The Beast (5 page)

He didn’t know; but to Lucy he said: ‘I get bored.’ ‘I sort of feel compelled to move.’ ‘I enjoy change.’ ‘I’m a nomad.’ ‘I’m the Wandering Jew.’

Tonight he said with a smile, after Lucy had muttered wistfully that, since he
had
gotten his sleeping habits together, she guessed he’d be moving soon, ‘Yes, I think so. You know me. I’m the Flying Dutchman, New York style.’ He added ‘I’ll stop one day I expect.’

‘Do you think so?’

‘I don’t know.’ He put out a hand and touched her. ‘I should, shouldn’t I? Then we could get married.’

Lucy squeezed his hand, and laughed. ‘Yes, I guess we could.’

Charles said: ‘Saved by the love of a good woman.’

*

He moved—it wasn’t difficult for him; he had always kept his furniture and belongings to a minimum—on the 15th of December, and by the 30th was quite settled in. The new place was on the East Side, not far from Lucy’s. It was small, and rather expensive; but it was on one of the top floors, and had a wonderful view. Three hundred and eighty windows …

The first month or so of the new year he would spend simply checking out all the various possibilities. Then he would narrow the field to two or three. Then he would—by March at the latest, he hoped—make his choice. After that, for the next two months he would study every move of his elected one to make sure that he wasn’t mistaken, and that there was no chance of pity entering his heart and misting over his spying glasses. And then, until September, apart from Sundays and those two weeks of vacation in July, he would spend every evening tightening up his case; watching, recording, asking questions of
doormen
and shopkeepers and neighbours; working himself up into a hard, tight, concentrated passion; until, finally, having selected his suitable report of an unsolved crime
from one of the papers, he would strike—and find
release
.

This was his plan; this had always been his plan.
However
, the very first night that he sat in his new darkened living room with his binoculars in his hands, feeling both excited and slightly apprehensive at the task ahead of him, something happened that threatened to upset his routine. For no sooner had he begun to sweep the expanse of available windows, some lighted, some unlit, some
curtained
, some not, than his glasses came to rest on the French windows of the penthouse of the building opposite—French windows that led out onto a terrace. And,
extraordinarily
, they stayed trained on those windows all evening.

Even more extraordinarily, what he gazed at through the night was not a scene of unprecedented horror—the only thing he would have believed it possible to so capture him on the first of January—but, as he could only put it to himself as he sat searching for the explanation of his being not only unable but also unwilling to tear his glasses away, a scene of unprecedented beauty. A scene, even, of love. Because in the penthouse, that had golden walls, and golden lights (did it really, he wondered), was a young couple. A young man and a young woman; who were not only physically the two most beautiful people he had ever seen, but who also radiated, through the cold wet darkness, a happiness, a joy, a wonder that he had never, ever, seen before in his life, and which so warmed him, so intoxicated him, that he felt like Frankenstein’s monster receiving the first spark of life. What was more, it was a warmth and intoxication that had no trace of envy in it, and far from making him regret what was not in himself, made him feel grateful for being alive and able to feel it; able to share in
that couple’s beauty, happiness and joy. And they
wanted
him to share it, he couldn’t help feeling; they wanted the whole world to share it. And they had enough for the whole world. Indeed, their very generosity only increased their splendour.

He watched them as they drank together, and as they ate together. He watched them as they turned on, briefly, the television, and then put a record on. He watched them as they talked together, smiled together, laughed together; looked serious, were silent, touched each other and were conscious of each other even when not touching. He watched them as they kicked off their shoes, as they went into—presumably—the kitchen, and came back carrying cups of coffee. He watched them as they pressed their faces up against the glass and stared out into the rainy night. He watched them as they gazed towards his own dark window—he was on exactly the same level as them—and as they—unknowingly?—said goodnight to him. And then he watched them as they turned off the lights, and
disappeared
.

By which time not only were there very few lighted windows left for him to check—and he didn’t feel like checking them anyway—but there was not a sign of misery in any of those he did perfunctorily sweep over. And, as he finally lowered his binoculars, stood up, and prepared to go to bed, he was both relieved, and thankful. He wouldn’t have wanted anything to upset him tonight;
anything
to extinguish the small gentle flame that the couple had kindled in him. Not tonight, he told himself, as he fell asleep. Not tonight. Tomorrow he would do his duty. Tomorrow …

Next morning though, when he woke, he knew that he wouldn’t do his duty that night, either; for the flame was
still with him. It glowed; it flickered in his blood; it danced in his veins like inextinguishable marsh-gas. And he spent the whole day in the bookstore that he owned in Greenwich Village quivering with anticipation for the evening. He tried to reason with himself, and tell himself that he was being foolish, and that the beauty of that young couple was entirely in his own mind—a devil he had conjured up to lure him from his duty. He tried to tell himself that he was turning into a pathetic old voyeur—a fifty-year-old pervert, frustrated and bitter. He tried to tell himself—he did tell himself—that he was becoming sentimental and stupid. He, who spent his days surrounded by books,
surrounded
by the collective knowledge of the whole world, and who, furthermore, had acquired his own too great a share of knowledge first-hand, years ago in the dark ages of Europe—(and this was one of the very rare occasions when he acknowledged the existence of his own past; normally he claimed that he had been born in America, which in a way, and though he had been nineteen years old at the time, and a faint middle-European accent denied the fact, was true)—was betraying all that those books taught, and all he himself had learned. He told himself that he had no right to be distracted from his hunt for horror by a vision of love. But it was no use. Nothing was any use. Okay, he was fooling himself. He was turning into a pathetic old voyeur. He was a perverted, frustrated, sentimental old refugee; but nevertheless, he
would
look into that
penthouse
window tonight, and watch that young couple. For all these years he had done what he had done in the name of love, and now that he had a chance to see the real thing—and it
was
the real thing, for such wonder, such splendour couldn’t be faked—he must glory in it, give praise for it, and tell himself that it was to ensure that such wonder
could exist that he had so mercilessly pursued the forces of greyness and misery for all these years.

It occurred to him, as he made his way home that
evening
, his hand trembling as he placed his token in the subway turnstile, that perhaps he, who had dreamed of one day abandoning his duty, had had his duty taken somehow from him; that he had served his season in hell and now was to rest, for the remainder of his life, in heaven. He had paid his dues, and now was to be rewarded. Perhaps he would never move again …

It also occurred to him that perhaps he was being excessively optimistic in hoping to see that young couple again tonight; for they weren’t the types, surely, to spend their evenings at home. Yesterday, maybe; they were
probably
getting over some New Year’s Eve party that had gone on late. But normally, wouldn’t they go out to the theatre or the opera, or to dinner, or to friends? Yes, of course they would. He prayed though that they wouldn’t.

And by the end of the second week in January, his plans for the New Year which had been threatened by the first sight of that young couple were quietly, without his really making a decision, and joyfully, abandoned altogether. For though, of course, they did go out in the
evenings sometimes, not returning till one or two in the morning—and he was waiting for them, waiting to catch just a glimpse of them as they helped each other off with their coats, as they sat and had a last drink together, or listened to just one side of a record before going to bed, Mozart or Schubert, he was absurdly sure, something Viennese in any case—he couldn’t, he simply couldn’t, when they were not there, bring himself to train his glasses on any other window of the building opposite. He didn’t dare to, just in case …

This upsetting of his plans had another effect on his life. For after observing the couple for three weeks or so, and realizing that when they did go out they never got in before midnight, not wanting to spend his evenings alone waiting till they did return—and perhaps to avoid feeling guilty for not observing anyone else—he started to see more of Lucy; either going to her home and eating with her, or having her over to his place.

‘I don’t know what it is,’ he said to her. ‘But I went to bed late on January the first—I had some work to do—and slept, perfectly. And the next night I thought I’d wait up late again just to see—and again, I slept like a log. All the way through till seven-thirty, without waking up once. I hardly dare believe it, and I’m terrified in case it doesn’t last, but—my God, I feel I’ve been liberated after eighteen years. I’ve finally emerged from a nightmare.’

And his enthusiasm, his joy, the electricity that the couple had charged him with seemed to transform Lucy too. She suddenly appeared more at ease in her
over-elegant
clothes; her hair looked more comfortable and natural; she laughed more, she smiled more; her earnest spirits rose and became lighter, leavened by the yeast of Charles’ happiness—or by her own. They started going to
matinées together on Saturday afternoons—Charles hired some student from Columbia to take care of the
bookstore
—and even, one weekend, after he had seen his young couple packing bags on Friday evening, decided on the spur of the moment to go away for two days. They went up to New England and walked through the snowy woods, holding hands like a young couple …

He couldn’t believe it would last; but as February passed into March, March into April and April into May, it did; and for the first time in years, the first time ever perhaps, Charles was conscious of young leaves thrusting up out of his own arms; of having crocuses in his mouth, and
cherry-blossom
in his greying hair; of daffodils and daisies, and other flowers he didn’t know the name of. His skies were blue, his breezes were warm, and migrating birds flew singing into the open spaces of his heart; spaces that had been birdless and silent for too long.

And night after night, week after week, month after month, his lovers, his glorious wonderful pair (he didn’t know their names, nor anything about them; he didn’t want to) were there before him, inspiring him, enriching him, drawing him onwards, upwards, until he—and Lucy—middle-aged, not beautiful, slightly worn and tattered on their shelves, started in some strange way to resemble them. Not physically of course; but in their companionship, the ease of their relationship—that ease that had been arrived at so slowly and awkwardly—and their one-ness with each other. Yes, in that they came to resemble the lovers in their penthouse—to such an extent that by the middle of June, Charles was sure that anyone observing
them
would have seen them bathed in the same golden light in which he saw his couple.

But then, one evening—an evening he and Lucy had
spent discussing their vacation, which they had booked last December and on which Charles was loath to go now—though he was almost equally loath to disappoint Lucy—when he returned home at eleven and waited, in vain, until three in the morning for the lights in the penthouse to go on, he realized that his lovers had gone away. How long for? he wondered. A few days? A month. Or,
unbearably
, the whole summer?

He couldn’t stand it, he thought, as he went, miserably, to bed. He’d never be able to get through the summer. He’d die. He’d wither. His crops, that were so nearly ripe, would be blighted. He, who after all these years had suddenly bloomed and flourished, would return once more to ashes. And Lucy, whom he had infected with his magic—or rather the magic of his enchanted lovers—what would become of her? And of their relationship? Would they just resume seeing each other once a week; the mere polite formality, and the mutual kindness? Oh no, he couldn’t bear it. He couldn’t. Let them come back tomorrow, he whispered to his pillow. Let them come back and save this small dark man with his European accent and his insistent cough and his small, dark, insistent love that had finally grown bright.

But they didn’t come back; and though, after the initial shock, the memory of them was enough not only to make him laugh at himself for his over-dramatic first reaction to their departure, but also to sustain him through his cruise of the Greek Islands with Lucy—indeed, as they sat on the deck on their white ship and sailed through the dazzling light and the deeper more dazzling sea, he had never felt so totally happy, so totally at one with the whole earth in his life (nor, she assured him, had Lucy)—when he returned to the thick grey August heat of New York and
saw that they were still away, depression, as it had to, started to set in.