“Poor Asher.”

“Why?”

“Is it difficult growing old?”

“ ’Tain’t easy.”

“Sad?”

“Like Aunt Dora says: What can I tell you, dear child?”

“Do you hate it?”

“I guess so.”

“Do the pubic hairs turn gray, too?”

“Everything, baby.”

“No.”

“Yes. Everything. Gray and shrunken and old.”

“No.”

“Everything. You, too.”

“I’ll never.”

“Yes you will.”

“I’ll never. Never. Never. Never. Never.”

It was dark now. The lights came on. The radiators clanked. I hoped it would be never.

21

The cinema was small. The lobby was rugged, downstairs in the lounge they served coffee, the art on the wall was abstract. The film was a French thriller, done in the French style. There was a rapid series of murders. The detective was dyspeptic. We hadn’t been able to find a movie of the thirties.

Somewhere in the middle of the film, in the litter of corpses, while the detective was questioning a transvestite at police headquarters, Aurora leaned toward me, and said: “Asher, if you committed a murder, would you trust me with your secret?”

“Shh.”

I was engrossed in the film.

“Would you?”

I looked at her. Her face was close, across the armrest between us, I saw the dark gleam of her skin, I could smell her perfume. She seemed very solemn. The whites of her eyes, those immense eyes, were a solemn white. She breathed conspiratorially.

“Would I what?” I whispered.

“If you committed a murder,” she whispered, “would you trust me with your secret?”

“Of course.”

I was anxious to get back to the cross-examination of the transvestite.

“No you wouldn’t,” she whispered.

“But of course I would.”

“No you wouldn’t. You wouldn’t think I was devoted enough.”

“Shh.”

“You’d think I was too frivolous. You’d think I was too scatter-brained.”

“But you’re not scatter-brained.”

“Of course I am.” Her voice was a trifle louder. The transvestite was cleared of suspicion and was leaving police headquarters. The detective took another pill. I was distracted. “Of course I am,” she whispered, louder. “I’d get drunk at a party or I’d be in the wee-wee room and I’d reveal your secret. You’d be right not to trust me, I’m untrustworthy.”

She was holding my arm, riveting my attention. I’d miss all the clues. I gave up.

“Well, yes, all right,” I whispered. “I won’t trust you with my secret.” I thought it was some sort of game and to placate her I’d play it. “You’d probably turn me in. For the reward money.”

I was trying to end it with a compliant joke.

“I knew you wouldn’t,” she said. She sounded absolutely tragic. “Nobody trusts me with anything.” And she started to cry.

I was flabbergasted. I couldn’t tell what was going on. Everybody else was having a perfectly normal time watching the accumulation of interesting corpses. Was she acting? Were the tears genuine? I was in a small panic. She was sitting there, in the comfortable seat, with that marvelous face of hers, and there were apparently real tears, quite huge, and glistening, issuing from her eyes and rolling (I watched the progress of one huge teardrop with fascination) over the curve of her cheeks. The particular tear I followed settled at the corner of her mouth, and her tongue darted out, the sweetest of adders, to lick it away. I was sure it wasn’t salt. We were being looked at now in the theatre, and in a flush of embarrassment I hastily said, mostly to stop or at least dam up the tiny reservoir that threatened to overflow: “But, of course, darling, if I do commit a murder some day, I’ll certainly trust you with my secret.”