The woman looked at him. A good-looking boy, she thought. Something proud and intelligent about him. And that scar that went down his lip made him even more attractive. Even though he was so young. “What’s your name?” she asked him sottovoce.
“Christmas.”
“Christmas?”
“I know, I know, it’s a weird name,” said Christmas preemptively, hypnotized by the music, sounding resigned.
“No, that’s not what I was going to say,” murmured the woman. “It’s a happy name.”
Christmas turned towards the woman. Their faces were very close. She had wide, red, sensual lips, he noticed. “And what’s your name?”
“Maria,” said the woman, her dark eyes on his. “I know, I know, it’s an Italian name …”
“Maria,” said the soundman. “Can you be quiet?”
“Oh, all right, Ted,” she said, sulking playfully, without taking her eyes off Christmas. She leaned even closer to him and put her lips to his ear, “But I’m Puerto Rican.”
She smells nice, thought Christmas. Warm and spicy.
And he could tell she liked him.
The first time Christmas had been with a woman he was seventeen. Ruth had left for Los Angeles a year before; Christmas was in a Brooklyn speakeasy with Joey. Joey always talked about women but Christmas had never really seen him with one. That night he’d been flirting with a waitress a little older than they were. He whistled after her when she passed by their table and said things to her that Christmas thought was really stupid. At a certain point the waitress turned to look at them, walked back to their table, put her hands on her hips, and stared at Joey. Her face was a few inches from Joey’s. She didn’t speak. Christmas saw Joey get red in the face, step back and mumble something. “Is that all you can do, Rudolf Valentino?” said the waitress, looking him up and down. Christmas had to laugh. The waitress turned towards him. “You’re cute,” she said and went off to serve other tables. As soon as they were alone, Joey said he didn’t have time for a dumb broad like that when there were slot machines waiting to give him a payoff. “Business before broads, Diamond,” he said, sauntering off with a menacing-looking thug.
Christmas stayed out of the way, smiling, and he found himself looking at the waitress. And he noticed that she was looking at him, too. Differently from the way she’d looked at Joey. He stopped smiling. He’d felt a kind of interior agitation. It felt nice. He leaned his head to one side to get the blond forelock out of his eyes. The waitress looked around as if she were checking on something. Then she turned and looked at Christmas again and made a tiny beckoning gesture with her head. Inviting him to follow her. He did follow her, as if hypnotized. She had stopped at the bar, looked around again and then picked up a bunch of keys and walked towards the back door. Christmas saw the door close behind her. He’d hesitated, still with that feeling of something moving around inside him, and then he followed her outside. He was in a dark parking lot. But there wasn’t a trace of her. “Psst …” Christmas turned and saw her. She was in a car, on the back seat. She’d rolled down the window, beckoning to him.
“Shut the window, it’s cold,” she said as soon as Christmas got in the car.
Christmas sat stiffly beside her, a little bit scared. His heart was beating hard and he was breathing fast. And then he laughed. Softly. And the waitress laughed too; she pulled his head to her shoulder and began to caress him. Then she unbuttoned his shirt. She opened it and kissed his fair skin. Christmas closed his eyes and kept on laughing quietly. And as her kisses descended towards his belly, she laughed too. Then she took his hand and laid it on her breast under the blue uniform, pressing it, cupping it. She laughed too, happily. And Christmas laughed, out loud this time, continuing to palpate that soft and generous flesh through the stiff cloth of her uniform. The flesh he dreamed about every night in bed.
“Undo me,” the waitress murmured in his ear, letting her hand reach down between his legs.
At the contact, Christmas jumped and slid backwards on the seat, instinctively drawing back. He felt ashamed of the swelling in his pants.
The waitress laughed softly. “Is it your first time?” she asked him in his ear.
“Yeah,” said Christmas, smiling shamelessly.
The waitress made a purring sound, as if she’d been presented with a delicious treat, and then she murmured, “Then we better do it right.” She unbuttoned the uniform, spread it open and showed Christmas her soft and milk-white breasts in their brassiere. She took his hands in hers and breathed on them, rubbing them. “They’re cold,” she said. “You need warm hands when you touch a woman’s titties, know that?”
“Yeah …” Christmas murmured, unable to look away from the opulent breasts.
She took his hand and slipped it into her bra. When he felt her soft skin, his mouth flew open, as if he were gasping for breath.
“Pinch it,” she said, as soon as he touched her nipple. “Gently … yeah, like that. Feel how it’s growin’?”
“Yeah …”
“Now take it outa the bra, be real careful, like it’s somethin’ precious … like it was a bowl o' cream!” and she laughed.
Christmas wanted to laugh too, he felt as though he was laughing inside but he was concentrating on that miraculous sphere of flesh that smelled of whiskey, of sweat and a perfume he didn’t know. Christmas thought it must be the fragrance of women.
“Kiss it … lick it, just the nipple, just the tip … yeah, like that … nibble on it, not hard, like tastin’ a baby’s earlobe … oh yeah, just like that. Good …”
Then she pulled up her skirt, put his hand between her legs and Christmas could feel, beyond the soft mossy covering, something damp and soft, like velvet, closed but ready to open, leading him to a warm channel of warm viscous wetness, smelling sharp, pungent. And when she unbuttoned his pants and sat on him, arching her back and guiding him inside her, Christmas understood that he’d never want to do anything but drown his desire in that warm source.
Afterwards, when she was dressing, Christmas felt like laughing again. And he did laugh, hugging her. Kissing her on the breast and on the mouth and on the neck. He had to laugh again when he felt a new strength, reborn in haste, settling in his groin.
“I got to get back,” she told him, and he got out of the car. She cleaned up any trace of their encounter with a handkerchief. When she got out, too, she ran her hand through his tousled blond hair. “You’re so cute,” she said. “With hair like that, all the women are gonna go crazy for you.”
Christmas held her and kissed her, tenderly. With his eyes closed, as if to imprint those odors and tastes on his mind. “You taste nice,” he told her.
“Yeah, they’re gonna be crazy about you, baby,” she said, ruffling his hair. “But I think I’ll keep you for myself for a while. Come back and see me. I’ll take you home with me.” Then she disappeared back inside the speakeasy.
Christmas stayed in the parking lot, in a state of tired bliss, with a broad smile on his face, not even feeling the piercing cold of the New York winter.
“Hey, there you are,” said Joey, reappearing. “What the fuck are you doin’ out here? I been lookin’ for you half an hour.”
Christmas didn’t answer. He only looked at him languidly, still feeling the sensations of his first time.
“Know that waitress from earlier?” said Joey, strutting ahead of him. “I just seen her inside, and she give me a kiss on the cheek. I bet I can do her whenever I want.”
“Uh huh,” said Christmas, dreamily.
“You been drinkin’ Diamond? You know you can’t hold ya booze. Come on, let’s go, I made twenty bucks, partner.”
Christmas followed him, and as they walked along, he tried to remember all the perfumes of love.
That night in bed he thought of Ruth. But he didn’t feel guilty. Because he knew he didn’t love the waitress. And he told himself he’d learn to be a gentle and accomplished lover for Ruth. Because it was going to be even better, eve
n more beautiful with Ruth. “I need to practice,” he said softly, curling up in his bed. Then he fell happily asleep.
In the following months he visited the waitress many times. And from her, he passed to other women, almost always older than he. He learned that full white breasts with pale rose nipples the size of a beauty mark tasted like honey; pear-shaped ones with chrysanthemum tips — soft, dark, blurred — were savory; little brown firm breasts with nipples upturned, like flying fish darting up from the skin of the water, were salty and hot; others, transparent, taut and blue-veined, looking like balloons filled with thin air, their nipples narrow and worn, had a powdery taste; the soft and relaxed breasts of women much older, their nipples barely wrinkled, like raisins dried in the sun, their secret places exposed by time — on them he could taste the long menu of sentiments these women had consumed, welcomed, forgotten. And women’s skins might be slippery, or made to slow his caresses, or smooth and powdery, or so wet it might even dilute the most intense pleasure. And the secret they stored between their legs was a flower to be coaxed open carefully, with passion, with tenderness, with ardor. He learned to recognize every glance, every hint. To use his rebellious hair, his open smile, his sullen look, his boldness, his joy, his body that now was agile and muscular at the same time. And he learned to love women, all of them, quite naturally, but without ever forgetting Ruth for a second.
“Recording,” croaked the sound technician’s voice through the interphone in the Concert Room, bringing Christmas back to the present.
“Penny for your thoughts,” Maria murmured softly.
“I was listening to yours,” Christmas breathed into her ear.
Maria smiled. “Liar.”
“Maria, you give him the downbeat,” said the soundman.
Maria put on her headphones and again began to move her hand in the air. The musician watched her. Then she signaled a downbeat. The trumpet came in perfectly. Maria turned toward Christmas, removing the headphones. “Now we have to be quiet,” she whispered.
Christmas smiled at her, then brought his hands up to his mouth and breathed into them, watching Maria.
She frowned, in a mute question.
Christmas put a finger to his lips, signifying silence. He bent his head and the blond forelock fell across his eyes. “I’ve got warm hands,” he whispered.
She frowned again.
“I told you I could hear your thoughts,” said Christmas.
Maria gave a worried glance at the sound booth. “We really have to keep quiet,” she breathed.
Christmas smiled at her. And in silence he reached out his hand to stroke hers. Sensually, running his fingertips across the back of her hand and down her own fingers. Maria stiffened for a second. She glanced back towards the soundman and then at the trumpeter. But she didn’t take her hand away. Christmas stroked her wrists, then moved his fingertips up and down her forearm. He moved to her knee and, slowly, little by little began to slide his hand upwards, under her skirt. Maria blocked his hand, but she didn’t push it away. He paused, and then began working her skirt upwards, a tiny bit at a time. Maria relaxed her hand. When Christmas felt the hem of her skirt under his fingers, he pushed it aside and ran his fingers over her smooth stockings and then, unhurriedly, caressed the smoother skin above her garters. And before reaching his goal, there where Maria’s legs met, his sensitive fingers lingered, approaching and retreating, putting off the moment, letting her imagine it, want it, fear it. When he reached under her panties and slipped his finger inside her, beneath the lush growth of hair, he found Maria hot and moist. Ready. Open. There. Enticing. Yielding.
Maria pulled back at his touch.
“We have to keep quiet,” Christmas murmured into her ear.
Her only answer was a slow gasp.
Now Christmas was searching for the center of desire — the little soft excrescence that was also firm, the place the waitress had shown him, confiding that source of women’s pleasure to him. He started caressing it gently, with slow circular movements, not geometric or repetitious, constantly varied, until he felt — at the same moment the trumpet player reached a high note — Maria’s legs squeeze together, tighter and tighter. And her hand on his arm gripped him tightly, convulsively. Christmas touched her more and more quickly and only when he felt Maria sink her nails into his arm, breathless, trying not to open her mouth, Christmas slowed down, stopped. Without brusqueness, guiding her descent.
“Sounds good to me,” said the soundman after the musician’s last note faded. “What say, Maria?”
“Good … so good …”
“Want another take, Maria?” asked the soundman.
“No. No, that’s fine. Thanks,” she said hastily, getting to her feet. “I have to go now, Ted,” she said to the technician behind the glass. “Thanks, you were great,” she told the musician. She jerked at Christmas’ jacket and went out of the Concert Room. She looked around, hurried down a corridor, opened a door and glanced inside. Then she pulled Christmas in after her, locked the door and kissed him passionately. Christmas lifted her by the armpits and set her on the edge of the washbasin. It creaked dangerously.
“Do it,” said Maria.
Christmas lifted her skirt with the exuberance she’d foreseen, and slipped into her. Maria clutched his hair furiously, kissing him, drawing him more and more deeply inside her, making soft little moans. They were breathing in gasps, moaning together until the moment when they fell to the floor, along with the washbasin, which had pulled away from the wall.
“Are you hurt?” asked Christmas.
“No,” laughed Maria. “But let’s get out of here fast, before they make us pay,” and she laughed again.
“I like women who laugh,” said Christmas.
That night, walking back to the apartment, he saw Santo walking on the opposite sidewalk with a homely, short, plump girl, hand in hand. He stopped and looked at them. Santo, as if he had felt his friend’s gaze on him, turned and met Christmas’ eyes. By the light of the streetlamp Christmas could see that Santo was blushing. Santo looked down and then went on as if he hadn’t seen him. Christmas smiled and started up the steps at 320 Monroe. He was whistling the jazz phrase the trumpeter had played in the Concert Room that day. But halfway up he stopped and listened, overhearing the excited conversation from the ground floor.
“Here he is! This is Carmelina’s father,” he could hear Santo’s father shouting at the threshold. He was addressing his wife, who’d been in bed for three years, without dying as the doctors had predicted. “Antonio, he worka with me at Pier Thirteen for … how long we been unloading merce, Tony?”
“Who could count how many years, per carità. You want us to feel even older?” said the other longshoreman. “We should think about our young ones, eh? And hope they have a marriage happy like ours.”
“That’s right. Come on inside, now we drink to your Carmelina and my Santo.”
Christmas heard the door of the Filesi’s apartment close. He looked out of the window on the landing, out at Monroe Street. He saw Santo in the shadows, embracing Carmelina, his homely fiancée. He was kissing her, stroking his hand shyly across her shoulders.
“Don’t rush things, Santo,” Christmas laughed softly. He continued upstairs, again whistling the jazz phrase. He felt a little rush of melancholy. Because women were the only thing that had made him feel alive in these last years.
But he had lost Ruth.
“I’ll find you,” he said.
39
Newhall, Los Angeles, 1926-1927
On Sundays her father and mother came to visit her. Her father hardly greeted her, giving her a hasty kiss on the cheek; then he sat some distance away. Ruth and her mother sat on the patio. They watched the other phantoms wander through the garden, under the watchful gaze of the white-uniformed staff. Her mother talked without saying anything. She talked because one was supposed to make conversation. She did it. After an hour they would leave. “It’s late,” said her mother. “It’s lat
e,” said her father. “Until next Sunday,” said her mother. Her father was already at the car, with the door open. Not the Hispano-Suiza H6C. Not the Pierce-Arrow. Another car. Older, less gleaming. With no driver.
But that Sunday her mother had talked about something. “Your loser father lost almost all our money in that Phonofilm affair. Nobody in Hollywood wants anything to do with it. Warner Brothers has Vitaphone. William Fox went with Movietone. And Paramount uses Photophone. Nobody wants Phonofilm, and DeForest went bankrupt. And so did we … almost …”
“Leave her alone,” said her father, interrupting for the first time since they’d been coming to visit her. “Why should she have to be bothered about things when she’s … when she’s so …”
“She has to know,” said her mother.
“Can’t you see she’s not even listening?” Her father shook his head.
“She has to know,” said her mother, frosty as ever.
“Leave her alone,” her father said. With a firm voice. Almost strong, almost determined.
Then Ruth turned to look at him for the first time.
And her father gave her something that was almost a smile. For an instant Ruth could see that he looked like her grandfather.
“It’s late,” said her mother, standing up and pulling on her gloves.
“I’ll be right there. Wait in the car,” her father said, breaking the Sunday liturgy, still looking into Ruth’s eyes.
“It’s late,” repeated the mother, stalking away towards the car, parked on the gravel drive.
Ruth’s father sat down next to her. For the first time in all those months. He took a hard black cardboard box out of his jacket pocket. He opened it and took out a little camera. “It’s a Leica 1,” he said, just like any father in any situation, turning the camera in his hand. “It’s German. It’s got film inside. A fifty-millimeter lens. And a telemeter … here, see? That helps you focus, to measure the distance.” He held the camera towards his daughter. “You have to look through here, this is the viewfinder. What you see is what the picture will be. All you have to do is press the button. But first you have to set how long you want the exposure to be. The less light you have, the more time you’ll need.”