JOHNSHEA
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she just paying him off for his time? Bitter, but surprised by his
reaction, he shook his head. "No thanks, Marie, really. It's not
necessary. "
''Are you sure? They make an incredible carrot cake . ..."
"No. Don't feel you have to do anything like this."
She looked at him closely, her smile slowly fading . For a few
seconds they said nothing. Then she slapped her thighs lightly and
got up. "Well, let me know if you change your mind. You know the
number."
Was there an archness to her tone, he thought, silent as he
followed her to the door. He told himself he was not going to beg for
dinner with her. He had better things to do: yes, that was the cliche,
wasn't it?
"Damn it all," he said when he was alone again, "the hell with
the whole damn thing. I sat there and I said I loved her. I gave her
some buffoon's words.
Ti voglio bene. Ti amo.
What the hell does it
mean? What do the insincere bleatings of an Italian playboy have to
do with me?"
That night, sleep seemed never to come. An hour after turning
the light off, he still lay and waited . Nothing. The radio, when he
finally decided to try it, was little more than a minor distraction; or
perhaps it was not enough of a distraction. His thoughts gradually
turned from her face and the quiet way she sat while he read, to the
letters themselves . Was it only his increasing lack of sympathy that
caused him to detect a lack of conviction in them? The last one had
seemed to incriminate itself and cast suspicion on certain parts of the
earlier ones . Weeks had gone by; had the out-of-work architect lost
some of his feeling for her?
If
so , why continue to write? Or was it all
wishful thinking? He knew now that he hated the idea of expressing
another man's love, of speaking for another. But it was not a simple
matter of stopping: there was something compelling him to con–
tinue, to speak in the guise of another what he might not have been
able to say otherwise . The truth left him almost dizzy on the bed, in
the darkness; now it was out in the open. But she obviously loved the
letter writer, not the translator. How could he continue in effect to
champion a rival's cause? Perhaps she would not see him at all unless
he participated in the whole awkward, complicated game . Perhaps
the only way to see her, to remain on these rather problematic but
intimate terms, was to serve as the intermediary . The situation
seemed hopeless either way. As it was, however, he at least could
express his feelings with impunity, as it were, from an inexhaustible
