Point Omega - Don Delillo [32]
Again he had to think a moment before he decided on an answer. He decided on the answer no.
He said this, “No,” shaking his head to indicate finality, if only to himself.
He waited for some time, watching hand and knife in midframe, isolated, and again it came, the voice nowhere near a whisper.
“I want to die after a long traditional illness. What about you?”
The interesting thing about this experience, until now, was that it was all his. No one knew he was here. He was alone and unacknowledged. There was nothing to share, nothing to take from others, nothing to give to others.
Now this. Out of nowhere, walks into the gallery, stands next to him at the wall, talks to him in the dark.
He was taller than she was. At least there was that. He wasn’t looking at her but knew he was taller, somewhat, slightly. Didn’t have to look. He sensed it, felt it.
The blond children went moping after their parents and out the door and he imagined them leaving black-and-white behind forever. He watched Janet Leigh’s sister and Janet Leigh’s lover talking in the dark. He didn’t regret the loss of dialogue. He didn’t want to hear it, didn’t need it. He would not be able to watch the real movie, the other Psycho, ever again. This was the real movie. He was seeing everything here for the first time. So much happening within a given second, after six days, twelve days, a hundred and twelve, seen for the first time.
She said, “What would it be like, living in slow motion?”
If we were living in slow motion, the movie would be just another movie. But he didn’t say this.
Instead he said, “I guess this is your first time.”
She said, “Everything’s my first time.”
He waited for her to ask him how many times he’d been here. He was still adjusting to the presence of another person but isn’t this what he’d wanted these past days, a movie companion, a woman, someone willing to discuss the film, evaluate the experience?
She told him she was standing a million miles outside the fact of whatever’s happening on the screen. She liked that. She told him she liked the idea of slowness in general. So many things go so fast, she said. We need time to lose interest in things.
Either the others could not hear them or did not care. He looked straight ahead. He was certain that the museum would close before the movie reached its actual end, its story end, Anthony Perkins wrapped in a blanket, the eyes of Norman Bates, the face coming closer, the sick smile, the long implicating look, the complicit look at the person out there in the dark, watching.
He was still waiting for her to ask him how many times he’d been here.
Day after day, he’d say. Lost count.
What’s your favorite scene, she’d say.
I take it moment by moment, second by second.
He couldn’t think of what she might say next. He thought he’d like to leave for a minute, go to the men’s room and look in the mirror. Hair, face, shirt, same shirt all week, just look at himself briefly and then wash his hands and hurry back. He worked out the location in advance, men’s room, sixth floor, he needed to see himself in the event she stayed until closing time and they left the gallery together and stood in the light. What would she be seeing when she looked at him? But he remained where he was, eyes on the screen.
She said, “Where are we, geographically?”
“The movie starts in Phoenix, Arizona.”
He wasn’t sure why he’d named both city and state. Was the state necessary? Was he talking to someone who didn’t necessarily know that Phoenix is in Arizona?
“Then the locale changes. California, I think. There are road signs and license plates,” he said.
A French couple came in. They were French or Italian, intelligent-looking, standing in the faint light near the sliding door. Maybe he’d said Phoenix, Arizona, because the words appeared on the screen after the opening credits. He tried to remember if the name of Janet Leigh’s character was part of the opening credits. Janet Leigh as—but the name hadn’t registered if he’d seen it at all.
He was waiting for the woman to say something. He remembered in high