“Max, what time is it? Your watch, where’s your watch?”
“I bought a Swiss one that has a little movie theater, I press one button and get my horoscope, press another one and get my bank balance and the day I’m going to be betrayed, neat, hanh? What a watch! The trips, Bunny! The red button is for a five hour dose, the blue one gives you a day-long trip with transfers included, I get off the train and onto another one. And the black button, eeeh, what a button. What fear! The crazy woman in white comes with a black armband, she comes in mourning, the old bag.”
“Who did you sell it to, answer me, Max!”
“To my grandpa.”
I pound his chest but he bites my neck. Not my neck! I try to say but I’m laughing so much I can’t talk all I can do is clap my hand over his mouth, and then he bites my hand. My hand is OK, but you can’t bite my neck because the scaly one will see it right away what’s that mark? He asks about everything, wants to know everything while he keeps eating the crust of the bread, sickening peeled that way. “I’ll have dinner at Nona’s house and then we can go out to Zuza’s afterward.” As if I would get really excited about the idea. Taking his fiancée to a joint like that. Why didn’t he invite me to have dinner at Nona’s house, why? Bastard. Always flaunting his family in my face.
“I don’t have any family,” I said. “They all died in an airplane crash. An international flight. They were coming back from Scotland where they had gone to spend Christmas with my uncles.” Ah, your uncles live in Scotland? They used to. They all died when one night that lake monster rose up and swallowed my uncles and cousins and their house and all. A Scottish monster, Lorena knows its name, she knows all about these monsters. Rotten chic, to be swallowed by a monster in a Scottish lake. “There was no one left no one, no one, no one,” I repeat and drink out of the glass Max hands me. I drink it all down. To the bitter end, wasn’t that a movie? Where did I run across that title?
“I want to buy an island, Bunny. You know it isn’t hard to buy an island? There’s gobs of islands around.”
And he has enough family to fill up a ship. The hell with them. The hell with them because the corset is melting there was a bitch of a corset closing off my lungs. Now I can breathe, live. Shit it’s good to live. Who said that. I’m beautiful brilliant I’m going to be on ten magazine covers. Super-important magazines. Success. Leave the lousy others behind howling with envy. Miss nha-nha is right one needs to breathe deeply all the time and then you feel fine. He could have invited me the bastard. That Nona with her little leather house slippers. All the grandchildren dying to show off how rich they are and her. She could have invited me. Aren’t I his fiancée? It doesn’t matter next year stop. It’s close.
“Dragon-fly wings in green sauce, hanh? Fabulous that restaurant. Lightning-bug sauce blinking off and on, flick, flick! Hanh?”
I turn into a Roman matron. Respect I want respect. That’s what Mother Alix doesn’t understand. A saint. I’ll do everything you say my saint. A sainted grandmother. Lots of milk very good lots of milk and that medicine and I beat my breast never again, never again! We’ll see about it tomorrow. If you love me.
“The saints are transparent just like water. There used to be lots of tubes of water, all different colors. At that chemical lab where I worked. I used to clean and the little old Jew who liked me would come up and give me an apron to put on and let me play with the tubes. He would explain to me about the colors blue red green. The water would change colors. The smell. I still remember the smell but this was a smell I liked because it had nothing to do with people. The little glass tubes changing color just like us. Look, love, I drink them and I turn into a rainbow, blue, yellow, ay! Don’t touch me or I’ll spill. I used to know a song, how did it go?”
“She taught me to dance. Madame Lamas. Mama wanted us to learn to dance because of this or because of that, Madame Lamas, that’s it, my little sister and I learned everything. Fun, hanh? All day long there were little parties, a crowd of little girls and parties. We used to dance like crazy, Madame Lamas taught me, La Madame Lamas. Good manners, oh, what a nice boy, you should have seen it.”
“I love you, love.” I can howl with pleasure but no. Never mind.
“I saw in a crystal window … upon a proud pedestal … how does that go? I have a passion for that song, I get hysterical, here, come on, sing, in a crystal window, a charming doll …”
She doesn’t understand because she is a saint. In reality I grow clean here with him. Cleansed from all those things, cleansed. Don’t you see how happy I am? Not even when I had analysis with that Turkish guy, what was his name? It doesn’t matter. I lied about everything. Good for me. Good night and we’ll tell the truth. We don’t at all. Dirty stories about rotten teeth I don’t want I don’t want.
“You’re handsome, love. The handsomest man I ever saw.”
“I am beautiful,” he said hanging onto the bureau. He hesitated: “That music, do you hear? An angel playing. I can’t listen to it because I start to cry like a fool, my eyes are already watering…”
“You’re just like Michelangelo’s David.”
“Where did you see Michelangelo’s David, where?” he asked, laughing. He grabbed the bottle from the floor. “Where, where?”
“My friend, you dummy. Loreninha has a huge poster of him. She’s been all over Europe, you’re not the only one, see? Dummy. She’s very rich. You used to be. You’re not any more, but never mind. It doesn’t matter. I think it was Milan. Her brother, the diplomat. I think it was there.”
He swirled the glass of whiskey with ice. He took a large gulp and dried his sparse beard with his hand.
“We’re going to travel, hanh? Oh, Bunny, we’re going to get all kinds of money, okay? Mama used to love to travel, so many ships. Even in hotels we used to read those books, you know the ones with maps? Hanh? Lots of maps. My little sister was there in that school so we used to travel all the time, the visiting bit.” He sat down on the bed and smiled. “I used to collect postcards.”
“Lorena collects bells. Ding-a-ling-a-ling. Little bells.”
“But my wee-wee is bigger than his.”
“Than whose? Bigger than whose wee-wee?”
“David’s isn’t that the statue you were? Hanh?”
Next year my love. You were rich, you’ve seen everything. And me. That’s just the thing. Shit, I’ll become a virgin. I’ll marry the scaly one, open my registration and do my course. Brilliant. At vacation time I’ll travel to buy things, he said once he adores traveling. Ah what a coincidence so do I. The operation is easy Lorena will lend it to me. She’s generous Lena. So. She always gets me out of the tight spots. And if I am. It would be an absolute disaster eeeh I said the word Lena says if you say things backwards it’s good luck. Wait calm down. There’s the r. Then the e. What’s the next letter? The next one. Oh never mind that, enough. I am not pregnant. What I am is sober scratch scratch. My head rotten sober.
“I drink and nothing happens. Nothing. That music is crummy.”
He stretched his hand toward the pile of records which leaned dangerously sideways, some of them sliding gently to the floor.
“A string quartet. True angels, hanh? You want this one, Bunny? I’m going to put it on, fabulous, A
