Natalia
His first serious girlfriend was a smoker, and it nearly left her deaf. (Deaf, not dead.) This is a fact: smoking can affect a person’s hearing. He asked Hendershot once:
“It’s a carcinogen,” Hendershot spat. “What do you expect? That it’ll put the pep back in your step? Smoking performs countless, grievous sins against your body. Just because the Surgeon General doesn’t warn about your eyes falling out, doesn’t mean cigarettes can’t make your eyes fall out.”
“Isn’t that taking it a bit far?”
Jabbing a finger in his face, he snarled, “No, it’s not.”
But still — it’s not something you commonly hear (no pun intended): that cigarettes will leave you deaf. Research hasn’t proved causation, so anti-smoking activists don’t talk much about it; just a bunch of smokers walking around with their hands cupped to their ears. Anyhow, next to the A-bomb of cancer, partial hearing loss looks like a cap gun.
… except, it’s weirdly distressing. His girlfriend, who came from a large Polish family, consumed Marlboro Lights with great relish. She blew smoke out the corner of her mouth, like a little steam engine. Her name was Natalia.
Natalia was also the first person he knew to quit smoking (because of the encroaching deafness), only after they’d graduated high school. By then, any relationship between them had dissolved — but they chanced upon each other years later, on a busy Manhattan street, and thus became reacquainted. She worked in finance. She was dating. He was pleased to see they still got along.
When they walked down the street, she’d always position herself on his right. If he mistakenly stood on her right, Natalia would grasp him by the elbows and swing him around. “No, dumby,” she’d say, “that’s my bad ear. Stand here, so I can hear you better.”
He never asked how she managed to quit. She’d probably always be a little deaf in that ear. Poor Natalia.
