Before, During, After

by Richard Bausch

  It was full dark now. The smell of the roses was in the air, and of the leaves that kept dropping with the light wind that stirred. Faulk studied Natasha’s face in the glow from the kitchen window of the house. She saw him watching her and tried to ignore it, turning to her grandmother and saying that she would plant a garden in the little dog-run area, as someone else obviously had. But whereas it looked from the tilted tomato stakes as though it had been a vegetable garden, she would make hers all flowers, wholly for the color. “It’s a perfect spot, don’t you think?” she said, and heard the infinitesimal quaver in her own voice, aware of him attending to it, standing there, a shadow in the light from the window. He had his hands clenched down in the pockets of his white slacks, and though she couldn’t see his face, he seemed calm and glad to be where he was.

  This, she knew, was for Iris’s sake. Inside the house, she saw the inquisitiveness in his eyes, the wish to know more, to question her, because clearly he had seen the turmoil she had concealed so poorly. She found the strength to remark placidly to Iris that she, Iris, would have to make it a practice to have her morning coffee here, perhaps in the rose arbor. “After you’re fully healed, of course. It’s just a two-block walk for you. And you’re already so much better now.”

  “I thought I was going to need more surgery,” Iris said. “At my age.” She turned to Faulk. “You picked a very nice little place. Are you sure it’s enough for you?”

  “Oh, yes. I like it a lot.” He addressed Natasha. “You sure about it, darling?”

  “I adore it,” Natasha said, smiling but not looking at him.

  Back at Iris’s house, the old woman put the lights on and then lit candles, too, insisting on making coffee. They sat in the kitchen and breathed the aroma of the coffee and of the candles, and they talked to her, also by her insistence, about the last four days—their separate journeys home. In the paper there was a report that the plane that went down in Pennsylvania might have been shot down. Several witnesses reported two fighter jets flying near it. The deputy secretary of defense was denying that any planes had been in the vicinity. And the first intimations were surfacing that the passengers of the hijacked airliner had caused the crash. Faulk read this aloud from the paper while they sipped the coffee. And then he told Iris about his Palestinian cabdriver. “I couldn’t really say anything, and I guess I felt the smallest bit chary of him—the way I bet a lot of people will feel for a while about everybody from that part of the world.”

  Iris said, “They should have a government-required course in all the schools on earth where people are asked to meet people from distant places and get to know them as individual people.”

  “In the best of worlds,” Faulk said. “But these killers knew people personally. It didn’t matter to them. They lived here. God. They made friends and went to parties.”

  “What is the name of the one they say did this? I’ve been hearing about him for years. But I can’t keep it in my mind. The names are so scary sounding, anyway, don’t you think?”

  Faulk said the name. She sipped her coffee and pondered it. “I never dreamed I’d ever see anything like this. It’s like science fiction.”

  Natasha looked at them both, her grandmother and her husband-to-be. They were going on about it—the subject, she knew, of most conversations now. She rose and excused herself, claiming tiredness, and wanting to get cleaned up. She took the bag with her toiletries in it and went up the dark stairs to her bedroom. When Iris and she had made the move into this house, Iris had tried to make the bedroom exactly like the one in the old house, painting it the same off-white and hanging all the same pictures on the wall: a framed photo of her parents standing in rainy light on a street in London; drawings and early watercolors that she had done of Iris and of people she knew and singers—Phil Collins, Sting, Bob Dylan, and Joni Mitchell. Folded in the dresser to the left of the door were clothes she had worn back then or clothes she had left here on visits through the years. She opened the top drawer of the dresser and looked at the tight folds of cloth. It felt like being given a vision of the earlier life. Finally, she closed it and in the thrown light from the hall, put the case on the chair by her bed and opened it. She could hear their voices below, but no words—Faulk laughing briefly at something. Stepping to the window, she looked out at the street, the lights in the houses that lined the other side. There was so much suffering in the country now, so much grief. And fear. She took a deep breath and resolved to stop letting her own predicament block her vision of the general calamity.

  She felt like crying again and caught herself. She went into the bathroom and put some fresh makeup on.

  Downstairs, Faulk heard her cross the hall into the bathroom, heard the door close quietly. He had been reading another part of the paper to Iris, who sighed now and told him she liked how the president, a man she never thought much of, handled the speech at the site of the destruction. “They’re calling it ground zero,” she said.

  “I know.” Faulk glanced at the stairs.

  “She was pretty sure you were hurt or killed,” Iris murmured. “I know how her mind works. She has a catastrophic imagination in the best circumstances. She’s always been that way.”

  “Yes.”

  “She thought for sure you were in one of the towers. Or on the street below. I must say that crossed my mind, too.”

  “I talked about going down there and going up in one of them for breakfast. The wedding was supposed to be in that neighborhood, by the way. I don’t know if she mentioned that to you. That church is where they took some of the injured.”

  “God, it just hasn’t really sunk in yet, for her, that we’re all okay.”

  “I think there’s something else bothering her, though.”

  The old woman waited.

  “I’d like to talk to her friend Constance.”

  “What could it be other than this? She was certain she’d lost you.”

  “Maybe I’m just reading into things.”

  “But what. What would—what could you be reading into it?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe something’s changed for her.”

  “I don’t think we know how to be anymore,” Iris said. “That’s the thing. It’s all completely unthinkable and awful.”

  “In New York,” Faulk said, “on Fifty-Fourth Street, unless you were looking south, you would not have known anything was wrong—except for the sirens. I didn’t know about it until Clara called me.”

  “I was listening to Morning Edition.” Iris stood and opened the refrigerator. “I’ve got a roast ready to go. I put it in earlier today.”

  “Can I help?”

  She smiled. “You can mash the potatoes.”

  Natasha, coming down the stairs, heard this and felt a twinge of nausea at the idea of the three of them sitting at that table with dinner before them. Dinner. A task requiring energy she did not have. She took a breath and strode into the room and leaned down to kiss Faulk on his cheek. His hand came gently to the middle of her lower back.

  “What can I do?” she asked.

  Faulk saw the bones of her jaw. “You’ve lost a little weight,” he said, casually, wanting to be talking about anything else, realizing almost immediately that this was the wrong thing to say.

  She removed herself from him and went to the other side of the table. “I don’t think so.”

  Iris stared. “You do look a little drawn, honey.”

  “I’m fine,” Natasha said, and sat down.

  There were red blotches on her cheeks. “I didn’t mean to embarrass you,” Faulk said.

  She waved this away, aware of him looking into her. She presented him with a smile, then rose to go stand next to Iris, who was preparing to slice the pot roast.

  “Tell us,” Iris said. “What people did, stuck like that? I mean the ones who weren’t affected—Europeans and such.”

  “It seemed to me that everybody got drunk and stayed that way.”

  “And you?” Faulk said.

&
nbsp; “The first night, I did. And as a matter of fact I’d like something to drink right now.”

  “I have some wine,” said Iris, opening the cabinet and bringing out a bottle of Bordeaux. Faulk uncorked it, and Iris put three glasses down on the counter. For a moment the only sound was the wine pouring.

  “Love that sound,” Faulk said. Then he held up his glass. “Nice dark color.” He drank and smiled at them and set the glass down. “Delicious.”

  “Very good,” said Iris.

  “I like that word for describing it,” Natasha said to Faulk. “Delicious.”

  He stood and reached for the bowl of potatoes. Iris had set a milk carton out. He poured a little milk over the steaming potatoes and then put a big dollop of butter on them and began mashing them. Natasha and Iris went on sipping the wine.

  “Delicious is the word,” Iris said.

  Natasha saw out the window the little moving flickers of fireflies rising on the lawn, just past the light from the porch, as if the very light itself were breaking up and flying off. The grass was overgrown, and tall weeds stood in it. At the far end of the lawn, she knew, was a swing set, one swing dangling by a strand of rope; another, on chains, still intact. It had been there when they moved in. She remembered the Collierville house and thought of herself as a girl there, the calm of an afternoon in summer, sitting on the porch swing and looking at the empty field across the way. How strange that she never regarded herself, then, as having lost anything; and now, thinking of her long-dead parents, she felt their absence with an unexpected stab of heartache. She drank more of the wine.

  “Slow down, babe,” Faulk said warmly to her. “We’ve got the whole rest of the evening.”

  Iris set the plate of cut beef on the table and took another sip from her glass. She held it up. “To having everybody home safe and sound.”

  Natasha drank her glass down, then poured more. She took some of the beef and potatoes, a few of the green beans. “I’m afraid I don’t have much appetite.”

  “It’s all very good,” Faulk said, smiling at Iris.

  “Oh, good, yes,” Natasha said. But she couldn’t eat much of it. She swallowed more of the wine, which had begun to taste thick and filmy.

  Iris and Faulk went over the arrangements for tomorrow—the signing of the lease and the arrival of the truck. They could stay here a couple of days, if they needed to, Iris told them. To avoid having to drive back and forth to Faulk’s apartment in Midtown.

  “We’ll have to put the stuff in storage for a few days,” Faulk said. “Until the place is ready for us. But we can stay at either place.”

  “It’s not much stuff,” Natasha said. “Really. I didn’t keep much.”

  Faulk noticed the moistness in her dark eyes and thought she might cry. But she had more of the wine and smiled at him and took another forkful of the potatoes.

  “Think you’ll miss Washington, honey?” Iris asked.

  “I’m so glad to be home.”

  “Well, I’m not going to argue for you being anywhere else.”

  “Southern France?” Faulk said as though he were offering it.

  “Just now, I’m going upstairs to sleep,” Natasha said. “If that’s all right.”

  “Why wouldn’t it be all right?” Faulk said.

  She stood up, walked around to him, bent down, and kissed him on the mouth. He held her for a moment.

  In the tone of a statement, he said, “Are you okay.”

  “I’m just spent.” It was true. With the slight calming the wine had provided, she felt that this was what was really happening to her. The waves of fright and despair were all the product of being exhausted. “Do you mind if we just stay here tonight?”

  “Not a bit,” he said. “Really, babe.”

  She gave him another kiss, turned and hugged her grandmother, then went quietly upstairs. The dark of the hallway was inexplicably inviting. She went along it to the room, entered without turning the light on, and lay across the bed in her clothes. Closing her eyes, she saw an image of Iris standing in the yard with that welcoming smile.

  3

  Sleep came without dreams. She woke briefly three times and listened for their voices. The second time she realized that Faulk was at her side, snoring lightly, one hand resting on her hip. The third time she heard Iris moving around in the hall and then there was silence, and she settled back with the sense of being secure and warm in a sleeping house.

  Faulk woke her, gently, kissing the side of her face. “Time to wake up.”

  “I’m awake,” she said, stirring, sitting up, and putting her arms around him. Looking into his eyes, she said, “Good morning.”

  “Iris’s making breakfast.”

  “It smells wonderful.”

  They went downstairs together. In the kitchen, the old woman had put bacon on and was tossing eggs in a bowl. The smell of the bacon mixed with the aroma of the coffee was wonderful. Natasha sat at the table and looked at the newspaper there, but did not pick it up.

  Faulk stood at the counter buttering slices of toast.

  “I have leftover beef, too,” Iris said.

  “This will be fine,” said Natasha, watching them work.

  She was surprised to find that this morning she did have an appetite. And she could look across the table and appreciate her future husband. Her grandmother appeared ruddy and healthy and glad of everything. Bright sun poured in at the window. They ate quietly for a little while.

  “What did you have to eat in Jamaica,” Iris said, looking down, concentrating on her eggs.

  “Ackee and salt fish.”

  “Ackee.”

  “It looks like scrambled eggs with fish in it.”

  “What is in it? Can we make it here?”

  “Salt fish—dried cod,” Natasha said. “Ackee is a fruit. And there’s onion and different peppers and butter. Actually I didn’t—I didn’t like it that much.” She remembered that she had liked it and knew in the same instant that she never wanted to taste it again.

  Faulk saw that she was holding something back, and it came to him that he was a little tired of all the unspoken emotion. “Well,” he said. “It’s over. Let’s just enjoy what we have.”

  Having finished the eggs, she looked down at her hands on either side of her plate. “We saw it on TV when we came in from the beach,” she said. “It was such a beautiful morning, too, and we came in and it was happening. The television in the lobby.” She shook her head.

  “Okay, darling,” Faulk said to her, touching her shoulder. “Come on. It’s okay now. We’re okay. Look at us.”

  “You must’ve felt so isolated,” Iris said. “Well, I know you did.”

  “I haven’t been through anything like—” She gestured, as if to indicate something at the windows.

  “No,” Faulk said. “Of course.”

  After the meal, he and Natasha did the dishes together, and he tried to find joking things to say but couldn’t. They worked silently for a time, cooperating, she washing and he drying.

  “I can’t believe my own good luck,” he told her, taking her by the upper arms when they had put away the last dish. “I’ve found someone I like drying dishes for.”

  “That’s lucky, all right.”

  He kissed her, a light touch on her lips, and then put the palm of his hand gently on the side of her face. “Beautiful kitchen help.”

  “Thank you, kind sir.”

  She felt almost lighthearted, pushing all the bad thoughts back, shaking them from her as the hour passed, drinking more coffee and then sitting with Iris and Faulk on the porch, watching the light change, the day heating up.

  They had so much to talk about, and yet they said little. Faulk described more of what happened on his way south, the crowded train station in New York with its scores of people simply trying to leave, the young Asian man on the station platform in Newark.

  “What do you think you’ll do now?” Iris asked him.

  He told her.

  “I t
hought you made a good priest.”

  “I was miserable.”

  “No one could see that.”

  “That’s kind of you to say.”

  “Maybe we can spend spring in the south of France,” Natasha said.

  He thought of the job he had just taken as if it were an appointment that had slipped his mind. Spring was months away. He reached over and patted her wrist. “We’ll do whatever you want.”

  When, a little later, they got up to go, Natasha felt as if they were leaving for good. “Therapy on your knee?” she asked Iris, who smiled, shaking her head.

  “Acclimate yourself a little, dear. There’s plenty of time.”

  They went out to the car and got in. The old woman stood in the sunlight on the porch with her cane.

  Faulk thought, as he pulled the car away from the curb, that perhaps he had been imagining things. Natasha appeared fine now, staring out at the sunny, humid morning, arms folded across her chest. She had merely been feeling the strain of the journey home.

  As they pulled up to his apartment building on Cooper, and he was helping her with her bags from the car, he heard a small polite clearing of a throat and turned to see that Mr. Baines was waddling over from his cottage. He came up to them and bowed slightly. “Happy to make your acquaintance,” he said to Natasha before Faulk could introduce her.