Fanny, as the tub gurgled and toilet flushed, stepped out of the bathroom in a short white nightgown. Her body glowed. She had brushed her hair full and bright. Dubin, like a man about to be dubbed knight, sank to his knees, his arms clasping her legs as he pressed his nose into her navel.
She reacted in surprise, momentarily stiffening, then with affection ran her hand through his hair.
“I have my suitcase stuff all over the bed so I’d better finish unpacking like I see you have.”
“I thought I’d get my things out of the way.”
“So will I. It won’t take long.”
“‘Had we but world enough and time,’ dear Fanny,” Dubin, rising, sighed.
“We have all week.”
“You’re a practical type.”
“I’m not romantic, if that’s what you mean, though sometimes I have romantic thoughts.”
“It lingers in me, perhaps it’s my generation.”
“Forget your generation. Even if you are older than I you act young when you want to.”
“L’chayim,” said Dubin, holding aloft an imaginary glass.
“It’s cool,” she laughed.
She was sorting the contents of a small store: casual clothing—piles of it —and plastic containers of creams, lotions, deodorants. This consumer’s side of her was new to him—he barely knew the girl—and he wondered how it squared away with her abstemious stay in a Buddhist commune.
“It’s no ripoff. I happen to have this uncle who owns a drugstore. And my mother sends me clothes she doesn’t want.”
Amid her possessions he noticed a rubber diaphragm in a worn plastic case.
“Don’t you use the pill?”
“My uncle says it can give you breast cancer.”
“My wife never approved it.”
Fanny also carried a traveling iron and portable clothesline she could rig up in any bathroom. “Anything you want to hang on the clothesline, please do it, Bill.”
He was helping her put away things into drawers and the medicine cabinet.
“Why don’t you call me William, Fanny?”
“I don’t like to call you what your wife does.”
That hadn’t occurred to him, but he preferred William to Bill.
She fell, with a comic groan, into an armchair, her nightie billowing.
“What do you say we get into bed, Fanny?”
“If you wish, Will-yam.”
“Call me Bill if you like. What do you wish?”
“Are you worried I might call you Bill and your wife would hear it?”
He was startled, could not foresee circumstances in which Kitty and Fanny were likely to meet. Don’t consider yourself her equal, Dubin thought.
She regarded him cunningly. “Is something bothering you?”
“My mood at the moment is, as they say, macho, but you are being coy.”
“No, I’m not. What did you tell your wife was the reason you were going away for a week?”
“I indicated I had some unexpected bits of research to do in Italy to settle a few things on my mind. But since she knows I’m presently working on Lawrence’s early life, she may have wondered whether I wanted to get away for some other reason—possibly so I could see my work in perspective.”
“Will she believe what you said—about going to Italy?”
“She believes me,” Dubin said soberly.
“This isn’t your first affair since you were married, is it, William? I wouldn’t think so.”
He thanked her for saying his name. “No, but it is with someone—if you’ll pardon the expression—as young as you, a long trip involved, and some elaborate deception. Kitty happens to be easy to lie to, which makes it harder to do. I don’t like not to be honest with her.”
“Sometimes you sound innocent.”
“I’m not innocent though my experience is limited.”
“Like to some one-night lays with older-type ladies?”
“Not exactly grandmothers.”
“How many?” she asked curiously.
“A few affairs—none prolonged.”
“In how long a time?”
“I’ve been married twenty-five years and have been adulterous the last twelve.”
“Adulterous? What were you afraid of?”
“There was no special fear. I was largely satisfied as things were. I was married after thirty and had for years too much to do to go actively looking for extramarital sexual experiences. I was working well and had a family to take care of.”
“But nobody has to go actively looking—it’s there. It always is.”
“It may be there but in a way I wasn’t,” Dubin explained. “I’m only recently a visitor to the new sexual freedom. How many affairs have you had, Fanny?”
She started at the question. “I never counted.”
“Often with married men?”
She nodded. “I was into that a lot for a while but less so lately.”
“Good,” said Dubin, noting a contradiction.
“Why did you pick me to go away with?”
He asked her if she was looking for compliments.
“Not really but I am kind of curious, William.”
“Your warmth,” he said, “—good looks, womanliness, openness. Because you touch my arm with your fingers when we talk. You’re a little larger than life, Fanny. I mean you make life seem larger. I felt that before you tossed your underpants at me.”
“What about your wife? I never really got to figure her out.”
“What about her?”
“She looks sexy for her age but is she? My mother does but is limp as a rag.”
“Fanny, ask anything you please about me and I’ll answer, but let’s not talk about my wife—she wouldn’t like it.”
“What is she—the Queen of Sheba? Are you afraid of her?”
“There’s no reason to say that. Kitty’s a private person with a complicated personal history. That’s her business.”
“I’ll bet she worries a lot.”
Dubin admitted it. “The night before I was to leave she asked me to call the trip off. She felt she didn’t want to be alone in the house for a week. I said I wouldn’t go if she felt that way in the morning. But by morning she had changed her mind: ‘You’ve got to go,’ so I went.”
“What’s her real problem?”
Dubin hesitated. “Let’s say she’s going through a prolonged glandular thing. That’s as much as I intend to say about her.”
“You don’t have to tell me any more—I don’t want to know,” Fanny said, drawing up her legs and clasping them with both arms. “Just do you love her?”
Between her ankles her blond pelt was visible. As his eyes rose to hers she lowered her legs.
“I loved her,” the biographer responded. “I love her still but differently. Time passes, needs and feelings change. One tries, with others, to recover past pleasures, past privileges. One looks for diversion.”
“Is that what I am to you?”
“What would you want to be?” Dubin asked.
“I am not a hooker.”
“My God, why should I have thought so?”
“Attitudes don’t always need words.”
“What attitudes? I assure you of my respect, Fanny.”
“How much respect does a diversion get?”
“Forgive the word, I might have chosen better. In any case there are always possibilities. The course of a relationship is unpredictable.”
“Well, what is possible?”
“I suppose it’s possible to love one woman one way and another another.”
“Which way do you think you could love me?” Fanny then asked.
He answered slowly: “I am drawn to you. Surely that’s obvious? Anyway, it’s as much as I want to think of or define just now. Let’s stop analyzing our relationship, dear Fanny, and get into bed. An act defines itself.”
“I would really like to,” Fanny answered, “but my stomach is rumbling like ape. When I
am this hungry I can’t concentrate on anything, not even going to bed with someone. But I will if you want me to.”
“Let’s eat,” Dubin said.
Fanny pulled off her short nightgown—her breasts were beautifully formed. She wiggled into black bikini underpants, then drew on a short deep-pink minidress. Her hair she wore attractively up and slightly messy, though the effect was splendid. Her nipples were imprinted on the dress. He considered asking her to put on a bra but didn’t. Fanny then draped on the small gold crucifix and slipped on her blue glasses.
“Do you have to wear those?”
“Don’t you like them?”
“They blank your face.”
“I hate the glare,” Fanny said.
“You are the glare.”
She liked that, laughed.
When Fanny, in her fuchsia dress—not Dubin in his silk suit—appeared in the Contessa dining room, it burst into life. The vast elegant room, with gold-decorated white walls and a flight of cherubim in blue tones across the ceiling, fronted the dark canal. Before them, as they entered, a multitude of tables draped in white cloths extended into semi-darkness. Only a brightly lit rectangular section under two crystal chandeliers was roped off with a thick white silk rope and lavishly set for dinner. Into this dining area of about two dozen tables, none presently occupied, Fanny and Dubin were led and courteously seated by the maitre d’hôtel.
“I guess we’re early,” said Dubin.
He had seen the man’s discreet yet momentarily stunned glance at Fanny and had noticed that the four waiters who had been standing impassively at the doors had stirred and risen, if not to military attention at least to animated interest in her. Though her young legs were outstanding in short dresses, Dubin, if he had had his wits upstairs, would have suggested a more discreet garment for the dining room.
“Not at all, sir,” the maitre d’ responded. “The season is at the end. Only a few guests stay.”
He was a handsome heavy-eyed man who, as Fanny smiled and he bowed to her, let his eyes rest fleetingly on her bosom; he lingered on the crucifix and recommended the pesce. Dubin felt a stirring of mild jealousy but kept it down. The reaction surprised him.
After studying the menu Fanny ordered brains and Dubin bass. She had shrimp and he melon with prosciutto. Fanny had turned down a drink—too many on the planes—and Dubin signaled the steward and ordered a bottle of wine.
He urged her to remove her sunglasses. “They put you at a distance.”
“I’ll come nearer.” Fanny dropped them into her stuffed purse. He had noticed she had tucked her diaphragm box into the bag before they left the room.
“What for?” Dubin had asked.
“Just a habit.”
As he pondered her reply she gazed around the room, her eyes alert, comfortable, eyebrows slightly ragged. The nails of Fanny’s efficient plain hands were bitten to the quick. When the wine was poured she gulped it as if it were water. She was affectionate, chummy. “What were you saying when I was in the bathroom? You were saying something.”
“Encouraging myself.”
“Do you have to?”
“More or less, when I’m away from home and operating adventurously.”
“Once you said you would tell me how you met your wife.”
How she harps on my wife. “I told you she was a widow then,” he said. “She was married to a doctor who died young. He was apparently an unusual man who influenced her strongly. I had trouble competing with him in her memory but that changed after the birth of our daughter.”
Fanny, listening with interest, chewed absently.
Dubin then said, “I’m sure you understand, Fanny—I won’t bring this up again—that she mustn’t know about us, not have the remotest suspicion. Her life hasn’t been easy. I wouldn’t want to hurt her.”
“Would you hurt me, William?”
He swore no. “I feel tender to you, Fanny, and hope you feel something similar for me.”
She felt she did. Her wine-flushed face was lovely. Her eyes, more intensely green, looked gently at him. Dubin was enjoying the food and liked the half-hidden glances of the waiters and the concern of the heavy-eyed maitre d’, who came by often to see how things were progressing.
“What about you?” he asked: “For instance, what does your father do?”
“He imports,” she said doubtfully.
“You don’t get along with him?”
“It’s very mutual.”
“May I ask why?”
“He’s self-centered and doesn’t have much respect for me or my mother though he gets along with my sister. My mother is a gutsy lady but I don’t want to talk about her either. I’m enjoying this meal.”
He lifted his glass in agreement. Dubin drank wine freely and loved the evening. Fanny relished the brains. One or another of the young waiters appeared from time to time, ostensibly to replenish bread or pour wine. All, Dubin thought, came to view Fanny up close, who seemed to radiate nudity and was, she confessed, very happy. Dubin felt she was one of those gifted people who give public pleasure, not a bad thing in life.
As they were waiting for dessert, the biographer felt a hand on his knee, then as it slowly traveled up his thigh, decided he was dealing with Fanny’s foot. She had removed her shoe and was caressing him under the table.
“You make my foot warm.”
“Warm or cold, it’s a marvelous instrument. Is this what is called footsie?”
She smiled affectionately. “Do you like it?”
“Won’t the waiters know what we’re doing?”
“They don’t give a shit. It goes on forever in restaurants.”
“I should be more observant.”
He poured the last of the wine as Fanny, her face composed as she stroked his leg, after a paradise of expectation touched his aroused organ. Dubin made no objection. This was Venice, this was Italy. This, according to the arts and humanities, was what it was all about.
He felt in his pleasure a loosening of ties, concerns, restrictions—a sense of trumpets blaring in the woody distance. Here’s William the Bold, with upraised sword on a black charger, galloping onward under the bright blue sky. Stepping out of his shoe he began gently to move up Fanny’s calf with his adventurous right foot. Deadpan above table, impassioned below, he felt her thighs yield to his insistent gentle probing. Fanny gazed at him dreamily as at last he pressed the soft flesh under her bikini panties. Dubin experienced a desire to pull off his black sock but the perspiring maitre d’ fortunately came by, inquiring if they had enjoyed the meal. The biographer, with dignity, said they had indeed, and could he have his check. Fanny nodded. Dubin felt drunk and embarrassed as they got up and walked past the waiters at the French doors, all silently aware of them, one regarding him with a connoisseur’s approval; but other patrons were coming in and it was not too bad. Yet he felt he had overeaten and overdrunk, the weight of food and wine antipathic to self and spirit.
“I like you,” she said in their room. “Can we go out tonight, William?” Her things were still strewn all over. He felt he knew her well.
“Where for instance?”
“Someplace lively, where we can dance.”
“This is off-season,” he told her. “There are no night clubs in Venice. We can look for a movie, if you like.”
“Let’s have some real fun.”
“What about a walk in St. Mark’s?”
“Could we go to Harry’s Bar?”
Dubin agreed. “Put on something warm.”
The night was dark, damp, the streets still. Houselights went on as they walked up XXII Marzo. Fanny touched his arm and they stopped in mid-street. He put his mouth on hers. They kissed with wine-soaked tongues.
“I’m wet through my pants,” she said. “Let’s go home.”
“Wonderful,” Dubin said.
In their room he undressed her, brief episode—fuchsia dress, underpants, shoes.
Fanny had trouble getting his undershirt over his head.<
br />
“Why do you bother wearing them?”
“My wife buys them.”
“Tell her not to.”
“They help in wintertime. She shops for me, I hate to.”
“I wish you wouldn’t praise her to me—”
“I wasn’t aware I was—”
“Lift your arms.”
She drew the undershirt over his head.
“Pardon this bit of belly. You wouldn’t think I exercise.”
“You wouldn’t have the belly if you stood straight.”
“Exactly what Kitty says.”
“I really don’t care what she says. Step out of your shoes.”
“I wish I were younger for you.”
“Fuck your age.”
“Well put,” Dubin laughed.
When she bent to remove his socks there was a tearing noise.
“What was that?”
Fanny laughed wildly. “I farted.” She ran with a sob into the bathroom, flushed the bowl.
After five minutes, when she failed to answer his inquiring knock, Dubin turned the knob and cautiously looked into the bathroom.
“Are you all right, Fanny?”
She was standing at the toilet bowl, retching, a blob of diarrhea dribbling down her leg.
Afterward she was sick, vomited raucously, spilling her supper, spitting, weeping.
“I feel awful.”
“Poor baby, what can I do for you?”
“I also feel I am tripping. ‘Seize the day,’ hump your lay.”
After he had cleaned her with paper, when after sobbing awhile she lay asleep, her mouth open, breathing noisily, Dubin washed her legs and buttocks with a warm soaped cloth but could not wholly remove the odor of her illness.
The biographer recalled Yeats on love’s mansion in the place of excrement; but not much came of it.
As he was falling asleep Maud appeared in his mind; Dubin awoke. Was it she he had seen in the fog with a man old enough, ironically, to be older than her father? Whoever he was had seemed past sixty. “My daughter is not for thee”: Brabantio. Yet, could Dubin despise an aging man who desired the company of a young woman—endless insistent hunger? The old gent, he guessed, would have to be one of her teachers—maybe someone from her Mexican dig last summer? So soon out of the crib, so quickly grown—bleeding, breasted, gone—lost to me. Out of the house at eighteen; at nineteen as deeply as he into amorous intrigue? How is it possible—the hunger to adventure in contravention of time’s good sense? He figured her age with her friend’s would average a good forty; his with Fanny’s, less. Himself less culpable—if one were to use the word—than Maud’s male friend—if it was Maud—because Fanny was three years older than his daughter and no innocent. Life responds to one’s moves with comic counterinventions.
Dubin's Lives Page 8
