He etched a circle on the ground with a pointed stick.
— If I slept all day and rose and lived in the night, no one could bother me at lunchtime or during business hours. I hired a secretary to do what needed to be done in daytime hours-banking and so forth. I saw only a few close friends. That's why I turned day into night. You see, it's not a story.
It was not what I expected or imagined, not at all, his story was simultaneously simple and complex, of a bizarre practicality that surpasses reason. Without response, Contesa and I absorbed his tale, the Count too, but unlike the silence between Birdman and me, it was full and comforting, and I felt less empty, though my stomach gurgled softly. While each of us rested, or not, in our own minds, I realized I'd missed an opportunity to inquire about his paroxysm. But the Count rose to fix and fuss with the fire again-I imagined he'd once been a heavy smokerwhen Contesa nestled against me, like the beloved family cat my parents had killed a long time ago.
— What would you like to hear? she asked.
— What's the story about your friend who conned Gardner? I asked.
— Not that. Ask me another.
— Unfair, the Count said.
— It's OK, I said.
— I have a story, Contesa said. In the late 1950s, early 1960s, I was friends with a famous fashion model. This was in Paris. She was very beautiful, everyone knew her face. I knew her lover, actually he was my friend first. We were friends from back when. He was smart, great, but a dog. I adored him. I lived with them, in fact they took me in.
The Count's head had dropped. I couldn't see his face, his eyes.
— I was at loose ends. I'd been designing clothes, but it wasn't working. So I took up social work, but that's another story. I was twenty-nine. At loose ends. The model had a spectacular house in the 7th arrondisement. One Wednesday morning, she invited me to join her, that very afternoon, to fly to Rome. She was doing the shows. She wanted me to accompany her, she said. My friend would stay home and work-he was a soul brother, as we said then or maybe later. He wrote scripts. God, they're a desperate breed. He made some money reviewing films, his French was flawless. I went to Rome, as her companion. Why not? She worked, and I walked around. I visited all of the museums and churches. I lit candles in every church. It was spring, I think. We ate fantastic dinners, on elegant patios overlooking the seven hills, way into the night. Always surrounded by her celebrity friends. There was a darling photographer. another story, another time. Rome lives at night. I drank too much.
Now the Count followed Contesa's every gesture, she was becoming a little Roman, her hands, patterns in the air, and he hung on her every word, just as I did.
— Then Sunday came. I was about to go to Mass. As a pagan. But the model took me aside. She said, "I've changed your plane ticket." I expected to fly back with her on Monday morning. She wanted me to go back to Paris, that very night. She said, I remember this exactly, she said, "I'd like you to make sure the house is in order." That's all she said. I was put on a late flight. Everything had been arranged neatly. The Paris-Rome flight is fairly quick. But on it I felt uneasy. I didn't know why. It was about three in the morning when I arrived at her house. I unlocked the door and entered. I heard moving around upstairs. There was a commotion, hushed voices, I just stood there. A woman, Lord, her lipstick was smeared, and her mascara, maybe she'd been crying, she came running down the stairs. She didn't look at me, just ran past me, and went straight out the door. Then, my friend came down the stairs. He was like a sheepdog. It was almost funny. I helped him clean up-scads of empty wine bottles, ashtrays with red-lipsticked cigarettes, dirty glasses and dishes everywhere. It took hours. In the morning, the model arrived. Her house was in perfect order. I'd done my job, I'd done a great job. All was well on the homefront. The next day, I left. She and I said nothing to each other. Nothing. I never saw her again.
The finality of the story and her response alarmed me, I didn't know what to make of it, why she had told it now, to us, but it must have been after that episode she returned to America, around the same time, I reckoned, as the Count.
— You never saw her again? I asked.
— Never, she repeated.
— Tell us your story, Helen, the Count said.
— Let me think. I need a little time.
In their accounts, they'd been betrayed, they'd changed the directions of their lives and returned to America, but their stories also had different kinds of content. I could tell one in which I was good, bad, indifferent, young, cruel, sensitive, a helper, a hindrance, a victim, a victimizer, hero, bystander, or, like them, betrayed, by a colleague in the American History department, a best friend, a lover. Or one in which I'd betrayed someone, though I'm a sensitive person, and sensitive people need to believe they wouldn't, so they often don't recognize when they hurt others, but the worst kinds of sensitive people are those who believe themselves to be victims, so they victimize others righteously and viciously. I could tell them about my brother's dramatic disappearance, but I knew too little about it and him, since my parents hardly ever mentioned it, then my father died soon after, but then the two might ask why I hadn't searched for him, and I didn't know myself. I hadn't known him, that was an explanation, he was so much older, my birth was planned, or a mistake, but I didn't want to tell that story. I could talk about how I became an atheist, an historian, why I left the field and how I feel sad about America, or how I became a designer of objects, but now I want to undo things.
— You're taking a long time, Contesa said.
— It doesn't have to be a big deal, the Count said. You don't have to, you know.
— I've got a story, I said, impulsively. It's funny. My mother had open heart surgery about ten years ago, to correct a valve. They were going to give her a pig's valve. I waited in the hospital while she had the operation. It's a long operation, and she was seventy-eight, but pretty strong. She was old but healthy. Except for that valve. The anesthesia was almost the biggest issue, really. I waited in a very ugly reception area. Really awful. I became focused on the other people there, mostly families. I suppose that's how I distracted myself. Some were already grieving, preparing themselves for the worst, the end…
— Is this really a funny story? Contesa asked.
— I think so. Everyone was so anxious, they barely knew anyone else was in the room. Some of them ate all the time. A lot of Chinese food. Everyone talked a lot, some were very loud. Some were quiet, and they looked totally blank. People constantly used the phone booths outside. They repeated everything they'd said in the waiting room. It drove me crazy. Hospitals look horrible. This waiting area was disgusting, and all the chairs had grease stains. Finally, the doctor came out and said I could go into the ICU and see her. I remember thinking when I walked theremajor operations are life-changing. Some people never recover from the operation. People age overnight. I was thinking all this, when I got to the ICU. You had to push a steel square to open these big doors, and they swung open, at you. And then I was facing the bed where my father died, the same bed. I was really thrown by that. But I found an ICU nurse and asked if I could see my mother. She asked her name and I told her, and she said, without hesitation, Bed Ten. I walked past the other beds to get to Bed Ten, it was almost the last bed. So I looked at all the people lying there, with gray faces and tubes everywhere. I kept telling myself that my mother might not he recognizable anymore. I prepared myself not to recognize her. I got to Bed Ten and went to my mother. I looked at her face. Her face was very different. Her nose was much wider. Her face was wide, it was very swollen, so I thought, OK. But her skin tone was entirely different, she was a different color-then I figured that came from the anesthesia. She's sensitive to meds. Anyway I really didn't recognize her. I stood there for a while, taking this in. But she looked so unlike herself, it was crazy. So, I went back to the nurses' station. I said to the same nurse, "I'm sorry, but that woman doesn't look like my mother." Then the nurse glanced at her clipboard and said, "Sorry, your mother's in Bed Twelve."