by Warren Adler
He supposed he could have mounted an intensive search for his old school chums. Then what? If they had stayed all their lives in New York, he would seem to them like an outsider, dredging up memories that would not have the importance to them as it did for him. After all, they hadn’t lost their world.
Mustering his courage, he did visit the old luncheonette. He sat at the Formica counter which might have been the same one, ordered a cup of coffee and a tuna sandwich, and watched the skilled Hispanic short-order cook deftly do his job. Faster than I was, he thought, although the food quality seemed to have deteriorated. The tuna looked watered down with far too much mayonnaise, and the bread seemed thinner.
Behind the counter, the battery of new-fangled machines had replaced the old ones, and various owners had added a bank of pinkish, plastic-covered booths to the seating area. The old oily smell remained, prevailed in fact, a powerful, emotionally charged jog to memory.
The visit triggered a mild hysteria complete with tears. Without finishing his sandwich and coffee, he overpaid the check and quickly retreated to the street. His early hatred of the place seemed inexplicable now to his older self. Veneration ruled his memory as he discovered how profoundly he missed that old life with his loving, hardworking, and sacrificing parents.
Such evocative recall had a rejuvenating effect on him. Investigating his past gave him a sense of purpose, a mission.
He began to intensely observe the people who passed him on the street. At times, there was a flash of recognition, an expression, a voice, some remembered characteristic that awakened his memory, then quickly retreated into doubt. The aging process, he decided, was too efficient at recasting once-familiar images. His face, too, had certainly changed in forty-odd years. A casual glance was hardly sufficient to register a positive identification. Time and study was needed for such confirmation.
One warm day in late June, he was confronted suddenly with a powerful twinge of recognition. He had been walking uptown on Broadway, having just exited the Barnes & Noble bookstore on 66th Street. The woman’s face he had spotted in a brief peripheral glance did not register until a minute or so after he had passed her by.
Could it be? There was something so compelling in the recognition that he could not allow himself to ignore it.
He quickly retraced his steps to the exact spot where he had encountered the woman. His heart had begun to pound like a bass drum. Sweat rolled down the sides of his chest. Was she the Vera Vasis of his youth?
The delay in his reaction left him at a loss as to which way she had gone. Her face, confirmed by the quick memory snapshot, had been narrow with high cheekbones, her lips full, teeth uncommonly white, eyes dark, hair long, black, shiny, curled. Was there a shallow cleft in her chin? But there was more than just the visual aspect. He could, he imagined, smell her scent. Wasn’t there, after all, an olfactory element to memory?
He couldn’t be dead certain, but he had the sense that she had briefly glanced his way, offered a puzzled look, then passed on. Was it a look of recognition or the indifferent glance of disinterested engagement?
He stayed for a moment at the exact spot of their “encounter,” moving swiftly through the crowds ahead of him. Then he doubled back, looked in every store along the way and searched the diners at two sidewalk restaurants, which lined the path of her probable movement.
For at least an hour he went up and down the street where he had imagined seeing her. That had been in the late afternoon. The streets had darkened. Still he looked in the faces of the people who passed by, again searching those in the nearby restaurants and in the stores. Anyone observing him might think he had lost his mind.
In fact, he was beginning to lose faith in his observation. Perhaps it was a mirage, that faux image that comes from a wish, not a reality. He was concentrating too much on his past. How was it possible to recognize someone who was little more than a child a half century ago.
Yet, forcing it out of his mind proved impossible. Back at his apartment, James could not stop thinking about this vague encounter. Was that brief glance of apparent disinterest actually a flash of recognition on her part, a face recognized by the eye, without the mind knowing it or visa versa?
Nevertheless, he was in thrall to the idea, and the next day he planted himself at a sidewalk restaurant table that gave him a clear view of that spot on the street where he encountered her. He tipped the waiter with a twenty-dollar bill to let him sit there and nurse a cup of coffee for most of the afternoon and early evening.
In the end, he felt foolish, although he spent much of his time conjuring up opening gambits, but rejected most of them. What could transpire between them after he asked the basic question: “Are you Vera Vasis?”
Would he have to endure a long tale of the ups and downs of a banal life and a catalogue of her children and grandchildren and their imagined uniqueness complete with photographs? On the other hand, could he expect a rush of regrets for not seizing the moment and continuing their relationship into eventual wedded bliss? And what of him? Aside from some modest financial security, had he made a life that inspired pride? The reason for their breakup was always on the edge of his memory, although it defied recall.
He continued at his observation post for the next few days, slightly embarrassed by this sudden obsession. Then he saw her, the woman he had seen a few days ago. He contemplated her for a moment. Was she or wasn’t she? Her identity was too vague for certainty. She moved swiftly through the oncoming crowds walking uptown from the direction of Columbus Circle.
Watching her coming in his direction, he saw enough old markers to spark his interest. Or was it his imagination playing memory tricks? The shiny, black, curly hair showed now as gray and the alabaster skin had lost its porcelain sheen. The narrow face had widened and softened. She wore a longish dark skirt and a beige shirtwaist and her heels were medium on plain black shoes. Yet her profile had the outline of familiarity.
When she moved within a few feet of him, he felt his pulse quicken and beads of sweat roll down his sides. He got up from the table and moved behind her, keeping an appropriate distance, still unsure and unwilling to approach her directly.
He continued to follow her. She moved uptown for a few blocks, then crossed 79th Street, moving toward West End Avenue. She continued in the direction of the river where she entered a large apartment house on Riverside Drive. After a brief interval, he entered the lobby. The building, long past its glory days, had a doorman and a desk in the lobby. There appeared to be no posted list of tenants.
“May I help you?” the man behind the desk asked.
James hesitated, then blundered the only name that surfaced in his mind.
“Vasis.”
The man behind the desk looked at him, perplexed.
“Nobody here by that name. You must have the wrong place.”
He feigned confusion, nodded apologetically, then moved out of the building. He felt foolish. Vasis would be her maiden name. Surely, she would have married.
It was somewhat of a victory, he decided. He did, after all, find out where she lived. Wasn’t that progress? To what end, he wasn’t sure, although he did harbor a quaint idea that she might be a widow herself with a yen to explore the memories of her youth. Perhaps, like him, she, too, could be looking for a point of reference to revisit her past.
Excited by the idea, he went back to his apartment in a state of euphoria, impatient to return to his investigation first thing in the morning. He had accomplished enough for one day. The idea that he was close to connecting with this piece of his early history sparked his mind to dig deeper into his past. Then the memories, like a Polaroid, slowly began to emerge and the old feelings returned. He loved her. They were inseparable. Then why had they broken up?
He was up early in the morning and headed immediately to her apartment house on Riverside Drive, posting himself on a bench that lined the strip now known as Riverside Park. It afforded a good view of the entrance to her apartment house. Expecti
ng a long stay, he brought with him a danish, coffee, and a copy of the New York Times. There was, after all, a minimum comfort level to his investigation.
Interrupting his reading sporadically, he would glance upward to be certain he did not miss any activity in front of the apartment house. He felt no sense of impatience or anxiety in the process, relishing the mission, hopeful that he had guessed correctly, although he hadn’t yet come to any conclusions about the icebreaking introduction.
About two hours into his surveillance he spotted her. She moved with her usual alacrity eastward, away from the river and into the more crowded areas of Columbus Avenue. Again, he followed her at a safe distance as she crossed Columbus Avenue, moved to Broadway, turned south, and headed in the direction of Columbus Circle.
By then, James had determined that her carriage and gait were indeed similar to his memory of Vera Vasis but he couldn’t make it to certainty. Keeping up with her at a distance, he followed her into the Hearst Building on Seventh Avenue where, gathering courage, he followed her into the elevator. Naturally, he avoided all eye contact, but standing closely near her in the elevator, he was able to observe her with greater detail, although from the rear.
Her hair, although gray, seemed to have the same texture and curl of her memory image. She was thin as the young Vera had been, with narrow shoulders, but an erect posture that emphasized her height. The elevator moved slowly, stopping frequently to discharge passengers. When the door opened on the 18th floor she got out with three other people. In a split second decision, he intruded his hand on the closing door and it opened again.
She was just turning the corner of the floor when he followed, noting that she had gone into a door marked “Production.” Well now, he thought, he now knew where she worked. He was proud of his progress. He proceeded down the elevator and headed to the sidewalk café where he had spent long hours searching the crowd for a glimpse of her.
He could assume her weekday schedule now. She would pass the café where he had posted himself about four in the afternoon, the implication being that she worked from ten to three, then headed back to her apartment. Pleased by these perceived revelations he allowed himself more questions about her life. Was she living with her husband in the Riverside Drive apartment? Did she have children?
His mind seemed to slip back and forth between memory and contemporary deduction. There was a sense that what his memory dredged up about their encounter years ago was a kind of foreshadowing of what destiny had in store for him in later life. Was she, despite the happy years with Sally, the true love of his life? James dwelled on that idea, surprised at the romantic notions that surfaced in his mind.
This concentration on recalling the time when he loved Vera Vasis began to expand exponentially in his mind. Apparently it had exercised a powerful hold on his emotions. He remembered, above all, being jealous, not just mildly jealous, but painfully, obsessively, perhaps insanely jealous. The recall was palpable, bringing with it the familiar sensation of hurt. Was it a trick of memory? Had he been tortured by the idea that Vera might be attracted to other boys? And, if so, was it possible to feel such anxiety after five decades?
The sense of blind, raging jealousy returned to haunt him. Then, as his memory recorded it in retrospect, it had become so powerful that it soon dominated their relationship. Had they argued, he accusing, she protesting? Was it all coming back now, the fierce possessiveness of his love for her, the craziness of his jealousy? Had arguments always ended in profusions of apologies and pronouncements of eternal love? Had he written her passionate notes pledging himself to her forever?
“I cannot live without you,” seemed a mantra in his memory. “You are my whole world.”
Perhaps the reason for their adolescent breakup had been his smothering attention. Words returned. He imagined . . . or did he really remember long, tearful confrontations as they sat on the darkened stairs of her parents’ apartment building.
“I can’t live like this anymore. I can’t. You’re making me crazy,” her teenage voice hurtled through the mists of time.
“I love you. I can’t help myself.”
“And I love you, too. But your jealousy is killing me.”
He might have cajoled. She must have pleaded, but again and again he apparently could not control himself and finally, in a monumental scene that seemed to go on until dawn, she told him she did not want to be his girlfriend anymore.
The rejection most certainly must have been a challenge to his pride and his manhood. It cut deep, a Greek thing. Nor did it end there. He must have spied on her, followed her doggedly, like now.
Anger and jealousy consumed him, he supposed. Surely, he been too worked up to sleep, had become listless and depressed. Did he become morose and unfocused as well? There had to be a denouement to all this angst and pain, and that was the part that came back to him with fury, like a dam breaking.
One night he had followed her. She was with her new boyfriend. He saw them enter her parents’ apartment building. Pacing the street, inflamed with jealousy, consumed with anger, he tried, unsuccessfully, to repress his rage.
Soundlessly, he slipped into the entrance and padded up to the landing that had been their old trysting place. He had no idea what he intended. Then he saw them. He remembered with horror how his gut had congealed at the sight. He had blinked his eyes, hoping the image would disappear. It didn’t. Vera Vasis was pinioned against the wall of the landing, spread eagled, as her new boyfriend pumped away inside of her.
They were too absorbed in what they were doing and didn’t see him approach until it was too late. He lashed out with his fists, striking the boy in the back of his neck. The boy crumpled to the floor and James kicked him in the ribs with all the strength he could muster. Vera looked at him in horror. Their eyes locked. She did not scream, said nothing, and dropped to the floor beside the boy who writhed in pain. He too did not cry out, perhaps fearing discovery.
For a moment, he watched them, felt no remorse, not then. Had he felt victorious? Manly? He would never know. Both the boy and Vera stayed out of school for a week or so, and when they returned not a word was spoken between them ever again. It was as if the incident had never happened.
So he had tucked this away in memory all those years, isolating it, fencing it off, never recalling it until this moment. After a brief flurry of remembered fury, he calmed. Then it was gone. High school ended and he went on to other entanglements, but never with the angst and passion of his experience with Vera Vasis.
He began to follow the woman with some regularity, starting early, routinely placing himself on the bench on Riverside Drive. She was always punctual and would move swiftly along the streets until reaching her destination at the Hearst Building. As he followed her, he studied her gait, her posture, her bearing, but always postponing the confrontation, telling himself that he required one more review, one more look, one more assurance.
He speculated, given that the Greek immigrant milieu of his youth was centered on ethnicity, that she might have married a Greek boy. To this end, he perused a cross-indexed directory found in the New York Public Library. At the address of the apartment building, he found only one Greek name, Nevius. Back in his apartment, after an agonizing debate with himself, he called the number. A woman’s voice responded, but he had not found the courage to engage her. Had the voice sounded like Vera Vasis? He could not be certain. Even voices aged, he supposed.
But when he called the production house the next day asking for Mrs. Nevius, they had no knowledge of her. Thinking quickly he asked for Ms. Vasis. Women often used their maiden name in the workplace. Neither name rang a bell to the receptionist who answered.
Day after day, he followed the woman, always on the verge of confrontation but never quite finding the courage to accost her. He wasn’t certain what he feared more, disappointment or positive identification. His life took on a routine. He watched, waited and followed, never losing patience. It had become an occupation.
On weekends, he sat on the bench in Riverside Park, across from her apartment. When she emerged, he followed. After a month had passed, James’s life became totally dominated by this search for the truth of her identity. It took on a mythical aspect. Was he waiting for some sign? He no longer took long walks, except to follow the woman, and he eschewed lectures, movies, or those other amusements that had taken up his time when he had first come back to New York. Nor did he visit his children and grandchildren on the weekends. Usually he called, making some excuse or other, discovering in their tone that they seemed relieved.
He told himself that he needed to overcome his reluctance and eliminate his nagging fear of either a negative or unwelcoming reaction. His waking thoughts had become a mental search for a precise recall of the events of his relationship with Vera Vasis more than a half century ago.
When he was not in conscious recall mode, he dreamed these events, the reality of it so compelling, that even in that state, he felt he was “there.” Every sense was tuned in. He had gone back in time. There was something miraculous in it. Perhaps, he realized, he did not confront her because he did not want the curtain to go down in what had become the movie in his mind.
One morning, he was sitting at his usual post on what had become “his” park bench in Riverside Park. When he saw her emerge from her building, he rose as usual and prepared to follow. Suddenly, two men rushed out of a car, grabbed him under each arm, and roughly pushed him back to the bench.
“Where are you going, buddy?” one of the men said flashing a badge. He was beefy and bald, his voice rough.
“Going?” James replied, baffled by the question.
“Yeah where?” the other man said. He was younger, his hair slicked back. He took something out of his pocket and began to read. “You have the right . . .” it began, droning on. But James wasn’t listening.
“I don’t understand,” James said.
“We’re taking you in,” the beefy man croaked, lifting him roughly from the bench and beginning to drag him forward in the direction of a waiting car.