As we sat on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial undoing our boots, Irina blurted it out: Teddy had asked her to marry him. She didn’t tell me she’d said yes, but she didn’t have to. As she spoke, she fixed her gaze on the Washington Monument and never once turned to look at me.
I’d known it was a possibility. I’d known others who’d gotten engaged and married and even had children to cover their tracks, to avoid arrest, to live a “normal” life. Hell, I’d thought about doing the same once or twice. And after returning from Italy, I’d tried to end things with her a dozen times, but a dozen times just dug in deeper. I’d known it could happen—and yet. When I heard the words spill from her lips, I found myself unprepared. It was as if someone had removed a stone from my foundation and I wasn’t sure exactly when I’d collapse. But in the moment, I managed to keep it together. Kept my cool as I’d been trained to do under any circumstance. I congratulated her, saying I’d love to be the one to throw the happy couple an engagement party. Taken aback, she said, in a voice as small as a comma, that that wouldn’t be necessary. When I’d told Irina I didn’t feel like skating after all, that I had a headache and should probably go home and get some rest, she got up and left me on the cold steps. I watched her red hat become a smaller and smaller dot in the white landscape.
That evening, Irina showed up at my apartment, still dressed for skating. She looked as if she’d been walking since she left me on the steps—her nose red, her body shivering. She pushed her way into my apartment, shedding her boots, her hat, her scarf, her coat. When I told her I’d been sleeping, that I thought I might be coming down with a cold and that she shouldn’t get too close, she pressed her cold hands against my cheeks. “Listen,” she said, but didn’t say anything else. She kissed me, her lips adjusting to mine until they clicked into place. The kiss made me feel like crying; I felt a sense of loss as soon as she removed her mouth. “Listen,” she said again. Her words made me want to look away, but she wouldn’t let me. She stepped closer, her stockinged toes atop mine. Even without heels, she was taller than me by a forehead, and she held on to my face as if inspecting it.
She kissed me again, then slipped her cold hands into my robe. Her confidence took me aback. Was she pretending to be someone else, or had she actually become someone new and I just hadn’t noticed?
A tremor moved through my legs, and I sank to my knees on the pink carpet. She followed. My robe now open, she kissed my stomach, and a noise escaped my lips, an embarrassing sound. She laughed, which made me laugh. “Who are you?” I asked. She didn’t answer, concentrating instead on tracing the line of my pelvic bone. Maybe it was the reverse. Maybe I was the one who couldn’t recognize myself. I’d always maintained the upper hand with sex. I’d gauge my partners’ reactions and move, pose, and moan accordingly. This was different. She didn’t expect anything of me. I was powerless.
I kept thinking we would stop—that she’d come to her senses, that I would come to mine. That she’d back down. When I voiced this, she said it was too late. “No going back.”
She was right. It was like watching a film in Technicolor for the first time: the world was one way, and then everything changed.
* * *
—
We fell asleep on the carpet, my robe our blanket, my chest her pillow. I stirred with the sounds and smells of the bakery opening downstairs. I went to the bathroom to splash water on my face and brush my hair. The morning light coming through the small window above my shower looked harsh, my image in the mirror jarring. I thought of Irina and Teddy—what their wedding would look like, what she would look like walking down the aisle. And my new Technicolor world returned to black-and-white.
When I emerged, Irina was in the kitchen looking in the refrigerator. She brought out a half carton of eggs and asked how I liked them.