a cup of coffee?” said Lawrence
with an impudent smile.
“That’s enough talk from you,” said the
detective. “You’d better come along with me, Paul.”
“But I’m not Paul.”
“Who are you?”
“My name is Lawrence.”
“Do you know Paul—? Have you seen him
recently?”
“He was here last night for a party.”
“A party? And where did he go after that?”
“I don’t know,” said Lawrence. “I thought he
was staying with his parents.”
“What kind of a party was this?” asked the
detective. But now Djuna had stopped laughing and was becoming angry. “Leave
this place immediately,” she said.
The detective took a photograph out of his pocket,
compared it with Lawrence’s face, saw there was no resemblance, looked once
more at Djuna’s face, read the anger in it, and left.
As soon as he left her anger vanished and they
laughed again. Suddenly Djuna’s playfulness turned into anxiety. “But this may
become serious, Lawrence. Paul won’t be able to come to my house any more. And
suppose it had been Paul who had come for breakfast!”
And then another aspect of the situation struck
her and her face became sorrowful. “What kind of parents has Paul that they can
consider using force to bring him home.”
She took up the telephone and called Paul. Paul
said in a shocked voice: “They can’t take me home by force!”
“I don’t know about the law, Paul. You’d better
stay away from my house. I will meet you somewhere—say at the ballet
theater—until we find out.”
For a few days they met at concerts, galleries,
ballets. But no one seemed to follow them.
Djuna lived in constant fear that he would be
whisked away and that she might never see him again. Their meetings took on the
anxiety of repeated farewells. They always looked at each other as if it were
for the last time.
Through this fear of loss she took longer
glances at his face, and every facet of it, every gesture, every inflection of
his voice thus sank deeper into her, to be stored away against future
loss—deeper and deeper it penetrated, impregnated her more as she fought
against its vanishing.
She felt that she not only saw Paul vividly in
the present but Paul in the future. Every expression she could read as an
indication of future power, future discernment, future completion. Her vision
of the future Paul illumined the present. Others could see a young man
experiencing his first drunkenness, taking his first steps in the world,
oscillating or contradicting himself. But she felt herself living with a Paul
no one had seen yet, the man of the future, willful, and with a power in him
which appeared intermittently.
When the clouds and mists of adolescence would
vanish, what a complete and rich man he would become, with this mixture of
sensibility and intelligence motivating his choices, discarding shallowness,
never taking a step into mediocrity, with an unerring instinct for the
extraordinary.
To send a detective to bring him home by force,
how little his parents must know this Paul of the future, possessed of that
deep-seated mine of tenderness hidden below access but visible to her.
She was living with a Paul no one knew as yet,
in a secret relationship far from the reach of the subtlest detectives, beyond
the reach of the entire world.
Under the veiled voice she felt the hidden
warmth, under the hesitancies a hidden strength, under the fears a vaster dream
more difficult to seize and to fulfill.
Alone, after an afternoon with him, she lay on
her bed and while the bird he had carved gyrated lightly in the center of the
room, tears came to her eyes so slowly she did not feel them at first until
they slid down her cheeks.
Tears from this unbearable melting of her heart
and body—a complete melting before the face of Paul, and the muted way his body
spoke, the gentle way he was hungering, reaching, groping, like a prisoner
escaping slowly and gradually, door by door, room by room, hallway by hallway,
towards
with an impudent smile.
“That’s enough talk from you,” said the
detective. “You’d better come along with me, Paul.”
“But I’m not Paul.”
“Who are you?”
“My name is Lawrence.”
“Do you know Paul—? Have you seen him
recently?”
“He was here last night for a party.”
“A party? And where did he go after that?”
“I don’t know,” said Lawrence. “I thought he
was staying with his parents.”
“What kind of a party was this?” asked the
detective. But now Djuna had stopped laughing and was becoming angry. “Leave
this place immediately,” she said.
The detective took a photograph out of his pocket,
compared it with Lawrence’s face, saw there was no resemblance, looked once
more at Djuna’s face, read the anger in it, and left.
As soon as he left her anger vanished and they
laughed again. Suddenly Djuna’s playfulness turned into anxiety. “But this may
become serious, Lawrence. Paul won’t be able to come to my house any more. And
suppose it had been Paul who had come for breakfast!”
And then another aspect of the situation struck
her and her face became sorrowful. “What kind of parents has Paul that they can
consider using force to bring him home.”
She took up the telephone and called Paul. Paul
said in a shocked voice: “They can’t take me home by force!”
“I don’t know about the law, Paul. You’d better
stay away from my house. I will meet you somewhere—say at the ballet
theater—until we find out.”
For a few days they met at concerts, galleries,
ballets. But no one seemed to follow them.
Djuna lived in constant fear that he would be
whisked away and that she might never see him again. Their meetings took on the
anxiety of repeated farewells. They always looked at each other as if it were
for the last time.
Through this fear of loss she took longer
glances at his face, and every facet of it, every gesture, every inflection of
his voice thus sank deeper into her, to be stored away against future
loss—deeper and deeper it penetrated, impregnated her more as she fought
against its vanishing.
She felt that she not only saw Paul vividly in
the present but Paul in the future. Every expression she could read as an
indication of future power, future discernment, future completion. Her vision
of the future Paul illumined the present. Others could see a young man
experiencing his first drunkenness, taking his first steps in the world,
oscillating or contradicting himself. But she felt herself living with a Paul
no one had seen yet, the man of the future, willful, and with a power in him
which appeared intermittently.
When the clouds and mists of adolescence would
vanish, what a complete and rich man he would become, with this mixture of
sensibility and intelligence motivating his choices, discarding shallowness,
never taking a step into mediocrity, with an unerring instinct for the
extraordinary.
To send a detective to bring him home by force,
how little his parents must know this Paul of the future, possessed of that
deep-seated mine of tenderness hidden below access but visible to her.
She was living with a Paul no one knew as yet,
in a secret relationship far from the reach of the subtlest detectives, beyond
the reach of the entire world.
Under the veiled voice she felt the hidden
warmth, under the hesitancies a hidden strength, under the fears a vaster dream
more difficult to seize and to fulfill.
Alone, after an afternoon with him, she lay on
her bed and while the bird he had carved gyrated lightly in the center of the
room, tears came to her eyes so slowly she did not feel them at first until
they slid down her cheeks.
Tears from this unbearable melting of her heart
and body—a complete melting before the face of Paul, and the muted way his body
spoke, the gentle way he was hungering, reaching, groping, like a prisoner
escaping slowly and gradually, door by door, room by room, hallway by hallway,
towards
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