Jasmine

by Winston Aarons

  She liked that he said he felt comfortable with her, and how it “undermines any thought of hesitancy” on his part. That’s good, she thought. But what does he mean he will not divulge what he is feeling? What was he feeling? He was very clear in spelling out that he would have little opportunity to carry on a relationship. But he had lost his head, he was “giddy with anticipation.” Sor was as affected by their meeting as she was. She would be open in her reply to him.

  Still, she was uncertain what to say. He is a very intelligent man, she thought. You can tell from his letter. Each word in the letter is precisely chosen and placed. She had printed it and was walking around the room with it, rolled up like a scroll in her hand. She walked into the kitchen and took one of the brandy glasses from the cupboard, went to the liquor cabinet in the dining room, and poured herself some Remy Martin. She needed something warm inside of her. As she went back to her studio, she wondered what he would look like without his clothes. Naked, he might not look so delicious. But then, he might. Nakedness reveals everything, but if you love the person it doesn’t matter much what they look like out of their clothes. The ideal man is found in romance novels, sometimes in the movies, not in real life, she reminded herself.

  She sat down at her desk and placed the glass of brandy on a coaster to the right of her computer. She then proceeded to tidy her desk. She collected all the pens and pencils that were scattered about the desk and, except for one, put them in her penholder, a green plastic glass that belonged to a set of six glasses they had bought for the two boys when they were younger. It was already crammed with pens, letter openers, highlighters, and the magnifying glass Julian Plum had given her as a birthday gift some years ago, its handle made of onyx. She put the batch of student research papers she should have finished marking two days ago in a neat pile, then set the coaster and glass of brandy on top of them. She’d read them tomorrow.

  She clicked in Sor’s e-mail and hit Reply.

  EIGHT

  Sor did not wait up to see if Marguerite would respond to his e-mail. He had checked his computer at eleven o’clock but there was nothing. He went to bed. He figured since he had sent his letter to her after ten, she might not even answer him that night, but wait until the morning to do so. Of course, he didn’t know her schedule, routine, or how much privacy she had, and whether she had her own computer, office, study, maybe a little desk in a corner somewhere in her house or apartment. Maybe she’d have to sneak around to respond to his letter. No, he thought, she teaches at the university, she must have her own computer, desk, office, place to work.

  He had a restless night. Twice he dreamt of falling. He also dreamt that his mother brought him a tray filled with tropical fruits: mangoes, papayas, even star apples, which he thought the most sensual and exotic of all fruits—he used to eat them in Jamaica when he went there on holiday with his parents as a boy. Its flesh, soft and pulpy when ripe, reminded him, when he got older, of woman’s flesh, the plush opening, the cushioned entrance that led into their womb house.

  Several times during the night he was tempted to go to the computer but resisted. If he didn’t get sufficient sleep he would not be alert during the day. Sleep was essential for him.

  He lay next to Jasmine while she slept, his hand reaching over and resting on her bosom, thinking about his life and marriage. He had been doing that quite often of late, ever since he met Marguerite. He scrutinized his life mercilessly, as he did everyone and everything, and every experience. He had been married to Jasmine for fourteen years. They were both working on their master’s degree when they met. At first he was attracted to her because of her intellect. He could have good, solid discussions with her about literature, philosophy, politics, anything. She read a lot, knew a lot. She had considered doing her master’s in philosophy but thought it would not be as practical as a degree in business, and received an MBA with a specialization in marketing instead. Sometimes Sor thought she might have chosen a career in business in order to please her parents, who wanted her to pursue a more practical and lucrative profession.

  For the first few months, their relationship was held together more by discussions than by sex. Music, art, literature, the artsy films they saw together were all discussed with passion. Intellectually he was never so alive. He seemed more interested in her intellectual acumen, her nimble mind, than her body. He still remembered the night they became intimate, three months after their first date: the Upper East Side of Manhattan, a small apartment one of Jasmine’s girlfriends lent them for the night, her girlfriend’s parrot jabbering while they made love, Cat Stevens in the background, rain water ricocheting off the windowsill. Three weeks later, doing research together in the New York Public Library, he wrote on a page of his journal—he always carried one wherever he went in those days—“Would you like to go on a very long journey with me?” He tore the page from the journal and gave it to her. He did not remember how she reacted. They were married three years later, a small ceremony, a few good friends, and life was where it was today, a thing of routines and habits, acceptably pleasant.

  He knew something was missing from their marriage, though, and that it had become stale. But he understood the dynamics of marriage, how after a long time together, familiarity and habit could take the fire and passion out of the best marriage. Of late, their sluggish, almost absent sex life had begun to bother him. On top of that, they hardly spoke. In the past four years they seemed to speak less and less. He felt there was no energy in his marriage, no volcanoes, no eruptions in the bedroom, no excitement. Instead there was torpidity. They began to drift apart. Without sex and passion and spontaneity, they became like friends. She lived in her world. He lived in his.

  Sometimes he still thought of her as his soul mate. Maybe he even still loved her. Those who knew them thought their marriage was a healthy one, and that they were happy. Maybe it was just the mortality problem staring him in the face. All marriages eventually wind up like ours, he thought. He knew their son’s death was a big part of the problem. But he and Jasmine avoided talking about it. They never talked about what happened then, couldn’t, wouldn’t. That’s when their marriage had lost its energy. It was as if the laughter, sex, passion had been suddenly sucked out of it. It was not a topic for conversation. But it was always there, lurking in the background.

  But since the day he met Marguerite in the Bernhardt School of Engineering building, there were these feelings that he had not experienced in years, establishing some kind of hold on him, jerking up his life, undermining his equilibrium. There must be a need, some void, some empty abyss in his life that wanted to be filled. This wildness that had overcome him, his desire for this woman, pumping through his veins again: was it just sex? Was it the beckoning for a change of life? Maybe he was thinking like this because they had no children. Here I go again, he thought, leaping ahead of myself. He had not yet even heard back from Marguerite, and already he was off thinking of a new life, probably away from Jasmine. This certainly was not like him, the man who liked order in his life. Who liked to stay the course, like his father, in whatever he did, who loved finishing things.

  As soon as he got out of bed the next morning he went to his computer. There it was, a long letter. He was frantic with joy. But he closed the computer. He’d wait until Jasmine left for her Saturday morning beach walk before sitting down to read it. Jasmine usually came into his study to wish him a good day, and sometimes even to give him a kiss on the forehead before leaving the house. When she left, he’d print Marguerite’s letter and, with a cup of coffee, read it on the deck.

  He felt like a schoolboy getting his first love letter, all knotted up before reading it. She had written in the box for Subject: “The wind is good, the ship should sail.” This made him feel good. He did not feel she would get cold feet. The ship should sail. That must mean she was drawn to him and was prepared to enter into a relationship with him.

  When Jasmine left for her
beach walk, Sor made a fresh cup of coffee and toast with orange marmalade. He went into his study, printed Marguerite’s letter, and took his coffee, toast, and letter with him onto the deck. The workmen were already busy renovating the old house across the street. At first he thought it would be too noisy, and that he should go back into his apartment where it was quieter. But he was so anxious to read her letter, he thought it wouldn’t matter. He would be so fixated on what she had to say that nothing would interfere with his concentration, or come between him and her letter. Not the hammering, or the electric drills, or the Country-Western music on their radio.

  Sor’s apartment building overlooked the Intracoastal Waterway. When he sat down, a long, sleek schooner was going by, white with blue sails and a freshly polished wooden deck. He could read the name: Puff of Smoke 11. He watched it slide effortlessly down the waterway toward Boca Raton, Deerfield Beach, wherever it was going. But he did not follow it until it disappeared from his view, as he would normally do. Instead, he began reading.

  Dear Sor,

  Thanks for your message. On my way home after meeting with you at Fresh Market, and for a better part of the night, I thought you might not write. In your letter you mentioned how overwhelmed you were by our meetings, and the suddenness with which everything was happening. I was overwhelmed too. It was almost as if we had to meet, that our meetings were fated. I felt I could talk and act with you as if I’d known you for a long time. So if it looked like I was throwing myself at you, it’s due to the fact that I feel very comfortable in your company. It’s not my normal behavior to act this way with men I hardly know. I seem to have little control over what is happening. I find myself acting impulsively. It’s as if I’m possessed. Had we known each other longer, I would say we are in love. I don’t know. I do know, though, that I don’t want to be in a situation where I feel I’m throwing myself at you. I’m a married woman with a husband and two children. I have to maintain my self-respect. But then, I think, you, too, if I read your letter correctly, have lost control as well.

  I don’t have much free time. I have my children to care for. They are precious to me. There’s little spare time between teaching at the university, taking the children to school and piano lessons and their soccer practice. The only days when I have a large block of free time are Tuesdays and Thursdays, when I don’t teach until 2:30. But I usually spend that time painting in my studio. Painting, Sor, is my first love. It’s what makes me feel connected to life, and it gives me the greatest satisfaction as a human being.

  With all these things to do, and the time I put aside for my painting, it’s very difficult for me to find time for anything else. Still, I’d love to meet with you, even if it’s just for coffee. Or we could have lunch together one day next week when we’re both on campus. We might as well get to know each other. It’s obvious from your letter, and judging from my own feelings, which I’m openly confessing to here—which might be unwise on my part, and premature—that there’s something powerful and urgent pulling us together.

  As for whether you can freely e-mail me, yes. I have my own computer at home. I have an area set aside in one corner of my studio, which I use as my office. My husband, Edgar, has his own office in the house. Because of the children, especially the youngest, I keep the door to my studio locked at all times.

  Until I hear from you.

  Marguerite

  “I like you, Marguerite,” Sor said to himself, when he finished reading her letter. He loved people who didn’t beat around the bush. He sensed, too, that she was a bright woman, intelligent, sharp. He also felt his feelings to be identical with hers. He was desperate to meet with her. “I like you, Marguerite,” he reiterated, again and again, as if speaking to the wind, the fishing boat going by rigged with several fishing rods, the workers renovating the old house across the street, his neighbors, the whole world. “We’ll have coffee, lunch, whichever, whatever, whenever, but I will see you.”

  He thought it strange that he felt no qualms about meeting this woman, that no part of him was putting up a struggle, saying no to their meeting each other. He had been married for fourteen years and had never cheated on his wife, and this woman comes into his life, and he does not think anything wrong with his planning to meet her, being with her, and if it should come to that, being intimate with her. In fact, he wanted it. It frightened him that he could be so resolute, his desire so flagrant that nowhere in his being was there any resistance. Sor felt as if the axis of his personal world had shifted. He had lost his equilibrium. He was no longer in control of his life. Whatever it was he was feeling for Marguerite had upset the normal flow of his existence. He was no longer Sor Avraham.

  NINE

  Sor did not write back to Marguerite that day. He went to his computer several times, while Jasmine was taking her walk, with the intent of writing to her, but didn’t. One part of him wanted to write, the other part didn’t. Maybe he was afraid he’d say the wrong things, make a fool of himself. He didn’t trust himself and the new emotions he was feeling—he thought them rather impulsive, even reckless. He was sure she thought he’d e-mail her over the weekend to make plans to have lunch or coffee with her, a suggestion she’d made in her letter. But once Jasmine got home he knew he would not have the needed privacy to write to Marguerite; she often came into his study and stood behind him while he was at the computer to see how he was doing, and ask if she could get him anything, or what his plans were for the weekend. The only time he could write to Marguerite would be after Jasmine had gone to bed.

  Saturday went by, and Sunday, and he didn’t write.

  Sor carried the mood with him to the university on Monday morning. He knew his life was no longer centered. Little things, insignificant acts, told him so. He got upset when Keefer, an adjunct professor from the School of Business, wishing him a good morning, pronounced his name “Sore” rather than “Sor.” It had never bothered him before. “Good morning Sore,” the young man had said. He felt like telling Keefer that the proper spelling of his name was S-o-r, not S-o-r-e, and instructing him in its proper pronunciation. It’s Sor, like in the word sorry. What kind of name was Sor, anyway? Why did his father burden him with such a name? Sor, Sor Avraham. It belonged to another place, another time. It belonged to somebody else. Maybe a member of some ancient nomadic tribe wandering the trade routes of Asia Minor, suffocating in sandstorms in Arabia, perched on the back of a camel. No one, except those who knew Hebrew, knew that Sor was the Hebrew word for rock. On top of that, everyone pronounced it Sore, the way Keefer had. Sore, Sore, Sore. Christ, his name was a cankerous, pus filled wound, a cut that was taking its time to heal. Why did his father not call him David, or Alexander? Those names brought up images of powerful men. But Sor, especially the way most people pronounced it—one thought of decay, corruption.

  Damn it, he thought, Sor was a strong, powerful name. Rocks are strong, indestructible, passive but eternal. If people knew that his name meant rock, it would change everything. Sor is a good name, he decided, as he opened the door to his office. A man should love his name. A man should love who he is.

  There was the usual Monday morning odor in the room when he stepped into his office. The air was heavy, stale, because the room was shut up all weekend. He quickly opened the door. He wished there were a window in the room. Monday was the day the grounds people cut the grass behind his office. He loved the smell of freshly mown grass.

  Everything in the office was the way he left it on Friday. Sometimes the cleaning people moved things around, disrupting the way he arranged his papers and books on his desk, and on the round table where he held individual conferences with his students. Thank God it was not so this morning. He was not in the mood to be putting things back in order. Marguerite was too much on his mind. And now that he was on the campus, he felt even more anxious. Marguerite was close. He could reach her by phone, he could e-mail her, even though he knew he wouldn’t send her perso
nal messages through the school’s e-mail system. He could find out where she had her office and pay her a surprise visit. No, he wouldn’t do that. Maybe she’d call. Maybe she’d e-mail him.

  He liked and did not like what was happening to him. He felt as if he were tossed in the air and was still falling, with nothing to hold onto. He liked to feel solid ground under him. He liked to feel that he was in charge of his life. Where had his ordered world gone?

  Sor was checking his e-mails when the phone rang. It was Julian Plum, reminding him of the faculty meeting in Downey Hall at nine that morning. It was 8:30. He spoke briefly with Plum, finished checking his e-mails, printed off some material, closed the computer, and leisurely walked across the campus toward Downey Hall.

  Most of the faculty were there when he arrived. Dean Solomon’s balding pate gleamed dully under the fluorescent lights. He was wearing the mouse-colored jacket Sor had seen him wear on several occasions when he attended meetings and school functions. The academic dean, Samantha Steele, moved briskly about the room, displaying her perfectly aligned teeth as she smiled, greeting everyone, and stopping briefly to chat with the newly hired faculty. She had gotten Sor his job. He had worked with her on a task force and found her bright, efficient, and tough. Sor liked her.

  Plum was talking excitedly to a small group of teachers from the English faculty near the exit door at the back of the room. He was wearing a hand-painted tie with large red and yellow roses and a bright blue shirt. His tall, frail frame rose several inches above that of his awed audience. Sor thought of going over and joining Julian and the other teachers but changed his mind.

  Dick Olephant was also there. His eyes, gleaming, moist behind his bifocals, were cautiously caressing the robust breasts of the newly hired math professor he was talking to. Sor thought of going over and greeting him but waved instead, retreated, and sought out a seat in the back row of the auditorium, far from anyone he knew.