person had a difficult time not playing up to her, not lending one’s self to the game of hurt, relief, and hurt. She was, had been, so on the edge, a person ready to fall into the primordial soup at all times. He would just box the books. The next time he would come with a friend and a truck to cart them over to another friend’s apartment. He was a man constantly in search of blank walls, lanthe had laughed and told him once that he was not only a man with an excellent record collection (but no record player), but that he had an excellent gallery (but no walls). There were several places where he kept his books. Over the years it could be that he had lost track of huge groups of them. Sometimes, at night, this thought kept him awake. Arnold dragged one of the brown cardboard boxes he had brought with him into the room and began putting into it some of his books on medieval art. They were wonderful hardbacks of luminous and rich color, filled with the spirit of the artist. He felt better just touching them, making contact with a life remembered. After he finished with the one box he got up and began to walk around the room, trying to decide which books to pack next, running his hands along the bindings as if he were blind and could read the bindings with his fingers. There was the sound of water running in the bathroom. For a moment he thought it might be lanthe and froze, with his hand lifted in mid-air, hovering around the psychology section. But, no, he had called her earlier and was sure that nothing would take her away from the museum because they were trying to acquire a special African collection from the estate of a woman who had just died, a woman lanthe had known when she lived in the East. And there was no doubt she would rather do anything than see him now as he removed the last of his possessions. But there was the sound of the water running down the drain, as it used to do when she washed her long hair. She said the tub didn’t get the soap out, the shower was the only answer. She said this as an apology because she believed women shouldn’t take showers, or she believed that he would think women shouldn’t take showers. It was not as lovely. What he knew about her really was that she felt that both men and women should do what they damned well pleased, but she believed he was such a narrowminded person that he didn’t think she should take a shower. So, as a kind of sarcasm, she pretended to excuse herself from taking a bath because, after all, she had to get the soap out. These were the unending complications one found out about one’s lovers. The water was running in torrents down the drain and she was gone at the museum, being charming he supposed, convincing all the rich people from New York that Seattle was going to be one of the great centers for the arts. Arnold walked into the hall, just to make sure of what he knew was a fact. The water was running. It could be that she had left it on. When he was with her he had tried to smooth her habits of wastefulness and laziness, but this sort of thing was typical. She had probably rushed out in the morning and forgotten to wash her hair, forgotten one of the major steps of the day. Arnold stood at the bathroom door and pressed his ear against it. Abruptly it opened. “ Ahhh,” a bewildered man stood in a towel and looked with horror into what had been Arnold’s ear but was now his face. Arnold jumped back and his heart thumped once and turned over and became quiet. First, he noticed how hairy the man was. There was hair on his face, his chest, and all over his legs and the rest of his body. It was dark and shining, like a healthy dog’s. “Who are you?” the dark man asked, just barely catching enough breath to say it. “ I’m picking up some books,” Arnold said lamely. For a moment he thought of taking a proprietary air with this man, but then out of necesShe felt that both men and women should do what they damned well pleased, but she believed he was such a narrow-minded person that he didn’t think she should take a shower. These were the unending complications one found out about one’s lovers. sity shook it off. Instead he let the twinkle come into his eye. “Who are you?” “ I shower here after I ride my bicycle through the park. She doesn’t mind. Do you?” The man eyed Arnold with caution, trying to figure out who he might be and what role exactly he should be playing with him. “ No, no. She just let me leave some of my things here for a while. Books, lots of books,” Arnold repeated. “ Lately I’ve been rereading Kierkegaard.” Under normal circumstances Arnold would have been quite charmed by his own irrelevance and would have laughed with pleasure at his own inanity. But for once he was quite overcome by the situation and simply became quiet and looked at the dark man as if he would like to know what this clean gorilla read too. He liked his short, strong body. There was that sense about this dark man that the world could very well be resting here, on these shoulders. “What do you do?” For a moment Arnold was caught off guard and thought of many things: of reading, of working in the library at night, of long autumnal walks. “ Not much,” he said. “ I have published a few books of poems, nothing too grand, you know, but something adequate. Enough, I suppose.” He looked at the other man to see if he liked this sort of honesty, this special kind of success. “ I have a horrible time sometimes when I think about it.” He moved aside in case he was in the way of the dark man escaping to another part of the house. “ Do you remember that film by Bergman?” He paused as he tried to remember the name. “There was a man who wrote poetry on the sly and one of his fellow workers read some of it and told him point blank that there was nothing unusual in it, nothing that hadn’t been said before. Well, I have always felt a little like that man. To comfort myself I remember that there is nothing new under the sun.” Arnold sighed and walked over to the sink and turning on the faucet put water in his hand like a good boy scout, and leaning over drank from it. There was no glass. “Oh, but I’m poor,” he said, straightening up. “ I’m one of the poorest of the poor, not counting a few good paintings; but I dance.” Arnold moved about with his hand pressed against his sweater and did a few steps. “ I dance.” "Do you mean professionally?” “ No, no. I mean I dance the dance of life.” The man across from him looked at him coolly. Although he was dark, his eyes were blue. “William,” a sleepy voice called from one of the rooms. And then the door to the right front bedroom opened, first a bright slit and then wider, framing a black-haired girl in a turquoise robe. The light behind her was cold and clear, and to look at her reminded Arnold of all the good things he had ever experienced: good silver, or the proper china in a china closet; and then this thought was dispelled as the girl lifted her arms over her head and yawned, a tremendous yawn that seemed to keep her from whatever it was she had in mind when she called out William’s name. The dark man was William. “What do you want?” he asked. “ Oh, I don’t know.” And she brought down her arms and rubbed her eyes, moving across the large hallway, passing very close to Arnold. Clinton St. Quarterly 13
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