The answer was surprising: “Mickey.”
“Mickey?” I repeated in amazement. As I went to unlock the door, Roy caught my arm, surprising me. “Are you sure?” he asked. Am I sure it is Mickey, or am I sure I want to open the door for him? Instead of answering, I shook my arm free and opened the locks.
Mickey stood there, wearing a tailored suit with a red tie, looking very handsome. He looked at me, then at Roy, and then back to me with a question in his expression. I looked at him, then at Roy, then back to him. I felt a wave of laughter make its way from the depths of my stomach. This can’t be happening, I said to myself. I’ve been in this exact situation only the opposite. Embarrassment was written on all of our faces. The laughter burst out of me—I couldn’t hold it in any longer. I stood across from Mickey, with Roy by my side, and my stomach jiggled with laughter.
Roy stepped back and Mickey continued to look at me. I think he was trying to decide whether to be insulted and turn around or come inside. Suddenly I saw the corner of his mouth turn up in a tiny smile, which grew wider until he also began to roar with laughter. Roy stood next to me, moving his head like a pendulum—from me to Mickey, back to me and again to Mickey—until he also surrendered to the ridiculousness of the situation. We stood there like three human statues, laughing our heads off. About what? I didn’t know. I just knew that laughter was necessary.
Mickey came inside and joined us for dinner. Roy poured him some wine. Mickey raised his glass and, with a nod of his head, emptied the entire glass. He asked Roy to pour him another glass and again emptied it in one gulp. His face turned a bit red, but it looked like he was feeling somewhat more relaxed. I did the same. I drank glass after glass and felt calm begin to replace the embarrassment. The only one not drinking was Roy. He had a smile on his face, but his body language demonstrated his edginess.
I explained to Mickey why Roy was living in my house, but I left out the part about my father’s relationship to George and his gang. Roy sat quietly the entire time without taking part in the conversation. Every once in a while, Mickey caressed my face with his hand. He rested his hand on my arm; when he talked, his body and face were turned toward me. Roy played with the fork in his hand, poking holes in the food remaining on his plate. His face was expressionless. His behavior made me uncomfortable. He stood up abruptly, announcing that he was tired and was going to his room. I tried to catch his eye but wasn’t successful. He left the kitchen and, after a few minutes, the door to his bedroom slammed shut.
Mickey and I remained alone. My feeling of unease stayed with me even when Mickey said, “I’ve missed you.” He took my face in both his hands and moved his mouth close to mine in a gentle but endless kiss. It felt like electricity was going through my body. His hands continued along my back, and my body responded to him with yearning. On the wall above our heads, the ticking of the clock was constant and annoying. It was both sleep-inducing and stimulating at the same time.
Mickey held my hand and got up from his chair. I also got up, and we walked together to my parents’ bedroom, closing the door behind us. Sitting at the end of the bed made me feel like I was floating inside a bubble. My head was dizzy and my vision was blurred. I thought it might be because of the wine. Mickey moved closer and kissed me again. His hands became more and more demanding, and his mouth hovered over my ears and the nape of my neck. The bubble rolled me from side to side like a weightless object, and my hands moved by themselves toward him.
“Mickey,” I whispered weakly. No response. “Mickey,” I said again. Mickey lifted his head and looked at me; his eyes were glassy and dreamlike. “Enough,” I said.
His expression asked why.
“I can’t. I’m just a guest here. This is my parents’ bedroom—this is their bed, this is the air they breathed. It’s not mine.”
The alienation I felt in the room didn’t fit with the intimacy between us. Mickey lay on the bed next to me. We remained quiet until I heard his breathing fall into a steady rhythm and knew he had fallen asleep. I moved away from his body somewhat and clung to the edge of the bed. My thoughts were foggy from the alcohol, but the feeling of unease I had felt earlier remained.
I fell asleep toward dawn and woke up when I heard sounds coming from the bathroom. Mickey came out with a wet face.
“There’s a towel in the bottom drawer,” I said.
The house was quiet; no sound could be heard from Roy’s bedroom or the kitchen.
“What time is it?” I asked.
“Six,” he answered.
“Are you going?”
“I have to be in Chicago by ten,” he said. “I’m sorry I pushed you, but I really, really like you.”
I smiled back at him. He came over to me, bent down and kissed me. My hands cupped the back of his head and drew it closer to mine. When we pulled apart, he was standing over me with a warm smile on his face. Little wrinkles like stalks of wheat appeared in the corner of his eyes, which radiated real warmth and affection.
“I really like you a lot,” he said again and smiled. “And I want you to come over.”
I nodded. He kissed me again, turned around and a few seconds later, the front door closed. I could have gone on sleeping, but there was no more sleep in me. I got up and went to the kitchen. Its appearance had changed from last night. The table had been cleared of the remaining dinner and the sink was empty. The door to Roy’s bedroom was closed—he was usually awake at this hour. A gentle knock got no answer. I slowly opened the door and peeked inside. The bed was made and the room was empty. The pinch from last night came back, stronger than ever.
At about noon, the telephone on my desk rang. It was Roy. He said that he couldn’t come over today, that he had to take a trip for work and would probably have to spend the night out of town. His words undermined my sense of security. Is it the tone of his voice or the fear of being alone in the house? I was so used to him being around that his absence reopened the fear and the anxiety, waking up my imagination, which gave me threatening scenarios. Tonight will be a sleepless night. On my way home from work, I stopped at one of the newspaper kiosks and bought a bunch of magazines and crossword puzzles. I almost thought of asking Donna to spend the night with me, but immediately ruled out the idea. She would agree without hesitation, but she loved the routine of her life, and I didn’t want her to feel obligated to take Roy’s place. She had been relieved when Roy agreed to move in with me. No, I said to myself, I will spend the night on my own.
Evening had already become night. It was dark outside, and all the lights were on in my house. The darkness brought with it fear and bad thoughts, so the light was comforting. But knowing wasn’t the same, and I was afraid. I turned on the television. The voices booming out of the set relieved a bit of the loneliness. Sitting in the living room with my pile of magazines, I flipped through them—photographs, gossip columns and boring articles. The pile next to me grew smaller very quickly. I took the last magazine and paged through it. My eyes were tired and were fighting sleep. Every once in a while, my eyelids began to droop and threatened to close, but my mind refused sleep. My hands continued to flip the pages. The colorful pages passed by me like a scarf fluttering in the wind. I felt my consciousness fading and my eyes becoming heavy and closing. And then a loud, jarring noise split the night.
I jumped up and looked around. The house was quiet and lit up like an island in the middle of the ocean. Complete silence, as if no noise had been made beforehand, but surely the explosion I heard was real. I looked toward the kitchen, but it only scoffed at my fear. I got up from the sofa and looked down the hallway. The door to my room was opened only slightly. I pushed it in, stretched my head around like a curious swan, and then continued toward my parents’ bedroom.
The open door allowed me a quick peek inside. I saw it right away. On my father’s bureau—like a dead body—was the framed picture of the two of us. Him and me.
I picked up the picture, which was lying face down, and shards of glass rained down lik
e parts of a body. I separated the photo from the frame and more glass scattered onto the bureau and the floor. The photo was of little girl and her big father standing side by side. His hand rested on her shoulder, a symbol of ownership, while his other hand, closed in a fist, covered some object whose tip was sticking out a bit. That was a new detail. I drew the photo closer to my eyes and put it under the light. The expression on his face always seemed related to his distance from me. A hugging hand, his body close to mine. A father filled with pride. Only now, looking closer, his figure filled the entire print, and for a moment, his strong presence filled the room. I opened the drawer, threw the picture inside, closed the drawer, and turned my back to it. But something made me turn around again—something that was in the drawer. I opened it again. A bundle of banknotes sat there, and from under them peeked the corner of a dark green box, rectangular in shape and about twelve inches in size.
There were no markings on the box, no clue to its contents. I put the banknotes aside and sat on the bed. Inside the box there was a packet of about thirty letters. The envelopes were torn down the side with a letter opener and were arranged by date received. Most of the letters were from Germany; some were from Italy and others from various places in the United States. I began to read one of the letters. It included descriptions of the organizational structure of the Nazi movement in Germany and answers to letters that came from my father. My eyes raced over the words. Every once in a while, I encountered the phrase “Heil Hitler.” There were questions asking my father about one subject or another. I opened another letter, sent about five years ago. The word “homosexual” caught my attention and I began to read.
The deeper I got into the letters, the more I felt shock and intense shame spread through me. I understood from these writings that my father was advising a group of Germans to react violently against homosexual men, even to kill them in the name of purifying humanity. There were descriptions of incidents where men were executed according to his instructions. It looked like the writers of these letters were looking for his approval for their right to exist. This letter implied that the more radical their treatment of the homosexuals, the greater his approval.
In one of the letters, someone from Mississippi wrote about a factory run by blacks that was set on fire by a group of loyal followers of the ideology. A number of workers burned to death and the entire structure was destroyed. There were also descriptions of the abuse of a young black teenage girl who was part of a dance class where most of the participants were white. The description was callous, and for a moment I pictured the writer to look exactly like George. I folded the letter and returned it to the same envelope.
Reading these letters made me nauseous. I stuffed the letters back into the box and closed the lid on them, moving it to the side of the drawer in order to put the bundle of money next to it. But something got in the way—a small brown envelope. I opened it and found various objects inside, some metal and some made out of fabric. There were also old pictures, one of the Führer; others were of my father photographed with some other person I didn’t recognize. At the bottom of the envelope was a black metal swastika. I held it in my hand, turned it over, and then I remembered. This was the object my father was holding in his picture with me.
I held the swastika in such a way that one of its points protruded a bit, just like in the photo, and knew that this was the object in my father’s fist. Why was it so important for him to hold this while being photographed with me? I didn’t want to think about it. What I did understand for sure was that my father was a very prominent figure in the movement. As the drawer shut on my father’s secret world, the front doorbell rang, accompanied by the familiar knock. A jingle of hope rang inside me. I got up and went to the door. “Roy?” I whispered.
“It’s me,” came the answer.
I don’t think I had ever opened the locks on the door so fast. I flung the door wide open and jumped into his arms. Roy stayed as still as a statue, waiting for me to calm down and let him out of my embrace. I pulled away and he came inside and locked up the house.
“I’m exhausted,” he said. “I’m going to sleep.”
Just like that, with no explanation, without giving me a second glance, he turned his back on me, walked into my bedroom, and closed the door behind him.
I stood there with my mouth agape. It was obvious that he was angry. Without thinking, I opened the door and walked in after him.
“Eva,” he said in an angry tone.
“Don’t ‘Eva’ me,” I said. “I want to know what’s going on here.”
“I’m tired. I drove for five hours, I just want to go to sleep.”
“You will go to sleep after you explain to me what’s going on!”
Roy stopped for a minute and sat down on the bed. He propped his head in his hands and sat bent over on the edge of the bed. It looked like he was trying to decide something. He lifted his head for a moment and fixed his eyes on me. His expression was unclear. He looked at me until I began to feel uncomfortable, but I didn’t pull my eyes away from his. His face changed right in front of me. The muscles in his face suddenly grew softer, his tightly closed mouth relaxed, and his body flopped back. His eyes were still fixed on me when he said, in the gentlest voice I had ever heard from him, “I love you… That’s what happened to me.”
My eyes refused to leave his; we continued to look stubbornly at one another. My mind had drifted away, but my body continued to stand. I wanted to run away, but my legs were steadfast on the floor and didn’t move an inch. Roy continued in his silence. I didn’t feel a thing, didn’t know what to say—I only knew that I had to get out of there.
I was finally able to move and left the room with his eyes stabbing me in the back like two nails, making my feet move faster. I went into my parents’ room, locked the door behind me, and sat on the bed, my heart beating as loud as drums in a concert hall. My chest rose and fell and then began to cry. Why was I crying? I was flooded with emotions that were unclear. They were all jumbled up and rolling around like a colorful ball whose colors became one—anger, rejection, love, hate, bitterness, friendship, exploitation, desire, longing. All these emotions merged together and created a world that was illogical—I wanted to kick it out, out of my thoughts, out of my life.
I fell asleep in my clothes and woke up in the morning exhausted. When I left the room, Roy was already gone. It was obvious that our relationship had taken an unwanted turn. I wondered what would become of us in the future. Will he come over this evening, or leave me alone? Will he sever all contact with me? Will he demand some kind of response from me? I changed my clothes and went to work.
Even at work, I couldn’t stop thinking about the future of our relationship. I was ashamed to admit that it was mostly worry about staying home alone. Never for a moment did my feelings for him entire my mind. His soft words continued to echo, but they didn’t have the strength to force me to rummage around in my feelings. I decided to wait for the evening and see what transpired. The decision was his and his alone, I convinced myself.
As the hours passed by, my emotions were reduced to just one main feeling: anger that he decided to reveal his feelings for me. Slowly but surely, I convinced myself that he did a selfish thing and that these things should not have been said, certainly not when I was in my current state. The anger continued to grow and my self-assurance also grew. If he came over this evening, I would tell him exactly what I thought. Only my decision didn’t coincide with reality. When the door opened, the same familiar Roy stood there, and what had happened yesterday was not evident on his face. We were in the same boat floating safely on calm seas.
“I brought warm rolls and peanut butter,” he announced.
Surprise must have been written all over my face, but he completely ignored it.
“Want me to make you one too?”
I nodded. He turned away from me and busied himself preparing dinner. He even began to hum some tune to himself. His movements were assured. He asked
me to take out plates from the cupboard and set down the silverware, promising that the food would be ready in a minute. When we sat down at the table, he talked incessantly about work.
“How about you?” he asked suddenly.
“Me?” I was surprised.
“Yes, how was your day at the office?”
“Not any different from other days.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that work is routine. There’s nothing exciting about it, no surprises.”
“Challenges?”
“Challenges?” I laughed. “No, there aren’t any challenges.”
“So why do you continue to work at a job that doesn’t interest you?” he asked with a serious face.
His question caught me unprepared. “What do you mean?” I asked.
“You’ve been getting up every day for years now to go to the office and do what’s asked of you. You apparently do it well, but you get no satisfaction from it, no interest… Haven’t you ever thought about making a change, trying to work somewhere else? A different area?”
He was right. The job bored me. My path had been determined by my father, and I had never once considered straying from it. Roy had put a mirror in front of my face. At that instant, I saw my apathy, my passivity, my lack of self-confidence, my dependence.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to make you sad.”
“No, you’re right. Totally right. I needed to hear these things, they are completely correct. For years, I’ve been traveling down a path paved for me in advance, and it’s become routine for me to travel down the same path without even realizing I am capable of deviating from it.”
The atmosphere suddenly became heavy.
“Coffee?” he asked.
Ignoring his question, I said, “You know, my lack of trust in myself is so enormous that it never occurred to me that I had the power to change something.”
“And now?” he asked in a whisper.
I turned my head toward him and was surprised that he was there. Thoughts were muddled up in my head, fighting one another. The emotions were familiar, but there were also some new ones. I felt a strong urge to be alone.
Life in a Box Page 16
