Fear Of Flying

The smile. Who was it who said that the smile is the secret of life? Adrian had an antic grin. I too laughed all the time. When we were together we felt we could conquer anything merely by laughing.

“You have to get away from him,” Be

“You’re right,” I said. What was that I had just said? You’re right, you’re right, you’re right. Be

“Let’s go back to New York right after the Congress is over.”

“OK,” I said, meaning it.

I looked at Be

“You could have had an affair without my knowing,” he said. “I gave you plenty of freedom.”

“I know.” I hung my head.

“You really did it for my benefit, didn’t you? You must have been terribly angry with me.”

“He’s impotent most of the time anyway,” I said. Now I had betrayed them both. I had told Adrian Be

And myself the most betrayed of all. Shown up for the traitor I was. Had I no loyalty at all? I wanted to die. Death was the only suitable punishment for traitors.

“I’d have thought he’d be impotent, or else homosexual. At any rate, it’s clear he hates women.”

“How do you know?”

“From you.”

“Be

“Yes, and that only makes it worse.”

We stood looking at each other.

“Sometimes I just get so tired of being serious all the time. I want to laugh. I want to have fun.”

“I guess my somberness drives everyone away in the end,” he said sadly. And then he enumerated all the girls it had driven away. I knew them all by name. I put my arms around him.

“I could have had affairs without your knowing. I know lots of women who do that…” (Actually, I knew only three who made a constant habit of it.) “But that would be even worse, in a way. To lead a secret life and go home to you as if nothing had happened. That would be even harder to take. At least, I couldn’t bear it.”

“Maybe I should have understood how lonely you were,” he said. “Maybe it was my fault.”

Then we made love. I didn’t pretend Be

He was wrong, I thought later. The marriage was my failure. If I had loved him enough, I would have cured his sadness instead of being engulfed by it and longing to escape from it.

“There’s nothing harder than marriage,” I said.

“I really think I drove you to it,” he said.

We fell asleep.

“His being so goddamned understanding only makes me feel worse, in a way. Jesus, I feel guilty!”

“So what else is new?” Adrian said.

We had found a new swimming pool in Grinzing, a small charming one, with relatively few fat Germans. We were sitting at the edge of the pool drinking beer.

“Am I a bore? Do I repeat myself?” Rhetorical questions.

“Yes,” said Adrian, “but I like being bored by you. It’s more amusing than being amused by somebody else.”

“I like the flow of conversation when we’re together. I never worry about making an impression on you. I tell you what I think.”

“That’s a lie. Just yesterday you made a big deal about what a good lay I was when I wasn’t.”

“You’re right.” That was fast.

“But I know what you mean. We talk well. Without lumps and bumps. Esther goes into these long gloomy silences and I never know what she’s thinking. You’re open. You contradict yourself all the time, but I rather like that. It’s human.”

“Be

“Let’s have another swim,” Adrian said.

“Why were you so angry at me?” Be

“Because I felt you treated me like a piece of property. Because you said you had no empathy for me. Because you never said you loved me. Because you’d never go down on me. Because you blamed me for all your unhappiness. Because you lapsed into these long silences and would never let me comfort you. Because you insulted my friends. Because you closed yourself off from any kind of human contact. Because you made me feel as if I were strangling to death.”

“Your mother strangled you, not me. I gave you all the freedom you wanted.”

“That’s a contradiction in terms. A person’s not free if their freedom has to be ‘given.’ Who are you to ‘give’ me freedom?”

“Show me one person who’s completely free. Who? Is anyone? Your parents choked you-not me! You’re always blaming me for what your mother did to you.”

“Whenever I criticize you in any way, you throw another psychoanalytic interpretation at me. It’s always my mother or my father-not something between us. Can’t we just keep it between us?”

“I wish it worked that way. But it doesn’t. You’re always reliving your childhood whether you admit it or not-what the hell do you think you’re doing with Adrian Goodlove? He looks exactly like your father-or maybe you hadn’t noticed.”

“I hadn’t noticed. He doesn’t look anything like my father.”

Be

“Look-I’m not going to argue with you about whether or not he looks like my father, but this is the first goddamned time you’ve ever showed any interest in me or acted as if you loved me at all. I have to bloody well fuck someone before your very eyes or you don’t give a damn about me. That’s pretty fu

“It wouldn’t surprise me at all. I told you I think he’s queer.”

“Why don’t we all sleep together and find out?”

“No thanks. But don’t let me stop you if that’s what you want.”

“I won’t.”

“Go ahead,” Be

“How can you expect to have anything interesting to write about if you’re so afraid of new experiences?” Adrian asked. I had just told him that I wouldn’t go with him but had decided to return home with Be

“I plunge into new experiences all the time. That’s just the trouble.”

“Bullshit. You’re a scared little princess. I offer you an experience that could really change you, one you really could write about, and you run away. Back to Be