PHILIP ROTH
159
in her vile sweep. But surely you have to abandon it somewhere. I
should compose a letter. And then send it. "Dear Madam: Enclosed
please find one woman's head. Saw it the other day while out for a
walk and immediately thought of you . The skin is very smooth, no
blemishes , and the skull still pretty hard for something you just
stumble upon in the gutter. Still good for a little bashing. The teeth
are the finest quality, mined in South Africa, and can be worn strung
from a tongue around the neck. Put in the attic or down the cellar,
who knows when you might have the desperate need of one to take to
bed with you one night, and your dealer when you call will be com–
pletely sold out." Went to dinner with my mother the other night .
She dwarfs everything. When I came home I thought I'd been poi–
soned .
It
was the nightmare of the season. Wiped out for a week.
No , my mother was never much help .
These days the unbearable uncertainty is so magnified. The hole
it's left. But there were some nice advantages too. I walk in there. He
is a stranger to me . I'm in my racoon coat and bandanna and not
even lipstick . I don't even have to wear it . We are completely strange
to one another and we have no common link. I won't show my fear.
Give him the gamin face, the face swallowed up by the bones and the
eyes , but serene. Much more mature than he might have guessed.
He's autonomous and so am
I.
And in the middle is the riddle. It's
still not decided what procedure is required . What will we call it and
how long will it last? Like a black girl and a white boy dating each
other, talking about everything else . What it really comes to is that
there are advantages and there are disadvantages always, but I think
then that the advantages are , in the main, largely, greater. This
could make my winter, I think. He spoke about his feelings and he
spoke of great writers and he quoted awfully good things, and the
mood was uplifting and intimate. I was glad I was there to hear it.
He kind of outlines concepts and lets them go. Very exciting. And I
was willing, no matter how long it would take or how arduous the
job. I wasn't putting him on the spot, but if he was willing, and he
felt even half as much as I did that it was a grand idea, I would,
without asking anything of him, go no further with anything else, I
would concentrate on this, I would ask everyone else to stop. I liked
him so and he said my remarks were courageous - courageous! -
which pleased me but I didn't understand it. He said I had "a strange
integrity ." He said he wasn't accustomed to speeches like that from
women looking like me, which I also liked a lot, I must say . He defi-
