"Lisa Tuttle - Ghosts and Other Lovers" - читать интересную книгу автора (Tuttle Lisa)

Did he listen as closely to me as I did to him? I thought he did, but maybe, while his blue eyes were fixed
so attentively on my face, he was mentally rehearsing his next revelation about Jane. Or maybe he took it
in at the time and then jettisoned all that unnecessary information. He must have had a greater talent for
forgetting than I do, to judge from his later behavior, or maybe, being a man, he was able to do what men
are always advising women, to listen, to understand, but not take it personally.

We became lovers in Shanghai, on an evening when we should have been at the theater, watching
acrobats. WeтАЩd both cried off on grounds of ill health. Some sort of tummy bug had been sweeping the
tour so this was a readily accepted excuse, but I felt guilty, certain that the disease would strike us for
real now that we had invoked it. David laughed at me for my superstitions; he claimed to have none
himself. He believed in neither ghosts nor gods.

In Shanghai we had rooms in a very posh hotel, far more elegant than anywhere else we went on the tour
or than anywhere IтАЩd ever stayed before. Nixon had stayed there during his visit to China. Staying there
made me feel very grand and yet uneasy, as if IтАЩd strayed into someone elseтАЩs life. When the others had
departed for the theater, David came down the hall to the room I shared with Miss Edith FinchтАФit was
all shared rooms; his roommate was another pensionerтАФflourishing a bottle of Vodka. We giggled like
naughty children as we mixed the Vodka with some of EdithтАЩs orange and toasted each other.

This may sound horribly na├пve, but at that point I still hadnтАЩt realized why weтАЩd stayed behind together,
why we were there in my room. I was so interested in his life, in his past, that I was waiting for still more
revelations about Jane. I thought we would go on talking forever.

I took a sip of my drink and smiled at him expectantly. He took the glass from my hand and set it down
beside his on the bedside table. Then he placed his hands very gently on the sides of my head, over my
ears, tilted my face up to his, and kissed me on the mouth.

I was astonished and flattered. That must sound odd. It wasnтАЩt that men had not found me desirable
beforeтАФeven during my marriage there had been the occasional propositionтАФor that this conclusion to
our growing intimacy should have been so unexpected. But I had come to think of David, as a lover, only
in connection with Jane. Jane, the unknown other, whom he called тАЬgenuinely beautiful.тАЭ This was not a
phrase anyone would ever use about me. тАЬNot bad,тАЭ тАЬquite attractive,тАЭ even тАЬcute,тАЭ but never beautiful.
Yet he wanted me, this man who had loved a beautiful woman.

Did I want him? IтАЩm not sure. I wanted something, but it was Jane I thought of as he pressed me back on
the bed. In some ways I felt I knew Jane better than I knew David. I didnтАЩt know her as I knew other
women, as a friend, but rather as her lover had known her. I perceived her only and entirely through
David, and tried to imagine him through her eyes. I donтАЩt know if I identified more with David or with
Jane, but I scarcely felt like myself at all as we made love for the first time on the bed in the posh hotel
room in Shanghai. Outside it was raining, had been raining since the afternoon. The window was partly
open and the damp coolness and sound of the rain came into the room along with the smell of rain-wet
city streets, and the omnipresent sour-sweet fecal smell of China.
After we had made love, after it had grown dark, to the sound of the rain still hissing down, we talked.
Or, rather, he talked and I listened. The subject, as always, was his affair with Jane. It was over, we
both, we all knew it was over. He said he no longer loved her, no longer cared if he ever saw her again.
He didnтАЩt say that he loved me, but the implication was that my company and understanding, and this
shared act of love, had finally cured him of her. Although I didnтАЩt say so, I didnтАЩt believe it. I thought it
was a kindness he was trying to do me, trying to make me feel that I mattered more than I did, or to
salve my jealousy, when it really wasnтАЩt necessary. I knew it would be a while yet before he got over
Jane. She was too wonderful, and sheтАЩd been too important to him. His hurt was too raw, his obsession