Barbary Shore by Norman Mailer Page A

with self-love, “What do you know, Lovett, of what a woman goes through? Do you think it’s fun taking care of a household with a no-good husband, and behind me I’ve had conquests after conquests, lovers and night clubs and gay exciting times. I could’ve been married to a Maharajah, do you know that? And what a lover he was. The whang he had on him.” She paused as though talking to a foreigner, and said, “That’s what I always call it, a whang.”
    But I was becoming accustomed to conversation with her, with leaping up stairways and tumbling down them. “Yes, I know.”
    “He begged me to marry him, and I turned him away, you know why? His skin was dark. I could have been a Maharajess, but he had odd ways about him, and so I missed the boat. I tell you if I met another nigger with as much money as him, I wouldn’t make the same mistake. I’m a young woman, Lovett, and I’m wasting my life. Boy, there was a time when I could pick and choose among you characters.”
    “How can you go to Hollywood?” I persisted. “What about your husband?”
    “I’ll leave him. I only married the sucker out of pity.” She stared about the kitchen, surveying the dirty dishes. “I’ve got too good a heart, that’s my only trouble. If you saw me dressed up, you’d realize how easy it is for me to make a man. There isn’t one of you I can’t get if I want to lift a finger.”
    “Lift a finger for me,” I essayed.
    “Oh, you, what do you want with an old woman like me? I’m twenty-eight you know.” She drew a design in the breadcrumbs. “Boy, if I told you my husband’s name, you’d fall out of the chair.”
    “Who is he?”
    She smiled secretly. “Catch me telling you.”
    Through the open kitchen window a warm breeze drifted into the room, carrying with it the smell of leaves and tar from the streets beyond. A delicate anticipation stirred through my body. Somewhere people were making love, the heat moistening their fluid limbs, the balm of summer carrying them through this languorous hour. I almost stretched out my arm in a caress.
    “Lovett, you want to do me a favor?”
    “What?”
    She placed a hand confidingly on mine. “Look, I got a taste for some root beer. Be a good guy, and go out to the store, and get me a bottle. And I can give you the empties to return at the same time.”
    “I don’t see why I should.” I was annoyed at the way she had shattered my mood.
    “Aw, come on. Look, I’ll tell you what. I’ll give you a nickel if you do it.” She said this with some reluctance.
    I laughed. “How young do you think I am?”
    She shook her head. She was quite serious. “Fair’s fair. You go out in the sun, you’re entitled to it.”
    “I don’t want your nickel.”
    “Come on, do it anyway.”
    This was childish. “All right, all right.” I picked up her quarter, and left with ill-humor. I was furious with myself for doing her errand. She was absurd, an overblown woman whose attractiveness was almost submerged by the rubble about her person. Yet I wanted her. We could be alone in my room under the baking heat of the roof, and all through this summer we could have a succession of trysts.
    I bought two bottles of root beer and a candy bar, andhurried back. “Here’s your quarter,” I told her. “It’s a present.”
    “Aw, that’s swell of you.” She accepted the quarter greedily as an unexpected bounty. “See, I changed for you.”
    She had, indeed. My heart leaped. She wore a tropical halter and short pants, and her flesh bulged wantonly.
    “Dressed for me, huh?”
    She guffawed. “I can’t stand wearing clothes in this heat. If there’s nobody around I’d like to be without a damn thing on.” She thought about this. “You know those nudists got something.”
    Monina was out of the high chair, and walking about. Once or twice she examined me with the unabashed stare of a child. “Ditter Luft doodooking,” she said to her mother.
    “What’s that?” I asked.
    “She