“Go to your room,” I said.
“I won’t leave you alone now.”
“Go away, I want to sleep. This is all so incredibly stupid, and the wind is getting on my nerves. Go to hell. I don’t want you or the money your father left you. I moved into this hotel to con you out of some dough; Robert was going to help me. Some other things were to happen, too, but I’m glad it’s all over now.” I turned away from the mirror and closed my eyes, but the instant I did that, I saw the gorilla coming at me, his jaw clenched in fury. I opened my eyes and met her stare; the expression on her face was both amused and watchful. “I hustled other women before,” I said. “But right now I’ve had enough. Not that I’ve become more sensitive all of a sudden, or that I want to reform. I’d be happy to live this way for a thousand years. But I don’t feel too well today. I’ll be going to Tiberias next, together with Robert, where we’ll try to swindle some other girl. I have no plans to leave for Australia. I don’t even know where it is.”
She laughed. “Why don’t you tell me you have a wife and kid, and that’s why you need money?”
“I don’t have any kids. I’ve spent more money on abortions than there is in the Vatican budget. Even though I’m careful. As you’ve probably noticed.” I went over and sat on the bed.
“Easy,” she said. “Easy. It’ll pass. It’s all because of this wind. Don’t talk. There’s no need to talk. I’m here with you.”
She put her arms so tightly around me I couldn’t move. The silence was totaclass="underline" I could hear the slow, painful beating of my heart and her quiet whispering. This is probably how she had spoken to Johnny when he was very small and had trouble falling asleep. I think God created her so that she would give men love, peace, and rest. So that she could make them tired and then make them sleep. I’m sure He forgave her everything.
“I’m just a cheap gigolo,” I said. “It’s not my fault if you don’t want to believe me.”
“You’re a big boy who probably started shaving too soon,” she said. “In America you’ll buy yourself a sports car and wreck it. I’ll help you do it. Now go to sleep. Sleep in peace. It’s all because of this wind.”
I didn’t answer. I didn’t know what to say; I had spoken my own lines, departed from Robert’s script. I didn’t know how to continue. Robert would have been able to advise me, but he wasn’t there. Lying next to her, I tried to imagine her face in the darkness. It was very pleasant to lie like that, totally still, and imagine her face, her good and pretty face, which I would have been able to see if I turned on the light. But I didn’t turn it on; I lay next to her, motionless, thinking of her face; then I thought of her soft sloping belly and the small, light scars she had from giving birth to Johnny. She smelled the way a woman should, with a smell resembling the aroma of ripe corn, gentle and strong. There was nothing it could be compared to; and now the bed and this small, dark room were permeated with it. I moved my hand slowly down her flat, warm belly; she clasped my hand between her thighs and now, with the sheet thrown back, her aroma became more intense. When she leaves this room in the morning, I thought, her smell will disappear after a time, though it would be so much nicer if this room and this city retained her smell forever; then I would always remember she was with me once and life would somehow be more bearable; maybe I would think about her in Tiberias, my next destination, or even years from now, lying in bed with some other woman.
I should have told her all this. I wouldn’t have needed Robert and his goddamn instructions to do it either. There was so much I could have told her about myself and my life, but she probably wouldn’t have believed me. I could have told her how I robbed someone when I was fifteen and wasn’t caught. And how three months later a friend and I robbed a ticket office at a train station; my friend was arrested, and I gave myself up so we could go to jail together, because I enjoyed his company. But she wouldn’t have believed me. Nor would she believe me if I told her I lost my virginity at the age of twelve to a ripe German girl on the day of her engagement to a young lieutenant. Nor would she believe me if I told her about the German soldier who set his dog on me and then started kicking me and broke my nose just because I wanted to play with the dog — this happened when I was seven. Nor would she believe me that in 1944, in Warsaw, I saw six Ukrainians rape a girl from our building and then gouge her eyes with a teaspoon, and they laughed and joked doing it. Maybe I myself didn’t believe all this anymore. I should have told her that I bear the Germans no grudges for killing my family and a few more million Poles, because afterward I lived under the Communists and came to realize that by subjecting men to hunger, fear, and terror, one can force them to do anything under the sun, and that no group of people is better than any other. Those who claim otherwise belong to the lowest human species and their right to live should be revoked.
I should have told her: Listen, I’m just a fucking Polack, and I should have told her my life hadn’t prepared me for any other way of living, that none of my experiences would ever come in handy, just as I myself was of no use to anyone, unable to offer any good or any worthwhile advice, because no one would ever believe me if I tried to. And that’s the truth. But I didn’t say these things. I lay next to her and the warmth of her body enveloped me and put me to sleep, and there was nothing else I wanted to feel or think about.
It would have been a relief to tell her everything. It would have been a relief just to tell her about the Jewish family hiding next door until they were murdered by the Germans. A man, a woman, and three children: when their bodies were lying on the ground, the Germans stopped some men walking by and ordered them to piss on the corpses; a German called me over and I pissed, too, shaking with fear, while the Germans photographed the living profaning the dead. And it would have been a relief to tell her how one day when I was walking to school, the Germans blocked off the street and made us watch them hang people from balconies; no one moved or screamed, not those forced to watch, nor those who were being hung. But how was I to tell her all that? I didn’t know. How could I tell her about the girl who fell in love with a German soldier, and, although she had done no one any harm, one day members of the underground caught her, pushed an empty half-liter vodka bottle up her vagina and broke it; she died a few days later. I could have also told her about the Jewish mothers in 1943 who threw their babies into a raging fire, first lifting them high over their heads as if in a gesture of triumph, while Poles made funny remarks from the other side of the ghetto wall. But I think she would have asked me to shut up after my very first words. I tried to tell these things to lots of people, but I don’t think anyone ever listened seriously.
I pulled the sheet off her and turned on the lamp. She slept as calmly and peacefully as a child. Her belly was brown, with a golden thread of hair going up from her pubes. Her legs were a bit on the heavy side, her breasts small; dressed up in lace she would have been the perfect model for somebody forging Renaissance portraits. The minute scars on her belly were almost invisible, and I could barely feel them under my fingertips. Suddenly she opened her eyes and her hands began moving, quietly and slowly, waking my desire. And she asked softly, “You will come with me, won’t you?”
“No,” I said.
7
I WOKE ABOUT TWO HOURS LATER. SHE WAS NO LONGER IN the room. Once again I started to think of the gorilla on the beach and what he would do to me. With the tip of my tongue I could feel the roof of my mouth was swollen. The lifeguard had a forceful punch. Tomorrow I’ll really be swollen, I thought; I’ll have to go to the dentist and ask him to cut the swelling open. I’ll have to sit in his waiting room for at least an hour and listen to all the other patients tell sickening stories of their own dental problems.