Spirit Lost (16 page)

Waiting for a ghost.

The waiting was in itself an act as consuming as any he’d ever committed. Vaguely he was aware of the oddness of it all, of the process he was involved in, how he could not seem to think about the significance of this, how he no longer asked himself questions about what all this meant: a ghost, afterlife, a God, heaven, hell. If he tried to force himself to such thoughts, he found he fell asleep or grew restless and could not concentrate. His mind had become both dulled and jazzed up at once, for while he could not think about spiritual matters, he found himself obsessed with the physical. The carnal. He was like an adolescent again, daydreaming endlessly about Jesse Orsa Wright, remembering the slenderness of her waist, the firm, high breasts that swelled beneath the fine cotton of her garments. Only when he was painting was he free of thoughts of her,
although the energy to paint came, he knew, from the same source as those thoughts.

But every other hour of his life now, waking or sleeping, was filled with a constant replaying of all he had come to know so far of this woman through his senses of sight and smell and sound. He was not yet sure if he had also felt and tasted her; he was not sure if his dreams of her teasing visits before Christmas had been merely dreams or real visits. He was no longer sure of anything. Reality had blurred for him and lost all its boundaries.

So he sat and waited and replayed in his mind the last time he had seen her, how she had come so close to him that he could feel her warmth.

Now he thought he heard music. The tinkling of a piano … No, it was a more delicate sound, a sweeter, higher, trilling sound. The sound of a music box. He half rose from his chair, straining to hear where the music came from. It seemed to be coming from downstairs, from his own living room, where there was no music box. Then the door to the attic opened, and he could hear the music clearly now.

The door to the attic shut, and the music diminished, disappeared, and Jesse Orsa came up the stairs, lifting the full skirt of her gown, humming the same tune he had just heard. She was dressed as if for a party, in a gown of pink satin and white lace that fell off her shoulders, revealing smooth young flesh, the gentle line of her collarbone, the soft hollow of her throat. The alluring swell of lace-covered breasts. Her hair was done up with great intricacy and adorned with bits of ribbon, lace, and combs of ivory, and she had pearls hanging from her ears and a choker of pearls around her neck. She came up the stairs, laughing.

John rose, aware all of a sudden of his shabbiness; he was wearing old faded jeans, a button-down shirt frayed at the collar and cuffs, a shapeless old crewneck sweater. He had not thought anything of what he would wear when he saw her again, but now he was embarrassed.

“You look so beautiful,” he exclaimed.

Jesse Orsa smiled, very gay, her whole manner that of any beautiful woman who has just come from a party.

“Well, all this is lovely!” she said, sweeping past him to circle the little civilized area he had made of rug and furniture. “Yes,
very
nice. Thank you, John. You deserve a kiss for that!”

And before he could catch his breath, she came close to him and kissed his mouth,
with exquisite skill, not pecking, not lingering, touching long enough that he could feel her lips, her breath. Her sweet breath. His own breath caught in his throat. She whirled away, energetic, festive, triumphant, like a beautiful woman just coming from a party where she was much admired.

“Will you—will you sit down? Have some cognac?” John asked, uncertain about what to do next.

“Oh, I wish I could,” she said. “But I’m in a hurry tonight. Tomorrow, perhaps?” She was now at the other end of the room, by the bed, in the shadows.

“In a hurry?” John asked, speaking the first thought that came into his mind. “But good God, where can you possibly have to go?”

In a flash her mood changed from gaiety to anger; he could feel it across the distance of the attic. She tossed her head and glared at him.

“Oh!” she exclaimed, and stamped her foot once. “You are so insolent!”

And she vanished.

“Well,
damn
!” John said aloud. He walked toward the place where she had stood. “Hey—Jesse Orsa—come back here! Please. Please come back. Look, I’ve gone to all this trouble. Don’t you like—Oh, shit,” John finished in exasperation. He could not believe that the encounter he had anticipated for ten days now had come and gone with such unsatisfactory quickness. He paced around the attic, hitting his fists together, trying to expel the energy of frustration that shot through him now.

“This is stupid, stupid,” he muttered to himself. “This is pointless, ridiculous, this is a joke!”

That night, when Willy came home, she found John in front of the TV. This was a nice surprise for her, because recently he seemed to spend all his time in the attic in the evenings and sometimes didn’t come down until so late that she had fallen asleep in bed with the light on, waiting for him.

“We had a wonderful meeting,” she said happily, coming to sit next to her husband on the sofa. He smelled strongly of scotch, and she hoped he hadn’t been drinking, hoped he wasn’t starting “to drink.”

But he turned to her and looked at her with such somberness that she was sure he was sober.

“Oh, Willy,” he said with an odd sadness in his voice. He pulled her to him and began to kiss her. He began to make love to her, there on the living room sofa with the television still blaring away, distracting her, and she tried to pull away, to tell John, that she wanted to go up to the bedroom, but he didn’t seem interested in pleasing her tonight, but came to her, into her, in a childish, selfish way, as if comforting himself with her body. He removed her sweater, rubbed her breasts, entered her without removing his jeans, wallowed in her, really, while she could only lie there, almost amused, certainly touched and overwhelmed by his silent, powerful need. She lay there cuddling him against her, soothing him, letting him take his time, while the TV sang and rambled and the windowpanes shook relentlessly with the night’s wind.

John painted every day. He waited in the attic every night.

The woman appeared the third night. She was wearing a proper, plain daytime dress of gray and had her hair up, arranged neatly. John, seated in one of the brocade armchairs, saw her suddenly standing at the top of the stairs, her hands clasped before her breasts. She wore a cameo brooch at her neck. For all the severity of her appearance, she was still very beautiful.

“Are you still angry with me?” he asked, standing.

“Yes,” she said quietly. “For
many
reasons.”

“But
I
should be angry with
you
!” John said. He was speaking softly, for Willy was in the house, downstairs in their bedroom, reading. He was glad that their bedroom was not directly under this part of the attic. “You come and go without warning, you make me wait for you without any clue or hope or arrangement … I’ve gone to all this trouble to please you, and then you come only once in two weeks—I don’t understand. At least let me know what it is you want.”

“What it is I want?” she repeated his words slowly. She came across the wooden floor and stepped onto the soft, deep carpet. John thought she would touch him now, for she came so close to him, her face serious, her eyes holding his. Then a private sort of
smile crossed her face, and she turned from him and went to sink gracefully into a chair.

“For now, I think, what I would like is some of your cognac,” she said.

He poured it. He handed her the delicate, etched crystal glass. He watched her bring it to her lips and sip.

He thought: When the glass is sitting empty on the table, that will be my proof that she has come and drunk and gone, that she does exist. That she can engage in physical activities.

Her eyes were amused. Then she said, merely, “John.” She sipped her cognac, then gently put the glass back down on the table. She sat looking at him.

And he rose from where he had been seated in his chair across the little mahogany-and-ivory table from her and crossed the small space between them and took her shoulders in his hands and pulled her up from her chair and pulled her body against his and kissed her mouth while holding her head to his with his hand. She came willingly against him and returned his kiss.

He kissed her fervently, running his hands over her shoulders, neck, arms, back, pushing her buttocks so that her pelvis rubbed through her skirts against him. He moved his hands against her small waist, up her rib cage, and finally he fondled her breasts through the thick barrier of material.

He had thought she would resist him, reproach him, for she was angered so easily and she was so old-fashioned, he did not know her rules. But she did not stop him. While she did not stroke him back, she did not push him away, and instead she let him touch her and kiss her while making little moaning noises in her throat.

“You are real, you are real,” he whispered into her hair, against her neck. Bending down, he nuzzled his face into her breasts. “You are real. My God, I can feel you. You are real.”

She pulled back a little so that she could look into his face. She was smiling, her eyes sparkling, her face rosy with sexual heat. “Yes,” she said. “Yes. Go on. See how real I am.”

She had to help him, for her clothes were strange to him and he was clumsy with the small buttons of bone and the strange lacings and ribbons that held together the garments that covered her. She was equally curious, then gleeful about his clothes. But finally they were naked together on the thick, warm rug. They stood looking at each other with the same sense of wonder and awe that all new lovers feel. John’s heart was
pounding away furiously inside his body, and he knew that he was trembling—with lust, with fear. But he could feel Jesse Orsa trembling, too.

“I want to make love to you,” he whispered, pulling her against him. “I want to take you to bed.”

In reply, she raised her arms around his neck and lay her head on his shoulder. When he picked her up in his arms, she felt as light as a child. When he lay her down on the bed, she simply reclined there and let him look at her. Her eyes were shining, her lips were moist, her cheeks and neck and chest were flushed. She was very small but so very beautiful. She was flawless, without a mark on her anywhere. Her flesh was alabaster, smooth, taut, her nipples dark brown and hard as marbles. She smelled sweet, like grass and spice and flowers. She was warm and moist and giving. He sank down onto the bed and covered her body with his.

Her hair came loose from its fastenings while they made love, and near her face it curled where moistened by sweat or her tears or his kisses. It fell in coils and clumps against her shoulders and breasts when she rose above him, and when he was above her, it spread across the pillow in deep swirls of fragrant black. He moved against her on and on while she ran her hands over his face and body, whispering his name and begging him not to stop. He did not want to stop, not ever, not while he felt such pleasure, not while he was giving such pleasure to her. At last she called his name, then turned her head and sank her teeth into his shoulder while arching helplessly, ecstatically, against him. He moaned and climaxed and subsided against her.

He was afraid for one moment that she might vanish now, but she stayed, stayed with him, petting him, stroking him, kissing him, praising him, rubbing her face and hair and hands against him, thanking him, caressing him, laughing now, triumphant, joyful, released, fulfilled.

“Oh, John, my John, my love, I love you, I love you,” she said over and over again. “You make me so happy, you make me so happy, I love you,” she said.

Finally, exhausted, they lay together holding each other, and in spite of himself, not meaning to, meaning
not
to, John fell asleep.

When he awoke, he was alone. He was alone, and naked in the bed, which was rumpled and mussed. He raised up on one elbow and looked around. She was nowhere around, nor were her clothes. The attic was quiet, the windows dark with night. He looked at his watch. It was only one o’clock. It seemed to him that it could be any time at
all, any night in any century, he felt so disoriented and drained. Slowly he sat up and gathered together his thoughts. He felt absolutely depleted, as if he had just run a marathon.