Forms of Devotion

by Diane Schoemperlen

  Time, they say, heals all wounds. Unless of course the wounds were fatal in the first place. He is not Lazarus. He will not rise from the dead. Even time has its limits. Do not expect that your life will follow the orderly unfolding of beginning, middle, and end. Once upon a time our hearts were innocent, generous, and sweet, oh so sweet, sweet hearts. It is time to make it clear that, although hell indeed hath no fury like a woman scorned, still I did not leave his heart to draw flies in the driveway. I did not eat his head first. I did not swallow it whole.

  It is time to turn my back on the seduction of these small rooms. It is time to address the issues and answer the charges. It is time to go home: home, where the walls are white and the hearts are black. Oh, do not ask, “Where is it?” Let us go and make our visit.

  It is time to make it clear that I did not kill him. But yes, oh yes, I wanted to.

  BODY LANGUAGE

  On a good day (a good day being one on which they do not argue at breakfast, she kisses him goodbye on the mouth at the door before they make their separate ways to work, they have plans for the evening which involve good friends, fancy clothes, white wine, and red meat) his throat goes loose with happiness. His tongue is nimble and lithe. The words flow out of him: clever, witty, and remarkably intelligent. He smiles at strangers on his way to the subway station and laughs aloud with delight at the watery gurgling of a fat baby in a blue stroller. He is confident, fluent, and affable. He could talk all day long to anyone about anything.

  On a bad day (a bad day being one on which she curses him because the coffee is cold, the toast is burnt, the sun is not shining; and she cannot look him in the eye when they leave for work, she says she won’t be home till late, she’s not sure how late) his throat freezes into formality. He is articulate but icy. His language is laden with precision and good grammar. To his coworkers he says, “Perhaps I shall…we intend…I assume…I spoke with you previously regarding this issue.” His sentences are weighted with pompous pauses. His chest is puffed out with what looks like self-importance but is, in fact, injury. His spine is stiff with offense.

  All day long (on a bad day) there is a knot in his stomach, a sour bow of anxiety which tightens and loosens and tightens again as the hours slowly pass. Sometimes it shakes itself free and flows upward to his chest so he cannot fill his lungs with breath, or downward to his intestines which creak and whistle dangerously. His coworkers ask him to join them for lunch. He declines in a whisper of melancholy martyrdom. They know better than to ask what’s wrong. He will say, “Nothing!” in an accusing voice, affronted by their curiosity.

  By the end of the day, his stomach is a tight hot drum of gray worry and black bile. It appears slightly distended and he carries it before him like a volatile barrel of toxic waste.

  He closes up his office and walks the four blocks to the subway station. He takes no notice of the weather. It could be sunny, it could be raining, it could be a hurricane for all he cares. He pushes past an old lady walking too slowly, elbows his way around a young mother consoling a crying toddler at the curb. He keeps his head down and trudges through the traffic, glaring at the ground. His legs are a pair of aching stumps. His knees alternately threaten to give out or seize up. He stands and waits. He studies his shoes. They are ugly.

  He takes a seat on the train and crosses his numb legs primly. A woman sits down beside him but shrinks into her side of the seat and looks away. Perhaps he is muttering to himself. Perhaps he is moaning softly as he clutches his knees with both hands.

  The house when he gets there is empty. Although he has expected this, still he goes from room to room searching. The kitchen is ominously immaculate, as if it will never be used again. Every surface shines, as if even the fingerprints have been wiped clean. The living room is a well-appointed museum, entirely free of clutter, dust, and oxygen. He goes upstairs. Only the bedroom is in disarray, the sheets and blankets in a rumpled pile, three of her silk blouses tossed among them, her white nightgown discarded in a puddle on the floor, her earrings scattered sparkling across the top of the black dresser.

  In the bathroom he faces himself in the mirror. He opens his eyes as wide as he can and still he cannot see her.

  On a good day, she would have been home before him. If they have planned to have dinner out, she is already getting dressed when he arrives. She asks his opinion on her outfit. She suggests other possibilities, holding each up against herself and sashaying through the bedroom. He tells her they are all perfect, the shimmering expensive dresses that cling to her slim body, sliding over her like water when she moves. They are all perfect: how can he ever decide? Downstairs in the living room they have drinks and discuss the day. They put on some music and sometimes they dance. Once she places her little feet on top of his and holds tight to his neck while he waltzes her around the room like a child at a wedding. Even on a bad day, he will always remember this: her little hands, her little feet upon him.

  Or (on a good day) she would have been in the kitchen starting supper with the radio on, humming and chopping and stirring. He puts down his briefcase and takes off his shoes (which are not so ugly on a good day). He hangs his suit jacket carefully in the front closet next to hers. In the kitchen he gratefully discovers that she is making his favorite pasta. In the kitchen he joyfully discovers that she has already changed out of her work clothes and is wearing her black silk kimono with the red dragon on the back. She greets him with a kiss. He slides both arms inside her kimono to where her alarming flesh awaits.

  On a good day she lets him.

  On a bad day she doesn’t exactly push him away but turns, gracefully, out of his embrace like a ring once stuck on a finger magically removed with soap. Both her skin and her kimono are slippery and he cannot hold on. He is left with his arms hanging empty at his sides, then braced hard against the kitchen counter to keep himself from grabbing her, begging her, forcing himself upon her. He tries to console himself with the thought that all relationships have their ups and downs.

  But on a good day the black kimono slips from her shoulders and then she puts her tongue in his mouth.

  He doesn’t exactly want to make love. What he wants is comfort. What he wants is to lay his head between her breasts, plump breasts, marvelously heavy breasts on such a small body. He wants to close his eyes and press his lips against them. He wants to bury his nose in them and suffocate with pleasure. He wants to hold his ear against them one by one and listen to her heart beating, her blood flowing, like the ocean inside a seashell. But he is afraid to tell her this. Perhaps she would think he is weak. Perhaps she already thinks he is weak. Perhaps he is weak.

  They make love. Then they eat pasta with clam sauce. They drink red wine, toasting themselves liberally. They make small talk and are happy.

  On a bad day, when the house is empty, he hangs up her blouses and her nightgown. He puts her earrings back in the jewelry box. He makes the bed, moving woodenly around it, as quietly as if she were sleeping and he must not wake her. He removes his clothes and lies down naked on the bed. He presses his ear to the pillow. He will wait here until she arrives and then he will ask her where she’s been. Yes, he will ask her. Finally he will ask her. And she will answer.

  Finally she will answer, and finally the flute-edged silence which surrounds them will be filled with the truth.

  But for now the only sound is that of his own blood throbbing in his ear.

  He doesn’t mean to fall asleep but he does, and quickly, exhausted by anxiety. He does not dream. He does not move a muscle. He awakens instantly at the sound of the front door opening. Is it her or is it an intruder? Either way his heart is pounding and his ribs are aching as if he has been thoroughly kicked by a horse or a pair of steel-toed boots.

  He thinks of the Bible story, God causing Adam to fall into a deep sleep, then removing one of his ribs and closing his body up again. No mention made of which rib, which side, or whether Adam missed it. Then God created Eve from Adam’s rib: Eve, bone of his bones, fles
h of his flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked, and were not ashamed.

  He hears her humming as she takes off her jacket. She calls his name. She sounds happy, excited, girlish. He is relieved, even though her good mood likely has nothing to do with him. She calls his name again. Somehow it does not occur to him to answer. He looks at the bedside clock and finds he has been asleep for only forty-five minutes. She is hardly late at all. He hears her coming up the stairs.

  If she is surprised to find him naked on the bed at this early hour, she does not say so. She lies down beside him and slips her hands between his legs. Her hands are cool and very small. Her diamond rings catch lightly in his pubic hair. He sighs. Her fingers are like the stems of young flowers. His hands upon her are clumsy and large. His thick gold wedding band shines.

  He doesn’t mean to respond. He means to be cool, logical, mature, rational, and philosophical if necessary—none of which are states of mind that may, generally speaking, be achieved or sustained while making love. He means to remain in control of the situation. He means to speak to her as he spoke to his coworkers earlier: “Perhaps I shall…we must…I presume…I intended to consult with you earlier regarding this important issue.” Her breath all over him is sweet and fermented, as if she has been recently sipping expensive liqueurs. He means to ask her about that too. He means to speak to her. He means to make her speak to him.

  But slowly, slowly his penis grows hard under her little hands, her little tongue, her hard little teeth. Slowly, slowly his large body betrays him and he cannot help but enter her. They have not had sex for two weeks.

  Afterward she goes back downstairs and starts her supper preparations. He has a shower and gets dressed.

  If she has a lover (he is pretty sure she has a lover but he has not asked her, will not ask her, at least not today) then maybe he should get one too: thrust and parry, tit for tat, an eye for an eye, and all of that. There is a woman at work who flirts with him all the time: at the Xerox machine, at the water cooler, in the parking lot where he could kiss her and no one would know. In the shower he thinks about how eager this woman is, how easy it would be to have her.

  But he is afraid that if he sleeps with this woman, he will discover that between her legs she is exactly like his wife. Or nothing like her at all. Either way he could not bear it. Either way he would be humiliated and his body would turn away from her, stunned and soft.

  Getting dressed, he imagines his wife in the kitchen below. He pictures her as he always does, one perceptible part at a time. Ankle, elbow, that small round bone protruding at the wrist, cheekbone, jawbone, left temple with one blue vein showing, the nape of her neck, her collarbone like a turkey wishbone, her hands in her lap, silent. He has to admit that he cannot imagine who she is when he’s not with her, who she is when she’s alone. He has no idea what resides within that small body, all of these parts joined seamlessly together to produce her: this one woman, a mystery without precedent or duplicate, entirely singular: her. When he tries to understand her, she escapes him entirely. The heart of the matter is no longer visible to his naked eye.

  He can feel it in his bones: her restlessness, her silence, her moodiness, her guilt, and sometimes her fear. He does not know if she still loves him. If not, he does not know when she stopped. He wonders what you do with love when you’re done with it—where do you put it, where does it go, how do you make sure it stays there?

  He can feel it in his bones. They wake him in the night, the long strong bones of his legs, not exactly aching or cramping, but shrinking, sinking, dissolving, and draining away.

  He can feel it in his bones: the future.

  Eventually he will have to get it through his head.

  For now, as long as nobody speaks the words aloud, he can concentrate instead upon the language of her ankles, elbows, that small round bone protruding at the wrist.

  Eventually he will have to get it through his head.

  But for now, he need listen only to her body, near him, humming. For now they will make small talk and be happy.

  INNOCENT OBJECTS

  The burglary took place sometime between the morning of Friday, July the seventh, and the late afternoon of Sunday, July the ninth, while Helen Wingham was away in the city. Helen went to the city every summer early in July. (The thief is watching the house.) The timing of her trip was arbitrary, this particular part of the season chosen for no particular reason, at least not for any good reason that Helen could remember now. She hired a town boy to come out and water her garden while she was away.

  She took the Friday morning bus and sat for the two-hour trip south in the window seat behind the driver with her small hands folded in her lap. (The thief is walking through the front gate and around to the backyard.) Through the bus window Helen watched the passage of lush green farmland dotted with white houses, red barns, brown cows, and dirty yellowing sheep. (The thief is in the garden.) Helen didn’t notice much change in the landscape from one year to the next.

  The bus stopped in several small towns much like her own, letting passengers off and on at gas stations or gift shops that doubled as bus depots several times a day. Here change was more evident. Buildings appeared and disappeared seemingly at random. (The thief is picking peas,1 dropping the crisp stripped pods in a pile in the pumpkin patch.) A row of derelict wooden houses was bulldozed and replaced by a shiny strip mall. A long green and yellow motel popped up in what had been a cornfield. A three-story gingerbread farmhouse was reincarnated as a sprawling stucco ranch-style house with a wall of windows across the front. From the bus Helen could now look right into the living room. She saw a woman in a blue bathrobe walking through the large white room. Helen politely looked away.

  Helen Wingham was a fifty-four-year-old woman in a peach-colored silk blouse and a well-cut black skirt. Her short hair was gray and tidy. She wore her reading glasses on a black cord around her neck as if they were binoculars. (The thief is examining a basket of garden tools accidentally left out on the picnic table.) By all appearances, Helen Wingham was nothing more or less than a plain white woman. To look at her, you would expect her head to be full of recipes, household hints, gardening tips, knitting patterns, and charming anecdotes about her family.

  Helen kept her large handbag on the empty seat beside her so no one would sit there. She enjoyed the bus trip for the time it gave her to sit silently and watch the scenery while, she imagined, certain longstanding, but occasionally worrisome, layers of her personality were being invisibly shed like the miles unrolling behind her. (The thief is picking a pocketknife2 out of the basket.) By the time Helen got off the bus, she expected she would be, if not a whole new person, at least a whole new self.

  At home in her small town, she was not sociable either. She did not spend her afternoons sipping coffee in the well-equipped kitchens of other town women. (The thief is cutting a hole in the screen of the back right basement window which has been left half-open.) The extent of her interaction with them was simply what common courtesy demanded: a polite greeting, a positive or negative acknowledgment of the weather, and, occasionally, a brief observation as to the success or failure of some recent local event or enterprise. Helen supposed, correctly, that she was looked upon as something of an eccentric, standoffish but harmless, surely. (The thief is reaching in through the hole and unhooking the screen.) Helen did keep to herself, yes, but not in an ominous way, not like those monsters about whom (after human bones have been discovered in the compost pile or else they’ve gone berserk and poisoned the paperboy and his dog) the unsuspecting neighbors, aghast, feel compelled to say over and over again to television and newspaper reporters, “We never really knew her! She kept to herself but she seemed nice enough! How could we have known?”

  Helen had lived alone in the large red-brick Victorian house just north of town for twenty years. Still the townspeople knew next to nothing about her. (The thief is removing the screen and sliding into the basement which is cool and shadowy after the relentless
bright heat of the backyard.) They knew she had come from a wealthy family, was well-educated, had lived for thirty-four years in the city, then inherited a relative fortune and moved to their small town. She had never been married. She had no children and no pets. Over those twenty years she had had few visitors and apparently no suitors. She lived a very quiet life and bothered no one. (The thief hooks the screen back in place, wipes off the blade and handle of the pocketknife, and sets it down on top of a large picnic basket.3) For her part, Helen suspected that the townspeople were both provoked by and disappointed in her. She was strange, maybe a little, but not strange enough. She was hardly the sort of character from whom small-town legends could be made.

  The townspeople had long ago abandoned their secret hopes of a scandal and gone on about their business. “Live and let live, that’s what I always say!” That’s what they always said when Helen’s name came up in casual conversation at the post office or the Sears catalogue shopping counter in the back of the drugstore, at one kitchen table or another, among the women who wondered about her, who wished they knew what her secret was. (The thief is going up the stairs to the ground floor of the house.) These women longed to be invited into Helen’s house but none of them had ever made it past the front foyer on the few occasions when one of them had come to her door census-taking, selling raffle tickets, collecting money for the Cancer Society or the Salvation Army. (The thief is in the kitchen.) The most they could tell from this vantage point was that the house was very clean and the grounds were very tidy, front and back. (The thief is opening the glass doors of the oak china cabinet.) Helen, they knew, had neither a housekeeper nor a gardener and they couldn’t help but admire her for that.