Once she dropped by with Bridget, Martha, and Douglas, Douglas out of breath from dragging in a box of French wine, and the girls carrying between them about twenty bottles of different kinds of alcohol quite essential to any decent home. A small loan from Mr. Grey, who would never notice this drop in his sea of bottles. I couldn't even begin to count all the stuff Jenny dragged over to the apartment, including such things as linen and even a huge quantity of various Mister Cleans and Spic-'n'-Spans and the other poisonous liquids and powders with which my new homeland is so richly endowed.
But I got the bed myself. I too had certain practical talents, not to mention a super I knew in a huge stone box on West End Avenue.
I even went so far as to get myself a Christmas tree. I didn't have anything on it except for lights, that being as far as my money would go, unfortunately, but it didn't matter. The main thing was that I had my own Christmas tree reaching to the ceiling as in my childhood. It was as if a war had ended and everything was beautiful once more and life was set right again. I put the Christmas tree in the corner of my study, or my office, as I called it, and frequently turned on the lights and lay down by it, by my own tree, and enjoyed it. I had a home. Not a hole into which a tormented animal retires only to sleep, but a home. For the first time in many difficult years. A home.
It's natural that when you acquire an apartment, you acquire expenses too, and so I took whatever work I could find — anything to keep from sliding back into the past and its mode of life. And when Seva, a photographer I knew, asked me to help him turn some empty industrial space he had just rented on Madison Avenue in the twenties into a loft for four dollars an hour, I happily agreed, and we started knocking down partitions. Jenny was very glad I had found work. She was in fact an exact clone of my mother, who had always been very happy too when after getting stuck in some shit, I found myself a regular job. Even if it was difficult, dirty, mindless work.
After breaking down the partitions, we began putting up new walls, after which there was plastering and painting to do. As a consequence of the close working relationship that developed between us, Seva once asked me to go with him and his wife to a party given by a photographer friend of his, a woman who also taught at the School of Visual Arts. I went with Seva, since I have never turned down a party, neither then nor now, and we had a lot to drink.
Sarah was a pupil of the lady photographer, and I remember she was the first to talk, provoking me and laughing at me… The result was that we left together. It was a rainy New York winter evening, and I suggested she come with me. And she did…
The most distinctive tiling about my new girl was her wig. In the process of fucking or, if you prefer, the sex act, I was suddenly amazed to see that her wig had slipped down over her eyes. Or more accurately, I was astonished to see that her scalp had slipped down over her eyes, and at once realized that it was a wig. Unembarrassed, Sarah rearranged the wig with one hand; the other was busy holding my balls. We fucked all night lying on the floor by the Christmas tree, on a mattress brought in from the bedroom. Sarah's cunt wasn't too big, her skin was white, and the little Jew humped like a nanny goat. Twenty-two years old, a little shorter than me, hook-nosed, slender, and with large dark eyes, she was a true daughter of the Jewish race, a seeker of adventure and collector of the most diverse experiences, including even the lesbian kind, and was ready at any moment to go wherever you liked. All she needed was to grab her small but voluminous shoulder bag.
Around midday we crawled out of bed and went down to the Village, having decided to get something to eat there. Snow was falling, fluffy and light just like in Moscow, falling and melting on the dark New York sidewalks, while the inadequately dressed New Yorkers pulled their hoods over their heads, or wrapped themselves in scarves, or opened their umbrellas. Our insolent New York children packed the wet snow into snowballs and threw them at people. The skeleton of the Great City stood out vividly against the snow storm.
Sarah and I walked arm in arm, and she gazed at me lovingly the whole time — you know, with that satisfied and sated look a woman gives you when you have fucked her well, have fucked her unbelievably well. I was her man, her male, in the most direct and unashamed sense of the word, her prick that had taken and untied die knot of her passions and tensions, so that they had all flowed out of her, leaving nothing behind, and it was good for her to be with me, and she was calm and easy, and her body didn't torment her anymore. How do I know all this? I saw it all in her loving gaze. I know that fawning feminine gaze.
We came to a little restaurant called Johnny Day's I've visited many times — unlike inquisitive New Yorkers, I'm conservative — and where we ordered steaks and Beaujolais Villages and talked animatedly. After all, we still didn't know each other and there was a lot to talk about, although during the conversation too I caught that fawning, submissive look again from time to time. I enjoyed myself, I'll admit — we drank two bottles of Beaujolais and I sat there and made up some boastful lies, I remember, and she knew I was making it all up, but we didn't care. We were "having a good time" — I love that charming expression — and laughing, while outside the large picture window of Johnny Day's, the snow was falling.
After lunch we rolled out of the restaurant into the snow. Women are boastful too, and Sarah immediately dragged me off to show to one of her friends, a photographer and sadist. She wanted to parade me in front of the sadist, of course, and to show the sadist off to me. I didn't refuse her that pleasure, especially since the sadist lived close by and we could walk there.
"The walls of his studio are black. Don't be scared, but he has chains and whips hanging on the walls," Sarah told me hurriedly, starting to run ahead in the snow and looking back at my face.
"Do I really look like somebody who's afraid of chains and whips?" I asked her, laughing.
"No," said Sarah, "but I didn't feel too brave myself the first time I went there, and I'm not afraid of anything either."
There really were both chains and whips. The sadist was a stocky fellow of middle age and very tired-looking.
"Are you a photographer?" he asked me almost at the front door.
"Sorry, no," I said. "I'm a writer."
"A writer," the sadist repeated with evident satisfaction and asked me to sit down. "You're a lucky man," he continued. "Write your books and remember that you're very lucky. You're not in this shitty business — photography, I mean. I detest it."
At that moment a half-dressed honey-blonde model with butterflies painted on her cheeks emerged from a barely noticeable door, also black, and said:
"Raphael, I can't do what he wants me to. For this money let him get somebody else. I'm leaving!" And she disappeared through another door.
"Calm down, baby," Raphael called after her. "You think I want to do anything for the money I get?" He turned to Sarah. "I take it this guy is your new boyfriend?"
And not waiting for her to answer, he addressed me. "You aren't an American, what are you? No, wait, let me guess. French?" he said, doubtfully.
"No," I said, "Russian."
"Ah, a Russian… a Russian… You're lucky, Sarah; they say Russians are very good lovers. Does he fuck you good?" asked Raphael, turning toward Sarah on his revolving chair. I forgot to mention he was sitting on a revolving metal chair.
"God, Raphael," Sarah said, "why do you have to be so obnoxious?"
"I'm a tired old professional sadist who earns his living in the shitty business of photography. The shittiest business imaginable. You're only a young cunt," he said. "How old are you, twenty-three?"
"Twenty-two," Sarah said.
"Aha, twenty-two, but I'm fifty-four. I'd like to see what you'll be like at my age."
"At least I'll never be so cynical," Sarah said.
"Russian, what's your name?" Raphael asked me, once again not giving Sarah the satisfaction of an answer.
"Edward," I said.
"Listen, Edward, hold on to this Jewish princess. She's a very talented photographer, even though she's still a young little cunt. In a few years she'll make a lot of money at photography once she gets this crap about photography being an art out of her head, and she'll be able to support you very well. All you'll have to do in return is give her a good fuck from time to time; nothing more is required. Based on what I hear about Russians, that shouldn't be too hard for you."
"I refuse to make money doing fashion photography. I want to do what I like," Sarah angrily protested.
"Oh please!" he said, waving her away. "Don't talk such rubbish." And then he stood up. "If you want coffee or something to drink, help yourselves; if not, I am unfortunately going to have to kick you out. Fucking business!"
We turned down the coffee and rolled back out onto the street.
"Don't worry, he's not as bad as he seems. He gives me work and helps me make a living," Sarah said, starting to talk very fast. "I'm a good printer, and he often asks me to do printing for him and pays me pretty well. The first time we met, he invited me to join his harem — he has a harem of several girls, models — but I refused to." Sarah ran ahead again and looked back at me anxiously. "I've never slept with him," she added uncertainly.
"Sarah, you don't have to justify yourself to me," I said. "Raphael's fine as far as I'm concerned. I like crazy people. And I even enjoy the fact that he talks out loud about things that ordinary people don't. I can't stand polite conversations about the weather. Raphael's all right; he's a good fellow."
"Yes," Sarah said, relieved. "I'm glad you liked him. He's very kind, even though he pretends to be mean."
We went to her place in Brooklyn. Ordinarily I wouldn't go to Brooklyn for any reason, but now I was following a cunt there, was being led there by a cunt hidden beneath a brown wool skirt.
Back at her apartment, we immediately lay down on her huge metal bed with brass knobs and several tiers of lattice work of various kinds, and started fucking… By the middle of the night I was trembling all over from just the touch of her fingers on my skin, and we were completely covered with sweat and semen. When I looked at my prick while we were taking a shower together, it was torn and bloody, or more accurately, worn out.
You think she took her wig off in the shower? Shit no; she just tried to keep her head dry.
"What's wrong with your hair, Sarah?" I asked, trying to put the question in an indifferent tone, as if by the way. How did I know, maybe she had a complex about it; maybe the wig was her Achilles' heel.
"I'm crazy," she said, a little embarrassed and turning her head a little to the side with a lightly apologetic smile. "I tear out my hair sometimes when I get depressed. It's growing back now."
Jesus, I thought, is it really necessary to tear your hair out, and how much do you have to tear out before it becomes necessary to wear a wig? You really are crazy, Sarah. I used to know a girl who had the nervous habit of pulling out her eyelashes and who sometimes went around without them, but to pull your hair out… All of it?
Maybe Sarah lost her hair as a result of illness, say a thyroid disorder; I've heard of things like that. Actually, the absence of hair on Sarah's head didn't bother me; I had always rubbed shoulders with freaks and crazies, and anyway I didn't consider myself exactly a paragon of mental health. If she didn't have any hair, then she didn't…
All the same, I spent New Year's Eve by Jenny's side instead of going out. I was fair and not without a sense of gratitude, although I took the addresses and phone numbers where I could reach either Sarah or Andrea — just in case. I say I spent it "by Jenny's side" because the poor girl was sick in bed with a bad cold or the flu. However much I wanted to be out in the noise and the crowds, I stayed with her; she deserved a Happy New Year.
At exactly twelve midnight I drank some champagne with the patient, bought obviously with her money, and we toasted with Gatsby's very best champagne goblets, made of German crystal. "What do you wish?" Jenny sniffled, and I told her: "I want to be famous and I want the whole world!"
I don't know what she wanted, maybe ten children and me, a husband in pajamas. After our toast we chatted a little more, and then she let me go into the TV room to watch a New Year's program. "You're probably bored, Edward," said the noble Jenny, letting me go.
I went downstairs to the TV room with my goblet, watched Yellow Submarine, had several martinis, and then around three, I went back up to the bedroom, feeling very calm and majestic. Jenny was asleep and breathing heavily in the midst of clouds of water vapor from two round electric humidifiers. They were her latest fad. She had heard somewhere that there wasn't enough moisture in the air in wintertime and that it was therefore a good idea to sleep with humidifiers on. Grinning like a hoodlum, I unplugged them and went to bed.