"Edward, somebody's ringing die front doorbell," Richardson's voice said.

"Well, could you see who it is?" I yelled angrily.

So they wouldn't even let me fuck. I went downstairs a few minutes later — they'd upset my rhythm anyway and dragged me away from the excellent fountain inside that crazy woman — I went downstairs and met the new guest, Steven's artist-friend Stanislaw, gave him an extra key to the millionaire's house, and told him he would be staying in one of the children's rooms, the other rooms already being occupied. I even had some vodka with him, and then went back to my room, where I rolled and lit myself a joint — the crazy Tatiana didn't smoke — and then grabbed her again in earnest. I remember almost crushing her large soft breasts, which she was usually ashamed of, and angrily thrusting my prick into her. We didn't stop till five o'clock the next morning. And she didn't say anything more about being pregnant or about Ghupta and the CIA.

The first time I heard about Stanislaw was from Gatsby, and I remembered that unusual evening very well. Gatsby was sick and had decided to stay home — probably the only time in his whole life that the stubborn Gatsby actually gave in and stayed home. He'd been sick for a long time before that, three weeks maybe, and was coughing so badly that I had no doubt that he was in the final stages of tuberculosis and that very soon I'd be without an employer. He was dying but stubbornly holding on to his insane mode of life — drinking Scotch with five ice cubes, running outside without a coat on even though it was winter, and so forth. By that evening he was at the end of his rope. The antibiotics he'd been taking weren't doing any good, and he had stayed home and was sitting red-nosed and miserable in the kitchen clad in his warmest robe and in warm pajamas under the robe and eating some of my chicken soup — Nancy had called from Connecticut with the special request to eat soup without fail — and panting for breath he told me one thing and another. I was sitting across from him; for the first time he hadn't sent for anybody, since he was obviously embarrassed about his illness, but he still needed somebody to talk to. A peaceful kitchen scene.

Why did we start talking about Stanislaw? I had asked the boss what I should do with the picture that had been standing in the TV room since Jenny's time. Should I hang it there in the kitchen? Gatsby objected to that, to hanging the picture in the kitchen, since Stanislaw, the author of that, in my opinion, ugly work, or at least one that overwhelmed me with boredom whenever I looked at it (a moon over mountains — abstract, a mere howl), might suddenly turn up, and it would be awkward for him, for Steven, that is, if the author found his gift hanging in the kitchen. Okay. I didn't say any more about moving the picture, but Mr. Grey didn't want to drop the subject, and he told me about Stanislaw. Mr. Grey was amazed by him.

"He's such an old goat, it's unbelievable!" said Gatsby. "He even tried to grab Nancy once, Edward, if you can believe that! What an old goat!"

I could believe it. Gatsby hadn't said what, what part of Nancy's body, Stanislaw had tried to grab — maybe it was awkward for him to tell his butler that Stanislaw had tried to grab his wife's ass? Or had in fact grabbed it, for what else could "tried to grab" mean? That he was merely thinking about it? How could Gatsby know what Stanislaw was thinking?

"He was visiting me in Connecticut, and he tried to grab Nancy," Gatsby continued delightedly. It was obvious that even if he didn't like what had happened, Stanislaw's audacity was very much to his taste. I didn't ask Gatsby how he reacted — did he pretend he hadn't noticed the satyr? I don't think he would have been reluctant to punch Stanislaw in the jaw, but he did have a certain respect for audacity in other people.

"He even went after Jenny," Gatsby continued, "and she complained to me about it. I said to him, 'Stanislaw, please, don't terrorize my employees. "

Steven obviously used the word «employees» for my benefit. Telling the story to someone else he would probably have said "my servants."

"He's one of the Polish mafia," the boss continued. "You know, all those Polanskis and Kozinskis…"

"And Brzezinskis," I added, and Gatsby laughed.

"An unbelievable old goat!" Gatsby summed up.

After such a testimonial, I was eager to make Stanislaw's acquaintance and observe him in action whenever he came to our house.

He looked pretty good for his age — slim, although his face was a little worn, it's true, but you wouldn't have said he was fifty — forty at the most. The only thing not quite right about him was that his clothing was out of date. He was dressed the way they dressed at the end of the sixties — in flared pants that fit tight across his ass, a close-fitting short jacket, and long hair.

I haven't dressed that way in a long time. I wear pants that are narrow at the bottom and wide in the seat, and my jackets are a good size with big shoulders, as if one or two sizes too large. My hair is cut now like James Dean's — you know, die famous actor of the fifties. The fifties are very «in» right now, as I'm well aware, and why shouldn't I be; after all, I'm a contemporary servant of the world bourgeoisie.

But let's leave me and return to Stanislaw. The Pole and die Russian got along well from their very first meeting, although I was busy with Tatiana and couldn't give him very much time, except for the glass of vodka we each had in the kitchen before I went back upstairs to fuck her, making my apologies to him and brazenly telling him I had a warm body in my bed. You know how we are, I thought complacently to myself; we fuck too and know how to.

The whole time Stanislaw resided in our heaven — he told Gatsby that he had come for just a few days, but thanks to my personal generosity and the fact that Gatsby was in Europe, he stayed more than two weeks — I had a body in my bed. And I gave him a terrible complex, an awful complex! I wasn't doing it just for his sake; it merely worked out that way. And here too the Poles lost, gentlemen, just as in the historical rivalry between Poland and Russia. During those two weeks he fucked only Marisza, the daughter of one of their Polish writers. Whereas I had, during the same period, at least six women, including the above-mentioned Tatiana, Teresa, the musician Natasha, and the Dutch girl Maria, and one evening Sarah dropped by, and in addition a married woman came specially from the state of Israel to fuck me — she'd read my book.

From time to time I made my appearance in the kitchen, in our club so to speak, where Stanislaw would invariably be calling all over New York, trying to get his old connections going again. He had come to New York from his home in Texas with a pile of pictures he was trying to peddle on his own — without gallery representation. I no longer respected people who didn't have a gallery; even I, a servant, had my own literary agent. You've got to be professional, Stanislaw, I thought, and it doesn't matter if you're a professional artist or a professional hit man. Thank you, Great United States; you have at least taught me something. And although Stanislaw maintained that he had no need of a gallery and showed me his portfolio with photographs of himself — Stanislaw with Roman Polanski, Stanislaw with Henry Miller, Stanislaw with Mary Hemingway — I began to discern in this cheerful Polish lecher and buffoon the all-too-familiar features of a failure worried that he was fifty and getting old.

I would creep down to the kitchen yawning and stretching — I was never fully rested, as is understandable — and Stanislaw would already be sitting by the phone and making calls. Not that he was hard pressed — not at all. In Texas they had built sculptures based on his designs. In a steel slab of extraordinary thickness young scholars enthusiastic about the project had made a hole using something like an atomic cannon. A hole ripped out just the way he wanted it. He was depicting holes. We live in a magnificent time, gentlemen, a time when every-thing is beyond our reach and nothing is forbidden — a time in fact for making holes. The hole may even be the symbol of our time — a torn and gaping hole leading nowhere.