Chapter 6
YOU HESITATE, sir; I did not mean to put you on the spot. If you are not yet ready to reveal your purpose in traveling here — your demeanor all but precludes the possibility that you are a tourist wandering aimlessly through this part of the world — then I will not insist. Ah, I see that you have detected a scent. Nothing escapes you; your senses are as acute as those of a fox in the wild. It is rather pleasant, is it not? Yes, you are right: it is jasmine. It comes, as your glance suggests you have already surmised, from the table beside ours, where that family has just taken their seats for dinner.
What a contrast: the paleness of those buds — strung with needle and thread into a fluffy bracelet — against the darkness of that lady’s skin! And what a contrast, again: the delicacy of their perfume against the robust smell of roasting meat! It is remarkable indeed how we human beings are capable of delighting in the mating call of a flower while we are surrounded by the charred carcasses of our fellow animals — but then we are remarkable creatures. Perhaps it is in our nature to recognize subconsciously the link between mortality and procreation — between, that is to say, the finite and the infinite — and we are in fact driven by reminders of the one to seek out the other.
I remember being tasked with purchasing such flowers upon the death of my maternal grandmother. I was sixteen at the time and in possession of a fake motor vehicle learner’s permit — it had been my brother’s — and I was so excited to be behind the wheel of an automobile that I was regularly sent by my family to do errands that might otherwise have been carried out by our chauffeur. Our Toyota Corolla was lovingly maintained but getting on in years and therefore prone — as happened in this particular case — to overheating. To this day I can still recall the heady aroma of those strands of threaded jasmine piled high in my arms as I walked to the cemetery, sweating in the summer sun.
New York was in mourning after the destruction of the World Trade Center, and floral motifs figured prominently in the shrines to the dead and the missing that had sprung up in my absence. I would often glance at them as I walked by: photos, bouquets, words of condolence — nestled into street corners and between shops and along the railings of public squares. They reminded me of my own uncharitable — indeed, inhumane — response to the tragedy, and I felt from them a constant murmur of reproach.
Other reproaches were far louder. Your country’s flag invaded New York after the attacks; it was everywhere. Small flags stuck on toothpicks featured in the shrines; stickers of flags adorned windshields and windows; large flags fluttered from buildings. They all seemed to proclaim: We are America—not New York, which, in my opinion, means something quite different—the mightiest civilization the world has ever known; you have slighted us; beware our wrath. Gazing up at the soaring towers of the city, I wondered what manner of host would sally forth from so grand a castle.
It was against this backdrop that I saw Erica again. Six weeks had passed since that afternoon we spent together in Central Park, and when I called I thought Erica might have other plans, but she suggested we meet that very evening, which is to say the evening of my first full day back in New York, as soon as I was done with work. I was waiting on the sidewalk as she stepped out of a taxi. A peculiar odor lingered in the air; the smoldering wreckage downtown made its way into our lungs. Her lips were pale, as though she had not slept — or perhaps she had been crying. I thought in that moment that she looked older, more elegant; she had an element of that beauty which only age can confer upon a woman, and I imagined I was catching a glimpse of the Erica she would one day become. Truly, I thought, she is an empress-in-waiting!
“My mom was saying,” she said over dinner, “maybe we should leave the city for a bit. Go out to the Hamptons. But I told her the last thing I wanted to do was leave town. I didn’t want to be alone. The attacks churned up old thoughts in my head.” I nodded but said nothing in response. I felt we were encountering one another at a funeral; one never knows what to say to those who have been bereaved. “I keep thinking about Chris,” she went on. “I don’t know why. Most nights I have to take something to help me rest. It’s kind of like I’ve been thrown back a year.” I suspect I looked alarmed because she smiled and added, “It’s not that bad. I mean, I’m eating fine. I haven’t lost it. But I feel haunted, you know?”
I considered her choice of words. “I have an aunt,” I said, “my mother’s most beautiful sister. Her marriage was arranged, so she had only met her husband a few times beforehand. He was an air force pilot. He died three months later, but she never married again. She said he was the love of her life.” Erica appeared moved, both touched and troubled by what I had said; leaning forward, she asked, “What’s she like now?” “Mad,” I said, “mad as a March hare.” Erica stared; then she started to laugh — a surprised and delighted guffaw — and when she was done she placed her hand on mine. “I missed you,” she said. “It’s good to have you back.”
I wanted to slip my fingers between hers, but I held my hand completely still, as though I was afraid any movement on my part might dislodge our connection. “Is she really mad?” Erica asked, raising an eyebrow and imitating my pronunciation of the word. “Yes, I am afraid,” I said with mock solemnity, “utterly.” This made her smile; she suggested we order another bottle of wine. We lingered at our table until the restaurant closed for the night — by which time we were rather pleasantly drunk — and then strolled out into the street. “I love it when you talk about where you come from,” she said, slipping her arm through mine, “you become so alive.”
I did not say that the same could be said of her when she spoke of Chris; I did not say it because this fact elicited in me mixed emotions. On the one hand it pleased me as her friend to see her so animated, and I knew, moreover, that it was a mark of affection that she took me into her confidence in this way — I had never heard her discuss Chris when speaking to someone else; on the other hand, I was desirous of embarking upon a relationship with her that amounted to more than friendship, and I felt in the strength of her ongoing attachment to Chris the presence of a rival — albeit a dead one — with whom I feared I could never compete. The aunt I had mentioned was unlike Erica in almost every way: she was plump, insisted on traveling only by scooter, wore a backpack frequently crammed with goodies for her young nieces and nephews, and lived on a widow’s small pension. But this was my aunt at forty-five; the woman who stared jauntily out of her photographs at the age of twenty-two was cocksure and painfully attractive. I could only imagine how many suitors she had turned away, and I wondered if my infatuation with Erica was as doomed as theirs had been.
Erica’s face was relaxed now; indeed she stifled a yawn as she leaned her head against my shoulder. But she had been tense at the start of the evening, careworn and riddled with worry. Like so many others in the city after the attacks, she appeared deeply anxious. Yet her anxieties seemed only indirectly related to the prospect of dying at the hands of terrorists. The destruction of the World Trade Center had, as she had said, churned up old thoughts that had settled in the manner of sediment to the bottom of a pond; now the waters of her mind were murky with what previously had been ignored. I did not know if the same was true of me.
We wandered in silence through the night, and as luck would have it — no, I am being dishonest; luck had nothing to do with it — we found ourselves outside my building. “Can I come up?” she asked. “I want to see where you live.” I could hear my heart beating as we mounted the stairs; my studio was a fourth-floor walkup so, as you can well imagine, there were a great many to climb. I was somewhat apprehensive of what she might think of the place — it was, after all, a tiny fraction of the size of her own home — but I reassured myself that it possessed a certain literary charm. “It’s perfect,” she said, sitting down on the edge of my futon, which was at that moment still in its extended position for use as a bed.