In mid-afternoon he pushed aside the manuscript, which he had begun working on again. He walked through the streets for hours, thinking about Vanidades, stopping for an occasional drink to warm himself. He had not eaten since yesterday, but he wasn’t hungry. The mere thought of food nauseated him.
At nine o’clock in the evening he found himself in a café near Montmartre. There he put a jeton into the pay phone and called Khalil’s hotel. For weeks he had called, only to be told that the film producer was out.
But this time he heard Khalil on the other end.
“What can I do for you?” Khalil asked.
“How are you?”
“Fine, fine . . . what can I do for you?” Khalil repeated. There was impatience in his voice.
“I want to know if you have any work for me,” said Antonio. “I’m out of work.”
“Yes, yes . . . I’ll see what I can do for you, Antonio. . . . I was just on my way out when you called. I’ll get in touch.”
Khalil hung up.
An icy wind blew in from the street. “Merde,” muttered Antonio. “The bastard. They all forget Antonio after they’ve used him. I’m like electricity, Rosa says. They want to keep their distance. Merde.” He lurched to the bar and asked for a cognac.
Then he felt in his pocket for his address book. He would call the Spanish marquise, the tall distinguished redhead with the sad eyes he’d met once—a charming woman who seemed drawn to him. Perhaps she would like some photos taken or some painting done on her apartment. But when he felt through his pockets, he couldn’t find the small, thick, black leather-bound book. He went back to the pay phone, but couldn’t find it there either. (He hadn’t used the address book to call Khalil because he knew that number by heart.)
Merde. Hundreds of names, addresses, and telephone numbers that were rooted in his past were now lost. The address book was seven years old, and he had brought it with him from Chile. He could never reach the Spanish marquise now.
He banged his fist against the wall. Inside his head the gnome shouted with glee, while the Spanish nobleman strode back and forth in front of a moonlit castle, sniffed jasmine blossoms, and waited for his lady love, unconcerned with Antonio’s dilemma.
Merde.
Merde.
He sat down at a table near the phone, put his face in his hands, and wept. What a damned fool he was. No matter how hard he struggled to succeed in the world, another part of him endowed with superior intelligence and cunning, would defeat him and howl with laughter.
Something was breaking in him, something outside his power to control.
The racket of the people inside the café drummed in his ears. Glasses clinking, voices, laughter, the pinball machine. Someone else on the phone . . . a pimp talking to one of his ladies, ordering her down on the street, insolent, a cigarette hanging out of his mouth.
The foulness of humanity overwhelmed him.
If only he could finish Vanidades Perversos d’un Pasajero.
Its pages appeared helter skelter in his mind. What literary gifts he formerly possessed seemed to belong to someone else—certainly not himself as he was now. Ah, if only the novel were finished. Then he might win the Prix Fomentor. Perhaps it could be published simultaneously in Chile and Spain and then translated into French, Italian, German, and English. People would no longer scoff at him. He would no longer be Antonio the Fool. Rosa’s family would no longer look down their noses at him. No longer would he be a pitiable fellow.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Tanya knocked on the door early one evening while Rosa was alone with the baby. “Why are you never able to see me?” Tanya asked, her voice imperious, her face pale, her lips trembling a bit.
“I’ve been so busy,” Rosa said. “Won’t you come in and have a cup of tea?”
Tanya closed the door behind her. They embraced cautiously. Then Tanya put her mouth to Rosa’s. Tanya’s lips were thin but strong and sensuous. Tanya grew bolder. Her kiss revived Rosa’s memories of what had gone on before, memories of their nights together as well as long walks they used to take along the streets of the Ile de la Cité, where Tanya lived, and onto the Left Bank.
Tanya huddled against the wall in her black fur coat while Rosa prepared tea.
“I’ve missed you,” said Rosa. “I’ve thought about you often.”
“Really?” Tanya sounded unconvinced. Her face was thinner than Rosa remembered. Her hair seemed a bit shorter and a shade lighter. She was wearing dark lipstick and silvery green eye makeup, which accentuated her pallor.
“What have you been doing?” asked Rosa. She brought two cups of steaming Oolong tea over to the dining table. “Come and sit down.” She pulled out a rickety chair for her.
Tanya walked stiffly. She sat down at the table. “If it weren’t for Lotte I might just have turned on the gas one day . . . I feel beaten down. What have I been doing? Nothing much. Sleep. I sleep a lot.” She stared at a crack in the wall. “Off and on I work as a model at the École des Beaux Arts. But people are cold . . . cold. . . . You never came by once. You don’t give a damn about me. You’re totally absorbed in your little domestic scene. You used me only to fill your own needs.”
“Oh Tanya!” cried Rosa. Filled with remorse, she put her arms around Tanya’s shoulders. “I’m glad you’re here now. I’m glad you’ve got Lotte.” She buried her face in the soft fur of Tanya’s coat.
“Let’s go out,” said Tanya. “This apartment depresses me. So does your baby. Where’s Antonio? Is he coming back soon?”
“Probably not. I can’t leave Isabel alone long.”
“A little while?”
“Maybe. Sometimes we leave her alone for an hour or two, but I always worry about her. Antonio says the French leave their babies alone when they’re sleeping—that having someone watch over a baby every second is an American phobia.”
“Working-class French do,” sniffed Tanya. “And why not? She’s only sleeping.”
“I’ll leave Antonio a note. . . . I can go out for a little while. . . . I wish I could get the girl across the courtyard to come over, but she never sits on a weeknight.”
Tanya said, “I hate babies! Oh I hate what they do to you! How they tyrannize over you! . . . Let’s go now before you change your mind. There’s a singer I want to hear at the Lionesse d’Or. You’ll like her. She’s American and sings blues.”
“All right, let’s go,” said Rosa. She kissed the baby’s forehead. Isabel looked so trusting in her sleep, the tiny hands held up in the air as if absently waving at something, motion arrested by sleep, as if she had been chasing butterflies.
They stopped at Tanya’s room. Inside was a sink and a long table cluttered with a hot plate, apples, bananas, candy bars, yoghurt containers, and a rusty kettle. The WC and bath were down the hall. It was even colder than Rosa’s apartment had been. When Tanya switched on the light, it was dim. The ceiling was high. The room was painted grey, while the borders were outlined in an ornate gilt design. Upon the unmade bed were heaped dresses, scarves, sweaters, slacks, and stockings. A pair of long-legged maroon suede boots lay on the wooden floor, which had long ago been varnished. Wadded kleenex and more shoes lay in a corner. The room smelled of perfume and of rancid food.
While Tanya searched for her purse and some money, Rosa drew back the thick brocade curtain and looked out the window onto a balcony bordered by black grilled metal. She could see the shimmering Seine, which reflected the lights of the city, and she could see rooftops merging into the dark sky. Tanya hugged her convulsively. “Do you want to go to bed?” she asked.
“Later,” said Rosa, tensing up. “You can spend the night with us if you like. I can’t be away too long.”
“Oh that damned baby!”
Rosa noticed the small gas heater next to the wall. She hated Tanya’s neediness. Why didn’t Tanya turn on the gas? Well why not, if she couldn’t live without sucking the substance from people?
For a while they held hands as they walked. But they
had no gloves on, and their hands grew icy, so they stuck their hands in their pockets.
“I need to see you more often,” Tanya said, “or else not at all.”
Rosa increased her pace to keep up.
“I can’t, Tanya. I can’t manage it.”
The nightclub was crowded and warm, lit with soft red lanterns. A slender brown-skinned woman sang a mixture of French and American music. She accompanied herself on the piano. Her voice was strong and husky and made Rosa think of Bessie Smith.
Murmurings of animals. Antonio said he once thought of killing her and the baby. Maybe it would be safer if she and Isabel lived with Tanya. If they stayed with Antonio, he might murder them in a fit of rage. A fit of insanity. No, he couldn’t. It was only wild talk on his part. He was sane underneath. He had to be.
The sound of the piano keys. A darkness inside Rosa charged with electricity. She opened up to memories she had numbed.
She thought of Xavier in his Spring Street apartment, of his music that was so beautiful it hurt. Xavier’s music sheets sprawled over the carpet near the piano. An enormous set of drums. His wife at work somewhere in an uptown office.
Baby, let me take your clothes off. His hands would circle her body, unzip the tight-fitting slacks or dress she wore, slip off her underwear. His hands all over her. Marijuana thick in the air. She would be a bit spaced out. Smell of his pipe tobacco. Sweetish smell of sperm. Hands circling her breasts, belly, abdomen. Penis hard against her. Let me in, baby.
She would be in a daze as he penetrated her, thrust up against the cervix, moving so that she would become excited beyond her control, circling, circling, rotating her pelvis. At last finding release.
Nights in the clubs when he would play clean, brilliant music of his own, music that burned into her, music of which the sex was only a faint echo. Refined, graceful fire rimmed by ice.
Once she spent the weekend with him at a music festival. As they lay together, she gripped him with her legs tightly each night in her sleep in a kind of panic.
She had intense orgasms with Xavier. It seemed the girl she had been then was a remote relative, a ghost of the person she was now.
The singer they were listening to at the Lionesse d’Or wore a navy shantung dress. Her diamond earrings gleamed and formed large grapelike clusters on her ears. Her reddish hair was in an Afro. She had severe features. But her voice was at times so melodious that it seemed to melt into Rosa’s bones. The singer reminded her of Xavier, of a fullness in her life that had been lost.
Antonio and she frequented a different universe. Antonio did not understand jazz. It was not native to his temperament or to his culture. Antonio did not make love the way Xavier did. (Or was she seduced by Xavier’s music? As if she hoped to become pregnant with the music that overwhelmed her senses?)
The woman stopped singing. She drank from a glass on top of the grand piano.
“Do you like her?” asked Tanya.
“Yes, she’s all right. Do you?”
Tanya shrugged. “Not as much as I thought I would. I’m not wild about jazz.”
The singer announced an intermission. She and Tanya looked lingeringly into each other’s eyes. She came over to their table. “You look familiar, yes you do,” she said to Tanya in French with a strong American accent.
“Would you like to sit down?” asked Tanya.
“I don’t mind if I do.”
Tanya and the singer talked. They had met somewhere before at a lesbian club. Rosa suddenly felt frightened. What if the baby were to suffocate or choke? She must get back. Hurriedly she took her leave. “Tanya, come by later if you want.”
“No, I don’t think I will,” said Tanya with surprising coolness.
Rosa took a taxi back. She thought of warm hands sliding around her throat, strangling her. A phantom lover. Antonio drunk and in a state of delusion. What if he turned out to be a killer? She must get back in time. What if she didn’t? She must. She must.
After she flung open the front door, she found that the baby was sound asleep. Rosa heaved a deep sigh and took off her coat. She turned up the heat. Antonio had not yet returned.
At two a.m. just as she was dozing off to sleep, his heavy footsteps awakened her.
“We’re going to California,” he said.
“What?” She was sleepy.
“Get up. I want to talk to you. We’re going to California.”
“I won’t be seeing Tanya any more,” she said. “Because I love you. You mean much more to me.”
“In California,” he said, “there’s sunshine and grass and modern plumbing.”
“And lots of space,” she said. “And plenty of jobs.”
“Petite,” he said, “in Paris I can’t find work. All my friends have let me down. There’s no one I can count on. You haven’t helped. But I love you. I’m a man. I’ll stick by you. I’m not a weakling who would discard you. I have done so much for people here. What have they done for me? Nothing.” He spit out a fleck of tobacco into an ashtray and lit another cigarette. “I introduced Philippe to his publisher at Gallimard. Thanks to me, his poems will be published in the spring. I got the apartment across the courtyard for Jean. I helped Khalil with his shitty movie . . . I saved Francisco’s life. Do you think he’ll ever repay us? Merde. Never. From Switzerland they will go to Tunisia in the autumn, perhaps. Or a luxury tour of the Greek Islands.”
He hunched forward over the dining table. Moved by pity, she put her hands gently on his neck, but he brushed them away. “Let me be,” he said. “We’ll have time to make love in California. Perhaps we’ll be in the mood. Warm sunshine and ocean. Like Chile.”
“We could go to Chile,” she said. “Why not?”
His face contorted with pain. “No,” he said. “After I lost my job as chief editor of La Nación, my fucking family didn’t want me there. I have no family at all in the world except you. Did you know I was chief editor?” He laughed heartily. Then he poured another glass of wine, drank it down. He looked at her with narrow, scrutinizing eyes as if demanding that she judge him, that she absolve him or find him guilty.
“I lost my address book tonight. . . . Everyone in the world whom I knew was in there . . . addresses of old school friends . . . people I knew fifteen years ago . . .”
“Oh I’m sorry!” she cried. She flung her arms around him, but he wrenched himself away from her grip.
She gazed at his face with its narrow well-formed features. The outlines of his nose and lips seemed so sharp. His cheeks were gaunt, the planes of the face well-defined, lacking excess flesh.
“I thought the French government invited you here.”
“They gave me a small stipend to live on in Paris. My brothers got together and raised my plane fare. In their eyes I was a failure and a disgrace. I’d lost so many jobs on newspapers and radio stations. I fought with people.” A tortured look passed over his face. “Alma Iñez broke down after I left. She loved me so much.” He took out another cigarette and stared at it. “In some ways I’m as simple as a child. You don’t understand me. If you did, how beautiful our life would be.”
“I try to. I try so hard.”
He smoothed her hair. “I know you do, Petite. You and I are two lost children.”
He lit his cigarette. They watched the match flicker out. It suddenly seemed much colder in the room.
PART TWO
New York
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Plainville stretches flat in the middle of Long Island. Originally it had been surrounded by potato fields, but after World War II these were covered over with suburban tract homes and shopping centers.
Eleanor looked out the kitchen window at desolate maple trees which had not yet sprouted buds, at their immense yard, and at the backs of other houses. She felt terribly out of place here in this large old house, this town of Irish and Italian Catholics.
On the kitchen table were spread the inner pages of The New York Times with its fashion advertisements. She looked wis
tfully at a black cocktail dress from Bendel’s for one hundred and twenty dollars. She always felt poor in contrast to her friends and in contrast to Aaron’s family who had done so well in business. These friends from school and college who came from old Boston families. She was never truly one of them because she was Jewish. These friends were her invisible judges.
In the studio Aaron worked. Soon he would want lunch, but it seemed as if she had just cleaned up the breakfast dishes. Time flowed too fast. So many feelings tortured her and clouded the clarity of her mind.
Howard was off at Antioch. Jesse, who had been so close to his older brother, had been wandering the house in a silent rage for over a month, ever since he broke up with Sylvia.
The children seemed like the wild roses that bloomed in the back yard when they first moved into the house. She had neglected them, until perhaps it was too late. There was never enough time.
Antonio would be coming with Rosa and the baby from France. At the thought of him her heart leapt. She felt terribly guilty.
She must speak with Aaron about their trip to Hartford this weekend, where he was to install the fountain he was finishing. As she walked through the back yard to Aaron’s studio, she shivered with cold. She opened the door.
“Aaron,” she said.
He was welding a huge breast-like shape of bronze. The torch glowed red hot. Although his back was towards her, by an almost imperceptible movement of his muscles, he showed awareness that she had entered the room; but he did not turn to her until he switched off the torch.
Aaron was a slender man in his early fifties who had a look of wariness and sensitivity. He had black hair with only a few grey strands, hazel eyes, a fleshy mouth, and broad nostrils. He wore a flannel shirt, baggy trousers, and clogs because the cement floor was cold and there was little heat. Now he shoved the goggles up from his face.
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