by Неизвестный
In this last incarnation, the king began again to disturb the young wives of the world. There were so many pleasures to be had as a young wife—the new towels and sheets, the espresso machine, the warm, receptive body waiting in the bed—and at first this seemed merely one of them. Two women together, confessing the terrible love they felt for their husbands, so much deeper and sharper than they ever expected to feel, could then pour fresh cups of coffee, pick up crumbs off the new yellow dishes with the moistened tips of their fingers, and proceed to speak gravely of their feelings for the king without suffering the slightest twinge of foolishness or betrayal. They took it as one of the privileges of marriage. They laughed when other women, their still-unmarried friends, suggested it was a movie actor who provoked in them their peculiar hunger. Because hadn’t they seen him a hundred times before, as a cowboy drifter, an army sergeant, a sidekick, a painter having an affair? It was not an actor they thought of. Their thoughts belonged wholly to the brave, ravaged, beautiful king.
Eva believed in the beginning that he reminded her of her husband, and she told him so. He smiled at her in such a way to show he was grateful, but also that he disagreed. Don’t you see it? Eva asked. She was full of adoration for him. For the way his feet sounded coming up the stairs, the way he kept himself so clean-smelling and neat, for the solo dances he’d perform on the carpet when he was happy. Countless ways and things she adored, innumerable as the stars. Things that of course existed before they were married, but to which she could now fully surrender, abandoning herself to wonder. How did she ever. How did she ever. She could not account for her fortune. She could only note that she had, unaware, held part of her self in suspension before, and now she had let go. The fall was slow, luxurious, and seemingly infinite. It refused to be described. She was reduced to murmuring, almost against her will: You are the best. Words impoverished of their meaning, used most often to thank a person to whom one’s not truly indebted, but when Eva uttered them to her husband, she asked the words to carry the full weight of her astonishment. She wasn’t ever confident they did.
A paradox of growing so close to another person was the doubt that you could impart to them the very closeness that you felt. Eva would awake in the night, feeling someone’s breath on her forehead, hearing someone beside her ask, Do you know how much your husband loves you? Do you know?
Eva would sigh and burrow more deeply next to him, then descend into a dream about the king. He was drawing his sword from his belt. He was turning to face an enemy. The look on his face was grim, and the circle of motion his body described—rough hand on hilt, arm sweeping up, torso pivoting in the direction of danger—had a poem’s grace, its balance and frugality. There was the clang of metal meeting. The hissing sound of tempered weapons slicing through the air. More enemies, their black helmets dull in the brilliant sunlight, came swarming down the wooded slope. They yelped and they whooped, they beat their drums and bared their rotting teeth like dogs, but the expression on the king’s face did not change. One by one he felled his enemies, pressing in on him from all sides, with a bleak patience and determination. Eva flattened herself against a tree and quaked. Not once in her dream did she fear for the king, but she felt acutely the overwhelming odds against him, the extreme peril, the thrill. He would not die, but he might come close. The bark of the tree bit into her skin, her fingers were sticky with pitch, the pine needles yielded beneath her feet. The next time that Eva awoke, in the darkness of the bedroom, her heart was beating very fast.
The mornings made her sad. She didn’t like saying good-bye to her husband when he left for work. She held on to him tightly, and he said to her, We’ll see each other tonight. I know, she sighed, but that seems far away from now. And it was true, the days were long. He was a resident in emergency medicine. He was a lawyer for legal aid. He wrote articles about changes in technology, for which he was paid, and also articles about wars in Africa, for which he was not paid. He worked in a record shop and composed strange, haunting music. It didn’t matter. He was doing something good. Eva, also, had a job. She had high hopes for herself. For both of them. They were traveling the distance, in very small, sometimes imperceptible increments, between where they found themselves now and where they desired one day to be. Soon. It wasn’t happening quickly enough. You’re getting there, they told each other. With brightness in their voices, a true conviction. Over and over they told one another, You’re a rock star. Fuck them. What do they know. You’re kicking ass. I mean it. We’re getting there. Soon.
Eva would see the king when she stepped onto the bus in the mornings. Then she would see him again in the lap of the little boy sitting across from her on the aisle. She would see him behind the glass at the newsstand, and as he flew raggedly down the length of a block. When she walked to the bank she saw him, hair tangled and sword raised, looking out across the city from the top of an office building. Somehow he remained irreducibly himself, even when miniaturized on a lunch box, or multiplied in the pages of a magazine, or flattened and stretched across the side of a bus. Though she saw him everywhere, her spirit would still leap in surprise at the sight of him. Then her heart would unfurl, in petals of flame, and she would burn with a clear, consuming light.
At its peak, before it extinguished itself, the fire made Eva’s vision sharpen. She perceived what was beautiful and fierce in the man who drove the bus, his supple fingers tapping against the wheel, and the man beside her in the elevator, who nodded at her kindly, almost caressingly, before he stepped off at the seventh floor, and the man she saw from her window, crossing the street against the traffic light, a small limp in his step. She stared at each of them and realized, I could love you. The thought filled her with courage. She wondered if everyone around her might feel it, her valor and love, radiating off her like heat. But as quickly as it flared up, her insight faded, and all that remained were the ashes, the unremarkable faces of men.
The nights also made Eva sad sometimes. She tried luring her husband into staying up late, with the promise of movies or cake batter or card games. I don’t want to go to sleep yet, she’d say as her eyelids grew heavier and heavier. Yet the new sheets were so exquisitely soft. And the blanket her cousins had brought back from Wales. Their bed was an abyss into which she could not help but precipitously fall. She clasped his arm, knowing that to sleep was to leave one another for a while. I’ll be right here, he said. I’m not going anywhere. And she said wistfully, I know! Sleep well. I’ll see you in the morning.
Her husband shook his head. She could hear his hair rubbing back and forth on the pillowcase. I’ll probably see you before then, he said. You have a funny habit of showing up in my dreams. You’re always hanging around.
He said it with exasperation, but he didn’t mean it. Together they had developed a talent for hanging around. How else could they have built their wealth of solace and closeness and ease? They lived surrounded by the dear familiar. Eva had been folding laundry when he asked her to marry him. He had been warming leftover noodles on the stove. On the television played a spooky show that they liked, whose characters and conflicts they knew so well, had seen so many times, that they could drift in and out of conversation, or become absorbed with the task of mating socks, of stirring pans, to still return and feel they hadn’t missed anything at all. When Eva turned around to glance at the screen, she nearly fell over her husband, who was on his knees among the washcloths and the turtlenecks still spread across the floor. He opened his hand, like a magician about to make a coin disappear, and there sat a ring. Her grandmother’s ring; she recognized it at once. But how did it ever end up in his hand? There had been forethought, conspiracy! Her very soul rushed forward to meet him. She dropped to the floor and they held one another, laughing and weeping, with all the beloved things of their life arrayed about them, the butter popping in the pan, the detective muttering on the television, the water stain from the leak last winter floating on the ceiling above their heads.
Recounting the moment later,
she shivered at the possibility that it could have happened differently. I would have been embarrassed! she cried. A dimly lit restaurant, a horse-drawn carriage? A banner pulled by a propeller plane across the sky? Some women she knew had become engaged on faraway beaches, strolling underneath the moon. Ugh, she said. It was horrible to contemplate. There were so many opportunities for the process to go awry. She felt lucky her husband had asked the right way, the solely acceptable way, which was exactly the way that he had.
But saying so was obvious. For if he had asked in a different manner, if he had taken her to the top of a mountain, or buried the ring in a chocolate dessert, then he would be a different person, and she would never have married him, now would she.
Would she?
With a pang she remembered the dizzying sensation she had felt while walking through the city. Anything was possible. Anything, more dangerously, was imaginable. Why was it so easy to feel the bus driver’s hand holding her own, as he led her up the crumbling stoop to meet his father? And how did she know that the man on the elevator preferred his eggs soft in the middle, served on little dry triangles of toast? Every glance, every encounter, contained within it a dark, expanding universe of intimacies, exploding like dandelion fluff at her slightest breath, flying up and drifting about and taking stubborn root somewhere. Which was why she understood, with absolute certainty, that the slightly lame, foolhardy fellow, the one riskily crossing the street, would, if given the chance, bury his head between her legs, inhale, and utter indecipherable words of joy, making every inch of her vibrate with the sound.
Did you hear me?
Yes, yes, I heard you, she says and sinks her hands into the damp head of hair, lightly closing her eyes, feeling her body hum, wondering how did she ever—
Eva?
Her husband was propped up on his elbow, looking at her curiously.
You asleep? he asked.
That night she dreamt once more of the king. He heaved open the oaken doors to the hall and hung there, his bent figure thrown into shadow, before he staggered through. The men gathered in the great hall stopped what they were doing and turned to him and stared. They seemed hardly to recognize their king, his face filthy, his eyes haggard, his lean body stooped with exhaustion and pain. It was as if they could scarcely believe he was not dead. A young boy was the first to come to his senses and run forward to the king, who hesitated, then laid his hand, with a sigh, upon the child’s shoulder. Rousing themselves from their disbelief, the men sent up a shout. The king had come home. His enemies, who had snatched him from the battlefield, could not keep him. The voices of his men echoed through the hall, but the king did not share in their rejoicing. He smiled at them faintly. Leaning on the boy, he limped to a dark corner, sank down on a bench, tipped his head back against the stone, and closed his eyes. Eva stood pressed behind a pillar, close enough to see how his face twitched with grief. She looked down and found she was carrying a basin of water, its cool weight trembling slightly in her hands. The water, she knew, was meant for the king. But before she could move to him, a hush fell over the hall, the men parting as another walked slowly through their midst and with quiet steps approached the body resting on the bench. The man was tall, his hair gray, and when he stood before the king, he seemed to cover him with light. My lord, the man said, in a voice of such gentleness that the king then opened his eyes. His face showed his struggle to understand what he saw. You fell, the king whispered. The older man looked at him with love. Yes, the man said, but I did not die. And from the king’s face his pain dropped away, and wonder took its place, for his old friend had been returned to him.
The moment was broken by the sound of water dripping. Eva gazed down at the bowl in her hands. Then she woke, in the darkness of the bedroom, feeling wetness on her cheeks, pooled in the cups of her ears. She heard a voice beside her, whispering. Eva, it said. Eva, it asked in soft dismay, why are you crying?
In the morning, it was her husband who held on tightly. He looked back up at her as he circled down the stairs. When he reached the bottom, out of sight, he called to her, as if he wasn’t sure she’d still be there. He told her to have a very good day. He told her to say hello for him to her friend. I will, she shouted into the stairwell, I will. The front door scraped open, lingered a moment, and then swung shut with a gasp.
As her husband had asked, Eva delivered his special hello to her friend. She was a young wife herself, and pregnant. Her doctor had offices in the part of the city where Eva worked, so after her appointment they would sometimes meet at a restaurant and eat together. Generally speaking, her friend had an exceptional appetite, but now she stared down sadly at her food.
She said, I bet this looks delicious to you.
Eva shook her head.
What? Her friend lit up. Are you pregnant too?
Eva shook her head again, and smiled.
Oh, her friend subsided. You got my hopes up. I thought for a minute I wasn’t alone.
You’re not alone, Eva said.
She found her friend disturbing to behold. Her face appeared both drawn and puffy at the same time. Tiny blossoms of burst blood vessels had broken out along her cheeks and the delicate skin above her breasts. Her hair—all over, she said—had turned coarser. All day she stroked her stomach without knowing it, though her belly had only just emerged.
We have a favorite, she said. I want to know what you think. Alice.
I like it, Eva said. And what if it’s a boy?
Her friend spoke the musical name of the king, and a shudder passed between them.
Can you imagine? her friend asked, for a moment on fire. She remembered herself. No, really it’s Jack.
I like that too, Eva said.
The waiter took their plates away, untouched.
Her friend dropped her head into her hands. I’m tired, she said. How did this happen to me? I’m tired all the time.
Eva didn’t know what to say. She reached across the table and rested her hand on the woman’s arm.
Her friend glanced up, brightened, and began to scold. You didn’t eat anything. That’s unforgivable. You’re going to disappear before our eyes. Don’t you dare do that when I’m blowing up like a balloon.
After they had finished wrapping themselves in their coats and their scarves, her friend kissed her on both cheeks. One is for you, she said, and the other is for him.
As her friend had asked, Eva bestowed a kiss upon her husband. He was already asleep when she came home. She lit a candle and studied him as he lay sleeping in their bed. He too possessed his own share of beauty, or so she had thought in the beginning, and so she was repeatedly still told. Many people, men and women both, found his looks worth noting. But she could no longer see what they spoke of. She saw only the face most familiar to her, the most dear. It was as if, over time, her tender stare had sifted over his face and settled there—on his forehead, his eyelids, his cheekbones, his mouth—hiding from her what was beautiful in him.
She had thought, like Psyche, like all the other curious young wives, that she might creep up on her husband while he lay unconscious, a small circle of light hovering in her hand, and spy the secret face that had for so long remained invisible to her. Psyche had believed she would find a serpent. Another wife, a troll. And what did they find but Beauty. Their fair husbands had vanished like smoke. But why should Eva think of those old stories? The magnificent castles, the unseen servants. Imagine those wives in an apartment! Could enchantment take hold among the recycling bins, the sickly houseplants, the student-loan letters? When the match sparked and the wick flared, all Eva saw was her husband’s face, neither stunning nor monstrous. The face that she loved. Wax did not drip from her candle; the spell went unbroken. He stayed right where he was, fast asleep.
For the first time, the king appeared alone in Eva’s dream, standing atop a dry and windy hill. His cloak flapped roughly about his legs, and above him the sky glowed with a strange luminosity. Heavy gray clouds moved low and swift over a scri
m of sheer, pearly, roseate light. The clouds were edged in gold and vermilion, and seemed to portend that some stirring, unknowable change was on its way. But the king did not gaze at the mysterious sky, the dark gilded clouds sweeping overhead. He kept his eyes fixed on the barren ground. He ran his open hand over a brittle tuft of grass, he turned a small stone over with his boot. Suddenly he fell to his knees, his cloak gusting up behind him, and brought his face close to the turf. What he found excited him. Hurrying on in an urgent, uneven gait, half scrambling, half running, trying to stay low to the ground, the king followed a path of signs discernible only to him. Eva could not guess what he was seeking. Her perspective was puzzling: in one blink she saw the king as a distant figure, stark against the toiling sky, and in another she could see the tiny flecks of brightness in the stone he overturned. Where am I? she wondered, and at the very moment the question arose, she felt beneath her palms the cool, papery surface of a birch. She was lost in a stand of ravishingly white, naked trees. And at the very moment she knew she was lost, she also understood she would be found. It was she the king was searching for. Stepping through the pale trees, their white arms touching her, she drew closer and closer until at last she appeared on the edge of the wood, the wind filling her nightgown like a sail. The king looked up from the ground and saw her.
Then Eva awoke, in the darkness of the bedroom. Her heart had slowed to a languorous throb. She felt as if she were surfacing from a sleep that resembled, or perhaps preceded, death. She wanted to reach for the hand of her husband, but found herself too entranced, too abandoned, to do so. Though she could not lift her head, she became dimly aware of a reddish gleam at the foot of the bed, and wondered if, having dreamt this dream, she was destined to go up in flames, the bed a pyre, a shimmering blanket of fire enfolding her. But she was not. Through the lowered veil of her lashes, she made out embers burning in a grate; through the remnants of her dream, she smelled the ancient scent of wood smoke, she heard the ticking of cinders falling into ash. Opening her eyes, she saw above her a low ceiling, black beams of wood, a small window hanging bright and faceted as a jewel. The room was not her own. Her husband was not beside her.
