Paul Theroux - My Secret History

So far I had only dreamed of whale steaks: I was saving that pleasure.

Then I had my first whale steak.

Mrs. Mamalujian showed up at the pool early in August looking strangely eager and panicky, as if she was trying hard to remember something she had just forgotten. She had an it’s-on-the-tip-of-my-tongue expression, the kind that makes you feel totally helpless. All the wild screaming kids worried her, I knew — she was uneasy around poor people. I had noticed that they made her feel trapped and her reaction was to be too reasonable. She smiled too much and overtipped them. When she was very worried she agreed to anything, just to get away.

But today she seemed as though she were studying the people at the pool, trying to understand, trying to remember.

Larry had said, “It’s your friend,” and I found her out by the turnstile.

“You’re not free by any chance, are you, Andy?”

This was not one of our regular days.

But I was free and I told her so. Larry had begged to take my shift in the afternoon if I would cover for him in the evening. He was taking Loretta, the nurse from the Blood Donor Department, to the Boston Pops Concert at the Hatch Shell just down the Esplanade.

He had said, “I want to impress her — listen to the old masters, and then plank her.”

“I could probably knock off now,” I told Mrs. Mamalujian.

“That’s perfect. I want to take you somewhere special, because today’s a special day.”

“There’s a restaurant I’d like to eat at,” I said.

Mrs. Mamalujian was delighted: she liked giving me what I wanted, and always complained that I didn’t ask for enough.

“The Waldorf, near the Coop.”

She made a face. “That’s a greasy spoon. It’s all students. But if it’s what you want we shall do it. Let’s take a taxi — I’m planning on getting too drunk to drive.”

I did not tell her why I had chosen the Waldorf — which didn’t seem like a greasy spoon to me, and far from it, rather nice. But when I ordered she knew.

“At last you’re getting your whale steak,” she said. “Have two of them. Have three!”

“They are pretty good-sized,” the waiter warned.

“He’s got a huge appetite,” Mrs. Mamalujian said.

“One’s enough,” I said.

“And how would you like it?”

The question baffled me.

The waiter tried to help. “Medium? Well-done?”

I had no idea that whale steaks were cooked like other kinds of meat.

“Medium,” I said. “Regular.”

“This isn’t such a bad place,” Mrs. Mamalujian said.

She was already on her second drink. She kept her swizzle sticks as a way of keeping track. She often ended up with a fistful of them.

“This tastes so good,” she said, sipping her gin and tonic. “You could probably live on these.” She had stopped looking anxious: the drink had stopped her looking forgetful. “I hope you like shrimp salad. I know I’m not going to want much of mine. You’ll have to help me.”

Perhaps fat people didn’t get fat from eating their own meals but rather from also eating everyone’s leftovers, as a sort of greedy favor. I wanted to ask Mrs. Mamalujian this, but she was downing her second drink and with her free hand waving to the waiter for a third.

“That whale steak is all I want.”

The other thing that pleased me was the cheapness of this place. I had not braved it before, but now I saw that at these prices I could afford to take Lucy here. I began to think of an evening when I might do it. And it was only four stops on the subway from where she lived, so there would be time to make love, too.

“You didn’t ask me why today’s a special day,” Mrs. Mamalujian said.

“Is it your birthday?”

“When you say dumb things like that I realize how young you are.”

“What’s wrong with birthdays?”

“Oh, my God,” she said, and really seemed distressed, as if I had mentioned something dreadful, like sickness or death.

She looked around desperately and then seeing the waiter approach with a drink on his tray, reached out and took the glass and swigged from it. There were also two plates on the tray.

“Shrimp salad for madam. Whale for the gentleman. Enjoy your meal.”

I had planned a whole conversation around this dish — how Stubb craved it and woke up the cook to prepare it; and their discussion; and the long chapter on eating whalemeat.

It was gray-brown and scorched, about the size of a boy’s shoe, with burned onions on the side, and a scoop of mashed potato next to it. But it looked like an ordinary steak, except that there was no bone.

Mrs. Mamalujian lit a cigarette. She often did that when she saw food, and smoked instead of eating. She moved both hands to her mouth — smoke, drink, smoke, drink. She had begun to look distracted again.

I cut my steak with the sharp knife and was surprised by the wounded-looking redness of it and the bloody inside. It was a discovery but I said calmly, “Red meat.”

“I’ve decided to leave my husband, that’s why it’s special,” Mrs. Mamalujian said.

I had put a piece of meat into my mouth, my first taste of whale. It was not like any other meat I had ever eaten. It was tough, it was oily, and most striking of all it was salty — sea-salty, with the tang of fish. What the hell had she just said?

“He was completely flabbergasted.”

I was blinking from the taste of the whale.

“Don’t look so worried,” Mrs. Mamalujian said.

Melville had never defined that taste: the one thing he had failed to say about whales.

“It was the last thing he had expected me to do.”

Then I remembered what she had said.

“You mean you just went up to him and said,” and I chewed the whale, “ ‘I’m leaving.’ ”

“Yes, isn’t it thrilling?”

I could not hide my real feeling. I said, “No, I think it’s terrible.”

“How can you say that, when you had something to do with it, Andy.”

I managed to ask her what she meant by that by eating some more whale steak and hiding my embarrassment in my chewing. It was the strangest meat in the world. I had wanted it to be different, and it was. There was plenty to talk about in it, which was another reason I was discouraged that Mrs. Mamalujian had chosen today to reveal to me that she had ditched her husband.

“I didn’t realize how dull my life was until I met you,” she said. “You’re fun to be with. You read books. You laugh. You’re alive. And you’re a terrific listener. I want to spend more time having fun.”

This worried me very much — praise always did, but this was worse because this was praise mingled with expectation. What could I offer her? I hated this change, I was frightened by her announcement, and I knew I would not be able to cope with it.

I said, “What about your family?”

“They can take care of themselves,” she said. “Anyway, they think I’m a joke.”

“But you must have thought about this before you met me,” I said, trying not to be responsible for her decision.

Why did she choose now to tell me? I wanted to eat this whale steak, but after that first taste I couldn’t concentrate. It was like someone talking when you’re trying to listen to music.

“No, sir. Before you showed up at the club pool I assumed my life wouldn’t change. I’d just continue going through the motions. Now all that’s changed. You don’t seem very happy for me, Andre.”

It is impossible to say “I’m happy” at someone’s request and sound as if you mean it, and when I said “Really” it sounded totally false.

There was a phase in Mrs. Mamalujian’s drinking when she became petulant, usually after four or five. I knew by her tone and the number of swizzle sticks that we had reached that mood. A few more drinks and she would be jolly; then scandalous; then sad. She often finished in tears. They were like her kisses, big wet ones. They smeared her makeup, but they didn’t go on long and she always went off smiling in an exhausted way — well, no wonder. But I didn’t want this today. I wished I were back at the pool instead of here.