Being Invisible by Thomas Berger Read Free Book Online Page A

startled to hear Babe’s new voice. Or perhaps it was rather the tone that was new. She was not chiding Zirko; she was submitting to him.
    “That’s right,” said Zirko, who left off fondling her hand to erect an index finger. “Trust me.”
    “Oh, I do, I do.”
    How awful this was for Wagner to hear; yet he stayed. Right now nothing was more important than trying to understand what she saw in this hoodlum, painful as it might be. Until this moment, if asked what kind of man might appeal to Babe, Wagner would have put Zirko’s type at the bottom of the list.
    And he had pondered a good deal on the matter of whom she would eventually take up with—if anyone, for she seemed off men entirely at the time she left him. Not that she was unnatural: he was no Pascal, to call inverse those women who spurned him. But in truth, he had half expected her to be attracted to one of the effeminate male artists who exhibited at the gallery where she was employed. Wagner had attended only one opening and had soon despised all the persons he encountered there, men or women: something seemed to be wrong with all of them. Of course he said nothing derogatory to Babe about the people or that which was exhibited—a series of sculptured forms that resembled coned coils of dog stool, which were even colored dung-brown. But she must have intuited his lack of approval, for never again was he pressed to come. Which was quite OK with him. That’s how smoothly things had always gone with them. It had been a no-fault marriage, and yet she had left him after four years. For the likes of Zirko?
    Tommy returned, bringing filled plates, though no audible order had been placed with him.
    “Uh -huh ,” Babe breathed, considering her portion with every evidence of delight. “Prosciutto and, um, figs? Fresh figs ?”
    Zirko’s index finger, bearing a large brute of a vulgar ring, was raised again. “Parma ham,” said he. “Not the ‘prozoot’ that is slapped on a cheap hero. And black figs only and always.”
    Tommy lingered to grin slavishly. “Mr. Zirko, you know your gourmet foods.”
    The object of his worship ignored him to pick up a fig in short thick fingers and split it open to show Babe the indecent red vulva of its flesh.
    “Look like somebody you know?” he asked.
    This seemed humorous to Babe, who simpered as she cut a fragment of ham.
    Wagner was too shocked at first to feel anger. During her years with him Babe had been famous for her modesty. She rarely made a sexual reference of any kind, and never used foul language. Wagner in fact would have been embarrassed to repeat to her, even in derision, some of Pascal’s comments and jokes. Yet she now watched in delight as Zirko obscenely tongued the interior of the split fruit.
    “Did I ever tell you—” Zirko then asked, lowering the fig.
    “By the way, this is delicious,” Babe told him, tapping her fork on the plate.
    Zirko frowned at the interruption, even though its purpose had been to praise his taste. “ Did I ever tell you ,” he doggedly repeated, “I was dirt-poor in my earlier life. I was a street kid. I used to press my face against the windows of places like this, watching everybody stuff their gut while my own belly was empty, and I used to think, by God I’ll get me a gun and then I’ll eat regular and get respect besides!” He actually gritted his teeth.
    Babe continued to enjoy the first course. This too was new; in the past she had eaten merely to live. “A perfect combination, and you’re right, the Parma—”
    Zirko’s voice rose shrilly to drown hers out. “I tell you I came this far from doin’ just that.” He showed two fingertips. “I was raised by my dear mother, God bless ’er, to hate violence above all things. But I could be capable of taking life in one or two circumstances, like racial injustice, you know, or old people. So I come close but never robbed anybody, actually. What I did was use my head, see. Me and my friend Petey,