The Japanese Lover(65)
“Thank goodness the Belasco Foundation creates green areas rather than trying to help beggars or orphans. That means I’ve been able to do some good without having to get too close to those who have benefited,” she told Lenny.
“Be quiet, will you? If I didn’t know you, I’d think you were a narcissistic monster.”
“If I’m not one, it’s thanks to Ichimei and Nathaniel, who taught me to give and receive. Without them I’d have retreated into indifference long ago.”
“Many artists are introverts, Alma. They have to absent themselves to create,” Lenny said.
“Don’t look for excuses. The truth is that the older I get, the more I like my defects. Old age is the best moment to be and do whatever you enjoy. Soon no one will be able to bear me. Tell me, Lenny, is there anything you feel sorry about?”
“Of course. All the crazy things I never did, having given up cigarettes and margaritas, becoming vegetarian, and killing myself doing exercise. I’m going to die anyway, but at least I’ll be fit,” laughed Lenny.
“I don’t want you to die . . .”
“Nor do I, but it’s not optional.”
“When I first knew you, you used to drink like a Cossack.”
“I’ve been sober for thirty years now. I think I drank so much to avoid thinking. I was hyperactive; it was all I could do to sit still to cut my toenails. As a young man I was gregarious, always surrounded by noise and people, but even so I felt alone. Fear of loneliness defined my character, Alma. I needed to be accepted and loved.”
“You’re talking in the past. Isn’t it like that anymore?”
“I’ve changed. I spent my youth searching for approval and adventures, until I really fell in love. Afterward my heart was broken and I spent a decade trying to pick up the pieces.”
“And did you succeed?”
“Let’s say I did, thanks to a smorgasbord of psychology: individual, group, gestalt, biodynamic therapies. Anything I could lay my hands on, including primal scream therapy.”
“What on earth is that?”
“I used to shut myself in with the woman psychologist to shout like a man possessed while I punched a cushion for fifty-five minutes.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“It’s true. And what was more, I paid to do it. I was in therapy for years. It was a rocky road, Alma, but I learned to know myself and to look my loneliness in the face. It doesn’t frighten me anymore.”
“Something like that would have helped Nathaniel and me a lot, but it never occurred to us. It wasn’t something that was done in our circles. By the time psychology became fashionable it was too late for us.”
* * *
All of a sudden the anonymous packages of gardenias Alma received on Mondays ceased to appear, just when she would have most enjoyed them, yet she gave no indication that she had noticed. Following her last escapade she hardly ever went out. If Irina, Seth, Lenny, and Cathy had not kept her active, she would have shut herself away like an anchorite. She lost all interest in reading, TV series, yoga, Victor Vikashev’s garden, and the other activities that once filled the time for her. She had no appetite, and if Irina was not keeping a close watch, she could get by for days on apples and green tea. She did not tell a soul that sometimes her heart started racing, her vision clouded over, and she became confused over the simplest tasks. Her apartment, which until then had fitted her needs perfectly, now seemed to grow bigger and its layout to constantly change: when she thought she was standing outside the bathroom, she went out into the building’s corridor, which had become so long and twisting she had difficulty finding her own door, as they all looked the same; the floor swayed so that she had to cling to the walls to stay on her feet; the light switches moved around so that she couldn’t find them in the dark; new drawers and shelves appeared, where everyday objects got lost; photographs shifted around in their albums without anyone touching them. She couldn’t find anything; the cleaner or Irina kept hiding things. She did however realize it was unlikely that the universe was playing all these tricks on her; it was probably a lack of oxygen in her brain. She went to the window to do the breathing exercises she had seen in a manual borrowed from the library, but kept postponing the visit to the cardiologist Cathy had recommended, still clinging to the belief that, given time, almost all ailments resolve themselves.
She would soon be eighty-two; she was old, but she refused to cross the threshold into decrepitude. She had no intention of sitting in the shade of the years staring into space, her mind on a hypothetical past. She had fallen a couple of times but suffered nothing worse than a few bruises. The time had come when she had to accept being gripped by the elbow to help her walk, but she fed the remains of her vanity on whatever scraps she could find and fought against the temptation to give in to an easy lethargy. She was horrified at the thought of having to go to the second level, where she would have no privacy and mercenary carers would assist her with her most personal needs.
“Good night, Death,” she would say before she went to sleep, in the vague hope that she wouldn’t wake up; that would be the most elegant way to go, comparable only to falling asleep forever in Ichimei’s arms after they had made love. She didn’t really believe she deserved such good luck: she had led a fortunate life, and there was no reason for her death to be the same.