The Wintering (26 page)

“Why, that's wonderful!” Amy cried. She thought him very serious about his work. It was unusual to be up so early. Most people she had met here slept until noon, at least. “Do you paint every day,” she asked, “or just when you feel like it?”

“When I feel like it,” Tony said, yawning.

He walked in a ragged way, and Amy skipped several times to keep pace, confiding, “I've always felt writing should come out in one enormous passionate rush. That it should be all just feeling!” She threw out her arms, as if to float off her feet. “This friend of mine though, who's a writer, says writing's hard. You need to think of it as a job, something you go after every day.”

“He sounds full of crap.”

“He publishes.”

Stymied a moment, Tony said, “Crap, or good stuff?”

“Very good stuff.”

“What's right for him,” Tony said, again in his decisive way, “doesn't have to be right for you.”

“That's true,” Amy said slowly. She could not concede that Jeff's life had ever been as hard as hers; what he said might not apply.

Along the sidewalk, Tony's leather sandals made a sound, insolent and sloppy. He stopped at a corner to slap himself about on various pockets. He not only had no change, he seemed to have forgotten his wallet altogether. Could he borrow money for cigarettes?

Opening her wallet, Amy heard one of her mother's earliest warnings: Never go out without some mad money. If she went anywhere with Tony again, probably she would need some. Amy put down his forgetfulness to his being artistic. She made a comparison to Jeff's wearing shirts with frayed collars, which he seemed never to notice. Her father made a point of carrying enormous amounts of money wherever he went. When Amy left for New York, he mentioned a rating with Dun and Bradstreet. Should she run into trouble of any kind, ask people to look it up, and anyone would cash her check. His look had been like a child at a moment of unexpected accomplishment, or a retriever laying a bird at the hunter's feet. She had tried to praise her father but praise for the accomplishment of money stuck in her throat. Thanking him, she had said she would remember, without understanding Dun and Bradstreet.

Tony had bought cigarettes at the corner stand and stood, blowing out grey-blue smoke rings. One eyebrow quirked, he wore a tilted half-smile. He cocked a hand to his waist and bent toward her, half as if to take her in his arms, half as if to treat her roughly. That this stance and the look were familiar ran like a melody through Amy's mind. He spoke, and she never quite settled on what movie star, or what movie, he brought to mind. Had she lived through this before? The instant his eyes narrowed behind the smoke rings and his voice became huskier, she had known those two things were coming.

“Come on up to my room,” he said. “I'll show you my work.”

Amy shook a dubious head, undecided whether she knew him well enough. To stand on ceremony was not the usual etiquette in the Village. She ached all over at being able to do nothing to change some dead cold thing in the center of herself.

“I can't come,” she said.

She was terrified at the thought of Tony's going away, realizing how miserable and alone and unhappy she had been. He seemed the epitome of all she had come to the Village to find, spare-framed and slightly odorous as he was. “I do hope you'll ask me another time,” she said.

“Well, ah dew hope you'll come if ah dew,” he said, holding up mockingly an absent lorgnette. “Would you do me the honor of accompanying me to a free concert in Washington Square tomorrow evening, instead?”

Knowing she had blushed to the roots of her hair, Amy pretended to laugh at herself, as well as at his mocking her, and she made the date. They drifted about together in the next few weeks, attending any free art exhibit or concert. Occasionally, they sat in a bar and had beer, usually sharing the cost. When Tony walked home with her, Amy could not ask him inside. Nancy was always up past midnight sewing, or her fiancé was there (if Amy was going to be out for most of the evening). The two sat around as if they were already married, Amy thought. She would have been embarrassed for Tony to know she had a roommate who was making a trousseau.

Tony began to wash more before coming to meet her, which touched Amy hopelessly. His hair would be slicked down boyishly and still damp about the edges. His face would have a sheen like a rubbed apple, and his shirts would be usually clean. She was glad he kept on paint-smeared jeans. It made her feel a part of things that Tony was recognizable as an artist. Outwardly at least, she seemed abandoned and free. A couple of times, she bought wine, which they drank beneath a tree, near the archway to the Village, watching lights come on. Then streets appeared awhirl with color, like a carnival. Above the buildings, pale pink tinges of evening disappeared into dark rooftops. For several nights, a block was roped off for an Italian street fair, which they attended.

During the time she was seeing him, Tony would sometimes drop from sight. She would be walking along the street and unexpectedly he would reappear. He would be exhausted and his eyes as red-rimmed as the first time she had ever met him. He would have been up all night painting, which sent a thrill through Amy.

Continuing to read job ads in the paper, she would convince herself it was too late to apply, that the job sounded so good it was taken, or either it did not sound good enough to bother with. She felt often too languid to go out to dinner, or to breakfast, and bought a hot plate. Usually, she ate canned hash, though it tasted like dog food. Amy continually started short stories and wrote fitfully in the diary. Whenever Tony reappeared, she was enormously glad to see him.

Looking more haggard than usual, he came around a corner one day to stand squarely in front of her. “How's your work going?” she said.

“I've gotten some good stuff in the last few days. Come up. I'll show you.”

Allowing herself to be taken by the arm, Amy passed through sunshiny streets as if dreaming. Tony seemed now her oldest friend. He was desperate for sleep and clung on to her. He stumbled over a sidewalk crack and she tightened her hold, not wanting anyone to think “the artist” was drunk. His building was entrancing and far worse than hers. At the end of each hall as they climbed stairs were tiny smelly bathrooms, and from one an old man came shambling, his fly open. This was the first cold-water building she had ever been in! Amy exclaimed. On the old man, she turned such a beatific smile, he stopped dead and stared, thinking her strange. Not only did the hallways smell of toilets but also of the wet-bottomed bursting sacks of garbage sitting outside doors. The main room of Tony's apartment faced the street. Amy, going toward the window, heard the door shut with a firm click behind her and stood knotting her hands, longing to say something impressive.

“What a great light for painting,” she said. But she was vague about directions and was it northern light that was supposed to be best? Having spoken, she looked at him uncertainly.

Tony seemed uninterested in whether or not the light was good and muttered that it was adequate. Having made his way through the room's clutter, he sat yawning in a broken-bottomed armchair. Amy wonderingly appraised the number of empty gallon jugs of a cheap wine about the room; paper cups, some still wet, were scattered everywhere, squashed and stained red. Otherwise, the room was scarcely furnished and was bland, except for paintings stacked in a corner and for several six-foot canvases near the window. In several places on them, paint appeared still wet. And about the room as if someone had tossed confetti were specks of paint, denying the window its full view and giving pattern to the floor. Watching Amy look at his pictures, Tony slumped onto his fist. “Those pictures look any different from stuff you see in galleries, now?”

“I don't really know much about painting.” Without criterion to judge, Amy said, “They seem good,” and the abstracts were similar to many in small galleries along the Village's streets.

“Just decide whether you like them or not,” he said, jabbing at her indecisiveness, knowing she was vulnerable.

“I do like to know the meaning of a picture. I don't understand modern painting,” she said, digging in her heels a little.

“Nobody who painted them knew the meaning, either!” Tony said gleefully. He managed to raise his head from his chin prop. “I get a bunch over, we drink wine all night and throw paint on the canvases. I name the pictures. Great idea?”

Amy turned slowly, indicating her understanding. “You don't paint them yourself,” she said flatly.

“Why, when I can do it this way, and get the same effect?” He got up from his chair sleepily. “Know the old saying about leaving monkeys in a room with a typewriter long enough, and they'd write a novel.” He had unbuttoned his shirt and came up behind Amy to put his arms about her. His breath was warm as a puppy's against her ear; the lingering smell of wine on him seemed to intoxicate her. Amy's heart beat fearfully. Having closed her eyes, she opened them quickly, as Tony pulled her back against him. There, she felt his intimate parts and was motionless. He straightened one arm past her, to point. “That one is Midwest Snowfield. I only handed out white and blue paint. Then I added that little rose color in the bottom corner. The sun going down.”

“Oh. That was a good idea,” Amy said hopefully. “Are you ever going to paint them entirely yourself?”

He drew out a shrug, enabling him to rub more intimately against her. Though her impulse was to move in the same slow way, Amy held still. Holding her firmly, Tony set her more securely between his legs. “The one next to it is Mardi Gras,” he said. “All the different colors. Get the feeling?”

“Yes, the dots are all people, or just their faces, mingling and making a crowd.”

“That. Anything.” Tony turned her around, his thumbs pressing her shoulders painfully. “Relax. Or shall I paint you a nice, upper-middle-class picture we'll call Inhibited?”

“But I'm not,” she said, her voice holding disbelief.

“Then, hold still.” His face thrust close had again the half-tilted smile, the quirked eyebrow.

Inquiring, Amy's mind settled on its being a French movie, and actor, which made the look familiar. Trying to piece together the scene, she wondered what the heroine had said at such a moment. No words came to her until a moment later, she said, “I like your Midwest Snow—”

“Oh, for God sakes,” Tony said. “Are we going to bed, or not?”

Amy did not want the decision left up to her; how possibly could she blurt out, Yes! Sensibly, Tony was steering her toward his second room, a small alcove, which turned out to hold only a thin mattress with mussed sheets. Having been pushed gently toward it, Amy sat thinking happily of the scene, the picturesqueness of the mattress on the floor and of a cold-water building. Behind her, faint sounds and movements made her aware that Tony was undressing. She could not take off her clothes in front of him. Having no other idea what to do, she sat clasping her knees. He sighed and settled under the top sheet. Feeling him stare at her, Amy looked at the ceiling, which badly needed painting.

“Are you going to stay dressed?” he said.

Her fingers were stiff as she began to fumble about with her clothes, wanting desperately to take his attention elsewhere. Always, he had tried to convince her of Marx's ideas. Now might be a good time to seem more receptive. Blankly, Amy could not think of any questions. Having resisted his conversations before, he might suspect she was delaying. He would know she was afraid. She knew also he would not be interested in the subject either, at the moment. Glancing back at him once, she tried not to think how hairy his armpits were. His arms were flung above his head, the back of one hand in the palm of the other. Sighing heavily, and as if glad at last for sleep, Amy got in beneath the cover.

Immediately, Tony lowered his hand and gave her slip strap a flip. “Are you going to keep that on?”

“There's a kind of draft. I'm cold.”

She accepted reluctantly his assistance in removing her pants. The next instance his mouth opened over her closed one. “Scared, Kansas City?” he said teasingly.

“Delton,” she managed, foolishly and with difficulty. Tony's tongue had sought her mouth.

He gave a little groan, which Amy realized had nothing to do with her telling him for the umpteenth time where she had come from. Bearing his weight, she withdrew as flat as possible toward the floor. Past Tony's ear, the grey ceiling, strangely, had streaks of a lovely shade of violet that would be from water leaking from an apartment above, or from rain on the roof. She tried to remember if Tony were on the top floor. Staring at the blankness above her, she thought how her father went out with women who were not very nice, but how disappointed he would be to know where his daughter was. Into Tony's nearest ear, she whispered, “I've never gone this far before.”

He reared back to look down at her. “You don't have to say that. I couldn't care less.”

“I know. It's true.”

“Why now?” He looked mystified.

Amy was sorry he did not conceive of her caring for him. Though she was not in love with him, Amy wished that Tony thought she was. “I don't know exactly. Does it matter?”

“Not to me,” he said straightforwardly. “If it won't to you, afterward. I don't want a lot of tears.”

“Oh no, there won't be,” she promised, all but crossing her heart.

Almost in the same instant he moved off her again, Tony fell asleep. Her hands folded a little uncalmly on her stomach, Amy stared again at the ceiling, wondering if a novel might come out of this experience. How was she to justify it, otherwise?

A fly, settling on her nose sometime later, woke her. She was surprised to have slept at all. And she woke and found herself, with a quiet sense of terror, alone. Deserted by Tony after the act, she had not expected also this desertion. She did not move and then heard, in relief, the click of a cabinet door in the next room. Her clothes went on quickly, as if there were a raid. She could not face Tony watching her dress. In the next room, he sat in the windowsill, eating peanut butter with a knife. When Amy appeared, he offered her a glob, holding the knife tip toward her. From the doorway as she shook her head, her expectations faded. She had waked with the desire to call him endearing names and had envisioned their daylight meeting as one between honeymooners.