Indiscretion

by Charles Dubow

  “Can I do anything to help? I mean, I know it sounds stupid, but if you need to discuss it with anyone, to bounce ideas off of, you can always talk to me.”

  “Thanks, but what I need is to get back to Rome and hole up for a few weeks and concentrate on nothing but the book. Hopefully by then, I’ll have figured out some things.”

  “All right. But I mean it.” She gets up and goes to the living room to change the music. Her bottom is white, round, her legs a bit too short for her body. He likes watching her walk.

  “Do you want to get some dinner?” he asks. “It’s still early.”

  They dress and go out. Their hours are different from the rest of the world. There is a little French restaurant near her apartment. They walk there, her hand in his. “I’m famished,” he says.

  “Me too.”

  “I’m going to splurge and order a really good bottle of wine,” he says.

  It costs several hundred dollars. It will be, he thinks, the most expensive wine she has ever drunk. It is a gift he wants to give her, one of many. Money is of no importance. All he wants is her happiness.

  The waiter decants it. When it is ready, he pours the wine. “That’s amazing,” she says, taking a sip.

  “It’s always been one of my favorites. It’s a Pauillac. A fifth growth. Not as expensive as a premier cru, but in my opinion every bit as good. The ’82 was a particularly good vintage.”

  “You sound like Walter,” she says, giggling.

  He laughs. “I suppose I do. It’s probably because he’s taught me a lot of what I know. Yale and the Marine Corps are great for learning about a lot of things. French wine isn’t one of them though.”

  Over dinner they talk about her, her family, her job. They are still getting to know each other. Filling in the blanks. He learns that pears are her favorite fruit, that she doesn’t like Renoir but adores Degas, that she knows how to tap-dance, and that she wore eyeglasses in high school until she switched to contacts. His life is known, he has lived in public. Hers is still to be discovered. But like in the child’s game of connecting dots, the more connections he makes, the more she becomes the person that in his heart he already knew her to be.

  “What would you do if we saw someone you knew?” she asks. “I mean if they saw us, here, together?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve thought about it, sure. I suppose it depends on who it was—and what we were doing. I mean, there is nothing especially suspicious about us having dinner, is there? We are friends. You did spend a lot of time with us over the summer. What’s the harm in that?”

  “Some people might misinterpret it, but they wouldn’t know for sure.”

  “But they’d be right. It’s hard to hide body language, especially when you’re sleeping together. There’s a kind of heat that two lovers give off, even if they’re on opposite sides of the room. It practically burns off your clothes.”

  He reaches out and takes her hand, threading her fingers through his. “I would love to travel with you,” he says.

  “Where would we go?”

  “France. I would like to visit Paris with you, and the South of France. Afterwards, Morocco, Tangier, Zanzibar.”

  “I’ll get my toothbrush.”

  “I’m not kidding. We could find somewhere cheap and live for a year on the beach. You’ll go topless and your breasts will become the color of caramel. But first I want to take you to bed in the Ritz. Order room service. I know you’ve been to Paris with your parents when you were a kid. When was the last time you were there?”

  “During college. I backpacked around after my junior year.”

  “But you never stayed at the Ritz.”

  “It was a little out of our budget.”

  “Where else did you visit?”

  “Well, besides Paris there was Madrid and Barcelona. Then Florence and Venice. Finally, two weeks in Greece. On Santorini. I got very sunburned.”

  “Were you there by yourself?”

  “I was with my boyfriend. His name was Greg. We broke up soon after. Isn’t that always the way? You travel around with someone and it’s easy to get fed up with them. Their habits begin to get on your nerves.”

  “You know what they say about Venice?”

  “What?”

  “That if you go there with someone you aren’t married to, you will never marry them.”

  “That’s okay. You’re already married.”

  He lets that slide by, but for a moment she wonders how he will react. It had come out of nowhere.

  “So you don’t mind traveling with me? What if I got on your nerves too?” he asks with a smile.

  “The opposite is true too. If you can travel with someone and still like them, then you know you’re with the right person.”

  “Well then, I guess we’ll just have to find out, won’t we?”

  The wine drunk, the food eaten, he pays and they leave. It is his last night in New York. Tomorrow evening, he will fly back to Rome. They spend the next day in bed. Sleeping, making love. The last time for almost an hour, slowly, carefully, like pearl divers filling their lungs with oxygen. Uptown, his bags are still at his hotel, a room he has barely seen. At four in the afternoon, he has to leave.

  “I wish I didn’t have to go,” he says.

  She is sitting on the bed, a black robe wrapped loosely around her, her arms folded protectively. The room is lit only by the fading sun, an in-between hour. She is distancing herself, waiting for the blow.

  He wants to say something, to reassure her. But he cannot find the words.

  “Is this it?” she asks, not looking at him, her voice rising up from miles inside her.

  He wants to say no, but he doesn’t want to lie. He doesn’t even know what the truth is anymore.

  His coat is on. He is ready to return to his other life.

  “I know I can’t ask you to stay,” she says. “I know you have to go back to Maddy and Johnny.”

  “I do.”

  “And I am not going to ask for any promises.”

  “I know you won’t. And I’m sorry I can’t give any.”

  “But I did promise myself I wouldn’t be a bitch or make you feel guilty, so I won’t.” The rims around her eyes are moist. There is a catch in her voice.

  He walks over and takes her hand, her clean white fingers soft and limp. They are beautiful hands, with no adornment, no rings, no polish. They are the hands of an aristocrat, a geisha.

  “I don’t want to lose you,” he says. “I’ll be back. I don’t know how, but I’ll figure something out.”

  “I’ll be waiting.”

  “Maybe you could come to Europe. I have a tour next month. We could meet somewhere.”

  “What about Maddy? Won’t she be coming?”

  “No. She won’t want to. She’ll want to stay with Johnny. And it wouldn’t be that long. Only a couple of days.”

  “I’ll take it,” she says with a smile.

  “Good. I only wish it could be more.”

  “Me too.”

  She stands up and walks over to him, her robe falling open, placing her naked body against him. “Now you better get out of here,” she says, her lips brushing his, “or I’m going to start seducing you.”

  He throws his head back and laughs. “I am going to miss you,” he says. He can’t remember when he wanted her more.

  “I love you, Harry,” she says.

  “And I love you.” This time he said it. There is no doubt.

  A last embrace, then the door, the lonely hallway, the old stairs down to the street. His footsteps echoing dully as he descends. From the other floors the smell of cooking, the chatter of television. Normal lives. He does not stop until the lobby, and he knows she would not be watching. On the street, he does turn and look up, counting the floors to find her apartment. She does not appear, and, after a moment, he hurries down the street looking for a taxi. The smell of her on his fingers.

  6

  Weeks pass. The ripple from the cast stone has not
been felt. Life continues as it had before. Mundane chores, taking Johnny to school, paying bills, walking to the salumeria. There are still parties, drives in the country, visits to churches to admire the frescoes. There are still kindnesses, shared jokes, acts of love. One night Harry comes home from one of his rambles with an enormous bouquet of flowers. Outwardly nothing has changed.

  But he is not sleeping, and he has always slept well. He has the soldier’s ability to sleep anywhere.

  In their borrowed bed, he lies staring up at the ceiling. He is waiting. “What’s wrong?” whispers Maddy, surprising him. He thought she was already asleep. It is the middle of the night.

  “Nothing. Can’t sleep. That’s all.”

  “That’s been happening a lot lately.”

  He thought she hadn’t noticed. He had tried to be so quiet.

  “Is it your book?”

  “What? Yes.”

  “Can I help?”

  “No, no. Thank you. I just need to work some things out in my head. I think I’m going to go work for a while. I’m sorry I woke you. Now go back to sleep.”

  “Good luck, darling,” she says, nestling back into her pillow, sleep already returning, confident in her love. He kisses her gently on the forehead and closes the door quietly behind him as he goes out.

  At his computer, he begins his nightly betrayal. There are messages from Claire, full of passion, declarations of love, vivid descriptions of what she would like to do with him. His daytime mask falls off, and, aroused, he responds in kind, communing with her through the ether.

  I cannot wait for Paris, he types. There is an old Spanish song where the woman says make love to me so that the bells on my ankles jingle in my ears. I will make your bells jingle. I will even bring the bells.

  Outside the wind beats the branches against the window. His is the only light. Even the city’s cats are asleep.

  He is surprised by how easy it all seems. How naturally he can deceive. And yet it is not all lies. He loves his wife, his son. They are everything to him. But he has discovered that there is something more, something he had never known about before, an extra dimension where time and space exist on a different plane. Like an explorer who has discovered an earthly paradise, he has lost his taste for the world beyond and all he can think of is crossing the snow bridge back to Shangri-la.

  Thanksgiving arrives. Maddy cooks a feast. She has located a butcher in Trastevere where she has special-ordered two whole turkeys, a bird that rarely features in the local cuisine. Other dishes are easier to obtain. Potatoes, of course. Stuffing. Creamed onions. I mail her several cans of impossible to find Ocean Spray, which we have both always preferred to the gourmet stuff. She is making apple pies, even pumpkin. A large group of Americans arrive, friends of friends, children. They are local diplomats, artists, a journalist or two, people who can’t or won’t be able to return home for so brief a holiday. There are more than twenty of them. The guests bring wine, champagne. They sit on every available chair in the house. The invitation said drinks at two, dinner at three. They sing “We Gather Together,” and Harry says grace. The only thing missing is football on the television. Johnny sits between his parents. The wife of an architect sits on Harry’s left. He discusses his favorite Roman buildings, but soon he realizes she doesn’t share her husband’s enthusiasms. It is like talking to a shortstop’s wife about baseball, only to find she has no interest in the sport.

  After the main course but before dessert, everyone goes for a walk while the pies cool. They head en masse to the Piazza Navona, where they admire Bernini’s fountain. For the Romans, it is just another Thursday. It seems decadent to be eating and drinking in the middle of the day when everyone else is working. It is like playing hooky.

  They continue to the Tiber and then back again. By now it is getting dark. Office workers are on their way home. A few people have begun filling the cafés, teenage boys navigate the streets looking for girls. Shops are closing down.

  “I love Thanksgiving,” says Maddy when everyone has gone. They are in the kitchen. She is washing glasses, he drying. La forza del destino is playing in the background.

  “I have to go to Paris,” he announces. “I just found out. I didn’t want to say anything before and spoil the day. I’m sorry.”

  She looks over at him. “You have to go away again? Ugh. Why can’t they just leave you alone and let you write?”

  He shrugs. “I’ve been invited to meet with the French publishers. And they want me to give a talk. Apparently, I’m quite popular in France.”

  “The French also think Jerry Lewis is a comic genius,” she says with a smile. “So, when do you have to go?”

  “Next week. Monday. I’ll be gone about three days.”

  She wipes hair out of her eyes with the back of her hand, careful not to get dish soap on it. “I won’t be able to come, you know. Johnny has school.”

  “I know.” He is busy inspecting the glass in his hand. “I’ll miss you.”

  “I wish I could go. It’s been a long time since we were in Paris.”

  “Maybe the next time. It’d be boring for you anyway. I’ll be busy all day with meetings, and then there will be business dinners at night. Everyone wanting a piece of me. You hate that sort of thing.”

  “God, yes.”

  “And maybe I’ll bring you back something, a little frock,” he says lightly. “Maybe a new bag? The latest fashions?”

  She gives him a wry look. “Ha. You know perfectly well the last thing I want is some silly dress I’ll never wear anyway.”

  “Beautiful, great cook, wonderful mother, and hates to shop. You really are the world’s most perfect wife.” He gives her an affectionate kiss on the cheek. Inside he is elated. A sailor given a three-day leave.

  That night he tells Johnny once again the story of the Penguin King. Then he and Maddy make love. At first she resists, claiming she is too tired and full. Over the years, they had made love with less and less frequency. I find this out from Maddy later. Theirs had become a working relationship, and had long ceased being a passionate one. They were a team, she explained to me. After twenty years, some things change.

  It would be overly simplistic to say this was the reason Harry did what he did, but it may have had something to do with it. My sex life has never been what one could call satisfactory, but I think that, like a muscle or a foreign language, it can be diminished if not practiced regularly. I had fewer expectations from sex, so I set my bar lower and found other pleasures of the flesh, namely food and drink. And, as with food, a person is less likely to patronize another restaurant if the cooking at the one he visits all the time continues to stimulate his appetite.

  I have often thought about Maddy at this time of her life. How trusting she was. How ignorant. She made a vow and kept it. There had never been any question she wouldn’t. But despite her beauty, she was not a very sexual person. Not that she was indifferent to sex, but she regarded it the way someone else might consider chocolate or physical exercise. It had its benefits, even its pleasures, but it paled in comparison with what was truly important to her, which was love and family.

  Like those born without money, those born without love want it all the more. It becomes the great solution, the answer to all problems. When Madeleine was just six months old, her mother left. Before her marriage her mother had been very beautiful, a highly paid fashion model from a humble background, but she didn’t leave to run off with another man. She was forced out by her mother-in-law, a wealthy and powerful woman who disapproved of her son’s choice in a wife. And he did not put up much of a fight. For him, it came down to a choice of love or money, a decision made easier for him because I honestly question whether he ever loved anyone. He never told Maddy the truth either, saying instead that her mother was crazy, a drug fiend.

  It was easily handled. People were able to do things like that back then. There was one rule for the rich and another for everyone else. A telephone call to a lawyer was all it took. Threats
were made, papers signed. Maddy lived with her grandmother for the next several years, until her father remarried, this time to someone deemed more suitable. Her older brother, Johnny, had stayed with their father, and together they left the country for a few years, living in St. Croix. But her mother, beaten by a system she never really understood, vanished from their lives. There had been one or two attempts at phone calls, usually on Maddy’s birthday or Christmas, but the calls had always been intercepted by her father, who simply hung up.

  One time, when Maddy was seven or eight, still wearing her party dress, she came into the room just as her father was replacing the receiver. Who was that, Daddy? she had asked. Wrong number, he told her. She hadn’t learned yet not to trust him.

  It wasn’t until Maddy was a freshman in college that she saw her mother again. She was living outside of Boston, near where she had grown up. For days Maddy debated contacting her, wondering if there was any point, if any good could come of it, but knowing in her heart that she had never been told the full story. Finally Maddy called her mother on the phone, arranging a meeting, unsure of what to expect. What kind of woman doesn’t fight for her own child? Maddy was then at an age where she still expected answers.

  Her mother lived in a poor neighborhood of an old industrial town. Multifamily houses with plastic siding, children playing in the street, shuttered stores, cracked sidewalks, pit bulls barking behind chain-link fences. I still don’t know how Maddy located her. She doesn’t lie, but she can be selective in what she chooses to reveal.

  When she arrived, her mother greeted her. The apartment was sparsely furnished. The paint on the walls was chipped, and it smelled of cat. I am sure Maddy had never been in a house like this before. She moves in a different world completely. A man sat in one of the only chairs watching television. He didn’t even look up. In the background, a pretty little girl with long blond hair peered out shyly, half-hidden by the kitchen door.

  In the same way that we form an image of a character in a book, Madeleine had always had a picture in her mind of what her mother looked like. She had been too young to remember her mother, and her father had destroyed all photographs of her. Was her imagined mother drawn from a vague half memory, the dim recollection of a face above her, lifting her from a crib, holding her to her breast? Would seeing her mother be like looking in a mirror, and seeing an older version of herself?