Leviathan (32 page)

“Everything will work out,” Sachs said. “You’ll see. All the bad things are behind you now. You just haven’t realized it yet.”

It was the correct thing to say, and it ended the conversation on a positive note. Nothing had been resolved, but Lillian seemed comforted by his remark, touched by his encouragement. When she gave him a quick hug of thanks before going up to bed, he resisted the temptation to squeeze any harder than he should have. Nevertheless, it was an exquisite moment for him, a moment of true and undeniable contact. He felt her naked body under the robe, he kissed her gently on the cheek, and understood that they were back at the beginning now, that everything that had come before this moment had been erased.

The next morning, Lillian left the house when she always did, disappearing while Sachs and Maria were on their way to school. But this time there was a note in the kitchen when he returned, a brief message that seemed to support his wildest, most improbable hopes. “Thanks for last night,” it said. “XXX.” He liked it that she had used kiss marks instead of signing her name. Even if they had been
put there with the most innocent intentions—as a reflex, as a variant on the standard salutation—the triple-X hinted at other things as well. It was the same code for sex he had seen on the matchbook cover the night before, and it excited him to imagine that she had done it on purpose, that she had substituted those marks for her name in order to plant that association in his mind.

On the strength of this note, he went ahead and did something he knew he shouldn’t have done. Even as he was doing it, he understood that it was wrong, that he was beginning to lose his head, but he no longer had it in him to stop. After he finished his morning rounds, he looked up the address of the massage studio where Lillian had told him she worked. It was somewhere out on Shattuck Avenue in North Berkeley, and without even bothering to call for an appointment, he climbed into his car and drove over. He wanted to surprise her, to walk in unannounced and say hello—very casually, as if they were old friends. If she happened to be free at that moment, he would ask for a massage. That would give him a legitimate excuse to be touched by her again, and even as he savored the feel of her hands along his skin, he could still his conscience with the thought that he was helping her to earn her living. I’ve never been massaged by a professional, he would say to her, and I just wanted to know what it felt like. He found the place without difficulty, but when he walked inside and asked the woman at the front desk for Lillian Stern, he was given a curt, glacial response. “Lillian Stern quit on me last spring,” the woman said, “and she hasn’t shown her face in here since.”

It was the last thing he had expected, and he walked out of there feeling betrayed, scorched by the lie she had told him. Lillian didn’t come home that night, and he was almost glad to be left to himself, to be spared the awkwardness of having to see her. There was nothing he could say, after all. If he mentioned where he had
been that afternoon, his secret would be exposed, and that would destroy whatever chance he still had with her. In the long run, perhaps he was lucky to have been through this now rather than later. He would have to be more careful with his feelings, he told himself. No more impulsive gestures. No more flights of enthusiasm. It was a lesson he had needed to learn, and he hoped he wouldn’t forget it.

But he did. And not just in due course, but the very next day. Again, it was after dark. Again, he had already put Maria to bed, and again he was camped out on the living room sofa—still awake this time, reading one of Lillian’s books about reincarnation. It appalled him that she could be interested in such claptrap, and he read on with a kind of vindictive sarcasm, studying each page as though it were a testament to her stupidity, to the breathtaking shallowness of her mind. She was ignorant, he told himself, a brainless muddle of fads and half-baked notions, and how could he expect a person like that to understand him, to absorb the tenth part of what he was doing? But then, just as he was about to put down the book and turn out the light, Lillian walked through the front door, her face flushed with drink, wearing the tightest, smallest black dress he had ever seen, and he couldn’t help but smile when he saw her. She was that ravishing. She was that beautiful to look at, and now that she was standing in the room with him, he couldn’t turn his eyes away from her.

“Hi, kiddo,” she said. “Did you miss me?”

“Nonstop,” he said. “From the minute I last saw you until now.” He delivered the line with enough bravura to make it sound like a joke, a bit of facetious banter, but the truth was that he meant it.

“Good. Because I missed you, too.”

She stopped in front of the coffee table, let out a short laugh, and then spun around in a full circle, arms spread like a fashion
model, pivoting deftly on her toes. “How do you like my dress?” she asked. “Six hundred dollars on sale. A hell of a bargain, don’t you think?”

“It was worth every penny. And just the right size, too. If it was any smaller, the imagination would be out of business. You’d hardly be wearing it when you put it on.”

“That’s the look. Simple and seductive.”

“I’m not so sure about simple. The other thing, yes, but definitely not simple.”

“But not vulgar.”

“No, not at all. It’s too well made for that.”

“Good. Someone told me it was vulgar, and I wanted to get your opinion before I took it off.”

“You mean the fashion show is over?”

“All over. It’s getting late, and you can’t expect an old broad like me to stand on her feet all night.”

“Too bad. Just when I was beginning to enjoy it.”

“You’re kind of thick sometimes, aren’t you?”

“Probably. I’m often good at complicated things. But simple things tend to confuse me.”

“Like taking off a dress, I suppose. If you drag it out much longer, I’m going to have to take it off myself. And that wouldn’t be so good, would it?”

“No, not so good. Especially since it doesn’t look very hard. No buttons or snaps to fiddle with, no zippers to snag. Just pull from the bottom and slide it off.”

“Or start from the top and work your way down. The choice is yours, Mr. Sachs.”

A moment later, she was sitting beside him on the sofa, and a few moments after that the dress was on the floor. Lillian went at him with a mixture of fury and playfulness, attacking his body in
short, breathless surges, and at no point did he do anything to stop her. Sachs knew that she was drunk, but even if it was all an accident, even if it was only booze and boredom that had pushed her into his arms, he was willing to settle for it. There might never be another chance, he told himself, and after four weeks of waiting for precisely this one thing to happen, it would have been unimaginable to turn her down.

They made love on the sofa, and then they made love in Lillian’s bed upstairs, and even after the effects of the alcohol had worn off, she remained as ardent as she had been in the first moments, offering herself to him with an abandon and a concentration that nullified any lingering doubts he might have had. She swept him away, she emptied him out, she dismantled him. And the remarkable thing was that early the next morning, when they woke up and found each other in bed, they went at it again, and this time, with the pale light spreading into the corners of the small room, she said that she loved him, and Sachs, who was looking straight into her eyes at that moment, saw nothing in those eyes to make him disbelieve her.

It was impossible to know what had happened, and he never found the courage to ask. He simply went with it, floating along on a wave of inexplicable happiness, wanting nothing else but to be exactly where he was. Overnight, he and Lillian had become a couple. She stayed home with him during the day now, sharing the chores of the household, taking on her responsibilities as Maria’s mother again, and every time she looked at him, it was as though she were repeating what she had told him that first morning in bed. A week passed, and the less likely it seemed that she would recant, the more he came to accept what was happening. For several days in a row, he took Lillian out on buying sprees—showering her with dresses and shoes, with silk underwear, with ruby earrings and a strand of pearls. They binged on good restaurants and expensive wines, they
talked, they made plans, they fucked until the cows came home. It was too good to be true, perhaps, but by then he was no longer able to think about what was good or what was true. When it came right down to it, he was no longer able to think about anything.

There’s no telling how long it could have gone on. If it had just been the two of them, they might have made something of this sexual explosion, this bizarre and wholly implausible romance. In spite of its demonic implications, it’s possible that Sachs and Lillian could have settled down somewhere and had a real life together. But other realities impinged on them, and less than two weeks after this new life began, it was already being called into question. They had fallen in love, perhaps, but they had also upset the balance of the household, and little Maria wasn’t the least bit happy with the change. Her mother had been given back to her, but she had lost something as well, and from her point of view this loss must have felt like the crumbling of a world. For nearly a month, she and Sachs had lived together in a kind of paradise. She had been the sole object of his affections, and he had coddled her and doted on her in ways that no one else had ever done. Now, without a single word of warning, he had abandoned her. He had moved into her mother’s bed, and rather than stay at home and keep her company, he left her with babysitters and went out every night. She resented all this. She resented her mother for coming between them, and she resented Sachs for letting her down, and by the time she had put up with it for three or four days, the normally obliging and affectionate Maria had turned into a horror, a tiny engine of sulks and tantrums and angry tears.

On the second Sunday, Sachs proposed a family outing to the Rose Garden in the Berkeley Hills. For once, Maria seemed to be in good spirits, and after Lillian fetched an old quilt from the upstairs closet, the three of them climbed into the Buick and drove to the other end of town. Everything went well for the first hour. Sachs and
Lillian lay on the quilt, Maria played on the swings, and the sun burned off the last of the morning fog. Even when Maria banged her head on the jungle gym a little while later, there didn’t seem to be any cause for alarm. She came running to them in tears, just as any other child would have done, and Lillian hugged her and soothed her, kissing the red mark on her temple with particular care and tenderness. It was good medicine, Sachs felt, the time-honored treatment, but in this case it had little or no effect. Maria went on crying, refusing to be consoled by her mother, and even though the injury was no more than a scratch, she complained about it vehemently, sobbing so hard that she nearly began to choke. Undaunted, Lillian hugged her again, but this time Maria recoiled from her, accusing her mother of squeezing her too hard. Sachs could see the hurt in Lillian’s eyes when this happened, and then, when Maria pushed Lillian away from her, a flash of anger as well. Out of nowhere, they seemed to be on the verge of a full-blown crisis. An ice cream vendor had set up a stand about fifty feet from their quilt, and Sachs, thinking it might be a useful diversion, offered to buy Maria a cone. It will make you feel better, he said, smiling as sympathetically as he could, and then he ran off to the multicolored umbrella parked on the footpath just below them. It turned out that there were sixteen different flavors to choose from. Not knowing which one to pick, he settled on a combination of pistachio and tutti frutti. If nothing else, he thought, the sounds of the words might amuse her. But they didn’t. Even though her tears had slackened by the time he returned, Maria eyed the scoops of green ice cream suspiciously, and when he handed the cone to her and she took her first tentative bite, all hell broke loose again. She made a terrible face, spat out the ice cream as though it were poison, and pronounced it “disgusting.” This led to another fit of sobbing, and then, as her fury mounted, she took the cone in her right hand and hurled it at Sachs. It hit him squarely
in the stomach, splattering all over his shirt. As he glanced down at the damage, Lillian rushed over to where Maria was standing and slapped her across the face.

“You brat!” she screamed at the little girl. “You miserable, ungrateful brat! I’ll kill you, do you understand! I’ll kill you right here in front of all these people!” And then, before Maria had time to put up her hands and protect her face, Lillian slapped her again.

“Stop it,” Sachs said. His voice was hard, aghast with anger, and for a moment he was tempted to push Lillian to the ground. “Don’t you dare lay a hand on that child, do you hear me?”

“Butt out, mister,” she said, every bit as angry as he was. “She’s my kid, and I’ll do what I damn please with her.”

“No hitting. I won’t allow it.”

“If she deserves to be hit, I’ll hit her. And no one interferes. Not even you, smartass.”

It got worse before it got better. Sachs and Lillian ranted at each other for the next ten minutes, and if they hadn’t been in a public place, arguing in front of several dozen onlookers, God knows how far it might have gone. As it was, they eventually got a grip on themselves and reined in their tempers. Each one apologized to the other, they kissed and made up, and no more was said about it for the rest of the afternoon. The three of them went to the movies, then out to a Chinese restaurant for dinner, and by the time they returned home and Maria was put to bed, the incident had been all but forgotten. Or so they thought. In point of fact, that was the first sign of doom, and from the moment Lillian slapped Maria across the face until the moment Sachs left Berkeley five weeks later, nothing was ever the same for them again.