I Am Curious (Thirty)

April 11

Of course I was there at eight.

Just now, sitting here in my own apartment a few hours after dawn, sitting here and trying to get the words flowing from the pen, it occurred to me how utterly changed I am once more after seeing him. I went back and read the entries describing the times with David and Arnold. I was, when I wrote those few pages, a girl I had never been before.

I am not that girl any longer.

I just now got up and went to look in the mirror. And a girl with my face looked back at me through frightened eyes. I had trouble forcing myself to look back.

Have I written yet that I understand the mirror superstition? Or have I had that thought while gazing into a mirror, not while scribbling in this book. Let us put it down in either case. It is simply that, if The People Who Run This Zoo hadn’t decided that breaking a mirror is seven years’ bad luck, everyone would break mirrors until there were none left. Hence they invented the superstition to keep the world from running out of mirrors.

I must have just had the thought and not written it out before. When you write it out you see what a dumb thought it is, and here I had felt myself rather clever.

I went there last night, appearing at his door on the dot of eight. He opened the door just as I was about to knock on it. He does that sort of thing all the time.

“Come in, Jan.”

I went in. He closed the door.

(No, damn it. I want to write about him in the present tense. Why?)

I walk in. He closes the door. When it shuts my mind fills with a vision, a thick nail-studded castle door being swung shut and bolted.

He turns to me. “Coffee?”

“All right.”

The coffee things are on the table in front of the large white couch. He pours, fills two small handleless cups. It is black, very strong and very sweet.

“You enjoyed yourself with the boys?”

“Yes.”

“I see.”

“You told me I should see anyone I wanted.”

“You do not have to tell me what I told you.”

“I thought you disapproved.”

“No. It was a step, an important one. I am glad you enjoyed yourself.”

“I was always at the phone from two-thirty to three. If you wanted me, I was available.”

“Why do you justify yourself? I have not criticized you.”

“You seem hostile.”

“Oh?”

“Perhaps I am mistaken.”

“Indeed, I think you must be, Jan.”

He sits beside me on the couch, drinks his coffee, pours himself another cup. I sense and share his tension. I look at the hairs on the backs of his hands. Of course he wears no rings on his fingers, no jewelry of any sort.

“Jan.”

“Yes?”

“You won’t see the boys anymore.”

“If they call—”

“They won’t call.”

“How do you know?”

“I know.”

“But—”

“I know.”

Fear, in the actual physical form of a chill, is upon me. I see David and Arnold broken and dead, their heads at impossible angles, their arms and legs broken, as if dropped from a great height.

“What have you done to them?”

“Nothing.”

“Then how can you say — I don’t understand. I just don’t understand.”

“You had a pleasant week with them. Be satisfied with that. There was no future in it, Jan.”

“Future?”

He gets to his feet, walks to the fire, warms his hands over the coals. He turns, looks intently at me.

“I like your dress.”

“Thank you.”

“I haven’t seen it before.”

“It’s new. I had to buy a lot of new things. I’ve lost weight.”

“You look very nice.”

“Thank you.”

“Take the dress off.”

I am not even surprised by the casual abruptness of the order. He might have been asking me to pour him another cup of coffee. I stand, strip. He looks at me appraisingly.

“Yes, you have lost weight. You looked good before, but I think you look better now. Leaner, trimmer. No extra flesh.”

“My breasts are smaller.”

“Yes.”

“Do you like them as well?”

He looks at me as if the question is inane. He tells me to sit down again. I sit and reach for my cup of coffee, drink it down, pour another.

“You bought new clothes.”

“Yes.”

“Charged them to your husband.”

“Yes.”

“I see.” He fixes his eyes on mine, holds my gaze to his. It is uncanny how he does this.

“I believe it is time for you to make a change, Jan. Time for a change in your life. I don’t think you should be able to depend on your husband anymore. You have some money of your own. Live on it.”

“And when it’s gone?”

He does not seem to have heard the question. “You have your purse with you? Let me have your credit cards, please. All of them, please. Anything that ties you to him.”

“Nothing ties me to Howard.”

“Then why retain the ropes?”

I go through the purse searching for credit cards. Here’s an oil company card, here’s Diner’s Club, here’s Master Charge, here’s Bloomingdale’s, here’s Saks, here’s Lord & Taylor—

He places them one by one on the coal fire. The cardboard ones burn, the plastic ones melt. They all go.

“You will see no one unless I tell you to. You will stay in your apartment as much as possible or walk to the park if you are not here. Do not speak to people.”

“Why?”

“You may go now.”

“Don’t you want to—”

“Go now.”

He is obviously out of his tree. What other explanation is there? I read somewhere once that certain types of maniacs have extremely strong and compelling personalities, and you find yourself following them through hell before you finally realize that they are certifiable. Does Eric require more explanation than that?

What does he want with me? Sometimes I have the feeling that when he’s all done with me, when he has made me jump through the last of the hoops, when my possibilities are quite exhausted, he’ll run a spit through me and roast me over the coals and literally consume me, hair and teeth and bones and all, so that there is nothing left of me.

Quel ridiculous. He’d do no such thing. When he’s bored with me he’ll just sell me to North African white slavers, that’s all. And let me end my days in some filthy Arab whorehouse.

He must never find out about this diary.