorry.” Amy got up at once and made token gestures of brushing off crumbs. “We have some herbal stuff if you like that, but don't take aspirin whatever you do.”

“Why shouldn't I? . . . Is she with Theo? Where did they go?”

Amy answered only the first question: “It does horrible things inside your stomach. Toxic things.”

“Oh rubbish, Amy.” Pauline went out impatiently, and Amy followed her, saying, “I swear to God. It's been proved.”

Pauline sat down heavily on her living-room sofa. She felt disconsolate: to have left her office, canceled and maybe lost her client, and now to be trapped here with Amy. It wasn't that she had anything specifically against Amy: it was really, though she never admitted this, that she didn't like children in general. That had been the trouble with spending Christmas in her brother's home. She had done all she could to make herself liked by his children, bought them expensive presents and so on, but she had heard them making fun of her—she had rather heavy ankles and they told each other that she had elephantiasis and amused themselves with imitating the walk of such a person. It seemed to her that children were cruel, and if you did not measure up to their standard, they despised you. She had several times caught Amy looking at her in a way that told Pauline she was contrasting her with Sylvie.

Pauline looked up now and saw Amy's eyes fixed on her; but it turned out to be with compassion: “You look awfully sick,” Amy said.

“Yes, that's why I'm home.” And Pauline did feel sick, with disappointment. She said, “Do you think they're coming back soon?”

“I wouldn't know. There was no one here when I got back. It's not very pleasant for me, to come from school and there's no one here.”

“No. You're right. It's not.” Pauline spoke as a fellow sufferer—though in the past she had enjoyed nothing more than to come home to an empty apartment and be alone there and still.

“Do you want to know how I was born?” Amy said.

Pauline wanted to say no, but instead said, “If you want,” without encouragement.

“I was born in India,” Amy said.

“What—in that ashram place?”

“Oh no. Theo and Sylvie didn't live there any more—they'd gone up in the mountains to be by themselves in a hut. They didn't have any water or electricity or anything. They washed in a mountain spring.”

Amy was sitting next to Pauline by this time, quite close, as if craving company. “I'll just do it for a minute, shall I? I'm really good at it but you can tell me to stop if you don't like it. Okay?”

She began to massage Pauline's head. It
was
soothing, although Amy's fingers were a bit greasy, probably from the corn chips. She was so close to Pauline that she was almost sitting in her lap, enveloping her in her smell. Some of this was like Sylvie's—they used the same shampoo and soap—but some of it was peculiar to Amy: natural, in the sense of non-artificial, also somewhat dewy and damp like the wool of a lamb that had been out in the rain.

“So were you born in this hut?”

“Sylvie wanted to stay, but with there being no doctor or anyone near, Theo took her down to the town—it was a holy town called Hardwar so that was all right. And they say I was so good I just waited till they had gotten her in this hospital and then guess what? I came out so fast they said it was like kittens coming out of a mother cat so we needn't have been in the hospital at all and I could have been born in the hut.”

Amy had now climbed right into Pauline's lap—this was in order to press her fingertips against Pauline's brow. It was simultaneously soothing and disturbing: Pauline was really not used to having anyone sit in her lap and touch her face so intimately.

“But then we did go back to the hut, Sylvie and Theo and I, and they were so crazy about me they couldn't stop looking at me and they'd get up at night and
wake
me up, just so they could play with me some more and count my fingers and toes.”

“Do you remember all this?”

“They told me but I think I remember it too. I
think.
I was only seven months old when we left. It was snowing all the time and they couldn't find any more firewood. Anyway, by that time Granny had found out and we had to leave. Leave India, that is, and go to New York. Because of Granny. Are you feeling better now?”

“Yes, I think so. Thank you very much, Amy.”

“I do it well, don't I? Sylvie likes me doing it even when she doesn't have a headache. She's very sensuous, Theo says.”

Late that night Amy and Sylvie had one of their fights. Pauline, who was already in bed, propped herself on her elbow to listen, but they were showering together so most of what they said was drowned by the sound of the water. Next morning was as usual a big rush, with Sylvie having to take Amy to school. When she returned from this mission—for which she had merely thrown a raincoat over her nightdress, which anyway wasn't much different from her usual kind of frock—she went straight back to bed. This too was her custom, so that she was always asleep by the time Pauline left for her office. But today Pauline wouldn't let her; she followed her into the bedroom and said, “We have to talk.”