I'm told to enter. I open the door, step in.
...
It's all very well for me to think these things, quick as staccato, a
jittering of the brain. An inner jeering. But it's panic. The fact is,
I'm terrified.
I don't say anything.
"Closer the door behind you," he says pleasantly enough. I do it, and
turn back.
"Hello," he says.
It's the old form of greeting. I haven't heard it for a long time, for
years. Under the circumstances it seems out of place, comical even, a
flip backkward in time, a stunt.I can think of nothing appropriate to
say in return.
I think I will cry.
He must have noticed this, because he looks at me, puzzled, gives a little frown I choose to interpret as concern, though it may merely be irritation. "Here," he says. "You can sit down." He pulls a chair out for me, sets it down in front of his desk. Then he goes around behind the desk and sits down, slowly and it seems to be elaborately.What this act tells me is that he hasn't brought me here to touch me in any way, against my will.
...
"You must find this strange," he says.
I simply look at him. The understatement of the year was a phrase my
mother uses. Used.
"I guess this is a little strange," he says, as if I've answered.
I think I should have a hat on, tied with a bow under my chin.
"I want..." he says.
I try not to lean forward. Yes? Yes yes? What, then? What does he want?
But I won't give it away, this eagerness of mine. It's a bargaining
session, things are about to be exchanged. She who does not hesitate is
lost. I'm not giving anything away: selling only.
"I would like--" he says. "This will sound silly." And he does look embarassed, sheepish was the word, the way men used to look once.He's old enough to remember how to look that way, and to remember also how appealing women once found it. The young ones don't know those tricks. They never had to use them.
"I'd like you to play a game of Scrabble with me," he says.
I hold myself absolutely rigid. I keep my face unmoving. So, that's
what's in the forbidden room! Scrabble! I want to laugh, shreik with
laughter, fall off my chair. This was once the game of old women, old
men, in the summers or in retirement villas, to be played when there was
nothing good on television. Or of adolescents, once, long long ago.
..
Now ofcourse it's something different. Now it's forbidden for us. Now
it's dangerous. Now it's indecent. Now it's something that he can't do
with his Wife. Now it's desirable. It's as if he's offered me drugs.