Garbo Laughs Read Free Page A

how to relax.” And more than ever he was struck by the contradiction in her, the contradiction between her old-fashioned scruples and her licentious ease with movies: she was a puritan addicted to Hollywood, and she was leading their kids down the same brainless path. “In Cuba everybody dresses like that,” he said stubbornly. “They don’t expect anyone to come on to them just because they do. They all walk down the street like that.”
    Harriet saw the street. She saw what he was seeing. The dark, humid,
relaxed
air where they themselves had walked twelve years before on the
Malécon
, the wide sidewalk that hugged the harbour with the ocean on the left, Old Havana on the right, the colonial fort a large, dark bulk far ahead, and so many people walking because so few had cars. He was seeing that and seeing her long, pale, bony severity curled up on the old loveseat in the same brown sweater she had been wearing whenhe left, in front of a fireplace without a fire. She saw thick tropical air and fine smooth female skin, and still she thought the present inappropriate and said if her father had given her such a thing – of course he never would have – it would have confused her mightily. The comparison didn’t hold, as she knew perfectly well, since between Lew and their daughter there existed a complete and easy love, while for her father she had felt nothing but fear. But that wasn’t true either. She had been aware of her father as a sexual being and a complicated man. Martin Browning the dentist, who forbade candy, movies, and soda pop.
    The spear-tip fern was in her hand. Dryness made it rough, though no rougher than her winter fingers.
    “You’re such a prude,” he told her.
    She didn’t deny it, and still she questioned his gift.
    The present was a skimpy crocheted top, more brassiere than top, made with loose looping stitches except for the solid little cups designed to cover little breasts. Jane had put it on, thrilled and giddy, then turned around so that her father could do up the back. Young Kenny said she looked like Sandra Bullock …
    “You’d better have a sexy gift for me too,” she had said, earning a pointed if amused look before he reached into his bag to bring out a jar of Alicia Alonso face cream and a bottle of perfume so stinky she would use it once and not again. Cuban cosmetics, she thought. Only Lew would bring me Cuban cosmetics.
    The fern was raspy between her raspy fingers and between husband and wife the atmosphere was also raspy. A sudden coldness that made her heart cold. “I have the right to my opinion,” she said. “To state my uneasiness.” But she knew her opinion went to the heart of his identity as Lew Gold the loving father, and to the heart of their shared geography, this cold country ithad been such a shock to re-enter. He would rather be in Cuba. Come
with
me, he had said.
    “So did you go with any of the women who hit on you?”
    “No,” he answered immediately. “How could I?” And he spread his hands. “There’s nothing appealing about it. It’s ugly. It’s exploitative. How could I?”
    “But you don’t want to be here with your old wife.”
    “I do want to be here. I want to be with you.” And he left the rocker and sat beside her on the loveseat.

    In the morning, at her desk, she touches the spear-tip fern. She asked Lew its name but he hadn’t written it down and couldn’t remember.
    A delicate roughness, not the equal of a whiskery cheek or shaven leg: too delicate for that.
    Did you sneak it when no one was looking?
    No, the circus man broke it off and gave it to me. I asked if I could keep it and he said I could.
    She sits with the lamp on and her notebook open, a great early riser, a tremendous second-guesser, thinking how rapidly something wonderful can turn to shit.
Dear Pauline, For a few minutes I felt as close to Lew as I’ve ever felt, then I stepped onto an ice floe and pushed myself out to sea. I’ve seen a thousand movies
,