Passion and Affect Read Online Free PDF Page B

with a brilliant green-and-yellow ribbon. She was flat-chested and had the kind of sparse, bony body that looks as if it will make up in childish, game animation what it lacks in fullness. She seemed a rather simple girl. He thought of the look she had given him, and he remembered that she had very queer eyes. They were a fairly run-of-the-mill amberish brown, but whereas most people’s eyes turned color, or changed expression, her eyes shifted from one extreme to the other while the rest of her face remained perfectly frozen except for her jaw, which lifted itself only to chew gum. Her eyes had been, from second to second, intelligent and piercing and then completely blank and vacant. What a nice girl, he thought, Greenie. She had a fairly lowish voice that was tarred by her adenoids and feathered by her cigarettes, which made it slightly husky. It was pretty effective.
    Greenie was incandescent. She wore silvery powder, pearlized makeup, and vaseline on her eyebrows. She went off like a flashbulb. On the hot subways, crowds turned rank, rotted, and brown like jungle vegetation, but Greenie—he imagined her—Greenie would stand unaffected, her face a perfect, unmoving waxy mask of that silver stuff she shone with. Benno closed his door and sipped his coffee.
    At lunchtime, Greenie reappeared. In her nasal voice she said, “Want lunch?”
    Without thinking he said: “If you do.”
    And she said: “You can buy it for me.”
    He said: “If you eat it with me.” And she nodded. Benno thought this was one of the most romantic conversations he had ever had.
    For lunch, Greenie had cherry soda, shrimp salad on pale white bread, potato chips, a chocolate drink, and a Mars bar. Benno had roast beef on dry toast. He sat drinking his coffee with his feet up. Greenie sat in a wicker chair with her legs twined around each other. Benno felt a surge of love, admiration, and cheer. She was awfully nice and very easy in a way that suggested she was either insane, or perfectly level.
    â€œWhat’s your last name, Greenie?” Benno asked.
    â€œFrenzel,” said Greenie. Up close, freckles appeared under her silvery powder. Her hair was like a coiled piece of copper and smelled of perfume and lacquer. She took off her shoes and put her feet up. Benno noticed that she had painted her toenails pearly pink. He was stupefied, astonished and filled with happiness. She was a walking museum of wonders, Benno thought.
    â€œWhat do you do here, Greenie?” Benno asked.
    â€œI’m taking over for Sylvia. You think she’s on vacation, and she is, but she isn’t coming back. She’s gonna have a baby.” Greenie handed him a chocolate cupcake, filled with cream. “She told me to have a look at you.”
    â€œOh?” said Benno.
    â€œYeah,” said Greenie, smoking. “She said you were pretty nice.”
    â€œAm I?” asked Benno, in a tone of unsure passion.
    â€œYeah,” said Greenie in her post nasal drip voice. “Shaw.” She enunciated certainty as if announcing the name of the playwright. She gathered up the cups and napkins and wrappings, and disappeared.
    For two weeks, Greenie was his lunch companion. At night, Benno peopled his television ads with her, substituting her face for those of the actresses, and, watching the news, he heard the events of the day recited through her husky, adenoidal voice. All the girls dancing for cleaner laundry were attached to her legs. At night, he dreamed bright dreams in which fruit dropped out of trees and burst in Technicolor at his feet. Girls floated on green lawns, and Greenie did an ad in television black and white for cat food. In his dream, Greenie was a cat. She was complete cat, complete woman. She was lying down wearing a dress. Her eyes had a slightly amused look, a look of hers he had recently discovered and she cooed out of a round mouth: “Every cat is a woman. Every woman is a cat.”