face she could never see, his mouth so sweet it was like eating candy to kiss him, made 
violent Jove to her. Only this time the fire that burned in the grate close by showed her 
the face of her dream lover, and it had been Gentle's face. The shock, after so many 
years of never knowing who the man was, woke her, but with such a sense of loss at this 
interrupted coitus she couldn't sleep again for mourning it. The next day she'd 
discovered his whereabouts from Klein, who'd warned her in no uncertain manner that John 
Zacharias was bad news for tender hearts. She'd ignored the warning and gone to see him 
that very afternoon, in the studio off the Edgware Road. They scarcely left it for the 
next two weeks, their passion putting her dreams to shame.
  Only later, when she was in love with him and it was too late for common sense to 
qualify her feelings, did she learn more about him. He trailed a reputation for 
womanizing that, even if it was ninety percent invention, as she assumed, was still 
prodigious. If she mentioned his name in any circle, however jaded it was by gossip, 
there was always somebody who had some tidbit about him. He even went by a variety of 
names. Some referred to him as the Furie; some as Zach or Zacho, or Mr. Zee; others 
called him Gentle, which was the name she knew him by, of course; still others, John the 
Divine. Enough names for half a dozen lifetimes. She wasn't so blindly devoted to him 
that she didn't accept there was truth in these rumors. Nor did he do much to temper 
them. He liked the air of legend that hung about his head. He claimed, for instance, not 
to know how old he was. Like herself, he had a very slippery grasp on the past. And he 
frankly admitted to being obsessed with her sex. Some of the talk she'd heard was of 
cradle-snatching; some of deathbed fucks: he played no favorites.
  So, here was her Gentle: a man known to the doormen of every exclusive club and hotel 
in the city; who, after ten years of high living had survived the ravages of every 
excess; who was still lucid, still handsome, still alive. And this same man, this Gentle, 
told her he was in love with her and put the words together so perfectly she disregarded 
all she'd heard but those he spoke.
  She might have gone on listening forever but for her rage, which was the legend she 
trailed. A volatile thing, apt to ferment in her without her even being aware of it. That 
had been the case with Gentle. After half a year of their affair, she'd begun to wonder, 
wallowing in his affection, how a man whose history had been one infidelity after another 
had mended his ways; which thought led to the possibility that perhaps he hadn't. In fact 
she had no reason to suspect him. His devotion bordered on the obsessive in some moods, 
as though he saw in her a woman she didn't even know herself, an ancient soul mate. She 
was, she began to think, unlike any other woman he'd ever met, the love that had changed 
his life. When they were so intimately joined, how would she not know if he was cheating 
on her? She'd have surety sensed the other woman. Tasted her on his tongue, or smelled 
her on his skin. And if not there, then in the subtleties of their exchanges. But she'd 
underestimated him. When, by the sheerest fluke, she'd j discovered he had not one other 
woman on the side but two, it drove her to near insanity. She began by destroying the 
contents of the studio, slashing all his canvases, painted or not, then tracking the 
felon himself and mounting an assault that literally brought him to his knees, in fear 
for his balls.
  The rage burned a week, after which she fell totally silent for three days: a silence 
broken by a grief like nothing she'd ever experienced before. Had it not been for her 
chance meeting with Estabrook-who saw through her tumbling, distracted manner to the 
woman she was-she might well have taken her own life.
  Thus the tale of Judith and Gentle: one death short of tragedy, and a marriage short of 
farce.
  She found Marlin already home, uncharacteristically agitated.
  "Where have you been?" he wanted to know. "It's six-thirty-nine."
  She instantly knew this was no time to be telling him what her trip to Bloomingdale's 
had cost her in peace of mind. Instead she lied. "I couldn't get a cab. I had to walk."
  "If that happens again, just call me. I'll have you picked up by one of our limos. I 
don't want you wandering the streets. It's not safe. Anyhow, we're late. We'll have to 
eat after the performance."
  "What performance?"
  "The show in the Village that Troy was yabbering about last night, remember? The 
Neo-Nativity? He said it was the best thing since Bethlehem."
  "It's sold out."
  "I have my connections." He gleamed.
  "We're going tonight?"
  "Not if you don't move your ass."
  "Marlin, sometimes you're sublime" she said, dumping her purchases and racing to change.
  "What about the rest of the time?" he hollered after her. "Sexy? Irresistible? 
Beddable?" .
  If indeed he'd secured the tickets as a way of bribing her between the sheets, he 
suffered for his lust. He concealed his boredom through the first act, but by 
intermission he was itching to be away to claim his prize.
  "Do we really need to stay for the rest?" he asked her as they sipped coffee in the 
tiny foyer. "I mean, it's not like there's any mystery about it. The kid gets born, the 
kid grows up, the kid gets crucified."
  "I'm enjoying it."
  "But it doesn't make any sense," he complained, in deadly earnest. The show's 
eclecticism offended his rationalism deeply. "Why were the angels playing jazz?"
  "Who knows what angels do?"
  He shook his head. "I don't know whether it's a comedy or a satire or what the hell it 
is," he said. "Do you know what it is?"
  "I think it's very funny."
  "So you'd like to stay?"
  "I'd like to stay."
  The second half was even more of a grab bag than the first, the suspicion growing in 
Judc as she watched that the parody and pastiche was a smokescreen put up to cover the 
creators' embarrassment at their own sincerity. In the end, with Charlie Parker angels 
wailing on the stable roof and Santa crooning at the manger, the piece collapsed into 
high camp. But even that was oddly moving. The child was born. Light had come into the 
world again, even if it was to the accompaniment of tap-dancing elves.
  When they exited, there was sleet in the wind.
  "Cold, cold, cold," Marlin said. "I'd better take a leak."
  He went back inside to join the line for the toilets, leaving Jude at the door, 
watching the blobs of wet snow pass through the lamplight. The theater was not large, and 
the bulk of the audience was out in a couple of minutes, umbrellas raised, heads dropped, 
darting off into the Village to look for their cars, or a place where they could put some 
drink in their systems and play critic. The light above the .front door was switched off, 
and a cleaner emerged from the theater with a black plastic bag of rubbish and a broom 
and began to brush the foyer, ignoring Jude-who was the last visible occupant-until he 
reached her, when he gave her a glance of such venom she decided to put up her umbrella 
and stand on the darkened step. Marlin was taking his time emptying his bladder. She only 
hoped he wasn't titivating himself, slicking his hair and freshening his breath in the 
hope of talking her into bed.