Flesh
“The flesh is sad, alas, and I have read all the books.” Mallarme
I thought that one day I would tell her the truth. As it happened, that day never arrived. The truth, as it generally does, arrived in its own good time and according to its own logic. While I understood the necessity of deceiving Eve, it was never my intention to betray her. She had her suspicions, but I worked around them, placing my trust in her trusting nature. She did say, “The day I no longer trust you, I will leave you.” She just wasn’t persuasive. As it turned out, I was right — when she caught me in the lie all she wanted was an explanation. What I convinced her was that explanations are beside the point, because they never tell the whole truth. Only when one feels betrayed does one see that trusting and wanting to trust are not quite the same thing. What was the truth? “Darling, I met a woman, we felt something for each other. We met again, this time intentionally. We laughed and one thing led to another, and to another, and, as they say, ‘the flesh is weak.’”
The truth is I didn’t feel remorse, I felt invigorated. I felt alive. I went out and met another woman and then another. This is the truth, but it wasn’t something I could explain. I could say, and with absolute honesty, and while looking directly into Eve’s eyes, “It’s biology. Biology is biology and physiology and psychology.” I could have continued and argued that men and women have never truly been restrained by something as elastic as a promise, especially when that promise was more of a compromise than an article of faith.
Eve is splendid. But splendid is not enough. Beauty is not enough. Culinary gifts are not enough. You’ve heard the old joke. Two men are walking down the street and a beautiful woman, and what I mean is, an absolutely gorgeous woman walks towards them. One, let’s call him Bill, says to the other, let’s call him Ed, “Christ what I wouldn’t do to spend the whole of next week between her legs.” And Ed, inevitably responds, “Calm down, boy. Before you put everything you hold dear at risk remember” — and here’s the punchline — “someone, somewhere, is already tired of her.” (I’m certain women have their own version of this joke.)
If you find it funny, amusing, or if it elicits just a grin, it’s because it’s true. The woman could be Aphrodite incarnate and her lover will grow tired of her. Will continue to pursue other women. Has cheated on her. Although I personally don’t feel the word cheating is either fair or particularly accurate. It’s just the word we’ve agreed to use to describe an incredibly complex set of conflicting choices. He is not cheating or even being unfaithful. A man or woman caught in flagrante delicto have simply fallen prey to forces more powerful, more ancient and, considerably craftier than he or she is. The old line,“The devil made me do it,” may be truer than we care to admit.
How did Eve find out? She was buying a bunch of hydrangeas at the corner of Thompson and Prince and saw me before I saw her. Rather than confront me, she hid behind the short but broad Mexican trimming roses. She watched me. Now, I ask you. Was that fair? Is it right to spy on your husband? No, but it’s what happens. It’s what happened because Eve wanted to catch me in the act. Catch me, what? Flirting with a pretty Brazilian woman who asked the way to Spring Street? Catch me winking at the buxom housewife who came all the way from Connecticut to buy groceries. No, those behaviors fall within the range of acceptable. What she wanted was to catch me following the pale English girl into the narrow doorway of her apartment. A woman for whom I felt so powerful an attraction that weakness was adequate atonement. Attraction of a kind that can only be compared to gravity. Irresistible is a word meant to be taken literally
Of course, Eve watched, and, of course, she caught me in the act. And, that made her feel both good and bad. It’s like the old rub she won and by winning she lost. But it didn’t matter because it wasn’t a serious game. Her prize — the right to raise her voice, wring my neck, or cry herself to sleep.
From her point of view, I had betrayed her, which is to say that I had intentionally hurt her. She won and in the binary nature of such zero-sum games, I lost. Eve took her flowers home and waited for me to come through the door. When I got home, she was sitting on the couch, stirring a cup of tea and it struck me that she must have been stirring that cup of tea for the last hour. The moment I saw her I knew that she knew about the English girl and that I was not as discreet as I should have been.
No, she didn’t leave. Why would she? No, she didn’t ask me to leave. For the moment, our marriage was simply suspended, if, for no other reason, she understood my sins were venal. “What?” I asked. “Her,” she replied. “Yes,” I answered. “So?” was her reply. I said, nothing because there was nothing to add.
It has been argued that the opportunity to do wrong is always more exciting than the opportunity to do right. The best among us has in his or her heart of hearts entertained evil thoughts. Rack up the sins — murder, rape, theft, or even trip a blind man. For most of us, the little evil we do, we do in our own minds, restrained by our conscience, or fear of punishment. Had I told Eve that I slept with Claire, because she has delicious skin and a delectable sense of humor, I would have only been telling part of the story. Nor would it satisfy her curiosity. No, she would call me a bastard and threaten the premature demise of our lifetime of happiness together. Because that is the worst she could do. Destroy our happiness. Just like that, take up our always vulnerable happiness and snap it like a stick or the neck of a songbird. Instead she threw the cup of tea at me. I ducked and the cup flew by my head as it was supposed to do. Yes, Eve could destroy our happiness but toward what end? It wasn’t just my happiness, it was hers, too.
Beside the fact that she felt betrayed, she wasn’t entirely sure what that meant. Was it a crime or misdemeanor? Would it leave a scar? Was it a singular or even an occasional episode of infidelity? I do not regularly deceive my wife. I am rarely and only opportunistically unfaithful. When the opportunity arises, I rise to the occasion. What is the alternative? Pretend I don’t find happiness in the flesh of women. Pretend that sport and drink and meat and art offer sufficient pleasures to keep me off, under and out of women.
Eve is too smart, too worldly, to raise the question, “Aren’t I enough?” Or make the odious comparison, “But you are enough for me.” Eve enough woman? Is Eve every woman? Is Eve, the Eve I loved and married, enough? Love and remained married to, enough? Of course not. No Eve is not enough woman. Regarding the pale English girl, if I had to assign a reason, it was Stendhal’s syndrome — a shock to the system at the sight, smell, touch of something marvelous, ineffable, arriving from no place in particular; according to no schedule. It was a phenomenon that could not be predicted. That there is no prophylactic for it is not a winning argument.
It didn’t hurt to be called a liar. I did feel sad and wished that Eve stopped to buy flowers ten minutes earlier, or five minutes later. Yes, she called me a liar, because that is what one says in these cases. It’s also true that no one wants to be called a liar, although everyone wants to be a good liar. Close adherence to the truth is generally a good thing. In fact, as a rule, we want others to be almost completely honest with us. The most ruthless liar, the pathological liar, breaks down when he or she discovers they are on the receiving end of a lie. To lie is a terrible thing. To lie to the woman or man you love is almost always a mistake. Yet, it is also so easy. I remember overhearing a conversation a man and woman were having at a table next to mine. She was cordial and fierce at the same time. When the man mumbled, “It didn’t occur to me to tell you.” She shot back, “I didn’t know you had this capacity for deceit.” This I found strange because on the whole, I think it’s women who really possess this capacity and, who also take deep pleasure in exploiting it. Most men lie with no more finesse than a Chimpanzee peels an orange. Despite the obvious, the popular mythology of men as cunning dissemblers continues to be volleyed.
My infidelity, as Eve charitably put it, was a mistake. Her emphasis on the singular is critical. So long as Eve saw the pale English girl as an honest misstep — even one repeated over a period of two months — she was willing to consign it to the past. This was clearly a case of seeing only what one wants to see. Eve saw clearly but in the narrowest sense of the word.
Following the appropriate, no sex until she felt she could trust me — an illogical punishment considering the nature of my transgression — nothing more would be said on the matter. She would not forget but she would forgive. She felt better but I did not. This may have been what she intended all along. Sitting as both judge and jury, she convicted and summarily acquitted me. But all was not perfect. There were those other crimes, undetected at the present, but likely to be discovered in time. Would I have to answer for them? Was Eve offering me immunity if I came forward at that instance? I felt like a burglar stopped for speeding as he left the scene of his crime. The trunk of my car is filled with someone else’s treasure, but all I’ll suffer is an insignificant fine. Just as the burglar would be a fool to confess to his theft, I was not going to tell Eve about other women.
Guilt? No, not at first. Sad? Yes. Isn’t it astonishing that something as dexterous as our hands can be stayed by something so insubstantial? However, soon after Eve forgave me I began to feel guilty. But what exactly triggered my guilt? Was it that I did not admit to the other affairs, any number of which could have tipped the scale? In any event, the guilt did impose its own sentence. I continued to flirt but within clearly delineated lines. When I saw that the woman in question was amused, I continued to entertain. When I saw her amusement turn to interest, I quickly detached myself. Which was not without its own satisfaction. One soon learns that the pleasure in denying oneself is often equal to or greater than indulging oneself. Whether or not that is true, in the hierarchy of persuasion, flirting is superior to teasing, but neither necessarily leads to seduction. Capitulation is a game of doubles.
If I am an adulterer, I came by it honestly. My father had four wives. Each was first his mistress. When I was older, seeing him on holidays or for a weekend home from school, he would tell me stories about his past. As I grew older, his stories became more explicit, as if the only conversations worth having had adult themes. Once, while I was in college, he bought me a new suit. As we stopped at a table to select a couple of shirts to wear with it, he examined the shirts explaining the difference between poplin and cambric, or the virtues of spread collar versus button down. At one point he stopped and suddenly smiled. He then asked if he had ever told me about Anita. Without waiting for my reply he told this story.
“When I was a young man just starting out in business, I met this older woman. She was the wife of a client’s client. She was a very sophisticated woman in her late 40’s. You wouldn’t appreciate her,” he told me. “The idea of beauty today is entirely surface, lacking both flesh, moisture and imagination.” He continued, ‘What was wonderful about Anita was,” and after a pause he found the words, “was her weight, by which I mean her presence. How she stood. The way she held her ground. She had a light complexion, sable eyes and auburn hair. Everything about her was soft and feminine. But what made her remarkable was her center of gravity. When she took your hand, she held it a beat longer than necessary. When you talked to her, her eyes never left yours. She just had a way of monopolizing your senses. When we went to bed, at the Roosevelt Hotel, or the Hotel Elyse, or at her friend’s tiny apartment in Tudor City, she drew you into her and completely out of time.” I saw he enjoyed telling these stories, remembering these women. At the time, I was embarrassed by his exploits.
As we looked at ties to wear with the shirts, he resumed his narrative. “You see the thing about Anita was she liked to buy me shirts and see me in them. Whenever I met her, she gave me a little present: a shirt, a tennis sweater, socks. On rare occasions, after we had lunch or finished making love, she’d insist we stop at Brooks Brothers. It was funny and a little indiscreet because it was possible, we might run into the husband of a friend, or even her husband. The one time we did run into someone she knew, she introduced me as her nephew and left it at that. As we left, I ask her if she thought he believed her, and she responded that she couldn’t care less as the woman he was shopping with wasn’t his wife.
At other times, when my father would take me to eat at Vincent’s Clam House on Hester Street, or in some basement chop-suey joint on Mott, or to Sweets at the Fulton Street fish market, he’d tell me how he used to take the young women who worked at his firm to these restaurants. He’d take these women, these polished debutantes, to these dives because his colleagues were taking them to 21 or to El Morocco. “You see,” he’d tell me for the hundredth time, “they loved slumming downtown, the way their mothers loved going up to Harlem in the 20s.”
It wouldn’t occur to me until I was much older that during his affairs with Anita and the debutantes that he was married to my mother. They had married young, he was 20 and she was 18, when she became pregnant with my older sister. Today, it seems incomprehensible to me that two narcissists like my parents wouldn’t have aborted the child, but they didn’t. They had their reasons. A mother becomes a mother but I didn’t see what my father got out of it, except having a child didn’t require much work on his part. It was the late 50s and men didn’t rush home at the end of the day to relieve their wives. Nor did they take much pleasure in cooing the baby.
Eve met my father shortly before he died and like most women found him charming. Under different circumstances would Eve have slept with my father. I think she would for the same reason she slept with and later married me. If one paid attention to the origins of words such as charming, a woman might be a little more careful when introduced to a man described as charming.
That said, the power possessed by charming men is, of course, vastly over-rated. It’s the seduced that seduces. And, any honest man will tell you that fidelity in a woman is a gift and not a given. I’ve found over time that women are less faithful than men; the difference is they rarely admit to their adventures, while men are inclined to exaggerate their “conquests.” What it comes down to is that women are much better liars than men and, what’s more, less likely to suffer from guilt. If I had a more suspicious nature, I’d take a closer look at Eve, gaze deeper into her eyes and, with my own fingertips, try to gauge the heat emanating from her flesh.
