Scary Old Sex

by Arlene Heyman

  She was expecting no one.

  Rafael suggested it might be a deliveryman who’d rung her bell by mistake.

  She went naked to look through the peephole. It was Murray, and she felt panic, not only because here she was holed up with some hairy jackass of a dentist (not that she even knew if he was a jackass), but also because Murray was such a formal man, he would never appear at her doorstep without phoning. Some disaster must have occurred. Despite her berserk state and with one eye shut to see through the peephole, she examined his face as closely as she could.

  But in his usual tan cap, he looked unusually, inexpressibly, happy.

  After a while she realized that he was holding out in front of him a large gold-paper-wrapped package. Her impulse, even with Rafael in bed behind her, was to open the door and embrace him and tell him to come on in.

  She mastered her impulse. Murray rang again. Had he heard her coming to the door? If not, he might simply go away and come back later. He knocked gently, and then forcefully. He owned a key to her place but had used it only once, when she’d gone home ill and slept through his anxious phone calls. If he did have the key with him, the door was on the chain lock, thank God. However, he would know she was in there, might even be able to see something through the open space, smell something …

  What was that in his hands? It must have something to do with the look of rapture on his face.

  He reached into his pants pocket and took out his keys. She stood immobilized, watching him.

  The periodontist called from the bed, “Who is it? A deliveryman? Get rid of him.”

  She turned quickly toward him, a warning finger to her closed lips.

  He added sotto voce, “On second thought, see if he’s got anything to eat.”

  She tiptoed away from the door. “Get dressed,” she whispered urgently. “You have to get out fast.”

  “What’s going on? Who’s at the door?” he whispered back.

  At this point they both heard the key turn in the lock a couple of times, and then the door opened and Murray was calling through the spacious links of the chain lock, “Leda, honey, are you sleeping? Wake up, darling, wake up, sweetest. Have I got something to show you!”

  To the young man in bed she whispered, inspired, “It’s my father!”

  Rafael, who was stepping into his jockey shorts, and pulling at the cloth to adjust his profusive self, whispered back, “Well, I hadn’t imagined meeting the old man so soon, and under these circumstances, but I’m game.” He hurried into his white athletic socks.

  “Shhh. Don’t make any noise. He’s very jealous.” She was about to add ominously, He has a real Oedipus complex, if you know what I mean. But she realized she had it reversed, and she feared she would soon start speaking total gibberish.

  “Leda dearest, I have such a surprise for you!” Murray called from the doorway. He moved the door back and forth several times on the chain lock.

  There was a fire escape out the back window and Leda pointed to it. Rafael, who went to the window, took one look down the seven flights and shook his head.

  He stepped into his olive shorts and kelly-green bodybuilder T-shirt and stood, a tree, in the middle of her apartment holding his big sneakers. She thought of Murray on the other side of the door holding his big package. She feared her head would explode.

  After a few minutes of pushing and pulling, Murray closed and locked the door—she looked through the peephole barely breathing—and pushed the elevator button. Rafael was tying his laces and as soon as she saw Murray disappear into the elevator, she grabbed her bathrobe and motioned Rafael out into the hall. She yanked open the door to the back stairwell.

  “When will I see you again? I don’t even know your last name.” He was fumbling for his wallet. “Wait, I’ll write my phone number on a dollar bill.”

  “Just tell me your phone number, my memory’s excellent.” She was pushing at his chest.

  He was holding tight to the banister while reciting, slowly, the digits of his phone number. “Do you promise you’ll call?”

  “Yes, yes, yes …”

  She had nearly closed the door when he yelled up from two flights down, “Do you remember my number?”

  “I do! I do!” She repeated it rapidly, threw it digit by digit down the dark stairs.

  “I’m Jewish,” he yelled. “Tell your father I’m Jewish. Rosenberg’s my last name. Rafael Rosenberg.”

  How did he know she was Jewish? The phone was ringing. She slammed the stairwell door shut, and ran back into her apartment and picked up the receiver.

  “Did I wake you, Leda? Are you all right? The phone must have rung eight times. I’m sorry to disturb you, but wait until you see what I’ve got. May I come up? I’m right down here in the lobby. The doorman let me use his phone.”

  She tried to sound sleepy but she was breathless and she feared she might scream. “Just give me a few minutes, love.” (She censored, Welcome home.) “I was napping. I was up late working.”

  “I’m glad you’re working,” he said. “I’ll wait. I’ll just stand right here beside the doorman and wait.”

  “Why don’t you walk around the block?” she said. “It’s such a nice day. I need a moment to clean up.” She had actually grown a bit more orderly under his influence.

  “I don’t care how messy the place looks. I’m not a real estate agent.”

  “Walk around the block,” she nearly shrieked.

  She had the bed made, had gotten herself into her jeans and mussed blouse, put two barrettes in her hair, thrown the wine bottle in the garbage, and was hastily washing the wineglasses when he rang the doorbell. She looked quickly around, and seeing nothing more than usual amiss, opened the door.

  Without saying hello, he handed her the package, his eyes full of tears.

  She had a sudden fear he was crying because he had seen the young man leave. But how could Murray know where Rafael Rosenberg (was that really his name?) had come from—the building had twelve floors, several apartments to a floor.

  Murray was pointing at the package.

  She took it to the couch and they sat down together. After waiting a moment for her heartbeat to slow, she unwrapped the paper carefully. It was a thick coffee-table book, and there on the cover was a photo of a painting Murray’d done of Leda, Leda with ruby-red hair and a gilt halo and ruby-red bush, Leda as a stylized sacrilegious Madonna. Across the cover were the words of the title: MURRAY BLUMGARTEN: PAINTINGS DRAWINGS SKETCHES. Her own eyes teared up. After a moment she opened the book reverentially and saw that he had written in ink on the flyleaf Leda Leda Leda. And nothing else. She threw her guilty arms, still warm from Rafael, around him. Murray and Leda held on to each other.

  Slowly, feeling hushed, she began turning the pages. On the first was a printed dedication, “For Sigrid, my wife, with love,” and Leda thought that hardly compared with Leda Leda Leda, not for passion, but of course the dedication to his wife was printed and appeared on every copy. It was a declaration to the world. She felt suddenly a spurt of anger at Murray, but then she looked at the slack skin of his hands, their prominent veins, and she thought if she married Murray, she would be taking him to doctors soon (maybe to that medical student from the emergency room), having his blood pressure checked, and cooking special diets for him. Oh, that was ridiculous, Murray was quite vigorous, exceptionally so, for his age. For any age.

  But was she ready to settle down at all, with anyone? There were men out there all over the summer streets—she looked out the front window and saw the acacia trees with their yellow feathery blooms in Washington Square Park—saw the young couples walking arm-in-arm, pushing strollers, saw dogs barking. Did she want to have a child with a man who could soon be a grandfather (one of his daughters had recently married), if she could pry him away, which was questionable, from his Sigrid, his wife, with love, with printed love? Leda continued turning pages, tears coursing down her cheeks, because she was young and not pregnant (not that she had ever re
ally thought of becoming pregnant, only maybe when she saw paintings of the Madonna, although she had had a few scares which had fortunately—unfortunately?—come to nothing); weeping because the pages were paintings of her, not by her, and because she was sitting here with this man whom she adored, who was as much as, no, more a part of her than her dear inept father—she had lied only a little when she told whatever-his-name-was Rosenberg that Murray was her father. She cried for her young, stagnating life.

  And of course at that moment the doorbell rang, and she opened it crying lavishly, and that ridiculously bushy-haired young man was there. “I’m sorry. I forgot my briefcase.” He seemed to be speaking past her into the room, perhaps at Murray, who was sitting on the couch. “And it has all my perio notes in it, and I have an exam in the morning—” Suddenly he looked sharply at Leda. “You’re crying—” He put his hand out, as if to touch her face. “What is it? What’s happened?”

  “Nothing.” She tried to shut the door.

  He got his shoulder up against it. “I need my notes, I’ll be just a minute.” He pushed past her to go down on his knees beside the bed. He reached under it and felt around—“I’m sure it’s here”—and after a moment swept out his briefcase with obvious relief and stood up cradling it, along with a small dust ball, in his arms. “I’m leaving right now.” He looked deferentially at Murray. “Sir, you have one sensational daughter there, you are indeed a lucky man.” He held out a hand toward Murray, but Leda began pummeling the briefcase that Rafael Rosenberg held against his chest, propelled him backwards a step or two toward the door. “I hope to be meeting you again, sir, soon, under the right circumstances.” He whispered to Leda from the doorway, “Are you sure you’re all right? Call me.” She got the door closed, but not before he blew a kiss into the air.

  Leda stood rigid. Murray sat on the couch, his open book a boulder in his lap. His face was gray, and for a moment she feared for her life.

  “Who are you?” He had to repeat himself because she couldn’t hear him.

  She mewled, “It’s me, Leda,” as if he really didn’t know. She felt like a small child. She repeated her name. Then she said, “I’m whoever you want. Only don’t leave me.”

  “Whoever I want, and whoever he wants, whoever he is. Does he matter to you? At least tell me he matters to you.” Behind his glasses, his brown eyes were red.

  She feared something had burst in him.

  “No,” she said. “I don’t know if he matters to me. I just met him today. Yes, he matters to me, if you want him to.”

  “Are there others?” He was feeling around the couch as if he were a blind man feeling for suitors.

  “No,” she said. “Yes.” She swallowed hard. “One. A year ago. Nobody matters but you.” She clutched at his shirt.

  Finally his hand came upon his cap, which seemed to be what he was looking for. Gripping it with his fingers, he groaned and stood up.

  “Don’t go,” she begged. “Don’t leave me.”

  He looked dazed, standing beside the couch. When he finally began to speak, he spoke very slowly, as though he were himself trying to understand what he was saying. “He’s a young man. Of course. Your own age. Is he married? He’s not married. Tell me he’s not married.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t think so. I don’t know. What’s that got to do with anything?”

  He stood with a fist clenched to his heart. She feared he would smite his chest.

  “Sit down,” she said. “Stay here.”

  “I’ve driven you to—to—” He knew what he was saying was true, and suddenly he wondered why he was being so dramatic. “But why shouldn’t you? I’ve told you, again and again, though evidently not often enough. There’s my wife, my children … I should have expected … I did expect …” And then he cried out, “But I can’t stand it!” And with what strength he had left, he lifted his book off the coffee table and hurled it out the open front window.

  Neither of them moved for a moment. Then Leda got up to see if he’d killed anyone. Looking down, she saw a hole in the front first-level awning. But no one was lying on the sidewalk, traffic was not at a standstill, the chess players were still playing in the park.

  She moved away from the window and mastered the impulse to go down in the elevator and rescue her book. “No, no,” she said, as much to herself as to him. “You’ve driven me to nothing. I’ve loved you of my own volition. I’ve never loved anyone but you. I never will love anyone but you.” And she burst into tears, because she feared she was telling the truth.

  “Shhh,” he said. “I’m a selfish old man. Kept you locked up. Made you sneak around, when of course you have every right.”

  He was shuffling around the apartment, looking at what he knew by heart—his drawings of her naked on the walls, two collages of hers, on the table a blue faience hippopotamus she’d bought at the Metropolitan Museum, the peach-striped bedspread they’d purchased together—as though he’d never seen them before and would never see them again.

  He walked out the door, one hand tracing the doorknob. “I’ve wasted your time, your precious time.”

  “No, no,” she cried in the hallway. “You’ve made my time precious, made my life precious,” she yelled at the closing elevator doors. Although the elevator was descending, and had now reached the fifth floor, the fourth—she watched the numbers light up and then darken—she shouted, “I revere you!” Alone in the hall she leaned against the elevator and wept.

  He called the next morning. “I ask your forgiveness for my histrionics, to say the least.”

  “Where are you? Come here, let me give you a cup of tea, a glass of water.”

  “I need to get hold of myself,” he said.

  “I’ll be faithful. Please. No one else matters to me.”

  “You mustn’t be faithful,” he said. “I need you to be faithful. I’ve done you a grave injustice.”

  “I love you,” she said.

  “I love you, too,” he groaned. “I thought I was enough for you. What an egotist I am! You deserve a husband, children, a life.”

  “Oh, don’t be so conventional, I deserve you,” she said. “Why can’t we just go back to the way things were?”

  “Impossible.” After a long pause he said, “I’ll be in touch, but not for a while.”

  She left a number of impassioned letters at his studio without getting any response, and one terse practical note: “I’m only twenty-three. I’ve got plenty of time for babies.”

  He mailed her a New Yorker cartoon of a scuba diver retreating from a beseeching mermaid at the bottom of the ocean. “Of course I love you,” the caption read, “but I’m running out of air.”

  Two months later he sent a postcard from a show of his in Williamstown, Massachusetts. “My host here is a poet, sensitive gray eyes, an even-featured, gentle man. Really a lovely person. If he hadn’t been married, I’d have brought him home for you.”

  She didn’t believe him for a minute.

  A month later he telephoned to discuss her future. Could he help her get into graduate school, not that she needed help. What were her plans? Was she short of money?

  She thanked him, but she wasn’t interested in graduate school. She wanted to see him. “Don’t ease your guilt by offering me money. You’re insanely jealous. I promise I won’t do it again. Just come over here!”

  Instead he sent her a book, note enclosed. “Read Chekhov’s ‘The Lady with the Pet Dog.’ It’s about what begins as a vacation dalliance between Gurov and Anna, unhappily married to others. It ends as a passion that dominates their lives. In the last pages Gurov realizes that love is a burden, almost a doom.”

  He sent her another note. “Give the book away. You are a young woman. You are not unhappily married. Go out. Have children. Thrive!”

  She went out but did not, could not, fall in love. “There is only you,” she wrote him, since he refused to see her, afraid of himself. She read about openings of new shows of his, and thought about attending,
dressed all in black, and taking a knife to his canvasses. Once she saw him at MoMA with his retinue of followers. She couldn’t hear what he was saying, but he was laughing and gesticulating. Leda slunk away.

  She developed a strange depression: the world lost its color and texture and shape; people seemed about to evaporate; only noise remained, car horns, sirens, the blast before the building falls. She came down with sinusitis and then a low-grade intractable diarrhea, so that she was literally weeping out all her openings: she had turned into a husk, a pod, and wouldn’t have minded blowing away.

  And then in the end Murray accommodated her, freed her, she told herself, although she knew it was bullshit. His wife called Leda early one morning, before it was on television and in all the papers. The previous night, at age fifty-three, at a dinner party at his apartment, Murray stood up to toast a Rothko painting in the living room and collapsed back into his chair dead.

  AT THE HAPPY ISLES

  “Push me,” Gussie Fernmann Klein tells her daughter, Marilyn, who has been pushing her in her wheelchair from her second-floor apartment into the elevator and is now pushing her through the ground-floor lobby toward the dining room. It is noon, time for lunch. Some of Gussie’s fellow residents at the assisted-living home are assembled in the lobby, where a gas fire burns in the fireplace. Marilyn assumes they eat second lunch at one thirty. The residents are mostly un-made-up and gray haired, although a couple of women have thin bright-dyed hair teased out into bouffant hairdos, through which you can see scalp. Gussie’s hair is blond with gray roots, in curls that she tightens down every night with bobby pins. She wears green eye shadow and a gay red lipstick, some of which she has rubbed onto her cheeks. Around her neck is a shiny gold necklace, to set off her powder-blue polyester pantsuit. “Push me faster. Take me to the dining room.”