“The room behind the garage. It’ll be perfect. Don’t you agree?” She nodded slowly.
“I feel like soaking in a hot bath. Will you come up in a while and wash my back?”
“Sure,” I said. I watched her walk away. Since the abortion, we hadn’t done anything as intimate as that. I sat there in that empty living room for about fifteen minutes before I got up to go upstairs. It was very lonely. I couldn’t wait to get Pin over.
When I opened the door to the bathroom, I found Ursula sitting in the tub with her eyes closed. I walked over and looked down at her. Some foam from the suds had settled around the nipples of her breasts. She opened her eyes and looked up at me. She smiled and I knelt down to lift the warm washcloth out of the water. She sat up and leaned forward so I could rub her back. I waited as she reached back and held her hair away. Then I began, moving the cloth in small circular motions.
“How’s that feel?”
“It feels good, Leon. Real good,” she said. Then she leaned back again. Still kneeling beside the tub, I stared at her. She smiled again. “I’m not afraid anymore,” she added. “Not afraid.”
Chapter 5
EVEN THOUGH OUR UNCLES AND AUNTS CALLED LESS AND less frequently that first year, we sweated it out, expecting at any time for them to go to family court and get an order for Ursula to go live with them. Of course, they never did. Ursula believed it was probably because they really never wanted the responsibility and aggravation involved in acting as guardians. She said we got them off the hook by being so independent. Maybe she was right. Ursula would certainly have made life difficult for whomever she was forced to live with. They knew that.
When Ursula finally did turn eighteen, we had a great celebration. The three of us had a fantastic dinner and drank lots of champagne. Ursula got wiped out and I had to carry her upstairs to put her to sleep. Afterward, Pin and I sat in the living room and talked quietly about her future. She continually refused to go to college. Pin thought I ought to try harder to talk her into it. I did try, but she was determined not to go. Finally she settled on the job at the library. I think she first did it just so we would stop bothering her about her future, but after a while, she got to like the job a lot. It paid little, but she didn’t really need the money anyway. I guess it was a good way for her to occupy her day. She used to come home and tell us all about the people who came in and what books they requested.
“I like the whole atmosphere of quiet in there,” she would say. “The serenity, the peacefulness of the place. It’s very relaxing.”
The library really didn’t have that many books in it and there weren’t that many people using it. Some kind of government funds supported it, I think. Ursula worked with an old lady, a Miss Spartacus, who lived with her sister. Ursula said Miss Spartacus was at least seventy-three years old. She had been with the library as far back as anyone could remember. In fact, she had become a librarian right out of high school. I used to kid her about that and tell her someday she’d be another Miss Spartacus. The old lady was a short woman with very thin hair. Ursula said she was close to being bald. Her nose and eyebrows twitched from a nervous condition. When I wanted to get a reaction out of Ursula, I would tell her to stop twitching her nose.
“Miss Spartacus has little gray hairs all over her face,” Ursula told me. “She could shave in the morning.”
“That’s not really unusual for old women,” Pin said.
Ursula said that Miss Spartacus went to the reserved book racks to eat lunch every day. She said she nibbled on her food like a squirrel.
“She even holds it like a squirrel. All she eats is nuts and fruits.”
“You’ll have to invite her to dinner one night,” Pin said. I laughed.
Actually, we invited very few people to our house. Aside from an occasional salesman and some kids selling cookies or magazines, people rarely came to our door. The first year after mother and father died, I used to have kids over on weekends, but gradually they stopped coming and I stopped asking them. Ursula withdrew completely. I don’t know how she finished her last year in high school. She was absent so much. I once asked Pin if he minded our lack of company.
“I suppose you were used to something entirely different over there in father’s office. There were people coming and going all day long.”
“It’s a change, but it’s not a bad change. I’ve grown to like our privacy,” he said. “Besides, the only people who came over there were people with troubles of one sort or another. The more people you know, the more trouble you learn about.”
I think he meant it, although sometimes I wondered if he wasn’t just saying it for my benefit. He was right about people bringing their troubles, though. One afternoon, not long after the funeral, I brought Marcia Matterson home with me. Ursula was still in school and I thought it was a good opportunity to get a piece of what Marcia was so charitably giving out. The doctor had told us about nymphomaniacs, but I couldn’t imagine one until I met Marcia. She had absolutely no concern about whom she was with or how often she was with someone. Although she was heavy in the hips, she had a reasonably attractive face and very big breasts—enormous ones, in fact. I had a secret desire to weigh one, betting with myself that they weighed at least ten pounds apiece. I gave her a highball, although it really wasn’t necessary to pump her full of booze first. She was quite prepared to hop right into bed with me.
Pin was sitting in the corner of the living room in the shadows. He liked sitting in the shadows because he said it put him in a pensive mood. Sometimes I would sit in the opposite corner in the shadows and think too. I didn’t introduce Marcia to him when we first came in. I really didn’t think he wanted to meet her anyhow. Pin was really a little prudish when I think about it. He could also be very bashful and clam right up. That would get very embarrassing and uncomfortable for all present.
So Marcia and I went upstairs to my room. She drank her drink very quickly and we embraced on my bed. We were fully clothed and for the first ten or fifteen minutes, I just squeezed her breasts and kissed her neck. I really wasn’t convinced myself that I was going to have intercourse. (I really wanted to say screw or fuck, but the doctor’s influence lasted long after his death.) In any case, though, she was positive about what she wanted. She grew very impatient with me and undressed herself. I sat there watching her struggle to get that sweater over her head. Her breasts, freed of the bra, fell with relief onto her. I leaned forward and gently lifted one with the palm of my right hand. I bounced it softly, as if weighing it. She smiled and moaned and pursed her lips.
Somehow she turned me off. I don’t really know why I suddenly felt that way. Perhaps I was just turned off by her gross body. For the first time, I noticed that there were little dark hairs growing over her lower lip. That bothered me, I know. She unzipped her skirt and then looked at me in anticipation. I was just sitting there, staring blankly at her naked bosom.
“Well?”
“Shh,” I said. “I think I heard Pin.”
“Who?”
“Pin. He’s downstairs. He didn’t see us come in.”
“Who’s Pin?”
“He lives with us. Shh.” She sat there, completely quiet, with this most serious and at the same time puzzled expression on her face. After a few more moments, she spoke.
“I don’t hear anything.”
“I did.”
“So what? Go lock your door.”
“I don’t have a lock on it.”
“Well, he wouldn’t just walk in on you, would he?”
“He has in the past,” I lied. She was getting very impatient and very angry now. She crossed her arms over her bosom as if she had just realized she was naked.
“Look,” she said, “are you going to or aren’t you?”
“I think not,” I said. “Thanks anyway,” I added. She was dumbfounded. Her mouth dropped and she gave me a look of amazement.
“What the fuck …”
“I’m sorry, but I really do appreciate yo
ur coming over. Really, I do.”
“What are you, nuts or somethin’ …?”
“I’ll let you get dressed now,” I said, and I got up and walked out of the room and down to the living room.
“Who’s upstairs, Leon?” Pin asked.
“Some slut. I know what you’re going to say, but you don’t have to say it. I changed my mind about her. We didn’t do a thing.”
“Getting sensible in your old age, huh?”
“Yeah. Who the hell knows what she’s got by now? Everybody’s been putting it to her.”
“I’m glad you thought of that. I’d hate to have to give you penicillin shots.”
“I know what you mean,” I said. Just then, Marcia appeared, fully dressed again.
“Who are you talking to?”
“Pin.”
“Who?” She struggled to see into the shadows. He was really back in the corner. “Why don’t you put on a light in here?”
“He likes it this way,” I said. She stepped a little closer.
I suppose Pin’s appearance could be a bit frightening to someone who first saw him. He sat so stiffly in his chair and stared so directly ahead of him. We had given Pin some of father’s best suits to wear. He was dressed in a nice tweed at the time. Marcia took a few more steps into the living room. The little light coming in from the windows threw a glow over Pin’s face. When that happened, he became sort of transparent to someone first seeing him. Of course, Ursula and I were always used to it, but someone first seeing him would be attracted by that transparency. He would see right into Pin’s head, right through the skull, see the nasal passages, the teeth and gums, the inner ears, the nerves of the eyes leading to the brain. Oh, yes, he would see the brain.
Anyhow, Marcia’s reaction was typical. She gasped, put her fist into her mouth, turned and ran out of the room. When she got to the front door, she turned around again and gave me the funniest look, a mixture of shock and pity. Then she rushed out and slammed the door behind her. I had to laugh. The nerve of her, a pitiful creature like that, giving me a look of pity.
“Not a very emotionally stable young lady,” Pin said.
“To say the least. She’s a regular nympho,” I added and walked up to him to pull him and his chair out of the shadows. “Sorry about the way she reacted. I was about to introduce you to her.”
“No loss as far as I can see.”
“I know. I guess I was just a little curious. I won’t be doing that again.”
“Maybe you should get out more, though, mix with people your own age.”
“Naw, I’ll be all right. Really. It was just a whim. It’s OK,” I said. Then Ursula came home. I didn’t mention Marcia. As far as I was concerned, the whole affair had ended.
So I guess it’s pretty safe to say we lived cloistered lives for a long time after the death of my mother and father. A lot of boys wanted to go out with Ursula, but she didn’t have the interest. I had a few dates now and then, but a great deal of my time was taken up running the house and father’s investments. Once a week I would go to see Mr. Orseck and go over the finances. We were doing very, very well, and I had him send a copy of our assets to Uncle Hymie just to prove to him that I could handle things better than he could. I guess he didn’t like knowing that, because he never responded.
From time to time Ursula and I would go out to a movie or take a long drive on a weekend afternoon. Once we even took Pin to the drive-in theater in Rock Hill, but he didn’t enjoy sitting in the car. As a rule, he didn’t enjoy riding in the car either. The three of us watched a lot of television, always discussing the programs at length. And I had my epic poem to work on. I wanted to do something modern, look for up-to-date dragons and monsters. The fear of the darkness was always the same throughout time, as far as I could see. Sometimes, I would look out of my window or the window of the living room and stare up at the night sky. There were no streetlights near our home. We were too far from the village. The darkness was deep and thick. At times like that, I could imagine the house to be a cave. I would write my best lines. When I read them to Pin, he knew immediately what I had been doing.
“You were thinking at the window again, huh?”
“Yes. I could feel Them out there, waiting for us to venture into Their darkness.”
“You didn’t see anything? I mean, actually?”
“No, not exactly. But it’s just that setting, that unseen danger, that looms and affects my hero. He senses a mystical depth, an emptiness, and it all helps to form his personality, make him the man he is in the poem. He goes forward to face the challenge that They put forth.”
“I see. Interesting,” he said.
Ursula was always frightened by my talk of Them, the unknown monsters and dragons in our modern world. Or at least she liked to pretend she was frightened like a little girl and curl up in bed under the covers and sob in the dark. Sometimes, after I read a passage or two of my poem that dealt with the darkness without, she’d run upstairs and do it. Pin had more patience with her at these times than I did.
“Ursula is a very sensitive and emotionally wounded person,” he’d say. He knew how annoyed I got.
“But why does she have to go through this stupid charade all the time? It’s just an attention-getter, that’s all it is. I know it and she knows I know it.”
“Nevertheless, Leon, you’re the only one who can presently give her the affection she needs. You’ve got to humor her, play along.”
“But just when I’m getting to a good part in my poem, just when I think I’ve hit some effective metaphors …”
“There’ll be time for that. Go up to her.”
“Aw, shit.”
“You want me to go up to her?” he’d ask. I’d laugh at that.
“OK, OK, I’m going. I’m going. But don’t go to sleep. I’ll be back.”
“It’s all right. I’m not a bit tired tonight. I’ll be here wide-awake when you return,” he’d say, and I’d go upstairs to Ursula.
She’d be lying there in the darkness, under the covers in her bed, sobbing softly. I’d tiptoe into her room and stand by her bedside for a while. I knew she knew I was there, but she would just ignore me and continue to sob. So I’d kneel down and begin stroking her hair and whispering.
“It’s all right, Ursula. It’s all right. I’m here. It’s all right.”
She wouldn’t respond. She’d just sob a little softer. In the end, I’d have to crawl in beside her and hold her to me until she would fall asleep. When she did, I’d get up softly and tiptoe out of the room and go back down to Pin. He was there, waiting, but it was no good because I was usually too tired from putting Ursula to sleep.
“I’ll just have a drink with you. I’ll read some more some other night.”
“Whatever.”
“Do you think Ursula’s getting worse?”
“Worse? In what sense, worse?”
“I mean, emotionally weaker instead of stronger and more mature?”
“I don’t think she’s worse. But I don’t think she’s much stronger, either.”
“It wouldn’t take much to shatter her, would it?” I asked. I felt a half smile on my face. It surprised me.
“Why would you want to?”
“I just wondered, that’s all. It wouldn’t take much to send her reeling into insanity.”
“I suppose not. I don’t see why you even want to think about it, though.”
“It’s just a thought that passed through my mind. That’s all.”
“Beware,” he said. “Beware of yourself. There are forces in you, forces you’re not familiar with, forces you may never understand.”
I laughed. Pin could get downright serious and heavy at times. I teased him about it and told him it was father’s influence on him. I didn’t like being made to think deeply about myself like that. There was something frightening about it. When I stepped up to father’s coffin in the funeral parlor that day, I had touched his hand because I had this overwhelming desire to know wh
at it was like to touch someone dead. I fought the desire, but it was stronger than me. He felt like Pin. I never told Pin that because I didn’t want Pin to know he was right—I was at the mercy of forces I couldn’t understand at times. Of course, Ursula saw me do it. She was standing right at my side. I felt her staring. She asked me about it much later on.
We were lying together in the dark. I thought she was asleep. Suddenly she just asked me why I had done it and what it felt like. I told her and she was quiet for a long time afterward. I thought she had fallen asleep. Then I suddenly felt her fingers touch my hand, right below the knuckles. I wasn’t expecting it and I jumped from the surprise and shock. She laughed and I got very mad, but in the end, I laughed too.
We were a lot alike, Ursula and I, remarkably alike. Often we had the same thoughts at the same time. I used to think we could merge and become a new creature: a kind of man-woman who could turn into itself to experience a wild but total ecstasy. I was very satisfied with our relationship and our way of life. It seemed to me that the three of us had a perfect world.
That’s why I resented it so much when she brought Stanley into it.
Chapter 6
THE FIRST TIME URSULA MENTIONED STANLEY Friedman, I knew that it was more than a casual acquaintance. There was a sparkle in her eyes, an excitement in her face that was there only on special occasions, moments of great happiness and satisfaction. She spoke very fast, hardly able to contain the excitement. Her restraint was visible. She waited anxiously for my questions and comments so that she could continue to describe and talk about him. Pin seemed very happy for her. He listened with deliberate great interest. This caused her to direct a lot of what she said toward him.
“There is this boy,” she began, “young man, I should say, who’s been coming to the library every day this past week.”
“Must be quite a reader.”
“He is, he is, but I think he’s also coming to see me.
“What makes you say that?”
“I’ll look up from my work occasionally and always catch him staring at me.”
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