Grace

by Calvin Baker

  “Are you late for something?” She turned to me again, as the train finally started moving toward the station. I looked at my watch: it was six forty-five.

  “I may have missed it.”

  “It’s too late for me to go to class, too,” she said. “Would you like to have coffee?”

  We were at 68th Street, and as we walked up the stairs chatting, she told me she was doing a postdoc in evolutionary linguistics. “Don’t you think it’s fascinating how you can tell the whole story of humanity through language?” she asked.

  I cursed myself for the night before as I asked an anodyne question about whether her family were scientists.

  She blushed until her cheeks were the same color as her hair.

  “I’m the only person in my family to go to university,” she answered, adding she was also the only woman in her extended family who had not had a child before twenty-two.

  When I asked why she had not, she told me she had wanted to study, but married at twenty-one. When her husband disapproved, she left him to come here alone.

  We surfaced from the subway awkwardly.

  I rang Anna, but there was no answer. I began leaving a message, but before I could finish I received an incoming text: “How dare you stand me up,” she wrote, full of outrage.

  I called again, but she sent me straight to voicemail. I believed in generosity in my dealings with lovers—even former would-be lovers—but her self-importance made me regret again getting involved.

  “It was not meant to be,” Irina said, when she saw my plans had fallen through. “So—?”

  My emotions were chaotic; the last thing I could risk, I told myself, was trouble. I did not know whether she was or not, only that I had a way of drawing to me those who had grown up under dictatorships, in exile, in pain. Girls who had seen people die. Literally. Spiritually. And who had been told they were difficult, ugly, stupid. Too smart for their own good. I did not know what she was about, but the cost of finding out might prove too high. It was the subway. Allure and danger were everywhere.

  “It was nice chatting with you,” I said, as we parted uncertainly.

  But as she walked away, I regretted being closed to experience. She reminded me of people I knew with integrity, resilience, unjaded knowingness.

  But as she disappeared I thought of Genevieve and felt what every fanatic, every tyrant, every sad sap in the whole history of the whole world knew instinctively, as he conspired to lock up his wives and daughters behind moats, under custom, under prejudice, under law: When you have lost your woman you have lost your way of life.

  17

  Before leaving the house the next morning for a meeting with my lawyer, Westhaven, I checked my e-mail, and found a dozen messages from Anna, each more wrathful than the last. “I have the number of the police, and I’m not afraid to use it,” she concluded.

  Police? I turned off the computer without answering her, and made my way up to see Westhaven, fearful of what I had gotten myself into.

  His offices were in an art deco building in Midtown, where the security guard scanned my identification before directing me to the elevator bank, where another guard checked the credentials I had just been issued. I went through a turnstile, then ascended an elevator whose doors opened onto a nondescript office suite of understated good taste. Westhaven’s assistant met me at reception and escorted me down the labyrinthine halls to his office, which was filled with books, diplomas, furniture carefully selected to demonstrate wealth without ostentation, and otherwise all the signs and codes you want from an attorney who understands the workings of the world. That it weighs you by a scale of outward signs. That it holds these things to be who you are and what you are worth. But the signs are false. A sign is not the thing. Both the measure that scale takes and the reading it gives are a delusion. But lives are shaped by it nonetheless. I paid Westhaven’s crazy fees not because he knew more of the law than others, but because he saw more of the world through his own eyes.

  Whatever problem I had he always put in clear perspective. And, as I had neared his office that day, I’d begun to have the sense of calm security I always felt there. He saw life, without cynicism or idealism, and so was a counselor of the first order. Learned, yet respectful of what he did not know. Discrete without being secretive. Shrewd but honest. Sophisticated but never condescending. Skeptical, yet open to new possibilities. Conservative without losing consideration for dreams and those who chased them. Intelligent. Modest. Intolerant of fools.

  When I entered his office, he was busy at his computer, which looked out over the park, with his back turned to the door. It was eleven fifty-nine on my watch, and at noon precisely he stopped his other task and bounded energetically from his chair to greet me.

  “Good morning, sir.” He extended his hand warmly to take mine in a good, reassuring grip. He favored bow ties, and spoke with an easy, Middle American manner and cadence that belied the steel in his eyes, sharp and bright as bayonets, as we chatted amiably.

  “You seem well,” I said, feeling a peace of mind to be sitting there that morning.

  “I had the most wonderful evening yesterday. My wife got us tickets for the entire Henry tetralogy at Cherry Lane. Last night was Henry V, and as I watched it, I could not help being struck that all true kings be measured by the hardships they face in order to know the full measure of the world.”

  “But not all who know hardship become great kings.”

  “It is the test of the man,” he said. “With the best of them, I like to believe all is possible no matter what misstep. Those who are not the best, we are probably wise not to be too entangled with,” he smiled, as we settled down to business, “whatever it may seem to profit us. Now, what gives me the pleasure of seeing you today.”

  I explained to him the situation with Davidson, which was that I had not been paid, as he took notes.

  “Interesting, I do think they owe you an additional payment,” he said, scanning a clause he had negotiated. “With your permission, I’ll contact the production company to see whether that doesn’t get things moving along. If it does not, well, it will. Let’s assume for the time being it was only an oversight they need to be reminded of.” He tapped his hand reassuringly on his desk. “However, that’s only business,” he looked at me. “May I ask you a personal question?”

  “Of course.”

  “How is everything else?”

  “We would be here all morning if I answered that fully.”

  “Well, I do not have to be in court today.”

  I explained to him the e-mail I received that morning, as he nodded empathetically, although it was impossible to know what he was thinking, or searching for, as he listened intently.

  “Well,” he sighed when I finished. “All of it is simply part of human nature. You shouldn’t castigate yourself. Let it wash down the stream, and try not to step in that part of the river again, which you will not if you take it seriously, as you should and do most things.”

  “That is good of you to say.”

  “I say it because it is true,” he replied, “and I see no earthly reason you should be less than fully happy.”

  “What do you advise that I do?”

  “Nothing,” he counseled. Real problems do not fire warning shots.

  “And people who are unwell always tell us so, if we do not ignore what they are saying.” He looked at me, and wrote down a number on a piece of heavy, embossed stationery. “You may have missed what was being told to you. If you are open to it, you might consider a visit to Dr. Glass, who did wonders for me a few years back when I was going through a rough patch.”

  “Is it obvious?”

  “To others? No. To me? I know you.”

  “All the same, I do not want my head shrunk.”

  “Read the saints, then. They will put your mind at rest.”

  I took the phone number in any case, and thanked him, agreeing to call the following week about the contract.

  When I reached th
e street again, I reconsidered his advice and saw no reason to resist being helped. I called Dr. Glass’s office. There was an appointment that afternoon, which I took since I was already in Midtown, and I made my way across the park.

  When I arrived Dr. Glass had stepped out for an emergency, but her colleague, Dr. Nando, agreed to see me instead. He listened, as I explained why I had come, and immediately suggested some pills for depression. “If Dr. Glass were here she would say it is more complex than that, and you are suffering not so much a mental reversal as enantiodromia, a mind-spirit split, and the only way to heal that is to embrace your deepest consciousness, all of which you know on some level, but which is different from comprehending. That is a question of being. However, unless—what for?—you want to go beating through the metaphysical weeds in search of the roots of your most ancient sadness—ghosts unheard a thousand years—you should just take the pills.”

  I declined the pills, thinking to get another opinion before submitting to them, but accepted a prescription instead for something to help me sleep. As I folded it into my jacket pocket, I asked if there was anything else I could do besides the drugs. He told me sport, and “Dr. Glass might suggest you follow your heart, and less your head.”

  I left the office, thinking as I walked of all the things they tell you as a kid, which, by the time you are an adult, are supposed to have worked their way inside of you. If they have not, or if you have discovered the things they first told you are insuperable lies, then through this rupture—between what you believed and what you have discovered to be true—everything else threatens to come tumbling out, until your entire being is up for grabs as you try to figure out what to stuff back inside and what to leave down in the dirt of the crossroads. Let the devil take it all.

  18

  Westhaven was right; I needed to take better care. He was wrong about Anna, though. The situation did not clear up when I ignored it.

  On the way home from the psychiatrist I decided it would be better to get away for a while than to take the medication. I contacted Schoeller to find out if it was too late to join his bachelor party. It was not, but I would have to scramble to make plans.

  I was able to use miles instead of buying a last-minute ticket, and the next day I went to see my doctor for a checkup and vaccination. I also wanted to ask about the pills Dr. Nando had suggested.

  “Good drugs,” he said. “Clean, few side effects. But I can prescribe pills for you. If you ever need a prescription let me know.”

  “Thank you.”

  “How is life otherwise?”

  “I’m worried about dying.”

  “Why? You’re in perfect health.”

  I’m not worried about death, I’m worried about dying. That I have not done enough. That there would be no more meaning even if I had. That the most savage among us, or else the most savage parts of all of us, prevail. I’m afraid there is no sense in life, and if there is I fucked up and missed it. That there are no second chances. “That’s good to hear” was all I said.

  “Relax. You have a lot of road ahead of you,” he reassured me. “You’re just a little exhausted. Take a vacation, it will help you regain perspective.”

  “I’m going to Brazil next week.”

  “You will need a yellow fever vaccine. While you are at it, you should get diphtheria, and there’s a new vaccine you should have too. When was your last hemoglobin, by the way?”

  “Eleven years.”

  “They only last ten.”

  “What’s the new vaccine for?”

  “Diseases guys like us don’t get.”

  “Who gets them?”

  “Guys who don’t take the vaccine.”

  He was a good doctor, but he was locked in a death dance with the insurance company for every nickel he could charge them. I played my part and took the shot.

  The next day I went to get new contact lenses from swaybacked Dr. Nelson. When he hunched over the microscope, though, he was the image of Hephaestus, as he worked a miracle to make me see better.

  I was glued together pretty well after that, but I still felt something was wrong. I could not point to anything specific. There was simply something wrong, and I did not know what. When Nell called that afternoon, telling me she had to see me right away, it seemed to confirm my diffuse worries.

  “How did you find that one?” she asked incredulously, when I arrived at the restaurant where she had asked to meet. “A real Adela Quested.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Never mind. That girl from the club, Anna.”

  “I don’t want to get into it. She’s—”

  “Crazier than the Mad Hatter on angel dust, is what she is,” Nell said, cutting me off.

  “She’s just dull.”

  “Did you do anything with her?”

  “No. Why?”

  “Listen,” she hunted around in an enormous green leather shoulder bag, until she retrieved a tiny, white, metallic square. “You know, she’s been calling everyone. I don’t even know how she got this number,” Nell said, waving her hand over the device, which woke up with the sound of Anna’s voice defaming me in the vilest terms.

  “Oh. Why do you say that?” I heard Nell coaxing her along, in her best Linda Tripp voice.

  “Because I can,” Anna said. “Who does he think he is?”

  “He’s one of the most decent people I know,” Nell said at length, after Anna had gone on long enough to discredit herself completely. Good old Nell. “If things between you were not what you wanted, maybe it is because you were not honest with him or yourself, and now you’re angry. I don’t know, Anna. I wasn’t there. Then again, maybe it’s because of the way you were raised, or the things in your head.”

  “My last—”

  “I’m not done,” Nell said. “But I have what I need. Listen, I know you’re not from here. I know you don’t know what you’re doing. But I do, and if you don’t stop all of this immediately you are going to find yourself in very serious trouble. Do you hear me, Anna? It’s not the kind of attention you want,” Nell finished, perfectly composed and perfectly frightening. “I see through you like a broken window. I just thought you should know that.”

  “I don’t know what to say,” I said, as the recording ended. “You taped your conversation with her?”

  “I cover my backside,” she said unapologetically. “I thought you did, too. Why didn’t you tell anyone?”

  “I thought it would go away,” I said.

  “I should have seen through her whole innocent act at the club, sorry. You know what happened to Matt.”

  “You weren’t the one thinking of taking her home. Yeah, I know.”

  “What did she say to you?”

  “Does it matter? It’s the risk of taking someone home.”

  “You know, and I’m not saying this because she’s from the South, half of people still live in the nineteenth century.”

  “You let it hinder you, or you take it in stride.”

  “I’m glad you can make light of it.”

  “Thanks to you,” I said.

  “Fifty percent of people can’t see beyond their own experience.”

  “I’d say ninety.”

  We let it drop, as Nell read my unarticulated thoughts, at least the ones that were uppermost. The thoughts beneath that were hidden from her. How could they not be? They were still hidden from me.

  “Just find someone good and solid. There are tons of great girls. Only be careful,” she motioned with her hand to imply the city, to incriminate the Western world, “of the bad ones.”

  “Well, as my Aunt Isadora would say, you do the best you can. The rest is in the hand of the Creator.”

  “That is a nice thing to say. You don’t believe it, do you?”

  “It is what my aunt says.”

  I was sanguine when I left Nell, but as I rode the subway home I was struck by how horrifically wrong things could have gone, and not only from taking home a stranger; from any
arbitrary deed committed or not committed, by yourself or anyone else. A rushed decision, haphazard luck, bad timing. The world was full of disasters-in-waiting. It made me numb to think about, until the only way I could keep from being consumed by paralysis was to grasp that paralysis was exactly the trap laid by my enemies.

  Once I saw this I tried to let the entire episode flow into the past. I knew the larger pattern and meaning, but it was not the rope that would hang me. Beyond that, I tried to find in myself the smallest parcel of empathy for Anna. More than that I could not do, but that tiny parcel was enough. From no higher principle than I believed forgiveness a virtue. Not a moral one, simply the self-preserving virtue of knowing the heart that cannot expand in forgiveness—even for those who slight it, even for those who have no claim to it whatsoever—is the most devilish instrument in the world.

  19

  It had been a wretched spring and, as I boarded the flight to Brazil, I was glad to be putting it behind me for what I hoped would be a new start. By the time I changed planes in Atlanta the hot air felt restorative, and I started immediately to relax, pleased to be out of the city, as the heat made me sweat and aware of my own body. Before boarding my onward flight I checked my messages, and saw Nicola had sent me a text telling me she would be in New York that week. I wrote back to let her know I would be out of town, then downed a sleeping pill.

  As I turned on my noise-canceling headphones the artificial quietude was flooded by sour memories and the crippling feeling of a vast, cosmic emptiness. I realized I had lost my orientation, would not even know how to properly describe myself other than the role required of me in a particular context. My present role was traveler on an airplane, and I could neither name any self nor feel anything solid beyond the contours of my seat pushing up from the floor of the suspended flying machine. I had no other beliefs. The feeling attacked violently, from deep within, threatening to overwhelm all my faculties, until finally I plugged my headphones into the jack and turned on the in-flight entertainment system to crowd out the emptiness.