The Japanese Lover (24 page)

“Why do you live in this pigsty?” asked Seth, scandalized.

“Because it's cheap.”

“Well you must be much poorer than I ever imagined, Irina.”

“I don't know what you imagined, Seth. Almost everyone in the world is poorer than the Belascos.”

She helped him remove his shoes and pushed him down onto the mattress on the floor that she used as a bed. Like everything else in the room, the sheets were clean, because her grandparents had taught Irina that poverty is no excuse for grime.

“What's that?” asked Seth, pointing to a small bell on the wall attached to a cord that went through the wall to the next room.

“Nothing, don't worry about it.”

“What do you mean, nothing? Who lives on the other side?”

“Tim, my friend from the café, the one who washes dogs with me. I sometimes have nightmares, and if I start crying out, he pulls the cord, the bell rings, and I wake up. It's an arrangement we've made.”

“Do you suffer from nightmares, Irina?”

“Of course. Don't you?”

“No, but I do have erotic dreams. Would you like me to tell you one?”

“Go to sleep, Seth.”

In less than two minutes, Seth had obeyed her. Irina gave Neko his medicine, washed up with the pitcher of water and basin she kept in a corner of the room, took off her jeans and blouse, put on a worn T-shirt, and curled up by the wall, with the cat between her and Seth. It took her a long while to get to sleep, as she was too aware of the man's presence, the noises in the rest of the house, and the stink of cauliflower. The one tiny window onto the outside world was so high up that all that could be seen through it was a small rectangle of sky. Sometimes the moon would give a brief greeting as it crossed the sky, but this was not one of those blessed nights.

The faint light of day seeping into her room woke Irina the next morning. She discovered Seth was no longer there. It was nine o'clock and she ought to have left for work an hour and a half earlier. Her head and all her bones were aching, as if she were suffering from the
sake
hangover by osmosis.

A
lma had not yet returned to Lark House, nor had she called to ask how Neko was. The cat had not eaten in three days and was barely able to swallow the water Irina squirted into his mouth with a syringe. Since the medicine had not had any effect, she was about to ask Lenny to take her to the vet, when Seth turned up. He looked refreshed, and was wearing clean clothes and a contrite expression, evidently ashamed of his conduct the previous night.

“I've just found out that
sake
is seventeen percent alcohol,” he said.

“Have you got your motorbike?” Irina interrupted him.

“Yes, I found it untouched where we left it in Berkeley.”

“Well then, take me to the vet.”

Neko was seen by Dr. Kallet, the same person who years earlier had amputated Sophia's leg. This was no coincidence: the vet worked as a volunteer in the organization that arranged adoptions for Romanian dogs, and Lenny had recommended him to Alma. Dr. Kallet diagnosed an intestinal blockage and said the cat needed an immediate operation, but Irina couldn't make a decision like that, and there was no answer on Alma's cell phone. Seth stepped in, paying the seven-hundred-dollar deposit the vet was insisting on, and handed the cat over to the nurse. Shortly afterward, he and Irina were sitting in the café where she had worked before Lark House and Alma employed her. They were greeted by Tim, one of her former coworkers, who after three years was still working there.

Although Seth's stomach was still queasy from the
sake
, his mind had cleared, and he had reached the conclusion that his duty to look after Irina could not be postponed any longer. He was not in love with her as he had been with other women, a possessive passion that left no room for tenderness. He desired her, and had waited for her to take the lead along the narrow path of eroticism, but his patience had gone unrewarded; it was time to turn to direct action or to give up on her once and for all. There was something in Irina's past that held her back; there could be no other explanation for her visceral fear of intimacy. He was often tempted to turn to his investigators but had decided such underhanded tactics were unworthy for Irina. He thought the mystery was bound to be cleared up at some point, and so he held back his questions, even though he was fed up with having to make so many allowances for her. What was most urgent was to get her out of that mice-ridden hole where she was living. He had rehearsed his arguments as though presenting them to a jury, but when she was sitting opposite him, with her sprite's face and her ludicrous cap, he completely forgot his speech and asked her point-blank to come live with him.

“My apartment is comfortable, I have more than enough space, you would have your own room and bathroom. For free.”

“In return for what?” she asked him incredulously.

“For you working for me.”

“Doing what, exactly?”

“Working on the Belasco book. A lot of research is needed, and I don't have time to do it.”

“I work forty hours a week at Lark House, and twelve more for your grandmother. I also bathe dogs on the weekend and want to start studying at night. I've got much less time than you, Seth.”

“You could drop all that, apart from my grandmother, and dedicate yourself to my book. You'd have somewhere to live and a good salary. I want to try living with a woman. I've never done it, so I'd better give it a go.”

“I can see my room shocked you. I don't want you to feel sorry for me.”

“I don't feel sorry for you. Right now I'm angry with you.”

“You want me to give up my job and my steady income, the rent-stabilized room in Berkeley I had a hard time finding, to live in your apartment for a while, and then I'll be out in the street once you get bored with me. That's really helpful.”

“You don't understand a thing, Irina!”

“Yes I do, Seth. You want a secretary with benefits.”

“My God! I'm not going to beg you, Irina, but I should let you know that I'm not about to just give up and disappear from your life. You know how I feel about you, it's obvious even to my grandmother.”

“Alma? What's she got to do with this?”

“It was her idea. I wanted to ask you from the start to marry me, but she said it would be better if we tried living together for a year or two. That would give you time to get used to me, and my parents time to get used to the idea that you're poor and not Jewish.”

Irina made no attempt to hold back her tears. She hid her face in her arms folded on the table, befuddled by her headache, which had grown worse over the previous hours, and confused by an avalanche of conflicting emotions: affection and gratitude toward Seth, shame at her own limitations, despair over her future. This man was offering her romance straight out of a novel, but it wasn't for her. She could love the old people at Lark House; a few friends like her former associate Tim, who at that moment was staring at her with a worried look from the counter; her grandparents in the trunk of a sequoia; Neko, Sophia, and the other pets in the home; she could love Seth more than anyone in the world, but it wasn't enough.

“What's wrong, Irina?” asked Seth, taken aback.

“Nothing to do with you. Just things from the past.”

“Tell me about it.”

“Why? It's not important,” she replied, blowing her nose with a paper napkin.

“It's extremely important, Irina. Last night when I tried to take your hand you almost hit me. You were right, of course, I was behaving like a pig. I'm sorry. It won't happen again, I promise. You know I've loved you for three years. What are you waiting for to love me in return? Watch out, because I can always find another girl from Moldova, there are hundreds of them willing to marry in order to get an American visa.”

“Good idea, Seth.”

“Seriously, you'd be happy with me, Irina. I'm a good guy, totally harmless.”

“No American lawyer on a motorbike is harmless, Seth. But I admit you're a fantastic person.”

“So you accept then?”

“I can't. If you knew my reasons, you'd be off like a shot.”

“Let me guess: trafficking endangered species of exotic animals? I don't care. Come and see my apartment, then decide.”

The apartment, in a modern building in the Embarcadero district, with a doorman and beveled mirrors in the elevators, was so spotless it appeared unlived in. There was no furniture in this desert of picture windows and dark parquet floors apart from a spinach-colored sofa, a giant TV screen, and a glass table covered with neatly stacked magazines and books. No carpets, pictures, ornaments, or plants. The kitchen was dominated by a large black granite island and a shiny collection of unused copper pots and pans hanging from hooks in the ceiling. Out of curiosity, Irina glanced in the fridge, and saw orange juice, white wine, and skim milk.

“Don't you ever eat anything solid, Seth?”

“Yes, at my parents' place or in restaurants. As my mother says, I need the female touch here. Can you cook, Irina?”

“Potatoes and cabbage.”

The bedroom Seth claimed was waiting for her was as aseptic and masculine as the rest of the apartment. The only furniture was a wide bed with a raw linen bedspread and cushions in three shades of brown that did nothing to lighten the atmosphere, along with a bedside table and a metal chair. On the sand-colored wall hung one of the black-and-white photographs of Alma that Nathaniel had taken, but unlike the others, which to Irina had seemed so revealing, this one showed her in profile, asleep in a dreamy atmosphere. This was the only decoration Irina had seen in Seth's desert.

“How long have you lived here?” she asked.

“Five years. Do you like it?”

“The view is impressive.”

“But you think the apartment looks bare,” Seth concluded. “Well, if you want to make changes, we'll have to agree on the details. No fringes or pastel colors, they don't suit me, but I'm willing to make some concessions as far as the décor goes. Not right now, but in the future, when you beg me to marry you.”

“Thanks, but for the moment just take me to the subway, I have to get back to my room. I think I've got the flu, my whole body aches.”

“No way. We're going to order Chinese food, watch a film, and wait for Dr. Kallet to phone. I'll give you aspirin and tea; they help with a cold. I'm sorry I haven't got any chicken soup, it's an infallible remedy.”

“Forgive me, but could I have a bath instead? I haven't had one in years; at Lark House I use the staff showers.”

It was a luminous afternoon, and through the large window next to the bathtub there was a panorama of the bustling city, with its traffic, sailboats, streets crowded with people on foot, on bikes, or on skates; customers sitting at sidewalk tables under orange awnings; and the nearby Ferry Building with its gigantic clocks. Shivering, Irina sank down into the hot water up to her ears, and felt her tense muscles and aching bones slowly relax; yet again she blessed the wealth and generosity of the Belascos. Shortly afterward, Seth shouted from the far side of the door that the food had arrived, but she stayed soaking for another half hour. Eventually she dressed without much enthusiasm, feeling sleepy and with her head in a spin. The smell from the cartons of sweet-and-sour pork, chow mein, and Peking duck almost made her retch. She curled up on the spinach sofa and fell asleep, not awakening until several hours later when it was already dark outside. Seth had slipped a pillow under her head, covered her with a blanket, and was sitting on a corner of the sofa watching his second movie of the night—spies, international crimes, and Russian Mafia villains—with her feet on his lap.

“I didn't want to wake you. Kallet called and said the operation on Neko was successful, but he has a big tumor in his spleen and this is the beginning of the end,” he told her.

“Poor thing, I hope he isn't suffering . . .”

“Kallet won't let him suffer, Irina. How's your headache?”

“I don't know. I'm very sleepy. You didn't spike the tea, did you, Seth?”

“Yes, I put ketamine in it. Why don't you get into bed and sleep properly? You've got a temperature.”

He led her to the room with Alma's photo in it, took off her shoes, helped her get into bed, covered her, and then went to watch the end of his film. The next day, Irina woke up late, having sweated off the fever. She felt better, but her legs were still like jelly. She found a note from Seth on the black kitchen island: “The coffee is already measured, just turn on the machine. My grandmother is back at Lark House; I explained about Neko. She'll tell Voigt you're sick and are not going to work. Get some rest. I'll call later. Kisses. Your future husband.” Together with the note were a carton of chicken soup with noodles, a small box of raspberries, and a paper bag with a muffin from a nearby bakery.

Seth was back before six that afternoon, after spending the day in court. He was anxious to see Irina. He had called her on the phone several times to check that she hadn't left, but he was afraid she might vanish at the last minute. When he thought of her, the first image that came to mind was of a hare ready to leap away; the second was her pale, attentive face with half-open mouth and eyes wide with astonishment as she listened to Alma's stories, believing every last one of them. As soon as he opened the door, he could feel Irina's presence. He knew she was there before he saw her: the apartment was lived-in, the sand-colored walls seemed warmer, the floor had a satin glow he had never noticed before, even the air seemed somehow friendlier. She came out to meet him on unsteady legs, her eyes puffy with sleep and her hair as disheveled as a whitish clown's wig. Seth opened his arms wide, and for the first time ever she took refuge in them. They held each other for what to her seemed like an eternity, and to him seemed to be over in a flash. Afterward she took his hand and led him over to the sofa.