The Anatomy Lesson (15 page)

“
I
’
m in no position,
”
said Zuckerman, impaled upon Gloria
’
s knuckle,
“
to drop anyone.
”

“
That
’
s good. Some women might see you as prey. That
’
s all some women want—a suffering male who
’
s otherwise well off. All the slow curing, the taking credit for it. and if God forbid he doesn
’
t survive the cure, owning his life after death. Show me a woman who wouldn
’
t love to be the widow of a famous man. To own it
all.
”

“
Talking about all the women, or are we talking about you?
”

“
If it
’
s God
’
s blessing, Nathan, that it happens, I can
’
t think of a single woman who wouldn
’
t put up with it. Luckily this kid
’
s too young and snotty to know the fundamentals yet. Fine. Let her be fresh to you when you start to whine. You
’
re better off. No Jewish mother like me would ever minimize the importance of a morbid affliction. Read this book
Carnovsky
if you don
’
t believe it. Jewish mothers know how to own their suffering boys, [f I were in your shoes I
’
d keep my eye out for that.
”

Jaga, during his opening hour at Anton
’
s Trichologica
l
Clinic, had looked to him first, in white bandanna and long white smock, like a novice in a nursing order; then she spoke, and the Slavic accent—along with the clinician
’
s get-up and the dutiful weary professionalism with which she worked her fingers across his scalp—reminded him of the women physicians in
Cancer Ward,
another of the works from which he
’
d taken stem instruction during his week in traction. His was the last appointment of the day, and after his second session, as he was leaving the Commodore and heading home, he caught sight of her ahead of him out on Vanderbilt Place. She was in a weatherworn black felt coat whose red embroidered hem was coming loose at the back. The shoddy look of a coat once stylish somewhere else subverted somewhat that aura of detached superiority that she affected alone in a cubicle with a balding man. The hurried agitated gait made her look like someone on the run. Maybe she was: running from
more of the questions he
’
d begun to ask during the pleasant fingertip massage. She was small and fragile, with a complexion the color of skim milk and a tiny, pointed, bony, tired face, a face a little ratlike until, at the end of the session, she undid the bandanna and disclosed the corn-silk sheen of her ash-blond hair, and with it a delicacy otherwise obscured in that mask so tiny and taut with strain. The undecipherable violet eyes were suddenly startling. Still, he made no effort on the street to catch up. He couldn
’
t run because of the pain, and when he remembered the heavy sarcasm with which she
’
d spit on his few amiable questions, he decided against calling her name.
“
Helping people,
”
she replied, when he asked how she got into trichology.
“
I love helping anyone with a problem.
”
Why had she emigrated to America?
“
I dreamed all my life of America.
”
What did she make of it here?
“
Everybody so nice. Everybody wishing you to have a good day. We do not have such nice people in Warsaw.
”

The next week, to his invitation for a drink, she said yes
—
curtly, as though she
’
d said no. She was in a hurry, could stay for no more than a quick glass of wine. In the booth at the bar she drank three quick glasses, and then explained her American sojourn without his having even inquired.
“
I
was bored in Warsaw. I had ennui. I wanted a change.
”
The next week she again said yes as though it were no, and this time she had five glasses of wine.
“
Hard to believe you left simply because you were bored.
”
“
Don
’
t be banal,
”
she told him.
“
I
don
’
t want your sympathy. The client needs sympathy, not the technician with her full head of hair.
”
The following week she came to his apartment, and through the prism glasses he watched as by herself she finished off the bottle he
’
d given her to open. Because of the pain he could no longer uncork a wine bottle. He was sipping vodka through a bent glass straw.

“
Why do you lie on the floor?
”
she asked.

“
Too tedious to go into.
”

“
Were you in an accident?
”

“
Not that F remember. Were you, Jaga?
”

“
You must live more through people,
”
she told him.

“
How do you know how I should live?
”

Drunkenly she tried to pursue her theme.
“
You must team to live through other people.
”
Because of the wine and because of her accent, two-thirds of what she was saying was incomprehensible to him.

At the door he helped her into the coat. She had stitched up
the hem since he
’
d first spotted her hurrying along Vanderbilt Place, but what the coat needed was a new lining. Jaga seemed herself to have no lining at all. She looked like something that had been peeled of its rind, exposing a wan semi-transparent whiteness that wasn
’
t even an inner membrane but the bare, pallid pulp of her being. He thought that if he touched her the sensation would make her scream.

“
There
’
s something corrupt about both of us,
”
she said.

“
What are you talking about?
”

“
Monomaniacs tike you and me.
I
must never come here again.
”

Soon she was stopping by every evening on her way home. She began wearing eye shadow and to smell of a peppery perfume, and the face tightened up like a little rat
’
s only when he persisted.in asking the stupidest of his questions. She arrived in a new silk blouse the same pale violet as her eyes; though the topmost button was left carelessly undone, she made no move toward the playmat. She stretched instead across the sofa, snuggled cozily there under the afghan and poured out glass after glass of red wine—and then ran off to the Bronx. She climbed the library ladder in her stocking feet and browsed through the shelves. She asked from the topmost rung if she could borrow a book, and then forgot to take it home. Each day another nineteenth-century American classic was added to the stack left behind his desk. Half contemptuously, satirizing herself, him, his library, his ladder, deriding seemingly every human dream and aspiration, she labeled where she piled the books
“
My spot.
”

“
Why not take them with you?
”
Zuckerman asked.

“
No, no, not with great novels. I am too old for this form of seduction. Why do you allow me to come here anyway, to the sacred sanctuary of art? I am not an
‘
interesting character.
’”

“
What did you do in Warsaw?
”

“
I did in Warsaw the same as I do here.
”

“
Jaga, why not give me a break? Why not a straight answer to one lousy question?
”

“
Please, if you are looking for somebody interesting to write about, invite from the clinic one of Anton
’
s other girls. They are younger and prettier and sillier, they will be flattered that you ask lousy question. They have more adventures to tell than I do. You can get into their pants and they can get into your books. But if you are looking at me for sex, I am not interested.
I
hate lust. It
’
s a nuisance. I don
’
t like the smells, I don
’
t like
the sounds. Once, twice with somebody is fine—beyond that, it
’
s a partnership in dirt.
”

“
Are you married?
”

“
I am married. I have a daughter of thirteen. She lives with her grandmother in Warsaw. Now do you know everything about me
?”

“
What does your husband do?
”

“
What does he
‘
do
’
? He is not a graphomaniac like you. Why does an intelligent man ask stupid questions about what people
‘
do
’
? Because you are an American or because you are this graphomaniac? If you are writing a book and you want me to help you with my answers. I cannot. I am too dull. I am just Jaga with her upskis and downskis. And if you are trying to write a book by the answers that you get, then you are too dull.
”

“
I ask you questions to pass the time. Is that sufficiently cynical to suit you?
”

“
I don
’
t know about politics, I am not interested in politics, I don
’
t want to answer questions about Poland. I don
’
t
care
about Poland. To hell with all those things. I came here to get away from all that and
I
will appreciate it if you will leave me be about things that are the past.
”

On a windy November evening, with rain and hail blowing up against the windows, and the temperature down below freezing, Zuckerman offered Jaga ten dollars for a cab. She threw the money at him and left. Minutes later she was back, the black felt coat already sopping wet.
“
When do you want to see me again?
”

“
Up to you. Whenever you
’
re feeling resentful enough.
”

As though to bite, she lunged for his lips. The next afternoon she said,
“
The first time I kissed anyone in two years.
”

“
What about your husband?
”

“
We don
’
t even do that anymore.
”

The man with whom she
’
d defected wasn
’
t her husband. This was revealed to him the first time Jaga undid the remaining buttons of the new silk blouse and knelt beside him on the playmat.

“
Why did you defect with him?
”

“
You see, I should not have told you even that much.
I
say
‘
defect
’
and you are excited. An interesting character. You are more excited by the word
‘
defect
’
than you are by my body. My body is too skinny.
”
She removed her blouse and bra and threw them onto the desk, by the pile of unborrowed books.
“
My breasts
are not the right size for an American man.
I
know that. They are not the right American shape. You did not know that I would look this old.
”

“
On the contrary, it
’
s a child
’
s body.
”

“
Yes, a child. She suffered from the Communists, poor child
—
I
’
ll put her in a book. Why must you be so banal?
”

“
Why must you be so difficult?
”

“
It
’
s you who is difficult. Why don
’
t you just let me come here and drink your wine and pretend with borrowing books and kiss you, if I feel like it. Any man with half of a heart would do this. At moments you should be forgetting about writing books all the time. Here
”
—and after undoing her skin and raising her slip, she turned around on her knees and leaned her weight forward onto the palms of her hands.
“
Here, you can see my ass. Men like that. You can do it to me from behind. The first time and you can do anything you want to me, anything at all that pleases you,
except to ask me more of your questions
.
”

“
Why do you hate it so much here?
”

“
Because I am left out here! Stupid man, of course I hate it here! I live with a man who is left out. What can he do here? It
’
s all right that I work in a hair clinic. But not for a man. He would take a job like that and he would crumble up in a year. But I begged him to run away with me, to save me from that madness, and so I cannot ask him to sta
rt
to sweep floors in New York City.
”

“
What did he work at before coming here?
”

“
You would misunderstand if i told you. You would think it was
‘
interesting.
’”

“
Maybe I misunderstand less than you think.
”

“
He saved me from the people who were poisoning my life. Now I must save him from exile. He saved me from my husband. He saved me from my lover. He saved me from the people destroying everything I love. Here I am his eyes, his voice, his source of survival. If I left, it would kill him. It isn
’
t a matter of being loved, it
’
s a matter of loving somebody—whether you can believe that or not.
”

“
Nobody asked you to leave him.
”

Jaga uncorked a second bottle of wine and, seated naked on the floor beside him, quickly drank half of it down.
“
But I want to.
”
she said.

“
Who is he?
”