The water truly did reek of egg. I sniffed my soaking forearm. Not too bad. I finished quickly, toweled off, stood there naked for a moment holding my clothes. It passed through my mind that it might be prudent to masturbate. No, that would not do. I did not fly across the Atlantic Ocean for a quick toss-off in a hooker’s bathroom.
I got back into my stale clothes and walked into the living area, and, as I had feared, Sigrid was not there. In here, her voice called out from the bedroom, and now I really had no choice but to go in there, but I did so with my resolve ratcheted up to its highest level and in full possession of my moral senses. Even if she were waiting for me in a naked pose of scientifically calibrated irresistibility, even if experts in the male response had worked out various postures that years of art history and extensive questionnaires had revealed to be universally alluring, I would venture no closer to her than the edge of the bed, though even as I stated this to myself while moving ever closer to the sound of her beckoning voice I knew there was no way I could give myself anything better than an even shot at fulfilling what suddenly seemed an impossibly high standard of behavior.
Sigrid, we have to talk, I began, even before I reached her bedroom. Step by small hesitant step I drew closer. I composed what I would say next, and as I tried to put the words together I struggled to pay attention to myself. My inner voice, however, was muffled; a howl of fear and another of desire drowned the poor thing out. Yet, deaf as I was to myself, I continued to articulate. I don’t mean we have to talk like there’s something I have to tell you; I don’t mean it like that. She might not be completely naked—sex in these situations might be permissible but not obligatory. Surely I cannot be the first man who wanted a bit of chitchat before rutting. Of course, she might be in some condition worse than nudity: she might be in a leather halter; she might be swinging from a harness; she might, for all I knew, have sprouted immense wings and be hovering over the bed like a harpy.
Sigrid was merely sitting on the edge of the bed and she smiled at me the moment I walked into the room. She was a nice person. The walls were bare, painted a dark pumpkin color. There was a round blue rug on the floor. The bed was heavy, mahogany, old-fashioned in its dark, ponderous way. This had to be someone else’s bed, once upon a time. This was a hand-me-down. She probably took it from her parents’ house, a weird little legacy…Feel better? Sigrid asked. Not only did her smile seem genuine, but her voice was intimate, concerned. She really did want me to feel relaxed. Much better, thanks. That shower was a good idea. Good! You want to lie down on my bed. She patted the mattress. I’ll give you a…She squeezed the air with both hands, indicating massage. Okay, I said. I was stunned by my answer, by the quickness with which it came. You put all your clothes on, she said, looking me up and down. Yeah, I did. I was a little chilly. My God, why would a man lie to a hooker? Under what circumstances would I absolutely and without fail tell the plain unvarnished truth? Well, now you may take them off. If I don’t do as she says, she’s going to think I’m a cop. My essay began to compose itself. Sigrid, well-read and stately, had to make a quick decision about me. Her most basic question was was I a cop? Was was? That can’t be right. But how else can it be said? Sigrid snapped her fingers, as if to awaken me from a trance. I blinked myself back to the world we shared, and she patted the bed again, this time more insistently. It seemed wisest to keep things light, and so I pressed my hands together as if I were preparing to swan-dive and then I flung myself onto Sigrid’s mattress. The headboard pounded against the wall. Careful, it’s new paint. She stood up, checked the wall, licked her thumb, and rubbed it over the mark. I remained facedown, with a toreador’s relationship to my thoughts.
It’s good, Sigrid said, and then joined me on the bed. She was on her knees, leaning over my back as she had at the kitchen table. She pressed the whole of her weight down on me and then released, did this a few times, bouncing me up and down. There was no more pleasure in this than there was in having a coat-check girl help you on with your coat. You’d really have to be scrounging for physical contact if you could make do with this, or to take it, as people will, as the beginning of something, an intimation of some further intimacy. Once, ten billion light-years ago, Gene Jankowsky had told me I gotta tell you, man, I was so lonely and needing, you know, the human touch, I almost got a haircut. Up and down, up and down, Sigrid said in her husky voice, and then, just as I was about to lift my weary head and turn toward her, just as I was about to say Thanks, but that’s enough, I really would just rather get my bearings here, Sigrid changed the rules of engagement by suddenly and very, very forcefully grabbing my ass, a hand on either cheek, squeezing away with a kind of eroticized rage. It’s time for the moment of truth, Avery No-name, she said. Well, the moment of truth, I could not quite bring myself to say, is that I am definitely not having sex with you. I did, however, manage to squirm out from under her weight; she was a lot denser than she looked, as if her bones were steel and her blood especially thick, in order to get her through the Arctic winters. I rolled onto my back and looked up at her with what I hoped was an expression of forbidding skepticism, no easy pose to strike, even under ideal circumstances. Come on, Sigrid, whatever happened to The customer is always right? She didn’t appear to be familiar with the phrase or the concept. The customer isn’t always white, she murmured. What I’m trying to tell you here, Sigrid, is that…My God, I could not say it. I wagged my finger back and forth gesturing No no no, hoping that that would suffice, and even if it didn’t, it gave me the little bit of extra courage I needed to finally state my case. I’m here to talk to you, not to have sex. Okay? No sex. I want to get to know you; I just want to talk. She rolled away from me, jammed her hand beneath the waistband of her skirt, and scratched her behind. Cleared her throat, paused, her eyes went flat and lusterless as she surveyed her own internal well-being, and then she cleared her throat again.
What do you want to talk about? What is a nice girl like me doing in bed with a man she does not know? Well, no, I said, I wasn’t going to ask that. Even though that was the question, the exact question, though, perhaps, more felicitously phrased. The one question you were never supposed to ask a prostitute was the only really important question you could ask. I like money, Sigrid said. I like to have money, I very much want the things money can buy. And I don’t like working a regular job. With this, I can have my own hours. You understand, I am one of those people who do not belong. In Iceland, we have a saying, Too smart to be a soldier, and too dumb to be a general. My father said that is the definition of me.
Here’s what I’m curious about. I was seated on the edge of her bed now; I smoothed the wrinkles out of my trousers. Oh! More questions? Haven’t I told you enough? You’re the kind who wants more than just the body. You want the soul, too? This is why I don’t work in an office or for some boss. My thoughts are my own. Of course they are, I almost whispered it, trying to soothe her. I really wasn’t trying to pry. I wondered if she knew that word, but I couldn’t think of another one to take its place. She shoved my shoulder playfully. You can always have a blow job. She pushed her lips out in an exaggerated pucker. She was scrutinizing my face for a reaction, and I hoped I was managing to appear distant and bemused, though I was also aware that a part of me was thinking I guess I’ll go for it. Her fingers walked along the bedspread, leaped up onto my thigh, and then marched in place. I thought, I am not going to smack her hand off me. If she unzips me, goes down on me, then so be it. But now Sigrid’s long ivory fingers were walking in reverse, scuttling down the promontory of my thigh, while she tilted her head to the left and to the right. Welcome to S&M, I thought. She may as well be in black leather. First I put it in my mouth and then I hold your balls. Is that so? I managed to say. Then I give the balls a squeezing. Oh, really? Is that what you’d do? I meant to say it in a teasing way, as if I were one of those people who looked upon desire, sex, and orgasm with a certain amount of world weariness.
There was an urgent knocking at Sigrid’s door, a
ngry and entitled. I leaped from the bed, my heart spitting ice. So it was a setup, after all, I thought. However, Sigrid herself looked more than a little frightened, so if it was a setup she didn’t seem to be in on it. She also looked strangely helpless, as if the largest part of her instinctively submitted to fate. She just didn’t have any fight in her. She clasped her hands together and looked imploringly at me, as if it were up to me to do something. Sigrid? a voice called from beyond the door. It’s Mr. Castle. His voice entered the apartment like smoke. Avery? I just heard from your uncle. He left a message. He needs to talk to you immediately.
10
I DON’T THINK I had ever even said the word minivan before, and now there I was, sitting in the back of one, for the second time that day. The driver was a young Icelander, a boy about twenty, in jeans, a gray turtleneck sweater, and eyeglasses with turquoise plastic frames that might be worn by a librarian in a distant galaxy. His brown hair was a mass of careless swirls, but his expression was funereal, and when I pulled the minivan door open and stepped into the minivan’s warm, leathery-smelling interior, I had the feeling that something terrible had happened. I glanced over my shoulder. Sigrid was three stories up, looking down at me from her kitchen window. She gave me a sad farewell wave, as if we knew each other. And then I saw Castle and Gabrielle, both of them waiting for me inside the minivan. Has something terrible happened? I asked them, closing the door behind me. They were sitting in the third row; I sat in the second.
It didn’t sound that bad, Castle said. But I told him I’d give you the message. The kind of person I am, if I don’t do it right away, it doesn’t get done. Gabrielle was writing figures in a notebook, frowning. She looked at me through the tops of her eyes. I tell him, Lincoln, it can wait. She made a breathy, dismissive noise. Then, turning toward her husband, she said You are going to end up in a clinic, with tubes running in and out of you, and a heart machine. Castle smiled indulgently. I am going to outlive you, my dear. I am going to outlive everyone. Gabrielle’s eyebrows shot up, her eyes opened wider. You want me to tell you what you are going to do? You are going to lose fifteen kilos, okay? To me, you are a beautiful man, but you cannot carry this extra weight around because it is killing you.
Gabrielle’s worry over Castle keeling over made me think that something had happened to Ezra and they were choosing not to tell me yet. I sat quietly, with my hands folded in my lap, and watched Reykjavik roll past my window. We passed a small park. A couple were holding hands, looking at a small kidney-shaped lake, as if they were waiting for ducks to feed, but there were no ducks. A massive gray church steeple loomed in the distance, carving out an inverted V against the steel gray sky. I was sorely in need of sleep, and in my exhausted state I had no defense against anxiety. What would I ever do without Ezra? He’s all right, isn’t he? I asked Castle. Ezra? Castle said. His eyes were shut, and he was leaning his head against Gabrielle’s shoulder, while she continued with her sums. Oh, don’t worry about Ezra, he said. He’ll bury us all. Liar! I thought.
We pulled in front of the hotel. Castle had told me to check my e-mail for a message from Ezra, and I walked quickly through the lobby, to the business center, a little glassed-off section near the elevators, where there were three computers for guests’ use. (On my way across the lobby, I noticed Tony Dinato, sitting in a club chair, writing postcards.) No one was using any of the computers, but even so I had to go through a lengthy and, in my state, practically intolerable sign-in procedure with the hotel employee whose job it was to log guests on and off the Internet.
I had been hoping to go through the tour without making any contact with the outside world. I thought it would be easier that way. I was never much for e-mail anyhow; days often passed without my receiving anything in my online mailbox except for advertisements for pain relief, penis enhancement, cheap mortgages, and computer virus protection. Today, however, there were several messages, from my agent, my new editor, Deirdre, and the real estate agency, too. But I went first to Ezra’s.
Kiddo! Heard from your mother. Never more beautiful, I’ll give her that. She came all this way without even calling you first, as best I can gather. Pretty nutso, if you ask me. With this type of person you’re dealing with extreme unreliability. I told her, Naomi, you’ve got the body of a young girl; that doesn’t mean you’ve got to have the mind that goes with it. I don’t know what she’s going to do next. In the meanwhile, I hope you are splendid. I guess it won’t come as much of a surprise, but I love the hell out of you.
I sent an immediate reply.
Dear Uncle Ezra,
I don’t know what she’s up to. She told me she hated my piece in Esquire and she said she was going to give me hell for it. Where is she now? The most important thing is for her NOT to know what I am—ha ha—doing.
P.S. Your friend Castle might be the devil. As far as I can see, he doesn’t cast a reflection!! Which makes this like The Twilight Zone, with free sex!
Love, Avery
My hands were shaking, and now that I was close to my (as yet unseen) hotel room, the lure of sleep was powerful, but I could not leave without seeing what Deirdre had written to me. It might have been that knock on the head I suffered on Fifty-sixth Street, but I still somehow believed Deirdre could make everything that had happened between us in the past month disappear.
Hi, Avery—are you there yet? If you are, I’ll bet you’ll be checking your e-mail. You love e-mail and you always need to know if someone out there is thinking of you. (LOL) Anyhow, I wanted to make sure you had something to read—
How dare she assume that I, not twenty-four hours into the trip, would be nervously tapping into the Internet to see if anyone was looking for me. Deirdre’s view of me was always a little too bemused for my taste. I found her tone so offensive, my most powerful impulse was to delete to message and then, before I could reconsider, it was done in a keystroke.
There was an e-mail from Resnick and Driscoll, the real estate company Isabelle Rosenberg worked at, and when I clicked it open the note was from her. I was awfully glad to hear from her, though I had to admit to myself that my sense of anticipation upon finding word from her did not match the rush of feeling I experienced when I saw that Deirdre had written, a burst of longing that, even as it passed and disappeared, still left behind a detritus of lust and fury, all the debris of love without the love itself, like a comet will leave traces of the galactic garbage that comprises its fiery tail.
Hi, Avery—Just to let you know that I’ve asked everyone in the office to stop showing the Perry Street apartment. A colleague wanted to show it to a prequalified buyer, and I said in front of the whole office You can’t! That’s Avery’s apartment! You should have seen the looks on their faces. They don’t seem to get it. When we Israeli-Colombian girls see what we want, it’s best to get out of our way! Anyhow, I hope you’re having a nice trip. You never exactly told to me where you’re off to, but I hope you travel safely and have fun. Make sure and call me as soon as you get back so we can get this apartment settled. I can already see you sitting in that beautiful front room, with all that original molding and northern light.
Isabelle.
I clicked on Reply so I could send a message back to Isabelle, though normally I would have spent some time contemplating what to say.
Dear Isabelle,
What a treat to hear from you. Yes, by all means reserve the petite manse of Perry for me—
I was vaguely aware that that petite manse business was a little forced and just maybe a little crazy, too…
By the time I’m back, the money will be in place. Then—
I paused for a moment; my fingers hovered over the keys, but they were still moving, as if anxious to get on with their work. I lowered them back into place.
I can have my new apartment, which will be a perfect place to celebrate your handsome commission. I’m thinking salad of hearts of palm and avocado, Chablis, a loaf of Italian bread from Zitos. (Yr not on one of those low-carb diets, are you?
You BETTER not be. Don’t change a hair for me, not if you care for me, Stay little valentine stay…)
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