The Professor of Desire by Philip Roth Page A

they made. I nod and nod, just like an agreeable person, but the smile I make a stab at presenting him does not begin to come off. The look Helen has for me does, however, quite effectively. “And how does Madge look?” Helen asks him. “Well, when she makes up, she still looks wonderful. She ought never to wear a bikini, of course.” I say, “Why?” but no one seems to hear me. The evening ends with Garland, by now a little drunk, holding Helen’s hand and telling me about a famous masquerade party held in a jungle clearing on a small island in the Gulf of Siam owned by a Thai friend of his, half a mile out to sea from the southern finger of Thailand. Chips, who designed Helen’s costume, had put her all in white, like Prince Ivan in The Firebird. “She was ravishing. A silk Cossack shirt and full silk trousers gathered into soft silver kid boots, and a silver turban with a diamond clasp. And around her waist a jeweled belt of emeralds.” Emeralds? Bought by whom? Obviously by Karenin. Where’s the belt now, I wonder? What do you have to return and what do you get to keep? You certainly get to keep the memories, that’s for sure. “A little Thai princess burst into tears at the very sight of her. Poor little thing. She’d come wearing everything but the kitchen stove and expected people to swoon. But the one who looked like royalty that night was this dear girl. Oh, it was quite a to-do. Hasn’t Helen ever shown you the photographs? Don’t you have photographs, dear?” “No,” she says, “not any more.” “Oh, I wish I’d brought mine. But I never thought I’d see you—I didn’t even know who I was when I left home. And remember the little boys?” he says, after a long sip from his brandy glass. “Chips, of course, got all the little native boys stripped down, with just a little coconut shell around their how-dee-dos, and Christmas tinsel streaming down around their necks. What a sight they were when the wind blew! Well, the boat landed, and there were these little chaps to greet the guests and to lead us up a torch-lined path to the clearing where we had the banquet. Oh, my goodness, yes—Madge came in the dress that Derek wore for his fortieth birthday party. Never would spend money, if she could help it. Always angry about something, but mostly it’s the money everyone’s stealing from her. She said, ‘You can’t just go to one of these things, you have to have something wonderful to wear.’ So I said to her, only as a joke, mind you, ‘Why don’t you come in Derek’s dress? It’s white chiffon covered with Diamonte and with a long train. And cut very low in the back. You’ll look lovely in it, darling.’ And Madge said, ‘How could it be cut low in the back, Donald? How in the world could Derek have worn it? What about the hair on his back, and all that disgusting rubbish?’ And I said, ‘Oh, darling, he only shaves once every three years.’ You see,” Garland says to me, “Derek was rather the old Guards officer type—slim, elegant, very pink-complexioned, altogether the most extraordinarily hairless person. Oh, there’s a photograph of Helen you must see, David. I must send it to you. It’s Helen being led from the boat by these enchanting little native boys streaming Christmas tinsel. With her long legs and all that silk clinging to her, oh, she was absolute perfection. And her face—her face in that photograph is classic. I must send it to you; you must have it. She was the most ravishing thing. Patricia said about Helen, the first moment she laid eyes on her—that was at lunch at my house, and the darling girl still had the most ordinary little clothes—but Patricia said then she had star quality, that without a doubt she could be a film star. And she could have been. She still has it. She always will.”