614
PARTISAN REVIEW
at Easter-do you know what it's like spending Christmas with myoid
mother? He has his family and I don't have shit-just two old parents."
"He would stay," said Jana. "Except that when I have a bit to drink he
starts to get on my nerves and I let him have it. And when I let him have
it he gets offended and leaves, and he doesn't come back for days-some–
times even a month. And I suffer so much."
"Then why do you throw him out, if you want him?"
"Maybe I don't want him."
"You're beginning
to
sound like a bad novel. The ideal man is a fanta–
sy, an illusion, you know," said Hilda, tapping Jana on the head with her
forefinger. "When you finally realize this, you'll be old and it'll be too late
for anything. And then you'll be sorry that you didn't love when there was
still someone
to
love."
Silence fell over the room. All the women were smoking, exhaling
clouds as if they were burning on the edge of passion, and I realized that I
had fallen in among the martyrs of love-among women who were con–
stantly seeking and yet couldn't find, and it was getting late, and maybe they
would never find what they sought. Perhaps one of them would have a
child so that she wouldn't be alone, all the while loving someone who
would never be with her. That's the way the world works: we love the one
who pulls away from us, as if the most distant star were the most beauti–
ful. Maybe only that which we cannot have remains beautiful, and we die
with the image of the unattainable before our eyes.
Jana watched me attentively. She gazed at me for a long time, looking
me over, and [ felt a strange trembling in my chest. It seemed she was
attaching herself to me and sucking something mysterious out of me,
something that I was now sweating like an oak sweats its sap.
"Is your dress real cotton?" she asked.
I assured her that it was. She fell silent again and the trembling
returned, and then she freed me from her gaze, narrowed her dark eyes into
sli ts and said:
"I won't tell your fortune."
I jumped, because I knew that she had just read some kind of message
in me, and that she knew something [ didn't know, and didn't want to tell
me. This is how [ protect myself from impending doom: I chase off the
dark message, but it constantly implores me to recognize it, because its
seeds have already been sown and therefore the consequences are
inevitable. The message goes on asking for trouble until it gets it. Some
people are happy in their misery but [ am not one of them: that's why I
was afraid.
"Why not?" I asked, and she didn't answer. I was asking for trouble,
coming here when I was unhappy. Perhaps I should just sit home in the
