While looking over the room belonging to Henry, Steven Grey's oldest son, I started to feel terribly sorry for myself and my unfinished dug-out. Christ! I thought, you've reached the age of thirty-four and have never even once had a decent place to live. I looked in the drawers, stared at the amateur color photographs of happy children, sniffed the crab claw, felt the little Chinese figurine, turned the pages of a vacation book about a bunny rabbit, and jealously examined a cowboy hat from somebody else's childhood, a huge eraser, modeling clay, and some foil, all those little things that no child can possibly manage without. A piece of old wood stood on a chest and a stuffed owl scowled from a top shelf. The yellow floor, the blue shag rug, the cork wall on which was thumbtacked yet another sunny photograph — green and sky blue, with four children on the grass, one sticking his tongue out, and an azure sea visible through some rocks in the background. It's been many years now since Steven Grey and his family settled permanently in Connecticut, and the New York house has remained much as it was when they lived here. And the children's rooms have too. On one wall in an old frame hung a copy of the last issue of a newspaper published, as it turned out, on board the unfortunate Lusitania. The issue was dated May 7, 1915. The headlines were "The Dardanelles," "The Italian Crisis," "An Important Japanese Operation," and "Extensive Use of Gas against the British by the Enemy." There was also an announcement of an upcoming concert in the ship's saloon: "Concert in Saloon!" And there was a report by Sir J. French from the European front, written in the unvarying style shared by military communiqués the world over — the attempt to conceal and downplay a fucked-up situation: "The same morning three units carried out a concerted attack on a position in the Bois de Pally recently captured by us. This attack achieved die enemy's goal of gaining a foothold against our front line, but our counterattack permitted us to retake half of the hill almost immediately…" You're screwed, Sir J. French, I thought. They'll throw even more men at you at night, since the main thing is to gain a foothold, and in the morning your front line will become their rear.
Next to the relic from the Lusitania hung a portrait — an old gentleman in a pince-nez and green tie, probably a grandfather or great-grandfather. In another frame on the same wall was a group portrait of some gentlemen who had received the Edison Prize, with Edison himself in the center. The prime movers of progress, so to speak. To a significant degree, it is thanks to these fine-looking gentlemen and their boundless curiosity that the very existence of Homo sapiens is in jeopardy.
On the opposite wall was an art nouveau poster depicting an auburn-haired, bare-shouldered woman who was covered with flowers, who was bedecked with flowers. This lady, unlike the Fausts in their stand-up collars, was completely innocuous and didn't even have a name.
Hidden behind the door was a surprise — a yellow 1919 newspaper, framed like the other one of course, with a portrait of the same old gentleman in pince-nez and what were evidently his words printed in huge letters underneath: "People want us to be efficient and to provide service of the highest quality. That is impossible without capital investment. There must be an equitable interrelation here. If costs go up, then prices must too!" Golden words from the old gentleman, I thought to myself. He's right. Prices have been going up to this day and will continue to do so until the entire system collapses. And if it collapses, then everything else will too — both prices and costs, and the portrait of the gentleman in the green tie, and the millionaire's house, and maybe the whole world.
Then a white children's bed stood next to the doorway leading to the roof; now it has been replaced by a large adult bed Nancy brought from Connecticut. I have accustomed myself to fucking my women on the adult bed with the door open, so that the sunlight in all its vitality falls directly on the victim's cunt and on my own organ, which is tremendously stimulating, and heats both cunt and prick to incandescence. Then, however, a children's bed stood by the door, and next to it (and still there) a manned rocking horse from India embroidered in gold.
I sat on the horse and rocked and quietly thought, Why couldn't I live here? It would be a fine thing to remain living in this little house for the rest of one's life, and sleep in the children's bed, and throw children's books on the blue shag rug. Thank you, Jenny, I thought as I rocked on the horse, clasping it between my tanned legs. I have no right to be here, none at all. Thank you, Jenny. I'll have to give her a kiss when I get back downstairs. She doesn't feel well. Besides her vagina, her back hurts. She sleeps on the other bed, but next to me, obviously creating the illusion for herself of a normal life with a husband. Last night there were light blue sheets with butterflies on our beds. She does everything she thinks she's supposed to do so that sex will be pleasurable for Edward, and obediently sucks my organ. What can I do? she probably thinks. Edward must have an orgasm, and my vagina hurts me now. She makes an effort for my sake, but doesn't get any pleasure herself, the angel.
I've stopped dreaming about complete happiness, I thought, continuing to rock and watching through the open doorway a sudden gust of wind blow my Sunday New York Times from the roof to toss it in the river, no doubt. I've become calculating and don't worry about Jenny anymore, and always leave her in bed in the morning without regret, without even a glance in her direction; I leave her and the butterflies on the sheets and come up here to this children's stateroom. Downstairs sleeps a woman who is alien to me, a twenty-year-old woman who oppresses me with her plans. Down there lie her heavy bottom, her breasts, and the rest of her dubious charms, while I sit up here, a boy who has risen early and already contemplated an old geographical map. I have existed and I shall continue to do so, I thought, as usual full of boundless faith that morning in my own exceptional destiny. And when my hour comes, I shall leave this house for other women and other lands and return to my own destiny. Here in the children's room of the millionaire's house I've found an unexpected respite from my struggle, a place to hide out for a while. But enough of resting, I said to myself, and sliding off my Arabian courser, I went downstairs, where Eastern music and the voices of Jenny and somebody else could already be heard.
That somebody else turned out to be Jennifer, whom I had mistaken on my first visit to the millionaire's house for a Turk. She was in fact a Jew. I didn't care much for Jennifer; of all Jenny's friends, Bridget was my favorite, but Jenny liked Jennifer for some reason. I suppose it was because they were both cows and crazy about babies, and each eventually had one, Jennifer first, then Jenny a little later.
After I came downstairs that morning, Jennifer revealed to me and Jenny that she had "fallen in love" with the seventy-two-year-old Dr. Krishna.
"Congratulations," I said.
"I'm so happy!" she exclaimed, and jumping up from her chair, she embraced Jenny. Then she embraced me, giving off a strong odor of pot, and said that she and the doctor were planning to get married in the fall.
I even started to respect her for her «originality» and daring and her craziness. A difference of fifty-two years isn't exactly trifling, I thought. What a people these Indians are. He's never been married until now. He's just starting out. His first wife.
It was very hot, around a hundred degrees. After taking her bra off very nearly in front of me and something else besides that looked like panties — New York girls have an extraordinary simplicity about these things that is on occasion even offensive — the idiotic Jennifer ran out into the garden and started twirling about in nothing but her Indian blouse and her skirt. She leapt up and down, holding her arms high, and pointlessly waved her hands, performing something in between a belly dance and a gymnastics exercise. A Jewish chicken, I thought derisively. Pimply, happy, and satisfied with her Krishna, who was an "excellent man," as she had told Jenny. I could see that she really was happy, only it all looked so silly.