“Martin?”
Boris waved a hand. “You didn’t meet Martin. Believe me, you would remember if you did. Anyway, this Lucius guy is no good to be mixed up with for someone in your business.”
“I know.”
“What are you into him for? If I may ask?”
“I—” Again I shook my head, at the impossibility of going into it. “It’s complicated.”
“Well, I don’t know what he has on you. If you need my help, of course you have it—I am pledging it to you—Horst too, I daresay, because he likes you. Nice to see him so involved and talkative yesterday! I do not think he knows so many persons with whom he can be himself and share his interests. It is sad for him. Very intelligent, Horst. He has a lot to give. But—” he glanced at his watch—“sorry, I do not mean to be rude, I have to be somewhere—I am feeling very hopeful about the picture! I think, possibility, we may get it back! So—” he stood, and bravely knocked his breastbone with his fist—“courage! We will speak soon.”
“Boris?”
“Eh?”
“What would you do if your girl was cheating on you?”
Boris—heading out the door—did a double take. “Come again?”
“If you thought your girl was cheating on you.”
Boris frowned. “Not sure? You have no proof?”
“No,” I said, before realizing this wasn’t strictly true.
“Then you must ask her, straight out,” said Boris decisively. “In some friendly and unprotected moment when she is not expecting it. In bed maybe. If you catch her at the right moment, even if she lies—you will know it. She will lose her nerve.”
“Not this woman.”
Boris laughed. “Well, you have found a good one, then! A rare one! Is she beautiful?”
“Yes.”
“Rich?”
“Yes.”
“Intelligent?”
“Most people would say so, yes.”
“Heartless?”
“A bit.”
Boris laughed. “And you love her, yes. But not too much.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because you are not mad, or wild, or grieving! You are not roaring out to choke her with your own bare hands! Which means your soul is not too mixed up with hers. And that is good. Here is my experience. Stay away from the ones you love too much. Those are the ones who will kill you. What you want to live and be happy in the world is a woman who has her own life and lets you have yours.”
He clapped me twice on the shoulder and then departed, leaving me to stare into the silver case with a renewed sense of despair at my dirtied-up life.
xxi.
KITSEY, WHEN SHE OPENED the door to me that night, was not actually quite so composed as she might have been: she was talking of several things at once, new dress she wanted to buy, tried it on, couldn’t decide, put it on hold, storm up in Maine—tons of trees down, old ones on the island, Uncle Harry had phoned, how sad! “Oh darling—” flittering around adorably, raising up on tiptoe to reach the wineglasses—“will you? Please?” Em and Francie, the roommates, were nowhere in evidence, as if they and their boyfriends had wisely am-scrayed before my arrival. “Oh, never mind—I’ve got them. Listen, I had such a good idea. Let’s go have a curry before we stop by Cynthia’s. I’m craving one. What’s that hidey-hole on Lex you took me to—that you like? What’s it called? The Mahal something?”
“You mean the fleabag?” I said stonily. I hadn’t even bothered to take off my coat.
“Excuse me?”
“With the greasy rogan josh. And the old people that depressed you. The Bloomingdale’s sale crowd.” The Jal Mahal Restaruant (sic) was a shabby, tucked-away Indian on the second floor of a storefront on Lex where not a thing had changed since I was a kid: not the pappadums, not the prices, not the carpet faded pink from water damage near the windows, not even the waiters: the same heavy, beatific, gentle faces I remembered from childhood when my mother and I had gone there after the movies for samosas and mango ice cream. “Sure, why not. ‘The saddest restaurant in Manhattan.’ What a great idea.”
She turned to me, and frowned. “Whatever. Baluchi’s is closer. Or—we can do what you want.”
“Oh yeah?” I stood leaning against the door frame with my hands in my pockets. Years of living with a world class liar had rendered me merciless. “What I want? That’s rich.”
“Sorry. I thought a curry might be nice. Forget it.”
“That’s okay. You can stop it now.”
She looked up with a vacant smile on her face. “Excuse me?”