me.
I put my hand on his arm, looking into his face to see what was there. What I saw was not what I expected; not the fatigue or illness so visible earlier in the day. What I saw was longing. I recognized it because I felt it, too.
“Let’s go home,” I said. “Let’s go back to the hotel.”
Late in the afternoon, after Naohiro had fallen into a restless sleep, I sat in a chair at the window and watched him.
Now what?
I thought. Tomorrow had become the next day and then the day after that and the day after that. Soon—tomorrow in fact—we would be down to our final day together.
I needed a way to think about this, about Naohiro. Just a small adventure, perhaps? I was well aware that traveling alone was the perfect setup for brief, intense encounters of both the romantic and platonic kind.
But even as I tried to dismiss, or at least downgrade, what I felt for Naohiro, another voice from some place deeper down said,
Face it. This man awakened in you a feeling you’ve been denying. A longing for closeness, the wish to be known and loved.
But had I really seen that in Naohiro? Or just imagined it?
I sat down on the bed next to Naohiro. Instantly he awoke.
“Hello,” I said. “How do you feel?”
“Happy,” he replied. “How do you feel?”
“Ready to buy that apartment on the place des Vosges.”
“Even with the tatami mats?”
“Especially with the tatami mats.”
I dreamed that night of the birth of my older son; of the intense bond I felt when he was put into my arms for the first time. Lookingdown at his face in the dream, I said,
Hello. I was wondering when we would meet.
The next morning I awoke feeling that someone was in the room with me. I sat up in bed and looked around. No one was there. Still, the feeling of someone standing close by me was so real that it took several minutes to convince myself I was, in fact, quite alone.
6
T HE S LOANE S TREET C LUB
Dear Alice
,
I came across this postcard of the three Brontë sisters at the National Portrait Gallery. Immediately I thought of three new friends I’ve acquired in London. They love the Brontës’ writing, and Jane Austen’s, as much as I do. It is one of the strongest
bonds, I think, that can spring up between people: sharing a passion for certain books and their authors. Alas, my friends are not Nabokov-lovers. Ah, well, you can’t have everything.
Love, Alice
I arrived in London in early July, just after the hot dry weeks of Wimbledon, when the summer had turned rainy and cool. Cold, actually. The shops up and down Sloane Street were filled with tourists buying sweaters and wool blazers. “First the heat and now the cold,” said an American woman trying on jackets in Harvey Nichols, the fashionable department store. Everyone, including me, had been hoping to put off purchasing anything until the mid-July sales, but it was just too cold.
Why was it, I wondered, searching through racks of coats, that no matter how carefully I packed for a trip, I never had the right thing? It was only my second day in London, but already I knew my unlined raincoat wasn’t going to work, no matter how many layers I wore beneath it. What I needed was a heavier coat. But a quick look at the price tags stopped me in my tracks; clearly this was not the store for bargains.
Actually, most of the shops along Sloane Street were out of my price range. Chanel, Gucci, Armani, Valentino, Hermès—many of the pricey one-name designer shops were located here, just south of Knightsbridge. Still, it was fun to window-shop.
As I neared the Hermès boutique I passed a young Japanese couple. Immediately my thoughts went to Naohiro. He was in Tokyo now, probably going to bed or waking up; I wasn’t sure which. In Baltimore I knew how to calculate the time difference sothat I avoided waking my son with a phone call in the middle of the night, but here in London I was slightly confused about the arithmetic involved. I decided to picture Naohiro the way I
I put my hand on his arm, looking into his face to see what was there. What I saw was not what I expected; not the fatigue or illness so visible earlier in the day. What I saw was longing. I recognized it because I felt it, too.
“Let’s go home,” I said. “Let’s go back to the hotel.”
Late in the afternoon, after Naohiro had fallen into a restless sleep, I sat in a chair at the window and watched him.
Now what?
I thought. Tomorrow had become the next day and then the day after that and the day after that. Soon—tomorrow in fact—we would be down to our final day together.
I needed a way to think about this, about Naohiro. Just a small adventure, perhaps? I was well aware that traveling alone was the perfect setup for brief, intense encounters of both the romantic and platonic kind.
But even as I tried to dismiss, or at least downgrade, what I felt for Naohiro, another voice from some place deeper down said,
Face it. This man awakened in you a feeling you’ve been denying. A longing for closeness, the wish to be known and loved.
But had I really seen that in Naohiro? Or just imagined it?
I sat down on the bed next to Naohiro. Instantly he awoke.
“Hello,” I said. “How do you feel?”
“Happy,” he replied. “How do you feel?”
“Ready to buy that apartment on the place des Vosges.”
“Even with the tatami mats?”
“Especially with the tatami mats.”
I dreamed that night of the birth of my older son; of the intense bond I felt when he was put into my arms for the first time. Lookingdown at his face in the dream, I said,
Hello. I was wondering when we would meet.
The next morning I awoke feeling that someone was in the room with me. I sat up in bed and looked around. No one was there. Still, the feeling of someone standing close by me was so real that it took several minutes to convince myself I was, in fact, quite alone.
6
T HE S LOANE S TREET C LUB
Dear Alice
,
I came across this postcard of the three Brontë sisters at the National Portrait Gallery. Immediately I thought of three new friends I’ve acquired in London. They love the Brontës’ writing, and Jane Austen’s, as much as I do. It is one of the strongest
bonds, I think, that can spring up between people: sharing a passion for certain books and their authors. Alas, my friends are not Nabokov-lovers. Ah, well, you can’t have everything.
Love, Alice
I arrived in London in early July, just after the hot dry weeks of Wimbledon, when the summer had turned rainy and cool. Cold, actually. The shops up and down Sloane Street were filled with tourists buying sweaters and wool blazers. “First the heat and now the cold,” said an American woman trying on jackets in Harvey Nichols, the fashionable department store. Everyone, including me, had been hoping to put off purchasing anything until the mid-July sales, but it was just too cold.
Why was it, I wondered, searching through racks of coats, that no matter how carefully I packed for a trip, I never had the right thing? It was only my second day in London, but already I knew my unlined raincoat wasn’t going to work, no matter how many layers I wore beneath it. What I needed was a heavier coat. But a quick look at the price tags stopped me in my tracks; clearly this was not the store for bargains.
Actually, most of the shops along Sloane Street were out of my price range. Chanel, Gucci, Armani, Valentino, Hermès—many of the pricey one-name designer shops were located here, just south of Knightsbridge. Still, it was fun to window-shop.
As I neared the Hermès boutique I passed a young Japanese couple. Immediately my thoughts went to Naohiro. He was in Tokyo now, probably going to bed or waking up; I wasn’t sure which. In Baltimore I knew how to calculate the time difference sothat I avoided waking my son with a phone call in the middle of the night, but here in London I was slightly confused about the arithmetic involved. I decided to picture Naohiro the way I
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