Small Silent Things

by Robin Page

  “Every one of them.”

  “Do I have to give any to Mama?”

  “Nope,” he says. “I got Mama her own thing.”

  “What did you get her?” Lucy asks. Her look is suspicious. The gift had better not be better than her own.

  “Go get it from Papa’s bag.”

  Lucy runs to the corner. There is always a gift for both of them. Lucy searches the leather messenger bag.

  “It’s a tiny blue box,” Conrad says. “Robin’s egg blue. Your mother will think she knows where it comes from, but I am tricking her.”

  Jocelyn smiles. Lucy runs back with it.

  “Open it, Mama! Open it!”

  Jocelyn does as she is told and inside she finds an intricate ring, shaped like a snake. The eyes are green emeralds, the tongue is a series of small, clear diamonds and rubies.

  “It’s beautiful, Conrad. Thank you. You always think of us.”

  “I got myself something too,” he says, winking at her. “From La Perla.”

  “What’s La Perla?” Lucy says. “I want to see.”

  “Oh, God,” Jocelyn says to him. “She’ll go to school and say it.”

  “It’s French for ‘a pearl,’” Conrad says.

  “Not French, smart boy,” Jocelyn says. “It’s Italian for pearl.”

  “Is there an oyster?” Lucy asks.

  “Absolutely,” Conrad says. “An oyster shell and a pearl. I’ll show it to you after school.”

  “Did you hear that, Mama? A pearl and an oyster shell. Not for you.”

  “Can’t wait to see it,” Jocelyn says, laughing, and wonders how Conrad will produce an oyster shell before the end of the school day. Lucy isn’t likely to forget.

  “It’s just for us, right, Papa? The oyster shell is just for us. Mama can have the pearl.”

  “Just us,” Conrad says, confirming their exclusive tribe.

  “Yes!” Lucy shrieks and runs. When she gets to the opposite side of the room from her father, she turns and sways from side to side. “You owe me forty-nine spitty kisses, Papa. Me and Mama figured it out last night.”

  “You’re kidding?” Conrad says, and starts to stalk her. He is sneaky and intense as a panther.

  Lucy screams. “Help, Mama! He’s going to get me.”

  “That’s right,” Conrad says. “I’m getting as many kisses as I can before you go to school.”

  3

  THE LA PERLA BAG HAS THREE SETS OF LINGERIE. ONE SET IS PINK. ANOTHER all black except a bit of purple piping. The third is forest green.

  “Which one?” she asks.

  “All of them,” he says, lying back on their bed.

  Lucy has been dropped off at school. She and her father argue as they go out the door about how many kisses are still owed.

  “All of them?” Jocelyn says, feeling instantly shy, but enjoying it all the same.

  “You show me all of them with heels. No, maybe boots. What shoes have you got? When I’ve seen them all, then I’ll pick. I’ll decide what you wear.”

  She likes how excited he is. She likes it when he tells her what to do. If it is outside her, she can let so much go.

  “It’s the middle of the day,” she says, wanting to make him wait a little.

  “I’ve got all the time in the world,” he says, his blue eyes dancing.

  She reaches for the pink panties, the sheer pink camisole.

  “Not that one,” he says. “I’ve changed my mind. I want it to be a little raunchier. A show. That’s a bit sweet.”

  She smiles, picks the green one, holds it up for him to see. There are garters and stockings too.

  “You’re so beautiful, Jocelyn.” He is unbuttoning his jeans, adjusting the pillows behind him. “You’re so good to me.”

  4

  WHEN THEY ARE FINISHED, SHE THINKS OF TELLING HIM. JUST BEING OUT with it. He is in a good mood. Her orgasm has made her feel like a college student—languorous and lean in bed. All things seem possible. She wonders now if the depression she has been feeling is hormonal, or even physical—a lack of sex and closeness. She doesn’t want to give the death of her mother too much credit. She reminds herself that Conrad has forgiven her over the years for everything. He forgave her the day they met for who she was, for the fact that she didn’t save Ycidra or William or herself when she could have. It is one of the things that she loves about him. Can he forgive her for this?

  I want to fuck my tennis coach, she says internally to picture how it will sound. I’ve touched her. She put her fingers between my legs. I do not understand it, except to say that it is chemical. It is beyond me, like hunger or breathing.

  If Kate were a man, she wouldn’t even consider telling him. Conrad would get a man fired, but the fact that she is a woman makes it an eccentricity, a potential turn-on. She starts to say it, but it feels heavier than that. It feels as if it could ruin them. Forget it, she thinks. It is nothing. He is back. I have decided to be different. Is a touch worth ruining a lifetime, a family? He is smiling at her.

  “Wanna do it again?” he asks.

  “No way,” she says. The Marant boots are on her feet. They are the only article of clothing that she still has on. She climbs on top of him. She presses the soft suede of the boots against his thighs. This is his favorite position for her, besides on her belly. “I’m going to be late for therapy as it is,” she says, and kisses him chastely on both cheeks. “Then I have drill. Don’t you work anymore?”

  “It’s supposed to rain,” he says. “Go to therapy and then come back to me. Immediately!” A pretend command. “You should just stay with me all the time, my love. No tennis today.”

  She likes that he says this, but the thought of not seeing Kate at all makes her feel as anxious as an addict. I will see her. I will behave. It will be different.

  “Are you working today?” she asks, again.

  “I’m always working, babe.”

  He closes his eyes, leans his head back. He will be asleep in one minute.

  “I’m going,” she says. “I really need the exercise.”

  Without opening his eyes, he says, “Stay here. Exercise with me.”

  “I’D LIKE YOU TO PUT IT IN A BOX,” DR. BRUCE SAYS. “CAN YOU SEE THE box?”

  The therapist is teaching Jocelyn a new strategy. It is a way to deal with inexplicable grief or sudden memories. Jocelyn doesn’t want to be there. She wishes she didn’t have to learn strategies. She wishes she could just play tennis, be normal. She wonders what it will feel like to see Kate today. Will it have dissipated? Will it be the same? She is frightened—roller-coaster scared—but she reminds herself it was nothing . . . is nothing. A touch. A fantasy. I’ve decided.

  Of all the days for this to be, it seems as if Dr. Bruce has an agenda. She is pushy, piercing, more focused. She suggests that Jocelyn is not present in the moment.

  “Be here now, Jocelyn. I’m trying to help you.”

  “I know. I know,” she says.

  “Close your eyes, please. We can practice here. We keep skirting issues.”

  Jocelyn closes her eyes. She laughs a little without meaning to. She feels like a slaphappy teenager.

  “Try to be open, please.”

  “Okay,” she says. “I’m sorry. I’m distracted. My husband just got home.”

  “Picture a box,” the therapist says, ignoring the excuses. “Give yourself some time to see it.”

  Jocelyn doesn’t picture a box. Jocelyn counts. She wonders. Can she and Kate be friends?

  “Can you see the box?” the therapist says.

  “Not really,” Jocelyn says, and opens her eyes.

  “Close your eyes,” the therapist says, patiently. “Maybe a mailbox. It should have a lid.”

  “A lid?” Jocelyn asks, thinking how stupid she feels.

  “Yes. Or a lock. Just try. Please. It’s just off to the left of you. The box is to your left. Picture it.”

  She closes her eyes. She tries. Feels tense. Pretends she can see it. “Okay,�
� she says. “I see it.”

  “Now take the thing you don’t want to look at, or the thing that is whirling around in your mind right now, and put it in there. It can be Gladys, or Uncle Al, or your brother’s death or your sister’s, your husband coming home. You can get it out again, so don’t worry. Don’t worry, okay?”

  “Okay,” Jocelyn says. She tries to put Kate in the box, almost laughs. She breathes deeply to stop herself. She waits several minutes, staying still, figures this is the only way out of the office. She waits a few more seconds for good measure and then opens her eyes. Tries to seem changed.

  “How was that?” Dr. Bruce says, intensely hopeful.

  “Good,” she says, knowing what’s expected of her. “Thank you. I do feel calmer.”

  “Great,” the therapist says. “You can do this at home, on your own.”

  Jocelyn reminds herself that the therapist can’t possibly know she’s lying. It’s only me, she tells herself. I’m the only one in here.

  SHE DRIVES TO THE CLUB AND FINDS A PARKING SPOT THAT FEELS AS IF it’s a mile away from the entrance. She is still slightly silly from the session, but in the parking lot, she tries the strategy again. She really does want to get better. She wants to have control over the things that come into her head. She waits, eyes closed, but nothing. All of it is still right there, stalking. No box. No lock. No lid.

  Her phone buzzes, startling her. She opens her eyes, looks at the screen: Kate.

  KATE: Are you coming? Looks like rain. Might not be a long drill.

  She leans forward, looking up at the sky and out the car’s front window. It’s gray, but who knows? It’s California.

  KATE: I want to talk . . . maybe?

  Jocelyn smiles. Giddiness returns.

  JOCELYN: Yes.

  Her heart beats fast. Talk, she thinks. Her hands tremble. She texts again with shaky fingers.

  JOCELYN: I’m here, in the parking lot. Absolutely. Yes to the drill. Yes to the talk.

  Her breath comes fast. Her heart pounds. Just minutes before she had decided. Conrad. Motherhood. How does she do this to me?

  Chapter Ten

  Simon

  1

  HE IS BLOCKED, WHICH HAPPENS OFTEN. HIS WORK IS ARTISTIC. IDEAS don’t just fall from the sky. He feels distracted. He thinks about the future. He thinks about the dog on the road. He sits and stares and stares at the table, at the blueprints, and still nothing happens. He thinks Lucy could help him, if she were here. She has a beginner’s mind, but she isn’t here. He and the pygmy are the only people in the room, and the pygmy never helps.

  The whole condominium is silent except for the ticking of his kitchen clock, the soft ebb and flow of waves outside his window, and none of that helps him focus. He looks at the front door. He’d like to see beyond its wood veneer, into the carpeted hallway and into the family-filled home of Lucy. Earlier, he heard the father—his return, from wherever he was. It was a jubilant one, happiness, the thud of his suitcase hitting the floor and then Papa, Papa, Lucy saying, and her father: My lovey, I’ve missed you, and then envy throbbing in his own body like a beating heart.

  He touches the letter in his front shirt pocket, but it makes him feel heavier. He goes to get the newspaper. He’ll read. Sometimes if he can relax, the answers will come.

  The pygmy laughs in the other chair when he sees Simon. He requests the comics as Simon walks by. “You are not real,” he says aloud, but still, he is compelled to place the comics on the chair.

  He sits in his own chair, stares at the blurring page. He will read and connect again to the world outside. The front page is the same as yesterday, and he knows that if he looks at the front page every day of his life it will always be the same. The gospel, he thinks. Bring the good news, but it is never that. It is always something hideous, a parade of horribles: terrorists beheading the innocent on television, children accidentally gunned down in the street, police brutality. This time, it is a gunfight in a disco in Orlando. The man pent up, unable to face his sexual desires. They call the shooter a terrorist, but really? He’s just a man, insecure and intentional like other men. Like the men in Kigali, like Abrahm, like himself.

  War is everywhere now. Men and women and children are killed every day, but what was the beginning? What was the first link in the chain? A dictator’s demise? The conflation of news and entertainment? An uneducated electorate? A staff and a hat and a cow? White people call themselves victims now. It is hard to hear the nonsense.

  There is the claim that there will be a woman president. He knows that it will not happen, but the innocent Americans believe. He remembers her. He remembers her husband too. How could he forget? Genocide? she said, and he said, although not with their own lips. Let’s talk about the definition of genocide. People float like logs in the river. They bubble up like pasta in a hot pot. A vision, he realizes (not really here), although he sees it in front of him on the newspaper page. He knows to stay calm. We will send them by the river, Mugesera said. The words and images are a truth, but not an article on the front page of the Los Angeles Times. It isn’t happening here, now, in the penthouse on Pacific Coast Highway, he adamantly reminds himself.

  He does not want to have an attack, so he must ground himself. But sometimes things come without warning. The speed of it all, the American president said, as if confused. My entire family gone: my mother, my father, my grandmother, my six brothers, my two sisters. My wife, which is separate. My daughter? Everyone dead so quickly.

  The pygmy is laughing, a high-pitched barking. It reminds Simon of a seal. He reads a joke aloud. Simon doesn’t find it funny. The pygmy readjusts himself, sits as a bird, perched—his webbed feet hanging over the edge of the chair. Simon tries again to make him disappear, and this time it works, and it is only he in the condominium, and the newspaper, and the real words come clear on the page, like a photo in a darkroom.

  He forces his eyes to read, to continue, to fight back. If he looks up, the pygmy might reappear. He reads two other bits of news, and then there is this: a Nazi SS man has been tracked down in Argentina. They are returning him to Vienna for extradition. He will be prosecuted for crimes committed in an almost ancient history, in another land.

  How is it possible? Simon thinks, seeing the black ink on the page, and then the paint on his hands from his work. The brown skin of his forearms is ashy and veiny. He has grown lean. How is it possible?

  Three months after the genocide (not war—he will never call it civil war), the Hutus were free, living among them, and almost seventy years after the fact, the United States and the Jews are still pursuing the Nazis with the vigor of rabid dogs. Relentlessly they work to return lost works of art. Art? he thinks. Art?

  Lost limbs. Lost lips, lost ears, he remembers. Babies cut out of mothers. He remembers Claudette’s little coat hanging on a peg when he came home from work. A straw shared with his brother—banana beer.

  Suddenly he has a strange wish to shoot someone—envy and anger and instant forlornness overwhelm him. He remembers rain in the long months, slanting sideways through the window. Vestine, her beautiful arms, smiling across a pillow at him. He thinks about the dogs, violating the corpses that had already been violated by men. He thinks about the dog on the 10 freeway, waiting for whom? The dogs were hungry. That’s all they were. How was that more offensive?

  The white men in blue berets looked on while the Hutus cut them, while they dropped them with tied hands into the river, while they raped their women: A woman on her back has no ethnic group, he remembers. Then laughing. A slap on the back, next in line. Vestine. We are all essentially animals.

  The children sat on the corpses of their mothers. The men in blue berets shot the dogs when they ate the dying. A completely quiet country after that. Let’s talk about the definition of genocide. As if it were a question of semantics.

  He knows the American difference, of course, between Jews and Rwandans and dogs, but he doesn’t like to think on it.

  Chapter Eleven />
  Jocelyn

  1

  SHE FEELS ANXIOUS AFTER KATE’S TEXT. THE SKY IS OMINOUS—AS GRAY as an elephant. She knows the earth needs rain, but Jocelyn wants to exercise before she talks to Kate. She wants to hit balls. She wants to run laps and then she supposes she will be calm enough to talk.

  She gathers her tennis gear and heads to the court. She can already hear Kate’s voice. Her body shivers. She considers turning around. They can’t do this. They have to do it. I have to do it. Talk. That’s it. What will she say? We’ll talk. No big deal.

  She arrives on court and everyone is already there. Maud looks at her watch as if chastising Jocelyn.

  “What?” she says.

  “Nothing,” Maud says. “Don’t be so guilty.”

  She says hello to all the women, even Missy. She forces herself to look directly at Kate and say hi. They get thirty minutes into the drill and it starts to drizzle. All six of them deflate.

  “Let’s do a sun dance,” Maud says.

  “I’m going to flip out,” Jocelyn says.

  The drops keep falling, but there aren’t many yet. They keep hitting balls. The air is heavy. The balls move slowly through the court. Erica runs her tennis shoe along the baseline, moonwalking, testing the slickness. Kate watches and then stops feeding balls. She sets her racquet in the cart. They all turn to her. She holds her hands out, testing, palms up, palms down, to feel the rain, and then: Fountain Square, Cincinnati—“The Lady,” a bronze, standing in the square’s center. She is there in the brain for Jocelyn as clear as Kate is. Downtown is deep in Kate’s pose. The statue and Kate merging now. As a girl, Jocelyn thought the statue was beautiful, an image to escape into. Kate now. Jocelyn has to look away.

  Kate picks up her racquet again. She picks up a ball, as if to start, but then calls the drill five seconds later.

  “It’s too wet,” she says. “It’s dangerous.”

  “Fuck,” Jocelyn says.

  “God, you’re grumpy this morning,” Maud says, teasingly. “There’s always tomorrow for dreams to come true.”