by Gore Vidal
“That’s right; it’s going to be your career.”
Holton crossed his legs, using the movement to give himself time to think. Carla waited, watching him.
“Are you going to live in Florence?” he asked finally.
This was not going at all well, she thought. “I think I may live there part of the year. I think I shall travel first.”
“Where? Where do you want to go?”
“Some place in the Near East, some place like the Arabian Nights—you’ve read it, haven’t you?”
“I read it once.”
“I always wanted things to be like that, to be enchanted.”
“And you’ve been disappointed?”
She nodded. “Sometimes I’ve been very disappointed but, you see, sooner or later it’s all right. I’ve great faith in things being right.”
“You’re a curious girl,” he said. He looked at her and she could see her own face twice reflected in his eyes. “You don’t,” he said, “really like Bankton, do you?”
The words were making the proper patterns now. She turned so that he would see all her face when she spoke. “Yes, I like him very much but I don’t love him. I can’t love anyone without having it complete, without having...the other thing.”
“What we had.”
“Yes, what we had.” She felt that now he was coming back again.
“It was so long ago, wasn’t it?” She wasn’t sure now that he was coming back: “so long ago.”
“I’ve remembered it,” she said. “It doesn’t seem long ago to me.”
“I don’t mean that,” he said. “I meant that...well...so much has happened to us since then. You’ve been married and I left the army....”
“We’re not much different, are we?” She looked out the window now and watched different lights go out in the tall buildings; for each light that went out, though, someone else turned on another. “You know,” she said, concentrating on the lights, “you know you were really the first for me.”
He was awkward now. “Yes, I guess I was. I didn’t....”
“There were probably a lot of others for you in Europe. You know, I haven’t really wanted any man since then.”
This had to surprise; she wanted this to be her strongest weapon. She looked at him now. He had put down his drink and he was looking at her.
“Is that true?”
She nodded. “I don’t know why I shouldn’t tell you. I couldn’t keep from telling you.” She tried not to look at him.
“You mean what happened to us in Italy was the only time...?” He was confused.
She turned then and looked at him, at the troubled eyes and the boy’s mouth. “My dear, when something means a lot to you I think it’s hard to take a substitute. You see, I made an object for myself. I was upset when you left, naturally, because you’d become my object. I never heard from you and so I married Bankton in London. I never lost my object, though. It never changed.”
“I’m sorry,” he said.
Carla smiled. “I understand it now. You had so many women and I was only one. I think that’s all right, I think that’s natural. I hoped you might have felt the way I did. One always wants to be loved and it’s not easy to find a lover. I never had another man—not because I couldn’t, but because I didn’t want to. I was waiting all that time, hoping to see you again.” She had said everything now. He had listened and there was nothing else she could do.
He ran his hand through his hair. “I was very close to you,” he said.
“I thought you were.” She was waiting.
“You’re right, there were a lot of others, but I don’t think I loved any of them.”
“No one at all?”
He didn’t answer. He stood up and walked across the room. Then he came back and stood looking down at her.
“I don’t know what to say. We were very close once and then I came back here and made myself forget everything about Europe, everything that had happened to me there.
“It hasn’t been easy to do. The only way I could get by, though, was to do what I’m doing: become a broker. I can’t be the way I was; I can’t afford it. Of course I can still have all the girls I want and I can have a good time. I suppose I can fall in love sometime...again, but I have to be a conventional person and I don’t mind.
“Tonight those people were examples of freedom....” She interrupted him. “Not really freedom, self-indulgence perhaps.”
“Whatever it is, they call it being free. I don’t want that. I couldn’t have that kind anyway because I’m not talented; I don’t do anything well and I know it.”
“You can be a free person, though.”
“How?”
She sighed. “I’ve already told you and you already know. You can love.”
“You think that’s the answer?”
“I don’t know any other. It’s been important to me.”
He sat down beside her, sat close to her. “I don’t know if I could love someone,” he said. “I don’t know if I could love you the way you’d want.”
“You can,” said Carla. “You can do whatever you want.” His hand touched hers. She sat very straight then, her eyes on the window, on the white lights. He put his arm around her shoulders and kissed her and she closed her eyes upon the lights outside.
For a long time they were like that on the couch. Then they separated and stood up, self-conscious and shy, newly discovered. He motioned with his hand toward the bedroom. She nodded and they went into the bedroom together and met finally in the middle of the bridge.
Robert Holton held Carla from him at arm’s length and looked at her. She was pretty, at this moment quite beautiful, her face white and her greenish eyes glittering.
“I’ve been waiting, Bob,” she said. “I’ve waited such a long time.” He pulled her to him then, her body against his. A part of him was given up entirely to making love but another part was still detached, still watching.
He helped her to undo her dress. Modestly now, with the reserve of strangers, they stood back to back as they undressed.
She was beautiful and he had forgotten that. She was not really pale: her skin was gold. She was slim and cleanly made and her breasts were small. They faced each other and looked at each other, the detached, the lonely part of himself memorizing every detail of her.
Carla walked slowly toward him and touched his shoulder. Tears were in her eyes.
“What’s the matter?” he asked.
She shook her head and smiled: nothing was the matter now.
He took her slowly then, pressing her against his body gently, every nerve vibrating in both of them; hearts beating quickly.
They stood like this in the middle of the room; then she broke away and walked over to the bed and pulled the cover down.
“Turn out the light, Bob,” she whispered. It was a ceremony now: neither of them spoke out loud in the presence of the miracle taking place. He turned out the light. The room was dark except for the lighted dots of windows in the buildings opposite and, over the buildings, like unorganized window lights, cold stars shone clearly.
He turned and walked to the bed. Carla lay on her back, her arms behind her head. He got in beside her and they lay there together, not speaking, hardly breathing, and he felt the blood pounding in his head while, next to him, Carla was shivering, was waiting. He turned over on his side, barely touching her.
They did not speak now. Words were discarded and no surface was needed. Instinct guided them finally, made them a separate world together; there was only a dream existence outside of themselves.
And Robert Holton became the lover and ceased to be himself; his detached awareness was, for the time, submerged and forgotten.
He ran his hands over her, feeling the smooth skin of her shoulders, her thighs....They kissed and began the act of completion.
To Holton it became a battle and a surrender, a taking and a giving; it became a fusion. He was no longer himself, he was enlarged; a giant in a world of
giant sensations. He was no longer alone or incomplete.
Then the rhythm was found and the wild twistings and stragglings stopped. He was conquering now and, in the conquering, giving.
He entered her and to the rhythm of their fast-beating hearts, with a rush of sound like wind in his ears, he discovered the single world. Lights whirled inside his head, behind his eyes: they came in series—circles of sharp lights.
He was choking then, barely breathing, able only to cough and gasp. Sweat covered him; his hands clutched at her shoulders as though they were the only remaining solidity in a world rapidly disintegrating into sensations and fast-moving lights and a quick wind.
There was no time now. There was no memory. There was no reason. The struggle stopped and the moment came like fire.
Carla’s face was buried in his shoulder; she stiffened and then became relaxed, the battle finished and won.
Like fire it came and the wonder was achieved; a world was glimpsed and lost in a moment. Then, tide-like, the emotion stopped and withdrew. The ecstasy was gone and only two people were left in its wake, left on a high shore, exhausted, shipwrecked.
Robert Holton lay for a moment upon Carla’s still body, supporting himself with his elbows so that he would not crush her; he breathed deeply, taking in the air with great sobs. Beneath him Carla was quiet, at peace, her shuddering stopped.
He kissed her very gently then and they separated, without words; they lay quietly side by side, touching each other, yet apart, the trace of their fire still inside of them, and exhaustion brought with it no sadness, no loneliness.
Robert Holton put his arm under her head; then he looked out the window, looked at the real stars, not nearly as bright as the ones in his head, the ones they had made together.
Silence and darkness protected them.
Part of his mind became detached again and he saw himself in relation to the world. He saw himself in a darkened room of a large hotel, lying exhausted beside the wife of a painter. He frowned in the dark and he fought the vision of the outer world.
Carla moved her hand over his chest, twisting the hairs; he felt a spasm of tenderness shake him and he took her and held her close to him. This was the moment when he felt he was not alone, felt that he was not a single particle lost in a void. The half of him lost in the womb had been regained and he was finally complete: he was God and earth and other stars, so great was this fusion.
They slept quietly in each other’s arms. They slept unaware of time for they were time.
Carla woke first. She gave a start and Robert Holton opened his eyes, wondered where he was; then he saw Carla beside him, saw a vague figure by the light of stars.
“Caro mio,” she murmured, saying the first words either had spoken.
“Darling,” he whispered.
“It’s so perfect,” she said and he put her head on his shoulder again. Then they were still, looking at the uncertain outline of their bodies on the whiteness of the bed.
He felt her smooth legs. They were cool, like dreams half-remembered.
“I love you,” she whispered into his ear, “so much more than you know.”
He kissed her for answer and his detached self almost fused with hers, almost made a union, almost died and made him free.
Carla turned on the light. It was two o'clock and they had been asleep for almost an hour.
Robert Holton lay quietly on the bed, his eyes closed, his breathing regular, one arm over his forehead as though to defend himself. She leaned over and kissed him lightly, then she got out of bed and went into the bathroom.
Her face shocked and pleased her. “How depraved I look,” she murmured to herself. Her face was glowing and her eyes shone and glittered. There were red marks on her white skin. His beard had scratched her and made her usually white face pink. With a sudden gesture she swept her hair back out of her face, held her dark curling hair captive.
Holton appeared behind her then and he put his arms around her waist and kissed the back of her neck. She shuddered and closed her eyes. She could not look at light with so much inward light behind her eyes. They stood like that. Then he let her go. They looked at each other: two people now, so recently a single world.
“Happy?” she asked.
He nodded. “I’ve never had it like this before,” he said. “It never meant as much to me as this.”
They walked back into the bedroom and sat down side by side on the bed. Modestly Holton drew the sheet over their laps. They sat quietly without speaking, their bare arms around each other. When Carla looked at the window she could no longer see stars and lighted windows; she could see only their reflection on black glass.
“What are you thinking?” he asked and she saw that he’d been watching her.
“Nothing, Bob. I don’t think all the time, you know. I was only feeling.”
“Feeling what?”
She smiled. “Feeling all the world.”
“I think I felt that, too...to live in a big way....”
“Yes, I know.” She sighed. “You have to break all your little patterns. You have to expand now.”
But there was resistance to this. “I don’t see why you can’t have everything and still have that, too.”
“No, everything must be the richest and the fullest. Have you that?”
He stretched, the muscles moving under white skin. “Maybe it is; I don’t know.” He took her then and they fell back together onto the bed. For several minutes they were together and then he rolled over on his side. She opened her eyes.
“What’s the matter, Bob?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” he said. He was looking at her, his dark hair in his eyes. He pushed it back.
“You’re not sad?”
“No.” He ran his hands over her hips. “I was only wondering what’s to happen next. You’ll go back to Europe.”
She had been waiting for this. She had been waiting for him to ask this. Now she could say what she felt but the words did not come easily. “I don’t have to go back,” she said. “I can stay here as long as I like.”
“Then your husband’ll come over here.”
“I can leave him.”
He shook his head. “I couldn’t marry you.”
She was lost. She was falling now. It seemed as if the room had become cold and foreign and she had come to a hostile country. There was no longer an answer to make: the answer had been made. She tried not to let her face show what she felt.
“Why couldn’t you marry me?”
“I haven’t any money.”
“I have.”
“I wouldn’t want that. You wouldn’t want to be married to a broker and live in New York.”
“Why do you have to be a broker?”
He sighed then and she saw for the first time that he was the one trapped, the one who would not escape. “What else can I do?” he asked.
“You can break with all this.” She was fighting.
“But what could I do? I have to do something. I have to be something.”
“Why do you have to be something? Why do you have to do things that you don’t want, that make you unhappy?”
“Everyone has to. Besides, I’m not sure that I am unhappy.” She was defeated at that moment. The dream she had been fashioning disappeared and there were no traces of it left, only a lingering sadness and an open wound.
He went on talking and she answered him but there was nothing left for either of them to discuss.
Then after a while they both stopped talking. They sat side by side looking out the window, or rather looking at themselves reflected in the black mirror. Holton turned out the light and Carla was able to see the stars again.
“That was funny, wasn’t it?” chuckled Holton.
“What? What was funny?”
“Lewis tonight and all those people talking about religion and art.”
“I don’t think it was funny; I think it was sad.”
“Why sad?”
“They wer
e lost, I think. Just like us, Bob.”
She could feel him looking at her. “Are you?” he asked softly.
She would not let herself cry. She would not give way. She would have to be strong now. Her voice carefully controlled, she said, “No more than you. We could be complete, I think.”
“I think we could,” he said and she knew that he felt nothing the way she did. Carla had the feeling of coming into a stranger’s house expecting friends, expecting familiar things. She was with an unknown, a man who did not feel what she did.
“I had hoped,” said Carla, “that we could.” She was going to be accurate in what she said. She used each word like the cut of a knife to sever the relationship, to kill her own love. “I don’t think we can now. You want to live a certain life. You want what you know and though you don’t like it you think it’s the safe thing. I don’t understand you, I’m afraid. I’ve tried to see all this through your eyes. I didn’t want it to be just another one, another woman. I wanted it to be important to you: it was so important to me. I think I was wrong. I think I was selfish and I’m sorry.” She wondered when her voice would break.
Then Holton tried to reconstruct at last. “No, you don’t understand. I feel very close to you. I’ve liked this more than any other time, more than with anyone else. But you see I can’t leave what I’m doing; I couldn’t live on you for the rest of my life.”
She sighed. “That’s such a superficial thing; that’s all the surface. When you feel something for another person those things don’t matter.”
“Someday they might. Of course I’m lonely and not very happy. You have to accept that. In a few years I’ll get married and maybe that’ll make it better. I could,” he was speaking slowly now, “marry you. I could do that but you wouldn’t be happy.”
“How do you know I wouldn’t be happy here?”
“You’re different, that’s all. I can’t tell you what the difference is. I don’t know.”
And she couldn’t tell him what the difference was. There was no way to tell.
He put his arms around her in the dark and they relaxed on the bed and she tried to give herself to the moment but she could not: too much had been given already.
“It’s a temptation,” said Holton suddenly.