by John Coyne
Jennifer knew this was an effort to appease her. She was always the one who made their dinner reservations, who wrote the thank-you notes, who did all the little housewifely chores.
Tom walked into the bedroom to dress. She got more coffee and sat by the windows and watched the winter sun grow brighter.
When Tom came back into the kitchen, he was dressed in the clothes he had left in her closet—the blue cords, his thick walking shoes, the beautiful red sweater she had given him for his thirtieth birthday. He was wearing his parka and carried a briefcase full of files. When he kissed her cheek, she could smell his aftershave lotion, his hair shampoo, and she wanted to make love to him there on the kitchen floor but didn’t have the courage to tell him so.
She didn’t move. She sat perfectly still at the kitchen table and watched the sun and the snow. She didn’t have the strength to get up and get dressed.
She would go back to bed, she thought. She would curl down deep into the blankets and sleep. She would stay there safe and warm in the dark shadows until she discovered what was going wrong in her life.
CHAPTER FIVE
JENNIFER LOOKED AT THE elephants, the herd of mammoths that dominated the museum’s African Hill, as she waited for Tom. It was Tom who insisted that they meet for a drink in such an out of the way place. These days his job consisted mostly of prosecuting drug dealers, and shortly before they began to date, someone had tried to kill him. Now he carried a gun and didn’t like being seen with her. It was silly of him to worry, she thought. If drug dealers wanted to blow him or her away, they would. They controlled the city as far as she could see.
Jennifer stopped at the Gemsbok display and studied the pattern-faced Kalahari Desert animals. In the Museum of Natural History’s magnificent diorama, they looked almost real. Then she thought: they were real once, roaming the great savannahs. She almost felt as if she could step behind the thick glass and walk through the long grass and acacia trees into the heat and heart of Africa. She wished she were in Africa. She wished she were anywhere but in New York City on a cold, snowy Friday afternoon waiting for her tardy lover.
She stepped up to another diorama, this one a cluster of hippopotamuses, sitatunga, and waterbucks, and saw that the sign said the animals were all gathered at the edge of one of the small rivers that formed the network of the Nile. The animals were standing in the thick grass and umbrella sedge. Jennifer stared at the posed figures; although she’d never studied anything about Africa, she felt something was wrong with the scene. Then she caught a glimpse of her own reflection in the bubbled glass. She had come directly from work and was wearing her corporate uniform: a tailored, heavy gray suit with a white silk blouse and the string of pearls Tom had given her for Christmas, their first Christmas together. She raised her hand to touch the pearls and felt a warm tear on her cheek. This was wrong. Why was she crying? She quickly brushed it away, thinking, I can’t look like this. I can’t be crying when he arrives.
Turning from the Nile River diorama to go find the women’s room, she found herself in Tom’s arms.
“Hi, sweetheart, sorry I’m late. It’s snowing. The whole damn city is gridlocked.” He stood shaking wet snow off his shoulders and from his thick black hair.
“That’s all right,” she said, relieved that he didn’t seem to notice her tears. “I just arrived myself.”
“Well, you look great!” He turned his full attention on her, stepping closer to kiss her on her cheek. “Look, it’s freezing outside. Is there someplace here where we can get a drink? Or at least some coffee?”
“Yes, there’s a bar under the great blue whale on the first floor. But come with me first; let’s look around. I haven’t been in this museum in ages.”
“Where do you want to go?”
“Oh, let’s just wander. We’ll take the elevator to the third floor, then walk down.” Directing their tour gave her the sense of being in control. That was her problem with Tom. When she was with him, she always felt manipulated. Now she just wanted to make him do what she said, to prove to herself that she could control him when she needed to.
On the top floor, they stepped off the elevator and saw a sign for a new exhibition.
“‘Bright Dreams, Bright Vision,’” Tom read. “What’s that?”
“I have no idea,” Jennifer answered. They pushed through the glass gallery door and stepped into the dark interior.
“Oh, great,” he said, reading the first exhibit sign. “‘Prehistoric Man.’ Just what I thought when I woke up this morning: ‘I wish I knew a lot more about prehistoric man.’”
“I want to see this exhibition, Tom!” Her voice rose sharply.
“Okay,” he whispered, “okay.” He touched her arm. “Easy.”
Jennifer turned away, embarrassed by her outburst, but the gallery was nearly deserted. She noticed an older woman with a cane, a few mothers with babies in strollers, and two female guards in blue uniforms standing together at the entrance.
“Hey, look!” Tom pointed at the display in the center of the room.
The focus of the diorama was the model of a prehistoric hut, built of mammoth bone, tusks, and leather. The jawbones of the mammoths were turned upside down and fitted into each other like a puzzle to form a twelve-foot circle. The arching roof was made with dozens of huge, curving tusks, over which animal skins were tied to form a cover.
“It’s a model of one of their huts,” Tom said, reading from the printed information plaque, “from the Ukraine.”
“It’s wrong,” she stated in a whisper, staring at the diorama.
“What, sweetheart?” Tom asked, moving around the model to peer inside.
“It’s wrong. It’s all wrong! That’s Nan’s hut. I know it is!” Her voice rose, startling everyone.
“Honey, what the hell are you talking about?”
“I don’t know.”
Tom started to laugh, then stopped, startled by the look in her eyes. “Jennifer?”
She was trembling. He put his hand on her arm, but she slapped his fingers away.
“Damnit, Jennifer. That hurt!” He shook his hand.
Jennifer caught sight of a guard. She was moving around the diorama and coming toward her.
“Let’s get out of here,” she said. Only when she was in the brightly lit reptile gallery again did she take a deep breath and slow herself down.
“Jennifer, what in hell is wrong with you?”
She shook her head and kept walking. Her heels snapped on the marble floor.
“What was that bullshit about the hut?” He lengthened his stride. They reached the hallway and started down the stairs.
“I don’t know.”
“You hurt my hand.”
“Please, Tom, enough! I’m upset, that’s all. I’m upset about us.” They reached the first floor and kept walking, past the Theodore Roosevelt Memorial and into the Invertebrates Gallery.
“Well, do something about it, damnit!”
“I intend to.”
“What?” His voice hardened. “You’re going to do what?”
“I’m going to have a drink.” She walked into the Ocean Life Room, where a massive blue whale hung from the ceiling and dominated the two floors of the gallery. “Here’s the bar.”
Jennifer walked into the lower floor, where a few white-clothed tables were set up to create a small cocktail lounge. The room was dimly lit to suggest the ocean floor, and the huge, plastic blue whale hovered above them, swamping the room with its size. It was not a place where people went for a drink on Friday night after work. Anyone here would be from out of town, a tourist.
She let Tom order at the bar while she picked a table away from the others. When he came back, he sat down close to her, but she shifted her body to keep some distance.
“Are you feeling better?”
“I’ll tell you in a minute.” She took a quick sip of the scotch and water, then sat back and nodded.
“What was that all about?” He took off his topcoat an
d settled into the chair.
Jennifer shook her head. She was still trembling. “I don’t know,” she whispered. “I just had this weird feeling that I had once been there inside that diorama. All of it was vividly real to me.” She took a quick gulp of her drink.
“You were saying something, mumbling.” Tom shook his head. “Maybe you saw the model in a book or something.” He glanced around then, checking out the room.
“Yes, maybe,” Jennifer whispered.
“It was like you were having a temper tantrum or something.” He stirred his scotch.
“I was having something.” She shrugged, feeling chilled. How she had behaved in the exhibition frightened her. “I don’t want to talk about it,” she announced.
“Okay, what do you want to talk about?”
“Don’t be so prosecutorial.”
He started at her. “Is it going to be one of those nights?”
She took another sip to bolster herself. Tom hadn’t asked her what drink she wanted, but had gone ahead and ordered a scotch and soda. It was like being married, she thought.
“Tom, I can’t keep doing this. I can’t keep seeing you. I mean, we’re not getting anywhere, are we?”
He looked away. “I’m still married, Jennifer.”
“Then do something about it. You’ve been separated for three years. You told me when we met that you were getting a divorce.” Her voice grew stronger as she spoke. “You shouldn’t have started up with me if you still were in love with your wife.”
“I’m not in love with Carol.” He was angry now.
“Then get a divorce! You don’t have children. What’s stopping you? Tom, I deserve some answers and I deserve some respect.”
He glanced away again, and she began to cry, as quietly as possible, afraid of attracting attention. She bent forward and sobbed into her hands, using the fur of her winter coat to muffle the tears.
When she had calmed down, Tom leaned across the small table and whispered, “Jennifer, I love you. I want to take care of you. I want to marry you. I want to be in your life forever. Okay? Just give me some time. This case has dragged on longer than I thought. I don’t want to risk anything—any danger to you—by going public and having these greaseballs know you exist. You understand that, don’t you?”
“Do you love me, Tom?” she asked. The tears were gone.
“Yes, I love you. Of course I do.” He looked at her, and this time his gray eyes did show his feelings.
Jennifer shrugged. “I’m not afraid, I want to be part of your life, Tom. I want to take the risks you’re taking.”
He was shaking his head before she finished.
“I won’t let you.”
“I have something to say about that, too, you know.”
“Honey, you don’t know. These are crazy Colombians. They kill each other. They kill cops. They kill each other’s families. You read about it in the papers. A mother and child found shot in the face while their car is parked at a stoplight.” He shook his head as he spoke. “I won’t do it. I won’t expose you to that violence. Honey, we’re almost done. We’ll have the rest of that scum in jail by the end of the winter.”
“Bullshit! By the end of the winter there’ll be another case. If they want to kill me, they will. Don’t give me that crap, Tom. It’s nonsense.”
For a moment they both were silent. Jennifer blew her nose and wiped away her tears. Several of the tourists were staring at them, and Jennifer moved her chair to block their view.
“I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “I guess I’ve caused a scene.”
“Fuck ‘em,” Tom answered. He was leaning back, balancing himself on the two rear legs of the metal chair.
When he got mad, he acted tough. She had always found that exciting. She liked the way he brought her close to the edge of his anger, but she was afraid that someday things might get out of hand. Still, she couldn’t deny her attraction to his toughness, especially in bed.
“Okay, what do you want to do?” he asked, as if summing up a business meeting.
“I’m going to go to Margit and David’s for dinner,” she said, not looking up from her drink.
“Fine! You go ahead and do that!” He shoved the chair back and stood. He didn’t even try to lower his voice.
They were like characters in a cheap drama, she thought, listening to his retreating footsteps on the marble floor. She was afraid to look up, afraid that the tourists were again staring at her. She felt exposed and defenseless. Then, slowly, the voices of the other patrons grew louder. She waited a few minutes more, until she was sure Tom had left, and then she fled the museum.
Outside on Seventy-seventh Street, the snow had deepened, and Jennifer, walking west, knew she’d have trouble getting a taxi. Putting her head down against the sharp wind, she headed for West End Avenue, her feet plowing through the wet snow. She began to cry, but this time she let the tears flow, let herself sob out her heartache.
She crossed Columbus Avenue, stopped outside the Museum Cafe and looked up Seventy-seventh Street. Already the street was blocked with snow, and both sidewalks were deserted. Jennifer had lived on the Upper West Side when she was going to Columbia Law School, and she prided herself on knowing how to be careful in the city. She had even taken self-defense classes at the YWCA to boost her confidence, but once she left school and moved to Brooklyn Heights, she had become increasingly paranoid about being alone on the West Side.It was foolish, she realized, especially now that the neighborhood was so fashionable. Still, she couldn’t keep herself from being wary.
She stood a moment longer on Columbus and looked for an available yellow taxi, but the few cabs moving slowly downtown were either filled of on call.
“Damn!” she said, feeling sorry for herself. Everything, it seemed, was going wrong in her life. Defiantly she pushed forward up the deserted side street, thinking guiltily that she should have asked Tom to walk with her as far as Broadway. That was the trouble with her. She fought so hard to be independent, but whenever she felt afraid, she wanted a man around. That realization made her furious. She looked up and purposely exposed her face to the cold, as if trying to freeze the pain she felt in her heart.
Then she felt the hand on her shoulder and was stopped in her tracks.
Tom must have come after her. She twisted away and turned to him. But it wasn’t Tom.
This man was taller, bigger. He seemed to block the entire street. She could barely see his face, hidden in the dark cave of a jacket hood, but she knew he was dangerous.
“Get away!” she shouted. She tried to step back and run, but her boots didn’t grip in the slippery snow and she stumbled just as the man swung at her.
“You bitch,” he swore, then lunging at her, knocked them both into the gutter between parked cars.
He was on top of her, pushing through her coat and grabbing at her body. His hands were on her breasts, his thick lips on her face. He kept swearing, calling her filthy names, and then he jabbed his blunt, wet tongue into her mouth.
It was when he ripped away the front of her white silk blouse that she went for him. Reaching up with both hands, she raked her nails down his cheeks. She wanted to hurt him, and hearing him cry out gave her courage. She hadn’t hit anyone since she was a little girl in the playground, and the pleasure it gave her to strike back was gratifying.
With the ferocity of a cornered dog, she grabbed his throat and curled her fingernails into his neck. She felt the skin pop as her nails broke his flesh and his warm blood ran down her fingers.
He swung at her blindly, and she ducked the blow. Then, moving like an animal, she attacked, catching him in the groin with her knee. He stumbled forward, groping for his testicles, and fell face-forward into the deep snow.
She did not run to the corner, where the snowbound traffic honked along Columbus Avenue. Instead, she licked the corners of her bleeding mouth and tasted the blood with pleasure. He grabbed the front bumper of the parked car and pulled himself up. She hit him hard in
the back of the neck with the heel of her right hand, swinging at him as if she were chopping a block of wood. His big body slumped forward, skidding off the car’s metal grill, and dropped into the gutter.
She couldn’t let him go. She wouldn’t. She grabbed him by his hair and, with her foot jammed against the shoulder blades, jerked back his head until she heard his neck snap.
Jennifer stayed on her knees beside the body for a moment, gasping for air. She cupped a handful of snow into her palm and, using it like soap, wiped her face clean of blood. Calmer, she moved close and saw that the predator was dead. She had killed him. She smiled.
Her name was Shih Hsui-mei. She was Chinese, the wife of Cheng-k’uan, and he was a young man then, living in the town of Silver Hill. It was during the boom years of mining, and he had come west with his father from St. Louis to settle claims for the government.
He delivered goods to Cheng-k’uan from his uncle’s store and would see Shih Hsui-mei sitting on the porch facing the Yellowjacket Mountains, combing her hair. She was his age—sixteen, perhaps seventeen—and had come from China to be old Cheng-k’uan’s bride.
She had long black hair, very long, very black, and she would comb it slowly, time after time, until it fanned across one side of her perfect round face like a blackbird’s wing.
She would then take a paste made of rhubarb and comb it through the hair until it lay straight and still, like a fan, and then she would tie it out of sight.
She never wore Western clothing but dressed always in silk trousers and tight, beautifully embroidered jackets and small silver slippers. She had such tiny feet. When she walked across the boards of Cheng-k’uan’s mountain shack, she never made a sound. He would see her one moment, then she would be gone, like a tropical bird.
He could never see enough of her. He went again and again to Chinatown just to catch a glimpse of the young Shih Hsui-mei, for she never came across the creek to the white side of town.
In the opium dives, he saw her tend to the men, bring them fresh pipes of opium. The men stayed for days, lost to the world, hidden away in their private hells.
