This ultimate disloyalty, this calm betrayal of everything she had previously held dear, was so shattering that it made her tremble. At the same time there was a kind of piercing exultation: if there were penalties for this wondrous enchantment she would gladly pay them.
Their hours together were quietly domestic: she often thought of Clover Martinson, with her consort, maybe you could call it, her Anton Ehrenberg. Not living together either, but very much like a husband and a wife, certainly not like a bitch in heat with a sniffing hound circling: you could tell, talking to Clover, that it was quite different, an “arrangement,” a loving and comfortable one. There were so many ways to live, weren’t there, and now she herself was part of a new experience: God, she was happy, she could taste it, she was flooded with it, it ran through her veins, colored her speech and her laugh, glistened in her eyes, moistened her mouth.
“Gee, you look great,” one of her friends said at lunch on a group day together. “Are you having facials or something?”
“Good heavens, you know how I hate beauty salons. Of course not. Why do you ask, was my skin showing signs of wear or something?”
“Silly. Nothing wrong with your skin at any time. No, it’s not that. Just something or other, I can’t pin it down.”
“It’s the summer, I’m a summer gal.”
“Me, fall’s my time. The air like wine, things starting up again after the summer doldrums.”
“What do you mean, summer doldrums? I adore summer, how can anyone not?”
“New York summers? They’re the pits.”
“Not to me.”
“Well, damn you, it’s a little sickening the way you look so feisty and all. What’s your secret, huh?”
“Nothing, I just feel good.”
“How do you manage that?”
“Clean living and plenty of exercise, Meryl.”
“I live clean but there’s little to show for it. I’m beginning to hang back from the mirror in the mornings, naked fear. Or worse than that, afraid to go to sleep at night, not knowing what I’ll find on arising. Oh, goodie, a brand new wrinkle.”
“Listen to her, a face like a baby’s bottom.”
“You must be nearsighted, kiddo.”
“Nope. Twenty-twenty, that’s me.”
“Gee, I used to be so vain about my chest and shoulders,” Ruth said tragically. “But now — ”
“Your chest?”
“I don’t mean my boobs, darling. No complaints about them yet, but lately I see fine lines running down from my clavicles. I suppose I should train myself to sleep on my back. I find them very disturbing. Portents of the increasing years. I feel like screaming, I don’t want to get old. Goddamn it, why do you have to get old?”
“Old is sixty. Seventy.”
“Old is when men don’t look at you anymore.”
“Old is when you don’t look at them anymore.”
“This is a horrible conversation. For God’s sake, we’re in the prime of life, what do you want?”
“Remember that picture, All About Eve? When Bette Davis hits forty, and she says to someone, with that wild look of hers, those hyperthyroid eyes bulging, ‘I’m forty! 4-0!’ Well, friends, so are we. Does it hurt all that much?”
“I’m not forty yet,” Clover said mildly.
“Screw you.”
“And the prime of life is for men. What isn’t for men? They have the world by the tail, screw them. Look at Cary Grant, he’s older than God and he could have any nymphet he had a mind to reach for.”
“Yes, damn it, it’s true, and true and true. A man can be any old age, four double chins and a revolting paunch. Even when they can’t get it up anymore, they can still call the shots.”
“Comes the revolution — ”
“Dummy. Nothing will ever change it.”
“God, I love Bette Davis.”
“I wish I knew her, I’d hug her to death.”
“You, Christine. You used to do that imitation of her in The Moon and Sixpence.”
“No no. Of Human Bondage. Yes, sure, I used to do that one a lot. ‘And every time you kissed me, I wiped my mouth … wiped my mouth … you’re a cripple, a cripple …’”
She laughed. “I don’t think I’d do it for Rodney, he’d probably carp at my Cockney.”
“Oh, it’s great, it’s great.”
“Do Ann Landers.”
“You want us thrown out of this restaurant?”
“What were we talking about before? Oh yes, male superiority.”
There was a chorus of protests. “Well,” Helene said, grinning, “anyway, about male supremacy, that’s what I meant to say.” She leaned forward. “You know, you do look sort of Renoir-ripe,” she told Christine. “As if you just came out of a scented bath. You’re not pregnant, are you?”
“Dear God in heaven,” Christine cried. “What a hideous thought! Why are you all picking on me?”
“I’m not picking, I’m annoyed,” Ruth said. “But then you always were queen of us all.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“It’s true. You don’t have a bad angle. And your daughter’s the same, they’ll fall like flies for Nancy. I used to think your legs were too skinny, that the calves could be rounder. I was wrong.”
“Tell me more,” Christine said, dimpling.
“Uh uh. Fuck off, you don’t need any admiration societies, you must know you’ve got it, so I’ve said enough.” She smiled. “If I didn’t love you I’d hate you. Me with my crow’s feet.”
“Look, let’s not be idiotic, I just feel great, that’s all. You feel good, you look good. Like Clover with her James-Lang theory.”
“Why do you feel so good, then? Is Carl going to win the Nobel Prize for medicine?”
“Not that I know of, and I fear not that he knows of either.” She hesitated, toying with her cigarette lighter. “It isn’t anything like that. It isn’t-”
They were waiting. She saw their faces looking at her. They were all looking at her and waiting for what she had to say. Ruth, and Helene, Meryl and Clover. Bright, expectant faces, the faces of her friends, curious, half smiling. She felt reckless. She wanted to say, “Why do I feel so good? It’s very simple — you see, I’m in love. I’m very much in love.”
It was an almost uncontrollable compulsion. Like when you’re sitting in the balcony of some theater, with a bag of peanuts in your hand, and you think what if I dropped one of these peanuts down, it would land on someone’s head — what if I did it? And you want, like anything, to do just that, so much so that you get scared and frightened that some devil in you will take over and your hand will reach in the bag and throw the peanut.
You see, ladies, I’m in love.
You didn’t drop the peanut and you didn’t say what you wanted to say, that you were on cloud nine because you had fallen in love and everything had changed and you would almost kill to keep what you had.
She laughed and reached for a cigarette. “Sue me,” she said. “I feel good, period. I feel great and don’t ask me why. I just plain feel the best I ever have.”
They looked disappointed. Inquisitive too. It was accepted, however. How would they ever guess the truth? She had always been Caesar’s wife, and she had no reason to suppose that the others weren’t the same. They talked about men a lot, but if any of them had her own secret it was well concealed. They had certainly never discussed the marriage bed (my husband does it this way, how does yours?): they were not women who operated that way in their friendship. The compulsion to spill her guts was gone, she was relieved that discretion had come to the fore. What she wanted, she knew, was to shout it out to the world at large, her immense happiness, her stupendous well-being. It was, after all, only natural.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said after lunch, when Ruth, as they all drifted out to the street afterwards asked if she couldn’t go for a walk somewhere. “Maybe even dinner, Chris? We could call home, I thought we might go down to the Village or something, browse around an
d then hack it back to Marchi’s, make it a whole day.”
“It’s just that I promised to take a run over to Rodney’s,” she apologized. “He’s having a few people in, I said I’d be there to help a bit.”
“He’s still intruding on your time?”
“Not really, he’s doing very well on his own, I don’t see him all that much nowadays. I did promise to be there today, though.”
“Oh, hell. Anyway he lives uptown, let’s amble on up together.”
“I thought I’d go to Bloomies and pick up a few goodies for him. Some paté, a jar of those oversized olives.”
“I’ll go with you.”
“It wouldn’t be much fun. Ruth, I’ll just pop in there only for a minute and then cab up to Rodney’s.”
“Well, okay. Listen, maybe we can go someplace next week? There’s a dandy new exhibit at the Wildenstein. I understand some magnificent Seurats. Okay?”
“Absolutely. I’ll call you.”
“Fine. Well, dear, keep the kindergarten in good order, don’t let them fingerpaint themselves to death. Yes, I know, his mother’s a good friend of yours, greater love hath no man. Well, then, I’ll hie myself over to Madison, for endives, I’m fresh out. Have fun.”
“You too.”
She watched Ruth walk off, in her designer dress, all crisp, clean lines, and the Mark Cross handbag clasped in Ruth’s summer-tanned hands. Friends. Friends had dwindled in importance, you lied to them easily and expertly, the way you lied about everything these days, it didn’t even prick your conscience. All you wanted was to get off the hook as gracefully as possible, with a cordial smile.
She turned the corner and walked over to Park, waited for the light to change and then, crossing, walked the block farther down to Lex, staying with it until Jack’s street, where she continued on down to Third. Now she quickened her steps. She had said it would be — oh, say, around three-fifteen or so when she would be there, told him for God’s sake nothing to eat or drink, she would have had her fill of both. She had meant, let’s go to bed, and he had known that: his eyes had acknowledged it, and the coverlet would be pulled down and he would be waiting for her, would greet her at the door, impatient and loverlike. She ran up the stone steps, going home, going to where she belonged, and pressed the buzzer.
He was on the landing, his arms reaching out for her.
“Did you have lunch?” she asked him. “The truth now.”
“Yup. The machine is fed.”
He untied the bow at the neck of her blouse, eased off her suit jacket. “I’ve had a good working day,” he told her. “Fourteen pages, almost final draft caliber. I’m working smoothly of late, and I don’t think I have to spell out why.”
“Good, that’s good.”
“It’s you, knowing you’ll be here, or if not, at least on the other end of that phone line. I don’t know what I did to deserve you.”
“Oh, I love hearing you say that. Hang this up, will you? I can’t very well leave here all crumpled and such. I must keep up my reputation as the well-dressed Mrs. Jennings who lives in 9E.”
She stepped out of her skirt, spread it over a chair. “A nice lunch with friends, but it seemed endless,” she told him. “I couldn’t wait to get here. I love you. Oh, I’m so glad you’re working well. Did you know I’m a very proficient typist? Can I do your manuscript?”
“You mean in about two years?”
“Oh? I guess I didn’t realize — ”
“It could be two years, Chris.”
“Hell, that doesn’t throw me. I just — well, I’d just like to help you in some way.”
“You’re doing that.”
“Sometimes I think — ”
“Don’t think now, okay?”
“All right, I’ll think tomorrow.”
“What time do you have to leave?”
“Five. Or so.”
“Would you stay on through dinner sometime?”
“Yes, I’ve already decided on that. Sometime soon. I promise, Jack.”
“That’s nice.”
“We’ll have a lovely time. Make room for me, you pig. Don’t hog the whole bed.”
“I thought you’d never get here.”
“So did I.”
• • •
It was not all screwing, though, not by a long shot. It was long, companionable walks, and going to the Abigail Adams house over near York Avenue, to refresh themselves with glowing woods and winking chandeliers and artifacts of the past, or stopping in for a movie at one of the art theaters, or window shopping, or the Cooper Hewitt — any one of a number of things, infinite variety.
Jack introduced her to Yorkville, the Yorkville he knew, and she helped him food shop at Schaller & Weber, where he ordered in German: “Eine pfund süss Butter,” “Halbe pfund Schinken, bitte.” It was certainly more than a stone’s throw from where he lived, but he said it was worth it for the quality of the food, with which she heartily agreed, sampling the ham and the pure, sweet butter.
There was also, on Third Avenue, a bakery, Mrs. Herbst, where they went occasionally for its adamantly old-world atmosphere. It was many-mirrored, with a lincruster ceiling, its vast front counter offering all sorts of goodies, like Demel’s in Vienna. Mrs. Herbst was really Vienna transplanted, a chip off the old block, and you never, ever heard English spoken there. Christine knew she would never dare to go in alone, she was sure she’d be shown the door if she had the temerity to ask for some of the bakery goods in English, as the women behind the counter were so intimidating.
But they did have mouth-watering wares: Rigo Yanchi, Dobos torte and Sacher torte, kipferln, Milles feuilles, pig’s ears and Florentines and what all. In the rear were a few booths and tables, painted in a French blue, a dewy red rose in a bud vase on each. There you sat, after selecting your rich tidbit from the counter, chatting over Kaffee mit Schlagobers, whiling away a half hour.
New places for Christine, new scenes and ambiances. The Cafe Geiger, on Eighty-sixth Street, was another discovery for her. Jack said he really preferred Eine Kleine Konditorei, but he get a kick out of saying to her over the phone, “How about meeting me at the Geiger counter?”
The Geiger too had its big, overflowing display of sinful pastries for the Yorkville sweet tooth, its glass case presided over by starched and officious ladies with accents you could cut with a knife. Jack said they too were horrid if you didn’t speak German, tried to pretend you weren’t there, but then that was true of most of the tradespeople in this area, they looked down their noses at “foreigners,” as if Yorkville was a separate and sanctified principality, like Vatican City.
Beyond the Geiger counter there were three or four tables for someone who wanted beer and a sandwich, or just a cup of coffee, then a short flight of steps led up to the main dining room, quite large and with every table swathed in a white linen cloth. The napkins were linen as well, very large and smelling slightly of the laundry room. The men and women dining at these tables were distinctly middle-European, as if they had just been imported from Berlin or Vienna or Munich, and they ate heavy lunches, taking their sweet time about it and conversing in German or Wienerische or Hungarian. Mostly these people looked coldly arrogant, with the women wearing hats that seemed peculiarly out of style. The men were brusque and peremptory when giving their order.
Jack said to listen for someone asking for Wiener Schnitzel. “Why?” Christine asked him. He said they all sounded like Peter Sellers doing his Viennese turn, but particularly with that dish. “They say ‘buttocked,’ he told her. “Wiener Schnitzel viss buttocked noodles … ssss.”
Her laugh sounded like a small explosion in the quiet restaurant. There were generally some thirty-odd diners at the white-clothed tables during a lunch hour, but their conversations were habitually in low tones, as if some secret agent might be listening, or perhaps a member of the Gestapo. Except for an occasional ebullient gentleman who had imbibed too freely on Löwenbrau, the Geiger dining room was stiffly genteel, m
any a pinkie extended with the coffee cup.
It was another world, really, though Jack said much of it was going by the board, with speculators and developers buying up whole blocks of the old tenements to replace them with highrises. “I never gave much thought to it when I found myself down here,” Christine confessed. “I just noticed that it was rather swarming, and quite ugly — you know, a Coney Island air. I guess I thought of it in terms of an eyesore. You’ve made me see it differently, and I enjoy it very much. It’s like something out of Grosz, particularly in the stores and restaurants.”
“It was a hotbed of Nazi Bunds at one time, of course. World War II. We weren’t around then, but I guess the Teutonic mentality at its worst was very much in evidence. Well, never mind, you try to forget about that, and the thing is it’s so damned easy. Anyway, I like it down here because it’s not chic and glossy and artificial. They’re mostly working class people, rough and ready, and you can believe New York’s still a neighborhood kind of place, there’s something so inhuman about the rest of it.”
“There’s Ninth Avenue and little Italy, the Village, still, or a lot of it, the West Village.”
“Yeah, but where you live, where you walk around, you want a certain chummy coziness. Well, a home ground, like the arrondissements of Paris.”
Jack said he liked to walk along Second Avenue from Eighty-sixth to Seventy-second Street on a Sunday morning. “When it’s sunny, particularly. Then you get the feeling of old times, the turn of the century, Edward Hopper. Old red brick buildings, like some small town in middle America, and not very many people on the street. It must have been nice years ago, the clop-clop of horses drawing a milk wagon, the steam of fresh horse dung on cobbles — I like the smell of horse dung.”
Classic Love: 7 Vintage Romances Page 20