“No.”
“No,” she repeats. And then: “There was no danger. Things are under control. The Movement is dead. Sure. Aaron knows everything. Aaron always does the right thing, the brave thing. Aaron trusts his instincts. Aaron protects us all. Malcolm X is dead. Medgar Evers is dead. Martin Luther King is dead. The king is dead, so long live the king, and right here in my own home, right? Right on. Now there’s personalized service for you—”
“I’ll say it one more time,” Aaron says. “If I ever catch you acting that way again with Lucius, or with any other man, I’ll—”
She takes the cloth from her eyes, sits up, leans on her elbows.
“You’ll what, sweetheart?”
Silence. She is, he sees, merely amused by him.
“Come on. Enough bluffing, all right? Just what will you do?”
“I don’t know.”
“I figured. Good. It’s good you don’t know something for a change. It’s a relief.”
He turns away, goes to the door.
“Let’s just forget the whole thing, all right? You rest up while I make some supper for the kids.”
“But you’re not possessive or jealous, are you? Jealousy is the illusion of possession. Sure. Tell me another one.”
He turns, feels the rage surge again. “You will not humiliate me, is that clear? Not ever again. You will not degrade me or mock me. Not ever again. Do you—?”
“Do I hear you or do I hear you,” she intones, anticipating his words. “I know all about it. Oh Aaron, don’t you see that it’s all right for you to blow your cool once in a while, that it’s all right for you to be jealous and human and angry? Sweet Aaron. My dear, sweet Aaron. For a brief moment there in the country I thought I finally had a flesh-and-blood husband. Even a few seconds ago it seemed that he might actually be angry with me, that—”
“Don’t you talk about me as if I’m not here.”
“You’re right. But can you understand that it does comfort me to have you yell at me at last, that it consoles me to see you enraged? That it actually makes me love you to know that you get frightened?”
“No.”
“I didn’t think so,” she says. “Listen then. There’s nothing to be afraid of. I love you, sweetheart—I chose you and that doesn’t mean that all the other men in the world are eunuchs. As a species, men still interest me greatly. Would you have it otherwise? How often have you told me what an attractive man Lucius is, how you yourself were drawn to him at first in an almost physical way—so why shouldn’t I be attracted to him?”
“That’s not the point.”
“But it is, damn it. It is! And you’re such a child you can’t even admit it.” She turns onto her side, rests her cheek on her palm. “Is that why I love you so, because you’re so much of a man and so much of a child all at once? My sweet, serious Aaron. My little orphan boy. Lucius has a point, you know, about how serious you are—”
“I don’t need lessons from Lucius.”
“My God—you really are jealous, aren’t you?”
Silence.
“Well—aren’t you?”
“I suppose.”
“I suppose.” She smiles, sits up, hugs her knees. He wants to say something about how young she looks—how much like Jennifer—about how he loves her for a parallel reason, because of how much of a woman and a child she can seem to him sometimes. But he says nothing. “Listen, Aaron: sure I was flirting with Lucius and he was flirting with me and we both loved it. But what in heaven’s name is wrong with a little harmless flirting? I got high and he got high and there he was and there I was and he’s a man and I’m a woman—life’s like that, sweetheart—I mean, do you think that ever stops? Just because you and I were married once upon a time? Do you think the glands and hormones have gone into a state of permanent rest, of—”
“That’s not what this discussion is about. You won’t fool me by getting into that man-woman talk. Into all your psychological crap. You just listen to me for once and lay off Lucius, do you hear? You don’t know what his life was like—what it means for a beautiful white woman like you to show kindness toward him, to tempt him. You weren’t there. He’s about to get married to a fine—”
She sits up, waves his words away. “Oh come off it.” Her voice is hard. He imagines her putting on the black wig, stepping out on stage: a daughter becoming a mother, a mother becoming a widow. “Lucius can take care of himself. Damned well too, believe me. He’s no innocent. You’re the innocent one, if you ask me. You’re the one we need to take a long, hard look at.”
“Forget the whole thing.” He starts for the door. “You’re after me for something, and I don’t like it or understand it or have to take it. What do you want from me? Come on! What is it you want?”
“Everything,” she whispers. She laughs, runs her hands along either side of her neck, lifting hair. “Everything.”
“See what I mean?” he says. “This is all so crazy, you and Lucius out there, and Jennifer in the woods, and then Jennifer with her ridiculous talk all the way home about Malcolm still being alive and how she saw him—how the F.B.I, sank him and gave him a new life, how Malcolm was too smart to die young—I mean, did I dream it all? Did you—?”
“Did Jennifer really say that?”
“Yes.”
“I must have been asleep.”
“She said she saw him in downtown Northampton—-that he had put on weight and had a beard, but that she recognized the red hair in the beard and—”
“Aaron?”
“Yes?”
“Lucius agrees with me about you, that the rage is there and that it’s something you need to do something about. You were ready to kill the two of us out there, don’t you think we saw that? And for what? Out of what childish fantasy about men and women and sex? Lucius is a good friend to you and he loves you more than he loves anyone in the world and I don’t blame him most of the time, but where in heaven’s name, in an otherwise mature and trusting man, does such rage and fantasy come from? You were right about doting Jewish mothers, about not having had one. I forget sometimes, you’re so good at pleasing. Who doesn’t like and admire Aaron Levin? And yet, never having had one of them to teach you to worship and idealize women, you do idealize me, and I’m just so tired of it I could die sometimes. I am just so tired of it.”
She crosses her arms, smiles sadly. He says nothing.
“I’m just a woman, Aaron,” she says. “Beautiful, talented, loving, perceptive. Sure. But just a woman. Human and imperfect. Don’t make me out to be more than I am. Please? Promise me that, for all the rest of our years together. The favorite son of a doting mother goes through life with the feeling that he is a conqueror. Who said that—Freud, right? Well, Old Sigmund was wrong once again. That son goes through life with the feeling that he must become a conqueror—I read that recently and I buy it. That son goes through life with the feeling that he must conquer the whole damned world and lay it at the feet of that mother or she won’t love him, don’t you see? He must be a good little orphan boy and lay the world at the feet of an insatiable woman, thereby hoping to win her love, a love nobody can ever win, in truth. A love nobody should ever want to win.”
She smiles at him.
“I do love you,” he says. “It’s only-—”
“Do you see what my smile does? God! Do you see its power over you?” She taps on a front tooth with a fingernail. “It’s only a set of thirty-two small oblongs of calcium and enamel and nerve tissues, well aligned by thirty-four months of excellent orthodontia, the set ringed by a few square inches of skin, yet this smile changed your life, didn’t it? What won’t men do for the smile of a beautiful woman!”
She shakes her head sideways, as if pitying him. He feels as if he is a child being scolded by a teacher. He has never imagined her talking to him in quite this way. Control is everything, Abe said. To imagine one’s future is to try to control it, Aaron thinks. What happens, then, if you suddenly find yourself living inside a
future you haven’t imagined?
“I wish you could have seen your eyes out there,” Susan says. “Rage like that doesn’t come from a moment’s anger, and it doesn’t go away in a moment either. What in heaven’s name did you think was going on in the woods? So Jennifer took a few tokes—so what? She’s eighteen years old now and at least she did whatever she did with her mother nearby and her father’s best friend there too. Lucius innocent? Listen. I have a question for you that I probably should have asked years ago. But better late than never. Here goes: in all the years of our marriage haven’t you ever been tempted to make love with another woman?” “No.”
“No.”
She laughs. “No? That’s all? I didn’t ask if you ever made a genuine pass or did have an affair with a woman—just if you ever felt tempted? And you say you never did. Not even once?”
“No. I notice women, but—”
“Oh dear sweet Lord,” she says, her head against the headboard. “All those lonesome ladies you’ve been building houses for. All those pretty young faculty wives sending out their forlorn signals. All those years! Never? All those days and months with young long-haired college students bound to save the souls of black men. Come on, sweetheart—like Lucius says, ‘fess up, huh? Let’s have a real truth session. You tell me your worst secret—which is really your best secret, right?—and I’ll tell you mine. No one will ever know except us. Come on. Don’t you think we know each other well enough for that?”
“Stop,” he says. “I think you’re hurting me. I think you’re trying to. I think you’re being very mean, only I—”
“No. Just talk to me, all right. Talk to me. Come on, sweetheart. Look into that noble heart of yours and tell me what it really wants, what it did once-upon-a-time that it never told pretty Susan. We’re friends, after all. We’re best friends, aren’t we?”
“Yes.”
“Nicky. Nicky then. Weren’t you tempted with her? Anyone with eyes could tell how much in love with you she was. In Mississippi, didn’t you—?
“I’m telling the truth. Why should I ever have wanted another woman when I had you? Why should I have risked hurting you—?”
“Oh God, Aaron, but you’re a prince.”
“I suppose.”
“I suppose. Listen: sex exists, honey, and Lord knows but you are a very sexy man. I mean right now, even while my mouth patters along verbalizing all the stuff that drives you nuts, I look at you and I want you. I desire you, sweetheart.”
She leaves the bed, comes to him. She kisses him, unbuttons his shirt, whispers to him. He feels numb. But why? He smells her. Lilacs and fish, he thinks, and he realizes that he inhaled the same familiar fragrance in the car when they were coming home, while Jennifer was going on about Malcolm X having gone underground. Susan kisses his breastbone, slides her hands downward, continues to unbutton his shirt, to stroke him. She begins to talk again, in a low, even voice. She tells him that she is going to say things, tell him things. She hopes he won’t be frightened. She hopes he won’t leave or become too angry to enjoy himself. She wants him to know everything—to clear the air, to set them both free of the past, to tell him whatever comes to mind. He wants to be close to her? She’ll let him be as close as any human being can. He wants them to have some kind of inviolable independence? Once he knows everything, what choice will he have but to love her, not for some dream he has of her, but for who she truly is?
She tells him that Paul used to make her do all kinds of things—wild things that other people might think were perversions. She was so young when she married him, and she had never had much sexual experience before him. Will Aaron be angry with her if she talks about the things she and Paul did together? About the things they tried with some of Paul’s friends? Would he like an illustrated catalogue? The truth is that she was afraid not to do them, afraid Paul wouldn’t love her if she didn’t do what he said. She was against group sex and held out for a while, but it was either join in or leave Paul. And there she would be, pregnant, her husband taking his pleasures elsewhere. Full womb and empty arms, right? She was only twenty years old. How could she be a beautiful young actress gliding across a stage if she had to drag a full womb with her? So she overcame her hang-up. She joined in. Jennifer arrived in the world, and afterwards Paul showed her more games. Anything one could imagine—all possible combinations—they tried. Possibilities. Paul believed in possibilities, in a world of endless possibilities. With a vengeance, Paul quoted Aristotle: character may determine men’s qualities, he said, but it is by their actions that they are happy or the reverse, and Paul was determined to be happy by his actions. Who would be hurt? Weren’t we born with free will? Then she bore Benjamin into the world, and between nursing and diapering and sleeping and walking and cooking and cleaning and Paul’s inventions, how was she to have time for herself, for decisions? Free will? Don’t make me laugh, she would say, one infant at the breast, the other with diarrhea running down its leg. The two of them bawling, colicky. Still, Paul was exciting when she was alert enough to notice. She never did know what to expect from him. He did know how to be tender to her, how to take the children at precisely the moment when she believed she could not go on with life a moment longer. Well. He had a way with the children too. Could quiet them, soothe them. No perversion there. She and Paul did laugh and have fun. She did try out enough in the way of sex and drugs so that by the time she left him she knew what it was she did and didn’t want in life.
But she left Paul before she met Aaron, and she met Aaron before she had the chance—or desire, or energy—to know other men. Did he know that? Does he believe it? Between the time she walked out on Paul and met Aaron, she had no other men. Does that please Aaron? If she’d had lots of men and adventures between marriages, would Aaron be less jealous now? Jealousy? Sure. To see one you love give affection of the same kind to another is surely cause for pain and anger and hurt. But is it actually possible to be jealous of another human being’s past?
From Paul to Aaron to heaven, she says. That will be the story of her life. And the children. They’ll be in that story too. Children, one after the other, arriving just before exhaustion could depart. Was she happy? Was she sad? Who could tell? She used to hope each time she began to swell that the child within would heal her unhappiness—that enormous emptiness in which, within her, she began to dwell—but the child never did. Not Jennifer or Benjamin. Not Larry or Carl. Aaron began to heal her. Love began to heal….
She strokes his thighs gently, cups his balls in the palm of her hand. He realizes that he has not moved, has not touched her with his hands. He is astonished at how enormous he is below, and if she continues to touch him and stroke him he is afraid that, within a minute, he will explode. She is telling him that she is sorry if she hurt his feelings. Can he forgive her? Can he ever forget? She chose him, after all. She knows that men look at her all the time, that she is a beautiful woman, as beautiful as most of those who fill the screens and fantasies of millions of Americans. She can’t help having been born with the features she was born with. Slav cheekbones, flaxen hair, full Russian mouth. Blood shows. Passion shows through, drives the life. She does love Aaron more than any other man on the face of the earth. She knows that now. She knows that she can be happy with him. She doesn’t need to have children anymore. That ache has not been there for years. He is the father of her children. He is her lover. He is her man.
It excites her when he becomes jealous. She is not at all sorry that he followed her and found her at the house, with Lucius. She likes the idea of him pursuing her still, as he did when they first met. She wants him to look long and hard at his rage and jealousy, but not quite yet. Not until she is finished with him. It has been a long time since she has gone completely wild and she wants to. She wants to go wild with him the way she went wild with him in her mind before they ever made love the first time. Is there any desire like the desire for sex? Any hunger that is as fierce? She wonders: if she is vulgar and truthful with him, will he rej
ect her? Or, his suspicions covering his jealousy, has he already decided to do that? Preemptive rejection. Same old Aaron. Same old Susan. She has often feared—can he believe her?—that she will never be able to satisfy him, that she is going to fail him. Why? He has never really judged her or controlled her, and yet… Well. She is going to try to satisfy him now in a way that he will never forget. If she expresses her doubts and desires, she believes they will lose the power to make her afraid. Who knows? Maybe Paul is right. Why not a life of possibility? Why not endless surprises? She rubs her cheek against his chest. She takes her hair and brushes his chest with it, as if painting him. She pushes her forehead against his chin. She licks his nipples, sucks on them. She wonders if it turned him on as much as she thought it did, to see her giving her smile to Lucius? Does it excite him now—she rings his penis with thumb and forefinger, applies pressure—to hear her tell him about her life with Paul? What does he want more—to hurt her or to be gentle with her? Does he want to be kind, or violent? To control, or be controlled? She tells him to feel free to tell her what he really wants to do, what wonderful small attentions she can pay to him.
She slips his shirt backwards, turns him around. She removes the shirt, unbuckles his belt. She is on her knees, untying each of his shoes, taking off each sock, pulling his pants down. She folds the pants, sets them across the back of a chair, over his shirt. We can do anything we want. She locks the bedroom door, takes his hand, leads him to the bed, puts a finger to her lips. She reaches backwards, unzips, lets her summer dress fall around her feet. She climbs onto the bed, turns her back to him, lies on her stomach, arches her rear-end and begins to roll from one side to the other. She urges him to come on, to come on and give her whatever he wants.
He shivers, but is afraid that if he says anything to her she will begin to talk the way she was talking to him before. To his surprise, his fear makes her seem, despite her words, more beautiful than ever. Is she right, then, about how much he idealizes her? That the more distant and pure she becomes the more he desires her; that the more he desires her and fears he can’t have her, the more he comes to fear her rejection; that the more he fears her rejection, the more he needs to suspect that she has already betrayed and rejected him…? What scares him most of all is to find himself thinking this way at the very moment in which she is ready to tell him everything, to give him anything he may want. Is this what he has feared all along? For if, in his mind, he can find reason to reject Susan, then he can be free in his mind to hold onto the wish that he and Gail might someday be reunited, that there is still some way to retrieve his other life.
Before My Life Began Page 49
