Apart From Love (43 page)

Which is good, ‘cause then there isn’t no need to argue between us, like, if he’s the one betraying my trust by listening to my tape—or I’m the one betraying his, by what I say.

Anyhow, this evening he’s different. I hear him pacing around the balcony, between his desk and the wall behind his chair, which is a small feat all by itself, ‘cause like, there isn’t barely room to move out there. Then, after two hours of this Lenny throws his hands in the air, and comes in to tell me he’s stuck.
 

Which makes me raise one of my eyebrows, like, “You sure don’t look stuck to me, ‘cause here you are, running around.” And what I mean by
running around
is clear to both of us.
 

What can he say to that? Nothing, that’s what.
 

Anyhow, I don’t want to sound bitter at him, ‘cause I care for Lenny, really, I do. So I ask, “Now, how d’you mean, stuck?”
 

And he says, “Oh, stop it. You are never going to understand me.”
 

And I say, “Just try me, Lenny.”
 

And he goes, “I am stuck, stuck, stuck! Stuck in a rut! I will never succeed in getting anything done. I am wasting time here, exhausted, not being able to think, and why? Because unwittingly, I am too busy complaining to myself over my wasted time.”

And before I can tell him to stop talking nonsense, or else put it in writing, he goes on to say, “Damn it. I cannot write a single line.”

“But like, why?”

“Because,” he groans, “every word gets me closer to
The End
.”

So I try this, I say, “Maybe there is no end, really, and all you can do is just cut off at any point, because life just goes on, like, even if you leave me right here, right in the middle of a sentence. That,” I say, “could be
The End
, too.”

“No, no, no! It is not that simple.”

“I bet it’s simpler than you think.”
 

“No,” he says, “I am not
that
tired, not yet. Cannot abandon it, cannot leave off just like that, in the middle, because the story needs something, it needs to be completed—but then, I do not know where it goes from here, and for the life of me, I cannot find
The End
, even though I know—I know it’s closing in on me.”

“If you can’t add no words, don’t you think you’re already done?”

“No,” he says. “At this point, no. I cannot stop writing—and I cannot write. I am left in the midair, hanging from a cliff.”

“So? Just let go.”

And he stares at me strange, “Wouldn’t you like that.”

I ain’t exactly sure I get what he means by that, but instead of explaining Lenny runs back to the balcony and leans over his desk, scribbling something real fast in the margin of a page, like he is chasing some idea with his pen. Then he waves his hand, pretty wild, calling me to come out there and listen.
 

He pushes his by-focals up his nose, which is totally useless, ‘cause they just slip down again. And this is what he reads to me:

She knew not to expect hearing the end of the sentence, because the old man had already slammed the door behind him. She could guess where Leonard was heading, probably to that fake old blond, who lived on the southern fringe of town.
 

The next morning she woke up to the sound, the insistent sound of knocks at the door, and a sudden fear squeezed her heart as she opened it, to find two grim-faced cops.
 

When they hesitated to say what they came in to say, she screamed. She did not want to learn that the old man had been found lifeless, nor did she want to see the snapshots they had taken, right there at the scene, snapshots that revealed all the tedious details of how he had ended up lying there, with a half crooked smile, in the other woman’s arms.
 

“Awesome!” I tell Lenny. “I’m so glad to hear this.”

His eyes pop, “You are?”
 

“Sure!” I say. “Me, I was kinda afraid you’re writing something real, like, something about us. Now—with what you’ve come up with, right there—I can see awful clear that it ain’t nothing but fiction.”

By way of an answer Lenny crumples the page, and sinks back in his chair, muttering something about how I don’t understand him, him and his creative ideas and this particular blueprint he is drafting, for a new kind of a novel, and what a damn fool he is, like, every time he repeats the mistake of using me for a listener.

“Then,” I say, “find yourself someone else to listen. Me, I don’t much like the sound of how you wrote it.”

“The sound?” his eyes widen once more. “What sound? And, what is wrong with it?”

“Noise,” I say. “Just too much of it! That’s what you get when you try to end things, like, with a bang. Me, I don’t even want to imagine all that slamming, and them knocks at the door and what not. Come here, I want you to hear something.”

I take him by the hand, and somehow Lenny lets me. He’s curious, I bet, so I lead him straight to the bedroom. I come to a stop right there, under the musical mobile, which I hung just last night in the window, between one blind and another.
 

Then, I pull the little string, so the thing starts turning around, and playing its tender notes. “There... Hear this? Now here’s a sound I do like.”

He closes his eyes to listen, so I ain’t exactly sure what he sees in his head. After a while Lenny says, “You know, I like it too. Just a delicate little whisper of a lullaby. Maybe you are right, Anita. Maybe that is what I need. Maybe that is what is called for, I mean, not just to heal both of us—but also, to complete the story. Listen! Here is a note—I could just detect it, just now—a note that could mark the end.”

“But then,” I say, “it could mark a beginning, just as well.”
 

And for the first time this evening he looks straight into my eyes. At that moment I can tell that he sees me, like, for what I am. I mean, he sees beyond what he’s put on paper, with them longest legs and that sexiest ass and them boobs and what not. Yes, now he sees in me something more than all that, something else: a woman, expecting.
 

At that instant a sudden pain makes itself known in me, right down my back. It starts turning there, deep in my belly. Which is when I figure that I’ve felt it before. It’s come and gone several times this evening—only it seemed awful dull up to now, which like, let me ignore it.
 

This time it’s sharper, and it lasts quite a while, which makes me wince. “Aw,” I say.

But anyhow, Lenny don’t even hear me, ‘cause he’s back to scratching his head, on account of being confused about his story, and about what this music could tell you, and how he could use it in his story, like, to mark the end.
 

“Yes,” he whispers. “Just a sound of bells, chiming, chiming, chiming. And behind that, the breath of a baby asleep in the cradle, rocked to sleep by a mother’s hand. Maybe that is what is needed.”

“Aw,” I say again.

And he says, “Such a gentle sound. No doubt, Ben would like it.”

I stare at him in surprise, ‘cause for several months Lenny’s been so mad, so angry at his son, that he didn’t hardly mention his name—nor did he allow me to mention it.
 

“So now,” I say, like, with caution, “all’s fine? Like, you’ve forgiven him?”

“I do not know about that,” he says, sounding pretty touchy.
 

A minute later his voice seems to soften. “What I
do
know—I can feel it in my bones—is this: any day now, my son will be coming here, to my door, and—”
 

“You have two sons, not one,” I cut in.

“He will be coming back,” says Lenny, right over my words. “Looking for the thing, the one thing only I can give him: a story.”

Me, I can tell he don’t pay no attention to anything I say, so all I can do is at this point is just breathe hard for a few seconds, and then repeat, “Aw,” a third time.
 

Meanwhile Lenny’s busy arguing with himself.
 

“Whenever I read what I’ve written, it seems so sketchy to me, so goddam fragmented! Just an jumble of moments, and some voices here and there, lost in the clutter. What am I missing? How come I find myself falling short, so terribly short of where I thought I was going? What the story needs is a meaning—or else all my work, and all my sleepless nights have come to nothing, nothing, nothing in the end.”

His eyes seem to beg me for some hint, some meaning, like I could give it to him. What can I say to that? Nothing, and he knows it.

So Lenny starts pacing around the bed, and he reaches the mirror, the oval mirror standing there, slightly tilted, in the corner. Here he stops, and glances at the scribbled page over there, in his reflected hand.
 

From where I stand, them letters look pretty odd, them words scrambled—right turned left, in turned out—right there, on that patch of white, clutched by the ghost of his hand, deep in the glass. Lenny leans in, so his nose nearly touches that other nose, the one in the mirror, like he’s trying to go in, to read what’s in there. And his shadow inside, it’s trying to read, just as hard, what’s out here.
 

It’s like, a riddle, waiting to be solved.
 

His by-focals, they’ve come loose from his face and dropped off, so he searches for them here and there across the floor. No matter, he’ll find them later. Then, like, by mistake, Lenny gets too close to the mirror and—bang!—hits his forehead against it. I ain’t exactly sure how it’s happened. Anyhow, you can tell he’s growing restless, ‘cause the paper in his hand starts rustling, till the writing becomes just a blur, on both sides of the glass.
 

“There must be
some
significance to all this,” he mutters. “And it must be extracted. It must be put in words—or else, my son would open the door, and I—I would not be ready for him.”

“So?” I say. “What is it you’re afraid of?”

“Ben would come in, and there would be no one to see but an old man, an old man standing there, his mouth open as if to start singing, and just cold breath coming out.”

And with that Lenny pushes the frame of the mirror, so now it’s tilted awful sharp, and it’s like, sticking clear out of the corner, right here between me and him. He lifts a hand, like, to correct it, to straighten the thing, which is when we start hearing the knocks.
 

Them knocks, they come rapping, rapping real timid at first, there at the entrance door. Then comes a squeal, like that of a key which—having been inserted—starts turning, real slow, in the lock.

The old man turns his back to the mirror, which is still pretty crooked.
 

“My God,” he mumbles. “Not now! I am not ready for him.”

And then, then he takes a shaky step back, stumbling—

As Told by Ben

A
nd I rush to his side, hearing glass splitting from the mirror, then crunching underfoot, shards spreading across the floor and plinking as they hit the far corners and the walls. His head has sunk over his breast: at first glance, no blood. No pomade, either, which makes him look odd. His scalp is pale, nearly bald, with wisps of dull, disheveled gray hair hanging from it.
 

Then my father stirs, takes an agonized breath and staggers to his feet, trying to push himself, somehow, away from the oval frame. Perhaps because he is in shock, his knees give way under him.
 

He stumbles again, so I catch him in my arms, noting how frail the old man has grown over recent months. He even seems to have shrunk a bit. I carry him to their bed as if he were a baby, and lower him into it. Still curled in my arms, he grips the scarf around my neck with his shriveled fingers, plays with its fringes, and suddenly pulls at it with such force that for a moment I find myself choked.