Because They Wanted To: Stories

by Mary Gaitskill

  When I emerged from the bathroom in Erin’s flat, I found her busily handing Jana and Paulette clear plastic bags filled with crawling bugs. She laughed at my perplexed face. “Didn’t you hear me? We’re going to release the ladybugs.”

  I stared stupidly.

  “For the healing garden!” yelled Erin. “These are special store-bought ladybugs, and we’re going to release them out into the garden to protect it from mites. Because it’s night, they’ll settle in to sleep and then wake up in paradise.”

  We went down the rotted gray back stairs, each holding a bag of bugs. Erin’s cats came with us. My dalmatian-spotted fur shoes looked fey and ridiculous on the steps. When we stepped into the yard, my heels sank into the dirt and I almost fell over. Verdant and sibilant, the garden lurked in the dark. In patches of gray light, we could see leaves trembling.

  “Wait,” said Erin. “I want to say a poem first.”

  Jana belched, and Paulette shoved her.

  “Shut up,” said Erin. “It’s Eliot.”

  “Oh, well, then,” said Paulette.

  Erin coughed and began to recite.

  “I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope

  For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love

  For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith

  But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.

  Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought.”

  There was a soft, jumbled silence. Jana contemplatively sniffed.

  “Shit,” said Erin. “There’s something more about a garden, but I can’t remember.”

  “Isn’t Eliot that turd who made his wife think she was crazy?” asked Paulette.

  “Yeah, I think so,” said Erin. “But it’s still a great poem. Anyway, come on.”

  We went among the sleeping plants. The ladybugs tumbled from our bags and tooled about on petal and leaf with all their diligent legs. My friends giggled and joked. I dropped two ladybugs on the soft flesh of a petunia; it bobbed gently as the tiny creatures alighted. I thought how vast and deeply textured the surface of the flower must be to them, how huge and abstract the garden. My imagination opened in one small deep spot. For a moment I felt I was in a limbo of shadows and half-formed shapes which would dissolve into nothingness if I touched them. I felt loneliness so strong it scared me. Then Jana laughed and Erin brushed by me, thoughtlessly caressing my spine with one hand. I was in a garden with my friends. I could not fully see what lay about me, but still, I knew it was there, abundant, breathing, and calm.

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