Troika (19 page)

I
’m standing at the front door for what must be five minutes, so nervous and wondering what the hell I’m doing here. And I’m pacing back and forth and peering
into
the peephole to see what’s going on inside, but of course that’s ridiculous ’cause they’re designed so you can only see
out
. Finally, I just think
fuck it
,
I
’
ve come this far
,
so I might as well see it all the way through
.
It can’t be worse than getting fingered in the club.

I knock on the door. One tap, two taps, three taps. Tap, tap, tap. I straighten up and get as tall as I can. I hear voices on the other side of the door, women sounding sort of surprised and confused. I look around to see if I knocked on the right apartment, looking for another door, but this is the only one on the entire floor, except for one at the end of the hall that says
STAFF
in real old letters. And then the lock clicks and the door opens, and there’s the dark-skinned woman from the window, looking real protective and tough. She takes a step
to the side so she’s not blocking the view, and what’s there before me is the biggest, most beautiful home I’ve ever seen, like a museum in Paris or Rome. There’s high ceilings and antiques and even a fancy old pool table with green felt so smooth and perfect that it looks like a putting green. And sitting right there in a chair in the middle of the room, in a pretty silk robe, is one gorgeous and seriously paralyzed woman.

W
hy the doorman did not announce Perla’s arrival is something that I do not understand, and it’s also something about which I never felt the need to question. Maybe it was at Julian’s prior instruction or a momentary lapse in the doorman’s judgment, or maybe the doorman was so taken by Perla’s beauty that he lost sight of his responsibilities. Whatever the reason, Perla’s knock caught me and Norma off guard. Had I known she was coming, I would have prepared a bit, done my hair, put on a nice dress, some jewelry. I also would have set the place up for her—some food and drinks.

Perla stands in the doorway, and we stare at each other. “It’s okay, Norma,” I say. “I believe this is Perla?”

She extends her hand to Norma and then approaches me. She stands before me in tight jeans, cute silver sandals, a pink cotton sweater and a short leather jacket. It’s apparent that the girl is uncomfortable, and who wouldn’t be? I sure as hell am. And so is
Norma, who is beyond confused. Perla is in an opulent apartment and, at the risk of sounding like a damn snob, it’s probably unlike anything she’s ever seen before—and people can get awkward in the presence of wealth. People also get awkward in the presence of the disabled. They either treat you like you’re some delicate egg and overcompensate with excessively slow, careful motions and soft voices (I’m paralyzed, not deaf), or they try so hard to show you that they think you’re just like everyone else (which you most certainly are not) that they are casual and brusque to the point of danger. And, of course, people get painfully awkward in the presence of the wives of the men they are screwing. And who knows how awkward people get in the presence of the
disabled
wives of the men they are screwing? I can only assume that’s worse yet.

The mind creates mental images of the things it has never seen. I would guess that there is something evolutionary about predictive imagery. One can envision a hunter returning to his small village and warning his fellow tribesmen about the warriors he has just seen amassing over the hill. To assess the threat, the villagers will ask him to describe the threat. How big are these men? How many are there? Do they have bows and arrows? Knives? Spears? Shields? Are they wearing face paint? If so, what color is it? The villagers will process the data, create a mental image of the threat and respond in a manner consistent with the perceived peril. Our ability to create a preceding mental image that comports with the actual image depends upon our own experience, our powers of imagination, our emotional intelligence. Sometimes we get close. Sometimes we are so far off that we wonder what the hell we were even thinking and thus begin to question our own judgment, the effectiveness of our survival instincts.

As I observe Perla, I am relieved by the accuracy with which I had imagined her. The skin. She has a perfect complexion. I look for
something, for some imperfection: a faint birthmark, a mole, a pimple, a broken blood vessel, a tiny hair on the upper lip. But other than what might be a pale sliver of a scar under her chin, I see nothing. Her skin is a shade or two darker than I had anticipated—and she could have as easily been Creole or Indian, which I guess is logical given the heterogeneity of the Caribbean. Her hair, dark chocolate brown but lightened in streaks by the Florida sun, is cut shoulder length and wrapped over her ears. When she turns to the side—a quick glance to break the tension of the moment—I notice that she has a thin white streak of hair in the back.

Perla removes her jacket. Her pink sweater clings tightly to her body, revealing both the broadness of her shoulders and the contour of her breasts. Julian is right, she does have B cups and thus does not fit my mental image of a stripper: a thin wisp of a girl sporting hydraulic DDs that threaten to topple her forward. Instead, here’s a girl who is sticking with what God gave her, and something about her resistance to convention humanizes her in my eyes, reveals a stubborn, proud character, a refusal to let go of something important that I do not yet understand.

Her face. Her face is lovely. Not model stunning or head-turning, but just plain lovely. There are the green eyes that contrast so sharply with her skin that they suggest a penetrating eagerness, as if she is in a constant state of forward, bounding motion. Her mouth is wide, her lips full and glistening in a sweet-smelling gloss that only a girl of her age can wear, her chin smoothly pointed.

Perla stands before me, and there is a moment during which neither of us know how to behave. And then, as if I am some decrepit but revered queen, she dips her right knee into a deep curtsy. I’m alarmed and touched by her display of deference, and I can only think that her mother—or a nun—must have taught her this gesture when she was a little girl. I hold out my right hand to shake
Perla’s. She reaches out but does not shake it as I expect. Instead, she clasps it with her two hands, cups my hand in her palms; she rises closer to me and presses my hand against her cheek. I feel the sensation of my palm, my fingers, against her smooth skin—which is so hot that I’m afraid the girl has a fever.

Perla’s eyes water. “I’m sorry,” she cries. “I am
so
sorry.”

T
here’s something about seeing Sophie stuck in that chair and how she struggles to lift her hands—and the fact that here I am screwing her husband, and she’s just about as courteous as a woman can be. And then I bend down like I’m bowing before the nuns at school and why I do that I have no idea. But I bow down and reach out and hold her hand, which you can tell is not as strong as a normal hand, and I press it against my face. It’s cold, her hand, and something about how it feels all cold and stiff, something about that does something to me, brings up some emotions that have no business coming to the surface. Maybe it’s being so close to the woman I betrayed. Not direct, but an indirect betrayal, ’cause I slept with her husband even after I knew she existed and us girls are supposed to look out for each other, not stab each other in the back. And she can’t walk, and that makes me feel even worse, makes me feel real bad for her and for Julian too.

So I’m crying, and where so much feeling comes from I’m only just starting to get a better clue. I’m thinking that maybe I disappointed all the people who ever cared about me. And maybe it’s from the pain of disappointing the people I love, ’cause is there anything that feels worse than that? Anything worse than disappointing the people we love? I’m one of those fools who believes in the afterlife, and I don’t make any apologies for thinking there’s something beyond this earth. And I’m thinking that wherever he is—heaven, I’m sure—my dad sees how I’m living my life, the cheapness, the lies, the bad men, and he’s sad it turned out like this. And Old Pepe, too. How this is not what he wanted when he taught me how to feed Chico and Chica and said to find a man who feeds me first and gives me the firewood, whatever that means. And I’m sad that my mom’s still waiting tables, which I guess is better than
dancing
on them, and I’m happy she finally found a man who’s good to her. But it also means I’m going to see a whole lot less of her and that makes me feel so alone and hopeless.

I put my head on Sophie’s shoulder and she lets me cry right there, without pushing me away or making me feel even worse. I’m getting her silk robe all wet and I feel bad about that. The shrink I once saw would have called that projection. Or was it transference? I forget. But she would’ve said that it was something else I was feeling bad about, not messing up her robe. I think it can be both. I think I can feel bad about her robe and also feel bad about a bunch of other things.

I’m tired, drained and wondering why I’m here. Why I’m
really
here. I’m wondering about serendipity. I love that word, ’cause it sounds exactly how it means. There’s a word for that, too, when a word sounds like it means. But I can’t pronounce that one. So I’m wondering about serendipity, wondering how it is that certain people get drawn to each other, how they cross paths and build
relationships, make real deep connections. I’m wondering why I’m
really
here.

I lift my head off Sophie’s shoulder and take a good look at her. She’s a beautiful woman, Sophie, and she looks like an actress from one of those old French films, the kind who doesn’t wear makeup but just looks so simple and elegant that you think she could roll out of bed, tie her hair in a ponytail, jump on a bicycle with a basket on the handlebars and ride into town for bread and cheese. And then later on you see her at a dinner party and the only thing that’s different is now her hair’s down and she’s got a pair of earrings on and every guy at the party wants her.

I look at Sophie’s face and she’s got a beauty mark on her right cheekbone, a little dot that’s in the perfect place and makes her look so cosmopolitan, and ooh, I wish I had something just like that. Sophie wears a short pearl necklace. And when I see her pearls, real, beautiful ones, I panic and reach for my ears to remind myself what I’m wearing. Little gold hoops, so thank God I didn’t put on my fake pearls today, ’cause that would’ve been embarrassing. I look down to Sophie’s chest, just a quick glance ’cause I don’t want her to think I’m staring, and it turns out she’s got small boobs just like me. And something about that, me and Sophie both having small boobs, something about that makes me smile.

Sophie asks if I’m hungry or thirsty, and I say no. She asks me if I’m tired. And when I don’t answer, when I can’t answer, when I’m feeling so drained it’s near impossible to speak, she says Perla, I think you need some sleep. And then she turns to Norma, who’s standing a few feet away and nods, and it occurs to me that these two women spend so much time together that they communicate like porpoises. Norma motions me to follow and I do, ’cause I don’t have the energy to resist. And just before we turn a corner down a long hall, I look back to Sophie and she tries to lift her left hand to
wave, but it’s too hard for her, so she waves good night with her right. I ask her if Julian’s here, wondering what’s happening, what’s really going on. He’s out, Sophie says, won’t be back until late. So best to get some rest and see him in the morning.

Norma leads me to a room that’s bigger than any bedroom I’ve ever seen and it’s decorated with pretty things, glass paperweights and an Oriental vase with fresh-cut birds-of-paradise and a silver tray with ruby-red glasses all lined up in a row. There’s beige wallpaper with branches of flowered trees and red, blue and pink birds. I close my eyes, and I think of Pepe and his parrots. I picture the mango tree behind his house and the birds bouncing from branch to branch.

I take off my bra, pull it out through the sleeve of my sweater, and toss my jeans to the floor. I get under the sheets, which are made of the smoothest, most luxurious fabric to ever touch my body. I get on my side, rest my face on the pillow—and the next thing I know, it’s morning.

J
ulian arrived home from a late dinner with his friends. At the restaurant, Julian ate too many slices of Clancy’s famous chocolate pie; Roger consumed far too much Chablis and tried, despite his drunkenness and bad foot, to dance with the curvy hostess from County Cork; Volokh and Petrov, as always, enjoyed their expatriation, telling bawdy Russian jokes and eating with a ferocity intended to obliterate their childhood privations.

Val, an avuncular Montenegrin who had worked in the building for close to forty years, stood under the awning and greeted Julian. “Evening, Mr. Pravdin,” he said, opening the lobby door, unaware that the doorman working the earlier shift had sent a female guest up to the apartment.

Before opening the front door, Julian looked at his watch and was surprised to see that it was half past midnight. Inside, the apartment
was dark and quiet. He turned on a wall sconce that created just enough light to illuminate the main parlor, but not so much that Sophie would be awakened if her door were open. Julian looked around the grand room. There was something different about the place, but he did not know what. The sofas, the chairs, the tables were all in the same place. The artwork was exactly where it had been that morning when he left for work. The vase of white roses sat, as always, on the credenza along the far wall.

Hanging over the arm of the wingback was the silk sash from Sophie’s robe. Julian walked over to the chair and lifted the sash. He wondered why it was there, why Sophie had left it behind, whether it had slipped from her robe. He feared that she was not feeling well and that Norma had rushed her to the bedroom. Or maybe it was nothing so dramatic; maybe it fell off while Norma was transferring Sophie into the wheelchair and neither of them noticed. Julian put the sash in his jacket pocket.

Walking down the long hallway, Julian passed Norma’s room on the right—the door slightly ajar as usual so she could hear if Sophie called out for help. The door to the guest room was closed, which was not atypical. Julian slowly opened the door to the master bedroom, careful not to push past forty-five degrees, at which point the hinges barked and might startle Sophie from her sleep. The bedroom was dark, but washed in a wan, ambient light from the street that had managed to slip under, around, through the thick curtains.

Julian listened. There was the pneumatic hissing of the compression machine on Sophie’s legs; there was her raspy breathing; there was the insectile buzz of the night-light by the floorboard. Julian removed his clothes and stood naked. As he had done every day in the orphanage, he carefully folded each piece of clothing, including his socks, and placed them on the dresser—and he did so despite the
fact that they would be gathered in the morning by the housekeeper and cleaned. He lifted Sophie’s robe from the reading chair in the corner of the room and threaded the sash through the loops.

Julian inhaled, taking in the residue of the candles, the tart orange blossom to which he had become accustomed. But on this night, another smell lingered and mixed congruously, logically, with the candles’ scent. It was a smell that to Julian was familiar but elusive: sweet and playful. Julian slid under the covers next to Sophie. He lay on his back and, with his right arm, reached over to her. Gently, he placed his hand on her left breast, delivering a warm shiver that penetrated her sleep but did not withdraw her from it.

Sophie blinked, a recognition, a relief that Julian had returned. She felt his lips on her cheek. In the other room, Perla slept soundly.

A wrinkling in the corner of Sophie’s mouth—not a full smile but something close—further indicated that at this moment in time, swaddled in a diaper, her legs compressed by some weird machine, Perla in her crosshairs, she had everything she needed.