I reread the page I’d just finished, and I became aware of a presence next to me.
“Mrs. Conway.”
“Mr. Hradistsky, how nice to see you!” I might have overcompensated, sounding too happy. He was wearing the same tweed suit I’d seen him in the previous times I’d met him, and his glasses were smudged. The milky eye stared at me unfocused.
“I came downtown,” he said. “I have a visa matter to attend to.”
“Oh,” I said. “Won’t you join me?” I cursed myself. I’d uttered this statement without thinking. Rosalie was bound to show up soon, and what would she think? And then I thought to myself, Who cares what she thinks?
He considered, sighed, and sat down heavily as though he’d been carrying a bushel of rice up a long hill. “Have you ordered?” he asked. I nodded. He motioned to the waitress. “I will have whatever she is eating.”
“That’s a lot of trust,” I said. “I don’t keep kosher.”
“Obviously,” he said.
“I mean, I might have ordered pork. Or bacon and cheese on a burger.”
“But you probably did not.”
“I didn’t.” I smiled. He did too. His teeth were very straight.
He set his hat down on the empty chair and there was a silence. Had we already run out of things to talk about?
He began to speak about his work, which had to do with the process of how governments can affect and effect the recovery from economic slumps. He spoke to me as to a fellow economist, using terms I didn’t understand and referring to philosophies whose authors I was not familiar with. In the middle, our sandwiches arrived. He made no move to eat his. I was hungry, and my lunch hour was escaping, so I added a bit of mustard and took a bite. Undaunted, he continued with bond purchasing, interest rate adjustment, federal reserves…before long I had finished, and he had yet to take a bite. When he finally finished expounding his own theory about how the United States might avoid another depression, he stopped talking and attacked his food. Three bites later and both halves of the sandwich were consumed.
He sucked his teeth and reached for a toothpick from the dispenser. I expected him to start picking right there, at the table, but he shielded his mouth and only spelunked for one particularly offensive particle. “Well?” he asked.
I smiled politely.
“What do you think?”
“About…?” I asked.
“Hradistsky’s theory.”
“I don’t know enough about economic theory to say anything other than it sounds fully formed.”
“And you?”
“Me?” I checked my watch. I had ten more minutes before I had to leave.
“What is your passion?”
“I—” No one had ever asked me that before. “Well, my husband and I are—”
“Not his passion. Yours.” He leaned forward. The collar on his shirt was threadbare. He had a university appointment, so it must have been neglect and not poverty that made him use his clothing so hard.
“I loved living off the land, the solitary tilling of the garden, making do only with what there was.”
“What else?” he asked.
I saw Rosalie approaching. She was carrying a shopping bag, out of breath and a bit sweaty from hurrying. “Fanny, I’m so sorry, I got—oh, hello, Mr. Hradistsky.”
He stood and picked up his hat. “Hello, Mrs. Fischer. I was just leaving. Mrs. Conway and I ran into each other. Two souls having lonely lunches. I’m sure we’ll see each other soon. Goodbye, both of you.”
“If he is not the queerest man I’ve ever met, I don’t know who is.” Rosalie sat down. His question was still resonating within me, even as I agreed with Rosalie that they came no queerer.
“I’m starving,” Rosalie said. “What did you eat?”
“Chicken salad, but Rosie, I have to go.”
“No!” Rosalie protested. “We were to have lunch!”
“I only have an hour,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
Rosalie sighed. “It’s my fault. I just lost track of time. Why are mornings so short and afternoons so long?”
I debated informing her that when you work an eight-hour day with an hour for lunch, the mornings and afternoons are of equal length.
Rosalie’s spoiledness was still a bone of contention in our relationship, but part of her brattiness was affected. These were the roles we played. She was flighty and irresponsible; I was irascible and serious. She was forever late to everything; I was always five minutes early. But Rosalie was more my sister than my actual siblings, and we don’t get to choose our sisters. We can’t even let their personality differences annoy us too much—they are a part of us. And so Rosalie’s behavior, which I would not have tolerated in anyone else, I simply accepted. I believe she felt the same way. I know that my routines, my inflexibility, my refusal to pay attention to my clothes and hair infuriated her, and yet she accepted this in me. I found this very comforting. There was nothing I could do that would ever make her hate me.
I got up to pay the tab at the cashier. “Here,” Rosalie said, handing me money, “you don’t have to pay for Hradistsky. It’s my fault you know him. And I stood you up, so take this.”
I ignored her proffered cash and bent to kiss her on the cheek. “We’ll meet next week for lunch,” I said.
When I got to the cashier I was informed that Hradistsky had already paid both of our checks.
*
I was unused to the phone ringing, and it startled me. I was so shocked to hear the voice on the other end of the line that it took me a moment to figure out what Mr. Hradistsky was asking. Would I meet him for coffee?
“Why?” I asked.
“I don’t know many people here. I sense that you do not either. We can practice human company together.”
I had to laugh. His request would have been insulting if it weren’t so earnest. I was about to decline, but I remembered that he had bought me lunch. I owed him at least a listen. And he was right; I could use the practice with human company. Besides my colleagues, I only ever saw Rosalie. “I have to work,” I said.
“How about on your lunch break, at the same diner?” he pressed.
I could think of no excuse not to meet him. “All right.”
We settled on the following day. I was surprised to find myself trying on various outfits that morning. Usually I threw on any old thing; the Galápagos had done away with whatever vanity I might have possessed. I didn’t actually tie my sudden interest in things sartorial to my lunch appointment until I got on the bus and found that my shoes were pinching. And then I scolded myself, promised I would think no more of it, and spent the morning busy with work, pushing out any thoughts of lunch until the hour approached.
First, I want to make it clear that I wasn’t looking for anything. I was married, and though my husband was absent, many husbands were, and it didn’t give wives leave to go about in search of a replacement. And I didn’t want anything. An affair seemed so complicated. Yes, Ainslie did have…assignations, but it was merely physical. I didn’t have the same physical needs as he did, and if I felt lonely, it was because of the war. We all felt lonely.
Second, I was not attracted to Hradistsky. He was short, as I’ve said, and his clothes needed a good wash. His beard was unkempt and old-fashioned. No one wore facial hair anymore. He walked with a bit of a hunch, like life had beaten him down, which it probably had. In comparison to Ainslie…well, there was no comparing them. Apples and oranges. Plantains and guavas. Hradistsky merited no emotion other than pity.
When I arrived at the diner, exactly on time, he was already seated. He stood up when I came over and helped me scoot in my chair.
“Thank you for meeting me,” he said. I opened the menu, though I knew it by heart.
Neither of us spoke. I pretended to read the menu until the waitress came over. I was here often enough that she knew me and nodded in recognition. “What can I get you?”
“I’ll have coffee,” I said.
“
Not lunch?” Mr. Hradistsky said.
“Oh, are you ready to order?” I asked.
He nodded and showed his palm as if to say, You first.
“The usual?” the waitress asked.
“Tell them to toast the bread.”
“I’ll have the same,” he said.
The waitress took our menus. “Be right back with coffee,” she said. “Want some too?”
“I will have tea,” Mr. Hradistsky said. A wave of superiority washed over me.
There was more silence. Finally, I said, “So, Mr. Hradistsky—”
“Joseph,” he said, making the first letter sound like a Y. “Please call me Joseph.”
“All right, Joseph,” I mimicked his pronunciation. “What would you like to talk about?”
“Umm,” he said. “Perhaps you could tell me about what it is like living on a desert island.”
That I was glad to do. Sometimes the Galápagos seemed a dream. I wanted to speak of it, but there was no one to listen.
“Well,” I said, “it’s more like a tropical island. Deserted, not quite, and desert, yes, but not like sand. More like thick, tangled bramble.” I spent a few minutes describing the muyuyo and palo santo trees and how difficult it was to cut through them. I also described Ainslie’s struggles with the machete. “If I ever go back, I will be sure to bring a quality machete, and a whetstone.”
“Will you? Go back?” he asked.
Our beverages arrived.
“I can’t imagine so,” I said. “But I would never have imagined we’d go there in the first place, so I wouldn’t put any money on my imagination’s abilities.”
“You would like to return?”
I thought about it for a minute. It seemed so unlikely, I hadn’t even entertained the concept. “Yes and no,” I said. “But isn’t that how most things are? How about you? Do you want to go back to Czechoslovakia?”
“Today we are talking about you.”
“You do understand that’s not how conversation works?” I said. “Usually humans ask each other questions in turns. It’s what separates us from the lower species.”
“I thought that was opposable thumbs.”
He had made a joke, a feat of which I had thought him incapable. I laughed.
The coffee cup shook on its saucer, and the silverware began to jump around on the table. The salt and pepper shakers knocked together, and before I could wrap my mind around what was happening, I had been pulled onto the dirty floor under the table.
I had lived in San Francisco long enough that a small earthquake didn’t scare me, especially after the big one of 1906, and it was likely that I would have stayed seated waiting for it to pass. Of course, Joseph was right to get under the table, but if one did that for every small tremor, we’d be living under tables.
I could hear his breathing and he reached for and clutched my hand tightly, though the tremor passed quickly. I felt a shock of electricity. He looked at me, his brown eyes searching, vulnerable. So this is how it starts, I thought. A heightened shared experience, a significant look.
I could choose now. And I thrilled to think I had a choice. I could make this happen, easily, this affair with this stilted man. Certainly Ainslie had done so. I didn’t think he would begrudge me the same freedoms he enjoyed. Joseph belonged to my Rosalie life, a separate plane of existence, almost a different planet. Rosalie was San Francisco, was history, was the alternate story where I married within the faith and raised children.
The noise of the diner resumed, the nervous laughs of relief, the banging of dishes put back on the shelf or rattling as they were swept up from the floor. I heard the waitress yell, “Over easy!”
I couldn’t think. I couldn’t speak. Of their own accord my legs got me up out from under the table and I grabbed my purse and coat, running outside. If Joseph called my name, I didn’t hear him.
Throughout that afternoon I had cotton in my ears. I could hear people, but only from far away. I told everyone I was rattled by the earthquake, which I’m sure no one believed. Finally Childress told me to go home a bit early and not to worry about the personal hours.
“That bad?” I asked.
“No, not at all,” he said. “I just don’t need you. No reason for you to sit here and push papers.”
That bad.
I decided to walk home, to lose myself in the bustle of immigrant Chinatown, through my old neighborhood, the Fillmore, which had become the jazz district. I had thought all the nonsense of sex was behind me. And now someone wanted me, an experience I had rarely enjoyed. I wasn’t sure how deep his interests lay, whether he was simply lonely and I was available, or if he really saw something in me that he wanted to be closer to.
I wanted to do this, I realized. I wanted to do this for myself. I had sacrificed so much, deprived myself of so many things for my country, for Ainslie. Now I wanted something for me. I wasn’t particularly attracted to Joseph, but I was attracted to his attraction to me. Even on Ainslie’s most attentive days, his mind was always racing elsewhere. And, if I had been honest with myself, I wanted Ainslie to know that I was capable of having an affair as well.
But was Joseph a good choice? First, I barely knew him, but I could see that all was not peaceful within him. Then there was the clear complication that Rosalie knew both of us. How could I explain to her that my marriage was not what it seemed?
And then there was the same argument that I’d used with Ainslie when I caught him with Victor. Infidelity meant that someone could blackmail you, someone had that dreaded leverage. Worse, you could volunteer your secrets. Better to stay distant.
I went back and forth. I’m sure no one ever agonized so rationally over an affair. And then I asked for a sign from above from a God I didn’t think I believed in. If that streetlight changed before I entered the intersection, if that dog turned around three times…
I got home to find a letter from Ainslie, full of his jolly anecdotes that would pass the censor. He closed with love and missing me, and while I’m not sure if I believed that or not, I knew he meant it in his own way, and I was comforted.
*
I avoided Rosalie’s Shabbat dinners; I was worried I’d see Joseph there. Instead, I went to the library and took out the classics that had comforted me in the past. I reread all of Austen, of Defoe, of Thackeray. Then I read Tolstoy (that took a while). And then something curious overtook me. I brought out my Galápagos diary and pen and paper and began to set down our adventures as a book. I doubted that the government would let even a sanitized account be published, but it gave me pleasure to pretend we were still there, to listen to sirens and imagine braying donkeys, to hear horns and imagine birds, to be interrupted by shouts and imagine sea lion bulls. It ended up being a rather funny account, and in this way many weeks passed without me realizing that they had. It was the best sort of distraction.
Rosalie continued to invite me out; she wouldn’t take no for an answer. She said I wasn’t allowed to “wallow in the soup of sadness.” But I turned down luncheons, lectures, outings, lessons. Then it was Clarence’s fiftieth birthday. Rosalie was planning quite a to-do, and would not be put off by my excuses that I was working on a book. It was ridiculous to her that I would bother to write in my off-hours. I assumed Joseph would be there. But who cared? We hid under the table during an earthquake. Hardly news. I should have known by the way I overreacted that I was indeed reacting to something.
I put on a dress that I knew Rosalie would dislike, a little act of rebellion. It was plum and waistless, more of a 1920s style than 1940s. The 1920s had been kinder to those built like me. I pinned my hair up messily, wore only lipstick as makeup. There was no buying new stockings, so I went bare-legged.
It was a large party, noisy in Rosalie’s high-ceilinged rooms. Waiters were passing Tom Collinses and so I took one. I knew various people vaguely, but they knew me to be a bit of a challenged conversationalist, and so they merely greeted me instead of coming over. I took a second Tom Collins.
>
Rosalie had a proprietary hand on Clarence’s back. She was steering him around the party, pulling him away from the bores and making sure his glass was full. Did Rosalie love Clarence? She was unable to tease apart what he gave her—security, children, a nice life, servants—with how she might have felt about him. So she was content. And, like I had been our entire childhood, up to our abrupt rupture, I was jealous. Rosalie was beautiful; Rosalie was rich. She’d had a hard life, yes, but she was a fur seal: Water slid off her back as she glided through it, at home in sea and on land.
I stood apart as I tend to do at social events, a scientist observing the finches chattering at one another, flitting off to alight on other branches. I was the lone human observer. I felt this separation keenly, tragically. My glass empty, I plopped onto the sofa. And then here, of course, was Joseph.
“Are you all right?”
I bit my lips to avoid the tears that were welling.
He must have seen my distress. “Come,” he said. “I’ll take you home.”
I could not have afforded a taxi, and I doubt that he had budgeted for one either, but we found one dropping off another couple and I mumbled my address. He saw me into the apartment and put on water for coffee. And then I took off my coat. I unzipped my dress and let it fall to the ground. He stood watching me. I pulled my slip over my head, unhooked my bra. I stepped out of my panties. All the while he stood at the sink. His expression was impossible to read. I steeled myself for rejection. For a moment I thought I’d had it all wrong, that I’d completely misread the cues. He turned around and I wanted to disappear off the planet, so intense was my humiliation.
He turned off the kettle and walked toward me, appraising me. He took my hands and brought them to his mouth, kissing them, and we fell into each other.
*
We continued to see each other in the weeks that followed. I was free of guilt. Joseph proved to be a skilled lover, attentive in a way he was not during conversations. He would come over, we had sexual relations, and he left. So different from Ainslie’s chattering. He rarely spent the night, and when he did our conversations in the morning were like an old married couple’s—the weather, the strength of the coffee, who should go down and get the newspaper.
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