by Jim Crace
THAT AFTERNOON when they got home, they saw at once that there’d been burglars. Their house looked out of sorts, as if it had been caught cheating on its owners. The outer gate was open, upstairs lights were on, someone had dropped a duster and rope on the drive, no one had bothered to wipe their dirty feet on the porch mat, and there was a dry rectangle of driveway by the front door where something large had parked but which the recent rain had not yet had a chance to wet.
Had Alicja and Lix arrived back in Beyond just a few minutes earlier they would have caught the three young men in overalls loading everything expensive, imported, and electric into their van: the two television sets, the VCR, the emptied refrigerator, the new computer system and printer, not yet even installed, the hi-fi tower, the three telephones, the answering machine, the radio alarm clock, the Italian stove, the PowerChef, the washing machine, even the vacuum cleaner and Lech’s game console. Trading debts and import taxes had turned anything foreign with plugs into liquid currency and anyone too impatient to endure low wages and late pay into an Appliance Bandit. Only last weekend there had been a cartoon in a newspaper showing someone in a mask paying for a tube of toothpaste with an electric toothbrush and getting a socket plug by way of exchange.
It was a near escape that stayed with Lix and haunted him for many months, how close they’d been that afternoon to driving through the garage gates, into the shadow of their private trees, before the men in overalls had driven off to deliver that day’s “imports” to their clientele. Then what? What kind of heroism would have been required of him, the man who’d never satisfied his wife, to rescue their appliances?
The Lix we know would not have challenged any burglars. He might have hovered at the shoulder of his braver wife, muttering his cautions, if she’d been mad enough to get out of the car and battle with the thieves. He might have locked the car doors and blared his horn at them, the car hovering in reverse gear. He might have driven off at once, fled the scene, to call the police from the nearest bar. On this day of anger and resentment, however, there was another possibility. A murderous one.
It was, then, just as well, perhaps, that Lix would never have the chance to find out if his anger was more brutal than his fear. The traffic had been stalled across the bridges to the city’s eastern banks since midafternoon and so their drive out to Beyond had taken more than an hour, an hour in which the weather changed to drizzle and the dusk set in. What began in sunlight ended in darkness and in rain.
FOR AN ACTOR, trained in faces, Lix was surprisingly readable when he was in a temper. His muscles tightened and his eyes went watery. Anger, was it? Embarrassment? Hurt? During their journey home he needed to identify the exact nature of his distress, then he’d know what his reaction ought to be to what Alicja had claimed. Never is the cruellest word, beyond negotiation. He understood that he was the resentful victim of a joke, the rough-and-tumble of the tablecloth, and that his rage would appear—had appeared—paranoid and feeble to outsiders. But there was also something dark behind his wife’s disclosure at the Feast that needled him and panicked him. It had left him cold and cruel.
The driving home was difficult. Lix squinted back the sunlight and the tears, and then he had to peer through heavy rain—two films of water then—which made the road seem remote and hazardous. Lix had imagined earlier that day that they’d be heading home for sex. Now he wanted to get home only to shout at his infuriating wife, if he could find the pluck to shout. Lix, to tell the truth, the shy and celebrated Lix who’d never done much harm to anyone despite his curse, despite his fame, was in the suburbs of a breakdown.
So, trapped in the traffic in the inner parts of the city, he set his jaw against the world. He would not speak to Alicja. He would not even look at her until his mind had cleared and he had formulated sentences that would repay her, punish her, match her indiscretion with some bruising indiscretion of his own. He would not grant her a single nod or shake of the head, not even when she tried to thaw him out with her calm voice and then her tough one. He silenced her with his own heavy breathing and exasperated sighs, and then with music. He put on a maddening jazz cassette, a tinkling trio of New Yorkers—string, skin, and ivory—chatting amongst themselves through their fingertips. He added the percussion of the windshield wipers. He banged his hand impatiently on the steering wheel, pretending to enjoy the jazz. He drove the car erratically, on purpose.
Even that could not shake off his irritation. The last ten minutes of their meal, before the sulky settling of the bill and the awkward farewells, played through his mind in an uninterruptible loop: the malice of everybody laughing, the grateful gape of pleasure on Joop the Scoop’s normally disdainful face as the scandalous material for his next Diary piece dropped into his lap, the clumsy comment from the owner of his record company that “Never Had an Orgasm” would be the perfect title for a song.
“What, never, Alicja? Not even almost? Not even on your own?” the actress-poet had asked. Then everybody else—his colleagues and his friends, so-called—had felt obliged to add their ridicule.
“Not even on an airplane?”
“Try riding a scooter or a motorcycle. That ought to do the trick.”
“Go home and hug the washing machine. Super spin cycle.”
“Poor Lix.”
“No, poor Alicja! We ought to order her a plate of oysters. Waiter! Bring on the aphrodisiacs.”
“One for me, one for you, and one for the chicken.”
Lix’s Obligation Feast had been humiliating.
Alicja had been humiliated, too, of course. But she was used to it. Her husband’s friends had never been the subtle sort, especially after so much wine. She shrugged their comments off. What she could not shrug off was Lix’s hurt. She had not meant to hurt him; she did not want him to be hurt. It was inconvenient. What she had planned—a tender, loving telling of the truth to a man for whom she still had feelings—was now impossible. He was bound to ask, Is the sex better with Joop? So the orgasm quip had been a big mistake, because it would appear that the affair was only about sex. Then Lix would think that better sex would rescue it. Sex with Joop was better, as a matter of fact. Your neighbor’s fruit is always sweeter than your own. But it wasn’t about sex entirely. It was about marriage and freedom. Making love to Lix, between the household chores and work and being a responsible senator and taking care of constituents and finding time for Lech, had come to feel like just more wifework.
She’d meant the passion of their marriage to endure, of course. No one’s to blame, but passion is not intended to endure. The overture is short or else it’s not the overture. Nor is marriage meant to be perfect. It has to toughen on its blemishes. It has to morph and change its shape and turn its insides out and move beyond the passion that is its architect. Falling in love is not being in love. Waiting for the perfect partner is self-sabotage. Alicja knew all these things. She still wanted, though, to be womanly, not wifely. Lix had failed her in that regard. Yet saying so was difficult and cruel. She’d spent the month since she’d accepted that their marriage was in ruins running her wedding ring up and down her finger and practicing how she should phrase the uncomfortable news of her infidelity. Now, as they crawled through the traffic in the suburbs and the rain, all she had to practice was an explanation and an apology.
Lix had not been such a dreadful lover, mostly. He’d been attentive, regular, prepared to act on her advice. What more could any woman want? Nobody could expect a faultless performance every time. This was not the theater. She had no grievances. But repetition takes its toll, she supposed, as does parenthood. Habituation dulls the soul. She would not have been the first woman who had become bored after three years of well-rehearsed routines or who had lately much preferred those tender contacts that were neither sexual nor time-consuming. To want your husband as an undemanding friend and a reliable relative but not a lover, was that the first sign that love was lost? She’d been a fool to let him think she’d never had an orgasm with him. She’d undermi
ned their three not unhappy years together. Marriages consist of more than orgasms, of graver spasms and contractions. She’d had a child with him for heaven’s sake! As soon as they were home, she thought, she’d sit him down and make him talk.
THEY WENT THROUGH the house from room to room, tiptoeing almost, careful not to make a noise. Lix’s fists were clenched and his toes were rolled inside his shoes ready to run or kick if anybody was still inside their home. Alicja was trembling.
The ornamented metalwork on the window by the entryway had been chiseled out of the holding mortar and bent back enough to let a small man, hardly bigger than Lech, it seemed, clamber through the broken glass. That was the only damage. Thank goodness the thieves had been professional. There was no soiling and no gratuitous mess apart from the contents of the fridge and freezer, which had been tumbled onto the kitchen floor and were already weeping icy water. There was, though, evidence of disregard. Lech’s toys, always neatly kept in boxes, had been tipped out on the rugs and pushed about the floor either by somebody who believed that toys were hiding places for jewelry and cash or else was young enough himself not to resist the invitation of a plastic car, with a friction engine and flashing lights.
One of the faucets was running in Alicja’s bathroom. Someone had used the toilet—the seat was up—and rinsed their hands: the soap was wet. The upstairs curtains had been drawn halfway across their windows. The burglars had not wiped their shoes between each trip out to their van. Nor had they, thankfully, paid much attention to the cupboards and the drawers. A wallet was missing from the mantel but their passports and the family papers had not been touched, and Lix’s acting memorabilia had been ignored. Nothing had been spoiled or damaged out of spite. The thieves had not been desecrators, just hasty businessmen.
“It doesn’t matter, does it?” Alicja said. “It’s only machines. No one’s hurt.” She didn’t say, as she was tempted to, “I’ll not be hugging my washing machine today.” Another joke would not be wise. Nor did she say, “We’ll get new stuff within a week or two. My father only has to say his name in certain ears.” She didn’t say it, because in fact she thought, We won’t get new stuff, actually. There’ll be no need. The cargo of their marriage was already shipping out, and though she was not exactly pleased, the burglary seemed meaningful. Beyond the shock and sense of violation, there was a sliver of elation as they toured their perfect and expensive house, noting all the spaces. Rid yourself of chattels first, and then the man.
The man was by now almost in tears again.
“What should we do?” She had to put her arm around his waist. Today was not the day, she realized, for admitting her affair. It would have to wait until he got back from America.
“What can we do? They’ve taken everything and gone.”
“We ought to call the police. We’d better not touch anything. I’ll telephone my father …”
“Call the police? Call the police on what? They didn’t leave a telephone,” he said. “Let’s leave your father out of it.”
“Go to the neighbor’s house and call from there.”
Lix did not want more invaders yet, tramping through the house, unnerving him with questions. And Alicja preferred to deal with problems in the order in which they arose. So they did not tell the police or call for help for twenty minutes more. Instead, she suffered him. She had first to restore at least one of the orgasms she had denied in front of all his friends downstairs below the Debit Bar. She had to make amends and reassure her failing husband. That was only fair. A marriage should be straightened out before it’s pulled apart.
HE MADE HER pregnant again, of course. The contraceptives, not much used in recent months, were kept in Lix’s missing wallet. Thanks to burglars perhaps, their second son was taking shape. Thanks to the purchase of a blouse. Thanks to the risky game of Never. Thanks to the guilty fondness that endures, survives the breakup of a marriage, she would have a second son.
By ill fortune and good luck, Lix had done as much as any man could do in natural history to see his scoundrel rival slink away, his tail and nothing else between his legs. Vasectomized Jupiter, the columnist, would speedily lose interest in the senator when he discovered she was pregnant. So Lix would never have to hear the truth about his lunch pal Joop—because by the time he got back from Nevada, his wife’s new relationship would be over and she’d be two months pregnant.
We should not, though, expect a reconciliation, for this would be the last occasion Lix and his Alicja, his plump and much improving wife, would ever kiss, embrace, make love. For it was love, this final time. Not perfect sex. Not orgasms and passion such as she would have with Joop and with the fellow after Joop or with the man who’d be her second husband and the father of her only daughter, but tender love nevertheless, two bodies being thoughtful, being kind and fond, and being slightly desperate, because at moments such as these the truth is always on display.
Alicja had not admitted anything just yet, and Lix had not dared to ask. His cowardice was without boundaries. Besides, her beryl blouse was lying on the bed, and her indented body was so engaged with his that he could hardly think or grieve. Perhaps it was just as well that when the sex was over and before they called the police they could lie in bed and not feel obliged to talk. Talk at that time was dangerous.
Then Lix was in the car again, the smell of her not quite removed by showering, not quite hidden by his spray cologne. He’d have to be Don Juan Amongst the Feminists at eight o’clock that night, and if he didn’t hurry he’d arrive too late for staging notes and makeup calls. It was as dark by now as it had seemed when they were dining in the Hesitation Room. He was heading into town while traffic from the offices and shops was heading out. The actor’s face was flecked and flashed by lights and indicators, profile, profile, then full on.
He parked his car behind the theater, depressed, elated, but relieved to have the pressure of the sex removed. The anger was reduced as well. He’d been a fool. He was resigned to what the future held if it held anything. He was content to be back in the ancient town, amongst the places that he loved. The buildings seemed to shimmer in the shifting lights, as offices winked off their lamps and bars and restaurants and clubs sprang to life.
Lix waited for a bus to pass, its windows full of backs and coats, before he crossed to the theater and made it to his dressing room without needing to exchange a word with anyone. He closed the door and he was Don Juan.
An hour later, costumed and made up, he stood at the window with his playscript looking out on the heads of the first arrivals at the theater, his captive audience. The building shook a little to the digestive rumbling once again of the nightmare streetcars that didn’t suspend their timetables for mere theater. Instead they did their best to remind his audience every night that they were watching an artifice and that only one street away the city’s aged transit system labored on, taking uninvented people to their uninvented homes.
There was a point in Don Juan’s last speech each night when Lix could almost guarantee a streetcar. Some of the audience would laugh. Such incongruity, a streetcar. Others, though, would look alarmed as the auditorium amplified the rattle of the carriages into something that might be the distant and approaching earthquake the city had been promised by geophysicists “within a hundred years.” Then the theater would shake with nervousness and they would ask themselves, Will we survive? What will survive? Uncannily, the answer came from the stage. “Of all the edifices in our town,” Don Juan explained as streetcars passed by, “no one can doubt, not anyone who’s lived at least, that love’s the frailest tower of them all, meant to tumble, built to fall.”
5
THEY’D NEVER TRULY KISSED before, Lix and An. It was undeniable, though—there were nine thousand witnesses so far—that their lips had touched, and had done so every night for fourteen weeks—in character, in costume, and onstage, abetted by their scripts. They were obedient professionals. The play demanded that they fall in love, so they obliged convincingly. They w
ere old hands at that.
They’d been respectful colleagues, yes, cheerful and supportive. Yet nobody could claim that they were even friends offstage. If they ever coincided in the Players’ Lounge or in the bar behind the theater, they were polite with each other but uninvolved, the lively little actress, not so young and not so pretty anymore, and Mr. Taciturn, who’d led God knows what kind of life since his divorce and his success. The gossip columns couldn’t even guess, beyond the rumors circulating still that he was either egotistical in bed or impotent. The evidence was thin either way. Lix had no public life, no politics. Reclusive was the word the papers used these days to describe the actor. Or, better, secretive, because that suggested he was concealing something. You’d not expect a man like that to couple up with An, for whom concealment and reclusion were anathema. But this was the break of New Year’s Day, New Century’s Day, and both of them were lonely, and exhilarated by the date, 1/1/01. Conception Day for Rosa Dern.
