The Museum of Modern Love(16)

‘What is it about Abramovi?’s work that fascinates you?’ Jane asked.

‘I don’t know,’ Levin said. ‘She’s still a new discovery.’

‘Upstairs in the retrospective,’ Jane said, ‘there’s a table laid with all sorts of things—like a rose, a bottle of olive oil, a chain, a whip, a bottle of wine, a knife, a hacksaw. A gun and a single bullet. It was a show she did back in 1972. In Italy. She invited the audience to do anything they wanted to her using anything on the table.’

‘And what happened?’

‘Well, they undressed her, they cut her, they decorated her, wrote words on her body. They carried her about, chained her to the table. Finally, someone loaded the gun with the bullet and held it against her head and tried to get Marina to pull the trigger.’

‘What did she do?’

‘She remained entirely passive. She could have died. Some people in the audience stopped the others from harming her.’

‘That’s horrible.’

‘When you see the photos, she’s weeping. But she didn’t run away. She stayed passive for the whole six hours. I can’t help but think it must be how she survived her childhood.’

‘Was it bad?’

‘During the Second World War, her mother and father saved each other’s lives. You’d think with such a romantic beginning it might have worked out. But it didn’t. They hated one another. Her mother ran the home like a military camp.’

The meal went on, washing on the shallows of history, lapping against memory, dipping into the puddles of parenting and career, but avoiding the darker waters of marriage and grief. They stood often on the knoll of Marina Abramovi? and surveyed the view. The percussion of female laughter from the back table continued, jarring Levin’s thoughts and clattering in his eardrums. He and Jane were two observers, gazing at one another across the divide of the table, making eye contact and then slipping away. The wine was good, the food was good, and yet it all fell short. It was an elevator music night, Levin thought, as he helped Jane into her coat and they stepped out onto the cobblestones. It had ultimately been unimportant. An attempt, he thought, at normality.

The rain had stopped and he walked her back to the Greenwich Hotel. The evening had the balmy texture of early summer. They stood on the pavement for a moment before she reached out and shook hands with him. He thought to kiss her cheek but the moment passed. She smiled, thanked him again, and the doorman opened the door.

Levin walked the few blocks across to Washington Square. Night had softened the streets and darkened the doorways. Above him the sky was umber-glazed and all about him were streetlights, headlights, tail-lights, lit windows, neon and illuminated signs. The stars were defeated. A ruckus of electricity and engineering had beaten them back. By the fountain people lingered, laughing and talking. Children ran about despite the lateness of the hour. Two men played guitars and sang ‘Hey Jude’. Several bystanders joined in. The pavement smelled of steam, rubber and oil. Levin continued on across the street.

He wondered if Jane would have had sex with him, if he had suggested it. It had been a long time since he had suggested it to anyone but Lydia. The idea of getting naked with a stranger was somewhat alarming. But he’d been giving it some thought of late. He thought of Healayas and how he had always wanted to have sex with her. He imagined every man who met her thought the same thing. He would never ask her, but that didn’t stop him thinking of it. Tom had been dead wrong not to follow her to New York.

He wasn’t sure Jane would be good in bed. She had very plain hands. He wondered what Jane would have said if he had told her his wife was Lydia Fiorentino, the architect. Perhaps Jane had stood in one of Lydia’s buildings. Perhaps she had read about Lydia in a magazine.

My wife is in a nursing home, he imagined saying. She’s been in a coma but now she’s not. She’ll never walk again. Or talk again. She was the most energetic person when she was well. We knew it was coming. It’s genetic. No, I don’t see her regularly. I don’t see her at all. She wants it that way. She took out a court order. We were happily married. I think so. Our daughter, Alice, is twenty-two. I never got to know her when it was the right time. When was the right time? When she was little? When she was a teenager? It always seemed difficult to know what to talk about with her. She talked to Lydia and then Lydia talked to me. That’s how it worked. I didn’t like the music she liked. She went through a whole heavy metal phase I didn’t understand. I was busy. I worked. Wasn’t that the right thing to do? Didn’t that count for something as a father? No, I don’t think about challenging the court order. Do I want to see Lydia? Yes and no. Do I miss Alice? I think of her.

He knew if he was a potential client calling Lydia’s practice, the receptionist would tell him Ms Fiorentino was on extended leave. She would not tell him that Ms Fiorentino was currently residing at an address in the Hamptons. She would tell him that Lydia’s business partner, Selma Hernandez, was taking care of everything. Was he able to make an appointment for when Ms Fiorentino returned? No, the receptionist would reply, not at this time. Because—although she would not say this—Ms Fiorentino’s absence would be permanent.





ALICE HAD CALLED TWO DAYS before Christmas. ‘Dad, I think you’d better come to the hospital. Mom’s not so good.’