Alan was lazy about going uptown). If she were with Alan she
would have to try and remember the movies Mambo had seen, or the ones he wanted
to see, and knowing how fanatical he was about movies, to gauge even those he
might see twice.
Ultimately, like a gambler, she had to question
her instinct.
Once seated at the movies her anxiety
increased. Alan might have liked this movie enough to want to see it again, or
a friend might have persuaded him to make the eft to
go uptown. Could Mambo be sitting in the audience while she sat with Alan,
could he have seen her walking down the aisle?
Sometimes she discarded her anxiety as
nervousness. At other times she was compelled to go to the ladies’ room at the
very beginning in order to be able to walk slowly and carefully down the aisle
examining the crowd from behind before settling down beside Mambo or Alan. This
would relieve her anxiety for awhile, until some fragment of the movie story
itself would reawaken it, if a lie were pictured, a false situation, exposure.
Above all if it were a spy story.
It was when she saw the lives of spies that she
realized fully the tension with which she lived every moment, equal to theirs.
The fear of committing themselves, of sleeping too soundly, of talking in their
sleep, of carelessness of accent or behavior, the need for continuous
pretending, quick improvisations of motivations, quick justifications of their
presence here or there.
It seemed to Sabina that she could have offered
her services or been of great value in that profession.
I am an international spy in the house of
love.
When the anxiety became absolutely intolerable
it was transmuted into playfulness. The excitement and risks appeared as a
highly flavored, highly humorous game. Then she shifted her position entirely
to that of a child escaping surveillance and being amused by her own ingenuity.
Then she passed from secrecy to a need of boasting openly of her maneuvers and
would describe them with such gaiety that it would shock her hearers. Both
anxiety and humor became interchangeable. The pretenses, escapades, trickeries
seemed to her in her humorous moods like gay and gallant efforts at protecting
everyone from the cruelties of existence for which she was not responsible.
Wits and good acting were employed for such justifiable ends: to protect human
beings from unbearable truths.
But no one who listened ever shared her sudden
gaiety: in their glances she read condemnations. Her laughter seemed a
desecration, a mockery of what should be considered tragic. She could see in
their eyes the wish that she should fall from this incandescent trapeze on
which she walked with the aid of delicate Japanese paper umbrellas, for no
guilty party has a right to such adroitness and to live only by its power to
balance over the rigidities of life which dictated a choice, according to its
taboos against multiple lives. No one would share with her this irony and
playfulness against the rigidities of life itself; no one would applaud when
she succeeded by her ingenuity in defeating life’s limitations.
These moments when she reached a humorous peak
above the morass of dangers, the smothering swamps of guilt, were the ones when
everyone left her alone, unabsolved ; they seemed to
be awaiting her hour of punishment after living like a spy in the house of many
loves, for avoiding exposure, for defeating the sentinels watching definite
boundaries, for passing without passports and permits from one love to another.
Every spy’s life had ended in ignominious
death.
She stood waiting for the light to change at
the crossroad of the beach town.
What startled Sabina and made her examine the cyclist waiting beside her was
the extraordinary brilliance of his large eyes. They shone with a wet, silver
sparkle which was almost frightening because it highlighted the tumultuous
panic close to the surface. The molten silver was disquieting, like blinding
reflectors on the edge of annihilation by
would have to try and remember the movies Mambo had seen, or the ones he wanted
to see, and knowing how fanatical he was about movies, to gauge even those he
might see twice.
Ultimately, like a gambler, she had to question
her instinct.
Once seated at the movies her anxiety
increased. Alan might have liked this movie enough to want to see it again, or
a friend might have persuaded him to make the eft to
go uptown. Could Mambo be sitting in the audience while she sat with Alan,
could he have seen her walking down the aisle?
Sometimes she discarded her anxiety as
nervousness. At other times she was compelled to go to the ladies’ room at the
very beginning in order to be able to walk slowly and carefully down the aisle
examining the crowd from behind before settling down beside Mambo or Alan. This
would relieve her anxiety for awhile, until some fragment of the movie story
itself would reawaken it, if a lie were pictured, a false situation, exposure.
Above all if it were a spy story.
It was when she saw the lives of spies that she
realized fully the tension with which she lived every moment, equal to theirs.
The fear of committing themselves, of sleeping too soundly, of talking in their
sleep, of carelessness of accent or behavior, the need for continuous
pretending, quick improvisations of motivations, quick justifications of their
presence here or there.
It seemed to Sabina that she could have offered
her services or been of great value in that profession.
I am an international spy in the house of
love.
When the anxiety became absolutely intolerable
it was transmuted into playfulness. The excitement and risks appeared as a
highly flavored, highly humorous game. Then she shifted her position entirely
to that of a child escaping surveillance and being amused by her own ingenuity.
Then she passed from secrecy to a need of boasting openly of her maneuvers and
would describe them with such gaiety that it would shock her hearers. Both
anxiety and humor became interchangeable. The pretenses, escapades, trickeries
seemed to her in her humorous moods like gay and gallant efforts at protecting
everyone from the cruelties of existence for which she was not responsible.
Wits and good acting were employed for such justifiable ends: to protect human
beings from unbearable truths.
But no one who listened ever shared her sudden
gaiety: in their glances she read condemnations. Her laughter seemed a
desecration, a mockery of what should be considered tragic. She could see in
their eyes the wish that she should fall from this incandescent trapeze on
which she walked with the aid of delicate Japanese paper umbrellas, for no
guilty party has a right to such adroitness and to live only by its power to
balance over the rigidities of life which dictated a choice, according to its
taboos against multiple lives. No one would share with her this irony and
playfulness against the rigidities of life itself; no one would applaud when
she succeeded by her ingenuity in defeating life’s limitations.
These moments when she reached a humorous peak
above the morass of dangers, the smothering swamps of guilt, were the ones when
everyone left her alone, unabsolved ; they seemed to
be awaiting her hour of punishment after living like a spy in the house of many
loves, for avoiding exposure, for defeating the sentinels watching definite
boundaries, for passing without passports and permits from one love to another.
Every spy’s life had ended in ignominious
death.
She stood waiting for the light to change at
the crossroad of the beach town.
What startled Sabina and made her examine the cyclist waiting beside her was
the extraordinary brilliance of his large eyes. They shone with a wet, silver
sparkle which was almost frightening because it highlighted the tumultuous
panic close to the surface. The molten silver was disquieting, like blinding
reflectors on the edge of annihilation by
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