5
Whenever Daniel Blank saw Florence and Samuel together, he remembered a film he had once seen on the life of sea otters. The pups! They nuzzled each other, touched, frolicked and frisked. And the Mortons’ close-fitting helmets of black oily hair were exactly like pelts. He could not watch them without amused indulgence.
Now, seated in the couch in his apartment, they insisted on sharing one Scotch-on-the-rocks-which he had replenished four times. They were clad in their black leather jumpsuits, sleek as hides, and their bright eyes and ferrety features were alive and curious.
Since they were so ready-ready? eager! — to reveal intimate details of their private lives, they assumed all their friends felt the same. They wanted to know how his affair with Celia Montfort was coming along. Had they been physically intimate? Was it a satisfying sex relationship? Had he discovered anything more about her they should know? What was Anthony’s role in her household? And Valenter’s?
He answered in generalities and tried to smile mysteriously. After awhile, balked by his reticence, they turned to each other and began to discuss him as if they were alone in their own apartment. He had endured this treatment before (as had all their silent friends), and sometimes he found it entertaining. But now he felt uncomfortable and, he thought, perhaps fearful. What might they not stumble on?
“Usually,” Sam said, speaking directly to Flo, “when a man like Dan is asked point-blank if his sex relations with a particular woman are satisfactory, he will say something like, ‘How on earth would I know? I haven’t been to bed with her. ’ That means, A, he is telling the truth and has not been to bed with her. Or B, he has been to bed with her and is lying to protect the lady’s reputation.”
“True,” Flo nodded solemnly. “Or C, it was so bad he doesn’t want to mention it because he has failed or the lady has failed. Or D, it was absolutely marvelous, so incredible he doesn’t want to talk about it; he wants to keep this wonderful memory for himself.”
“Hey, come on,” Dan laughed. “I’m not-”
“Ah yes,” Sam interrupted. “But when a man like Dan replies to the question, ‘How was sex with this particular woman?’ by answering, ‘It was all right,’ what are we to understand from that? That he has been to bed with the lady but the experience was so-so?”
“I think that is what Dan would like us to believe,” Flo said thoughtfully. “I think he is concealing something from us, Samovel.”
“I agree,” he nodded. “What could it be? That he has not yet made the attempt?”
“Yes,” Flo said. “That makes psychological sense. Dan is a man who was married several years to a woman his physical and mental inferior. Correct?”
“Correct. And during that time sex became a routine, a habit. Suddenly separated and divorced, he looks around for a new woman. But he feels uncertain. He has forgotten how to operate.”
“Exactly,” Flo approved. “He is unsure of himself. He fears he may be rejected. After all, the boy isn’t a mad rapist. And if he is rejected, then he will think the failure of his marriage was his fault. And his ego can’t accept that. So in Dan’s approach to this new woman, he is careful. He is wary. Did you ever know a wary lover to succeed?”
“Never,” Sam said definitely. “Successful sex always demands aggression, either attack on the man or surrender on the part of the woman.”
“And surrender on the part of the woman is as valid a method of aggression as attack on the part of the man.”
“Of course. You remember reading-”
But at this point, tiring of their game, Daniel Blank went into the kitchen to pour himself a fresh vodka. When he returned to the living room, they were still at it, their voices louder now, when the bell of the hall door rang so stridently they were shocked to silence, Daniel Blank, to whom an unexpected knock or ring now came as a heart flutter or spasm of the bowels, behaved, he assured himself later, with nonchalant coolness.
“Now who on earth can that be?” he inquired of no one. He rose and moved to the hallway door. Through the peephole he caught a glimpse of a woman’s hair-long, blonde hair-and a padded coat shoulder. Oh my God, he thought, it’s Gilda. What’s she doing here?
But when he unhooked the chain and opened the door, it wasn’t Gilda, It was and it wasn’t. He stared, trying to understand. She stared back just as steadily. It wasn’t until his mouth opened in astonishment that she broke into a laugh, and then he saw it was Celia Montfort.
But what a Celia! Wearing a blonde wig down to her shoulders, with the tips curled upward. Thick makeup including scarlet lip rouge. A tacky tweed suit with a ruffled blouse. A necklace of oversize pearls. Crimson nail polish. And, obviously, a padded brassiere.
She had never seen his ex-wife, never seen a photo of her, but the resemblance was startling. The physical bulk was there, the gross good health, high color, muscular swagger, a tossing about of elbows and shoulders.
“My God,” Daniel said admiringly, “you’re marvelous.”
“Am I like her?”
“You wouldn’t believe. But why?”
“Oh…just for fun, as Tony would say. I thought you’d like it.”
“I do. I really do, My God, you’re so like her. You really should have been an actress.”
“I am,” she said. “All the time. Aren’t you going to ask me in?”
“Oh, of course. Listen, the Mortons are here. I’ll announce you as Gilda. I want to see their reactions.”
He preceded her to the doorway of the living room.
“It’s Gilda,” he called brightly, then stepped aside.
Celia came to the doorway and stood posed, sweeping the Mortons with a beaming smile.
“Gilda!” Sam cried, bouncing to his feet. “This is-” He stopped.
“Gilda!” Florence cried, waving. “How nice that-” She stopped.
Then Celia and Daniel burst out laughing, and within a moment the Mortons were laughing too.
Flo came over to embrace Celia, then patted the padded shoulders of her suit and the tweed behind.
“A padded ass,” she reported to the men. “And sponge rubber tits. My God, sweetie, you thought of everything.”
“Do you think I’m like?”
“Like?” Sam said. “A dead ringer. Even the makeup.”
“Perfect,” Flo nodded. “Even to the fingernails. How did you do it?”
“Guessed,” Celia said.
“You guessed right,” Daniel said. “Now would you like to take off your jacket and get comfortable?”
“Oh no. I’m enjoying this.”
“All right. Vodka?”
“Please.”
He went into the kitchen to prepare new drinks for all of them. When he came back, Celia had turned off all the lights except for one standing lamp, and in the gloom she looked even more like his ex-wife. The resemblance was shattering, even to the way she sat upright in the Eames chair, her back straight, feet firmly planted on the floor, knees slightly spread as if the thickness of her thighs prevented a more modest pose. He felt…something.
“Why the disguise?” Flo asked.
“What’s the point?” Sam asked.
Celia Montfort fluffed her blonde wig, smiled her secret smile.
“Haven’t you ever wanted to?” she asked them all. “Everyone wants to. Walk away from yourself. Quit your job, desert wife or husband and family, leave your home and all your possessions, strip naked if that is possible, and move to another street, city, country, world, and become someone else. New name, new personality, new needs and tastes and dreams. Become someone entirely different, entirely new. It might be better or it might be worse, but it would be different. And you might have a chance, just a chance, in your new skin. Like being born again. Don’t you agree, Daniel?”