Steve Toltz - A Fraction of the Whole

She shook her head as if I were a policeman interrogating her after a rape so I backed away & resumed my place at the end of the bar. Humiliated, I downed champagne in one go & when I finished saw her coming over.

– I do speak English, she said settling herself on stool beside me. Hard to place her accent, European but not French. Caught her looking at my scarred ears, not subtle about it, & before I knew what was happening she had her finger on my scar & I liked that there was no pity in her eyes only mild curiosity. Pity is the awful lost dazed brother of empathy. Pity doesn’t know what to do with itself so it just goes Awwwwwww.

She surprised me further by not asking about it.

– Do you have any scars? I asked.

– I don’t even have any scratches, she answered softly as tho a hand was over her mouth.

Her cardigan was open just enough to reveal a tight black T-shirt concealing small thrilling breasts like hard-boiled eggs.

I dangled my weak smile in front of her & asked what she was doing in Paris.

– Nothing mostly.

Nothing mostly. Those strange words played in my mind for a while rearranged themselves (mostly nothing) & finally died there.

Lust reaching astonishing proportions I felt my secret thoughts broadcast through a megaphone. She asked me where I was from & I told her & watched her eyes fill with the visions of a land she’d never seen. I always wanted to go to Australia she said but already I’ve traveled too much. We talked about the earth for a while & there was hardly a country I could think of she hadn’t been lost in. She told me she speaks English French Italian German Russian. Mastery of languages impresses my lazy Australian brain.

Was this woman accepting my advances? Even reciprocating them? There’s a hidden agenda here, I thought. She wants me for some banal purpose like to help her move furniture.

– Do you want to kiss me? she asked suddenly.

– As a start.

– Then why don’t you?

– What if you reel backwards and make a scene?

– I won’t.

– Promise?

– I promise.

– And hope to die?

– Above all things, I hope to die.

– In general, or if I kiss you?

– What’s wrong with you?

– I don’t know. Here I come.

I leaned forward & she grabbed my face & her long fingernails against my cheek were sharper than they looked & we kissed for a long time I think I was doing something wrong because our teeth kept colliding. When we finished the kiss she said laughing, I can taste your loneliness- it tastes like vinegar.

That annoyed me. Everyone knows loneliness tastes like cold potato soup.

– What can you taste of me? she asked playfully.

– I can taste your insanity, I said.

– What does it taste of?

– Blue cheese.

She laughed & clapped her hands then threw them around me & clutched my hair so it hurt.

– Let go.

– Not until you kiss me again. I want to taste some more of your loneliness, she said loudly. I was glad no one in the bar could speak English- this was embarrassing crazy talk & I didn’t want anyone in the café thinking about the flavor of my lonely soul.

– Let’s get another drink, I said.

We drank for another hour & I mutilated many of my most coherent thoughts by putting them into words.

I don’t remember how we ended up back in her apartment. I remember her hands resting on my arms as she talked & I remember kissing in the street & afterwards hearing the sound of immature whistling nearby. I remember her telling me to stop whistling.

I remember that the sex was good. To prolong the moment I thought of mass graves & syringes & gum disease. I don’t know what she thought of or if she even wanted to prolong the moment.

It was unofficially my first time. Officially too.

Now five in the morning. She fell asleep before me & I’m writing this very drunk & propped up in bed beside her. O Whatever Your Name Is! You sleep deeply like a beautiful cadaver & your ghostly white face sits there strangely on the pillow like a piece of the moon.

Still January 1, Later

Woke up feeling her breath on the back of my neck. The whole night played out in my head in Technicolor. I dragged myself along the sheets & turned & I looked at her dark eyebrows & big lips & long brown hair & thin body & small breasts & her beautiful angular face so still so chalky. I wanted to leave the bed without waking her & looked around the room for an object within reach of same approximate density of own body to replace myself w/ but could see only a coat rack which I discounted out of respect for my self-image. I lifted myself from the bed & quietly dressed. She is the first woman I have ever slept w/. She is a delicate flower I thought as I snuck out the door.

Odor of Paris in my mouth, mint with a chewy center. The sky a vast foreign country. The setting sun in my eyes but too happy to blink. Must have slept heavily all day- the sleep of a human body depleted of semen?

I have returned to my café taller from the previous evening’s conquest. Me conquered? Her conqueror? The moon has just risen. I feel lazy & hungover, the warm sensation of pleasant exhaustion slowly contracting. Edges of my old miserable self coming home.

I know I’ll never see her again.

January 2 (Night)

Saw her again. She came into the café & sat opposite me. My brain scrambled for excuses why I snuck out of her apartment but she didn’t appear to require one- she just began talking in her strange accent as if we’d arranged to meet. Behind her eyes I could tell she was happy to see me. That was surprising. Then I could tell she was unhappy that I was surprised at her happiness. Then she fell into awkward silence & she grinned w/ pain behind it & tried to stare at me but her eyes looked away.

She cleared her throat & in an uncertain voice told me that the way to make French people uncomfortable is to talk about money. When I still said nothing she said I don’t want to disturb you. Go on reading & she removed a sketchbook & pencil from her bag & started drawing my face & ordered a coffee & drank it slowly as she stared w/ strange big eyes, drawing me.

Was grateful to her for removing my virginity but it was gone now & I couldn’t see any further purpose to her. Like having dinner with doctor after successful operation. What’s the point?

– I can’t concentrate with you staring at my head like it’s a sculpture.

That made her giggle.

– Do you want to go for a walk? she asked.

Head whispered no. Mouth said yes.

On way out she told me her name was Astrid & I told her mine & I wondered if I should’ve given a fake name but it was too late for that now.

Luxembourg Gardens. Cold & windy & naked trees, frightening against the white sky. She kicked piles of leaves so they flew around us in the wind, an act of childlike joy she made seem violent. She asked me how tall I was. I shrugged this off w/ a sneer- every now & again someone asks me this asinine question & is flabbergasted that I don’t know. Why should I know? What for? Knowledge of your own height serves no useful purpose in our society other than to be able to answer that question.

I asked herpersonal questions, she was evasive & her eyes on me felt like cold rain. Where was she from? Her family was always moving she said- Spain Italy Germany Bucharest the Maldives. But where was she born? She was born on the road, she said, eyes half closed. Her family treated her badly & she doesn’t want to return to them, not even in her thoughts. The future is an unbearable topic also. Where will she go? What will she do? She shook her head as if to say these are the wrong questions.

Then in an excited voice she started boring me with lengthy historical discourses HONESTLY what do I care if Louis XVI cut himself shaving the morning before he was guillotined? DO I REALLY WANT TO KNOW that an eyewitness at the stake where Joan of Arc was burned heard her speaking to God through the flames saying You can be pleased! I didn’t renounce you! & God saying back Stupid woman! What do I care what these people think? In the end while I like reading about history, something inside me rebels at being told it as if I were a slow-witted schoolboy who can’t be trusted to open a book.