by Paul Auster
Fanny was the one who saved me from what would have been a terrible decision. I can say that now in the light of what happened later, but back then nothing was clear to me. When the lease on my Varick Street sublet ran out, I rented an apartment just six or seven blocks from Delia’s place in Brooklyn. I hadn’t been intending to move so close to her, but the prices in Manhattan were too steep for me, and once I started looking on the other side of the river, every apartment I was shown seemed to be in her neighborhood. I wound up with a shabby floor-through in Carroll Gardens, but the rent was affordable, and the bedroom was large enough for two beds—one for me and one for David. He started spending two or three nights a week with me, which was a good change in itself, but one that pushed me into a precarious position with Delia. I had allowed myself to slip back into her orbit, and I could feel my resolve beginning to waver. By an unfortunate coincidence, Maria had left town for a couple of months at the time of my move, and Sachs was gone as well—off to California to work on a screenplay of The New Colossus. An independent producer had bought the film rights to his novel, and Sachs had been hired to write the script in collaboration with a professional screenwriter who lived in Hollywood. I will return to that story later, but for now the point is that I was alone, stranded in New York without my usual companions. My whole future was being thrown into question again, and I needed someone to talk to, to hear myself think out loud.
One night, Fanny called me at my new apartment and invited me to dinner. I assumed it would be one of her standard parties, with five or six other guests, but when I showed up at her house the following evening, I discovered that I was the only person she had asked. This came as a surprise to me. In all the years we had known each other, Fanny and I had never spent any time by ourselves. Ben had always been around, and except for the odd moments when he left the room or was called away to the telephone, we had scarcely even spoken to each other without someone else listening to what we said. I had become so accustomed to this arrangement, I didn’t bother to question it anymore. Fanny had always been a remote and idealized figure for me, and it seemed fitting that our relations should be indirect, perpetually mediated by others. In spite of the affection that had grown up between us, it still made me a little nervous to be with her. My self-consciousness tended to make me rather whimsical, and I often went out of my way to make her laugh, cracking bad jokes and delivering atrocious puns, translating my awkwardness into a blithe and puerile banter. All this disturbed me, since I never acted that way with anyone else. I am not a jocular person, and I knew that I was giving her a false impression of who I was, but it wasn’t until that night that I understood why I had always hidden myself from her. Some thoughts are too dangerous, and you mustn’t allow yourself to get near them.
I remember the white silk blouse she wore that evening and the white pearls around her brown neck. I think she noticed how puzzled I was by her invitation, but she didn’t let on about it, acting as though it were perfectly normal for friends to have dinner in this way. It probably was, but not from my point of view, not with the history of evasions that existed between us. I asked her if there was anything special she wanted to talk about. No, she said, she just felt like seeing me. She had been working hard ever since Ben left town, and when she woke up yesterday morning, it suddenly occurred to her that she missed me. That was all. She missed me and wanted to know how I was.
We started with drinks in the living room, mostly talking about Ben for the first few minutes. I mentioned a letter he had written to me the week before, and then Fanny described a phone conversation she’d had with him earlier that day. She didn’t believe the movie would ever get made, she said, but Ben was earning good money for the script, and that was bound to help. The house in Vermont needed a new roof, and maybe they’d be able to go ahead with it before the old one caved in. We might have talked about Vermont after that, or else her work at the museum, I forget. By the time we sat down for dinner, we had somehow moved on to my book. I told Fanny that I was still making progress, but less than before, since several days a week were now given over entirely to David. We lived like a couple of old bachelors, I said, shuffling around the apartment in our slippers, smoking pipes in the evening, talking philosophy over a glass of brandy as we studied the embers in the fireplace.
“A little like Holmes and Watson,” Fanny said.
“We’re getting there. Defecation remains a lively topic these days, but once my colleague is out of diapers, I’m sure we’ll be tackling other subjects.”
“It could be worse.”
“Of course it could. You don’t hear me complaining, do you?”
“Have you introduced him to any of your lady friends?”
“Maria, for example?”
“For example.”
“I’ve thought about it, but there never seems to be a good time. It’s probably because I don’t want to. I’m afraid he’ll get confused.”
“And what about Delia? Has she been seeing other men?”
“I think so, but she isn’t very forthcoming about her private business.”
“Just as well, I suppose.”
“I can’t really say. From the looks of things now, she seems fairly happy that I’ve moved into her neighborhood.”
“Good God. You’re not encouraging this, are you?”
“I’m not sure. It’s not as though I’m thinking about marrying anyone else.”
“David’s not a good enough reason, Peter. If you went back to Delia now, you’d begin to hate yourself for it. You’d turn into a bitter old man.”
“Maybe that’s what I am already.”
“Nonsense.”
“I try not to be, but it gets harder and harder to look at the mess I’ve made without feeling pretty stupid.”
“You feel responsible, that’s all. It’s tugging you in opposite directions.”
“Whenever I leave, I tell myself I should have stayed. Whenever I stay, I tell myself I should have left.”
“It’s called ambivalence.”
“Among other things. If that’s the term you want to use, I’ll let it stand.”
“Or, as my grandmother once put it to my mother: ‘Your father would be a wonderful man, if only he were different.’ ”
“Ha.”
“Yes, ha. A whole epic of pain and suffering reduced to a single sentence.”
“Matrimony as a swamp, as a lifelong exercise in self-delusion.”
“You just haven’t met the right person yet, Peter. You’ve got to give yourself more time.”
“You’re saying I don’t know what real love is. And once I do, my feelings will change. It’s nice of you to think that, but what if it never happens? What if it’s not in the cards for me?”
“It is, I guarantee it.”
“And what makes you so sure?”
Fanny paused for a moment, put down her knife and fork, and then reached across the table and took hold of my hand. “You love me, don’t you?”
“Of course I love you,” I said.
“You’ve always loved me, haven’t you? From the first moment you laid eyes on me. It’s true, isn’t it? You’ve loved me for all these years, and you still love me now.”
I pulled my hand away and looked down at the table, overcome by embarrassment. “What is this?” I said. “A forced confession?”
“No, I’m just trying to prove that you married the wrong woman.”
“You’re married to someone else, remember? I always thought that kept you off the list of candidates.”
“I’m not saying you should have married me. But you shouldn’t have married the person you did.”
“You’re talking in circles, Fanny.”
“It’s perfectly clear. You just don’t want to understand what I’m saying.”
“No, there’s a flaw in your argument. I grant you that marrying Delia was a mistake. But loving you doesn’t prove that I can love someone else. What if you’re the only woman I could ever love? I pose this q
uestion hypothetically, of course, but it’s a crucial point. If it’s true, then your argument makes no sense.”
“Things don’t work that way, Peter.”
“That’s the way they work for you and Ben. Why make an exception for yourself?”
“I’m not.”
“And what’s that supposed to mean?”
“I don’t have to spell everything out for you, do I?”
“You’ll have to forgive me, but I’m beginning to feel a little confused. If I didn’t know I was talking to you, I’d swear you were coming on to me.”
“Are you saying you’d object?”
“Jesus, Fanny, you’re married to my best friend.”
“Ben has nothing to do with it. This is strictly between us.”
“No it’s not. It has everything to do with him.”
“And what do you think Ben is doing out in California?”
“He’s writing a movie script.”
“Yes, he’s writing a movie script. And he’s also fucking a girl named Cynthia.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Why don’t you call him and find out for yourself? Just ask him. He’ll tell you the truth. Just say: Fanny tells me you’re fucking a girl named Cynthia; what about it, old man? He’ll give you a straight answer, I know he will.”
“I don’t think we should be having this conversation.”
“And then ask him about the other ones before Cynthia. Grace, for example. And Nora, and Martine, and Val. Those are the first names that spring to mind, but if you give me a minute, I’ll think of some more. Your friend is a cunt-hound, Peter. You never knew that about him, did you?”
“Don’t talk that way. It’s disgusting.”
“I’m only giving you the facts. It’s not as though Ben hides it from me. He has my permission, you see. He can do anything he wants. And I can do anything I want.”
“Why bother to stay married, then? If all this is true, there’s no reason for you to be together.”
“We love each other, that’s why.”
“It certainly doesn’t sound like it.”
“But we do. This is the way we’ve arranged things. If I didn’t give Ben his freedom, I’d never be able to hold on to him.”
“So he runs around while you stay put, waiting for your prodigal husband to come home again. It doesn’t sound like a fair arrangement to me.”
“It’s fair. It’s fair because I accept it, because I’m happy with it. Even if I’ve used my own freedom only sparingly, it’s still mine, it still belongs to me. It’s a right I can exercise whenever I choose.”
“Such as now.”
“This is it, Peter. You’re finally going to get what you’ve always wanted. And you don’t have to feel that you’re betraying Ben. What happens tonight is strictly between you and me.”
“You said that before.”
“Maybe you understand it a little better now. You don’t have to tie yourself up in knots. If you want me, you can have me.”
“Just like that.”
“Yes, just like that.”
I found her assertiveness daunting, incomprehensible. If I hadn’t been so thrown by it, I probably would have stood up from the table and left, but as it was, I just sat in my chair and said nothing. Of course I wanted to sleep with her. She had understood that all along, and now that I had been exposed, now that she had turned my secret into a blunt and vulgar proposition, I scarcely knew who she was anymore. Fanny had become someone else. Ben had become someone else. In the space of one brief conversation, all my certainties about the world had collapsed.
Fanny took hold of my hand again, and instead of trying to talk her out of it, I responded with a weak, embarrassed smile. She must have interpreted that as capitulation, for a moment later she stood up from her chair and walked around the table to where I was sitting. I opened my arms to her, and without saying a word she crawled into my lap, planted her haunches firmly against my thighs, and took hold of my face with her hands. We started kissing. Mouths open, tongues thrashing, slobbering onto each other’s chins, we started kissing like a couple of teenagers in the backseat of a car.
We carried on like that for the next three weeks. Almost at once, Fanny became recognizable to me again, a familiar and enigmatic point of stillness. She was no longer the same, of course, but not in any of the ways that had stunned me that first night, and the aggressiveness she had shown then was never repeated. I began to forget all about it, accustoming myself to our altered relations, to the ongoing rush of desire. Ben was still out of town, and except for the nights David was with me, I spent every night at his house, sleeping in his bed and making love to his wife. I took it for granted that I was going to marry Fanny. Even if it meant destroying my friendship with Sachs, I was fully prepared to go ahead with it. For the time being, however, I kept this knowledge to myself. I was still too awed by the strength of my feelings, and I didn’t want to overwhelm her by speaking too soon. That was how I justified my silence, in any case, but the truth was that Fanny showed little inclination to talk about anything but the day-to-day, the logistics of the next meeting. Our lovemaking was wordless and intense, a swoon to the depths of immobility. Fanny was all languor and compliance, and I fell in love with the smoothness of her skin, with the way she would close her eyes whenever I stole up behind her and kissed the back of her neck. For the first couple of weeks, I didn’t want anything more than that. Touching her was enough, and I lived for the barely audible purrings that came from her throat, for the feel of her back slowly arching against my palms.
I imagined Fanny as David’s stepmother. I imagined the two of us setting up house in a different neighborhood and living there for the rest of our lives. I imagined storms, dramatic scenes, immense shouting matches with Sachs before any of this could happen. Perhaps it would finally come to blows, I thought. I found myself ready for anything, and even the idea of squaring off against my friend failed to shock me. I pressed Fanny to talk about him, hungry to listen to her grievances in order to vindicate myself in my own eyes. If I could establish that he had been a bad husband, then my plan to steal her away from him would be given the weight and sanctity of a moral purpose. I wouldn’t be stealing her, I would be rescuing her, and my conscience would remain clear. What I was too naïve to grasp was that enmity can also be a dimension of love. Fanny suffered from Ben’s sexual conduct; his strayings and peccadilloes were a source of constant pain for her, but once she began to confide in me about these things, the bitterness I was expecting to hear from her never advanced beyond a sort of mild rebuke. Opening up to me seemed to relieve some pressure inside her, and now that she had committed a sin of her own, perhaps she was able to pardon him for the sins he had committed against her. This was the economy of justice, so to speak, the quid pro quo that turns the victim into the one who victimizes, the act that puts the scales in balance. In the end, I learned a great deal about Sachs from Fanny, but it never provided me with the ammunition I was looking for. If anything, her disclosures had just the opposite effect. One night, for example, when we started talking about the time he had spent in prison, I found out that those seventeen months had been far more terrible for him than he had ever allowed me to know. I don’t think that Fanny was specifically trying to defend him, but when I heard about the things he had lived through (random beatings, continual harassment and threats, a possible incident of homosexual rape), I found it difficult to muster any resentment against him. Sachs as seen through Fanny’s eyes was a more complicated and troubled person than the one I thought I knew. He wasn’t just the ebullient and gifted extrovert who had become my friend, he was also a man who hid himself from others, a man burdened with secrets he had never shared with anyone. I wanted an excuse to turn against him, but all through those weeks I spent with Fanny, I felt as close to him as ever before. Strangely enough, none of that interfered with my feelings for her. Loving her was simple, even if everything that surrounded that love was fraught with ambiguity. S
he was the one who had thrown herself at me, after all, and yet the more tightly I held her, the less sure I became of what I was holding.
The affair coincided exactly with Ben’s absence. A couple of days before he was scheduled to return, I finally brought up the subject of what we were going to do once he was back in New York. Fanny proposed that we go on in the same way, seeing each other whenever we wished. I told her that wasn’t possible, that she would have to make a break with Ben and move in with me if we were going to continue. There wasn’t any room for duplicity, I said. We should tell him what had happened, resolve things as quickly as we could, and then plan on getting married. It never occurred to me that this wasn’t what Fanny wanted, but that only proves how ignorant I was, how badly I had misread her intentions from the start. She wouldn’t leave Ben, she said. She had never even considered it. No matter how much she loved me, it wasn’t something she was prepared to do.
It turned into an agonizing conversation that lasted for several hours, a vortex of circular arguments that never took us anywhere. We both did a lot of crying, each one imploring the other to be reasonable, to give in, to look at the situation from a new perspective, but it didn’t work. Perhaps it never could have worked, but as it was happening, I felt it was the worst conversation of my life, a moment of absolute ruin. Fanny wouldn’t leave Ben, and I wouldn’t stay with her unless she did. It’s got to be all or nothing, I kept telling her. I loved her too much to settle for just a part of her. As far as I was concerned, anything less than all would be nothing, a misery I could never bring myself to live with. So I got my misery and my nothing, and the affair ended with our conversation that night. Over the months that followed, there was scarcely a moment when I didn’t regret it, when I didn’t grieve over my stubbornness, but there was never any chance to undo the finality of my words.
