The Museum of Modern Love(29)

‘I would have liked to see Frida Kahlo paint her,’ Jane said. ‘I wonder what implements of pain she might assign Marina as she sits in the chair? Do you remember when the Pool of Reflection froze solid last winter and people walked on water, there on Capitol Hill? Did you see the pictures? It struck me as biblical, I guess. And here . . . here, they come and sit with her and it’s a little bit biblical too.’

Levin nodded, still listening to the music in his head.

‘You know Brittika, the PhD student I introduced you to in the queue? The Chinese girl from Amsterdam with the pink hair? We were talking about how people give the Pollock on the fourth floor a minute or two and move on. But they stop and stare at Marina for hours. Lots of us come back again and again. And look!’ She indicated the crowd about the square and the long queue of people waiting to take their place at the table. ‘They’re from everywhere. London, Ireland, France, Portugal, Egypt, Israel, Vienna, Australia. They’re spending their precious days in New York coming back here again and again. I’ve never seen anyone spend this much time staring at an artwork.’

Levin nodded.

‘She looks tired, doesn’t she?’ said Jane. ‘I imagine that hundreds of pairs of eyes staring into yours might do that.’

Marina was looking particularly pale, her eyes red rimmed as if she was on the edge of an infection. Her skin was the colour of candle wax. A lunch crowd was filling the atrium. Another person sat. He had a shaved head and a broad, keen face.

Jane said, ‘What am I here for? I think this is still the question we want answered. Maybe that’s why we come here. Maybe we think she knows.’

Levin looked at her. He was about to reply when a young woman on the other side of him, voluptuous in a stretch paisley shirt, asked, as if requiring him to solve a minor argument for her, ‘What do you see in it?’

He shrugged. ‘Lots of things.’

The girl said, ‘I think she’s like a tree that has rooted herself to this place. A silver princess gum.’

‘That is such a girl thing to say,’ the young man beside her said, grinning at Levin.

‘Well, what tree do you think she is?’ she asked her companion. ‘I don’t know. A baobab. Something exotic.’

‘And you two?’ the girl persisted.

‘Oh, maybe a monkey-puzzle tree,’ said Jane, laughing. ‘Arky?’

‘I don’t really know trees,’ he said.

The young people went back to their own conversation. Jane fell silent as she continued watching the two people in the centre of the room regarding one other. Regard was too distant a term for it. It was as if they were drinking each other in.

Levin smothered a yawn. He had slept badly. He’d woken at 1.05 am and hadn’t been able to fall asleep again. He’d gotten up and watched an episode of The Sopranos. He’d tried listlessly to masturbate as he sat on the couch then gave it up. It seemed too much of an effort and he didn’t want to conjure Lydia for such purposes. Eventually he’d put on his headphones and worked away in his studio. He played over old compositions, thinking of a show he might give one day that featured all his best work. He considered the club he’d hire and the guest list.

The city had buzzed on regardless of the hour. The tribe of New York burning through life. He felt the curve of the world and, standing at the window, he rather hoped someone would drop a line and haul him up.

He had been to the doctor the week before and been given cream for the rash on his hand. It hadn’t been their regular doctor, but a locum while Dr Kapelus was on leave. The doctor had suggested some routine blood and urine tests, just to see if there was anything amiss. When they came back, it turned out Levin’s cholesterol was up, but nothing serious for his age. No medication required. Kidney function good. Blood pressure one thirty over eighty and heart rate seventy-four. Everything was fine. ‘Exercise would be good,’ said the doctor, ‘for the insomnia. The sweats may be caffeine-related. But life has a whole bundle of things lurking about for men over fifty. Stress is the most insidious. Exercise is your best friend. And it keeps the weight down. That and not too much Ben & Jerry’s. Do you swim, play tennis, cycle?’

‘Yes, tennis,’ he had said, remembering Hal’s invitation to resume their summer games.

The doctor had advised him to slow down on the coffee. Even stop altogether for six weeks and see if it helped his sleep cycle. What was he eating that might be stimulating his metabolism? the doctor had asked. ‘Too much red meat? Not enough water during the day?’

Levin had gone four days without coffee but nothing had changed. Not even a headache. And still he’d woken in the night.

He said to Jane, ‘Last night on the TV there was a news pull-through I kept seeing. It said: A man who went for a late-night swim was found by tourists. It was only later that I realised I had missed the first few words. In fact, the pull-through read: The body of a man who went for a late-night swim was found by tourists. Three words made such a difference.’

‘Especially for the man,’ Jane said.

Especially for the man. Levin had wondered all his life what would take him off. Would it also be a random act of fate? Or would it be protracted and painful? He worried that he was starting to forget things. He’d walk into the bedroom to get something and have no recollection what it was. He’d go to the market certain of what he needed and find himself staring blankly at the shelves. His recall of movie titles and actors, even film composers, took longer. Sometimes things didn’t occur to him until the next day or even days later. By which time he’d forgotten why his brain had been so urgently searching for that particular fact in the first place.