The New Yorker Stories Part 10

"Eventide," Charles says. A circular black barrette holds his hair out of his face. Margaret lost her hat to Lark some time ago and never got around to borrowing another one. Her hair is dusted with snow. "We have to go," Charles says, weighing her hair in his hands, "before the snow woman melts."

Sitting at the kitchen table late that night, I turn to David. "How are you doing?" I whisper.

"A lot of things haven't been going the way I figured," he whispers.

I nod. We are drinking white wine and eating cheddar-cheese soup. The soup is scalding. Clouds of steam rise from the bowl, and I keep my face away from it, worrying that the steam will make my eyes water, and that David will misinterpret.

"Not really things. People," David whispers, bobbing an ice cube up and down in his winegla.s.s with his index finger.

"What people?"

"It's better not to talk about it. They're not really people you know."

That hurts, and he knew it would hurt. But climbing the stairs to go to bed I realize that, in spite of that, it's a very reasonable approach.

Tonight, as I do most nights, I sleep with long johns under my nightgown. I roll over on top of Noel for more warmth and lie there, as he has said, like a dead man, like a man in the Wild West, gunned down in the dirt. Noel jokes about this. "Pow, pow," he whispers sleepily as I lower myself on him. "Poor critter's deader 'n a doornail." I lie there warming myself. What does he want with me?

"What do you want for your birthday?" I ask.

He recites a little list of things he wants. He whispers: a bookcase, an aquarium, a blender to make milkshakes in.

"That sounds like what a ten-year-old would want," I say.

He is quiet too long; I have hurt his feelings.

"Not the bookcase," he says finally.

I am falling asleep. It's not fair to fall asleep on top of him. He doesn't have the heart to wake me and has to lie there with me sprawled on top of him until I fall off. Move, I tell myself, but I don't.

"Do you remember this afternoon, when Patty and I sat on the rock to wait for you and David and Beth?"

I remember. We were on top of the hill, Beth pulling David by his hand, David not very interested in what she was going to show him, Beth ignoring his lack of interest and pulling him along. I ran to catch up, because she was pulling him so hard, and I caught Beth's free arm and hung on, so that we formed a chain.

"I knew I'd seen that before," Noel says. "I just realized where-when the actor wakes up after the storm and sees Death leading those people winding across the hilltop in The Seventh Seal The Seventh Seal."

Six years ago. Seven. David and I were in the Village, in the winter, looking in a bookstore window. Tires began to squeal, and we turned around and were staring straight at a car, a ratty old blue car that had lifted a woman from the street into the air. The fall took much too long; she fell the way snow drifts-the big flakes that float down, no hurry at all. By the time she hit, though, David had pushed my face against his coat, and while everyone was screaming-it seemed as if a whole chorus had suddenly a.s.sembled to scream-he had his arms around my shoulders, pressing me so close that I could hardly breathe and saying, "If anything happened to you... If anything happened to you..."

When they leave, it is a clear, cold day. I give Patty a paper bag with half a bottle of wine, two sandwiches, and some peanuts to eat on the way back. The wine is probably not a good idea; David had three gla.s.ses of vodka and orange juice for breakfast. He began telling jokes to Noel-dogs in bars outsmarting their owners, constipated wh.o.r.es, talking fleas. David does not like Noel; Noel does not know what to make of David.

Now David rolls down the car window. Last-minute news. He tells me that his sister has been staying in his apartment. She aborted herself and has been very sick. "Abortions are legal," David says. "Why did she do that?" I ask how long ago it happened. A month ago, he says. His hands drum on the steering wheel. Last week, Beth got a box of wooden whistles carved in the shape of peasants from David's sister. Noel opened the kitchen window and blew softly to some birds on the feeder. They all flew away.

Patty leans across David. "There are so many animals here, even in the winter," she says. "Don't they hibernate anymore?"

She is making nervous, polite conversation. She wants to leave. Noel walks away from me to Patty's side of the car, and tells her about the deer who come right up to the house. Beth is sitting on Noel's shoulders. Not wanting to talk to David, I wave at her stupidly. She waves back.

David looks at me out the window. I must look as stiff as one of those wooden whistles, all carved out of one piece, in my old blue ski jacket and blue wool hat pulled down to my eyes and my baggy jeans.

"Ciao," David says. "Thanks."

"Yes," Patty says. "It was nice of you to do this." She holds up the bag.

It's a steep driveway, and rocky. David backs down cautiously-the way someone pulls a zipper after it's been caught. We wave, they disappear. That was easy.

Downhill

Walking the dog at 7:30 a.m., I sit on the wet gra.s.s by the side of the road, directly across from the beaver pond and diagonally across from the graveyard. In back of me is a grapevine that I snitch from. The grapes are bitter. The dog lifts a leg on the gravestone, rolls in dead squirrel in the road, comes to my side finally-thank G.o.d none of the commuters ran over him-and licks my wrist. The wet wrist feels awful. I rub it along his back, pa.s.sing it off as a stroke. I do it several times. "Please don't leave me," I say to the dog, who c.o.c.ks his head and settles in the s.p.a.ce between my legs on the gra.s.s.

My mother writes Jon this letter: "Oh, John, we are so happy that September marks the beginning of your last year in law school. My husband said to me Sat.u.r.day (we were at the Turkish restaurant we took you and Maria to when she was recuperating-the one you both liked so much) that now when he gets mad he can say, 'I'll sue!' and mean it. It has been uphill for so long, and now it will be downhill."

Curiously, that week an old friend of Jon's sent us a toy-a small bent-kneed skier who, when placed at the top of a slanting board, would glide to the bottom. I tried to foul up the toy every which way. I even tried making it ski on sandpaper, and it still worked. I tacked the sandpaper to a board, and down it went. The friend had bought it in Switzerland, where he and his wife were vacationing. So said the note in the package that was addressed to Jon, which I tore open because of the unfamiliar handwriting, thinking it might be evidence.

Why do I think Jon is unfaithful? Because it would be logical for him to be unfaithful. Some days I don't even comb my hair. He must leave the house and see women with their hair clean and brushed back from their faces, and he must desire them and then tell them. It is only logical that if he admires the beauty of all the women with neatly arranged hair, one of them will want him to mess it up. It is only logical that she will invite him home. That smile, that suggestion from a woman would lure him as surely as a spring rain makes the earthworms twist out of the ground. It is even hard to blame him; he has a lawyer's logical mind. He remembers things. He would not forget to comb his hair. He would certainly not hack his hair off with manicuring scissors. If he cut his own hair, he would do it neatly, with the correct scissors.

"What have you done?" Jon whispered. Illogical, too, for me to have cut it in the living room-to leave the clumps of curls fallen on the rug. "What have you done?" His hands on my head, feeling my bones, the bones in my skull, looking into my eyes. "You've cut off your hair," he said. He will be such a good lawyer. He understands everything.

The dog enjoys a fire. I cook beef bones for him, and when he is tired of pawing and chewing I light a fire, throwing in several gift pinecones that send off green and blue and orange sparks, and I brush him with Jon's French hairbrush until his coat glows in the firelight. The first few nights I lit the fire and brushed him, I washed the brush afterward, so Jon wouldn't find out. The doctors would tell me that was unreasonable: Jon said he would be gone a week. A logical woman, I no longer bother with washing the brush.

I have a scotch-and-milk before bed. The fire is still roaring, so I bring my pillow to the hearth and stretch out on the bricks. My eyelids get very warm and damp-the way they always did when I cried all the time, which I don't do anymore. After all, this is the fifth night. As the doctors say, one must be adaptable. The dog tires of all the attention and chooses to sleep under the desk in the study. I have to call him twice-the second time firmly-before he comes back to settle in the living room. And when my eyes have been closed for five minutes he walks quietly away, back to the kneehole in the desk. At one time, Jon decided the desk was not big enough. He bought a door and two filing cabinets and made a new desk. The dog, a lover of small, cramped s.p.a.ces, wandered unhappily from corner to corner, no longer able to settle anywhere. Jon brought the old desk back. A very kind man.

Like Columbus's crew, I begin to panic. It has been so long since I've seen Jon. Without him to check on me, I could wander alone in the house and then disappear forever-just vanish while rounding a corner, or by slipping down, down into the bathwater or up into the draft the fire creates. Couldn't that pull me with it-couldn't I go, with the cold air, up the chimney, arms outstretched, with my cupped hands making a parasol? Or while sitting in Jon's chair I might become smaller-become a speck, an ash. The dog would sniff and sniff, and then jump into the chair and settle down upon me and close his eyes.

To calm myself, I make tea. Earl Grey, an imported tea. Imported means coming to; exported means going away. I feel in my bones (my shinbones) that Jon will not come home. But perhaps I am just cold, since the fire is not yet lit. I sip the Earl Grey tea-results will be conclusive.

He said he was going to his brother's house for a week. He said that after caring for me he, also, had to recuperate. I have no hold on him. Even our marriage is common-law-if four years and four months make it common-law. He said he was going to his brother's. But how do I know where he's calling from? And why has he written no letters? In his absence, I talk to the dog. I pretend that I am Jon, that I am logical and rea.s.suring. I tell the dog that Jon needed this rest and will soon be back. The dog grows anxious, sniffs Jon's clothes closet, and hangs close to the security of the kneehole. It has has been a long time. been a long time.

Celebrated my birthday in solitude. Took the phone off the hook so I wouldn't have to "put Jon on" when my parents called. Does the dog know that today is a special day? No day is special without beef bones, but I have forgotten to buy them to create a celebration. I go to the kneehole and stroke his neck in sorrow.

It occurs to me that this is a story of a woman whose man went away. Billie Holiday could have done a lot with it.

I put on a blue dress and go out to a job interview. I order a half cord of wood; there will be money when the man delivers it on Sat.u.r.day. I splurge on canned horsemeat for the dog. "You'll never leave, will you?" I say as the dog eats, stabbing his mouth into the bowl of food. I think, giddily, that a dog is better than a hog. Hogs are only raised for slaughter; dogs are raised to love. Although I know this is true, I would be hesitant to voice this observation. The doctor (gla.s.ses sliding down nose, lower lip pressed to the upper) would say, "Might not some some people love hogs?" people love hogs?"

I dream that Jon has come back, that we do an exotic dance in the living room. Is it, perhaps, the tango? As he leads he tilts me back, and suddenly I can't feel the weight of his arms anymore. My body is very heavy and my neck stretches farther and farther back until my body seems to stretch out of the room, pa.s.sing painlessly through the floor into blackness.

Once when the electricity went off, Jon went to the kitchen to get candles, and I crawled under the bed, loving the darkness and wanting to stay in it. The dog came and curled beside me, at the side of the bed. Jon came back quickly, his hand cupped in front of the white candle. "Maria?" he said. "Maria?" When he left the room again, I slid forward a little to peek and saw him walking down the hallway. He walked so quickly that the candle blew out. He stopped to relight it and called my name louder-so loudly that he frightened me. I stayed there, shivering, thinking him as terrible as the Gestapo, praying that the lights wouldn't come on so he wouldn't find me. Even hiding and not answering was better than that. I put my hands together and blew into them, because I wanted to scream. When the lights came back on and he found me, he pulled me out by my hands, and the scream my hands had blocked came out.

After the hot grape jelly is poured equally into a dozen gla.s.ses, the fun begins. Melted wax is dropped in to seal them. As the white wax drips, I think, If there were anything down in there but jelly it would be smothered. I had laid in no cheesecloth, so I pulled a pair of lacy white underpants over a big yellow bowl, poured the jelly mixture through that.

In the morning Jon is back. He walks through the house to see if anything is amiss. Our clothes are still in the closets; all unnecessary lights have been turned off. He goes into the kitchen and then is annoyed because I have not gone grocery shopping. He has some toast with the grape jelly. He spoons more jelly from the gla.s.s to his mouth when the bread is gone.

"Talk to me, Maria. Don't shut me out," he says, licking the jelly from his upper lip. He is like a child, but one who orders me to do and feel things.

"Feel this arm," he says. It is tight from his chopping wood at his brother's camp.

I met his brother once. Jon and his brother are twins, but very dissimilar. His brother is always tan-wide and short, with broad shoulders. Asleep, he looks like the logs that he chops. When Jon and I were first dating we went to his brother's camp, and the three of us slept in a tent because the house was not yet built. Jon's brother snored all night. "I hate it here," I whispered to Jon, shivering against him. He tried to soothe me, but he wouldn't make love to me there. "I hate your brother," I said, in a normal tone of voice, because his brother was snoring so loudly he'd never hear me. Jon put his hand over my mouth. "Sh-h-h," he said. "Please." Naturally, Jon did not invite me on this trip to see him. I explain all this to the dog now, and he is hypnotized. He closes his eyes and listens to the drone of my voice. He appreciates my hand stroking in tempo with my sentences. Jon pushes the jelly away and stares at me. "Stop talking about something that happened years ago," he says, and stalks out of the room.

The wood arrives. The firewood man has a limp; he's missing a toe. I asked, and he told me. He's a good woodman-the toe was lost canoeing. Jon helps him stack the logs in the shed. I peek in and see that there was already a lot more wood than I thought.

Jon comes into the house when the man leaves. His face is heavy and ugly.

"Why did you order more wood?" Jon says.

"To keep warm. I have to keep warm."

I fix a beef stew for dinner, but feed it to the dog. He is transfixed; the steam warns him it is too hot to eat, yet the smell is delicious. He laps tentatively at the rim of the bowl, like an epicure sucking in a single egg of caviar. Finally, he eats it all. And then there is the bone, which he carries quickly to his private place under the desk. Jon is furious; I have prepared something for the dog but not for us.

"This has got to stop," he whispers in my face, his hand tight around my wrist.

The dog and I climb to the top of the hill and watch the commuters going to work in their cars. I sit on a little canvas stool-the kind fishermen use-instead of the muddy ground. It is September-mud everywhere. The sun is setting. Wide white clouds hang in the air, seem to cl.u.s.ter over this very hilltop. And then Jon's face is glowing in the clouds-not a vision, the real Jon. He is on the hilltop, clouds rolling over his head, saying to me that we have reached the end. Mutiny on the Santa Maria! But I only sit and wait, staring straight ahead. How curious that this is the end. He sits in the mud, calls the dog to him. Did he really just say that to me? I repeat it: "We have reached the end."

"I know," he says.

The dog walks into the room. Jon is at the desk. The kneehole is occupied, so the dog curls in the corner. He did not always circle before lying down. Habits are acquired, however late. Like the furniture, the plants, the cats left to us by the dead, they take us in. We think we are taking them in, but they take us in, demand attention.

I demand attention from Jon, at his desk at work, his legs now up in the lotus position on his chair to offer the dog his fine resting place.

"Jon, Jon!" I say, and dance across the room. I posture and prance. What a good lawyer he will be; he shows polite interest.

"I'll set us on fire," I say.

That is going too far. He shakes his head to deny what I have said. He leads me by my wrist to bed, pulls the covers up tightly. If I were a foot lower down in the bed I would smother if he kept his hands on those covers. Like grape jelly.

"Will there be eggs and bacon, and grape jelly on toast, for breakfast?" I ask.

There will be. He cooks for us now.

I am so surprised. When he brings the breakfast tray I find out that today today is my birthday. There are snapdragons and roses. He kisses my hands, lowers the tray gently to my lap. The tea steams. The phone rings. I have been hired for the job. His hand covers the mouthpiece. Did I go for a job? He tells them there was a mistake, and hangs up and walks away, as if from something dirty. He walks out of the room and I am left with the hot tea. Tea is boiled so it can cool. Jon leaves so he can come back. Certain of this, I call and they both come-Jon and the dog-to settle down with me. We have come to the end, yet we are safe. I move to the center of the bed to make room for Jon; tea sloshes from the cup. His hand goes out to steady it. There's no harm done-the saucer contains it. He smiles, approvingly, and as he sits down his hand slides across the sheet like a rudder through still waters. is my birthday. There are snapdragons and roses. He kisses my hands, lowers the tray gently to my lap. The tea steams. The phone rings. I have been hired for the job. His hand covers the mouthpiece. Did I go for a job? He tells them there was a mistake, and hangs up and walks away, as if from something dirty. He walks out of the room and I am left with the hot tea. Tea is boiled so it can cool. Jon leaves so he can come back. Certain of this, I call and they both come-Jon and the dog-to settle down with me. We have come to the end, yet we are safe. I move to the center of the bed to make room for Jon; tea sloshes from the cup. His hand goes out to steady it. There's no harm done-the saucer contains it. He smiles, approvingly, and as he sits down his hand slides across the sheet like a rudder through still waters.

Wanda's

When May's mother went to find her father, May was left with her Aunt Wanda. She wasn't really an aunt; she was a friend of her mother's who ran a boardinghouse. Wanda called it a boardinghouse, but she rarely accepted boarders. There was only one boarder, who had been there six years. May had stayed there twice before. The first time was when she was nine, and her mother left to find her father, Ray, who had gone to the West Coast and had vacationed too long in Laguna Beach. The second time was when her mother was hung over and had to have "a little rest," and she left May there for two days. The first time, she left her for almost two weeks, and May was so happy when her mother came back that she cried. "Where did you think Laguna Beach was?" her mother said. "A hop, skip, and a jump? Honey, Laguna Beach is practically across the world."

The only thing interesting about Wanda's is her boarder, Mrs. Wong. Mrs. Wong once gave May a little octagonal box full of pastel paper circles that spread out into flowers when they were dropped in water. Mrs. Wong let her drop them in her fishbowl. The only fish in the fishbowl is made of bright-orange plastic and is suspended in the middle of the bowl by a sinker. There are many brightly colored things in Mrs. Wong's room, and May is allowed to touch all of them. On her door Mrs. Wong has a little heart-shaped piece of paper with "Ms. Wong" printed on it.

Wanda is in the kitchen, talking to May. "Eggs don't have many calories, but if you eat eggs the cholesterol kills you," Wanda says. "If you eat sauerkraut there's not many calories, but there's a lot of sodium, and that's bad for the heart. Tuna fish is full of mercury-what's that going to do to a person? Who can live on chicken? You know enough, there's nothing for you to eat."

Wanda takes a hair clip out of her pants pocket and clips back her bangs. She puts May's lunch in front of her-a bowl of tomato soup and a slice of lemon meringue pie. She puts a gla.s.s of milk next to the soup bowl.

"They say that after a certain age milk is no good for you-you might as well drink poison," she says. "Then you read somewhere else that Americans don't have enough milk in their diet. I don't know. You decide what you want to do about your milk, May."

Wanda sits down, lights a cigarette, and drops the match on the floor.

"Your dad really picks swell times to disappear. The hot months come, and men go mad. What do you think your dad's doing in Denver, honey?"

May shrugs, blows on her soup.

"How do you know, huh?" Wanda says. "I ask dumb questions. I'm not used to having kids around." She bends to pick up the match. The tops of her arms are very fat. There are little b.u.mps all over them.

"I got married when I was fifteen," Wanda says. "Your mother got married when she was eighteen-she had three years on me-and what's she do but drive all around the country rounding up your dad? I was twenty-one the second time I got married, and that would have worked out fine if he hadn't died."

Wanda goes to the refrigerator and gets out the lemonade. She swirls the container. "Shaking bruises it," she says, making a joke. She pours some lemonade and tequila into a gla.s.s and takes a long drink.

"You think I talk to you too much?" Wanda says. "I listen to myself and it seems like I'm not really conversing with you-like I'm a teacher or something."

May shakes her head sideways.

"Yeah, well, you're polite. You're a nice kid. Don't get married until you're twenty-one. How old are you now?"

"Twelve," May says.

After lunch, May goes to the front porch and sits in the white rocker. She looks at her watch-a present from her father-and sees that one of the hands is straight up, the other straight down, between the Road Runner's legs. It is twelve-thirty. In four and a half hours she and Wanda will eat again. At Wanda's they eat at nine, twelve, and five. Wanda worries that May isn't getting enough to eat. Actually, she is always full. She never feels like eating. Wanda eats almost constantly. She usually eats bananas and Bit-O-Honey candy bars, which she carries in her shirt pocket. The shirt belonged to her second husband, who drowned. May found out about him a few days ago. At night, Wanda always comes into her bedroom to tuck her in. Wanda calls it tucking in, but actually she only walks around the room and then sits at the foot of the bed and talks. One of the stories she told was about her second husband, Frank. He and Wanda were on vacation, and late at night they sneaked onto a fishing pier. Wanda was looking at the lights of a boat far in the distance when she heard a splash. Frank had jumped into the water. "I'm cooling off !" Frank hollered. They had been drinking, so Wanda just stood there laughing. Then Frank started swimming. He swam out of sight, and Wanda stood there at the end of the pier waiting for him to swim back. Finally she started calling his name. She called him by his full name. "Frank Marshall!" she screamed at the top of her lungs. Wanda is sure that Frank never meant to drown. They had been very happy at dinner that night. He had bought her brandy after dinner, which he never did, because it was too expensive to drink anything but beer in restaurants.

May thinks that is very sad. She remembers the last time she saw her father. It was when her mother took the caps off her father's film containers and spit into them. He grabbed her mother's arm and pushed her out of the room. "The great artist!" her mother hollered, and her father's face went wild. He has a long, straight nose (May's is snubbed, like her mother's) and long, brown hair that he ties back with a rubber band when he rides his motorcycle. Her father is two years younger than her mother. They met in the park when he took a picture of her. He is a professional photographer.

May picks up the National Enquirer National Enquirer and begins to read an article about how Sophia Loren tried to save Richard Burton's marriage. In a picture, Sophia holds Carlo Ponti's hand and beams. Wanda subscribes to the and begins to read an article about how Sophia Loren tried to save Richard Burton's marriage. In a picture, Sophia holds Carlo Ponti's hand and beams. Wanda subscribes to the National Enquirer National Enquirer. She cries over the stories about crippled children, and prays for them. She answers the ads offering little plants for a dollar. "I always get suckered in," she says. "I know they just die." She talks back to the articles and chastises Richard for ever leaving Liz, and Liz for ever having married Eddie, and Liz for running around with a used-car salesman, and all the doctors who think they have a cure for cancer.

After lunch, Wanda takes a nap and then a shower. Afterward, there is always bath powder all over the bathroom-even on the mirror. Then she drinks two shots of tequila in lemonade, and then she fixes dinner. Mrs. Wong comes back from the library punctually at four o'clock. May looks at Wanda's National Enquirer National Enquirer. She turns the page, and Paul Newman is swimming in water full of big chunks of ice.

Mrs. Wong's first name is Maria. Her name is written neatly on her notebooks. "Imagine having a student living under my roof !" Wanda says. Wanda went to a junior college with May's mother but dropped out after the first semester. Wanda and May's mother have often talked about Mrs. Wong. From them May learned that Mrs. Wong married a Chinese man and then left him, and she has a fifteen-year-old son. On top of that, she is studying to be a social worker. "That ought to give her an opportunity to marry a Negro," May's mother said to Wanda. "The Chinese man wasn't far out enough, I guess."

Mrs. Wong is back early today. As she comes up the sidewalk, she gives May the peace sign. May gives the peace sign, too.

"Your mama didn't write, I take it," Mrs. Wong says.

May shrugs.

"I write my son, and my husband rips up the letters," Mrs. Wong says. "At least when she does write you'll get it." Mrs. Wong sits down on the top step and takes off her sandals. She rubs her feet. "Get to the movies?" she asks.

"She always forgets."

"Remind her," Mrs. Wong says. "Honey, if you don't practice by a.s.serting yourself with women, you'll never be able to a.s.sert yourself with men."

May wishes that Mrs. Wong were her mother. It would be nice if she could keep her father and have Mrs. Wong for a mother. But all the women he likes are thin and blond and young. That's one of the things her mother complains about. "Do you wish I strung beads beads?" her mother shouted at him once. May sometimes wishes that she could have been there when her parents first met. It was in the park, when her mother was riding a bicycle, and her father waved his arms for her to stop so he could take her picture. Her father has said that her mother was very beautiful that day-that he decided right then to marry her.

"How did you meet your husband?" May asks Mrs. Wong.

"I met him in an elevator."

"Did you go out with him for a long time before you got married?"

"For a year."