"You're not supposed to go there."

"Don't change the subject. You are so good at that, especially when you're trying to avoid your responsibility."

"Since when was it-"

"You're the only one in the family who can write all this down, Eddie. You've got all the journals here, all the diaries. You still get letters from you-know-who."

"Three in the last forty years. It's scarcely a thriving correspondence. And for God's sake. Marietta, use his name."

"Why should I? I hate the little bastard."

"That's the one thing he certainly isn't, Marietta. Now why don't you just drink your gin and leave me alone?"

"Are you telling me no, Eddie?"

"You don't hear that very often, do you?"

"Eddie…" she simpered.

"Marietta. Darling. I'm not going to throw my life into turmoil because you want me to write a family history."

She gave me a sharp little look and downed her gin in one throatful, setting the glass on the balcony railing. I could tell by the precision of this motion, and her pause before she spoke, that she had an exit line in readiness. She has a fine theatrical flair, my Marietta.

"You don't want to throw your life into turmoil? Don't be so perfectly pathetic. You don't have a life, Eddie. That's why you've got to write this book. If you don't, you're going to die without having done a damn thing."

She knew better of course. I've lived, damn her! Before my injury I had almost as great an appetite for experience as Nicodemus. I take that back. I was never as interested in the sexual opportunities afforded by my travel as he was. He knew all the great bordellos of Europe intimately; I preferred to wander the cathedrals or drink myself into a stupor in a bar.