Europe Central

by William T. Vollmann

  11

  It was she who’d returned his manhood to him. A previous relationship had ended so disastrously that he had been impotent, desireless, for more than a year. He threw himself into his work in Spain; he almost hoped to get killed. The first night he was with Elena he’d apologized and warned her, smiling in embarrassment (he never in his life learned that his embarrassed smile was the same as the cheerful one he put on for journalists and opening nights) that he might no longer be a man; he was very afraid, but with her it all came back, not just once but twice and three times, and it was not just delicious but it was tender from the very first; sentimental as such things sound when they are spoken of, it was the most romantic lovemaking that he had ever known, especially when she was riding on top of him, not rapidly and ruthlessly the way many women did (not that he didn’t like that, too), but with extreme concentration and grace, riding him very very slowly so that he almost couldn’t bear it, gazing at him, sometimes teasing him, sometimes concentrating very carefully on her own pleasure, taking her time, stopping sometimes or just barely moving, clenching and contracting herself around him with extreme deliberation while his desire and sexual suspense rose up like the smoke from her half-extinguished cigarette in the ashtray behind them. Even when her own orgasm was upon her she didn’t ride much faster, although she flung back her head at the last moment and her mouth opened and she uttered a high-pitched cry.

  When she lay underneath him she had a way of gripping the headboard when she was coming, or sometimes simply raising both hands above her head. After they had been together for a few months she began to lay her wrist across her eyes right before she climaxed. He didn’t think anything of it at first. But then, more and more, that wrist was there across her face whenever he tried to kiss her.

  One morning they lay just awoke and he rolled over, took her in his arms, and started to kiss her, but she averted her mouth. She said that his breath wasn’t good. He felt hurt, but said nothing.

  After that he began to notice that she almost invariably turned her face away when they were making love and he wanted to kiss her, or else her hand was there between their faces, keeping him a little away. Perhaps it was his beard. One time at breakfast she remarked that she thought that moustaches made men look stupid, so he shaved off his moustache, but that night when they made love her hand was there, gently pushing his face away from hers, so all he did was kiss her fingers. Sometimes when she was on top of him, she still kissed him, never as deeply as he would have wanted, never the way she used to; he learned to be passive at those moments, to let her kiss his lips in the gentle, shallow, half-nibbling licks that she liked; he didn’t want to frighten her away.

  It wasn’t at all, or at least not exactly, that she was withdrawing from him, or didn’t want him to see her. In her way she was actually a bit of an exhibitionist. She loved herself at the same time that she didn’t. She liked him to photograph her nude, but when she picked the pose, it was of herself lying on her stomach, averting her face, offering her buttocks. If he had seen any such image of another person, he would have thought: Here’s somebody who doesn’t want to be photographed. And yet she had asked him to photograph her.

  12

  That was the crux of it; that was how he would have told the story if he were making a newsreel about his life: First she used to squeak like a mouse when she came, then she grunted, finally she made no sound at all!

  He told her how when they made love he felt connected to her, soul to soul, and she gazed at him in silence.

  Isn’t it that way for you, Elena?

  I don’t want to hurt you.

  That shot away his confidence, so from then on he thanked her with weepy gratitude every time she made love with him.—Don’t thank me, she’d sadly whisper.

  I love you, he said.

  I love you, too, very very much.

  I need you.

  No you don’t! she cried in a panic. You don’t need to need anybody. You love me. That’s enough. It makes me happy to think of you being strong and going to Spain or China by yourself, being self-reliant. That’s why you’re my hero.

  And then, raising herself up on one elbow, she said: I want you to be happy for me. I think of you as that laughing man in “Volga-Volga.”

  13

  He often dreamed of seeing Elena through a window. He wondered whether Shostakovich, who they said had been extremely attached to Elena, had ever had such dreams; the only reason he hadn’t left his wife for her, it seems, was the man’s weak character. Hopefully he’d managed to forget Elena by now. Elena’s present husband had no intention of forgetting her; quite the opposite; but even in his dreams he no longer succeeded in being quite present with her. They quarreled in bed; she turned her back to him; miserably and tediously he fell asleep. Where was he now? In this other world, everything went on forever. He hovered and shimmered, not even knowing that he existed. Then through the window he saw Elena, naked, receiving the face of another naked woman against her own; she was reclining with her head bent a little forward, cradling the other woman’s head in her hands, her fingers buried in the other woman’s hair; and the other woman had closed her eyes in ecstasy, almost crying out, her mouth wide open and her tongue coming out; while his wife, whose eyes had also closed, nuzzled gently at this other woman’s upper lip almost like a baby sucking at a nipple, her lips tranquilly parted. It was the other woman, whom he’d never before seen, who was the active, eager partner, gasping with need for his wife, who so sweetly held her and offered herself; and yet, although she was the passive one, the giver, not the taker, there was a sense of indescribably sweet exploration in the way that Elena nuzzled the other woman’s mouth; the stunning, perfect tenderness between them bereaved him into agonizing insanity, because nowadays even when Elena allowed him to make love to her, she hid her face behind her hand, especially when she climaxed; she hadn’t yet forbidden him from looking her in the face but he knew for a certainty that his looking irritated her; everything about him irritated her. When they’d first become lovers he used to be the one to close his eyes; the intensity of her scrutiny as he neared his climax made him feel shy; she’d been so present then that it was almost too much, but that hadn’t meant that he didn’t love her, only that giving himself to her would be an irrevocable step. Perhaps she now felt the same; at any rate, he sought out her face because he was losing her; for exactly the same reason that he needed to have his camera with him when he saw “history,” so that none of it would get lost, he needed the little bits of Elena which remained available to him. And she interposed her hand between her mouth and his whenever he tried to kiss her! Yet she loved him; she attempted to be understanding (she was always saying: I understand); she admitted that she didn’t know how to be reassuring—she’d chosen to live with him, after all! She could have been living with a woman instead, not to mention with D. D. Shostakovich.

  Elena had telephoned him once from Leningrad, very cheerfully, so that he felt nothing amiss, to say that all was well. She’d chatted with him about nothing; he had glowed to hear her voice. Then she telephoned him right back and said: I was unfaithful to you last night.

  With whom?

  Dmitri Dmitriyevich. He was drunk and he came into my room; he started crying and I felt sorry for him; oh, Roman, I’m sorry, I’m sorry . . .

  And then what happened? he said wearily.

  There’s not much to tell you. He and I, we—we . . . He was so drunk he couldn’t do as much as he wanted. And he kept crying. It was awful. Afterward I told him that we couldn’t ever do this again, because I felt bad about betraying you. I told him it was over, and he got really sad. I’d rather not talk about it anymore unless there’s something you really need to ask me. And I promise you that it will never happen again.

  Karmen knew that she needed him to forgive her then; he was grateful that she had confessed on the morning after it had happened; on the other hand, and this is what truly hurt him, there’d been that previous telephone c
all, which retrospectively horrified him with its cheerfulness because it had cheered him; he’d believed. That was why he understood that he would never, ever know if Elena were lying to him.

  He was a tolerant person, really, and not merely in his own estimation. As many itinerant professionals do, he had enjoyed his share of interludes; he’d found stability in several mutually non-monogamous relationships, in obedience to A. Kollantai’s sex-equals-a-drink-of-water theory; but that these relationships were honest. If from the very start Elena had told him: Roman, I’d like to be with you, but I’m going to go on sleeping with Dmitri Dmitriyevich, then he could have accepted or rejected her proposition; he would have known what he was getting into. Had he accepted it, her nights with Dmitri Dmitriyevich might have hurt him a little, but that would have been his pain, inflicted by him upon himself. The pain which Elena had inflicted upon him was not his. This is why it comprised (and she had used the word) betrayal.

  Later, what had happened kept returning to his mind. He wished that he had asked: Did Dmitri Dmitriyevich stay the entire night in your bed, or did he go after you’d completed the sex act? Did he want to stay but you sent him away because you were already remorseful, or did you figure that since you had just copulated with him he might as well stay through the night and maybe you would do it with him one more time?

  Such questions as these seemed highly important to his understanding of her behavior, but were they actually important? Didn’t he already know everything that he needed to know? This other man, Dmitri Dmitriyevich, had penetrated Elena, with her consent, while she was supposedly with him. How many times had he penetrated her? Had he entered her slowly? Had he been gentle and careful; had her pleasure been one of his considerations, perhaps even the primary point, in which case the emotional connection between them must be still more dangerous? Or had Dmitri Dmitriyevich simply been intent upon his own need? Had Elena climaxed? In the course of the sex act, had she thought about, and better yet, had she pretended that she was with, a certain Roman Karmen? If she hadn’t, that was very damaging. On the other hand, if she had, then what did that say about her?

  He never asked her any of these questions, because he feared hurting her with a lengthy interrogation. He knew all too well how necessary it was to him both in his life and in his work for him to visualize all factors, right down to the smallest detail; in the case of Elena’s infidelity, his reconstruction would always remain far more incomplete than any on-the-spot documentation; he’d never know enough! Let it go.

  14

  He kissed her nipples. He wanted to tell her that her breasts were as white and sweet as Viazma gingerbread, but he was afraid that if he did, she would fear all the more that he wanted to consume her.

  It’s just a compulsion, Roman, that’s all it is. I’ve thought about myself as you asked me to do, and I’ve even talked with others. I’ve established that I’m normal and you’re abnormal.

  But other women never said that about me—

  Don’t compare me with other women.

  I’m sorry.

  Elena looked at him in her gently terrifying way, lit a cigarette and said: You know, when I was a girl I used to be a compulsive masturbator. I was addicted to it. If I didn’t have an orgasm every few hours I couldn’t stand it. I used to spend all my time scheming out another fifteen minutes to be alone. And it was terrible. I finally broke myself of that habit. And I don’t ever want to go back!

  I want you to need me the way I need you.

  What you want is for me to be unhappy again, the way I was with Vera. I was weak, I was jealous, I was dependent. Whatever she did, it wasn’t enough. She couldn’t make me happy.

  But she was unfaithful to you right and left! She was mean to you! And I’m not that way.

  I promised myself I’d never go back to that, Elena said. I made progress. I got over being that way. I’m proud of myself for that. And you want me to go back to that. I’m sorry, Roman, but I’ll never, ever go back.

  15

  On her desk he saw an opened envelope to his wife from Vera Ivanova. Jealous suspicions crawled all over him. He longed more than anything else to read the letter and learn whether Vera and Elena had maintained their sexual relationship. He actually held the envelope in his hands. Then he said to himself: My God, what am I doing? Don’t I love her? Don’t I trust her?

  Elena, he said that night at dinner, have you heard any news from your friend Vera?

  Elena lit a cigarette and said: As a matter of fact she invited me to a party but I don’t think I’ll go. I’m feeling tired.

  He believed her; he was happy now; he changed the subject.

  16

  Every time he begged her to say just once that he was the one for her, Elena flew into a rage. She didn’t want to be pinned down like a butterfly! She kept saying: What if someday you turn into a monster?

  You’re the only woman I’ve ever been with who won’t say I’m the one for you.

  Maybe I’m the only one who’s honest, Elena replied.

  17

  I know it’s unfair, she whispered softly. I know I’m being selfish. I’m sorry . . .

  Love, agony, and strangely erotic pain detonated inside him. This was what she so often said, and whenever she did, he always felt the same.

  I know it feels a little unequal, Elena whispered. I’m sorry . . .

  I know it’s hard, Elena gently said.

  I can see that you’re sad, Elena said in a beautifully consoling voice. But I know you’re strong.

  And Karmen, suffering intensely, longed for the next time that he would speak with Elena and she would reject him.

  18

  A certain Comrade Alexandrov, the one who’d brought them together, in fact, took him aside one day and said: I’ll put it to you straight, Roman Lazarevich. Well, maybe I shouldn’t tell you. It’s a secret. Do you want to know or not?

  What kind of secret?

  It’s about Elena Evseyevna. You should leave her. Forgive me for saying this.

  What do you mean?

  You must promise to keep the secret. You can’t tell her. Do you promise?

  Of course I promise, said Karmen numbly.

  There’s a certain individual at the Conservatory who—look, I don’t know how to say this, but in November your wife was seen with him at a party. She was all over him, Roman Lazarevich! I’m very sorry.

  I see.

  And then last month we saw them together again, drinking. You know, your wife has, how should I say, flirty eyes. I mean no disrespect; that’s her nature; I mean, that’s how she appears, and it’s a charming, engaging quality, especially in a pretty young woman such as she is. So our first inclination was simply to assume—

  Who are these others who were with you?

  That’s not the point. Anyhow, we watched them, and unfortunately there was more to it than that. The way she was kissing him, and her hands were . . .

  I understand.

  But you’re not to betray me to her.

  Can I ask why?

  It has to do with protecting my career. That’s all I can tell you.

  All right, but then what can I do?

  Divorce her. That’s what you have to do.

  But it’s not fair! cried Karmen. She can’t confront her accuser; she can’t know the grounds on which I’m to leave her; she can’t refute these charges—

  Do you want the man’s name?

  I—

  He’s a certain composer. That first time, last November, she wouldn’t take her hands off him, so he actually had to leave the party. I know it’s an ugly story. He was upset; he complained about her to a friend who told me; the friend was supposed to keep his secret, because, you see, he depends on Elena for a recommendation. That’s why you can’t mention his name. Do you believe me?

  Karmen sat very still. Finally he said: Of course I believe you, Comrade Alexandrov. But if I’m not allowed to approach him or mention his name to her, then I’ll have to go on acting as
though I believe her.

  19

  Then a month later when he was in the Ukraine (and he knew full well that by being so far from her he was abandoning and disappointing her, that what he should have done was keep shooting documentaries about local collective farms for Sovkinozhurnal) she telephoned him and he said:

  So what did you end up doing last night?

  Actually, I didn’t stay home. A friend called me, and we went out for a drink . . .

  Oh, really? Which friend? he casually asked. He had never asked that before.

  There was a silence, and then she said in a very low voice: Shostakovich.

  He felt as if she had kicked him in the stomach.

  Oh, he said.

  You sound upset, came Elena’s voice.

  Oh, not at all. I’m not upset. So how often do you see him? I don’t believe you’ve mentioned him lately.

  He’s a . . . a fairly good friend.

  Oh, he said again, and changed the subject.

  Of course she’s unfaithful to you, Roman Lazarevich. (This was the opinion of all his friends.) A man doesn’t take a woman out to dinner on a regular basis unless he’s getting something from her, especially if she’s a married woman.

  I know, I know.

  Well then?

  I guess I really don’t care. If she’d only tell me, then I—

  Now you’re speaking in incomplete sentences, just like that Shostakovich.

  The thing is, I think about her all the time.

  Work harder, Roman Lazarevich! That’s the best cure!

  I know. But the odd thing is, my work doesn’t matter to me anymore. I know it’s ridiculous, but I sometimes feel that my love for her is the only thing that’s genuine about me.

  20

  Standing leftwards of the desk where her husband worked by lamplight, with a canteen beside him, his daybook on one side, and his light meter holding down one corner of the paper, Elena smiled at him lovingly.