FIRE SALE
99
I could dredge up to glorify my anger, that was all the style I could
manage.
- Why should I believe that you wrote these? I don't know
your name and they haven't any jackets with your picture. From their
dirty edges I'd say that you carry these books everywhere.
I thought of shoving my passport at her but that would have
been like poking in the dust under the bed. The books were tradi–
tionally
slim
and she had no trouble tearing off the covers and peeling
a few pages from the broken spines. I thought of beating her but
I did not like the picture of a nude man beating a well-dressed
woman, and also for a flash I thought I'd seized the cheap solution
to her sexuality, that she'd enjoy being beaten, but even if it were
true, it was only self-control at the moment.
- Can I use your brush? Of course, you aren't talking.
She brushed her hair briskly without once consulting the mirror,
and with some diffidence she went into my trousers and extracted
her car keys.
- Goodbye, aren't you going to say goodbye? But you must.
We haven't hurt each other. I don't like leaving rooms without being
told goodbye. No?
Bathed in hatred I listened to her go down the stairs. My small
victory in silence was the prize I took to sleep, she always made you
think of prizes, that's what she did to the greedy. It was an un–
comfortable hatred she left me with, not outgoing enough to dissipate
itself, not inward enough for a poem. Sleep came quickly like a
dunce's award for effort; after five minutes it was interrupted by
an incessant horn sounding below my window. She's forgotten her
gloves. She wants to apologize. She wants to start over. She's in
trouble on the street, the Algerians. I banged my forehead getting
out of bed and I cursed my whole predicament. I pushed open the
stiff
windows. There was a very pretty girl at the wheel of a small
French car waving goodbye to me, smiling perfectly, a pure saluta–
tion that referred to nothing, and there was nothing for me to do
but wave back at her, then she rolled up the glass and drove away
quickly, leaving me once again with that big grin of election which
she
had loved first.
Hydra, Greece. 1964
