Purity. Джонатан Франзен

do about it? I still have my work. I still have my friends.”

      “And me. You still have me.”

      Stephen looked aside nervously. “Yeah.”

      “Did you forget you’d said you’d talk to me?”

      “Yeah, I did. I’m sorry.”

      She tried to deepen and slow her breathing.

      “What?” he said.

      “You know what.”

      “No, I don’t know what.”

      “You promised you were going to talk to me.”

      “I’m sorry. I forgot.”

      Her grievance was as puny and useless as she’d feared. There was no point in airing it a third time.

      “What’s going to happen to us?” she said.

      “You and me?” He closed his book. “Nothing. We’ll find a couple of new housemates, preferably female, so you don’t have to be the only one.”

      “So nothing changes. Everything the same.”

      “Why would anything change?”

      She paused, listening to her heart. “You know, a year ago, when we were having those coffees, I had the impression that you liked me.”

      “I do like you. A lot.”

      “But you made it sound like you were hardly even married.”

      He smiled. “Yeah, well, it turns out I was right about that.”

      “No, but back then,” she said. “Back then you made it sound that way. Why did you do that to me?”

      “I didn’t do anything to you. We were having coffee.”

      She looked at him beseechingly, searching his eyes, asking them if he really was so clueless or was just pretending to be clueless for some cruel reason. It killed her that she couldn’t figure out what he was thinking. Her breaths came harder, followed by tears. Not sad tears—upset tears, accusing tears.

      “What is it?” he said.

      She kept looking into his eyes, and finally he seemed to get it.

      “Oh, no,” he said. “No, no, no. No, no, no.”

      “Why not.”

      “Pip, come on. No.”

      “How could you not see,” she said with a gasp, “how much I want you?”

      “No, no, no.”

      “I thought we were just waiting. And now it’s happened. It finally happened.”

      “God, Pip, no.”

      “Don’t you like me?”

      “Of course I like you. But not like that. Truly, I’m sorry, not like that. I’m old enough to be your father.”

      “Oh, come on! It’s fifteen years! It’s nothing!”

      Stephen looked at the window and then at the door, as if weighing escape options.

      “Are you telling me you never felt anything?” she said. “It was all in my head?”

      “You must have misinterpreted.”

      “What?”

      “I never wanted to have kids,” he said. “That’s the whole issue with Marie and me, I didn’t want babies. I kept telling her, ‘What do we need babies for? We have Ramón, we have Pip. We can still be good parents.’ And that’s what you are to me. Like a daughter.”

      She stared at him. “That’s my role? To be like Ramón for you? Would you be even happier if I stank? I have a parent! I don’t need another parent!”

      “Well, actually, it kind of seemed like you did,” Stephen said. “Like a father was exactly what you needed. And I can still do it. You can still stay here.”

      “Are you out of your mind? Stay here? Like this?”

      She stood up and looked around wildly. It was better to be angry than to be hurt; maybe even better than being loved and held by him, because maybe anger was what she’d been feeling toward him all along, anger disguised as wanting.

      In a kind of anarchy of involition, she found herself pulling off her sweater, and then taking off her bra, and then dropping to her knees on the bed and pushing herself at Stephen, abusing him with her nakedness. “Do I look like a daughter? Is that what I look like to you?”

      He cowered with his hands over his face. “Stop it.”

      “Look at me.”

      “I’m not going to look at you. You’re the one who’s out of your mind.”

      “Fuck you! Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you, fuck you. Are you too fucking weak to even look at me?” Where were these words coming from? What hidden place? Already a riptide of remorse was swirling around her knees, and already she knew it would be worse than all of her previous remorses combined, and yet there was nothing to be done but see it through, and do what her body wanted, which was to collapse on Stephen. She rubbed her bare chest against his seersucker shirt, pulled his hands from his face and let her hair fall around it; and she could see that she’d really done it this time. He looked terrified.

      “Just be sure, OK?” she said. “Be sure that’s all I am to you.”

      “I can’t believe you’re doing this to me. Four hours after she left the house.”

      “Oh, so four days would make a difference? Or four months? Four years?” She lowered her face toward his. “Touch me!”

      She tried to guide his hands, but he was very strong and pushed her off him easily. He scrambled away from the bed and retreated to the door.

      “You know,” he said, breathing hard, “I don’t really believe in therapy, but I’m thinking you could use it.”

      “As if I could afford it.”

      “Seriously, Pip. This is totally fucked up. Are you even thinking about what I’m feeling?”

      “Last I checked, you were reading—” She picked up his book. “Gramsci.”

      “If you’re pulling shit like this with other people, people who aren’t looking out for you, you’re not doing yourself any favors. I don’t like what it says about your impulse control.”

      “I know. I’m abnormal. It’s like the refrain of my life.”

      “No, you’re great. You’re wonderful, I mean it. But still—seriously.”

      “Are you in love with her?” Pip said.

      He turned back from the door. “What?”

      “Annagret. Is that what this is about? You’re in love with her?”

      “Oh, Pip.” His look of pity and concern was so pure that it almost overcame her distrust; she almost believed she had no reason to be jealous. “She’s in Düsseldorf,” he said. “I hardly even know her.”

      “Riiiiight. But you’re in touch with her.”

      “Try to listen to yourself. Try to see what you’re doing.”

      “I’m not hearing a no.”

      “For God’s sake.”

      “Please tell me I’m wrong. Just say I’m wrong.”

      “The person I want is Marie. Don’t you understand that?”

      Pip