Foreign Bodies by Cynthia Ozick Page B

her into turmoil. The stab at that single uncanny key, a short-lived overturning looking-glass sound — it had a pitch, an accent, she could not recall whether bass or treble, boom or screech, a splinter of glass that wormed through her veins and flowed with the flow of her blood . . . Leo’s untouchable instrument. The girl’s touch, a golden girl, and what was Bea, if not aging, ragged, and low?
    She turned down a street of cavelike stalls hung with souvenirs, key chains, rings, ashtrays, bracelets, each engraved with a minusculeEiffel Tower, painted ties and scarves and banners, row upon row of porcelain trivia. And squeezed among these importuning shops in this unidentifiable neighborhood, yet another outdoor café. She ordered scrambled eggs and cold juice, more out of politeness than hunger, and showed the elderly waiter her map, pointing to the street she wanted. Madame — laughter in an old creased Levantine face — it is far from where you are now, very far! Madame should not think of walking, under this hot sun she will drop in the road, the police will come and place her in hospital, hospital for foolish Americans who drop! Never mind, he was one who liked Americans very much, he especially liked American cinema, back there in America did she know
Weesperin Weens?
A very good film, the woman so beautiful, only in the American cinema do women have such red lips and whole teeth, in fact she is right now in a cinema just here, not ten meters away . . .
    Yes, she said,
Whispering Winds
, I know it. And paid for her uneaten meal (but thirstily drained the juice) and stepped out toward where the waiter gestured, and there they were: the big crimson garish posters, the two familiar stars entwined in a kiss, the heroine’s blouse unbuttoned just enough to display the upper cushions of her ample breasts, the man’s arms bare and almost cartoonishly muscular. To her surprise the box office was open for business, though it was still early in the afternoon. In the startling sudden night of the auditorium, she felt a seedy stickiness: fresh gum underfoot, spills on the patched carpet. The movie was already under way; she shut her eyes. She had nearly every movement by heart, and much of the dialogue. She had no desire to look at the screen. At home, uptown and downtown, in the Village, in the Eighties, on Times Square, she had pursued this spoor from movie house to movie house, secretly, alone, listening to Leo’s mind. Leo’s mind! “I intend,” he told her once, “to throw out the usual components of the conventional orchestra, you see what I mean?” She did not see. He knew she did not see, but it gratified him that she listened. In the evenings, after five or six hours with those deafening boys in that deafening classroom, she listened.Leo in bed since morning, dreaming symphonies, dreaming operas. “What I’m just getting hold of is what nobody’s ever done before, two electric pianos, two bass guitars, two alto saxophones, a percussion ensemble, a boy soprano, a female chorus . . .” And another time: “The idea is to have a choir of fifty, a mezzo-soprano for Anna Karenina, or I haven’t decided, maybe it ought to be Bovary” — Leo exalted, carried away (and rested, Bea couldn’t help thinking), pouncing on the keys to show her a string of noisy passages, but then it was enough, it was only to give her the gist of it, the dramatic theme, steering her by the nape, his blazing look, the blazing engine of what he liked to call their harmony and counterpoint . . . The lovers were embracing, the movie was over, the credits were rolling past, almost too quickly to be read, but her eyes were busy now, she was ready for the name, it slid by in a second,
Music composed by Leo Cooper-smith
, and then the lights came on, and she took in the unswept dirt all around, and the four other moviegoers scattered in the seats, one of them a derelict stinking of something foul.
    Leo’s mind!
    The street was as