A Mind of Winter

by Shira Nayman

  “How many are there now?” was what I think he said. I pressed my ear against the door. It was unlikely that anyone would be afoot at this hour and, in any case at that moment, I cared less about being seen than I did about hearing what was being said on the other side of the door.

  “This brings the number of witnesses to four,” the other voice said.

  There was a long silence. For an unnerving moment I thought that perhaps the conversation was over, that the man would open the door right onto my head.

  But then, Oscar spoke: “I see.”

  Another pause.

  “It is by no means certain how my office will proceed, but I do recommend at this point that you engage legal counsel.”

  Neither of them spoke now, though I heard movement and faint rustling through the door. My instinct told me to take quick leave, which I did, and not a moment too soon. As I rounded the corner of the hallway toward the back stairway, I heard the sound of a door being gently opened and then gently closed.

  Witnesses, I puzzled as I hastened back to the yellow suite. Legal representation. What in heaven’s name could Oscar be accused of?

  CHAPTER SIX

  The days and nights were bleeding into each other. I had lost count of how many nights passed with no more than two or three hours of sleep. When I looked in the mirror, I startled at the sight of the black pools beneath my eyes and the angular cast of my features. Was it one night later, or two, that I was sitting in the darkroom—who knew the hour, it was certainly not before two a.m.—when I heard three quiet raps on the door. It was Oscar, his folded newspaper poking out of his jacket pocket. Cheeks drawn, jacket hanging slightly on his frame. But humor in his face.

  “May I?” He gestured with his arm, indicating the darkened studio behind me, illuminated only by the lamp on the counter.

  “I’m just fixing some coffee.”

  My little pot hissed over a Bunsen burner by the sink. When it was ready, I poured the coffee into glass beakers, added sugar, and handed one to Oscar. I returned to my work. We did not speak, but I sensed that he was even more distracted than he’d been of late. I looked up periodically from my work to find him staring absently above his newspaper at nothing in particular, his mouth pursed. How mournful he looked and, at the same time, emptied of feeling, like a marionette cast from the puppet theater. On one of those stolen glimpses he caught me watching him and attempted a wink, but it froze on his worried face into an awkward admission of distress.

  I was distracted myself, that night, irritated by my work, too aware of the faults of the photographs, which lay in a stack beside my typewritten pages.

  When I glanced up again, Oscar did not try to pull up the mask, made no attempt to still the trembling in his fingers that set the edges of his opened paper to rattling.

  I removed my glasses, rubbed my eyes. “Oscar,” I said quietly, “are you all right?”

  He set down his paper, attempted a smile. “I’ve been a little under the weather,” he said, taking out his handkerchief and touching it to his forehead.

  “Oscar, what is it?” I could see the muscle working along his jaw.

  He seemed about to say something, but instead drew the folded handkerchief across his mouth, as if to stop himself from speaking.

  “Would you like to take a look at my photographs?” I asked unthinkingly, as if I were offering a harmless pleasure that might lift his mood. Immediately, I felt like an imbecile, speaking this way about my wretched material.

  Oscar looked at me as if from across a great expanse. He put down his paper, peered at the stack of proof sheets I had slid toward him across the bench. Slowly, he examined the first. The second. The third.

  The shadow of someone I had never met superimposed itself on Oscar’s features, altering the set of the nose, loosening the lower lip, inking a disturbing chiaroscuro around the eyes. And something strange happened to his jaw—it was as if the bone has gone out of it, slid clear from the groove that held it in place.

  Woodenly, as if of its own accord, Oscar’s hand rose, removed the next proof sheet, lay it facedown on the bench. The hand dropped. He examined the sheet beneath. I had a sudden horrifying vision: I imagined I saw the flesh of Oscar’s cheek hanging in a severed flap against his neck. I shook my head to clear the image. Oscar repeated the mechanical gesture, removing the next sheet. And the next. He continued this way for what seemed an excruciating length of time, until he’d worked through the entire stack. He pushed the pile a few inches away and stared toward the far wall. He seemed to be turning a problem over in his mind, trying to figure something out.

  To my alarm, he started again at the beginning, but this time scanned each page very quickly. He was looking for something. It didn’t take him long to find it: a contact sheet about midway through the stack. He angled it upward to catch the light from the lamp, examined it for several long minutes. It was a series of shots one of my fellow photographers had taken in rapid succession, the variations between them subtle: a shift of five or ten degrees, a step closer or further away, the almost imperceptible changes of light that occur with the passage of a few minutes. The scene, in each, was the same: a length of wire fencing strung along cracked posts, each of which bore a gas lamp, like a hat. In front of the fence, a thicket of barbed wire sprouted weedlike from the ground. At a bend in the fence stood a watchtower, its empty windows filled with the frosty whiteness of the sky. All along the fence, at roughly equal intervals, charred bodies lay in curious poses which in another context (children playing in a garden, clowns in the midst of a circus act) may well have looked comical: a man on his stomach, forearms crooked, legs flung high behind him; another corpse on its belly, head pressed to the ground as if listening for hoof-beats; and a smaller form, a child, head tossed upward, as if charmed by the call of a bird overhead. The images showed the northern fence of Erla, one of the first concentration camps to be liberated. In the center of the page, circled in red wax pencil, was the photograph I had chosen for the exhibition.

  Finally, Oscar looked up at me with eyes I had never before seen. I had been about to say something, but those eyes erased the thought from my mind. I had the strange feeling that I had forgotten how to speak English: that all knowledge of my mother tongue had simply vanished. I felt as if I was drowning in those eyes; they, too, seemed to have forgotten something as absolutely fundamental. Oscar pushed back his stool and rose, took four or five steps and was upon me, bearing down on me with those empty, far-seeing eyes. He took my head in his hands, which felt oddly wooden; he bent down jerkily and kissed my forehead, while I stared helplessly at his chin. He turned, headed for the door, slowly rotated the handle, and was gone.

  We set out at sunrise. As we drove through Oscar’s Spanish gates, the sun blood-orange on the horizon, I felt a heady relief. Barnaby had suggested we spend a couple of days together away from Ellis Park in advance of his departure for Washington. With Simon away, it was easy enough to arrange.

  I looked over at Barnaby, relaxed at the wheel, and felt a surge of uncomplicated joy, complete as religious faith, which made the world, including Barnaby, with his rugged face and strapping self-possession, bristle with benevolent intent. Everything my eyes fell upon seemed to have achieved an aesthetic harmony: the way the tree curved above the rust-colored barn; the composition of a mound of white stones beside a froth of late-blooming sweet william; the sudden ascent of a small flock of cardinals from an old stone bridge.

  We arrived at the inn midmorning. We climbed the creaking stairs to the third floor, Barnaby carrying both bags in one hand, his other arm around my shoulder. Our room overlooked a summer garden in full bloom. I sat down on the enormous bed and fingered the wide cotton frills bordering the pillows. The open window did nothing to thin the viscous heat; it flowed in damply, spiked with hyacinth and honeysuckle and the reedy scent of sage.

  Barnaby pulled the cord of tiny metal links hanging from the ceiling fan and it whirred into action, stirring the thick air and dis
turbing its fragrance. Little gusts slapped gently against my skin. Barnaby moved toward the bed and stood over me. He looked different. There was a stillness in his gaze I had not seen before, an intentness and focus. A dim memory from the distant past drifted into my awareness as we slowly fell among the pillows: a misty vague sensation of sunlight and height, of a room above a garden, a child’s anticipation of something intensely pleasant; and then skimming down flights of stairs, the feel of my child’s hair against my bare shoulders, the treasure in my pocket tinkling: three little spirals of barley sugar.

  I opened my eyes. Embossed blue cornflowers stood out on the wallpaper, little bunches encircled by flat yellow ribbon. Another feeling, also dim, though threaded with certainty, wafted through the room as if borne by the fan: that I belonged here, and that Barnaby belonged here too.

  It was late afternoon when we finally made our way to the lake. We didn’t talk much; we walked holding hands. The sky above the horizon was streaked crimson and yellow, congealed brushstrokes of the leaden heat.

  The lake was larger than I’d expected, with deep, clear water. A family of ducks paddling on the far side ignored us as we approached. We peeled off our clothes, stepped in, glided through the water. Afterward, we lay on the bleached grass of the bank looking up. Little pouches of cloud had gathered; the sky was glazing over with dusk. Barnaby leaned toward me, lowered the strap of my swimsuit, caressed my shoulder, smiled. Then the other strap. He looked oddly surprised as he passed the back of his hand across the length of my collarbone before leaning down to kiss me.

  Leaving our swimsuits on the grass, we swam again. I clung loosely to Barnaby’s shoulders; his long underwater strokes moved us silently forward.

  The shower began as pointy little punctures on the surface of the lake and continued as a soft wash that soaked the clothes we’d left in a heap under a tree. We stayed at the lake well into the evening and walked back through the dark in our bathing suits, holding our wet garments. The darkness did not impede Barnaby’s instinct for moving through terrain; he walked ahead and I wove in the clear space that seemed almost magically to open up behind him. The rain turned to a mist of fine droplets; from time to time, a head of leaves shook water down upon us.

  Back at the inn, the dining room was closed. The innkeeper’s shiny scrubbed face and the rollers in her hair indicated she was ready for bed, but she took pity on us, disappeared into the kitchen, and emerged with a tray, which held a cold joint of lamb, cheese, bread, and fruit.

  The food tasted delicious; we were hungry and ate every morsel. Back up the stairs to our floral profusion of a room. Back onto the bed, the luxurious crisp feel of fresh linens.

  Later, lying together, I propped my head on my hand and smiled into Barnaby’s face.

  “Have you decided yet how you’re going to save me?” I asked playfully.

  “Now, Marilyn. Saving. That’s one thing you don’t need.” He tapped me affectionately on the rump.

  “Well, then, what do you plan to do with me?”

  Barnaby’s eyes twinkled up at me; he surveyed me from head to toe, saying nothing.

  “Whatever happened to Christine?” I asked.

  A shadow passed across Barnaby’s face and, in the instant before he broke out his easy grin, I saw callousness in his eyes.

  “Why would you want to bring up ancient history?” he asked, stretching his limbs.

  I watched a ripple of relaxation pass through his body, from the broad smooth feet, along his thighs, and outward to the tanned muscles of his chest. His eyes turned milky with affection; he reached across with one hand and tousled my hair. It was one of those disconcerting moments when everything suddenly seems off-kilter. I knew—everybody knew—this aspect of Barnaby so well, this comfort and strength and physical ease, the fluidity of action and the way he responded precisely, unthinkingly, to the rhythm of the person he was with. This was partly what made people love him as they did, beautifully and without hesitation.

  But here was another side of it. I looked at him closely, wondering if I had imagined it, that fleeting flicker of—what? Was it contempt? The casualness, the unself-conscious stance seemed suddenly a perverse calculation, summoned to conceal. Watching Barnaby’s eyes, which were hooded with confidence, I knew I’d not imagined it. A hair-thin blade of suspicion skimmed the innocence that generally colored our interactions, leaving in its place something raw and exposed.

  “Really, Barnaby, I want to know,” I said, trying not to let on what it was I had noticed. “About Christine.”

  “Fair is fair. You tell me about your Shanghai and I’ll tell you about mine.”

  I felt caught off guard. I’d once mentioned I’d spent time in China with my parents when I was eleven years old. My father, a businessman, traveled for several months each year; every now and then, he took my mother and me with him. Now, images from that visit reared up. I tried to push the images away, but they would not yield. Lice; I could see the little black mites popping around the stringy-haired heads of children. Dark eyes, the chasm between us a mirage—nothing there, no pit, no divide, nothing but a few sorry feet of dirt. Me not much older than they were—and no camera, yet, with its paradoxical powers to protect me from, and yet also yield up the world: a widening of the chasm and at the same time a leap across the divide.

  I could feel the trembling in my lower lip, tried to hide it, but too late. Barnaby gently touched his forefinger to my lip. He pulled himself up to sitting position.

  “All right, then,” he said. “Christine.”

  He looked away.

  “Christine got herself into trouble. I don’t know what you know about the opium trade in Shanghai, but you don’t mess with those guys. And you don’t give them a hold over you.”

  Now, he was all business.

  “Christine knew that as well as anybody. But I suppose she just—” He broke off, seemed to be holding his breath.

  “Just what?”

  “Lost interest.”

  “Lost interest? In what?”

  “In life. In her life. I did everything I could for her. Finally, I sent her back to England.”

  “So that’s what happened? She went back to England?”

  “As far as I know. I put the ticket in her hand. She said she was going to go. There was nothing more I could do.”

  Lying next to Barnaby, I wondered why his words made me so uneasy.

  “You never loved Christine, did you,” I whispered. That hardness, again, in his eyes.

  “I’m not sure that’s really any of your business,” he said quietly.

  “I can’t explain it, Barnaby, but I feel as if it is. I need to know—”

  “What?”

  “What you want.”

  Barnaby softened; I could feel it like a cooling of the air.

  “It’s hardly complicated, darling,” he said. “I want you, that’s all.”

  Why did I not believe him?

  “But Barnaby, it is complicated. It’s so complicated, I feel all tangled up in it.”

  Looking at him, I wondered how he imagined things proceeding. Did he picture us limping along in this fashion forever? Stolen hours, a weekend here and there, always the configuration of the tryst?

  I spoke without thinking: “You’ve never asked me to leave Simon.”

  “No, apparently I haven’t.”

  “And you have no intention of doing so.”

  Barnaby looked at me squarely. “No, I suppose I don’t.”

  And then, it came clear. Barnaby said that he wanted me, but he didn’t, not really. He wanted the idea of me, which meant keeping the living me at a remove. Simon was crucial in this equation—the fact that in the end, my husband was always there. I suspected there was some way in which Christine, too, had remained at arm’s length for Barnaby, though I did not know the shape that had taken. Perhaps I’d been wrong to accuse him of never having loved her. In fact, he did seem intent upon loving. But to accept being loved back, wholly, and by an e
qual: perhaps that was not part of his nature.

  “Marilyn.” Now it was Barnaby who spoke softly.

  “Yes?”

  “You weren’t serious about going to the Soviet Union, were you?”

  “Why would you suppose I wasn’t?”

  “The way I see it,” he said slowly, “New York is not so very far from Washington. Leningrad, on the other hand, is an altogether different story.”

  “It wouldn’t be for long,” I responded, having warmed to the idea of the place myself, even though it had only sprung to my lips when it did on a whim.

  Barnaby seemed to take this as some sign that the little dispute, if that’s what you could call it, was at an end. He rolled toward me, took me in his arms. I allowed the confusion to seep out of me, curled myself into him, allowed it all to drift out to sea.

  At breakfast, I was quiet. I found I didn’t have anything to say. Barnaby ate with gusto—eggs, bacon, toast. On the long walk to the lake, unpleasant dream-image scraps hung around me like cobwebs that clung more closely the more I tried to swipe them away. Hidden half-faces I didn’t recognize, secretive whispers, a conspiratorial air. A mounting, unstoppable alarm.

  After the cooling rains of the previous night, the heat returned full force and clamped against every square inch of my skin. As we walked, Barnaby talked happily of past travels. He wanted to show me the world. Africa, of course, and Melanesia. The mysteries of the Norwegian fjords. Bare-legged, I felt the reeds whipping my ankles, and the sting of prickly vines. We were taking a different route from the one we had taken the day before, though this did not seem like sufficient explanation for how different the landscape felt, how punishing the vegetation, and acrid the odors. An occasional crackling beneath my open sandals puzzled me. I slid to the ground and discovered the slippery remains of a beetle glued wetly to the sole of my shoe.