by John Jaffe
Annie wished she were the kind of person who could hold back. “I thought about you”—not much held back there. She wished she could be like Sofia, the Lebanese bombshell wife of her old boss, Greg Leeland. Once, when Annie was standing with some friends at a cocktail party, Sofia walked up. One of the men said, “Hey, Sofia. I haven’t seen you in a while.” Sofia speared him with a dangerous look and in her heavily accented English purred, “Eeet eees gooodt to be rrrare.”
Annie felt about as rrrare as ragweed.
“I thought about you.” Those words had nagged at her all day like a whiny three-year-old. Earlier at the Buddhist Learning Center, when she was supposed to be meditating on stillness, she was thinking about those four words and everything they might mean: she was starting to care about Jack in a way she hadn’t cared about a man for years. Somehow Jack DePaul had found the dopamine floodgates in her brain and opened them wide. She was scared and excited at the same time; it felt like her blood was carbonated.
She’d spent the next forty-five minutes sitting cross-legged on a forest green carpet with her eyes closed, trying as hard as she could to chase away conscious thought. Every time she wiped her mind clear, those four words bounced back.
“I thought about you.”
Well, Annie thought, I did think about you. Why not say it? And if that scares you away, Jack DePaul, so be it.
Annie clicked on the mail flag. There was a message from Jack, entitled “I thought about you, too.”
Maybe Sofia was wrong. Maybe eet wass goodt to be forthrrrright.
To [email protected]
From [email protected]
Subject: I thought about you, too
Annie,
There was a soft blue-velvet sky here, too. Not in Baltimore—has there ever been a soft blue-velvet sky over Baltimore?—but one in my memory, from an August day years ago. Your words—“soft,” “velvet”—made me think of it. And I wondered: how can I explain that particular sky, that particular day, to Annie? How it turned maroon then navy as the sun dropped away. How bright the night was, how warm. How a young boy crossed the street from his house and entered a moon-licked orchard full of ripening apricots and furrows of black water.
How he ran through that orchard, from furrow top to furrow top; ran from tree row to tree row, in and out of moonlight as bright as a neon sign. How the leaves were like wrought iron against the sky. How the boy ran from black to white to black to white, more moonchild than manchild. How the aurora of a county fair flickered on the northern horizon and how, muffled by the summer-swollen leaves, the calliope jangle of the midway sounded no louder than the ghostly twitter of bats.
I wondered about all of that. And I thought about you.
Jack
Annie slumped against the padded headboard on her bed, the laptop resting on her thighs. She’d been holding her breath and didn’t even know it. “Whew,” she said.
“You okay?” her mother said through a mouthful of toothpaste. Ostensibly, she’d been brushing her teeth at the sink, but thanks to a well-placed mirror she’d been watching Annie since her daughter had plopped down on the bed and plugged in her computer.
“Yikes,” said Annie as she fanned her face with her hand. “How’s Jack?” her mother asked.
“How’d you know?”
“Annie, what am I, an idiot? You rush in the room like there’s a fire in the hall and grab your computer before you even take your shoes off. I’m not halfway inside and you’re already checking your e-mail. There’s only one thing that gets someone to move that fast, and it’s not business. So, what’d he say?”
“Mom, he wrote me the sweetest letter. It was kind of old-fashioned. It made me feel like someone from a Jane Austen novel.”
Joan Hollerman Silver smiled, a toothpaste crescent moon on her face. “Courting through cyberspace. How modern. Annie, I don’t suppose you’d like me to read what he wrote. I could help you write a reply and—”
Annie held up her hand. “Forget it, Ma. If I let you read this, I might as well print it out and post it in your office. I’ve got it handled. I know exactly what I’m going to write back.”
To [email protected]
From [email protected]
Subject: Don’t Stop
Jack,
I could almost hear your calliope. Don’t stop. Send me more. And next time, take me with you. Take me to places I’ve never been. Give me a new past to remember.
Annie
CHAPTER 29
And so it started. For that week, Jack’s and Annie’s nights belonged to e-mail, and, message by message, memory by memory, the story of their history began to unfold.
Each evening, Annie returned to her hotel room, plugged in her computer, hit the little red flag, and found, awaiting her, chapters of a life she never knew she had. She visited jungles, rocky coasts, and deserts and never left her hotel room.
Each evening, Jack would sit in front of his outdated Mac and force inspiration to come his way. It was slow going at first. He even started to feel some sympathy for his reporters. Maybe they aren’t just whiners, Jack thought. Maybe there’s something to their bellyaching; he’d forgotten how hard it was to be creative on command.
Some nights he’d work far into the next morning, fueled by microwave pizza, calcium-fortified grapefruit juice, and Annie’s return e-mails. By the third night, the words were flying so fast from his fingers, he decided he was right the first time—reporters are whiners.
Her request, “Take me to places I’ve never been,” was lighter fluid to his imagination. He was starting to feel young again—energized, alive, swelling with possibility. The idea of rewriting— creating—Annie’s past was powerful and powerfully attractive. At first he wasn’t sure why, but later, looking past the pixels, he could see that maybe, if he could write her another life, he could write himself one, too.
Annie wasn’t the only one who’d missed the dance. For maybe the thousandth time in the past twenty years, Jack cringed at the memory of a five-minute phone call to the Peace Corps, turning down the Togo teaching assignment for a managerial position at the San Diego Tribune.
These new chapters he was writing would have everything his old ones lacked: adventure, passion, and laughter. And this time, he’d be with the right person. He wondered if Annie was the one. And he decided, as he often did, to ask Pablo Neruda.
CHAPTER 30
To [email protected]
From [email protected]
Subject: Annie’s Trip to Chile
Annie,
Pablo Neruda was trouble. I knew that. Of course, I knew that. I don’t know why I introduced you. I must have been crazy. He was an aging, balding man with a big round nose who looked like a chubby Picasso, but women gravitated to him like apples to Newton’s head. And he gravitated back.
He liked redheads in particular. Loved them, really. Matilde Urrutia was a redhead; he married her twice and wrote her books of poetry. And still I….
But you know the story as well as I. You were there. You met Pablo at that fancy party in Valparaiso. Remember the house—it belonged to a foreign minister—and the huge double staircase? I can still picture you in that coppery silk dress, stunning against a backdrop of tuxedos.
We had joined a circle of people surrounding Pablo, who was talking about whales, of all things. He was very funny, going on about blowholes and volcanoes, his slightly bulging eyes glinting mischievously. When I introduced you to him, he looked you over and said to me, “Well, Pablito”—he always called me “Pablito,” meaning “Iittle Paul”—“maybe I’ve underestimated you.”
He was about to say something clever—I could see in his eyes that he was making poetic calculations—when a waiter passed by with a tray of champagne glasses. Someone took a glass from the tray and, turning back, spilled its entire contents over the front of your dress. You cried out. The whole party stopped dead in its tracks and stared at the beautiful woman with the huge dark stain across her chest.
Natu
rally, Pablo came to the rescue. “My dear,” he said, “we can’t let this accident spoil your night. Here, let me take away the sting of it.” And he took a glass from the waiter’s tray and splashed the front of his tuxedo jacket with the contents. There was a collective gasp. What a gesture. “Now,” he said, “you’re not alone.”
People applauded. Everybody in our group took a glass and toasted to “spilled champagne.” Of course, you thanked him; of course, the two of you chatted; of course, one thing led to another, as it always does with Pablo Neruda, and three nights later we were heading to his house for dinner.
From Valparaiso, it took us more than an hour to drive to his house, Isla Negra (that’s what he called his place, “Black Island”). It sat on a cliff overlooking the ocean. The air smelled of seaweed and earth. On the horizon, the setting sun turned the undersides of the clouds a dusky orange.
Pablo came out to greet us. He shook our hands and, making an offhand gesture to the clouds, he said to you, “How delightful, they’re turning the color of your hair.” Big deal, I thought, I could have said that.
He opened the front door for us. “Welcome to Isla Negra,” he said. The room was filled with fantastical things. The mermaid prow of a ship jutted from a staircase. The window ledges were lined with crazy bottles of every color. Devil figurines hung from the ceiling; a collection of beetles hung on a wall. Grinning African masks surrounded a fireplace. There were telescopes, astrolabes, signs for eyeglasses, signs for a grocery, a collection of costume hats. It was like stepping into a poet’s mind and finding the place where all the images are stored.
“Pablo, it’s wonderful,” you said. “Where did it all come from?”
I looked at you. Where did this “Pablo” come from? What happened to “Senor Neruda”?
Pablo shrugged. “Here and there, I travel so much. These are my toys, I find them everywhere. As I got older I discovered I couldn’t live without them. The child who doesn’t play with toys isn’t a child. But the man who doesn’t play has lost forever the child who lived within him. So I built Isla Negra like a toy house. I can play here all day long.”
You laughed and clapped your hands, and spun round like a little girl.
“Yeah, it’s terrific,” I said. “Whaddya got to drink?” Pablo thumped his forehead lightly with the heel of a hand. “You’re right. Forgive me. Let’s go to the dining room.”
He led us through more rooms, each one filled with stuff. Butterflies, canes, carved frogs, crystal vases, a huge paper mache horse, desks made from doors. It took us forty-five minutes to get to our destination. You had questions about everything and he had a story about everything.
The dining room was extravagant, too. In the center was a heavy oak farm table that seated twelve. At one corner were three place settings, each different from the other. There was a Dutch door at the far end of the room leading to the kitchen; an ornately carved sideboard held wines and liquor bottles. The left wall of the room was filled with paintings, including a portrait of his wife
Matilde signed by Diego Rivera; the right wall sprouted twenty little shelves, each one displaying an antique pistol.
Pablo took three glass tumblers from the sideboard and poured a cola-colored liqueur into them. “What’s this?” I asked, holding it up to the light of a chandelier made from colored beads.
“An elixir from the Orient,” said Pablo, looking impish. He raised his drink and we again toasted to spilled champagne. The liqueur was bittersweet and had an aftertaste of walnuts. He filled the tumblers again. This time we toasted old friends and new acquaintances. We toasted many things that night.
You and I were the sole dinner guests. The only other person in Isla Negra besides Pablo was a cook who, from time to time, popped open the top of the Dutch door to deliver another dish.
The food was not ornate. One course consisted simply of fresh tomatoes with coarse salt; another was a plate of marinated mushrooms. We ate grilled sea bass sprinkled with herbs, small red potatoes roasted with garlic, a crusty bread. The flavors exploded in my mouth. At least, that’s how I remember it, thinking back through the haze of years and alcohol. One thing is certain: we had a lot to drink that night. Liqueurs, wines, and—for old time’s sake—champagne.
The food and drink and hours flowed on and Pablo did, too. In his measured, sleepy voice, he told us tales of his youth, his diplomatic years in Asia, his love for the people and mountains and rocks and trees of Chile. Everything Pablo did was an adventure; every famous person his friend; everything was poetry. He was a raconteurial tidal wave.
But you weren’t intimidated at all. You were bold and brazen and uninhibited. You also were more than slightly drunk. You matched him story for story. He told us about winning the Nobel Prize, you told him about winning your fourth-gade poster contest. He talked about Che Guevara and his rebels; you talked about the She-Devil and her rebels.
It must have been almost 2 a.m. when it happened. You had started to tell him about our night with Renatta Vega-Marone, when Pablo looked up to the ceiling and slapped his hands against his chest. “Ah, Rennie,” he said, “what a woman.”
“You knew her?” we exclaimed together.
“Oh, yes,” Pablo replied. “We met, maybe twenty years ago. It was in a little hill town behind Cordoba. She and her gypsy friends kept me captive for two days.”
“Captive?” I said.
“Perhaps I exaggerate a little. It was complicated. Anyway, she said she would dance for me if I would write her poetry.” He put out his hands, palms up. “What could I do? I said, ‘Yes.’ She danced. I wrote.”
“How many poems did you write her?” you asked him. “Many, many. I don’t remember. In the end, I exchanged the poems for my freedom.” He said all this with such a sly expression that I wondered if any of it was true.
Pablo must have seen the look on my face, for he said, “I see you doubt this story, Pablito. Do not doubt it.” And abruptly he stood up.
Moving with inebriated care, Pablo climbed onto his chair and, from there, stepped to the top of the big table. Tiptoeing deftly past the glasses and plates, he reached the middle of the room. Turning to face us, he slowly arched his back and dramatically raised his arms above his head. He began dancing, deliberately at first. A clap of the hands above his head, a stomp of the boot heel against the tabletop. Clap. Stomp. Clap. Stomp. Then faster. Clamp/stomp, clamp/stomp, clamp/stomp. And faster, making the plates and glasses rattle to the rhythm. Then, with a wild yodeling sound, he stomped to a halt.
We cheered like he’d just scored a game-winning touchdown. You put two fingers in your mouth and whistled like a stevedore.
Pablo bowed, grinning broadly. “You see, Pablito?” he said. “I was a captive.” Then he motioned to you. “Come, red-haired Annie. Be my Renatta. Dance with me.”
Before I could blink, you were on the table facing Pablo, hands over your head, matching him clap for clap, stomp for stomp. I don’t remember how long it went on— the dancing, the laughter, the tipsy bodies entwined—but when the two of you nearly fell off the table following a particular flourish, I said, “Okay, you two. Let’s call it a night. Come on, Annie, we should go.”
“Ah, Pablito,” he said, “the night is still dark. Stay. Learn. Learn to live a little.”
“I don’t think so,” I said. “It’s time for us to go.” I reached up a hand to help you down.
“No, Pablito. I won’t let you take her. She’s my captive,” he said, and stepped down onto one of the chairs, braced himself against a wall, took a pistol from one of the shelves, and pointed it at me.
Things happened very quickly after that—though I can still see each moment clearly, as if in a sequential series of photographs.
You grabbed a wine bottle from the table. “Don’t do it, Pablo!” you shouted. And you threw the bottle at him. The bottle hit Pablo a glancing blow on the head. I ducked. The gun fired.
Well, the gun didn’t exactly fire. Pablo pulled the trigger and a littl
e flag, with the word “BANG” on it, came out the end of the barrel.
Pablo collapsed on the chair. We rushed over to him, but he was okay. In fact, he was laughing. Laughing so hard he couldn’t speak.
Oh, yes. Pablo was trouble. And I wouldn’t have had it any other way.
Jack
CHAPTER 31
That night, instead of reading the day’s writing samples from the students of the ninth annual Tar Heel Writers’ Conference, Annie was staring into space. Or more accurately, time.
The fact that it was a time that never existed was irrelevant. Now a copper silk dress with a champagne stain down the front hung in her memory as clearly as the white shorts she’d worn to Friday night services at Camp Reeta. And Pablo Neruda would forever be just Pablo to her.
Annie replayed the scenes at Isla Negra—dancing on the table was her favorite, but the grin on Pablo’s face as the “BANG” flag popped out was unforgettable. Such mischief in one pair of lips.
She knew she should be writing comments on the stack of papers in front of her. Instead, she hit the reply button on Jack’s e-mail.
To [email protected]
From [email protected]
Subject: Dancing Devils
Pablito,
Pablo called last night. To tell me I was doing God’s work: encouraging would-be writers, even if they have no more talent than a termite. And after today’s session at the conference, termites aren’t looking very talented.
If only it were true, that Pablo Neruda could call me. I could use some sage words from the master about now. He’d have known what to tell the man who wrote “Glock Speaks,” a first-person mystery from the gun’s point of view. And he’d have known how to answer your e-mail, how to match you word for exquisite word.
