Lawrence Block - Enough Rope

Donnelly’s car was gone. Hilliard’s evening clothes were in the backseat of his own car. Marilyn would be sleeping, it was pointless to change, but he did so anyway, stowing his khakis and safari shirt in the trunk. It wasn’t until he was putting on his socks and black pumps that he realized his sandals were missing. Evidently he’d kicked them off earlier. He couldn’t recall doing it, but he must have.

He didn’t go back for them.

In the morninghe waited for Marilyn to ask about the party. He had a response ready but was never called upon to deliver it. She went out for a tennis date right after breakfast, and she never did ask him about his evening.

They played bridge the following night with a British couple. The husband was some sort of paper shuffler, the wife an avid amateur astrologer who, unless she was playing cards, became quite boring on the subject.

Sunday was quiet. Hilliard drank a bit more than usual Sunday night, and he thought of telling his wife how he’d actually spent Friday evening. The impulse was not a terribly urgent one and he had the good sense to suppress it.

Monday he lunched with Donnelly.

“Well, it wasan experience,” he said.

“It always is.”

“I’m not sorry I went.”

“I’m not surprised,” Donnelly said. “You went really deep, didn’t you?”

“Deep? What do you mean?”

“Your trance. Or don’t you even know you were in one?”

“I wasn’t.”

Donnelly laughed. “I wish I had a film of you dancing,” he said. “I wondered if you were even aware of how caught up you were in it.”

“I remember dancing. I wasn’t leaping around like an acrobat or anything. Was I?”

“No, but you were... what’s the word I want?”

“I don’t know.”

“Abandoned,” Donnelly said. “You were dancing with abandon.”

“That’s hard to believe.”

“And then you sat down and stared at nothing at all for hours on end.”

“Maybe I fell asleep.”

“You were in a trance, Alan.”

“It didn’t feel like a trance.”

“Yes it did. That’s what a trance feels like. It can be disappointing, because it feels like a normal state while it’s going on, but it isn’t.”

He nodded, but he didn’t speak right away. Then he said, “I thought I’d get something special for my money. An egg to rub into my scalp or something. A pot to hold on my head. A private ceremony—”

“The herb was your private ceremony.”

“What did it do? Drug me so that I went into the trance-that-didn’t-feel-like-a-trance? Farquahar got the same thing for free.”

“The herb contained your spirit, or allowed the spirit to enter into you. Or whatever. I’m not too clear on how it works.”

“So I’ve got a spirit in me now?”

“That’s the theory.”

“I don’t feel different.”

“You probably won’t. And then one day something will click in, and you’ll realize that you’re different, that you’ve changed.”

“Changed how?”

“I don’t know. Look, maybe nothing will happen and you’re out whatever it was. Four hundred dollars?”

“That’s right. How about you? What did it cost you?”

“A thousand.”

“My God.”

“It was five hundred the first time, three hundred the second, and this time it was an even thousand. I don’t know how he sets the prices. Maybe a spirit tells him what to charge.”

“Maybe if I’d paid more—” Hilliard began, and then he caught himself and started laughing. “Did you hear that? My God, I’m the original con man’s dream. No sooner do I decide I’ve wasted my money than I start wondering if I shouldn’t have wasted a little more of it.”

“Give it a while,” Donnelly said. “Maybe you didn’t waste it. Wait and see.”

Nothing was changed.Hilliard went to his office, did his work, lived his life. Evenings he went to diplomatic functions or played cards or, more often, sat home watching films with Marilyn.

On one such evening, almost a month after his ceremony, Hilliard frowned at his dish of poulet rôti avec pommes frites et haricots verts. “I’ll be a minute,” he told his wife, and he got up and went into the kitchen.

The cook was a tall woman, taller than Hilliard. She had glossy black skin and a full figure. Her cheekbones were high, her smile blinding.

“Liné,” he said, “I’d like you to try something different for tomorrow night’s dinner.”

“Dinner is not good?”

“Dinner is fine,” he said, “but it’s not very interesting, is it? I would like you to prepare Togolese dishes for us.”

“Ah,” she said, and flashed her smile. “You would not like them.”

“I would like them very much.”

“No,” she assured him. “Americans not like Togolese food. Is very simple and common, not good. I know what you like. I cook in the hotels, I cook for American people, for French people, for Nor, Nor—”

“Norwegian,” he supplied.

“For Norjian people, yes. I know what you like.”

“No,” he said with conviction. “ I know what I like, Liné, and I like Togolese dishes very much. I like chicken and yams with red sauce, and I like Togolese stew, I like them very hot and spicy, very fiery.”

She looked at him, and it seemed to him that she had never actually looked at him before. She extended the tip of her tongue and ran it across her upper lip. She said, “You want this tomorrow?”

“Yes, please.”

“Real Togolese food,” she said, and all at once her smile came, but now it was in her eyes as well. “Oh, I cook you some meal, boss! You see!”

That night, showering,he felt different. He couldn’t define the difference but it was palpable.

He dried off and went to the bedroom. Marilyn was already asleep, lying on her side facing away from him. He got into bed and felt himself fill with desire for her.

He put a hand on her shoulder.

She rolled over to face him, as if she’d been waiting for his touch. He began to make love to her and her response had an intensity it had never had before. She cried out at climax.

“My God,” she said afterward. She was propped up on one arm and her face was glowing. “What was that all about?”

“It’s the Togolese food,” he told her.

“But that’s tomorrow night. If she actually cooks it.”

“She’ll cook it. And it’s the expectation of the Togolese food. It heats the blood.”

“Something sure did,” she said.

She turned over and went to sleep. Moments later, so did Hilliard.

In the middle of the night he came half-awake. He realized that Marilyn had shifted closer to him in sleep, and that she had thrown an arm across his body. He liked the feeling. He closed his eyes and drifted off again.

The following eveningLiné laid on a feast. She had produced a beef stew with yams and served it on a bed of some grain he’d never had before. It was not quite like anything he’d eaten at the native restaurant, and it was hotter than anything he’d ever eaten anywhere, but with all the flavors in good proportion. Midway through the meal Liné came out to the patio and beamed when they praised the food.

“I cook terrific every night now,” she said. “You see!”

When the serving girl cleared the dishes, her little breast brushed Hilliard’s arm. He could have sworn it was deliberate. Later, when she brought the coffee, she grinned at him as if they shared a secret. He glanced at Marilyn, but if she caught it she gave no indication.

Later, they watched Dr. Zhivago on the VCR. Midway through it Marilyn got up from her chair and sat next to him on the couch. “This is the most romantic movie ever made,” she told him. “It makes me want to cuddle.”