398
PARTISAN REVIEW
wasn't it? So exposed to the neighbors? "Yes but you wanted this house."
"No you were the one who wanted this house." "Not
this
house - but this
was the most feasible." Though sometimes one would observe that the
Riegels' house had flaws: so much glass and it's drafty in the winter, so many
queer elevated decks and flights of stairs, wall-less rooms, sparsely furnished
rooms like designers' showcases and the cool chaste neutral colors that Ceci
evidently favored - "It's beautiful yes but a bit sterile."
In
bed exhausted they would drift to sleep separately wandering the
corridors ofan unknown building opening one door after another in dread and
fascination. Charlotte who should not have had more than two or three
glasses of wine - but it was an anniversary of the Riegels': they'd uncorked
bottles of champagne - slept fitfully, waking often dry-mouthed and fright–
ened not knowing where she was. A flood of hypnagogic images raced in her
brain, the faces of strangers never before glimpsed by her thrummed be–
neath her eyelids.
In
that state of consciousness that is neither sleep nor
waking Charlotte had the volition to will, ah how passionately, how despair–
ingly, that Paul Riegel would comfort her: slip his arm around her shoulders,
nudge his jaw against her cheek, whisper in her ear as he'd done once or
twice that evening in play but now in seriousness. Beside her someone
stirred and groaned in his sleep and kicked at the covers.
Paul Riegel entranced listeners with lurid tales of starving Cambodian
refugees, starving Ethiopian children, starving Mexican beggars. His eyes
shone with angry tears one moment and with mischief the next for he could
not resist mocking his own sobriety. The laughter he aroused at such times
had an air ofbaffiement, shock.
Ceci came to him to slip an arm through his as if to comfort or to quiet
and there were times when quite perceptibly Paul shook off her arm, stepped
away, stared down at her with a look as ifhe'd never seen the woman be–
fore.
When the Carsons did not see or hear from the Riegels for several
days their loneliness was almost palpable: a thickness in the chest, a density
of being, to which either might allude knowing the other would immediately
understand.
If
the Riege1s were actually away that made the separation
oddly more bearable than if they were in fact here in their house amid the
trees but not seeing the Carsons that weekend or mysteriously incommuni–
cado with their telephone answering tape switched on. When Charlotte called,
got the tape, heard the familiar static-y overture then Paul Riegel's cool al–
most hostile voice that did not identify itself but merely stated
no one
is
here
right now, should you like to leave a message please wait for the sound of the
bleep,
she felt a loss too profound to
be
named and often hung up in silence.
For it had happened as the Carsons feared - the Riegels were domi-
