“That’s failed memory,” Klotzman said. “There was never a time when you were less tormented. I am witness to that.”
“Still, life was simpler then or at least seemed so,” I said. “We were neighbors, we took our walks, we each had our own place. Now it’s all matters of life and death.”
“Going back in time isn’t a real option,” he said. “Do you want to break off with Eva?”
“God, no. I love Eva in my way.”
“What then do you want? Do you know?”
“I know what I don’t want. I don’t want to spend another week in her apartment, though it seems only fair. That’s my dilemma.”
Klotzman looked me over before speaking. “I understand what you’re saying, Mel. Eva spent the week in your apartment so quid pro quo you need to spend the week in hers.”
“She spent two weeks in my apartment, three in all since we started this regimen, and I’ve only spent a week in hers. I can’t tell her that I’m uncomfortable staying in her apartment.”
“You could if you would, Mel,” he said. “From what you tell me Eva may already have an inkling into your problem.”
“I am ashamed that Eva perceives my resistance to staying at her place,” I said. “I am also ashamed at the resistance itself if the truth be known.”
“I get the picture,” he said. “Which would you say was the stronger factor, your resistance or your shame?”
I didn’t have to think that one over. “My shame,” I said.
“Does that mean you would stay in her apartment so as not to feel ashamed?” he asked.
“I suppose,” I said, “but I’d rather not. I’d rather backtrack on our relationship if that’s possible. In my worst moments, I’ve even considered giving up the relationship. Don’t worry, I won’t. I’m just making a point.”
“Tell her what you feel,” Klotzman said. “That’s my advice which I’ve given to you over and over again.”
“And which I’ve never taken.”
After I finished my stint as Head of Security and came home to my apartment, I expected Eva to be there waiting for me. Her absence created a flash of anxiety, but I didn’t go to her place to look for her. I lay down on my red couch — not as new as it once was — and closed my eyes. In my dream, Eva and I were taking a walk in unrecognizable territory and I felt sure we were lost. A police car that was trailing us rolled up alongside. I asked them the way to our building. “First you have to come to the station,” I was told, “We’ve assembled a new lineup for you to pick apart.” It wasn’t clear whether I had a choice in the matter. Eva and I got in the back of the police car and we drove to the station, which turned out to be just around the corner. The lineup they had assembled was notably odd — two very tiny men, midgets perhaps, Ron in a version of my gray suit, a giant in the fourth position, and my old couch in the fifth. “Don’t give yourself away,” Eva whispered in my ear. “Which one do you choose?” the cop that had been driving said to me. I didn’t know, which I didn’t want them to know. I made a pretense of studying the lineup carefully when I was shaken awake by Eva. “It’s walk time,” she said.
It took me awhile to fully wake, the dream reverberating in my head. “Do you want to forego the walk?” she asked.
But what was Ron doing in the center of the lineup?
We took a different route for our walk then we usually took and in short order I didn’t recognize any of the buildings we passed.
“Do you know where we are?” I asked Eva.
“It’s fun to lose oneself once in a while,” she said. “It’s boring to always know where you are, don’t you think?”
Being lost held no pleasures for me. “Maybe we ought to head back,” I said.
“A few more blocks,” she said.
We passed a police station and I figured we could always go in and ask directions, which eased my anxiety.
A few more blocks passed and it was as if the streets were moving and we were standing still. I shared this perception with Eva, who said, “It always seems that way to me.”
I was tired and I suggested we sit on one of the benches we had passed, though there were more benches ahead of us. The street was virtually bench-lined.
So we sat awhile, Eva’s head resting on my shoulder. A feeling nagged me that we would never get back, which I was reluctant to share. I noted that it was getting dark and we usually returned before dark. “Can we go back now?” I asked. Her eyes were closed. She seemed to be sleeping on my shoulder. I had my arm around her and — I don’t know how to say this — I felt connected to her. I felt that in protecting her I was protecting myself. I wanted to get home, but I also didn’t want anything to change. I was content to stay this way, to stay seated on this bench, lost, with Eva asleep on my shoulder, our bodies joined. The sky darkened, but it seemed to get warmer rather than cooler. Perhaps it was this flush of happiness like a secret from some unchartered place that kept me warm. I thought Eva would wake after awhile, but she didn’t and I wasn’t going to change anything — that is, I didn’t move, wouldn’t, not an iota. So we remained in our set positions, into the night, as far as it would take us. We stayed this way, closer than we had ever been, joined irrevocably as I said before, until a passing cop rousted us and sent us on our way into the unforgiving night.
FORGOTTEN
“We work in the dark — we do what we can — we give what we have. Our doubt is our passion and our passion is our task. The rest is the madness of art.”
This, what follows, would be the story I planned to write, had I not, in sitting down to write it, forgotten what it was. As almost all my stories tend to be about love or its absence, I have to believe that this one, the temporarily lost and forgotten event, would fall or slide on its self-created ice into that approximate mode. It may be, this story, about a man and woman, who have been close friends for a long time, each married to another, who discover when it’s too late or almost too late that each has been the great love of the other’s life. That could be the story I had in mind, but I tend to doubt it. In the story I might have conceived, only one of the friends would discover that he loved the other and the other would resist believing her friend’s revelation. And then they would fall into bed and one or the other or both would regret acting impulsively. The needs of self, of perceived love, would not be repressed. The act itself, the acting out of long-denied imperatives, the violation of moral restraint, would be glorified, if uneasily acknowledged, by the trick of memory.
Or it could well have been the story of a couple, each married to someone else, who have an off-and-on affair over the years and finally decide that they want to be the main event in each other’s lives for as much time as they have left. It’s a delusion, of course, and they discover, in short order, that their relationship in order to survive needs the space their decision to live together has deprived them of. Or at least one of them feels that way. And the other, or the same one, much as he has justified his behavior by finding fault with his former spouse (who had taken him for granted, had failed to appreciate him sufficiently, had renounced sex or at least sex with him), feels debilitatingly guilty for causing his deserted wife pain. When he and his lover got together for their once-a-week liaison, there was a lot to talk about — it was a time of catching up — or talk itself was less important than the fast-fleeing time they had to make illicit love. Once they move in together, the exhilaration of urgency is hopelessly lost. So what comes of it, what’s the implication of the story? They can’t go back to what they’ve willfully destroyed. So they pretend to be happy in the new arrangement — they can’t do otherwise — and so suffer in begrudged silence, displacing their regret. This story is too unrelentingly sad. Even the ironies are unamusing. If this was the forgotten story, which I doubt, letting memory trash it, even if circumstantial, is undoubtedly the right choice.