50

Begging Forgiveness

C. came to see me to give me a chance to apologize!

“Apologize? For what?” I stared at him in disbelief.

“For—you know what. It isn’t nice to play with someone’s nerves like that—to give hope, awaken desire, and then walk around in the street like a fool with some idiot and go back to your room with a silly girl. Why do you spend time with her? What do you need a friend like that for? She’s so prost. She really has no manners at all! And what about her boyfriend, that engineer-to-be, with his birth control and her Where Are My Children? How could you stand to walk arm in arm with him? I saw how close he was holding you! And you just laughed along with it. What were you laughing about?”

“I just felt like laughing,” I said, and laughed.

“Yesterday you wanted to laugh with him, tomorrow it will be with some other man. How could any man ever trust you enough to think of something like marrying you? When a girl is so free with herself before marriage, you can’t expect any better from her after the wedding.”

“Is that so?”

“That’s how it is.” He wanted me to apologize and swear to him that it would never happen again. I would have done it, but I have some self-respect.

He grew angrier and stormed to the door with his hat in his hand. He flung it open and started closing it behind him slowly. Then, before it was closed, he turned back toward me to give me another chance to apologize! I was so outraged at his audacity that I stood there, speechless.

“Apologize, before it’s too late,” he demanded.

I wanted to laugh in his face. But I held myself back, though a smile quivered on my lips.

“I’ll say it one last time. Apologize!”

I couldn’t hold myself back and I guffawed.

“Don’t laugh!”

“Don’t make such a fool of yourself!”

“You’re driving me wild!”

“There’s no reason for that.”

“No, you’ll see. You’ll regret this. You’ll miss me. You’ll fall on your feet and beg for forgiveness, but it’ll be too late. I’ll be totally indifferent to you. You’ll be a victim of your own stubbornness. You’ll sit alone in your room, heartbroken. You’ll wander the earth with your arms reaching out for me, but you’ll never get me back!” he warned.

“What a clever tongue you have!”

“Be quiet! This is no time for your ironic tone!” he chided.

“This is no time for you to be here!” I rebuked.

“I have a right to be here whenever I want.”

“Go!” I cried, showing him the door.

“My God!” he interjected, staring at me in surprise. “You look so beautiful in that pose! Oh, I beg you, hold your arm like that just a little longer. Please don’t put it down! If only I had a camera. Why didn’t you take to the stage? You were made for the stage. Who knows what great talent you’ve wasted. Give me your hand. I long to kiss it!”

This is a new trick, I thought to myself. I didn’t give him my hand. I didn’t want him to think he could change my mind so easily.

He stepped closer to me and fell to his knees, grasping for my hand. When he didn’t get it, he bent his head and grabbed my legs with his hands so that I had to hold onto the edge of the rocking chair to keep from falling down.

Since I wouldn’t beg him for forgiveness, he decided to beg me for it instead.

“Please, you must forgive me! I didn’t treat you well. I was wild with jealousy. I didn’t sleep all night. I talked out loud to you. I loved you and hated you because I loved you so much.”

“Let go of my legs!”

“You see? I’m kissing your legs. They aren’t your legs, they are my legs. They’ve crept their way deep into my heart. They’ve sauntered into my soul. It kills me to know that these legs were walking with another man last night! And with such an idiot! Can it be, that you would consider exchanging me for him?”

“It’s hard for me to stand like this.”

“Take a seat. I’ll lie here by your feet like a loyal dog after a long hunt.”

I didn’t like the idea of carrying on this way until dawn. As soon as he let go of my legs so that I could sit down I went to my window and looked out on the street, wondering what I was going to do with him. The street, full of people paying attention to their own business, pushed me away from the cold window. I looked over at C. He held his head in his hands like a true martyr, prostrate on his knees before the empty rocking chair.

I contemplated this romantic pose, trying to decide whether to help him to his feet or wait for his knees to start hurting so that he would get up on his own.

The light in the hallway was already extinguished. The old, sick, deaf and blind German lady must already be asleep. The gas lamp in my room threw pale shadows at the wall. The alarm clock, with its monotonous ticking, announced that time was passing.

If only it wasn’t C., but A., who was here in my room at this hour to take my hand and drive away the rosy brown shadows from my wall. Cloaked in darkness, I’d sit next to him on the footstool, gazing at him and burying my face in his arms. Wordlessly, I’d tell him everything that I feel. But it wasn’t A., it was C. I didn’t go to him. I regretted playing at love with him so much, even though I used to enjoy it. I don’t want to lose myself to someone like that. I only want to love if I can find someone who deserves it.

He got up and sat in the rocking chair. He stared at the bent tops of his unpolished shoes, and from time to time he looked away from them to steal a glance at me. He thought for a while, then he stood up and made his way to the door tiredly.

“Good bye!” he whispered in a quivering voice, not looking at me.

“Good bye!” I responded sympathetically to his dejectedness.

“I’m going now.”

I nodded in response to this pronouncement.

“Yes, I’m going away,” he sighed, gazing at the wall. But he still didn’t leave. He still stood there.

“I can’t humiliate myself like this anymore.”

“Of course not,” I wanted to agree with him. But seeing that it might be better not to say anything at all, I kept my mouth shut.

“It would’ve been better if I’d never come. I was too democratic in my taste. A man should know where he belongs. Don’t you think so?”

“Yes—”

“And I forgot myself. I’ve learned my lesson. Next time, when someone deserves my apology I won’t fall at their feet. No matter how developed my aesthetic sensibilities are, I’ll suppress my passion for such a pose, which seems to me so attractive.”

He waited for a while, hoping I’d say something. When I didn’t respond, he continued. “The ancient Greeks represented love in the form of a woman with a torch. Modern women carry torches too, but not to light the way toward love. They use it to see the men and find out if the men can support them, if they’ll be able to get steady jobs.

“Oh, yes,” he remembered suddenly, “I borrowed two dollars from you yesterday. Don’t worry, I’ll pay you back. What a waste, to spend them on an evening with your tactless friend. And today? How are we spending our time?”

“Standing in one place.”

I was hoping to remind him that he was supposed to be leaving. But he took it differently. He moved away from the door and made himself comfortable.