"Yes, well sure, sure, I've, uh, I've done some strange things, but –"
"You're beginning to look a wee bit cornered, Joey. It sounds to me as if you've got some dark trunks stored down in your basement." He leered, delighted to know it.
"Uh, Paul, don't get your hopes up too high on that. I ain't no Attila the Hun!"
"That's too bad. Didn't you ever read Dorian Gray? Listen to this: 'The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it.' Amen, brother. I bet you Attila the Hun died a happy man."
"Come on, Paul –"
"Don't play footsie, Joe. You know exactly what I mean. There isn't a person on earth who isn't up to their elbows in badness. Why don't you drop the damned facade and admit it?"
"Because I think it's better to move away from it! Get on to other things! And hope we'll be able to do better next time, if we're given a next time." I was getting too excited and had to turn my volume down.
"Joe, you are what you've done. You are what you're doing. Okay, we're all trying to do better, but it just isn't that easy, you know. Maybe it'd be better if we just looked what we've done smack in the face and started dealing with it. Maybe instead of always looking forward to tomorrow, trying to ignore what we did yesterday or today, it'd be better if we squared off with our past actions –" He stopped in mid-sentence and looked at me queerly. His face was bloodless, but what really struck me was a kind of terrible stillness in his eyes and on his lips. It was gone in an instant, but it left his face looking drawn and blurred, as if something important had gone out of him, leaving him only half filled. Ironically, no sooner had I gone to sleep that night than I started dreaming about Ross. As far as I can remember, nothing much happened, yet something scared me awake; it was a long time before I could sleep again. In the dark I looked toward the ceiling and remembered the time he had poured syrup on me. How do you square off with your past actions when you don't know if they were right or wrong?
"Who's that?"
"Us, dummy! Can't you tell?"
I sat forward and looked more carefully at the picture on the screen. The people were holding on to the edge of a swimming pool, their hair slicked back and wet from the water. They looked young and exhausted. It really didn't look like either Paul or India. India put the bowl of popcorn on my lap. It was almost empty. We'd been popping and eating it all night.
"Are you bored, Joey? I hate looking at other people's slides. They're about as interesting as looking in someone's mouth."
"No! I love pictures and home movies. It lets you catch up on the part of people's lives you missed."
"Joe Lennox, career diplomat."
Paul pressed the button, and a shot of India came on. It must have been taken shortly after the last one, because she was still in the same swimsuit and her hair was wet-flat on her head. She was smiling to beat the band, and there was no mistaking her loveliness now. She must have been five years younger, but she was the same delightful woman.
"This next one is my father. The only person he ever liked besides my mother was Paul."
"Aw shucks, India."
"Shut up. That's no big compliment. He did not like me, his one and only daughter. He thought I was stuck up, which I am, but so what? Next slide, Professor."
"That's when, India? Was I going to Morocco?"
"I don't remember. Great shot though. I forgot all about that picture, Paul. You look good. Very Foreign Correspondent-y." She reached back and caressed his knee. I saw him touch her hand in the dark and hold it. How I envied them their love.
The next slide came on, and I blinked in amazement. India and I were standing very close together, her arm through mine, and we were looking intently up at the Ferris wheel at the Prater.
"Me and my spy camera!" Paul reached over and took a handful of popcorn. "I bet neither of you knew I'd taken that one!"
"No, no, you only showed it to me twelve times after you got it back! Next slide."
"Could I have a print of it, Paul?"
"Sure, Joey, no problem."
The painful thought crossed my mind that someday, somewhere far away, the Tates would be showing these same slides to someone else and that someone would ask in an uninterested voice who the guy standing with India was. I know the Buddhists say all transient things suffer, and there were times when that didn't bother me at all. But when it came to Paul and India I wondered, truly, what I would do without them in my life. I knew it would all go on as usual, but I was reminded of people with bad hearts who are told to stop using salt in their diet. Inevitably after a while they come boasting to you that they've given it up completely and don't miss it. So what? Anyone can survive; the purpose of life, however, is not only to survive but to get a little enjoyment out of it while you're at it. I could "live" without salt too, but I wouldn't be happy. Every time I looked at a steak I'd know how much better it would taste if I could only shake a little salt on. The same held with the Tates: life would toodle on okay, but they traveled so easily and joyously through the days, you couldn't help being swept up along with them. It made everything much richer and fuller.
After what had happened in my life, I was torn between being highly suspicious of love and longing for it at the same time. In the short time I had known them, the Tates had unknowingly stormed the walls of my heart and made me run the red flag of love up as high as it would go. When I asked myself if I loved them singly or only as Paul and India/India and Paul, I didn't know. I didn't care, because it wasn't important. I loved them, and that was enough for me.
4
One day out of the blue Paul called and said he was going on a business trip to Hungary and Poland for two weeks. He hated the whole idea but it was necessary, so that was that.
"Joey, the point is that I try to avoid these damned trips because sometimes India gets nervous and down when I'm gone for more than a few days at a shot. You know what I mean? It doesn't always happen, but once in a while she gets, well, skittery . . ." His voice trailed back down into the phone, and there was no sound for several seconds.
"Paul, it's no problem. We'll hang around a lot together. Don't even think about it. What did you think I was going to do, abandon her?"
He sighed, and his voice leaped back up to full strength again – tough and sturdy. "Joey, that's great. You're the kid. I don't even know why I was worried in the first place. I knew you'd take care of her for me."
"Hey, vuoi un pugno?"
"What?"
"That's Italian for 'Do you want a punch in the nose?' What kind of friend did you think I was?"
"I know, I know, I'm a dope. But take really good care of her, Joey. She's my jewel."
When I hung up, I kept my hand on the back of the receiver. He was off that afternoon, and suddenly I had me a dinner date. I wondered what I should wear. My brand spanking new, hideously expensive Gianni Versace pants. Only the best for India Tate.
The thought crossed my mind while I was dressing that wherever we went for the next two weeks people would think we were a couple. India and Joe. She wore a wedding ring, and if someone saw it they would naturally assume I had given it to her. India and Joseph Lennox. I smiled and looked at myself in the mirror. I began to warble an old James Taylor tune.
India wore cavalry tweed slacks the color of golden fall leaves and a maroon turtleneck sweater. She held my arm wherever we went, and was funny and elegant and better than ever. From the beginning she almost never mentioned Paul, and after a while neither did I.
We ended the first night in a snack bar near Grinzing, where a bunch of punky motorcyle riders kept shooting us murderous looks because we were laughing and having a great time. We made no attempt to conceal our delight. One boy with a shaved head and a dark safety pin through his earlobe looked at me with a thousand pounds of either disgust or envy – I couldn't decipher which. How could anyone as square as me be having so much fun? It was wrong, unfair. After a while the gang strutted out. On the way, the girls all combed their hair and the boys slid gigantic fish-tank helmets over their heads with careful, loving slowness.