Bleeding Hearts(20)

“Some of us are foreign,” Lida said. “Father Tibor came from the Soviet union  . When there was a Soviet union  .”

“Getting to be a crazy world, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Lida said. “I read somewhere last week that the Swedish government is going to privatize their post office. Sweden. It’s hard to believe it.”

“We’re probably going to nationalize our parking garages,” Christopher said. “It’s just an itch for change, that’s all. It goes through the world every once in a while. It’s been going through me for the last six months.”

“Has it?” Lida said. “I think I’ve been experiencing something similar. Restlessness. Restlessness but no real need to do anything in particular. Are you the one who’s the poet?”

“I’m a deejay out in California. I write poetry sometimes.”

“You publish your poetry in The New Yorker and in Poetry magazine. Bennis shows them to me sometimes.”

“I’m flattered. I never thought Bennis took my poetry seriously. It doesn’t pay enough to keep me in coffee beans.”

“I wish I could do something like write poetry,” Lida said. “All I seem to be able to do is cook.”

Christopher kicked a toe at Bennis’s closed door. “I suppose I’ll just have to camp out here on the landing and wait. She can’t be all night, can she? And I’ve got a book to read. In fact, I think I’ve got six. I hit one of those huge Barnes and Noble stores right before I got on the plane.”

“Ah,” Lida said, looking toward Bennis’s darkened doorway herself.

It was very odd. She didn’t feel restless anymore. She didn’t feel self-conscious. She was really very relaxed. That strange feeling of being on trial and sure to be found wanting had disappeared. Maybe it was just that Christopher Hannaford didn’t seem to be looking at her anymore. Not looking at her to any purpose, at any rate. Maybe it was just that she finally knew what it was she was supposed to do.

“You can’t stay here,” she told him. “It could be hours before Bennis gets back. Father Tibor is definitely not reliable when it comes to time. And you must be hungry.”

“I’m always hungry,” Christopher said. “Why? Is there a restaurant—”

“There’s a very good restaurant just a couple of blocks away,” Lida said, “and you can go there if you like, of course, but that wasn’t what I meant. I meant you should come across the street with me. That’s where I live, across the street. That big window on the second floor of the building immediately opposite this one is my living room.”

“You can’t see it from here,” Chris said.

“No,” Lida agreed, “but you can see it from the living room windows of all four of the apartments in this building, and what’s more important, you can see all their living room windows from mine.”

“Meaning when Bennis gets in, I’ll be able to see her window light up.”

“Exactly. Of course, we will leave a note on the door before we go, just in case you would rather watch television or read one of your books instead of watch for lights in Bennis’s window.”

“I don’t want to put you to any trouble. I know it’s late, or getting that way—”

“You won’t be any trouble at all. I will be glad to have the company. I have that big town house, and there isn’t anybody to live in it but me. It gets very lonely sometimes.”

“Bennis said something in one of her letters about your giving room to some refugees.”

“Oh, yes,” Lida said, “I gave rooms to refugees. I gave rooms to quite a few refugees. But refugees are just like anybody else. They like to have places of their own. Mine found very nice apartments. We keep in touch. Do you like Armenian food?”

“I don’t know,” Chris said. “I’ve never had any.”

“Well, we’ll try it anyway,” Lida said, and then, suddenly, she was embarrassed again, she didn’t know why. She stuck her hands into the slash pockets of her chinchilla coat and searched around frantically for a pen and a piece of paper. Why she expected to find them, she didn’t know. She never kept anything in the pockets of that coat except a little loose change. She was still in awe of the fact that she owned it.

Chris had come up with his own pen and paper, rooted out of the duffel bag he had brought instead of a suitcase. If Lida hadn’t known he was rich, she’d have taken him for one of those rootless men who always seemed to be thumbing rides just above the exit ramps when she took the superhighway. Still, she was more sophisticated than that. She knew that people who came from old money often dressed like tramps, as a kind of statement. She knew that from Bennis.