she was curled up on his Tobia Scarpa sofa, her face softly illuminated by a Marc Lepage inflatable lamp. He saw at once her weariness had vanished with sleep; she was serene. But with a shock he saw something he had not noticed before: a fist-sized bruise on the bicep of her left arm: purple and angry.
She took the drink from his hand. Her fingers were cool, bloodless as plastic.
“I like your apartment,” she said.
Under the terms of the separation agreement, Gilda Blank had taken most of the antiques, the overstuffed furniture, the velvet drapes, the shag rugs. Daniel was happy to see it all go. The apartment had come to stiffle him. He felt muffled by all that carved wood and heavy cloth: soft things that burdened, then swaddled him.
He had redecorated the almost empty apartment in severe modern, most of the things from Knoll. There was chrome and glass, black leather and plastic, stainless steel and white enamel. The apartment was now open, airy, almost spidery in its delicacy. He kept furniture to a minimum, leaving the good proportions of the living room to make their own statement. The mirrored wall was cluttered wit, but otherwise the room was clean, precise, and exalting as a museum gallery.
“A room like this proves you don’t require roofs,” she told him. “You have destroyed the past by ignoring it. Most people have a need for history, to live in a setting that constantly reminds of past generations. They take comfort and meaning from feeling themselves part of the flow, what was, is, will be. I think that is a weak, shameful emotion. It takes strength to break free, forget the past and deny the future. That’s what this room does. Here you can exist by yourself in yourself, with no crutches. The room is without sentiment. Are you without sentiment?”
“Oh,” he said, “I don’t think so. Without emotion perhaps. Is your apartment in modern? As austere as this?”
“It is not an apartment. It’s a townhouse. It belongs to my parents.”
“Ah. They are still living then?”
“Yes,” she said. “They are still living.”
“I understand you live with your brother.”
“His name is Anthony. Tony. He’s twenty years younger than I. Mother had him late in life. It was an embarrassment to her. She and my father prefer him to live with me.”
“And where do they live?”
“Oh, here and there,” she said vaguely. “There is one thing I don’t like about this room.”
“What is that?”
She pointed to a black cast iron candelabrum with twelve contorted arms. Fitted to each was a white taper.
“I don’t like unburned candles,” she said tonelessly. “They seem to me as dishonest as plastic flowers and wallpaper printed to look like brick.”
“Easily remedied,” he said, rose and slowly lighted the candles.
“Yes,” she said. “That’s better.”
“Are you ready for another drink?”
“Bring the vodka and a bucket of ice out here. Then you won’t have to run back and forth.”
“Yes,” he said, “I will.”
When he returned, she had snuffed three of the tapers. She added ice and vodka to her glass.
“We’ll snuff them at intervals. So they will be in various lengths. I’m glad you have the dripless kind. I like candles, but I don’t like leavings of dead wax.”
“Memories of past pleasures?”
“Something like that. But also too reminiscent of bad Italian restaurants with candles in empty Chianti bottles and too much powdered garlic in the sauce. I hate fakery. Rhinestones and padded brassieres.”
“My wife-” he started. “My ex-wife-” he amended, “wore a padded bra. The strange thing was that she didn’t need it. She was very well endowed. Is.”
“Tell me about her.”
“Gilda? A very pleasant woman. We’re both from Indiana. We met at the University. A blind date. I was a year ahead of her. We went together occasionally. Nothing serious. I came to New York. Then she came here, a year later, and we started seeing each other again. Serious, this time.”
“What was she like? Physically, I mean.”
“A large woman, with a tendency to put on weight. She loved rich food. Her mother is enormous. Gilda is blonde. What you’d call a ‘handsome woman.’ A good athlete. Swimming, tennis, golf, skiing-all that. Very active in charities, social organizations. Took lessons in bridge. Chinese cooking, and music appreciation. Things like that.”
“No children?”
“No.”
“How long were you married?”
“Ahh…He stared at her. “My God, I can’t remember. Of course. Seven years. Almost eight. Yes, that’s right. Almost eight years.”
“You didn’t want children?”
“I didn’t-no.”
“She?”
“Yes.”
“Is that why you divorced?”
“Oh no. No, that had nothing to do with it. We divorced because-well, why did we divorce? Incompatibility, I guess. We just grew apart. She went her way and I went mine.”
“What was her way?”
“You’re very personal.”
“Yes. You can always refuse to answer.”
“Well, Gilda is a very healthy, well-adjusted, out-going woman. She likes people, likes children, parties, picnics, the theatre, church. Whenever we went to the theatre or a movie where the audience was asked to sing along with the entertainer or music, she would sing along. That’s the kind of woman she was.”
“A sing-alonger with a padded brassiere.”
“And plastic flowers,” he added. “Well, not plastic. But she did buy a dozen roses made of silk. I couldn’t convince her they were wrong.”
He rose to blow out another three candles. He came back to sit in his Eames chair. Suddenly she came over to sit on the hassock in front of him. She put a light hand on his knee. “What happened?” she whispered.
“You guessed?” he said, not surprised. “A strange story. I don’t understand it myself.”
“Have you told the Mortons?”
“My God, no. I’ve told no one.”
“But you want to tell me.”
“Yes I want to tell you. And I want you to explain it to me. Well, Gilda is a normal, healthy woman who enjoys sex. I do too. Our sex was very good. It really was. At the start anyway. But you know, you get older and it doesn’t seem so important. To her, anyway. But I don’t mean to put her down. She was good and enthusiastic in bed. Perhaps unimaginative. Sometimes she’d laugh at me. But a normal, healthy woman.”
“You keep saying healthy, healthy, healthy.”
“Well, she was. Is. A big, healthy woman. Big legs. Big breasts. A glow to her skin. Rubens would have loved her. Well…about three years ago we took a summer place for the season on Barnegat Bay. You know where that is?”
“No.”
“The Jersey shore. South of Bay Head. It was beautiful. Fine beach, white sand, not too crowded. One afternoon we had some neighbors over for a cook-out. We all had a lot to drink. It was fun. We were all in bathing suits, and we’d drink, get a little buzz on, and then go into the ocean to swim and sober up, and then eat and drink some more. It was a wonderful afternoon. Eventually everyone went home. Gilda and I were alone. Maybe a little drunk, hot from the sun and food and laughing. We went back into our cottage and decided to have sex. So we took off our bathing suits. But we kept our sunglasses on.”
“Oh.”
