Crosetti was no stranger to this world, his mother having made sure that American barbarism was not an option for him, but his covert glances at Carolyn revealed a person stunned. Or bored senseless, he really couldn’t tell; and after the concert he was hesitant to ask her which it was. But she said, after one of her long intervals of silence, “Wouldn’t it be nice if the world was really like that, the way that music says it is, just flowing along in beauty?” Crosetti thought it would be exceedingly fine, and used the Hemingway line about it would be pretty to think so, without attribution.
They walked down Madison and he got her into pretending to be not just temporarily rich and to select choice items from the windows of the great boutiques, and when they grew tired of that he steered her down a side street and into the first restaurant they encountered, because he was sure that anyplace they went to would be perfect and this one was, a tiny boîte specializing in provincial French cuisine, where the patron took a liking to the nice young couple and kept sending out exquisite little tastes from the kitchen and recommended the wine, and watched them eat the entrées, beaming; and except that he did not actually break out singing in an accent it was exactly like, as Crosetti noted, The Lady and the Tramp. Which she had actually seen, it turned out, and they talked about that and about other Disney movies, and about the films he loved and the ones he was going to make, stuff he hadn’t ever told anyone, and she talked about beautiful books, their aesthetics, their structure and the cryptic subtle beauties of paper, type, and binding, and how, as she put it, she wanted to make things that people would be handling and loving a thousand years from now.
He had to wave a hundred-dollar bill in the rearview mirror before the cabby would consent to take them to Red Hook, something he had never done before, nor ever dreamed of doing, and they arrived in the dark industrial street, and when the cabby had roared away with his C-note, Crosetti grabbed Carolyn Rolly, spun her around, and planted a good one on her wine-and-coffee-tasting mouth, and she kissed him back. Just like the movies.
Unlike, they did not tear off their clothes as they staggered up the stairs, into the loft, and into bed. Crosetti had always thought this a cliché and unrealistic; such a thing had never happened to him nor to anyone he knew who was not either drunk or cranked to the gills. So it was not going to happen in his movie. Instead, he sighed deeply and she sighed. He held her hand lightly, as if it were a dried blossom as they slowly ascended. They entered the loft, they kissed again. She pulled away and rummaged in a drawer. She’s going to light a candle, he thought, and she did, a simple plumber’s candle, which she stuck carefully in a saucer and set by the bed. Crosetti did not move. Then she looked straight at him, her face set in its lovely grave lines and silently and slowly took off her new clothes in the candlelight, folding them tenderly, which was exactly the way he would have shot it, maybe a little more blue coming in from the window, and as he thought this he laughed.
She asked him why he laughed and he told her, and she told him to undress, that this was the part they didn’t show in the regular movies, this was the fade-out. But after they were in bed together he thought of the horrible uncle and was abashed and too tentative until she used her nails and a harsh urgent command to unleash the animal. They did not practice safe sex, which he considered a little odd, a thought he entertained just before all thinking ceased.
After that, the director was out of the building for a long time. When he returned, Crosetti was on his back, feeling the sweat and other fluids drying on his skin, staring up at the tin ceiling. The candle was only an inch high. He had nothing to say, and his mind was quite blank: dead air, white screen. They’d had the setup, the development, the first plot point (discovering the manuscript), the second plot point (this incredible evening), and now what? He had no idea what the third act was going to be, but he was starting to feel fear. He’d never had anything like this happen to him, except in dreamland. He reached over to caress her again but she held on to his hand and kissed it. She said, “You can’t stay.”
“Why not? Are you going to turn into a bat?”
“No, but you can’t stay. I’m not ready for…mornings. And all that. Do you understand?”
“A little. I guess. Well, Red Hook at…where’s my watch? Threeten a.m. with a roll of cash and smelling like a bordello. That sounds like fun.”
“No,” she said, “I’ll wash you.”
She took him by the hand and led him to the sink behind the screen, lit two candles set in wall sconces made of tin cans, and filled the sink with steaming water. She stood him on a thick straw bath mat and washed every inch of him, slowly, with a washcloth and Ivory soap. Then she drained the suds and washed him with clear water, kneeling lightly on one knee like a courtier before the prince. She had small flattish breasts with broad pink nipples. Despite the night’s epic exertions he hardened painfully under this treatment. It had an unnatural appearance, like one of her bookbinding implements, something suitable for burnishing leather to a high gloss. She looked up at him and said, “You can’t go out in Red Hook at three a.m. in that condition.”
“No, it would be unwise,” he said in a hoarse croak.
“Well, then,” she said.
He noticed that she held it at the base with two fingers, the other three extended, like a duchess sipping tea. Her dark little head moved slowly back and forth. How did they learn how to do that, he thought, and also: Who are you? What are you doing to me? What’s going to happen?
THE BRACEGIRDLE LETTER (6)
Thus I began my lyfe as an ordnancer of the Tower 10s. the moneth wage, prentice wages that but beggars cannot be chusers. We took lodgings two mean roomes in Fenchurch St. by Aldgate, verey poore were wee but had liverie from the Tower so saved on my cloathes. One yeare spent thus: in the winter of the second yeare came a chill & my mother sickened & wee had not coales enow to warme her. Methinkes she wase besydes wearied from her sorrowes. Alas to come to this end through no fault of hers: all ways a good, sober, virtuous woman & no papiste neither, as I asked her then, she sayinge no sonne but I did pray for the sowles of my dead babes & for the sowles of my parentes as wee learnt in the olde religion a great sinne I know & wille burn in Hell for it though I praye God not. Soe she died 2nd February AD 1606 & is buried in St Katherine Colemanchurch. Now you know, my Nan, that after that sadde tyme you gave me comfort soe that I wish to marry you but your father sayeth what, nay nay, no man can marry on prentice wages how will you keepe my daughter & I hadde no answer & and left sad & wast sad many daies.
Comes now Thomas Keane saying ho Dick what say you to Flanders? For I am off to-morrow to deliver four cannon royal to the Dutch at Sluys & shoot em too against Spain. Come & be my mate & matrosse: wee will eate cheese & drinke genever & blaste papiste dogges to Hell. I answer him yes by G-d & my hand on’t & the thynge is settled. We must needs goe from the Tower at night for the Kinges majestie had late made peace with Spain so ’twould be thought ille to arme Spaines foes. But some at court (that Prince Henry I think mee who after untimely died) thought it a shame on England to shrink cowardly from warre gainst wicked King Phillipe who pressed so cruel on the reformed faith. Besides the Dutch had payed for the gonnes before this so wase it justice too, for the King would not yield a pennie backe & thus we went for the honour of England besydes.