“I’m sorry — I thought it was Jane.”
But, as usual with her when something is really bugging her, she circles around it and past it and by it quite a few times, before zeroing in and getting at what she meant. But then at last: “Gramie, I’ve been up against it, directly for at least ten years, indirectly longer than that, this problem of men who like women — or we’ll say, of a boy who likes them too much. Strangely, not much has been written about them, at least by the psychiatrists. I suppose the reason is the underlying premise of psychiatry, of modern psychiatry, at least, is that sex frustration underlies most mental disorder — in which case these tomcats could seem to be wholly normal, perhaps the only normal people we have. Well, all I can say is, they don’t look normal to me. And I had the bright idea of hearing what they had to say, especially one of them, Casanova, who I got interested in through my weakness for music — I long ago realized that he was the real Don Giovanni, the model for the librettist of that opera—”
She named the librettist, but I don’t remember the name. Then she went on: “Casanova was probably the greatest tomcat who ever lived—”
“In college, in one of our courses, the professor called him the greatest literary figure of the eighteenth century.”
“I think we could call him that — certainly he was the parent of Dumas, of Hugo, and especially, of Thackeray. But Gramie, by his own revelation, he had a screw loose somewhere. Let me explain what I mean. In Spain he had a rough time, largely through the intrigues of a woman who loused him up, had him thrown into prison, tortured, in all ways treated horribly, and Casanova is most bitter against her, on moral grounds, believe it or not — it seemed she was the daughter of her grandfather, that is, that grandpappy had a few with his own daughter, and this woman was the result. I was quite persuaded myself, and pleased with Casanova that he should see the genetic principle involved. But now watch what happens. He escaped from Spain, of course, and some time later, when he’s back in Italy, he runs into a girl, a young married woman, who wants a child and is barren. Gladly, Casanova steps into the breach, or we could say, climbs into the bed. But he knows all the time that this girl is his own daughter. In other words, he commits the very same incestuous offense he complained so bitterly about in Spain. That’s what I mean, when I say there was a loose screw, somewhere inside Casanova.”
She stopped, ate her lunch for a while, but then went on, right where she left off. “And take Aaron Burr, a real tomcat, who slept up with every boulevard floozie he met on the streets of Paris. Or take Daniel Sickles, perhaps our greatest American tomcat. He married a girl, a complete ninny, and then paid no more attention to her than as though she didn’t exist — and he, by the way, was a pupil, in his youth, of—” she named the librettist again, and I still don’t remember it — “when he was on the faculty of Columbia College. So Mrs. Sickles had an affair with Barton Key, son of the Key who wrote The Star-Spangled Banner, on September 12, 1814 — later the birthday of Graham Kirby, a real date in American history — and then Sickles shot Barton Key, shot him and killed him in Lafayette Park, Washington, D.C. He was acquitted, but then, and only then, did he begin to take an interest in this poor, weeping nitwit, who of course had been crucified, this wife, whom he now took back and began sleeping with. It was too much, and shortly after she died — but what kind of depraved nature was it, that felt this unnatural compulsion, to defile her as he did? I tell you, there’s a screw loose in these men!”
I may have said something, but don’t now recall what it was, and pretty soon she went on: “He was in last night, Burl I’m talking about, to bring back my trunk and pick up things he’d forgotten. And I told him everything — about the marriage, and also about the miscarriage, as a way of letting him know how completely detached he was, from that girl, for the rest of her life. He just laughed at the idea that she could have miscarried. ‘Oh boy,’ he crowed, ‘there’s one for the book — Big Brother decides to marry her, and right away she miscarries.’ Then he persuaded himself you’re a fag, as he called you, unable to husband Sonya, and for that reason under the necessity of finding a way to pretend that the child she’ll have is yours. So you put out this false story, as a way of wiping the slate clean to make way for a new beginning. But then, like Sickles, he gets a pious notion of what he owes this girl and what he owes his child: This ‘child of my loins,’ as he called it — a regular baptism of his father’s semen, so he’ll grow up healthy and normal. Gramie, now at last I get to it, what I came to tell you: You must keep her from this madman. She mustn’t see him, let him in, or have anything whatever to do with him. Do you hear me, Gramie?”
“I do, but so happens I think I can help.”
“What do you mean, help?”
“Cure him of his obsession.”
“And how are you going to do that?”
“A good sock on the jaw may help.”
“I’d love to see it happen, but I wouldn’t.”
“Why wouldn’t you?”
“Let’s get back to Casanova: In London he fell for a girl who played him for a sucker. Who took him for money, and then wouldn’t, as they say, put out. He all but lost his mind, it was the turning point of his life. Until then he’d been well-heeled, elegant, and big. After the interlude with her, or without her, actually, he became seedy, necessitous, and petty. I doubt if socking Burl would cure him of his obsession with Sonya, but letting it die of attrition, of not seeing her, of his incorrigible habit of getting somebody else — that might help.”
“Okay then we’ll freeze him out.”
“Gramie, she mustn’t see him.”
“Well, why would she?”
“She mustn’t let him into the house!”
“Well, she knows that, of course!”
“He might invent some trick to get in.”
“Will you stop imagining stuff?”
“She mustn’t go to this place he’s moved into. He’s taken over his father’s old office, in the Harrison Stuart Building. He’s staying there temporarily—”
“I’d call that office a pad.”
“Whatever it is, he’s living there.”
“The pretended private office was all fixed up as a bedroom with bath attached, where your lately deceased husband took lady visitors, mostly women on relief—”
“I know what my late husband did!”
“Then tell it like it was.”
She blew her top, and took a moment to calm down again, touching her lips with her handkerchief, and not for some time becoming herself again. I felt more or less like hell, but discussing Harrison Stuart in an easy, quiet way was something I was incapable of. After a while she said: “I’m trying to say she must never go there.”
“Okay, you said it.”
That afternoon, I talked with more prospects, and one of them kept me until six, so when I got home Helen Musick was there, and Sonya had fixed dinner. It was kind of a funny job, a mixture of Domestic Science, Joy of Cooking, and Mixology, a pamphlet I had, for drinks. She didn’t drink herself, but had put out martini makings, according to the pamphlet — gin, vermouth, lemon peel, and ice, big rocks that she chopped with an icepick, from lumps she froze in cartons. The icepick she put in a table drawer, by the door that led to the rear part of the house, “to remind me,” whatever that meant. I made a martini for Helen and me and poured a Coke for her, and we visited, very friendly, with Helen warming to her. Then we had dinner: fruit cup, of melon, grapefruit, and strawberries; roast chicken, peas, new potatoes, and salad, and brick ice cream with brandied cherries. We went back in the living room for more conversation, but around ten Helen left, I taking her out to her car. “I just love her,” she whispered. “So natural, so sweet, so friendly — she’s just the person for you.”