8

ON THE DRIVE HOME he decides that Akiko’s ordered life is anomalous. He thinks: I carry the tower within me. An old story. An ancient story. A story inscribed in the Book of Nature from the start. The world was born in confusion, in confusion it proceeds, in confusion it will fall.

At dinner he is mostly silent. His wife’s friends are artists—a photographer and a painter. The painter is clearly irritated by her lover’s drinking, yet the drinker’s insolence is amusing, and he is grateful he takes up so much room.

“This will lead to oblivion, if not a row,” the painter warns.

Akiko laughs: “I hope he intends both for later.”

“All heroes have their weaknesses,” the drinker grins at his host and winks.

“What do you know of weakness?” he asks him. It is his first unsolicited sentence of the evening.

“Everything!” the drinker brags. “I collect vices as others do stamps.”

“Such as?” The mood is changing. He can tell he is bringing an unexpected edge into all of this.

“Wine,” he says, lifting his glass toward Akiko, who fills it. “Women.” He nods first at Akiko and then at his mistress. “Song. But … I do not intend to sing.”

“A blessing,” says his mistress.

“I’d like to hear the man sing,” he says with an implied belligerence he knows Akiko dislikes.

“Then I will sing!” the drinker declares, “in my host’s honor!” He stands, knocking over his chair, struggling to set it on its feet again before belting out a piece of obscenity from Carmina Burana. When it is over, he bows and turning his back on them, makes his way unsteadily to the bathroom.

“Don’t get lost!” his mistress calls cheerily after, retrieving crumbs of chocolate cake from her dish with her finger. He thinks: Heavens be praised. The repast will soon be over.

“It has been said,” the drunk intones as he returns to the table, his fly unzipped, “that Dionysius manages better in the meadows and the woods than the living room.”

“He is going to fall,” his mistress decides.

“As the broads all fall for him,” the drunk declares. “Or so he likes to think.”

“Ah,” the wayward doctor says, for he cannot resist: “A man after my own heart.”

“Or cock,” Akiko mutters, to the surprise of everyone. “A little joke,” she whispers. She turns to him. “A little joke, my love. On me.”

It is an entreaty. Or perhaps a warning. He wonders: just what does she know?