Book Bites: The Wrong Girl Page 2
As the hour struck seven, he rang the doorbell. His boss was happy to see him, as were the other guests. Leonard was astonished to see Lana, even more beautiful than he remembered. This time, the conversation flowed with perfect fluency, which seemed incredibly lucky to him. They were seated side by side in the same places as last time. The challah bread was beautifully braided and so was her hair. The food was great, the company—divine!
He discovered that—just like him—she loved Opera. With a sudden blush, Lana told him that she could appreciate the purity of vocal tone. She said she adored Puccini and could even describe, in heavy Russian accent, several passages from the greatest Italian operas written by him. Her cheeks were so red, so rosy! She talked about Tosca, about La Boheme, and by the time she recited a few notes from Madama Butterfly, Leonard knew he had to have this woman, even though the color of her eyes was still a mystery to him.
She scribbled something for him inside his paper napkin and, taking a quick peek, he found her name, her phone number and a little doodle of a heart. Both Leonard and Lana got up to leave at the same time: halfway through dessert.
Little did he know that a week from now they would be sitting at the front row of the music center hall, holding hands and absorbing a heavenly soprano voice that filled the air with Summertime. She would know to tell him that George Gershwin found the inspiration to write this aria in a simple Ukrainian lullaby, and Leonard would believe her. A month from now he would rent an apartment, and they would be moving in together.
But at this moment—on his way out, just about to open the door for Lana—he knew one thing, and one thing only: he was walking on air. So elated was his state of mind, so grand was his happiness, his heart swelled in him with such a powerful pulse, that nothing else mattered.
Catching sight of the host winking an eye at the other guests, and hearing some muted giggles behind his back, all that left absolutely no impression in him—none whatsoever. He ignored that wink and those giggles, and closed the door.
The whole thing flew right out of his mind until a full year later.
One Year Later.
Leonard ate his breakfast glancing, from time to time, at that note that Lana had left for him. He was torn between a need to unfold the paper and an urge to crumple it. Either way, he found himself suddenly with the realization that now was the first time in a long while—a full year, in fact—that he was alone. Completely alone. A certain feeling was throbbing in his heart—something between relief, anger, sadness and above all, amazement that she was gone and he was free.
Leonard turned on the record player and sank into the sofa, determined to spin away the hours to the tune of cheerful melodies. He kicked off his slippers, stretched his legs across the top of the coffee table and closed his eyes, so that the sight of things would not distract him from listening.
The room disappeared. It was Summertime.
His ears started moving at the sides of his head like agitated seismographs, registering every minute reverberation, every note. On the inside of his eyelids, space started to sway around him, gently at first. It was marked by intervals, time intervals that flowed from the lyrics and swept over him, opening and closing in an increasingly complex sequence.
Summertime. It reminded him of their first date, and of the time that passed since then. True, Lana was a good companion. He loved her. He could find nothing to complain about.
And the livin’ was easy...
For a whole year, she accompanied him dutifully to the Opera. And yet, time laid bare the fact that she was bored to tears sitting there, trying to entertain herself somehow by studying the costumes, the lighting, and the scenery—everything that for him was secondary. Only now did he realize that her proclaimed love of music was as real as the blond streaks in her hair.
For him the affair had started in glory, in an illusion of a joy they could share together, and then, for some reason, gone downhill—until hitting the low point yesterday, when his boss, who was by now about to retire, came into his office.
“Leonard old boy! What a lucky man you are!” said the old man. “Well, let me tell you this: all good things come to an end. My last day here, you know.”
“I know,” said Leonard, not sure what should be said in such circumstance.
“And how is Lana? What a woman, let me tell you, what a woman! I taught her everything she knows—”
“You did, did you?”
“About the Opera, that is! Those were the days, I tell you! What a woman, what a fine woman! What a lucky, lucky man you are! As soon as she met you, that first time—remember? The very next day, she borrowed all those books from me—the Harvard Dictionary of Music, the Cambridge Companion to Twentieth-Century Opera, a fine book I must say, just too many words, too many words! And that’s not all, she took A Critical Biography of Puccini, and another book, I think, The Memory of All That: The Life of Gershwin—you name it, she took it! All my CDs too—Tosca, Madama Butterfly—”
“For the love of music,” said Leonard, with an acid undertone in his voice.
“Hell no!”
“How do you mean, No?”
“It was for you,” said the old man, and then he did a strange thing. He winked.
With that one wink, something became clear in his memory, as if a cell cracked open. He saw himself standing there on the threshold—on his way out, just about to open the door for Lana—listening, attentively this time, to those muted giggles behind his back. He stood there, at that second, for what seemed like an eternity. He hated those other guests, he hated his host. They had all been laughing at him!
They knew, did they not, that Lana was putting on an illusion, a fine illusion just for him. There was no shyness in her blush. They knew she liked him, liked him well enough to lie to his face. That was some performance! He hated himself for being so stupid as to fall for it. He should not have shaved his mustache.
That evening, when he came home from work, she asked him about his day. He gave no answer. Later in bed, just before rolling over and facing the wall, he blurted out suddenly, “You don’t understand me. You don’t know a thing.”
“What?” said Lana.
“Nothing,” he said. “Not a thing.”
“What is it with you tonight?”
He gave her a long silence as an answer. After a while he thought he felt the stroke of her fingers on his back, and suddenly could no longer take it.
“Why the devil did you do it?” he said. “Lying to me, everything—every little thing you said, from Puccini to Gershwin. You know nothing about all that, do you. Not a thing. You and your Ukrainian lullaby!”
After that, he found himself unable to sleep, and was forced to listen for hours on end to the singsong of crickets filling the night air, and to the faraway noise of traffic. At sunrise, just as he started to dose off, an ambulance could be heard speeding across the street, its alarm rising sharply to a pitch, then falling away into the distance. Here and there someone banged the lid of a garbage can. Bang-bang. Then bang.
One thing missing from all of this was the regular rhythm of her breathing. In twelve months of living together, that rhythm for him was softer, sweeter, and more necessary than any lullaby. He turned over to find out that which he already knew: Lana was not in bed.
Her folded note had been left for him on the breakfast table. Now it waited there, crisp and white. He could see it even from afar, even as he sank deeper into the back cushion of the sofa. Oh, he would read that note, Leonard promised himself, he would, as soon as Summertime died down. No, maybe later, at noon—or even later still. Perhaps when darkness came and the crickets picked up where the music left off.
“For the love of music,” he said to himself as loudly as he could, for there was no one else there with whom he could talk. “What does she know. Nothing, I swear, not a thing.”
For some reason, his voice sounded hollow and unconvincing to his ears. Don’t you cry, cried someone inside him. He wante
d to close his eyes and drift away, anywhere but here—but his curiosity would not let him do it.
He found the sight of that note so peculiar, so distracting that he could no longer concentrate on the lyrics. Maybe it was not her fault. Not entirely, at least. Maybe it was him. It was the music, too. Listening demanded his full attention. It carried him away, to a different place.
Yes, his eyes were closed for too long. Maybe he never really looked at Lana. Leonard uttered her name once or twice and suddenly remembered that to this day, if someone would ask him about the color of her eyes, he would not know what to say.
In spite of himself, Leonard knew he missed the rhythm of her breathing. He missed it terribly. He needed to hear the swish of her hair, the soft whoosh of her footfalls, and above all, the way she talked.
He wondered what Lana knew about him, having studied him so diligently from the beginning. Then he wondered if he, in turn, knew anything about her. Who she was, the inner language of her thoughts. For the first time in twelve months, he wondered if her dreams played out in heavy Russian accent.
It was then that Leonard got up to his feet. Perhaps that note was nothing more than a to-do list. It could happen that way, could it not? Maybe she simply scribbled something for him, a doodle or a heart, inside that paper. A great urge swelled in his heart.
He went over to the table, picked up the note and very carefully, unfolded it—
Just Don’t Lie to Me
Sample from
Dancing with Air
As told by Lenny, 1944
In the past I had to be careful about writing to Natasha. Aerograms were censored, and even in letters sent in a concealed envelope you would find a thick blue line here and there, blocking out a word or a phrase that might give the enemy a clue, an idea about our war plans. So I learned to confine my remarks, back then, to talking strictly about us, about how much I missed her.
But now she was at sea, and what I jotted down was meant not for her but for the eyes of German intelligence. Tasked with deception I took the license to write as I please, to let loose. There was a sense of freedom about it. Writing to a girl who wasn’t there, I could compose any lie.
To my surprise I truly enjoyed doing it, enjoyed putting together my first installment of a bogus report, disguised as a love letter.
I was careful, oh so careful to write it in a way that would not raise suspicion, I mean, a way that was not too obvious. Casually, subtly, I dropped in a rumor here, an observation there, offering details such as the insignia on our soldiers’ uniforms, unit markings on vehicles, and the direction of troop movement.
Someone on the other side would use these minutiae, I hoped, to construct a defective order of battle for the Allied forces. Such an order would place the center of gravity of our military in the wrong place: opposite Pas de Calais, the point on the French coast closest to England. I assumed that perhaps, in the mind of our foes, this was already believed to be the most likely invasion site, which was why the false evidence, designed to confirm their suspicion, might be accepted without question.
Early next morning I went to Captain Smith, so he might review my workmanship. I knocked at his office door, removed my hat, and stood in attention, barely able to contain my pride in my little masterpiece.
With an impatient gesture of the hand, “At ease, Corporal,” he said. Then he added, “And quick, close the door behind you.”
“Yes, sir,” I said, as I handed him the draft of my letter.
Then I just stood there behind his desk watching him, watching his thick finger as it passed across the words. From time to time, it halted. His expression was not immediately clear to me. It seemed to alternate between curiosity and astonishment. Grabbing a soiled rag he wiped his clean glasses with it. Then he adjusted them over the bridge of his nose, and over their frame, he read:
To Natashinka,
My letter today may seem unusual to you. I admit, this time it is overflowing with impressions. I couldn’t help myself, because I ache for you. Oh my dearest, I miss you to the point of wanting you to know everything about me, every little thing I’m going through, because it’s so painful to be together, apart.
Listening to this burly man give voice to such delicate, sensitive phrases made me cringe, because it invaded something inside, fingering a sacred place, a place of intimacy between my girl and me. In a flash I felt angry, angry with myself for using my passion as a cheating device.
“Oh,” said the officer, twisting the ends of his mustache, oiling them with satisfaction. “This is good! In fact, it’s so much better than plain good!”
With some effort I brought myself to smile back at him. To protect our fighters in a battle that was still being drafted I had to lead the enemy astray, and one way to do it was by sacrificing something dear to me, something intensely private.
There was no holding back now. I had to brace myself not only for the smirk of this officer but also for the mockery of German agents and spies, whose faces I would never see and whose laughing at the expense of a poor lover I could only imagine.
I would have the last laugh, or so I hoped, when they would believe my apparent carelessness and put their trust in what was written next.
Captain Smith cleared his throat. He read:
Why, only yesterday, as I was riding my motorcycle, I imagined you there right there behind me, holding on tightly and seeing what I saw. In southwest England there were few troop sightings. There was barely any traffic on the road, so I was able to enjoy the quiet of the countryside. I would turn over my shoulder to see your red hair blowing, flapping in the wind, if only you were here.
The officer raised his eyes from the paper.
“In reality,” he remarked, “many units are housed in that area.”
“I know, sir,” said I. “I’ve studied the information you gave me quite carefully and made every effort to understate their existence, particularly there.”
He lowered his head, and his glasses slipped to the tip of his nose, reflecting light from the paper. With every word they came closer and closer to falling off:
Then I headed to the southeast. The earth started to rumble underfoot, because of the heavy tanks rolling right beside me, followed by the marching of army units. More and more vehicles in camouflage colors crowded the land, and some of them crossed through wooded areas, perhaps to obscure their tracks from spotter planes.
I have no idea where all of them were headed, but the farther east I got, the busier were the roads. In fact, the noise increased to such a level that it started to distract me. The buzzing of engines from scores of jeeps echoed all across the hills. Listening to it I could no longer focus inward to imagine hearing your voice, your lovely music.
Only the hairy wisps of his mustache peeked out of his hand as the officer chortled behind it. After that, he scanned quickly through the rest of the information, where I named places, particular places where Allied units were staged, placing a greatly exaggerated number of them directly across from Pas de Calais.
Leaning back in his chair, “I was told you had talent,” he said. “But with this little masterpiece, Corporal, you’ve exceeded your reputation!”
“Did I, sir?”
“Yes! You’ve come close, very close to suggesting the target of our invasion, without actually spelling it out, leaving that last step to the other side, so they can draw the inescapable conclusion, and in doing so, own it.”
“If you wish, sir, I can sharpen a phrase or two in this draft—”
“A draft it is not! It’s a gem, an expertly forged one!” He raised his eyes to me and added, “I promise you a promotion to sergeant, if the ruse of landing in Calais ends up being successful. So you better continue to work on the next letter.”
“I will, sir,” I said, now doing my best to sound humble. “In the next few days I’ll have to travel to some of these places and study the topography, because I need more concrete detail, so as to sound reliable.”
“How about tomorrow, sir? I think I’ll be busy later this week.”
“How so?”
“I expect my girlfriend to arrive.”
His chair screeched under him as he rose to his feet. Coming at me from behind his desk, he asked, “Say what?”
I caught sight of his face. It was reddening—but still, I thought nothing of it.
“I wish she were here already,” I said, more to myself than to him. “But these days, crossing the Atlantic by ship—even if it is a modern, steam-powered one—can be as perilous, I’m afraid, as sailing on a wind-powered vessel used to be, because of having to avoid being detected by German submarines.”
He rolled his eyes as if to say, I know all that, doesn’t everybody?
Obviously, I was talking too much. “Please forgive me, Sir,” I said. “I can’t help it. I worry about Natasha.”
As if he couldn’t believe his own ears, the officer shook his head. “She’s on her way to you?” he demanded. “She’s coming here, to London?”
“Yes, she is—”
“That,” he bellowed, “is most unfortunate!”
“Sir, she’s making a big sacrifice of her own career, just to play here in England before the troops—”
“Her sacrifice,” he said, in a hard voice, “is most unwelcome.”
“Not sure I understand, sir—”
He shoved the draft of the letter back into my hand. In utter disbelief I stared at the crumpled thing and tried to straighten it out, in vain.
“Sir,” I said, this time with trepidation. “Shall I go ahead and send it?”