Blind Date (11 page)

After roll call, the boys surrounded Levanter.

“You couldn't have raped her,” said one of Levanter's bunkhouse mates. “You were sick and slept the whole afternoon. I saw you!” he exclaimed. “We all saw you in bed,” added another, and two or three nodded in agreement. “Maybe you dreamed about raping a girl,” said one boy, and others laughed. “There's not much any of us can do for Oscar now,” one of them said with a snicker.

Levanter did not know what to say. “What if you're all wrong?” he finally asked. “What if I did do it?”

“But I saw you sleeping” another boy yelled. “And I saw you going to the shower after you woke up, just before supper,” shouted another.

At the director's office, he was introduced to a young police lieutenant, who patted Levanter on the shoulder and directed him to a chair.

“There's no use, Levanter, no use at all in what you're trying to do,” he said. “When the local police summoned us last night, we already had our suspicions. Then, early this morning, faced with
the evidence, your friend Oscar admitted that he has raped many girls before, though, for some reason, he still denies that he raped this one.” He paused and looked hard at Levanter. “Could it be, Levanter, that he asked you in advance to take the blame for it?”

Levanter did not respond.

The lieutenant continued in an even voice. “What's more, we found his diary, in which he describes, in his own handwriting, dozens of his past assaults. These rapes match the police files. What more can we ask for?”

The director handed the lieutenant a sheet with Levanter's statement. The lieutenant glanced at it, then, to indicate that he refused to accept it, gently pushed it across the table to Levanter.

“Oscar might have raped other girls,” said Levanter. “But I raped the one yesterday. I can identify the girl and the exact spot where I did it.”

The lieutenant appraised him thoughtfully. “Of course you can,” he said. “Oscar might have pointed her out to you. He might even have showed you his raping grounds.”

“I can provide all the details of how I did it,” said Levanter insistently. “I can show you exactly what I did to make this girl —”

“Of course you can,” the lieutenant cut him off softly. “But you don't have to. You see—” He paused. “We know all this already. There's no doubt that the poor girl who was raped yesterday was attacked by the same man who raped a dozen others in our town. In each case he used the same tricks — grabbing the victim's hair from behind and wounding her in the same perverted way.” The lieutenant spoke in an even, controlled voice.

Levanter leaned on his hand and breathed in the girl's scent that still lingered under his nails. “But I can give you a precise recollection of what went on in the forest,” he argued. “Minute by minute. Where I stopped her, how I shoved her. What and how I touched. I can tell it all, and you can ask her to verify my account.”

The lieutenant gave him another thoughtful look. “Let's leave this girl alone, Levanter. She's suffered enough; she's still in the hospital and, as a friend of the man who raped her, you're the last person in the world she would want to hear from.” He looked at
the director. “They say she's going to need surgery, you know,” the lieutenant said quietly.

The director nodded. “I'm sure Levanter realizes that his claim, however honorable his motives, is an attempt to obstruct justice,” he said. Without allowing Levanter to say anything further, he got up. The lieutenant and Levanter followed. The director took Levanter by the arm and gently led him to the door. He embraced him at the threshold. “You're a good man, Levanter, a good YM medalist, too. But there's a limit to friendship. I'm glad you won't be seeing Oscar for a while. He's going to get at least three years for this case alone.”

The following spring, Levanter attended his school's annual citywide dance. Each time the band took a break, Levanter and his friends gathered in a knot. One time, a group of students from another high school joined them, and introductions started. When Levanter turned to one pleasant-looking girl and said his name, another girl, a tall blonde with short hair, who had been looking the other way, wheeled around, quickly, as if startled. Levanter looked at her. For a moment he had the feeling he had seen her before, but he couldn't place her.

As the others paired off to dance, the blond girl spoke to him.

“So you are George Levanter?” she said, looking at him curiously.

“Sorry to disappoint you,” Levanter joked. “Yes, I am.”

They started to walk away from the dance floor. As they moved toward the side door of the gymnasium, he could hear the tapping of her high-heeled shoes on the polished floor.

“I was told you were a friend of someone I met once,” she said.

“Someone you met once?”

“Someone I met only once,” she corrected.

“Who is it?”

They had left the gymnasium and began to walk more slowly in the corridor outside. It was empty, lit only by a few bare bulbs.

“A boy.” She said it without feeling.

“And you say he was my friend?”

“I said you were a friend of his, not the other way around.”

Levanter was confused. “What's his name?”

They reached the end of the corridor and stood next to the large window, looking out at the schoolyard. A solitary lamp lit the basketball backboard; the net swung in the breeze.

“Will you promise never to repeat what I'm about to tell you?” she asked. She turned around and leaned back against the window, facing Levanter.

“I promise,” said Levanter. He could barely see her features.

“The boy's name was Oscar. He raped me last summer,” she said flatly.

Levanter felt the blood rush to his face. In seconds he was covered with sweat. He stepped backward, uncertain of what to do or say. Now he recognized her. But the braid was gone. She was more shapely, more womanly. He wanted to see her eyes, but they were obscured in the shadows.

“The police told me Oscar had a friend named Levanter, who claimed to have done it,” she said. “I've never understood why you would claim that.”

Levanter did not say anything.

She kept on. “Of course, since several boys in the dormitory saw you asleep that afternoon, you knew all along nobody would believe you. You had nothing to lose.” She paused, offering Levanter time to speak.

He said nothing.

“Still, why would anyone want to pose as a rapist?” She tried again to make him respond.

“Would it really matter to you now whether it was Oscar or somebody else who hurt you then?” he asked.

She shrugged. “I've never doubted it was Oscar. He raped girls before, you know. No one saw his face, true, but he did the same things to them as he did to me. You were his friend, he probably told you.”

Levanter detected some anger in her voice. “Do you really want to talk about it?” he asked.

“Not about it. About him.”

“All right,” said Levanter. “I met Oscar by chance on my way to camp. Once we became friends, he told me he had raped girls before we'd met. But I never saw him doing it, and I was never sure he was telling the truth.” Levanter felt the heat emanating from her body.

“Ironically, I remember seeing you at camp, but not Oscar,” she said.

“Do you really remember seeing me?” Levanter asked. He was more at ease now.

“Yes, I saw you two or three times. The last time was at the sports shop — actually, that was the day it happened, my last day at camp.” She sounded plaintive. “You were picking up sunglasses or postcards or something. I stared at you: you looked lost.”

“And I saw you and stared at you many times,” said Levanter. “I recall everything about you. You see, I followed you every chance I got.”

“Pity you weren't following me that day. You might have prevented him from —” She stopped.

Levanter no longer felt intimidated. He moved closer to her. As he spoke, he looked out at the empty yard. “In my thoughts I called you Nameless.”

“That's kind of romantic,” she said, “but now you can call me by my real name —”

“I know your name,” Levanter interrupted her quickly. He did not want to hear her say it. “I inquired about you the first time I saw you at camp. But you'll always be Nameless to me.” He had straightened up, away from her, and stood staring at his feet.

“Why didn't you ever talk to me?” she said softly. “Other boys did.”

Levanter did not look up. “I know,” he said. “But I was too frightened. I saw you with a tall, good-looking guy, that swimming champ. You laughed at everything he said, and he looked at you as if he owned you. I was jealous. I would have given anything to be as close to you as he was.” When he raised his head, he could just make out that she was smiling.

“I remember him,” she said. “He was funny. But I only talked to him a few times.”

“I watched you every time the two camps were together,” Levanter said. “When Oscar talked about raping girls, I would imagine myself doing it to you. I know that's a terrible thought, but it's the truth.”

She listened in silence.

“You see, Nameless, I was in love with you. Maybe I still am.” He did not move. He felt his pulse beating in his temples.

She did what he could not bring himself to do. She moved close enough for their faces to touch, but Levanter was reluctant to put his hands on her. They could see each other's eyes. A cold shiver ran through him. She reached up and folded her hands behind his neck. Tentatively, he ran one hand lightly over her back, sliding it down her silk blouse, feeling the brassiere, then the panties under her tight skirt. The hand lingered there for a moment, then he brought it up to rest gently at the back of her neck.

With his other hand, he raised her chin until her eyes caught the dim light from outside. He looked at her for a long time, trying to memorize her face as he had memorized the rest of her.

Slowly, Levanter pulled back.

“Are you afraid of hurting me?” She hesitated. “Because of what he did to me?”

“I am afraid of losing you, Nameless. Of losing you again,” said Levanter.

“Don't be afraid,” she whispered. “You won't lose me unless you want to.”

He saw Nameless every day, right after school. He waited impatiently, afraid that she would not show up, until he saw her jump off the streetcar as it slowed at the corner.

They went to the public library and sat together at one of the large tables doing their homework. Each evening, as they stood across the street from her home, about to part, Levanter already began to fear, even while he was still with her, that she might not
want to see him again. Perhaps during the night, pondering the events of the day, she would come across some hidden truth about him.

Yet he made no effort to bind her to him. Under various pretexts he avoided introducing her to his parents, and postponed meeting hers. She had told him he was her first boyfriend; he argued that meeting him might make her parents unnecessarily apprehensive about their only child.

Levanter had not kissed her and avoided every opportunity to make love with her. He remained genuinely shy, fearful that he would do something that would make her leave him.

Summer came. On the first hot weekend the two of them rode their bicycles out of town. Nameless said she was tired, and they stopped at a lake in a nearby forest and lay down on the still, grassy shore.

“It's so peaceful here,” she said once she had caught her breath. “So private, so safe.”

Levanter looked into her face. He marveled at the perfect symmetry of her features.

She studied him, her eyes moving from his lips to his eyes, then back to his lips. She reached toward him.

In an instant of panic, he sat up.

She rolled over and rested her head on his thigh. He felt reassured and ran his fingers lightly over her back. He looked down and saw the nape of her neck. It was white and frail, barely covered with delicate, thin fuzz. Tenderly, he framed her head between his hands, kissing the spot and licking the little drops of perspiration. Involuntarily, in their own remembrance of the past, his fingers started to stroke her temples.

Nameless sprang up with such force that he was thrown backward.

“What happened?” Levanter scrambled to his feet, confused.

Her face, so wholesome and calm just seconds before, was now disfigured with rage.

“It was you. Now I know it. It was you!” she screamed, covering her face with her hands.

Levanter turned away from her. Behind him, he heard her climbing onto her bicycle. When he dared to look around, Nameless was far away, pedaling as fast as she could. He found himself wishing she were a thing; then one day he could own her.

Levanter never telephoned the Russian actress again. She presented a dilemma that he could not solve. For years, he ceased to be aware that the language buried under his American experience was still strong enough to trigger an unexpected emotion.

The language itself kept surfacing at the most unlikely moments. One morning, as he was walking to a meeting at a New York hotel, Levanter passed an old woman and overheard her mumbling to herself in Russian as she plodded slowly down the street. He turned to get a better look at her.

Peering through her old-fashioned bifocals, she noticed his curious stare. “Look at this stupid one!” she said out loud. “Staring, as if he'd never seen an old woman before!”

Addressing her politely in Russian, Levanter said, “Forgive me, Madame, I did not mean to stare at you. I merely heard you speaking Russian. This is America. People don't understand you.”

“How do you know they don't? You understand me!” she retorted angrily, then tottered away, murmuring to herself, “Another smart one, ready to speak for everybody.”

Levanter was invited to teach a course in investment and had to rent a place to live in Princeton.