The Sensual Mirror (24 page)

“The choices are pretty clear, aren’t they?” Julia said.

“I guess so,” Martin replied. “At any rate, everything is clear until I think about having to make a choice.”

“Do you have to?”

“It begins with where do I sleep tonight?”

“We’re at that point already?”

“In some ways, part of me treated you as having died. I guess I knew that I would see you again, but I felt that it would be like meeting a ghost or seeing an old photograph. I imagined that you would just sort of be there, shimmering, transparent, and I would feel warm and loving and filled with delicious memories. And that you would then fade again, like a dream. And now you’re here. And you’re real. And you’re a problem all over again.”

“Well, you put a curve in my road too.”

Martin took a deep breath. “You mean with Gail?” He shook his head. “It’s funny. But if something like that had happened before our breakup, I would have gone crazy. But after becoming close with Robert, and living with him, well, I guess homosexuality has lost its mystery and terrors for me. It’s just another way of doing the same old thing, isn’t it?”

“Do you have sex with him?” Julia asked, apprehensive about the answer.

“I haven’t, and I don’t think I will. It’s funny, he helped me get over my fear, but he doesn’t turn me on. We went to a bar one night, though, where I met a young boy who did get my palms to sweating a little bit. Robert tells me that that’s par for the course, that I’ll probably take the thing closest to women for a while, like pretty boys, and if I become serious will get involved with men. Men who are men, not children or people who dress up. So, I don’t know. Maybe the physical part of it will become active one day. But the most important thing is the friendship, the closeness, sharing feelings, telling each other what we really think, and not being afraid to touch one another, even to holding hands. I never realized how lonely I was until I met Robert, how lonely for the love of a man. He says that it begins with our fathers who are afraid to show affection, who never cry or speak simply about how they feel. And so we grow up crippled. Most men suffer the sickness of never loving another man. Most homosexuals suffer the sickness of only having sex with other men. But very few learn to have it all, the warmth, and the sex, and the friendship.”

Julia shook her head in wonder. “You know, if you substitute ‘woman’ for ‘man,’ you have exactly what’s been happening with me and Gail. The only difference is that we sleep together a few times a week. The physical part was the big barrier and at first we did it just to get past it so we could be lovers on a deeper level. But once we tried it, I guess we just got to like it.” She smiled, wrinkling her nose. “And you’re right, it’s just another way of doing the same old thing. But it feels good, Martin, it feels so, so good. Except that it’s not enough. For the past month I’ve been feeling a man hunger growing in me, and tonight I coldbloodedly went out to get laid. But of all the dumb places to pick. I suppose I hoped I’d find a man so bland I wouldn’t even have to notice him as he negotiated me somewhere and maneuvered his cock inside me. A Unitarian fuck, you know? No passion, no danger.”

“And you met me.”

“Who would have expected a Jewish miracle in a Unitarian church?”

“Yeah, God isn’t dead, He’s just become a little senile.”

Julia sipped at her coffee and shot Martin a glance over the edge of the cup. “Speaking of which, what about this guru you mentioned? That’s the very last thing I would have expected from you.”

“Nobody’s more surprised than I am. And I’m not sure I can even talk about it without sounding stupid, you know, like those Moon people who keep trying to get you to go to Yankee Stadium? The thing is that I’m not sure what’s happening to me, and that’s the most exciting part of it. And then, on another level, nothing at all is happening. I mean, I’m still me. I have the same feelings, ideas, needs, wants. I still get angry and selfish. But somehow, it’s all much lighter, less heavy, less oppressive. I don’t hold on to anything any more. People or thoughts or situations. Somehow, Babba’s influence is working inside me at a very, very deep level. I’m beginning to see what a jerk I am, and it doesn’t bother me, because I see what jerks we all are. And so it becomes humorous, predictable.”

He drained his cup and tried to signal the waiter for more coffee, but the man was involved in a triangle of smoldering stares involving himself, the owner, and the waitress. She was torn between the two men, trying to figure out which one would treat her badly better. The owner had her salary, promises of a bonus and raise, age, and the advantage of an inherent nastiness, while the waiter had the fascination of the untested, the new. She was already soaking her panties with secretion by virtue of the growing tension and the obvious direction of the evening. Martin was angry at not being noticed and called out, “Waiter!” in a sharp, stern voice, the way one might call a dog back from the edge of a busy highway. The waiter turned quickly, ready to brawl. Martin flexed his body, making it quite obvious that he could tear the other man apart without increasing his heartbeat. They locked eyes and Martin fed pure superior hostility into the channel. And while they still glared at each other Martin said in a soft, clear voice, “Bring me more coffee, please.” His tone was so ominous that people at nearby tables looked around nervously.

The waiter filled both their cups and retreated to a five minute cigarette break in the kitchen.

“I’ve never seen you do anything like that before,” Julia said. “I’m impressed, but it doesn’t seem very holy.”

“That’s part of the general misconception about what spirituality is,” he told her, “one which I shared. Being spiritual means being real. Being real means feeling and expressing your feeling fully.”

“What if it had come to a fistfight?” she asked, intrigued, because Martin was articulating things which she had been discovering in terms of her relationship with Gail.

“I would have tried not to damage him beyond what the situation called for. That’s the paradox. You have to be free, and yet freedom is a kind of discipline. Babba says that there might come a situation in which you might have to kill someone. He said that if that happens, if it’s really necessary, then do it with as much ease as you would crack an egg for breakfast.”

“Has he ever killed anyone? Did you ask him?”

“Somebody did. He said that there was a really big, bad baboon in the part of the jungle where he lived. And that the two of them took themselves off to a secluded spot to settle things. And that the baboon never came back.”

“But that’s just a monkey,” Julia said.

“As far as Babba is concerned, that’s all any of us are. Just monkeys.”

Julia began to remonstrate, and then something peculiar happened. She saw everyone in the place as though they were naked. She saw the raw sexuality of the men and women, the cocks and cunts that get covered up. She saw the capacity for ferocity, the predatory quality of the owner, the animal helplessness of the waitress. Everywhere people were eating and drinking and making noises at one another.

It’s true, she thought. If you take away the clothes and the concrete, then we might all be around a watering hole somewhere. And probably doing more interesting things than talking, like combing one another’s hair and chasing each other around trees.

Martin saw her appraising glance. “It’s weird,” he said. “That’s the thing about Babba. Everything stays the same but you start to see it differently. And all the things you used to think were the pinnacles of the human species you see as the biggest examples of stupidity and pride.”

“Maybe I could meet him,” Julia said and the moment she spoke the words was drawn back to the actuality of their situation with one another. This was precisely the value of their separation, that they were cut loose to discover new truths, new ways of opening to the world. And perhaps the biggest error would be in trying to horn in on each other’s realities. Maybe she should let Martin have Babba and Robert and stay away from meeting them or becoming involved in any way. And perhaps Martin should not get implicated in what was going on between her and Gail.

A veil fell between them, a thickness of darkness merely, without substance, but real. Each second they remained together dragged them more deeply back into marriage, or marriage as they had defined it. Each word spoken was a form of betrayal to the liberty they had tasted. Like climbers on a cliff who have reached a seemingly impassable spot, they could not go higher and yet it was unthinkable to back down. The other solution, one never considered, was simply to cut all lines and leave each climber loose to follow his or her own inclination, own destiny.

“It might have been simpler if I had been a strange woman after all,” she said, reflecting the structure of the mood.

“You were, once, and look what happened,” he replied. “If you had been a different woman, nothing would have changed. We would have only had to do it all over again to arrive at this point. Or some variation of it. You know, quitting the jobs, going to Europe, moving to a new city, deciding whether or not to have a child, arguing, going downhill, breaking up, and then . . . what? Being apart for four months and meeting by accident in a church? Why bother? We’re already here. Why start again with someone else and go through it all again?”

Julia’s eyes became unusually bright. She looked at Martin as though he were a Roman candle exploding. “You’re right!” she said, surprise in her voice. “You’re absolutely right.”

“It’s the mating dance. It’s only biological. That’s why we do it so well. It’s as programmed as the way birds dance or fish waggle their tails. And since we can do it unthinkingly, we like to repeat it. Only each repeat seems to require a new partner, which is hell on the bank book and nervous system. The trouble isn’t with the mating dance, it’s with what happens to the mates when the dance is over. When they settle down and try to feather the nest”

“You’re really big on monkeys and birds these days, aren’t you?”

“Aside from rats, roaches, and few scraggly trees, that’s about all that lives in the city. Us and the pigeons.”

“And that’s all there is? I mean, that’s the only thing available to a man and a woman? The mating dance and then the dreary ritual of maintaining the cave or the nest or whatever you want to call it?”

“The home?” Martin ventured. He bit his lower lip and stared out the window for a few seconds. “I don’t know,” he went on. “That’s all I can see. Unless . . . “ He broke off.

“Unless what?” she asked.

“It’s another one of those things that I can’t really put into words, because I’m not sure what it is. But is has something to do with men and men and women and women. I mean, my friendship with Robert is crucial, and primary. I couldn’t conceive of going back into a relationship with you or any woman which would make me put Robert into second place behind her.”

Julia sucked her breath in sharply. “But that’s just the promise that Gail and I made with one another. That no relationship with a man would ever come between us. In fact, those are the conditions which she gave to Eliot before they got married.”

“Eliot finally married Gail, eh?” Martin said. ‘That’s an interesting match. I suppose it finally came down to money and children.”

“Yes,” she said. “And he saw what she meant about keeping her own place, and maintaining her own life, and having her relationship with me.” She considered telling Martin about her scene with Eliot, but decided it could wait until another time.

“Would that work for us?” he asked.

The question was sudden, unexpected, and harsh, even though it was the only question that really mattered between them, the barrier through which they had to pass or fail to penetrate. It might have seemed that they would have a bit more time to tool around before coming face to face with the central issue. But there comes a moment when childhood is suddenly no more, when playtime is over once and for all, when the implacable nature of reality quietly and firmly asserts itself beyond all power of any individual to contradict, when the awareness of mortality invests time with a fearsome meaning. This was the situation of husband and wife as they sat in a tawdry coffee shop and weighed the balance of their future. There was no margin within which to tease the edges of decision.

“I don’t know,” she replied. “But that’s the only chance at all. There’s no going back to the two of us locked in that terrible unrelenting embrace. I won’t do that again, Martin, not with you, not with anyone. I need space, I need an identity independent of any man.”

“Or woman?”

“Or woman. But I can’t live without men or women, although for most of my life I’ve tried to live without women. Perhaps if there is both, there is the slim possibility that I can cancel the two sides out and emerge as just myself.”

“I have no objections,” he said. She raised an eyebrow. “I really don’t,” he went on. “All I want is peace, and whatever has to be arranged or shifted around to bring peace, then I’m for it. If I don’t see you again after tonight, that would be all right too. But that would seem like a false peace to me, the peace that comes from hiding from life. And I think you’re right. If we tried to move in together again and dropped our new relationships, we’d be at one another’s throats in no time at all.”

The waiter returned and dropped the check onto the table. He turned and walked away quickly, like a child who will run up and hit another child and then escape to a spot behind its mother’s legs for safety. Out of habit, Martin picked up the check. They both noticed the action at the same time and laughed.

“There must be a thousand unconscious little rituals like that which bind us together in the old way of relating,” he said.

“As long as we keep seeing them as such, then there’s no problem,” she replied. “I guess the trick is to stay awake.”

They stood up. Martin left a fifty-cent tip and remarked to Julia, “Here’s another one. I’m so damned conditioned I’m embarrassed to walk out without leaving a tip for that creep who waited on us.”

“Then don’t,” she said.