Menage

by Alix Kates Shulman

  From his post near the window, Zoltan watched in alarm. Was he imagining it, or was Heather making herself at home on his bed? He set himself to spreading jam slowly across half a croissant, hoping she would reconsider and leave. But when after his first bite he looked up, he saw that not only had she not moved off but she had commandeered the entire length of the bed and was now watching him intently, her body spread invitingly across the mattress. Abashed to feel his own body respond, he put down the croissant and abruptly began to pace in the tiny space remaining. A ticklish situation. She was a devilishly attractive woman, almost more attractive this morning in her bare feet and dishabille than yesterday. All the while she lay there speaking innocuous pleasantries, she was rhythmically tapping one arched lean foot against the other in a way he thought calculated to arouse him. Or was that simply the way of these Americans, these Daisy Maes and Daisy Millers? They routinely objected to being valued for their sex yet shamelessly put themselves forward. No sooner had he extricated himself from the clutches of one of them (who would stop at nothing, even suicide, to possess him) than he seemed to have walked into the web of another. Only this time he was certain he was innocent. Her own husband had brought him here; he was sure he’d done nothing to provoke this wanton overture. Why did American men allow themselves to be led around by the nose by their outrageous wives? If he was not careful, if he didn’t handle the situation with extreme delicacy, neither compromising Mack’s nor bruising Heather’s mysterious yet tremendous egos, he would be evicted from this Eden before he’d written a single word.

  She could see that, like her, he was agitated, pacing nervously like a wary cat. She’d have liked to turn the conversation to books or writing, as she’d so often imagined, or, even better, to them. Allude to his promise to teach her things and cure her loneliness. But she was having trouble speaking at all. Why didn’t he help her? “More coffee?” she offered, moving back down the bed till she could reach the thermos on the table.

  As she leaned over the table, Zoltan saw one breast fall slightly forward behind her shirt—plump, white. He pulled his sash tighter and averted his eyes. Tomorrow he must remember to close up the bed the minute he awoke. “No, thank you. This is very pleasant, but I’d really better start to work. Still have to unpack, you know.”

  Was he going to let the moment pass? Could he too be shy behind the boldness of his eyes? “If you’d like me to help you …”

  “No, thank you, really. You’ve done more than enough already. This breakfast—”

  “Meals are part of our arrangement, remember? A small price to pay in exchange for—what was it you promised us?” Her eyes crinkled mischievously. “Happiness?”

  Was she mocking him—looking up at him from his bed with those green feline eyes, inviting him to violate sacred hospitality on his very first day? If he accepted she would be able to denounce him to her husband on the slightest whim and have him thrown out without notice. But if he refused her, would she not exact revenge like any woman scorned? For a moment he wondered if this might be part of some hidden scheme of Mack’s, or of a private family contest with him as prize. Either way, he must get her to leave his room at once.

  He walked toward the bed and reached for her hands to pull her up. Heather felt his energy flow into her through his long fingers, felt the heat emanating from his body, though they were barely touching. That body, tall and bony and angular—the very opposite of Mack’s—felt almost familiar, so perfectly had she imagined it.

  As she took a tiny step toward him Zoltan pulled back and searched her eyes. No guilt there, nothing but that nervous surrender, that soft, blurred, womanly limpid look. He warded off a possible embrace by pressing his lips to her hand. “But look!” he said. “You’ve burned yourself.”

  “It’s nothing. See? You’ve already cured it.”

  “Mack was right about you,” he said, stepping back and twirling the ends of his sash. “If I wasn’t a monk—”

  She looked startled as he took her hand and began leading her toward the door. “I must dress now. But thank you for … all of this.”

  “A monk? What do you mean?”

  “Ah, my dear, I intend to explain you everything one day, I want you to understand me. But now,” he said quietly, his hands urging her out, “I must start on this day before it is lost.”

  Then she had misread him! She felt a deep blush begin its long, mortifying rise up her neck to burn her cheeks. He would see.

  She looked at her watch. “Me too. It’s time to get the kids. Shall I take the tray—?”

  He could not risk allowing her one inch back into the room. “No, no, thank you, I will take it myself, later.” And without hazarding a good-bye, he closed the door.

  AS SOON AS HE heard her car drive off, Zoltan walked into the hall to listen, but the only sounds were cries of nature. He carried his tray toward the kitchen, walking slowly through the rooms, both marveling at his good fortune and trying to contain his envious disdain. In the morning light the cathedral-like great room, with its skylights, immense stone fireplace, and library, circled by windows giving onto decks and gardens, was even more imposing than at night.

  In the big sunny kitchen he saw two of everything: two sinks, two ovens, two microwaves, two doors on the massive refrigerator, two sets of four burners on the stove, two dishwashers (unless one was perhaps some more obscure culinary device). He set down the tray in the adjacent pantry and systematically began to peer into every drawer and cupboard. His eyes were dazzled by piles of polished silver, forests of stemware, stacks of china of every size, appliances and gadgets whose uses he could not begin to fathom. There were cases of wines and liqueurs to rival a fine restaurant’s, and every imaginable spice and condiment from all the corners of the world. One cupboard contained nothing but flower vases, another was stocked with boxes of crackers of every sort, another with empty containers and jars, another with every household paper product. It was inconceivable that anyone, even the owners themselves, could keep track of it all. A few items from each of the shelves could probably furnish most needs of a modest person. Never had he imagined anything like this. And now he lived in it.

  He walked down the stairs and traversed the downstairs hall peering into every room. On one side were an exercise room, storage closets, bathrooms, and two offices, each with file cabinets, bookshelves, and a sleek flat-screened computer. On the other side were the bedrooms, with views down the mountain similar to the view from “his” room. There were two children’s rooms plus a large toy-filled playroom with monster TV, and two smaller rooms—perhaps for guests? At the very end, the hall opened into a large sunny space with long views in two directions which could only be the master bedroom.

  He stepped inside. Here the ceiling was high and domed, with a skylight illuminating the largest bed he had ever seen, not king but emperor! He stopped to imagine the passions enacted upon it. A glass wall gave onto a private deck bordered with potted flowers in riotous bloom. Beyond the deck a modest lawn, and beyond that the forest.

  Zoltan walked past the bed, unlatched the sliding door, and stepped outside. Perfume licked at his nostrils, birdsong tickled his ears, a chill breeze raised the hair on his neck. He turned his face upward toward the sun, breathing deeply, and with his eyes closed spread his arms upward like an ancient worshipper. The voluminous sleeves of his kimono fell to his shoulders, allowing the solar energy to penetrate him through his naked arms. Fate had sprung him from prison, transported him to Paris, induced Washington to grant him asylum, and was now unexpectedly extending its bounty to this font of milk and honey. He rejoiced, vowing not to squander it.

  A flock of noisy sparrows (or were they wrens?) at the feeder broke his reverie, and he noticed the gray cat perched on the railing observing him with its yellow eyes. He slipped back inside and relatched the door.

  Off the master bedroom he discovered two windowless rooms, one composed of large closets, the other clearly the wife’s dressing room. Each of these opened
onto a marble bathroom with a mirrored wall, one with a giant Jacuzzi, the other with a glassed-in shower. The sinks were onyx bowls, and the toilets, Zoltan discovered, flushed silently. But then she’d said Mack was renowned for his bathrooms.

  After relieving himself, Zoltan turned to the closets, one hers, one his. Behind the sliding doors in each were enough clothes for an opera company. Each had a small, separate closet just for shoes. Behind another door on each side was a chest of drawers, with the top drawer locked—for the jewelry and cash, he surmised. Small keys, innocent as virgins, hung inside each door. Scornful of such carelessness, he fitted the keys into their locks.

  Jewelry, as he’d guessed, plus the usual top-drawer clutter: obsolete credit and membership cards, assorted keys, snapshots, empty wallets, small decorative boxes of wood, metal, papier-mâché containing studs, pins, broken jewelry. The cash, along with the financial records that might reveal the value of the entire estate (about which he was suddenly immensely curious), was absent. Probably kept in a vault or a locked file in one of the offices.

  Somewhere in the house a clock chimed many notes—like music. Best to end this exploration for today. Hereafter, he would note the hour Heather left and returned and stay safely within those bounds. He locked the drawers, replaced the keys on their ornate hooks, and retraced his steps up the stairs.

  A rough bronze sculpture, about eight inches tall, of a prancing human figure with legs spread out beyond the oblong wooden base, rested on a table at the top of the stairs. He picked it up. So much energy and lift in a hunk of metal! A dancer? One of De Kooning’s bronze women, perhaps? He had already seen a Hockney in this house; then why not a De Kooning? The royal treasure in the capital of his country was probably worth not much more than what he’d seen here today. Such accumulation seemed patently wicked. Any working man from his country—or any frugal man anywhere, including himself—could probably live for decades on the excess alone.

  The sound of a car pulling up broke his fantasy. He put the sculpture back on the table carefully and hurried to his room.

  12 THAT NIGHT OVER COFFEE, after the children had been read their stories and tucked into bed, and the adults had moved from the dining to the living room, Mack asked Zoltan how the day had gone. He meant to inquire about the writing, but Zoltan responded by praising the bed, closet, and furnishings, capacious beyond his needs, and the inspiring view.

  “And did you walk straight into the kitchen for your breakfast as instructed,” inquired Mack, “or did you spend the day tiptoeing around?”

  For an instant Heather’s green eyes and Zoltan’s black ones met in conspiracy. “I’m afraid I overslept, actually,” answered Zoltan; to which Heather added, “Can you imagine? We’re all up practically at dawn and he’s still sleeping when I get back from the kids’ school!”

  “Now just a minute, there,” protested Zoltan, “just one minute. My body is still jet-lag. Tomorrow I will wake earlier.”

  “Not if we keep pulling all-nighters,” said Mack, yawning noisily, though it was not yet late. Short of exhaustion, sleepiness seemed to him a small price to pay for the exhilarating uplift Zoltan’s presence had already, in just one day, injected into their ordinary, torpid lives. Already the house glowed brighter, the fire blazed hotter, the food melted more deliciously in the mouth as Heather, the children, and Mack himself became more alert, more animated. Watching Zoltan pour himself a brandy from the decanter on the coffee table, Mack imagined the prose flowing, the pages proliferating under his patronage. (And to my dear friends Mack and Heather McKay, I dedicate …) They would throw a party for him when the book was done, a lavish affair with a fire blazing if it was winter, outdoors with paper lanterns around the pool if it was summer, and all the literary lights of New York to admire them.

  “Why don’t you tell us about your book,” Mack said, settling back on the sofa beside Heather as he swirled his own brandy in a shapely snifter.

  Zoltan was nonplussed. Where he came from it was considered intrusive or even rude to ask a writer to describe his current work; this was true even in Paris. But in America, with its tell-all cult of openness, there was no decorum. In his first twenty-four hours here, already wife and husband had each in their own way assaulted his privacy, as if he had come to live with them for their amusement. For the entire second movement of a Mozart quartet he managed to avoid answering. But in the end he had to oblige his benefactors, who sat respectfully on the white leather sofa, hand in hand, eager to hear one of the first descriptions known to the world of the not-yet-written book.

  “Is very difficult to describe,” began Zoltan. “Is about … about …” He turned away to clear his throat. “About modern man in exile, story of a young man from war-torn country, still a youth, who cannot find his way until called upon to overcome impossible impediments and become a hero. Just when he is about to make heroic sacrifice, he is caught and sent into exile where he encounters many adventures. Title is Realms of Night. There.” He leaned back and folded his arms.

  “But isn’t that the plot of your other novel too?” asked Mack, alarmed.

  Zoltan waved the question away. “No, no, no, this is completely different.” He looked sternly, witheringly at Mack. “What I have just told you is background only.”

  “Oh, I see,” said Mack vaguely. “Go on then.”

  “This story is of exile and loyalty, betrayal and love.”

  “Ah,” said Heather.

  Zoltan stood up in front of the fire. “Modern hero, you see, is not like ancient hero, Achilles, Hector, Marcus Antonius, et cetera, strong, open, loyal at all costs. Ancient hero confronted other heroes openly on battlefield and fought to death. But modern hero”—he shook his head—“he cannot confront his enemy so easily, sometimes does not know his enemy, you see? Enemy of yesterday may be ally today. Enemy may be traitor or patriot, pacifist or anarchist, regicide or suicide—like hero himself! Today, nothing is clear. So what is loyalty? bravery? treachery? What is terror? Or freedom?”

  In his enthusiasm Zoltan put down his glass and began to pace, while the McKays sat rapt and uncomprehending.

  He continued: “Not so easy to understand. Modern hero is sometimes antihero or madman, like Invisible Man, like Underground Man, or is saint like Simone Weil, or prisoner like Nelson Mandela. He often lives in exile, alone, isolated, searching for freedom amidst his enemies. To be hero he must be free. But can he be free? Today this is most pressing question.”

  Zoltan had worked himself into a state of excitement that set a vein to pulsing in his neck. He took a long swig of brandy and smoothed back his hair before looking at his bewildered, expectant audience: Mack, brow furrowed, earnestly biting his lip; Heather eagerly awaiting some unknown thing. Zoltan feared he had not made himself understood at all. Finally breaking the silence, he ventured, “Well?”

  “Well,” said Mack, “you’ve outlined the theme all right. But I’m not sure I understand the story.”

  “Yes,” agreed Heather. “You said it’s about loyalty—and love?”

  “All right, here is the story,” said Zoltan, beginning again. “Hero (no name yet) has fled to a new country where he experiences culture shock. Soon he is befriended by a woman he meets in a bar, Felice. She works in the hotel as a maid; she is young, hot. She takes him home and feeds him.”

  “Ah,” said Heather, wriggling back into her seat, “that’s the story.”

  Zoltan laughed. “No, Heather. It is only beginning.” He took another sip of brandy and resumed. “Soon hero discovers his phone is tapped, he is being watched, followed, like Trotsky. He believes there are some men from his country, traitors or patriots, he doesn’t know which, waiting to enlist him. Or maybe to kill him. Always there is that danger. How can he know which? He sees them watching him. Felice is afraid. She moves him to her parents’ village. He finds job in restaurant, slowly learns their language. She comes often and teaches him. They are almost happy, but always he is waiting to be found out. Always ready to fl
ee. Always exile.”

  Mack nodded encouragement while Zoltan took another sip.

  “He makes friends with Bill, his coworker at restaurant. He tells him nothing, but finds out that Bill knows certain things about him. How? He must find out. Well, one day, never mind where, he sees Felice kissing a man. He thinks it is Bill. Betrayed! He wants revenge! But first he must know: is this just woman’s ordinary sex treachery or man’s political plot against him? Thinking they don’t know that he has seen them together, he decides to set a trap.”

  Heather did not hear a word Zoltan said after the phrase “woman’s ordinary sex treachery.” Was he looking at her when he said it? She was mortified anew by that morning’s events, which began repeating in her mind like a car alarm. Nervously she started straightening the objects on the coffee table.

  “But that is enough. You are tired, no?”

  “No!” said Mack. “Go on, go on. You can’t stop now.”

  “You sound like a woman in bed,” said Zoltan, flashing a grin at Mack and then a sly smile at Heather. “I’m sorry, I cannot tell you more.”

  “Why not?” said both McKays in unison.

  Zoltan watched them sitting expectantly at attention, like spaniels at their master’s feet awaiting a promised treat. “I’m afraid now is not good time.”