Light Years (7 page)

“Which book?” she says.

“There are a number of them.”

“Viri,” she says, “it’s a charming idea.”

9

IN THE RESTAURANT THEY WERE
seated in the way he preferred, on adjoining sides of the table. The creases in the linen were fresh, the room filled with light.

“Would you like some wine?” he asked.

She was wearing a plum-colored dress, sleeveless—September is warm in New York—and a necklace of silver like foliage, like a swarm of
i
’s. He noticed everything, he fed on it: the ends of her teeth, her scent, her shoes. The room was crowded, brimming with talk.

He talked as well. He explained too much but he could not resist. One thing led to another, inspired it, the story of Stanford White, the city as it once had been, the churches of Wren. He invented nothing; it poured from him. She nodded and answered with silence, she drank the wine. She leaned with her elbows on the table; her glance made him weak. She was absorbed, hypnotized almost. She was intelligent, that was what made her extraordinary. She could learn, comprehend. Beneath her dress, he knew, she had nothing on; deBeque had told him that.

Her apartment belonged to a journalist who was away for a year. Books, sharpened pencils, wood piled neatly for the winter, everything one could need. There were copies of
Der Spiegel
, white Kneissl skis. She closed the door behind her and turned the lock. From that first moment, that cool and trivial act, it seemed a kind of movie started, silent, almost flickering, a movie with foolish sections which nonetheless consumed them and became real.

There was one large room. Photos of friends on the wall, of boats, parties, afternoons at Puerto Marques. A plastic radio with the cities of Europe printed on its dial.
The Odyssey
by Kazantzakis. Red and blue edges of air-mail envelopes. Vailland’s
Écrits Intimes
. In the sleeping alcove, a mirror set in hammered silver, carved birds, a hand-printed spread.

“It looks like Mexico,” Viri said. His voice seemed to lurch from him, it had no tone. “Are those your skis?” he asked.

“No.”

As if without reason then, she kissed him. He removed her shoes, one, then the other, they fell to the floor and rolled over. Her feet were aristocratic, well-formed. The faint sound of a zipper. She turned and raised her arms.

The wide afternoon bed, the dark of drawn curtains. He was escaping from his clothes, they fell in a heap. She lay there waiting. She seemed quiet, remote. He touched his forehead to her like a servant, like a believer in God. He could not speak. He embraced her knees.

It was an apartment in back facing courtyards with trees still in leaf. The sounds from the street had died. Her head was turned to one side, her throat bared. The newness of her drowned him. Somewhere near the bed the phone began to ring. Three rings, four. She did not hear it. It stopped at last.

They awoke much later, weak, reprieved. Her face was swollen from love. She spoke impassively.

“How do you like Mexico?”

He finally replied. “It’s a nice town,” he said.

He started her bath. In the dimness he saw his reflection like that of another man, a triumphant glimpse that held him as water crashed in the tub. His body was in shadow. It seemed strong, like a fighter’s or jockey’s. He was not a city man; suddenly he was primitive, firm as a bough. He had never been so exhilarated after love. All the simple things had found their voice. It was as if he were backstage during a great overture, alone, in semi-darkness but able to hear it all.

She passed by him, naked, her skin grazing his. He was overwhelmed by this vision of her, he could not memorize it, he could not have enough. She was indifferent to his presence. Her nudity was dense, unchildish; her buttocks gleamed like a boy’s.

She slipped into the water and bound up her hair. He was sitting outside, his knees drawn up, content.

“How is it?” he asked.

“It’s like making love the second time.”

His eyes moved around the well-arranged apartment. There are women who live carefully, who are cunning, who take a step only when the ground is firm beneath their feet. She was not one of these. There were her necklaces hung casually near the mirror, her scattered clothes, her cigarettes. He turned the television on without the sound. The set was foreign, the colors beautiful and deep. It seemed to him he was elsewhere, in a city in Europe, on a train. He had entered this room in which there was a woman who had been waiting for him, a clever woman who knew why he had come.

She stood against the doorway watching, whiteness encircling her haunches, the dark handful of hair. He longed to stare at her but was embarrassed. He was somehow dismayed that she should give herself to him. He knew he was eating her, like a fox.

“Do you think I should go back to the office?” she said.

“It might be better if we didn’t go back at the same time.” He picked up his watch. “My God,” he murmured. “It’s almost four. Why don’t you come in about four-thirty? Say you’ve been to the dentist or something.”

“Do you think they’ll notice?”

“Will they notice?” he said. He had slowly begun to dress. “They probably already have.”

He watched her comb her hair. She saw him in the mirror; she barely smiled. It was her silence, her submission which overwhelmed him. She wanted nothing, he felt; she would permit anything. He could not look at her without thinking of this, without filling with desire. It was as if she were lost. He was afraid to disturb her, to give her help. It was as if she had not really seen him yet. How long could it last? How long could it be before she recognized him, knew his thoughts? He was afraid of the sudden glint of a wrist watch, the flash of a smile, the sun on the hub cap of a car—any powerful male emission that might wake her. He wanted to continue to possess her even if he could not believe in it, to feel the confidence on which everything depended. He wanted to be invulnerable, even for an hour, to admire her as she lay face down, to talk to her softly as one talked to a child. He placed a pillow beneath her, doubling it with great care. They were swimming in slowness. It seemed five minutes were required to kneel between her legs. She lay stretched beneath him, his hand on her body to steady it …

He left her at the corner, near the museum. She stood waiting for the light. The buildings he passed seemed strangely dead, the street bare, even in sunlight. He turned to look once more. Suddenly, he did not know why—she was crossing the wide avenue alone—all his uncertainty fled. He began to run and caught up to her on the steps.

“I decided to go with you,” he said. His voice was uneven; he managed to calm his breath. “There’s a room of Egyptian jewelry, a beautiful room, I wanted to show it to you. Do you know who Isis is?”

“A goddess,” she said.

“Yes. Another one.”

She lowered her head in a gesture of profound contentment. She looked at him and smiled. “So she’s one too, eh? You know them all.”

He could feel her love plainly. She was his, he understood it. He had never felt happier, more sure.

“There’s a lot I want to show you.”

She followed him into the great galleries. He guided her by the elbow, touching her often, her shoulder, the small of her back. In the end she would forget him; that was how she would win.

He drove home in a luminous twilight. The closing prices of shares were being given, the trees held the remnants of day.

Nedra was sitting at a table in the living room, notes spread around her. She was writing something.

“A story,” she said. “Was the traffic bad?”

“Not very.”

“You have to illustrate it for me.” She had a certain, strange elation. Near her elbow was a San Raphael. She glanced up. “Would you like one?”

“I’ll have a sip of yours. No, on second thought, I will have one.”

She seemed calm, secure; she knew nothing, he was certain of it. She went to prepare the drink. He felt relief. He was like a hare, safe in his form at last. He had a glimpse of her crossing the hall and a feeling of great warmth came over him, affection for her hips, her hair, the bracelets on her wrist. In some way he was suddenly equal to her; his love did not depend on her alone, it was more vast, a love for women, largely ungratified, an unattainable love focused for him in this one wilful, mysterious creature, but not only this one. He had divided his agony; it was cleaved at last.

She returned with his drink and sat in a comfortable chair. “Did you work hard today?”

“Well, yes.” He sipped the drink. “This is delicious. Thank you.”

“And did it go well?”

“More or less.”

“Um.”

She knew nothing. She knew everything, the thought flashed, she was too wise to speak.

“What have you done today?” he asked.

“I’ve had a marvelous day, I really have. I’m writing the story of the eel for Franca and Danny. I don’t like the books they give them in school. I want to do my own. Let me read it to you. I’ll get it.” She smiled at him before she rose, a wide, understanding smile.

“The eel …” he said.

“Yes.”

“That’s very Freudian.”

“I know, but Viri, I don’t believe in all that. I think it’s quite narrow.”

“Narrow. Well, definitely narrow, but the symbolism is very clear.”

“What symbolism?”

“I mean, it’s clearly a cock,” he said.

“I hate that word.”

“It’s inoffensive.”

“No, it isn’t.”

“Well, I mean, there are worse.”

“I just don’t like it.”

“What one do you like?”

“What word?”

“Yes.”

“Inimitable,” she said.

“Inimitable?”

“Yes.” She began to laugh. “He had a big inimitable. Listen
to
what I’ve written.”

She showed him a drawing she had done. It was just to give an idea; his would be better. “Oh, Nedra,” he said, “it’s beautiful.”

A strange, snakelike creature of elegant lines lay adorned in flowers.

“What kind of pen did you do it with?” he said.

“A sensational pen. Look. I bought it.”

He was examining it.

“You can use different points,” she explained.

“It’s a wonderful eel.”

“For centuries, Viri,” she said, “no one knew anything about them. They were an absolute mystery. Aristotle wrote that they had no sex, no eggs, no semen. He said they rose, already grown, from out of the sea. For thousands of years people believed that.”

“But don’t they lay eggs?”

“I’m going to tell you all that,” she promised. “Today, all day, I was drawing this eel. Do you like the flowers?”

“Yes. Very much.”

“You’re much better than I am, yours will be fantastic. Besides, you’re right, the eel is a male thing, but women understand it, too. It fascinates them.”

“I’ve heard that,” he murmured.

“Listen …”

He was empty, at peace. The darkened windows made the room seem bright. He had come in from the sea, from a thrilling voyage. He had straightened his clothes, brushed his hair. He was filled with secrets, deceptions that had made him whole.

“The eel is a fish,” she read, “of the order
Apode
. It is brown and olive, its sides are yellow, its belly pale. The male lives in harbors and rivers. The female lives far from the sea. The life of the eel was always a mystery. No one knew where they came from, no one knew where they went.”

“This is a book,” he said.

“A book or a story. Just for us. I love the descriptions. They live in fresh water,” she continued, “but once in their life, and once only, they go to the sea. They make the trip together, male and female. They never return.”

“This is accurate, of course.”

“The eel comes from an egg. Afterwards it is a larva. They float on the ocean current, not a quarter of an inch long, transparent. They feed on algae. After a year or longer they finally reach the shore. Here they develop into true young eels, and here, at the river mouths, the females leave the males and travel upstream. Eels feed on everything: dead fish and animals, crayfish, shrimp. They hide in the mud by day and eat at night. In the winter they hibernate.”

She sipped her drink and went on. “The female lives like this for years, in ponds and streams, and then, one day in autumn, she stops and eats nothing more. Her color changes to black or nearly black, her nose becomes sharper, her eyes large. Moving at night, resting by day, sometimes crossing meadows and fields, she travels downstream to the sea.”

“And the male?”

“She meets the male who has spent all his life near the river mouth, and together, by hundreds of thousands, they return to the place where they were born, the sea of weeds, the Sargasso Sea. At depths of uncounted feet they mate and die.”

“Nedra, it sounds like Wagner.”

“There are common eels, pike eels, snake eels, sharp-tailed eels, every kind of eel. They are born in the sea, they live in fresh water and they go to the sea to spawn and die. Doesn’t it move you?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t know how to end it.”

“Perhaps with a beautiful drawing.”

“Oh, there’ll be drawings on every page,” she said.

“I want it filled with drawings.”

His eyes felt tired.

“I want it to be on pale, gray paper,” she said. “Here, draw one.”

The children were coming downstairs.

“An eel?” he said.

“Here are a lot of pictures of them.”

“Are they allowed to see what I’m doing?”

“No,” she said. “No, it should be a surprise.”

They ate in a Chinese restaurant that was crowded on weekends but this night rather empty. The menus were worn and coming apart at the fold. He had two vodkas and showed his children how to use chopsticks. The dishes were set on the table and uncovered: shrimp and peas, braised chicken, rice. Two lives are perfectly natural, he thought, as he picked up a water chestnut. Two lives are essential. Meanwhile he was talking about China: legends of emperors, the stone pleasure boats in Peiping. Nedra seemed watchful, quiet. He suddenly grew cautious and became almost silent, afraid of betraying himself. There was something he had overlooked, he tried to imagine what it was, something she had noticed by chance. The guilt of the inexperienced, like a false illness, bathed him. He tried to remain calm, realistic.