Enigma Variations

  By now I am in total agony. Maud and Gabi are clearly touching, cannot but touch. The Mediterranean macho has gone one further, and after moving his seat closer to Maud’s, he lets his left arm rest on the carved crest rail of her chair. Right away she brings her hand to the table, to telegraph there’s nothing going on here. But then, as if there’s been a change of mind, it goes back into hiding behind the skirt of the tablecloth.

  Oh, vile, deceitful woman. I am reminded of Pagliacci, which we’ve seen together this winter. He’s the lover, she’s the harlot, and I, in case there was a doubt, the clown.

  A strange thought crosses my mind. What if I dropped my napkin and, bending down to reach for it, took a peek at what’s going on under their end of the table. What would I find? Her white hand gently, awkwardly stroking his totally exposed, swarthy Sabra cock, which curves upward to give more pleasure.

  Question is: What will they do with the mess?

  The answer couldn’t be simpler. She’ll use her starched linen napkin with the giant P for Plum embroidered in golden filigree, which each one of us plucked from our wineglass as soon as we sat down.

  They’re laughing again.

  Or pretending to laugh.

  I bet she’s rubbing him even harder as they’re laughing.

  Which is why they’re laughing.

  And again I think of young Manfredi of Sicily and of my Manfred who comes out gleaming from the shower room every morning and who knows I’m looking because he is so hung.

  Meanwhile, I can’t find a thing to say to Nadja on my left. I’d much rather talk to Claire, diagonally across from me. She is always so quiet at these dinners, so cautiously unreachable, radiating a sort of unsullied, Pre-Raphaelite vagueness that I find both chilling and chaste. And as I’m looking at her, I am, as on previous such evenings, trying to imagine what kind of a person a passionate kiss might bring out in her. Would she remain tame, irresolute, or turn savage? I want to unleash the beast in her. I can almost imagine how we’d kiss if I stopped her past the empty corridor, put one palm upon her cheek, and brought my mouth to hers. She is trying not to lift her eyes. But I know she knows I’m looking, knows what I’m thinking. She never looks at me.

  At some point, Diego complains of a recent Italian film everyone has been talking about. Not only was the acting terrible but the main plot line couldn’t have been more unintelligible. His wife liked the film and thought the acting amazing. So did everyone else in Hollywood, hence the Oscar. “But I wasn’t convinced,” he says. “You’re never convinced,” she rebuts. Duncan intervenes. “Why aren’t you convinced?” “Why am I not convinced?” asks Diego rhetorically. “Because what a man wants in a woman when he and she are in love is passion, trust, mischief, sorrow, and a shadow of anticipated regret.” “What hogwash! Sois belle! Et sois triste! Be beautiful and be sad,” she replies, quoting Baudelaire. What you men really want from women is surrender.” Diego shakes his head with a resigned, philosophical smile. “What we want … what we want from a woman is a sandwich and some indecency.” “What!?” she snaps back. “Nothing,” he replies. “Well, you’ll get neither from me.” Diego smiles one last time and rolls his eyes. “Big surprise!”

  Duncan attempts to change the subject and takes it back to another film. But when the subject of films peters out again, it becomes obvious that however we try, the dinner talk is destined to remain rudderless, without fun, spunk, or spontaneity. Even Nadja tries with me. Then she tries with the Israeli, then with Pamela, then with the Israeli again, but the sparks never catch until it’s clear to everyone that dinner talk has turned into long-winded drudgery.

  Except for the two lovebirds twittering away on their little perch.

  There was a moment when I caught Claire’s gaze. Then she looked away, or I did. It didn’t happen again.

  All I can think of meanwhile is the lovebirds, their touching, their incessant giggles at the far end of the dining table, behaving like a pair of naughty teenagers skinny-dipping on a secluded Mediterranean beach in the very early morning while the rest of us continue lumbering through a gray, silent, sunless no-man’s-land filled with desiccated driftwood and broken shells. After this, I’ll never trust her. Even if I were totally and entirely mistaken, how could I trust her after what I’ve belched out in my sick head today? Their coaxing, their merry taunts, the penis holding, the cum surreptitiously wiped off her hand, which she’ll forget to wash away when she comes to bed tonight—don’t they look flushed, the two of them? They’re a couple. We’re not. And here I am, trying to find something to say to Nadja while nursing the perpetual nattering in my head.

  After dinner we are invited for coffee, desserts, and cordials on the sofa lining the balcony. Duncan is still trying to save the evening and points out to the skyline. “Can you believe this spring weather at this time of the year?” he exclaims. “Springtime,” says Diego, about to break into song. “This is New York,” snaps Tamar; “could turn into winter any moment now.” “I just love the view,” says Duncan, still trying to defuse the tension. “I’m so glad we made the move here five years ago. I hated the Lower East Side. Just look at this.” He points to the bridge.

  Everyone’s busy taking in the stunning nightfall view while a waning, livid glow hovers against the buildings of Manhattan. “This view always reminds me of Saint Petersburg,” says Duncan. “In Saint Petersburg, they don’t sleep in June. The city is up all night, because it’s still daylight.” “Wish we were in Saint Petersburg tonight,” Nadja says. “I heard they open the bridge on the Neva and people throng the riverbanks.” “What’s the Neva?” asks Diego. “A river, for Christ’s sake,” says his wife. Pamela throws me a complicit glance, meaning, The rough patch is very rough tonight. “Look it up!” she snaps. “Strange things happen on such nights,” I say. “Strange things happen to other people, not me,” replies Nadja. “Me either,” Tamar says. A quick look from Claire tells me she’s picked up on the me either too. It’s the only time she and I exchange a message meant to stay between us. I want to come up to her and say something funny, stirring, and clever, but I can’t think of what to say. The two of us are now leaning on the parapet facing the city, her hand next to mine, touching. I do not move my hand away, figuring she’ll shift hers first. But she doesn’t. I’m sure she isn’t even aware we’re touching. “Surely there’s a life out there better than this,” I want to say. She’d look at me and think I’m a lunatic. So I keep quiet.

  Duncan stares out at the skyline, then looking up he points to the water tank standing at the very top of his terrace.

  “I hope none of you minds the water tank,” he says. “They’ve been working on it for weeks now with no end in sight.”

  I look up and down on the floor of the balcony and spot a litter of tools and toolboxes stashed away in a corner not too far from the sofa. “They’re rebuilding the water tank. It’s very old!”

  “People tell us that Hopper painted this very water tank from his own home across the river,” adds Pamela.

  Maud tries to say something about Hopper but changes her mind, especially since Mark steps in.

  “Did Hopper live across the river?” he asks, seemingly incredulous.

  “Ned is convinced he did. In fact, he showed us pictures.”

  “I wasn’t so convinced,” says Duncan.

  “I was,” says Pamela, “but I’m Ned’s mother.”

  “Well, it’s a very good story,” says Mark, turning to Maud, as though apologizing for cutting her off.

  “To think that we’re sitting on a balcony that was painted by Hopper himself,” muses Gabi. “What an amazing privilege.”

  Duncan doesn’t care for Hopper. “Tired of the same old houses in Truro, tired of the same water tanks, tired of all those dejected, vacuous people staring out of unwashed windows.” He leans over the parapet and stares out into the floodlit city. “So, which is better,” he turns around and finally asks those of us seated on the sofa, “to be here in Brooklyn staring over at Man
hattan’s skyscrapers or to be in Manhattan looking at Brooklyn’s water tanks?”

  It was the sort of statement made half in jest and half to accentuate the spell of lights shimmering on the East River, offering a sight nowhere else seen in the city except from his terrace.

  “Oh, you sound like that tiresome author who’s always writing about being in one place and wishing to be in another,” cracks Claire. “Besides, hadn’t we settled the matter last year when you asked the same exact question?” She’s right. We’d had this conversation exactly a year ago, and, as we watched the sky turn dark purple, the issue about where one was and where one longed to be seemed dead on arrival. We never resolved it. But I liked the spunky comment. So unusual for Claire to be outspoken. “I wish I could find a place where it’s always daylight,” says Tamar, referring to Saint Petersburg. “I love life too much.”

  “With your attitude?” mutters Diego almost to himself.

  “Yes, with my attitude,” she rebuts. He is silenced.

  “Saint Petersburg is just an idea,” says Gabi, probably seeking to stem their sparring. “It’s built on slush. To most of us, it’s like a city that doesn’t quite exist, a city made for books. We don’t really believe it exists even when we’re there. A city where you can’t sort out twilight from dawn and where at any moment you could run into Gogol or Stravinsky or Eisenstein, to say nothing of Raskolnikov or Prince Myshkin or Anna herself. A city of elusive, untold wants.” And so saying, Gabi stands up facing Manhattan and, holding his wineglass next his mouth to mimic a microphone, begins singing the opening lines of a song about Nevsky Prospekt when the Red Guards light up fires in the cold to drive away wolves and how it’s still possible to spot Nijinsky, whom Diaghilev of the Ballets Russes fell hopelessly in love with, hopelessly in love, hopelessly in love.

  I would never have been able to put his spontaneous singing voice with the man who’d been talking to Maud at the dinner table. Here another person had sprung forth, with a much younger voice, and a far younger, soulful self. No wonder she likes him. I like him. Even Diego likes him. The two begin chatting in Italian. I catch myself wishing to join in.

  Left alone as I lean forward with both arms on the parapet, I am thinking of Manfred with me now—he and I, our elbows touching just moments before he shifts and puts an arm around my shoulder. Oh, Manfred.

  * * *

  “YOU DIDN’T EAT anything,” Maud tells me as she approaches and sits next to me on the sofa holding a cup of coffee.

  “No. I played with the food, moved it around the plate a bit so it wouldn’t look too obvious. I wasn’t hungry.”

  “Why?” she asks.

  “Not in the best of moods, I guess.” I can tell I’m almost on the point of blurting out what has been upsetting me since lunchtime.

  Did I want coffee? A cookie? Half a cookie, maybe?

  By now she knows I’m upset, hence the attempted mollycoddling.

  Gabi walks over to us with his cell phone in his hand, having read a text. He is about to light a cigarette.

  “Oh, I’d love one too,” says Maud.

  He takes out another cigarette from his slim alligator case and places both cigarettes between his lips. He lights them, then hands her one. “I’ve seen it done in a movie, and I’ve always wanted to do it,” he says. Never have I been given such ocular proof that they belong together. He offers me a cigarette as well, but I tell him I’ve quit. “One couldn’t hurt,” he bandies back, playful as ever. “Yes, it will,” Maud jumps in, rushing to my rescue. We’re back to being a team. The three of us are sitting next to each other on the horseshoe sofa overlooking the river, Maud between us, with the other guests sitting on either side of us. We’re enjoying the fresh evening breeze from the ocean. I’ve always loved the way Maud raises her head, lifts her chin, and blows away the first puff of smoke. Everything feels cozy and snug here. Gabi cracks a joke about the couple with babysitter issues: the husband docile yet fuming with pussywhipped rage, the wife who claims to love life so much. “The mother of all humbug,” says Maud. “He is no more docile than she loves life.” “We call them the rough patch,” I say. “And what do you make of her bag?” she asks. “It’s a suitcase for train compartments.” Gabi giggles loudly. Maud hushes him, but it’s clear she is enjoying the rakish dig at the handbag and at the woman who owns it. “She probably carries wipes, bibs, and pacifiers in case her babysitter calls.” “Or a rolling pin to hit Daddy with each time he opens his mouth to ask for a sandwich!” We laugh, and laugh again. “How long do you give them?” asks Gabi, seemingly cutting to the chase. “A few months,” I say. “Maybe, but he loves her,” says Maud, coming to the husband’s defense.

  “Maybe he loves her, but she clearly doesn’t love him,” I respond. A moment of silence.

  “Actually, I think it’s the other way around,” says Gabi. “She is angry he doesn’t love her, because she still loves him but is disappointed with his listless caresses and that sprig of tenderness.”

  “How do you know?” Maud asks.

  “I know.”

  He muses, says nothing, takes another puff.

  “How do you two know each other?” Gabi asks.

  “We met on the tennis courts. It was all quite sudden,” I say.

  “So you two love each other,” Gabi says, turning to me and then Maud. It’s not really a question, but it sounds like one.

  “Why do you ask?” Maud asks.

  He shrugs his shoulders. “No reason.”

  Gabi must have had more to drink than I thought. But I’m growing to like his prickly wit, his jabs, his impish humor. I am revisited by memories of dorm parties, three of us slouching on a sunken old sofa in a frat house watching everyone else come and go, poking fun at each one, most likely because all three of us are nervous and drunk.

  But then a thought stuns me. If a frat party, then we’re all just good friends: she is not my girlfriend yet, she is his girlfriend, I’m the one just tagging along because I want everyone and everything he loves. They’re the couple. We’re not.

  Another thought scares me even more: At what point tonight does one of us discreetly disappear? How on God’s planet does this evening end?

  I nurse a vision of the two of us in the cab home, both of us uneasy, tired, listless, and quiet.

  Want to talk about it?

  She looks at me with her all-knowing gaze that says, No, not really.

  Why not?

  There’s nothing to talk about.

  I look away, nod, and say nothing.

  But she reaches and holds my hand.

  Hey—

  Yes?

  Thanks.

  I wait a few seconds.

  Welcome.

  But I don’t feel so kind. I’m angry. And I no longer know why. Part of me feels this whole fever could wash away the moment I spot one tiny, reassuring sign from her, but I also know that once incubated, anger won’t go away unless it erupts. I don’t dislike this sudden urge to be cruel to her; I don’t even want it to slacken, because it gives me strength and clarity, the way anger, rage, spite, and bile make Homer’s soldiers bolder and meaner. I like this surge, as if a part of me already wishes to run my fist through a door to prove to her how it feels, because anger fills my lungs and makes me want to puff out my chest and be a man, the way I was a man when I finally told Manfred to move out of the way because I wanted to be the one to put away Harlan’s strategic lob with a perfectly aimed overhead slam, which in fact was my proudest moment this afternoon, this day, this month, this year, especially after Manfred put both hands on his hips and, nodding approbation, said, “Wow!” That admiring and spontaneous Wow, uttered ever so gallantly in his soft, mellifluous German voice, filled me with such bliss that moments after hearing it I said, “Buy you a beer.”

  I’ve gotten to like Gabi, and I want him to like me too. If he’s putting his arm around the back of her seat, I don’t mind if it reaches me too. And as if he’s heard me think this, or maybe because I might ha
ve moved closer to him without even knowing it, his arm drops on my shoulder, and his hand is now rubbing my neck with tenuous, absentminded motions that could easily have mistaken me at first for the leather edge of the sofa. It’s as though he wishes to assuage all my worries about Maud and at the same time stir something else in me, and I can’t tell which it is, and I like not knowing, and I don’t want him to stop, and I lean my head forward to let him rub my neck more deeply and let his hand linger there as long it pleases and undo all those knots, while I shut my eyes to relish the soothing massage, which I know he knows may not just be a massage, though maybe that’s all it is, a massage. Without looking, I know she’s guessed.

  After coffee there are schnapps from various countries served in tiny grappa glasses, which the Plums bought last summer in Castellina. “We had them ship twenty-four of them, don’t know what we were thinking,” Pamela explains. Without meaning to, all three of us keep trying one liqueur after the other. Gabi, I should have known, is a connoisseur and keeps examining the labels on the bottles for the eau-de-vie he likes best but can’t find it. “Either way, I’ll pay for this tomorrow,” says Maud. “So will I,” says Gabi. “All of us will,” I add. A smile from Maud almost says Parrot! Nadja, who moves a chair next to Gabi, asks if she could try some of his, since there are at least four tiny vials spread before him on the tea table. She’s never had schnapps, she says, what is it? He explains, she listens, then plies him with more questions, until he grabs a tiny glass containing Pear Williams and suggests she try that. She holds his glass with tentative fingers and takes one distrusting sip. “Not bad, right?” he asks as though speaking to a child. “Actually, quite good. May I finish it?” “Be my guest.” Then, standing up, he leans over to me and Maud and says, “We need to split.” She’s been trying to make conversation with him all evening and is obviously going in for the kill. He snickers, and so does Maud. “If she only knew,” he whispers. Maud laughs. I can tell Nadja noticed, though she is eager to join in the laughter. I ask if she’d like to try my grappa. She gently pushes the drink away, saying she doesn’t want to pay for it tomorrow either, and laughs, possibly thinking that tomorrow’s hangover was the reason why Gabi and Maud had laughed. “We really should be leaving,” Maud says, as though apologizing. She casts one languorous farewell gaze to the view from the terrace, as does Gabi, as do I as well. “The view,” we repeat in the elevator, “the view.”