This must be the building then, he thought, looking up at the windows that faced the street and watching the lights go off and on. Across the street there was a park that he had not known existed. A grassy slope or knoll ran up from a low retaining wall. There were trees there too of course, widely spaced. He had once lived near such a park. The building had a stately look. The lobby was furnished in an ornate style. There were paintings on the walls and a gilt-framed mirror next to the elevator. In the mirror, his eyes were gray, metallic. The elevator came down before he even had a chance to press the button. It was empty. It was as though it had come just for him.
He stepped out into a small rectangular hall with just four doors and a strip of worn carpet on the floor. The doors were identical. Each had a brass knocker and a nameplate in addition to a bell. He listened at each of the doors but could hear nothing from within.
It might have been an hour or a day before he heard her footsteps. You listen to footsteps coming closer from behind a locked door with a certain feeling of apprehension or relief. The lock turns and you expect to find a face you have seen before. The lock turned and she stood there looking at him with what might have been a smile on her lips and something fierce and proud gleaming in her hard, bright eye. “It’s you,” she said.
He stared at her with his throat gone dry and all his body weak. He felt the heat rising in his face like a flame that seared the flesh or bled the pigment from the skin.
“Oh, come on in,” she said, and she took his wrist in a grip that was very hard and led him through the room directly to the balcony. “You’re up there, aren’t you,” she said with the most curious tremor in her chin and the slightest wrinkling of her nose, as though struggling to contain her laughter. “Come on,” she said, “don’t look so glum. I won’t bite you.” The room was small and dimly lit, with flowers in a vase and paintings on the walls. She took a flower from the vase and held it up beside her ear and then sat down and raised her gown above her knees, flapping the hem between her thighs as though to fan her legs. Her knees were smooth and very white and her thighs were downed with light brown hair. It made him weak to watch her sitting there. And she would not look away. Instead she pulled the petals from her flower and tossed them idly in the air, gently blowing out her breath to send them on their way. He studied the paintings and the rug, waiting, it seemed, for her to begin.
“Men are often attracted to me,” she said with that strange semblance of a smile. “But I can get on very well without them. I read most of the night, and go south in the winter.
“I knew you weren’t like the others. I’ve seen you in the street. You must have been waiting for someone, the way you stood there looking at your watch.
“Everyone thinks I’m such a good sport. It’s true, I have a sunny disposition. People can’t get over it.
“After my father died I went to live in Paris for a while. At first I thought I’d die as well, the scars ran down so deep. I had a studio there and traveled quite a bit. It seems I’m always traveling and then come back to find myself.
“Sometimes, in the night, I wait for a knock at the door or the telephone to ring. I can’t say just what it is I’m waiting for. Maybe it’s some awful fear I can’t bear to face. And I expect that when it comes, though I have been waiting for it all my life, I’ll die of fright.
“You can’t imagine the dreams I used to have. Of perfect love and perfect beauty, and certain haunting melodies that were in a way a reflection of my own troubled soul. I suppose it sounds silly when you say these things out loud. But all these years I kept them locked away in me and they grew and grew and now I feel like bursting out and saying them to you.
“Of course I dream sometimes of living an ordinary life. You know, marriage, children, all the rest. That’s only natural, isn’t it. But something in me makes me stop.
“It’s true that awful things go through my head as well. But then again it doesn’t matter much what people think as long as you are free. Oh, it grew in me, it grew, such strength as you cannot know exists.
“Sometimes I wonder if I do not delude myself when I dwell on these things too much. For, after all, do I not wish to be loved as well? And yet I like to think that I am self-sufficient. You see how neat I keep things here, excepting of course these flowers that I’ve thrown about. I used to have a girl come in to do the dusting and suchlike but it was really an extravagance. Now I manage by myself. Sometimes weeks go by and I don’t see a single soul.
“Oh, I tried to settle down and take things as they came. Before I had this place I lived uptown and did some office work. It was a way to pass the time, but I knew it couldn’t last. Some people aren’t cut out for that sort of life, I guess. Still, I felt awful when I left. And then one day, I don’t know how or why, I felt something move in me, maybe it was in me always, it was a kind of joy, it made me want to sing or laugh, and I knew that I was turning, turning and returning to myself.
“You see, it doesn’t really matter if you care for me or not. It’s enough that you are here. Of course, I knew you’d seen me and wondered who I was. Maybe you thought I was the girl of your dreams.
“My, I haven’t talked so much in weeks. Stop me if I’m boring you.”
He couldn’t tell if she was smiling now, or if her eyes were dry or wet. She sat back with her bare arms raised and her hands behind her head, pulling back the hair that fell across her face, her legs shifted slightly to the side and pressed together at the knees, the heels raised and the toes pointed toward the floor. He stared at her and she did not avert her eyes.
“You can sit down, you know,” she said. “Here, I’ll get you something to drink.”
She skipped across the room and out the door. From the kitchen he could hear her humming to herself as the ice rattled in the glass and the refrigerator door swung shut. Some children must have lived upstairs for there was a kind of pounding in the ceiling as of many stamping little feet. Across the room her bedroom door was open and he could see her robe thrown across the bed, the spread a creamy color like the walls, and a pair of slippers on the floor. He looked again at the paintings on the walls. The rooms were full of them. They were done in oil on cheap paper that was now more brown than white. It seemed to him that they had first been pictured clearly though abstractly in the mind in all their elaborate detail and then copied photographically, each design seeming to flow toward some point outside the canvas, the images fragmented, Picassolike, inviting you to reassemble them. The house was really like a gallery. Had it not been for the sound of water running in the sink he might have forgotten where he was.
He was surprised to find that she had apparently taken the opportunity to do what must have been the day’s dishes, having put on an apron and a pair of rubber gloves and plunging her hands into a sink full of soap suds and steaming water. Their drinks were on a tray with cookies on the kitchen table. She worked quickly and efficiently, virtually scaling each dish onto the dishrack. The kitchen was spotless. Two coffee cups were set out side by side on the bright Formica surface of the table on fine porcelain saucers with little spoons. Water was already boiling in a red enamel kettle. Conceivably she had forgotten about the drinks. Various utensils hung from a row of metal hooks on the colored tiles over the sink and some garlic was hanging from a string. The room was filling up with steam and her elbows were somewhat chafed and slightly red. Her neck too was moist and red. “I’ll only be a minute,” she said without turning around, though she had no reason to believe that he was standing there.
Zupan watched her dry her arms and wipe her brow. “Whew,” she said. The window was fogged with steam as in the winter when the frost conceals the street until you run your finger across the pane making clear, dark lines. The ice had melted in the drinks. It was as if he’d been there hours if not days. She turned the water off and brought the tray into the other room, sitting crosslegged on the sofa now, her shoes kicked off and the gown
spread out across her knees. She had some kind of pendant hanging from her neck. Her hair was luxurious and wild.
“There,” she said. “I just had to clean things up. I was in such a rush this morning, and when I got back I barely had the time to bathe and change. I didn’t have a chance to bake a cake,” she added. “They always say that the way to a man’s stomach is through his heart.” She caught herself and laughed. “Whoops. Silly me.”
He had a cookie and sipped the coffee. She watched him with her smile. “It’s instant, I’m afraid. I usually put up a pot each morning but by the evening it’s gone stale. I like my coffee fresh and hot. It keeps me going through the day.”
He stared at her bare legs and full breasts and all the fullness of her perfect body and was drawn to her. It made him weak to watch her.
“There’s an art to living and I’ve mastered it,” she said. “I only lack companionship. I had an ordinary childhood, I think. I was close to my father but didn’t get along with my mother too well. That happens often enough, though I can’t imagine what we fought about. These things that belong to the past are like the food we eat. They become a part of us in different shapes. They’re in the marrow of our bones and in every thought we have. There’s no escape from what we are and what we must become.
“Some say overcome. I say no. Look at me. I’m glad of what I am. You may be surprised to hear me say that, but it’s true. Do you hear that music?” It was the music of the violin. “That’s how I feel. It’s as though I myself were the violin.
“I started to paint and that was good. All my life I’d wanted to paint and finally I had the chance. I saw you looking at my paintings on the wall. How do you like them? They’re a bit abstruse, I know, just ideas that are in my head. I paint what’s in my head, you see, but it’s a picture of the world. I paint what everyone sees when he looks inside himself.”
Zupan sipped his coffee and looked at her. He was glad that he had come. He too thought they might be friends, or more. He looked at her knees and breasts and felt his heart begin to race and he was filled with desire for her. She must have seen it and was pleased, it seemed. She lifted up her knee so that her gown fell open once again and seemed to smile. And he could hear the music too.
The room was warm. The air was still. There must have been a thousand rooms like this where men and women sat drinking coffee and becoming friends on evenings such as this. Then the quiet tinkling of the coffee cups would fix themselves in memory and reverberate down all one’s days and years. Then you would remember the stillness of the evening and the quiet laughter and a certain tension that was in the air. Then you would look at a woman’s knee and a little spark would flare and burn forever.
Zupan saw that she expected nothing from him. She was content to have him there. She would be content with anything he might give her. She would let him touch her. She would let him mount her. She would avert her eyes. She would hold his hand. She would stroke his hair.
He was tempted to touch her but held himself back. A touch was like a promise. She seemed to be waiting for such a promise, offering herself in return, but he could see that she was patient and could wait. It needn’t be this very moment that he touched her knee. It could be another day. She would wait.
“My father died. I told you that,” she said. “I am alone now, and it is good. I look forward to each day. This quiet life appeals to me. And I’m not so old. You can see that. In fact I’m quite young. My life is still ahead of me. Yours is too. And so many things can happen.”
When they finished the coffee she patted her lips with a handkerchief and took the tray away. Zupan looked at his watch and saw that it was almost twelve. For a moment he imagined that he was in his own room waiting for the midnight hour to come once more, but when he looked through the French windows it was his own window he saw. And all the while she kept coming and going, tidying up. He went out on the balcony and waited with his hands on the rail, looking down into the darkness of the yard, barely making out the contours of the trees, though he could hear the leaves rustling, and then some voices from below. Now she wore a band around her hair and had changed into a skirt and wore a ruffled blouse. She leaned back on the lounge chair, turning her face from the light. She seemed less gay. He sat down opposite her, on a plastic chair, and watched her again. Her knees were bare, the calves of her legs swelled out deliciously. The skirt hugged her hips, the blouse hugged her breasts, revealing every contour of her body, everything so soft and full, and again he felt the desire rising in him, so strong now that it was stronger than any he had ever known. She knew he was watching her and turned to meet his eyes and seemed to smile again. She was aware of how his eyes were drawn to her legs, her breasts, the softness of her flesh. She would not object if he reached over and touched her now. She seemed to be offering herself in these diverse postures and movements, seductively. He understood that he could mount her if he wished. All the elements had conspired to bring the moment to fruition, the still night air, so warm and sweet, the sound of distant traffic, quiet laughter from somewhere high above the street, and the music of a violin drifting toward them. They were alone. It was midnight now.
“I see you’re ill at ease,” she said. “Perhaps some wine would do the trick.” She laughed to make it clear she was only joking. “I’ll be away for a week or two,” she added. “I thought you ought to know. It isn’t anything to be concerned about. I sometimes have to go away. But we’ll see more of each another when I get back, if you like. Next time I promise to bake a cake. Anyway, when you look at it, there’s really just the two of us, no one knows, no one cares. You have to admit it’s cozy here. It’s good to come home to someone. I mean just to have someone there. What does the rest matter? You do see what I mean.”
She spoke so softly now that he had to strain his ear to make out what she said, and again she had turned her head. Perhaps she saw his face reflected in the glass, for he too had turned his head to avert his eyes. She lay with one leg straight and one knee raised, her sleeves rolled down and buttoned at the wrist, the blouse tucked in. The blouse was white or pink.
“It’s getting chilly,” she said. “Let’s go in.”
He followed her inside and watched her close all the windows and draw the shades. The light that had been soft before was harsh and bright. It made him blink and rub his eyes.
“I’ll get your jacket if you want to go. It has been a long day. And now that we are friends I hope you’ll come again. Or call me if you like. I’m in the book. I’m always home when I’m not away.” She stood in the doorway and blew a kiss his way. “Good night,” she said. “Good night. Good night.”
VII
The late-afternoon coffee break, when everyone gathered around the coffee dispenser until Solly came along to disperse them with a few brisk claps of his hands, was an office institution. No one in the office would miss it. Walt and Charlie were of course always there, and all the women of Accounting—the one with the missing breast whose name was Dolores, the foreign girl with the bad teeth, Marcia or Marilyn, and the attractive girl married to a broker. Payroll was there as well, the fat woman who ran the department and her somewhat slimmer assistant. Hirsch, at this late hour, generally permitted himself to light his pipe, biting down on the stem and smiling or grimacing between his teeth. Sometimes Solly himself joined them, when he was in one of his more mellow moods. That would become a very special occasion, for it was not often that Solly mixed with the staff in such an informal way. When he spoke in these gatherings, the others listened, hanging on every word as though he were a prophet or celebrity, knowing that whatever came out of his mouth was privileged information, a rare look at how things worked at the top, full of useful insights and fascinating glimpses at the private lives of the financial giants and legendary figures at the helm of commerce and industry. They crowded around him jostling for position and even using their elbows on occasion. Solly liked to tell stories about his early d
ays in accounting, back when he had been bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, as he liked to put it. Those had been pioneering days indeed, he assured them. Once he had been reconciling customer accounts when it became apparent to him that a particular invoice, long overdue, had not been paid. This was long before computer printouts, so there could be no mistake about it (barely suppressed laughter all around; eyes turning to the computer people). Well, he had called those people up, somewhere out in the sticks, and had really given them a dressing down. They had been speechless. He supposed they’d been making late payments for years and this was the first time they’d been called to account. There must have been a few red faces out there in yokel land, Solly said. And two days later the check arrives by registered mail.
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