IBRAHIM! Now here was more than a man. This was a force that controlled lives--could not revive the dead, make the lame walk or the blind see, but could make the poor rich. That power alone made him supernal.
We were being watched by him; of that I had no doubt. This was the same Ibrahim who had counted how many times I had let the phone ring in response to his dinner invitation. So of course he knew the turmoil now shattering our home. Miles away as he was, he even knew the dialogue.
But there really was not much more to say. There was no need to pronounce it or announce it--it would be done. By Joan, for her reasons. By me, for mine. There was no particular moment when we both arrived at the same thought and concluded it by word. That would have been too gruesome. Rather, we jointly surrendered to the inevitable and allowed ourselves to drift along.
But what was the protocol?
“Do I give you away like a father of the bride?”
No, said Joan. A limo would be here to pick her up.
“When?”
“Tonight.”
“Tonight?”
“Better to just get it done, don’t you think?”
She had already settled the details with Ibrahim. That was how inevitable it was. The limo would pick her up and deliver her to his suite at the Versailles, she’d spend the night with him and in the morning collect the cash. One million dollars!
Meanwhile--what does the husband do?
“Get drunk,” said Joan as she packed her things.
How did it come to this? From where did she win the indignation over me?
“If you’re going to be angry with me there’s really no point to this.”
“Please,” she said. “Let’s just survive this night. We’ll be okay. We’ll be okay.”
I sat there on the bed, watching her, loving her, hating her, and searching for precedent--trying to find precedent for all this. But there was no precedent. This was the precedent.
“I think we should talk some more.”
“All the talking has been done,” she said.
“How do you feel?”
“Josh, Josh, Josh. You’d love a dramatic scene right about now. But you’re not going to get it, so relax.”
“Relax.”
“Yes relax. I am not being raped, or even sold, really I’m simply doing what has to be done. You know it and I know it--and he knows it. This has to be done. That’s final. Even up in heaven they know it, Josh. Yes, we’re making a bad angel.”
She had read in Adin Steinsaltz that every good deed created a corresponding angel. So did every bad deed. A bad angel came to life for every sin and these later testified and so you were judged, your good angels against your bad angels, and though Joan believed none of this mysticism she thought it such beautiful poetry that for that reason alone it had a right to be true.
She laughed, “Can you imagine the angel we’re about to create? Talk about grotesque!”
This was sick and frightening, this thought, farfetched as it might be, that we were actually giving birth to something, a being, a being that would live forever in our name.
“Think of all the good deeds we’ll have to do to get even,” I said.
“Oh no. This is irreversible.”
“So why are we doing this, Joan?”
“Oh, because life is funny, Josh. Life is funny.”
“You do sound bitter.”
“Uh-uh. Determined. I won’t be swayed from this because this is it, our chance.”
“You always said wait for my talent.”
“Yes I know I said that but I’ve begun to agree with you that life isn’t always so fair. It isn’t right, Josh, what they’ve done to you, keeping you down, unrecognized and underpaid, and I know what it does to you going to work like that each day. You die every morning when you go to the office and I’ve begun to die with you--okay? So that’s why we’re doing this, Josh, because we don’t want to die, not while we’re still alive.”
“This thing we’re doing, Joan, it’s bound to have repercussions. It could still be a death.”
“Well...we’ll find out.”
Questions I could not ask: Was it all for money? Was there no lust? No adventure? No “once?”
She said, “Let’s just do this night and get it out, out of our lives!”
Right she was. Do this night. Survive this night. Get it out, out of our lives.
“What did you mean by irreversible?”
“Only that it will always be something we did and we’ll never totally forget it, but we’re strong, Josh, we’re both very very strong and we’ll overcome it and be as happy as we once were.”
“I don’t know.”
“Well I do. Nothing will change between us.”
“I don’t know.”
“Time for me to say something corny, Josh. There’s nothing stronger than love.”
“I’m not so sure, Joan.”
“Well if there is we’ve all got troubles, Josh. I’ll always be yours. But if you ever decide to leave me, just tell me where you’re going and I’ll come get you. Yes I will.”
“Me leave you?”
“It happens,” she said.
“You will come back,” I said.
“Not only will I come back, I’ll love you more than ever. Will you still love me? That’s the question.”
“I’ll love you more than ever.”
“I’m not so sure,” she said.
“Nothing you can do can make me stop loving you.”
“So, there we are. It’s perfect. Something ventured, something gained. We’ll be as we always were. That’s all I want, Josh. For us to be as we always were. That was good.”
Yes it was, and the past few days had been torture between us. This thing, yes, it had to be done.
“Why are you packing a negligee?” I asked.
“It’s a nightgown,” she said. “Not a negligee.”
“But it’s see-through.”
“What are you doing, Josh?”
“I don’t want you putting your heart into this.”
“I’m not. Just my body. I told you.”
Some more questions I could not ask: How many times this night would they mate? Would she climax? Scream from ecstasy? That was mine! That was supposed to be mine, the whimpering and the screaming. Would she get down on her knees and perform fellatio? That was also supposed to be mine.
Plain old sexual intercourse--for some reason that did not bother me so much. Not now. After all, it was so universal. It did not belong to me or to Joan and we could not patent it for ourselves. But the whimpering and the screaming--that was territory. The act of lovemaking I had already given up for this night. But the sounds--if she gave him the sounds, that would be clear betrayal.
* * *
The long black limo pulled into our driveway at eight. We said no goodbyes. The doorbell rang and out she marched, briefcase in hand. I watched her slide into the car, the chauffeur standing at attention until she was seated and then getting in on the driver’s side. I tried for a parting glance but the windows of the limo were heavily tinted. I could not see her but she could see me--which was about right for this entire business.
I galloped down the stairs and drove off in our Malibu and caught up with them on Roosevelt Boulevard and Harbison, followed them over the Tacony Palmyra Bridge to the North-South Freeway and onto the Atlantic City Expressway. I had no idea why I was doing this.
The limo was doing seventy with imperial ease and my car was clattering and complaining. The urgency I felt was that of a soldier rushing to battle, and I had to agree that it was easier being a hero in war than in peace.