The Appointment Read Free

before eleven. But the bar still opens atsix—brandy is served in coffee cups before eleven; after that they bring out the glasses.
    Paul drinks and is no longer himself, then he sleeps it off and is back to being himself. Around noon it looks as if everything could turn out all right, but once again it turns out ruined. Paul goes on protecting his soul until the buffalo grass is high and dry, while I brood over who he and I really are until I can no longer think straight. At lunchtime we’re sitting at the kitchen table, and any mention of his having been drunk yesterday is the wrong thing to say. Even so, I occasionally toss out a word or two:
    Drink won’t change a thing.
    Why are you making my life so difficult.
    You could paint this entire kitchen with what you put away yesterday.
    True, the flat is small, and I don’t want to avoid Paul; but when we stay at home, we spend too much of the day sitting in the kitchen. By mid-afternoon he’s already drunk, and in the evening it gets worse. I put off talking because it makes him grumpy. I keep waiting through the night, until he’s sober again and sitting in the kitchen with eyes like onions. But then whatever I say goes right past him. I’d like for Paul to admit I’m right, just for once. But drinkers never admit anything, not even silently to themselves—and they’re not about to let anyone else squeeze it out of them, especially somebody who’s waiting to hear the admission. The minute Paul wakes up, his thoughts turn to drinking, though he denies it. That’s why there’s never any truth. If he’s not sitting silently at the table, letting my words go right past him, he says something like this, meant to last the entire day:
    Don’t fret, I’m not drinking out of desperation. I drink because I like it.
    That may be the case, I say, since you seem to think with your tongue.
    Paul looks out the kitchen window at the sky, or into his cup. He dabs at the drops of coffee on the table, as if to confirm that they’re wet and really will spread if he smears them with a finger. He takes my hand, I look out the kitchen window at the sky, into the cup, I too dab at the odd drop of coffee on the table. The red enamel tin stares at us and I stare back. But Paul does not, because that would mean doing something different today from what he did yesterday. Is he being strong or weak when he remains silent instead of saying for once: I’m not going to drink today. Yesterday Paul again said:
    Don’t you fret, your man drinks because he likes it.
    His legs carried him down the hall—at once too heavy and too light—as if they contained a mix of sand and air. I placed my hand upon his neck and stroked the stubble I love to touch in the mornings, the whiskers that grow in his sleep. He drew my hand up under his eye, it slid down his cheek to his chin. I didn’t take away my fingers, but I did think to myself:
    I wouldn’t count on any of this cheek-to-cheek business after you’ve seen that picture of the two plums.
    I like to hear Paul talk that way, so late in the morning, and yet I don’t like it either. Whenever I take a step away from him, he nudges his love up to me, so naked, so close that he doesn’t need to say anything else. He doesn’t have to wait, I’m ready with my approval, not a single reproach on the tip of my tongue. The one in my head quickly fades. It’s good I can’t see myself, since my face feels stupid and pale. Yesterday morning, Paul’s hangover once again yielded up an unexpected pussycat gentleness that came padding on soft paws.
Your man
—the only people who talk like that have shallow wits and too much pride tucked around the corners of their mouths. Although thenoontime tenderness paves the way for the evening’s drinking, I depend on it, and I don’t like the way I need it.
    Major Albu says: I can see what you’re thinking, there’s no point in denying it, we’re just wasting time. Actually, it’s only my time being wasted;