Sophie's Choice - William Styron [88]
“Are you crying because that music is so beautiful?” he said. “Even on that crummy little radio?”
“I don’t know why I am crying,” she replied after a long pause during which she collected her senses. “Maybe I’m just crying because I made a mistake.”
“How do you mean, mistake?” he asked.
Again she waited for a long time before saying, “Mistake about hearing the music. I thought that the last time I hear that symphony was in Cracow when I was a very young girl. Now just then when I listened I realize that I heard it once after that, in Warsaw. We was forbidden to have radios, but one night I listened to it on this forbidden radio, from London. Now I remember it is the last music I ever hear before going...” And she halted. What on earth was she saying to this stranger? What did it matter to him? She pulled a piece of Kleenex from the drawer of her table and dried her eyes. “That is not a good reply.”
“You said ‘before going... ’ ” he went on. “Before going where? Do you mean the place where they did this?” He glanced pointedly at the tattoo.
“I can’t talk about that,” she said suddenly, regretting the way she blurted the words out, which caused him to turn red and to mutter in a flustered voice, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry! I’m a terrible intruder... I’m just an ass sometimes. An ass!”
“Please don’t say that,” she put in quickly, ashamed of the way her tone had confounded him. “I didn’t mean to be so... ” She paused, in sequence groping for then finding the right word in French, Polish, German and Russian but totally at sea in English. So she said only, “I’m sorry.”
“I have a knack for poking my big schnoz into places where it has no business,” he said, as she watched the rosy flush of embarrassment recede from his face. Then abruptly he said, “Look, I’ve got to go. I’ve got an appointment. But listen—can I come back tonight? Don’t answer that! I’ll be back tonight.”
She couldn’t answer. Having been swept off her feet (no figure of speech but a literal truth, for that is just what he had done two hours before; carrying her crumpled in his arms from the library to the place by the curb where he had hailed the taxi), she could only nod and say yes and smile a smile which still lingered as she heard him clatter down the steps. The time after that dragged badly. She was amazed at the excitement with which she had awaited the sound of his stomping shoes when, at about seven in the evening, he returned, bringing another bulging grocery bag and two dozen of the most bewitchingly lovely long-stemmed yellow roses she had ever seen. She was up and around now, feeling almost fully recovered, but he ordered her to relax, saying, “Please, you just let Nathan take charge.” This was the moment when she first heard his name. Nathan. Nathan! Nathan, Nathan!
Never, never, she told me, would she ever forget this initial meal they had together, the sensuously concocted dinner which he fashioned from, of all humble things, calf’s liver and leeks. “Loaded with iron,” he proclaimed, the sweat popping out on his brow as he bent over the sputtering hot plate. “There is nothing better than liver. And leeks—filled with iron! Also will improve the timbre of your voice. Did you know that the Emperor Nero had leeks served to him every day to deepen the sonority of his voice? So he could croon while he had Seneca drawn and quartered? Sit down. Quit fussing around!” he commanded. “This is my show. What you need is iron. Iron! That’s why we’re also going to have creamed spinach and a plain little salad.” She was captivated by the way in which Nathan, ever intent upon cooking, was still able to intersperse his observations on gastronomie with scientific detail, largely nutritional. “Liver with onions is of course standard, but with leeks, sweetiepie, it becomes something special. These leeks are hard to find, I got them in an Italian market.