One morning years ago, a number of decades I could count on the fingers of one hand, I was waiting on the platform of my local subway station. A train arrived and opened its doors right in front of a woman with long, dark brown hair. A yard or two to my left, she peered inside and, turning in my direction, announced, “No room.” Trains could be so packed by that hour that it was a miracle no one spilled out onto the platform. We boarded the second or third train after.
I remember nothing else about that morning. Presumably, I got off at Park Place, the stop for my office. The woman would have continued on to Greenwich Village, where she worked.
I have an untrustworthy memory of meeting her a second time on the platform. Considering our work hours were similar, it’s plausible. On one of those occasions, I must have been brazen enough to give her my phone number or ask for hers.
Such memories, a few that feel reliable and others stitched together from recollections combined with probability, all plucked out of so much forgotten, capture how I reflect on my first months in New York City and my time with Sally.
At her apartment building’s entrance, I’d press her buzzer. At the ancient system’s jarring electronic response, I’d push inside and bound upstairs, where she’d be waiting at her open door with a radiant smile.
During the early weeks of our relationship, I’d be stimulated by the mild and fragrant fall evening air as I walked the two blocks from my home to hers. September and October in New York were a refreshing change from the cold gusts that had cut through me back in Wisconsin.
The way I recall it, our entire relationship took place in her studio apartment, where we talked and talked. She listened well and spoke with care, sometimes pausing to find the right thought or words. I don’t remember her complaining about her job or, for that matter, praising it. I expect I also didn’t let my job’s ebbs and flows contaminate the serenity of our evenings. In her presence and the armchair where I usually sat, I felt utterly relaxed.
One love we shared was Russian literature. I spoke no Russian, but she’d majored in it.
“Right now I’m obsessed with Pushkin,” she said. “Can I read a poem to you?”
“I read his story ‘Queen of Spades’ but never his poems. I figured translations can’t do them justice.”
“I’ll recite it in Russian to give you a sense.”
Her renditions did give me a feel for the poetic sound and pacing of Pushkin’s lines.
The music of the Italian singer Mina is another Sally association, a kind of secret we shared because none of our other friends knew of her. I don’t recall how Sally found out about her. I’d been introduced by a Cuban refugee. Later, after studying Italian for a few months, I was to find Mina’s accent a bit rough. At the time, in my ignorance, it didn’t bother me, and I still love her recordings from the 1970s. Part of my association was our reliance on LPs and a turntable. LPs were all we had back then. She’d get up from her chair, place the needle on the rotating record, and then rejoin me as we gave all our attention to the music.
Sally loved a fine wine. I hadn’t acquired a discriminating taste, but I was happy to learn. On the face of it, neither of us could afford to buy a decent bottle. We each earned enough for rent and groceries; not much more. But she had a rare skill and the discipline to exploit it. At least twice during the months I knew her, she got on a bus down to Atlantic City, where she played blackjack in one of the casinos. She said odds were that at some point in the evening, a good player would be fifteen per cent ahead. As soon as she reached that level, she turned in her chips, collected her winnings and got back on the bus. With those winnings, she paid for the wine.
She was generous enough to share her hard-won rewards with me. The wine whose name I recall was Gaja, a name I now know we butchered by not pronouncing the “j” as “y.” We sat across from each other at her apartment’s small table and each took a first sip. It was a rich red, intense with a flavor or flavors I couldn’t identify. It wasn’t just delicious, but fulfilling. A second sip gave an even deeper satisfaction. So did a third.
“I’ve never had anything like this,” I said, feeling humble next to her fine discernment.
“The guy at the store never misleads me,” she said.
By the time we finished the bottle, I had no desire for dinner. Nor did she. The wine had filled us up in every way.
We took no vacations together; not even a day trip along the Hudson or out to Long Island’s shores. Come to think of it, I can’t remember having dined with her, though we must have shared many meals. I can’t even remember our sleeping together, and yet I recall aspects of her I could know only from our having made love. Even though it was her womanhood and dark brown hair flowing unconstrained that had first attracted me to her, I remember only those evenings of pure contentment.
How did it end? It’s possible it was when I met a certain other woman who ended up moving into my apartment for six months. I just don’t recall if they overlapped. If that was how it happened, I surely hurt Sally. Or perhaps it was Sally who moved on. Maybe I simply stopped showing up at her door. I don’t recall her ever coming to mine, which seems strange now but fits in with the small world we created for ourselves.
Perhaps it’s a sign of age that I place such value on memories. They’re purer than experiences in the moment. When we come home from a trip, we tell our friends about flight delays, mad cab drivers, hotel toilets that clog, frustrations with our companions. But I look back on a tour around northeastern Italy, for instance, with no immediate memory of irritations. What stays alive is the people I met there, the churches, the Roman arches, the Mediterranean sun, the sense of millennia pulsing through public life.
What I remember about that time is Mina as heard through Sally’s ears and mine together. There are Pushkin’s syllables, incomprehensible to my English language-only ear but pleasing because of Sally’s desire to impart them to me. I remember the Gaja and the sense of fulfillment from a wine, including Gaja itself, that I’ve looked for in vain ever since. I remember her equanimity.
I’m sure Sally hasn’t forgotten me. If I hurt her, I hope she found it in herself not so much to forgive as to understand. At that age, I was still searching: searching for the right person; perhaps searching for the person inside me who would be right for the right relationship; and, of course, searching for the right career, the right place to live, the friendships to keep.
Long since retired, I’m still searching, only now it’s for relevance.
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