Her Reflection

by Gary Inbinder

Part 1 appears in this issue.

conclusion

Rain started shortly after they left the quay. It soon strengthened from drizzle to wind-whipped downpour. He remembered grabbing her arm, skipping through puddles from parked car to the awning sheltered entrance of a popular pub.

They shook off their wet clothes like a pair of damp puppies, while scanning a menu posted on the plate-glass window. Beer and pizza tempted them — or was it hamburgers? Perhaps it was just the prospect of a warm, dry refuge.

The place was dark, smoky, bustling and humming with students. Brim-full bowls of complementary peanuts raised a thirst in patrons who munched compulsively while tossing shucks on the floor. He recalled how the littered shells squished beneath his shoes.

A corner booth in the back, away from the noisy bar, gave them some privacy. Shadows moved across the narrow hardwood table, cast by a stubby candle flickering in its red cut glass holder. While speaking to him, she had the habit of leaning forward and toying with a silver and turquoise necklace, drawing attention to her cleavage. When he asked whether she had been serious about sailing around the world, she replied, “Of course I was. Don’t you think that would be fun?”

He smiled, said something non-committal, and changed the subject to their studies. They were only one month from graduation.

She interrupted: “Max, you’re so focused, so goal-oriented and you know so much about so many things. Were you a prodigy, a boy genius or something?” Her “or something” was a habitual locution that could be charming or annoying, depending on your point of view. At that moment, he found it charming.

But her comment about his “genius” had caught him off-guard. Could she have been mocking him, or at least teasing? He studied her face, trying to detect a hint of sarcasm. But she just twirled her necklace, gazing back at him with an engaging, affectionate smile; so, he accepted what she had said as a sincere compliment. “I just take things seriously and try to do my best, I guess. Maybe I should be more laid-back?”

She gently placed her hand on his. “It wouldn’t hurt to unwind, just a little.” Was she manipulating him, or was that just her way — to be flirtatious, alluring, insinuating? She lifted her hand from his, grabbed a handful of nuts, cracked a shell and popped its contents into her moist, red mouth. Then she laughed. “You’ll have to stop me, Max. I could eat these till I explode.”

Unlike Max, who had a roommate, she lived alone not far from the pub. She invited him to her place where they could dry their clothes, drink and talk while waiting out the storm. He accepted with happy anticipation mixed with unease, because he had never before been with a young woman under such circumstances. And though they lived in the age of the pill, penicillin and “if it feels good, do it”, he had still retained a double standard. Would a “nice girl” have made such a suggestion?

Old Niemand remembered the clatter of raindrops on her garage roof; water rushing from gutters; a dash past flowerbeds through a small, drenched garden and up one narrow, slippery flight of gray painted wooden stairs. She groped her purse for keys; he stood a few steps behind and below her, his eyes fixed on her round, blue-jean clad bottom. They crossed the threshold, soaked and laughing. He took her in his arms and kissed her. Or did she kiss him?

The old man shook his head in frustration. At times, she seemed to have receded to a point beyond lucid recollection; perhaps what he had desired had become confused with what had been. But he did recall her flat in some detail: you entered through a kitchenette into an L-shaped room containing a corner day-bed with faux leopard-skin coverlet; travel posters of the Costa del Sol, a Picasso reproduction and the ubiquitous Zig Zag Zouave decorated the beige painted walls; a beaded bamboo curtain veiled a passage leading down two steps to a spare room crammed with swivel-chair, desk and typewriter, and the tiny bathroom off to the right. A large, round mirror hung on the wall opposite her day-bed, over a portable bar holding several exotically labeled liquor bottles and a variety of glassware.

Her flat reminded him of a seductress’s lair in an old Hollywood film, a fitting place for a rendezvous with Dietrich, Garbo, or Hedy Lamarr. Could he have been her Gary Cooper?

“Let’s get out of these wet clothes,” she said. “I’ve got a bath-robe that’ll fit you —sort of.” “Sort of” was another of her characteristic locutions. “I’ll hang our clothes in the bathroom to dry, and then I’ll make Irish coffee. Do you like Irish coffee?”

“Sure, that’s fine,” young Niemand replied. Old Niemand had a persistent image of her associated with that particular moment. Impetuous, seductive, and irresistibly lovely; she personified the allure of an adventure at its inception.

She passed through the rattling veil of beads and returned shortly, carrying a terry-cloth robe. “You can change here; I’ll use the bathroom. Hang your clothes on the chair. I’ll pick them up later.”

He undressed, hanging his wet shirt and pants where she had indicated. Then, he put on her robe, feeling its rough texture next to his bare skin, inhaling the odor of clean cotton spiced with the scent of her floral bath salts. She might have worn it recently after taking a shower or bath, and that gave him an intensely erotic sense of intimacy.

Old Niemand’s memory failed intermittently; it was like watching a movie, nodding off and then waking up in the midst of another scene. He recalled the sound of rain beating against the roof, the distant rumbling of thunder, and that recollection oriented him. They were relaxing on her day-bed, sipping hot, strong, bitter-sweet Irish coffee and chattering. What did they talk about? Sailing around the world on the sloop, or rather what they each imagined such a voyage would be.

They finished their drinks, placing the empty cups side by side on the coffee table. He felt warm from the whiskey; she reclined on her pillow and settled her legs across his lap. Her face flushed; she seemed to glow in the soft yellow lamp light. “Sail away with me, Max,” she murmured invitingly.

Had she really said that? Or was that what he had wanted to hear? He slid his hand up her smooth thigh, underneath her robe. Her hand guided his; her sigh encouraged him. He moved on top of her; she opened to him. He was like a ship breaking the waves, dipping and rising in clouds of spray and white foam. She was the ocean, deep and mysterious, yielding but strong, buoying him on her surface, drawing him down into her depths.

Old Niemand trembled; he wiped a thin film of sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. He gasped for air; he had a sensation of drowning. Her memory had overwhelmed him.

That long-ago evening had been the perfect start of an adventure, without foreknowledge of the voyage’s dangers, only a foretaste of its delights. The squalls and shipwreck came later.

They had slept in each other’s arms. Niemand awoke first, sometime before dawn. The storm had passed. She lay on her side, away from him. For a moment, he listened to her soft, regular breathing. Then he rolled off the bed, and, careful not to disturb her, walked softly toward the mirror. What was it about the mirror that had attracted him? What could it reveal but his familiar reflection?

There was a small lamp on a stand next to the portable bar. He glanced back at her; she seemed to be sound asleep. He flicked on the light switch, and gazed at the dim, ghost-like image of his face and upper torso. Perhaps he wanted to see if the adventure of the previous day and night had changed him somehow.

She came to him unexpectedly, like a phantom. “Gaze into the mirror too often and you’ll see the Devil.”

Her appearance in the mirror had startled him. But he simply smiled, put his arm round her nude waist, and held her close. That was the beginning of a journey that lasted one brief year. Niemand got a teaching assistantship and pursued his Master’s Degree. She went to work for a magazine, as an editorial assistant. Despite their families’ disapproval, they rented a larger apartment and moved in together.

Old Niemand didn’t want to recall the doldrums, the calms and storms of everyday life, the inevitable sorrow of parting at journey’s end. He wanted to recapture the romance, the adventure of a voyage at its commencement. And he most certainly didn’t want to revisit the wreckage, the day that he learned of her affair with her boss, the man she eventually married and lived with for almost forty years.

Her obituary had contained the usual laundry-list of accomplishments, not the least of which was her marriage that had produced four children who in turn had propagated seven grandchildren. Old Niemand had stared at the smiling grandmother for a long time, trying to find in her funerary photograph some remnant of his lost love, his seductive crew-mate.

He had seen the announcement of her death one year ago, and now her reflection had returned to haunt his bathroom mirror. Niemand turned over the snapshot and pondered what she had written there: “Sail away with me, Max?” She had used the interrogative rather than the imperative. That seemed out of character, somehow.

Niemand hadn’t smoked for years, but he had kept a lighter filled with fluid next to an ashtray on his desk. He considered burning the photo as a sort of exorcism. But then he changed his mind and returned the memento of the happiest day of his life to its dusty, deteriorating envelope.

They had gone their separate ways, and perhaps that had been for the best. She might visit him, now and then, as a reflection, a memory only. He might ask her questions; he wanted to know more about her voyage, what tales she had to tell. And he would reply with his own story, if she were interested, that is.

He had never married, had no children. All he had to show for his life were the mundane achievements of a modest career. Would she be disappointed with her “genius”? Would she reproach him and say, “Oh Max, you should have come with me.” He wouldn’t disagree. But he wouldn’t say anything about the Devil in the mirror unless she raised it. Like regrets for our lost youth, some things, he figured, were best let alone.