A Perfect Stranger

by Roxana Robinson

  Eloise was a real artist, a practicing one, who showed regularly at a local gallery. Her work sold very well—people who bought art in Santa Fe were rich—but it didn’t support her. Eloise had moved here from New York eight years ago, and to Caro it seemed that she found her way through the landscape like a bright stream, shifting course lightly and easily, unstoppable. Whenever Eloise needed money she took a job; just now she was heading a fund-raising drive for the opera.

  Eloise’s paintings—rich glowing watercolors, small lush oils—were stacked neatly in the tiny studio at the back of her house. Right now she was making hanging boxes, small perfect painted chambers full of evocative objects: beads, old coins, tiny wheels. One was a dark-mirrored niche flecked with glittering stars like deep space, with a taut cat’s cradle of copper wire stretched across it. Caro thought the works very beautiful, but she was, she knew, biased.

  She’d thought Eloise very beautiful, too, when they’d met, at a museum opening. Eloise wore a pale doeskin shirt that dripped soft fringe down her front; her fluted throat rose up from it, straight and strong. Caro had never had a woman lover before, never even thought of it. She was not sure, now, what it meant.

  Though it seemed surprisingly natural, in a way. Women were used to admiring each other’s beauty, taking pleasure in it. They were all used to seeing each other as objects of desire: the images were everywhere, from Botticelli to the latest Vogue. Acting on it seemed less extreme, less scary, really, than sleeping with men.

  In any case it had been easy for Caro to close her eyes and give herself up to Eloise’s silken hands; it was like slipping down a waterslide in a river. It seemed at once exotic and secret, thrilling and safe: this was a foreign country, and Caro a visitor. She could do what she liked here.

  “We can move this table out into the sun,” Jeremy now said, setting his hands beneath it, ready to heft. The table, a long unfinished board, stood on the porch, in deep shadow, where it was dank and cold. On the wall hung a large Chinese ancestor portrait, its paper wrinkled from weather, its colors pallid and remote. Below this stood a heavily carved gilt table, cracked and peeling. Under the table were stacks of newspaper and a rusty bucket of pinecones; on it was a cracked leather halter the color of mud.

  They pulled chairs out onto the lawn. Jeremy, Caro, and Eloise carried the heavy table across the bumpy grass. The yearlings looked at them boldly from among the lilacs, their dark eyes and pricked ears peering through the heart-shaped leaves.

  Caro and Eloise took the picnic hamper inside, to heat up the casserole. Eloise had told her about the house. “You’ll keep noticing things that are hidden in the mess. A T’ang horse on a windowsill, something gilt under a table. Last time I was here Edward told me to bring over a chair, but there was a pair of his underpants on it. I picked them up, and underneath was a piece of fabulous Chinese brocade.”

  The door opened onto the side of one long room. Sofas, tables, and chairs were in a huge claustrophobic clutter to the right. There was an empty expanse of floor, then a normal grouping of chairs before a fireplace. At the end, to the left, was a great mahogany four-poster, neatly made, with a scarlet bedspread. A scratched metal file cabinet stood beside it.

  The rooms were dark and chilly. Winding their way back to the kitchen, they passed a stone-tiled corner filled with plants. Eloise pointed out two large gilt carp on the floor, faded and peeling.

  “See what I mean? It’s like one of those children’s puzzle pictures, where you try to find the hidden animals.”

  The kitchen was large and gloomy. Counters and tables filled the space, all loaded with objects: old tools, half-empty bottles, a rusted chrome coffeemaker, jars of nails, an electric fan, decades of The New York Times. The stacks of newspapers loomed horribly over the room.

  Margarita, Edward’s housekeeper, appeared. She was Hispanic, small and thin, with graying black hair in a bun. She wore glasses, black pants, and a troubled look. She came into the room rubbing her elbows. She did not look at the countertops.

  “You know how to work the stove?” she asked Eloise doubtfully.

  “Yes, thank you, Margarita, we do,” said Eloise, giving her a brilliant smile. “Don’t worry about us. We’re fine.” Margarita turned to leave, frowning, still rubbing her elbows. A big black chow came in past her, his eye alert and suspicious, his tail furled tightly over his back in a thick spray of fur.

  “That’s Mr. Mao,” Eloise said. “Edward raises chows.”

  “Oh, come here, darlin’,” Caro said, leaning over and patting her knees at him. But Mr. Mao was circumspect and retreated under the table, where he stared out at her, unblinking. Eloise bent over the stove, trying to light it.

  “Where would we have sat if we were eating inside?” Caro asked: there was nowhere to sit in the kitchen, and no table in the other room. All of this—the surreal chaos, Edward’s misanthropy—seemed wonderful, hilarious, to Caro.

  “God knows,” Eloise said. The oven lit with a soft explosive voom, and she slid the casserole inside.

  Eloise’s last lover had been an artist too, very different from Caro: small, sleek, and French. Caro had seen photographs of Nathalie. She was gleaming and self-contained, like a highly polished stone. Caro found it hard to believe that Eloise would choose her—rawboned and awkward, as she saw herself, pure American, with short wide feet, freckles everywhere on her body (which had, after all, been publicly rejected)—after that smooth silken creature, dark-skinned, European, sophisticated. She was amazed by this.

  Caro watched Eloise at the stove. She was dazzled by the sight of her: the springy shock of her short golden hair, the gestures of her hands, so sure and delicious. Caro didn’t dare move toward her; she wasn’t sure who might walk through the door. She couldn’t quite believe that last night had happened. All that urgency, the liquid, glistening delight.

  “Why does he have all these Chinese things?” Caro asked. “Why did he collect such spectacular stuff just to let it all rot?”

  “He didn’t collect it,” Eloise said. She edged the picnic basket gently onto the counter, pushing it into the solid phalanx of clutter. “Edward used to go to Hawaii a lot. Years ago he met a Chinese man there, and they became friends. Just before their revolution, the man wrote and asked Edward to come and get his things and keep them for him until everything was over. So Edward went to China and brought everything back here, but he never heard from the man again.”

  “So it’s here for safekeeping?” Caro asked. She looked at the stained walls, the sagging tables, the stacks of forlorn and mildewed objects.

  Eloise grinned. Her pale eyebrows slanted up diagonally, giving her a devilish look. “That’s it,” she said. “Safekeeping.” She looked around. “Amazing, isn’t it.”

  “Amazing,” answered Caro, looking at Eloise’s burnished face, her wide-set turquoise eyes.

  Years ago, Eloise had told her, just after college, she’d been engaged. Her fiancé was young and sweet; she’d thought she loved him. Six weeks before the wedding Eloise called it off. She’d told him what had happened—what she’d learned about herself, who she really was.

  They were in a coffee shop, in a booth, facing each other. While Eloise talked, explaining, she felt herself being slowly consumed by shame. She felt it physically, heat rising up through her body, like fire. She felt as though she were confessing a crime. She couldn’t bring herself to look at him. She kept her eyes down, and kept stirring the spoon in her coffee, over and over. When she finished, and finally dared look up at him, he reached over and took her hand. He wanted to get married anyway. He couldn’t see why not: he still loved her. And besides, he said earnestly, he didn’t mind her being with women too. In fact, he said, he kind of liked the idea. He said this last in nearly a whisper, smiling at her. The worst of it, said Eloise, was that he thought he was being kind and understanding. She had begun to cry then. She felt invisible, as though people on the street would walk past without seeing her, as though she no longer had a place in
the world.

  Now Caro and Eloise carried out trays loaded with plates and silverware. Waiting for the casserole to heat, they all sat at the splintery table, squinting in the brilliant sunlight. Crows argued loudly overhead, and a gigantic cottonwood lifted its complicated arms above them to the sky.

  “How many horses do you have here?” Caro asked Edward.

  “About seventy-five,” Edward answered.

  “And how many do you sell each year?”

  One field was full of peaceful mares shadowed by long-legged foals; the herd obviously was increasing.

  Edward made a dismissive gesture. “People don’t know what they’re buying,” he said. “These horses are worth thirty, forty thousand dollars each. They’re the purest Arabians in the world, now that the Egyptians have started messing around with their own bloodlines.”

  Teresa looked at Caro. “Edward was given a small herd, as a present from the Shah, before the war,” she explained. “He’s kept them pure ever since.”

  The Shah? Who in the world was Edward, wondered Caro, with his rich, shadowy, international connections? Was he CIA? Gay? But it was hard to imagine him working for an organization. Or being with anyone—man or woman. Caro was intrigued by his mysterious past, and amused by his preposterous bluster. Radiant with her new secret, Caro felt charged and potent. She would win Edward over, charm and comfort him, befriend him.

  “Most of the people who come here don’t know what they’re looking at,” Edward said. “They just want some backyard horse to fool around with. Show jumping.” He looked disgusted.

  “We saw another horse farm, coming in here.” Jeremy offered new information. “A big breeding farm. It’s about ten miles from here, down near the highway.”

  “Near here?” Edward asked, stiffening, proprietary.

  “Out near the highway. It’s called Broadmoor, something like that.” At Edward’s hostility, Jeremy turned cautious. “The people are named Watson, I think?”

  “Never heard of them,” Edward said with satisfaction. “Most of the people around here are newcomers.”

  “The sign said Trakehners, whatever that means.” Jeremy rolled his eyes, now siding with Edward against the hapless Watsons. “Jumping and dressage, it said.”

  Edward’s disgust deepened. “Oh, yes, I know who you mean. They don’t give a damn about anything except what they’re doing. They’re only interested in their own operation.”

  “Not like you,” Teresa said out of what Edward first thought was loyalty. After a moment he looked up at her; she smiled benignly.

  “The market for Arabians is all gone to hell, same as the market for chows,” Edward went on, ignoring Teresa. “No one knows what they’re looking at. You show people an animal that’s the result of a thousand years of breeding, the purest bloodlines in the world, and they say, ‘Are they easy to house-break? Will he jump up on my car?’” Edward’s voice turned unexpectedly to a thin spoiled whine, and everyone laughed.

  “But he will jump up on your car,” Teresa pointed out. “You can’t train chows. You tell them that, do you, Edward?”

  Edward waved his hand again. “I don’t tell them anything at all. I don’t want to sell this kind of dog to that kind of person.” The wind of his contempt blew across them all.

  Eloise went inside to bring out the casserole. After a moment Caro, emboldened by Teresa, said to Edward, “I have a chow, actually. Black, like Mr. Mao.” She heard her accent, strong again.

  “You do.” Edward snorted, not looking at her, as though this proved his point exactly.

  “I do. I love chows. I’m just crazy about Tina. I’m crazy about her.”

  “Well, I just hope you don’t let her run around loose on the road,” Edward said repressively.

  In fact, this worried Caro. Her rental, a tiny half house on the outskirts of Santa Fe, had no yard. There was only a dusty place behind the back door, opening toward the scrubby hillside beyond.

  “She stays inside all day, while I’m gone, but at night she is loose sometimes,” Caro admitted. “There’s no fence, and I let her out alone for a while. Sometimes she does go toward the road. I’d hate for anything . . .” She did not want to say out loud what might happen. “Even if there were a one in a million chance . . .”

  But this enraged Edward. “‘One in a million’! ‘One in a million’! That doesn’t mean anything,” he said angrily. “Why do you say something like that? What sort of person are you?”

  His malice was so naked, so exposed, that Caro felt the shock of it against her face like a slap.

  “If you let her run around on the road she’ll be killed,” Edward announced.

  She’ll be killed. Black and malign, the words hung in the air like a curse. Caro wanted to order Edward to take it back. She saw Tina’s rapt, attentive face when she came home, the slow adoring sway of the tightly furled tail. Now, against her will, she saw Tina, dark head down, sniffing busily, trotting out toward the road in the dark. She saw the sudden radiance of headlights, heard the scream of locked brakes.

  She should never have spoken Tina’s name here.

  Not looking at Caro, Jeremy said virtuously, “It’s not really fair to a dog to keep it inside all the time.”

  Teresa looked at Edward, then away. She said nothing.

  So Caro was not part of their troupe. No one would defend her from Edward; he could attack her at will. She felt publicly chastised, felt the shame of it. Her cheeks burned. She fixed her eyes on the ancestor portraits, faded and rippling, hanging on the damp wall. The place no longer seemed touching or comic— the venomous old despot with his sinister connections, his squalid household, cowed servants, sycophantic friends. It now seemed vile.

  Eloise appeared, holding the casserole with two filthy pot holders. She smiled at Caro, who did not smile back. Eloise began to serve steaming spoonfuls onto the plates.

  Edward watched her silently, wrathful.

  Teresa leaned forward and put her hand on Edward’s arm.

  “Edward,” she began.

  “Oh, skip it, can’t you?” Edward said. He was nearly beside himself with irritation. “Can’t you just skip it? You don’t have any idea what it’s like to run this place.” His voice rose. “Seventy-five of the purest horses in the world, and nobody wants to work here. No one knows what work is anymore. I can’t get anyone to help on this place at all.”

  Teresa put her elbows on the table and looked at him seriously. “We’ll find someone for you, Edward,” she announced, her voice full of purpose. “We’ll find you someone.” She nodded resourcefully at Jeremy. “We’ll start calling tonight.”

  Jeremy nodded back, blinking in obsequious agreement, as though Teresa, like he, were in her forties, as though she were clear and purposeful, with a mind that did not flicker on and off like a faulty fluorescent light. Jeremy nodded solemnly, as though he believed Teresa would complete any project she took up; he nodded as though he himself would complete all his projects, or any.

  But Edward was not reassured. He shook his head like a bull in a ring, distracted by rage and pain. Without answering he bent stiffly over his plate.

  Teresa, too, began to eat. She raised her eyes once and smiled benevolently at Caro, her fine white hair glowing in the sunlight, but said nothing. Eloise, beside her, gave Caro a bright solicitous look. No one spoke. Caro lowered her own head to the food— chicken stew laced with chiles. She said nothing more. She no longer wanted to befriend Edward; she wanted only to avoid his hostility. She no longer understood this excursion—why had they wanted to come? What pleasure could anyone take in visiting this savage old man? There was nothing he did not despise. What were they all doing here?

  And what was she doing, falling in love with a woman?

  Something had shifted, and now Caro felt a thin ripple of revulsion at the thought, a fine dry tightening of the skin. She hadn’t, really, fallen in love, she told herself: one night meant nothing. She wasn’t a lesbian. She didn’t even like the word. Caro
had been married for seventeen years and she had two children. That was who she was. She felt a slow coil of resentment toward Eloise, who’d drawn her into all this.

  Caro wished the day were over. She wished she were back in the archives, picking up a heavy parchment page, losing herself in the narrow slanted script of the old language. She wanted to be alone in that deep silence, analyzing events. She wanted to think in historical abstractions: the Inquisition as a tool of colonial expansion, the Church as an economic power. The puzzle of zealotry, its fierce hot unreasonable flame, its hysterical potency. These were the things she wanted to consider. The landscape of the mind: that was where she wanted to be, it was where she lived.

  Caro felt the cool mountain wind on her bare arms, and shivered. She was now repelled by Edward’s viciousness, disgusted by Jeremy’s toadying, saddened by Teresa’s promises. And she could not look at Eloise—something in Caro had curdled.

  She said nothing more during lunch. She thought of Tina, lying patiently on the stone floor, awaiting her return. But first there was the drive back alone with Eloise to endure. She could not now imagine their touching.

  Caro hoped they’d leave right after lunch, but when the table was cleared Teresa asked Edward if they could go out and see the horses. They walked in a straggly group into the big field of close-cropped grass which held the mares and foals, forty or fifty of them. Some of the babies gamboled, long-legged, loose-jointed, absurd, skittering around their grazing mothers. Some lay curled up like dogs, hind legs tucked close, one narrow front leg outstretched, like a ballerina practicing a bow. Some lay spread out like flags. The mares moved quietly, cropping the grass, casual but deliberate, keeping their bodies always between the people and the foals.