Flight of Brothers

by Jonathan Baumbach

  “I think I could do that,” I said. “I just don’t know what’s expected of me.”

  “Yes you do,” he said. “You don’t know what you don’t want to know.”

  I let his comment seep in, not free from the anxiety I was already feeling. I wanted, like Eva, to remain my own person which meant being by myself at times.

  “Compromises may have to be made,” he said. “Not everything works out to our exact specification.”

  I left him feeling both worse and better than when I came in.

  I was walking with Eva three days a week and sleeping with her twice. I could expand that time, but I wasn’t quite sure how to offer the change.

  I had the déjà vu feeling that I was at this juncture before. And what did I do then? I no longer remembered.

  “Why do you think I’m obsessed with Ron?” I asked.

  “Did I say that? Well, you’re always bringing his name up.”

  “Do you think there’s a reason for it?” I asked.

  “I’m sure there must be,” she said, “though I don’t understand it. I already told you that it’s you I care for and not Ron.”

  “You said I was more important to you,” I said.

  “And you are.”

  “That’s a relative statement. That I’m more important doesn’t mean that Ron’s not important, does it.”

  “I think I understand the problem,” she said. “Ron’s an old friend, but he’s not important to me. Is that clear?”

  “It may be,” I said. “I’m not happy that he’s an old friend.”

  “The past can’t be undone. You know perfectly well that he’s an old friend. Things change.”

  This was the time to ask if she were still seeing him, but I resisted the question.

  We walked in silence for awhile. Finally I said, “I’d like to see you more often than I do.”

  “No one’s stopping you, Mel.”

  So after this discussion, I began to walk with her four times a week and bed her down three times, an incremental change. It still left her time—less time of course—to see Ron if she was so disposed. The change cut into my periods of being alone, but I soon got used to it. Still, I didn’t want to wear out my welcome. And marriage which was on my mind at times, was out of the question at least for the time being. In a certain sense we were almost married.

  “Does our time together always have to be on the same days,” she asked me, on one of our walks. “It deters spontaneity.”

  “I like it better that way,” I said. I couldn’t explain my reasons. They were too private. “Would you like to change the days?”

  “Once in a while,” she said.

  So we entered the pattern of Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday one week and Wednesday, Friday and Sunday the next. This was for sleeping together. Our walking time remained the same each week. So far as I knew, I was the only one she took walks with.

  I still couldn’t shake my so-called obsession with Ron. I thought the new arrangement would make it harder for him if he was still around.

  On Monday, which was an unsubscribed day, I tried to listen at the wall and I could always imagine voices.

  One Monday night in a nervous state, I knocked at her door.

  “What?” she said, opening it in her bathrobe.

  “I was thinking of you, Eva,” I said.

  “That’s nice,” she said. “Do you want to come in?”

  “That’s all right,” I said and gave her a quick hug. Being invited in wasn’t part of my scenario. That I was invited in was sufficient. If Ron were there, she would not likely have invited me in.

  I went back to my place temporarily satisfied. Then I thought maybe Ron came over once every two weeks and this wasn’t his Monday. I would have to be with her all the time to know what I wanted to know. That was the sanctity of marriage, I thought and as I said I resisted marriage.

  One day during one of our walks we noticed Ron walking by himself in the distance. “Do you want to say hello,” she asked me.

  “Not particularly,” I said.

  And so we slowed down—our pace was usually brisk—so as not to catch up. We never said hello or acknowledged one another in any way. Eva did not seem disturbed by my choice. “I don’t think he saw us,” she said.

  Not unless he had eyes in the back of his head or he was following us by staying ahead of us, which meant he was aware of our usual route.

  I told Klotzman of this perception and he laughed it off. “That’s a trifle far-fetched,” he said. “Do you really believe that?”

  “Just an idea,” I said. “I can see it’s not likely.

  “You’re not ready to let Ron go yet, are you?”

  “He showed up,” I said. “I didn’t invent his appearance.”

  “If Ron didn’t exist, Mel, you probably would have invented him.”

  “I didn’t have to invent him,” I said. “He certainly does exist.”

  “You’ve made him into something much more powerful and ubiquitous,” he said.

  “I gather you don’t want me to mention him any more,” I said.

  “Not true. I want you to feel you can mention anybody and anything in this room,” he said.

  “Do you want to hear of my latest lineup dream? I asked.

  “If that’s what you want to talk about.”

  “In this dream, the first two candidates were versions of Eva. In the third spot, were Ron and Eva together under the same coat. In the fourth spot there was a woman I didn’t know, clearly not Eva. In the fifth spot, was a man who resembled my father as a young man. ‘Make your choice,’ I was told. I picked the Eva lookalike in spot one, but as I got closer I saw it wasn’t Eva at all, but Ron dressed in Eva’s clothes. The shock woke me.”

  “You feel that Ron stands between you and Eva,” he said.

  “He did in the dream,” I said. “What was my father doing in the dream.”

  “What’s your reading of it,” he asked. “What was at stake in this lineup?”

  “I was asked to choose the one most important to me,” I said.

  “Your father’s appearance makes some sense then.”

  “I don’t think about my father,” I said, disputing his importance.

  “Apparently your unconscious thinks about him,” he said.

  “Okay,” I said. “What were Ron and Eva doing under the same coat?”

  “At the very least, it’s a form of intimacy,” he said. “It represents something you dread.”

  “It presented a comic picture to me as if there were only one coat to go around,” I said.

  “I wouldn’t have thought of it in that way,” he said.

  “It’s not a psychological reading,” I said.

  “It may be that at some level, Eva and Ron are the same to you.”

  “No way,” I said. “I don’t buy that.”

  “What do you think the dream is telling you?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said, upset with the image of Eva and Ron being interchangeable.

  “If there were no Eva, Ron wouldn’t matter to you,” he said.

  “Whatever, I don’t like him,” I said. “And there is an Eva. You’re always dissuading me from unreal conjectures.”

  “What about him don’t you like?” he asked. “It has to do with Eva, doesn’t it?”

  I couldn’t say. “It might,” I said. “It also might not.”

  “Which is it?”

  “I don’t like his manner,” I said. I hadn’t thought of that before, but it seemed appropriate.

  “What don’t you like about his manner?”

  What doesn’t one like about someone’s manner? “He’s pushy,” I said.

  “I see. That’s not likeable. What is he pushy about?”

  I had no idea, but I wasn’t going to be humiliated by Klotzman again. “He goes to places where he’s not wanted.”

  “Give me an example, if you will.”

  “He goes after Eva when she doesn’t want to see h
im.”

  “You weren’t sure whether she wanted to see him or not.”

  “He came to my door and insisted on coming in to look around to see if Eva was there.”

  “Did you let him in?”

  “I didn’t. No. Besides she wasn’t inside. I had a tough time getting rid of him.”

  “It sounds like you handled the situation well.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “At the time I wasn’t sure.” Outrage welled up in me. “Who did he think he was?”

  “I can see why you think he’s pushy,” he said. “How long ago was that?”

  It was a while back. “Three months ago,” I said. It was actually closer to four.

  “Was there anything more recent?”

  I couldn’t remember if there was. “There might have been,” I said, thinking of his unwanted appearance in various dreams. “He also reminds of me of my half-brother, whom I never liked.”

  “You had mentioned that before. I accept that you have reasons for not liking Ron.”

  And that was that. A rare example of Klotzman accepting something I said at face value.

  I realize I haven’t described Eva before. She was tall, about five foot eight, I would say, small-breasted, with an open face, which looked pretty from certain angles and not from others. She had mousy brown hair, not her best feature, which she tended to wear in an elaborate bun. When she let her hair down, it extended to her waist. At times, she talked about having it cut. “Short hair,” she liked to say, “is so much easier to deal with.”

  I told her I didn’t want her to cut it. She wasn’t a great prize in the looks category, but I liked her face. I don’t think it was my telling her not to cut her hair that influenced her. Eva did what she wanted to do insofar as I understood her.

  In some ways, she was like my mother, worrying me to take care of myself and to eat regular meals. Sometimes she cooked for me or brought over something she had cooked. I wasn’t crazy about her cuisine, which had an overall health food theme, but it was edible and I both appreciated and deplored her looking after me. I tended to go to a local coffee shop, a greasy spoon kind of place, for dinner. That was before Eva insisted that whatever I ate there was likely to be bad for me. After that, I felt guilty whenever I sneaked into my favorite coffee shop. And then I was spending more time with Eva, which included dinners together. Sometimes I got indigestion from the health food regimen, my body had made peace with my usual unhealthy fare.

  After a week of healthy food, I positively longed for a greasy hamburger or a plate of bacon slices, both of which Eva had put off limits.

  I asked Klotzman about the nature of his diet; he was overweight, which seemed a positive sign. He admitted that his wife had been after him recently to cut down on fatty foods. “Eating is one of my pleasures,” he said. “I insist on eating what I like, though I understand and sympathize with my wife’s position.”

  I told him about Eva’s recent health food kick and my secret resistance to it.

  “Why secret?”

  “I don’t want to hurt her feelings. She likes to make dinners for me.”

  “She feels protective of you,” he said. “She’s taking care of you. How does that make you feel?”

  “I have mixed feelings,” I said. “It’s like my slouching. I appreciate that friends tell me to stand up straight and I do at times. However slouching is my natural condition and I’m more comfortable when I slouch.”

  “You’re saying that you’re more comfortable eating junk food than healthful food. I understand that.”

  “I don’t think Eva does,” I said. “She’s determined to improve me.”

  Klotzman laughed. “Certain women want to improve the men they love. It’s not uncommon and mostly well-meaning.”

  “What do you mean by mostly?” I asked.

  “Only that motives are not without some complication. In Eva’s case, I would say that she wants the best for you.”

  “That doesn’t mean I can’t have mixed feelings about it,” I said.

  “You can feel whatever you want to feel about it, which doesn’t change anything.”

  “You think I should tell her to ease up? Is that what you’re saying.”

  “If that’s what you want. You might find a way to tell her that’s not hurtful.”

  I didn’t find a way to tell her, though I knew Klotzman was right, and it created some distance between us. I continued to eat the kind of food I liked on the sly, which felt like a form of being unfaithful. I was having a secret affair with greasy hamburgers, which aggravated my normal feelings of guilt.

  I was polite about Eva’s sometimes unappetizing cuisine, even complimented it at times. She said she loved to cook for me because I ate with robust appetite. It was all performance on my part, but when I got into it I even believed it myself. At this point in our relationship, I was walking with Eva four or even five times a week and spending the night four times, the nights spaced out. This didn’t leave Ron much time to elbow in. Sometimes I knocked on her door on one of the nights I wasn’t staying over to check things out. That I had not run into Ron’s presence, hadn’t wholly convinced me that he was out of the picture.

  Sometimes when I dropped over to borrow whatever, sugar or a stick of butter, Eva would give me a tray of food to take with me. We might as well as have been married. When we went to a restaurant together we acted like newlyweds, calling each other “Sweetie” or “Honey.” I liked that, but I still cherished my few nights alone. I was still, though part time, my own person.

  And, after all, what was the absolute benefit of being your own person.

  “No matter what you do, you’re your own person,” Klotzman told me. “Because you’re close to someone, it doesn’t mean your losing something of yourself.

  I didn’t argue with him. What was the point? I knew what I felt. Even if he was right, he was wrong. And if you were me, what was so all-fired hot about being my own person. I couldn’t understand why Eva, though a little crazy herself, liked me so much. What did she see about me that I couldn’t see in myself? I wish I had the nerve to ask her. Perhaps some time while we were in bed together, I would ask. When you get down to it, everything is mysterious.

  I mentioned to Eva that there were couples these days who lived together, shared a residence, without being legally married.

  We were walking and she just raised an eyebrow when I made my ill-advised remark.

  A moment later she asked what I had in mind when I made my remark. “It seemed to come out of the blue,” she said.

  It was my turn to shrug. “Well, we’re spending a lot of time together,” I said.

  “We’re not living together,” she said. “We each have our own place.”

  I couldn’t think of anything to say to that so we continued on in silence.

  “Have you thought of us living together?” she asked.

  I backed off. “I like our arrangement,” I said. “What do you think?”

  She put her arms around me and we hugged in the middle of the street.

  I searched my mind for an endearment. “You’re my girl,” I said lamely.

  “I’m your girl,” she said, giving my endearment added resonance.

  We walked on, holding hands. Was I ready for something more than we already had? I didn’t want to commit myself to something I couldn’t handle. Klotzman, who was otherwise wary of compliments, said I had made considerable progress. I often wished matters could decide themselves. I still had a large passive streak, which explained why I preferred during our sex that she was the one on top. Still I had the feeling that we were evolving into something new.

  Walking together was our mode. It was how we started out and whatever else happened came from it. So we continued walking—it was a breezy day—mostly in silence.

  “I’m blissfully happy,” she said.

  “We could try living together for a week,” I said, “as an experiment.” My offer surprised me. We had our separate apartments as a fallbac
k position. I had gone forward half a step and was already falling back in my mind.

  “We could alternate,” she said. “One week at your place, one week at mine. We wouldn’t have to give up our separate apartments.”

  I had never thought of giving up my apartment, which was my sanctuary. Her offer frightened me and I suddenly regretted the direction we were going. Wasn’t everything fine as it was, except for my nagging jealousy over Ron. If we lived together, there would be no space for Ron to push himself in. “We could try the arrangement you suggest,” I said doubtfully, “and if we’re not happy with it, we could return to the way we are.”

  “Why shouldn’t we be happy with it?” she said. “I’m already happy with it.”

  I could hear Klotzman say, “When you start going forward, it’s no easy trick going back.”

  We had already walked further than we did on our usual walks, but we kept going.

  I was glad the word marriage had not come up in our discussion. It might not be so bad living together if we didn’t have the obligation of marriage over our heads. We both had jobs so it wasn’t as if we would be together all the time, though we did work in the same place.

  After we returned from our walk, Eva filled a bag with some clothes and so began our new arrangement.

  I was a little antsy the first few days, but I began to get used to Eva’s continuous presence. I told Klotzman I missed my times by myself, but even in the previous arrangement I missed more opportunities to be by myself. Klotzman advised me to tell Eva about this need, indicating that my apartment was large enough to get off by myself.

  Some time I would get out of our bed in the middle of the night and go off into another room. After an hour or so by myself I would return to our bed, almost always finding Eva still asleep. In such fashion, the week slipped by.

  When the week ended, I wasn’t ready to move into her place, but I felt I had to honor our agreement.

  I took a minimum amount of clothes in a paper bag and went reluctantly to my new temporary home. If I knew how, I would have ended this experiment immediately. For Eva’s sake, I tried to look happy living in her place, but I wasn’t fooling her.

  “Would you like to take a break and stay in your place one night?” she asked. As much as I wanted to, I couldn’t say yes.