The Abyss of Human Illusion Read Free

window at the rain-washed patio and thought that he couldn’t recall his young friend’s name, nor, for that matter, his face. Then he realized that he’d been, perhaps, remembering another young man altogether, a character in a play or movie. A novel. Someone who had never been.

— X —
    H e loves a girl, who, as it turns out, does not love him, and so he wastes years of his life trapped in a wretched cliché. This is, as everyone knows, the oldest of news. At the time that he met the unattainable girl, another girl, whom he treated with a distant, friendly formality, tinged with a benign contempt, adored him and would have done anything for him, had he but asked. She was, as they say, “the girl for him.” This is but more old news.
    But since life is, essentially, and maddeningly, a series of mistakes, bad choices, various stupidities, accidents, and unbelievable coincidences, everything played itself out just as it should have; although a shift this way or that in this young man’s life, an evening at a friend’s house avoided, a day at the beach cut short because of rain—anything you can dream up, the more absurd the better—would have led to wholly different results, each one of which would have played itself out precisely the way it should have. There is no way to bargain with life, for life’s meaning is, simply, itself. Perhaps this is why one society after another relentlessly invents its gods and the byzantine complexities of the religions in which those gods are enclosed forever: somebody to talk to, to cajole, to beg and bribe. That nothing helps doesn’t matter, for, most importantly, the gods can be blamed. They “work in mysterious ways.”

— XI —
    H ere is a bed in a room that glows in early-morning light. The new white shades drawn against the sun soften the light to a pale yellow. A woman of perhaps twenty-five sits against the headboard, leaning back against two pillows, laughing. She has on a white nightgown, the bosom of ecru lace; the right shoulder strap has slipped down to her upper arm. Drawn to her waist is a pale-blue blanket and white counterpane.
    A man sits on the edge of the bed, at its foot, wearing a white athletic shirt, and blue-and-white-striped boxer shorts. He, too, is laughing, half-turned toward the woman. The bed may be broken in some way, for it tilts at an angle to the floor. The man is a little younger than the woman, but beginning to lose his hair. He reaches toward her and touches her arm softly. She puts her left hand over his, and, just at that moment, the Angelus is heard faintly but clearly on the Sunday morning air.
    A boy of three enters the room, and stands, happily looking at the enormous strangers on the bed. He is in Dr. Denton pajamas, of a color almost identical to that of the blanket. The light in the room is a little yellower. It’s going to be a nice day, but not a portent of days to come.

— XII —
    W hile he was at work each day, an old friend who was staying with him and his wife until he could find an apartment, and who was, in the meantime, perfectly at home in his hosts’ apartment, passed the long days by making love to his friend’s wife, whom he didn’t much care for, but, well, there she was, vapid and bored and available.
    The host felt, rather than knew, that the pair couldn’t wait for him to leave for work in the morning so that they could happily get to their rutting. On weekends, the tension in the apartment virtually sizzled. The man had no knowledge, no proof, no evidence of his cuckolding, no hint was ever given, no suggestion, leer, no shifting of eyes.
    Every day after lunch, the husband threw up, and every night, he would stare out the kitchen window for hours, smoking one cigarette after another. His friend found another apartment after three months and moved out, taking the husband’s Zippo lighter, a gold graduation-gift fountain pen, a can opener, all the change that was in a little bowl on the kitchen table,