She stopped for a moment, as if thinking about what she’d just said.
“Or maybe the right way. Anyway, the only thing that I could figure out to do was to give you a book, after the trial. Do you remember?”
“How could I forget? The Revolution of Hope by Erich Fromm.”
“I suspected you already had a copy, even though you said you didn’t. You thanked me and said how happy you were to have it. You said you’d been thinking about buying it for some time now, and you were going to read it right away.”
I smiled. I didn’t remember saying any of those things, but it was typical of me, the sort of things I always said in that situation. When someone gives me a book that I’ve already read, I hate to disappoint the gift giver, so I lie.
“Well, in fact, I had already read it.”
She smiled, but there was something in her eyes that caused a pang in my heart, completely out of proportion and unconnected to the episode of the book. As if a door had swung open, for a few moments, and I had glimpsed a terrible pool of sorrow.
“What about afterward?”
“What do you mean, afterward?”
“After the trial.”
“Oh, right. I’ve been smart enough to stay clean since then. I had plenty of savings, and I’d invested them wisely. Low-risk mutual funds with moderate but reliable yields. I own three apartments in good neighborhoods, with good tenants paying reasonably high rents. A fourth apartment that I live in. In other words, I could afford to retire, while I tried to figure out what to do with the second half of my life. I traveled a little. Then I got the bad news I told you about, but I had good doctors, and I think they caught it early enough. I think that’s over. So when I got back-from my trips and from my time in the hospital-I decided to enroll in college.”
“Studying what?”
“Contemporary literature. I’m taking my exams. Can you believe that? Just another couple of years and I’ll have my degree.”
“Have you decided on a thesis?”
She smiled again, but this time there were no shadows behind her eyes. If anything, a gleam of gratitude that I had taken her seriously.
“No, not yet. But I’d like to do something related to film history. I love movies.”
I said nothing. As we walked, I cast her a sidelong glance. But she was looking straight ahead. That is, she wasn’t looking at anything. A few minutes went by.
“Anyway, I had a boyfriend, too. The first, and the last, for now, in my second life. For the first time I didn’t have to worry about concealing how I made a living.”
“How did it go with him?”
“He was-is-a shithead. So it went the way it always goes with a shithead. After less than a year, it was over.”
“And since then?”
“Since then, nothing.”
I tried to calculate mentally how long it had been. She understood and spared me the effort.
“I haven’t been with a man for close to a year.”
It seemed like a good time not to say anything.
“I feel as if I’m living my life backwards, if you know what I mean.”
I nodded my head. I don’t know if she saw me, because she kept looking straight ahead.
“What about the Chelsea Hotel?”
“That’s the last part of the story. I really like going to college, but it’s not enough for me. I needed something more. I had too much time to think, which isn’t always a good thing.”
“It almost never is.”
“Exactly. So I figured it was time to find a job, and the idea of opening the Chelsea Hotel came to me while I was talking to a gay friend of mine. I like the hours: We get started around eight in the evening, and we go home around four in the morning, and then I sleep until lunch-time. Plus, having a place to go every night, lots of people to see, makes me feel a little less lonely.”
There was a boy walking a dog of indeterminate breed on the sidewalk across the street. The dog started barking ferociously, doing his best to yank his leash from the boy’s hand. Pino/Baskerville calmly turned his head in the barking dog’s direction, stopped, and gazed across the street at him. He neither barked, nor growled, nor showed any intention of lunging at the dog-though he certainly could have, because he wasn’t on a leash. He looked over and did nothing, but I imagined that in those seconds terrible images ran through his head-the sounds of violence, the metallic taste of blood, the pain when his ear was ripped off his head, fangs, claws, life and death. Nadia whispered a command and the huge beast methodically arranged himself horizontally, assuming a sphinx-like position. He didn’t even look in the other dog’s direction.
At last the boy managed to drag the barking dog-by now in the throes of hysteria-down the street. The nocturnal silence was restored, and we resumed our stroll and our conversation. The gaps between the clouds were bigger now, and the sight of the night sky made me happy.
“Do you think I told you the whole truth? Or do you think I changed things to make it less depressing?”
“No one ever tells the whole truth, especially when they’re talking about themselves. But if you ask a question like that, it means that in one way or another, you know that and you’ve done your best. So, if I had to guess, I’d say you probably told me something pretty close to the so-called truth.”
She looked at me with an expression that mixed curiosity and concern, as if she’d just heard something with unexpected consequences.
“Really? No one ever tells the truth?”
“The whole truth, no, no one ever does. The ones who tell you that they’re being completely honest-and they may even believe it-are the most dangerous. They don’t know that lying is inevitable. They have no self-awareness, and they’re prisoners of themselves.”
“Prisoners of themselves. I like the sound of that.”
“That’s right, prisoners of themselves, and incapable of figuring out who they really are. You just go ahead and ask one of those people who claim always to tell the truth how he does his work, what his personal strengths and weaknesses are, how he interacts with other people, or anything else that has to do with his, or her, self-image. You’ll discover something interesting.”
“What’s that?”
“They don’t know how to answer. They give rote answers and rely on stereotypes, or they describe the qualities they wish they possessed but don’t. Qualities that correspond to the false image that they have of themselves. Have you ever heard of Alan Watts?”
“No.”
“He was an English philosopher. He studied eastern cultures, and he wrote a beautiful book about Zen. Watts wrote that an honest person is someone who knows that he is a complete impostor and is nonchalant about it. According to that definition, I’m halfway there. I know that I’m an impostor, but I still can’t quite pull off the nonchalant part.”
“You are completely crazy.”
“I hope I can take that as a compliment.”
“You can.”
“I think it’s time to go to sleep,” I said, glancing at my watch.
“That’s right, you have a serious person’s job. You can’t stay in bed until noon like I do.”
“I’ll walk you back to your car.”
“There’s no need. That is, unless you need a ride home. I don’t know where you live, but if it’s far away, let’s go back to the car and I’ll take you home.”
“I live just a short walk from here.”
“Then there’s no need for you to come all the way back to the car.”
“Well, thanks for the talk, and for everything.”
“Thank you.”
“Baskerville is a good sort of demon after all.”
“Right.”
After a moment’s hesitation she leaned toward me and gave me a kiss on the cheek. Luckily, Pino chose not to view this as an act of hostility, so he didn’t rip me limb from limb.
“See you.
“Bye.”
“Well, that’s ridiculous.”
“What?”
“I’m blushing.”