Blind Date Read Free

husband’s condition. From his room, Levanter could hear the phone ring in his mother’s bedroom and then, almost immediately, the sound of her anxious voice. One day, the ringing went on and on. Levanter jumped out of bed and, without even putting his bathrobe over his naked body, ran to answer it. He was picking up the receiver when his mother rushed into the room, her skin wet from the shower, and took the phone from him. She made no attempt to cover herself with the towel in her hand or to reach for the robe hanging over the foot of her bed. As she listened, she stood erect, facing Levanter, who had sat down on her bed.
    She hung up the receiver and told Levanter his father’s condition remained unchanged. Then she dried herself and lay down on the bed, just inches away from him.
    Levanter was aroused, and he was afraid to stand up because he would be embarrassed if she noticed. He did not move. Attempting to appear at ease, he reclined a bit, only to feel her thighs against his back. Without a word his mother reached for him, and without a word he responded.
    She pulled his face to her neck, her shoulders, then her breasts. She held him at her nipples, then slid partially under him. As he began caressing her body with his tongue, she pushed herself farther under him and gripped his shoulders, pulling his body upward. He ceased to be aware of anything but his need for her and entered her, eager and abandoned.
    Levanter and his mother remained lovers for years, although she continued to find women for him. They were together only in the morning. By sleeping in the nude and making love with him only when she had just awakened, his mother never undressed especially for him. She never allowed him to kiss her on the mouth and,despite her animated discussions of the sexual proclivities of other women, always insisted that he caress nothing but her breasts.
    He never talked with his mother about their lovemaking. Her bed was like a silent, physical confessional: what happened between them there was never talked about.
    Once Levanter left Eastern Europe, he could not return, and the authorities would not permit his mother to travel abroad. But when she had had several unsuccessful operations for cancer and all the doctors agreed that her end was imminent, she was allowed to meet her son in Switzerland. They had been separated for twenty years.
    Levanter waited in the arrivals building and watched as the passengers came through immigration. He noticed a nurse and an airport steward pushing a wheelchair with a small, shriveled woman wearing an ill-fitting wig. This was not what he was expecting and he started to turn away when the woman raised a frail hand and waved at him.
    He ran toward her. She embraced him and looked hard at his face. He kissed the hollow cheeks and loosely fleshed hands, trying not to cry. Her wig slid sideways. Levanter, pained to see that she was bald, held her closer. He commented on her perfume, and she was pleased that he recognized it after so many years. She whispered that she had met a beautiful young woman on the plane and had arranged for the three of them to meet for tea one day.
    The day never came. The excitement of preparing for the journey, the stress of the trip itself, and the meeting with her son took all her remaining energy. On the second day in Switzerland, she collapsed. Her awareness waned and she began to fear that she would not regain it; she asked the doctor and nurse to let her spend her last moments alone with her son.
    She gestured for him to lie down beside her, and he obeyed. The arm that reached toward him was covered with bluish patches around veins which had been pierced by repeated injections. Yet as she touched him, her face took on the indulgent transfixed expression that had been so familiar to him. She guided his hand throughthe opening in her robe and when he stroked her breasts, her eyes glazed over, as if her thoughts were miles away.
    Just before Pauline