'Right,' I said. I pushed my face into her hair. 'And I think I know that in all these years there hasn't been anyone else for you, right?'
'Don't ask,' she said. She was bluffing, I was sure. 'And I think I know that there have been a few for you,' she added.
'Right,' I said.
'I wasn't asking.'
'Well, I am asking, Utch.'
'You're changing the rules,' she said. 'I think you ought to give a little advance notice when you change the rules.' She backed her hips into me and drew my hand between her thighs. 'One rule is, Take it when it's offered.'
She was already wet; she rubbed herself against my hand. 'Which one of us are you thinking of?' I asked her. Was that cruel?
But she said, 'All of you,' and laughed. 'Two and three and four at a time,' she said. I was in her mouth very quickly and she covered my ears with her thighs. Utch tasted like nutmeg, like vanilla, like an avocado; she was careful with her teeth. Was it only with me that Edith lacked control in this position? Did Severin really say to her, 'You've both got quite the setup. Utch and I are supposed to keep each other occupied while you have a perfect guiltless affair. It wouldn't do to have Utch and me feeling useless and pathetic, would it?' How could he regard Utch that way? She tasted sweeter than roast lamb, like the pan juices; she had a mouth large enough for illusions.
I asked her, 'Do you feel manipulated? Is that what Severin feels? And I know you never had another lover before Severin, right?'
She pushed herself firmer against me. 'I never asked you about Sally Frotsch,' she said, 'though you never changed your mind overnight about a baby-sitter before.' I was in and out of her mouth so her sentences were short. I was amazed at what she knew. 'Or that Gretchen What's-her-name? An independent study in what?' I couldn't believe it. 'And that poor divorced Mrs Stewart. I never knew you were so talented fixing hot-water heaters.' She put me neatly back in her mouth and kept me there.
Did she know about the others? Not that there were many, and they were never serious. I couldn't think of a time when it seemed likely that she'd had a lover; there'd never been a man I was suspicious of. But who could be sure? At least I knew that until me, Edith had never been involved. I reached into Utch's mouth to ask her, but she rang my ears with her thighs. What her thighs said was, 'Better go ask Edith again.' I resisted, but her rhythm made it hard to hold back. And Severin? Surely that moral absolutist could never have had a dalliance before he and Utch went to the mat together.
'Ask Utch,' Edith had said. I was trying. When I came, her mouth turned as soft as a flower with the petals pushed back. But though I'd felt her on the edge at least twice, I knew that she hadn't come herself. 'It's all right,' she whispered. 'I'll get mine later.' From him or me? I wondered. I went to the bathroom and drank three glasses of water.
When I came back to the bedroom, she was helping herself to get there. Occasionally she got overstimulated and could only finish by herself. It was delicate because sometimes I could help her, but other times I got in the way. It was a matter of not getting too involved. I lay down beside her but didn't touch her. I watched her touching herself, her eyes shut tightly, her concentration a marvel. Sometimes if I touched her then, it would be just what she needed; other times, it would destroy it. I recognized her rhythm; I knew she was close. Her breathing skipped, then picked up; her hips made a familiar circular motion. Sometimes a word would push her over; any word would do; it was the sound of my voice which mattered. But when I looked at her squint-shut eyes and her clenched face, I suddenly knew that I had no idea which one of us she was seeing - or if it was either of us! I wanted to shout at her, 'Is it him or me?' but I knew that would distract her. And then she was coming, her voice starting in her throat and reaching deeper, her whole diaphragm moving like a lion's way of roaring. She slowed her rhythm, as if drawing out each note of a groan. She was coming and nothing would stop it; I could do anything - scream, bite, even slide into her. It was downhill now, but I did nothing. I watched her face for some clue. I listened for his name - or mine, or someone else's.
But what she said wasn't even in English. 'Noch eins!' she cried. Twisting, grinding into the bed. 'Noch eins!'
Even I could understand it; I'd been in enough bars to know it. It's what you say when your beer's finished and you want another. 'Noch eins!' you holler, and the waiter brings you 'one more'.
Utch lay relaxed with one hand still touching herself and the other to her lips. She was tasting herself, I knew; she liked herself, she had told me. In that pose she looked like Kurt Winter's drawing of Katrina Marek.
We historical novelists are frequently struck by meaningless coincidences, but I wondered if I knew Utch at all - and whether the four of us were wise to want to find out more about each other than we already knew.
I lay beside my wife who wanted one more. She looked content to me.
7
Carnival's Quarrel with Lent
THEN ONE NIGHT Severin took Utch to the wrestling room. Throughout dinner we had all noticed that he was not as morose as usual - not as caustic, not as consciously trying to make us feel guilty for his great unnamed Schmerz. When he helped Utch into her coat, he winked at Edith. I could see she was surprised. She was used to getting a martyred look from him - that son-of-a-bitch, as if he were saying, 'Well, here I go, off to do my duty.' He made it appear that sex with Utch was just another good husband's task, as if he were doing us all a favor.
But on this night he touched Utch a lot at dinner and spoke German quietly to her. Both Edith and I were struck by how attentive he was; I noticed Edith watched them more than usual. Was he trying to make her jealous? She'd told him repeatedly that she wasn't in the least jealous. 'Of course you're not,' he said. 'It's a perfect setup. You've got yourself a lover of your choice, and you've placated me with a poor cowlike creature whom you've no need to be jealous of - and you know it.' But Utch wasn't a 'poor cowlike creature'. That swinish, snobbish, self-important cuntsman! I've seen my bedroom after he left it; there was little evidence of condescension there.
So - one night - he was cordial, devilish, comically lewd. He goosed Edith goodnight, and when he was helping her into her coat, he cupped Utch's breasts.
'I think he's coming around,' I told Edith after they'd left. She watched their headlights run across the ceiling of the living room, but said nothing. 'Don't you see what he's doing?' I persisted. 'He's trying to make you jealous. He's trying to induce his reaction in you.'
She shook her head. 'He's not acting naturally,' she said. 'He hasn't been like himself since the whole thing began.'
I tried to reassure her. 'I think he's adjusting to it. He's letting himself relax more with Utch.' Edith shut her eyes; she didn't believe me, but she wouldn't elaborate. 'Well, anything's better than having him mooning around,' I said, 'waiting for one of us to ask him "What's wrong?" so that he can say "Nothing".' Edith did not look convinced.
We took our love shower and went to bed, but she was restless. She wanted to call my house and ask Severin something, but she wouldn't tell me what. I argued against it. We might catch them in the middle of something, and he might think the phone call was intentionally timed--
'Bunk,' Edith said; she was cross with me.
Severin came back later than usual. I'd gotten out of bed to pee and when I came back I found that he'd taken my place. He was giggling, lying in bed next to Edith with all his clothes on. I had the feeling he'd been waiting outside the door for me to get up, just so he could pull this stunt. He undressed under the covers, churning up the bed, disturbing Edith, who woke up, started, stared at us both, shook her head and rolled over.
'Well, you're in high spirits,' I said; it was awkward getting dressed in front of him, but he obviously enjoyed it.
'Take the old ashtray when you go, OK?' he asked.
I decided to keep his game going; I said, 'I've been meaning to speak to you about the apple cores, Severin. I don't mind the crumbs in bed, really, but the apple cores and c
heese rinds are a bit much.'
He laughed. 'Well, you won't find a mess tonight,' he said. 'We've been as neat as a pin.' His teeth, I swear, glowed in the dark. I wanted to kiss Edith goodnight. Was she asleep? Was she angry? I blew out the candle on the dresser.
'Blah-urf!' Edith said, as if he'd touched her suddenly.
'Goodnight, Edith,' I said in the dark. His hand reached out and caught my wrist as I passed their bed. His grip frightened me; it didn't hurt, but I knew that it could hold on all day. Maybe it was just an affectionate goodnight grasp. 'Goodnight, Severin,' I said. He laughed and let me go.
I was chilled in the car. I had a momentary vision, terrible and clear, of coming home and finding Utch murdered in our bed, her limbs twisted and tied into some elaborate wrestler's knot; the rest of the house would be 'neat as a pin'.
I shouldered open the door and found her sitting at the kitchen table, fully dressed, drinking tea and picking at the remains of an impressive-looking breakfast. It was almost dawn. She smiled when I came in; she looked sleepy but happy. 'What's the matter?' she asked.
'I thought something might be the matter with you.'
She laughed. They certainly had a bounty of giggles and chuckles tonight, I thought.
'What have you been doing?' I asked, surprised to see her dressed. When I opened the bedroom door, the bed was cleanly made, as tucked-in as at noontime, the pillows undented.
'We went to the wrestling room,' Utch said. She burst out laughing and blushed. Then she told me.
Severin had parked the car at the rear of the new gym and blinked the headlights on and off, on and off. When a watchman came out of the maintenance entrance, Severin called out, 'It's me, Harvey. I'm going up to the room tonight.'
'OK, Coach,' the watchman said. Utch realized that this was not the first time he'd done this.
It was midnight when he led her through the dark corridors; he knew every turn. They undressed in the locker room. Only Utch shivered. They dressed in clean wrestling robes, the crimson and white ones with the ominous hood. Like monks engaged in some midnight rite, they walked through the fabulous tunnel; he kissed her; he felt her under her robe.
In the blackness of the tunnel, Severin never even brushed a wall. Utch felt his arm reach out for the door just as they reached it. Moonlight glazed the mud and cinder floor of the old cage and the skylight dome was etched with dark vines of ivy. The old board track shrieked when they walked around it. The pigeons under the eaves were disturbed and fretted like grandmothers. Somewhere a high-jump bar clanged; she froze, but he kept walking smoothly, in rhythm. Severin Winter was familiar with that place at night.
Inside the wrestling room, the moonlight made the mats ripple like a blood-colored pond. Utch said she was excited, but a little frightened. He took off her robe; the mats were a perfect body temperature against her skin. They 'rolled around', she said; they 'loosened up'. She tried some yoga positions; he showed her some stretching exercises. The thermostat kept the room warm constantly, and soon they were both sweating. Utch said she never felt so limber. Then Severin moved to the ghostly white rim of the starting circle on the center mat, his bare toes lined up behind the line. He waited for her; he was not smiling. Utch said she felt uncertain, but she trusted him. She stood across the circle from him and breathed deeply; she let her head loll, stretching her neck. His hands were restless against his moonlit thighs. She shimmied her fingers the way Tyrone Williams did before the whistle.
'Wie gehts?' asked Severin in his tunnel voice.
'Gut,' Utch said - huskily but loudly.
Now Severin heard some whistle in his head, and he started across the circle toward her - not rushing, not coming at her directly. Again she felt a little fear, but when his hand shot out and cupped the back of her neck, she came alive; she dove in under his chest and hit him at the knees, driving hard. He glided away, then floated toward her again; she swiped at his head - a mistake, she knew - and he had her. He dropped in so deeply under her that she was surprised; he hit her hard but cleanly; nothing hurt. He had her so snugly that nothing moved. The round weight of his shoulder was in her crotch, his arm snaked through her legs, the palm of his hand lay flat against her spine. She reached back to break her fall and discovered she was already down on the mat; she squirmed off her back (he let her) and bucked back into him, got up to her knees and tried to stand. He rode her closer than a coat. He was the opposite of rough; he made her feel that she had two bodies which moved in time with each other. There was no strain, but his weight wore her down. Her arms grew heavy lifting his arms; her back dipped under the weight of his chest. She let her head droop and felt his mouth on her neck. She sank back onto the mat. Their bodies glistened - even seemed phosphorescent - in the moonlight. The mat gave off heat. Their bodies slid. Bending was never easier. Slickness was everywhere, but her heels found a way to grip the mat. Over his snug shoulder she saw the moon sailing through a maze of vines. Either the pigeons were talking excitedly or she was failing to recognize her own voice; she swore she felt their wingbeat lifting her lightly off the mat. She was coming, she came, she was waiting for him; when he came, she expected the hand of an invisible referee to smack the mat hard and flat, indicating a fall. Instead there was a crushing weight, a foreign silence; the great fans for the blow-heaters whirred on, a sound too constant to be called a noise. They rolled apart, but their fingers touched. She doesn't remember who started laughing first when he got a towel and wiped up what they'd spilled on the mat. He flipped the towel back into the corner, where Utch said she imagined it reproducing towels all night. The next day, a great stack of towels would be towering there to greet the shocked wrestlers.
Their laughter caromed around the old board track; it echoed in the caverns under the swimming pool. They swam; they took a sauna; they swam again. I imagine them conquering new territory, leaving prints and spores behind like dogs.
'Christ, did you talk?' I asked. Utch smiled. I couldn't imagine how many eggs they'd eaten; the sink seemed full of shells.
'Ja, we talked a little.'
'What about?'
'He kept asking me how I was: "Wie gehts? Wie gehts?" And I kept telling him: "Gut! Gut!"'
How good? I wanted to ask, as sarcastic as a stone, but Utch's placidity among the toast crusts and yolk stains made me mute.
Over our kitchen table is a print of Pieter Brueghel's The Fight Between Carnival and Lent; I lost myself in an image from years before. I imposed myself on Brueghel's painting. I walked into his cosmos; I shrank, put on wooden clogs, browsed through the old Netherlandish town.
'Are you all right?' Utch asked, but it was 1559; I smelled the waffles baking (it was almost Ash Wednesday; Shrovetide customs were everywhere). I wriggled in my leggings. My codpiece itched.
In the great painting, I nudged against droves of the subservient masses, dark and cloaked. They are milling about the church, but their devotion is dull. Women are selling fish. Lent and her followers prepare for a joust - a gaunt woman drawn into battle by a nun and a monk. Astraddle a barrel, probably sour from ale, a fat representative of Carnival thrusts forward a suckling pig on a skewer; his masked revelers surround him, comic and lewd with their instruments. Everywhere, children tease or ignore them; everywhere, cripples are ignored. The inn is busier than the church. I watch a performance of the comedy 'The Dirty Bride'. I imagine I am touched - tweaked under my breechclout - but nearly every woman's smile is randy. I push on, I am beseeched, I have difficulty not stepping on the maimed and deformed - the beggars, the blind, the dwarfed, humped, bent and bizarre. Bodies take up every available space. A woman with a pilgrim's emblem on her hat pleads to me: 'Kind sir, regard this legless, stump-armed thing before me.' Its upturned mouth is a hole.
From the twentieth century, Utch calls to me: 'Are you coming to bed?'
How should I know? I'm just playing my life by ear. But in the painting fantasy I always recognize myself: I am the well-dressed one. A well-to-do burgher? Possibly a patricia
n? I have never identified my station exactly. I am in a black tunic, fur-lined, expensive; my hair is cut like a scholar's; a rich purse hangs at my chest, a richly bound prayer book protrudes from my pocket; my cap is soft leather. I pass a blind man, but he is more than blind; appallingly, he is without eyes! His face is unfinished - the cruel intention of the painter: where the sockets should be, pale, translucent scar tissue stretches over slight indentations. Without looking at him, I give him a coin. A numbing smile, by nuns in unison, follows me. Am I a big tipper? Do they desire something from me? I am pursued, or perhaps simply followed, by a boy or a dwarf carrying what appears to be either an easel or a piano stool. For me? Am I a painter? Will I sit down somewhere to play? Actually, I'm the only one in the painting who clearly isn't a peasant, the only one who has a servant. The item my servant carries looks like one of those golf seats, but it is probably my church stool. Others - peasants lugging crude country furniture - are also bringing their own seats to church; only I have a servant to carry mine. I think I must be a lawyer, or maybe the mayor.
I have never bothered to find out. I am more pleased guessing at my identity and purpose. I am moving from the church toward the inn; this seems wise. Once I made up a story of my day in the old Netherlandish square. It was to be my second historical novel, but I never followed through. I went little further than to approach my father for a loan. That was in 1963. I had finished with my higher education and was a young, available PhD who did not want to be available just yet. I wanted to go to Vienna, see the original Brueghel, discover my main character's role and choose my supporting cast from among the Shrovetide crowd. The book, based on Brueghel's painting, would have been called Carnival's Quarrel with Lent. At one point in the novel, my characters would all come together and be doing just what they're doing in the painting. I had already selected the well-to-do man with the prayer book in his pocket to be me, to be the narrator of the book.