We sat close together. She poured the drinks.
“To our health,” I said.
“And to our sex,” she answered.
We started drinking, talking, drifting into memories and the stories of our lives. Stories that left us with psychic scars and flaccid flesh. Our fortunes and misfortunes, joys and sorrows; drawing comfort from our proximity, our touching, our warmth, mental and physical, our chaste, compassionate caresses, our sips of drink.
My life after California: Egypt, an unhappy, ill-matched marriage, business failure, divorce, my ex-wife‟s remarriage, my move to Greece with Annie and a new, 60
moderately successful career as a novelist. Sheri‟s drudgery as a housewife for years and years until Nicholas finally went to nursery school and she returned to her old profession to breathe again the air of the city and feel useful. Telly‟s persistent womanizing; her only comfort being the kids, then, their departure to the West coast for college studies and, finally, Telly‟s sudden death and the emotional emptiness which was even worse than his adulteries.
She started crying.
I said, “Don‟t, my sweet,” and wiped her tears with my hand. I could not offer her happiness. Only momentary compassion. I kissed her mouth and she pulled my head to hers so violently, our teeth collided accidentally. Her tongue eagerly stretched inside my throat and we stopped to smile because we felt the fire coming, the embers flaring up, the old magic creeping in our souls and our limbs.
“Aren‟t you warm?” I asked.
“Burning,” she answered with a laugh and took off her nightdress. She wore nothing underneath and hurriedly helped me remove my pajamas. “Kiss me, baby,” she pleaded. I kissed her on the forehead and she laughed again and opened her body to me and I realized I would not need the blue pills for a few years yet.
Our bodies were clammy and our throats parched from the exertion and the alcohol, when we finished. Sheri poured another shot of whisky with soda water and we took in a good gulp.
“That was so nice,” she said. “Almost ….better than back then.”
“Well,” I said, “let‟s not exaggerate. Better than expected, perhaps. And, in any case, pretty wonderful. I never cease to marvel. To all appearances, Sheri you are a cool Anglo and give no indication of the fire inside you. But boy, you‟re a volcano!
Didn‟t Telly see that?”
“That‟s a silly question coming from a man who has been through marriage, Nicky. Marriage kills passion. Our passion was over even before we were married. He was a funny, old-fashioned man, Telly. He wanted children and a family life but also the male privileges of the nineteenth century where women stayed at home and men were allowed to sow their wild oats. On top of everything, he was very attractive, you must admit, and worked in a milieu abounding with nubile young women brought up in the uninhibited sexual ethics of out times. I have nothing against that. The breaking of the sexual taboos is all for the best and when Sam told me she moved in with Greg I was happy for her. The thing is, with this loosening up of morals, marriage and raising a family have become very difficult propositions to balance.
“Men and women are different biologically and psychologically and I am under the impression that there is an evolution going on, a new social contract working itself out with this new freedom, with the woman earning money, with contraception at her fingertips and the soaring divorce rate. We are in the middle of it.
Our social scientists are, perhaps, aware of it. Don‟t you think? I mean, perhaps Telly was a part of it, a pawn of this experiment, this vast evolution. I was too intolerant of his infidelities and made life difficult for him as well as for me. Instead, I should have had some affairs myself; only with childbearing and the confinement of housework I did not have the opportunity. But again, women are different and this might not have been a viable alternative. Sometimes I philosophize and think that marriages should have an expiry date, at the age of say forty-five or fifty or when the children go off to college. An official termination date written in a marriage contract. All this supposedly idealistic concept of love-for-a-lifetime is mush. It never happens. Much less sex-for-a-lifetime. The sooner we accept the fact, the better we shall adapt our lives.”
61
“My, my, you‟re quite a philosopher, my little Sheri.”
“Not so little,” she said smiling. “It‟s the wisdom of middle-age and an unhappy life. Well, not totally. I must not be a whiner; it‟s just that I have tried to rationalize my difficulties. But let‟s forget about them. Some are over, some to come.
Another whisky? And may I open the TV? I want to see a film cuddled and naked as we are, two babes in paradise for a few hours.”
We sipped our drinks, comfortably embraced on the couch watching the film.
We did not last it out because of some kissing on the screen. Well, yes, it had its effect and we moved to her bedroom, her double bed, her soft mattress, and my hardness merged with her softness and the whisky with our passion and the struggle was long-drawn and pretty wonderful because we nearly died and, after, abruptly fell asleep, both of us. That was the only difference between now and then.
When we woke up in the morning, she said,
“It‟s Wednesday, oh my God!”
“What‟s wrong Sheri?” I asked.
“Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. Just three more days. On Saturday I leave.
And what‟s even worse is that I have to work. I have appointments I cannot cancel.”
“Never mind. Our evenings are ours. And three days is just so we won‟t get bored of one another.”
“Bored? Are you kidding? Come here, baby.”
She kissed me passionately. She had it in surfeit, this fire and I was glad I was able to respond. We made love in a hurry. In any case, it ends quicker in the morning and she showered and left me with a kiss and a smile. Unhurriedly, I followed suit, showered and after watching the CNN news, I dressed and went to BU. Telly‟s parents, my aunt and her husband, were dead. The husband died a year or two after I left the States and my aunt almost fifteen years later so I had no social calls to make.
Of Laura I had absolutely no news.
I loved the college and the youthful energy it exuded. I loved the students and wanted to shout to them: “You are living the best part of your lives. Enjoy your freedom and irresponsibility, but also your studies and your youth.” I walked about but did not meet a single person I recognized. I stayed there all morning, roaming in the libraries and the lecture halls and then, at four, left and walked to the city to meet Sheri for dinner at a restaurant near the salon where she worked. We returned home at about seven in her car. She had asked if I would like to see a movie or a play at the theatre but I told her we only had three nights left and it would be silly to miss all those lovely, whisky-soaked, comfortable chats and TV programs on the living-room couch. Not to mention their intriguing aftermaths. She laughed, in entire, total agreement and when we returned, we showered, freshened up with colognes and perfumes, put on our formal bedroom attire and sat glued to each other on the couch.
We talked and drank, laughed and touched, innocently and suggestively, in a soft light that hid our imperfections and our age and, by and by, switched on the TV and waited, enlaced, for a kiss. It was a fun game to build up our tension, our desire, because after a certain stage of maturity, especially for a man, simplicity is dreary and the brain must give a push to a reduced virility. And when a kiss finally came, we were ready; we caught fire.
The next two days were much the same. After a lazy morning start, I walked about the city for hours, nearly wearing out the soles of my shoes. Entered coffee bars for a cappuccino, trying to locate Telly‟s favorite haunt and, perhaps, the, by now, middle-aged miss Blow-job. What wouldn‟t I give to talk to her. To question her about her life. A life, surely, with enough material for three novels. But I did not find 62
it. It had probably closed down and another shop acquired the premises. Dinner at a restaurant with Sheri and back to the house for inventive sensual exercises. On Saturday, I drove her to the airport in the morning. I told her I would leave in a couple of days. We embraced emotionally and sadly, but, thankfully, without sentimentality and declarations of love and eternal fidelity. Our relationship, I realized at that moment, was exciting and physical with very definite parameters. We promised to meet again soon. A pledge, vague and hopeful and probably improbable.
I drove back to the house and parked her car in the garage. Upstairs I lazed about, took a shower to wash the early-morning lovemaking odors and watched a little TV. I finally focused on Annie who had been hovering at the edges of my consciousness and called her up on the telephone. Both she and mother were well and expected me back soon. I, idly, picked up a well-worn telephone index catalogue which was lying next to the phone with names written in by Sheri. It was her handwriting all right. That haphazard mix of small and capital letters. I turned to the first page, the letter A. I glanced through it. A name struck me. Ashton June (Rubinski). That must be June, I thought. The Madonna. Probably married to someone called Ashton. How funny.
I went down for a walk and strolled in the neighborhood, window shopping for a gift for Annie and mother. I returned home empty handed. Oh well, on Monday I would go to town to book my seat and would look again for some gifts. I opened the TV but couldn‟t concentrate. June Rubinski was wedged in my brain. There was just one way to get me cured. I looked up the number and dialed it. If a man answers I‟ll click off, I thought. A woman‟s voice answered. I had heard her voice utter a few sentences twenty years ago and yet I was sure I recognized it.
“Is Mr. Ashton there?” I asked.
“Mr. Ashton has left this house for over five years. Who is this speaking?”
“June, is that you?”
“Yes. Who is it?”
“A difficult question, because you almost certainly won‟t remember me.”
“Give it a try.”
“We met about twenty years ago…”
She laughed.
“Is that all?” she said.
“Yes and …”
“You asked for my husband but I wasn‟t married at the time so what or who is it you want?”
“You are an impatient woman and I am surprised because university instructors usually are not.”
“Is this a charade, or what?”
“Almost. For both of us. I asked for your husband to see if you were married.
Had he answered I would have clicked off.”
“The mystery is thickening,” she said. “But you may proceed. I am divorced.
I laughed.
“I was one of Telly‟s students and we were introduced by Maria, his mother, at her house. She said you were like the Madonna. As beautiful and as kind.”
“Oh my God. Yes. I remember the occasion and the conversation but I don‟t remember you at all.”
“I remember you, though. One does not easily forget a Madonna.”
“Please, don‟t disparage the mother of Christ.”
“Not at all. If she was as beautiful as you.”
63
“Stop blaspheming young Nicholas.”
“You remembered my name!”
“Yes. The charade is yielding results.”
“June, do you think I could invite you for a coffee?”
“When?”
“This afternoon?”
“It‟s already afternoon.”
“In an hour or two?”
“What‟s the hurry?”
“I haven‟t got much time.”
“Why? Are you about to commit suicide?”
I laughed.
“Well you do sound desperate,” she said.
“I am. Well,…sort of.”
“Okay. How about downtown at the Hyatt. And if that‟s too highfalutin for you, there‟s a cozy little shop nearby. I don‟t remember you, though. What will you be wearing?”
“An anxious expression and wild goggle-eyes. And if you miss me, I won‟t miss you.”
She laughed.
“Okay, then. Round about seven. We might even complete the charade.” I put the receiver down and I felt a shudder down my spine. What was the matter with me? Getting involved with older women? Widows and divorcees. And not only that, this excitement mixed with apprehension, what was it supposed to mean?
The fact was, that I wanted desperately to see June again not only because of her beauty but because she seemed so far and above Sheri‟s and Telly‟s league. Telly was a mathematical brain, full stop. June was an intellectual. I imagined. I had no doubt about it.
At a quarter to seven I was already posted at the Hyatt‟s main entrance. A little further inside I found an armchair, turned it to face the doorway and sat down. I kept a lookout for beautiful women coming in. They did not tax me because there were not that many. Well dressed and chic, yes, accompanied usually, but none to make my heart skip a beat and my heart was so ready and so edgy. I kept looking at my watch.
Seven. Five past. Ten past. A woman with white hair entered. Not the white of old age. More like on the indistinct border of extreme blond and white. June was a brunette, twenty years ago. I was not sure it was her. But she was exquisite and I jumped up. It caught her eye, this abrupt movement, and she came up to me directly, smiled and held out her hand.
“Hello Nicholas,” she said, “nice to see you again.”
“Hello June. How did you know it was me?”
“By the coordinates you gave me. An anxious, goggle-eyed look.” She laughed.
“But it seems to me, despite your certainty that you would recognize me, you didn‟t,” she added.
“Not straightaway. You have changed. The hair. And you are thinner than I remember. But it couldn‟t have been anyone else. I had this impulse to get on my knees and pray.”
“Oh please, stop this Madonna business.”
“Yes, no need to harp on the obvious.”
She smiled again with mock irritation.
64
“Is it all right here, for a coffee?” she asked.
“Yes. For our formal reunion. Later, when we get more familiar we can go for a second coffee in the cozy shop nearby.”
“Have you the time? I thought you were pressed.”
“Oh, plenty of time.”
“All of a sudden? “
“No. I have a few days with plenty of time and then I must leave for good.”
“The charade continues,” she said evenly.
We walked towards the Hyatt coffee shop. I couldn‟t take my eyes off her and bumped on people and chairs. She had become an ethereal figure. I wondered if she was suffering from some illness. Her thinness and the elegance of her clothes gave her an aura of height though she was normal. Her neck was long and delicate and it was the only part of her that gave some indication of her age. The skin was slightly loose under her chin and along her throat. Her complexion was unlined and unblemished and I wondered again if she had a facelift. Two large, blue, hazel eyes on an oval face with a high forehead. Eyebrows plucked to perfection. A thin perfect nose leading to a serious yet sensual mouth whose smile was sweet, worldly, serious and wise. And a chin completing flawlessly the ovality of the face. Her somewhat off-white, shiny, brilliant hair was less than shoulder length but not short. It undulated perfectly, covering her ears and one side of her face more than the other. It left the forehead exposed and on the right side a wisp nearly reached her eyebrow. On the other, it was swept away as if the wind ruffled it on divine instructions.
We sat down and she looked at me for a moment.
“So, Nicholas,” she said, “what brings us here today?”
“Memories. My memory of you.”
She smiled.
“A mathematician and a dreamer? Is it possible?”
“Mathematics is the past and, of necessity, I dream a lot in my new profession.”
“Which is?”
“A second-rate novelist.”
She laughed delightedly.
“Fantastic!” she said.
“Why?”
“Tell you later. Please, do go on.”
“Go on where?”
“Tell me about yourself. About how a mathematician becomes a writer.”
“It‟s a long story.”
“I love long stories.”
“Yes, only I don‟t know the ending.”
She smiled.
“No one ever does.”
“I mean, I don‟t know if it‟s going to be a happy ending or an unhappy one.”
“It‟s all part of the charade. Do go on.”
“Well, you know some of it. Telly was a second cousin, Maria being my father‟s first. I had this mania for mathematics like some people have for crossword puzzles and I came here, against my father‟s wishes needless to say, to study under the supervision of our departed genius. I was really dazzled by him. I felt an instant mutual warmth between us from the start and not just because we were cousins. At college he was a star, a personality, and he really was a fine mathematician. I 65
absolutely hero-worshiped him. I quickly became aware of his womanizing because we often went out together with other women while he was going steady with Sheri.
No need to tell you, at the beginning, this imparted added glamour to Telly in my naïve, almost provincial outlook. Meanwhile, during my second semester I met a girl in one of these Greek get-togethers and we had a liaison.” June smiled.
“Nice word, this liaison. A bit vague, though. Was it close?”
“The closest.”
“Sorry, please go on.”
“Then, at the end of the school year, Telly announced his forthcoming, rather hasty marriage to Sheri, due to an unforeseen pregnancy, and proposed that the following semester I should live with them instead of the boarding house and I accepted willingly. When I returned to Boston in the fall, Laura, the girl I was in love with, well,… almost in love, broke up with me.”
“What do you mean, almost? You either were in love or not. Do you write about people being almost in love in your novels? Or are you so clear headed as to be able to delineate exact gradations of feeling.”
“Do you always split hairs Miss Rubinski? Okay, I was in love and I was very miserable when she showed me the door. Anyway, to get on with the story, Sheri gave birth to Sam and everything went awry in the happy family I was hoping to live in.
Laura, a few months later, called to say she was pregnant and would I help her with an abortion, which I did, deducing at the same time that the culprit was Telly. Sam, in those early days, drove us literally crazy and drove Telly out of his bedroom and the couple‟s relationship went on hold in permanent silence, speechlessness, not a word from either side, forever. Perhaps there were other reasons for this I was unaware of.”
“So how did it end?”
“Well, it blew away eventually.”
“Just like that?”
“Yes.”
She laughed.
“Perhaps you lent a helping hand?”
I looked at her. Did she know?
“Are you friends with Sheri?” I asked.
“Yes. For years we have been going to the same gym together.”
“And are women as bad as men in recounting their intimacies to their friends?”
“I should say, quite a bit worse.”
“Well, I have nothing else to add.”
“You are principled and discreet. I am starting to like you. Please go on.”
“I couldn‟t stay in their house any longer. Everything was finished between me and Telly. I made a transfer to a college in L.A. and for the next two years I attended school there. With Sheri we kept up a sporadic correspondence for a few years but then it died away until, miraculously, a letter of hers reached me in Greece, through Cairo, to announce Telly‟s death.”
Two cappuccinos came and were slowly consumed. It was time for a move to a cozier place. But I still had to finish my story which seemed to absorb June.
“The two years in California were very pleasant. I had a reasonable time and though I studied conscientiously, I met many girls but was never seriously attached.
When I graduated, I considered graduate school but my family wished me to return to 66
take over my father‟s import-export business and, perhaps stupidly, decided to be a good son.”
“These old-world family ties are sometimes so strong as to be enslaving,” said June. “Thankfully, they do not exist in the US any more. Everyone looks selfishly to his own needs and families are conditioned to it. It is the best attitude.”
“I returned to Egypt and tried to make a life for myself. It was the start of socialism in that country and besides the nationalizations of large private enterprises, a host of new laws put commerce in the hands of huge government agglomerations.
Small operations such as ours were unable to function normally and we acted as consultants to our former business clients and ran around the government bureaucracies trying to secure orders to earn small commissions. The business was moribund, on its last legs.
“In the seven years I spent there, I used to go to a club to play tennis, jog and swim and generally work out my tensions and disappointment at the dead-end situation I found myself in. At the swimming pool, I met a sexy, Greek girl, became friendly with her, and after spreading suntan oil on her luscious body many a time, I was curious to find out what was beneath her swimsuit.”
“Male concern number one,” June said laughing.
“Well, there wasn‟t much to fascinate me in the cephalic regions.
Unfortunately, shortly after she fell pregnant because the Chinese condoms available at the time in Egypt were of very poor quality and tended to shred. We married in a hurry to avoid scandal and little Annie was born but the marriage was a disaster. We were totally different characters and the only thing that united us was sex. But is sex, alone, ever enough? Perhaps, but not in our case.”
“Not in anyone‟s case, I should think,” said June. “The trouble with sex is that when you don‟t have it you get desperate and when you have it regularly you get bored. Do you agree?”
“Yes.”
“I imagined you would. This is, of course, the male point of view, in case you did not know.”
“And the female?”
“A trifle more complicated. But let‟s not go into it. We have an interesting narrative to finish. So you divorced?”
“Yes. I am not assigning blame on anyone for the divorce that followed about a year or so after Annie‟s birth. I left the house and moved back to my parents‟
apartment but I visited the baby every single day. Four years later, Nana, my ex, remarried, had a second child on the double and was happy to let Annie come home to us. My mother took care of Annie and it was a great solace to have her with us because, meanwhile, my father died. Two years later my business collapsed completely and we sold our apartment and moved to Athens. We had a little money saved up by my father, a flat of ours in Athens and a house in the Aegean island called Io, which my mother inherited from her side of the family. I had already started writing short memoirs and stories in Cairo and decided to give writing a try before looking for a job.”
“That‟s what intrigues me,” June said. “A mathematician turned author.”
“I have an acquaintance in Io, an intelligent and erudite person who believes that all writers are, to some extent, psychotic. Normal, well-adjusted people do not need to write. They have absolutely no urge to do so. No fire in their belly, so to speak. They are quite content as they are. Perhaps that‟s true. In my case, the urge was 67
there from early on. I enjoyed English literature and essay writing at school and always read a lot.”
“Well,” said June, “you‟re an exception because scientists and mathematicians tend to be both uninterested and inept in the literary field. Their fields of study absorb all their interest and intellect. Literature is a luxury they can do without. Try getting a successful businessman who is making loads of money to read a novel. He will laugh at you. And yet literature is a subtle art. And as with all art its raison d‟être is to create beauty in language, to inspire emotions and to elevate us above our humdrum everyday existence. It is the occupation of dreamers. And it does need brain and skill, knowledge and hard work. But please go on. Forgive these interjections of the obvious.”
“As I said, I always had this urge to write. In L.A., during my final year at college, I tried writing a novel but it was hopeless junk. I realized that from the very start and was sorely disappointed. In Egypt I started again and wrote little pieces as a hobby. It helped me pass the time and deflected the constant preoccupation with my personal difficulties and failures. And with time and practice I discerned a definite and steady improvement in my writing skills. It sort of balanced my professional deterioration and boosted my crumbling self-esteem.
“In Greece, my mother, who was weighed down with guilt about the family‟s insistence that I return to Cairo to a job that was suddenly confronted with insurmountable problems, encouraged me to try my hand at writing. She did not stint covering our expenses single-handedly for a number of years until I finally started to participate with my own meager earnings. I, first, wrote a novel in English I could not publish in Greece and then turned to writing in Greek. My Greek was not all that good to start with but it has improved to the point that I am selling short stories and longer novellas. Three years ago I moved permanently with Annie to Io. I am happy there. I have all the peace and quiet I need to think, dream and write. I am sure Annie is not exactly thrilled but is getting used to it. In any case, when she finishes the local high school in three years‟ time, and if she has good grades she will go to university in Athens and will live with my mother who declined to settle with us in Io.
“Just as I was finishing my first Greek novel, I received Sheri‟s peregrinating letter announcing Telly‟s demise and decided to visit her. She left today, of course, for L.A. to meet Sam‟s future in-laws and attend an engagement ceremony. I drove her to the airport early in the morning and back home I carelessly picked up her telephone directory and saw your name. As I was flying into Boston a few days ago and was ruminating my past in this country, I thought of you. I remembered how beautiful you were. I remembered Maria‟s words. I remembered Telly telling me you were lovers. I remembered thinking what a lucky, stupid guy he was. When I read Ashton June (Rubinski) in that catalogue, I was electrified. That‟s why we are here. In a hurry. Because I shall be leaving for Greece in a few days.” I stopped and looked at her.
“End of charade,” she said with a smile.
“No, June. Don‟t you think my interest, my almost juvenile infatuation, deserves your side of the story? A few facts about your life?”
“Fair enough,” she said.
I motioned to the waiter for the bill, paid it and we got up.
“To the cozy shop?” she asked.
“Of course. You lead the way.”
As we left the Hyatt, I put my arm around hers and she looked up at me and smiled. I could love this woman, I thought. I must be raving mad.
68
We walked in the cool, still lucid late afternoon of June, entered a small coffee shop and ordered another two cappuccinos.
“I‟ll never sleep tonight, June said. I‟m a little high-strung and coffee keeps me awake forever.”
“So much the better,” I said. “I‟m pressed for time.”
“Make up your mind. Are you or aren‟t you?”
“A bit of both depending on the point of view.”
She smiled.
“But, tell me Nicholas, how do you find me? Did I fulfill your expectations?”
“Oh my God, what a question! You are a woman after all. Flesh and blood.”