The Tattooed Girl: A Novel

1

HE HAD KNOWN it must happen soon. And yet he wasn't prepared for it happening so soon.

"I can't do it any longer. No more."

He meant, but could not bring himself to acknowledge, I can't live alone any longer.


2

Easy is the way down into the Underworld: by night and by day dark Hades' door stands open ... He smiled at these lines of Virgil floating into consciousness like froth on a stream. He told himself he wasn't frightened: his soul was tough as the leather of his oldest boots.

He would hire someone to live with him. And really he did need an assistant for his translation project.

He was a discreet man, a private man. To friends who'd known him for more than twenty years, and even to most of his relatives, an enigmatic man.

And so his initial inquiries were discreet, made among acquaintances in the city rather than friends.

"I need an assistant ..."

He disliked the sound of this. Need?

"I'd like to hire an assistant."

Or, "I'm thinking of hiring an assistant."

Better to make it more specific, defined.

"I'm thinking of hiring a research assistant for a few months beginning in November."

Adding, "Preferably a young man."

Women, even quite young women, had a disconcerting habit of falling in love with him. Or imagining love. He would not have minded so much if he himself were not susceptible to sexual longings as some individuals are susceptible to pollen even as others are immune.

Seigl was sexually susceptible: less so emotionally susceptible. He'd had a number of love affairs since late adolescence but had never wanted to marry nor had he been weakened, or flattered, by another's wish that he marry. "Intimacy, on a daily basis. Hourly! How is it accomplished?" He laughed, but it was a serious question. How is intimacy accomplished? Even while deeply involved with a woman with whom he'd shared a residence in Rochester, Seigl had kept his house in the hilly suburb of Carmel Heights and worked there much of the time.

The love affair had ended abruptly several years ago. Seigl had never understood why, exactly. "But if you love me? Why would you shut a door against me?" he'd asked in all sincerity. For finally a door had been shut against him, disturbing as a riddle in a code Seigl couldn't crack.

The tyranny of convention. Marriage, "family." Seigl hated it.

So, a female assistant was not a good idea. And there were practical reasons for preferring a young man to live with Seigl through the winter months in this glacier-gouged upstate New York terrain where the weather could be treacherous.