From the fifteenth floor of an affordable hotel along Central Park South one can appreciate at one’s leisure the iron will and the pious conviction of those who charted the throbbing void on the belly of Manhattan Island: the rectangular scar is simply enormous. So-and-so-many city blocks and so-and-so-many billion tons of concrete and steel and flesh are missing in perpetuity. At dawn or dusk, when the park changes governments and faiths, this sensation is even more palpable: the cycle of ebb and tide accentuates the residual force, as well as the thwarted resistance of capital and architectural fancy, towering above the lines of geometric discontinuity. When one’s window is open a crack, one can hardly suppress a knowing smile upon hearing the rustle of leaves that occasionally swells from below.

Addendum I (October 10, 1995)

I met Cecylia at a Christmas Day party in Cambridge, and a few days later I accompanied her to New York, where she went to visit her parents. I do not remember whether she stayed with them or we shared the hotel room with the rustle, but we certainly made love in the hotel between our meals and visits to museums and galleries.

I now cherish the memory of our smooth beginning at the party, in the home of our common friend and her neighbor. Tall, fairly attractive, and unattached, she immediately caught my eye. As soon as I approached her, I learned that she lived in the same building and I realized that I would be welcome to visit her at my earliest convenience. Her two daughters were away for Christmas, visiting their respective fathers. After a few bites and drinks, we snuck out of the party, climbed a few stairs, took off our clothes, and jumped in her bed. Although she was a bit too eager for my taste, and although she suffered from bad breath, the smooth transition from the party to her bed was delightful in its own right. Without the slightest glitch, the sparkle in her eye transformed into the vortex of sparkling pinks between her long legs spread wide.

Our relationship dissolved after a few uneventful months. Years afterwards Cecylia would enjoy receiving the yearbooks of my Residua, and we would occasionally chat on the phone about our lives. She would bitch about her job at the Boston Symphony, where she played the first violin, or about her two daughters, one of whom was in the grips of puberty, and I would bitch about MIT. We lost contact after she moved from Cambridge in 1986 or 1987.

Addendum II (September 7, 1997)

Pushing Maya in her carriage and holding onto Dorian’s hand to make sure he would not get lost in the crowd, I was marveling at the people milling around the Kensington Palace a day after Diana’s funeral. Suddenly, someone called my name. I turned around and saw a couple looking our way. In a classic double-take, I turned the other way to check whether there was someone behind us. Realizing that there was no mistake and that the woman was actually calling my name, the sound of which penetrated into my brain after a brief delay, I looked a bit more carefully. It was Cecylia.

We rushed into each other’s arms and I introduced my children to her. Then I turned to the fellow, who held a violin case in his hand: “You must be a violinist, too!” It was Cecylia’s violin, though. His name was Barry. Later on it transpired that this was one of the rare occasions when she would entrust her violin to him, but it would never leave her sight. They just flew in from Atlanta to see a great expert who would make a few adjustments to the precious instrument. For many years the concert master of the philharmonic orchestra in Atlanta, Cecylia comes to London from time to time for this very reason.

As the crowd thickened around us, we tried to bridge the intervening years. Judging from Dorian’s growing restlessness, we must have spent at least an hour chatting about everything that came to our minds. At some point Cecylia asked me whether I still wrote, and I told her about the last edition of my book. I asked her for her address and promised to send her a copy. As we were about to part, I asked them whether they had any free time for a visit to our nearby home. We agreed on tomorrow afternoon, and I gave them the address. All the while Cecylia kept telling me how wonderful Maya was. “Your girl is special,” she would say. As it turned out, Maya was her younger daughter’s name, too.

Only when we split up it dawned at me that the last edition of my book contained a few uncharitable words about Cecylia. I particularly remembered the bit about bad breath. There are few things as ticklish as bad breath in America. I rushed home to check how far I had gone, hoping against hope that my brief description of our time together was written after the book went to print. This was not the case, though. “Idiot, idiot!” I kept scolding myself for the rash promise and invitation.

The first thing that came to my mind was to tear out the incriminating page, but I soon realized this would not be enough. Cecylia’s name appears on more than one page. At least two pages—or, more precisely, two leaves—would need to be removed to wipe out the awkward stuff. This translates into eight pages of text. A careful reader would notice such a clumsy intervention, of course. A clever woman would not need much time to guess the reason for it, especially because of the profusion of tell-tell dates, so central to my book. Sooner or later, she would figure out what had happened, and my cowardice would end up being even more embarrassing than my cold-blooded indiscretion.

I still have no idea what I will do tomorrow. Perhaps the best thing is to charmingly admit to the fact that she had gotten a bum review in my book and blame everything on one of my increasingly frequent and virulent bouts of misogyny. Will I be able to muster the requisite charm, though? In this context, her boyfriend’s presence does not bode well. Or will I have to resort to the art of writing no sooner than she departs with my book pressed against her innocent chest? Again, this sounds more plausible, especially because she will not be alone tomorrow. Anyway, I have an entire day to come up with an answer I can live with.

Addendum III (September 8, 1997)

When I told Lauren this morning about my embarrassment, she rejoiced in it. She even canceled her dentist appointment to meet my girlfriend of old and witness my discomfiture. By the appointed hour I was well prepared, too, but Cecylia and Barry failed to appear. They did not even call to let us know about the change in their plans.