PS: We decided we will leave you alone for the rest of the night.
They were delirious, ecstatic. Chris had wished so many times that she could reach inside Sylvère’s head or heart and exorcize his unhappiness. On Saturday, December 10, they rested, blissful and exhausted, finally inhabiting the same space at the same time.
THE LONGEST SUNDAY IN THE WORLD
Crestline, California
December 11, 1994: Sunday morning
Dear Dick,
I guess it’s been a case of infatuation. Funny I haven’t thought to use that word before.
You are the fourth and a half person (Shake, the Good Yvonne, the Bad Yvonne and David B., the Jesuit) I’ve been infatuated with since living with Sylvère. Mostly this infatuation-energy is about wanting to know someone.
It’s funny, with the two Yvonnes, the sex-infatuation part came after already knowing them quite well, adoring them and wanting to be with them in other ways. Whereas the sex-infatuations that’re male (you, Shake, the priest) leap out of nowhere, based on not knowing them at all. As if sex could provide the missing clues. Can it? In the cases of the males it’s like I felt some kind of hint of who that person was floating underneath the surface. Wanting sex to realize things I knew.
Before I got together with Sylvère I’d usually get dumped by guys as soon as they found someone else more feminine or bovine. “She’s not like you,” they’d say. “She is a truly nice girl.” And it hurt ’cause what turned me on in sex was believing that they knew me, that I’d found somebody to understand. But now that I’ve become a hag, i.e., accepted all the contradictions of my life, there’s nothing left to know. The only thing that moves me now is moving, finding out about another person (you).
I know how lame these letters are. Still, I wanted to use the last few hours before your call to tell you how I feel,
Crestline, California
December 11, 1994
Dear Dick,
We’re under the gun now. In a few hours you might blow our whole story into shreds and reveal it for what it is: a strange perverse machine to get to know you, Dick. Oh Dick, what am I doing here? How did I ever get into this strange, embarrassing situation, telling you on the phone about my wife’s infatuation with you? (I’m calling her my “wife,” a word I never use, to emphasize the depth of our depravity…)
Would Chris have fallen in love with you if I hadn’t been there to make it so embarrassing? Is knowledge a desperate form of acceptance? Or does acceptance transcend itself in knowledge to reach more interesting ground? “Knowledge” is supposed to be my concern…
So I was thinking about you, longing for a crisis, a bright future to keep death away. Do we have any right to push our fantasies on you? Is there any way they can connect that would be beneficial to us all? I understand what we have to gain from it. But what would I do if I were you, Dick? If you’d wanted the complexity of human relationships you wouldn’t have moved alone out to the Antelope Valley. It reminds me of something Chris said the other day: the best place to hide a corpse is under everybody’s eyes. And you’re so close to everything but so difficult to grasp.
So why would you want to blow your cover, such a fragile eggshell, to enter a game you’ve refused to play anymore? The thing that’s most embarrassing isn’t telling you my wife’s in love with you—that’s just transgressive, and so ultimately acceptable. What’s more embarrassing is to strip the whole intrigue bare, to bring it down to raw desire, like the “…”s in Chris’ story when she imagines making love to you. Does knowledge stand for “…”? Does it need to be eroticized to find its point? And why should any point be finer than the raw “…”s of our desires? We know what the “…”s stand for. And what does your name stand for, Dick?
Crestline, California
December 11, 1994
Dear Dick,
I disagree with Sylvère about your living situation. He thinks that it’s escapist, as if living alone is an evasion of the inevitable coupledom, rejecting life. It’s what parents say about the childless. But I think your life choices are totally valid, Dick.
Crestline, California
December 11, 1994
Dear Dick,
Noon. (Already). We’re still waiting for your call. We think we’ll switch now to the conversational mode since all our time between these letters has been spent talking about you anyhow.
Sunday, December 11, 1994: 12:05 p.m.
C: Sylvère what’re we gonna do if he doesn’t call? Are we gonna call him?
S: No, we can continue this without him anyway.
C: But you’re forgetting that I really want for him to call. I’m tingling all over waiting for the phone to ring. I’ll be really disappointed if he doesn’t call.
S: Well this time you should talk to him. Why let us two white guys decide the course? I got him in. It’s your turn now.
C: But I’m afraid he’s not gonna call at all. What then? Do I call him? It’s already feeling like the Frank Zappa song You Didn’t Try And Call Me.
S: He’ll call, but not today. He’ll call when it’s too late.
C: Oh Sylvère, I hate that.
S: But Chris, that’s why he’ll do it that way.
C: If he doesn’t call today I think I’ll have to disengage. Because, you know, I’ll lose respect. We’ve done so much. All he has to do is call.
S: But maybe he’ll realize we’ve already done everything in his place. Why disturb it?
C: I disagree. He should be curious. If some one called me and said they’d written 50, 60, 70 pages about me overnight I’d definitely be curious. You know, Sylvère, I think if this whole Dick thing falls through I’ll go to Guatemala City. I have to do something with my life.
S: But Chris. The Antelope Valley is Guatemala.
C: I’ll just be so disappointed if he doesn’t call. How can you continue loving someone who doesn’t pass this first and really basic test?
S: What test? The adultery test?
C: Nooo. The first test is to call.
Since their telephone has call-waiting, Chris phones her unshockable friend Ann Rower in New York.
TEN MINUTES LATER—
S: What did Ann think?
C: Ann thought it was a great project, more perverse than just having an affair. She thinks it’d make a good book! When Dick calls shall we tell him we’re considering publication?
S: No. The murder hasn’t happened yet. Desire’s still unconsummated. Let the media wait.
C: (whining) Whyyyyyyy??
SEVEN HOURS LATER—
C: Look Sylvère, this’s hopeless. We’re leaving in two days and I can’t think past this phone call. I got a fax this afternoon from a producer who wants to see my film. I didn’t even read it. Maybe it’s already thrown away.