by Peter Straub
“But why would I do that?”
“Because Frank Elkin is coming for you.”
I think if I had married Frank Elkin I would have been all right. I certainly loved him enough. But besides loving me, too, he also loved parachuting. One day he jumped, pulled his rip cord, but nothing happened. How long ago was that, twenty years? Twenty-four?
“Frank Elkin is dead.”
“He is, but you can change that.”
The apartment was empty when we got back. Thursday said he would keep it empty until we finished what we had to do. In the bedroom I took my sketchbook out of the table beside the bed. That familiar gray and red cover. I remembered the day I’d bought it and paid for it with new coins. Somehow every coin I handed the salesgirl was gleaming like gold and silver. I was romantic enough to take that as a good omen.
In the living room again, I handed my book to Mr. Thursday, who took it from me without comment.
“Sit down.”
“What will happen to the children?”
“If you want, the court will award them to you. You can prove your husband is an alcoholic and incapable of caring for them.”
“But Willy doesn’t drink!”
“You can change that.”
“How? How can I change all these things? What do you mean?”
He opened the sketchbook and whipped quickly through it, not stopping or slowing anywhere. When he’d finished, he looked at me. “Somewhere in this book you’ve drawn pictures of God. I can’t tell you which ones they are, but I just checked and they’re here. Some people have this talent. Some have been able to write God, others can compose Him in music. I’m not talking about people like Tolstoy or Beethoven, either. They were only great artists.
“You know the sadness of detail, using your phrase. That is what makes you capable of transcendence.
“For the rest of your life, if you choose, I will come sometimes and ask you to do a drawing. Like the pear today. I’ll ask for things like that, as well as copies of certain of the works in your sketchbook. I can say that your book is full of astounding work, Mrs. Becker. There are at least three different important drawings of God, one I’ve never even seen. Other things, too. We need this book and we need you, but unfortunately I cannot tell you more than that. Even if I were to show you which of your work is…transcendent, you wouldn’t understand what I was talking about.
“You can do things we can’t and vice versa. For us, bringing Frank Elkin back from the dead is no problem. Or saving your son.” He held up my book with both hands. “But we can’t do this, and that is why we need you.”
“What if I were to say no?”
“We keep our word. Your son will still become a pilot, but you will sink deeper into your meager life until you will realize even more than now you’ve been suffocating in it for years.”
“And if I give you the book and do your drawings?”
“You can have Frank Elkin and whatever else you want.”
“Are you from heaven?”
Mr. Thursday smiled for the first time. “I can’t honestly answer that because I don’t know. That is why we need your drawings, Mrs. Becker. Because even God doesn’t know or remember anymore. It is as if He has a kind of progressive amnesia. He forgets things, to put it simply. The only way we can get Him to remember is to show Him pictures like yours of Himself or play certain music, read passages from books. Only then does He remember and tell us the things we need to know. We are recording everything He says, but there are fewer and fewer periods of clarity. You see, the saddest thing of all is even He has begun to forget the details. And as He forgets, things change and go away. Right now they’re small things—certain smells, forgetting to give this child arms, that man his freedom when he deserves it. Some of us who work for God don’t know where we come from or if we are even doing the right thing. All we do know is His condition is becoming worse and something must be done quickly. When He sees your pictures, He is reminded of things, and sometimes He even becomes His old self again. We can work with Him then. But without your work, when we can’t show Him pictures of Himself, images He once created, or words He spoke, He is only an old man with a failing memory. When His memory is gone, there will be nothing left.”
I don’t go to the Café Bremen anymore. A few days after I last met with Thursday I had a strange experience there that soured me on the place. I was in my favorite seat drawing the pig, the Rock of Gibraltar, and the ancient Spanish coin he had requested. Having just finished the coin, I looked up and saw Herr Ritter watching me closely from his place behind the counter. Too closely. I have to be careful about who I let see my drawings. Thursday said there are a great many around who would like nothing more than for a certain memory to disappear forever.
Leda
M. Rickert
I cannot crack an egg without thinking of her. How could she do this to me, beautiful Leda, how could you do this to me? I begin each day with a three-egg omelet. I hold each fragile orb and think of the swell of her vulva. Then I hit it against the bowl. It breaks. A few shell pieces fall in with the sticky egg white and I chase them around with the tines of a fork and they always seem out of grasp and I think, just like her. But not really. Not ever-graspable Leda.
How do you love a beautiful woman? I thought I knew. I thought my love was enough. My devotion. I remember, when she went through that dragonfly stage and wore dragonfly earrings and we had dragonfly sheets and dragonfly lampshades and dragonfly pajamas, and I was just about sick of dragonflies, did I tell her? Did I say, Leda, I am just about sick of these goddamn dragonflies. No. I said nothing. In fact, I sent away for dragonfly eggs. Eggs, imagine how that mocks me now! I followed the directions carefully and kept them a secret from her, oh it pains my heart to think of what she learned from my gift, I was like a dragonfly mother for Christ’s sake. I kept them in pond water. I kept them warm. At last they hatched, or uncocooned, however you’d call it, and still I tended them, secretly, until almost a thousand were born and these I presented to her in a box and when she opened it (quickly or the results might have changed) they flew out, blue and silver, yellow green purple. A thousand dragonflies for her and she looked at me with those violet eyes, and she looked at them as they flit about and then she said, and I’ll never forget this, she said, “They look different from the ones on our pajamas.”
Oh Leda! My Leda in the garden bent over the summer roses, in her silk kimono with the dragonflies on it, and nothing underneath, and I come upon her like that, a vision, my wife, and she looks up just then and sees me watching and knows what she is doing when she unties the robe and lets it fall to the ground and then turns, and bends over, to prune the roses! Ha! In the dirt, in the sun, in the night. Always Leda. Always. Except for this.
She comes into the kitchen. Her eyes, black ringed, her feet bare and swollen, her belly juts out before her. She stands for a moment, just watching me crack eggs and then she coughs and shuffles over to the coffeemaker and pours herself a cup into which she starts spooning heaps of sugar and I try to resist the impulse but I cannot stop myself, after all, didn’t I once love her, and I say, “S’not decaf.”
I can tell she looks at me with those tired violet eyes but I refuse to return the courtesy and with proper wrist action (oh what Leda knew about proper wrist action!) whisk the eggs to a froth.
“How many times do I got a tell you,” she says, “it ain’t that kind a birth.”
I shrug. Well, what would I know about it? A swan, she says. An egg.
Yeah, he did that thing with the dragonflies and I ain’t never heard the end of it. “Don’t you know how I love you?” he goes. “Don’t you remember all them dragonflies?”
Yeah, I remember. I remember dragonflies in the sugar bowl, dragonflies in the honey. I remember dragonflies trapped in the window screens and dragonflies in my hair and on my bare skin with their tiny sticky legs creeping me out.
What I remember most about the dragonflies is how he didn’t get it. H
e always thinks he has to, you know, improve on me. That’s how he loves me. I know that and I’ve known it for a long time and it didn’t matter because he was good in bed, and in the dirt, and on the kitchen table and I thought we was friends, so what if he didn’t really understand? A nice pair of dragonfly earrings, a necklace, that would have been enough. If I wanted bugs I wouldn’t of been wearing them. Anyway, that’s how I always felt and I didn’t care that he’s kind a stupid but now I do.
He cracks those eggs like it means something. I’m too tired to try to understand. I pour myself a coffee and he makes a big point of not looking at me and mumbling about how it ain’t decaf and I want a pour the coffee right over his head but I resist the impulse and go sit in the living room in the green recliner that I got cozied up with piles of blankets like a nest and I drink my coffee and watch the birds. My whole body aches. I should leave him. He’s failed me so completely. I sip the coffee. I try not to remember. Wings, oh impossible wings. The smell of feathers. The sharp beak. The cry. The pulsing beat. I press my hands against my belly. I should call someone but, after that first night, and that first phone call, I don’t have the energy. I’ve entered a different life. I am no longer beautiful and loved. I am strange and lonely.
Rape hotline.
I…I…
OK, take a deep breath.
He…he…
Yes?
He…
Yes?
Raped.
OK. OK. I am so sorry. It’s good you called. We’re here to help you. Is he gone?
Yes.
Are you safe?
What?
Is anyone with you?
My husband but…
Your husband is with you now?
Yes, but…
If you give me your address I can send someone over. I…
OK, are you crying?
He…
Yes?
Raped me.
Your husband?
No, no. He don’t believe…
I’m sorry, I’m really sorry.
It happened.
I know. I know. OK, can you give me your address?
A swan.
What?
Horrible.
Did you say swan?
I always thought they was so beautiful.
Swans?
Yes.
What do swans, I mean—
I was just taking a walk in our yard, you know, the moon was so pretty tonight and then he flew at me.
The swan?
Oh…god…yes. It was horrible.
Ma’am, are you saying you were raped by a swan?
Yes. I think I could recognize him in a lineup.
Could, could you put your husband on the phone?
He don’t believe me.
I would really like to speak to him.
I showed him the feathers, the claw marks. I got red welts all over my skin, and bites, and he, do you know what he thinks?
Ma’am—
He thinks I cheated on him. He thinks I just made this up.
Ma’am, I think you’ve called the wrong number. There are other help lines.
You don’t believe me either.
I believe you’ve suffered some kind of trauma.
You don’t believe a swan raped me, do you?
Ma’am, there are people who can help you.
No, I don’t think so. I think everyone loves birds too much. Maybe not crows or blue jays ’cause everyone knows they steal eggs and peck out the brains of little birds but swans, everyone loves swans, right?
Please, let me give you a different number to call.
No. I don’t think so.
Yes, I remember that particular phone call. It’s always bothered me. What really happened to her? Or was it a joke? We do get prank calls, you know, though I can’t imagine how confused someone must be to think calling a rape hotline could be entertaining. I mean, after all, if I’m talking to someone who isn’t even serious, I’m not available for somebody who might really need my help.
What? Well, no, it wasn’t a busy night at all. This isn’t New York, for God’s sake; we average, maybe, two, three rapes a year.
Well she said she was raped by a swan. How believable is that? Not very, I can tell you. But I don’t know…ever since then I’ve thought I could have handled that call better, you know? I’m a psych major and so I wonder, what really happened? What did the swan symbolize? I mean it’s a classically beautiful bird, associated with fairy tales and innocence. Sometimes I wonder, was she really raped?
What? No. Of course I don’t mean by a bird. I said a psych major, not a fairy-tale believer. I mean, I know what’s real and imagined. That’s my area of expertise. Women are not raped by birds. But they are raped. Sometimes I wonder if that’s what happened, you know, she was raped and it was all so horrible that she lost her mind and grasped this winged symbol of innocence, a swan. I mean let’s not be too graphic here, but after all, how big is a swan’s penis?
Excuse me? Well no, of course I don’t mean to suggest that the horror of rape is measured by the size of the instrument used. What newspaper did you say you’re from again? I think I’ve answered enough questions anyway, what can you tell me about this girl, I mean, woman?
WOMAN LAYS EGG!
Emergency room physicians were shocked and surprised at the delivery of a twenty-pound egg laid by a woman brought to the hospital by her husband Thursday night.
“She just look pregnant,” said H. O. Mckille, an orderly at the hospital. “She didn’t look no different from any other pregnant lady except maybe a little more hysterical ’cause she was shouting about the egg coming but nobody paid no attention really. Ladies, when they is in labor say all sorts a things. But then I heard Dr. Stephens saying, call Dr. Hogan, and he says, he’s a veterinarian in town and that’s when I walked over and got a good look and sure enough, ain’t no baby coming out of that lady. It’s a egg, for sure. But then Nurse Hiet pulls the curtain shut and I’m just standing there next to the husband and so I says, ‘You can go in there, that Nurse Hiet just trying to keep me out. You’re the husband, right?’ He looked kind of in shock, poor guy, I mean who can blame him, it ain’t every day your wife lays a twenty pound egg.”
Hospital officials refuse to comment on rumors that the woman is still a patient in a private room in the hospital, where she sits on her egg except for small periods of time when her husband relieves her.
An anonymous source reports, “None of us are supposed to be talking about it. I could lose my job. But, yeah, she’s in there, trying to hatch the thing, and let me tell you something else, she’s not too happy of a lady and she wants to go home to do this there but she’s getting a lot of attention from the doctors and I’m not sure it’s because they care about her. You know what I mean? I mean, remember that sheep that got cloned? Well, this is way more exciting than that, a woman who lays eggs. You ask me, there’ll be some pressure for her to do it again. It ain’t right really. She’s a woman. She’s gonna be a mama. She ain’t some pet in the zoo. Don’t use my name, OK, I need this job.”
Sometimes she falls asleep on the egg. My Leda, who used to be so beautiful. Why did this happen to her? Why did it happen to us? I lift her up. She’s light again since she’s laid that thing. I lay her down on the bed. Her violet eyes flutter open. “My egg,” she says, and struggles against me, “my baby.”
“Shh,” I say, “go to sleep. I’ll sit on it,” and I do. I sit on this egg, which is still warm from Leda’s upside-down-heart-shaped ass that I used to cup in my hands and call my favorite valentine, and I think how life seems so strange to me now, all the things I used to know are confused.
Leda sleeps, gently snoring. I readjust my weight. It’s rather uncomfortable on the egg. Even in sleep she looks exhausted. I can see the blue of her veins, new lines in her face. I never believed she was raped. By a swan. And now there’s this, this impossible thing. Does it mean the whole story was true? If so, I have really failed her. Ho
w will I ever make it up to her? If not, if she cuckolded me, an old-fashioned word that seems so appropriate here, then she is making me into a laughingstock. You should hear the guys at work. The women just look at me and don’t say anything at all.
I dream of a gun I do not own. I point it in different directions. Sometimes I am a hunter in red and black, stalking swans. Sometimes I bring the gun to work and spray the office with bullets. Sometimes I point it at a mirror. Sometimes it is Leda’s violet eyes I see. She doesn’t scream. She doesn’t really care about anything now. Except this egg.
He lifts me off the egg and carries me to the bed. “My egg. My baby.” I’ll sit on it, he says, and he does. I sink into sleep. I dream of feathers falling like snow. The sweep of wings across the sky. The pale white moon. My garden roses closed in the night. The sound of wings. A great white bird. White. I dream white. Silence and emptiness. The inside of an egg. A perfect world.
When I wake up he is still sitting on the egg. “Are you crying?” I say.
“Yes,” he says, like it’s something noble.
“Get off,” I go, “I’ll sit on it now.”
“Don’t you want a know why I’m crying?” he says.
“Get off. I don’t want you making the baby sad with all your sad energy, it’s had a hard enough beginning already.”
“Leda, I’m sorry,” he goes.
“Get off!” I shout. “Get off! Get off!”
He stands up.
A bunch of hospital people run into the room.
“Leave us alone!” I shout.
He turns to the hospital people, those tears still on his face but drying up some, and he goes, “We need to be alone.”
“No!” I shout. “You go too. Leave me and my baby alone.” Then I pick up the egg.
They all gasp.
The egg is very heavy. I hold it close to my chest. “Forget it. I’ll leave,” I say.
That Nurse Hiet steps toward me but Dr. Hogan, the veterinarian, puts up his hand like a school crossing guard and she stops. “We don’t want her to hurt the egg,” he says.
