A Carnivore's Inquiry

by Sabina Murray

  “I have something important to say,” said Boris.

  “Really?” What I should have said was that I couldn’t bear to listen to anything important because I was too drunk. But I was too drunk to think of this. I decided I should just keep talking until Boris forgot what he was trying to say. “How beautiful!” I made for the edge of the building. “What could be more glorious than a sky studded with stars? Nothing but wide open air and concrete. I often thought, when I was a little girl, that I’d like to live in a place like this. I’d pitch a tent in one part, have a little camp stove close by, and do nothing all day long but feed pigeons and watch people crawl like ants down the street. That’s all they’d look like, ants, so small down there. Of course, there would be the bathroom problem, but I never thought of that, just the sky and isolation. Sky and isolation. Sky and isolation.”

  “Katherine, what are you talking about?”

  “I don’t know. You make me nervous when you’re serious.”

  “I will ignore that,” said Boris, smiling to himself. “Katherine,” he said, “you have changed my life.”

  “I have?” This really wasn’t that hard to do. Changing his brand of coffee was—to Boris—life-altering.

  “I am the luckiest man in the world.”

  “You are?” I watched Boris shortening the distance between us. “Well, I suppose you are. You have your health and a rent-controlled apartment . . .”

  “Katherine! Shut up please!” Boris composed himself. “What I have to say is simple.”

  I was silent.

  “I must have you with me,” he said. “I can’t be parted from you any longer. It is too sad for me to be waiting, eating alone, not having anyone to talking.” Ibid. Boris was very drunk, but the fact that the whole thing seemed premeditated was eroding my confidence. “No more time apart,” he said.

  I began to panic. “You’re moving to Maine?”

  “No, no, no,” said Boris, smiling.

  I was greatly relieved.

  “I want you to marry me.”

  I pulled my hands from his and took a few steps back. Boris went down on bended knee. He produced a felt-covered box from his pocket and opened it. The box held a ring, a gold one with an impressive diamond that leered out from its setting.

  “Will you marry me?” asked Boris.

  “Marry you? My God, Boris. You know I love you, but I just can’t marry you.”

  “Marry me,” Boris coaxed, holding out the ring.

  “Boris...”

  “Marry me!”

  “You see, Boris, it’s not that I don’t want to marry you. I can’t marry you.”

  Boris got up. “You have some explaining?”

  “Well, yes.”

  “Why? Why can’t you marry me?”

  “Because,” I said fidgeting with my skirt buckles, “because I’m already married.”

  “Married?”

  “Yeah.” I looked up at the sky. I didn’t want to see Boris’s face.

  “Married?” Boris repeated. “To who?”

  “Well, actually,” I looked at Boris out of the side of my face, “I’m married to Silvano.”

  “You are married...”

  “. . . to Silvano Falconi.”

  “Who is that?”

  “Oh, someone I knew in Italy.”

  “And who is this man?”

  “Well, he’s in leather.”

  “Leather.”

  “Yes, and, oddly enough, he’s in your apartment.”

  “Now?”

  I was beginning to feel cavalier.

  “This is not the truth,” said Boris.

  “Why would I lie?”

  Boris looked deep into my eyes, hoping for a lie, but I was feeling decidedly unsophisticated and I’m sure it showed. “The old leather guy?”

  “He’s not exactly leather... Well, I suppose we’re all leather, aren’t we?”

  “Shut up,” said Boris. “Is that legal?”

  I nodded again.

  “How? When?”

  “It just kind of happened. I was in Italy and then I was married to Silvano.”

  “For how long?”

  “I guess it will be a year in another, oh wow, a year at the end of the month. Yeah.”

  Boris wasn’t taking it very well. His hands went up to the sides of his head. I think his blood was all rushing up there, making his complexion blotchy and pink. “You are, you are evil,” he said.

  I considered this and lit a cigarette. Alcohol had made me frank, which was good. If I’d had my wits about me, I might have accepted Boris’s proposal and become a bigamist. Were bigamists ever women? I took a long drag, hazarding a peek at Boris, who was pacing in an agitated yet drunken manner. “Boris, where’s your sense of humor?” I said.

  “Sense of humor is when you see the funny thing and you say ‘That’s the funny thing.’ Sense of humor is not for this. This is for the grotesque.”

  “Grotesque?” Despite myself, I was getting a little offended.

  “That leather-peddling, pedphile, Guido...”

  “You mean pedophile. A pedphile is a lover of feet.” I didn’t think there was any such thing as a pedphile and I didn’t care. Boris was hardly a youngster. And he had no business calling Silvano a Guido when he would have gladly traded his so-called Romanov roots to be Italian. Boris stomped around for five minutes. He paused looking onto the street. He was snorting like a bull, then he came back. “How long were you with this guy?” he asked.

  “Before or after we were married?”

  Boris said nothing.

  “Well, I guess about a month and a half.”

  “But you’re married to him?”

  “Yes.”

  “He’s your husband?”

  “Yes.”

  Boris looked at the ring, then shut the box with a snap. He began massaging his head. “I hate this,” he said. “Is there anything else I should know about you?”

  I considered this. “No.”

  “Anything that I should not know?”

  “Look, Boris,” I took his wrist. “I need a drink. Let’s go downstairs, all right?” I led him over to the stair well. It was a mild evening, the kind of weather that makes even the weirdest, most difficult things seem funny. “It’s really nice up here,” I said. “Maybe the next time you have a party, you should throw it on the roof.”

  Back in the apartment, the party continued. Full swing would have been nice, but that evening lacked any kind of fulcrum. Ann was seated by herself, her legs splayed out in complete relaxation. She had a drink resting on the arm of the chair. When she saw Boris and me walk in, she made as if to get up, but then gave up. Boris went stomping off to the bathroom. I went to rescue Ann’s drink before she knocked it over.

  “Ann, are you all right?” I asked.

  “What if I’m not?”

  I squatted down beside her partially to show support, but also because in that little corner, ducked down beside the chair, I was hard to spot.

  “I think I’ve lost my mind,” Ann said. “Let me tell you a story.”

  “What’s the story about?”

  “It’s about me, a Great Dane, and some carbonara.”

  Ann had been in her apartment fixing dinner. She was disturbed from her cooking by an incessant howling coming from the street. Peering out her window, she caught sight of a Great Dane, leg raised, who had been bound by an electric current while in the process of urinating on a lamppost. Ann banged on the window with a wooden spoon, leaving white globs of carbonara on the glass, desperate to save the dog but too far away to be of any real help.

  “I felt like I was having a bad dream, screaming like fuck-all, but no one could hear me.”

  Finally, a man armed with a two-by-four had walked up the sidewalk. He struck the dog hard, disengaging him from the current. The dog whimpered on the ground for a short while, then got up and started limping down the street.

  “That’s what I need,” said Ann. “I need a man with a two
-by-four to hit me and hit me hard.”

  “I’m going to get you a glass of water,” I said. “And then I’ll help you get a cab. You should go home.”

  But I didn’t help Ann. Too drunk myself. I got another drink and pursued the evening, forgetting all about her until the following day.

  19

  I had the kind of hangover that presented vision after vision alternating with void after void, and the visions presented the sort of stuff that makes one grateful—although worried—about the voids. I had this vague and painful recollection of Silvano weeping into his wine glass. I might have been sympathetic but was probably embarrassed, or maybe neither of these. I remembered catching my head a few times as it lolled around on my neck, pulling it back upright as if it might fall off. And I remembered that I’d arranged to have lunch with Silvano at one. Currently, it was eleven and I was flooded with waves of dread, which at least cut the waves of anxiety that seized me after every recall of the previous evening. I remembered Boris saying,

  “There is the issue of divorce.”

  Which seemed very odd because I’d never really accepted that I’d been married.

  “How do you say divorce in Italian?” Boris had asked me. I looked over at Silvano and managed a silent burp.

  “Piu vino,” I said.

  “Piooveeenoh?” asked Boris.

  “Si,” I replied.

  Boris walked over to Silvano, pointed to me and stated his word. Silvano responded by returning with a bottle of wine and pouring me a glass. Next thing I knew, Boris and Silvano were having one of those conversations where people talk to each other, but are both looking at a third party. Silvano was smiling, nodding happily. Boris was pensive. He kept making these firm hand gestures as if his idea was something tangible that floated a foot in front of him and was something to be held. Somewhere in the course of this conversation I realized I had to sleep, no, I would be asleep in five minutes regardless of where I was. I passed out on Boris’s bed, fully clothed. People must have been going in and out of the bedroom to use the bathroom, but I had slept through that. I didn’t wake up until four A.M., when my raging thirst sent me running to the nearest faucet. I’d fallen back asleep, even with Boris’s snoring sawing magnificently through the air. He was still snoring now. I watched him—his eyelids fluttering, the corners of his mouth tightening—for a couple of painful moments of recall, before I finally got up from the bed. My eyes were itchy from makeup and my skin felt dry as paper.

  Ann was asleep on the couch. I had hoped she’d be up making some greasy food. What I really needed was a fried egg and some toast.

  “Ann,” I said, tugging her foot.

  Ann opened her eyes and squinted at me. “You were right,” she said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “That was the worst party that Boris has ever thrown.” Then she rolled over so that her face was smashed into the back of the couch and went back to sleep.

  In the fridge, I found a tray full of leftover hors d’oeuvres, tiny quiches, and other treats, all perfectly miniature, from the night before. I felt like a giant. I arranged some of these on a plate and went into the dining room. I sat down and had just finished my third quiche when I heard a noise coming from the coat closet. There was a scuttle, and then it stopped. I picked up a tiny spanakopita and was about to eat that, when I heard a scuttle again, the noise of something slamming against the wall, and an audible, “Ow.”

  I got up and went to the closet. I waited a moment. Everything was quiet, then I opened the door.

  It was the guy I’d interrupted in the bathroom. He didn’t seem to know where he was. He looked around the room with amazement, then back at me.

  “Howdy,” he said. “I’m Travis.”

  “I’m Katherine,” I responded.

  “Where am I?” he said.

  “Boris’s apartment.”

  He scratched his head. “I could have sworn that I left last night, but I don’t guess that I did.”

  “What were you doing in the closet?”

  “Sleeping.” He laughed again. “Goddamn. I guess I thought I was leaving the party.”

  “You have a hell of a bruise on your head.” It was right in the center of his forehead and was long and narrow, reddened and slightly swollen. “I have a theory. You were leaving the party, accidentally walked into the closet, and hit your head on the bar.”

  “What bar?”

  “The bar you hang things on.”

  Travis walked back into the closet. “Bar’s about the right height.”

  “I wonder if you knocked yourself out?”

  “Who can say? Maybe I just gave up.”

  I extended a gesture of welcome, inviting him out of the closet and into the living room. “Can I get you anything?” I said.

  “Sure would appreciate some coffee.”

  “Coffee it is.”

  After I got him a cup of coffee and some ice for his head, we sat at the table. There was silence. I listened to him slurp at his coffee, heard the rattle of ice in the dishcloth. He was slowly achieving consciousness with the help of caffeine. I put my feet up on the chair next to me.

  “This coffee’s real good,” he said.

  I nodded. “Travis, where are you from?”

  “Ralston Falls, Texas.”

  “Where is that?”

  “Outside of Dallas.”

  “Near Fort Worth?”

  “Hell no. It’s about a hundred and fifty miles outside of Dallas, to the west.”

  “What are you doing in New York?”

  Travis fancied himself a writer, which was his wording, not mine. He had finished his great tome, eight hundred pages of it, that he had spent the last two years of college and the last four years of every job imaginable, writing. Apparently, there was an editor in New York whom he knew from when he’d been a student in Austin. He’d worked at a liquor store and the editor came in every night and bought a pint of gin. At the time, this man was working for a university press, or something like that, but was now in New York with one of the larger houses. So when Travis finished his magnum opus, he’d gotten hold of this editor and the editor said sure, send the manuscript in to us and we’ll take a look at it.

  So Travis did. He waited a couple of weeks and called. They hadn’t read it. He waited a couple of more weeks and called. They were really busy. He tried again. Eventually, all people that were in any way aware of the novel’s existence were out of town. They were out of town for weeks.

  “I am in New York following my dream,” he said.

  Apparently, when Travis showed up at the editor’s office, the man made a good show of trying to find the manuscript. For the whole two years that Travis had sold him his daily pint of gin, the editor had said, every day in the same way, “Don’t give up. Just keep writing. Perseverance is everything.”

  “Damn good that perseverance is everything,” said Travis, “’cause perseverance is all I’ve got.”

  The editor, not knowing how to handle this ghost from the past, agreed to meet Travis at a bar at six that evening, where he gave the young writer four glasses of bourbon and no answers.

  “Maker’s Mark straight up, the only straight thing I got out of the guy,” said Travis, and he set the dish towel down on the table with an air of finality.

  Then the two went out.

  “I guess he felt so bad, he didn’t know how to get rid of me,” said Travis, “so he took me to this party. I went to get a drink, then I swear the guy was gone. He was just waiting for me to turn my back.”

  There was a moment’s silence, where I looked at Travis with sympathy and he appreciated it.

  “What are you going to do?” I said.

  “Try and get my damned book back.”

  “Don’t you have a copy?”

  “No.” He slurped some more coffee. Hell. Eight hundred pages is a lot to copy.”

  “Don’t you have it on disk?”

  “I don’t use a computer.” He nodded at me sage
ly.

  “Why not?”

  “Joyce didn’t use a computer. Neither did Hemingway, nor Fitzgerald. What’s good enough for them is good enough for me.” He wiped some water off his face and looked over at me with a look of comprehension. “You think I’m ignorant, don’t you?”

  “Naïve. And maybe a little ignorant.”

  “Name one person that isn’t or wasn’t ignorant.”

  “Plato?”

  “Yeah, but he was born in 500 B.C.”

  “What does that have to do with it?”

  Travis laughed. “There wasn’t that much to know then.”

  Travis only had four hundred dollars left. He’d spent most of his money getting out to New York; the rest was being whittled away by food and accommodations.

  “I have no idea how I’m getting back to Texas,” he said.

  “Come up to Maine. It’s cheaper to get there.”

  “What’s in Maine?”

  “I live there. We kind of have a little artist’s colony. One guy’s a musician. The other’s a philosopher.” I don’t know where I got philosopher, but Johnny was short on words and it had occurred to me that perhaps his mind was working overtime. It had also occurred to me that he might not be that bright, but I kept this to myself.

  “What do you do?”

  “That’s a secret,” I said in a husky monotone. Secret even to me, I thought.

  “Who funds the thing?”

  “Boris,” I said. “But that’s a secret too.”

  “But you just told me.”

  “But I haven’t told Boris.”