This all came out over the longest breakfast I'd ever eaten. I kept asking her questions so she wouldn't think about the night before. But you can eat only so many waffles. Staggering up from the table, I suggested through swollen cheeks that we go out for a walk. She agreed; it crossed my mind it would be nice to have a change of clothes, but I wasn't sure if I should leave her alone yet, so I went as I was.

The day was snappy cold, but it was clear for the first time since I'd arrived. West Seventy-second Street is a world in itself, and whatever you're looking for is usually there: cowboy boots, organic pasta, Japanese box kites . . . We promenaded up and down and spent a long time looking in store windows, comparing notes.

I fell in love with a pair of cowboy boots that she made me try on. I remembered Paul's story about the Austrians in the Vienna airport wearing them, but they were beautiful. I came close to buying them, until I found out they cost over a hundred and forty dollars.

We had lunch at a delicatessen. She had a hard time eating her corned beef sandwich because her lip was so sore, but she laughed and started purposely talking out of the corner of her mouth like Little Caesar.

"Awright now, Lennox. I told you enough about myself. What's the dope on you? You gonna open up or am I gonna have to pound it out of you? What's your story?"

"What would you like to hear?"

She looked at an imaginary wristwatch. "Your life story in one minute."

I told her a little about everything – Vienna, my writing, where I came from. When she listened, her eyes grew wide and excited. Without thinking, she touched me often when some part of my story moved or dismayed her. She said things like "No!" or "You've got to be kiddin'!" and I often found myself nodding to assure her that it was true.

An hour later we were having a glass of hot spiced wine at a glassed-in sidewalk cafй. We started talking about the theater; in a small voice I asked her if she had ever seen The Voice of Our Shadow.

"Seen it? Hoo, Joseph, I had to read that play for a drama class at Agnes Scott. I made the mistake of bringin' it home over vacation, and my daddy got hold of it. Wow! He picked it up and flew 'round the house like an eagle, yellin' about how they were makin' us young girls read books about juvenile delinquents and feelin' girls up! Hell, Joseph! I know all about that play!"

I changed the subject, but later, when I told her about my connection to the play, she smiled sadly and said it must be hard to be famous for something you didn't do.

The wine turned into a Cuban dinner and more talk. It had been a long time since I'd so comfortably shot the breeze and laughed and not worried about things. With India you quickly realized she expected you to speak well and interestingly because she was listening so carefully. A moment before you said anything, you were still shaping and polishing it so it would arrive in first-class condition. When I was around India, both before and after Paul died, every moment shook with such importance that I was sometimes afraid to move for fear I'd break something – the mood, the tone, whatever.

Here, on the other side of the world, Karen made you feel that with no effort at all you were the cleverest, wittiest devil in town and that laughter was meant to boom across a room and drain you of everything you had. Life wasn't easy, but it certainly could be fun. We made plans to see a movie together the next night.

We went to a revival of the original Lost Horizon. When we left the theater she was wiping her eyes with my handkerchief.

"I hate them, Joseph! All they have to do is throw me some violins and that old Ronald Colman and I'm a goner."

I wanted to take her arm, but I didn't. I looked at the sidewalk and felt glad she was there.

"I had this boyfriend a couple of months ago? He'd take me to movies like that and then get all mad when I started cryin'! Now, what did he expect me to do, take notes? New York intellectuals – ink for blood."

"Do you go with anyone special?"

"No, that fellow was my last big steady. Oh, you can go to parties. I even went to a singles' bar once, but I don't know, Joseph, who needs it? I get choosier the older I get. Is that a sign of senility? I go into one of those jittery places, and everybody's eyes are as big as TVs. It makes me all depressed."

"What was the name of your last steady?"

"Miles." She pronounced it "Molls." "He was a very big-time book editor. He gave me a rejection slip."

"Oh, yeah? Didn't he like your style?"

She looked at me and poked me in the ribs. Then she stopped dead in the middle of the sidewalk and put her hands on her hips. "Do you really want to know or are you just makin' chitchat?"

People walked by with smirks and expressions that said they knew we were fighting. I told her I wanted to know. Sticking her hands back in her coat pockets, she started walking again.

"Miles wore his watch when we made love. Do you believe it? Drove me completely crazy. Why would someone do that, Joseph?"

"Do what, wear a watch? I never thought about it."

"Never thought – Joseph! Don't start makin' me upset. I have great hopes for you. No man should wear a watch when he's makin' love. What is he – on a schedule? What would you do if a woman came into bed wearin' a big Timex on her arm? Huh?" She stopped again and gave me the big stare.

"Karen, are you serious?"

"You bet I'm serious! Miles wore this big hundred-pound dive-bomb thing. Every time. It'd end up cuttin' me to pieces. Then I'd lose all the bliss because it was tickin' away at me."

"Karen . . ."

"Don't look at me like that. You're lookin' just the way he did when I told him about it. Listen – a woman wants to be taken and ravished and adored by a man. She wants to forget the world and leap right the hell off the edge! But not here – tick, tick, tick – it is seven-oh-eight and thirty seconds. You see what I mean?"

" 'Taken and ravished and adored'?"

"That's right. Don't start embarrassin' me – you asked."

We went back to her apartment for a cup of coffee. It was raining again; I watched it smash against the balcony windows. The living room was a bright fortress against it. The blue couch, thick carpet, soft white drops of light in each corner. The great contrast was the pictures on the walls. I would have expected Bernard Buffet clowns or Picasso doves to go with the softness and exuberant colors, but it wasn't so. Behind the dining table was a sludgy brown Francis Bacon print in a dull silver frame. I couldn't make out much of what was happening in the picture except that the subject was melting. Otto Dix, Edward Hopper, and Edvard Munch rounded out the happy lineup.

When she came in with the coffee, I was looking at a big print of Munch's The Shriek.

"What's with all the gloomy pictures, Karen?"

"Aren't they scaly? Music to have nightmares by." She perched on the couch and, with the most delicate movements possible, arranged two places on the coffee table, complete with miniature place mats. It reminded me of the care little girls take when they set up tea parties for their dolls and stuffed animals.

"Miles said I was a secret psychotic. Me and my penny loafers and lemon-meringue blouses . . . Miss Fair Isle Sweaters. Do you want sugar? Oh, Miles. Miles should have been a screenwriter for French movies. He needed one of those severe knee-length leather coats and a Gauloise cigarette hangin' from his lip in the middle of the rain. Here, Joseph, I hope you like your coffee strong. This is Italian and it's good."

I sat down next to her. "You still haven't explained why you like such melancholy pictures."

She even sipped gently. "You're hurtin' my feelin's, Joseph."

"What? How? What did I say?"

"You're sayin', dear man, that I've got to like this kind of picture because I dress or talk this way. I'm not supposed to like anythin' black or sad or alone because . . . Well, sir, how would you like it if I put you in that kind of little box?"