“Do you know I could be a grandmother? My life is flying by.”
“At your age it goes quickly, daughter; you think you’re going to live forever. At my age days dissolve like salt in water; the day’s gone and I don’t even know what I’ve done with the hours.”
“Do you think someone could still fall in love with me?”
“You should ask instead if you yourself can fall in love. Happiness comes from love that’s given.”
“I don’t have any doubt that I have love to give.”
“I’m happy to hear that, because one of these days now I’ll die, and Dai will be gone too; it’s the normal way of things. You shouldn’t be alone. I’m getting tired of saying you should get married.”
“To whom, Mama?”
“To Gregory. That boy is nicer than anyone I’ve seen you with, which isn’t saying a whole lot, of course. Where did you ever get such bad judgment in men!”
“Gregory is my brother; we’d be committing incest.”
“What a shame. Then look for someone your own age. I don’t know why you run around with those boys younger than you.”
“That’s not a bad idea, Mama,” Carmen replied, with a reflective smile that made her mother a little uneasy.
Three weeks later Carmen announced at home that she was flying to Rome to look for a husband. Through a private investigator she had pinpointed Leo Galupi’s whereabouts in the vast universe, a task that was not too difficult, given that his name was in large print in the Chicago telephone directory. At the end of the war he had returned home, as poor as he left; he had lost all the money he had earned in his bizarre business dealings, but was rich in experience. His years of trading in Asia had refined his taste, he knew a lot about art and had good contacts, and so had launched the venture of his dreams. He opened a gallery specializing in Oriental objets d’art, and it was so successful that after ten years he had a second gallery in New York and one in Rome, where he lived much of the year. The detective informed Carmen that Galupi had never married, and delivered a series of photographs taken with a telephoto lens in which he was seen, in white from head to toe, walking down a street, climbing into an automobile, and eating ice cream on the Spanish Steps, at the very spot where she had often sat when she went to Rome to check on her Tamar shops. When she saw him her heart gave a leap. She had forgotten his precise features—in fact, she had not thought much about him at all, but looking at those slightly blurred images, she was awash in a wave of nostalgia. She discovered that his memory had been safely stored in a secret compartment of her mind. I’d better get going, she decided; I have a lot to do. Those were nerve-racking days, preparing for a trip very different from others she had made; in a certain way, this was a life-or-death mission, as she told her mother when Inmaculada found her with the contents of her closets strewn about the floor, impatiently trying on clothes to find which were most flattering. Once arrangements at the factory and at home were complete, she had a physical exam, tinted her hair, and bought silk lingerie. She appraised herself with a pitiless eye in the full-length bathroom mirror, counted her wrinkles, and regretted the years of not exercising and of cheating on her diet. She pinched her arms and legs, confirming her worst suspicions about muscle tone, tried to suck in her stomach but was foiled by a rebellious fold, inspected her work-ravaged hands, and finally regarded breasts that had always weighed like a load she was toting for someone else. She did not have the figure she had had when she met Leo Galupi, but she decided that, overall, the inventory wasn’t too bad—at least there were no telltale varicose veins or stretch marks from her pregnancy, she told herself, forgetting she was not Dai’s birth mother. With all the details well in hand, Carmen went to lunch with Gregory Reeves; she had not wanted to inform him earlier about her plans, for fear he would think she was demented. Timidly at first, and then with more enthusiasm, she told him what she had found out about Leo Galupi and showed him the photographs. She received a surprise in return; Gregory accepted as perfectly natural her sudden impulse to make a pilgrimage to Europe to propose marriage to a man she hadn’t seen for more than ten years and with whom the subject of love had never arisen. The plan seemed so typical of Carmen that Gregory asked her why she hadn’t done it before.
“I was too busy raising Dai, but my son is growing up and doesn’t need me as much now.”
“You may be in for a disappointment.”
“I’ll check everything out very carefully before I sign anything. I’m not worried about that . . . but maybe he won’t like me, Greg; I’m a hell of a lot older.”
“Look at the pictures, woman. He’s added a few years himself,” Reeves said, spreading the snapshots in front of her, and she noticed for the first time that indeed Leo Galupi was lighter in hair and heavier in pounds. She laughed happily and decided that instead of writing or calling to announce her visit, as she had intended, she would simply go see him—thus preventing her imagination from working overtime—and learn immediately whether her wild project had a chance.
Three days later Carmen Morales appeared at the door of Galupi’s gallery in Rome; she had come directly from the airport, and her suitcases were waiting in the taxi. She was praying that she would find him in, and for once her prayers had the hoped-for result. When she walked in, Leo Galupi, who was wearing a wrinkled linen shirt and slacks and no socks, was discussing the details of the next catalog with a young man whose clothes were as unironed as his. Among the Indian tapestries, Chinese ivories, wood carvings from Nepal, porcelains and bronzes from Japan, and a plenitude of exotic art, Carmen, with her swirling gypsy skirts and faint tinkling of antique silver jewelry, seemed part of the exhibition. When Galupi saw her, the catalog fell from his hands and he stood looking at her as if seeing an oft-invoked ghost. Carmen’s thought was that, as she had feared, her unwonted swain had not recognized her.
“I’m Tamar. . . . Do you remember me?” and she walked toward him hesitantly.
“How could I forget!” Galupi took her hand and shook it for several seconds, until he realized the absurdity of such a welcome and took her in his arms.
“I came to ask if you want to marry me,” Carmen blurted in a nearly inaudible voice, because this was not how she had planned to do it, and even as she spoke she was silently cursing herself for having blown her chances with her first words.
“I don’t know,” was all Galupi could think to say, once he could speak, and they stood staring at each other in wonder, as the young man of the catalog disappeared without a sound.
“Are you in l-love with anyone?” she stammered, feeling more and more idiotic but unable to remember the strategy she had planned down to the last detail.
“I don’t think so; not right now.”
“Are you gay?”
“No.”
“Can we get a cup of coffee? I’m a little tired; it was a long trip. . . .”
Leo Galupi led her outside, where the radiant summer sun and the sounds of people and traffic brought them back to the present. In the gallery, time had dissolved to Saigon, where they were again in the Chinese-empress room Galupi had prepared for her and where he often stood to watch through a chink in the screen as she lay sleeping. When they said goodbye, Galupi had felt the sting of loneliness for the first time in all his world travels, but he did not like to admit it and had cured himself with stubborn indifference, immersing himself in the rush of business and travel. With time, he lost the temptation to write her and grew used to the bittersweet emotion he felt when he thought of her. Her memory served as protection against the spur of other loves, a kind of insurance against romantic entanglements. When he was very young, Galupi had decided not to tie himself to anything or anyone; he was not a family man, nor one for long commitments, but thought of himself as a loner incapable of enduring the tedium of routine or the demands of life with another individual. More than once, he escaped from an overly intense relationship by explaining to his indignant sweetheart that he could not love her because in his destiny t
here was room only for love of a woman named Tamar. That alibi, often repeated, became a kind of tragic truth. He had not examined his deepest feelings because he enjoyed his freedom and Tamar was merely a useful ghost he called on when he needed to escape from an uncomfortable affair. And then, just when he felt he was safe from surprises of the heart, she showed up to collect on the lies he had told other women for years. He could not believe she had walked into his shop a half hour earlier and before speaking another word asked him to marry her. Now she was beside him, and he hadn’t the courage to look at her, although he felt her eyes openly scrutinizing him.
“Forgive me, Leo, I don’t mean to drive you into a corner; this isn’t how I planned it.”
“How did you plan it?”
“I meant to seduce you; I even bought a black lace nightgown.”
“You don’t have to go to that much trouble.” Galupi laughed. “I’ll take you home so you can bathe and take a nap. You must be bushed. Then we can talk.”
“Perfect; that will give you a little time to think,” Carmen sighed, with no attempt at irony.
Galupi lived in an old villa that had been divided into several apartments. His flat had only one window toward the street; all the rest overlooked a small, untended garden where water sang in a fountain and vines climbed around ruined statues stained by the green patina of time. Much later, sitting on the terrace sipping a glass of white wine, admiring the garden under the light of a full moon and breathing the perfume of wild jasmine, they bared their souls to each other. They both had had countless affairs and romances; they had traveled in circles, practicing nearly all the games of deception that cause lovers to lose their way. It was refreshing to talk about themselves and their feelings with brutal honesty, with no ulterior motives or tactical considerations. They recounted the broad outlines of their lives, stated what they wanted of the future, and ascertained that the alchemy that had first attracted them to each other was still there, needing only a little goodwill to be revived.
“I hadn’t thought about getting married until a couple of weeks ago, Leo.”
“And why did you think of me?”
“Because I never forgot you; I like you, and I think that years ago you liked me a little too. Of all the men I’ve known, there are only two I would want to have with me when I’m sad.”
“Who is the other?”
“Gregory Reeves, but he isn’t ready for real love, and I don’t have time to wait for him.”
“What do you mean, ‘real’ love?”
“Total love; none of this halfway stuff. I’m looking for a partner who will love me very much, be faithful to me, not lie, respect my work, and make me laugh. That’s asking a lot, I know, but I offer more or less the same, and for good measure, I’m ready to live wherever you want, as long as you accept my son and my mother and I can travel when I need. I’m healthy, I support myself, and I’m never depressed.”
“That sounds like a contract.”
“It is. Do you have children?”
“Not that I know, but I have an Italian mother. That will be a problem; she never likes the women I introduce her to.”
“I don’t know how to cook, and I’m fairly straightforward in bed, but in my house they say I’m pleasant to live with, probably because they don’t see much of me—I spend hours on end in my workshop. I’m not much bother. . . .”
“On the other hand, I’m not very easy.”
“Could you make an effort, do you think?”
They kissed for the first time, tentatively, then with curiosity, and soon with the passion stored up in years of warding off the need for love with casual liaisons. Leo Galupi led this imponderable woman to his bedroom: a high ceiling adorned with fresco nymphs, a large bed, and antique tapestry cushions. Carmen’s head was swimming; she did not know whether she was giddy from the long flight or the wine, but she did not intend to find out. She abandoned herself to her languor, lacking the will to impress Leo Galupi with either her black lace nightgown or her skills learned with previous lovers. She was attracted by his healthy male smell, a clean odor without a trace of artificial fragrance, slightly pungent, like bread or wood, and she buried her nose where his neck joined his shoulder, sniffing like a hunting dog on the scent. Aromas persisted in her memory longer than any other recollection, and at that moment the image of a night in Saigon came to her mind, a night when they were so close she had registered his aura, never knowing it would stay with her all those years. She began to unbutton his shirt, but fumbled with the tiny buttonholes and impatiently asked him to do it for her. She heard the music of strings from somewhere far away, carrying the millenary sensuality of India to that room in Rome bathed in moonlight and the light fragrance of jasmine from the garden. For years she had made love with virile younger men; now her fingertips were caressing a back that was slightly stooped and stroking the fine hair at a receding hairline. She felt a gratifying tenderness for this older man and for an instant tried to imagine what roads and what women he had known, but immediately succumbed to the pleasure of loving him, leaving her mind blank. She felt his hands removing her blouse, her full skirt, her sandals, pausing, hesitantly, when he came to her bracelets. She never took them off, they were her final armor, but she thought the moment had come to be completely naked, and she sat on the edge of the bed and pulled them off, one by one. They fell noiselessly upon the rug. With exploring kisses and knowing hands, Leo Galupi began to familiarize himself with her body; his tongue moistened her still firm nipples, the shell of her ears, her inner thighs, where her skin shivered at the touch; she felt the air growing dense and panted from the effort of breathing; a glowing urgency flowed through her loins, and she ground her hips and moaned as she escaped him, until she could not wait any longer, turned him onto his back, and swung astride him like an inspired Amazon, clasping him between her knees amid a storm of pillows. Impatience or fatigue made her clumsy; she twisted and slithered like a snake, seeking, reaching, but she was wet with pleasure and summer’s sweat and finally collapsed on him, laughing, crushing him with the gift of her breasts, enveloping him in a rain of unruly hair, and whispering instructions in Spanish he could not understand. They lay like that, embraced, laughing, kissing, and murmuring foolish words in a sonorous mixture of languages, until desire became too great, and at one moment in their playful tumbling Leo Galupi took the lead, without haste, steady, pausing at each station along the way to wait for her and lead her to the farthest garden, where he left her to explore alone until she felt herself slipping into a shadowy void, and a joyous explosion shook her body. Then it was his turn, as she caressed him, grateful for that absolute and effortless orgasm. Finally they slept, curled in a tangle of legs and arms. In the days to come they discovered they had fun together, that both slept on the same side, that neither smoked, that they liked the same books, films, and food and voted for the same party, that sports bored them, and that they regularly traveled to exotic places.
“I don’t know how good I’d be as a husband, Tamar,” Leo Galupi apologized one evening in a trattoria on the Via Veneto. “I have to have freedom to move around. I’m a vagabond.”
“That’s one thing I like about you; I’m the same way. But we’re at an age when we could use a little calm.”
“The thought frightens me.”
“Love takes its time. You don’t have to answer me right away—we can wait till tomorrow.” She laughed.
“It’s nothing personal; if ever I decide to marry, you’d be the one, I promise.”
“Well, that’s something anyway.”
“Why wouldn’t it be better to be lovers?”
“It isn’t the same. I’m too old for adventures. I want a long-term commitment, I want to sleep every night beside my life companion. Do you think I came halfway around the world to ask you to be my lover? It will be great to grow old, hand in hand, you’ll see,” Carmen replied with finality.
“Good God almighty!” exclaimed Galupi, quite openly pale.
&
nbsp; The opportunity to sit once a week in the quiet of Ming O’Brien’s consulting room to talk about myself and mull over my actions was an experience I had never known. At first I found it difficult to relax, but she won my confidence, and little by little we opened the sealed compartments of my past. For the first time, I talked about that day in the broom closet, when Martínez raped me, and after that confession I was able to explore the most secret areas of my life. The second year was the hardest. I left each session choked with tears; Ming hadn’t lied when she told me it is a painful process, and more than once I was on the verge of giving up. Fortunately, I didn’t do it. As I reviewed my fate during those five years, I came to understand the scenario of my life and took the necessary steps to amend it; with time I learned to keep my impulses in check and stop short when I was on the verge of repeating old mistakes. My family life was still a nightmare, and there wasn’t much I could do to improve it. Margaret was beyond my reach, but I concentrated on giving David’s life as much structure as possible. Until then I had used what Ming called the slot-machine system: my son always got his way; all he had to do was keep pumping the arm of the machine, knowing that sooner or later he would hit the jackpot. He would ask for something, and I would refuse; then he would pester me unmercifully, simply wearing me down until I gave in. Setting boundaries for him wasn’t easy, because I had never had them as a boy; I grew up on my own in the street, and I thought that people formed their own lives, that experience was the best teacher. But in my case I had been given discipline and values by my father while he was still alive—they say that the first five or six years are very important in our formation. Besides that, I had always looked out for myself, had always had to work. My children had grown up like savages, without care and without real love, but they had never lacked for anything material. I used money to compensate for the affection I didn’t know how to give. A poor substitute.
One of the most important decisions was to lighten some of the burdens I was carrying and to reorganize my office. It was impossible to change the character of my employees, but I could replace them; it wasn’t my role to cure them of their vices, pay for their shortcomings, or solve their problems. Why did I invariably surround myself with alcoholics? Why did neurotic or weak people cling to me like lint? I needed to revise that aspect of my personality and defend my own interests. It cost more to run the office than it took in; I myself was responsible for the greater part of the income, but my billfold was always empty and almost all my credit cards had been canceled. My good friend Mike Tong had put in anguishing years trying to square the numbers, and Tina had warned me to the point of exhaustion that my associates not only neglected clients but sometimes handled cases privately, without entering them in the firm’s accounts; they also charged me for personal expenses—telephones, restaurant bills, trips, even gifts for lovers. I didn’t listen to her; I was too busy paddling around in my personal chaos. I thought that nothing could sink me, that I could always find a way to solve my problems; I had overcome other obstacles and would not be defeated by unpaid bills and fingers in the till—but finally the burden had become more than I could carry. For a long time I debated, feeling doubt and guilt, until Mike Tong, with the precision of his abacus, and Ming O’Brien, with her perseverance, helped me dismiss the parasites one by one and close the branches of the firm in other cities. I kept on Tina, Mike, and a young, intelligent, and loyal female associate; I rented space to a couple of other professionals to reduce the overhead and defray expenses. I learned then that work on a small scale was more profitable and more enjoyable; I held all the reins in my hand and could devote my time to the challenges of my profession rather than burn my energy dealing with an oppressive succession of insignificant complaints. I also had closer contact with my clients, which is what I like best about my work. At the same time, I was making changes in my personal life that paralleled those in the office; I rid myself of many superfluous belongings and habits that bothered me; I gave up the arrogance of Spanish cigars—in fact, stopped smoking altogether—and never tasted a drop of alcohol—the only way to put an end to my allergies. My little black book with its list of ladies got lost in the back of some drawer, and I’ve never come across it since. Because I had less money to spend, I had no choice but to scale down the way I lived, and the nights on the town became history. I was very busy with David and with my work, and I no longer had Timothy Duane to incite me to sin. That didn’t mean I began to live like an anchorite; far from it: I suppose I will always be true to my nature as a bon vivant.