The Collected Stories of Carol Emshwiller, Vol. 1

by Carol Emshwiller

  So, all eyes on me, I stumble up the subway stairs. All eyes on me, I limp, I shuffle down the sidewalk in my too-big boots, my too-high heels. But I’m making progress towards the fulfillment of my desire. I will try to assume the gestures of self-confidence. I hum to myself. I practice throwing my cloak back with a flourish. I proceed with wide, teetery steps. I try to force my eyes and eyebrows into an expression of daring… even cruelty. I stick out my elbows.

  I look sideways at myself in store windows as I go by (though I hope no one sees me do that) and I get a general sense of black on black, of a great swirl of cloak, and a puffy, pale slice of frightened face, full of what could less be called desire and more be called yearning. And yet, if yesterday’s self could only see me now! How I’d strut away from her. The thought, I see in the store windows, makes me strut in actuality. I finally have the proper expression. Keep thinking of that old, other self—I tell myself—then everything will fall into place.

  I’m thinking that perhaps Marshal Vogelgesang and I will romp through the park joking with each other, even though up to now, I’ve never been very good at joking. We’ll be teasing and flirting and holding hands. I feel so happy at the thought that if I should see my old self walking backwards against the wind at this very moment, I’d let myself be blown clear around the corner. I wouldn’t stop to help. I’d laugh. That old thing, I’d think. Let her be blown straight into the East River for all I care. This one here is certainly the better self. Look how I, screwing up my courage, am actually knocking at his door as in Capturing the birds and fishes of desire.

  Seeing him, I wish I had worn my gray hair down.

  He is probably just slightly shorter than I am, though now, in these heels of mine, I tower over him. A pale man with a crooked nose. Not so much fat as soft. Might be a little younger than I am or either better preserved. It’s hard to tell. I’m held spellbound for a moment by the way he combs several strands of pale hair across his bald spot. At least that’s the only explanation I have for what happens next. “I read your book,” I blurt out, “and I have come to give you your heart’s desire.”

  (One faux pas as bad as this one should count, at the very least, as three, and I know I’ll get even with myself for this bit of ridiculousness later.)

  But now feel the heady pleasure of making an impact of whatever sort. He stands silent. Not answering. Not moving. Who could move? Who could answer? I feel a surge of power. Why, he’s just a little man who writes the books, while I can lose them or save them as I see fit, and I have saved his book from oblivion. If I had let that card stay in the trash, he might as well not have bothered writing it at all.

  I push past him into the room. I stride about, waving my arms. I tip my hat even farther over one eye than it already is . I grin and clench my teeth. “Suh… suh… suh… supposing,” I say, “… puh… puh… presupposing that we get to know each other better, of course. Uh… uh… after the interview, I mean,” and I pullout my notebook and pretend to read off carefully prepared questions (though I had forgotten to prepare any):

  “When did you first become aware of the contradictory nature of desire—changed, as it always is, by little nudges in the opposite direction?

  “Would you say that desire was an art, and that one must have an aptitude for it… a special talent? Are there geniuses of desire?

  “And if desire is an art, what happens to it if and when it comes to pass that, as they say, reality outstrips art? Though, personally, I wonder why either should care? Why pit a bird against a fish, in other words? And can birds be said to be outstripped by fishes? And if a fish does outstrip a bird, or vice versa, what then?

  “But what I really want to know is, Have you ever been adored unconditionally? Unconditionally adored? I believe, though I’m not absolutely sure of it yet, that I have come prepared to adore, though I know that may be hard to keep up for a long time. So, teach me all about desire. I read your book, but I didn’t quite finish it.”

  (I think I’m doing pretty well considering the fact that I’m making all these up as I go along.)

  “If you don’t leave instantly,” he says, “I’ll call the police,” but I don’t think he really means that.

  “I submit,” I say, “that you yourself do not know, at this very moment, what you desire. Don’t hurry off into your future this way. Take some time. You yourself have written it. Also you said, ‘Grasp at whatever joys come your way,’ and, ‘Life is full of too much questioning and not enough desire.’”

  “I don’t need this,” he says.

  “But I think I can give you a short description of my troubled self in only seventeen minutes,” I say. “I am an average woman, though I’ll let you be the judge of that. Purposeful at this moment, yes, but average in spite of my hat and all these black things, though isn’t there a secret desire in everyone to dress in some dashing way so as not to find ourselves dismissed at a glance… so as to confirm the fact of our being here, in the world and human, after all, which I am, and full of the terror of it. So, just because I’ve dressed like this doesn’t make me any different from anybody else, though I suppose you don’t believe that, but it’s true, and when I leave here, if I should see in front of me someone walking along in a print dress (such as I always used to wear) and an old brown sweater that sags at the pockets, I will feel no fear of her, for I have gone beyond myself already today… gone beyond myself by coming here, and regardless of what may happen or even what doesn’t happen. I thought you would be pleased to know it and would see that I am not unlike your other loves, for certainly you had other loves; I’m aware of that and I accept it. I’m optimistic, you can see, and though I may seem like a trivial being to you, never having written anything though I could have if I wanted to and even started: ‘Call me Helen,’I wrote, ‘or, call me Edith or Virginia or Margaret….’ And thought to end with: ‘I was the last,’ or, ‘next to last.’”

  But somehow, in all this talk, a call has been made and police come to take me away.

  I don’t want to deteriorate into a mass of quivering jelly for other people to stick pins into, so I assume a bold expression. “I admire a man who adheres to his morals,” I tell Marshal. “Who stands by himself, in other words. I admire that strength of character I find in you. I, too, try for that, and always have….”But by now I’m out of earshot—his ear, that is—and wondering if there isn’t some more efficient way for me to go about capturing desire.

  It’s a good policy, when arrested, to keep quiet and calm and not talk too much. Besides, I’m already all talked out. Besides, I have nothing to say to these men except: “Is there any rule that says I can’t wear this kind of a hat?”

  Of course they let me go. Just tell me not to do it again. (I don’t say yes or no to that.) They think I’m harmless and helpless and I let then think so. They even offer me coffee and I take it though I can’t drink coffee. It keeps me up all night, gives me uneven heartbeats and indigestion. Always does. But I don’t dare refuse.

  It’s pretty late when I walk out of there and there’s an almost full moon coming up behind the buildings. It gives me a big thrill to see it, and I remember something else Marshal wrote:

  One ought to be less concerned with unavailable desires than one is with the inability to desire at all, which is an all-too-common difficulty, and comes about because one is aware of the inexcusable desires one is so full of, and one tries to put them out of one’s mind. What if, one wonders, what if there were a climax to all those inexcusable desires at one and the same time! One is in great danger of it and one knows it. An inner uneasiness prevails, and one would rather live with this uneasiness than face the perils of a luminous and vibrant delight.

  I think I’m feeling that last right now, though it may be just the coffee.

  As I walk to the bus stop, there is this lady in sweater and print dress, comfortable shoes, my old shoes. I envy her those shoes, but I don’t like her chubby, squat shape. I don’t like the way she looks around, keeping t
rack of everybody as if she’s scared of being mugged. I stride by and laugh as I pass, hoping she hears me and knows it’s her I’m laughing at. Silly old crone, I’m thinking, go back to your ridiculous old life. But the sidewalks are lumpy in that neighborhood and I’m not used to such high heels. Just as I pass her, I trip and twist my ankle, and there I am on the dirty sidewalk. She’s looking me right in the eye, and I see it is my old other self indeed, or might as well be. I can see disapproval of my costume in her eyes, disapproval of my whole being, in fact, but the feeling is mutual. She reaches out her hand to help me up. I grab it, jerk hard, and pull her down beside me. Then, leaning on her shoulder, I get up and try my foot. It still hurts, but maybe it’s just one of those strains that hurt a lot at the beginning and go away in three or four minutes.

  I hop away from her. She looks as if she doesn’t know what’s happening, but I do. And she seems to me to have deteriorated into a hopeless mass of jelly that might as well be left oozing on the sidewalk—though, as usual, I’m full of contradictory impulses. I pulled the old lady down, yes, but I have a lot of sympathy for her once she’s getting dirty there on the sidewalk. Suddenly I have the thought to lift her up, let her go on her way, safe and sound, and leave myself lying there alone. I do know exactly how she feels. I even have a momentary sense of confusion myself as if I was the one who wonders what’s happening. I almost do, in fact, give her a helping hand. Yes, yes, I might have done it if it wasn’t for the pain in my foot. I have had, all along, a special warm feeling for her—except, on the other hand, I want her feeling helpless and, most particularly, abandoned. So let some other old lady pick her up. I limp away. I will limp away and take a taxi. I can afford it.

  Back home, I decide to spend the next few days in bed reading The Realities of Fantasy. Then, later, back at work at the library, I will, once and for all, dispose of the card for the book called Capturing Desire.

  Basically, I’m pleased with myself. Yes, this is not to be taken as a failure, but as a first try. And he said it himself, Marshal:

  Oh, the persistence of desire! Whether a suitable desire or not, one must not limit oneself, neither to the ,practical nor the impractical, neither to the suitable nor the unsuitable, and one must certainly realize that it is the unsuitable desire that always touches us the most deeply.

  Verging on the Pertinent, Coffee House Press, 1989

  Being Mysterious Strangers

  from Distant Shores

  THEY HAVE been talking about a journey into the interior. They know the dangers and yet already they have decided upon it. No one can talk them out of it. It is clear that their minds are made up. Their knapsacks are packed. Their guides have been chosen. They remain cool to suggestions. They smile enigmatic smiles. They no longer answer any questions.

  Up to now they have been behaving as tourists should—playing tennis, lying on the beach, eating well, their real lives waiting for them somewhere else. But each of them has yearned to take a trip like this one once in their lives, and they want it now, before they’re too old for it. They’re still capable even though their median age is fifty-four. Each one thinks he or she can still hike for long hours, can still stand the heat or the cold, can sleep on the ground. There’s the tall, fat one and the short, thin one (soon to be fast friends). There’s a man who hopes to find gold. There’s a woman who is going along as a protest against the government’s tax policies. She plans not to pay taxes while she is in the interior. There’s a man who will not stand by passively and let millions die of starvation in a well-known African country. He plans to donate one dollar for each mile covered by every person who returns safely. He will keep track of the mileage on his pedometer, and will not be distressed if there are several false starts or doublings back. There is the man who has chosen the journey instead of committing suicide and there is the woman who has chosen the journey in order to feel more alive. There is one who is going along because he is concerned about the civil rights of all the small brown men with black bangs of the world (and women, too) and on this journey he hopes to encounter some of them. And then there is the failed politician, the failed lawyer, the failed doctor, and the failed psychologist. The latter had hoped to get some kind of grant to study what kinds of people go on journeys such as this and how they behave under the stresses of such journeys, but the money was not forthcoming (as is usual in his case). He is not discouraged by that and is going along anyway and hopes to write a book about it that will sell well. His preliminary studies have shown that the tourists going on the journey are not statistically different from those tourists who are not going on the journey. This is disappointing; however, he hopes to prove that those coming back will have been significantly changed.

  For a few of them the journey may be considered as the moral equivalent of something much more violent.

  The dangers of the interior must be many, because they have found only three guides willing to go with them: small brown men with black bangs and long knives. Two of these men say they have been halfway into the interior and one says he has been all the way. The adventurers don’t know whether to believe them or not. Some think the guides have never been farther than the outskirts of town. Others say that they may be, on the other hand, themselves from the interior; that they know all about it; that this is a trap and that they have been sent out from the interior expressly for the purpose of guiding unsuspecting tourists like themselves back into it, for purposes that no one can imagine but that might well be nefarious. Still others think they’re just ignorant peasant-types who want the money and probably will run off with all the rifles, cameras, and hiking boots, leaving the adventurers stranded halfway to the interior and halfway from civilization.

  This only makes the tourists all the more excited about going. No way of telling what dangers and adventures await them. They are well aware that some of their number may not return. Some may die and some may want to become permanent residents of the interior, and yet they are all confident that some of them will return. After all, they are so many. And each one thinks, thought he is hardly aware of it, that he will be among those who will return. And each one hopes, though he is hardly aware of it, that he will find his heart’s desire or—and better yet—find something totally unexpected he didn’t even know he yearned for. Some think perhaps it will be spiritual, as though they were going to India instead. The man searching for gold hopes he will return with a completely unforeseen sort of treasure. The tall fat man expects not only to become thin, but to become something better than just thinner. The man who is going along instead of committing suicide thinks (and this is such a tiny thought that he is completely unaware of it) that perhaps he will find a reason for living. He thinks he’s too young to die. He’s fifty-one and a runner, and having watched his diet carefully for several years, he feels he’s in better shape than most much younger men, and often says so. Still, his eyes are sad. When he is walking along the beach he thinks of swimming out into the ocean and not coming back, though this is not an uncommon thought of many far less suicidal people.

  None of these people knew each other before, though some had friends of friends in common. Several first met in the lobby of the Hilton. Six or seven got together and then the word spread. Those who wanted or needed to hear about the journey seemed to hear about it, many in mysterious ways, as: one was told of it by a wizened old man in a souvenir shop full of strange carvings said to have been done by natives of the interior. Another was told by the swimming instructor. One even heard of it in a letter from the States, though how or why word could have reached the States is certainly a matter for conjecture.

  Now all sixty-seven of them are walking through the brush in the direction that they have presumed the interior to be (aided, of course, in this decision by their three guides). And the man for whom this trip is to be considered a form of suicide (regardless of what his unconscious motives may be) has already teamed up with the woman who is taking the trip in order to feel more alive.

  Tho
ugh they are well underway, they will all have to hurry if they want to reach the interior before the rainy season.

  They are a colorful lot, still dressed more or less as tourists since they didn’t have time to get completely outfitted—and also many of them feel they don’t want to invest in expensive new olive-drab jungle clothes and camouflage jump suits. So they are wearing shirts as bright as the jungle flowers around them, and white slacks, white sneakers, or red or blue striped running shoes (though many already had olive-drab jungle clothes and camouflage jump suits). After the first few hours of the journey, the white things become smudged, probably permanently. In spite of this, the idea that many unforeseen—and perhaps even some very startling things—can happen at any time, has kept them in a light-hearted mood. They are singing and whistling along the way.

  But there’s also a lovers’ reasons for their gaiety. Those who are single hope to find partners and those who are still married hope for a resurgence of the romantic feelings of their honeymoons, though some, it’s true, are hoping to be able to swap mates with other couples, if only temporarily. They all hope, however, to avoid emotionally draining scenes. In short, and in spite of their ages, they are a troupe of lovers, or possible lovers. None wants to make do with love as it’s been so far. They believe all their former ways of loving have been merely practice phases they had to go through in order to reach some new and higher point. Why can’t I, each one is thinking, have a love at least as grand as the loves I’ve read about or seen on TV? Am I so different from those lucky ones? And so they sing.

  It is to be hoped that all their quarrels will be lovers’ quarrels.