“If you won’t think of yourself, would you think of me? I’m not ready to lose you, you know,” I said tenderly.
“My dear—” He sounded as if he were about to say something quite serious, but then stopped himself. “Just take me home, will you?”
We looked briefly into one another’s eyes, and in that moment, I understood for the first time what it meant to be old and sick and weary of life. Harry smiled forlornly. I hailed a taxi. We said very little to one another on the way back to his apartment. The cab lurched up to the familiar green awning.
“Thank you, Faith,” he said, as he lumbered out. “You know, this Madi business really gives me something to look forward to. Thank you.”
I offered to see him upstairs, but he declined. After dropping him off, I continued on for a bit, then decided to get out of the taxi and walk the rest of the way home. I needed some air.
Chapter 8
Harry’s unexpected seizure had frightened me more than I first realized. I walked faster and faster, trying to ignore a growing wave of panic, finding it increasingly difficult to breathe. Finally, unable to catch my breath at all, I had to stop and lean against a building in an effort to calm myself down. I could feel my heart pounding more and more fiercely. Little rivulets of sweat began forming in the palms of my hands. I felt hot and dizzy, as if I were going to faint. Hugging the building, my body pressed tight against the cold concrete, eyes squeezed shut, gasping for air, I prayed for this anxiety attack to go away. Gradually, mercifully, it abated, and I was able to continue. Shaky at first, finding my steps one at a time, I soon broke into a trot and then began to run. I couldn’t wait to get back home to my little apartment, my comfortable, well-ordered refuge.
Panting and disheveled, I rounded the corner of my block and stopped dead when I spied a tall, thin, familiar figure lurking around the entrance to my brownstone. At precisely that moment, the street lamp in front of the building lit up. The figure turned his face toward the light. I recognized him: it was John Noland.
What in hell was he doing here now, tonight of all nights? Our date wasn’t until Tuesday. Of course I knew what he was doing here. It was so like him to show up unannounced, particularly after we’d made a specific plan to see one another, so like him to catch me off-guard, to rattle me so that once again he’d start with the upper hand.
Well, I said to myself, I won’t let him see me. It’s as simple as that. I just won’t go inside for a while. I turned around and walked swiftly back to the corner, hoping he wouldn’t catch a glimpse of me. I had no intention of confronting him in my present state, looking the way I did and feeling as fragile as a foal. That was not my plan. I knew exactly the way I wanted to look when he first laid eyes on me again after all this time, and it wasn’t like this. He wasn’t going to do me out of my careful grooming, my composure, my air of detachment, of mild amusement. He wasn’t going to catch me unkempt, out of breath, frightened of life, and death.
I’d had visions of what our first meeting would be like. They went like this: Calling for me on Tuesday, John would ring the buzzer in the front hall, and I’d keep him waiting just a short while to show him I wasn’t overanxious. Then I’d buzz him in. I’d listen to him walk upstairs, the familiar loping walk. I’d be at the front door, wearing a new dress, one I’d bought specifically for the occasion. A discreetly revealing dress to show him I hadn’t lost my figure. I’d have on makeup, slightly more than usual, though not a lot, just enough to cover up time a little. My attitude would be light, cheerful, and, above all, disinterested.
We’d engage in a bit of small talk leavened with a few nostalgic innuendos, and then I’d suggest coolly, “Shall we go to dinner? I have to make it an early night.” On the pretext of getting a sweater just in case it was chilly in the restaurant, I’d leave John to look around the living room, to soak up the warm atmosphere I’d created for myself. He’d always said he admired my taste and the knack I had for making things cozy. I’d let him see that some things hadn’t changed.
We’d go to dinner. He’d take me to one of our old haunts downtown.
“Oh, yes,” I’d say, over cocktails, “life’s treated me very well. All things considered, I’m quite happy.” And I’d be thinking to myself all the while, “I survived you, didn’t I . . . ?”
We’d drink a little too much wine, reminisce a little too intimately. He’d reach over, take my hand, gaze into my eyes and tell me nothing had changed. I’d stroke his cheek for a fleeting moment, pull my hand away, and say that unfortunately I had to get up at the crack of dawn the next morning, “Could we please go?” Dropping me off at my apartment he’d say, “How about a nightcap?” I’d kiss him on the cheek and reply in the sweetest voice imaginable, “Another time.” He’d clasp my arm, not wanting to let me go. I’d pull away, run up the stairs of my brownstone, turning to look at him one last time. I’d smile wistfully and go inside.
That was how I pictured our next meeting, and I wasn’t going to be cheated out of it, or at least a version of it, that easily. I wanted John to see me at my best, my coolest, and most prepared, not catch me off-guard, looking like hell, feeling anxious and derailed. Not after all these years. I wanted my moment—the moment in which I proved to him and to myself that I’d triumphed over his memory, and all the memories he represented, that I’d survived and survived well. That moment was going to be mine to savor, on my terms, not at his convenience. And it was going to be on Tuesday night as planned, not now.
However, it was not so easy to tear myself away. In spite of all my plans for Tuesday, I was riveted by the sight of him. I kept watching him from a distance, hoping he would turn his face toward the light again. It was too dark to tell how he really looked. He was blurred, indistinct, floating like a shadow. He continued his vigil, showing no signs of leaving. Finally, I retreated, walking slowly around the block, hoping he would go away.
The streets were almost empty. Gone were the Saturday afternoon strollers, the tradesmen locking up their stores, the last-minute shoppers carrying home bags of groceries and the odd bunch of flowers. In their place, the night people were beginning to creep out here and there—people who seemed to be waiting for something, anything—an event, a fight, an accident—to shape the pattern of their lives for the next few hours. I watched a cat chase a large brown cockroach on the sidewalk. I felt a subway rumbling beneath the concrete. A wailing siren shredded the air. A man in rags, carrying two tattered shopping bags, darted out in front of me, yelped, and ran away. I jumped back, lost my balance, and steadied myself against a parking meter, where I waited for a time, trying not to inhale the exhaust fumes from the cars whizzing by. All around me was that combination of energy, danger, and hopelessness which is the atmospheric brew of big cities.
When I came around the block again, John Noland had gone. Thank God, I whispered, breathing a sigh of relief. I mounted the steps of my brownstone, lead-legged, my head aching. I opened the door to the entrance hall, longing to lie down. I didn’t even bother to get my mail, which I could see through the slot, crammed inside its brass box on the wall. Bills, circulars, catalogues, most likely. They could wait. Everything could wait until I’d had a hot bath and a good night’s sleep. I put my key in the second door.
Suddenly I felt a tap on my shoulder. I whirled around. “Hello,” said the low, insinuating voice I instantly recognized. There was the familiar face in front of me.
“John! You scared me to death!”
He smiled that winning smile of his. I felt weak and unsure of myself as he dangled in the dimness, an old memory beckoning me back in time.
I squinted, trying to bring him out of the gloom into sharper focus. I saw he hadn’t really changed that much over the years, except that his features seemed starker now. His skin was less supple with age. There had always been a monastic austerity about John. He was tall, thin, angular, and slightly stylized, like the carved apostles on Gothic cathedrals.
I used to tell him he would have made a good model for the Crucifixion. Even now, he looked monklike, despite his blue jeans and red flannel shirt, open to the middle of his chest. He still possessed those grimly handsome, sunbaked, ascetic looks which had attracted me to him all those years ago. And there was still that impish glint in his expression which, I knew from experience, could suddenly harden into cruelty for no apparent reason.
“Hello, Faith.” His lips were a smudge in the murky light.
I knew he was studying me. That was quite like him. He was adept at gauging my reactions to him by staring at me until I became so self-conscious I revealed myself in some awkward way. Then he’d pounce like a jaguar, clawing my confidence to pieces. I thought to myself: you bastard, you instinctively knew you’d catch me at my worst. He must have known damn well this wasn’t the way I wanted to present myself to him, not after all this time. But there I was, standing in front of him, exhausted and disheveled, looking just as pathetic as I possibly could. In fact, I hadn’t felt or looked quite so terrible in years.
I raised my hand in a vain effort to smooth back my hair. John intercepted it, held it for an instant, then kissed the palm. I felt the flick of his tongue on my flesh.
“You look beautiful,” he said, as if he’d read my thoughts.
“Rubbish.” I pulled my hand away from him. “I look like a rat on a wheel, and you know it.”
He laughed. I began trudging up the stairs.
“What happened to Tuesday?” I said wearily.
“I wanted to surprise you,” he answered, walking so close behind me I could feel the heat of his body.
“Why?”
“Turn around and let me look at you.”
He put his hands on my waist, stopping me mid-step. It had been so long since I’d felt a man’s hands on my body, I froze. His hands pressed firmly on my sides. I relished the moment longer than I should have, giving myself away. When I tried jerking free at last, he held me fast, speaking to me in a patronizing tone.
“Stop . . . Relax . . . You’re like a scared rabbit.”
I wriggled around to face him. I was one step above him, but because he was so much taller than I, we were now the same height. We looked into one another’s eyes. He continued holding my waist.
“Go away, John. I’m exhausted. Come back on Tuesday, will you? Like we planned.”
“How’ve you been?” he said.
“Fine. I’m just tired.”
“You’re trembling.”
“Yes, well . . .” I heard my voice crack.
“Aren’t you glad to see me?”
I hesitated. “I don’t know.”
“No?” He seemed amused.
“I don’t know, I—”
He kissed me gently on the lips.
“What don’t you know? Hmm? What don’t you know?”
I was stunned. I hadn’t kissed anyone in God knows how long.
“Jesus, John!” I cried, jerking away.
He looked startled, then wounded.
“What?” he asked ingenuously. “What?”
“You think you can just—” I gave up, too exhausted for anger. “You haven’t changed one bit, have you?”
“Make me a drink?” he said impishly.
“No.”
“A cup of tea?”
“No.”
“Love?” he whispered, suddenly leaning in.
“John, you are the limit. You really are.”
“Just a drink then. Be a sport.”
“No. Look, I’m not ready for you. Come back on Tuesday. We’ll have a nice dinner somewhere, talk, catch up.”
“I’m all caught up . . . Aren’t you?”
“What’s wrong with doing things as we planned for once?”
“Doing what things?” he said suggestively, his whole manner coated with a come-on I pretended to ignore.
“Why is it that having a date with you, even an encounter, always turns into a game where you get to make up all the rules?”
“Is that what you think?” He looked genuinely dismayed. “Well then, I’m sorry. The truth is I couldn’t wait to see you, that’s all. I got so excited hearing your voice again. I was just carried away, I suppose. I thought it would be rather romantic. Anyway, I apologize. I’ll go.”
He released me. Suddenly, I felt panicked. There it was—the old pattern repeating itself: I reject him, then I feel abandoned. I felt torn between wanting him to leave and longing for him to stay.
“It’s just that I wasn’t expecting you now.”
“Don’t worry.” He stroked my cheek.
I inadvertently raised my hand to his, following its path along my skin.
“I’ve missed you, Faith. Have you missed me?” I nodded. “Come on then,” he said, putting his arm around me. “Let’s go upstairs.”
John insinuated himself back into my life as though he’d never really left it. We chatted easily and flirtatiously over a bottle of wine. He complimented me on my apartment, stroked Brush, whom he’d never met, asked to see the photographs of my most recent work, remembering the leather-bound album in which I kept a record of the jobs I did. He seemed interested in me, in what I’d been up to. I got out the album and showed it to him. Thumbing through it, he said my technique looked as if it had improved—not that it needed to, he added mischievously. We both laughed at the double entendre. There was nothing at all forced or awkward between us, no residual anger or recriminations. Still, I was wary. I asked him what he’d been doing and he was appealingly modest, saying he was up to pretty much the same things as always: traveling, writing, lecturing. He said people were taking more of an interest in him these days. He said he was winning more awards, being asked to give interviews, and speaking for hefty fees. “Standards must be higher at last,” he joked.
Underneath John’s easy banter, however, I sensed danger. It was as if an old, rusty door were slowly creaking open, and though fearing what I would find behind it, I kept wanting desperately to look.
Quite casually, John started running his index finger up and down my arm as we spoke. He began to massage my neck. Closing my eyes, against my better judgment, I let his powerful hands sway me back and forth in a compelling rhythm. How easy it would be for him to kill me, I thought. And then I caught myself. Why was I thinking of murder? An image of Cassandra flashed through my mind. I snapped open my eyes and quickly pulled away.
“Why so skittish?” John said. “You used to love being massaged.”
“I-I’m afraid,” I stammered.
“Afraid?” The thought seemed to amuse him. “Of what? Me?”
“Maybe. Or myself.”
“Come here,” he purred. “There’s nothing to be afraid of. I’m not going to hurt you.”
“No? You did hurt me once.”
“You hurt me too,” he replied somberly.
“Yes, but you used to get so furious, so violent. Sometimes I thought—” I stopped myself.
“What?”
“No, no, nothing.”
“What? Tell me.”
“All right.” I drew a deep breath. “Sometimes I thought that you wanted to kill me.”
“Really?” he said, arching an eyebrow.
“Did you ever?”
“What? Want to kill you?”
“Yes.”
We looked hard into each other’s eyes for a long moment.
“Not literally,” he said, smiling.
“But you used to get so angry. You hit me, remember? Do you think you ever could kill anyone, John?”
“You mean, aside from myself?” he said.
His answer amazed me.
“John, do you really think you could kill yourself?”
He shrugged. “I’ve thought about it. Hasn’t everyone?”
“I haven’t—n
ot seriously.”
“Well, you’re lucky.”
We sat in silence for another moment. I hadn’t realized, all those years ago, what a melancholy man he really was.
“Yes, probably,” he said, after a time. “I probably could kill someone if I had to. If it was them or me.”
“I mean a woman,” I said, “a woman you were involved with.”
He looked at me quizzically. “Why are you asking all these questions, Faith? Do you have murder on your mind?” he said lightly.
I got up to pour myself another drink.
“Oh, I don’t know. The subject seems to interest me lately.”
“Quite a subject, murder.” He didn’t seem to take me seriously.
“Murder,” I said, refilling his glass, “and passion.”
He grabbed my wrist. Some wine spilled out of the bottle. Brush leapt off the couch and slunk away to a corner. John pulled me down to him and kissed me deeply on the mouth. I tried to free myself, but he kept a firm grasp on me, refusing to let go.
“John, no—please!” I protested.
He took the wine bottle from my hand and rested it on a table nearby. Standing up, he enveloped me in his arms. I was frightened, and yet the fear was exciting. I felt how much he wanted me, and that made me want him. For a while, I kept on resisting, but his passion and persistence wore me down. Finally, he lifted me up and carried me down the hall. I clung to him, kissing him, licking his ear, burying my head in his neck, whimpering that we shouldn’t be doing this. He paid no attention, slamming the bedroom door behind us with his foot. I heard a small cry from Brush, wanting to get in. Then he threw me on the bed and lunged on top of me. I was his now, and we both knew it. We struggled to undress, not wanting to forego a second of contact with one another. He tried to undo my bra unsuccessfully.
“You never could figure out how that thing worked,” I laughed, starting to undo it myself.
John was too impatient. He yanked the bra down around my waist and began massaging my breasts. I pushed my pelvis up against him and started undulating slowly until passion overwhelmed the two of us.
A Trick of the Eye Page 11
