Nowhere City

by Alison Lurie

  “I’m sorry. Where does it hurt exactly?” he added, with a note, though a rather forced one, of professional sympathy.

  “It hurts everywhere today. Here and here and here and here. All around my eyes. The worst pain is right here under my eyebrows—it’s as if my forehead was being hammered in a vise.” Katherine laughed a little, uncomfortably. “In my lower sinuses, under the eyes, it’s mostly only a tingling, burning sort of feeling.”

  “All around your eyes,” Iz repeated, smoothing his sherbet gently with the back of his spoon. “That’s really too bad. It sounds to me as if you wanted to cry.”

  “I don’t,” Katherine contradicted. “I never cry. Why, I haven’t now since I can’t remember how long, years and years. No matter how terrible the pain is, I just,” she shrugged, “can’t cry.”

  “You can’t cry.” Iz repeated her words softly. “That’s very interesting. Why not?”

  “I don’t know,” Katherine said; she was aware of being handled, but it was so agreeable to find someone who was interested in her complaint, and Dr. Einsam himself had just spoken about much more personal matters. “Maybe it all goes into my sinus.”

  “You mean that when something occurs that would naturally produce tears, the reaction is turned inwards, and creates instead a sinus condition. You are crying all the time, only inside.”

  This was not quite what Katherine had meant, or rather, she had meant it only facetiously. What Iz said struck her like a sudden, glancing blow, or the flash of a light on a cloudy day. Maybe she had meant that. Certainly, today—She caught her breath, and parried the attack (if it was an attack: Iz was sitting eating ice-cream so casually, not even looking up) with another joke. “Well, maybe,” she said. “Anyhow, if that’s so, I ought to be grateful. At least it keeps me from making a public fool of myself.” She laughed slightly, or rather simultaneously hummed and blew air through her stopped-up nose so as to create the impression.

  “That’s an unusual attitude,” Iz said, slowly stirring the remains of his orange sherbet round with his spoon. “It’s also non-utilitarian.”

  “Non-utilitarian?”

  “Yah. Because weeping doesn’t cause you as much pain, or last as long as a sinus attack, does it? It is after all the natural reaction, under many circumstances.” Now Iz raised his head and looked at her. He had bright gray eyes behind his glasses. “Why shouldn’t you cry sometimes?” he asked. “Maybe you have a good reason.”

  At these words, all Katherine’s despair and mortification, pent-up for nearly twenty-four hours now, seemed to flow throbbing into her eyes and nose. Suddenly she felt as if she were going to burst out sobbing right there.

  “You’ve got to let it out,” Iz went on. “It’s important. I know this from my own experience. The danger is, if you inhibit yourself completely from expressing one kind of emotion, eventually you get so you can’t express any kind of emotion. You feel depressed, so go ahead, cry.”

  “I—” Katherine began, and swallowed. “Of course, I—” This time the word rose from her throat in the form of a wail. “As a matter of fact, I am rather depressed today,” she managed to say, but then she was caught up in a series of dry, creaking shudders.

  “Come on,” Iz said. “You can let go now.”

  Katherine recognized the professional phrases, the standard sympathetic tone, but could not stop herself from being affected by them. Covering her face awkwardly with spread hands, she began to sob: a loud, uneven, tearing noise.

  Iz watched her; his face showed sympathy. He reached out to touch or hold her arm, which, in a pale violet sweater, was not far from him. But a half-inch away he hesitated, as if remembering some precept, and finally withdrew his hand.

  “What is it?” he asked quietly, after allowing a minute’s interval. “Tell me.”

  “It’s. Uhh. It’s Paul, I suppose,” Katherine sobbed. The realization came over her that she was about to tell Dr. Einsam everything. She wanted to get up and run away; but she was so sick, so cold, so confused, she simply didn’t have the energy. “It’s just that he’s deceiving me. And I found out last night. I’ll get over it.”

  “Ahh. How did you find out?”

  “Well, when I came home from work.” Katherine swallowed. “When I walked into the house I knew, really. I mean I knew he must have been there with somebody, because everything was all wrong. The towels for instance: they were hung up the wrong way in the bathroom.” Her voice trembled. “I always fold them into thirds, and Paul just kind of throws them over the pole; but last night they were folded in half, and the wash-cloth was next to them, instead of over the tub. And the bed was made up all wrong, with the quilt—” She groaned, despairing of explaining what was wrong with the quilt; she thought how hysterical and silly she must sound to Iz. But he did not smile; he continued to look at her with serious concern. “And on the carpet in the living-room,” she went on. “You know that fluffy pale nylon carpeting we have? Well, there was this big kind of bruise where it was all flattened down. As if animals had been rolling on it. And hair.” Katherine choked down a final sob. Iz had not changed his expression, did not look shocked. Perhaps he didn’t believe her. She looked at this floor, gray stained cement marked into tiles. “It really was.”

  “Ya,” Iz murmured. He pulled at his beard, thinking. “And what did your husband say about this?”

  “He didn’t say anything; he had a late meeting, so—Maybe it wasn’t a meeting. I don’t know. Anyhow, I was asleep when he got in, and he was asleep when I left this morning. So nobody said anything.”

  “Ah.” Iz took off his glasses, and began to polish them with the paper napkin, which had a scalloped border. Was he going to have no reaction?

  “In my own house,” she said in a tight voice. “I suppose that’s the worst thing. Right in my own house.”

  “That makes you feel worse about it,” Iz said in a very sympathetic, yet somehow neutral tone. “You mean, you wouldn’t mind so much,” he added slowly; “if it weren’t for that?”

  “Well, I ... It wouldn’t be so awful. So disgusting.”

  Again Iz paused. “Maybe you already knew about it?”

  “Oh no. I didn’t know anything—I—He’s always—” Katherine looked down. “There’ve been things before,” she admitted. “I mean, back East, not out here. Well, I have wondered here, once or twice, but I didn’t say anything. I think it’s better not to say anything, if you really don’t know, then you don’t have to know. I mean—” Her voice, either out of pain, or as if realizing what it was saying, trailed off, and Katherine sat staring into the middle distance, at a mess of tropical vines swarming out of a plaster pot. “How can I be talking to you like this?” she said, letting her forearms fall on to the table. “It’s just terrible.”

  “It’s not so terrible.” Iz slid his hand out again towards hers, and again drew back; he blinked as if in irritation with himself. “You need to talk to somebody: why not me?”

  “Well, it’s very kind of you,” Katherine said, sitting back. “You must spend so much time listening to people tell you their troubles. Professionally, I mean. And of course, they pay you for it.”

  “Ah, cut it out,” Iz said. “Tell you what,” he added clumsily, as the look on her face did not alter. “I’ll pay you when I talk, and you can pay me back when you talk, so today we’re even. Okay, Katherine?”

  Katherine smiled an uneven smile. She realized that Iz was also embarrassed; that he was really asking for her confidence. “Okay, Iz,” she said. “But it’s really not fair; you must have so many people you can talk to already here.”

  “What makes you think that? Sure, for my work I have many good friends, colleagues. But they don’t want to hear my personal problems. They would be embarrassed.” He frowned, as if aware of how unlikely this sounded. “Anyhow, a lot of them think it was unbalanced of me to marry Glory; I told you so, they would say. Because they don’t know her, they are prejudiced. Sure, she has an unpromising background, and she
has learned from it some very bad values; but basically she is a very warm, spontaneous person. She has more ego strength than most psychologists I know.”

  Simultaneously, Katherine had several reactions: she was deeply pleased that Iz seemed to like her, but apprehensive about having told him so much. She hadn’t confided in anyone like this since college, when after all she had had nothing much to tell. But like many people who have the habit of reticence, once she had started she couldn’t seem to stop. Also, she was confused by Iz’s style (part colloquial Californian, part European psychologist), curious about and jealous of his wife, and ashamed of the way she had spoken of her husband.

  “Paul isn’t really so awful,” she said. “I don’t want you to think that. I mean, I suppose he has an excuse, in a way.”

  “Oh? How is that?”

  “Well.” Katherine looked down and sideways. “Because, you know. Marriage is rather hard on men.”

  “No,” Iz said. “I don’t know. How is marriage hard on men?”

  Katherine glanced up; his expression was serious, not ironic; all the same she resented being made to say it out.

  “Well, because they have greater needs than women do. And I suppose Paul has more than the average man. ... And I ... Her voice, which had been growing fainter, died out entirely.

  “Ah, nonsense.”

  “You don’t think that’s true?”

  “Not in my experience. If you’re speaking in terms of basic erotic drive. Naturally there is the problem of blockage, but that’s just superficial. And no doubt you have, occasionally, the effects of chronic disease, low vitality, faulty hormone balance. But this applies to both sexes, and it would be obvious that the person was physically ill.”

  Katherine wondered if it were obvious to Iz that she was ill. Of course she did have a chronic sinus condition; even today—She suddenly realized that her terrible headache had almost disappeared, while she wasn’t watching it. Almost completely disappeared! She had to frown, now, to feel it at all.

  “I suppose it comes to the same thing,” she said, frowning.

  Iz looked at her as if he were deciding which of several things to say. He pulled at his beard several times.

  “Let me ask you,” he began finally. “I get the impression that you and your husband have had, let us say, a silent agreement: You will allow him to be unfaithful, and he will keep his affairs to himself.”

  “No,” Katherine exclaimed. “He’s never said anything like that. Neither one of us ever mentioned—”

  “I said, a silent agreement. ... Let me make another guess. In my observation, people are never found out unless they want to be found out. It occurs to me that perhaps your husband arranges to leave these clues. I don’t mean consciously, deliberately. He just gets careless; I have done this myself. Maybe he wants to have a scene, to prove that you love him. Or he would like this affair to end now, but he doesn’t know how to arrange it. He wants to be able to say to his friend: ‘We have to stop seeing each other; my wife is getting suspicious.’ I don’t ask you to accept this now,” he added, observing Katherine’s expression. “But try a little experiment. Don’t say anything to him this time. If this clue isn’t picked up, I bet there’ll be others. Wait and see.”

  “All right,” Katherine said. She didn’t know what good Iz’s plan was, but at least it would postpone a very unpleasant scene. And it did make her feel, for the first time since yesterday, or much longer, that she was in control. Or was she only pretending to be? A cool wind blew through the courtyard; the shadows seemed grayer.

  Katherine looked at her watch. “Oh, lord. It’s almost five.”

  “Okay. Let’s go.” Iz stood up, and placed on the table a tip greater than the price of the ice-cream. They made their way back through the shop to the street.

  “Would you like a ride home?” he asked.

  “No, thank you. I have to go to Bullock’s to pick up some shoes.” But also she wanted to get away from Iz, in order to think over what he had said.

  “Okay. I’ll drop you off on the way to my place.”

  Here on the street, in the car, Katherine did not want to go on discussing the personal matters which crowded her mind. She felt the need of some conventional conversation, to re-establish balance.

  “You live quite near Bullock’s, don’t you?”

  “Um, up the other side of the campus.” Iz turned the corner between the yellow and red lights, with a screech. “On Gayley.”

  She knew this, of course. “Is your apartment nice?”

  “Great. I’ve got a superb view in three directions. North, south, and east. At night it’s out of this world. Ah, you psychotic bastard!” He braked with a jolt, inches behind another car. “Why didn’t you keep going?”

  “I’d—” Katherine clutched at the seat, and avoided falling forward. “I’d uh like to see it.”

  Waiting for the light, Iz turned round and looked at her through his dark glasses, with what seemed unnecessary intentness.

  “I’d like to show it to you,” he said. “But I have a problem.” He gunned the engine nervously. “I only let women into my apartment when it’s understood that I’m going to sleep with them.”

  Katherine flushed, and looked into her lap. “Oh, I see,” she uttered.

  “It avoids misunderstanding. Here you are.” He drew up with a squeal of the brakes at the back door of Bullock’s.

  “Well, thank you very much,” Katherine said. This time she did not bother trying to work the handle; she stood up in the car, and before Iz could come round to open the door for her she climbed out over the window-sill, so fast that she tripped and nearly fell onto the sidewalk.

  15

  IN HIS OFFICE AT the Nutting Research and Development Corporation, Paul sat with his head on his hands in front of disordered layers of paper—the notes and material for his history of the company. All colors: pink, yellow, white, beige—all sizes: they were like flakes of paint fallen onto his desk from some high, invisible ceiling—broken, meaningless messages.

  He had just returned from an interview with Howard Leon, the head of the Publications Department, concerning his history. Nearly two months ago he had handed in the first draft. It really wasn’t a bad job, either. He had gone to a lot of trouble to get the data together: looking up old city records, asking questions all over the building, searching in the backs of filing cabinets. As he had pieced it together, the growth of N.R.D.C. made an interesting and impressive story.

  But since January he had had no word on it. Apparently the manuscript had just vanished into the interstices of the Nutting bureaucracy. All he could ever get out of Howard Leon was that “they were looking it over” in the central office.

  Now, just as last summer, Paul sat at his desk with nothing to do. When he complained of this, he would be handed a pile of other people’s reports, press releases, and technical descriptions, and asked to go over them for style—“Take out the grammatical errors—you know, give it the Harvard touch.” So he would work his way through reports on things called “scintillation detectors” or “interlock resistor mechanisms” in which there were, of course, no grammatical errors. Sometimes he would sit for minutes at a time, though, staring at a sentence like “In the presence of radiation peaks, the speaker of the peak squeaker emits squeaks.”

  Or he would write letters. Or he would look out of the window. Or he would go to Ceci’s, which was fine until Tomaso and Carmen moved in.

  What had happened to the history? He had got tired of wondering; this morning he had decided he was going to solve (or as they said here “stabilize”) the problem—he would go in and confront Leon.

  The Department Head’s office was spacious, well and indirectly fit. It faced west, and should have had a view of the sea. But, just as in Paul’s cubicle, the architect had placed the window so far up the wall that when you were sitting down all you could see were the dusty tops of a few palms and the pale, empty sky. Leon sat in a complex steel swivel chair behind a
large L-shaped desk: he was a rather small man with the battered face and inscrutable expression of the wise old rancher in TV Westerns.

  “Sit down, Paul. What’s on your mind?”

  Paul did not sit down; he remained standing, looking at some fragments of blue ocean between the dusty palms. His manuscript was on his mind, he said. What was the story? He was beginning to wonder, he said in a joking tone, if N.R.D.C. really wanted its history written. What was going on in the administrative offices, anyhow?

  “Who knows?” I don’t know, so don’t ask me, Leon’s shrug and tired, sympathetic smile seemed to imply. But Paul did not believe him: office gossip, as well as the whole appearance and manner of Howard Leon, suggested that he knew everything there was to know, and then some.

  “They’re still looking it over, I suppose,” Paul said, trying to speak in low, unexcited tones like those of the Department Head.

  “Well, no,” Leon said; swiveling himself slightly from side to side in his chair. “I don’t believe it’s actually under consideration now. The policy now seems to be to shelve this project temporarily.”

  “Oh. Temporarily? How temporarily? You mean maybe for ever?”

  “Who knows?” The shrug.

  “That’s great,” Paul said in a kind of joking tone, waving his arm. He had noticed before that in contrast to Leon, who hardly moved during these conversations, his own gestures tended to become large, vague, and violent. “I wrote it, and now they don’t want it. ... What’d they hire me for, then? For a tax loss?”

  Again, very gently and with infinite cynicism, Leon shrugged. As Paul looked at him, what had been only an angry wisecrack, a puff of steam, began to harden into reality.

  Now, back in his own office, he laid the arguments for this reality out invisibly in front of him, over the littered desk. The original lack of specific directives as to what kind of history he was supposed to write, and what aspects he should stress, which he had taken for their flattering confidence in him. The way Fred Skinner kept telling him to relax: “Take it easy, boy, don’t drive yourself so hard over all those details.” The fact that although now and for the last two months he had nothing to do, his job was not in danger. (“Then are they going to let me go?” he had asked Howard Leon. “Why, no,” Leon had replied, his voice rising almost to the normal number of decibels with surprise. “Don’t worry about that. You have a contract, don’t you?”)