by Steve Toltz
Nothing to say to that.
Conversation flowed like water down flushed toilet. He stared at me so intensely I felt my eyes were pocket-sized mirrors & he was checking his hair.
Night came quickly—it unnerved me he didn’t put on lights. Glanced at switch on the wall but was afraid to move if this fool preferred the airless joy of shadows then so would I. Finally he reached behind him & put on a lamp. Small light burned & grew huge in my eyes.
—So, you had a disappointment today, he said.
—Yes, I thought she’d be here.
This made him laugh in violent spasms, a laugh like a congenital defect.
—I meant the death of your friend.
—Oh, yes, that too.
—You love this girl?
—She’s an old friend from home.
—Australia, he said blandly making the name of my country sound like an old thing he’d once owned but had since thrown away. I said Uh-huh & he continued w/questions. What was I doing in Paris? How long would I stay? Where did I live? Did I work? Why not? & so on. He offered to help me in any way I needed. Money or a job or a place to stay. I thanked him & said it was getting late.
—Would it bother you very much if I took your photo?
It would.
—Oh, come on. It’s just this little hobby of mine, he said smiling. I looked around the room for proof of this claim—a photograph maybe—but the walls were bare & when he went into the next room to get his “apparatus” as he called his camera that made me shudder because whenever someone says the word apparatus I see enormous gleaming pincers w/single plump drop of blood at its tip.
—I think I should be going, I said.
—Just one little photo. I’ll be quick, he said w/ fixed smile like a window painted shut.
As he set up I felt convinced he was going to ask me to take off my clothes. He was talking all the while saying You really must tell me if there’s anything I can do for you, convincing me not only was he going to ask me to take off my clothes, he was going to pull them off himself. He switched on another light—a single bulb blared a trillion watts & he took my photo sitting in the chair & standing up & putting on my coat & walking out the door.
—Come by for dinner tomorrow night, he said.
—OK, I lied & hurried out & on the way home swung by the cemetery for a final farewell to Lionel where I tried to be solemn & feel REMORSE SADNESS LOSS SOMETHING I took a deep breath didn’t do any good I couldn’t feel ANYTHING other than pure disgust at myself—I procrastinated so long I missed what might have been a turning point in my life when is the next one going to be? I’d pictured our reunion a zillion times Caroline had been the focal point of my being in Europe or to put it plainly of being alive and through fear & indecision I’d missed her.
I kicked the headstone in a fit of impotent rage but then remembered Lionel. Tried to be sad again but had no room in my heart for mourning him. Too busy mourning love.
Unfeeling tribute to my old friend broken by soft footsteps on grass—Eddie at the bottom of cemetery hands in pockets staring. I pretended I didn’t see him & rushed off into night thinking of pincers.
Me Again
Can’t pretend other people’s minor misfortunes aren’t of great amusement to me because they are—not death or sickness but when someone’s money is swallowed by a public telephone which then refuses to make a call it’s fucking funny. I can watch people hitting telephones all day.
I’ve found an ingenious place to think—inside cool, dark cathedrals of Paris. Of course believers as dumb as patriots make conversations but conversations quiet as they’re w/ God. Stupid how we think God only hears our thoughts when we address them to him in particular & not when we think our dirty little thoughts in everyday scenarios such as I hope Fred dies soon so I can have his office, it really is much nicer than mine. The meaning of faith is our understanding w/ Creator that he will not eavesdrop on our mind’s whisper to itself unless invited.
Café Gitane
Months since last written. Crazy with solitude crazy with indecision crazy with imaginary eyes. Days filled w/ walking thinking reading eating drinking smoking & generally trying to pick the padlock of life but it’s difficult when you’re the blunt weapon left out of every war. Hope I won’t suffer same problems in the future, can’t think of anything worse. (Not that I’ve anything against problems, I don’t—expect to have them all my life—just don’t want them to be the same problems. Hope for different horrific affliction to mark each new year.) I think your early twenties must be the age you stumble onto patterns that will ruin your life.
A Thursday
Talk about volatile combinations now LUST & LONELINESS have fused in a haunting unbearable way my body screams my soul screams to touch to be touched around me are countless chiseled & flawless couples look like they’re off to start new unendurable race of ex–soap stars there MUST be someone for me somewhere.
2:30—Midweek?
Every day—same café, different book to read. I don’t speak to ANYONE & keep my eyes in strange places when I order my coffee but they know my face here. The patrons smoke anything flammable & the bartender asks you what you want to drink as if you might be his old nemesis from high school but he isn’t sure & I sit at a small table near the radiator thinking here I am again wanting to be invisible then furious when ignored.
Out the large window I look at life. What a fucking lot of bipeds! Australia—bipeds throwing a ball. Paris—bipeds in turtleneck sweaters. Pessoa called humanity “variable but unimprovable”—hard to find a better description than that. The waiter comes by with the bill. I argue w/ him & lose quickly. No wonder key existentialists were French. It’s natural to be horrified at existence when you have to pay 4 dollars for coffee.
Undated Time
I imagine Judgment Day to be God calling you into a tiny white room w/ an uncomfortable wooden chair that you sit in & splinter yourself as you shift anxiously. He comes in smiling like a train conductor who found you without a ticket & he says I don’t care what good you did or what evil & I don’t care if you believed in me or in my son or in any other member of my extended family & I don’t care if you gave generously to the poor or if you gave to them stingily with closed fists but here is a minute-by-minute account of your time on earth. Then he produces a piece of paper 10,000 kilometers long & says, Read this & explain yourself. Mine would read as follows:
June 14th
9:00 am
woke up
9:01 am
lay in bed, staring at ceiling
9:02 am
lay in bed, staring at ceiling
9:03 am
lay in bed, staring at ceiling
9:04 am
lay in bed, staring at ceiling
9:05 am
lay in bed, staring at ceiling
9:06 am
lay in bed, staring at ceiling
9:07 am
lay in bed, staring at ceiling
9:08 am
rolled over onto left side
9:09 am
lay in bed, staring at wall
9:10 am
lay in bed, staring at wall
9:11 am
lay in bed, staring at wall
9:12 am
lay in bed, staring at wall
9:13 am
lay in bed, staring at wall
9:14 am
lay in bed, staring at wall
9:15 am
doubled over pillow, sat up to see out window
9:16 am
sat in bed, staring out window
9:17 am
sat in bed, staring out window
9:18 am
sat in bed, staring out window
9:19 am
sat in bed, staring out window
Then God would say Life is a gift & you never even bothered to unwrap it. Then he would smite me.
New Year’s Eve
All Paris counting down to Christmas now counting down to New Year pro
ving that not only are we more obsessed with time than ever we just can’t stop counting everything. Our perception is that time is moving forward but scientists tell us we are wrong wrong wrong in fact they say we are so wrong they feel a little embarrassed for us.
It’s New Year’s Eve & I’ve NOTHING to do NOBODY to touch NO ONE to kiss.
January 1
What a night! If anyone feels sudden potent tremors in the world they come from me having finally sideslipped into the aromatic hairy pocket of the other gender. Yes it’s official—I am a fornicator!
Sat on bench in Montmartre cemetery opposite Nijinsky’s grave & made a list of resolutions. The usual bunk—quit smoking & be happy with what you have & give to beggars but not pleaders & don’t grovel even to yourself & piss wine & shit gold blahblahblah. Banal list of promises to myself numbered an even fifty & as I tore them up I thought New Year’s resolutions are a confession that all along we know the fault of our unhappiness lies w/ us & not w/ others.
Walked the streets until midnight among the people of Paris gorging on joy & I felt stupid & inadequate in my unhappiness & it seemed very clear to me that loneliness is the worst thing in the world & people should ALWAYS be forgiven for all the compromises they make in love.
At midnight I put my fingers in my ears but it didn’t do any good—
I could still hear it. The countdown to the New Year was the worst thing I’d ever heard.
I walked on. The window of regular café shone out of the fog in a circle of dotted lights. As I entered fat bartender poured me champagne smiling. I took it & wished him a happy New Year in French. Regular patrons all turned eager to know who I was & plied me w/ questions & let out gasps of shock when I said I was from Australia—my country to them no closer than the moon. Got drunk & returned questions w/ questions & found out who had children who was divorced who had bowel cancer who won a small literary prize for a poem entitled “The Tripe of Life” who had crushing financial difficulties & who belonged to the Freemasons but don’t tell anybody.
4 am—noticed a woman standing at the other end of the bar. Hadn’t seen her come in. She had a beautiful angular face & wide brown eyes & wore a black furry hat & when she removed it hair fell out all over the place over her face into her champagne. She had a lot of hair. It went down her back. It went into my mind. It covered her shoulders & my thoughts.
I watched her as she drank & thought her face was one that you have to earn—there was a world-weariness in that face as if it had seen all the acts of creation & all the acts of destruction & had gotten stuck in the bottleneck of history & crawled out naked over miles & miles of broken bodies & machine parts & wound up here in this bar for a quick glass of champagne to rinse the taste of holocaust from her mouth.
The alcohol gave me courage & I went over without preparing an opening line.
—Bonsoir, mademoiselle. Parlez-vous anglais? I asked.
She shook her head as if I were a policeman interrogating her after a rape so I backed away & resumed my place at the end of the bar. Humiliated, I downed champagne in one go & when I finished saw her coming over.
—I do speak English, she said settling herself on stool beside me. Hard to place her accent, European but not French. Caught her looking at my scarred ears, not subtle about it, & before I knew what was happening she had her finger on my scar & I liked that there was no pity in her eyes only mild curiosity. Pity is the awful lost dazed brother of empathy. Pity doesn’t know what to do with itself so it just goes Awwwwwww.
She surprised me further by not asking about it.
—Do you have any scars? I asked.
—I don’t even have any scratches, she answered softly as tho a hand was over her mouth.
Her cardigan was open just enough to reveal a tight black T-shirt concealing small thrilling breasts like hard-boiled eggs.
I dangled my weak smile in front of her & asked what she was doing in Paris.
—Nothing mostly.
Nothing mostly. Those strange words played in my mind for a while rearranged themselves (mostly nothing) & finally died there.
Lust reaching astonishing proportions I felt my secret thoughts broadcast through a megaphone. She asked me where I was from & I told her & watched her eyes fill with the visions of a land she’d never seen. I always wanted to go to Australia she said but already I’ve traveled too much. We talked about the earth for a while & there was hardly a country I could think of she hadn’t been lost in. She told me she speaks English French Italian German Russian. Mastery of languages impresses my lazy Australian brain.
Was this woman accepting my advances? Even reciprocating them? There’s a hidden agenda here, I thought. She wants me for some banal purpose like to help her move furniture.
—Do you want to kiss me? she asked suddenly.
—As a start.
—Then why don’t you?
—What if you reel backwards and make a scene?
—I won’t.
—Promise?
—I promise.
—And hope to die?
—Above all things, I hope to die.
—In general, or if I kiss you?
—What’s wrong with you?
—I don’t know. Here I come.
I leaned forward & she grabbed my face & her long fingernails against my cheek were sharper than they looked & we kissed for a long time I think I was doing something wrong because our teeth kept colliding. When we finished the kiss she said laughing, I can taste your loneliness—it tastes like vinegar.
That annoyed me. Everyone knows loneliness tastes like cold potato soup.
—What can you taste of me? she asked playfully.
—I can taste your insanity, I said.
—What does it taste of?
—Blue cheese.
She laughed & clapped her hands then threw them around me & clutched my hair so it hurt.
—Let go.
—Not until you kiss me again. I want to taste some more of your loneliness, she said loudly. I was glad no one in the bar could speak English—this was embarrassing crazy talk & I didn’t want anyone in the café thinking about the flavor of my lonely soul.
—Let’s get another drink, I said.
We drank for another hour & I mutilated many of my most coherent thoughts by putting them into words.
I don’t remember how we ended up back in her apartment. I remember her hands resting on my arms as she talked & I remember kissing in the street & afterwards hearing the sound of immature whistling nearby. I remember her telling me to stop whistling.
I remember that the sex was good. To prolong the moment I thought of mass graves & syringes & gum disease. I don’t know what she thought of or if she even wanted to prolong the moment.
It was unofficially my first time. Officially too.
Now five in the morning. She fell asleep before me & I’m writing this very drunk & propped up in bed beside her. O Whatever Your Name Is! You sleep deeply like a beautiful cadaver & your ghostly white face sits there strangely on the pillow like a piece of the moon.
Still January 1, Later
Woke up feeling her breath on the back of my neck. The whole night played out in my head in Technicolor. I dragged myself along the sheets & turned & I looked at her dark eyebrows & big lips & long brown hair & thin body & small breasts & her beautiful angular face so still so chalky. I wanted to leave the bed without waking her & looked around the room for an object within reach of same approximate density of own body to replace myself w/ but could see only a coat rack which I discounted out of respect for my self-image. I lifted myself from the bed & quietly dressed. She is the first woman I have ever slept w/. She is a delicate flower I thought as I snuck out the door.
Odor of Paris in my mouth, mint with a chewy center. The sky a vast foreign country. The setting sun in my eyes but too happy to blink. Must have slept heavily all day—the sleep of a human body depleted of semen?
I have returned to my café taller from the previous e
vening’s conquest. Me conquered? Her conqueror? The moon has just risen. I feel lazy & hungover, the warm sensation of pleasant exhaustion slowly contracting. Edges of my old miserable self coming home.
I know I’ll never see her again.
January 2 (Night)
Saw her again. She came into the café & sat opposite me. My brain scrambled for excuses why I snuck out of her apartment but she didn’t appear to require one—she just began talking in her strange accent as if we’d arranged to meet. Behind her eyes I could tell she was happy to see me. That was surprising. Then I could tell she was unhappy that I was surprised at her happiness. Then she fell into awkward silence & she grinned w/ pain behind it & tried to stare at me but her eyes looked away.
She cleared her throat & in an uncertain voice told me that the way to make French people uncomfortable is to talk about money. When I still said nothing she said I don’t want to disturb you. Go on reading & she removed a sketchbook & pencil from her bag & started drawing my face & ordered a coffee & drank it slowly as she stared w/ strange big eyes, drawing me.
Was grateful to her for removing my virginity but it was gone now & I couldn’t see any further purpose to her. Like having dinner with doctor after successful operation. What’s the point?
—I can’t concentrate with you staring at my head like it’s a sculpture.
That made her giggle.
—Do you want to go for a walk? she asked.
Head whispered no. Mouth said yes.
On way out she told me her name was Astrid & I told her mine & I wondered if I should’ve given a fake name but it was too late for that now.
Luxembourg Gardens. Cold & windy & naked trees, frightening against the white sky. She kicked piles of leaves so they flew around us in the wind, an act of childlike joy she made seem violent. She asked me how tall I was. I shrugged this off w/ a sneer—every now & again someone asks me this asinine question & is flabbergasted that I don’t know. Why should I know? What for? Knowledge of your own height serves no useful purpose in our society other than to be able to answer that question.
I asked her personal questions, she was evasive & her eyes on me felt like cold rain. Where was she from? Her family was always moving she said—Spain Italy Germany Bucharest the Maldives. But where was she born? She was born on the road, she said, eyes half closed. Her family treated her badly & she doesn’t want to return to them, not even in her thoughts. The future is an unbearable topic also. Where will she go? What will she do? She shook her head as if to say these are the wrong questions.