Fortune's rocks_ a novel - Anita Shreve [66]
And as quickly as tinder igniting, she forgets her earlier resolve. Her desire to see Haskell is so keen that she consciously has to fend off the urge to bend over, as though she had received a blow to the center of her being.
At the very least, she thinks, she and Haskell should discuss the questions and sentiments contained within his letter. Do they not owe it to themselves at least to do that? And if it is too dangerous to speak in person, then should she not write the man a letter? Yes, yes, she should. She will do that now.
And later she will think, How cleverly the mind deceives itself. For the need to respond is never-ending, is it not? He to her, and she to him, and so on?
She does not know what time it is. She has no clock in her room, and she does not want to show herself at this moment downstairs. She peers out at the sea, to discern in the color of the water and the sky the hour of the day, but she is greeted with the same flat light as earlier. Is it afternoon? Has she missed lunch? And if so, why has she not been summoned? She tries to dry her hair as best she can, brushing it and repinning it. She finds paper and pen in the drawer and sits down to write.
My dear sir,
And already I am tongue-tied, speechless (what is the equivalent of speechlessness when it be pen and paper and not the tongue?) for I cannot call you sir, nor John, which is the name that others (and I am thinking here of Catherine) give you, and in my thoughts, as I have said to you, you are always Haskell, so let me amend my greeting, and though the name may sound too formal, it is, I assure you, not at all, not in my thoughts of you, which are constant.
My dearest Haskell,
How far we have traveled in just a few short hours, hours spent not even in each other’s company, but alone with our own thoughts and words, however inadequate they may prove. I meant, upon reading your letter, which I appreciated all the more for its spontaneity and its unfinished circumstances, to insist that we not see each other again, nor communicate, nor allow ourselves to be in each other’s company, regardless of the formality of the event. And I meant to do this by not responding to your letter and by severing all that is between us with one fierce blow. But I find that I cannot. There is no part of me that can possibly hold to that resolve. Indeed, I find that I want nothing more than to be with you.
I was at first, I must confess, horrified by your letter, deeply stricken that we had gone so far, and I mean not only in the physical manner that overtook us yesterday but also in the even more consuming realm of the spiritual, which appears to have seized us and will not let us go. I wish to say to you that I am at least as responsible for what happened yesterday as you, and that no matter what happens between us, or what dreadful pass we many come to — for what good outcome can there be? None, I fear, as you do, none — I will never feel myself seduced. I do not have age, but I have will and some understanding, and though the event was new to me, I comprehended it and embraced it and could have stopped it at any point. Even now I can write truthfully that I luxuriate in the memory of yesterday, and though these memories are but faint echoes of the actual, they are treasures I would not willingly part with. The image of you is imprinted upon me as is the light upon photographic paper. I know already that no other human form shall ever be so dear.
(And yes, it was I who disturbed the photographs upon your bureau. But you knew that at once, did you not?)
Yours is the greater anguish, for you are married to a good woman. And though I share that anguish whenever my mind’s eye lights upon her face, I know that you must bear the heavier burden, for I cannot know what you know, what you have had with her all these years. (And the sin is knowing that we harm her, is it not? Not simply that we lay together for those moments, but that in writing even these words, we do her conscious, incalculable harm?)
I so very much admire your work. I could not