A Madwoman's Diary

by Lawrence Block

  A Goodnight, Arlene, from him, and a Goodnight from me. Not a Goodnight, Arnie, which is what I am to call him. I find it quite impossible to call him this. I cannot even think of him as Arnie, though I made the effort awhile ago. I think of him as Arnold but do not call him that, either.

  As a result I call him nothing at all. Mr. K. in the office, of course, and Arnold inside my head, but when we have dinner together I do not put any name to him. Since there are only the two of us together on such occasions, names are not enormously necessary; he knows who I’m talking to.

  Whom. To whom I’m talking.

  He dropped me at Eighty-Fourth and East End. I was supposed to see them at ten o’clock and it was just past nine-thirty when he let me off, so I went to a bar on York Avenue and killed a few minutes. I could have been picked up if I had wanted to. I didn’t, I was already set for the night, but it is very reassuring to know that you can be picked up. I suppose a woman can get used to that sort of feeling, and suppose it is a nice sort of feeling to get used to, but I am not yet used to it and enjoy it each time it happens.

  Had a couple of drinks and walked back to their place. Nice plush apartment, expensive graphics on the walls. A Leger I liked, a Chagall I didn’t much care for. Both of them in their forties and into bondage and light discipline, but I was merely to observe and assist, which I did.

  Fun.

  Won’t see them again, of course. Never see anybody a second time these days. Almost told them as much but why do that sort of thing? Why make people feel bad? Let them think I enjoyed them, as in fact I did. Any explanation of why I don’t see them again would merely leave them thinking they had somehow disappointed me.

  Which they did not.

  So I have dinner with Arnold and we talk and talk and talk, and it is not merely a matter of him talking and me listening, not any more. We both talk. The difference is that he pours out his heart to me while I edit everything I say, packaging it all to exclude the parts of me that are a secret from him. He is the only person on earth who knows

  152

  Arlene Krause now. And he knows only the part of her that no one else knows. The rest of her is utterly concealed from him.

  Dinner with Arnold, and then I go meet strangers and have some unorthodox form of sex with them with Arnold’s kiss still on my lips.

  And then home and to bed.

  So strange. All of this, so very strange.

  6 June—Sunday

  Yesterday the anniversary of Bobby Kennedy’s death, today the anniversary of D-Day. May you live in interesting times. May you get what you want. And God help you, my sweet. …

  9 June—Wednesday

  “You never call me Arnie.”

  “I know.”

  “How come?”

  “I guess I don’t think of you as Arnie. I think of you as Arnold.”

  “Do you?”

  “Yes. But I even have trouble calling you that. I guess because of calling you Mr. K. in the office, and it’s hard to change after hours.”

  “I’ve never had trouble calling you Arlene. Oh, but then I call you that in the office, I call all the girls by their first names, I always did. You’re the first one I ever dated.”

  “The first girl?”

  “Nope. First one from the office. Well, wait a minute, that’s not the exact truth. A couple of times over the years before you came to work for us I would take a girl out and give her a tumble. I think it happened maybe three times all told, three different girls that I was with one time each.”

  “You never saw them again?”

  “Let them go. A big bonus and a beautiful reference so there was never any hard feelings, and an explanation that I wasn’t a cheater and didn’t want to get involved and it would be better for all concerned if we weren’t around each other any more. Which it was, better for both of us, all parties, I mean. Those three times were each a case of breaking a personal rule of mine. Not that I would eat my heart out because rules are made to be broken, but I decided in the first place never to have anything to do with anyone who worked for me. You were afraid of that, weren’t you? Remember you wouldn’t go out with me?”

  “I remember.”

  “And all I wanted was an ear to pour my troubles into. But you were afraid of losing your job.”

  “It wasn’t that so much.”

  “Then what? Getting involved?”

  “Yes.”

  “And what are we now? Answer that for me, Arlene. Are we involved?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Lots of girls I’ve been to bed with, and the closest I ever came with you is a couple of kisses in the front seat of a car. And here I am feeling closer to you than I ever felt to anybody else. The girl I used to see, damn near living with her on week nights, and I never felt the closeness with her that I feel with you, and here we’re not sleeping together and what’s more I’m not trying to get us to sleep together, and you figure it out because I’ll tell you something, I can’t. Am I involved with you? Are you involved with me, Arlene?”

  “Maybe we should change the subject.”

  “Maybe we should. Arnold. I’m trying to think who was it used to call me Arnold. Nobody in more years than I can remember. That’s some name, Arnold.”

  “Don’t you like it?”

  “Hate it. As long as I can remember I hated it. Not that Arnie is such a blessing. Arnold Karlman. Arnie Karlman. That’s some sensational name to hang on a kid.”

  “What would you like it to be?”

  “What would I like what to be?”

  “Your name.”

  “That’s a hell of a question. What am I, an actor with a stage name? I’m Arnie Karlman. I’ll tell you something, that’s a funny question. That’s really a hell of a question.”

  “I didn’t mean—”

  “No, no, no. You want to know why it’s a hell of a question? Listen, I’ll tell you something I never told anyone before in my life. Though come to think of it, I’m always telling you things I never told anyone before in my life, so what’s the big deal now?”

  “You don’t have to tell me anything.”

  “So what am I saving this bit of precious information for? No, I want to tell you. I used to think—Jesus, this is a thought I’m sure I haven’t had in ten years. Maybe twice that length of time, I don’t know. I used to think what I would change my name to.”

  “Did you have a name picked out?”

  “Yeah, but you’ll laugh. No, I know you won’t laugh, you wouldn’t laugh. You got to understand it wasn’t that I was planning to change my name. This is something that never occurred to me. But it was a case of picking a name that I would like my name to be if I changed it, which I didn’t intend to. Which is why your question knocks me out, what I would like my name to be.”

  “Tell me.”

  “Jesus, but I feel so silly. When was the last time I even remembered having this thought? Well, not to keep you in suspense. Jeff Stern.”

  “Jeff?”

  “Jeffrey Stern, but I would never use the full name. Just Jeff Stern. Jeff is sort of light and airy, not bulky and cramped like Arnold. And Stern, I figured I would want a name that was obviously Jewish but one that had strength to it, a shtarkeh name. In fact I even thought of Stark which is a sort of a Jewish name but one that Jews changed their names to from something else, so I didn’t want it for that reason. But Stern I like, Jeff Stern, and how come you’re not laughing your head off at that one?”

  “Why would I laugh?”

  “Who wouldn’t laugh when a man comes right out and tells you what a jackass he is deep down inside?”

  “I don’t think you’re anything of the sort. I like the name.”

  “You do?”

  “Jeff Stern. Jeff. Jeff Stern. Yes, I think I like it very much.”

  Jeff Stern.

  Extraordinary, all of it. Jeff Stern and Jennifer Starr. Just beyond belief.

  Ached to tell him my secret name. Really wanted to tell him
. Not to tell him anything about Jennifer, just that it was my secret name for myself.

  Couldn’t, though.

  10 June—Thursday

  Thought of this yesterday but didn’t even want to type it until I had a chance to check it out.

  Checked it today. Went to the Marboro Book Shop on Eighth Street and thumbed through a German-English dictionary and confirmed by suspicion that Stern in German means star.

  Jeff Stern and Jennifer Starr. Just a couple of falling stars, but falling where? Falling in what?

  I don’t understand any of this. I can’t help thinking that I am attaching undue significance to stupid coincidence. For all either I or Arnold (dare I refer to him as Jeff?) know, virtually everyone has at one time or another selected a secret ideal name. But since he and I are each other’s sole confidant, how would we know the universality of the habit?

  Sometimes I think I love him.

  I know he loves me. I’m just glad, very glad, that he never says so.

  Yet.

  13 June—Sunday

  Another anniversary.

  Today I begin the fourth month of this diary, and of course the fourth month of life in this apartment. It’s odd that I tend to think more in terms of the diary when I measure time. As though it is more a yardstick of my new life than the apartment in which I live it.

  Perhaps because none of the more obvious facets of that new life take place in this apartment.

  Four months.

  How greatly those months have changed me. They have even changed the apartment. The new chairs, the rug, the couch, the lamps. It would scare me to think of the money I have spent on this place in the last month, except that I can’t help feeling it was money I should have spent months ago. Twenty thousand dollars sitting in a savings and loan association and doing me no good at all, merely drawing interest which would amount to more money which would do me no good.

  So now I have two thousand less dollars in the bank and an apartment a decorator would be proud of, except that I did it myself so that it is my apartment and not some decorator’s apartment. And if it does little good in one sense—since no one sees it but myself—it does more good than untouched money, which would be seen by no one at all, not even me.

  Four months.

  Glad I stopped making these entries a daily requirement The diary was becoming too much of an obligation and I began lying to it, not lies of commission but lies of omission. By trying to put down everything, by setting that standard for myself, I was creating little game situations in which I cheated by skipping important things and prattling on about trivia merely to fulfill self-imposed requirements.

  At least now I can talk to the machine when I feel like it and keep my fingers shut when I don’t.

  14 June—Monday

  I stopped seeing Bill just about the same time that I began getting very close to Jeff.

  (How I hesitated before typing his secret name! I do not really think of him as Jeff, have never called him that except jokingly. He is still Arnold to me. I guess he will always remain Arnold, as I sense that I cannot call him Jeff until he calls me Jennifer, and it is unlikely in the extreme that it will occur to him to do so, as I have not confessed about Jennifer and do not intend to.)

  I stopped seeing Bill just about the same time that I began getting very close to Arnold. I suppose there must be a connection. I’m wondering what it might be.

  It’s impossible to say which happened first, because both were gradual matters. I gradually came to the end of the road with Bill, and gradually the perfunctory dinners with Arnold turned into something else. I don’t think I mentioned much of this in the diary. The period while most of it was taking shape was also the period when I was avoiding writing in the diary, for one reason or another. There may be a cause-and-effect relationship there, too, for that matter, but I’m not going to examine it too closely.

  Bill.

  Funny how that wore itself out. In certain ways we got tired of each other like an old married couple gradually having less and less bedtime use for one another. He showed me things, took me on various sexual trips, and I went along with all of them, and bit by bit he tired of his role as I tired of mine.

  What was my appeal for him? That of challenge, I guess. The Dark Lady of Shady Lane, coming to him each Wednesday, enjoying those evenings sexually but never delivering the proof of ultimate enjoyment that he could regard as evidence of conquest. My clitoris never became a scalp he could hang from his belt, and he constantly aspired to this conquest, and perversely enjoyed my remoteness, and as long as I remained the carrot just out of reach he would play the earnest plodding donkey.

  But the donkey realized, somewhere along the way, that he would never get the carrot, and that it would not taste good if he did. And so he did as donkeys do when they come to this enormous realization. He stopped in his tracks.

  And what did I realize?

  Easier to attribute thoughts to another person than to tune in upon your own. What I saw, I guess, is that he was a constant in my life and had to mean more to me than a guide through uncharted realms, especially as we inevitably began to run out of such realms. If what we had was going to grow, he had to become a person rather than a role. And he could only become a person if I was willing and able to reveal myself to him.

  And I was not.

  Nor would it have done any good if I had. Because my mystery was a large portion of my charm—such as it was—and knowing more about me would only make him want me less. We were something important to each other at a particular point in time, and as each of us began to become more nearly real for the other, we simultaneously each became less of what the other wanted and needed.

  (How I struggle to make these words make sense. And find myself telling myself, from time to time, that it does not matter whether or not the words make sense. For I am writing only for myself, and if I understand what I am thinking, it is not necessary for me to couch my phrases so that they would be intelligible to another. But I am not sure that’s true. When man evolved, words must have preceded thoughts. The word, renowned as the father to the deed, is surely the midwife if not the parent of thought. One cannot think without the words to think in. And one cannot have one’s mind straight on a subject unless one can fit the words to it. If it doesn’t make sense, one has not yet become sensible about it.)

  Bill and I, running out of each other, and hence running out on each other. It is clear to me that I could have made him privy to my secrets. It is something I could have done, and could have done so with the advance assumption that, if it ruined things between us, if it made either of us uncomfortable with the other, we could simply break off and see each other not at all. And, since we were already on the point of seeing each other not at all, there was nothing risked.

  But I could not take off those clothes. And did not want to, whether I could or not

  And so it stopped for us.

  Not all at once. A little at a time. Evenings of mutual boredom, tedium, genteel sexual monotony. We performed, and as we were each of us more conscious in any instance of our individual roles of performer than of audience, we were technically adept enough about it. He tried to please me and I tried to give the appearance of being pleased. I tried to please him and he similarly played the gentleman, taking evident delight in my attentions. But there was nothing there, and in one conversation, less awkward than I would have thought it would have had to be, we agreed that it had been fun, dear one, but it was time to end it.

  Another reason: I was becoming, at this stage in time, a creature who could only enjoy people once. Who had no repeat encounters. Bill, the one person throughout this time whom I saw again and again, the one sexual partner who enjoyed my company for more than a single evening, thus jarred with the new turn my life was taking.

  Exit Bill.

  Enter Arnold.

  With whom I have no sex.

  Weird, that.

  Because the one-sidedness of my relationship with Bill is
mirrored by the one-sidedness of my relationship with Arnold. I know he wants to make love to me, and I know that the only thing which prevents him from trying to make love to me is his fear that he will lose me. I wonder if this is true. How would I react?

  I enjoy kissing him. I like his looks, feel a warm affection for his body. I suppose, insofar as I love, that I love him.

  I oddly trust him.

  And yet—

  Thought: That our fears are identical. That each of us is keeping the relationship essentially as it is because what we have is too dear to us to be jeopardized. Better to have what we have than to risk it. Perhaps he would hate me if we slept together. Perhaps I would hate him. Perhaps we would, in some chemical way, turn each other off. Why risk what we have for the doubtful paradise of what we might have?

  Indeed.

  For what could we have? I don’t want to marry him. He has a wife and children, and one set thereof is as much as any man needs. And I have been a wife, and do not want the role again, and prefer my philodendron (which grows in so gratifying a manner) to children (which generally don’t). Better to play our present roles forever, looking but not touching, wanting but not achieving, than to get each other only to discover we did not honestly want each other in the first place.

  Two lovers transfixed on a Grecian urn. Forever will Arnold love, and I be fair.

  Or am I fair?

  Sometimes I feel depressingly unfair.

  15 June—Tuesday

  It was her first time.

  Marcelle, a slim and intense young thing. Very large eyes which she deliberately enlarges with pounds of eye shadow. Dark complexion, tiny ears, crinkly black pubic hair, the subtle scent of sandalwood. Had been with men but hadn’t liked it. Preferred playing with herself. Was never with a girl, and did not consciously think she would want to be with a girl, but wanted—something.

  Could we not be all girls together? Could we not get together and have a dirty conversation, and share verbal fantasies with one another, and perhaps we could get hot and play with ourselves, and it would be the special certainty of masturbation with the reassurance of sharing the experience, and do you understand that, Jennifer, or do I sound crazy to you?