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It was a month or five weeks after we d been together, I think. I’m not sure. It’s one of many things I’m not sure about. I had brought her photo up on the screen in Photoshop, and I did not remember her. I could remember nothing about her. Not her name, not what we had done, not even, initially, where I had been with her. Was it Bangkok? Was it Jakarta? Had we been together in Phnom Penh? I simply did not know.

It was a strange feeling, because while I forget their names I never forget when I see the photo I have taken where we were. Or what we did. If there was music, or if she was good or bad in bed. Or if I had her stay for breakfast. But this one was different, and at this first and second look at her photo staring straight ahead, as if I was just inches from her face, I had no claim on any of these memories.

I went to bed that night and every hour or so, perhaps more frequently, I woke to that image of her, still sitting on my screen in my study. Twice in the middle of the night I went to my study to look at her photo and try to remember something, anything about her.

In the photo she is sitting on the edge of the bed, the sheets rumpled, the top sheet on the floor and out of view. She is smiling, and it is easy to focus all of my attentions on her small white teeth and prominent gums, and the innocence writ large all over her young face. In one of my trips to my study in the middle of the night, I stared for long moments at her eyes, the folds, and I wondered if she was part Chinese. She was not just Oriental, but notably Oriental.

She was wearing a red T-shirt with some writing on it, but I could not make out the words. The more I stared it at, though, the more I thought that we had been together in Phnom Penh. There wasn’t much else in the photo to give a clue, to help me. In the background and to her right was a bedside table, but the only thing on it was a telephone. To the left and behind her, a shade, brown and otherwise nondescript, covered a window.

In the morning, while brushing my teeth, I concluded that we had been together in Phnom Penh, in a third-story room that fronted on the Tonle Sap. I wasn’t positive, but I just couldn’t imagine that I had been with this particular young woman in Bangkok or Jakarta, or anywhere else. It had suddenly become important, no matter my uncertainty, to locate where we had spent time together. The geography was important, the date was irrelevant.

Later, on toward noon, I laid down to read some stories, fantastical fictions, a collection I had recently bought. I started a story that takes places not far from Berlin when I started to doze. And then dream. Or half-dream, I guess, because she kept coming to mind. This lovely person sitting on the edge of a bed about whom I could remember almost nothing.

Slowly I began to remember small things, though I still had no name, only an increasing sense that we had indeed spent at least one night together in Phnom Penh in a hotel I could now name. I concluded that I had taken the photo in the morning after she’s dressed and just before leaving.

She said to me, at some point, I think it will rain.

I ignored her and tried to explain the word love. Why, in response to her comment about it raining, I do not know. I could not explain what I meant by love in words. So I had to try to do so with my mouth and hands. She was naked, and so was I, and this made it easier. Her skin was unusually light, and taut. She had the prettiest smile I had seen in memory.

&

Now I see her, almost two weeks after first bringing up her photo on Photoshop. Now she is sitting before me, her back against a pillow. I am sitting at the end of the bed, my legs crossed. We have just made love, and in the afterglow of our slow love making she wants to ask me some questions.

She holds in his hands blue sheets of paper on which are fragments of stories. They are fragments of stories she wants me to address, she says. She says she wants to know me better.

PREDICAMENT ONE. A woman of thirty has a father who is completely paralyzed on his right side. He is sixty-three. He was paralyzed four years ago. He cannot work. The woman has a mother, but she can only make enough for food for the day. The woman of thirty is asked to support her father. She had little education and no skills to sell. What liberties is she allowed to take to make money to support her father, and her mother too? she asks me.

Are you that young woman? I think.

Whatever it takes, I say. And then think: I hope she does not think that whatever means anything.

She smiles, and I expect her to follow with another question. But she does not. She reaches for my hand, and I put my hand on top of her hand. I want to kiss her on the lips.

PREDICAMENT TWO. A middle-aged man of considerable generosity is killed one night by two men who were hired by his wife to do the job. The wife had the husband killed because she wanted his very considerable insurance policy. The brother of the man who is killed has the right to either ask for the death penalty for the wife or to say that he does not want it applied. He can do this because of the country in which the killing took place. What should he do? she asks me.

I say, I do not have enough information.

Assume you do, she says. She is not smiling. There is nothing in her face or the way she holds her body to reveal the kind of answer she wants or expects.

I am the wrong person to ask, I finally say. I am what my friends and others would call a fallen man. My moral compass is broken.

Fallen? I did not know that was a word in your vocabulary.

You mean because of how I behaved with you?

She smiles, and she extends her hand, and I put my hand on hers as I had done previously. I want to kiss her more than ever. On the lips, of course.

I don’t want to give her an answer to a question that involves another person’s life. So I say, We are into imaginary scenarios?

No, that is not true. One of them is taking place here in this country where you find yourself. The other one is taking place in a neighboring country you know well.

Can I guess which is which?

It would serve no useful purpose.

Would you marry me? I say, having no idea where the thought came from. I have never asked or brought to mind this question when with this kind of young woman.

No, she says.

Will you tell me why?

Maybe after we make love again, I don t know.

Will your answer then be the same?

I do not know.

I am not sure what to say. I think that perhaps I need to give her an answer to a question she asked and I did not answer. I say, Death for killing someone, or a lengthy prison sentence? I have an opinion on the matter, but it is irrelevant, for it is the brother whose opinion matters.

You do take moral positions then? You are not a fallen man.

I think she has set a trap for me. I am worried. I say, Would you now like to make love?

Will you hold me close in silence for the next hour? she answers.

I go to her and she falls into my arms and we lie on the bed with the light coming through the window, a window covered with iron bars. The kind I saw in the hotels in Phnom Penh. I wrap my arms around her and she comes closer and puts a leg over mine. I sense she cannot get close enough, get enough of my bodily warmth.

I do not know how long we are wrapped in each other when she says, I must go.

Will you marry me? I ask her as she opens the door and steps out into the hallway. There is no answer. Or is there? I thought I heard some words, but I cannot be sure. I go to the door and open it wide and look down the long hallway and I see no one. The long hallway is completely empty.

I return to the bed and lie down and fold my arms in front of my chest, and I pretend she is still with me and we are married. I hear a noise and I turn to the window. It is raining.

 

Korski
7/2/08

© Korski. All rights reserved by the author.