by Sheila Heti
And they took one last long look at the cabin, so as never to forget it, and they walked out to the car, him leading the way.
The ride home took five hours, and she lay back in her seat and looked out the window, and the sky was dark and wet, and he was tired, and he kept his eyes on the road, and they talked little, and when they did it was only to reminisce about Saturday.
As they were driving into the city, she said mournfully, “I hate this city. I hate my job. And I don’t want to go back to my parents.”
And he said, “I have a goddamn eight o’clock meeting tomorrow and I have so much work to catch up on.” And he said, “We shouldn’t have gone.”
But he didn’t mean it that way.
When they got to her house, he unloaded the bags and carried them to the door and dropped them on the stoop, and they stood there looking at each other, but he seemed impatient. And she made her eyes both melancholy and bright, and said, “I had such a wonderful weekend. Thanks.”
And he said, “I did too.”
And he said, “I’ll give you a ring tomorrow.”
And he thought about the work he had at home, and she thought about her parents sitting around the table and how she’d have to talk to them, and they kissed, and he went back to his car, and as she was unlocking the door, he drove off and away.
JANIS AND MARCUS
THERE WAS CONDENSATION on the windowpane.
“The philanthropists will continue their verbal and written exposition,” Marcus noted wearily, not speaking into the receiver as he put down the phone. Janis, on the other end, hung up hard. She hated when he would talk to his cat.
NOW IT WAS just one of those sunny days when everyone was outside being happy. There were strollers on the streets and babies clenching their fists at each other, dogs sniffing each other up and down, and mothers stopping to chat with cool drinks in their hands, rich with caffeine and sunglasses on.
Janis and Marcus were sitting in the park, watching the kids on a jungle gym. Marcus was saying, “In a word, the sole means that will be employed by the philanthropists will be exposition; and the sole object that they will propose in their expositions will be that of inducing kings to use their powers to bring about the political changes that have become necessary.”
Janis was watching the children play. Not even turning her head she said, “Some years ago I accompanied a candidate for the presidency on his campaign tour. He was, like all such rascals, an amusing fellow, and I came to like him very much.”
THAT EVENING THEY drank Chartreuse under the stars, and Janis’s roommate joined them with a glass of lemonade on the porch, overlooking the apartment parking lot.
“I had a terrible day,” said the roommate. “I was doing the laundry since morning. Can you believe it?”
“Yes I can,” said Janis, “because you have no sense of real beauty. You always miss the glorious days to do chores.”
“But I do have a sense of real beauty,” her roommate said, “which is apparent because of my despair at missing a day such as today.”
“Then why didn’t you put off the laundry till tomorrow?”
Her roommate shrugged. “Why do birds fly?”
“Because it’s their nature.”
“I don’t want to get into one of these discussions,” her roommate said, putting down the lemonade and pinning up her hair.
“You see,” said Janis. “You intentionally miss everything. That’s the problem with you.”
Marcus was getting a headache. He had been thinking about nothing before the roommate came out. Now he was thinking about everything.
“I have to go,” he said, rising.
“No, don’t go! We’re not fighting.”
“You know me,” Marcus said kindly. “I like to be alone.” He kissed Janis on the head and let himself out the door as Janis watched him leave.
“See what you’ve done?” she asked her roommate.
“Don’t blame me,” her roommate said.
Janis sighed. If only she made enough money she would live alone.
THE RASPBERRY BUSH
A LITTLE OLD woman who never stopped smiling walked into her kitchen from her garden. She had been standing in the sun for twenty minutes, tears in her eyes, looking at her beautiful raspberry bush that had died overnight. Instead of perky red raspberries she had found them black and brittle, and they fell to the ground at the slightest touch.
The sun shone through the kitchen window and lit up everything with sparkles of gold as the little old woman who never stopped smiling called up her sister in such a sorrow. Her sister was eighty-eight and lived in California. She said into the phone, “The raspberries are dead.”
Her sister replied, “Well, the grandchildren are flunking out of school and Martha is pregnant and Sam is divorcing his wife and his wife is taking up with a gypsy girl. The infant has the flu and she never stops coughing. I was over there the other day and all they talk about is money ever since Tom got fired from the plant. Not to mention that Timothy never stops dating and we all think he has AIDS or gonorrhoea or something. The news, I saw it today, told about a hurricane in the Andes which, as you know, is where Paul and Marie went skiing last week. Everyone here is miserable with grief and worry.”
The little old woman listened to her sister, and when she had finished the little old woman who never stopped smiling put down the phone and sat in her kitchen which was dotted with gold.
There was a knock.
“Hello?” called the woman, and she stood up and padded to the door and saw through the peephole a young man in a delivery cap holding a bouquet of flowers. She opened the door.
“Why,” her lips curled up in a smile. “These can’t be for me.”
“Are you Miss Marcia—”
“No, young man. She’s next door.” And the little old woman who never stopped smiling closed the door and went to sit at her kitchen table. The day was long; there were eight more hours in it. She had planned to eat the raspberries, one by one, every last one of them. But overnight the bush had died and there wouldn’t be raspberries ever again.
The little old woman laid down her head and started to cry. She cried at her table every day, but no one knew it.
FRAMES FROM CHRISTIANITY
RECENTLY THE MAN had been asking questions. He had taken to walking the streets at night, an old scarf wound tightly around his mouth and ears, a satchel full of books in hand. He would stop to chat with people, especially the prostitutes. Before this spurt of questions the man had never spoken to a prostitute, though a person he knew had slept with one once.
It was a Thursday evening and the man put on his endless scarf and made his way down la rue Hébert, a nice residential street with a large empty parking lot. He arrived in the lot at seven thirty but none of the prostitutes were there, so he sat on a pylon and waited, asking himself, “Why did I bring all these books? I always carry around too many books and I never even read any.” The man had been well-educated once and during that time had read a great many books. But lately he had been asking questions and reading all of nothing.
Miss Moriarty entered the lot wearing a green feathered hat and carrying a red purse. She looked just like a holiday. The man jumped up and happily waved, loudly crying, “Miss Moriarty!”
She glanced about to see who it was. When she spotted the man she approached him with a disinterested look, seeming edgy. She did not like this man, but the man, who proceeded to pull his scarf down to just below his chin, liked everyone.
“Where are the other ladies?” he asked. “And why are you the first one here?”
She said she didn’t know and didn’t care. Then she left to prowl the lot. He didn’t know what she was looking for, and as she didn’t either, she soon wound up beside him.
“Do you have a chocolate bar?” Her voice was dry.
The man checked his pocket and his bag but all he had were too many books and two dollars. This caused them to set off toward the nearest convenience
store, and as they walked, she looked in his dictionary.
“Misanthrope,” she said. “Miscreant. Molehill. Mansion. Molar. Moose.”
“Yes, that very dictionary you are holding has every word you could ever need,” the man said proudly, and what he didn’t say but implied was, “and it’s mine.”
“I don’t like dictionaries,” she said. They were only a block from the store and the street was dark. Raccoons scratched their nails on the trees as they passed. “I don’t even like people with dictionaries,” she said, and gave it back to him. He frowned and put it in his bag.
“Are you sure you don’t like people with dictionaries?” he asked, giving her a second chance.
“I’m sure.”
He no longer felt like spending two dollars on her.
In the little grocery store she picked out a terrible chocolate bar with both caramel and mint. While paying for it the man bought a weekly lottery ticket. “If I win this you get half,” he told her.
Before he was ready she left the store. Turning toward the lot she flung her hair, and her lips were fluorescent under the streetlight. “Quit following me,” she said. “Go home.”
He stood and watched silently as she walked away, then ripped the lottery ticket in two and dropped it in the gutter.
THAT NIGHT IN bed the man sat with his dictionary on his lap, moving slowly through the pages with tenderness and care, as if it were a family photo album. His face showed a wistful, almost curious nostalgia.
THE MAN WOKE early the next morning and put on his shoes and shirt and went to call on his uncle Charlie, who had an unlisted number.
The two men sat near Uncle Charlie’s window and the man kept his coat and scarf on. They ate ice cream from bowls. He asked Uncle Charlie about the old days, but Charlie said, “It’s a secret,” and wouldn’t tell him anything.
“Why are you wearing that scarf?” Uncle Charlie asked.
“Because I’m cold,” the man replied, and Uncle Charlie looked away.
When the man left, Charlie bent toward the window to see him walk down the path, then fell asleep in that position under the patchwork comforter.
THAT AFTERNOON, THE man who had been asking questions ran out of things to do. He sat himself below a tree that was planted by the side of the road and idly watched the wildlife—squirrels, chipmunks, babies. He was soon kicked off the lawn. He hadn’t realized it was private property.
“Why don’t you just go on home?” he was asked by the property owner.
“Why don’t I just go on home?” he asked himself, sour. “Is going home such a failure?” he asked himself again.
A BENCH FOR MARIANNE AND TODD
MARIANNE WALKED THE edge of the pier and looked down and saw her reflection staring back at her. It was an ugly reflection, one she had gotten used to, and it stared up at her dully. She spat into the water, perverting it, and walked back to the sand. There lay her first and last boyfriend, Todd, a big guy with red hair and nothing much going for him except his exacting kindness.
She sat down beside him and dumped a handful of sand between his legs.
“Hey!” he said, a little bit miffed. Then softer, joking, “That feels kind of funny.”
“Oh Todd,” she said, and thought about her ugliness and thought about Todd’s ugliness and said, “We’re both filthy, ugly, unattractive people. There are people much more beautiful than us, with better lives than us, and then there’s you and me, you my only love, and me your only love, and we’re what’s left of the rest. We’re the refuse of humanity and here we are on the coldest day of the year, alone in the sand, looking out over the water, and we’re totally totally miserable.”
Todd thought about what she had said, disagreed with some of it, and looked at her face, which was looking out over the sea, and he said, “Don’t worry. We don’t need anybody else. I have you and you have me, and even if we are two very ugly people with no hopes or ambitions, we have each other, and nobody else has that.”
Marianne considered it a moment, disagreed with some of it and agreed with the other parts, thought of turning her head and giving him a kiss, but decided against it. She thought, “I don’t need to prove anything.” And she felt the pimple festering under the skin of her nose throb a little.
She said, “But don’t you see? That makes us nothing in the eyes of the world. So you have me and I have you. So what? We’re just a couple of dumb animals, ugly dumb animals, and nobody loves us, and nobody looks at us, but when they do they shudder. That matters more than any paltry love we have.”
She lay back on the cold wet sand, felt her hair tangle with the stones, and looked up at the dark, gray sky.
Todd leaned back on his hands, looked farther over the waves, and felt small and lowly, like the only man in the world, which made him feel bigger but lonely, and yet he didn’t touch her hand, he didn’t need to pretend. He yawned, though he wasn’t tired, and yawned again, though he wasn’t bored, and said, “Let’s walk,” but she said no.
Ten minutes passed, then another five, and neither of them spoke. Their thoughts were hazy, somewhat around their loneliness and ugliness, and finally Marianne said, “Whatever you want,” and they got up and started to walk down the boardwalk, on which no one else was walking, and Marianne said, “Where are all the people?”
Todd said, “At home, in front of their fireplaces, wine in hand, love by their side, all warm and happy and beautiful, like you know.”
And Marianne said, “Why are we the only ones here?”
And Todd said, “There’s nowhere else for us to go.”
Later, Marianne sighed, and Todd asked, “Are you crying?”
And Marianne said, “No.”
“Todd,” said Marianne, “are we ever going to get married and have children?”
And Todd said, “I don’t think so.”
And they both felt something.
“Todd,” said Marianne, “I love you. I really do.”
And Todd said, “You’re a silly girl, but I love you too.”
They didn’t take each other’s hand. They sat down on a bench and looked out over the water and heard not the rustle of people or the roar of traffic or the raindrops on the lake. They didn’t hear each other breathing, or feel the presence of God. They heard their heavy thoughts and slumped back on the bench and contemplated some. Well, if it wasn’t the sea, so dark and grim. If it wasn’t the sky, the worst of the year. If it wasn’t the weather, the coldest day yet. And everyone inside escaping it. And there they were, ugly and forlorn, in a day just as ugly, and just as forlorn, but still a day, still a day.
THE POET AND THE NOVELIST AS ROOMMATES
THE POET WENT softly to the novelist’s bedroom, while the novelist lay asleep, sleep coming out heavy like a stink through his nose. The poet stood in the doorway, watching, pressing down on the doorframe.
He loved his roommate. But not like that. It was four in the morning and why had he woken? Sleep was a burden for a man like him. And yet here was a man who slept through the night.
“He must be in a state of guilt,” the poet thought, before turning and going to bed. Padding through the hall he asked himself quietly, “What am I doing in this city? Even looking at the clouds I feel I have lost my imagination.”
ON THE WOMAN’S first day at work the poet helped her with her boxes, but as he was helping he was looking away.
“Do you know this is my seventieth sick day since I started here?” he asked.
“But you’re here,” she said.
“Yes, I know.” And he went to the bathroom and peed blood.
When he returned she was sitting upright, typing at her computer like a good girl. There was a calculated grace about her and it was this that caused him, eyes drooping and weary, to lean over the partition and say to her face, “Come with me after work. I will show you a good place to drink around here.”
“I’ll come, sure,” she said, looking up, and there was no guile expressed, just a big round smil
e and those hateful eyes that only women understood.
When the workday ended he took her by the arm and led her to The Poodle, which was seedy and disreputable and no place for a woman in a cubicle to be. He looked around. She was wearing a bra on tight beneath her clothing.
“Sit down here at this booth,” he said, pushing in her body with both his hands, “and I will get you a soda water.”
“I take gin in my soda water,” she said hopefully, and the poet walked away with a shudder. These modern women. They had no sense of their own indecency.
When he returned with the drinks he slipped into the booth and began to twitch in boredom as he listened to her story.
“I have a husband and three children,” she began.
“But you look eighteen,” he said mournfully, and swished his drink. A husband and three children. “You should not be dressed like that then,” he concluded.
She furrowed her brow and sucked up her drink with pristine fury. “Thank you for this,” she said, smacking down the glass and dropping the straw from her lips as she walked.
When he returned that night he found his roommate working on his novel. Looking up from the computer his roommate beckoned him over.
“I think there is a bug behind the glass,” said the novelist, pointing to a place on the screen, then tracing it, following it.
“I don’t see it,” the poet replied, eyes crossed in intoxication.
“Go to bed,” the novelist said, and the poet did.
WHEN THE POET woke he remembered the woman, the one with the husband and the three lovely kids. Probably right now she was frantically diapering them, or shoving sandwiches into their boxes, not thinking anything, just scurrying around with a phone in her chin, talking to her sister in Ottawa.
