Steve Toltz - Quicksand

Nobody’s judging you!

The Enigma Variations wasn’t hidden in some dark alley or side street, but was boldly sitting on a main road between a newsagency and a barbershop as if it belonged in the heart of the community and not in its groin. Through the open doorway you could see into a pink, softly lit lounge room: pot plants and faded couches and a woman’s legs with torn stockings. And that was just from the street. Inside, clients snorted and sniffed their way in and out of seedy rooms with unfortunate acoustics while the Korean madam directed impassive women to parade by, one by one — I guessed that you were supposed to imagine their sleek, bony hands on your body, their harrowed lips and well-travelled tongues all over you. That was taxing, mentally. The women were all ageless in that they looked as if they’d been fucking for an eternity; they had dirty blonde hair and mean faces, not the kind of faces you’d think to go to for pleasure, and arms bruised at the elbow joints, purple splotches at the bend. They were all thin, like wire coathangers, wearing white lingerie that was a grotesque caricature of male fantasy. None of these was the girl in the picture, and probably not the girl in any picture. These creatures were unphotographable. But there was one brunette, older than the others, with large, heavy-lidded eyes, tongue slithering professionally over her lower lip, and sure, her hands were shaking and she had an ugly nose that was too big for her face, but, I thought, what does that matter? You don’t fuck a nose. At least, I’d never heard of it.

Aldo is this —

She led me up a narrow staircase and I trundled after her down a cold, poky hallway at the end of which was a padlocked door — what valuable possessions were they protecting? Guns? Drugs? Sex toys? — and she ushered me into an austere bedroom with a sad, saggy bed. The lack of knick-knacks was dispiriting — I’d have liked to put on the stereo or peruse framed photographs of family members. Against the barred window that looked out on a drainpipe running up a brick wall was a desk and a lamp. I laughed at the thought of a person using a desk in a brothel. She closed the door behind her and I thought how I’d like to have unprotected sex but even in the face of imminent death the idea of genital-to-genital transmission of sores was still a turnoff.

‘So darling,’ she said, in a raspy voice, as she crossed the room and sat down on the bed next to me. Her skin was like crêpe paper. She asked my name. I said, ‘Simon Simonson.’ She drummed her fingers on my left leg and said her name was Gretel. ‘That’s your fantasy prostitute name? Gretel?’ I stared at her in a confused fit and curled my hands into tight bony balls in my lap. ‘Relax, honey, tell me what you want,’ she said, as she removed her bra and placed her large veiny breasts in my hands. She grabbed a bottle of baby oil from the bedside table and asked, ‘Do you want to lie back?’ I said, ‘That’s what my doctor always says. In that exact voice.’ From the next room, the sound of groaning. I said, ‘Ever consider soundproofing these walls? You can do it with egg cartons.’ She unzipped my pants and removed them in a way that denoted time immemorial. I asked, ‘Can I borrow a piece of paper?’ She said, ‘What for?’ I said, ‘I’ve just had an idea.’ I leaped off the bed and sat at the desk and turned on the lamp and snapped my fingers. ‘Pen!’ She brought me a pen. I wrote, ‘Honestly, I never thought I had it in me. I’ve lived my entire life as if in a theatre, always gazing glumly at the exit. I hope I didn’t suffer!’ Gretel was reading over my shoulder and asked fearfully, ‘You’re not going to do it here, are you?’ I promised I wouldn’t. She led me back to the bed and climbed on top and persevered through my tears with the decency not to comment on them. It was when the transaction was completed, and Gretel had put back on her bra and panties and stockings, that it happened. A nothing of an incident, but significant.

What happened?

A commotion; a woman’s terrorised scream in the hallway and male voices shouting. Gretel said, ‘Wait here.’ She stepped out into the hall half undressed and I said, ‘Put something on,’ automatically, in the same way I’d shout at Stella who always stood at the window at night or would run to the mailbox in her underwear. Gretel leaned quizzically against the doorway before giving me a tender smile. I’ll never forget that wonderful look, and as I walked out of the brothel I felt, for a long moment, unalone.

A man has missed something if he has never left a brothel at dawn feeling like throwing himself into the river out of sheer disgust with life.

Who said that?

Flaubert.

Well, I walked with a light spring in my step and a backlog of primitive joy until morning, when I made my way to the Women’s Hospital, to the row of public telephones; I knew Stella was psychologically incapable of letting a phone ring and had used that information against her in the past. She answered, ‘Hello?’ I asked, ‘How is he?’ Stella said, ‘He has all his fingers and toes.’ I said, ‘God, I hope no one ever describes me like that.’ She hung up on me, and I stood in the hospital reception area in a sort of trance, behind enemy lines, surrounded on all sides by, I assumed, sad bastards with multiple organ failure and their next of kin, when the ground shifted below me and the next thing I knew I was lying flat on the red and blue swirly carpet, and sweaty superbacteria-incubating hands were touching my face. I’d fainted. Everybody nattered above me in dull whispers. I got to my feet and phoned her again. I said, ‘What room you in?’ She said, ‘Don’t even think about it.’ I said, ‘I’m coming up.’ She said, ‘I’ll come down,’ and a few minutes later she emerged from the elevator walking tenderly — she’d just had major abdominal surgery, after all — not harried but not smiling either, and I suddenly was struck by the thought that we were too intimate for a handshake, too estranged for a hug, too cynical for a high-five, so we nodded at each other and said, ‘Hey.’ ‘Just tell me the truth,’ I said, ‘would he or would he not look out of place on the tower of a gothic cathedral?’ She said, ‘He’s beautiful.’ In her eyes, sad embarrassment. Life had moved expertly on without me, this baby was the proof. ‘I’m very tired,’ she said, ‘I’m on a lot of painkillers.’ ‘When you get back to your room, ask for the strongest slow-release, then twenty minutes later, scream for a fast-relief one. You won’t regret it,’ I said, and gave her a smile that she returned with a look of remoteness laced with bursts of warmth rationed out to placate me. ‘Well,’ I said, ‘I suppose we’d better go upstairs and see that golem of yours.’ Stella smiled joylessly. ‘Maybe another day.’ Her face turned white and sour. ‘But I’m here now.’ ‘No,’ she said resolutely, ‘you’re not.’ The suppressed anger in her voice frightened me. ‘All right, Stella,’ I said, ‘I’ll go.’ ‘Thank you,’ she said with obvious relief.

But you didn’t go.

I said goodbye and walked away then doubled back and caught the elevator up to the third floor, into the low-ceilinged morgue. Just past the gurneys with immaculate white sheets I found the drawer where I intended to put my body after overdosing. A modern catacomb, I thought. I’d stayed in worse. In the brushed stainless steel my face was like a blurred photograph. I checked my seven packets of sleeping pills — I’d told Doc Castle I was going overseas and needed a six-month supply — and counted out a hundred and sixty-eight 10mg tablets, the mere sight of which made my bloodflow slither to a crawl. As I made my way to Stella’s room, I imagined the premature aftertaste of me in Death’s mouth and I think, but I’m not sure, I couldn’t hear my footsteps already.