25
EVERY AFTERNOON, as soon as she got home from work, Ariane began watching television. Nearly every afternoon I watched with her. For hours and hours I watched movies and commercials on the Lodkochnikovs’ television sets, but I can’t recall one of them, even though I have a good memory for such things and can remember quite vividly certain movies and some favorite shows, personalities, actors, and actresses that I saw on television at home. The reason for this blind spot is that the cinematic memories that must be there are entirely obscured by another memory, one so bright that it obliterates all the others as the light of the sun obliterates the feeble light of distant stars. I can’t recall the television programs because I’m blinded by the memory of Ariane.
She watched television with the kind of idle interest that was all the interest she brought to anything then. I now see how bored she was by life, at least by the life that was offered to her or seemed to be accessible to her then. She had finished high school and gone directly to work at Babbington Clam. She was marking time, waiting for her world to expand. Later, it did, but that’s another story. At the time, she was penned, affectionately penned it’s true, like a prize lamb, but penned all the same. Her boyfriends were scrutinized. Her enthusiasms were examined. Her time was monitored. Mr. Lodkochnikov was behind all this. His sons fled his control, spending as much time as possible out of the house, but Ariane may have had nowhere to go, or she may have decided that escaping into the TV room was safer and just as effective as leaving the house. Anyway, she watched a lot of television. The telephone and dates were the only things that kept her from it. Her phone conversations were strictly limited, and she wasn’t allowed on dates during the week, so, from Monday through Friday she watched television all evening and all afternoon. When I became aware of this pattern I contrived to free my afternoons so that I could sit in the dank little room on the lumpy sofa, with the shades drawn, in the electric moonlight of the round-faced set, as close as I could get to Ariane.
At Babbington Clam, her day began at six. She finished at three, and, thanks to the Purlieu Street School, which had eliminated the need for split sessions, so did I. Each morning, my anticipation of the afternoon would begin, and it would distract me throughout the day. By rushing home from school, racing through my chores, leaving my school clothes in a heap, and riding so hard and fast that my legs burned, I could manage to show up at the Lodkochnikovs’ back door, a little out breath, just as the afternoon movie was beginning.
Before I opened the door I executed a little ritual: I rested my hand on the door frame, put my forehead to the glass, and wished that Ariane would be alone. If the weather was good, the two Ernies were usually out somewhere getting into trouble; Raskol, who was disgusted with me for having given up on the tower, was usually out trying to make some money; Mrs. Lodkochnikov was out shopping or doing other chores; and my wish would be granted. When I opened the door, Ariane would just be settling down on the old sofa.
“I’m in here, Peter,” she would call out, “in the TV room.”
[to be continued]
In Topical Guide 621, Mark Dorset considers Memory: Selective from this episode.
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🎧 621: Every afternoon . . .