time I saw Roza, she seemed very pleased with herself about something, but I didn’t know what it was. As for me, I’d sold a walnut dresser for fifty pounds.
After what she’d told me I was beginning to wonder whether I wasn’t risking too much. Someone who seduces her own father and thinks it’s amusing is a dangerous person. Even so, I couldn’t get over the fascination, and if anything it was getting worse. I was lying there sweating every night, and sleep was almost impossible until I was utterly exhausted. I’d be playing in my mind, over and over again, a sort of film in which I was both the actor and the director, and I was making love to Roza, and she was doing things to me that my wife had irrevocably given up fifteen years ago. The constant state of arousal was unbearable. It was a kind of dizziness.
I’d done something I wasn’t proud of, but I was very glad it had happened. I’d been to practices in Watford and all sorts of places like that, and then I’d dropped in to see a friend of mine in Muswell Hill. It was late, and I was on my way home to the slumbering Great White Loaf. I made a detour, and late at night I’d gone and stood outside Roza’s house, on the other side of the street. It was May, so it wasn’t too cold, and I just skulked in a doorway, in the shadows, as if I was a private eye. What I expected to come of it, I don’t know, but I felt a certain satisfaction in seeing her shadow moving about behind the curtains. They were pink, and they can’t have had any lining.
She started to undress. I saw all her characteristic movements, in silhouette. Then she pulled her sweater over her head, and I saw her reach behind to unhook her brassiere. She slipped it off and then she came to the window. I could see the silhouette of that curving, well-built body, approaching the curtains. To my amazement, and even to my horror, she opened the curtain and looked out over the street. For a moment I was frightened that she’d seen me, or knew I was there, but she just looked up and down the street. I saw her upper belly and her breasts very clearly in the light of the street lamp, heavy and rounded, and they became another reason not to sleep. I discovered before long that she went through this little ritual every night at about the same time. I was surprised that I was the only one who’d found out. I would have expected a whole crowd of us to be hiding in the shadows. I didn’t want to become a pathetic peeping Tom. I felt I was being disrespectful to Roza, and I managed to stop myself from going too often. In fact I made a point of getting home early sometimes, so that it wouldn’t look so bad when I was out late.
Roza told me that the Bob Dylan Upstairs had had another misfortune. He’d started seeing a pretty little blonde called Sarah, but this Sarah was living with a Dutch alcoholic called Hans. Sarah and Hans supposedly had an open relationship, but Hans had gone to pieces as soon as he’d heard about the Bob Dylan, and was drinking so much that Sarah was talking about ending their little fling, so the Bob Dylan was quite despondent again.
Roza was very chipper, however. “Where did I get to?” she asked, and I said, “You were just going to university.”
“After I slept with my father?”
“Yes,” I said, “after that.”
“I had a shit time in Zagreb,” she said. “The university was quite nice. It was a huge brown rectangle with wide corridors, and it was full of staircases. I wish I’d gone to Belgrade though.
“My father didn’t come to the station. He couldn’t even look at me when I went in to say goodbye to him. He was completely wordless, and he couldn’t raise his arms to give me a hug. I hugged him, though. Tasha and my mother saw me off from the platform, and Tasha gave me some little handkerchiefs that she’d embroidered herself. My mother gave me a little parcel with the most amazing variety of foods in it, including a jar of preserved plums, in
After what she’d told me I was beginning to wonder whether I wasn’t risking too much. Someone who seduces her own father and thinks it’s amusing is a dangerous person. Even so, I couldn’t get over the fascination, and if anything it was getting worse. I was lying there sweating every night, and sleep was almost impossible until I was utterly exhausted. I’d be playing in my mind, over and over again, a sort of film in which I was both the actor and the director, and I was making love to Roza, and she was doing things to me that my wife had irrevocably given up fifteen years ago. The constant state of arousal was unbearable. It was a kind of dizziness.
I’d done something I wasn’t proud of, but I was very glad it had happened. I’d been to practices in Watford and all sorts of places like that, and then I’d dropped in to see a friend of mine in Muswell Hill. It was late, and I was on my way home to the slumbering Great White Loaf. I made a detour, and late at night I’d gone and stood outside Roza’s house, on the other side of the street. It was May, so it wasn’t too cold, and I just skulked in a doorway, in the shadows, as if I was a private eye. What I expected to come of it, I don’t know, but I felt a certain satisfaction in seeing her shadow moving about behind the curtains. They were pink, and they can’t have had any lining.
She started to undress. I saw all her characteristic movements, in silhouette. Then she pulled her sweater over her head, and I saw her reach behind to unhook her brassiere. She slipped it off and then she came to the window. I could see the silhouette of that curving, well-built body, approaching the curtains. To my amazement, and even to my horror, she opened the curtain and looked out over the street. For a moment I was frightened that she’d seen me, or knew I was there, but she just looked up and down the street. I saw her upper belly and her breasts very clearly in the light of the street lamp, heavy and rounded, and they became another reason not to sleep. I discovered before long that she went through this little ritual every night at about the same time. I was surprised that I was the only one who’d found out. I would have expected a whole crowd of us to be hiding in the shadows. I didn’t want to become a pathetic peeping Tom. I felt I was being disrespectful to Roza, and I managed to stop myself from going too often. In fact I made a point of getting home early sometimes, so that it wouldn’t look so bad when I was out late.
Roza told me that the Bob Dylan Upstairs had had another misfortune. He’d started seeing a pretty little blonde called Sarah, but this Sarah was living with a Dutch alcoholic called Hans. Sarah and Hans supposedly had an open relationship, but Hans had gone to pieces as soon as he’d heard about the Bob Dylan, and was drinking so much that Sarah was talking about ending their little fling, so the Bob Dylan was quite despondent again.
Roza was very chipper, however. “Where did I get to?” she asked, and I said, “You were just going to university.”
“After I slept with my father?”
“Yes,” I said, “after that.”
“I had a shit time in Zagreb,” she said. “The university was quite nice. It was a huge brown rectangle with wide corridors, and it was full of staircases. I wish I’d gone to Belgrade though.
“My father didn’t come to the station. He couldn’t even look at me when I went in to say goodbye to him. He was completely wordless, and he couldn’t raise his arms to give me a hug. I hugged him, though. Tasha and my mother saw me off from the platform, and Tasha gave me some little handkerchiefs that she’d embroidered herself. My mother gave me a little parcel with the most amazing variety of foods in it, including a jar of preserved plums, in
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