I’m sending you my white pillow. I swear that I love you.
And another: Now we are silent, facing one another. Words are no longer necessary. Now that I’ve spoken to you, I will paint you, paint you for all of eternity. Your hair… your hair… flaming blond like the sun.
There among the flowers in my garden, your letter was waiting for me, slightly damp from the morning dew. I opened you and, speechless, put you in my wheelbarrow…
In the happy circus of my life there is a silence. And in that silence your voice is hiding…
Your meteorite companion.
Woman of water, of the sea, woman of the spring shower, woman with eyes full of tears, Ondine, my muse, my hero, the demon of my art, I adore you for your magic…
Dark ink and sea salt crackled on your little belly…
The clarity of your ambiguous nature… Its power rushes into me with an insane passion…
Distant sleeping child, wash me with your tears, water my garden with your tears, water it each night…
My whole world aches for you to rest your feet upon it. My tears ache to become stars, to flow between your legs. I want to be inside you.
I want to come to America, I wrote back. But I’m scared of the journey.
I’ll come and get you, he answered.
I packed my suitcases, had Lyn vaccinated, and was ready. Ready and fat, though I’d written to John that I was so skinny my cheeks were hollow.
Not to worry, I thought, love is blind.
The big day came. John’s flight would arrive at eleven, and we would leave together that same evening. I watched the airplanes in the sky. At twelve the doorbell rang. Nervous, I opened the door just a crack, stuck out my hand and grabbed hold of his. He came inside— a skinny, weak blond man who, like me, was trembling.
—Is it you? we said at the same time. We looked at one another.
—I thought you’d be thinner, John told me.
—And I thought you’d be bigger, I answered.
We embraced.
—Your bra is bothering me.
—Should I take it off?
—No.
—Did I disappoint you? I asked.
—No. I just thought you’d be thinner.
—And I thought you’d be bigger, I told him. Well, let’s open the champagne.
—I don’t drink alcohol. Only milk.
I poured some milk into one of the exquisite old champagne glasses. He drank it in a single swallow.
—Would you like more?
—Yes.
He drank an entire bottle of milk. I had prepared caviar and crackers, but they didn’t go well with milk, so I hid them.
—Do you have any peanut butter? he asked.
—No, I said, and my eyes welled with tears. Right then I should have said no to it all, but everything was already in motion, there was no going back. I had imagined John as an American intellectual in the body of an enormous basketball player. But he was neither one. He was just American. John and I tried to make love. When he kissed me he slobbered all over me as if he were eating an ice cream. Suddenly he jumped up from the bed.
—I forgot to take my insulin.
I was stunned.
—I’m diabetic. I didn’t write about it because I didn’t want to disappoint you. I have to give myself shots every few hours, otherwise I’ll die. I only eat certain foods: no sweets, just cereal, milk, and bread.
He took his insulin. Lyn, who hates shots, began to bark.
—Let’s not make love yet, I told him. Let’s get to know one another better.
—Okay, he said, relieved. Then he looked at me. I thought you’d be thinner.
—I don’t have diabetes. I eat what I want.
On the plane Lyn was proud, she had her own seat. She was little, so she curled up in her blanket and slept with her plastic bone between her paws. I sat beside her uneasily. I was going to America with a stranger I didn’t love, who was diabetic to boot. How much I had loved him when all I had was the letters! Once again my imagination had gotten the better of me. Why couldn’t I have fallen in love with some neighbor, the boy next door? No, I had to fall in love via America. And what was I doing now, on a plane with Lyn? The other passengers took their blankets down from the overhead bins. They were speaking all sorts of languages—the plane was a madhouse. They showed us a movie with earphones. I couldn’t hear a thing because the man next to me had his headset turned up very loud in Japanese. Then they served us our meal. We began with a pâté.
—It smells funny, John said.
—Seems fine to me. Besides, you can’t eat rich foods.
—Don’t worry. It’s dry, like bread.
John ate the pâté. Before long he was green.
—It was spoiled.
He looked at me with hatred, as if I were to blame.
It occurred to me then that we hadn’t exchanged a single tender word since we’d met—and after such passionate letters, such love, such expectation. All we had talked about was food, diabetes and insulin.
John began vomiting nonstop. The movie they were showing was Tea and Sympathy. We arrived in New York. It would take another three hours for us to reach Middletown, Connecticut.
—Welcome to New York! John said, and hugged me.
I looked up, saw the skyscrapers, and fainted. I came to in John’s truck, sprawled out on my back with Lyn in my arms. I crossed the entire city with my hands over my eyes. Now and then I peeked between my fingers and cried out:
—The buildings are too tall, I can’t stand it!
I must have been the only person in the world to ride through New York with my eyes shut.
—Don’t look, John said. We’re getting close to the Empire State Building.
The next thing I knew, a wild animal was looming above us. I fainted again.
When I came to, we had left New York.
—Are we almost there? I kept asking.
John turned and looked at me. He was furious and pale.
—I told you that pâté was spoiled.
—Is that my fault?
Now we were on a highway. John threw up out the window.
That first day, I had no way of knowing that my arrival in America, with the vomiting and the skyscrapers, would set the tone for my entire stay—two whole months. We drove endlessly. By now John was extremely sick. He kept throwing up out the window, and was white as a sheet.
—John, you’re even skinnier than before, I told him.
I thought again of our passionate letters. I kissed him on the cheek.
—John, it’ll pass. I’ll take care of you when we get there. I still love you, John. You’ll see.
John leaned over to throw up out the window.
—We’re going to have to stop at a motel. I’m really sick. I can’t drive anymore.
All I’d seen of America was New York, sprawled on my back, and highways. Now I’d be introduced to motels, too.
—Could I have a glass? John asked at the reception desk.
—Sorry, the kitchen is closed.
It was nine p.m.
—I have to take some medicine, John insisted. How am I supposed to take it without a glass?
—Sorry, it’s closed.
The motel room reminded me of Lolita. It was luxurious, but in a cheap, shabby way. John paced the room with a pill in his palm. Suddenly he grabbed an ashtray, washed it well, drank the tiny bit of water the ashtray would hold, and tried to swallow his pill.
—I did it, he said, exhausted, and collapsed onto the bed.
I lay down too.
Our arrival in America will be triumphant, he had written in one of his letters.
I fell asleep. I dreamed that I was going up to the top of the Empire State Building. There was no elevator, only stairs, and it took me days to go all the way up. All the windows were open and the wind rushed in from all sides—it was like climbing a mountain, but a mountain that was also a prison. I had a basket of food with me, and whenever I got ti
red I would stop to eat and birds would fly in and ask me what time it was. Finally I reached the top. It was very cramped. I looked around and saw that thing they call New York, tall buildings ruining the sky. The buildings were looking at one another and I was looking at them, and I liked it a lot, it was like company. Then the sky darkened, God was angry, and the buildings began to bend to the right with such grace, like trees. They bent and bent and lay down on the sidewalk and closed their windows like eyes, they were tired and went to sleep. Then the Empire State Building asked me to leave so it could sleep, too. And so I left.
We checked out of the motel at five the next morning. John was fine.
—We should be there in two hours, he told me.
We entered the state of Connecticut. Day was breaking. The scenery was breathtakingly beautiful. There were enormous red trees, flowers and squirrels, and the sky seemed bigger than the sky in Europe. During my entire stay, those were the only moments when I felt a sort of euphoria, something that connected me to the place I was visiting. We passed a sign that read “Middletown” and entered a town that reminded me of Hansel and Gretel. Everything was small and doll-like: little wooden houses were nestled in the forest, freckled kids rode by on bicycles. The whole town was lost in space and time, like a dream.
—We’re here, John said.
We had stopped in front of a two-story New England–style wooden house with a garden full of roses and vegetables. It’s my only beautiful memory of America: the sun lighting up that splendid landscape, inching across the façade of the house, a squirrel peering at me from its perch atop of a head of cabbage. Everything else is clouded in a mist, part of a tragicomic nightmare that could only have happened in that country.
John had decorated the inside of the house. He had written “Welcome” everywhere in gold and silver garlands. I felt sorry for him, and lay down beside him in the bedroom.
—I’ll stay here until you fall asleep.
—Yes, he said, yes.
He fell asleep right away. Lyn and I carefully got up and went into the kitchen. Poor John had filled two whole cupboards with dog food, Country Dinner and Yiam-Yiam. Lyn ate two cans. I made myself some coffee and lit a cigarette. I stayed like that until noon, sitting in a chair with Lyn on my lap, not knowing what to do, where to go, what to think.
John woke up.
—You know, he told me, you’re much older than I am.
—And fatter, I snapped.
I took Lyn and went to sit in the yard, slamming the door behind me.
And so began our everyday life. John worked at the university. He got up at five to paint, left at eight, and came home every evening at six. So there I was, completely alone with Lyn in a town like the one in Peyton Place, where I didn’t know a soul. I was in the heart of the country, not in New York, but in middle-class America. Though I didn’t realize it at the time, the one benefit of my trip was that in time I got to know the real country, not just the one I’d seen in movies. In the beginning, though, Lyn really saved me. She seemed to sense my despair. She was always sitting on my lap or barking for me to open the door so we could run around in the fields. There in Connecticut I came to adore Lyn. She was my only companion and she tried to keep me entertained, in all the ways her dog’s mind could think up.
I decided to clean the whole house. I put on a kerchief and apron and started to mop. As I scrubbed the floors I imagined myself at some literary cocktail party in New York, in a black dress with a high neckline and open back. I’d come here hoping to find myself at the center of intellectual life, eating petits fours while chatting about Faulkner, and here I was with a kerchief on my head, sweeping and scrubbing a diabetic’s house in Middletown, Connecticut.
One night John asked:
—Why don’t you want to?
—I can’t, I told him, I can’t. From now on I’ll sleep on the couch with Lyn.
After that John changed, became hostile. But the poor thing was so puny and weak that even his aggression seemed polite. We never talked anymore. The house was divided in two. I was alone all day, and I was alone in the evenings after John came home. My love for Lyn became insane, almost erotic. “Lyn,” I would say, “Lyn.” She was a small, golden-haired dog, not too smart, though perhaps that’s why I adored her the way I did. And her love for me made her so sensitive that she acquired a sort of intelligence.
Every morning I swept and mopped both floors of the house. I had been seized by a mania for cleanliness. Around noon I watched General Hospital. Gradually I sank into lethargy, until I didn’t even know where I was. I was imprisoned in America.
Across the street was a big, beautiful house. I would often look over and see men in boots and jeans sitting on the porch, talking or playing cards. They were the only people I’d seen in Middletown besides the milkman. One day I crossed the road.
—Hello, I said.
—Hello there, they replied.
—I’m Greek.
—How nice.
—Is this a hotel?
They burst out laughing.
—Something like that.
I began to go every day, and even taught them new card games.
—Why do you all live here together? I always asked.
—Why do you live across the street? they’d reply, winking.
One evening I told John about going to see them every day. The fork dropped from his hand.
—Are you insane? he cried. Are you completely insane? Those men are criminals, long-term convicts. They’ve been released from prison on probation, and if they commit even the smallest offense they’ll be locked back up again. Middletown is so small and quiet that they’ve put even the most dangerous men in that house: murderers, rapists, all of them convicted of the most hideous crimes. Don’t ever go there again, do you hear me? They put them on this street because there’s nothing else around.
—I know very well there’s nothing else around, that’s why I go to see them.
John started sobbing
—You’ve told me you have all these phobias, yet you go over to chat with murderers? Then he whispered, Why did I ever have to read your book?
And thus my social life came to an end.
One morning I woke at five to a rain so hard I thought the dam on the river must have burst. Rain fell around the house like a curtain, in drops as big as eggs. By then my apathy was so extreme that when I saw a house sailing by like a boat, swept off by the flood, I didn’t even wake up John. I just whispered to myself, “Look, there’s a house going by.” Though I did turn on the radio:
—Connecticut has been hit by the worst flooding in a century. Hundreds are dead, houses have been torn from their foundations. All of Connecticut is one huge sea. Fortunately many of the houses are wooden, and float. But the storm is still raging, especially in Middletown. This tragedy will doubtless claim countless lives, as the rain is expected to continue for quite some time.
There I was in my nightgown, stepping outside with Lyn in my arms. The water had risen above my knees. For the first time I ran over to our neighbor’s house. His name was Hans Brenneman, and he was Jewish. I’d never dared go to his house before.
—Mr. Brenneman, I cried, Mr. Brenneman!
—Oh… my dear neighbor. I was wondering when you would finally come to see me. So it took a Second Coming for us to meet. Come in, dry off by the fire. It’s five a.m., and I always watch Love Boat in the mornings. How about a bowl of ice cream?
And so, with houses gliding by on all sides, I watched Love Boat and ate vanilla ice cream with chocolate syrup. It was my happiest day in America. Mr. Brenneman tucked his coat around my shoulders.
—You know, he said, I’ve always loved movies like The Ten Commandments. I enjoy the spectacle. And here we have it firsthand, and for free.
The houses glided by and disappeared into the darkness created by the rain. On Love Boat beautiful girls swam in a pool on the deck of a ship.
—I’m an old man, Mr. Brenneman told me. I’d be lyin
g if I told you I wasn’t enjoying the floods, and at my age lying is a luxury I can’t afford. I like anything that takes my mind off my loneliness. Biblical catastrophes fascinate me more and more as I age. Besides, this house is made of cement. I’m old and I’m Jewish. I’m retired. My children—that’s them, in the photographs on top of the TV—they’ve all left. They never write to me. Will you come and see me often?
Each morning at five I was there, watching Love Boat with Mr. Brenneman. The whole state of Connecticut had turned into one big river. We would watch Love Boat and listen as huge trees uprooted themselves and traveled off, squirrels trapped in their branches. And always there was the drumbeat of rain, the curtain of rain that closed us off so reassuringly from the outside world. Each day I stayed longer and longer. I would run over to Mr. Brenneman’s house with Lyn early each morning and sit by the fire to dry my rain-soaked nightgown. I had completely forgotten John. All the love I’d felt for him from afar, before I met him, had now been transferred to Mr. Brenneman.
In the ashes of the fire Mr. Brenneman made a kind of dessert I’d never had before, something called marshmallows, and then we would eat ice cream. We watched TV while outside all of Middletown floated away. After Love Boat we watched All My Children, Trip to Heaven, Celebrity, and To Conquer Manhattan.
—Mr. Brenneman, you remind me of my uncle Harilaos. When I was little, he used to play chess on our marble floor tiles, or on the plaid suits of our guests. Then one day he disappeared. We never saw him again, alive or dead. He didn’t take anything with him, not even his passport.
Mr. Brenneman really liked this story. He made me tell it three times.
Those mornings when I ran half-naked with Lyn in my arms through the incessant downpour to Mr. Bren-neman’s, those endless hours in front of the TV, with the ice cream and the marshmallows, came to seem more and more like a dream. Mr. Brenneman would tell me about his life. It had been a hard life, full of pain, hardship, and disappointment, but he talked about it with such humor that we laughed constantly, as if he were telling jokes. Our friendship turned into adoration. One day I had a cold and didn’t go until the following morning.
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