As Parkhurst had been talking, a fragment of memory had come back to me from my student days, one which for a moment made me feel very tranquil, so much so that for a while I hardly cared what Parkhurst was saying. I was recalling a fine morning not unlike the present one, when I had also been relaxing in a couch beside a sunny window. I was in my little room in the old farmhouse I was sharing with four other students. On my lap was the score of some concerto I had been studying in a lackadaisical way for the previous hour, which I had been considerering abandoning for one of the nineteenth-century novels piled on the wooden floor near my feet. The window was open allowing a breeze to drift through, and from outside came the voices of several students sitting in the uncut grass arguing about philosophy or poetry or some such thing. My small room had had little else in it apart from that couch - just a mattress on the floor and, in the corner, a small desk and upright chair - but I had been very fond of it. Often the floor had become entirely covered with the books and magazines I browsed through on those long afternoons, and I had got into the habit of leaving my door ajar so that whoever happened to be passing could just wander in for a talk. I closed my eyes and for a moment was seized by a powerful longing to be back in that little farmhouse again surrounded by open fields and companions lazing in the tall grass, and it was some time before what Parkhurst was actually saying began to sink in. Only then did it occur to me that it was some of these same people, whose faces had now merged with one another in the memory, whom I had once languidly welcomed when they had peered around my door, and with whom I had spent a casual hour or two discussing some novelist or Spanish guitarist, it was some of these very people Parkhurst was now speaking of. But even then, such was the almost sensuous pleasure I was experiencing as I reclined in Miss Collins's wicker couch in the sun-filled bay that I still felt no more than a vague and distant discomfort concerning Parkhurst's words.
He went on talking and I had long since ceased to attend to him when I was startled by the sound of someone tapping the window pane behind me. Parkhurst seemed not to want to hear this and continued talking, and I too tried to ignore the noise as one might an alarm clock when disturbed in luxurious sleep. But the tapping persisted and Parkhurst finally broke off, saying: 'Oh goodness, it's that Brodsky fellow.'
Opening my eyes, I looked over my shoulder. Indeed Brodsky was peering in intently. The brightness outside, or perhaps something about his own vision, appeared to be giving him difficulty seeing in. His face was pressed against the glass and he was shading his eyes with both hands, but he seemed still not to see us and it occurred to me he was tapping the glass believing Miss Collins herself to be here in the room.
Eventually Parkhurst got to his feet, saying: 'I suppose I'd better see what he wants.'
22
I could hear Parkhurst opening the door and then voices arguing out in the hallway. Eventually Parkhurst came back into the room, rolled his eyes at me and gave a sigh.
Brodsky came in behind him. He looked taller than when I had last seen him across a crowded room, and I again noticed the odd way he held himself - at a slightly tilted angle as though about to topple over - but saw too that he was completely sober. He had on a scarlet bow tie and a rather dandy-ish black suit which looked brand-new. The collars of his white shirt were pointing outwards - whether by design or through excessive starching, I could not tell. He was holding a bouquet of flowers and his eyes were weary and sad. Brodsky paused at the threshold and peered tentatively around the door frame, perhaps expecting to discover Miss Collins in the room.
'She's busy, I told you,' Parkhurst said. 'Look, I happen to be a confidant of Miss Collins and I can say with certainty she will not wish to see you.' Parkhurst glanced at me, expecting me to confirm this, but I had decided not to get involved and simply gave Brodsky a weak smile. Only then did Brodsky recognise me.
'Mr Ryder,' he said, and bowed his head gravely. Then he turned again to Parkhurst. 'If she's in there, please, go and get her.' He indicated his bouquet as though it would in itself explain why his seeing her was so imperative. 'Please.'
'I told you, I can't help you. She won't see you. Besides, she's talking to some people.'
'Okay,' Brodsky murmured. 'Okay. You won't help me. Okay.'
With that he began to move towards the inner door through which Miss Collins had earlier disappeared. Parkhurst quickly blocked his route and for a moment Brodsky's tall gangly frame and Parkhurst's small stocky one came into conflict. Parkhurst's method of halting Brodsky consisted simply of pushing at the latter's chest with both hands. Brodsky, meanwhile, had placed a hand on Parkhurst's shoulder and was gazing over it towards the inner door, as though he were in a crowd and was politely peering over the person in front of him. All the while he continued to make a steady shuffling motion with his feet, intermittently mumbling the word 'please'.
'All right!' Parkhurst eventually shouted. 'All right, I'll go and talk to her. I know what she'll say, but all right, all right!' They separated. Then Parkhurst said, raising his finger: 'But you wait here! You make jolly sure you wait here!' Giving Brodsky a final glare, Parkhurst turned and went through the door, closing it firmly behind him.
At first Brodsky stood staring at the door and I thought he was about to follow Parkhurst. But in the end he turned around and sat down.
For some time Brodsky appeared to be rehearsing something in his head, his lips mouthing the odd word, and it did not feel appropriate to say anything to him. From time to time he would scrutinise the bouquet as though everything depended on it and the slightest blemish would be a major setback. Then, after we had been sitting without speaking for some time, he finally looked towards me and said:
'Mr Ryder. I'm very pleased to make your acquaintance at last.'
'How do you do, Mr Brodsky,' I said. 'I hope you're well.'
'Oh…' He waved his hand in a vague gesture. 'I can't say I feel well. I have, you see, a pain.'
'Oh? A pain?' Then, when he said nothing, I asked: 'You mean an emotional pain?'
'No, no. It's a wound. I got it many years ago and it's always given me trouble. Bad pain. Perhaps that's why I drank so much. If I drink, I don't feel it.'
I waited for him to say more, but he became silent. After a moment I said:
'You're referring to a wound of the heart, Mr Brodsky?' 'Heart? My heart's not so bad. No, no, it's to do with…' Suddenly he laughed loudly. 'I see, Mr Ryder. You think I am being poetic. No, no, I meant simply, I had a wound. I was injured, very badly, many years ago. In Russia. The doctors weren't so good, they did a bad job. And the pain's been bad. It's never healed properly. I've had it for so long now, it still hurts me.' 'I'm sorry to hear that. It must be a great nuisance.'
'Nuisance?' He thought about this then laughed again. 'You could say that, Mr Ryder, my friend. A nuisance. It's been a hell of a nuisance to me.' He suddenly seemed to remember he was holding his flowers. He sniffed them and breathed in deeply. 'But let's not talk of this. You asked how I felt and I told you, but I didn't mean to talk about it. I try to be brave about the wound. For years I never mentioned it, but now I'm old and I don't drink, it's got very painful. It hasn't really healed at all.'
'Surely there's something you can do about it. Have you seen a doctor? Perhaps a specialist of some sort?'
Brodsky looked at his flowers again and smiled. 'I want to make love to her again,' he said almost to himself. 'Before this wound gets worse. I want to make love to her again.'
There was an odd silence. Then I said:
'If your wound is so old, Mr Brodsky, I wouldn't have thought it's likely to get worse.'
'These old wounds.' He gave a shrug. "They stay the same for years. You think you've got the measure of it. Then you get old and they start to grow again. But it's not so bad just now. Perhaps I can still make love. I'm old now, but sometimes…' He leaned forward confidentially. 'I tried it. You know, on my own. I can still do it. I can forget the pain. When I was drunk, my prick, you know, it was nothing, nothing. I never thought about it. Just for the toilet. That was all. But now I can do it, even with all the pain. I tried it, the night before last. I can't necessarily, you know, not all the way, not everything. My prick's so old and for so many years it was just, well, it was just the toilet. Ah.' He leaned back in his chair and gazed past my shoulder into the sunshine. A wistful look had come into his eyes. 'I so want to make love to her again. But we wouldn't live here. Not in this place. I've always hated this place. I used to come by here, yes, I admit it, I used to walk by here late at night when no one could see me. She never knew, but I often used to come and stand out there, looking at the building. I used to hate this street, this apartment. We wouldn't live here. You know, this is the first time, the first time I've come inside this terrible place. Why did she choose a place like this? It's not what she likes. We'll live outside the city. If she doesn't want to come back to the farmhouse, that's okay. We'll find something else, another cottage maybe. Something surrounded by grass and trees where our animal can enjoy itself. Our animal, it won't like it here.' He looked around carefully at the walls and ceilings, perhaps for a moment re-considering the merits of the apartment. Then he concluded: 'No, how can our animal enjoy it here? We'll live somewhere, grass, trees, fields. You know, in a year's time, six months, if the pain gets too much, my prick can't do it, we can't make love any more, I don't care. As long as I can make love to her just once more. No, once wouldn't be enough, we'll have to get back, you know, like we used to be. Six times, that's it, six times and we'll have remembered everything, that's all I want. After that, all right, all right. If someone, a doctor, God, if he said you can make love to her just six more times, then that's it, you'll be too old, your wound will hurt too much, after that it's the finish, it's just the toilet, I won't care. I'll say, all right, fine by me. As long as I can take her in my arms again, six times is enough, so we're like we used to be, back where we were, then I don't care, I don't care after that. We'll have our animal anyway. We won't need to make love. That's for young lovers who don't know each other enough, who've never hated each other and loved each other again. You know, I can do it still. I tried it, on my own, the night before last. Not all the way, but I could make it stiff.'
He paused and nodded to me with a serious expression.
'Really,' I said smiling. "That's marvellous.'
Brodsky leaned back in his chair and gazed out of the window again. Then he said: 'It was different, not like when you're young. When you're young you think of whores, you know, whores doing filthy things, stuff like that. I don't care about any of that now, there's only one thing left I want my prick to do, I want to make love to her again in the old way, just where we left off, that's all. Then if it wants to rest, that's okay, I don't ask any more. But I want to do it again, six times, that's enough, the way we used to do it. When we were young, we weren't great lovers. We didn't do it everywhere like young people maybe do now, I don't know. But we had, well, a good understanding. Yes, at times, it's true, when I was young I got tired of it, the same way every time. But she was like that, she was… she didn't want to do it any other way, I used to get angry with her, and she didn't know why. But now I want to repeat that old routine, step by step, exactly as we used to do it. The night before last, when I was, you know, when I was trying, I thought about whores, imaginary ones, fantastic ones doing fantastic things, and nothing, nothing, nothing. And then I thought, well, that's reasonable. My old prick, there's only one last mission, why taunt it with all these whores, what's that got to do with my old prick now? There's only one last mission, I should think about that. So I did. I lay there in the dark, remembering, remembering, remembering. I could remember how we used to do it, step by step. And that's how we're going to do it again. Of course our bodies are old now, but I've thought it through. We'll do it just the way we did. And she'll remember, she'll not have forgotten, step by step by step. Once we're in the darkness, under the sheet, we were never so bold, you see, it was her, she was modest, she wanted it that way. I minded it then, I always wanted to say to her: "Why can't you be like a whore? Display yourself in the light?" But now I don't mind, I want to do it just the way we used to, pretend we're going to sleep, keep quiet, ten minutes, fifteen minutes. Then I'll say something suddenly, something bold and dirty in the dark. "I want them to see you naked," I'll say. "Drunken sailors in a bar. A seaport tavern, drunken filthy men, I want them to see you naked on the floor." Yes, Mr Ryder, I used to say such things, suddenly, after we'd been lying there pretending to go to sleep, yes, suddenly break the silence, that's important, suddenly. Of course, she was young then, she was beautiful, now it sounds strange, an old woman naked on the floor of a tavern, but I'll say it anyway because that's how we used to get it started. She'll say nothing and so I'll say more. "I want them all to stare at you. On all fours, on the floor." But can you imagine it? A frail old woman doing that? What would our drunken sailors say now? But then maybe they've grown old with us, our sailors in the seaport tavern, maybe in their mind's eye she'll be just as she was then and they wouldn't care. "Yes, they'll be staring at you! All of them!" And I'll touch her, just the side of her hip, I remember that, she liked me to touch her sides, I'll touch her just as I used to, then I'll get close to her and whisper: "I'll make you work in a brothel. Night after night." Can you imagine it? But I'll say it, because that's how it was. And I'll throw off the bedclothes and bend over her, I'll part her thighs, maybe they'll click, the joint between the thigh and the hip, it might make a little snapping noise, someone said she'd hurt her hip, maybe she can't part her thighs widely now. Well, we'll do it the best we can because that's what came next. Then I'll bend down to kiss her pussycat, I won't expect it to smell the way it did then, no, I've thought it through, it might smell bad, like stale fish, her whole body will smell bad maybe, I've thought hard about it. And me, my body, look at me now, it's not so good either. My skin, I have these scales, they keep flaking off, I don't know what it is. When it started, last year, it was just the scalp. When I combed my hair, these huge flakes, like fish scales, you could see through them, they came off. It was just the scalp, but now it's all over, my elbows, then my knees, now my chest. They smell like fish too, these flakes. Well, they'll keep falling, I won't be able to stop that, she'll have to put up with it, so I won't complain about her pussycat smelling the way it does, or the way her thighs won't part properly without clicking, I won't get angry, you won't see me trying to force them apart like something broken, no, no. We'll do it exactly like we used to. And my old prick, maybe only half stiff, when the time comes she'll reach down and she'll whisper: "Yes, I'll let them! I'll let the sailors all see me! I'll tease them till they can bear it no more!" Can you imagine it? The way she is now? But we won't care. And anyway, like I said, maybe the sailors will have aged with us. She'll reach down for it, my old prick, back then it would have been very hard, nothing in the world would have made it slack except for… well, but now maybe it'll be only half stiff, that was the best I could get it the other night, who knows, maybe it will be all the way, and we'll try and put it in, but she might be like a shell, but we'll try. And at just the right moment, we'll remember when, even if nothing's happening down there, we'll know how to finish the steps, because by then we'll have remembered so well, there'll be nothing to stop us, even if there's nothing happening down there, even if all we're doing is holding ourselves against each other, it won't matter, we'll still say it at just the right time. "They'll take you! They'll take you, you've teased them too long!" And she'll say: "Yes, they'll have me, all the sailors, they'll have me!" and even if nothing's happening down there, we can still hold each other, we'll hold each other and say it like we used to, it won't matter. Maybe the pain will be too much for my old prick, you know, because of my wound, but it won't matter, she'll remember how we did it. All these years, but she'll remember, every step. Mr Ryder, you don't have a wound?'