Chapter 20 Chapter Twenty

Jeff quit his job, and he made enough money from gambling and short-term investments to keep Linda well fed for the next three years.There was no time to slowly prepare a rich inheritance for her, so he increased the life insurance coverage tenfold. He moved into a small apartment on the Upper West Side, and wandered around Manhattan from morning till night, reveling in the sights, smells, and sounds of being human, something he'd kept himself out of for so long.Among them, the old people are particularly attractive to him. Their eyes are full of distant memories and lost hopes, and their bodies are aging in anticipation of the end of their lives.

Although Pamela was gone, the fear and regret she had expressed came back to haunt him, as it had haunted her dying.He had done everything in his power to reassure her, to try to assuage her grief and fear in her final days, but she was right, and all that they had fought and achieved had been for nothing.Even the blissful moments they had worked so hard to find together were frustratingly fleeting, their lives stolen bit by bit, their lonely and pointless separations like an ocean, their moments of love and fulfillment fleeting like the waves. They used to think that they could last forever, that they had endless choices and opportunities to choose again.They waste too much of the priceless time they are given, waste their lives on grief, resentment and guilt, and seek in vain for answers that do not exist, while ignoring that love for themselves and each other is the only answer they need.And now, even to tell her this realization, even to hold her in his arms and tell her how much he adores her and cherishes her, these opportunities will never come again.Pamela died, and three years later Jeff would die without knowing what he was alive for.

He walks the city streets, watching and listening: punks glaring at the world with unruly eyes Men and women in work clothes rushing to the goals they set for themselves Crowds of giggling, exuberant Meet all the novelties in life.Jeff envied them, their innocence, ignorance, and expectation of life made him jealous. A few weeks after he quit his job at WFYI, he was called by a news writer, a woman or girl named Lydia.randao.She said that everyone on the radio station cared about him, and everyone was shocked when they heard the news of his resignation, and even more worried when they heard that his marriage had broken down.Jeff only repeated to her what he had said to Jane.From what Collins has said, he's fine.But she pursued him relentlessly and insisted on meeting him for a drink and a face-to-face chat.

They made an appointment to meet at the Dove of Peace restaurant on Third Avenue and Sixty-fifth Street the next afternoon. The two chose a table by the window, from which they could see the bright sunshine of New York in early summer.Lydia wore an off-the-shoulder white cotton dress and a wide-brimmed hat with a pink ribbon hanging from the brim.She was a rather handsome young woman with thick, wavy blond hair and large, watery green eyes. Jeff read through the story he had made up to explain his sudden departure, a standard lie for a burnout journalist mixed with the half-truth of his recent luck with investing.Lydia nodded understandingly from time to time, as if she believed his fabricated story.When it came to marriage, Jeff told her that his marriage was over a long time ago, that there was no particular issue between him and his wife that bothered to explain, it was just drifting apart.

Lydia listened eagerly, ordered another drink, and talked about her life.She was twenty-three, had moved to New York after graduating from the University of Illinois, and was living with a boyfriend she had met in college.His name was Matthew, and he was desperate to get married, but she wasn't sure yet.She felt trapped, she felt she needed space, she wanted to make new friends and live a life full of adventure that she missed growing up growing up in a small Midwestern town.Both she and Matthew have changed from what they were before, Lydia said, and she feels she has surpassed him. Jeff let her talk, those ordinary sadness and longing of young people, but for her the first time it was overwhelming, it had unprecedented meaning in her life.She still doesn't see how ordinary her own story is, though she may be vaguely aware of it, or at least she says she's anxious to break out of the stereotyped patterns her life has fallen into.

He talked with her for more than an hour with sympathy, about life, love and independence. He told her that she must make her own decisions and learn to take risks. He said everything that should be said; Those words that people always say to him when encountering a crisis common to all mankind. A sudden gust of wind blew outside the window and lifted her hair, and the pink ribbon hanging from the hat was blown to her cheeks by the wind.Lydia pushed the ribbon aside, and her girly gesture made Jeff throb for no apparent reason.In her lively and beautiful face, he suddenly saw Judy.Gordon's shadow, and Linda who gave him daisies that day; from their faces, he once saw the beautiful promise of the future, the unformed dream that will be born.

After finishing his drink, he watched her get into the taxi.As she got into the car, she looked up at him and said, I think everything will be fine.I mean, we've spent a lot of time on this, and we still have a lot of time. Jeff understood the illusion, he knew it all too well.He smiled perfunctorily at her, shook her hand, and watched her run toward life, her long pink ribbons flying freely in the air. The Northern Suburban Rail commuter train arrived on time, and from his vantage point Jeff could see the platform a hundred feet below.The commuter train is a misnomer at this time of day, Jeff thought; there weren't many commuters on the eleven o'clock train into town.

Jeff walked quickly toward the ramp to the terminal, as if he had just gotten off another line.He slowed down a little as he passed the train to New York. His thought just now was right. Among the passengers who got off the train were many women who were out shopping and dressed up, and a few college students. Man with tie and briefcase. She was the last few to get off.He almost misses her and starts to worry that he's getting the wrong message.She was well dressed, and there was no trace of the department-store-going woman's obsession with detail.Wearing low-heeled shoes designed for walking, she exuded utilitarian glamour in a light blue linen dress and light sweater.

Jeff started to follow her when they were about twenty or thirty paces apart, and she walked up the ramp and into the wide concourse of New York's Grand Central Station.He was worried about getting lost in the crowd, but her height and striking, straight blond hair kept him in sight as he made his way through the crowds.She strode across Park Avenue, past the Roosevelt Hotel, across Madison Square Garden to Fifth Street, and turned north.The window displays at Saks and Cartier didn't catch her attention, and during her brief stops, Jeff pretended to be interested in Korean Air's package tours or Mark.Klaus' suitcase combination slowed down with interest.

She turned west on Fifty-third Street and entered the Museum of Modern Art.The private eye that Jeff hired six weeks ago was right, at least with today's results.They told him, Pamela.Phillips.Robison would take the train to Manhattan every other Thursday and spend the afternoon visiting an art gallery or museum. He paid for the entrance ticket and found his palms wet with sweat as he walked through the turnstiles.He lost track of her for a while.Jeff still couldn't figure out what it was like to go to such lengths to see her, if only to see her from a distance; he knew full well that this woman wasn't the Pamela he knew and loved, and she never would be.Her rebirth is over.He couldn't have expected her to wake up suddenly, with an expression of familiarity on his face, like his nights in the university bar, when she suddenly knew who she was, who he was, and what they'd been through for decades together. The expression he saw on her face when everything was going on.

No, this Pamela would never know everything, yet he longed to look her in the eye again, and even hear her voice.The temptation proved irresistible, and Jeff felt no shame in harboring such a desire, nor guilt in stalking her. Jeff first looked for her in the souvenir shop across the hall, hoping that she might buy a book or a postcard there, but Pamela wasn't there.He went back to the lobby, into the glass-walled garden lobby, and walked around the first-floor art gallery before taking the elevator back to the higher floors.In addition to the normal display in the permanent exhibition area, there are two main exhibitions there, one is Mies.Fan.The commemorative exhibition of the centenary of Dro's birth, and the other is the sculptor Richard.Sarah's retrospective.Jeff took only a quick glance at the exhibit, but he still couldn't see Pamela. He saw something on the fourth floor that made him smile, although he was getting impatient; it was Mies.Fan.For this exhibition, the museum specially set up various furniture designed by architects, including Frank.Meddock had helped Jeff choose the Barcelona chair for the future corporate office, years ago. Pamela was still missing.He might have to wait another two weeks for her to come to New York again, and then he'll have to follow her to another museum, or devise an encounter that could happen at a train station at any moment, all just to get a good look at her face, to hear her say sorry or twenty minutes to twelve. Back on the third floor of the garden hall, Jeff stopped to rest.He leaned against a railing, looking at the huge glass wall.Then, just below in the sculpture garden, he saw her in soft blond hair and a sky-blue linen dress. She was still outside when he came down into the garden.She is standing with her arms folded, gazing at a sculpture of Sarah.Jeff stayed ten feet away from her, with mixed feelings in his mind.Then Pamela turned to him unexpectedly, and said, what do you think of this work? He was not mentally prepared for her to initiate a conversation, and he didn't even think about what to do when his eyes met his familiar sharp green eyes again, even for a short moment.No, he had to force himself to remember that he no longer knew those eyes, that they concealed a soul that had been or would be denied him forever.He had played no part in the only life the woman in the garden had ever known, and that life would soon come to an end with no chance of repeating it. I just said, what do you think of Sarah's work? Straightforward as she had always been, Jeff realized; it had become the tone of her personality, not something instilled in her by rebirth experience. A little too sharp, for me.Jeff finally answered.His mind was full of thoughts, but none of them related to Sarah's work. She nodded thoughtfully.Most of his works are vaguely threatening, she said, like this one, is it called "Shaper II"?The floor is covered with large stainless steel panels, and another piece inserted into the ceiling keeps me wondering what would happen if the top piece fell off.Those who stand below will be crushed to death. He couldn't stand there and chat with her about the exhibits in the museum.Scenes of their life together flashed through his mind like a marquee: her smiling at him from the canopy of the glider next to him, her work in the kitchen in Mallorca, the many beds she had slept in over the years It seems that only through memory, he can copy in his mind the exhibition of past life images she collected and produced. And that one, she went on, called "Circuit II" I know it was originally intended to make an interesting division of the room, but these sharp rectangular steel plates protruding from the corners made me feel like I was guillotined Surrounded by blades.She laughed lightly at herself.Maybe it's just my imagination is particularly eerie, I don't know. No, Jeff regained his composure, I know what you mean, I feel the same way.His creative style is very oppressive. It's too oppressive, I think.This prevents me from evaluating his art form from an objective point of view. The work feels like it could collapse at any moment.Jeff said. That's right, and it's the same direction. Jeff couldn't help laughing, feeling the same relaxed confidence as she did, he'd felt the same way before, when he cut his thoughts off again.Nostalgia for the past would do no good, the man she and he had been with for so many years resembled only in appearance.However, he couldn't help thinking that she still has the same cold wit and humor as her, and it is a pleasure to talk to her with the same warm temperament hidden under the appearance of calmly analyzing things, although she will not have the slightest feeling for everything that has been experienced together. memory. I have an idea, he said, do you want to get out of the bottom before this thing crushes us?It's lunch time. They ate lunch in a café overlooking the sculpture garden, joking about the apparent menace of Sala’s work and bemoaning the museum’s growing reluctance to accommodate new generations of artists.As the shadows of the apartment blocks above the museum cast across the garden, Jeff helped her into her sweater, resisting the urge to caress that face as he ran his hands through her hair, That face he was so familiar with but had been lost for a long time. She talks about her ruined art career and the ups and downs of parenting.He could see the unquenched longing in her eyes, the pain in her life of not living it fully; a life that would soon be over, Jeff knew.He really wanted to tell her all the things she had achieved. When the lunch finally came to an end, their conversation gradually fell into a dilemma. Well, he said, it was a pleasant experience to have the idea of ​​prolonging the encounter but not knowing how to do so. Yes, that's right.She fiddled with her coffee spoon uncomfortably. Do you often go to New York? Come several times a month. Maybe we can. He didn't finish his sentence, and he wasn't sure what he was proposing, or even whether the interaction between the two of them should continue. What can I do?She spoke to break the silence. I have no idea.Maybe check out another museum and grab some lunch. She played with the spoon.I'm married, you know. I know. i won't i mean i'm not He smiled and handed her a napkin. What do you do for me?she asked in surprise. For you to shred. Pamela laughed suddenly, and looked back at him questioningly.How do you know me? She shook her head slowly.Sometimes I feel like you can read my mind, like when you ask me if I've ever drawn a dolphin.I never told you how much I love cetaceans. I just thought you would like it. She tore the napkin in half in an exaggerated way, and looked at him with a curious smile.There was an instant determination in his expression. There is a Jack at the Guggenheim Museum.Youngman's exhibition, she said, I'll be there next week. A warm, musky scent after making love lingered on him, and all kinds of memories of love instantly dispersed and filled the bedroom.The sweet, tangy scent carried him back to the days, nights under thick blankets, hot days on yacht decks, Sunday mornings in bed at hotels, Montgomery Creek cabins, the Florida Keys, Peel's everything , as if still vividly, he would recall these afternoons, during this stolen year, in this apartment. Jeff looked down at the face on his chest, her eyes closed, her lips parted like a sleeping child's.Suddenly he remembered the verses of the Bhagavad Gita, which she had recited with great enthusiasm in her hermitage in the Doppana Valley one night long ago: You and I, Arjuna, we have lived many lives. I remember everything you forgot. Pamela moved in his arms, stretched and murmured meaninglessly, caressing him like a passionate cat. what time is it?She yawns. Six twenty. Damn, she sat up in bed, I gotta go. Are you coming on Thursday? My class was cancelled, but I never mentioned it to my family.We can be together all day.Jeff smiled, trying to look happy.Next Thursday, all day together.A vague, bittersweet memory flashed through Jeff's mind, but of course she couldn't have known it. Maybe by then I would have finished the painting.She slipped out of bed and began to gather the scattered clothes. When can I see the painting? You won't see until you're done, you promised. He nodded, feeling a little guilty about taking a peek at the covered painting yesterday.Her technique has improved over the past year since she returned to painting and took a graduate course in advanced composition at CUNY.Although she had displayed a bold and magnificent imagination in her other past lives that were not remembered, her abilities no longer reached the same level. The near-finished painting is a study of the two nudes, holding hands and laughing as they run across a white vine trellis, the sun flecking the green tunnel.Jeff was deeply moved by the simplicity and innocent joy of the painting; the artist who created this painting has just started loving, but has not yet had the opportunity to test the limits of this love, or the limits of life. Since their first chance encounter at the museum, their time together has inevitably been limited; they can only spend an afternoon together in his apartment every week or two; To be able to stay overnight once in a while they went to Cape Cod for a long weekend, but only once; she told her family that she had gone to Boston to visit a girl friend she had known since college. She had mentioned the possibility of a divorce, not much, but Jeff knew she wasn't ready for such an extreme breakup.There was so much more they couldn't share together than she knew, a sharp chasm between what they knew of each other.Sometimes, when Pamela saw the trance on Jeff's face during abrupt breaks in conversation, she seemed vaguely aware of the barrier. He loves her, he really loves her for who she is today, not just as a shadow of all Pamela's but her unknowing eyes reminding Jeff of everything he's left behind and letting them do Everything is overshadowed. She had already dressed and was combing her thin, straight hair that had been tousled by the warmth of the bed.How many times had he seen her do it in so many different mirrors?The answer was far beyond her imagination, and he couldn't bear to think about it. See you next week.Pamela said she bent over and kissed him as she picked up the bag from the bedside table.I'll try to take an early train into town. He kissed her back, holding her shining face in his palms and reluctantly holding her for a moment. At that moment, his thoughts went back to the past, flying past decades, and what they had achieved and failed in different lives. Hopes and plans. But next week they will be together all day, in the spring.It's worth the wait after all. Winter brought the first message from the lake, and the tree on the cherry hill, trembling with yellow leaves, received the order.Jeff and Pamela walked past the fountain in the concourse of Grand Central Station as icy jets of water poured out, toward the elegant cast-iron body of the Bow Bridge in Central Park. After crossing the bridge to the other side, they walked north along the forest road in the promenade area and wandered around the artificial lake on the left.Hundreds of migratory birds are chirping and jumping all around, ready for the trip to the south. It would be great if we could join in, wouldn't it?Pamela moved closer to Jeff.Fly to some island, or fly to South America He didn't answer, just wrapped his arms around her waist tightly and hugged her tighter.He knew painfully that he could not protect her from the fate that was about to befall them. They stopped at the Terrace Bridge at the north end of the lake and stood looking down at the woods below. The tall buildings of Manhattan were reflected in the lake. Guess what?Pamela whispered into his face. how?He said. I told Steve I was going back to Boston next weekend to visit my college roommate.Friday to Monday.If you want, we can fly somewhere together for vacation. It's amazing.That was all he could answer.It was too cruel to tell the truth as he knew it, and today was the last time they would see each other.Next Thursday, five days from now, their world will stop turning forever for both of them. You don't sound very excited.she frowned. Jeff put on a smile, trying to hide his sadness and fear.Let her naively believe that she will continue to live.Near the end of her life, the greatest gift Jeff could give her was a lie. It was really good, and I was just a little bit surprised that he was pretending to be in high spirits.You can go anywhere you want, anywhere.Barbados, Acapoco, and the Bahamas are you talking about a place. Anywhere, she said, leaning close to him, as long as it's somewhere warm and quiet and with you. Jeff couldn't speak because he knew his voice would be out of tune if he did.So he kissed her, willing all the pain in his heart into one final, sure kiss, a kiss that contained his love for her, everything they had been through. She let out a sudden groan and fell limp on top of him.He grabbed her by the shoulders so she wouldn't collapse on the ground. Pamela?God.no how is this She straightened up again, her head thrown back, and she looked at him in shock. Jeff?Oh my God, Jeff? Jeff read everything in her wide eyes.He saw her come to her senses, saw her recognize him, saw her regain her memory.The memories and pain accumulated in eight different lives were all written on her face in an instant, and her lips twisted due to momentary confusion. She looked around and saw Central Park and the New York skyline.Tears filled her eyes as she met Jeff. Everything should not be over! Pamela What year is this?How much time do we have? He couldn't hide it, she should know.In nineteen eighty-eight.She looked at the woods again and saw yellow autumn leaves falling and swirling around.It is already autumn! He caressed her hair disheveled by the wind, hoping to prolong the time for revealing the truth, even for a moment, but the truth cannot be denied.October, he told her softly, was the thirteenth. That's only five days left! Yes. It's so unfair!She was sobbing, and last time I was ready, I almost accepted that she would suddenly stop and look at him with a confused expression again.What are we doing here?she asked.Why am I not at home? I must see you. You're kissing me, she complained, no, you're kissing her, the old me! Pamela, I just want to I don't care what you think.She interrupted him and quickly pulled away from him.You clearly know that's not the real me, how can you do such a perverted thing? But that's you, he insists, and while she doesn't have all the memories, it's still you, and we're still I can't believe that's what you said!How long has this been going on and when did you guys start? Almost two years. two years!For two years you've been using me like I'm an inanimate thing, like a Things are not what you think at all!We love each other and you pick up your paintbrush and go back to school I don't care what I do!You lure me out of the family, you design me and you know what you're doing, you know what to do to influence me and control me! Pamela, please don't do this.He reached out to grab her arm, to try to comfort her, to explain to her.you twist everything, you Do not touch me!She roared, and then turned away from the small bridge where the two had embraced not long ago. Stay away from me, let me die!Let us both die and end this! Jeff tried to stop her from running away, but she had already left.The last hope of his last life was extinguished, and the world was darkened on this narrow path leading to Seventy-seventh Street, to death, the ultimate unchanging death, in this great city that devoured people.