Author's note: The narrative presented below is a work of fiction. Therefore, any resemblance of its fictitious characters, imaginary situations and invented settings to living persons, real-life situations or actual settings can only be the effect of coincidence and/or illusion.

For Gosia


 

ALICE

by Christopher Makosa

It was five years ago, in the fall of 1993, and it happened suddenly, like an accident.

Alice Sterling, a young woman I hadn't met before, left an intriguing message on my answering machine: she was interested in a Polish poet, Robert Lipkowski; she studied Russian literature in St. Hacksville, somewhere in California; she had received my telephone number from Mme. Bonte.

During our conversation I found out more about her.

Alice had written, was writing, or was going to write a Ph.D. dissertation - a comparative study of Vladimir Nabokov and Witold Gombrowicz. Without doubt, Alice had literary aspirations: she was on the editorial board of "Blank," an academic magazine published in St. Hacksville. Ambitious girl that she was, Alice dreamed of becoming a writer; and on several occasions she implied she knew everybody in the business, by which she meant literature.

At some point Alice confessed that, like me, she was busy translating Robert Lipkowski's "Fiddlesticks," a book of lyrical poems. I said I was surprised to hear that, even though I wasn't surprised at all: a certain critic - Stephan Golding, of whom we will learn more in good time - had written to me about Alice and her commercial ventures, a fact I wouldn't disclose until four years later. "Actually, I haven't done much," she said, "only two or three poems, that's all." Alice was quick to add that I shouldn't treat her as a rival. After all, she had submitted a sample of her translation to "Christian Racquette Publishing," not to "A. Boner & A. Dudd," where I had sent my version of "Fiddlesticks" for consideration. She said she just wanted to "make friends with me."

But why did she want to make friends with me, of all people?

She mentioned in passing her recent trip to Europe: a visit to Mme. Bonte in Paris, a brief stay in Poland. While abroad, Alice had made inquiries; several well-meaning people - our mutual friends, it turned out - had spoken well of me. Could anyone wonder, then, that she wanted to befriend me?

Alice Sterling, as befitted an academic, was always busy.

She was working on several projects at once. In addition to Iosif Brodsky's and Robert Lipkowski's poetry, she was translating a novel by Ted Golem, a renowned if second-rate writer she had met in Europe, as well as a book of poems by Mrs. A. Mitti, an insipid poet whom Alice described, her voice oozing pride, as a "friend of her mother's" and a "person she had known since childhood." Naturally I will leave out of account, for the sake of convenience, her innumerable research papers, discourses, essays and treatises.

A few days later Alice sent me her translation of a story by Mr. Golem, asking me to "check it for possible errors and comment on the quality of her work."

Somehow I couldn't bring myself to refuse.

And so, I checked Alice's translation which, on close inspection, proved both inexact and woefully devoid of style. Then, out of charity I corrected it, changing almost every sentence in the process. My friend in St. Hacksville, much impressed with my performance (and even more so with my generosity), declared that we must meet when she came to New York on Christmas. Meanwhile, she submitted her translation - the one I had corrected for her - to "Wigh & Wherefour Publishers" where, due to an interesting turn of events, my own Lipkowski project was also being considered. Alice's work was accepted; the publisher complimented the translator on an impressive accomplishment. Alice Sterling was delighted: she was making something of herself.



Still, that was nothing compared to my bewilderment on meeting my new friend in New York. Oddly, the Alice seated across from me and munching salad (Barnes & Noble, café, downtown Manhattan) seemed completely different from the Alice I had spoken to on the phone. The other Alice had sounded spontaneous and amiable, while this Alice seemed jaded and aloof, if not downright unfriendly. Strange as it may seem, Alice was annoyed because she had to talk to me! Evidently, she resented my complete inability to grasp all the subtle nuances she wanted to express. What she wanted to express, however, was quite trivial, for Alice's conversation was flat, her questions commonplace and her answers predictable. There was a suggestion of decadence about her mouth, whose corners drooped whenever she showed affected disdain or feigned indifference; about her empty, somewhat equine face, which brightened only at the mention of something down-to-earth or tangible; about the sluggish-snake manner in which her tongue slid out to lick white flecks of creamy "Ranch" off her sinuous lips; and particularly about her antiquated hat, as incongruous as would be a camera swinging from Athena's shoulder. Suddenly, in an attempt to stick a poisoned pin in that self-important hat, I suggested she trade it for a beret. This sent her nostrils quivering with suppressed rage. When I suggested she become my literary agent, she positively bristled with animosity! I noticed that Alice lacked any sense of humor, which boded ill for our relations in the future; and although occasionally, in response to some quip or other, she flashed a fleeting smile, her eyes remained the same: sapphire-blue, glassy, cold.

What was the exact purpose of this visit?

During our conversation about business - i.e., literature - Alice, who had just ordered a doughnut, asserted that it was impossible for somebody coming in off the street to publish his or her project; that "they" would never let me publish my translation of "Fiddlesticks"; that some sort of harassment was unavoidable, for even if they accepted my translation, they would reject my introduction; that, as she remarked with an air of mock compassion, they loved to hurt their victims for fun because they treated criticism as something of a blood sport; that, since she knew the right people, she stood a far better chance of placing her projects with a publisher; and finally, that we should "do" my translation - which I had completed several months before - "together."

At first I thought I had misheard; I put down my coffee; I asked Alice to repeat what she had said. Then, seeing that she wasn't joking, I tried to turn our chat into a farce. Alice, in a fit of pique, flushed with anger. Yet a moment later, as if nothing at all had happened, she assumed a mask of jaunty unconcern. Slowly, carefully she impaled her doughnut on a fork and put it to her eye; then, imitating a grande dame with a quizzing glass, she began to peer at me through the hole, smiling a strange smile: half sly, half amorous.

Two days later, when I met her in Brooklyn (on Hicks Street, I believe), Alice Sterling pushed her unexpected generosity so far as to give me an unasked-for old computer, which she had bought in St. Hacksville and which Matt Dohr, her American friend, had lugged all the way from La Guardia airport.

I refused to accept the gift; she refused to give in.
I said I didn't want it; she said I must take it!
At last, for the sake of peace, I capitulated.
Later I put it out on the street.



After Alice's visit to New York, we missed no chance to talk or, rather, to lie to each other on the phone. We satisfied our hunger for information by feeding each other falsehoods and half-truths. Without question, we understood the supreme importance of one-upmanship and deception; and we laid all kinds of devilish traps calculated to trick the opponent into revealing his or her weaknesses!

One day, Alice told me a banal story about her family in Poland. Her father was a Professor of Law, her mother held a doctorate in psychiatry. Although Mme. Sterling was an accomplished woman, she gave up all idea of making a career: she put herself at her husband's service. According to Alice, her wealthy well-connected parents belonged to the best people of the city in which they lived. In order to enhance the respectable standing of the Sterling family, her tireless Maman kept open house, officiating at artistic teas, where the best people did business with one another while abandoning themselves to edifying pursuits; where exuberant ladies and weary wooden-faced gentlemen discussed art, politics and the topics of the hour; where they listened to spirited recitations of beautiful, profound poetry; where they gazed, with enigmatic smiles and approving nods, at violinists squeaking out plaintive tunes, singers sobbing out soulful songs or pianists banging out showpieces on their dubious instruments.

Alice's father was, as some people said, a "difficult man to live with." Adam Sterling, Esq., devoured by a maniacal desire to make something of himself, consorted with many a learned and respectable woman, including his superior at the Institute of International Law. His understanding wife - a reasonable person, no doubt - connived at these adventures: after all, didn't that sort of thing go with the territory? Thus Sterling père - always enterprising, always practical - formed quite a few strategic alliances in the "community"; thus he rose to prominence.

His daughter, meanwhile, grew. When she was nine, Alice - strange to say - arrived in Wonderland. Oh, how many fantastic projects she had! How many plans for instant dizzying successes! What a splendid place to become a writer!

Where could she possibly fulfill her wonderful dreams? In Wonderland, only in Wonderland!

As time went by, I noticed that Alice's attitude toward her friends and associates was highly interesting, to say the least. For example: according to Alice, one Rudolph Wallmount, former Editor-in-Chief of "Blank", was a cynical lout. Once, while spending the night in her apartment, he was "acting in a scandalous manner!" Later, in justification of his antics, Wallmount told her he never discussed literature with twenty-two year old girls. "Which doesn't mean I shy away from them - know what I mean?" he added, with a jack-o'-lantern smile. Alice Sterling, furious at being slighted - or used - urged the other editors to gang up on their crass superior, with the result that Wallmount had to step down. Yet Alice, far from satisfied with engineering his ouster, told me she intended to file a complaint against Wallmount with the Provost: it was necessary to frustrate Rudolph's efforts to secure a teaching post in a provincial Midwestern college!

Any twinges of conscience?
None.
After all, wasn't Wallmount a fraud?
Wasn't it an open secret that, instead of writing his Ph.D. dissertation in English, he had written it in Polish and then had it translated by one of his underlings?

If Alice didn't prove much more loyal to Wallmount's successor at "Blank", that was because the new boss (who, like his predecessor, "spoke almost no English") could not be trusted, as he had double-crossed Alice in the past. When, with a pen in my hand, I pressed Alice for details, she confessed that the new chief of "Blank" had foiled her heroic endeavors to publish a superb translation of Iosif Brodsky's poems.

One evening, a woman by the name of Amelia Celuta - the Celuta woman, as Alice called her - delivered a lecture on a nineteenth-century Polish poet, Juliusz Słowacki. Alice, with a spiteful edge to her voice, told me that the lecturer was an incompetent person. In fact, my friend went so far as to claim that the hapless woman was a phony: Celuta, whose English was "atrocious," affected an American drawl to camouflage her thick foreign accent! Interestingly, for someone who came to the U.S. at the tender age of nine, Alice's English, which she spoke with a rather endearing Slavic lilt, was surprisingly poor.

Alice Sterling, on the other hand, was unfailingly loyal to people promoting her career.

Violette Shammee was, in Alice's view, a wonderful, warm human being; Mr. A. Chefsky, a darling man; Virginia Palfrey a remarkable person, especially since she owned an apartment in downtown Paris, worked in one of the greatest publishing firms in France, etc.; and finally Stephan Golding - a real man of honor! - perhaps even the last of the literary Mohicans.

One day, glorying in her own wickedness, Alice revealed the nature of her schemes.

She told me about a certain Polish scholar, who had recently arrived in America. As the learned man was in a position to render various invaluable services, Alice lost no time in putting herself out to help him. Several days later, chuckling with glee, she announced: "There is no way he can refuse me after what I've done for him!" For some reason I still vividly remember Alice Sterling advising me how to strike up profitable friendships: "be good to people, and they will repay you in kind."

Yet - and I must admit this was something I regretted very much at that time (these rapturous talks about Dostoevsky!) - our friendship came to an abrupt end. Alice, unfortunately for her, had formed the habit of sending me her slipshod translations of Mr. Golem's disheveled prose and Mrs. A. Mitti's pallid poetry. She said she wanted me to "check them for mistakes." This was pushing our friendship much too far, I thought - especially since my friend in St. Hacksville didn't fail to point out, in an oblique yet suggestive way, that she had given me quite an expensive gift.

One romantic evening in August (whirring cicadas, warbling nightingales), I hung up on Alice.



Two years slipped by and I decided to exhume my friendship with Alice Sterling. Alice, who had for some obscure reason failed to publish her translation of Golem's novel with "Wigh & Wherefour," was now trying to find a publisher for her version of selected poems by Mrs. A. Mitti. In the meantime, however, she had run into a formidable rival.

This was a certain tenured Professor famous for his excellent standing in the community and for the ruthless way he disposed of all existing and potential rivals. Under these circumstances, despite her artful cunning and commercial guile, Alice stood no chance of getting her project published in book form. On top of that, the wily monopolist had maneuvered Mrs. A. Mitti into signing, with a publisher of his choice, an exclusive contract for the English-language rights to the complete collection of her poems.

Due to an amusing twist of events, Alice was struggling with the same academic-cum-translator-cum-critic who had amid winks of connivance suppressed my translation of "Fiddlesticks" at "A. Boner & A. Dudd." Interestingly, it turned out a few weeks later that a certain protégée of his was to rework or, more exactly, dumb down my version for that venerable publishing firm, which the worthy Professor controlled by means of money, connections and other attributes of respectability. For some reason, I believed Alice and I shared a common purpose. I was vaguely hoping she would cooperate with me.

Alice Sterling, when I called her, was busy soliciting encouragement and support for her projected translation of Mrs. A. Mitti's poetry. She instructed me on how to cope with the most important literary task: one should obtain two letters of recommendation, elicit two flattering reviews, pay one's respects to the illustrious critics and wheedle some eminent puppet-master into writing an illuminating preface to one's translation - that was how it was done! The rest, she said, should be easy: after all, there was a craze in New York for Mrs. A. Mitti's vapid poesy. At the same time, Alice was afraid that, in revenge for her grave sin of straying from the hierarchical path, the wrathful Demigod might trample her underfoot; and in a fit of hysterics she kept lamenting, despite the lack of any evidence, that he was "destroying her, destroying her with all his might!"

Somehow Alice - a strong woman, if ever there was one - regained her poise.

At dawn the next day she complimented me on a short essay I had written while tilting at the rotten windmills of academe. Apparently, my essay had made a profound impression on her: Alice was at a loss for words to express her admiration. And yet my friend in St. Hacksville didn't omit to point out that she was only two years behind me in matters of literary craft; that my essay was "definitely overwritten"; and that, even though I was working well and had a passion for literature, "I would get nowhere alone."

Perhaps remembering what I had said to her in jest during our meeting in New York, Alice decided to become my literary agent. She offered to find a suitable publisher for me if I only sent her my writings. As I vetoed that idea, Alice heaped grave reproaches upon me. Didn't I know she was reliable and sensitive? Hadn't she read at my request - and by candlelight, at that - "Anna Karenin" and "Madame Bovary"? I had no cause to distrust her! She had never played any dirty trick on me! That was no way to treat real friends! I was paranoid, perhaps even worse!

Somehow I was deaf to these exclamations.

Seeing this, my friend suddenly changed tack: she found it expedient to infuse our friendship with the spirit of Affection. Imperceptibly she began to call me "sweetheart," which was a special term "reserved exclusively for her beloved kid brother." Alice told me about how she had suffered after our falling-out two years before. She waxed lyrical about her own feelings. She even extended her verbal ingenuity to the point of invoking the metaphor of a tunnel: as she walked through that tunnel, the light suddenly went out and she found herself enwrapped in a pall of darkness!

Somehow I was insensitive to these subterranean wiles.

Afraid that she might fail to sink her teeth into my thick skin, Alice gave vent to frustration. She reproached me with being colder than ice, barely human, monstrously cruel and probably even sadistic! In her opinion (she fancied herself as something of an amateur psychologist), I took a sardonic delight in torturing decent people: here she cited herself as an example. She accused me of indulging in Schadenfreude, a term she apparently came across while doing research on the celebrated feud between Wilson and Nabokov. Alice wanted to find out everything about me: about my life, my past, my plans, my marriage, and even about my dog, which she suspected of being able to emit meaningful little barks, such as "Ma" or "Pa." She felt an urge to meet my parents and to befriend my wife, especially since the latter must be anioł nie kobieta - Polish for "an angel of a woman." She wondered how on earth my wife could stand somebody like me.

Could I contest this remorseless logic?

And yet, as though oblivious to my detestable vices, Alice Sterling urged me to leave New York and to settle in St. Hacksville!

I said I planned to move to merry Madrid.
She said she absolutely loved Madrid.
I said I might want to go to Macedonia.
She said she kinda liked Macedonia.
How about Macondo? I asked.
She didn't mind Macondo.
Mocassa?
Why not?

Still, she really wanted my unpublished writings above all else. I hedged as best I could. I gave her many reasons why my fiction didn't deserve to be published. I assured her that it was so bad as to be unreadable; that it was virtually unprintable; that it lacked literary quality; and that, as everyone knew, I had no knack for writing!

She rejected these arguments.

One day I noticed that my friend in St. Hacksville had adopted my ideas on literature, which she used to contradict with great fervor. There were also other strange goings-on. Alice, for no apparent reason, took it into her head to show me her rendering of Lipkowski's "Fiddlesticks," claiming that it "probably wasn't much worse than mine." Suddenly it dawned on me that she had cajoled my translation from our mutual friend Stephan Golding, whom she had recently visited in Poland. When I refused to see her version of "Fiddlesticks," Alice offered to send me her treatise on the "art of translation," which she had written in collaboration with a friend of hers. As might be expected, I pleaded pressure of work. When I asked her to give me some idea of what that famous treatise was about, Alice, assuming a casual air, said: "Oh, please - we've talked about these things so often..."

One evening in November my friend Alice informed me that Mme. Bonte had withdrawn her permission for my Lipkowski project. "How do you know that?" I asked. In fact, I hadn't heard from Mme. Bonte for about two years. Alice replied that she had spoken to the new Editor-in-Chief of "Blank," a well-informed individual with a deformed skull. "Somebody else is doing Fiddlesticks," she added in her customary matter-of fact manner. She had no idea who had secured Mme. Bonte's permission to translate "Fiddlesticks" into English.

As if that weren't enough, Alice sent me her translation of Mrs. A. Mitti's poetry, so that I would "proof it for typos and slips of the pen"! Which reminds me:

I vault into the saddle, ride to Grand Central, hitch my horse to a pillar, hop into a rickety freight train heading for San Diego and, after a harrowing journey, end up at Penn Station, where my dream vanishes. So Mrs. A. Mitti all over again: how oppressive, how painful! For some time I even toyed with the idea of terminating our friendship, but in view of a certain academic intrigue swirling around my translation of "Fiddlesticks" (of which I might want to write elsewhere), I decided I couldn't afford to alienate Alice. It was imperative for me to sacrifice dignity to the overriding interests of business! Although I steeled myself to correct her translation, I warned Alice that I wouldn't revise her work in the future. This made her indignant; her pride rebelled! Her voice quivering with fury, she snapped: "I don't give a damn about your help!" And why not? After all, as she told me several days later, she had many helpers, big and small, to choose from.

In time I discovered this ingenious scheme:

Matt Dohr - a reasonable person, no doubt - checked Alice's translations for errors of English, did the dishes, delighted in her virtue, showered her with compliments and endearments; a host of nameless American-born bilinguals, including myself, helped her translate her projects without getting any credit for their anonymous labors; Fyodor D., a dour-faced bearded Russian with the lofty brow of a thinker, revised her translations of Brodsky's poetry; Stephan Golding was responsible for introducing Alice to prominent men of letters in Poland and the U.S.; her academic confrères provided her with protection, so indispensable in the publishing business; and a certain Professor Emeritus of Russian literature promoted her scholastic endeavors.

This last-mentioned was a goodhearted fellow.

One night, while in his apartment, Alice read him her version of poems by Boleslaw Leśmian, a Polish poet of genius, fiendishly difficult to translate. As a result of this late-night session, the noble old man, moved to tears, joined the wide circle of her protectors. O magic of poetry! There were also countless conferences, cocktail parties, symposia, mixers and business lunches, where Alice had the opportunity to meet many respectable individuals and to test the veracity of "Be good to people...," etc.

Thanks to this Christian maxim and these upstanding citizens, she entered real Wonderland! She made a debut in a glamorous magazine! She was invited to deliver a lecture - "in the presence of over a hundred people!" - on Mrs. A. Mitti's wondrous poetry. Through the influence of her friend Stephan Golding she secured a contract from a mammoth publishing firm for a book by Eddie Dobbin, himself a rising star. A few weeks later, while soliciting favors from a famous author, Alice wrote she had been selected for the job "out of many candidates." The book in question, a tawdry production full of insufferable clichés, featured a brave young woman clawing her way to the top by means of sex and intrigue.



Then, one day, a momentous event occurred: Alice's second visit to New York!

Having sat down to table (Chinese restaurant, Greenwich Village), we ordered shrimp with broccoli, which drew lusty exclamations from Alice of: "God, I just love to eat! Basically, I'm something of a sensualist, you know!" This time my kindred spirit in St. Hacksville was unusually cheerful - perhaps because she had recently secured a Fulbright for a brilliant comparative study of Gombrowicz and Lipkowski. Regrettably, I can't recall the title of that brilliant work. I do remember, however, that one of the words, used with the object of dazzling the prospective reader or reviewer, was strikingly long - perhaps "sesquipedalian" is the more accurate term - and painfully banal; and unless I'm mistaken, it ended either in -ology or - otology.

After we placed an order Alice began, on her tapered fingers with bitten nails, to tick off all the reasons why we should meet more often. Evidently each of us had a great deal of pride, integrity and self-esteem; we were tireless in our quest for literary excellence; she often saw me in her dreams; she was, to use her own words, in urgent need of a fellow traveler; and finally, she expected me to teach her many useful things, such as how to write. As everyone knew, Alice had the so-called divine spark. She was positive that if she applied herself to writing with singleness of mind, she would accomplish a lot.

After all, weren't talent and hard work the prime ingredients of success?

Then my soul mate explained what she meant by the somewhat unexpected term "fellow traveler."

Matt Dohr, her present fellow traveler or, more precisely, her husband, as she later confessed blushing with shame, was a truly angelic person: here the corners of her mouth drooped. He loved and admired her - she wrinkled her upturned nose and pursed her lips into a disdainful little snout - but, to be honest, that wasn't what she needed at this critical stage of her life. What she really needed - her narrow rectangular hands seemed to be kneading some imaginary object of desire into shape - was a meaningful relationship, preferably with a representative of her own profession: here she transfixed me with her sapphire-blue eyes. I cleared my throat. I took a swig of ice water. Glancing over my shoulder, I noticed that two deaf mutes sitting off my right (one of them was big and bald, and the other small and shaggy), had stopped talking in sign language. They were eyeing us curiously.

Alice went on to describe her nagging personal problems: the nullity of her life, the imbecility of the "Establishment" and the vulgarity of her lecturers who, according to her, were "lousy careerists, most of them." To my astonishment, she professed herself "disgusted" with the "Blank" editors; once or twice she even referred to them scornfully as "these cynical opportunists"; and rolling her eyes, she kept groaning: "What a cesspool! What a cesspool!"

Naturally, we didn't neglect to disparage our mutual friends, especially the most successful among them:

It was common knowledge that Mr. A. (poor guy!) was practically semiliterate: what would he do without generous "editorial assistance"? Mr. B. - who fancied himself a brilliant poet! - wanted to translate "The Divine Comedy," although the only Italian words he knew, apart from various culinary terms, were pronto and presto! Mr. C. would probably never master the rules of English prosody: what a shame - a whole lifetime devoted to politico-literary acrobatics might go to waste! Mrs. D. - a rich widow, one of those pitiful scribblers who go about peddling their worthless stuff, etc."

I asked Alice about her recent business trip to Poland.

From a need to divulge a murky secret, or perhaps to test my jealousy, my friend confessed that she reproached herself for having paid a little visit to Eddie Dobbin, whose novel she had just begun to translate. Why? All at once, Alice Sterling launched into a complicated explanation. At last, from a hodgepodge of false starts, incidental remarks, parenthetical phrases and incoherent comments I managed to extract the gist of the matter: Eddie Dobbin was in possession of photographs, in which he and Alice were "kissing." "Amazing how people have no sense of honor," she remarked, with a sigh of resignation. She vowed that she would never see Eddie again. To think she would have to labor on his "critically acclaimed," if worthless, novel for at least two years! Naturally, Alice didn't want me to get the impression that there was "something going on between them." "Besides, I would never do that to Matt!" she declared. Of course, she wasn't so disingenuous as to deny her obvious tendency to flirt with men. This, she said, was "part and parcel" of her unique "sexuality." Alice drew herself up and with small fussy movements of her hands smoothed her black miniskirt. The two deaf mutes were gesticulating even more fervently than before.

I changed the subject:
"How is Stephan Golding?"
How was our distinguished friend?
I was wondering if Stephan Golding, an influential critic with vast business connections on both sides of the Atlantic and, at the same time, a renowned authority on Robert Lipkowski, would help me publish "Fiddlesticks." Since he had recently sent me an enthusiastic letter in praise of my work, I was hoping he wouldn't let me down. Yet, to my amazement, Alice was thoroughly disappointed in her worthy friend, whom she had once extolled as a "man of honor." She even expressed the view that Golding had turned into a hack: swiftly and efficiently, our prolific Stephan turned out book after slapdash book! According to my friend in St. Hacksville, Stephan Golding ran what could be described as a literary conveyor belt! But that wasn't all - Alice's pale, slightly rumpled face was wreathed in malevolent smiles - good old Stephan had a mistress: a leggy long-waisted student with brown hair! While his devastated wife drowned her despair in a glass of scotch downstairs, Stephan and his luscious lady friend disported themselves in the master bedroom upstairs! But the funniest thing about it (Alice, in a transport of voluptuous delight, began to giggle) was that purehearted Stephan visited saintly Mr. Goodrich with his wife and sainted Mrs. Richgood with his mistress! Clearly, my friend enjoyed this neat arrangement.

I looked at the hat rack: why was she maligning Golding? What trick was she going to pull from that sinister-looking broad-brimmed black hat of hers? Mystified - perhaps stupefied is the more fitting word - I shifted my gaze back to Alice who, having tilted her head to one side, curled her black-stockinged leg over the other (high-heeled shoes!), and then puckered up her lips, as if she were about to play the flute. Squinting, she began to peer at me through her eyelashes. At this precise moment, I felt someone's foot moving slowly up and down my shin: great footwork, by God! Blissful languor, delicious nonexistence. Down, Priapus, down! Would it be possible to cancel my appointment tonight? In twenty minutes I was scheduled to meet another artistic woman, a socially-oriented poet, who might, with the help of hole-and-corner maneuvers, solve all my problems if I attended to her own pressing needs. Why - I asked myself, turning my thoughts to Alice again - why shouldn't I allow myself an occasional romp? Why shouldn't I treat myself to this savory morsel of academic femininity? What would I lose by that? What was the risk? After all, I was quite certain that my wife, a guileless person, didn't suspect anything illicit going on; and even if she somehow found out about my shady affairs (anonymous letter, obliging friend), I would brazenly deny everything! I wouldn't commit the gravest sin of all: I would never get caught in flagrante delicto!

I gulped hard, my stiff limb throbbing with excitement - when suddenly, and in a manner inconceivable to me, our fingers intertwined of their own accord! Casablanca... Madama Butterfly... Our eyes met! Shafts of sunlight slanted through the window!

"I love you...," she lied.
"I love you, too...," I lied.
"I'll do my best to help you!" she lied.
"I know you will," I lied.

In the next instant, slowly, carefully she worked the pointed end of a chopstick into a piece of shrimp; then, rolling that chopstick between the tips of her thumb and forefinger, smiling an enticing smile, moving her head coquettishly, she purred: "Care for a tasty tidbit, sweetie?"

When on Perry Street, a stone's throw from the restaurant, I tried to kiss her goodbye (we were on the stoop of the house in which she was staying), Alice recoiled, as though she had glimpsed a monster; and biting her lip, craning her serpentine neck and casting anxious glances around her, she hissed: "Stop it, or somebody will see us!" But then, a moment later: "When we meet again, sweetheart...," she cooed. Playfully she shook her fingers in farewell, swiveled around and, wiggling on her high heels, tip-tapped her way into the shadowy depths of the hall.

All at once, and without any reason, I reached into my pocket and drew out a strip of paper I had found in a fortune cookie at the restaurant. The prediction for the future was promising: "Good things are being said about you."



We didn't meet again.

Some three weeks later, Alice succeeded in convincing Stephan that he would jeopardize his distinguished literary career if he used his influence on my behalf. Honey, before you go downstairs to bring me some scotch, let's discuss that ridiculous business in New York (removes the sapphire-blue contacts and begins slowly to peel the black silk stocking off her upraised leg). Shall we? Golding - a reasonable man - must have found this proposal irresistible. Soon after he informed me that "he didn't know - really! - how to help me."

Alice, when I told her about my conversation with Golding, asked me in that cool matter-of fact tone of hers: "Oh, come on, what did you expect from Stephan, anyway?" But when I told her who had stabbed me in the back right after fondling my shin with a silk-stockinged foot; who had thwarted my desperate efforts to publish "Fiddlesticks" with "Wigh & Wherefour," "A. Boner and A. Dudd" and "Christian Racquette Publishers"; who had conspired with my enemies to put me out of business (i.e., literature); who had poisoned Mme. Bonte's mind against me; who had slandered me in front of friend and foe alike, etc.; - when I revealed some of the secrets I had discovered, Alice moaned: "I will tell you only one thing: have a heart - you know - have a heart!"

The next time I called her, she took cover behind her husband's back. Matt Dohr - a reasonable person, no doubt - sprang to the defense of his virtuous wife. He even contended that the truth, which he had learned from truthful Alice, was completely different from the improbable story I was trying to foist on him.

Yet suppose Matt Dohr was right, suppose everything was as it should have been? After all, wasn't she intelligent and sensitive? Wasn't she strong, brave, independent - a truly liberated woman? Wasn't she successful? Didn't she inspire respect in all right-minded people by her impeccable sound judgment and unerring common sense?

Who knew? Who could tell?






New York City, October 10, 1998

© Christopher Makosa