“Method number two: The question of what to do with one’s arms. This is a difficult one; fidgeting of any sort betrays weakness. Many people, in attempting to portray an air of menace, will cross the arms in front of the torso. That is incorrect. It telegraphs to the target one’s own insecurity, that one must so forcefully project confidence. Much better to keep one’s arms at one’s sides, loose and ready. Rather than mask fidgeting, one demonstrates thereby that one simply isn’t going to fidget.
“Method number three: Cleanliness. Method number three-b: Clean-shavenness. Methods number four through eight, classified. Method number nine: Righteousness. One should never give the appearance of so much as a moment of self-doubt. It should be clear that any violence that one is to visit upon the other, no matter how distasteful personally (see method one), is absolutely necessary from a grander perspective. Method number ten: Dark, freshly-pressed suits.”
~ ~ ~
The FBI agent likes to videotape her when they have sex, holding the camcorder in one hand and pinning down her wrists with the other. At times the lens is just inches from her face. She should not be enjoying this as much as she does, she thinks. But she does. She finds herself noticing security cameras in public places, like grocery stores and home furnishing stores, and thinking of his body pressed down on hers. There are moments while they’re fucking when it seems totally reasonable to mistake the camcorder for his face, to think that the acts of fucking and recording are one and the same.
~ ~ ~
Viola, bored, begins looking through the contents of the FBI agent’s suitcase. “Don’t do that.”
Underneath a layer of shirts identical to the one he’s currently wearing, Viola finds stacks of VHS tapes, each labeled with the date, time, and a set of coordinates. She smirks. “So these are all other girls?”
“No, they’re not.”
“Look, you don’t need to worry about me getting jealous. I am totally not interested in being jealous.”
“They’re not.”
“What are they then?”
The FBI agent tells her that it would be better for her sake if she didn’t know.
“What, this is like a national security thing?”
“No, I just think you’d be happier not knowing.”
Viola pouts. “You don’t have to worry about hiding other women from me. I like the idea that you’ve fucked other women. I like thinking that you’re fucking them all the time. Like, if I turn my back, suddenly there’ll be another woman in the room, and you’ll be fucking her. Like this.” Viola does an impression of the FBI agent fucking another woman, his mouth curled up in a snarl, his eyes slit comically.
“Don’t mock me,” he says.
“I wasn’t mocking you.”
“What you were doing with your face. It was mocking me.”
“What, this?” Viola starts, but then sees his expression and thinks better of it. “Why don’t you show me how you’d really do it, then?” she says, pulling him towards her.
~ ~ ~
“Why are you really here?” Viola asks the FBI agent. They are lying under the pale green sheets.
“I’m really here to spy on you, personally. We have determined that you represent one of the primary threats to our national security.”
“Knew it,” Viola says.
“The present administration recognizes that sadness runs counter to our way of life,” the FBI agent says. “And yet you keep insisting on being sad.”
Viola turns away from him to face the wall. “I already said I’m over it. How many times do I have to tell you? Besides, that doesn’t make any sense, insisting on being sad. I don’t insist on anything.”
~ ~ ~
Robert returns from his vacation in Italy with a small image of Catherine of Alexandria, patron saint of archivists, librarians, and apologists, which had been blessed by the new pope. “It’s very pretty,” Viola says, rubbing her finger over the image in its gold locket.
Viola looks up St. Catherine in a new edition of the Lives of the Saints, Dewey Decimal classification 120, Theology. Catherine’s fame centers on her attempted conversion of the Emperor Maxentius, who, in response, first tortured and imprisoned her, then, when Catherine remained steadfast in her faith, attempted to marry her. The virgin Catherine of course replied that she was betrothed to Christ, an answer that so enraged Maxentius that he tortured her again, this time with a giant spiked wheel. The wheel miraculously flew apart in response to Catherine’s prayers, at which point Maxentius decided to behead her. Modern scholars note that the earliest accounts of Catherine’s life date to five hundred years after her death, and that there is little to no evidence of her existence as a historic personage. In addition to librarians, archivists, and apologists, the Lives notes that she is patron to “millers, potters, spinners, knife-sharpeners, and other persons who work with a wheel.” She is often represented in paintings as a scholar.
Viola looks at the ways her body has stretched from the last several pregnancies. There is a spiderweb of stretch marks across her hips and stomach. If this were for something, she thinks. If this were a sign of something tangible. I can imagine looking down at my body and being proud of what it has done. Holding my child and looking down at the signs of my strong body. But all it has done is spit out failure.
Other times she thinks: This is what I have survived. That itself is worth being proud of.
Does the FBI agent find this sexy, she thinks. Of course he’s noticed. You can’t not notice. How does he interpret these marks on her body? Is it a thing for him? A fetish? She doesn’t like the idea of it being a fetish, though she’s not entirely sure why. What ultimately is the difference between a fetish and simply being attracted to something that other people aren’t?
Robert of course loves her too much for her to ever get the truth out of him.
~ ~ ~
Viola’s talk therapist has new plants. They look better than the old plants. Warmer, somehow. Viola tries to remember if the old plants were fake, and can’t.
“I didn’t think I was settling, with Robert,” Viola says to the talk therapist. “I thought that there were certain things about the relationship that I was very excited about, and other things that I was less excited about but thought that I could live with. Isn’t that true of every relationship?”
“Do you think it’s significant that you keep avoiding discussing your miscarriage?”
“Miscarriages,” Viola says. “Three. And how long could I possibly talk about them?”
Viola’s talk therapist recommends that she start keeping lists of things that she’s grateful for. Viola writes down: Apples. Newly-fallen leaves. The smell of crayons. Bright colors. Internet videos of kittens and other small animals. She looks at her list and thinks, Saccharine. She tears the list out of the spiral-bound notebook she had been writing in and throws it away. She writes, at the top of a fresh sheet of paper: Things That I Am Grateful For. She stares at the sheet for a long time. It occurs to her that the exercise is designed to be saccharine, that the whole idea is to make her a more saccharine and thus more socially-acceptable person.
Viola has bruises on her body but won’t tell Robert where they are from. According to the internet it’s possible that she’s bruising because she’s not getting enough iron.
Robert goes to the grocery store and looks at the iron supplements. In the grocery store he reads a story about how a certain fungus can get into an ant’s brain and take control of its entire motor system, thus causing the ant to act in ways going against the ant’s self-interest. He buys a small bottle of iron supplements and the magazine with the story about the ants.
Robert calls his grandmother from the grocery store parking lot and asks about her salt, whether she’s getting enough of it.
“Robert, it is always so good to hear your voice. How long has it been since you called?”
On the radio during the drive home a reporter talks about the most recent shooting downtown. This is number fou
r.
~ ~ ~
Robert and Viola discuss the nature of love.
“There are stages,” Robert says. “The first stage is infatuation. It is primarily chemical in nature. It is perfectly natural, after a time, for this stage to fade.”
“I could fall back in love with you,” Viola says. “That is an option.”
“How would you do that?”
“I don’t know,” Viola says. “I suppose it would just have to happen.” They are sitting at the kitchen table, eating breakfast. Robert is eating oatmeal with almonds and molasses, and Viola is eating two pieces of toast.
“Are your concerns primarily sexual in nature? Do you need new adventures? Do you feel as though you are stagnating?”
“Is anything primarily sexual in nature?”
“Though you wouldn’t deny that there have been issues.”
“The purpose of love,” Viola says, “from an evolutionary standpoint, is to keep two people together long enough to raise a kid. Of course, there are some pretty compelling arguments for why one should take evolutionary psychology with a grain of salt.”
“It’s not my fault that we haven’t been able to have a kid.”
“Whose fault is it?”
“It’s nobody’s fault. Why does there need to be fault?”
“One of our bodies has had to put up with this,” Viola says. “This constant failure.”
“Is that what this is about?”
“I don’t know what it’s about.”
Viola takes her plate to the sink to rinse it. She thinks: When we were first married, I thought that you were a well of stability, in which I could drown.
Viola places her plate in the dishwasher. She says, “There’s no reason why two adults who get along reasonably well can’t cohabitate, regardless of whether they are actively in love.”
“Is that what you want?” Robert says. “Cohabitation?”
“The current scientific consensus is that love is not a single feeling, but a related cluster of feelings. Though we assume love to be unquestionably a good, studies have found that people in love spend more time sad, or angry, or in other forms of emotional distress than people not in love.”
“I can’t imagine a point in my life when I would not love you,” Robert says, looking down at his bowl.
~ ~ ~
Robert and Viola have dinner with Trey and his date at a new restaurant. All we ever do is go to new places, Viola thinks. The constant churn of the new. Once, newness was invigorating. Now, I am not sure if I could identify the difference between one new place and another.
“Nice to meet you,” Viola says to Trey’s date.
“Oh, we’ve met before,” she says. “Viola, right?”
At the restaurant everyone around them seems to be talking about the secret law. “We are surrounded by enemies,” says one older man sitting to Viola’s right.
“The forces of disorder in all of its many forms,” says his companion.
“Increasing disorder is the fundamental state of the universe,” says a loud young man, several tables away. “Certain actions are necessary to prevent the encroaching of disorder — sometimes horrible actions — actions, that were they publically known, might themselves increase disorder. Actions which must therefore remain concealed. This is the particular insight of the secret law.”
“Jesus,” says Viola.
“Robert tells me that there’s an FBI agent at your library these days,” Trey says.
“I’m not allowed to talk about it,” Viola says.
“NSL?” says Trey. Viola makes a zipping motion over her lips.
Appetizers arrive, in a series of small beautiful bowls.
“I am an optimist,” Trey declares. “I believe in the basic goodness and order of the universe.”
“So you are against the secret law?” Robert asks.
“I believe in the disease theory of crime,” Trey says. “Containment, education. Ultimately, I think, we’ll find biological bases for most forms of criminality.”
“No free will?” Viola asks.
“Why would you want it?” Trey says, his chopsticks hovering above the bowls.
Somewhere around the main course Viola and Robert end up in a fight. No one is sure how it happens, not even Robert and Viola. They are fighting about the secret law, which Robert is in favor of and Viola opposes, except that really they are fighting about the fact that Robert suspects Viola is having an affair.
“Where do you think we’d end up, if anyone could do just anything and not have to worry about the consequences?” Robert says.
“I’m not saying there shouldn’t be consequences,” Viola says. “I’m saying that there shouldn’t be terrible, unforeseeable consequences, carried out in secrecy by men who officially do not exist.”
They are still fighting during the drive home.
“I’m not choosing to feel the way I feel in order to hurt you,” Viola says.
“You know what I think?” Robert says. “I think you like the drama of it. I think instead of dealing with your actual feelings you’ve decided to make this into some big relationship drama.”
“My ‘actual feelings,’” Viola says, making it clear from her tone that she finds the phrase suspect. “I don’t like seeing a therapist, Robert. But I am. Because I am an adult. And I am swallowing my pride and dealing with my ‘actual feelings’ and my mental fucking health like an adult.”
“I’m fine,” Robert says. “I’m not the one who’s — I’m fine.”
They pass adult stores, a mostly abandoned mall, kids too young to still be out walking along the soft shoulder of the road.
“Who are you fucking?” Robert says.
“Robert, Jesus.”
“If you want to leave you should just leave.”
So Viola leaves. She throws open the door at a stoplight and pushes herself out of the car just before the light turns green. Robert is so angry that he accelerates anyway, and drives two blocks with the passenger-side door open. He thinks, I could just drive off. He thinks, She wants to leave, I should let her leave. She can find her own way back. She has a cell phone. He thinks, she has made the decision to jump out of our car in some shitty post-industrial part of town, she’s an adult, she can deal with the consequences of that decision.
Robert slows to a stop, leans over to close the passenger-side door, and takes a series of deep breaths. None of the breaths seem as deep as they should be. It’s like his lungs catch at a certain point and won’t go any further, just before he’s finished breathing all the way in.
He circles back to find Viola.
There’s a motion under a billboard, near where she ran from the car. Robert parks and opens his door and calls out to see if it’s Viola. A moment later there’s a loud crack that sounds exactly like how gunshots sound on television. It takes Robert a moment to realize that the sound was, in fact, a gunshot. Someone runs off into the darkness.
There is a terrible feeling in Robert’s stomach. He can make out another figure underneath the billboard. It’s still moving. Robert runs towards the billboard. He tells himself that it can’t possibly be Viola. It isn’t. “Thank God,” Robert says, out of breath.
“I don’t think I’m going to be okay,” says the man lying on the ground.
“I’m going to call the police,” Robert says. “I thought you were my wife. But I’m going to call the police.”
“I don’t think I’m going to be okay,” the man says. “I’m not going to be okay, am I?” The man is middle-aged, white, well-dressed, with a thick white beard and fat red face. He looks like Santa Claus. He’s lying on his back, clutching at his abdomen.
Robert dials 911 and gives his location. “There’s a man here. I think he’s been shot. I’m pretty sure he’s been shot. I’m not supposed to move him, am I?”
The operator tells Robert not to move him.
“I was pretty sure I wasn’t supposed to move him.”
“Are you alright, sir? A
re you in a safe location?”
Robert thinks about this for a moment. “Oh, God,” he says, and then starts yelling for Viola. “I’m sorry,” he says to the operator. “I have to make another call.”
Viola answers on the first ring. “What’s going on?” she asks. “Why haven’t you been answering your phone? What’s going on? Are you alright?”
“Where are you?” he says. “Can you see the car?”
~ ~ ~
Robert is in a small room at the police station. There are two police officers in the room with him, one small, squat, somehow feminine, the other quite a bit larger and vaguely Slavic looking. They keep asking if Robert would like a cup of coffee. It’s nearly one and Robert is visibly shaking. He would not like a cup of coffee, not really.
“We’re pretty sure you’re not our guy,” the more effeminate officer tells him.
“Good,” Robert says. “That’s good. Especially since you’ve already told me I’m not under any suspicion.”
“For one thing, what motive could you possibly have? For another thing, what did you do with the weapon?” The officer stares at Robert as if waiting for an answer.
“Was that a question?” Robert says, after a moment.
The officer laughs and clasps his hands together. “Oh, you’re good. You’re not going to just walk into a setup like that, are you, Mr. St. Clair? He’s good, Ivan.”
“He said he was a lawyer, didn’t he?” says the second, larger officer. “They’re slippery.”
“I’m not under any suspicion, right?” Robert says. “I thought I wasn’t under any suspicion.”
Does Not Love Page 7
