Apart From Love (23 page)

And then... Then I closed my eyes.

When I woke up—it must have been long after midnight—he was still reading, jotting down notes, erasing, and from time to time, pressing this or that key on the tape recorder. And he was talking, talking to me or, perhaps, to himself.
Rewind, Play. Play, Rewind.

I propped my head up on his shoulder and looked up at his mouth, and the little muscles at play all around it, which didn’t look near as tight as they’ve been, say, in the past few days. I could see that something had come over him: something even stronger than his passion to write. A great relief, that’s what it was. Like, a load had been taken off his heart.
 

I bet it happened when he gave up his secret to me, the one secret he guarded most of all, which was funny, ‘cause it wasn’t even his—but Natasha’s.
 

Now that I knew about her illness I felt kinda dizzy in my head. Like, I was playing with danger, soaring, even hovering in midair, over the high side of a teeter-totter, and spotting Natasha over there, on the opposite side. By some twist, our fate was like, linked. This time around, her luck was down, mine—up. I could sense the shock, the deep fall she’d taken, and the hard hit against the ground.
 

And I figured that now, she didn’t barely have a way to come back. She wasn’t a threat no more.
 

Meanwhile, Lenny went on scribbling. His right arm was holding the pen, his left—hugging me, which was cool. The night air was swirling around us. I watched the setting of the moon as it flowed down, so slow—so magical, even—till it fell away behind the outline of the next building. A star here, a star there gave a faint glint. Time slowed down, like, by some spell. I had goosebumps, ‘cause I couldn’t remember no moment but now, and no place but here, when I felt peace, complete peace between us.
 

And after a long while I caught the hint, the first hint of dawn, and I touched him, with nothing, nothing at all coming between us—not even that thing, whatever it was, Dostoyevsky.

I can’t remember how he took me to bed. By the time I got up this morning, Lenny was already gone.
 

So now, it’s a new day.
 

I go out to the
balcony
, listening for echoes from last night, like, echoes of me and Lenny. First I try to
Rewind, Play
. Then I
Stop
, and try instead to bring them voices out of memory. I prick up my ears for anything, any little thing that’s still here, still left from that charm, that moment of pure calm—but no: all’s quiet, quiet in the most regular, humdrum way, with a distant buzz of street noises.

It’s late in the morning, which you can tell, ‘cause the dew on the railing has dried up by now. His desk is bare, not even a pen left here, on the glass surface. And on the floor, a film of dust has already covered our footprints, so it’s awful hard to believe that last night really happened, that it wasn’t just another dream.
 

His notebook is nowhere in sight—but then, under his desk, right there in the trashcan, I can see a bunch of papers peeking out over the edge. I take them out, and smooth the edges, and try to flatten the creases, and blot out the ink stains.
 

According to him, only one of his stories was published, like, ages ago. The rest of them wasn’t, on account of the fact that Lenny don’t send them to no magazine editors, because, he says, he isn’t quite finished improving a phrase here and there, and besides, most of them stories, they’re just too private. So the more he tells you, the more he seems to leave something out.

Here, look: the first page is kinda messy. It’s that story, the one he managed to publish, the one he read for me last night. Me, I can barely recall what it is I’ve heard. I think it’s about a girl, a girl with blond streaks in her hair. Lana.

To win her over, a man can be seduced to do just about anything, and like, give up the one thing about himself which he values the most. Now as far as Lenny goes,
I’m way too easy, which means, this girl isn’t me. And for sure, she isn’t Natasha.
 

Not long ago Lenny told me, “
My writing is not the place where the fiction is,” which I find strange, ‘cause if not in his stories—then, where else can his fiction be? Is he writing the truth—and living a falsehood? If this is so, then the girl from his story must be real. More real than me, anyway.
 

Whoever she is, she must be someone he’d known way back in the past. I don’t think he’s seeing her now. I really don’t.

Then again, I may be totally wrong: perhaps the only place where she exists is like, on paper, which explains why he didn’t barely give her a strong, clear voice. To me, she seems a bit sketchy. In six pages of dense scribbles, the only line he let her say is like,
What is it with you tonight?
 

With him, every little thing is huge—or else he’s gonna make it so. And every gesture—even as trivial as a wink—can be a trigger, like, for a whole big drama, which may be the case here, in this story. I’m gonna read it later. I have time. At least, I think I do.
 

Here’s another crumpled page, which is nearly empty—except for a single sentence, parts of which is crossed out. Between the scratches, it reads:
 

He’s gone, but still, I’m thinking about him, about how he has touched on that time, the lost time nearly five years ago, when I went out the door, swearing I won’t come back to him, not ever. What he hasn’t said—and what left such a bitter taste in my mouth—is how he told me, back then, You are a nice kid. Go, go back to where you came from. Go back to your mama.

These are my words—not his.
 

I’m so surprised to find them here, suddenly on paper. I bet he hit
Rewind, Rewind, Rewind
and ended up going back more than he’d intended, which is how he found what I’d said on tape that night, when I couldn’t fall asleep, on account of that nightmare.
 

I reckon he listened. Yes. He did.
 

Now I ain’t sure how I feel about that. Part of me is glad; the other, not so much. I take the page with me, ‘cause like, even if it’s in his hand—or maybe because of it—this a part of me, of who I am.

And I go inside, into the living room, and sit there, on the piano bench, and lay my head on the surface, which covers the keyboard of the piano, which is kinda cool to the touch. And then I dream.
 

I dream about Lenny: How he’s gonna come home this evening, and ask me to tell him something again, about myself, and about things I remember, things I’m painting in my head. After a while he’s gonna go away, leaving me alone with the tape recorder.
 

Record
.
Stop
.
 

Once my story is done, he’s gonna come back to take some notes, and edit them over and again, scratching and erasing all night long, and like, going into the trouble of finding a way—just the right way—to carry my voice in letters, and in marks.

I reckon it won’t easy for him to fix the way I talk—and at the same time, remain true to how I tell it, and to the feel, the real feel of how it happened.
 

I can just see Lenny in my head: He’s gonna torture himself trying, somehow, to do it, so that tomorrow morning, at exactly the same time, when I’m gonna be sitting here again, on this very bench, I’m gonna be startled to find—out there on his desk—a gift.
 

A little something from him to me: A little piece of paper, scribbled side to side, top to bottom, with dense writing, and barely a space between the words.
 

As usual, it would seem as if he’s sucked up all them spaces, because—even when he gives—Lenny don’t really want you to get it. Or else, he wants you to work hard at getting it.
 

And even then, he wants you to figure out only small parts, some here, some there. Any which way, it won’t help him. I’m gonna get it, ‘cause them spaces, and the lack of them, may be his—but the words are mine.

I’m gonna snatch the paper, and find myself blown away, ‘cause right there—in his hand, black on white—I’m gonna read the scrawl, the words of my voice, my own voice:
 

I’m here, and this is amazing.
 

And then:

Crumpled in front of me is his first attempt at telling my story
.

As Written by Lenny

L
eonard was first introduced to Lana at his boss’s house, where he and a few other guests had to stand around waiting for dinner, with nothing but some dry nibbles to help pass the time, and nothing but the weather to keep the conversation afloat—until a full hour later, when she finally arrived.

He was seated at the table next to her, and noticed her long, wavy hair. It had blond streaks, and smelled good. The perfume was very subtle—just enough to put him under a spell. Naturally, he found himself tongue tied. He felt as if his boss expected him to be sociable and charming—which made him, without fail, even more rigid than usual.
 

He ate in silence, swallowing his pride along with a mouthful of chicken soup, and listened to the symphony of sounds around him: Le’Chaim! Le’Chaim! To Life, said the guests, wine cups clinking against each other, chuckles spreading, chewed-up words garbling into slurps and gulps, punctuated here and there by soup sipping intervals.
 

Lana was chatting across the table with his boss. Despite her bubbly laughter—or maybe because of it—Leonard thought he could detect a certain strain, a certain tension in her voice. She seemed a bit uptight, even nervous at times, which brought up in her a heavy Russian accent. It was especially pronounced during the first few sentences. Then it softened a bit, or maybe he learned to like to the way it played out. Normally that accent would be jarring to his ears—but now, to his surprise, he found it musical, endearing even.
 

He noticed the various rhythms of her breathing—at times excited, at times relaxed.
 

Her wrist was so close to his that he could sense her warmth through the fabric of her blouse, and it set him afire. By the end of the main course he managed to ask her, with a sudden catch in his voice, to pass the butter. The effort left him speechless, and so he thanked her in his own manner, with a slight nod but without meeting her eyes.
 

What color were they? He had absolutely no idea. Her whole figure was, to him, a blur.
 

At this point it became clear to him that the entire evening was simply a disaster, and that the earlier he would leave, the better he could preserve some semblance of having enjoyed it. He was gone, quite abruptly, halfway through dessert.

A week later his boss, who could be overbearing at times, invited him to dinner once again. Caught off guard, Leonard heard himself being agreeable.
 

“Seven o’clock?” he said, “Sure. I’ll be there.”
 

This time he gave some attention to his appearance. Standing in front of the mirror, hands stuck in the sleeves, he pulled a sweater over his head. He flailed a bit until he managed, somehow, to find the opening; at which time Leonard saw his father’s eyes rising up over the neckband. They looked squarely at him from the glass, tired and brown. The eyes were followed by a nose and finally—a mustache. That was the moment Leonard decided to shave it.
     

As the hour struck seven, he rang the doorbell. His boss was happy to see him, as were the other guests. Leonard was astonished to see Lana, even more beautiful than he remembered. This time, the conversation flowed with perfect fluency, which seemed incredibly lucky to him. They were seated side by side in the same places as last time. The challah bread was beautifully braided and so was her hair. The food was great, the company—divine!
 

He discovered that—just like him—she loved Opera. With a sudden blush, Lana told him that she could appreciate the purity of vocal tone. She said she adored Puccini and could even describe, in heavy Russian accent, several passages from the greatest Italian operas written by him. Her cheeks were so red, so rosy! She talked about
Tosca
, about
La Boheme
, and by the time she recited a few notes from
Madama Butterfly
, Leonard knew he had to have this woman, even though the color of her eyes was still a mystery to him.