night. I say, well no, I don’t think, maybe sometime next week
we could meet, in a restaurant because I know how busy he is.
The whisper deepens, chills. No that really wouldn’t be good
because he really wants me to meet this friend of his, a woman
whom he knows I would like very very much and whom I just
absolutely must meet and the problem is that she has been in
Nicaragua with the Sandinistas for the last three months and
she is just back in New York now for a few days and she is
leaving early Monday morning and she and I have so much in
common and the women’s struggle in Nicaragua is really so interesting and so essential: he just can’t stand to think of her and me not meeting and he is really just going to be there to cook
dinner: do I like steak? and this is the only chance there is for
me to meet her and find out from someone firsthand, a woman,
you know, more about the situation of women down there. Oh,
yes, well, certainly, I say. I chastise myself for attributing seduction to him. Paranoid, paranoid, I accuse myself. I am nervous and unhappy: does he or doesn’t he: will he or won’t he: it doesn’t
matter, another woman will be there. Tonight I am safe.
*
Late fall, November already, is blustery, cold. I walk there, to
his apartment, a long walk, an hour, over urban cement,
against a strong wind. Some of the streets are entirely desolate,
deserted. A man offers me $50. I walk fast, against the wind. I
smoke cigarettes one after another. I am on edge, nervous. I
hope to tire myself out, walking miles against the cold wind.
*
133
The street is dark, deserted. The man lunges out at me and
offers me $50. Oh, shit, mister, you have $50 for me. I am put
in my place by this stranger, lunging out, I am nervous, on
edge: the wind almost knocks me down. The streets are wide.
There is no traffic. The streets are dark, deserted. The wind is
fierce. I am cold. I am sweating.
*
I find the building where the editor lives. It is on a wide, dark,
deserted street, dangerous, deserted. I knock and knock on the
heavy wooden door to the lobby. The doorman is elsewhere
and there is no other way to get in. I knock and knock, the
street is deserted except for the wind, the cold, I almost leave.
The doorman opens the door. I go up in the elevator. I am
cold. His windows will be closed, his apartment will be warm:
it is another world.
*
He is barefoot. The living room is warm. The living room is
filled from corner to corner with furniture, three sofas, the
three sides of a square, a huge wood table filling the square.
The bedroom is just a double bed, the rest of the room empty.
There is a tiny dining room with a big round table, set for
two. The kitchen is a cubicle, dingy, things hanging everywhere. It is all carpeted. The living room is claustrophobic, there is barely any room for moving, walking, pacing, the three
