“Do you realize it’s been more than five years since I’ve seen her? It feels weird. To me she’ll always be just my little sister, you see…”
The guy let us off at an intersection, and by the time Betty and I had gotten out and pulled down our suitcases, there was a whole line of cars honking-guys sticking their heads out their windows. I’d forgotten that kind of atmosphere: the smell of gas leaks, the lights, the greasy sidewalks, the car noises you can never get away from. I didn’t feel particularly enthused.
We walked for a while, dragging the suitcases. They weren’t that heavy but they were awkward-there was always somebody bumping into us. The only good thing was that we could sit on them while waiting for the lights to change. Betty had stopped talking. She was like a fish that someone had just thrown back in the water. I didn’t want to spoil her fun. It wasn’t so horrible after all-even if cooling your heels waiting for the lights to change did sometimes seem like punishment.
People were in the street at that time of day-job over, heading home. All the signs lit up suddenly; they blinked like waterfalls of light as we passed under them batting our eyes and pulling in our shoulders. I truly hated all of it, but having Betty at my side made it bearable-all the crap hardly bothered me. Most of the people had hideous faces. I saw that nothing had changed.
Betty’s sister, Lisa, lived in a calmer part of town, in a little white two-story house with a twenty-by-twenty-foot terrace overlooking a vacant lot. She opened the door with a chicken wing in her hand. It made me hungry. Betty and Lisa kissed each other exuberantly and Betty introduced us. I eyed a piece of baked-to-a turn chicken skin hanging off the wing. Hi Lisa, I said. A Doberman pinscher came out of the house, whipping the night with its tail. That’s Bongo, she said, patting the animal’s head. Bongo looked at me, then at his mistress, and finally at the chicken wing, which he ate. I always knew the world was a mean joke.
Although Lisa lived alone with Bongo in the most total mess I’d ever seen, the house itself was somehow very pleasant. Full of colors, with things hanging all over the place as if they’d been forgotten there. Lisa wore a short kimono. She had nice legs, but otherwise Betty had her beat hand over fist, even though she was five or six years older. I drifted onto the conch while the girls talked, taking a drink and a few munchies with mee.
I must have been more tired than I thought-the first glass of sherry went right into my bloodstream. My head started spinning-I almost stepped on the dog when I stood up to go to the bathroom. I splashed some water on my face. I had a three-day beard and eyes circled with dust. I felt rubber-legged, sort of a street-angel-blitzed-on-two-fingers-of-rotgut thing.
When I came back Bongo was finishing the chicken and Betty was recounting the end of our trip. Lisa clapped her hands.
“Perfect timing!” she said. “The upstairs has been free for a week!”
Betty seemed staggered. She put her glass down slowly.
“What? You mean there’s nobody upstairs and you’d rent us the apartment?”
“Sure. Might as well have you take it.”
“Oh Lord, I’m dreaming,” Betty said. “This is fabulous!”
She bounded over to me and kneeled down in front of my chair. I wondered if she hadn’t actually covered herself with spangles.
“See, what did I tell you?” she said. “See what can happen?
If this isn’t some kind of luck I don’t know what is.”
“What’s going on, exactly?” I asked.
Betty squashed her breasts into my knees.
“What’s going on, honey, is that we haven’t even been in town one hour and we’ve already found a sensational apartment that has fallen into our laps straight from heaven!”
“Ask if it has a big bed,” I said.
She pinched my thigh and we raised our glasses. I didn’t say anything, but I was willing to admit that we were, in fact, off to a good start. After all, maybe she was right-maybe an easier world was really about to open its arms to us. I started feeling good.
The bottle hadn’t gone too far. I told them. Don’t worry, and I went out-down to the corner with my nose in the air, my hands in my pockets. I’d spotted some stores farther down the street.
I went into the grocer’s-Good evening, everyone, I said. The guy was alone behind the cash register, an old man with suspenders. I got some champagne, some cookies, and a can of food for the dog. The old man added it up without looking at me, nearly asleep.
“You know,” I said. ‘“We’ll likely be seeing a lot of each other. I’ve just moved into the neighborhood…”
The good news did not stir him. He handed me the bill, yawning. I paid up.
“You’re really a lucky guy,” I joked. “I’m going to be dropping a bundle in here every month…”
He gave me a smile-visibly forced-and waited for me to split. His face had a pained expression on it, like most of the people on the street. It made me feel like a leper. I thought for a second, then went back and got a second bottle. I threw the money at him and left.
The girls welcomed me back with cries of joy. While the champagne ran I opened the can of dog food: two pounds of bright pink mush bathed in jelly. Bongo looked at me with his head cocked. I knew it was wise to get on the good side of these animals. I saw that I had already scored a point.
Next we went to see the apartment. We climbed the stairway that led to the second floor, laughed when Lisa took a few minutes to get the key to turn.
“Usually this door is locked, but from now on we can just leave it open. Gosh, I’m so happy about this! Sometimes I get kind of lonely, you know…”
There was a bedroom, a room with a kitchen in the corner, and the little terrace. In short-paradise. There was a closet that had been turned into a shower. While the girls made the bed, I went out onto the terrace and leaned over the balcony. Bongo did likewise. Standing on his hind legs, he was almost as tall as me. The balcony looked out onto some deserted land, closed off by a fence. You could see houses on the other side, some hills farther on, then a blackness, darker than night. I heard them laughing and squealing in the bedroom. I smoked a cigarette and let it go all through me. I winked at Bongo.
Later, between the sheets, Betty squeezed herself against me and immediately went to sleep. I looked at the ceiling. I didn’t know where I was anymore, but I didn’t rack my brain about it. I did some deep breathing. Little by little I drifted into sleep, all the time feeling like I was slowly waking up.
7
We didn’t start looking for a job right away-we were in no hurry. We spent most of our time on the terrace, talking to Lisa and Bongo, playing cards, reading. The afternoons succeeded each other, threaded together by an amazing calm-I’d never known anything that good. Betty was tanned to a golden turn, Lisa somewhat less so, since she worked during the day as a cashier in a department store. From time to time I’d play with Bongo in the vacant lot, chasing the birds away. Betty would watch us from the balcony. We’d wave at each other, then she’d disappear. Soon all I heard was the tapping of the typewriter-the little bell that rings when you come to the end of a line.
Actually, this worried me a little. She’d gotten it into her head to type my whole manuscript and send it out to publishers. She’d run herself ragged finding a typewriter. I’d written the thing for my own pleasure, not to throw myself to the lions-at least that’s the way I’d always looked at it-but Betty was preparing my entrance into the arena. I tossed a stick for Bongo to fetch, fretting about it all, but I didn’t let it get to me. I had other things on my mind-the evening’s menu, for example. It was something I’d happily put myself in charge of. A clever guy who has all day to ponder dinner can make miracles out of nothing. I even whipped up something special for Bongo-we’d become fast friends.