The Story of My Wife (20 page)

"Could it be that he doesn't have an Adam's apple?" asked one of the little darlings.

"Maybe he has no soul," said the other.

There is a smart girl, I thought. No, I don't, I felt like answering her.

"As far as the inner self is concerned," I said, out loud this time, "let's hold off mentioning it, for at least five minutes, in deference to the soul of the calf whose meat I am eating. What would
it
say, I wonder. First we eat it and then put on our usual lofty airs."

Now it was the lady's turn to look away and reflect on what I'd just said.

But the time has come for me to describe the two sweethearts in a little more detail. They
were
sweet, and enchanting, and black, both of them, like two graceful, shimmering leopards—yes, they were delicate
and
vamp-like. To begin with, their eyes were black, yet their blackness was not of the same kind: one was a soft black, soft and dreamy, while the other's was a fierce smouldering black . . . And their dresses were all dark too, as well as their hair, and their teeth were sharp and pointed. I almost felt like asking them to please bite into my ear.

Actually, I could understand anyone who did not take my words at face value, who doubted my assertions about feminine wiles. The truth is that at the time just about any young woman appealed to me. All the same, I'd like to assure everyone that these were capital specimens. Yes, but how do I prove my assertion? If I said that even the grave-looking old physician was off in a dream, and in his glum way casting sidelong glances at the girls, it wouldn't be much of an evidence. The undershirt merchant didn't count, either. It may be more convincing to reiterate that Kodor had good reason to bring them there. They were supposed to captivate our hearts. Besides, one of them, who had a black lace butterfly over her chest, had to be Kodor's mistress. A chance remark brought this to light.

"Why are you staring at me, Sir Alexander?" she asked. "I take pleasure in looking at your beautiful head-dress," replied my friend. "And even greater pleasure in looking at the rest of you," he added impudently.

From that you could tell that he got her that bejeweled headdress—hence the overriding pleasure.

Music was playing in the next room, to the accompaniment of exotic, gamelan-like percussions and mean little shrieks, while in here the ladies were nibbling on grapes and cake and sipping champagne. They even clinked their glasses, like sailors in a pub, and said things like: "A thousand a year," and "chin-chin." And they wouldn't stop laughing. Evidently, the two sweethearts got drunk on a few drops of champagne. At midnight, Kodor's girl, the one with the butterfly, whose black silk was so slippery, the light just kept sliding and gliding on her curves—well, this beauty turned to me and said:

"I decided to sweep you off your feet. But how do I do it?"

Well, Jacob boy, I tried goading myself on, now's the time to show what kind of friend you are. The situation got to be somewhat confusing, and not only on account of all the drinks I put away;—I was full of apprehension.

For this lovely creature did take a liking to me, I can state that without boasting. But the other one did, too, both of them did, that's where the thing got complicated.

You can't pursue two loves at the same time. Or can you? Try it, Jacob, try it, I encouraged myself. But I really couldn't. Kodor's dame was impetuous, slender, slithery, and very quick. It was clear from the beginning that she wanted to have me all for herself. The other, however, was a more gentle, sweeter soul, and easily frightened. The onslaught tired her out, she immediately retreated, and became as forlorn as a drooping leaf. I had to grasp her hand under the table.

The question remained: which one should I make love to? Frankly, I liked the softer one better. Or was I simply scared of Kodor's girl? Could be. One does owe some loyalty to one's friend, after all . . .

Ah, never mind, I thought, the thing will straighten itself out somehow. Tomorrow I'll send her a beautiful bouquet with a note that I had to leave suddenly.

But I do, I do have to leave, I reminded myself. We just talked about it, Kodor told me this very day. Why couldn't I leave tomorrow or the day after? I am going to Bruges, by God. And my heart leaped with joy. How wonderful! How convenient! I am going to Bruges and the complications are put off.

In the meantime, Kodor was addressing the gentlemen present:

"Since our gathering was such a success, and there is agreement on all the main items of our agenda, let's adjourn to the corner pub where the waiter's face is pockmarked but the fish is first rate."

It was a mistake to say this, a definite mistake, as the grave doctor's face happened to be pockmarked; indeed, he perked up when he heard it, and said something to the effect that perhaps they didn't quite agree on everything. (Let's remember this little interlude, for we'll have occasion to return to it.)

But it made Kodor brighten up, oh and how. He, too, noticed the mistake, how could he not, cunning man that he was.

"Of course we agreed, how can you say we didn't, my dear doctor?" he replied, smiling his sweetest smile, smoothing the man's ruffled feathers like a tender mother patting her baby's bottom. And all the while he was glancing at me, the scoundrel.

After all that it was only natural that I walked home singing. And the song that sprang up in my heart that glorious morning was a song of victory: I could take on the whole world now if I so desired. I've become a conqueror of hearts now, in spite of myself . . . Ah, I was triumphant, and in my rapture, I began caressing my winter coat.

"You see, my little pussy cat, women really like me. (I talked to my winter coat as if it was Miss Borton or my wife.) How they coddled me, how they
loved
me . . . Why, they ate me up, those two ..." And the thought alone made me chuckle.

Oh, I tried to feel sorry for my friend, tried telling myself it wasn't fair, it wasn't decent... I went as far as to sit on a stoop in front of a tobacco shop and squeeze out a little remorse. The tobacconist wasn't there yet, so I kept muttering: "You've really turned into a heel, Jacob, you really have. What did you do to your dearest friend? To his dearest mistress? Didn't you smother her with kisses in the hallway of that awful pub? What a terrible thing to do, Jacob; what a rotten, terrible thing to do.

I tried shocking myself, as I say, but it was no use. Nothing could induce me to feel sadness or guilt. On the contrary, I couldn't stop laughing.

All along I kept thinking how funny it was when I suddenly caught a glance of myself in a mirror in that hallway (yes, they even had a mirror). I saw then how cross-eyed one can look when all steamed up with passion. Which
is
kind of ridiculous, when you think about it.

The other darling, the tender one, breathed the words
"Du und du"
in my ear. (She was fluent in German, the only one there who was, so she had the courage to utter the lovely word twice in front of her friend.)

It makes no difference, I told myself sternly and got up from that stoop. It makes no difference whatever, I am leaving. I must get away from this . . . this field of conquest. If I don't, the family will go hungry. (But as I uttered these sacred words, I was rolling again.) Of course I will leave, I chastised myself. But really, what was I to do, go on panting after them? And what if tomorrow one of them will again say: "I demand your love?" Should I start panting all over again, and whisper in her ear: "I love you, I adore you. . . ?"

All in all, I was in a blissful mood.

And as if all this wasn't enough, after I finally made it home, in some broken-down cab, my famous landlord came up to me. He was the sort of man to whom I gave all kinds of nicknames: old capon was my favorite. He was that, and more: a mealy-mouthed blockhead, a two-bit prophet, a pea-brained, salad-munching mystic, who rose each morning with the birds. This was the man I had to face on the stairs that morning.

Although what we talked about is not directly related to the subject at hand, I will recount it anyway, if only to demonstrate the effect mysticism had on a certain class of people at the time. (It's an important point, I will return to it later.)

At any rate, my landlord told me on the staircase that he could see (for he wasn't blind, he still had a pair of good eyes) that we were such decent folk, my wife and I, we led such upright lives, the two of us, he hoped I would forgive him if he allowed himself the question: Did I believe in the unity of the Patriarchs? (He meant Abraham and the others.)

Now if I were to give him a melting, pious look at this point, I think the wine inside me would have started chuckling.
Now
he badgered me with this stuff? But I gave the old geezer his answer, as we shall see.

It should be noted that Father Lambert's tract on unbelief, which he wrote to counter the jurist Ingersoll's arguments, was at this time reread by many people, it enjoyed a veritable renascence, especially among the devout. Once I had to plough through it myself, in order to put a pompous fool in his place. (It happened near Melbourne, Australia, some time ago, but that's neither here nor there.) The point is I was prepared. If this nincompoop should start spouting his philosophy, I was ready to clobber him, too. With Father Lambert's own words, moreover. For he was the ultimate authority for these people. My landlord, in his pious zeal, grasped my hand and asked me the next question:

"Do you believe, sir, in higher intelligence?"

"What the hell is that?" I inquired.

"In intelligence like Vitruvius and Zoroaster," said the old man quite meekly, "who do think about us, after all."

"What do I care, man? I want to decide myself if that cabbage soup . . ."

"Oh dear, what cabbage soup?"

". . . that you send up for lunch is right for me. Or if the fireplace on the second floor is working." (About my wife I said nothing. . . . Life, life these people keep talking about. Others may be crazy about it, but I am unimpressed.) "No, sir," I shouted in the man's ear, "I do not believe in higher intelligence."

"You don't?" asked that old ignoramus on the staircase. "You mean you don't believe in cosmology, in a celestial order, in the purposefulness of the universe?" (That's what they all do: they trot out the fancy phrases about the stars and the heavens, instead of explaining the
reasons
behind all those things. As if a piece of carrot couldn't be used to prove this or that, depending on how you twisted it.)

"The movement of the stars is a thing of naught, then," he intoned. "Or the music of the spheres, the celestial harmonies? . . ." That's just what the old fool said, flinging out his skinny arms toward the janitor's booth.

"What if it is 'a thing of naught?'" I asked. "What if it is? Look here, holy man, maybe I am a fool too, but I am not alone. And I assure you that creation itself finds pleasure in ninnies like you, or else it wouldn't have inundated the world with them.

"Just listen to me. If something is cooking in your pot, what are you going to say about the hissing and bubbling? That these are some wonderfully harmonious noises? What is so harmonious, my dearest sir, about one creature devouring another? The only principle at work in the world is a parasitic one. This is predator's paradise, my gentle friend, predicated on extreme cruelty. Such a world doesn't attract me, it doesn't even interest me. How can it? How can there be harmony in a world that's governed by grandiose ideas and where the individual is ignored. Oh no, I am through with such a world, and through with you. Farewell, dear sir . . .

"And if the Swedenborgian fathers will not forgive me, tell them I shan't forgive them either.

"Just remember that it's the practical truths that are important, never the higher, abstract ones, never those. And to buttress my point, I shall have to refer to the words of Father Lambert himself. (I got into the swing of it by then and started quoting straight from the book.) 'Man's life is a tragedy; it is an awful subject'— this is his first thesis. 'Life is practical'—this is the second. 'It is neither poetry nor effeminate philosophy. The passions of human nature, civilized or barbarous, make stern alternatives necessary, and lugubrious cant will not change man's nature or the necessities that arise from it.' And with that I really must take my leave. Good-bye and good luck."

That's just how I held forth, in my early morning drunkenness, on the staircase of our shabby boarding house. I could have just as easily begun preaching in some park.
"Bravissimo,"
an Italian tenant shouted from the first floor.

"How sweet you look when you're drunk," my wife said, laughing, and pressing me to tell her all about last night—where I was, what I did, did I have a good time? She asked for more and more details, though as it was, I couldn't stop talking.

I did detect a certain slyness in me, however, and remarkably enough, I felt good about it, better even than about being honest. That's how one ought to live, I said to myself; it would make things so much easier to bear.

What I did was to pretend I was even drunker than I actually was, for in such a state one tends to chatter away thoughtlessly. And that's what I did, though at the same time observing carefully the effect my words had on my tiny albeit curvaceous wife.

Curled up on the pink sofa in her blue pajamas, amid books and cigarette butts, she was indeed like a queer little ball, who'd also had a wild and exhausting night. Yes, like a ball she was, a blue tangle that's been roughed up by kittens.

Is that it? I asked myself. Is that all there is to her? The woman I am supposed to love? After the marvels of the previous night, that seemed inconceivable. Yet, at the same time, there was a heaviness around my heart, the realization perhaps that stray as far as I may, I would never be rid of this little woman. Miss Borton was right. The conclusion rang true, indeed so true that in the solemn silence of my fading drunkenness, in that curious morning glow (I had already opened the shades and the room was flooded with light), I could stand back and hear myself go on and on. As though I was no longer there.