Sara seemed a little more pleased to see me than Pamela had been.
“You have a roommate,” I said. And I realized that I was a little jealous of Pamela. I had probably stared at her more inquisitively and belligerently than she had at me.
“Pamela was born in Korea,” Sara said. “She’s restless, but she’s a good cellist.”
“Have you known her long?”
“No. Actually, I don’t know much about her except what I’ve just told you. I’ve also noticed that she doesn’t like to sleep alone. But we have separate bedrooms, and the way the apartment is set up, I don’t see much of her visitors.”
“She has an odd sense of interior decoration.”
“All that fabric? That’s mostly to control the room’s acoustics. Pamela thinks printed fabrics absorb sound differently from plain fabrics. And she might be right. She has incredibly sensitive ears.”
“You don’t worry as much about acoustics?”
“In my own way, I do. But the harp is different from the cello. I like a lot of reverberation in the room.”
“And not as much visual distraction?”
“I don’t like to use too many senses at one time. I like concerts more than opera; books more than television.”
I tried to figure out what this might mean in terms of my friendship with Sara: eyes closed while we chatted? Touching in the dark would seem to be allowable esthetically, but there might be objections to it on other grounds. Actually, I was not eager to get into a sexually provocative situation with Sara. I’m too easily provoked in that area. There are very few women—regardless of their age, character, or physique—who wouldn’t arouse me under the right conditions; and, like many people, I tend to confuse sex with love. I remember that as an adolescent I seriously thought love was the emotion I felt on the few occasions when I had seen a girl or a woman in her underwear (seeing a naked lady created more complicated feelings—which might be classified as either love or as mere dirtiness). And although my feelings about such matters had changed since early adolescence, I still believed that a relationship was on much firmer ground when its participants remained fully (and modestly) clothed for a reasonable period.
In any case, I was relieved when Sara didn’t offer to show me her bedroom. We left immediately for the restaurant. When we opened the door that connected Sara’s studio with Pamela’s, the sound of some extremely complicated but rich-sounding cello music engulfed us. Pamela was installed on her little dais. A cigarette dangled from the corner of her mouth, and her legs were straddling the body of the cello immodestly. Her skirt was raised, and if I had been twenty years younger, I would have fallen in love with her.
But, being an emotionally mature individual, I proceeded instead to take Sara to a restaurant and tell her what a splendid person I was. The restaurant was called The Book of the Dead, and it seemed to be run by a family of ill-tempered, dull-palated, money-crazy Tibetans. The dining room wasn’t crowded. We both ordered what turned out to be unsymmetrical noodles garnished with something I assumed was curds and whey. Whatever it was, it gave me a new understanding of the concept of sourness. But I wasn’t offended; I was unassailably happy. The best thing about the restaurant was its lighting, which was in the best film-noir style. Sara sat in rich shadow, with a tiny highlight haloing the back of her head. She kept her eyes on me. I thought at first she might simply be trying to avoid looking at her plate, but it was obvious after a few minutes that she was looking on me with interest and kindness. She wasn’t exactly returning my loving gaze, but I didn’t require that.
As I had every reason to expect, Sara didn’t have much to say. But, less predictably, she turned out to be a challenging listener. She made me say the best kinds of things I was capable of saying. She never seemed to miss a nuance, but she never let me feel that what I said was quite good enough. In fact, goodness was very much on my mind. I didn’t only feel good; I wanted to be good. That gave me a big problem, though, because I had no idea of how to go about being good; it was a topic that didn’t come up very often in most of my conversations.
As we talked and ate, Sara rested her hand in the center of the small table, and I occasionally reached out and stroked her fingers. She always responded with a moderate, tolerant smile. The reaction seemed just right to me: neither a fierce returning grasp nor a flinching withdrawal.
“You’re just right,” I said.
“Not everyone thinks so,” she said.
“That’s why you should encourage my attentions.”
“But you might be wrong about me, Jonathan.”
“That doesn’t matter. Love is probably more often than not a mistaken opinion. As long as the opinion doesn’t change, there’s no problem.”
“But there can be big problems if the opinion changes.”
“Mine won’t change.”
“You don’t have much to base your opinion on, do you?”
“I have my senses and your presence. It all seems just right.”
Sara’s color seemed to have deepened a little. “Your senses can mislead you. You used to think G sharp and A flat were the same note. If you’d ever tuned a harp, you would have known that that was just an illusion. The senses thrive on illusions.”
“What’s wrong with an illusion that permits Bach to write The Well-Tempered Clavier?”
“Not much, I suppose. But some illusions lead to less admirable things; things such as meaningless death.”
“I thought all death was meaningless.”
Sara said, quite seriously, “Oh, no.”
If any other woman I knew at that time had made a serious remark to me about death, I probably would have said something flippant and accused her of bad taste. But there was something about Sara’s manner that made death seem like an acceptable, or even a pleasant, subject. But even though the topic didn’t seem unpleasant, it was something I had never thought enough about to be able to discuss intelligently. Illusion seemed like a safer topic.
“What about visual illusions?” I said. “Or apparitions?”
“What about them?”
“The portraits: you and Joanne and your visitors. What is that all about?”
“There aren’t any apparitions involved, Jonathan. It has to do with the past.”
I couldn’t resist making another reference to the risky topic. “Does it have to do with death?”
Sara stared at me for a moment. She started to say something and then apparently changed her mind. She probably sensed that I was a little apprehensive, and she must have thought it was best not to answer.
Whatever her reasoning, I noticed she didn’t answer with a simple no. I assumed that meant the answer would have been a complicated yes.
I suppose I had begun to look worried. Sara smiled, then lightly and briefly squeezed my hand. In a heavy whisper, she said, “Not to worry, sweet.”
The internal fanfares I had heard at our first meeting returned, only now they were accompanied by artillery. Me worry?
I had no worries for the next couple of weeks. Sara and I shared a fair amount of exotic cuisine and did a lot of devil-may-care hand-touching. I sat in the comfortable red plush of Carnegie Hall and watched as she took part (a small part) in a performance of Mahler’s Kindertotenlieder. It was an unsettling experience for me, and I didn’t listen very carefully. For one thing, I wasn’t eager to hear a lady sing about the death of children. But more important, I was constantly undergoing little attacks of jealousy. Sara was in a world that excluded me. As the orchestra members straggled onto the stage before the performance a gawky young man carrying a ridiculous bassoon stopped to say something to Sara. She nodded earnestly at him. And during the performance there were tears in her eyes (I had brought binoculars). Obviously, she was not giving any thought to her sweet new friend Jonathan.
Finally
I had to stop watching Sara. I looked at some of the other people on the crowded stage. The soloist, whose voice didn’t seem low enough for her part, was looking apprehensive. The conductor’s shoulders were slumping a bit. I spotted Pamela Kim in the cello section, and I got the impression that she needed a cigarette. My depression was mounting, so I lowered my binoculars and read the text of the songs. I hoped the German words the would-be mezzo was singing had more grace than the English translation that appeared on the program. But maybe graceful words aren’t appropriate to a description of children being dragged out to die in a storm. My depression was complete as the last song ended. The children were at rest and were being “watched over by God’s hand.” I was left with an image of a large blue-eyed hand reaching down out of the clouds.
Sara had asked me not to meet her after the concert. I did as I was asked, and after I got home, rain began rattling across the skylight. I remembered the song about the children and the storm, and I had to look into Joanne’s bedroom. She was sleeping quietly.
I felt a little shameful pleasure the next day, when a newspaper critic couldn’t find much virtue in the previous night’s performance of the Mahler. He thought youthful, part-time orchestras ought to be a little less ambitious in selecting their programs. When Sara and I met for dinner that night, we didn’t mention the concert. I felt as though we were having our first fight—which confused and worried me.
Another thing that worried me was that Harry Bordeaux wasn’t having any success in arranging an exhibit of my spectral portraits. For one thing, there were not enough of them. But more important, Bill Freedman, the owner of the gallery in which my previous shows had been held, was not too happy with the portraits. He said he didn’t think a display of trick shots would do my career any good. The big virtue of my work, he said, had always been its simplicity and honesty, and he was sure that in producing the spectral series I had used multiple exposures or multiple printing.
Harry and I assured Bill that no trickery was involved, but he wasn’t convinced. Harry and I suggested to Bill that we schedule another session with Joanne or Sara—or with both of them—and that he could watch the whole procedure, including the processing. But Bill was skeptical. Even if we were to convince him, he thought, that wouldn’t do anything to convince anyone who didn’t attend the session.
Then it occurred to me that Bill, who was a photographer himself, could take some shots of me as I photographed Joanne or Sara. If all went as it should, Bill would have some prints that showed me as well as the images I was photographing. Then he could display his evidence of my simplicity as part of the show. Bill agreed to that arrangement, and the next Saturday morning, he, Sara, and Harry came to my studio.
Harry was the first to arrive. He was wearing what seemed to be a velour jump suit. But in line with the new dignity he had acquired since becoming engaged to Lee Ferris, the suit was charcoal-gray rather than the chartreuse I would have expected to see a few weeks earlier. Harry had never been one to be daunted by the responsibilities of life, but he was looking especially dauntless this morning. I asked him how his romance was going. He put a hand on my shoulder and looked around the room to be sure we were alone. “It’s more than a romance, Jonathan,” he said. “It’s a veritable opera. And I need your advice.”
“You’re the man of the world, Harry.”
“But you’re a father,” Harry said.
“I hope you’re not going to tell me what I think you’re going to tell me.”
“Yes. Isn’t it incredible? Lee is, as they say, with child.”
“She doesn’t take precautions about such things?”
“Never had to. She tried through three marriages to get into a maternal way. Finally just gave it up, and hasn’t seen any need for precautions since then. Until she encountered my particular type of virility, she seemed to be immune.”
“So, what kind of advice do you need from me?”
“Essentially, Jonathan, I want to know whether you think I would be an adequate parent. I mean, I would be willing to dine out less often, and if necessary I would change my tailor. But would that be enough?”
“There are all kinds of parents, Harry. I think the important thing is that you should really want the child. What does Lee think?”
“She’s enthusiastic. But she’s thirty-nine, Jonathan. We’d be taking a chance.”
“You already took your chance. Anyway, no chances, no winners.”
“And no losers.”
“No anything, Harry. No chances, no anything.”
“I wasn’t in search of inspirational messages, Jonathan. I just wanted to know if you think I’m parental timber.”
“A veritable oak.”
“We have to decide soon, Jonathan. It’s a more solemn sort of decision than I generally have to make.”
“No, it isn’t. Just think of yourself as taking on a new client.”
Harry looked offended for a moment, but soon he was smiling. “A new client,” he said. “Of course. What are most of my clients except children?” He wrapped me in a velour embrace, and I wondered if I was doing the right thing in encouraging him. When I had wriggled out of his hug, Harry surveyed me in a fatherly fashion and said, “I think Sara Coleridge is doing you a lot of good, dear boy.”
“That’s possible. But we’re not as close as you and Lee.”
“No marriage plans yet?”
“No, Harry. Not even any children on the way. And speaking of marriage plans, what are yours?”
Harry looked perturbed. “We had planned something simple. But now we might arrange something sordid. The Municipal Building on a Saturday. I have trouble imagining what that would be like.”
“I’ve been through it as an observer. It’s not bad. Five minutes standing in front of a hearty failed actor. The waiting isn’t so good, though. Sitting on wooden benches with a lot of other people who are either poor planners or just plain poor. Nervous whispering. Not much eye contact going on. But it’ll be a change for you, Harry.”
Harry adopted his solemn look, which had never been very convincing. “I really have changed,” he said. “Everyone has commented on it. Someone called me a nice person yesterday. Nice! Do you think it will hurt me professionally?”
Before I could tell Harry that he would never be that nice, we were interrupted by Joanne, who was approaching at the gallop and who was apparently in some kind of distress. She was calling for her daddy, but her tone indicated she was looking for help and not for combat. I squatted to give her a better target, and she ran into my arms.
“I still can’t learn to tie my shoelaces right,” she said. To offer conclusive proof, she handed me a shoe whose laces looked as if they had been attacked by a drunken boy scout.
“Never mind, sweetie. Just keep trying. You’ll catch on all at once.” I started to unravel the enormous knot she had put in the lace, but I realized it would take a few minutes’ work to get the job done. “Maybe you could wear some other shoes today,” I suggested.
“No, I don’t think so. These are my picture-taking shoes.”
My thigh muscles were starting to feel the strain, so I shifted around slightly and sat on the floor. I immediately thought of Sara. That seemed like a good thing to do, so I began a little reverie and started to pick at the knot. I said to Joanne, “You haven’t said hello to Uncle Harry. Maybe he’ll tell you a story while I fix your shoe.”
Harry had been watching the proceedings with extreme interest. I wouldn’t have been surprised if he had started taking notes. Joanne said hello to the father-to-be, and he picked her up and carried her toward the sofa, saying, “I had the most incredible phone call yesterday, dear girl.” Joanne looked at me in panic as they moved away. I began to test my patience and the strength of my fingernails on the shoelace, feeling a little guilty that I preferred thinking about Sara to
being with my daughter. I wondered whether I was beginning to neglect Joanne.
As I worked, the doorbell rang, and soon Nanny Joy was escorting Sara into the apartment. Sara took note of my cross-legged position and said, “Are you sure you don’t have some Native American blood in your family, Jonathan?”
Joanne had left Harry and had run over to cling to Sara’s leg (an understandable impulse). Joanne said, “What’s Native American blood, Daddy?”
“Native Americans are what people used to call American Indians, sweetie. And blood doesn’t really mean blood, but just what your parents or your parents’ parents were like.”
Joanne said matter-of-factly, “I see the Indian sometimes, Miss Coleridge.”
I looked at Sara, who seemed to be blushing a little bit. Before we could investigate Joanne’s remark, the doorbell rang again, and Harry, who had joined our little group, said, “That must be Bill Freedman.” Harry was right. I stood up, still clawing at the shoelace, as Nanny Joy brought our new guest in. Joy was looking definitely pleased—probably because Bill Freedman had one of his impressive arms around her waist. Bill had been on the wrestling team in college, and I don’t imagine he lost many matches. He was also handsome and black, with a few touches of gray in his modest Afro. I hoped another romance wasn’t in the offing, although I didn’t think there was much chance of that. Joy and Bill were both wary people; especially Bill, who I’m sure had learned some caution in performing the unlikely feat of becoming a success in the white world of Madison Avenue galleries. Also, Joy still thought of Harlem as home, but Bill thought of it as an unpleasant joke that preceded college and career.
I made introductions and handed Joanne her shoe, with its still-knotted lace. She gave me a disrespectful glance and squeezed her foot into the shoe. We all adjourned to the studio, where Joanne and Sara posed together for a couple of dozen portraits. It didn’t take more than half an hour, and it was one of the more dramatic interludes of my life. Joanne and Sara were both wearing dark, unadorned, long-skirted dresses. Since they hadn’t spoken to each other before the session, I could only assume the similarity of costume was a coincidence. They performed like a well-rehearsed team, and there was an obvious affection between them.
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