imagined the word “bad” could be applied to it, and as soon as she said it I knew what she meant: it was like wanting a sugar apple and getting a spoiled one; and while you’re eating the spoiled one, the memory of a good-tasting one will not go away. Mariah then told me of how, during the time she was my age and living away from home for a summer, she had stayed with a family, friends of her parents, and begun an affair with the husband. It was a disaster. She said, “His erection would grow limp whenever he tried to enter me.” She had blamed herself, as only Mariah would; she had thought there was something wrong with her or that she was doing something wrong altogether. She later came to understand that he was an old, impotent man and that he found it easier to blame a young girl for his condition than to face the possibility that in this area he was all washed up. The incident had left a mark, and it always took her a while with a new lover to forget herself completely. I didn’t say it, but I thought, Of course what you need right now is to forget yourself completely.
* * *
One day a letter arrived for me, and written all over the envelope in my mother’s beautiful handwriting was the word URGENT. To me the letter might as well have had written all over it the words “Do not open until doomsday,” because I added it to all the unopened letters I had received from home. That day I decided to go and buy a camera. Mariah had given me a book of photographs, because in the museum were some photographs I particularly liked. They were photographs of ordinary people in a countryside doing ordinary things, but for a reason that was not at all clear to me the people and the things they were doing looked extraordinary—as if these people and these things had not existed before. When I told her how much it pleased me to go and look at these pictures, she went out and bought me a book of them. Whenever I had a free moment, I would sit in my room and pore over this book. The people in the photographs reminded me of people I had known—in particular a photograph of one boy. He was wearing short pants, walking along in a jaunty way, and he carried in his arms two large bottles. He reminded me of a boy I used to know, a boy named Cuthbert. He was a distant cousin of mine who lived on another island, and so I never saw him enough to get tired of him. His breath always smelled as if it were morning and he had just got out of bed—stale and moldy. I liked that smell so much that whenever I had to talk to him I used to position myself so that the smell of his breath would come my way. From looking at this book of photographs, I decided to buy myself a camera.
And then something happened that I had not counted on at all. At the store where I bought the camera, the man who sold it to me—he and I went off and spent the rest of the day and half of that night in his bed. The moment we knew it would end up that way was when, as he was handing to me a camera that folded up like a jack-in-the-box, I looked across at his face and said, “You remind me of my father,” and he said, “In that case you should kiss me.” His reply was a joke, but it confirmed my observation. I waited two hours outside the store for him to finish his work, and then we went to his apartment. On the way, we exchanged the usual information: our names, where we were from, things we liked, things we did not like. His name was Roland; he had been born in Panama, but his parents were from Martinique; he liked the sound of rain falling on tree leaves, it made him feel soothed; he did not like snow. It was information to pass the time, information to avoid awkwardness, information of no real importance, and we knew that. We did not exchange telephone numbers.
I left Roland’s bed only because I had told Paul that I would see him later that night. Paul was used to this. Peggy could not stand to be with the two of us, and so I would spend the first
* * *
One day a letter arrived for me, and written all over the envelope in my mother’s beautiful handwriting was the word URGENT. To me the letter might as well have had written all over it the words “Do not open until doomsday,” because I added it to all the unopened letters I had received from home. That day I decided to go and buy a camera. Mariah had given me a book of photographs, because in the museum were some photographs I particularly liked. They were photographs of ordinary people in a countryside doing ordinary things, but for a reason that was not at all clear to me the people and the things they were doing looked extraordinary—as if these people and these things had not existed before. When I told her how much it pleased me to go and look at these pictures, she went out and bought me a book of them. Whenever I had a free moment, I would sit in my room and pore over this book. The people in the photographs reminded me of people I had known—in particular a photograph of one boy. He was wearing short pants, walking along in a jaunty way, and he carried in his arms two large bottles. He reminded me of a boy I used to know, a boy named Cuthbert. He was a distant cousin of mine who lived on another island, and so I never saw him enough to get tired of him. His breath always smelled as if it were morning and he had just got out of bed—stale and moldy. I liked that smell so much that whenever I had to talk to him I used to position myself so that the smell of his breath would come my way. From looking at this book of photographs, I decided to buy myself a camera.
And then something happened that I had not counted on at all. At the store where I bought the camera, the man who sold it to me—he and I went off and spent the rest of the day and half of that night in his bed. The moment we knew it would end up that way was when, as he was handing to me a camera that folded up like a jack-in-the-box, I looked across at his face and said, “You remind me of my father,” and he said, “In that case you should kiss me.” His reply was a joke, but it confirmed my observation. I waited two hours outside the store for him to finish his work, and then we went to his apartment. On the way, we exchanged the usual information: our names, where we were from, things we liked, things we did not like. His name was Roland; he had been born in Panama, but his parents were from Martinique; he liked the sound of rain falling on tree leaves, it made him feel soothed; he did not like snow. It was information to pass the time, information to avoid awkwardness, information of no real importance, and we knew that. We did not exchange telephone numbers.
I left Roland’s bed only because I had told Paul that I would see him later that night. Paul was used to this. Peggy could not stand to be with the two of us, and so I would spend the first
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