The spectators were absolutely silent, and the only sounds were an occasional exchange of whispers between Joanne and Sara, punctuated by the whine and click of Bill Freedman’s self-processing camera as he stood off in a corner photographing the whole scene. Before I made my first exposure, he brought me over a little print that showed Joanne and Sara, who were almost obscured by the grayish images of several of their ghostly friends. Apparently there was going to be a spectral crowd to deal with.
Joanne and Sara seemed to be having a good time. They both looked more beautiful than I had ever seen them look before. They struck pose after pose in a solemnly dignified but unselfconscious style. Sara was seated on the chaise longue, with Joanne seated sometimes next to her and sometimes on her lap. I had a definite sense from the way they arranged themselves that they were not alone. I had moved the camera back from the usual position so that there would be room in the picture area for five or six people. Bill came over every once in a while with another of his prints. It was obvious the visiting subjects were—possibly with some coaching from Sara—trying not to clutter up the composition too much. There seemed to be three adults and an infant, and they would sometimes appear all together and sometimes one at a time. At one point, both Sara and Joanne moved out of the picture area, and I got a shot of what seemed to be just the empty setting, but I was hoping it would turn out to be a group study of the visitors. For the last six exposures I moved the camera in closer to get some larger and more detailed—if partial—images. When the last shot was taken, I kissed Joanne and Sara and sent them off with everyone but Bill to start a little brunch party. Bill and I examined his prints more carefully. He had made twenty exposures, all from far enough back to include me and the camera as well as my subjects. He had been working without flash so as not to interfere with the natural lighting of my exposures, and his hand-held shots were sometimes a little blurred from the movement of his camera. That, combined with the small size of the images, made it difficult to distinguish much detail. But even so, it was obvious that I was going to have some spectacular pictures.
We went quickly through the prints, and Bill said, “You’ve got yourself a show, Jonathan. I have no idea what the hell it’s all about or whether people are going to want to buy any of it, but it’ll get talked about. And those pictures have to be seen. But we’re going to have some problems.”
“What kind of problems?”
“The critics, for one thing. They’re not going to know what to say.”
“They’ll think of something. They like mysteries.”
“They like to create mysteries. You know what most of them like now—the commonplace. Their game is to explain why something really isn’t the commonplace thing it obviously is. Give them something truly mysterious, and they’ll call it banal. Or they’ll just ignore it.”
“Does it matter what they do?”
“Of course it matters.”
“Nobody reads them but other critics.”
“That’s why it matters. Critics are your most intelligent, perceptive audience.”
“But you said they’re just playing a game.”
“Certainly. But it’s an enduring game. Critics are what make art seem immortal. Actually, though, it’s not art that’s immortal. Criticism is immortal. Praxiteles.”
“Praxiteles?”
“The greatest of the ancient Greek sculptors. Everyone agrees, even though there’s only one statue left that he might have made. But the critics of his time spread the word. J. S. Bach.”
“J. S. Bach?”
“He didn’t attract the critics in his time. He was considered a good rural organist until some critics in the nineteenth century decided he was a genius. Now he’s immortal—at least, as long as there are critics.”
“I think you’re spreading a little manure, Bill. But in any case, it doesn’t affect me. I’m not an artist. I’m a witch doctor.”
“You’re an artist if the critics say you are. In fact, that’s the only way you can be one. Photography is the best example of all. It wasn’t an art at all until a few years ago when a few art critics started taking it seriously. I used to sell paintings. I didn’t dare try to do a photography show until I could come up with a catalog that contained an approving essay by somebody who was supposed to know about art.”
“So get a witch doctor to do my catalog.”
Bill was silent for a moment. And then he grabbed my arm and said, “Very clever, Jonathan. I think I’ll do that.”
“Get a witch doctor?”
“Sort of. One of these doctors of psychology who do psychical research.”
“I don’t think so, Bill.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t want to be researched. Or, actually, I don’t want my daughter and Sara Coleridge to be researched.”
“You aren’t curious about all this?”
“Not much. It’s just one of the mysteries.”
“But what if your daughter is going to mess her life up with this business? She might be in some kind of danger, you know.”
“There’s no danger.”
“You’re sure of that?”
“I’ve been assured by the best of sources.”
“Sara Coleridge?”
“Right.”
“I get the feeling you’re not too objective about her. You don’t have any doubt she’s the best of sources?”
“She’s the best of everything.”
Bill shook his head in mild despair. “Jonathan,” he said. “Nobody’s the best of everything. Most of us want to believe that about someone once in a while. I’ve believed it myself a couple of times. But take my word, nobody’s the best of everything.” I gave Bill my less-cynical-than-thou smile. “Okay,” he said, “I gather there’s nothing I can do to convince you of my sincerity.”
“I don’t question your sincerity, Bill; just your luck.” Actually, Bill was noted for his luck in most areas—particularly the area of romance. But I knew that he had betrayed a couple of good ladies who had thought he was the best of everything. And though I understood that that was his right, I think I resented his cavalier treatment of people whose capacity for belief was stronger than his. Maybe it had something to do with his training as a wrestler—not being able to resist capitalizing on an advantage. I was glad Harry was the one who transacted our business with Bill. And, remembering our business, I went up and sat on the chaise longue and had Bill take a picture of me with his camera. We watched in uncordial silence as the print went through its magical development. But it revealed nothing magical; just ordinary Jonathan, made irritable by love and belief.
When we rejoined the others, it was obvious that the party was becoming meaningful. Lee Ferris had arrived, and affections and vodka were being dispensed lavishly. I sat down next to Sara and took Joanne on my lap, and I began to feel very good indeed. Lee was regaling an appreciative Harry with a complicated story about her attempts to buy some pignola nuts from a transvestite clerk in a health-food store. Bill and Nanny Joy were reminiscing about the more bracing days they had spent during their separate but similar childhoods in Harlem. No one was talking about the picture-taking, but I think part of the festive atmosphere grew out of a realization that something extraordinary had just been recorded.
Joanne, Sara, and I formed the calm center of the group. My daughter was almost purring in my lap. She was playing games with her spectral friend Colnee, murmuring pleasantly, and pausing once in a while to look up at me or to reach out and touch Sara. I had expected Sara to rush off to a rehearsal after the portrait session, but she settled in and sipped vodka and tomato juice with me—looking certainly more beautiful and perhaps more sensual than usual. Joanne soon fell asleep, and Sara and I lapsed into an adolescent state, holding hands and gazing at each other. The conversation drifted over us. Everyone s
eemed to be talking about God:
“. . . and he said, ‘God damn, baby, I think I kicked my habit. No fixes in three days. I just been layin’ up here sippin’ from this case of Scotch’ . . .”
“. . . and I think even in that tacky-chic sort of emporium I had a God-given right not only to expect the word ‘affinity’ to be understood, but to be spared the evidence of someone’s sexual confusions . . .”
“. . . That’s what started it, I think. I knew that Lady Day had never seen a sailboat in the moonlight, and that she would never see one. And, God help me, I wanted to see one . . .”
“. . . He said, ‘I am not hiding my pignolas, darling. I simply don’t have any, thank God’ . . .”
“. . . Like Miss Holiday said, ‘God bless the child that’s got his own’ . . .”
The words were not exactly devout, but I was struck by the fact that everyone was finding it hard to talk without making some kind of reference to the Ultimate. I certainly was feeling the ultimate in something. It wasn’t long before everyone stopped talking. There we were: three pleasure-sodden, hand-holding couples and a sleeping child. No one wanted to break the silence or to leave, and it occurred to me that the Quaker custom of silent meetings might be one of the great ideas of the Western world.
After a while, I was sure we had set a record for nontalking in a New York social gathering, and I glanced at my watch so that I would have an idea of how long we would actually keep it up. After four and a half minutes, Harry and Lee stood up, waved, and quickly let themselves out. Less than a minute later, Bill Freedman leaned over to Joy and kissed her lightly on the forehead. Then he got up, showed me that he was taking along his pictures of the portrait session, and left. Nanny Joy gave me an affectionate glance and retired to her room.
Sara and I put Joanne to bed.
Then we went to my bedroom and, in quiet astonishment, put ourselves to bed.
I suppose that from the moment I first glanced at Sara, some unkempt gnome in the recesses of my personality had been winking, nudging, and trying to get obscene calls through to my central nervous system. But although Sara’s physical attractiveness had never slipped my mind, I hadn’t allowed myself to think that we might someday share a bed.
And, in a sense, “share a bed” is a fairly accurate description of what we did that day. It was easily the strangest, most chaste, and most rewarding sexual experience I had ever had. I don’t know whether the odd, silent gathering and farewells that had led up to the encounter had anything to do with our behavior, but when Sara and I entered the bedroom, we moved like people sent on an urgent errand by a hypnotist. We didn’t speak, and we didn’t touch. Grateful, and awed, I watched as Sara unbuttoned her dark dress, parting the material to reveal her pale body. I was dazzled, as though I had been in a windowless dungeon and someone had slowly opened the door to reveal the sand of a Mediterranean beach on a cloudless June day. Sara was looking into my eyes with an expression of puzzled pleasure. She kicked off her shoes, let her dress drop to the floor, turned her back to me, and removed her white cotton bra and panties. Then she turned again to face me. There were tears in her eyes, and she was breathing rapidly and shallowly. The muscles of her belly were quivering.
If Sara had been a stranger, I would certainly have thought of her body as being remarkably handsome, although I’m not sure I would have been wildly aroused by the sight. But she was not a stranger, she was my love. Her beauty was miraculous, and her carnality was perfectly transmitted. I felt as though I were undergoing a metamorphosis and were becoming a different kind of being—one that had a new and superior way of seeing and feeling. I shed my clothes like a chrysalis. My body was tense and trembling, and for a moment I thought that rather than being reborn, I might be dying. I went to the bed, not necessarily as an invitation to Sara to join me but because my legs would no longer support me. I lay on the bed, watching Sara. She had turned her head in my direction, but she had not moved toward me. I pushed my body toward the head of the bed, sitting up slightly and resting my shoulders against the wall.
Then Sara walked toward the bed. She sat down on the mattress, facing me in a cross-legged position, her back straight, and her hands on her knees. I changed my position to match hers, sitting forward, spreading my knees, and crossing my legs under me. We sat as we had sat on the floor that recent morning. My strength began to return, reinforcing my excitement. Sara’s eyes were still wet with tears. She was moving her gaze slowly over my body, stopping occasionally to glance into my eyes. Her expression surprised me; it wasn’t exactly bold or lascivious, but it had an odd appreciative sureness.
I watched a tear move quickly down Sara’s cheek and drop upon her right breast. The tear rested for a moment on the slightly concave slope of the breast. Sara was breathing more slowly now, but much more deeply, and her chest was rising and falling in an uneven rhythm. Both breasts were tear-dampened and glittering, and her nipples were like tiny dark mollusk shells on a wet beach.
Sara was crying uncontrollably now, and some tears had made their way past the full lower curve of her breasts and onto her belly, lodging in a few small horizontal creases. The creases vanished as she suddenly arched her back and contracted the muscles of her lower body. She relaxed for a moment, and then she laughed, and the contractions began again. There was almost no fat on her body to conceal the elaborate patterns made by the tightening muscles. Sara removed her hands from her knees and leaned back, putting her arms straight out behind her for support. She closed her eyes and began to make a sound I thought was a moan. But I soon realized that she was humming a melody that sounded vaguely familiar.
I had been so absorbed in watching Sara’s body that for a time I had become unconscious of my own. But now, as I watched Sara abandoning herself to the spasms that were still sweeping over her, I realized that I was on the verge of my own spasm. I leaned back in the same position as Sara, trying to control my body. Sara’s humming was louder now, and I recognized the melody: it was the hymn that Bach had based his last composition on—the melody I had memorized recently. Rather than distracting me as I had hoped, the sound of the melody increased my excitement and made me lose the last bit of control I had over my body. I began to hum the melody in unison with Sara. She opened her eyes and gasped. A surge of terrifying pleasure rose in me, extinguishing all my senses.
When my vision returned, Sara was still sitting across from me, but she was relaxed and smiling. She glanced down at her right thigh, where a few drops of semen were resting—the pearly outposts of a sodden, broken trail that led to my own thigh. I was back in the real world again. Sara and I exchanged smiles of what were for me—and, I hoped, for her—gratitude and love.
And then I reached for the bedside tissues. In five minutes we were dressed, and Sara had left the apartment. We still had not spoken.
Chapter 8
A man who believes in moderation doesn’t expect to avoid feelings of guilt after the dungeon door opens and the chrysalis is shed. And he isn’t surprised when the Furies arrive to tear off his wings and escort him back into the darkness. My regrets began as soon as Sara left the apartment. I went back to my bedroom and looked at the bedspread. I ran my fingers across the dark, circular stain that marked the place where Sara had sat. The stain was cold and vaguely sticky, and I didn’t see it as a reminder of pleasure, but as something more like the evidence of a crime. I wondered whether it would fade as it dried and whether I could conceal it from Nanny Joy.
And then I heard Joy calling me. I threw a lap robe over the bed and went to find her. She was standing outside Joanne’s bedroom, looking less at peace with the world than usual.
“Joanne’s a little under the weather,” she said.
I started to reply and found that I was clenching my teeth. Joy wasn’t one to worry much about illness. She had probably had enough experience in that area to give her some confidence about the body’
s ability to take care of itself. But I didn’t share that confidence. I had always been awed by how complex the body was and how versatile it was at finding ways to misfunction. I tried not to let Joy see my concern. “Tummy upset? She’s had a lot of excitement today.”
“She’s got a funny chill.”
“With fever?”
“No. If that was it, we could give her some aspirin. But her temperature’s sort of low. I don’t know what to do about that.”
“How low is it?”
“About ninety-seven.”
“About?”
“Well, almost ninety-seven. More like ninety-six and a half.”
“Maybe the thermometer’s not working right.”
“I tried it out on myself. It was okay.”
“I’ll talk to her,” I said. “It doesn’t sound very serious.” I hoped I sounded more convincing to Joy than I did to myself. Joanne had always had remarkably good health—which I thought probably resulted from her lack of curiosity about her body. Her teacher, Ms. Abraham, told me that my daughter was less interested in the “palpable” than most youngsters. Not that Joanne was any better than most at dealing with “conceptualization,” I was told, but she supposedly had an unusual interest in “relationships and the spiritual.” Since I didn’t place much trust in Ms. Abraham or words like “conceptualization,” I hadn’t paid much attention to the pronouncement—but I had to admit that one of the things I admired about Joanne was that she didn’t often want to be pampered.
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