30 Pieces of a Novel (7 page)

They take walks together around the ship, kiss on the deck if it's warm enough out there, play Chinese checkers in the saloon; in her cabin, where she takes him to see her wardrobe and jewelry box again, she says, “You once said I was fat; well, see that I'm not,” though he doesn't remember ever saying anything about it, and she stands straight and places his hands on her breasts through the blouse and says, “Hard, yes, not fat; no part of me is except what all in my family were born with, my derriere,” and when he tries unbuttoning her blouse she grabs his hand and bites it and laughs and says, “You'd get much worse if you had gone farther without my noticing it,” and he thinks, What's she going to do, bite me again, slap my face? and says, “Sorry,” and takes her hand and kisses it and moves it to his crotch, and she says, “No, not now, and perhaps not later. I'm sure you'll want me to say it's hard like my chest, and I'm not saying the day will never come for this, but only maybe.” “When?” and she says, “I'll write down your address in New York and if I go there I'm sure I'll see you. It's not that I don't want to myself sometimes. You're a nice boy. But then I'd have to tell my husband and I don't want to hurt him. You can understand that. But if I do feel a thrashing craving with you the next two days, then we'll do something at the most convenient place feasible, if there is one, okay?” and he thinks she's warming up to him; he really feels there's a good chance she'll do it; she was earnest then and her kisses have become more frequent and passionate and longer, not just mashing her mouth into his and pulling his hair back till it hurts but going “Whew!” after, “That was nice, I was overcome,” and she did let him touch her breasts, big full ones, soft; he doesn't know what she's talking about “hard.” He'd like to just pounce on her on her bunk and try to force her, pull all her bottom clothes off quickly and start rubbing and kissing, but she'd scream bloody murder and probably punch him and do serious biting and then order him out and avoid him the rest of the trip, though he doesn't think she'd report him. No, go slow, be a little puppy, that's the way she wants it done, at her own pace, and the last night probably—a goodbye gift, she might call it. And then she won't exchange addresses. She'll say something like “We did what overcame us but shouldn't have, but I won't apologize. If we meet again, then we meet—it's all written before as to what happens—and perhaps we can continue then, but only perhaps.”

At the captain's dinner the last night everyone can sit where he wants, and he sits beside her at her table and out of desperation whispers into her ear, “Really, I'm in love with you, deep down to the deepest part of me, it's not just sex, but it's about that too. You look beautiful tonight, but you're always beautiful. Please let's make love later, the stars say so,” and she says, “Oh, do they? You are tapped into them today? I've had my influence; I feel good about that. Well, we'll see, my young friend, we'll see, because I too think you look handsome tonight,” and he whispers, “You mean there's hope? I'm only asking. I won't pout or anything and I'll be totally understanding if you end up by saying no,” and she takes his hand out from under the table, brings it to her mouth, and kisses it and says, “Yes, I would be encouraged,” and someone at the table says, “Oh, my goodness,” and she says, “We are only special shipmate friends, nothing more to us.”

There's a passenger variety show after dinner, drinks still compliments of the captain, and people say to her, “Belly dance, please belly dance for us,” and she says no and they start chanting, “Belly dance, belly dance, please, please,” and she says, “All right, but I'm out of practice, and the air temperature isn't right for it, so perhaps only for a short while,” and goes below and returns in costume and makeup and belly dances to a record she also brought up. Her breasts are larger than he thought or remembers feeling that night, legs longer and slim, while he thought they'd be pudgy; she shows a slightly bloated belly, though—it moves, he supposes, the way it's supposed to in such a dance and maybe it's supposed to be that shape, and her buttocks and hips wiggle in what he thinks would be the right ways too, but what does he know? It all looks authentic, but sometimes it seems she's about to fall. Maybe she drank too much, but at dinner she said she'll only have one glass of wine: “Don't let me have a second. Scold me if I even try to; on evenings like this where the sentiment runs so much, one can see oneself getting carried away.” Maybe she has a bottle in her cabin. She's less attractive to him dancing. In fact she looks ridiculous, her face sort of stupid and at times grotesque, and too many of her steps are just plain clumsy, and her belly's ugly. She's no bellydancer, she's a fake. She's Austrian, that he can tell by her accent, and maybe married to a Canadian soldier, but that's all. If she belly dances in Canada, it's in cheap bars or at costume parties when everyone's loaded, or something like that. The passengers applaud her loudly, surround her after, want to inspect the jewelry she's wearing, feel the material of her clothes. “This anklet came from a very rich Lebanese I can't tell you how many years ago,” she says. “King Farouk, who many people look down upon, and perhaps there's some truth to it, but he would have given me this brooch after I danced, he said, if I didn't already own an exact one. Who would have thought such valuable things could be mass-produced.” She looks at him through the crowd and smiles demurely and then closes her eyes and her smile widens and he thinks, So, it's going to happen, whether he wants to or not. Good, he's going to take complete advantage of her after all these dry days and give it to her like she's never got it in her life, and if she thinks he's too rough or just a flop, who cares?—tomorrow they'll be so rushed and busy with packing and customs and getting off the ship, he doubts he'll ever see her. Anyway, it's been weeks and he suddenly can't wait, his last a bad-tempered whore in Hamburg who wouldn't even take her stockings and blouse off.

He put his name on the variety show list as “singer,” and when his name's called he gets up on the little stage and says he's going to sing the “never-walk-alone song from
Carousel
, the only one I know the words to.” The pianist, who's also a steward, doesn't know the music to it, so he says, “I won't be at my best then, which is never that good, but I'll try to do a semidecent job as an unaccompanied solo. Well, violins and cellos do it—think of Bach—so why not voices? But please, anybody who wants to join in and even drown me out, do.” A couple of people laugh. He thought he was a tenor but he can't get above certain notes. So he stops partway through and says, “Excuse me, mind if I start again but as a baritone? I think this song was originally for a contralto—deep—so maybe it's better sung at that range. Anyway, my voice must have changed while I was in Europe—you didn't know I was so young,” and the same two or three people laugh. The pianist says, “Sure, if you feel you have to go on, but we do have a big lineup still to follow and it's getting kind of late,” and he says, “So, I actually won't. I'm making myself into a first-class ass. Better, if you can't sing, to be voiceless without portholes, right?” and several people say, “Huh?” and nobody laughs, and he says, “Sorry, but I'm not much of a comedian either,” and steps down.

They walk on the deck after. He says, “I was really stupid tonight, wasn't I, and you were so great,” and she says, “You were quite charming and hilarious; I laughed a great deal. But you liked my dancing? I looked at you once while I was in the middle of a difficult step and you didn't seem pleased. I broke a serious rule of mine tonight and danced for people who aren't special or paying me at expensive celebrations, except for you, my dear,” and clutches his hand and nuzzles into his upper arm, and he says, “Thank you, and I can see what you mean about its being an art form.” She's still in costume, they kiss and then kiss hard, and she lets him keep his hand on her breast when he puts it there, and he says, “Tonight, right? We'll do something, at least,” and she says, “Truly, and without exaggeration, I want to—what better time and setting, and the night's mild for once—but I don't think we should when too many people could be watching. You've a cabin mate, I have one, we should plan for it in a simple but sweet hotel room,” and he says, “Where, Quebec? Won't it be expensive and isn't your husband meeting you?” and she says, “I'll pay, if you don't mind, and he'll only meet me at the train terminal in Montreal. But I'm to call him to say the ship got into Quebec, and for that I can be a half day late.”

They meet after customs: “To save on the expense,” she says, “can we take a tram to the hotel?” They check in as husband and wife—“It's not what I want to do, to fabricate,” she says, “but it's the law”—and go to their room. He says, “Would you get peeved very much if we do it right away—at least start? I've been wanting to with you all nine days,” and she says, “Let's have a big drink first—I'm nervous. I haven't done this from my husband for many years,” and he says, “But drinks will jack up the expenses,” and she says, “Just wait,” and opens her valise and brings out a bottle of Pernod. They drink, kiss; he feels her breasts, she touches his penis through the pants and then jerks her hand away. “It scares me, it feels so powerful and big,” and he says, “Nonsense, nonsense, I'm normal.” She says, “Now this is what we'll do, and I insist if we're to go through with it. First I wash up thoroughly and alone. Then you go into the bathroom and take a long shower and clean every part of you, inside and out; every hole there is below the neck, but many times. I want you smelling of so much soap that I would think I'm at a perfume counter in Paris,” and he says, “Okay, that's easy enough.”

She goes into the bathroom—he hears water running, the toilet flushing several times—then she comes out in her clothes. He undressed while she was in there, is sitting naked on the bed, and she says, “What are you doing? Be a gentleman; put on your clothes,” and turns around, and he says, “But I'm going right in there to shower,” and she says, “Do what I say,” and he puts his pants on and says, “Okay, you can look,” and she says, “Did you put everything on? Undershorts, slacks, shirt, socks, shoes? I want it to begin at the beginning and slowly, not just quick without preparations and for your contentment only,” and he says, “Oh, God, this is something; funny, but all right,” and takes the pants off and then dresses completely, and she turns around and he says, “There, see?” and goes into the bathroom, takes a long shower, washes his anus and penis several times, gets into every hole with a washrag and soap, rubs his ankles down with the washrag, shampoos, makes sure his ears are clean, even the tips of his nostrils are clean, all the cracks and folds and places he wouldn't normally take so much time at. He turns the shower off, dries, and yells out, “Okay, I'm finished. What should I do now, come out nude or just in my briefs or fully or semifully clothed? I'm so clean I think any used clothing I'd wear would soil me,” and she doesn't say anything. Bet she's left, he thinks, and says, “I'm coming out, Lisabeta, no clothes, so let me know,” and opens the door, and she and her things are gone. She left a note:
My darling. It would have been exciting but never have worked. Not only would I have had to tell my husband, who I love, but he would have hurt me and I think come to kill you. I decided: All that for one short day's fun? Besides, I checked in my own ways, while you were under the shower, and everything said it was the wrong time. Maybe we will meet another day. I can't say that I hope so. I embrace you
.

He thinks, The hotel bill; she pay it? He calls the front desk and says, “Did my wife pay the hotel bill? I just want to know so I don't have to bother about seeing to it later,” and the clerk says, “No, sir. In fact, I saw your wife leave with much luggage.” “Yes, she had to go home early, I'm staying the night,” and he doesn't know how he's going to get his bag and books out of the hotel without someone seeing him. He calls the desk again and says, “What do we owe you?” and the clerk gives the price in American dollars, and he figures it's about the same or even less than what his things are worth, and he goes downstairs, says to the clerk, “Something just came up, and I have to leave too. Can we get a break on the room because we only used it an hour or two?” and the clerk says, “Sir, what are you saying?” and he pays, decides to take a train because he doesn't have enough money now for a plane, and walks the two miles to the station.

“
I DIDN
'
T TELL
you this story before?” and she says, “If you did I've entirely forgotten it, so it comes out to be the same thing,” and he says, “Well, I was around six, at the most seven. No, because my cousin had to be at least eleven to take me to the movies alone, and he was three years older than me, so I was eight or so; I'll say eight. I'm sure I wasn't nine, for the incident never would have ended up the way it did if I was that old, since by that time I would have been able to get back home on my own. Anyway, very early in my moviegoing life, that's for sure, so no more than eight. I don't think I even saw my first movie till I was seven or eight, so this must have been
one
of the first, though not the first. That one was a Western, while this one took place in a modern city. The Western had this man—the hero, a cowboy—and I could remember only one thing about it. In fact, when I got home from seeing that first movie, a friend of my father's, I remember—it was in the afternoon, probably Saturday—asked me what the movie was about, and all I could tell him was that this man came into a bar and said ‘Give me a soda pop' when the bartender asked him what he'd have—” and she says, “I always thought they asked for sarsaparilla,” and he says, “Maybe it was, but what I definitely remember telling my father's friend was that the hero ended up destroying the place and knocking out about twenty men and shooting and maybe even killing another dozen of these bad guys, though that was before the gore and shattered-bones-and-brains days, so you really couldn't tell for sure,” and she says, “But this movie, the urban one, your story,” and he says, “I got into—the show was over and we were standing outside the theater, the Stoddard, I think. No, that one was farther uptown, in the Nineties, and this one was in the mid-Sixties—but I got into an argument with him,” and she says, “Who?” and he says, “My cousin. Randolph. He lived near us, and my mother must have given him money to take me to the movies with him, and probably a little extra money for himself. He was with Terry Benjamin, his best friend for as long as he lived near us, and maybe I got into an argument with both of them, feeling they were ignoring me or something; I forget what it was about. But I just turned my back on them and headed uptown, and he's—Randolph is—yelling after me to come back, and I probably said something comparable to ‘Screw you' and kept walking, thinking I'd find the street we lived on—the side street that went into the avenue. West Seventy-eighth, I mean, between Amsterdam and Columbus, but I'd find it on Broadway, which was the street the movie theater was on, and walk east to our building,” and she says, “That was unnecessarily complicated, to the point where if I didn't know what block you were brought up on I never would have found out by what you just said,” and he says, “I always had difficulty giving directions. But I remember I also yelled out something like ‘Don't worry'—he was still calling for me to come back or wait up—‘I can get home on my own, I don't need you!' and walked to the corner and turned around, and they were still in front of the theater. I was surprised he didn't run after me to say, ‘Listen, you're my responsibility, your mother said so, so you have to stay with me,' and grab my arm and force me to. I suppose he and Terry Benjamin just wanted to be together and rid of me, and maybe I had been more of a brat than I'd thought. So I kept walking, looking for the street to turn into,” and she says, “Now some of your story's coming back to me. This the one that ends with you sitting on a candy store counter?” and he says, “Drugstore, but one with a soda fountain,” and she says, “That's right, but go on; all I can recall is you sitting on the fountain countertop and possibly someone like a policeman giving you an ice-cream cone,” and he says, “No cone. That only happens in movies, or did when I was a boy, and it maybe happened in real life too sometimes, because people weren't afraid to do that then and also because store owners might mimic what they saw in movies, but it didn't happen to me. My experience was a little scarier,” and she says, “Then tell it, if you still want to, we've plenty of time”—their kids are on sleep-overs tonight and they're in a restaurant waiting for their main courses to arrive, something they do—go to a restaurant alone—once or twice a year, and he says, “So I continued walking north. And I think I now, just this moment—I'm not kidding—after about fifty years I think I finally figured out how I missed my side street. I bet I was looking for some identifying marker on Amsterdam and Seventy-eighth. Meaning that—” and she says, “That Broadway and Seventy-eighth you weren't as familiar with—the identifying markers—so you missed your turnoff, we'll call it,” and he says, “And I think I know why too. At West Seventy-second Street, Amsterdam and Broadway, after running not quite parallel for about a mile, converge. And Amsterdam, which up till that point was west of Broadway, after Seventy-second it's on Broadway's right, meaning east of it, and I probably thought I was walking up Amsterdam when I was actually walking up Broadway,” and she looks perplexed and he says, “You know how Broadway, south of Seventy-second, is east of Amsterdam, and that starting—” and she says, “Yes, I know, I know, and you already explained it, but what I'm wondering is why you didn't just look at the street sign for Seventy-eighth Street and then know where to make a right to get home,” and he says, “Maybe kids that age, around seven or eight—or this kid, then—don't do that. They look for stores and buildings they're familiar with, and I was familiar with the ones on Amsterdam and Columbus at Seventy-eighth and not the ones a block away—a short one, I'll admit—on Broadway,” and she says, “It still doesn't seem right to me. Because if you were so unfamiliar with landmarks and buildings just a short block from your home—but your building was closer to Columbus than to Amsterdam, so we'll say almost an entire block plus a short one from your home—how were you able to know that Amsterdam and Broadway meet at Seventy-second Street and that you were supposed to take Amsterdam there and not continue on Broadway?” and he says, “My cousin could have yelled it out to me when I walked away from him. I don't remember that, but it could have happened. He looked out for me when he was with me and for sure was never a guy who wanted me to get lost. If I insisted on going home alone, he might have yelled, ‘Then get on Amsterdam at Seventy-second where it crosses with Broadway'—something like that. And I either forgot his advice, if he did give it, or thought I was taking it but stayed on Broadway by mistake,” and she says, “Okay, that makes a lot more sense, but you should get on with it,” and he says, “Or I could have once walked down Amsterdam by myself or with a friend or my mother or Randolph a number of times—maybe even that same day with him to get to the movie theater. My father I don't think at that age I ever walked anywhere with, except to the Broadway subway stop at Seventy-ninth a couple of times. But all the way to Seventy-second and Amsterdam, so I knew that Broadway cut across it there,” and she says, “Anyway, you missed your side street, so then what happened, other than your ending up on a drugstore soda fountain counter without a pacifying ice-cream cone in your hand and maybe even without a policeman's cap on your head?” and he said, “Definitely no policeman's cap, since there wasn't any policeman involved in this. I just kept walking north, that's all, and looked back. Didn't see my cousin or Terry Benjamin and after a while forgot about them and got this idea—forgot even about making a right at Seventy-eighth Street, of course, for by this time I was way past it—but this idea that was maybe the most powerful one I'd had in my life till then. And that was to walk all the way to a Hundredth Street, something I'd never done from the mid-Sixties or Seventy-eighth Street and maybe nobody in my family had ever done. My parents weren't walkers. Subways, buses, a rare cab if it was very late and they were at some big affair or my mother was exhausted, but nothing more than a few blocks of walking for her and three to four for my father and usually to and from his subway stop. And my cousin had never spoken of or, should I say, boasted about such a long walk uptown or to anywhere. And then, to make it even more monumental for me, I had it in my head that once I reached a Hundredth Street I'd walk back to Seventy-eighth and go home. Do all this even if it was dark or getting dark by then. And when my parents asked me where I was I'd tell them: on a Hundredth Street; that I had walked about thirty-five blocks to get there and another twenty-two, not counting the side streets, to get home, a total of several miles—three at least—and all done straight with no resting. And if they said they didn't believe me I'd rattle off store names on a Hundredth and Broadway that I had memorized for just that purpose,” and she says, “But after you got back downtown from this great journey, how did you expect to get to Amsterdam Avenue, if before you said you weren't familiar with the landmarks on Seventy-eighth and Broadway?” and he says, “Come on, give me a little credit, will ya? I knew … in fact I must have known since I was four or so that Amsterdam was one block over from Broadway, and I even knew where Columbus was, if you can believe it. I just happened to miss the side street to Amsterdam because I was looking for those familiar landmarks, or I was oblivious for other reasons—who knows what? Just walking home by myself from the movie theater from so far away when I was so young, maybe. And listen, if I ever really felt lost anywhere on the West Side within a ten-block range of my street, all I had to do was ask someone where Beacon Paint was. I think it's still on Amsterdam between Seventy-seventh and Seventy-eighth, but closer to the Seventy-eighth Street corner—or was till a few years ago—it's big sign a couple of stories tall painted on the side of the building overlooking the school playground there, though when I was a kid that playground was where the old P.S. Eighty-seven was that the new one replaced. Beacon was the largest paint and artist-supply store on the West Side, and maybe in the whole city. I was also somewhat familiar with the Woolworth's on Seventy-ninth and Broadway, so I probably could have got home alone from there too—just walked east on Seventy-ninth a block, then down Amsterdam to Seventy-eighth,” and she says, “But it obviously didn't work out that way … the drugstore,” and he says, “That's right, it didn't, you remember,” and she says, “But not how it didn't,” and he says, “It was very simple. What I did was look up at the passing street signs as I walked north, or started to look up, probably, at around Eighty-fifth or Ninetieth, getting closer and closer to my Hundredth Street objective and all the excitement that goes with that. Till I saw, or thought I saw—I'm convinced I did but I don't know what the heck happened—
100TH STREET
on a streetlamp sign, but this is the west side of Broadway I'm talking of, not the east, which could also explain why I missed the Woolworth's on the northeast corner of Seventy-ninth and also missed Amsterdam at Seventy-second,” and she says, “I don't follow you,” and he says, “You see, if I had been on the east side of Broadway when I left my cousin and his friend—of course I wasn't, since the movie theater was on the west side of the street—but if I had, then I would have come to Seventy-second and Broadway, crossed Seventy-second and been on Amsterdam, and then continued north six blocks and been home. But instead I was on the west side of Broadway, and Broadway sort of stops at that side around Sixty-ninth or Seventieth and only starts up again on Seventy-first, since it's around that point where this whole Amsterdam-Broadway crisscross takes place, Amsterdam veering east and Broadway veering west there—when you're facing north, I'm saying. And next thing across from Broadway at Sixty-ninth or Seventieth, on the west side of the street, is the southern tip of the narrow island for the Seventy-second Street subway station kiosk. To reach that from Sixty-ninth or Seventieth—well, that would have been extremely dangerous for a kid or really for anyone to do then, since there were no traffic lights or pedestrian signals to it and I think, at the time, not even a crosswalk. I don't even think you were permitted to get onto that island then from the southern tip. But lots of people did by racing across the avenue, and then to get to Amsterdam you'd go around the kiosk and cross from the northern end of the island to Verdi Square at Amsterdam and Seventy-second—actually, that narrow park's bound by Broadway and Amsterdam till Seventy-third Street. But the safer way would be to cross to the southeast corner of Broadway and Seventy-second, where I think an Optimo cigar store was—now it's a hotdog and papaya-drink stand. I only know about the Optimo, or remember it so well, because an uncle's brother—not Randolph's father, this uncle; Randolph was actually a second or third cousin—worked there or managed it for a few years. Which now that I think of it could have been who I was with and why I had walked one or more times down Amsterdam from Seventy-eighth to Seventy-second—with my Uncle Bert to see his brother, and who I think always gave me a Hershey bar when I went in … Bert's brother did,” and she says, “That would have been very complicated for your cousin Randolph to have told you: what and what not to do with that island and even how to get to the east side of Amsterdam and Seventy-second from the west side of Seventy-second and Broadway,” and he says, “If he gave me any directions, you're right. Smart and articulate as I remember he was, and also, as I think I said, usually a very nice kid, his directions would have been a lot simpler than that … you know, for a seven- to eight-year-old to understand. Probably he told me, if he said anything, and this would have been difficult to yell too if I was a distance from him, to just cross Broadway at the first corner heading uptown, which was Sixty-sixth or Sixty-seventh, or maybe even Sixty-fifth or Sixty-fourth, but a half block from where the theater was. And once I got to the other side of Broadway, to walk up to Seventy-second. ‘You might even recognize the Optimo cigar store where your Uncle Bert's brother works,' he could have said, ‘so cross Seventy-second to Amsterdam there and go up Amsterdam till you're home,' though I doubt he would have said that since he wasn't related to Bert. He still could have known about him and the Optimo. I might have told him—something a kid my age then would have been proud of or just done—‘That's a store my uncle's brother runs,' when we passed it going to the movie, if we went that way, and it