by Nick Totem
Lana recovered from the anesthesia without ill effects, and she was relieved that her dream of dying from surgery had not come true and was embarrassed for having had it. The next day she was up and resumed doing everything she had planned for. Through the weekend, she displayed a cheerful demeanor that was so consistent throughout, perhaps not wanting him to worry about her. For his part, he found himself stationed in the apartment, keeping a distance and watching her closely, ready to be a doctor again so that they, in their own way, conspired to give the ambience a contrived tension.
Finally, they looked at each other and decided that they had to get out of the apartment. Outside, the shadows and shades of danger lurked everywhere. Now that Thomas had talked to Dietrich, he scanned anxiously for Chau the Dog. Even so, he would not be a prisoner in the apartment. And so on Sunday, they left the apartment and drove to downtown Los Angeles to make a round of the museum, LACMA. In the grand halls of the museum and under the high ceilings, Lana moved, like a migrating bird finally taking flight on an updraft. Wearing a floral skirt, a pink shirt with collar, and green heels, she had the look of spring. She led him along, explaining the history of some of the paintings, sometimes questioning and probing him.
Everywhere they went, he took her picture with his phone, her next to a Picasso, in front of a giant metallic poodle, under an enormous rock where she pretended that it was going to fall on her. Once, he even asked passersby if they could take a picture of them together.
For dinner, they got tacos from a food struck in front of the museum, and ate sitting on the steps.
“When this is all over, we should go to Paris,” Lana said, and then she averted her eyes.
“That would be a wonderful idea. All I remember of Paris is having arguments with my ex-wife.”
“Huh.” She giggled and looked at him with relief. “I will take you to some of the best French restaurants. The hidden gems known only to the locals.”
Thomas took up his phone, and then he took pictures of her again.
“Please, no more, Thomas. I feel like a tourist. I’ve never had so many pictures taken in my whole life.”
“Okay, sorry.” He then spoke excitedly, changing the subject. “Let’s go to La Descarga while we’re at it.”
“Really? But we’re not dressed for it.”
“Are you kidding? You’re stunning the way you are now.”
“No, fuck it. I want to go clubbing. I want to rage. Haha.”
“Rage?”
“Yes, Thomas. Rage. You’ll see.”
He shook his head and said, “Who are you?”
“Let’s rage.”
“Against what?”
“That bitch we call life.”
“As good a reason as any, I guess,” he said, still shaking his head with disbelief at this hidden side of Lana and thinking that he would rage against the money-cock instead.
“But I can’t drink much. Oh yes, please remind me to take the antibiotic. It’s in the car.”
In the nightclub, Club 23 on Sunset, Technicolor lights scintillated in the smoke filled atmosphere, over the heads of people swaying, jumping with arms flung high. They drank martinis and bobbed to the music, loud enough to thump the very air, to crowd out all other senses. The music was all beats—the beating of drums, electronic synthesizers, even gongs, intent on drawing out the heartbeat of each dancer. The sounds and lights seemed to drown out the smell of sweat and drinks and perfume. Lana leaped up high, higher, and jumped in, into the crowd. With her eyes closed at times, Lana purposely lost herself in the music and danced with a wonderful fluidity. And then there were the jumps, the frantic swirls catapulting her into the crowd which pulsed in unison, as if all these strangers had come together to do exactly the same thing—rage.
Sweating and with wild eyes, Lana emerged from the crowd. “Come with me,” she said against the deafening music and dragged Thomas along. They went into a hallway leading to the restrooms but went further, and after a couple of turns they came to a door with an electronic keypad. Lana entered a code, nothing happened, she tried another and yet another. Finally, the lock buzzed open. “Yeah,” she cried out.
“What is this place?” Thomas asked.
“You’ll see.”
It was a spacious private lounge lit with soft neon lights, and several couches were positioned throughout, giving the space a tactful coziness. A soft and sensuous beat filled the cool air. Several other people, some couples, were scattered about, talking and drinking. Thomas couldn’t make them out in the dim light.
Lana took him to the far corner and pushed him down. She straddled him.
“Are we allowed in here?”
“Yes, if you know the code.” She kissed him lightly.
“How do you know about this place?”
“Lloyd. This is one of his hangouts.”
“He took you here?”
“Yes.” She kissed him fully now, her tongue played with his lips. Her fingers went through his hair, and her body, vigorous and restless, rubbed over him. Then she got off him and began to undo his pants.
“What are you doing? People can see us. You just had surgery,” he said, but he knew that he would go with her, whatever she wanted to do, in spite of his fear of being manipulated.
“Ssshhh. I’m fine. Just let go. No more holding back.”
He was fully erect, and she climbed on top of him. She pulled her panties aside and slipped him in, and started to rock slowly.
His eyes were now adjusted to the darkness, and he looked past her at other people who were now glancing at them. But he didn’t care and held onto her tightly, kissed her, held her hair, silky and perfumed, to his face. He couldn’t believe they were doing that; abandonment was swishing in his brain, like a drug, and he put his tongue to her neck, tasting her sweat, feeling her pulse quickening faster and faster. Nothing could ever, ever compare to this, but then she murmured something. He listened more intently now. “He hurt me,” she seemed to whisper as she rocked.
“Who?”
“He hurt me.” She was speaking with a wisp of secrecy, as if to herself only, in a dream.
34
How did he hurt you? Thomas obsessed over this in the coming days, but couldn’t broach the subject. To his mind, the “he” couldn’t be anyone else but Lloyd.
Then the good news came; Lana didn’t have cancer. Robert Chen advised her that they could resume the original plan, a surgery to remove both breasts preventively.
But despite the good news, Lana seemed to be brooding. After dinner, wearing a white kaftan with an arabesque of intricate stitches, she lay on the bed, leaning back against the headboard and gazing out the window. Sadness tinged her demeanor and upturned face, seemingly contemplating something terminal and feeling all of its effects.
Thomas wondered if he should leave the apartment. Maybe she wanted to be alone.
“I want to talk to you about something, Thomas,” she said suddenly.
It was already dark outside, and under the apartment’s light, Lana’s face quivered slightly. As soon as he sat down on the bed, Lana grasped Thomas’s hands and looked into his eyes and said, “I have to to tell you a confession just in case I die during the big surgery. I’ve never told anyone but now I have to.”
“Whatever it is, don’t worry. Tell me only if you want to. And enough of this silly fear, you’re not going to die under anesthesia.”
“I don’t care about dying anymore. I’ve reconciled with Socrates and Seneca. What I’m about to tell you. I hope it won’t change how you feel about me.”
“That was fast. You were scared out of your mind during the biopsy.”
“Yes, but not anymore. I’m over that. Death is like a falling leave, easily set off by a breeze and once off, onto nothingness.”
“Sounds nice.”
“It came from a poem. Once you’ve come face to face with Socrates, you care nothing about dying.”
“Okay, if you insist.”
“Thomas,�
�� She looked at him earnestly. “Remember what I told you about Cristiano? How he just disappeared like that.”
“I remember.”
“That was not the whole truth.”
“Okay.”
“The reason he disappeared was because he found out about me.”
“What?”
“That I had been Lloyd’s lover.” She halted a moment. “The truth was that I had entered into an arrangement with Lloyd. I had gone out with him and he dangled money before me. He gave me money, a lot of it, to be with him. I know it’s hard for you to understand why I did it, but it was about more than the money, the luxury, the excitement, and there was such great freedom.”
She looked at him closely. Thomas only nodded, and she went on, “I was my own person. As a woman, I could do with my body as I wished. And I had read in a magazine about another girl who had entered into a sugar daddy arrangement, and she was glad that she had done it. She was a college student as well. She was glad that she was going to graduate without debts. I wanted to do the same. But it was about more than money, I hope you understand, it was about my own personal freedom. In the modern age, I should be able to do anything. I could do with myself as I pleased. There was nothing to stop me. Nothing I couldn’t do . . . So I entered into an arrangement with Lloyd . . . I have to be honest. I was enjoying myself as well, that I had such power over my own destiny, beyond the morés of society. But after I met Cristiano and fell in love with him. Knowing Cristiano was like knowing that there was something beyond. There was such peace, bliss and simple happiness. No, no. That’s not completely true. I also wanted to be like Therese Malfatti. Do you know who she is? She was the object of Beethoven’s love. Her name is known to us only because of her brief association with Beethoven. In fact, it’s believed that “Für Elise” was dedicated to her. So, so when I met Cristiano, I was convinced of his genius, and in my selfish way, I wanted my name associated with his. Oh, I committed a horrendous crime, that’s why I’ve been running, condemned to be restless. I knew I had to stop the arrangement with Lloyd. Or to break up with Cristiano.”
She grimaced and squeezed his hands tightly. “Lloyd was the one who instructed me on the finer things in life, much more so than Dominic. He fell in love with me, at least then.”
“How did Cristiano find out about it?”
“Lloyd must have told him something. The truth is, I couldn’t choose. I knew I had to choose one or the other, but I could not. You see, Cristiano was not like us, he had a delicate soul. A beautiful soul. It was too much for him when he found out. The devastation, the pain. Oh, I can’t imagine what he went through because of me. He couldn’t leave me, he just couldn’t even when I pressed him. His behavior changed. He couldn’t leave me so he left life.”
She crossed her arms and leaned her head back, closing her eyes.
“I’m so sorry, Lana.”
She then turned to him and looked at him straight on. “I killed him. I killed Cristiano. I’m sure of it.”
“Don’t say that. You didn’t kill him, of course not.”
“He was so in love with me. I might as well have.”
Thomas didn’t know what to say.
Clenching her teeth, she brought her hands together into fists and said, “Sometimes I feel like I should kill him.”
“Who?”
“Lloyd. A life for a life.” She looked away from him. “A great love, once lost, must be assuaged by a great crime.”
“You said the other day that Lloyd hurt you. In what way?” Thomas said, seeing an opportunity.
She jerked away from him. She clasped her hands into fists and jammed them into the middle of her chest, and she drew up her legs, curling up her body into a fetal ball. A spasm seemed to shake her.
He placed a hand on her back. “I’m sorry. Forget I asked.”
Silence fell between them and vacillated against the low buzz of street traffic.
“Like an animal . . . He took me whenever he wanted to . . . in clubs, in front of other people. Sometimes forcing other girls on me in sex clubs.”
He withdrew his hand, feeling dizzy.
“I should have killed that son of a bitch. Instead, I kept coming back. How pathetic is that?”
“It’s not worth it. Let’s drop it. I’m sorry I asked.” His calm voice belied a rupture deep inside. If only he could get his hands on Lloyd, he would show what it was like to be an animal.
“Do you forgive me?”
“There is nothing for me to forgive. It’s crazy asking me to forgive anything you did. You didn’t do anything to me.”
“You have to, if you are going to be with someone. In some ways, you have to forgive all the things they have done.”
“You didn’t kill him, the money-cock killed him,” he said curtly, with anger.
“What? What’s the money-cock?” She sat up and turned to him.
“No, forget it.”
“Please, tell me.” Her expression became suddenly calm.
So, Thomas told her about the money-cock, his now elaborate theory about the world. How it would bring the end to the world, first in blindness and then in perversity and insanity. “The money-cock will pound the earth into oblivion,” he said with assuredness as he finished.
“Why, Thomas. It’s a theory as good as anything I’ve read. A philosopher once said,” she said, starring at him, “the most perfect thing an imperfect being can do is to contemplate its own imperfection.”
He blushed. “Forget it. Forget what I said.”
“No. It’s really interesting. I didn’t mean to take your views lightly.” She gave his hand another squeeze. “I suppose I became a money-cock and I pounded Cristiano, so he disappeared.”
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. I didn’t mean you personally, but the whole world. It’s nothing new. People have been saying the same things for ages. There is probably a version of it in one of those books. Everyone becomes a money-cock sooner or later. I’m just telling you the way I see it.”
“No. No. I’m a big girl, Thomas. Don’t worry about offending me. Since I’m confessing, we must be honest.”
“All right. If you say so. Yes, Quattleberns corrupted you with his money. He is a big money-cock, as big as any I’ve seen. He pounded you, made you into a money-cock, and you pounded Cristiano, whether you knew it or not.”
“So it had nothing to do with love. Just money.”
“Love for Cristiano, yes. He was the only one who truly loved. There is probably no lasting love for anyone else. Just moments of good feeling. And Quattleberns used his money, and he infected you. You became a money-cock. Without Quattleberns’s money, no one would be hurt. You know his money came from somewhere, a bigger money-cock that has been pounding him.”
She snickered. “It all sounds so vulgar.”
“Well, it is. The truth is always pornographic and sad and hard to take,” he said with a touch of bitterness. “And it’s not just you. But everyone.”
“Yes, the whole planet seems to be suffering from periodic convulsions of a chemical nature. What about you?”
“Me most of all. My wife had it in me for years. Until the deadness was all in me. As good as dead. Maybe that’s why I volunteered in Iraq.” He stopped, visibly angry now.
“What about Thomas the money-cock?” she said without a flinch.
His forehead corrugated and lips tensed, and then he began.“Yes. I was coming to that. I was a money-cock, too. I like things money can buy, fine clothing, fine watches. I like to be presentable. I appreciate the fine workmanship of the Swiss watches.” He saw her unchanging gaze and said, “I was like a monkey-cock to you. The twenty thousand I paid Chau the Dog. I realized that I was trying to use money to pound you. I’m sorry. It wasn’t a saintly thing as Mike said, or noble, or anything like that. Just another unconscious money-cock. Now you have it. The whole ugliness.”
“When did you come up with these things?”
He got up and went to the window.
Down in the street, the familiar night scene was playing out; people were scrambling along the sidewalks, and cars inching along the road. He opened the window, noting how hot it was inside the apartment. The roar of traffic and a faint smell of exhaust rushed in.
He kept looking down the street and said, “After you went to Brazil. I did a lot of thinking.”
“Oh.”
He didn’t reply.
“Come. Sit and talk to me.”
He continued to look down the street. “Maybe. Maybe I don’t want to be a money-cock anymore.”
“You have a lot of bitterness, my friend. You don’t like the money-cocks maybe because you can’t make any more money, the way your ex-wife makes it with ease, the way Quattleberns makes it. He gobbles it up by the armful.”
Still looking out, he said, “I can never give you private jets, but I’m not bitter about that. I’m bitter for being embroiled with other people, the worshippers of money. As for the money, Mike has been pressing me to expand. Get a CTscan machine. Hire another doctor. Build a surgical center. We can make quite a lot more. But . . .”
“But what?”
He went back to the bed and sat down next to her. “I just don’t have the stomach for it. We have to get into counting beans. Taking out loans. Committing our lives to years and years of repayment and interest.” Seeing a strange tenderness in her eyes, he stopped suddenly. Then, he went on, “I don’t mind the work I have now. Just seeing the patients and helping as much as I can. Somehow, it’s okay. It’s more than bearable. Sometimes it’s soothing, you know. There is such tenderness in my interaction with them.”
“That’s lovely, Thomas. Well, I suppose money destroyed us, Cristiano and me. I wasn’t strong enough to resist. Being young was no excuse. And you’re right; there are several versions of the same problem in those books. But that’s literature. Real life is quite another problem. You starve in real life. What do you think we should do?”