The Anatomy Lesson (16 page)

“
A boy. A boy who did not use his head.
That is what my
lover asked him in Warsaw. He saw us in a
café
and he came up to him and he was furious.
‘
Who are you?
’
he shouted at the boy.
”

“
What did the boy answer?
”

“
He answered,
‘
None of your business.
’
To you that does not sound so heroic. But it is, when one man is half the age of the other.
”

“
He ran away with you to be a hero, and you ran away with him to run away.
”

“
And now you think you understand why I love my spot on your desk. Now you think you understand why I get myself drunk on your expensive claret.
“
She is plotting to trade him for me.
’
Only that is not so. Even with my
émigré
vulnerability, I will not fall in love with you.
”

“
Good.
”

“
I will let you do anything you want to me, but I will not fall in love.
”

“
Fine.
”

“
Only good, only fine? No, in my case it is excellent. Because I am the best woman in the world for falling in love with the wrong man. I have the record in the Communist countries. Either they are married, or they are murderers, or they are like you, men finished with love. Gentle, sympathetic, kind with money and wine, but interested in you mainly as a subject. Warm ice. I know writers.
”

“
I
won
’
t ask how. But go on.
”

“
I know writers. Beautiful feelings. They sweep you away with their beautiful feelings. But the feelings disappear quickly once you are no longer posing for them. Once they
’
ve got you figured out and written down, you go. All they give is their attention.
”

“
You could do worse.
”

“
Oh yes, all that attention. It
’
s lovely for the model white it lasts.
”

“
What were you in Poland?
”

“
I
told you. Champion woman to fall in love with the wrong man.
”
And again she offered to assume any posture for penetration that would please and excite him.
“
Come however you like and don
’
t wait for me. That is better for a writer than more questions.
”

And what is better for you? It was difficult to do her the kindness of not asking. Jaga was
right about writers—all along,
Zuckennan had been thinking that if only she told him enough, he might find in what she said something to start him writing. She insulted him, she berated him, when it was time to go she sometimes grew so angry that she had all she could do not to reach out and strike him. She wanted to collapse and be rescued, and she wanted to be heroic and prevail, and she seemed to hate him most for reminding her, merely by
taking it all in, that she coul
d manage neither. A writer on the wane, Zuckennan did his best to remain unfazed. Mustn
’
t confuse pleasure with work. He was there to listen. Listening was the only treatment he could give. They come, he thought, and tell me things, and
I
listen, and occasionally I say,
“
Maybe I understand more than you think,
”
but there
’
s no treatment I can offer to cure the woes of all the outpatients crossing my path, bent beneath their burdens and their separate griefs. Monstrous that all the world
’
s suffering is good to me inasmuch as it
’
s grist to my mill—that all I can do, when confronted with anyone
’
s story, is to wish to turn it into
material,
but if that
’
s the way one is possessed, that is the way one is possessed. There
’
s a demonic side to this business that the Nobel Prize committee doesn
’
t talk much about. It would be nice, particularly in the presence of the needy, to have pure disinterested motives like everybody else, but, alas, that isn
’
t the job. The only patient being treated by the writer is himself.

After she
’
d gone, and after Gloria had stopped by with his dinner, and some hours before he resumed composing into his tape recorder another rejoinder to Appel. he told himself,
“
Start tonight. Get on with it tonight,
”
and began by transcribing every word he could still remember of the protracted tirade delivered that afternoon by Jaga while he lay beneath her on the playmat. Her pelvis rose and fell like something ticking, an instrument as automatic as a metronome. Light, regular, tireless thrusts, thrusting distinct as a pulsebeat, thrusting excruciatingly minute, and all the while she spoke without stopping, spoke like she fucked, steady voluptuous coldness, as though he was a man and this was an act that she didn
’
t yet
entirely
despise. He felt like a convict digging a tunnel with a spoon.

“
I hate America,
”
she told him.
“
I hate New York. I hate the Bronx. I hate Bruckner Boulevard. In a village in Poland there are at least two Renaissance buildings. Here it is just ugly houses, one after another, and Americans asking you their direct questions. You cannot have a spiritual conversation with anyone. You cannot be poor here and
I
hate it.
”
Tick
tock. Tick tock. Tick
tock.
“
You think I
’
m morbid and psychopathic. Crazy Jaga. You think
I
should be like an American girl—typical American: energetic, positive, talented. Like all these intelligent American girls with their thinking,
‘
I can be an actress, I can be a poet, I can be a good teacher. I
’
m positive, I
’
m growing—I hadn
’
t been growing when I was growing, but now I
’
m growing.
”
You think I should be one of those good good boring American girls with their
naiveté
that goodness does it, that energy does it, that talent does it.
‘
How can a man like Nathan Zuckerman fall in love with me for two weeks, and then abandon me? I am so good and energetic and positive and talented and growing—how can that be?
’
But I am not so naive, so don
’
t worry. I have some darkness to go back to. Whatever darkness was behind them, it was explained to them by the psychiatrist. And now for them it
’
s all recovery. Make my life meaningful. Growth. They buy this. Some of them, the smart ones, they sell it.
‘
The relationship I had,
I
learned something from it. It
’
s good for my growth.
’
If they have a darkness, it
’
s a nice darkness. When you sleep with them, they smile. They make it wonderful.
”
Tick tock.
“
They make it beautiful.
”
Tick tock.
“
They make it warm and tender.
”
Tick tock.
“
They make it
loving.
But I do not have this good American optimism. I cannot stand to lose people.
I
cannot
stand
it, And I am not smiling. And I am not growing. I am disappearing!
”
Tick tock. Tick tock.
“
Did I tell you, Nathan, that I was raped? When I left here that day in the rain?
”
“
No, you didn
’
t tell me that.
”
“
I was walking to the subway in that rain. I was drunk. And I thought I couldn
’
t make it—I was too drunk to walk. And I waved for a taxi, to take me to the station. And this limousine stopped. I don
’
t remember very much. It was the limousine driver. He had a Polish name, too—that
’
s what I remember. I think I had a blackout when I was in the limousine. I don
’
t even know whether I did something provocative. He drove me and drove me and drove me. I thought I was going to the subway, and then he stopped and he said that I owed him twenty dollars. And I didn
’
t have twenty dollars. And I said,
‘
Well, I can only write you a check.
’
And he said,
‘
How can I know the check is good?
’
And I said,
‘
You can call my husband.
’
That is the last thing I wanted to do, but I was so drunk, and so
I
didn
’
t know what I was doing. And I gave him your number.
”
“
Where were you at this point?
”
“
Somewhere. I think on the West Side. So he said.
‘
Okay, let
’
s call your husband on the telephone. Here
’
s a restaurant and we can go inside and we can
call.
’
And I went inside and it wasn
’
t a restaurant—it was some stairway. And there he pushed me down and raped me. And after that he drove me to the station.
”
“
And was it horrible or was it nothing?
”
“
Ah. you want
‘
material.
’
It was nothing. I was too drunk to feel anything. He was afraid after I would call the police. Because I told him that I would. I told him.
‘
You raped me and I
’
m going to do something about it. I didn
’
t leave Poland to come to America and be raped by a Pole.
’
And he said,
‘
Well, you could have slept with hundreds of men—nobody
’
s going to believe you.
’
And I didn
’
t even mean to go to the police. He was right—they
wouldn
’
t
believe me. I just wanted to tell him that he had done something dreadful. He was white, he had a Polish name, he was good-looking, young—why? Why a man feels like raping a drunken woman? What kind of pleasure can that be? He drives me to the station, asking me if I
’
m okay, if I can make the train. Even walks me down to the platform
and buys me a token.
”
“
Very generous.
”
“
And he never called you?
”
“
No.
”
“
I
’
m sorry I gave him your number, Nathan.
”
“
It hardly matters.
”
“
That rape itself—it didn
’
t mean anything. I went home and washed myself. And there waiting for me is a postcard. From my lover in Warsaw. And that
’
s when I began to cry.
That
had meaning. Me, a postcard! Finally he writes me—and it
’
s a postcard! I had a vision, after his postcard, of my parents
’
house before the war—a vision of all that went. Your country is ethically maybe a better country than Poland, but even we, even
we
—you want to come now?
”
“
Even we what?
”
“
Even we deserve a little better than that.
I
never had a normal life almost from right after
I
was
born
. I
’
m not a very normal person. I once had a little child to tell me that I smell good and that my meatballs are the best in the world. That
’
s gone too. Now I don
’
t even have half-home. Now what I have is no-home. All I
’
m saying is, after you get tired of fucking me, I
’
ll understand
—
but please,
”
she said, just as his body, playing yet another trick, erupted without so much as a warning,
“
please, don
’
t just drop me as a friend.
”

Bucking as best he could what he
’
d had to drink with Jaga and to smoke with Gloria, he got himself upright in his chair and with his notebook open on the lapboard and the collar fixed around his neck, tried to invent what he still didn
’
t know. He thought of his little exile next to hers. Hers next to Dr. Kotler
’
s. Exile like theirs is an illness, too; either it goes away in two or three years or it
’
s chronic and you
’
ve got it for good. He tried
to imagine a Poland, a past, a daughter, a lover, a postcard, as though his cure would follow if only he began anew as a writer of stories wholly unlike his own.
The Sorrows of Jaga.
But he couldn
’
t get anywhere. Though people are weeping in every corner of the earth from torture and ruin and cruelty and loss, that didn
’
t mean that he could make their stories his, no matter how passionate and powerful they seemed beside his trivialities. One can be overcome by a story the way a reader is. but a reader isn
’
t a writer. Desperation doesn
’
t help either: it takes longer than one night to make a story, even when it
’
s written in a sitting. Besides, if Zuckerman wrote about what he didn
’
t know, who then would write about what he did know?