The Night in Question: Stories

by Tobias Wolff

  The newspaper was strewn over the countertop, its edges fluttering in the breeze. Dina had left the window open again. Though Joyce kept after her, she refused to take ordinary precautions and shrugged off her carelessness as the unimportant, even lovable consequence of being a free spirit with no material hangups. But Joyce saw through her; she understood that by playing this part Dina had forced the opposite role on her, that of the grasping neurotic. Joyce caught herself acting like this sometimes. But not anymore. All that was over now.

  Joyce started the water and went to the window. She rested her elbows on the sill and held her face in her hands, kneading her temples with her fingertips. She pressed harder and harder as the pulse quickened. At the worst moment she went suddenly deaf, as if someone had pushed her head underwater. Then it passed. Joyce heard her own ragged breathing. She heard the scrabble of pigeons’ feet on the tile roof and children’s voices from the playground of a nearby school, a jackhammer far enough away that its sound was bearable, even companionable, like the distant sound of marching bands in the college town where she had grown up.

  Joyce let the breeze cool the sweat from her face. Then she closed the window and began to fill her brewing spoon with chamomile, tilia, and spearmint.

  Joyce’s eyes were scratchy. Her skin felt damp, and her blouse clung coldly where it had soaked through. She carried the tea to her bedroom and left it steeping on the nightstand while she undressed and sat on the edge of her bed. The room was a mess. Clothes everywhere, hanging from hooks and knobs and bunched on the floor. Newspapers. Suitcases still packed for a visit to Dina’s parents, which they’d never made because Joyce got sick. She bent to pick up a shoe, then dropped it and rocked forward onto her feet. She wrapped herself in a terry bathrobe and went to the living room, where, propped up on the sofa, she sipped her tea and watched the silent television.

  The tea helped. Not much, really, but it gave Joyce the only influence she had over what was happening to her. Except for Dina’s massages, nothing else worked at all. Joyce had taken medicinal baths. She’d gotten drunk and she’d gotten stoned. She had tried every remedy she’d ever heard of, barring the obviously useless ones like breathing through a scuba diver’s tank. That suggestion appeared in a newsletter Dina had forced her to subscribe to until Joyce decided that reading about the problem all the time was making it worse instead of better. Also she despised the self-pitying tone of the newsletter, and its spurious implication that readers were not alone in their suffering.

  Because they were alone. In fact everyone was alone all the time, but when you got sick you knew it, and that was a lot of what suffering was—knowing.

  Joyce drank off the last of her tea. She set the mug down on the floor and stared at Dina’s boxes. Almadén: Dina must have brought them from the liquor store. The tops were open. A white mohair sweater lay on top of one box, a jumble of bottles and tubes on top of the other. Joyce leaned back. Even with her eyes closed she could sense the flickering of the television as the camera jumped from host to contestants, contestants to host. The apartment was profoundly quiet.

  It was good to be alone. Really alone, without other people around to let you imagine that your life had mingled with theirs. That never was true. Even together, people were as solitary as cows in a field chewing their own cud.

  You couldn’t enter the life of another person even when you wanted to. Back in August Joyce and Dina had a friend over for dinner, and in the course of the evening she told a story about a couple they all knew who’d recently been injured in a peculiar accident. A waterbed with a fat guy on it had crashed through their ceiling while they were watching TV and landed right on top of them. It was a miracle they weren’t killed—not that this view of the episode would comfort them much, considering the hurts they did end up with: a broken collarbone for one, a sprained neck and concussion for the other. Joyce and Dina shook their heads when their friend came to the end of this story. They looked down at their plates. Joyce managed to keep her jaw clenched until Dina began snorting, and then all three of them let go. They howled. They couldn’t stop. Joyce got so short of breath she had to push her chair back and lower her head between her knees.

  And yet she had known these women. Their pain should have meant something to her. But even now, in pain herself, she couldn’t feel theirs, or come any closer than thinking that she ought to feel it. And the same would be true if the waterbed had fallen on her and Dina instead of on them. Even if it had killed her they would have laughed, then afterward regretted their laughter as she had regretted hers. They’d have gone on about their business, remembering her less and less often, and always with a sudden helpless smile like the one she felt on her own lips right now.

  The effects of the tea were wearing off. Joyce raised her head from the pillows and slowly sat up. She stared at the boxes again, then looked at the television. A man was smiling steadfastly while the woman next to him emptied a container of white goo over his head.

  Joyce pushed herself up. She went to the kitchen and filled the kettle with fresh water, then leaned against the counter. The pulse was getting stronger again; each time it struck she dipped her head slightly, as if she were nodding off. She entered another period of deafness. When she came out of it the kettle-top was rattling; beads of water rolled down the sides, hissing against the burner. Joyce refilled the brewing spoon, poured water into her cup, and carried it back to the living room. She knelt between Dina’s boxes and began searching through the one with the sweater on top.

  Beneath the sweater were some photographs that Dina had kept in her vanity mirror, stuck between the glass and the frame. A whole series of her brother and his family, the two daughters getting taller from picture to picture, their sweet round faces growing thin and wary. A formal portrait of Dina’s parents. Several snapshots of Joyce. Joyce glanced through these pictures and put them aside. She sat back on her heels. She drew a deep, purposeful breath and held her head erect, the very picture of a woman who has just managed to get the better of herself after a moment’s weakness. The refrigerator motor kicked on. Joyce could hear bottles tinkling against each other. Joyce took another breath, then leaned forward again and continued to unpack the box.

  Clothes. Shoes. A blow-dryer. Finally, at the bottom, Dina’s books: Chariots of the Gods, The Inner Game of Tennis, Many Mansions, In Search of Bigfoot, The No-Sweat Workout, and The Bhagavad-Gita. Joyce opened In Search of Bigfoot and flipped through the illustrations. These included a voice-graph taken from a hidden microphone, the plaster cast of a large foot with surprisingly thin, fingerlike toes, and a blurry picture of the monster itself walking across a clearing with its arms swinging casually at its sides. Joyce repacked the box. No wonder her brain was eroding. Dina had so much junk in her head that just having a conversation with her was like being sandblasted.

  Once Dina moved out, Joyce was going to get her mind back in shape. She had a list of books she intended to read. She was going to keep a journal and take some night classes in philosophy. Joyce had done well in her philosophy survey course back in college, so well that when her professor returned the final paper he attached a note of thanks to Joyce for helping to make the class such a pleasure to teach.

  Not that Joyce thought of becoming a professional philosopher. But she felt alive when she talked about ideas, and she still remembered the calm certainty with which her professor stalked the beliefs of his students down to their origins in superstition and hearsay and mere emotion. He was famous for making people cry. Joyce became adept at this kind of argument herself. She had moments of the purest clarity when she could feel herself striking closer and closer to the truth, while observing with amused detachment the panic of some classmate in danger of forfeiting an illusion. Joyce had not felt so clear about anything since, because she had been involved with other people, and other people muddied the water. What with their needs and their demands and their feelings, their almighty anxieties to be tended to eight or nine times a day, you ended up tel
ling so many lies that in time you forgot what the truth sounded like. But Joyce wasn’t that far gone—not yet. Alone, she could begin to read again, to think, to see things as they were. Alone, she could be as cold and hard as the truth demanded. No more false cheer. No pretense of intimacy. No lies.

  Another thing. No more TV. Joyce had bought it only as a way of keeping Dina quiet, but that would no longer be necessary. She picked up the remote control, watched the rest of a commercial for pickup trucks, then turned the set off. The blank screen made her uncomfortable. Jumpy, almost as if it were watching her. Joyce put the remote control back on the coffee table and began to unpack the other box.

  Halfway down, between two towels, she found what she was looking for. A pair of scissors, fine German scissors that belonged to her. Joyce hadn’t known she was looking for them, but when her fingers touched the blades she almost laughed out loud. Dina had taken her scissors. Deliberately. There was no chance of a mistake, because these scissors were unique. They had cunning brass handles that formed the outline of a duck’s head when closed, and the blades were engraved with German words that meant “For my dear Karin from her loving father.” Joyce had found the scissors at an antique store on Post Street, and from the moment she brought them home Dina had been fascinated by them. She borrowed them so often that Joyce suspected her of inventing work just to have an excuse to use them. And now she’d stolen them.

  Joyce held the scissors above the box and snicked them open and shut several times. Wasn’t this an eye-opener, though. Little Miss Free Spirit, Miss Unencumbered by Worldly Goods would rather steal than live without a pair of scissors. She was a thief—a hypocrite and a thief.

  Joyce put the scissors down beside the remote control. She pushed the heel of her hand hard against her forehead. For the first time that day she felt tired. With luck she might even be able to sleep for a while.

  Joyce slid the scissors back between the towels and repacked the box. Dina could have them. There was no point in saying anything to her—she’d only feign surprise and say it was an accident—and no way for Joyce to mention the scissors without revealing that she had searched the boxes. Dina could keep the damn things, and as time went by it would begin to dawn on her, so many months, so many years later, that Joyce must know she’d stolen them; but still Joyce would not mention them, not in her Christmas cards or the friendly calls she’d make on Dina’s birthday or the postcards she’d send from the various countries she planned to visit. In the end Dina would know that Joyce had pardoned her and made a gift of the scissors, and then, for the first time, she would begin to understand the kind of person Joyce really was, and how wrong she had been about her—how blind and unfeeling. At last she would know what she had lost.

  When Joyce woke up, Dina was standing beside the sofa looking down at her. A few bars of pale light lay across the rug and the wall; the rest of the room was in shadow. Joyce tried to raise her head. It felt like a stone. She settled back again.

  “I knew it,” Dina said.

  Joyce waited. When Dina just kept looking at her, she asked, “Knew what?”

  “Guess.” Dina turned away and went into the kitchen.

  Joyce heard her running water into the kettle. Joyce called, “Are you referring to the fact that I’m sick?”

  Dina didn’t answer.

  “It doesn’t concern you,” Joyce said.

  Dina came to the kitchen door. “Don’t do this, Joyce. At least be honest about what’s happening, okay?”

  “Pretend I’m not here,” Joyce said. “This has nothing to do with you.”

  Dina shook her head. “I just can’t believe you’re doing this.” She went back in the kitchen.

  “Doing what?” Joyce asked. “I’m lying here on the couch. Is that what I’m doing?”

  “You know,” Dina said. She leaned into the doorway again and said, “Stop playing head games.”

  “Head games,” Joyce repeated. “Jesus Mary and Joseph.”

  Dina took a step into the living room. “It isn’t fair, Joyce.”

  Joyce turned onto her side. She lay motionless, listening to Dina bang around in the kitchen.

  “I’m not stupid!” Dina yelled.

  “Nobody said you were.”

  Dina came into the living room carrying two cups. She set one down on the coffee table where Joyce could reach it and carried the other to the easy chair.

  “Thanks,” Joyce said. She sat up slowly, nodding with dizziness. She picked up the tea and held it against her chest, letting the fragrant steam warm her face.

  Dina leaned forward and blew into her cup. “You look horrible,” she said.

  Joyce smiled.

  The two of them drank their tea, watching each other over the cups. “I’m going crazy,” Dina said. “I can’t plan a trip to the beach without you pulling this stuff.”

  “Ignore me,” Joyce told her.

  “That’s what you always say. I’m leaving, Joyce. Maybe not now, but someday.”

  “Leave now,” Joyce said.

  “Do you really want me to?”

  “If you’re going to leave, leave now.”

  “You look just awful. It really hurts, doesn’t it?”

  “Pretend I’m not here,” Joyce said.

  “But I can’t. You know I can’t. That’s what’s so unfair. I can’t just walk out when you’re hurting like this.”

  “Dina.”

  “What?”

  Joyce shook her head. “Nothing. Nothing.”

  Dina said, “Damn you, Joyce.”

  “You should leave,” Joyce said.

  “I’m going to. That’s a promise. Don’t ever say you didn’t have fair warning.”

  Joyce nodded.

  Dina stood and picked up one of the boxes. “I heard a great Polack joke today.”

  “Not now,” Joyce said. “It would kill me.”

  Dina carried the box to her bedroom and came back for the other one, the one with the scissors. It was bulkier than the first and she had trouble getting a grip on it. “Damn you,” she said to Joyce. “I can’t believe I’m doing this.”

  Joyce finished her tea. She crossed her arms and leaned forward until her head was almost touching her knees. From Dina’s bedroom she could hear the sound of drawers being yanked open and slammed shut. Then there was silence, and when Joyce raised her head Dina was standing over her again.

  “Poor old Joyce,” she said.

  Joyce shrugged.

  “Move over,” Dina said. She arranged herself at the end of the sofa and said, “Okay.” Joyce lay down again, her head in Dina’s lap. Dina looked down at her. She brushed back a lock of Joyce’s hair.

  “Head games,” Joyce said, and laughed.

  “Shut up,” Dina said.

  Dina shifted a little to one side. She laid one hand on each side of Joyce’s face, fingers along her cheeks, and began to push her thumbs against Joyce’s temples. She moved her thumbs back and forth in tight circles, steadily increasing the pressure. At first the rhythm was fluid and almost imperceptible, but as it grew more definite Dina began humming to herself. Joyce closed her eyes. She felt her eyelids flutter nervously, then grow still. She heard the newspaper rustle in the kitchen. She felt Dina purring her song. She felt the softness of Dina’s thighs, and the warmth they gave off. Dina’s hands were warm against her cheeks. Joyce reached up and covered them with her own hands, as if to keep them there.

  The Chain

  Brian Gold was at the top of the hill when the dog attacked. A big black wolf-like animal attached to a chain, it came flying off a back porch and tore through its yard into the park, moving easily in spite of the deep snow, making for Gold’s daughter. He waited for the chain to pull the dog up short; the dog kept coming. Gold plunged down the hill, shouting as he went. Snow and wind deadened his voice. Anna’s sled was almost at the bottom of the slope. Gold had raised the hood of her parka against the needling gusts, and he knew that she could not hear him or see the dog racing toward
her. He was conscious of the dog’s speed and of his own dreamy progress, the weight of his gumboots, the clinging trap of crust beneath the new snow. His overcoat flapped at his knees. He screamed one last time as the dog made its lunge, and at that moment Anna flinched away and the dog caught her shoulder instead of her face. Gold was barely halfway down the hill, arms pumping, feet sliding in the boots. He seemed to be running in place, held at a fixed, unbridgeable distance as the dog dragged Anna backwards off the sled, shaking her like a doll. Gold threw himself down the hill helplessly, then the distance vanished and he was there.

  The sled was overturned, the snow churned up; the dog had marked this ground as its own. It still had Anna by the shoulder. Gold heard the rage boiling in its gut. He saw the tensed hindquarters and the flattened ears and the red gleam of gum under the wrinkled snout. Anna was on her back, her face bleached and blank, staring at the sky. She had never looked so small. Gold seized the chain and yanked at it, but could get no purchase in the snow. The dog only snarled more fiercely and started shaking Anna again. She didn’t make a sound. Her silence made Gold go hollow and cold. He flung himself onto the dog and hooked his arm under its neck and pulled back hard. Still the dog wouldn’t let go. Gold felt its heat and the profound rumble of its will. With his other hand he tried to pry the jaw loose. His gloves turned slippery with drool; he couldn’t get a grip. Gold’s mouth was next to the dog’s ear. He said, “Let go, damn you,” and then he took the ear between his teeth and bit down with everything he had. He heard a yelp and something cracked against his nose, knocking him backwards. When he pushed himself up the dog was running for home, jerking its head from side to side, scattering flecks of blood on the snow.

  “The whole thing took maybe sixty seconds,” Gold said. “Maybe less. But it went on forever.” He’d told the story many times now, and always mentioned this. He knew it was trite to marvel at the way time could stretch and stall, but he was unable not to. Nor could he stop himself from repeating that it was a “miracle”—the radiologist’s word—that Anna hadn’t been crippled or disfigured, or even killed; and that her doctor did not understand how she’d escaped damage to her bones and nerves. Though badly bruised, her skin hadn’t even been broken.