He was crushed, Frank said, when he found out that she had fallen in love with this Eric . . . Gal told me a few things about him, but not a lot. It hurt him too much to talk about it. Let’s see, what was his last name? Rosoff, I think. Yeah, Eric Rosoff. That’s it. He was Jewish and a classmate of Nadia at Juilliard. He was from Boston, very delicate, rather feminine. A pianist. He wore white gloves all the time to protect his sensitive hands. Everyone said he was a genius with a very bright future ahead of him. He was younger than her, must have been twenty. Gal was thirty-seven then, you know? The story of Nadia and the pianist took a jackhammer to Gal’s theories about Nadia and him being meant for each other, or whatever. Till then he had been able to keep the fiction alive. He had written the screenplay, so to speak, for the two of them, and believed in his role—really swallowed it hook, line, and sinker.
Following his own cues, he came to the conclusion that Nadia wasn’t about to change on his account. It was hard, but he learned to accept her as she was. She wouldn’t ever belong to any man. Neither her head nor her heart worked like that. She was fiercely independent, incapable of any kind of commitment, yeah, he used those exact words—but that’s what Gal liked most about her, even though it meant having to give her up. She will never be mine, he admitted, there’s no way around it. It’s been hard, but I’ve finally learned to accept it. In a way, I’m glad it’s like this. I don’t care anymore. He would talk about her as if he understood the inner workings of her character better than she did herself, but the truth was he didn’t know up from down. Those were very confusing days in every sense. It was clear that the real Nadia had little to do with the one invented by Gal, but he wasn’t able to see anything outside his own scripted scenario. For him, it all came down to one thing: in the end, Nadia would always return to him. She needed him—it was that simple. There was some truth to that: at some point she always did go back to him, only it wasn’t for the reasons that he would have wanted. Things just weren’t fated to last eternally, as he would put it. Or, going back to the screenplay simile: the script worked fine up to the middle of the movie, but then it followed its own path. And Gal didn’t see that the hell of it was that he was right about one thing: She would always come looking for him, sooner or later. He was caught in a loop. She would look for him, would show up here, and if he wasn’t around she would wait for him. She slept in his studio, wouldn’t leave his side for days, weeks. Then they would go on a trip and the cycle would repeat itself: Nadia stopped needing him, all of a sudden, and disappeared. And when she wasn’t around he became sullen, disagreeable, hostile. His drinking got out of control. So, yeah, for a long time, the script played out just like that, without much variation. But it was different with the pianist. Once Eric Rossoff came into the picture, the script changed.
Why?
Let’s say that Gal had learned to accept that Nadia would surrender bodily to others, to use his terminology . . . He learned that relatively early. But things got out of hand with the pianist. She fell in love with the guy. That was something Gal hadn’t anticipated. See, according to his script, Nadia was incapable of falling in love. She was above the passions that affect us mere mortals. In Gal’s eyes, that kind of detachment meant that Nadia was a superior being. In his eyes, she was a goddess, and since he was a mortal, he couldn’t aspire to her love. According to this fiction, Nadia would remain a free spirit to her dying day. Well, Eric ruined the story. Nadia had never been the goddess that Gal insisted on worshipping. Gal tried not to see it, but it was hard to sustain the illusion.
When she met this pantywaist, she became unrecognizable: She felt about him exactly the same way Gal felt about her. She even moved in with the guy, something she had always refused to do with Gal, and when he proposed, she married him right away, something else that wasn’t in the script. Nadia was supposed to abhor the very idea of marriage, see? That was another one of Gal’s little homilies: from the beginning, see, Nadia had proclaimed to the four winds her eternal aversion to the institution of marriage. Gal explained it all to me with such gravity he started to seem a bit unhinged. And then one day, naturally: Bam, she got married, just like that. She let him know herself. Gal never got over it. Everything about his relationship with Nadia was a torment to him, her terrible frustration over being sterile—though he didn’t see that it would only have hurt him more if she’d had kids with another man. The only thing about Gal’s fantasy that had any speck of truth to it was his central thesis—though he didn’t see the irony in it, since it seemed to justify all his loyalty, his hope.
What do you mean?
I mean, she really did find it impossible, for some reason, to sever ties with him completely. In her own way, she went on needing him. And even though they stopped seeing each other, she continued to write him. She told him everything, all the intimate details and preoccupations . . . In fact, the first thing she did when she divorced the pianist was write Gal.
When was that?
A little more than a year after they were married. This business with the musician was nothing but a mirage, that’s what Gal thought. Nadia remained true to herself, that’s why the marriage was doomed. You’ll see—she’ll turn up again any day now, he would tell me. And indeed, one day, Nadia showed up at the Oakland. We were all flabbergasted, except for Gal.
That part is in the notebooks.
She came back. I knew it. I knew she would. She came back just like all the other times: because she needs to be true to herself, living, exploring, seeing what the world has in store for her. She’s done what she had to do; she went out into the world, and now has returned to base. She called and asked permission to come to the Oakland to see me. I told her that she didn’t need my permission for anything, that she knew perfectly well she could show up here whenever she wanted to. She came up to my studio right away. She was so beautiful I couldn’t follow what she was telling me; by the time I was able to properly focus on her words, I realized that she was saying something I had heard from her many times already: that she had come back because she needed me, because she felt safe with me, because the world is filled with traps and snares, and she knew that I wouldn’t fail her. I felt slightly dazed. I went back to staring at her, tuning out her words. Then I realized something had changed. The woman who was speaking to me was not the Nadia I had known. I understood that there was a huge gap between what she was saying and what I heard. I asked her not to say such things . . . Now it was me who couldn’t accept certain words. The purity and authenticity that she was talking about didn’t exist, they were a reflection of her anxiety about finding them, and since she couldn’t, she attributed those qualities to me. I told her that what she was saying made no sense. I asked her to tell me about her, and as she did I saw clearly what couldn’t be pieced together. She hasn’t returned for me. She needs me, but not as I’d like her to. She’s come back because she got hurt. I let her talk, waiting for her to calm down, and then I said it . . . I asked her to go, to leave me alone, to get on with her life. She looked at me for a moment, turned around, then said: So long, Gal. And I closed my eyes, grateful.
I was shocked to see her back at the bar, Frank said. She seemed pretty shaken up herself. I asked her about Gal, and she simply said that he was fine. I walked her to the door and when we said good-bye I got up the courage to ask her why she was leaving when she had just arrived. I didn’t know her well enough to ask her that sort of thing, but she didn’t take it the wrong way. Very calmly, she responded that it wasn’t her choice, that Gal had asked her to leave. The funny thing is, he wrote this bit out of the story pretty quickly—it wasn’t the way he chose to remember that day. But that’s the truth: He asked her to leave forever, to never come back or write to him again. And Nadia complied. She abided by his wishes, except of course, for the letters. He’d begged her to stop, but she continued to write him.
Until when?
Until ’86. Haphazardly, I mean. At first, she tried to comply with Gal’s wishes, I think. There was
a relatively long lapse of silence, several months, but then the letters started showing up again, at first just a few and then more regularly. After a while, the process was reversed. She wrote less and less until the letters stopped coming altogether. Then, after another long break without a single letter, a new one arrived, accompanied by the famous postcard of Las Vegas. I say famous because Gal never seemed to tire of mentioning the damn thing to me. For a while, he carried it around with him everywhere, and showed it to me more times than I care to remember. It has to be in one of the notebooks, I’m sure. If you haven’t found it yet, you will. It was the last message he got from her. But we’ve already gone over that a few times, right?
(In the postcard you can see a casino with crazy lighting atop a mixture of incompatible architectural elements. In the background, above what could be a Byzantine dome, there’s a neon arch that says: Coney Island. Behind that is a roller coaster. On the flip side in blue ink, it says: HAVEN OF DREAMS. This and the letter accompanying it are the only examples of Nadia’s handwriting I’ve been able to see. Her characters are thick, rounded, somewhat shaky and childlike. The letter is dated January 12, 1986.
Dear Gal: Yesterday I dreamed about you. We were in your apartment in Hell’s Kitchen. The details were all very vivid, the wooden table in the kitchen, the Underwood. Then, all of a sudden, I don’t know how, we were in Astroland. You were chasing me, your face distorted. At times I thought it wasn’t you at all, but then your face was very close, and yes, it was you. We got on the Parachute Jump, which was open in spite of having been shut down for so many years. You kept telling me to jump, but I was afraid. You tried to convince me, assuring me you had done it many times. Finally, you pushed me . . . That was it, the end of the dream. Who knows what it means. I’m spending a few days in this ridiculous place with a journalist friend . . . she invited me down, just a short jaunt. I wanted to be far away from everything. I’ll only be here for a few days. My friend hates this place, and wanted some company while doing her stupid assignment. Silly, no? But there’s something about this city, I’m not sure what, that I like. What do you think of the postcard? It’s fitting, right? Las Vegas reminds me a little bit of Coney Island, but without the soul, as you would put it. I remember what you used to say when we came out of the subway, that we were at the Gate of Hell, and I liked that, I liked being near hell, and I think you do too. I miss you a lot, Gal. I would like to be with you, listening to your stories until I fall asleep. I’m too tired now, but I promise that I will write a long letter very soon. I have something very important to tell you. Until then.
N. G.
There’s a coffee stain in the middle of this letter. And around the G. in the signature, Gal had drawn a red circle. I passed tip of my finger over it. It was usually Nadia O., or Nadia R.—her maiden name, her married name. So where did this G. come from? I can imagine Gal speculating about it too, not that it’s much of a mystery.
She was married again.
Thirteen
THE AVENGING ANGEL (FRAGMENTS OF BROOKLYN)
MIHRAB
[March 1969]
Monday. Louise on the phone: It’s a done deal. Sylvie has already moved into an apartment at the Chelsea Hotel. There’s going to be a housewarming party on Wednesday, just a small group of friends. I’m finally going to meet her petite amie but before that I need to do her a favor. Could I go with her and Mussifiki to an oriental bazaar in Brooklyn Heights? You know who Mussifiki Mwanassali is, she says. You’ve never met, she hastens to add, but I’ve told you about him—art critic, historian, professor at NYU. He wrote a book on the rugs of Kurdistan. I tell her I don’t remember. Of course you do, you were browsing through his book the last time you came to Deauville. It rings a bell, I say. Louise pauses. I hear the flick of a lighter on the other side of the line. Well, she continues, it turns out that Mussifiki has made one of his usual discoveries. Poking around the Arab stores he knows in Brooklyn Heights, he stumbled upon a very special Kurdish rug and has gotten it into his head that I have to buy it. He says that the minute I see it, I’ll understand. So we’re meeting tomorrow at three o’clock, and I would really appreciate if you came with me. So I agree to go. By the way, she says, it’s gonna be great when we all meet on Wednesday. I told you Moreau is coming, didn’t I? You know who he is. Robert Moreau, the poet. He has just arrived from Paris. As for Mussifiki, well, he has a screw loose, that’s for sure, but I have no doubt that this rug must be something special. It’s actually very nice of him to keep an eye out for me. But he’s terrified that the rug will fall in the hands of some philistine who won’t appreciate it. He claims he’d like to buy it for himself, but there’s not an inch of space at his home or office, he says, and that includes the walls and the ceilings. I’m going to buy it for Sylvie, as a good luck talisman for her Chelsea place.
Tuesday. I arrive at the Izmir Bazaar at exactly three o’clock. Louise is talking to a tall, skinny young man with a dark complexion and a thin mustache. He’s wearing a deep-red fez with a gold tassel fringe that is clearly part of his business attire. Hi, Gal, says Louise. On time as always, if only everyone were like you. She seems annoyed. This is Jair. We shake hands. He’s from Alexandria. He’s been in New York for six months and speaks English much better than me. Of course, there’s no hope for my English. Waving aside the compliment, the man clarifies that he has a degree from the American University in Cairo. Louise tells me why she’s annoyed. Mussifiki just called the store saying he’d be late. He does it to me all the time, she complains. The rug is worth the wait, Jair adds, and he offers us tea and pastries. Louise tells him not to bother. It’s no bother, the salesclerk responds. Five minutes later, we’re seated on Moroccan leather poufs in front of a Damascene table on which Jair has set a tea service accompanied by some pistachio pastries. The place looks like an illustration out of The Arabian Nights. There are mirrors, musical instruments, antiques made of silver, wood, or bronze everywhere. Stained-glass lamps hang from the ceiling, and the walls are lined with tapestries, brocades, silk shawls, and all sorts of handcrafted objects. Louise offers me a Camel, takes one for herself, lights them, and proceeds to tell me the story of Sylvie Constantine, her lover.
She was sixteen when she arrived in New York. Her mother had died a few months before in a car accident near Lausanne. Daughter and husband were out of their heads with grief. Bernard Constantine had been working as an engineer for a Swiss company; when the tragedy occurred, his boss, who was also his best friend, suggested that he take charge of the New York office, whose director had just retired. Constantine would have to work sixty hours a week, which would leave him little time to think. Bernard and his daughter moved into a duplex on the Upper West Side. Sylvie attended the United Nations International School, and when she graduated, she was admitted to Vassar. During her senior year, she studied photography with Demetria Martin, the famous Harlem photographer. Sylvie fell madly in love with her, but Demetria deftly channeled that passion toward the only thing that she thought should matter: photography. She hired her as an assistant on a project about life in Harlem. Sylvie took thousands of photographs at basketball games, street fairs, concerts, book readings, exhibits, protests, trials. She attended weddings, religious ceremonies, graduations, reunions, birthday parties. She captured murder scenes, robberies, fires, accidents. She shot tenements, churches, stores, restaurants, clubs, and coffee shops. Sifting through the enormous amount of material she had amassed, Demetria helped her select some three dozen photographs that Sylvie exhibited at the Tribes Gallery on the Lower East Side. After she graduated, Demetria asked her to work on a second project involving the black population of New York, this time photographing corpses in the funeral homes of Brooklyn; the dead were of all ages, dressed in their finest outfits, scrupulously made up, with serene, vacant expressions, their bodies stuffed into padded coffins with colored linings; nurses, mailmen, basketball players, musicians, bank employees, subway conductors; bodies stricken with cancer, murder victims, girls
dressed in white chiffon dresses, teenage boys with colored ties: inscrutable faces with sealed eyelids and rigid lips. Under each snapshot, they printed the name of the deceased, age, profession if any, and cause of death. They published a coffee-table book that was very successful. After that, Sylvie started getting calls from everywhere. When Bernard Constantine felt strong enough to return to Switzerland, his daughter decided to stay in New York. The thought of living in Europe appalled her. In Manhattan, she had everything she needed in life. Moving anywhere else was unthinkable.
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