When it was my turn to go to the Secret Registry, I wasn't sure which one of the many I treasured I would want to keep, but I could only keep one secret and had to turn in my extras for publication in the the public space, along with everyone else's.
It had to be a real secret, not just fantasies or lies, so I had to take in some verification of the secret I wanted to keep, but I couldn't figure out which so I brought along several to talk over with the Divestment Counselor.
I'm torn between three, I told the woman sitting behind the desk. She nodded sympathetically, so I went on.
The first is a secret bank account that I haven't told my partners about. I don't think it has hurt our business but it has given me and my family that extra margin of security we deserve. I pushed a bank balance sheet on the table.
What will you lose if your partners find out? she inquired.
They will be furious and call it embezzlement. It'll be humiliating, of course, and I'll have to divvy it up among everybody but business is doing well though and perhaps I'll get it back. I don't know that they'll ever trust me again though.
Okay, she said, what next?
Well, I'm on the vestry of the church, a leader of the church, and, to tell the truth, I don't believe in the divinity of Jesus. I want to the way my wife does, but the whole thing seems like an answer to a question I'm not asking. Still, I have to read from the scriptures, lead prayers, conduct Bible studies and feel like an imposter saying the things I say..
I put on the desk my father's old prayer book which I use now he's gone, in the margins of which I'd scrawled a few skeptical remarks.
What will happen if they find out? she asked.
Maybe nothing, I answered. It's sometimes more important in people's eyes to support the institution than its premises. But it's my job to set a public example for people to follow, and what kind of role model is a person who doesn't believe what he says.
What about the third?
This is the card of the hotel where for half a year I carried on an affair with the wife of my best friend. She'd get out of class early and I'd leave the office, or sometimes we'd just call in sick, and, oh, those afternoons, those days. The passion, the poignancy. We created a world where the people we weren't ever allowed to be on the outside could find a place, our place, special to us. At the beginning, it was so magical we thought we would be torn apart by the spells we were conjuring. And then, as we began to wake up gradually to who and what we were betraying, it was heartbreaking in a way that nothing has ever been since. Am I foolish to call it beautiful, because that's what it seems to me in reminiscence. It came to an end when she discovered I'd had a stupid one-nighter on a business trip, but that was just the storm that formalized the end of autumn.
Nobody ever knew, not my wife, not her husband, and she died, a respectable and respected lady, of cancer just five years ago. But that tearing off of each other's clothes as soon as the door was closed, and the long loungings in bed together as the late afternoon light slanted through the window. It was our place, our time, our secret selves, ours alone.
Do you know which one you want to keep? she asked.
I nodded, gathered up the balance sheet and the prayer book, and left.
It had to be a real secret, not just fantasies or lies, so I had to take in some verification of the secret I wanted to keep, but I couldn't figure out which so I brought along several to talk over with the Divestment Counselor.
I'm torn between three, I told the woman sitting behind the desk. She nodded sympathetically, so I went on.
The first is a secret bank account that I haven't told my partners about. I don't think it has hurt our business but it has given me and my family that extra margin of security we deserve. I pushed a bank balance sheet on the table.
What will you lose if your partners find out? she inquired.
They will be furious and call it embezzlement. It'll be humiliating, of course, and I'll have to divvy it up among everybody but business is doing well though and perhaps I'll get it back. I don't know that they'll ever trust me again though.
Okay, she said, what next?
Well, I'm on the vestry of the church, a leader of the church, and, to tell the truth, I don't believe in the divinity of Jesus. I want to the way my wife does, but the whole thing seems like an answer to a question I'm not asking. Still, I have to read from the scriptures, lead prayers, conduct Bible studies and feel like an imposter saying the things I say..
I put on the desk my father's old prayer book which I use now he's gone, in the margins of which I'd scrawled a few skeptical remarks.
What will happen if they find out? she asked.
Maybe nothing, I answered. It's sometimes more important in people's eyes to support the institution than its premises. But it's my job to set a public example for people to follow, and what kind of role model is a person who doesn't believe what he says.
What about the third?
This is the card of the hotel where for half a year I carried on an affair with the wife of my best friend. She'd get out of class early and I'd leave the office, or sometimes we'd just call in sick, and, oh, those afternoons, those days. The passion, the poignancy. We created a world where the people we weren't ever allowed to be on the outside could find a place, our place, special to us. At the beginning, it was so magical we thought we would be torn apart by the spells we were conjuring. And then, as we began to wake up gradually to who and what we were betraying, it was heartbreaking in a way that nothing has ever been since. Am I foolish to call it beautiful, because that's what it seems to me in reminiscence. It came to an end when she discovered I'd had a stupid one-nighter on a business trip, but that was just the storm that formalized the end of autumn.
Nobody ever knew, not my wife, not her husband, and she died, a respectable and respected lady, of cancer just five years ago. But that tearing off of each other's clothes as soon as the door was closed, and the long loungings in bed together as the late afternoon light slanted through the window. It was our place, our time, our secret selves, ours alone.
Do you know which one you want to keep? she asked.
I nodded, gathered up the balance sheet and the prayer book, and left.
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