I would, said the man. Lots of people.
Yes, and God bless them! It’s the beauty of the world, isn’t it, that there are both kinds. The ones who will sit in the dark watching the ones on the stage. The ones who like to feel pain and the ones who like to give it. I’ve never believed in God because I think men’s and women’s anatomy is all wrong. The invariability of sexual intercourse, of men penetrating women, is amateurish; it wasn’t created by a God. I think homosexuality is proof of this. And my God, in the insect world, the horrible things that happen! Traumatic insemination! Postcoital chomping! I was once married to an entomologist.
It doesn’t sound very pleasant, said the man.
Being married to an entomologist?
No, said the man, the trauma and chomping.
Oh. No. Well, neither was being married to an entomologist for that matter. Have you heard of Kristof Noomeul?
No, said the man.
I was married to him too. He was a theater director. The last really great theater director. I’m talking about real theater, pure theater, of course. It’s how I ended up here, at the end of the world. Of course, it being round, it doesn’t really have an end, but you got yourself here, so you know what I mean.
The woman looked down into her drink.
The bartender once again lifted himself away from the wall. He selected the schnapps bottle, uncorked it, and stood before them. Another? he asked.
The woman looked up from her drink, turned, and looked at the man. She saw that he was crying, silently, the tears on his cheeks. She nodded at the bartender and he poured some schnapps into both their glasses. He corked the bottle and left it on the bar in front of them and resumed his post at the far end of the bar.
You’re thinking about your wife, aren’t you?
Yes, said the man.
That you may lose her.
Yes, said the man.
After a moment the woman said, It’s startling for me, to encounter such depth of feeling. Of love, I suppose. Perhaps it’s not love, but to be moved to tears . . . When one stops feeling, one forgets that feelings exist, that other people actually do feel them. Like love. Perhaps it’s simply a result of aging—perhaps feelings, like muscles, atrophy. I’m sure it’s so, at least for me—it’s why I keep performing, even though hardly anyone comes to hear me—I play the piano and sing for my supper in yonder lobby five nights a week and Sunday afternoons. I do it, you see, because it’s the only way I can feel anything these days, even if they’re not real feelings, only facsimiles of facsimiles of facsimiles. And here you are feeling something real, right beside me. I’m ashamed. And privileged.
The man crossed his arms on the bar and then leaned forward, so his forehead rested on his arms. I’m so tired, he said. The schnapps has made me tired.
No, said the woman. It isn’t the schnapps. She placed her hand gently on the center of his back.
The man felt the pressure and warmth of her large hand and was afraid she would take it away.
Your hand is so warm, he said.
It isn’t either, said the woman.
It feels warm, said the man.
That’s something else entirely, said the woman.
No one comes? asked the man.
Occasionally there’s someone. She carefully did not move her hand, carefully did not increase or decrease the pressure of it against the man’s back.
But most nights the lobby is empty, she continued. Or there’s a few businessmen chatting up whores. But I don’t let that deter me. Anyone can perform for an audience, can’t they, for that warm welcoming murmur out beyond the footlights that’s so often mistaken for love? Other people go on doing other things, so why shouldn’t I? It doesn’t hurt anyone, as my mother would say. Five nights a week, as I told you. Do you know, I’ve never understood why there are seven days in a week, it seems such an odd number, why not ten or five? It’s another reason to doubt the existence of God, for wouldn’t he have divided up time more neatly? It’s all rather a mess, it seems to me.
She gently removed her hand from the man’s back and said, Are you still weeping?
No, said the man. He sat up straight and wiped at his wet face with his hands. Then he lifted his glass of schnapps and drank it all down like a child swallowing nasty medicine as quickly and neatly as possible. He placed the glass back upon the copper surface of the bar and smiled wistfully at it. He reached out and touched its rim with his fingertip.
I’d like you to come hear me sing, the woman said. I think it might do you good. It might take you out of yourself.
Can that be done? asked the man.
What?
I’d like to be taken out of myself. And put away in a drawer somewhere. A drawer you open in a dream when you’re packing in haste at the end of the world.
Oh, that dream! exclaimed the woman. That drawer! Well, I can only take you out of yourself. Where you go then is up to you.
Now I shall go to bed, said the man. He looked at the bartender. What do I owe you?
Don’t worry, said the woman. He’ll charge it to your room. It’s the beauty of hotel bars. It’s time I left, too, but I’ll let you go first. It would be unbearable to leave with you and say good night in the hallway.
Do you live in the hotel?
I do. I had a sweet little house but I didn’t take good care of it, in fact I didn’t take any care of it, and so it fell to pieces, it really did, you’d think houses would last, at least I did, but they don’t. Especially here, with all the cold and the snow. Things expand and contract, and then collapse. So now I live in the hotel. Go, just go! I’m going to return to my original place over yonder and finish my drink.
The man stood up. Good night, he said.
Oh, don’t say good night. Just go! I’m going back to my place. See.
Livia Pinheiro-Rima stood up and walked back to her seat at the end of the bar. She sat and placed her glass on the bar in front of her and gazed down into it. The bartender stood in his original place at the other end of the bar, gazing implacably in front of him.
The man dove back through the red beads, which trembled ecstatically behind him, but after a moment they hung straight and perfectly still.
The lobby, at this late hour, was surprisingly occupied. A large Nordic-looking man in a well-tailored business suit sat in one of the little leather club chairs surrounding one of the many low, circular tables in the lobby. He was furiously writing something in a small black leather journal and, by the looks of it, underlining much of what he wrote. As the man walked past him, the businessman violently shook his pen, stabbing the air with it and then returning it to the paper, where it apparently did not perform. He held it like a dart and threw it toward the shadowed corner of the lobby.
Cheap fucking pen, he cried, as the man walked past him. Don’t you hate cheap fucking pens?
The man smiled and continued walking. He was tired and wanted to go to bed.
Yo! Yo! the businessman called after him. Come back here, mon frère. I asked you a question.
The man stopped walking and turned around. What?
You heard me! I asked you if you hated cheap pens.
Yes, said the man. Of course. Everyone hates cheap pens.
You look awfully familiar to me. Do I know you?
The man said, No. I don’t think so.
I’m sure we’ve met. Do you work with the Turks?
The Turks? No.