Closure

“One monogamous mate isn’t enough for you?” he asked Drenka. “You like monogamy so much with him you want it with me too? Is there no connection you can see between your husband’s enviable fidelity and the fact that he physically repels you?” Pompously he continued, “We who have never stopped exciting each other impose on each other no vows, no oaths, no restrictions, whereas with him the fucking is sickening even for the two minutes a month he bends you over the dinner table and does it from behind . And why is that? Matija is big, powerful, virile, a head of black hair like a porcupine. His hairs are quills. Every old dame in the country is in love with him, and not just for his Slavic charm. His looks turn them on. Your little waitresses are all nuts about the cleft in his chin. I’ve watched him back in the kitchen when it’s a hundred degrees in August and they’re waiting ten deep on the terrace for tables. I’ve seen him churning out the dinners, grilling those kebabs in his sopping T-shirt. All agleam with grease, he turns me on. Only his wife he repels. Why? The ostentatiously monogamous nature, that is why.

Philip Roth, Sabbath’s Theater

~ por salamandrine em Junho 21, 2007.