IRVING A GREENFIELD

I am 76 years old; many of my novels and short stories have been published. My work has won several prizes.

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ABRAHAM'S SECOND COMING

"Figure it this way, when you're ninety-something - - the something meaning that you're past, past whatever age you think you might be - - it's time to go," Abe said and waited for an answer.
      Sometimes the connections weren't exactly right and it took time for the answer to come and often; when it did come, it was an answer to a question he never asked or a statement having nothing to do with anything he said. Out of left field.
      This time he made the statement in the hope that some decent conversation would follow. Not that he had much to speak about. Day flowed into night and night flowed into day, so there really wasn't much to talk about. If it weren't for the fact that green numbers on the machines close to him glowed brighter and the sounds were different at night -- softer and less frequent than during the day - he would not have been able to tell the difference between them. He was especially good at distinguishing sounds in the low and high range. Though a tailor by trade, he had, when he was younger, what was known as "a good ear for music" and taught himself how to play the piano.
      "See, music is like a woman," the voice said. "You know, like the one you fall in love with and never marry."
      That was out of left field. Why would someone say that when the only music he could hear came from somewhere - - somewhere? He didn't even know where that somewhere was. But if music was up for discussion it was all right with him.
      After the war - Wait a minute. Now he'd have to explain which war; people just can't talk about a war willy-nilly. They have to be named and classified. Like the Great War that happened before he was old enough to know it was happening. But somehow he did pick up the idea that it was a war to end all wars; it didn't, and when he was a young man already considered a good catch by the young women and matchmakers in his village, another war came. Tanks. Bombs. Soldiers going from farm house to house pulling people out, loading them into trucks, and shooting those who offered the slightest resistance.
      He saw it all from the top of a hillock from behind a copse of trees, where his father owned some land. He was there with Rifka, a lovely woman of sixteen. They were doing or trying to do the unmentionable act, allowed only to those who were married. But marriage between them was impossible; she came from one of the poorest families in the village. A woman without a dowry was worthless. His father was already in negotiations with a father of another woman who would bring a large dowry and many other things to the marriage.
      Abe had never seen the woman, and he couldn't imagine her to be more beautiful than Rifka, whose crescent shaped breasts he was kissing when they heard the first shots that sent the flocks of screaming crows into the air.
      The rest is a blur. Rifka ran from him, toward the trucks and was shot. He saw her go down. Fear and instinct prevented him from moving.
      "So, just another dead Jewess. What's the big deal?" the voice said,
      Abe shrugged and nodded. "No big deal. There were so many dead Jews, Poles, and, in the end, Germans and Russians that the death of one young Jewess wasn't a big deal. It was - It was -- It was almost nothing. He had heard years later when his own children went to college that one man's death somehow takes away from another man's life. "That's like the line in the Torah, 'Am I my brother's keeper?' "
      Abe laughed. Such nonsense. "That's why I love music. There isn't any nonsense with the notes. The words -- the lyrics - have nonsense. Sometimes-beautiful nonsense. But music - ah music!
      "So you just jumped from war to music. I don't like those kinds of jumps."
      Abe frowned he didn't like being told where and when to jump. Still, whoever said that had a point. A meaningful conversation can only take place when the people involved agree on the subject of the conversation. Not that he was a stickler for convention, but sometimes, as his children used to say, it's easier to go with the flow than against it.
      "It's all somewhat vague now how it happened, but I became a Partisan," Abe said. The Poles would not have cared if I came from the other world as long as I was willing to kill Germans, and because I was willing to do that I was automatically one of them. I don't remember the Commander's first name; he'd been a Colonel in the Polish army before the Germans destroyed it. Many of the Partisans were former soldiers: many were not. Before the Germans came - Well, it didn't matter what they were. Commander Gadamski said that anyone who was willing to kill Germans was welcomed.
      Abe quickly leaned the trade of a soldier. It had to be quick or he would have been killed.
      "We lived in the forest; it became our fortress," he said.
      "Get to the music."
      Abe was annoyed. Impatience would be the death of him. He smiled. At least he thought he smiled. It was impossible for him to know - - not with all those tubes - - damn tubes - - in his mouth and nose. But he couldn't blame those who hovered over him, changed his shitty diapers or did whatever they did with the tubes in him, for being impatient. He really didn't have the right to be around - - to be alive for so long - - and take up so much of their time.
      "If I were in their place, I'd be impatient too," someone said.
      Abe didn't respond, at least not to what was said.
      "I survived the war and went back to my village. Nothing. Rubble that was bulldozed and then loaded into a truck. I watched for a while. A place, then a non-place. That was when I realized that god did not exist. Just like that. A snap of my fingers and he was gone. An absurdity consigned to oblivion. The Torah was wrong; the rabbis were wrong."
      "Stop," the voice said. "Enough of what you believe or don't believe. It doesn't matter any more. It never mattered. Music, that was what we were going to talk about. Music."
      "Everything I said was about music," Abe said. "The final chords to my life. Like the end of symphony."
      #
      The tip of Abe's nose itched and there was nothing he could do about it except endure. Endure. Was that the secret of living as long as he had?
      Another war. This time in Korea. He joined the army in order to become an American citizen. A fair deal, he thought at the time. But his experience as a Partisan didn't prepare him for what happened in the mountains of North Korea. Wounded twice, once in his left shoulder and later a more serious wound in his stomach. But he survived. Came back to the States a Sergeant First Class. After a year in the hospital and six operations -- two on his shoulder and four on his stomach, he was discharged.
      "Still no music," the voice complained.
      "A prelude," Abe answered. "A prelude."
      "A moment ago you said it was the final chords," the voice said.
      "He's making all sort of strange sounds," a woman said.
      "Hallucinating, no doubt," a man answered.
      Abe tried to focus his eyes on the man. He resented what the man said. His conversation was real. Sure, it was strange. But what the hell did that guy expect. He didn't have to know the person to whom he was speaking. It was enough to be speaking to someone, even if that someone came up with answers or made statements that came out of left field. Any field is better than no field.
      "Music," Abe said.
      "Life isn't music," the voice said. "But if it were, it would be dissonant."
      "My wife, Ann, loved music. She taught the piano. That was how I found out I could play by ear."
      Abe explained that everything good and gentle flowed from her.
      "A tailor isn't much of anything," the voice said.
      "It was enough," Abe answered. My children graduated from college. Became professionals. A lawyer, a doctor and an engineer. And I out-lived all of them,"
      Abe considered what he said. His longevity rankled him. Given his stomach wound and his bout with prostate cancer, he thought Ann would survive him; he certainly thought his children would. But the cards didn't go that way.
      "What are you talking about? First it's music. Now it's cards."
      Poker. Pinochle. I played them.
      "So you played them."
      "Listen, you're being difficult," Abe answered. "Besides, I said nothing about cards."
      "You were thinking - - "
      "You know why I became a tailor?"
      Abe took the lack of response as signal for him to answer his own question. "It was harmless. I fixed things. Tears in garments of all sorts. I could have been shoemaker or a carpenter. But I became a tailor."
      Abe thought for a few moments. "It was a quiet life. I didn't want anything else."
      "Except - - "
      "My drinking. I knew that would come up," he said. "It was good; blurred all the bad memories. Put music in my head."
      At that moment, Abe felt that if he had a drink, he might feel good enough to somehow scratch the tip of his nose because it still itched.
      "Maybe that's really what life is all about," Abe said.
      "Scratching the itch?" the voice answered.
      "Scratching the itch," Abe answered trying to smile as he watched the green lights dim. "Scratching the itch."

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THE DAYS DWINDLE DOWN TO A PRECIOUS FEW

He saw her several times as she crossed the Plaza at the Lincoln Center for the Arts, passing the fountain from the Southeast corner of the Plaza to Northwest corner, going either to the library or the Juilliard School of Music. She first caught his attention because she was diminutive. His wife had been a small woman too, and had been reduced to a child-like size by the cancer that had killed her and had left him a widower for the past five years, after having been married for fifty years.
      She wore slacks, usually black or dark blue, though sometimes they were brown. A sweater and a tan light jacket, which he thought were too thin to provide any protection against the cold dampness of early spring that was there even when the sun shone, which wasn't often. She also carried a small black backpack, the kind that has become ubiquitous over the last few years. But to him they were ugly no matter what their color. And the one she carried was made even uglier by the several strips of duct tape used patch tears in the heavy fabric of the bag.
      He saw her only in the morning when he went out for breakfast at a nearby luncheonette on Broadway and afterwards a walk. He usually skipped lunch and had a light dinner in one of the many local restaurants, though sometimes he'd prepare a roast beef or roast chicken.
      He lived on the sixteenth floor of a high-rise apartment building, not far from the Hudson River and within walking distance of the Lincoln Center for the Arts and a short bus ride across town to the East side, where he'd often go to see the latest exhibits at the Metropolitan Museum of Art or the other museums along upper Fifth Avenue. The two windows of the small room that served as a combination study and studio faced what was once called the "North River." But it was part of the Hudson River. Before the Second World War, the huge transatlantic liners were berthed just a few streets south of where he lived, and now the rebuilt piers were frequently used by cruise ships heading to the gentler climate of the Caribbean.
      Sometimes, he'd stand at the window and watch the ship or ships as they "got under way" or were "tying up." Now and then he'd think about "taking a cruise." But the thought left him as quickly as it came. He'd spent too many years on the bridges of some of the largest ships in the world to be a passenger on nothing more, in his opinion, than an elaborate ferry boat.
      The years at sea had marked the outer sides of his eyes with deep crow's feet and gave his face a leathery look, full of cracks and seams. He was a man of middling height with steel gray hair and green eyes. Because of his straight back carriage he appeared to be taller than he actually was.
      He lived a solitary life catering to the three passions left to him: music, art and literature. He had season tickets to the Philharmonic concerts at Avery Fisher, the Metropolitan Opera House, and the New York State Opera House. He always had something to do and some place to go. And over the years he'd taught himself to sketch and paint, a hobby that had started while he had been at sea.
      Given his age, and he guessed hers to be at least half of his, he really couldn't have explained, if he had been asked, why he was interested in the young woman enough to want to see her walk across the Plaza every morning except, of course, on the weekends. But every weekday, regardless of weather, he was there to see her; and if she wasn't there he felt that a small piece, of the many pieces that made up his day, was missing.
      Those mornings when the sun washed the Plaza with a particular kind of light that gave a look of crystallinity to the sprouting fountains, especially if the wind was calm, he'd sit on one of the metal chairs that belonged to the refreshment stand after he had his breakfast and wait until she passed. If it were raining or just too breezy, he'd stand under the overhang of Avery Fisher Hall to watch her pass.
      She walked with a determined step and though she neither looked left or right, he was sure she was aware of her surroundings. Perhaps not in detail? But not oblivious either.
      Twice he tried to sketch her from memory and was dissatisfied by the results. They lacked the detail that would have individualized her. Once he made a quick sketch of her as she crossed the Plaza. But it wasn't much better than his other attempts. He thought about taking a series of quick digital photographs of her. But he realized that would be too intrusive, and if she saw him doing it she might become alarmed.
      Unless he was going to attend the performance, he usually avoided going to the Plaza in the afternoon or the evening when it was crowded and noisy with other theatergoers and tourists. But sometimes his need to be with people, to relieve the insidious weight of his loneliness, forced him to go. And for an hour or two he felt and enjoyed the throb of life going on around him.
      It was during one of those afternoons that he entered the Plaza, not sure whether he'd stay or he'd walk to Central Park, only a few blocks away and spend a few hours there. He spent the morning reading Friedrich Nietzsche' s The Birth of Tragedy and needed time to think about what he read. He found much in Nietzsche' s thinking that reflected his own ideas and sense of values, though they came from experience rather than from thoughtful analysis.
      The Plaza was crowded and he was about to leave when he saw her. Even though they were some distance between them, he recognized her. She was sitting on the marble base around of the fountain and eating what appeared to be a salad out of a Styrofoam container with a plastic fork. Her backpack was next to her. In between it and her thigh was a container of either coffee or tea. Because the afternoon was warm, the light jacket she usually wore was draped across her lap.
      The man who sat next to her suddenly left and he headed for the empty space. But a middle-aged woman arrived there first. He stopped and pretended, or at least tried to pretend, he was a tourist and was awed by what he saw, though he was really looking at her. The color of her skin was something close to the color of dark coffee. Her face was around. She had long black hair and small high breasts that pushed out against the white fabric of her blouse. She had unusually small hands.
      The woman next to her left just suddenly as the man had and joined another woman for whom she was obviously waiting. Before anyone else could claim the vacancy next to her, he did and sat. His guess about the salad was right. Seated next to her, he became aware of the perfume she wore. It was subtle. Something like lilac only not exactly like it at all.
      He wanted to start a conversation, but he suddenly felt inadequate. He hadn't made an opening gambit to a woman for years. Commenting about the weather seemed to be an almost childish way to begin. Rather than say something that would make him look foolish, he remained silent.
      He was sure she was either an Indian or a Pakistani, although nothing about the way she dressed indicated she was either one or the other. Even the color of her skin didn't do that. She could have had her roots in a dozen different countries in the Middle East or in Asia.
      Finally she finished her lunch, took a last sip of coffee from the cup, put it, the Styrofoam container that held the salad, the plastic fork she used, and the napkins into paper bag. She made a slight turn toward him and picked up her backpack. A moment or two later she walked away. Because he enjoyed watching her buttocks move under her slacks, he laughed to himself. He was still a dirty old man and very much alive.
      #
      Later in the afternoon the temperature dropped and the clouds returned, holding the promise of rain. He left the plaza and walked up Broadway to the Shelter, the bar he usually stopped at for a vodka, sometimes two. Though seldom drunk, he was a drinking man when he was younger. He could "hold it," as the expression goes. That questionable ability had almost disappeared, as so many less questionable ones had vanished with the passing of the years.
      He was something of a regular, stopping there two, sometimes three or four times a week. And though he knew the names of the two barkeepers, Stan and Fred, and the name of the barmaid, Louise, he never told them his name. He seldom told anyone either his name or what he had done during his life. He valued his privacy and never wittingly intruded on someone' s privacy.
      The bar, he learned from Stan and Fred, had something of a "literary history." During the nineteen-sixties and seventies a group of writers would meet every Wednesday in the back room. It was an informal meeting. But by the time the eighties began, most of the writers moved out of the city and that ended the Wednesday meetings.
      When he entered the Shelter, it was almost empty. A couple occupied one of the booths and two men were at the front of the bar. They too were regulars and he exchanged nods with them. Stan was behind the bar. He was a large man with a mermaid tattooed on his left arm and Sempre Fi on his right arm. He preferred him to either Fred or Louise, though the three of them were good listeners as all people in their line of work had to be. Though he'd have been hard-pressed to define what it was, Stan had another dimension that caught his interest.
      He chose a stool two-thirds of the way along the length of the bar. Without asking him, Stan brought him a vodka in a frosted glass. Looking at himself in the mirror behind the bar, he drank slowly and thought about the woman and the opportunity he let slip away to meet and get to know her. He felt incredibly foolish for letting it happen. He knew how to approach a woman who caught his attention. He was not inexperienced. He was away from his wife for weeks, sometimes as much as a half a year. Whatever extra -- marital affairs he had, he never allowed them to interfere with his love for his wife. He had them because he needed a sexual outlet, a release. He never questioned his wife about her needs when he was away. He trusted her to be discreet, and he assumed she always was. Neither of them ever asked what the other one had done during his absences.
      He finished his vodka and signaled Stan that he was ready for a second one, which was set down in front of him within a few moments. Instead of immediately going to the front of a bar, where the other two men were having a lively discussion about the baseball game they were watching on the overhead TV, Stan lingered nearby and asked if he were feeling all right.
      He answered that old age seemed to be catching up with him.
      Stan nodded and said that no matter how fast a person might run it was always there out in front of him.
      Raising his glass, he saluted Stan with it before he drank.
      Stan smiled and went back to watching the game with the other two men at the front of the bar.
      By the time he finished his second vodka, more people came in and the volume of noise increased. It was time for him to leave. He put a ten-dollar bill under the empty glass and left the Shelter. Outside a cold wind blew and rain fell.
      #
      He ate the remains of a small roast beef he prepared two days before and augmented it with mixed vegetables from a small can. The kitchen was more of an alcove than an actual kitchen. If two people had to be in it at the same time, it would be crowded. But it had the necessary sink, electric range, oven and a microwave unit. He ate at a small table.
      Afterwards, he made a cup of hot tea and drank it with two biscote. When he finished washing and drying the dishes and the cutlery he used, he went into his studio/study, turned on the color TV and sat on the swivel desk chair to watch the news. There was still fighting going on in Iraq and the talking heads gave their analyses of what might happen if the coalition forces met stiff resistance in Baghdad. To him, the war was for oil. It had nothing to do with all of the other reasons that the administration's spin-doctors were giving the public. He waited for the weather forecast, which was not much better than it had been. Rain and clouds were predicted for the next seventy-two hours. Having heard the dismal outlook, he turned the TV off, swiveled around and stared at a very large pad of newsprint set on an easel a few feet away from him.
      The woman's face came into his mind, floating it seemed from somewhere outside into his thoughts, so that he could see it as he saw it when she faced him just before she left the fountain. Her face was oval. He was sure that her jawbone -- the mandible bone -- was slightly mis-aligned with the upper jawbone, and he was also certain that the left side of a face was scarred and lightly powdered to conceal the scarring. Yet, even with those imperfections, she was an attractive woman. Exotic, he would have said if he had described her to someone else.
      With the face still vivid in his mind, he went to the easel. Picking up a stick of soft charcoal, he began to draw. He drew rapidly, using the forefinger of his right hand to get the shading around her eyes and on one side of her face. He worked for the better part of an hour before he stopped and stepped back to appraise what he had done. He had taken a few artistic liberties but he was sufficiently pleased to say that it was a good likeness. With a tissue, he wiped the charcoal from his fingers, returned to the swivel chair, picked up a collection of Montagine's essays and began to read the one On The Power Of The Imagination.
      #
      Contrary to the previous night's weather prediction, the day bloomed in brilliant sunshine, and after his customary breakfast in the luncheonette on Broadway, he rode the bus down to Fifty Seventh Street, where he switched to a subway and got off at union Square -- a place that held memories for him.
      When he was a teenager, and just becoming aware of politics, he went there to hear the soapbox orators of every political persuasion sprout their ideologies. But that stopped with the McCarthy witch-hunts for Communists and fellow travelers. A lifelong Democrat, he followed the old dictum: a man doesn't talk about his politics, religion or the women he has had with another man or woman.
      From the Square he walked down East Broadway to the Strand, the world famous secondhand bookstore on the Northeast corner of Eleventh Street. For books other than "art books," he'd go to the Barnes and Noble just across from Lincoln Center, on Broadway. The Strand, for all its thousands of books, was not easy place for him to locate what he wanted. But when it came to the coffee table size books, they were up front on several large tables and considerably less expensive than they would have been at Barnes and Noble. Having seen the exhibition of Andrew Wyeth's THE HELGA PICTURES, he wanted to study the artist's technique. From what he saw at the exhibition, he was convinced that the artist had indeed made love to the woman. He quickly found a book with excellent reproductions of the paintings and sketches, brought it to the cashier, paid for it and left the store.
      For several moments, he stood on the corner trying to decide what to do. He purposely avoided going to the Plaza and now he was sorry. He would have enjoyed seeing the woman again. Whatever she brought to his life, it was something that made it better, less lonely. Besides it was a longtime since a woman garnered his interest, though several women in the building where he lived showed their interest in him in subtle and not so subtle ways. But he wasn't interested in beginning any sort of relationship with a woman, though not because he was still grieving for his wife. He had done that. But then he'd realized that he had in some measure been also grieving for himself and stopped. He had never engaged in self-pity and had no patience for those who had. He avoided a relationship with a woman because he did not want the responsibility that such a relationship would bring. As a ship's master and later as the sole caretaker of his dying wife, now he felt that the only responsibility he wanted was to be responsible for him-self.
      He was still standing on the corner, where he suddenly realized that a red DON'T WALK sign was flashing. Conscious once more of his surroundings, he decided to ride the bus down to Canal Street, go to Pearl's, an art supplies store, have lunch in Chinatown and then go home.
      At Pearl's, he purchased three pens with extra fine points. He always bought pens whether or not he needed then. It was a habit or compulsion of long-standing. He had no excuse for it and didn't feel that one was necessary.
      After leaving Pearl's, he walked to Mott Street, found the Chinese restaurant he usually went to and ordered a bowl of Won Ton soup and a Buddha Delight, which was a vegetable dish. The restaurant was crowded and noisy. It seemed as if everyone were talking at once in his or her loudest possible voice and in Chinese, which gave it somewhat of a comic atmosphere.
      #
      After lunch, he acted on impulse and walked to the Bowery. There was still a diamond exchange there, but nothing like the one uptown on Forty-Seventh Street. A long time ago his father worked in the diamond exchange on the Bowery. First for George Harris, in Seventy-Two Bowery. Then, after he was let go, for himself in Eighty-One Bowery. Those were the Depression years and very few people had money to buy diamonds.
      He stopped and looked in one of the windows where the diamonds sparkled in their settings of platinum or gold. He'd seen them in their raw state and they looked like nothing. He had several of these. One was about thirty carats. If it were cut and polished it would lose half its weight. When he was a boy, his father taught him how to use a loupe and tell the difference between a blue white stone and an in-perfect one. So many disconnected memories came flying out of their graves that it seemed that they had never been closed. What he saw were flesh and blood realities, not skeletons. But if he had seen skeletons he would not have feared them. They'd have been skeletons of his family.
      He moved away from the window display walked another block, then hailed a cab for the drive back to where he lived.
      #
      The next morning came gray and tired, like something old, used up and thrown away. He went to the luncheonette on Broadway for breakfast, after which he decided to walk to the Plaza. He hoped to see the woman again. This possibility, which occurred to him as a thought, came at the very moment he was lifting a cup of coffee to his mouth and at the same instant that she entered the luncheonette and scanned a place for an empty table. There were none, and he occupied a table for two. He gestured her toward the empty chair. She seemed surprised and hesitant at the same time. Again he waved an invitation toward the empty chair.
      She smiled and nodded. Sitting, she apologized for having disturbed him. She spoke with an accent that told him she came from either India or Pakistan.
      He assured her that she wasn't disturbing him at all. That he read all that he wanted to read in the Times as he hastily gathered it up to make room for her bag. The black book bag scarred with strips of duct tape was already on the floor, next to the chair she occupied. Now that she was across from him, he could see how accurate his drawings of her were, as was his recollection of her skin and lower jaw. But he hadn't realized how white her teeth were.
      She thanked him again for inviting her to sharing his table with her.
      He said that it was his pleasure to have her for company, and as if she needed an explanation for her presence, she said that the weather was so frightfully cold that she felt it necessary to stop and have something hot.
      Suddenly he realized that she became aware of him in some new way and she asked if he was the man who sat next to her at the fountain in the Plaza a couple of days before?
      With a nod, he admitted that he was the same man and added he was pleased she remembered him.
      The waitress came to the table and asked her what she wanted.
      The woman said she would have coffee and a bran muffin. And he asked for another coffee.
      The woman smiled at him and volunteered that she was a teaching fellow at Juilliard and that her primary instrument was the flute.
      He told her that he was especially fond of the Mozart flute and clarinet concerti. He explained that he lived in the neighborhood and admitted to having seen her cross the Plaza at Lincoln Center a few times when he went for his morning walk.
      The waitress brought her order and put the check down on the table.
      He immediately picked it up.
      She objected, telling him that there wasn't any reason for him to pay for her breakfast.
      But he shook his head and said that it came with the seat at his table, that whoever sat there had to relinquish their check to him, adding with a laugh, that it was one of those religious duties that he took very seriously. Probably the only one.
      She laughed.
      Her laugh had a pleasant lilt to it, much like, but different from her voice. More like a trill.
      Slathering butter on each half of her muffin, she ate them with gusto. Pausing intermittently to sip her coffee.
      He enjoyed watching her eat and asked her if she would like another muffin when she finished eating the one she'd ordered. It was obvious to him that she was hungry.
      She declined the offer, but said she would enjoy another cup of coffee.
      He summoned the waitress and ordered it for her. Suddenly, he realized she was looking at his wedding ring.
      A widower, he said, explaining that his wife had died five years ago.
      She nodded but thankfully didn't utter those meaningless words, I'm sorry.
      A young Hispanic man came to the table with the bottom part of a Silex coffee pot.
      In Spanish he said that the young lady wanted more coffee but he did not.
      She raised her eyebrows with the unspoken question?
      He explained that he had picked up a working knowledge of one or two languages during his years at sea. He was being modest. Actually, he could speak several more languages. And he could read in French, Italian and in Spanish as well as German.
      She looked confused.
      He explained that he had been a ship's master and was now retired.
      She questioned his use of the word master. And he explained it meant that he'd been the ship's captain.
      Looking at her watch, she said she must go. He asked if she would mind if he walked with her, adding, to allay the any suspicion she might have, that he always walked after breakfast.
      She smiled and said that it would be a pleasure to have him accompany her.
      Outside, it was less dismal than it was earlier, and the woman said that she hoped the sun would be out later.
      He laughed and told her that the sun was always out during the day, but the clouds came between it and the place they occupied on the surface of the earth.
      She nodded and countered with the fact that scientific explanations often deny ordinary notions about the way things happen. By saying the sun comes out, gives the impression that the sun has the power to play games.
      Hide and seek or peekaboo, he responded.
      Now she laughed and said, Some thing like that.
      When they crossed Broadway he'd automatically took hold of her forearm. Instantly he felt her stiffen. As soon as they were on the other side, he released his hold on her arm and they continue to walk.
      He asked her what part of India she came from?
      She was born and raised in the city of Karachi, Pakistan, and she reminded him that Pakistan was not part of India. She said she was Muslim, and though she did not wear the traditional headpiece she was still devout. And then she asked him whether or not he was a native New Yorker.
      He said that he was born in Brooklyn and his family lived there when he was away at sea. He told her that he had two daughters, Heather and Felicia. Both married. Both had children. Two sons each. Heather lived in Los Angeles, where her husband was a scriptwriter, and Felicia lived in San Palo, a Brazil, where her husband was an electronics engineer. He said that he spoke to each of his daughters at least once a week.
      She asked him if he would have preferred sons?
      He laughed and said there wasn't much choice. But sons - - He paused. Then he told her that he was away much of the time when his daughters were growing up and that he had little to do with raising them. But when he could, he took them with him. He explained that they saw a good part of the world before they were eighteen. He smiled and said that he must sound as if he were apologizing for something he should have done but hadn't.
      Rather like a man who was looking at situation with honesty, she said.
      Sons might have been more interested in what he was doing on the bridge, he commented.
      She shrugged and said might puts it undeniably in the realm of the conditional.
      Undeniably so, he answered.
      Suddenly, he realized that his daughters were probably older then she was and perhaps he should leave the proverbial well enough alone. It was a thought that vanished as quickly as it came.
      He continued to speak and said that he graduated from the New York State Merchant Marine Academy at about the time the Korean War started and was commissioned and Ensign in the United States Navy. During the war he served on various war ships, and after the war he sailed on merchant ships though he remained in the Naval Reserve. Eventually he retired with the rank of Rear Admiral.
      They were close to the school when he asked her name.
      Aisha Karim.
      Peter Graubard, he responded.
      His last name meant gray beard in German, she said and explained she had studied German in college.
      It's a German-Jewish name he said, wondering what her reaction would be. There was none. And that pleased him so much that he asked her if she would go to dinner with him the following evening.
      Without hesitation, Aisha said she would. They arranged to meet at the fountain at six o'clock. If it rained, they would meet inside the lobby of Avery Fisher Hall, near the ticket windows.
      When they reached the front of Juilliard, they stopped, shook hands, and she walked away from him. He wanted to call out and reminded her of their dinner date the following evening, but he didn't. Instead, he stood and watched her until she was out of sight. He enjoyed looking at the movement of her hips. It was provocative and he wondered whether she was aware that he was watching her and was accentuating their movement for his benefit? It was a pleasant possibility to take away with him when he started to walk again.
      #
      He saw her frequently. Sometimes for dinner, other times to take her to a concert or a museum. She knew little about Western art, literature or philosophic thinking. She was Galatia to his Pygmalion. She was extremely clever, grasping ideas quickly and often asked questions that would make him stop to think out an answer that would satisfy question.
      When they entered a restaurant, they would invariably attract the attention of the people waiting to be seated at a table or those already seated. The discrepancy between their ages was too great to be ignored. The men were particularly interested in them, especially as the whether became warmer and Aisha dressed accordingly.
      Once, after a jazz concert in the Lincoln Center Plaza, they went to a nearby cocktail lounge, where he had a vodka, and she, being a practicing Muslim, ordered a Perrier. They attracted the same kind of attention that they usually did, and he asked if it bothered her?
      She answered not in the least and then posed same question to him.
      He explained the circumstances were different. He was envied by men and by women who were either certain that she was his daughter, or that he was very wealthy and was keeping her as his mistress.
      She burst out laughing and told him that she would never be any man's mistress. Lover, yes. But never a purchased object. It was across that small, round cocktail table, with a candle flame casting a wavering light over her face, that she told him she'd been married for three years then divorced her husband, an investment banker, who had re-married. She ended by saying it was just another marriage that did not work out. There was nothing either sad or bitter in the tone of her voice. It was stated as a fact, like two minus two equals zero.
      #
      Each time he took hold of her hand or arm, she stiffened until finally he asked if she would prefer that he didn't take her hand or hold her arm when they crossed the street?
      She said that it wasn't done in Pakistan. There weren't any public displays of affection. It wasn't him. She'd respond that way to any man.
      The conversation took place while they were walking in Central Park on a Sunday afternoon. The day was full of sunshine, but it wasn't unbearably hot and humid the way it can be in New York on a July day. She wore a pair of beige slacks, a yellow polo shirt, and corded sandals. She looked younger -- perhaps by ten years -- than her actual age.
      After she gave him a reason for the way she reacted when he took hold of her hand or arm, he didn't respond immediately. Then he said that he understood, "where she was coming from." But there were other considerations; namely, that they weren't in Pakistan and, more importantly, were those actions and emotions that take place between a man in the woman who have feelings for each other. Then, he added, feelings were certainly too vague to describe what he meant. As he spoke he felt his heart race. He was moving into uncharted waters. But he felt that was a risk he had to take. He pointed to a nearby bench and suggested they rest for a while. When they were seated he said that there was more of her that he wanted to hold. He didn't tell her how many times he tried to draw her nude, but couldn't. Not without seeing her that way. Not without moving his hands over her nakedness.
      She gave him a quick look. Color suffused her dark skin giving it a burnished look, like a polish on dark copper.
      Understand, he told her, that I have over these past few weeks developed a deep affection for you.
      She nodded and said that she felt the same way about him.
      He was very pleased and he told her so.
      When they started to walk again, he took hold of her hand and though she started to stiffen, she immediately stopped, looked at him and smiled.
      He nodded and returned a smile. They had passed through one barrier, passed over one reef that could have torn the bottom out of their relationship.
      #
      At various times, Peter rented a car and drove her to the Jersey Shore, where they lunched at Bhars, a seafood restaurant in Atlantic Highlands and afterwards went to the beach on Sandy Hook, where they watched the huge waves crash against the rocks. Some of those waves, he told her, started off the coast of West Africa only to smash themselves to pieces on the beach in front of them.
      Once he went into Brooklyn to the Brownsville area, where he was born and spent a good part of his childhood. Now it was a slum. But it was also that way when he lived there. Only now it was worse. There was garbage everywhere. The tenement house on the corner of Lot Avenue and Chester Street, where his family lived was still there. But all of its windows were boarded up. It looked like some dead thing, which it was.
      The slums in Karachi, the city that she came from, were worse, Aisha told him.
      He said he knew they were because he had seen them. Eager to leave, he drove down Rockaway Avenue all the way to the Carnarsie Pier, where there was an Italian restaurant that they could lunch at.
      They sat at a table overlooking the water, and he explained that they were actually looking at a part of Jamaica Bay, and then he told her about a sailing vessel, a square -- rigger, that was tired up to the old wooden pier that was there when he was a boy. But the ship was wrecked by the nineteen-thirty- eight hurricane. Then he had to explain to her what a square -- rigger was. It was a term she had never heard before.
      Neither of them was hungry. She had a salad and he wanted oysters on a half shell. While they ate, several large airliners passed overhead inbound for Kennedy airport. She was surprised at how low they flew.
      He explained that there were only a few miles between where they were and where the planes touched down.
      When they finished eating and he paid the check, they left and started back to Manhattan. The traffic moved slowly, and before they reached the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel, the weather changed. Massive dark gray, almost black, clouds began to build up in front of them. Just before they entered the tunnel, it began to rain. A short time later, when they were on the West Side Highway, streaks of lightning slashed down from black clouds and were followed by bursts of cannonading thunder that shook the car.
      The drive uptown was even slower than the one in Brooklyn. Neither of them spoke much and the sounds of Shostakovich' s Fifth Symphony filled the car.
      From time to time, he glanced at her thighs. Encased in the white legs of her slacks they were slightly separated. He fought down the desire to place his right hand between them, knowing that if he did she'd be startled and frightened. He knew from her actions and what she'd said about her ex-husband that he'd been abusive.
      It was a better part of an hour before they were able to reach Fifty Seventh Street and an additional twenty-five minutes to get to the rental agency. The fierceness of the storm abated, and the rain was beginning to taper off.
      It was four o'clock. Usually, when they returned from their drive, it was much closer to six and they would have dinner together before she went downtown to great Jones Street in Greenwich Village, where she lived. He'd hail a cab, tell the driver where to go and give him a twenty-dollar bill, which was more than enough for the fare and a generous tip.
      Once again, he felt he had to risk uncharted waters and asked her to come to his apartment. It was only two blocks away. The question or one like it was in his thoughts for several days. He wanted to see her nude. He wanted to make love to her, have sex with her. Having asked the question, it hung in the air like a child's balloon that escaped from the small hand that held it until it was carried one way or the other by current of air. But his question was invisible -- just words -- waiting for an equally invisible entity -- her emotions -- to become the current that would move them either to a deeper intimacy or the end their relationship.
      Yes, was all she said.
      He breathed a sigh of relief and taking hold of her hand gently squeezed it.
      #
      At Aisha's request they went to a block out of their way to a drugstore, where she purchased baby oil and Jasmine scented candles.
      The uniformed doorman opened the door for them, and when they were in the elevator she said he knew why she was there. A dark coppery glow illumed her face.
      Peter shrugged and told her that the doorman saw any number of couples going in or out throughout the day. They were just one more. But he knew she was right. This was the first time he brought a woman to his apartment.
      The elevator rose quickly and when it stopped a voice announced the number of the floor.
      That made her smile.
      His apartment was to the left at the end of the hallway. Within moments they were inside. He switched on the lights and locked the door. There were photographs of his daughters, grandchildren and his wife on the wall. She paused to look at them, but said nothing. And then she saw the charcoal sketches and acrylic paintings of her face. There were attached to the walls with Scotch tape. She told him that they were good likenesses especially one done in acrylics, which she said captured more of her inner self than the other sketches and paintings he did.
      He showed her his combination study and studio, forgetting there was a sketch of a nude on the easel. The figure was standing facing the viewer with one hand, the right one, outstretched and palm up, which made it looked as if it were about to receive something, while the other hand lay against her body below her left breast.
      She turned to him and shook her head. That wasn't her, she said. Too broad bone and too voluptuous.
      He nodded, explaining that it was easy for him to remember her face because he had seen but -- He didn't have to complete what he started to say.
      She stepped to the left side of the easel, undid the buttons on her blouse, handed it to him and he placed it on the back of her chair, while she dropped her slacks and stepped out of them. She gave him her bra and panties and then assumed the pose of the figure on the pad of newsprint.
      Her body was svelte, was small half moon breast tipped we large dark pink nipples. A long vertical scar marred her flat stomach. The hair on her Mons Venus was black and like a large arrowhead pointed to her vaginal crevice.
      He took her into his arms and kissed her.
      She gave him her tongue.
      He told her she was beautiful, and she laughed and said that he waited until she was naked to tell her that.
      He shook his head. There's beauty and there's beauty. When he first saw her, he thought she was beautiful. In a special way. Not the usual kind of beauty associated with a woman. Something more exotic and mysterious. But he said that he saw her differently now.
      She smiled at him and said she would like to shower before they made love.
      He agreed. And each soaped the other, moving their hands over the other's body and touching the intimate places to the other's delight. He had an erection. Looking down at his penis, he said that it had been asleep for a long time.
      She held it and said the she hadn't been with a man since she had divorced her husband.
      And he believed her.
      They toweled one another dry and then he led her into the bedroom, where each rubbed the other with baby oil. He felt the pliant hardness of her breasts, the softness of her thighs, and the roundness of her buttock. And the exquisite delight of feeling the pressure of her body against his. She awakened him with the gliding pressure of her fingers.
      Neither of them spoke, and she mounted him leaning forward to enable him to hold breasts.
      They began to move finding the rhythm that satisfied them the most. She climaxed first and raked his chest with her nails. Exhausted she fell against him. Yet, she continued to move until the low sounds in his throat became a fierce growl of pleasure and he shouted her name, embracing her with a special strength that only comes to a man when he is at the height of his passion.
      Spent, they remained locked together and he heard her say that she forgot to light the candles.
      With a smile, he said that there was more than enough of a glow without them.
      She agreed and kissed him tenderly on the lips.
      #
      They were lovers now, and she became a frequent visitor to his apartment. On the nights that she stayed over, they would have breakfast the following morning in the luncheonette, and he would accompany her to the entrance of Juilliard. He made dozens of sketches and many paintings of her. Sometimes he photographed her.
      He bought her a new book bag, and though the weather was more like summer now, he also bought her a warmer jacket than the one she'd worn. He would have bought her anything she wanted. He had more money than he needed. But she said his friendship was gift enough for her, and he could only nod and say that he had the gift of her friend ship too.
      Each of them understood the relationship. They were not in love. They were good friends and sexual partners. He told her when his age interfered with their sex. But he never let her go unsatisfied. He knew every part of her body and how to arouse her to climax.
      #
      When they called him, each of his daughters commented on how up beat he sounded. He answered that his painting was going well and it was. He was not going to tell them that his life had been changed by a woman younger than they were.
      He took Aisha to Tanglewood, to Cape Cod and they spent a week on Antigua. But the summer was coming to an end, and a week after Labor Day she told him that she would be going home for a few weeks. She hadn't been home for several years and felt guilty about it. Her plan, she said, was to spend three weeks with her parents and then fly back to New York. For the present she would give up her apartment. But when she returned, she said she would move in with him.
      Though he didn't like the idea of her leaving, he knew he did not have a say in the matter. The decision to go was hers. They agreed that she would call him as soon as she landed and at least once a week while she was gone. There also exchanged e-mail addresses, and she said he could e-mail her any time.
      On the night she left, he rented a car and drove her out to Kennedy. Her flight was on a Pakistani airliner, with a departure time of nine o'clock and a two-hour stopover in Paris. The entire flight from New York to Karachi would take thirty-six hours. Because of the time required for the security check, they arrived at the airport three hours before flight time.
      She didn't want him to wait in the terminal until she left, and at the curbside, after her luggage was removed from the car's trunk, they embraced quickly and barely kissed before she was on her way into the terminal. She entered it without looking back at him.
      Somewhat disappointed, he drove away and looked for and found the signs that guided him on to the westbound lane of the Belt Parkway.
      #
      She called when she arrived in Karachi and told him that she was fine and that it was strange to be home after having been away for so many years.
      He laughed and said he knew the feeling, and he said that he already missed her.
      She assured him that she felt the same way and they said good-bye.
      For the next few days, Peter followed his usual routine though he painted and sketched more than he previously had. He also bought a king-size bed and had a closet built for her clothing. He even asked the building's manager if a larger apartment was available. There wasn't one and he asked to be notified if one did become available.
      Aisha called the second week, but he was out when the call came. She left a message on the tape. It was perfunctory, letting him know she was well but saying nothing that hinted at their intimacy. He chalked that up to the difference between their cultures.
      Then silence. There wasn't another phone call and not and e-mail. He sent two E-mails. In the each, he asked her to phone him. But they were returned with a statement that the address was unknown.
      For several weeks after the day she was supposed were returned, he went to the Plaza in the morning and at lunchtime with a hope of seeing her. He even contacted the registrar at Juilliard and was told she had not returned.
      And then came a melancholy, gray November afternoon, just two days before Thanksgiving, when he did not go to the Plaza either in the morning or in the afternoon. And before he visited the Shelter for his two vodkas, he carefully removed all of the drawings and paintings he had made of her and put them in a large portfolio, tied it securely and placed it in the closet. That part of his life was over. He wasn't angry or resentful. It was a fact, and the combination of his age and experience allowed him to accept it as such.
      Later, when he sat at the bar in the Shelter, he reflected that by having her for the time that he did, he had a great deal more than most man of his age. He had something soft and beautiful, that it was almost like being in love again. He smiled; almost like if doesn't really count. Then, finishing his first vodka, he signaled Stan for his second one.
      #
      In the spring he received a letter postmarked from Paris. He knew it was from Aisha. He opened and read: You have a son. I have given him your name. I hope you are well. I will always remember you and when your son is old enough to understand I will tell him all about you.
      With much affection - Aisha.
      He looked at the envelope. There wasn't a return address on it. He put the letter in his coat pocket and walked to the Plaza, where he sat on the rim of the fountain and as he read the letter again, he silently said, "Give pounds and crowns and guineas, but not your heart a way…"
      Though he squinched back the tears, they came anyway.