Page 50 - WTP Vol.X#1

Act Two (continued from preceding page)
She laughed a throaty laugh, keeping her mouth closed. “No, my dear. I’m sure not.” She sounded almost regretful.
After a while she uncurled her legs and darted up, unspooling the cat onto the rug. Time to talk busi- ness. She took a book of sixteenth century poetry from a long shelf, whipped on her glasses and gave me an assignment for my first tutorial the coming week. I was to write a ten page essay on Thomas Wyatt, a sophisticated courtier who wrote edgy love sonnets. “They’re so sensuous, those poems, tragic really, don’t you agree?” she asked, leaning to the edge of her chair and waiting with hawk-like eyes for whatever reply I might manage to make. Here it was, the intensity other students had warned me about. She was probing, curious. How supple was my wit? I looked out the window at the great chestnut tree be- hind her. Anything to get away from her direct gaze, which unnervingly reminded me of my mother in a judgmental mode.
“Actually,” I said, “I prefer T.S. Eliot. He’s philosophical but sensuous.” I began to recycle ideas I’d worked
out in a college seminar. “That sequence in The
Waste Land about the water and the rock. I love how he makes you physically thirsty. Summons up the rocky landscape with no water. Then he evokes the sound of water—and takes it away.” Invigorated by my memory of Eliot’s lines, I decided to risk quoting. “How does it go?” I murmured. “The ‘sound of water only/ Not the cicada /And the dry grass singing.’”
“Ah, yes,” she said, swooping off her glasses one swift motion, “of course the whole sequence is a metaphor for spiritual acedia—don’t you agree?”
“Yes, certainty, of course.” I was on shakier ground here. I hoped I wouldn’t have to spin a complicated theory about Eliot’s spiritual aridity theme right then and there. I had been well taught in college by profes- sors who themselves had done degrees at Oxford but this was the real thing. I’d have to keep up with this
woman whose knowledge made sparks in the room. She undoubtedly knew every line of Eliot’s great works and most of his minor ones too.
For now she let me off the hook. She laid the Wyatt book aside and leaned forward, so close the five feet between us seemed to shrink. “I think we deserve some tea, deah, don’t you?” It wasn’t really a ques- tion. She swept off on surprisingly bowed legs to
the kitchen of her flat. Left to think I’d done okay with the Eliot riff, I looked around the sunny room full of beautiful things. An Asian table lamp curved under a silk shade. Orange dahlias flared in a glass vase. It reminded me of my mother’s elegant living room with its leather bound books and Italian glass bowls. However mom had bought her old books in bulk at yard sales. She never read them. Mrs. Bed’s book-filled lair smelled of perfume and smoke. This was the first time I’d been in a room which belonged solely to a worldly woman. Uneasily, I felt I’d come to a place I might like.
After a few minutes she returned with a tray and set it down in front of us on the modern blond wooden coffee table. Two porcelain tea pots stood next to cups and a plate of Italian cookies. Either pot held enough for two people. She looked at me inquiringly, “China or Indian, deah?” I had to choose. Somehow this seemed a trick question. Class-ridden in fact. Surely middle and upper-class people drank delicate China tea. Working class men and women enjoyed strong Indian tea in thick mugs with loads of milk like I’d drunk in railway buffet cafes.
“China, please.” She made no comment, just poured it out. Then she lit another cigarette and leaned back in her chair.
“Now, my deah, are hippies still lounging about the Lower East Side?” I couldn’t tell if she approved or not.
I laughed. “It’s getting cold in Manhattan. They’ve gone to San Francisco.” Although I hadn’t been anywhere near the summer of love in New York, I’d seen it on TV. Barefoot girls in long flowing skirts strummed guitars in gritty Washington Square park. I wanted to attach a whiff of their grooviness to myself.
“I have an old friend from childhood. Just graduated from art school,” I said.
“Um.” She looked interested.
“She goes about in peasant dresses. Her fiancé’s a
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