As we laughed, Russia dreamily smiled. “I told him it was no imitation, honey, but the real thing, picked up secondhand somewhere. The next day I lent it to him with my blessing, and do you know he looked better in it than I do? I told him so, and he was so happy and grateful that he kissed me after all, decorously on the cheek, of course, and you know, I didn’t mind it one bit.
“He may not know how to write,” she said slowly, glancing mischievously at me and then at Phillip, and then back at me again, “but at least he has the courage to act on his convictions, bless his little fashion-minded heart.”
Less than a week later, I bumped into Russia again as I was leaving the stacks at Butler Library. Barely returning my hello, she leaned against the counter and waited as I checked out my books.
She walked out with me towards the stairs, her heels clicking against the marble, and when we were standing at the top of them, she turned to me and said, “You guys aren’t sleeping together, are you.”
Her statement (for it was a statement and not a question) was abrupt and sounded even irritable, but I smiled with affection at Russia, who looks so mean with her shaved head and her nine body rings and her uniform black outfits, and yet is so tenderhearted that she cannot bring herself to kill a cockroach, for fear that it might be Gregor Samsa. She always was a good friend to me.
“No, we’re not,” I told her.
“How long has it been—four months, five?” She shook her head in disbelief. “Do you know that you guys seem like an old married couple? Have you been seeing each other every day, or what?”
“Pretty much,” I said, feeling only a little shy. “And we always talk on the phone, whether we see each other or not.”
“I knew it,” she said. “I could tell just from the way you read off the menu to him. And when your tea came, and he stirred in the milk for you without you even asking for it. That’s the way my parents are, and they’ve been married thirty-five years.”
“I didn’t notice about the tea,” I confessed.
“See?” She nodded wisely “That’s because you’re already so used to him that he’s become a part of you.”
“He’s hardly that,” I protested, but she did not seem to hear.
“Actually,” she said, biting her underlip and frowning, “I almost envy you.”
“You shouldn’t,” I said quickly.
“Not because I want Phillip. Obviously that wouldn’t have worked, and it doesn’t bother me anymore.”
I nodded, feeling relieved.
“But you guys are so close. You almost don’t seem to need anyone else when you’re together.”
“It sometimes feels like that,” I admitted.
“Kiki,” she said, “don’t you want him?”
“I don’t know,” I said, almost whispering, definitely lying.
“Does he want you?” she asked.
Her gaze, like her question, was so direct I had to look away.
“I bet he does,” she said thoughtfully. “You know, I didn’t guess that you two would hit it off so well. But I really shouldn’t have been surprised—you both live in your own private worlds, Phillip with his subways and his wanderlust, and you with your books. Somehow the two of you together makes sense, in an odd kind of way.”
I flinched at her words, which were laced, after all, with the faintest trace of bitterness.
“It’d be a shame for you two not to try, anyway,” she went on. “After all, how many times do relationships really work out? Once in a lifetime, if you’re very, very lucky.”
“Why only once?” I asked, slipping on the simple phrase, my tongue grown thick.
“Well, think about it. It’s not possible to have had a perfect relationship in the past, because otherwise you’d still be with that person. Ergo no one has a good track record when it comes to relationships. At the most, if you’re very lucky, it’s worked out for you with your current partner.”
In spite of myself I had to smile. I was thinking of my grandmother when I said the next words. “What if you have a perfect relationship and the person dies?”
She paused, thinking. “That’s a good question,” she said. “But I’d say that it’s too easy to idealize someone who’s died. You can’t know what would have happened to that relationship, so in the long run, if you love someone and he or she dies, it’s probably best not to think about them too much.”
There was a pause. “Anyway,” I said, “right now, Phillip and I are just friends.”
“Why is that?” she asked curiously. “Why aren’t you guys together?”
It was a question I had asked myself, too, more than once.
“It’s not as if either of you’s scared of sex,” she continued.
“No, but neither of us has had anything close to a lasting relationship, you know,” I said, striving to keep my tone light. “I’ve lost touch with all my lovers, and he…” I shrugged, and began turning away from her, towards the stairs.
“But surely—”
I shut my eyes for a long second. “Russia,” I said as gently as possible, “I should go.”
She was instantly contrite. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I have gone on and on, haven’t I. But you know I just want you to be happy.”
“I know you do,” I told her. “And I appreciate it.”
I turned to go, but she put a hand on my arm to stop me.
“It’s okay,” I said. “Really. We’re better like this. I do have so much reading to do, after all.” I nodded at the pile of books in my arms, which was almost unbearably heavy by this point of the conversation.
Her eyes, which are a mild shade of brown, were warm and steady as she watched me.
“And besides,” I said, struggling to smile, “besides, you know how Phillip is—a chick magnet, remember?”
I turned away, but she called out after me. “You’re being stupid. Just because a lot of women like him, doesn’t mean that he’s going to like them all, too.”
I glanced back. Russia had an ironic smile on her face, and I wondered briefly whether she had been in love with him, and maybe still was.
“Thanks,” I told her. “I’ll try to remember that.”
Then I walked down the stairs, my shoes slipping over the marble, with Russia watching over me with love and pity, like a guardian angel.
On the day before he left New York, I went to meet Phillip at his home. His apartment was at the end of a dark, damp hallway, which smelled of cleaning fluids overlaying something unpleasant, and where cockroaches scuttled across stickers advertising exterminators in Spanish.
When he opened the door I felt my stomach turn, as on a swiftly dropping elevator.
“I don’t understand,” I said. “Where is everything?”
For a person who spent his life on the road, backpacking or living out of what he could balance on a mountain bike, Phillip had accumulated an unexpectedly large number of possessions in the few months he spent in New York. Spare and small, his apartment had life because of the books roosting on its shelves. Now only the furniture, a few cardboard boxes neatly stacked in a corner, and a gray, professional-looking backpack by the door remained. Without the books, the room and even the furniture suddenly seemed homely, divested of personality and romance, meekly awaiting a new tenant.
The coat closet, its door half-open, was empty but for a few mismatched hangers, bent metal as well as plastic of all different colors. Even the walls were bare. Only yellowing bits of tape hung down from where there had once been three posters: the one of the old Penn Station, with its big clock and cathedral ceilings, and the pictures from the two World’s Fairs of New York. Phillip’s taste for the monuments of another era had always surprised me, his nostalgia seeming strangely incompatible with his need for movement.
“I’m giving up the apartment,” he said. His voice echoed in the empty room.
“Why? Aren’t you—aren’t you coming back?”
“I bought a round-trip ticket,” he said mildly. “I’m due
back in three months. As you know.”
“I just assumed you’d be keeping your apartment.”
He shook his head. “It’s not worth it. I’m giving away all my stuff, too, to the Salvation Army. The top box on that pile there has all the things that I thought you might like—you should go through it.”
“Is it really dusty in here? Because I suddenly feel like sneezing,” I said.
“I just swept,” he said. “The dust probably hasn’t settled yet.”
“Oh great,” I said. “Allergies on top of an incipient cold.” I rummaged in my bag, pulled out a ragged tissue, and blew my nose. “Where will you stay when you come back?”
“Well, ideally with you. But if you shut the door in my face, I’ll go to the Y or a hostel, I guess.” His lips twisted in that grin. “Or maybe I’ll get lucky, and some old girlfriend will take me in.”
Was it that reference to old girlfriends, or something else altogether? Whatever the cause, I turned up a sniffling nose at the invitation to go through his box of things. It was probably filled with books and also photographs, dimly lit pictures of subway stations, eerily effective albeit hastily shot. For reasons we could never fully determine, but that seemed to involve issues of national security, photographing the subways is against the law, and so Phillip took those pictures undercover in more ways than one. He usually limited himself to pictures of the tunnels, like the serenely arched one at West 168th Street, rarely attempting the trains because he was sure his camera would fail to capture the sense of speed, the rush of air, and the immensity of the noise.
The only keepsake I ever had of Phillip was a cactus, a funny, stunted little thing he brought to my house one day, and which I optimistically believed would live forever. Unfortunately or maybe appropriately, just after he left, it ended up under one of the leaks that my apartment is occasionally prone to, and suffered a temporary drowning from which it never recovered, and eventually died.
We went to an Indian restaurant for dinner and then he walked me home on Riverside Drive, along the edge of the park.
It was early February, and we were in the heart of the first good snowfall of the new year. Already a good inch layered the ground, and the city seemed hushed, with its usual noises, colors, and smells muted.
“Told you we could see the snow right here,” I said.
“Its not the same.”
“I know, I know,” I said crossly. “The crunch of snow and all that. But this is still something.”
We trudged on in silence for a long while, the wind whipping at our faces. Then, without conferring about it, we both came to a halt at 103 rd Street, a spot where the two of us often met, and one of my favorite places in the world.
I looked out over the park, but the snow fell so thickly I could see only about fifteen feet ahead. The trees were black silhouettes, their branches stark and barren. I turned to face him. The night was so dark I could barely make out his face: it could have been anyone’s.
“Are you done being crabby yet?” he asked, and I heard the sweet, familiar note of teasing in his voice, and its haunting by a Midwestern drawl.
For a second I wished for violence and blood—not rape or murder but a mugging, perhaps, a breaking of a rib or limb, that would necessitate a long stay in the hospital, side by side in twin white beds.
Phillip touched my shoulder, a pressure I felt just faintly through my coat. “You’re shivering,” he said. “Let’s get you home.”
A few minutes later, we stood outside my apartment building.
“I won’t invite you up,” I said. “What with your flight tomorrow, and all.”
His mouth twisted, but in the darkness I could not see whether it was a smile or a frown. “Well then,” he said, “I guess I’ll see you soon.” He stooped to give me one of his usual clumsy kisses, his breath momentarily warming my face and his lips landing squarely on my left eyebrow. I clutched the lapels of his coat to me for a second, which turned into three seconds and then into five, until I finally let go. “See ya,” I said.
“I’ll be back, you know,” he said. “I promise. Cross my heart and hope to die.”
Toward the end of Little Women, Jo and Mr. Bhaer go for a walk in the rain and the mud. Their love for each other is unacknowledged, and he is leaving for Germany for good the next day: the tension is high. Their walk is a long one, but eventually it nears its end, as all walks do, at which point Jo begins to sniffle. He asks her what the matter is, and she, awkward and outspoken, does not come up with some pat lie about sinuses or allergies or contact lenses, but instead blurts out that she is sad because he is leaving. He responds effusively and love triumphs, social ineptitude and honesty finding their just reward.
I did not cry, but I reached out for Phillip again. This time I hugged him so hard he laughed. “Uncle,” he said. “I can’t breathe.” I laughed as well, the tears obediently remaining at the corners of my eyes, and the puffs of my breathing intermingled with his. I hesitated and then, as the laughter died away, I lifted my face to his. He blinked as though in surprise, but he responded, slowly, tentatively lowering his lips to mine.
We kissed on the mouth deeply and luxuriously, but only once. My heart was beating so fast my chest hurt. Then he yanked open my coat, pulling the buttons apart, and began to kiss me quickly, his hands, usually so still, moving restlessly inside my coat, and his lips covering every inch of my face. That veneer of laziness and calm—his cool—had fallen away like a second skin. His breathing was harsh and uneven, and his face almost unrecognizable as it grew grim with lust.
I had known that Phillip had passion and hid it; I had longed for it, dreamed of it, waited for it and, finally, invited it, yet when it showed itself I could not move, paralyzed by fear. My throat was clogged and I could not speak. Yet at the same time, in another part of my body, I was also beginning to sweat.
I had gone straight from Little Women into one of those trashy romances I used to devour, replete with dramatic snow and a tall man who fumbled roughly with my buttons. Phillip, who had been working on opening my cardigan and shirt, had changed his line of attack to move in from the bottom, untucking my clothes from inside my jeans and reaching up towards my breast. Blocked by his body, the wind whistled harmlessly past me. When he reached inside my bra and touched my left nipple, his fingers were shockingly cold.
It was as if a string connected my nipple to that warm place between my thighs, and every time he squeezed my nipple he tugged on the string. Yet the pressure of his fingers was growing stronger, and it was beginning to hurt. I was just going to clench my teeth and bear it, for the tugs on the string became sharper with the pain, but he twisted my nipple, then, and involuntarily I winced, making a small sound of protest, and a faint movement of withdrawal.
He pulled away so abruptly I nearly stumbled, and on my neck and chest, now exposed, the icy air hit me like a slap. He stared at me and the look of hunger slid off his face, starting from the eyes and moving down to the mouth, which became a thin line, barely opening as he muttered, “Sorry, Ki,” and then he wheeled around and was gone.
In all the times I had rehearsed our good-byes, I had never imagined one like that: he turning away in injured pride, disappearing quickly into the snow, while I stood shivering and miserable on the street corner, cursing myself for not having spoken.
When I finish telling my grandmother about Phillip my voice will be hoarse, for the story is a long one, and once I begin I will have to continue until I am done. At the end all I will have for her is a half-question, a plea, I suppose, for a miraculous second chance, for an explanation of the workings of fate, or maybe just for sympathy.
Obaasama, I will say, all Phillip and I needed was time.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
IN THE THREE days that have passed since I disgraced myself while shopping with Eric, the phone has rung only once. I picked it up on its first ring, a smile on my face and a salutation to Eric on the tip of my tongue, and felt worse than usual when I heard the hummi
ng that marks my anonymous caller. Phillip has not shown himself except for the briefest of cameo appearances at noon.
It is close to two in the morning now. I lean out the open window, and (for the first time in a day of loitering by the phone, a thick sheaf of my dissertation lying disregarded on my lap) I let the soft touch of the outside air brush against my face. Drawn by the memory of yesterday’s jaunt through the park, I leave my apartment, take the elevator down, and walk out into the street.
I walk along Broadway for a while. A few other people are walking around, seemingly as aimless as I am. They are dressed in clothes randomly matched: one woman sporting sneakers, a miniskirt, and what looks like a pyjama top, her friend all in sweats, a boy in a pinstriped jacket and Bermuda shorts, an old beggar wearing bell-bottoms. It may not be 1990 anymore. It could be twenty years ago, when bell-bottoms were all the rage, or it could be five or ten years into the future, when the pendulum of fashion has swung back again. It could be nineteen months ago, when Phillip was still alive and I had not even dreamed of the possibility of an Eric Lowenson in my life. In my neighborhood, Broadway at two in the morning would be the same during any of those years: the streetlamps lit and most of the storefronts closed and the trash blowing in the wind, the traffic lights enforcing a titular authority over the empty, quiet streets.
I head west. Riverside Drive is almost completely deserted; I can just make out the dim outlines of a policeman walking his beat about three blocks north of me. I go south after I see him, and when I get to the statue at 106th Street, I climb down the stairs and cross towards the park, just as I did yesterday. It is so dark that the sky is black, and when the wind hits me, I tremble a little with the coolness of the air.
One Hundred and One Ways Page 17