Lawrence Block - Enough Rope

“To their mutual pleasure, I shouldn’t wonder. Even as you and I.”

“Ah,” I said.

And, a bit later, he said, “You like them, don’t you?”

“Well, of course I do. I don’t want to pack them up and take them home to Boston with us, but—”

“You like him. ”

“Harry? Oh, I see what you’re getting at.”

“Quite.”

“And she’s attractive, isn’t she? You’re attracted to her.”

“At home I wouldn’t look at her twice, but here—”

“Say no more. That’s how I feel about him. That’s exactly how I feel about him.”

“Do you suppose we’ll do anything about it?”

“I don’t know. Do you suppose they’re having this very conversation two floors below?”

“I wouldn’t be surprised. If they are having this conversation, and if they had the same silent prelude to this conversation, they’re probably feeling very good indeed.”

“Mmmmm,” I said dreamily. “Even as you and I.”

I don’t knowif the Dattners had that conversation that particular evening, but they certainly had it somewhere along the way. The little tensions and energy currents between the four of us began to build until it seemed almost as though the air were crackling with electricity. More often than not we’d find ourselves pairing off on our walks, Andrew with Sue, Harry with me. I remember one moment when he took my hand crossing the street — I remember the instant but not the street, or even the city — and a little shiver went right through me.

By the time we were in Madrid, with Andrew and Sue trekking through the Prado while Harry and I ate garlicky shrimp and sipped a sweetish white wine in a little café on the Plaza Mayor, it was clear what was going to happen. We were almost ready to talk about it.

“I hope they’re having a good time,” I told Harry. “I just couldn’t manage another museum.”

“I’m glad we’re out here instead,” he said, with a wave at the plaza. “But I would have gone to the Prado if you went.” And he reached out and covered my hand with his.

“Sue and Andy seem to be getting along pretty good,” he said.

Andy! Had anyone else ever called my husband Andy?

“And you and me, we get along all right, don’t we?”

“Yes,” I said, giving his hand a little squeeze. “Yes, we do.”

Andrew and I were up late that night, talking and talking. The next day we flew to Rome. We were all tired our first night there and ate at the restaurant in our hotel rather than venture forth. The food was good, but I wonder if any of us really tasted it.

Andrew insisted that we all drink grappa with our coffee. It turned out to be a rather nasty brandy, clear in color and quite powerful. The men had a second round of it. Sue and I had enough work finishing our first.

Harry held his glass aloft and proposed a toast. “To good friends,” he said. “To close friendship with good people.” And after everyone had taken a sip he said, “You know, in a couple of days we all go back to the lives we used to lead. Sue and I go back to Oklahoma, you two go back to Boston, Mass. Andy, you go back to your investments business and I’ll be doin’ what I do. And we got each other’s addresses and phone, and we say we’ll keep in touch, and maybe we will. But if we do or we don’t, either way one thing’s sure. The minute we get off that plane at JFK, that’s when the carriage turns into a pumpkin and the horses go back to bein’ mice. You know what I mean?”

Everyone did.

“Anyway,” he said, “what me an’ Sue were thinkin’, we thought there’s a whole lot of Rome, a mess of good restaurants, and things to see and places to go. We thought it’s silly to have four people all do the same things and go the same places and miss out on all the rest. We thought, you know, after breakfast tomorrow, we’d split up and spend the day separate.” He took a breath. “Like Sue and Andy’d team up for the day and, Elaine, you an’ me’d be together.”

“The way we did in Madrid,” somebody said.

“Except I mean for the whole day,” Harry said. A light film of perspiration gleamed on his forehead. I looked at his jacket and tried to decide if he was wearing his gun. I’d seen it on our afternoon in Madrid. His jacket had come open and I’d seen the gun, snug in his shoulder holster. “The whole day and then the evening, too. Dinner — and after.”

There was a silence which I don’t suppose could have lasted nearly as long as it seemed to. Then Andrew said he thought it was a good idea, and Sue agreed, and so did I.

Later, in our hotel room, Andrew assured me that we could back out. “I don’t think they have any more experience with this than we do. You saw how nervous Harry was during his little speech. He’d probably be relieved to a certain degree if we did back out.”

“Is that what you want to do?”

He thought for a moment. “For my part,” he said, “I’d as soon go through with it.”

“So would I. My only concern is if it made some difference between us afterward.”

“I don’t think it will. This is fantasy, you know. It’s not the real world. We’re not in Boston or Oklahoma. We’re in Rome, and you know what they say. When in Rome, do as the Romans do.”

“And is this what the Romans do?”

“It’s probably what they do when they go to Stockholm,” Andrew said.

In the morning,we joined the Dattners for breakfast. Afterward, without anything being said, we paired off as Harry had suggested the night before. He and I walked through a sun-drenched morning to the Spanish Steps, where I bought a bag of crumbs and fed the pigeons. After that—

Oh, what does it matter what came next, what particular tourist things we found to do that day? Suffice it to say that we went interesting places and saw rapturous sights, and everything we did and saw was heightened by anticipation of the evening ahead.

We ate lightly that night, and drank freely but not to excess. The trattoria where we dined wasn’t far from our hotel and the night was clear and mild, so we walked back. Harry slipped an arm around my waist. I leaned a little against his shoulder. After we’d walked a way in silence, he said very softly, “Elaine, only if you want to.”

“But I do,” I heard myself say.

Then he took me in his arms and kissed me.

I ought torecall the night better than I do. We felt love and lust for each other, and sated both appetites. He was gentler than I might have guessed he’d be, and I more abandoned. I could probably remember precisely what happened if I put my mind to it, but I don’t think I could make the memory seem real. Because it’s as if it happened to someone else. It was vivid at the time, because at the time I truly was the person sharing her bed with Harry. But that person had no existence before or after that European vacation.

There was a moment when I looked up and saw one of Andrew’s neckties hanging on the knob of the closet door. It struck me that I should have put the tie away, that it was out of place there. Then I told myself that the tie was where it ought to be, that it was Harry who didn’t belong here. And finally I decided that both belonged, my husband’s tie and my inappropriate Oklahoma lover. Now both belonged, but in the morning the necktie would remain and Harry would be gone.

As indeed he was. I awakened a little before dawn and was alone in the room. I went back to sleep, and when I next opened my eyes Andrew was in bed beside me. Had they met in the hallway? I wondered. Had they worked out the logistics of this passage in advance? I never asked. I still don’t know.

Our last dayin Rome, the Dattners went their way and we went ours. Andrew and I got to the Vatican, saw the Colosseum, and wandered here and there, stopping at sidewalk cafés for espresso. We hardly talked about the previous evening, beyond assuring each other that we had enjoyed it, that we were glad it had happened, and that our feelings for one another remained unchanged — deepened, if anything, by virtue of having shared this experience, if it could be said to have been shared.