I am in love with three people and married to another, Margaret thought. But what is love? How do I know I'm in love? To "know" what love, or anything else, is, first I must ask, What is knowledge? Okay: "What is knowledge?" I don't, know.
And then there are the three propositions. That is, (1) I'm in love with my dentist, (2) I want to sleep with a Belgian hi-fi manufacturer, (3) I am a lesbian. How can I be sure of their validity? Do they correspond to facts? Are they internally logical? Does certainty exist? Why can't I fall asleep? What is sleep? Does sleep exist? Not for me. I must demonstrate the validity of these three propositions. I must demonstrate the validity of sleep. I must verify the three propositions, but first the proposition of sleep. On the other hand, maybe I am asleep, and my inability to fall asleep is a dream.
This last idea relaxed her, and Margaret thought no more about it, or about anything at all, drifting peacefully into unconsciousness.
MARTIN WAS THE KIND OF MAN who floated up stairs in spite of his bulk. He was noiseless, except for the occasional rustle of his elegant clothes. He possessed a calm, radiant satisfaction, almost paternal it was so comforting. There was something effortless about him, as if he were his own daydream.
He called Margaret "a little barbarian" and had insisted on eating at a barbecue restaurant in the West Village. He was, like Edward, intoxicated with America. He slid through the squalid streets of the city, an apparition of taste and polish.
"You have so many opinion, Marguerite," he said. "Opinion on everything. You have opinion on traffic lights!"
"I don't want, to have opinion," she said. "I want to have judgment."
"Judgment of traffic lights! Yes, yes!" He laughed. "You remind of my daughter, Marguerite."
Do I, indeed? Margaret thought. It was not the first time he had brought up this daughter who was almost Margaret's age. To Margaret, he didn't seem quite old enough to have such a daughter, but if he needed a little Oedipal spark to his flirtations, by all means, let him dwell on his daughter, his Claudette.
"I am happy to have such a companion," he said, as they sat down at the pink Formica counter. "I have traveled with Claudette sometimes when she was younger, but now she is busy with her own life. Often I am so alone in a foreign city. It makes me dizzy to be so alone." He laughed again and looked embarrassed.
"It makes me dizzy, too," she said.
Oy, does it make me dizzy. She thought of Prague. And she felt his arm against hers on the counter, just as it had been touching hers on the plane. She glanced at him, but he was engrossed in the menu. She felt his arm pressed against hers, a meeting of arms, of minds, of plans and desires, and dared not move her arm away to open her menu.
As it turned out, she had no need to open her menu. Martin, a gentleman and a connoisseur of southern American cooking, ordered for her.
As she ate her pork chops all up, like a good girl, she watched Martin's every move, fascinated by the fact of her own attraction to him. Lily and Dr. Lipi receded for the moment before this large, garrulous man in his beautiful clothes. There was something smooth and rich about him, luxurious, like an expensive piece of luggage, the kind one runs one's hand over lovingly, longingly, as it sits, smooth, glistening leather, on a store shelf.
He was wearing a fine, gray cardigan sweater instead of the cashmere blazer, and a blue-and-white-striped shirt.
"You changed your shirt," she said.
He looked at her for a moment, then said, "So did you."
The Frick was almost unbearably tantalizing, tasteful but odd and idiosyncratic, a jewel of a museum, an ornament, a fantasy to try on with the tap of one's footsteps in the mansion's hallways. No children were allowed, and there were few adults that afternoon. In the hush of old wealth and art, Martin stood.
I must work this out, Margaret thought. Here is my problem. I want this man. At least I think I do. I think I want this man, therefore I want this man. Yes. That sounded right. It was a beginning anyway, a foundation from which to start.
Now, what is it I want about him? Do I want to stand beside him and look at a painting by Fragonard in which a pastel woman with smooth, rounded arms and blue bows on her tiny white shoes looks away, startled, holding her arm out toward a man, holding it out to push him away and to draw him closer as he climbs over a wall to find her, while behind them a statue of a naked mother turns from the outstretched arms of her gigantic baby, who seems to be falling to the ground as rambling roses spill over a stone wall and birch trees explode into leafy clouds in the background?
Martin put his arm around her shoulders and said, "This is really something, yes?"
"Yes," Margaret said. "It is really something." Yes, she thought. It is. And I want this, I do, I want to stand with Martin and a Fragonard. Then I want Martin to climb over a wall, too, crushing cascades of roses beneath his rubber-soled shoes as he rushes toward me—
"You have something, Marguerite, for me?" Martin said in a quiet voice.
"What?" Margaret was startled.