Hello to the Cannibals

by Richard Bausch

  She turned to Tyler, who had given his bottle of cola to Sheri and was taking the bags out of the trunk of the car, as though to delay the moment of having to face her. She offered the same hand—a natural gesture of greeting, no more than one might expect from an affable and gracious stranger. “Tyler,” she said. “Look how tall you are, and handsome.” He stared at her, the smile never leaving his face. He took her hands and held them for a moment, and she gazed up at him without the slightest sign of what must have been playing across the surface of her mind.

  “My wife, Lily,” he said, in a little, shaken voice. “We brought you this—this small gift here. Kind of—kind of silly.”

  Lily handed it over.

  “Oh,” Sheri’s mother said with a soft laugh. “I love music boxes.”

  “I remembered,” Tyler said.

  Sheri called into the house, “Hey!”

  “Nick went with your father into town,” Mrs. Galatierre said.

  There followed a moment of awkward silence, during which Sheri walked out to the car and closed the trunk. Tyler and Lily began bringing in their bags; Sheri held the door for them. Mrs. Galatierre had melted back into the rooms of the house. It was spacious and cool inside, and dim. There were rooms off rooms, hallways leading to small stairs, which opened onto other hallways, and more rooms. The large picture window at the back of the house provided a view of a patio and a swimming pool, a small garden. Beyond this was a wide field, bordered on the far side by a river or a stream, the winding of it going away, in and out of the folds of green hills, as far as you could see. The sun shone in a blinding replication of itself in the farthest curve of the stream. There was a highway overpass at the most distant point of the horizon. Lily saw shimmering movement there.

  “That’s the highway to Memphis,” Sheri said. She led them downstairs, along a hallway to a room opening out onto the patio. “This is my old room. I hope you guys enjoy it.”

  It was low-ceilinged, with beams, and on one wall there were built-in bookshelves, a large library. Lily went there and looked at some of the titles. There were a lot of the kind of books one purchased from those mail-order houses whose appeal was to the prospective customer’s pretensions to culture—gilt-edged, leather-bound editions that were often only decor. But when she took one out to look at it, she saw that the pages had been thumbed through, and there were small pencil marks in the margins.

  “I was supposed to take what I needed of these books when I left for college,” Sheri said. “Never got around to it.”

  There was a double bed, a dressing table and mirror, a bureau, two nightstands—all of this at a remove from the books. A rather wide space occupied the center of the room. It was as if the bed and the other furniture were being stored here, under the big window. The whole rest of the house was above them. You could see the flagstone walk just outside, which led up and around to entrances to the other floors. A breeze played across the surface of the water in the swimming pool. To the left of the bed, through an arched doorway, there was a small laundry room, and a door leading up into the kitchen.

  “This is your own private entrance to the pool,” Sheri said, indicating the sliding glass doors in the back wall. “We use the French doors off the family room.”

  “I’ve been married a little more than two days. I don’t swim very well, and I don’t know if my wife can.” He stopped, and his eyes widened slightly, a look of wonderment coming to his face. “God, listen to that. My wife. What a strange, wonderful feeling that is, saying that out like that.”

  “Your wife can swim,” Lily told him.

  “She’ll enjoy the pool, then,” Sheri said. “Why don’t y’all get freshened up and then come on upstairs.”

  “Where’re you and—” Tyler paused. The strangeness of their relation seemed abruptly too evident. “I don’t recall that you told me your husband’s name.”

  “His name is Nick.” She laughed softly. “Mama said his name not five minutes ago.” She gave him an evaluating look. “Are you nervous?”

  He shrugged. “Frazzled.”

  “Well,” Sheri said. “The phone’s there by the bed. Lily, you can call your folks and tell them you’ve arrived, if you want. Just dial one and the number. Y’all’ve got your own bathroom, off that little hallway there.” She indicated a space to the right of the bookcase. “I’m gonna head upstairs. There’s nothing doing right away, so take your time.”

  4

  WHEN SHE HAD GONE, and the door had clicked shut, the whole feel of the room changed; it was private, now. Theirs. Lily looked out the window at the water rippling lightly in the pool. More than anything else at the moment, she wanted sleep, and she remembered the days of being alone in the little dorm room in Charlottesville, that long sinking. It had been Tyler who had called her out of it. She reached for him, and kissed the side of his face.

  “We’re actually here,” she said. “How does it feel?”

  “I’ll let you know when I know.”

  “You are nervous.”

  He nodded, reaching for her. “I am, Lily. Terrified, all of a sudden. Way down. I got in this room and this thing passed over me, like something awful is going to happen, like a premonition. This clammy fear around my heart. I wonder what I was thinking of, coming here.”

  “You wanted to know your family. And they wanted to know you. It’s going to be sweet, Tyler, you’ll see.”

  “Do you love me, Lily?” he said. It was almost plaintive.

  She put her arms around him. “So much,” she said. They stood there, and she felt little tremors going through him. She held tight. “And they’ll love you, too.”

  “I can’t believe I—I never thought I’d feel like such a coward. Or that I’d worry so much about whether or not they’ll like me or want me here. It’s stupid—they asked me here. But, Lily, why did she just disappear like that, back into the house?”

  “She probably went to put her music box away, or something like that. She must be nervous, too, don’t you think?”

  He pondered this, and when his face broke into a smile, the relief was bright in his eyes. “You’re very smart, aren’t you, about people.”

  “We’re a match for anything,” she told him.

  “Not me.” He kissed her, then went into the bathroom and washed his face. He had opened his suitcase and taken out a shirt, a pair of pants.

  She sat on the bed, and ran her hand over the surface of the comforter. Smooth, soft silk, padded thickly. She took the handset from the phone, put it to her ear, with some trepidation that she might overhear someone else’s conversation, and was relieved to hear the dial tone. She dialed her mother’s number, and Tyler, drying his face, looked at her from the entrance to the bathroom.

  The machine answered. “We’re here, Doris. I’ll give you a call in a couple of days. Please call Daddy and tell him. Love you, ’bye.” She put the receiver down.

  He came out. “They weren’t there?”

  “That infernal machine.” She took her blouse off, her bra, and then slipped out of her jeans and panties. He sat on the bed and watched. Naked, she felt wonderfully cool and drowsy, and she walked to him, rested her arms on his shoulders. As he kissed her nipples, one and then the other, she ran her hands through his hair. Then he lay back, and she helped him out of his undershorts. They lay crosswise on the bed, and she kissed him. For a soft moment, she was off in some quarter of her being that was separate from anyone, everyone. She made herself look straight into his eyes as he pushed into her, and strove to think herself back to him. Him alone. He murmured her name. She heard it from a long way off, though his mouth was by her ear. She moved her hips, taking him in and in, her hands over his shoulders, holding him close to her.

  “God,” he said.

  She felt him pulse inside her, little spasms. She let go, and something dropped in her, a delicious falling. It went on, and he lay still. She raised her legs, opened wider, and he had stopped. Soon, she let her legs down, and then he pulled out
, and rolled over on his back. She lay with her hands at her sides, legs slightly spread.

  “My God,” he said.

  She touched his hip, then took her hand away. “I’m sleepy now.”

  He said, “Sleep, baby.”

  But she couldn’t sleep. Her ears thrummed with it when she closed her eyes, and yet it wouldn’t come. She watched him put his clothes into the bureau and the closet. Her own suitcases were on the floor near the one chair. He threw his empty bags into the bottom of the closet, then turned and flopped down in the chair, still naked.

  “Aren’t you going to sleep?” she said.

  “You sleep. I’m too jittery.”

  “I’m sleepy, but I can’t drop off.”

  “I’m making noise.”

  “That wouldn’t stop me.”

  He looked at her. “You’re amazingly beautiful.”

  She smiled, and opened her legs a little more.

  “Jesus,” he said.

  “Want to come back to bed?”

  “Aren’t you worried about getting pregnant?”

  She spoke through a small shiver, thinking of her mother. “I think maybe I just did.”

  He said nothing.

  “Come back to bed,” she murmured.

  “Do you want kids, Lily?”

  “I already told you how I felt about it.”

  “But do you want kids,” he said again.

  “What about you?”

  He frowned. “Do you think you’ll change your mind?”

  “How can I know a thing like that? Would it bother you if I got pregnant?”

  “A lot depends on what you want,” he said.

  “Well, I guess what I want depends on what you want.”

  “Lily—” he said, then stopped.

  “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Well—come take me, sir,” she said.

  5

  A LITTLE LATER, she murmured, “I guess we should go upstairs.”

  “It’s awful quiet.”

  “Shouldn’t we go on up?” she asked.

  He said, “I’m sorry—but I don’t really feel like facing Mrs. Galatierre just now.”

  “If you don’t mind, I am going to try and sleep some, then.”

  “Let’s both do.”

  She turned to her side and closed her eyes. There was the rushing sound in her ears; the sheets were fresh and cool. He sat up, and when she looked at him over her shoulder, she saw that while his expression was that of someone calmly awaiting whatever would happen next, his hands shook—the slightest trembling. He looked back at her and smiled, and she smiled back. She closed her eyes again, and listened to the sounds of movement in the rooms above. The rushing came to her ears again, a deep whoosh. And she was asleep, dreaming of Dominic; she was wandering the streets of Charlottesville, looking for him. Then she was being looked for, trying to hide. Dominic was somewhere behind her, trailing along in her wake. It was a game. And then it was bad, and it was a heavy, drumming force, weighing her down. She opened her eyes and saw Tyler rearranging his socks in the top of the bureau. He was setting them in by color, folding each into its mate in exactly the same shape. She watched him meticulously fold all his undershirts and shorts. Then he moved to the closet and arranged his slacks, his sport shirts, jackets, and ties, attending to everything with a fussiness that made him seem rather absurd. It endeared him to her, with his boyish expression of intent concentration.

  “What’re you doing?” she said, or thought she said. He hadn’t heard her. She closed her eyes, and he kept working, and she felt sleep come on once more, and when she woke up, two hours later, she wasn’t sure she hadn’t dreamed the whole thing.

  He was gone. The house was quiet. She came to a sitting position in the bed and was momentarily dizzy. She stood, reached for her suitcase, feeling abruptly naked, exposed in the bigness of the room, in this strange house. She carried clean clothes into the bathroom, then stepped back out and opened his bureau drawer. There it all was, arranged, set in a tidiness that filled her with a proprietary affection, and then a little wave of guilt, because, she realized, it was as if she had spied on him in some private foible.

  6

  UPSTAIRS, she found an empty house. She padded from room to room on the first level—a large dining room with dark-cherry furniture, cabinets filled with crystal and china; a long, low-ceilinged living room with another wide window overlooking the pool and the fields, the low hills through which the river ran. She felt like an intruder. When she entered the living room, she had a fleeting, unbidden sense that someone would sit up from the sofa there and look at her. Out the window, beyond the hills, the sky was red, now. There were wet patches on the flagstones surrounding the pool. It must have rained. She went down a hallway that opened onto the kitchen, and there a young black woman sat at a small round table, breaking off the ends of string beans and dropping them into an aluminum bowl. When she saw Lily, she gave forth a little startled cry.

  “Oh, good God—but you frightened me.”

  “Me, too,” Lily said. “I didn’t expect to see anyone.”

  The other woman shook her head, and ran one hand across her forehead. The other hand she had rested, just the tips of the fingers, on her chest.

  “I’m awfully sorry,” said Lily, catching her own breath.

  “You must be the young prodigal’s bride.”

  Lily nodded. “He’s not exactly prodigal, is he?”

  “That’s what he called himself, not ten minutes ago.”

  “Where are they?” Lily asked.

  “Town. They thought you’d sleep all day.”

  She looked at the clock. Almost twenty minutes to six. The other young woman had resumed methodically breaking off the ends of the beans and tossing them into the bowl. For a moment Lily felt that she must have trespassed, that she should make her way back to another part of the house. But then the other paused, and smiled. “My name’s Rosa.” She stood and wiped her hands on her apron, and extended a hand. “Forgive my rudeness. I’m still trying to get over my fright.”

  Lily said her own name, then: “Need help?”

  “With this? No.” Rosa sat down and began breaking off the ends of the beans again.

  There seemed nothing left to say.

  “Sit down, why don’t you.”

  Lily took the chair across from her. The smell of the beans was strong; they carried the fragrance of earth, and grass.

  “Where you from?” Rose said.

  “Virginia.”

  “Spent part of my childhood there. In Richmond. Ever been to Richmond?”

  “A few times. I have some family there—cousins of my mother.”

  “We moved here when I was ten,” Rosa said. “My parents, two sisters, and me. I’m putting myself through Ole Miss.”

  “What’re you studying?”

  “Domestic service.”

  “Pardon me?”

  The other woman laughed, a whispery sound deep in her throat. “Just checking to see how close you’re listening to me. A lot of people they bring in here don’t see anybody but the black lady maid when they look at me, you know?”

  “I’m sorry,” Lily said, without quite understanding why she felt the necessity of apologizing.

  “You didn’t do a thing to be sorry for. I’m sorry for putting you to the test.”

  A moment later, Lily said, “What are you studying?” And they both laughed.

  “I’m a history major. I’d like to teach it.”

  “What period?”

  “Nineteenth century, mostly. The Victorians. I have an interest in the Cold War, too. Russian history, and the Industrial Revolution. A little of the Civil War, of course.”

  “You must know about Mary Kingsley,” Lily said.

  The other woman’s face seemed to brighten. “I read her book—Travels in West Africa. My family comes from there—way back, of course. The Gabon River. More than two hundred years back. I traced it when I was in high schoo
l. Roots, you know?” This was said with an abashed, small smile. “My parents were pretty big on all that. I’m named after Ms. Parks.”

  “I can’t explain it,” Lily said. “But the very first time I ever looked at a photograph of her, something happened to me. It was as if I recognized her from somewhere. Does that make any sense?”

  “Maybe you knew her in another life.”

  “I don’t mean it like that, though. I’m not doing a very good job of expressing it.”

  The other woman left a pause, tossing the beans into the bowl, working along. Lily absently reached across and started doing it, too. “Do your parents still live here in Oxford?” she asked.

  “My daddy lives in Bakersfield, California, now and my mama lives in Italy. They’re separated but not divorced. That’s how they describe it. They haven’t been in the same room for about three years. Different interests.”

  Lily heard herself say, “My father had an affair with someone who worked with him. He divorced my mother and married her. A woman my age, who’s pregnant now.”

  “Damn,” Rosa said.

  Now there was an embarrassed silence. “I must still be half asleep, blurting all that out at you like that. I wouldn’t blame you if you felt a little put upon by it.”

  “Hey, it’s okay with me if it’s okay with you.”

  “Well,” Lily said. “Nice meeting you.”

  “Folks’ll be home any second,” said Rosa.

  In the other rooms there were trophies in cases—hunting, shooting, baseball, track and field—and photographs of a big, barrel-chested man standing with other, smaller men in various amateur sporting groups: baseball teams, basketball teams, football teams. There were other photographs of this same man holding up a stringer of fish, or standing next to the strung-up sleekness of a marlin; or kneeling, rifle in hand, over the carcass of a bear. This bear was no doubt the same one that now was a rug in the middle of the floor in the den, a wide room containing heavy leather chairs, oak side tables, carousels of books, and a big glass trophy case. At the center of one pine-paneled wall hung the head of an elk. Opposite that was a flagstone fireplace, flanked by still another large window overlooking the pool, the field, and the far stream beyond. The stream showed its glimmer of reflected sky. Lily read the inscription below the marlin that was mounted above the mantel: “Caught by Millicent Galatierre in the Gulf Stream, July 12, 1981. Fought him for three hours, forty-seven minutes. Presented by her husband, Brendan, August 1, 1981.”