Читаем Fall and Rise полностью

“Bad for your tummy. Something about all that air through the neck.” He gives me a glass, pours, clicks glasses and says “To the land of Japan which has given us many Daniels, one or two indirectly, and you, circuitously, a beautiful book,” and drinks. “I have to get out of this toasting rut. I can’t lift a glass of milk—”

“So the woman?”

“They let her in downstairs, since they knew her from before, and then she knocked and knocked on my door after she rang it to death. I finally said ‘Go home!’ and she sat on the doormat and started crying. A neighbor phoned me. I let her in, but hid the other woman in the kitchen. I thought I could get rid of her in a few minutes: take her downstairs, put her in a cab, after promising to see her for lunch the next day. But she wanted to stay over. Finally I said I’ll have to get the cops to drag her out or do it myself, and I actually grabbed her arm and dragged her along the floor to the door. The other woman — I’d met her that night — came out and said ‘Here I am, peekaboo, that what you wanted to see, Doreen, or maybe you’re still here because you’re hot to make it a threesome? Well get lost, you screwed-up bitch,’ and Doreen fled the apartment. I should have been more honest with her at once, introduced her to the other woman, which was this woman’s advice, but I thought she’d get hysterical. I even thought she might have a gun. She once ran over an old boyfriend but the jury decided it was a legitimate gripe. I’m through with messy relationships. The woman who chased her out turned out to be almost as bad. Manic dieter. Doesn’t work, affairs with unstable women. Just levelheaded from now on — scholars, professional women, and minimum age of twenty-five. I know I was occasionally drawn to the unpredictable erratic type because there was no chance of anything stable and sane developing with them. But you didn’t come here for a barrage of self-analysis from me. Though you’re the kind I need: peaceful, sensible, doesn’t willfully throw up good food. To you I can also say I shouldn’t be a satyr too. I can say it without your thinking I’m too egotistical, which I know I am. Unstable too, but I’m improving in both categories. I’m in analysis these days, but you probably know that.”

“You, the original anti-analysis man?”

“Dot didn’t tell you? Strange. And she says, my analyst, to be as open as I can when I can and the situation legitimizes it, not when it’s pure self-obsessive talk. So I’m going to tell you something which I hope won’t kill it for us tonight. Drink up.”

I sip.

“More, more — take a big gulp. And probably we should sit on the couch for this one — not the bed yet.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t say it. You might be ready but I might not be to hear it.”

“It’s important you do. I might let this go with someone else — a pickup, if there’s ever another one — or maybe I wouldn’t. I might be less egotistical and unstable than I was — my analyst thinks so — but I don’t know if I’m any more self-sacrificing and well-intentioned, except to someone I respect as much as you.”

“You have crabs.”

“Herpes. Good guess. It’s dormant now, but let’s not chance it flaring up overnight. If we use a condom it’s impossible for you to get it. And before, you said—”

“Hold it, hold it, hold it.”

“You don’t like them, or didn’t used to, and how could you? — but unlike some women, you don’t refuse to make love if I put one on.”

“Would you really even think twice about not telling a pickup you have herpes?”

“Yes. No. Wait, let me get your syntax straight. Would I really not? Would I really think twice? Be aboveboard, Peter. Since analysis — it’s actually been since analysis that I got herpes, but not from my analyst. Maybe from Yatsuko.

She swears she doesn’t have it and there’s nothing I can do but believe her, since she’s back in Japan. Doreen perhaps, but I’d never approach her about it because of what it could start. She’d claim she got it from me, if she doesn’t already know she has it. Or even if she doesn’t have it she’d then think she did and say I gave it to her to cripple her. Wasn’t the pickup because she made me wear a condom that night and the few times after. She was afraid that every man she knew, except for her regular boyfriend, had herpes. As for some others — it’s difficult to pinpoint whom and sometimes to locate them again, and what will I gain by it? A lesson’s been learned from my screwing around. And it would be sheer magnanimity on my part to help the woman know she has it, something I don’t feel inclined to being to the person who gave it to me. But if we use a condom—”

“Still too risky. There’s this cesarean business if you get pregnant no matter how many years after—”

“I know about that. I can’t get rid of it. I’ll have to hang around for the rest of my life with it unless some genius comes up with a cure. It’s a pain in the ass.”

“So, since we’re not going to sleep together—”