Kept: A Comedy of Sex and Manners

by Y. Euny Hong

  6

  A Treatise on Lactation

  MY MOTHER told me only one story when I was a child, the same one over and over again. It’s a Korean folk tale about a farmer who lived in a small village with his wife and son. One day, a beautiful stallion wandered into the farmer’s lands, and the farmer was able to claim it for himself. “How lucky you are!” the villagers cried. But then the son, attempting to tame the horse, fell violently to the ground when the horse bucked, and the boy broke both his legs. “How unlucky you are!” the villagers cried. Some weeks later, the local feudal lord declared war against a neighboring fiefdom, and the lord’s men went from house to house, recruiting all able-bodied young men to join in the battle. The village mothers wept inconsolably, but the farmer’s family was spared this sorrow, since their son’s injury rendered him useless to the army. “How lucky you are!” the villagers cried.

  The rest of my story continues in the same vein. The lessons I was told to draw from this were twofold: (1) only an idiot gets excited about good or bad news; and (2) you can stay out of trouble by being just a little incompetent.

  In the early 1940s, when Korea was still a colony of Japan, my paternal grandfather was a viceroy, overseeing a province of Korea for his colonial masters. He was, in a sense, an Uncle Tom. Frustrated to be assigned to such a backwater, he longed for promotion to a larger city. But then, in 1945, Korea gained independence from Japan. After that, my grandfather’s allegiance to the Japanese might have put him in jeopardy. The three men immediately above him in rank were persecuted as traitors by the provisional government and either disappeared mysteriously or were hanged. But, happily, my grandfather was too low-ranking to be considered a real threat, and his life was spared. He was saved by his own failure.

  So what happens when lucky is really unlucky, and genius is really stupidity, and fair is foul, and foul is fair? It means that all words are emptied of meaning.

  All the girls in the Anthology of Pros understood this. Even as they clung to their blue-blooded heritage, they were unwilling to accept the emptiness and fatality that went with it. In order to be free, they had to orphan themselves. And here we are.

  KEPT WOMEN are very agreeable company. They are very good cooks, I find. You’d think the opposite would be the case; that we’d be so accustomed to being taken out to restaurants that there’d be no occasion for us to learn to cook. But, as I learned from the other girls, one has to support oneself in between men, and the only way a girl can afford to eat cheaply yet maintain her spoiled palate is to learn to reproduce those dishes at home. Puttanesca sauce, of course, derives from the derogatory Italian word for prostitute.

  The girls cook for one another a few times a week. Justine, the pixie-voiced half-French, half-Belgian, makes a lot of fish: salt-crusted bass, skate with champagne butter sauce, and the like. Heike, like all good Frankfurters, has a penchant for Italian food, particularly Bolognese. The Scottish girl won’t cook for us because once we all asked her to make us meat pies and she got really offended. I make French and Korean food, but not together, because we all agree that fusion cuisine is strictly for losers.

  On Friday nights, when most of the girls are lounging at Madame Tartakov’s (men with kept women spend Friday nights with their own families), we congregate around the sitting room banging out tunes on the piano; Heike, the German baroness, sings Schubert lieder, and Giovanna sings from Verdi. This always devolves into an iterative argument on the merits of German opera versus Italian opera.

  The other day, we were discussing places we would be willing to live when we grew up.

  I said, “Anywhere in Europe except for Poland.”

  The half-Walloon girl said, “Anywhere in Europe except for Poland and the Netherlands, because the Dutch are stupid and unfriendly.”

  Giovanna said, “Anywhere in Europe except for Poland and Milan, because the Lombardi are so bigoted, and they’re not even really Italian anyway.”

  “I hate bigots,” Justine added, to which we all emphatically agreed.

  Heike said, “Anywhere but Poland or Austria.”

  “What is wrong with Poland?” asked Tonya, a member of the Sobieski clan.

  “Poles are anti-Semitic,” said Heike, the German, with irony.

  I’VE BECOME CHUMMY with Heike, though she has the German’s obsession with fresh air and insists on leaving our bedroom windows open all day long, even though this practice has permitted leaves and caterpillars to blow in from the ivy that surrounds the window. She also won’t let me turn on the air conditioner. “Air conditioners are very lethal,” she says.

  One August evening when some of the girls were lounging in the parlor, Heike asked the room at large, “Do you know what all the girls in the Anthology of Pros have in common?” She was on the chintz easy chair, sipping at the caipirinha she had just made for herself. Lime wedges hit her nose as she tipped the glass to her mouth. I was stretched out on Madame’s buffalo-hide sofa, flipping through the multilingual array of Vogue magazines the girls had left in the magazine rack over the years. Some of the other girls were engaged in a French variant of hearts, playing for money, and I sulked a bit at being left out. Madame Tartakov had forbidden me to play games of chance with the other girls, because I proved myself unlucky at cards, and Madame was worried I would prioritize my debts to the girls over my debts to her.

  “Are you talking to me?” I said. I was engrossed in a magazine quiz, “How Many Real Friends Do You Have?” with questions like, “Excluding relatives and lovers, how many people know your birthday offhand?” I wasn’t doing too well.

  Heike said, “I’ve got something I want you to see,” and clomped up the stairs clad in her lingerie and hiking boots. Shortly after, she ran back down clutching some papers.

  “Not so much noise when you walk, Heike,” said Justine in her elfin voice. “We’re all trying to count cards.”

  “Read,” Heike commanded, passing me a document.

  A TREATISE ON LACTATION

  by Heike Freifrau von Grünesosse

  Aristocrats the world over have a tie that binds them: they are descended from hundreds of generations of people who suckled at the teat of a hired peasant woman.

  For throughout the Eurasian land mass, aristocrats were not nursed by their own mothers, but rather by wet-nurses, which is peculiar, given the traditional aristocratic obsession with keeping the blood line uncontaminated. The peasant milk coursing through the veins of alleged blue bloods may explain why they are dying out. All just so their vain mothers wouldn’t become saggy-titted.

  I winced at her imagery.

  “What, you found grammatical errors, didn’t you?” said Heike, looking mildly distressed.

  “No, your English is astonishing, as usual. But, uh, what is this for? Some kind of religious tract?”

  “It’s the introduction for my doctoral thesis. I’ve come upon a topic, finally.”

  “Your WHAT?”

  “I’m a Ph.D. candidate at Columbia. I thought you knew.”

  “No, I DIDN’T,” I said, which prompted commands from the card players to keep my voice down. I looked over the first few paragraphs again. “If this is an academic paper, though, I don’t think you can get away with being so…opinionated.”

  “It’s okay to be opinionated in women’s studies. Keep reading.”

  Wet-nursing was deleterious not only for the class that employed them, but also for the wet-nurses themselves. They were not allowed to breast-feed their own babies, who then had to drink cow’s milk, not properly sterilized. These babies often perished.

  Wet-nursing, one might argue, was a form of prostitution. At one time, wet-nursing was the highest-paid female profession in Europe. Yet these women were treated wretchedly. As far back as 2000 B.C., in ancient Babylon, the Code of Hammurabi literally set in stone that if an infant in the charge of a wet-nurse perished, and the wet-nurse continued to service another child, the woman’s breasts would be cut off.

  I nodded approvingly.
“It’s a good start, very energetic. But how did you end up in the Anthology of Pros? Did you drop out of Columbia?”

  “No, technically I’m ABD, meaning, I’m finished with All But Dissertation. My funding ran out, so here I am. Originally, I was going to write about courtesans. But the wet-nurse idea is more original, don’t you think? Or is it just stupid?”

  She had misinterpreted my expression for skepticism, when in fact I was merely distracted. One subject had invaded my thoughts for days now, almost to the exclusion of all else. It had given me a low-grade fever. I said, “Columbia, is it? Do you know Joshua Spinoza in the philosophy department?”

  “Name sounds familiar, but I’m not certain. Why? You want me to talk to him on your behalf? God, you look sick.”

  “Oh, no, please don’t approach him. He’s just some bookish malcontent who accuses me of being snobby, even though he’s even snobbier, albeit in a different way. Arrogant, critical…No, really, don’t say anything to him; I want nothing to do with him.”

  7

  Down Eros, Up Mars

  IF YOU EVER tell someone you never want to see him again, you are bound to run into him within a fortnight. It’s worse than that: you are bound to be paired with him for an impromptu debate on a topic you do not understand, for which you have had no preparation. And worse still: your debate partner is a stutterer.

  It so happened that Joshua and I were both vying for membership at the Young Crotonia Club, a sort of singles group disguised as a discussion society, held at one of the tony, mahogany-paneled club buildings near Grand Central Terminal. It offers fencing lessons and quarterly Scottish balls, and has a small, pretty library that houses, among other things, issues of The New Yorker dating back to the 1920s.

  The membership applications are reviewed every September. One of the requirements for prospective members is that they participate in three debates, for which the topics and partners are chosen just thirty minutes prior. For my first debate, I was paired with Josh. We stood awkwardly next to each other as the club officer led us in the official opening song for club meetings, “Gaudeamus Igitur,” a traditional Latin student song.

  The club president announced the commencement of round seven of the Initiates’ Debate Series.

  One of the club officers read out the topic: “ ‘Resolved: The United States Should Take Greater Measures to Ensure Stability in Chad.’ Mr. Eustace Diamond and Ms. Rebecca Sedley will take the pro position. Mr. Joshua Spinoza and Ms. Judith Lee will take the con position. You have thirty minutes to prepare. All other members of the audience are welcome to these lovely Bellinis our staff has prepared. Please return to your seats when you hear the gavel.”

  Joshua and I were sent to a curtained-off corner of the auditorium. We sat in silence at two schoolroom desks, the kind that have armrests attached. I chewed on a nail; Joshua drummed his fingers on the armrest. We kept up this stalling for five minutes before Joshua finally asked, “Hey, Judith, where is Chad?”

  I said, “Hey, Spinoza, I thought you were the big brainiac here.”

  “Hey, Judith, I’m just a philosopher.”

  “What are you even doing at a private club? Isn’t this a bit snooty for your blood?”

  “They book really good speakers,” he said. “Jürgen Habermas is coming here in February; it may be the last chance I get to see him before he dies.”

  “And another thing. Why did you tell Thor that I wasn’t pretty?”

  I had blindsided him.

  “What? I never said that,” he replied, looking a bit cagey.

  “He seems to think you did. Disappointed was the word, I think.”

  “I was just trying to get him to mind his own b-business, that’s all. There was some scheme to set you up with me, and I detest those sorts of things, because the people who arrange them feel that they then possess the couple. And if you must know, I didn’t say you weren’t pretty. Thor bungled it as always. I said you were contemptible.”

  I was greatly relieved. “Really? That’s all? You swear?”

  “Really. Now, what do you know about Chad?”

  We argued about the location of Chad until the club officer struck the gavel three times, announcing our doom.

  Filled with dread, Joshua and I took our seats at one of the two tables on the stage; it was made of a stately oak that mocked our underpreparedness. Joshua and I paid no attention to the first pro argument because we were scribbling notes to each other, like: “We’re fucked.” “I know.”

  I was to deliver the first cross-examination. “Help me!!!” I wrote, underscoring it three times and tearing the page with the pen. This was fun.

  He wrote, “Will make you note cards, but don’t know specifics.”

  When my name was called, I pushed back my massive chair, which screeched as it slid, and stood up to cross-examine the other side. I cleared my throat and began, “I wonder whether the gentleman has considered the long-term consequences of the, uh, plan he has laid out, with respect to America’s unpopularity in eastern…western…in that region.” I glanced at Joshua’s notes and barreled through. “Is the gentleman not concerned that his plan is indicative of a messy Interpol?”

  I leaned over to Joshua, seething. “What?”

  He whispered indignantly, “It doesn’t say ‘messy Interpol’! It’s shorthand for ‘messianic interventionist policies.’”

  “What?”

  Joshua clutched his head, unable or unwilling to help me further. I resumed with the cross-ex. “Indicative of messianic…I’m sorry. I can’t do this.”

  “Thank you, Ms. Lee,” said the moderator, smiling condescendingly.

  I turned to face my opponents. “I’m offering you a draw,” I said. They looked at me with exasperation and disgust.

  Joshua had removed his glasses and was now pinching the bridge of his nose. But under his hand he was concealing a smile. The edges of his eyes crinkled adorably into premature crow’s-feet.

  There were a half dozen more debates, after which it became clear that Joshua and I hadn’t a prayer at being anointed Young Crotonians. Accepting our defeat, we disbanded with the others into the study for cocktails. Over the mediocre Crotonia Club wine, which I think was some relabeled Málaga, I said to Joshua, “What do you do with your life otherwise, or is contempt a full-time hobby?”

  Joshua spat up his wine. “I’m teaching the odd class at Columbia to maintain my embarrassingly meager stipend, while on the endless quest for a dissertation topic.”

  “Ah. Well, I wonder how many Crotonia members are students.”

  “Is this your way of asking how I could afford it? They have a reduced-fee schedule for students. I am able to get away with a great deal, in fact, based on student discounts. Any museum in New York is practically free for me, and Columbia sets aside a block of tickets in the Family Circle for performances at the Metropolitan Opera. Would you like to go to La Bohème next Thursday? Franco Zeffirelli designed the sets.”

  I pursed my lips to stop myself from beaming. “I’d love to,” I said. “I’ve never sat in Family Circle before. Is that above Mezzanine?”

  “Ha-ha,” he said. “A little higher up.”

  “Why not meet me under the left-hand Chagall?”

  “The what?”

  “The Chagall on the left-hand side. There are two Chagalls in the lobby; you know that, right?”

  “Actually, I haven’t really ever been to the Met. But I do listen to a lot of opera.”

  Oh, dear. Joshua’s knowledge of opera, as his knowledge of everything else, was strictly theoretical.

  8

  The Marrow Sucker

  I SPENT ALL of Thursday getting ready for the Met, employing all the beauty tips Madame had given me for my first meeting with Yevgeny — banana breasts and all. I wore a sheer silk plum gown that I’d bought at Morgana le Fay in SoHo. Over it I wore a white cashmere cape with a hood. I wore plum sandals with satin ribbons that I tied and crossed around my ankle, and carried a tiny beaded handbag
.

  By prior arrangement, I met Joshua below the left-side Chagall. I was somewhat taken aback by his attire. He wore the same all-brown outfit he’d worn the night I met him at Thor’s party, with the toothpaste flecks still on his sweater. And he was finishing a large pickle brought in from some nearby street vendor. He saw me and waved with a mustard-stained hand. A death fugue played in my head.

  My internal mood music was interrupted by the Met orchestra xylophone, sounding the last seating call for the first act, and Joshua led me up the red-carpeted stairs. As the crowd ascended the staircase, the ladies in ermine were the first to leave us, taking their seats in Orchestra. Then the ladies with Tiffany necklaces, but who were of the younger, antifur generation, went off to the mezzanine level. Slowly, gradually, all the people dressed like me receded, until I was surrounded only by people dressed like Joshua. Even the girls who looked as though they were wearing their old prom dresses had already taken their seats. My stomach was turning. It was Dante’s Inferno, inverted: the higher you climb, the worse your seats, the worse the refreshments, the scruffier the crowd. We had passed the Good Champagne Zone thirty steps ago, and from the looks of it, I was going to have to drink a Heidsieck during intermission, unless I could somehow persuade Joshua to steal downstairs to the Mezzanine bar, which I didn’t want to risk unless he had somehow brought a change of clothing.

  We took our seats, and I saw that I was surrounded entirely by students, who were staring at me.

  “Are you okay?” asked Josh. “You look a little queasy.”

  “Oh, just, uh, vertigo. We’re a bit high up. But it’s delightful, though; this way I get to see the whole stage. You know, I hate it when I’m sitting too close and, um, have to keep turning my head to follow the action.”