Matthews wanted to be agreeable if that's what she wanted. He felt sorry for her. He thought he should feel sorry for both of them.
“I'd like to make love,” Helen said, still scrutinizing herself up close, “but I'm too tired.”
“That's all right.”
“Take a rain check,” she said. “Or a snow check.”
“Okay,” Matthews said.
“I put on pj's so you wouldn't have to see all my ugly bruises.” She sighed at her image. “There's others.”
“That's okay,” he said. Somewhere in the sky outside, he could hear the rumbling and high whistle of a big jet settling out of the snowy night. Some oddity in the wind must've brought such sounds in. But if he looked, he knew he'd see nothing. He and Helen could be most anywhere.
“I would've liked to go dancing,” she said. “I am a very good dancer. We've never danced. We should've, one time at least.”
“Can't we dance later?”
“Oh. Maybe,” she said. “You know what I said about eras? Whatever it was Bea didn't like. That was right, though, wasn't it? There aren't any eras. There's just one time, all together.”
“I never thought about it,” Matthews said, the jet rumbling on at a distance, lower and lower.
Helen walked out of the bathroom in her bare feet and came to the window where Matthews was and looked out. She smelled warm and fragrant. The bottom strands of her hair were damp. And he felt happy at that moment just to put his arm around her bony shoulders and draw her close to him. “I'm going through the change of life. Plus I have cancer,” Helen said without inflection. “You'd think one of those would give me a break.” She didn't return Matthews’ embrace, didn't seem to notice it, just gazed into the stilly floating drama of snow. She was merely beside him here, no more.
But he felt, for that instant, stunned. And if she hadn't been in his arm's protection, he thought, he would've shouted out. A complaint. An objection. Some recounting of votes. How could anything else be important now? His worries, his hopes, his travails in life? Everything gave way to what Helen had just said. She could even have said something less important to her, and it would still have banished his concerns in a heartbeat. What was that quality? he wondered. A flair for the dramatic? An attitude that brooked no resistance? A certainty above other certainties? Whatever it was, he lacked it, definitely lacked it, at least in the quantities she possessed it.
But the result was to make him feel fond toward her, fonder than he'd felt in the entire year he'd known her, even at first, when she'd been his student and they'd fucked in his old house on Hickory Lane, and it was all excitation and sweating and plunging efforts. He liked her more now than he no doubt ever would. She set things in proper perspective regarding importance and unimportance, created a priority using her own life — a standard. And in all the ways he had wanted not to be at the center of things, he was not now, and what he felt was relief.
“Look, there's one little Christmas tree.” She was gazing at the high apartment window across rue Froidevaux. “Weren't we supposed to make up a song? Christmas in Paris, da-dee-da, da-dee-da-da. You were going to write the words.”
“I'll do it tomorrow,” Matthews said. The dark little triangle of the tree, its orange and red and green lights twinkling through the snow and night, was perfectly outlined in the apartment window four floors up. To look at it provided a moment of purest pleasure.
“I think you're afraid of me. But for another reason now,” Helen said.
“No, you're wrong,” Matthews said with certainty. “I'm not afraid of you at all.” He pulled her closer, felt the silk over her shoulders, took in the warm and slightly pungent aroma of her body. He could've made love to her now. It would've been easy.
“Then what do you feel?” she said. “About me, I mean.”
“I love you,” Matthews said. “That's how I feel.”
“Oh, don't bring that into this,” Helen said. He could feel her go limp, as if he'd insulted her. “Dream up something else. Think of some better words. Those weren't supposed to be in our deal.”
“Then I don't know what else to say,” Matthews said, and he didn't know.
“Well, then don't say anything,” Helen said. “Share the happy moments in silence. Leave words out of it.”
“I'm supposed to be good at words.”
“I know,” Helen said, smiling at him thinly. “You can't be good every time, I guess.” She kissed him on the cheek, had a quick look back at the snowy night, then took herself to bed.
IN THE NIGHT, Matthews slept deeply again, a sleep that knew nothing, a sleep like death. Though after a time he knew he was asleep and wanted only to stay. He was aware of Helen leaving the bed, dropping something on the bathroom floor, saying something, possibly a laugh, then finding the bed again.
He slept until he needed to use the toilet and got up. But when he'd finished he put his face to the little bathroom window, which gave onto the air shaft. The snow, he saw, had stopped, and moonlight again was bright. Everything joined at the backs of the buildings, and some draft of air was making a flap of tin or steel rattle softly below. Across the open space he could see a lighted apartment, where four people — young French people, of course, two women, two men — were sitting on couches, talking and smoking cigarettes and drinking beers out of glasses. The light inside was yellow, and the room next to the sitting room was lighted also. There was a bed there with coats laid on top, and on the side opposite was a bright kitchen, with a window box of what might've been red geraniums. What time was it? he wondered. These people were talking so late. Or possibly he hadn't slept long, only deeply. He was sure, though, that soon he would see one pair depart and the other two begin straightening the house and preparing for bed. It would be satisfying to watch them, and not to see them undress or make love or argue or bicker or embrace, but just to watch them do the ordinary things, go about life as always. It would be so telling to see that. Over the years, he felt certain, others had done what he was doing: watched — perhaps watched these very people — and stolen about these strange rooms at late, undetermined hours, feeling desolate. Elated. Angry. Bewildered. Then taken some satisfaction to bed again. He shared this experience. Probably even with Langston Hughes — he didn't know why he'd thought of him — but with many others. They had all done this, in Paris, in this very bathroom. You only had to be here to share it.
Walking back into the dark sleeping room, he felt, in fact, elated and didn't want to go to bed again, though he was cold. An unusual spicy, meaty cooking smell came from somewhere. He thought he heard a voice laughing and the snap of shuffled cards. The room had moonlight in it, and the air was light and luminous. He sat in the chair and stared up at the Arab art, then stood and looked more closely — at the camels, the oasis, the men sitting talking. It all fit. The drawings were subtler than he'd realized. He had thought of this room as a pit, a hole, a cheap and dingy last-ditch. But he felt better about it. He could stay here. If Helen went on, or went home, he could take the room for a month. Things could change. The hotel would take on another character under other circumstances. He could provide a table and write here, though he had nothing in mind to write (Madame de Grenelle might prove important for this). Though there was no way to know until you tried. He'd seen photos of the rooms of famous artists — almost always in Paris — and they were all worse than the Nouvelle Métropole. Worse by a multiple of four. Yet in retrospect they seemed perfect, each a place you'd want to be, the only room that this novel or that poem could ever have been conceived in. You trusted your instincts. That was all. He tried to think of the line that ran through his head from time to time. Where was it from? He couldn't remember the line now, or who had written it.