“What is your favorite book?”
“I saw a puppet show of Molière’s Tartuffe that made me laugh so hard.”
“How are you so cultured?”
“I used to read books to the children when I was their governess. They could understand anything. And even if they didn’t, they would just lie quietly through the adult parts.”
“You probably ruined them for life! I don’t care what anybody says, all those strange novels about complicated problems only have the effect of making children melancholic.”
“They’re rich. They’re going to end up melancholic no matter what.”
“True, if you can afford to be melancholic, why the hell not?” Pierrot agreed. “Enjoy it. So what’s your favorite food of them all?”
“Lobster.”
“Lobster! I’ve had it with these highfalutin answers. I don’t know what type of men you were dating before me. I can’t give you those marvelous dishes.”
“I like toast and jam the most lately.”
“Me too. I love eating toast and jam in the morning. You were always so good with all the younger children at the orphanage. You would make such a wonderful mother.”
Rose blushed. Pierrot loved when her cheeks turned red like that. It always drove him wild with desire.
“We should have a baby,” he said.
“No, don’t say that. We can’t. You know that. We’re broke.”
“I will make a fortune so that you can have our baby,” Pierrot insisted.
“How will you do that?”
“I do not know. But the baby will smell like pastry sugar.”
“And it will have big, big blue eyes,” Rose added.
“And dark hair.”
“No, light hair like yours.”
“And we will read it complicated novels so that it will be confused all day long!” Pierrot exclaimed.
“And you should play it sad tunes on the piano so that it will weep for no reason at all. And we will say, ‘Baby, oh, our dear little baby, what in the world is wrong with you?’”
“And the baby will have no idea what it is crying about.”
“Let’s make it afraid of the world so that it will want more hugs from us,” Rose said, sitting up. “When it tells us that it thinks there is a monster in the closet, instead of telling it that it is a fool we will board up the closet with planks and nails.”
? ? ?
SOMETIMES WHEN PIERROT WAS NERVOUS about feeling good, to his dismay he would find himself thinking about Elo?se. He saw Elo?se anywhere out of the corner of his eye. He saw a woman in a habit step onto the trolley when he was riding back home from work. Anxiety spread through his veins like a hive that had been upset and all the hornets were buzzing out. He leaped off the back of the trolley. He dove into a roll and landed on the ground. Everyone on the trolley stuck their head out the window to look at him. The nun also looked out. It was obvious upon second glance that she was at least seventy. Sketches of all her old expressions were visible on her face like rough drafts.
He suddenly wanted to get high. When he shot up, the heroin flowed through his body, turning on light switches in every part, like someone showing a child there were no ghosts in the house. And then he thought about Rose. She would never be with him if she saw him stoned. The feeling passed.
? ? ?
AFTER THEY HAD MADE OUT that night, Pierrot told Rose about his addiction. She instinctively looked down at his arms. They were covered in scars like black smudges. She knew they were track marks.
“I’m not going to lie to you. During the years before I found you again, I was completely addicted to heroin. In part I felt that I had nobody in my life. I was a man without a family, and so I was in many ways a man without an identity. I didn’t care whether I died. The addiction gave me a purpose, even though that sounds pathetic. It is so pathetic. But I woke up in the morning knowing what I wanted. Otherwise the sense of loss I felt waking up was treacherous. Then I got it into my head that I could find you. And I wanted to be free of my addiction. I couldn’t bear for you to see me like that.”
“And I didn’t.”
“And you never will.”
? ? ?
PIERROT HAD A SUITCASE in one hand and a painting in the other. He went to stay at Rose’s apartment. When he came in, the powdery snow, like dust from a child banging two blackboard erasers together, was all around him. Rose left the room messy, like a girl who was used to having a maid. There were irises carved on the wooden back of the chair, though its cushion was totally ruined. The teacup was broken and it had been glued back together. The yellow blanket lay on the floor all jumbled up like scrambled eggs.