Chapter 5

Coming back home today I saw a girl that reminded me of Juliette. Juliette was my first great love. I met her when I was a freshman in college. I think she never loved me, though we went out together for a few months. It was her hair, I think; that ponytail that Juliette used all the time. Athena showed up wearing a ponytail on occasion; I never told her how I good I think she looked with it. I was afraid she might think that I had a kink for young girls. I don't. It's the memory of Juliette, and the remains of a mostly teenage love.

Life is an accumulation of remains, until one day we finally disappear.

"I like to write after half a bottle of wine or so," I said.

"You write drunk?"

"Half a bottle of wine hardly qualifies as drunk, unless you're thirteen, drinking for the first time on an empty stomach."

"What about the 'or so'?"

I laughed.

"What about it?"

"How much is one 'or so'?"

"Less than half a bottle. Or so." I said.

"I never thought you wrote drunk."

"I don't. I don't get drunk."

"If I drank a bottle of wine, it would make me sleepy," she told me.

"It's a good state of mind for writing. It's relaxing."

"I don't think so."

"Have you ever tried?"

"No."

"Then try it."

"Maybe I will. Do you that that every time you write?"

"No. Only on Sundays, usually. I like to have time."

"Time is always precious. I wish I could pause time," she said, dreamily.

"If I could do that, I would never unpause it again."

"You majored in History, didn't you?"

She seemed astonished.

"How do you know?"

"I guessed. You always set you stories in the past. You research. You love doing it, and you know what you are doing. That's why I guessed. Why did you pick that nick?"

"Ah. Yeah, that's kind of obvious. About the nick, she's my favorite goddess. Why, why did you pick yours?"

"Poiuy sounds better than Asdfg."

"What about Qwerty?"

"Nah, too beaten."

"Why Marquis?"

"Because a marquis is not too important but not too unimportant."

"Pathetic," she said, her eyes far away, thinking of something else. "When I was a teenager I wanted to be an actress. Not for the glamor, but because I liked the job."

"You wanted to be an actress?" I asked her.

She giggled. "Yes..."

"No, really!"

"Really! I was in the amateur theater group in college."

"You're kidding me."

"No, I'm not!" she said, slapping me playfully. "Why won't you believe me?"

"I don't know, I just never thought that you'd be an actress. You're a writer."

"So, can't actors write?"

"Maybe, but writers can't act."

"Why not?" She was amused by that discussion, in her best mood.

"Because. I can't act."

"So what? Maybe other writers can."

"Right. I don't think so."

"Welles could."

"Welles was a genius," I replied.

"Oh, right, and you are not. Now I get it." I jumped over her, and we played body games for a few minutes. Athena was ticklish.

"Stop it!" She said, still laughing. "I can't breathe!"

I relished, leaving her quiet. I watched her, for a long time, nude over the bed. I had got us a four-poster bed for the Place, and in some conversations we sat facing each other. I had a pillow against one of the posters, and she reclined against the head board. We probably would have felt less comfortable if we weren't naked—it's true. I liked to study her body.

"I was Miranda in 'The Tempest'," she said, after a while, in a quiet voice.

"It suits you."

"I was good."

"I believe you."

I stared at each other for a moment.

"Go. Say it," I asked her.

"What?"

"Recite."

She gazed away.

"I don't remember."

"Sure you do. The most famous verses of the play are Miranda's."

"No." She shook her head. I touched her cheek with my hand.

"I want you to. Please."

She hesitated some more. Maybe I did something else to convince her, something that I didn't perceive, something that I don't remember.

"O wonder!

How many goodly creatures are there here!

How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world

That has such people in't!"

She blushed and diverted her eyes. A pornographer, lying naked with her lover, but saying that she had been an actress—emphasis on the "had been"—was what made her blush. Maybe our life is defined by the things we don't do, the things that we stop doing, just as an artist can draw a whole scene by drawing just the negative spaces.

It was my birthday. I gave myself a present: a whole afternoon with Athena. I told people at the office that I had an urgent call and had to visit some clients. As long as I file an expenses report and a client visit report, nobody thinks I spent the afternoon by myself.

Athena did not know it was my birthday. I don't know when it's hers. She once told me her sign, but I don't remember it anymore.

I just told her I had the afternoon off. We fucked like maniacs, and I remember I came four times. When we were about to leave, she touched my arm.

"Whatever it is, don't worry about it. It will pass."

I looked at her, seeing the slight smile in her lips, reassuring. "Life will pass," I thought, giving her a phony smile and a peck.

"Can you spend a night with me?" I asked.

"A night?"

"Yes, a night."

"No."

"Why not?"

"What am I going to say to him?"

"Pick a day he's traveling."

"He'll call home."

"Tell him you are staying at a friend's."

"Let's talk about something else."

"Are you happy?" I asked her once.

"That's a fucking awful question to ask someone."

"I know."

"I drown myself in books. I read for six, eight hours in a row, then stop for a few minutes and start to read again. I read so much that is makes me physically nauseated. Really. I feel sick. I have to stop. But it's no use, I come back. I try to drown in all that information, all those ideas; I read three, four, five books at the same time, alternating to each other as I get tired of them. I start to read faster. If I have some 'disposable' thing to read, a magazine or a newspaper, I read it from the first to the last page. My eyes run over the pages. I like reading papers, because I barely need to move my eyes from side to side. I just let them slide down the page, enjoying the short columns."

"Don't you write?" I asked.

"Sometimes. But not much. I can't write much anymore. Actually, in a few rare occasions I write a lot. It's almost as if I'm typing something that I know by heart. I can barely stop. But usually no. I write a couple of paragraphs and leave them. I start to reread what I have written before, reviewing and looking for mistakes, for corrections."

"You haven't sent me anything new to read for a while," I complained.

"I'm having a mental block." She said it so sadly that I could barely hear.

"Why?"

"I don't know. I always wrote compulsively. I wanted to write more than I could type, but I have not been able to write for a while now."