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  “Hey, listen,” he said. “I know you feel bad about all this, but if you look at it in another way, it evaporates. It’s nothing. I could tell you stories . . . Really, Iris. Sit down.”

  “I can’t believe it. An hour ago you were the sympathetic friend, oozing charity. Who the hell are you now?”

  “I don’t know why you’re so excited. I had a little fun with you, so what?”

  “Paris, I trusted you enough to tell you. We’ve been friends.”

  He looked at me with blank eyes. “Bullshit,” he said without raising his voice. “I’ve been convenient, a distraction once in a while, but not someone to be taken seriously, hardly a leading man. I’m too short, remember?” He turned the glass in his hand and shrugged.

  I felt nauseated. The cognac, I thought. I moved my feet apart to find my balance, “What’s your real name?” I said.

  He sat in the chair without moving. I’ve hit a nerve, I said to myself. “The name your parents gave you. What is it?”

  He didn’t even blink.

  “Maybe it’s Fred?”

  “No, it isn’t.”

  “Arnold,” I said. “Arnold’s cute. Abe, Alfred, Abner. My God, there are thousands of possibilities. Buddy, Bert, Bertrand, Brian, Billy, Buster, Caleb, Curtis. That’s nice.” The names soared through my head. “Let’s forget the alphabet,” I said, my hysteria rising. “Dick, Dickie, Rick, Ricky, Prick.” The invective pleased me. “John, Johnny, the John, little John, a John. Oliver, Walter, Allan, George. What was it?”

  Paris’s smile was placid. “You’re crazy.” He dipped his finger into his brandy and sucked it. “Give it a rest.”

  The reflections in the room made me sick. I closed my eyes. “Maybe there’s a ‘junior’ attached to your name. Bob junior, a little Jim. You’re a junior, aren’t you?” I looked at him. My mouth was quivering uncontrollably.

  “Leave it alone,” he said. “You’re drunk.”

  I took a breath. My voice was calmer. “Whatever your name is, it must be terrible to be you. Every life can be turned into a bad joke—mine, yours—but why do it? You wanted me to talk. You encouraged it. For what? A jolt of real emotion? An edge? A little power in the big, bad city? Is that it? What possible use do you have for me? I can’t do you any good.”

  “Well said for someone who can’t stand up straight,” he said. “But you’re fooling yourself. You never liked me for my sincerity. I fascinate you. That’s the only thing that counts, Iris. You’re not as high-and-*mighty as you act. There aren’t any rules, not really. Who makes them? God? I think you’re interested in dirt, in a hint of cruelty. It excites you. Life is the circus, my dear. Why fight it?” Paris opened his arms and waved me toward him.

  The room moved. My vision was unstable. “You really mean that, don’t you?” I said.

  He nodded. “Kiss me,” he said, and put a finger to his lips. “Aren’t you curious? See how it feels.”

  “I’m leaving,” I said. “I’m leaving right now.”

  He stood up. The green jacket was a mass of wrinkles. I looked at his silly hairdo with amazement. He put his fingers on my arm. I didn’t move. He took my hand and stared at it, rubbing my palm with his thumb. Then he let go, and my arm fell to my side like a piece of wood. “Maybe you’re not up to it tonight,” he said. “I’ll get you a taxi.”

  “No,” I said. I walked toward the door. He shot ahead of me and opened it. In the hallway I turned around and looked over his head into the room. I’m not going to say anything, I thought. Paris had one hand on the doorframe.

  “Well, goodbye then,” he said. “I’ll be in touch.”

  I looked at his eyes. Then I turned my head very slowly to the right and to the left, a silent no.

  Paris moved his hand suddenly from the door and shot it toward me, pushing it over the cloth of my dress between my legs.

  My shoulders and my chin trembled. I turned around and took the stairs, gripping the railing as I went down. In the dark street the nausea caught up with me, and I vomited between buildings. For a couple of minutes I stood very still and listened to the sound of my breathing. Then I took off my shoes and ran to the IRT, ran, as they say, like a bat out of hell.

  Also by Siri Hustvedt

  FICTION

  The Blazing World

  The Enchantment of Lily Dahl

  What I Loved

  The Sorrows of an American

  The Summer Without Men

  NONFICTION

  A Woman Looking at Men Looking at Women: Essays on Art, Sex, and the Mind

  A Plea for Eros

  Mysteries of the Rectangle: Essays on Painting

  The Shaking Woman or A History of My Nerves

  Living, Thinking, Looking

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  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright 1992 by Siri Hustvedt

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  ISBN 978-1-5011-7649-4

  ISBN 978-1-5011-7649-4 (eBook)