34

Lacking in Passion

To keep Rae from going to see those intellectual landlords, I went to visit her. But I was too late. She’d already gone to see them, and they’d told her that I wasn’t living there anymore. It’s a good thing I left so soon, they told her, because if I’d behaved like that one more time, they would’ve called the police and had me arrested without even hesitating. How could a young woman who appeared to be an intellectual spend a whole night in her room with such a buyan, such a ruffian?

Rae told them that she didn’t know me well. She’d only come to tell me about a job. So they told her all about me and what I’d done. Rae told me everything she could remember. “Now,” she said, “you really have to get even with them. It won’t be hard. Mr. Cheek”—she knew very well that’s who they were talking about—“is a lawyer, after all. I can bear witness to the fact that they are injuring your reputation.”

If she really knew what sort of a man he was, I thought, she would advise me never to see him again. She wouldn’t inquire after him as if he were a person from a higher, better class.

“Why do you like him so much?” I asked.

“He’s interesting.”

“What’s interesting about him?”

“His narrow, squinty eyes, his good English, his fair skin, his one and a half diplomas and promising future. I’ve heard so much about him. I know people who know him and they say that someday he’ll be an important figure, he’ll have an important place among the greatest in society.”

“So they say!”

“They don’t ring the church bells unless it’s a holiday! After all, they don’t say such things about everyone. He is exceptional. If someone like that were interested in me I’d be proud, and I’d try all the harder to make him love me.”

“That wouldn’t be so difficult.”

“Who knows?”

“I can imagine.”

“Would you be jealous?” Rae asked, looking at me with one of her rakish smiles.

“No,” I shot back. “Definitely not.”

“Are you sure you won’t regret saying that?”

“You should be careful that you don’t have regrets. You should think it through before getting involved with someone like that.”

“Love and thinking things through—a fine combination. No, you’re too practical.”

“It’s not about what I am, but about what he is. He’s more than practical. He’s mercenary. He’s—but it doesn’t matter what I say, you’ll find out soon enough.”

“He speaks very nicely.”

“Oh yes, he can talk—”

“And how does he behave?”

“How? All you’d have to do is cut off his hands, and he’d be a perfect gentleman.”

“No, I mean, jokes aside. Is he—honorable?”

“Depends what you mean by that.”

“What does he want?”

“Free love.”

“Aha!”

Rae looked at herself in the mirror, tossed her hair over her shoulders, and, sitting down on a chair, leaned her legs against the wall. She stared ahead with a bitter expression of anger mixed with pain. Then, with resolve, she turned her gaze on me and took all her frustration out on me, saying, “Fine, I accept! Free love, not free love—the devil take it all! It’s better than what I’ve been doing. It’s better than thinking and waiting until—death. I want to be myself. I’ve given up on the idea of saving my happiness for later. Eternal love, a peaceful home, a happy life—it’s all made up. I’ve never met anyone who actually had those things in real life, other than Mrs. B., but she’s a cow who doesn’t know how to appreciate what she’s got. Take Katya—she’s daring. She doesn’t care what will happen later. She takes things as they come. I want to be like that!”

“Maybe that’s what you want, but you won’t be able to. Especially with him. And what good would it do you?”

“What good does it do me now?”

“At least you have the knowledge that you haven’t lost anything.”

“Ugh! You with your knowledge!” Rae turned to me impatiently, like a man. “You’re winning by not letting yourself win. I’ve heard enough about you. I won’t let it bother me if I don’t live up to your strength of character. Just one false step and you’re lost! And when we lose ourselves, we win. You know what I mean?”

“That’s the kind of talk I’d expect to hear from a man.” I smiled. “That’s how he talks . . .”

“Give me his address!” Rae said, with forced brazenness. It would have been fitting for her to discard a cigarette and extinguish it under her shoe right then and there.

“You’ll find him at the library, by the art and science sections, to the left of the entrance.”

“I mean his address. Of his room.”

“I don’t know.”

“How can you not know? What if you want to see him and find out how he’s doing?”

“You force yourself not to want that. You wait until he wants to see how you are doing.”

“You are so cold!”

“Yes, I’m lacking in passion.”

“Is that what he said?”

“He said it. They all say it.”

Rae’s smile promised that he would not say that about her. I listened as she told me some news about B., A., Katya, and the others. I went home, thinking about the man I wanted so badly to forget.

I should have known that I would hear about A. from Rae. So it seems that B.’s taken up with Katya and A.’s thinking of leaving New York. Fine, let him leave . . .

How could A. think of leaving New York without seeing me first? Maybe he doesn’t love me, but he can’t be indifferent—entirely indifferent—to me? And I still love him so!

I close my eyes and imagine A. coming to see me. This ugly room magically transforms into a beautiful chamber. He looks at me, takes me by the hand, and pulls me closer. He doesn’t want to leave here without me. He wants to take me with him because I love him so much. He’s afraid that I’ll take my own life out of longing for him, and he could never forgive himself for that. I close my eyes, press my lips together, and feel my sorrow dissipating. A deep, gnawing, painful happiness floods my heart. I want to tell him what I’m feeling, but I’m silent. I don’t want to explain it in words so I tell him with my silence.

I open my eyes. He’s not here. I know he won’t come for me. When he hears the rumor that someone else already had me, someone other than him, he won’t feel the need to take it upon himself to be my first real lover.

Cheek won’t be attracted to Rae, precisely because she wants to attract him. Like all men, he wants the chase. I’m sure that he’ll speak to her about me. He’ll try to find out my address.

If he comes to me, after everything that’s happened, talks again about his “holy ideal,” and proposes free love, I’ll . . . no, maybe I won’t be so quick to drive him away. I won’t accept his kind of love, instead I’ll take up the battle against it! And maybe . . .?

I think I could probably have married him and been loyal and devoted, even if I don’t love him at all. But I ask myself: Why do I hate him so much? Is it possible to hate someone this much if you haven’t loved him first?

When I hate A., I know why. It’s because I love him so painfully. He causes me to bear unearthly suffering. But C.? He only wounded my self-confidence, my womanly pride, a little bit. He made me believe his promise to marry me and give me his name, and then he cynically laughed at my credulity. Maybe now he regrets it. Maybe my disappearance made him think better of his behavior.

My desire to see him only comes from curiosity, nothing more. If it were a more serious feeling, I would go where I knew I’d be sure to see him. But I won’t go there. However long he searches for me, I hope he never finds me!