by Steve Toltz
I stood hands in air but felt too clichéd so turned palms inward.
Our would-be assailant had a beard that reminded me of an Alaskan husky & was generations past me & it filled me with outrage. I’d always expected to be done in by a young punk—wild & misguided & angry at the world.
He pointed the gun at me. Then he looked up at my hand & tilted his head slightly.
—Journey, he said. I had forgotten I was still holding the book.
—Céline, I said back in a whisper.
—I love that book.
—I’m only halfway through.
—Have you got to the point where—
—Hey, kill me, but don’t tell me the end!
He lowered his gun & said You won’t understand it unless you take it as a whole. It doesn’t work episodically. Who else do you like?
—The Russians.
—Well yeah, the Russians. What about the Americans?
—Hemingway’s OK.
—I like his short stories. Not his novels. You like Henry James?
—Not much. I love his brother though.
—William James! He’s a genius!
—Absolutely.
He put down his gun & said Shit let’s get this boat back.
Eddie & the Alaskan & I started up the boat & drove it back to the riverbank. Saved by a book!
—What’s all this about? I asked him.
—We’re competitors. My boss wants your boss to pack up shop.
—Well, shit, that doesn’t mean you have to go around shooting does it?
—Yeah, it does.
That figures. Most people are killed by their jobs slowly over decades & I had to land one that’s likely to do me in within the week.
Life with Baby
MAJOR problems at home. Astrid sleeps insatiably—her fatigue indefatigable & maybe because of this she treats poor baby as if he’s someone else’s dentures. Her love for me has gone all flabby too. I’m an irritant to her now. Sometimes I find baby on floor, sometimes behind couch, once I came home & he was in the empty bath his head resting on drain.
Other times she takes up her maternal role & lets the baby suck on her nipples her face a big blank. I ask if it hurts & she shakes her head & says Don’t you notice anything, you idiot?
There’s no understanding her.
Just five minutes ago she was on the couch her knees bunched up under her arms. I merely cleared my throat & she let out a scream. What if all relationships are like this behind closed doors?
—It was the only thing I hadn’t done she said. I thought this baby would change something inside me.
—It is a big change.
—I meant deep inside.
—I think you’ve changed.
—I mean right deep down at the bottom of the core of me.
I don’t know what she means. She’s mad. I’m gobsmacked when I think about HER secret minions. What dissent going on in that woman! Total fucking pandemonium! I think she’s suicidal—intestinal wall to intestinal wall crammed tight with treacherous extremists clamoring for the end.
I pick up the baby & comfort him.
I don’t know what to do.
I say to Astrid I’ve heard about this. Postpartum depression.
She laughs loudly at the idea tho it isn’t that funny.
An Extraordinary Day!
As usual went out & dragged anxieties along the boulevards until found a café to sit when anxieties wanted coffee & a cigarette. Paris all around me. A drunk pissing like he was nothing but a bladder in a hat, his ribbon of urine snaking its way through cobblestones. Two policemen paced the boulevard because to march would give off wrong impression.
Walked to the Seine & sat down beside it.
On bench next to me a woman had her legs stretched out catching a rare dose of sun. Nice legs—long & sinewy. She was looking at me while I was looking at her legs. I did a combination shrug & smile & before my brain recognized her, my mouth did.
—Caroline! I cried.
—Marty!
We leapt up at the same time & gazed at each other with deep surprise and joy.
—I went to find you! I shouted.
—Dad died!
—I know! I saw his grave!
—It was awful!
—Everyone I love is dead too!
—I know!
—Everyone! Mum! Dad! Terry! Harry!
—I heard! I rang home when Dad died and my uncle in Sydney told me the news!
—It was awful!
—I’m married! It’s terrible!
—No!
—Yes!
—Well, I’m a father!
—No!
—That’s what I said!
—Marty, let’s run away together!
—I can’t!
—Yes you can!
—I have to fulfill my parental duty!
—Well, I can’t leave my husband either!
—Why not?!
—I still love him!
—So we’re stuck!
—Hopelessly stuck!
—You look good!
—You look beautiful!
We both took a breather & laughed. I had never been so excited. She cupped my face in her hands & kissed me all over.
—What are you going to do? I asked.
—Let’s rent a hotel room & make love.
—Are you sure?
—I’m sorry I ran out on you.
—You were in love with my brother.
—I was young.
—And beautiful.
—Let’s get that room.
A small hotel above a restaurant, we made love all afternoon. I won’t go into specifics except to say I didn’t disgrace myself at all—duration was respectable & thunderstorm raged outside as we left the curtains open & I knew that this would hang hazy in our minds as a half-remembered dream & we would step back afterwards into our lives & when I thought this my heart painfully contracted there in the dark.
—So you’re the father of a French child, she said.
Strangely that thought had never occurred to me before & while I love the French & theoretically am indifferent to my own country, one’s roots hold a strange grip. Suddenly unpleasant my son wouldn’t be Australian. There’s no better country in the world to run away from. Fleeing from France is fine when German tanks are rolling in but in peacetime why would you bother?
We held each other giddily she was thin & so smooth I could’ve skipped her across a lake & she squeezed me in spasms & I kept kissing her as a way to stop her looking at the time as day turned to night. I couldn’t waste this opportunity & I couldn’t bear to hate myself again so I said that I didn’t position myself deliberately in the path of love but it happened and to that end I would leave Astrid and the child so we could be together. She lapsed into a long silence her face barely visible in the dark. Then she spoke softly You cannot leave your son and mother of your child I couldn’t handle the guilt besides I love my husband (a Russian named Ivan of all things). These people were insurmountable obstacles she said then added I love you too, but more as an afterthought hers was an I love you couched in conditions. It was not unconditional love. There were clauses and loopholes. Her love was not binding. I smiled, as if my mouth were compelled by tradition to do so.
I felt a violent mood swing coming on.
She and Ivan were going to visit his family in Russia for a while maybe six months or longer but when we said goodbye we arranged to meet again in exactly one year not on top of the Eiffel Tower but on the side & see if anything’s changed. She said I love you again & I tried to take her at her word & after we said goodbye I walked aimlessly feeling like my heart had swung open briefly then shut before I had a chance to see what was inside. I walked for a couple of hours wanting desperately to cry on someone’s shoulder but when I reached the Seine the sight of Eddie my only friend made me protective of my secret.
—Where have you been? You’re late.
—The boat isn�
��t here yet, is it?
—No he said absently gazing out upon the silent Seine.
One day I think history will judge me badly or worse accurately.
Night
It’s night now & am watching Astrid sleep & am thinking of van Gogh. When he was fired from an early job he wrote When an apple is ripe a soft breeze will make it fall from a tree.
Love is like that. Love was inside banked up & has poured out at her arbitrarily. I say that because I realize dammit I love her I love her but I don’t like her I love the girl I don’t like. That’s love for you! It goes to show love has little to do with the other person it’s what’s inside you that counts—that’s why men love cars mountains cats their own abdominal muscles that’s why we love sonsofbitches & blood-lesscunts. I don’t like Astrid one bit I love her.
Maybe Caroline’s tacit rejection of me had the same effect on my love for Astrid as the cooling of the universe had in aiding the formation of matter. & who would have guessed the heart is spacious enough to love not one but two people at once? Maybe three? Maybe I can love my son too.
The End!
This is the end!
Everything has changed drastically & permanently. Last big change—life will never be same again.
It started ordinarily enough. Was in Shakespeare & Co. bookshop leafing through secondhand paperbacks when I heard a voice Hey Céline!
A familiar voice, a familiar ugliness. The Alaskan husky striding toward me not slowing down the way people normally do but walking at full speed stopping abruptly an inch from my face.
—I’ve been looking for you. Don’t go to the pier tonight, he said.
—Why not?
—Have you finished Journey yet?
—Not yet, I lied.
—Shit’s going down tonight. I can’t say any more than that.
—Go on.
—OK. We’re going to blow your boat out of the water.
—Why?
—You’re our rivals.
—Not me. I don’t even know what’s in those crates.
—That’s why you shouldn’t show up.
Ran around all afternoon trying to find Eddie & wrote notes & left them for him everywhere at his house at his favorite restaurant with his barber. Notes all identical:
Stay away from work tonight. They’re going to blow up the boat into a trillion pieces.
Even left note at my house on the kitchen table for Astrid telling her to pass on message should she see Eddie. She wasn’t home. Why was I so terror-stricken that Eddie might die? Friendships are an unforeseeable burden.
At 4 went to a movie then passed by Eddie’s place once more on my way home but he wasn’t there & when I came home I opened the door to see him sitting in my kitchen a beer in his hand as though it were just an average day tho I spotted gaps in his tireless optimism. I caught him sighing wearily.
—You just missed Astrid, he said.
—I looked all over for you today. What a business you got me into!
—Back pain again? Anyway, I thought we’d walk together.
—What do you mean? Didn’t Astrid tell you about the note?
—No, she said she was going down to the Seine.
I stood thinking for a few seconds before I got it. I looked at my watch. 7:40.
Left baby w/ Eddie & ran out of house & along wet pavement covered in a frosty sweat. Stumbling, I hurled myself toward the mighty Seine. What is she thinking? Ran palpitating, my feet hitting the wet pavement like little heartbeats. What is she going to do? I ran & suddenly I was not alone: along came the shame of a man who all at once discovers he’s been ungrateful so we ran the three of us—me & shame & ingratitude running together like three shadows of three men who were running just ahead. I know what she’s thinking. Almost out of breath. Are my lungs half empty or half full? Don’t know what to do with my appetites. Astrid loved me greedily & I loved her back in reluctant nibbles. I thought I was as small as I could be but was wrong having once more shrunk in my own eyes. I know what she’s going to do!
Suddenly I could see her just up ahead. A little thing in a black dress she was ducking & weaving in & out of streetlamps’ pools of light a willowy figure slipping into darkness and out again. Of course she’s crazy I know this I know she wants to kill herself in original fashion she’s been looking for. She’s running to do it—that makes sense. No one saunters to her own death. You don’t keep Death waiting like that. You don’t dawdle.
I lose her & then see her again running along bank of the Seine. Streetlamps cover the river in glitters. Boat’s chugging in. Above I see the Alaskan hiding behind a wall. He holds up a grenade w/ one hand and shoos me away w/ the other. Boat docks & our guys tie it up to the pier. Three Arab men come running down pistols blazing & grenades in hands. Astrid jumps on the boat. They yell at her but she ignores them & the killers don’t know what to do. They don’t want to kill a civilian, no extra money in it.
She’s on the boat refusing to move.
One of the men sees me. Takes a shot & I duck down behind the stone wall.
A siren.
The men consult each other in guttural screams. No time to lose. It’s now or never. I look up at Astrid & her face is small & colorless & braced for death. Her whole face contracted like expecting boat’s explosion to be nothing but loud pop.
—Astrid! Get out of there! I scream.
She looks up & smiles at me eloquently conveying the message that the lacerating misery of her life is taking its final bow. There was an adios in that smile, it was no au revoir.
A second later the boat went up in a series of little explosions. Just like Terry’s suggestion box. Astrid in the middle of it, a wholly unique suicide. Pieces of her everywhere. On the bank. In the Seine. She couldn’t be more scattered if she’d been dust.
People gaping, terribly excited to have witnessed my tragedy.
I walked home leaving Astrid in a million little pieces. No one looked at me. I was unlookable. But from every face I asked forgiveness. Every face was a link in a chain of faces, in one face broken up. Regrets came up & asked me if I’d like to own them. Declined them for the most part but took a few just so I wouldn’t leave this relationship empty-handed. NEVER would’ve imagined that the dénouement of our love affair would be Astrid blown up into bits. I mean metaphorically maybe.
Never imagined she would ACTUALLY EXPLODE.
Death is full of surprises.
Under the arch I stop & think The baby! Am now sole caregiver me cursed & unclean w/ soul like forgotten limb on battlefield. Thought for first time maybe I should go back to Australia. Suddenly & for no good reason I missed my sun-beaten countrymen.
Back in the apartment her smell everywhere. I told Eddie to go home then went to the baby in bedroom asleep, unaware that his mother’s head & her arms & her face were all in separate locations.
Just me & this grimacing baby.
He woke up screaming from hunger or existential angst. What am I going to do? It’s not like there are any breasts in the refrigerator. I opened up a carton of milk & poured him a cup & then took the cup back to Jasper & poured a little milk into his mouth thinking I’m a widow of sorts. We weren’t married but a baby is a fleshier contract than a flimsy piece of paper.
Found note taped to the bathroom mirror:
I know you will worry how to be a father. You only have to love him. Don’t try to keep him safe from harm. Love him, that’s all you have to do.
Rather simplistic, I thought folding the note. Now I see it was her plan all along even if she herself didn’t know it. To have this child & then dispose of herself.
Astrid dead. Never really knew her. Wonder if she knew I loved her.
Went upstairs & threw some clothes into a bag & then went back into the room & looked at the baby. That’s what I’m doing now. Looking at this baby. My baby. Poor baby. Jasper. Poor Jasper.
I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry what terrible tomorrows we’ll have together what shabby luck
your soul fell into the body of my son my son your father is love’s lonely cripple. I’ll teach you how to decipher all the confused faces by closing your eyes & how to cringe when someone says the words “your generation.” I will teach you how not to demonize your enemies & how to make yourself unappetizing when the hordes turn up to eat you. I’ll teach you how to yell with your mouth closed & how to steal happiness & how the only real joy is singing yourself hoarse & nude girls & how never to eat in an empty restaurant & how not to leave the windows of your heart open when it looks like rain & how everyone has a stump where something necessary was amputated. I’ll teach you how to know what’s missing.
We’ll go.
We’ll go home, to Australia.
& I’ll teach you that if ever you’re surprised you’re still alive to check again. You can never be too sure about a thing like that.
That was it. The last entry.
I closed the notebook, sick to my stomach. The story of my birth shattered into rubble in my brain. Each broken piece of debris reflected an image from the journal’s story. So, then—out of loneliness, insanity, and suicide, I was laboriously born. Nothing surprising about that.
The following year, on the morning of my mother’s birthday, Dad came into my bedroom while I was dressing.
“Well, mate, it’s the seventeenth of May again.”
“So?”
“You be ready to go after lunch?”
“I have other plans.”
“It’s your mother’s birthday.”
“I know.”
“You’re not coming to the grave?”
“It’s not a grave. It’s a hole. I don’t mourn holes.”
Dad stood there, and I noticed there was a present in his hand. “I got her something,” he said.
“That’s nice.”
“Don’t you want to unwrap it?”
“I’m late,” I said, leaving him alone in my bedroom with his sad and pointless gift.
Instead I took myself to the harbor to look at the boats. During the year that had passed, I thought against my will of all that was in my father’s journal. No piece of writing before or since has burned so permanently into my memory. Despite the clever tricks in the art of forgetting my mind knows, they have no impact here. I remember every frightening word.
I sat all day, watching the boats. Or else I looked down at the rocks and the slick, shiny coat of oil floating on top of the water. I stayed there a long time. I stayed until the moon rose and a curtain of stars was drawn across the sky and the lights on the harbor bridge shone out of the darkness. All the boats nodded gently in the dark.
