by André Aciman
“One thousand and three!” exclaimed Clara, referring to the number of Don Giovanni’s mistresses in Spain.
At which we all clapped.
“Or was it ninety-one?” asked Clara, the Don’s mistresses in Turkey.
“Six hundred and forty,” added Margo, referring to those in Italy.
“Two hundred and thirty-one, and not a woman more!” thundered Max, the Don’s mistresses in Germany.
“Madamina . . .” I began, deepening my voice till it growled with comic gravity the way Leporello catalogs the number of Don Giovanni’s mistresses around the world.
It was so unlike me to hurl a joke among people I barely knew, much less with song, that I was surprised to hear Clara laugh the loudest, and more surprised yet when she took up what wasn’t even meant as a cue and began humming the opening bars of the aria, and then actually singing the aria, with a voice that, once again, came unannounced and was more lacerating than the one I’d heard at the party or by the jukebox, because this time it seemed to palm my neck with its breath, once, twice, every syllable a caress. “Madamina, il catologo è questo, delle belle che amò il padron mio . . .” A few verses more and her voice had so totally shaken and moved me that, in an effort to keep my composure, I found myself putting an arm around her and then, pressing my head against her back, squeezing her toward me. She didn’t seem to mind, because, more surprising yet, she held my hand on her waist and, turning to me, kissed me on the neck, letting her hand linger there, the way she’d done last night, as though the hand was part of the kiss.
Her kiss unsettled me more than the singing. I had to keep quiet, focus on the soup, show that this third wine was far better than the first two. But I was too flustered for words. I had touched her sweater, and its softness belied every cutting inflection in her speech, in her face, her body.
By then we had each already finished two servings of soup and begun eating the marinated greens. More wines.
After the salad, Margo got up and came back with a cake. “It’s a strudel gâteau. I hope you all like it.”
She also brought to the table more crème fraîche. “This is everyone’s favorite.”
She had probably meant to say, This is Inky’s favorite, but had caught herself in time. Or perhaps I was making this up. But Clara’s determined focus on her slice of the turned-over apple pie told me once again that she had intercepted the very same backpedaling and was passing over it in silence.
“Max, want some strudel gâteau?”
“Silly woman. Must you always call it strudel gâteau?”
“Behave,” whispered Clara.
Who knows what existed between Clara and the old couple. I would have to ask her at some point, probably on our way back, during one of those long silences that were bound to crop up between us. But part of me was tired of so many reminders of Clara’s past with Inky. Had they grown up together? Would his shadow linger forever between us? If she was done with him, why go visit his grandparents? To show she was with another man now, hoping they’d tell him? But anyone with half a brain could instantly spot by our behavior together that we were not together. Was her kiss meant to suggest we were? Is this why she’d brought me along? Getting me out of the shower, bringing me breakfast, making me feel special, giving me all this nonsense about lying low, which she knew would stoke anyone’s curiosity, calling herself a Gorgon—all this just to send Inky the message that love was dead?
I wondered what kind of evil monster she turned into when her love died—did she tell you it was finished: Just let it go? Did she drop you back into the fish tank where you sank or swam, or did she release a few bubbles at a time and throw you tiny pellets of food as she did with Inky that night at the party, so you wouldn’t go belly-up, though you know and she knows it’s only a matter of time before they pick you up and flush you down where all fish souls end when they go back to the greater scheme of things? Was I making all this up, or was I myself gradually being put in a straitjacket before being dunked in a pickle jar as I looked up at the hole that was about to close on me?
I could always escape. The train to the city. My beloved Greek diner. Doing the New York Times crossword puzzle. I still had Christmas presents to buy, the stores would still be open if I left now. Was there a limit to how late one could give Christmas presents?
“Another slice of strudel gâteau?” asked Margo.
I looked at her and wondered where she stood on the Inky front. Then I remembered that they’d sat us near each other, not once but twice.
Yes, I would take another slice of the strudel gâteau.
“All young men like this cake,” said Margo.
I looked over at Clara. Once again, her face was neutral.
“Ladies and gentlemen, it’s been nice,” said Max. “Come, Margo.”
I looked up at them, totally baffled.
“I need to take a nap. Otherwise I age by five years, and that, dear friends, takes us to unreal numbers. Or I start dozing in public, and frankly, no one enjoys watching old people nod and drool and mutter things that had better be left unsaid.”
“As if he ever watches his speech.”
“Ach, Margo, it’s not like you don’t nod in the afternoon either.”
“—and leave our guests?”
“Come and cuddle and don’t fuss so much, woman.”
“Cuddling, he calls it—phooey.”
“Fie and phooey to you too, besotted harridan; come upstairs, I said, and watch me be daring in love and dauntless in war—”
“—and dangle your bonnet and plume? I’m not sleepy.”
“Don’t bother about us,” interrupted Clara. “I’ll make coffee and put the dishes away.”
“Esmeralda will do it. Otherwise we pay her for what?”
“On second thought,” Clara said, “we might as well say goodbye now. We’re leaving in a short while. It might snow again.”
“Yes, you don’t want to be snowed in.”
Clara suddenly turned to me. “Do you want to be snowed in?”
What an amazing, amazing woman.
“You know damn well I would love nothing better,” I said.
“Margo never asked if I wanted to be snowed in. You’re a lucky man.”
“Upstairs, Lochinvar,” said Margo. “Upstairs, with your old bonnet and plume.”
Clara kissed the two of them more affectionately than when she’d greeted them.
“You’ll see, you’ll be your dashing self in no time,” she added, knowing he was worried about his operation.
“Just don’t forget to listen to the Handel. With all this talk of soup, wine, and bonnets, I forgot.”
“Don’t blame the wine or my soup, you forgot because you’re old.”
“Because you’re old. Those are probably the last words I’ll hear before I head out to the eternal landfill. But don’t forget the Handel. That Handel was worth waiting seven decades for.”
•
“Let’s make coffee first.”
I watched her open one of the kitchen cabinets and take out the espresso maker. She knew exactly where to find it. She tried to twist it open, but it was shut tight. “Here, you open it,” she said, handing it to me. “They don’t drink coffee anymore,” she added, as though registering yet another instance of their decline. The packet of ground coffee was also where she knew it would be, in the freezer. Even the silver spoon with which she spooned out three heaping spoonfuls was in an old wooden drawer that rattled first before suddenly dipping at a precarious angle once you pulled it out—a cemetery of old cutlery that hadn’t seen sunlight in who knows how many years. “Here,” she said, handing me two mugs. “Spoon. Sugar. Milk?”
“Milk,” I said.
I liked how she made everything seem normal, habitual, routine, as if we’d been doing this for ages.
Or should I be on my guard: people who make you feel unusually at home when you know you’re just a guest can, within seconds, show you to the door and remind you you’re no bett
er than a deliveryman who rang a doorbell on a hot day asking for a glass of water.
I wondered if we were going to sit next to each other at the large table, as we’d done during lunch, or across from each other, or at a right angle. At a right angle, I decided, and put down the spoons accordingly. “I am sure she has tiny sweets somewhere,” said Clara, who began rummaging through the fridge and the old kitchen cabinets. “Found ’em,” she said.
“Ach, Liebchen, not sweets after the strudel gâteau,” she said as she helped herself to a box of Leibniz chocolate cookies, tore off the cellophane wrapper, and put four on a dish, which she placed right between what were going to be our seats. She had mimicked the old woman’s accent so well that I couldn’t help laughing, which made her laugh as well. I asked her to repeat what she’d just said.
“No.”
“Come on.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m embarrassed, that’s why.”
“Just say shtroodel ga’tow.”
“Shtroodel ga’tow.”
I felt my stomach muscles tighten. I was dying to kiss her. She could say anything and I’d want to kiss her, make any gesture and I’d be pulled toward her, and if she happened to lean toward me as we tried to speak softly so as not to wake the old couple upstairs, then I’d have to struggle not to put my arm around her as I did at the dining table, but this time I’d let my palm rub her face, once, twice, just keep rubbing that face, and touch those lips, that mouth, and let my face rub against hers; what wouldn’t I give to touch her teeth with my hand, with my lips. We were standing in the kitchen rinsing the dishes.
“Are you happy you came?” I asked.
“Yes. I liked seeing them, I always do. They are like two coiled snakes corkscrewed unto their last. You watch: when one goes, so will the other, like a pair of old slippers.”
“Is that what love is like—a pair of slippers?”
“Don’t know about the slippers. But they are identical, Max and Margo. Inky and I, on the other hand, couldn’t have been more different. Inky doesn’t have a devious bone in his body. Inky wants you to be happy; Inky misses you when you’re gone, runs errands if you ask, fixes things when they break, will die for you if you so much as hint that you want him to jump from this or that ledge. He is kindness and health personified—which is why he’ll never understand me.”
“Because he is not all twisted?”
“Not like us, he isn’t.”
I liked this.
“So you said no to Inky because he’s a healthy human being?”
“So I said no to Inky.” Pause. “Here, eat this cookie, otherwise I’ll eat it, and when I get fat, trust me, I get even more bitter and depressed.”
“Bitter and depressed, you?”
“As if you hadn’t noticed. You’re like me. We’re chipped all over. Like these dishes. Jewish dishes.” She smiled.
I did as I was asked with the dishes. Then we loaded them into the dishwasher. We were standing almost hip to hip, neither budging, until our hips were touching. Neither of us moved away.
She asked if I’d split another Leibniz cookie with her.
“Promise not to be bitter and depressed.”
“I’m already bitter and depressed.”
“Because of me?” I had said it in complete jest and couldn’t possibly have meant what she heard. But she turned to me with her wet pink hand and, with the back of it, touched me once on the cheek, and then again and again. And then she kissed me so close to my lips that she might as well have kissed me all the way. Which is when I let my lips touch hers, once, twice, rubbing her face with my own wet palm as I’d been craving to do all through lunch.
She let me brush her lips, but there was forbearance in her lips, and I knew not to push.
“So you will split another chocolate Leibniz with me.”
“I have no choice.”
“Inky calls these chocolate lesbians. We used to think it was funny. I wonder if there’s anything we can take for the road.”
She ferreted through the cabinets. Nothing. Just M&Ms, probably bought for the grandchildren or for Halloween. The large yellow bag was sealed with a giant clasp. “Let’s take a few.”
We found a small ziplock bag and transferred M&Ms into it with the pantomimed complicity of amateur safecrackers.
“Thank you,” she said.
“For the M&Ms?”
“No, for coming here with me. For knowing. For everything else. And for understanding.”
“Especially for understanding,” I repeated with emphasis and mock-humor.
Thank you for understanding. What a way with words she had. Saying everything and saying nothing.
“I told him I was the wrong woman for him. But did he listen? Then I told him he was the wrong man for me. And he still wouldn’t listen. And he’ll keep fighting it. I know him; he’ll call them tonight and ask if I came by. And they’ll say yes. And he’ll ask if I came alone. And they’ll say no. And he’ll ask who with, and they won’t know, and he’ll call me, and it’ll never end. Happy you came now?”
“You answer.”
“I think you still are.”
She dried her hands, passed me the towel, and began putting the wine away.
“Clara?”
She turned back. “Yes.”
“I want to tell you something.”
She was putting the corks back into the two bottles. This was going to be it.
“You want to tell me something”—again the same restraint in her voice, in the way she held her body and stared at me now—“don’t you think I know?” She looked me in the face. “Don’t you think I know?”
The way she said it broke my heart. I could almost feel a sob rising in my chest. Don’t you think I know? It’s what one said in lovemaking: Don’t you think I know? Don’t you think I know?
I was about to add something, but there was nothing else to say; she had said it all.
“Let’s hear the Handel, then,” she said.
We walked into the living room. She turned on the CD player, then lowered herself to the floor and sat on her knees on the rug. She was already wearing her winter coat. I sat across from her on a chair against the wall. In the same room, saying nothing. And then it started.
I couldn’t understand what it was about this sarabande that had made us come all the way up here to hear it. Perhaps because I had never heard it before. “Isn’t it played a bit too slowly?” I finally ventured to say, trying to suggest that I too could tell it could use some mechanical acceleration.
She shook her head once and said nothing, dismissing my comment for the simple, intrusive thing it was. Then, for no reason, or for a reason I couldn’t begin to fathom, she raised her eyes and began to stare straight at me, but in a vague, lifeless manner, which made me suspect that though she was looking at me and wasn’t looking away, she wasn’t really looking at me either. There was no doubt, though; she was staring. I stared back with the same seemingly unfocused gaze, but she didn’t register my gaze, or didn’t register me, and I thought, This is what happens to people who are entirely rapt by music, whereas I am almost just pretending, the way I almost just pretend to be rapt by food, wine, scenery, art, love. When others listened to music, they became one with music and just stared at you, past you, through you, and expected no reciprocity, no implicit eyebrow signal, because they were already one with things.
Were we just going to stare at each other for however long it took to hear the music?
So it seemed.
So I left my chair and, all the while continuing to stare at her—she was still following me with her gaze—kneeled down right next to her on the rug, my heart racing, neither of us taking our eyes off each other, I not knowing whether I was breaking some tacit understanding I hadn’t altogether agreed to, she not knowing what I was up to—except that suddenly I caught her nether lip give a tremor, her chin seemed to cramp ever so slightly, and, before I knew what was happenin
g, her eyes were filled with tears and she began crying. I envied her even this freedom.
“Clara,” I said.
She shrugged her shoulders, as if to mean, Can’t be helped.
“I don’t know what’s come over me. I don’t know.”
I reached out and held both her hands in mine.
“I’m a total mess, aren’t I?”
“It’s the Handel.”
She said nothing, just shook her head. I should have kissed her right there and then.
“Or maybe it’s Inky,” I threw in. “Or seeing Max and Margo,” I added, trying to help her narrow down the cause of her tears, the way a parent might help a child find the exact spot where his arm hurts.
“We’re taking the CD. He made other copies,” she finally said. She was trying to show she was quite able to compose herself. “Poor man, him with his dead music and his rotting body and all that talk of eternal landfills—”
She began to cry again, this time in earnest.
“You left out strudel gâteau.” I was trying to distract her and make her laugh, though I wouldn’t have minded if she continued crying. Tears seemed to have removed every barb from her body and, better yet, to have humanized her the way I’d seldom seen someone be so human before. It left me feeling totally rudderless. I attempted another joke, this time at the expense of art and pipi caca art.