Jonathan Lethem - You Don't Love Me Yet

Lucinda didn’t want to joke now, didn’t want to risk interrupting his story. She waited, the only sound the humming of Falmouth’s ionizer as it labored at the room’s dead air. She could hear him listening, too, sensed his satisfaction at this deepening between them, her breath-held anticipation of his words.

“One night I guess she got tired of laughing and saying no and she took me to her apartment, this huge place she’d lived in during her marriage. Once she’d decided, we didn’t discuss anything. It was a somber ritual, as if we felt answerable to some third party we didn’t want to disappoint. She had a television but no cable, so we put in a video. Her former husband was a film scholar, he’d left all these videos behind. It was in another language, something Scandinavian. The glow was the only light in the room. I guess she was reading the subtitles. I couldn’t.”

Lucinda released a soft click from the well of her throat.

“It took a really long time. I think she must have watched half that movie. And when it was over she was still quiet. I could tell she was just waiting for me to leave. I assumed that was the end of it, but she called me about a week later and told me I could visit again if I wanted. This time it didn’t take so long and when she came she started laughing at me, that same fathomless lunatic belly laugh. I was just kneeling there in my clothes between her long legs and I guess I looked sort of stupid. She sashed up her robe and just started laughing.”

“I’d laugh too,” said Lucinda softly.

“Of course you would.”

“Finish the story.”

“It became a regular thing for a while. I’d visit her apartment and she’d put in a video and sprawl on her chair in front of the television, it was a ratty yellow armchair, and throw her robe open. And she’d laugh afterward. She’d just look at me and laugh madly, and I’d laugh too. It was like I was escorting her on some long passage from where her reserve and her beauty had exiled her, only the voyage could never be finished for her. She’d come and laugh and then it would be time for me to go. Nothing was ever discussed. After a few times I began to push a little. I told her I wanted to tie her up, tie her to the bed or a chair, take away her control. I promised I wouldn’t do anything she didn’t want me to do, wouldn’t do more than I’d done, if that was what she wanted. I only wanted to bind up her limbs and stop her from laughing, maybe, restore the trepidation she’d felt that first time. When I brought it up she’d only laugh and turn on the television. Then we’d drown ourselves in dialogue from foreign films and the little sounds she’d make and the flickers on the wall and the colors projected on her stomach and her filthy yellow chair. She always tried not to make any sounds until she had to. Then she’d explode and start laughing and send me out to my car. It was a perfect relationship, so I had to wreck it.”

“How?”

“I kept pushing, trying to get her to allow me to tie her up. And one day she let me. I had no idea what to do, I’d spent all my energy just persuading her, never imagining it would come true. So, I brought over all my neckties and cinched her to the bed. I covered her eyes, too. And turned on the overhead light, which I’d never done. And then it was suddenly over. I had her there, I was able to stare as long as I liked. I could see her breathe and wait, her stomach trembling. But there wasn’t anything left to do. I didn’t say anything. I just went into the kitchen and ate some of her food. She began mewing, this sound that was practically like a kitten or a bat—meanwhile I was raiding the fridge. Then I found a pair of scissors, and I went in and silently cut the tie that held her right wrist to the bedpost, then placed the scissors on the table beside her, where she’d be able to find them. Then I left.”

“That’s it?”

“We never spoke again.”

In the silence Lucinda studied the electronic surf of tone on the line, a sound like distant galaxies collapsing. Falmouth’s gallery might have been a kind of capsule whirling in vast blank space. Then human sounds trickled in from the street—a slammed car door, a bubble of argument—and repainted the world.

“For a while I was thinking that was kind of a sexy story but it gets really depressing at the end.”

“I should have warned you.”

“When you left her there, was that your way of taking revenge? Because she didn’t care about pleasing you?”

“I never thought of it that way.”

“You never wished she’d touched you?”

“I suggested the arrangement in the first place.”

“I still think it might have been revenge.”

“It might be true.”

“You don’t know?”

“It’s a secret, I guess.”

“So you do know.”

“No. I meant the other kind of secret. It’s possible there’s a reason I left her lying there, but I don’t know it. Even before I left the room, all I could think about was what she might have to eat in the refrigerator. I could make up a reason but then I’d be lying to you. If it exists it’s a secret from myself.”

“She’d say it was revenge.”

“I’m open to the suggestion. All I remember is her gawky limbs and that crazy laugh, the flicker of Swedish films across the arms of that filthy yellow chair, the color and texture of her pubic hair when I finally got to examine it in bright light. It’s not some fable about revenge.”

“I guess the best secrets from yourself are the ones that even if someone else tells them to you, you still don’t know them.”

“Sure.”

“I can’t decide if your story is funny or depressing.”

“Maybe it’s both. Haven’t you ever noticed that whenever anybody wants to convince you that you ought to be interested in anything really gloomy, the first thing they tell you is how it’s actually quite funny?”

“What about the girl in your story? Did she find it depressing, or funny?”

“I don’t think it counted for that much one way or the other. We were only one another’s astronaut food.”

“What’s astronaut food?”

“You know, stuff in little packets that you keep lying on the shelf. Everyone has some lying around. The people you imagine you might be with but you know you never really will be. The people who if you’re in a couple but you’re a little bored or restless you meet them for coffee a lot and the other half of your couple isn’t really thrilled about it. Or if you’re single, they’re the people you’re keeping on a mental list just so you don’t feel like there aren’t any possibilities. Friends who are almost more than friends but really, they’re just friends. Astronaut food, bomb-shelter provisions. If you were ever going to have anything with them it would have happened already. Sometimes you even fall into bed with them, but it doesn’t count for much. It’s always a mistake to try to get any nourishment out of that stuff. But not a big mistake. That’s the beautiful part, how the stakes are so low.”

“Only if everyone agrees that they’re mutual astronaut food.”

“Oh, absolutely. You can screw up your astronaut food a million ways. Even just letting them know. Though they sense it at a certain level, nobody wants to be told. The worst is when someone falls in love and then gets all self-righteous about breaking up with their astronaut food, as if there’s anything to break up about.”

“What about the situation when someone is acting like they’re only astronaut food, but really has hopes of something more.”

“Yes.”

“Would you say I’m astronaut food for you?” The question tumbled from her lips. He’d never asked her whether there was anyone in her life, never asked her age or name or what she looked like. But then what had she learned about him?