Mother Night

23: Chapter Six Hundred and Forty-three ...

One of the things Helga had in her suitcase, as I've already said, was a book by me. It was a manuscript I had never intended that it be published. I regarded it as unpublishable except by pornographers.

It was called Memoirs of a Monogamous Casanova. In it I told of my conquests of all the hundreds of women my wife, my Helga, had been. It was clinical, obsessed, some say, insane. It was a diary, recording day by day for the first two years of the war, our erotic life — to the exclusion of all else. There is not one word in it to indicate even the century or the continent of its origin.

There is a man of many moods, a woman of many moods. In some of the early entries, settings are referred to sketchily. But from there on, there are no settings at all

Helga knew I kept the peculiar diary. I kept it as one of many devices for keeping our sexual pleasure keen. The book is not only a report of an experiment, but a part of the experiment it reports — a self-conscious experiment by a man and a woman to be endlessly fascinating to each other sexually — .

To be more than that.

To be to each other, body and soul, sufficient reasons for living, though there might not be a single other satisfaction to be had.

The epigraph of the book is to the point, I think.

It is a poem by William Blake called 'The Question Answered':

What is it men in women do require?

The lineaments of Gratified Desire.

What is it women do in men require?

The lineaments of Gratified Desire.

I might aptly add here one last chapter to the Memoirs, chapter 643, describing the night I spent in a New York hotel with Helga, after having been without her for so many years.

I leave it to an editor of taste and delicacy to abridge with innocent polka dots whatever might offend.

MEMOIRS OF A MONOGAMOUS CASANOVA, CHAPTER 643

We had been apart for sixteen years. My first lust that night was in my fingertips. Other parts of me ... that were contented later were contented in a ritual way, thoroughly, to ... clinical perfection. No part of me could complain, and no part of my wife could complain, I trust, of being victimized by busy-work, time-serving... or jerry-building. But my finger tips had the best of it that night...

Which is not to say that I found myself to be an ... old man, dependent, if I was to please a woman, on ... foreplay and nothing more. On the contrary, I was as ... ready a lover as a seventeen-year-old ... with his ... girl...

And as full of wonder.

And it was in my fingers that the wonder came. Calm, resourceful, thoughtful, these ... explorers, these ... strategists, these ... scouts, these ... skirmishers, deployed themselves over the ... terrain.

And all the news they gathered was good...

My wife was a ... slave girl bedded with an ... emperor that night, seemingly struck dumb, seemingly not even able to speak a word of my language. And yet, how eloquent she was, letting her eyes, her breathing ... express what they must, unable to keep them from expressing what they must... .

And how simple, how sublimely familiar was the tale her ... body told ... It was like the breeze's tale of what a breeze is, like the rose's tale of what the rose is....

After my subtle, thoughtful and grateful fingers came greedier things, instruments of pleasure without memories, without manners, without patience. These my slave girl met in greedy kind ... until Mother Nature herself, who had made the most extravagant demands upon us, could ask no more. Mother Nature herself ... called an end to the game....

We rolled apart....

We spoke coherently to each other for the first time since bedding down.

'Hello,' she said.

'Hello,' I said.

'Welcome home,' she said.

End of chapter 643.

The city sky was clean and hard and bright the next morning, looking like an enchanted dome that would shatter at a tap or ring like a great glass bell.

My Helga and I stepped from our hotel to the sidewalk snappily. I was lavish in my courtliness, and my Helga was no less grand in her respect and gratitude. We had had a marvelous night

I was not wearing war-surplus clothing. I was wearing the clothes I had put on after fleeing Berlin, after shucking off the uniform of the Free American Corps. I was wearing the clothes — fur-collared impresario's cloak and blue serge suit — I had been captured in. I was also carrying, for whimsy, a cane. I did marvelous things with the cane: rococo manuals of arms, Charlie Chaplin twirls, polo strokes at orts in the gutter.

And all the while my Helga's small hand rested on my good left arm, creeping in an endless and erotic exploration of the tingling area between the inside of my elbow and the crest of my stringy biceps.

We were on our way to buy a bed, a bed like our bed in Berlin.

But all the stores were closed. The day wasn't Sunday, and it wasn't any holiday I could think of. When we got to Fifth Avenue, there were American flying as far as the eye could see. 'Good God Almighty,' I said wonderingly.

'What does it mean?' said Helga.

'Maybe they declared war last night,' I said.

She tightened her fingers on my arm convulsively. 'You don't really think so, do you?' she said. She thought it was possible.

'A joke,' I said. 'Some kind of holiday, obviously.'

'What holiday?' she said.

I was still drawing blanks. 'As your host in this wonderful land of ours,' I said, 'I should explain to you the deep significance of this great day in our national lives, but nothing comes to me.'

'Nothing?' she said.

'I'm as baffled as you are,' I said. 'I might as well be the Prince of Cambodia.'

A uniformed colored man was sweeping the walk in front of an apartment. His blue and gold uniform bore a striking resemblance to the uniform of the Free American Corps, even to the final touch of a pale lavender stripe down his trouser legs. The name of the apartment house was stitched over his breast pocket. 'Sylvan House' was the name of the place, though the only tree near it was a sapling, bandaged, armored and guy-wired.

I asked the man what day it was.

He told me it was Veterans' Day.

'What date is it?' I said.

'November eleventh, sir,' he said.

'November eleventh is Armistice Day, not Veterans' Day,' I said.

'Where you been?' he said. 'They changed all that years ago.'

'Veterans' Day,' I said to Helga as we walked on. 'Used to be Armistice Day. Now it's Veterans' Day.'

'That upsets you?' she said.

'Oh, it's just so damn cheap, so damn typical,' I said. 'This used to be a day in honor of the dead of World War One, but the living couldn't keep their grubby hands off of it, wanted the glory of the dead for themselves. So typical, so typical. Any time anything of real dignity appears in this country, it's torn to shreds and thrown to the mob.'

'You hate America, don't you?' she said.

'That would be as silly as loving it,' I said. 'It's impossible for me to get emotional about it, because real estate doesn't interest me. It's no doubt a great flaw in my personality, but I can't think in terms of boundaries. Those imaginary lines are as unreal to me as elves and pixies. I can't believe that they mark the end or the beginning of anything of real concern to a human soul. Virtues and vices, pleasures and pains cross boundaries at will.'

'You've changed so,' she said.

'People should be changed by world wars,' I said, 'else what are world wars for?'

'Maybe you've changed so much you don't really love me any more,' she said. 'Maybe I've changed so much'

'After a night like last night,' I said, 'how could you say such a thing?'

'We really haven't talked anything over' she said.

'What is there to talk about?' I said. 'Nothing you could say would make me love you more or less. Our love is too deep for words ever to touch it. It's soul love.'

She sighed. 'How lovely that is — if it's true.' She put her hands close together, but not touching. 'Our souls in love.'

'A love that can weather anything,' I said.

'Your soul feels love now for my soul?' she said.

'Obviously,' I said.

'And you couldn't be deceived by that feeling?' she said. 'You couldn't be mistaken?'

'Not a chance,' I said.

'And nothing I could say could spoil it?' she said.

'Nothing,' I said.

'All right,' she said, 'I have something to say that I was afraid to say before. I'm not afraid to say it now.'

'Say away!' I said lightly.

'I'm not Helga,' she said. 'I'm her little sister Resi'