The Collected Stories of Deborah Eisenberg

by Deborah Eisenberg

  “Artistic imperialism—” Jill laughed. “My!”

  “Yes—” Lyle said, joining them. Towering over Bud, Lyle rocked mournfully back and forth on his toes, and pushed his floppy hair behind his ear in discomfiture. “It really was funny.” Jill smiled at his baffled sorrow and put an affectionate hand on his arm. He was like a gigantic boy, with those glasses and that pink, open mouth.

  “Mrs. Douglas—” Roo said. She stood just behind the entrance to the living room, holding James.

  “Yes, Roo,” Jill said. Roo had changed into very high heels and a white dress that Jill had kept in the closet for two years after Joshua was born, before coming to terms with the probability that she would never fit into it again. “Come in.”

  “I’m just saying the taxi’s come,” Roo said.

  “Oh. Well, thank you, Roo.” But she’d never—she’d never seen Roo actually wearing the dress. “Good night, then.”

  “Oh, Roo,” Kitsy called. “Don’t you look stunning.” And there was a silence as Roo turned slightly to readjust James, exposing the fine articulation of her arms, and her narrow bare back. Where could she be going like that, Jill wondered. And with James—

  “Hello, James,” Amanda said, raising her glass slightly.

  “And will I see you on Tuesday, then, Roo?” Jill asked senselessly.

  “Yes, Mrs. Douglas,” Roo said, her face scrupulously expressionless.

  Jill sighed. If only there were still people in the world like the people who had worked for her parents—people made flexible and melodious by their hard lives; special, quiet people with gentle hands and outlandish, old-fashioned names. Jill remembered one woman in particular, Evaline, and her husband, Vernon, who had helped occasionally in the yard. Jill hadn’t thought about them in years, she realized with surprise. How she had adored them! But then once—sometime, she did not remember when, sometime when she was a child—her mother had told her something: a story about a past that Vernon and Evaline had in common, things that had happened before they’d met, even before they’d been born.

  And the story was (Jill’s mother had been doing her nails, Jill remembered, when Jill had gotten her to tell it) that Vernon and Evaline each had a grandparent, or grandparents, who had been slaves, whose own parents had been taken to America—kidnapped away from their families, bound up in chains, and put on boats with other prisoners whose language they could not understand. And then they had been brought to America and sold.

  Jill stood very still. She felt as though she knew what her mother was telling her, but did not know, at the same time, and she wanted her mother to tell her again, but for some reason she did not dare to say so. “‘Sold’?” she repeated very, very quietly.

  “That’s what I said, Jill.” Her mother spread out her fingers and stared at her nails with a sorrowful, absent irony.

  So, they’d been sold. And bought—just like the little lizard Jill’s father had bought at the circus for her. “But you must never, never mention this to them,” her mother said. “They would be terribly hurt.”

  Jill’s throat was dry, and her skin prickled oddly. “Why, Mother?” she said.

  “Because,” her mother said. Then she looked at Jill, as though Jill had just come into the room, and stood up. “Because, Jill, it was their own people who did that to them.” And after that, Jill had felt very shy with Vernon and Evaline.

  “How she does it,” Kitsy said, when the door closed behind Roo. “And that adorable little boy.”

  “You send her home in a taxi?” Bud said.

  Jill laughed, and the memory of Evaline and Vernon and her mother dispersed. “Do you think we’re rich like you? Just to the station.”

  “I was going to say,” Bud said.

  “I suppose she has to go all the way to the far side of the city,” Kitsy said. “What a saint that girl is—but, oh, that dreadful brother!”

  “The Utterly Worthless Dwayne,” Nick said.

  “Not utterly,” Amanda said, and sat down. “Roo adores him.” She crossed her legs and surveyed the little gold sandal dangling from her high-arched foot. “He practically brought her up, you know.”

  “Be that as it may”—Kitsy addressed Amanda’s shoe—“things are otherwise now.”

  “Mmm,” Amanda said. And in the pause Kitsy’s comment flopped about like a stranded fish. “Incidentally,” Amanda added, “he’s doing something creative about his problem, finally.”

  “You don’t mean to say he’s hocked his needles?” Nick said, and Bud laughed shortly.

  “How ashamed you’ll be, Nicholas,” Amanda said, “when I tell you that he’s joined a drug-rehabilitation program in St. Louis.”

  “A drug-rehabilitation program—” Jill frowned. “Are you sure? That’s not what Roo—”

  “Of course I’m sure.” Amanda raised her eyebrows slightly. “I helped him get into it.”

  “Quite a triumph, Amanda,” Nick said. “But it could be short-lived.”

  Amanda smiled faintly, but Jill was distressed: It was part of Nick’s charm that he was contrary, absolutely intolerant of hypocrisy. But therefore—because he considered Amanda’s activities to be merely adornments that issued from vanity rather than conviction—Amanda could provoke him into assuming and defending truly unattractive postures.

  “After all,” Nick said, “this is your little project, not his, isn’t it, Amanda. A man like Dwayne is almost certain to drop out. Just look at the statistics.”

  “Nick,” Jill said.

  “He’ll tear through a wad of state money,” Nick said. “Or Bud’s money, if that’s what it is, and then he’ll drop out, and we’ll all be back where we started, except that his self-esteem, and Roo’s hopes, will be shattered.”

  “I’m sorry to admit,” Kitsy said, “that I think Nicholas has a point.”

  “Oh, my—” Owen’s voice spread into the room. “Look at this tray, all undefended and just littered with shrimp.”

  “These are delicious, Jill,” Lyle said. “Anyone else? Kitsy? Amanda? Bud?”

  “No, thanks,” Bud said. “So how’s life in the futures, Lyle?”

  “What?” Lyle said. He looked up, his mouth open. “Oh, picking up, Bud, thanks.”

  “The thing is, Amanda”—Nick leaned back in his chair—“you’re not doing anybody a favor. Dwayne is just pulling your strings.”

  Amanda made a little face at Nick and pushed her gleaming bracelets up her arms. “You do have to agree,” she said, “that Dwayne would have had a very different life if it hadn’t been for the war.”

  “Isn’t it strange, Amanda,” Nick said, “how everyone would have had a different life if it hadn’t been for everything? Certainly I agree that men like Dwayne had a very hard time. Yes, it was easier for white kids to avoid the draft; yes, the men who did end up fighting were treated pretty badly—and by people who never had to confront the issue of what they themselves would have done if they’d been drafted. But you’ve got to remember, Amanda, that it’s possible to have any number of responses to a problem, and I think that you’ll agree with me: no one has to take drugs, and no one has to become a criminal. Now, I was as opposed to that war as anybody in this room. But in hindsight, we see—whether we like it or not—that, once there, we should have stayed there. Look what happened the minute we left. But here are Dwayne and his friends, behaving as if they’re the only people in the world who ever had a difficult time. ‘Oh, us poor black veterans—sacrificed to do the dirty work of the U.S. government…’ Well, of course I’m sympathetic to their situation—it’s unfortunate; no one would deny it, but the truth is that this position of theirs is untenable. And it’s disingenuous. Because, in point of fact, it was those very men who stood to gain from being in the army. They picked up some valuable skills, they picked up a free education—”

  For a moment Amanda’s face was white, but then she laughed and shook back her hair. “You’re really quite a Nazi, you know, Nick,” she said.

  “And don
’t you forget it, Fräulein,” Nick said, smiling at her slowly.

  “Frau, to you.” Amanda smiled slowly back.

  “Jill—” Owen glided in front of her, severing her attention from—from what? Jill felt a gust of irritation. “Now I have a serious question for you,” he said.

  Nick got out of his chair and walked to the window. He stared out, in the direction of the Binghams’.

  “And that question,” Owen said, “is this. Does Joshua plan to put in an appearance before dinner, or must I hunt him down?”

  “I’m afraid I told him he had to stay upstairs,” Jill said. “He was a horror this afternoon.”

  “Not Joshua,” Kitsy said. “It’s not possible.”

  “Alas, it is.” Jill stopped for a moment, overcome. “In fact—well, as a matter of fact he was gruesome to poor little James. And absolutely rude to Roo.”

  “Roo-too-roo,” Lyle said. “Roo-too-roo—”

  “What are you saying, Jill?” Nick said, turning from the window as Lyle tossed a shrimp in the air and caught it in his very pink mouth.

  “The truth is,” Jill said, “I think Joshua sometimes resents sharing Roo.” She didn’t dare look at Nick. “And Katrina.”

  “He knows how to share,” Nick said. “I’ve seen him share very generously with his friends.”

  “It must be hard for him in his own house, though,” Kitsy said.

  “Certainly,” Bud said. “I know I wouldn’t share Katrina with anyone.”

  “No one imagines you would, Bud,” Amanda said, as Kitsy erupted in a volley of tiny coughs.

  “Excuse me,” she gasped. “Swallowed.”

  “This is something I don’t enjoy hearing, Jill,” Nick said.

  “He was just tired today, honey,” Jill said. “I don’t think Katrina gave him his nap.”

  “Nick,” Amanda said quietly, “you’re making a scene over nothing.”

  Nick looked at her, then took a large swallow of his drink.

  “In any case,” Owen said, taking Jill’s arm gently, “I’d quite like to see the little viper.”

  “He’ll be thrilled, Owen,” Jill said. “He was asking for you all afternoon.” And at that moment, she felt so grateful to Owen that she might have been telling the truth.

  Upstairs, Joshua welcomed Owen with a bonhomie and poise that caused Jill’s eyes to brim. He presented Owen with a select offering of toys and stood back as Owen, sprawled out on the floor, affected to be defeated by the workings of first one, then another. “Don’t be discouraged, Mr. Plesko,” Joshua said. “These things take time.”

  Owen put down a little plastic hammer and sighed. He really did look sad, Jill thought.

  “Does Mrs. Plesko like toys?” Joshua asked.

  “Mrs. Plesko has a way with a toy,” Owen said. “She’s younger than I am, you know. By virtually hundreds of years.”

  “Do you think she’d like to come play, too?” Joshua asked hopefully.

  “No more come-play tonight, Mr. Joshua,” Katrina announced from the doorway.

  “Katrina—” A bolt of candor cleared Owen’s face as he struggled to his feet, and his eyes loomed up behind his glasses like fish.

  Katrina lifted her light, springy hair from the back of her neck for a moment and smiled at Owen. “Joshua,” she said. “It’s time for our bath.”

  Owen’s expression had resumed its unclear underwater shiftings, but Jill had seen enough. “Well, Katrina,” Owen was saying, “it looks like you’ve been in the sun.” He looked down at his shoes.

  “This sun—” Katrina closed her eyes and leaned her head back. At the opening of her shirt, Jill saw, was a little triangle of skin that glistened as white as her teeth. “I could spend my whole life under this sun…”

  Owen started to speak but looked down at his shoes again instead.

  “So, Joshua.” Katrina smiled. “Are we ready?”

  But Joshua had gone oddly sullen. “I have to see my dad first,” he said. “Tell my dad to come upstairs.”

  “He can’t,” Jill said sharply. But then she knelt and hugged Joshua so hard he squeaked. “I’m sorry, darling. Not right now.” As they went downstairs together, neither Jill nor Owen spoke.

  Everyone else had gone out into the garden, and Jill and Owen, drawn out behind them through the French doors, were able to disengage from their distressed intimacy. Jill paused on the terrace and watched as the others fanned out across the sloping lawn. They drifted alone or in twos among the spires of delphinium, and the peonies, whose huge blossoms shed a waxy glow and a lovely, tormenting fragrance. The colors of the lawn and the flowers intensified with the dark; the night was saturated with the concentrated colors of summer. Beyond the hedge, lights showed in the top story of the Binghams’ house. Little clusters of sound sparkled in the air like fireflies—the chiming of glass, leaves clicking against one another, Amanda’s tiny, shimmering laugh. Jill closed her eyes, and the sounds intermingled, into a distant surf. For a moment, Nick was behind her. His hand moved up her neck, then down. He let her hair glide through his fingers. When she opened her eyes, he was gone.

  By the time they all sat down to dinner, they had become an ensemble; the night and the garden had uncoiled the skein of associations and habits, memories and dependencies that ran between them, dropping it over them in a loose net. Jill lifted her glass, and the amber sea in it moved—these were her friends.

  Bud was asking Owen’s advice about a lawsuit he was considering bringing against an account, Lyle was counseling Kitsy about London hotels, Nick was unusually animated—Susan was, in fact, enjoying the focus of his charm, Jill saw, as he embarked on a lengthy and involved anecdote; her large eyes misted with effort as she nodded, listening intently. “But how true!” she said earnestly when Nick completed his story and burst out laughing. Amanda twirled between her fingers a little flower she had broken off in the garden, smiling at it quizzically.

  “Isn’t that the Bingham house?” Lyle asked. “Right next door?”

  A silence fell. “Yes…” Jill said.

  “So terrible,” Kitsy said.

  “Just what exactly was it that happened?” Lyle asked.

  “Well, it might not seem like much to you,” Kitsy said. “But it was devastating for them.”

  “No,” Lyle said, “all I meant was—”

  “Of course they’re insured,” Kitsy said. “But it’s their privacy, isn’t it? And to have one’s own home invaded like that! Those poor old people—they never did anyone any harm.”

  “I don’t know,” Bud said. “Spencer’s a hard man on the golf course.”

  Kitsy cast a reproving glance at her fork. “You know what I mean, Bud,” she said.

  “Doesn’t he make pesticides?” Susan said, and looked brightly around the table. “I mean, didn’t Mr. Bingham manufacture pesticides?” she said.

  “Well—” Nick stopped smiling. “Actually, there are new studies indicating that if pesticides aren’t used, a plant will produce its own, much more toxic, sub—”

  “That’s so strange,” Susan said. “Or really, there’s nothing really strange about it, is there? And that’s—I mean, Mr. Bingham manufactured pesticides and there’s nothing strange about that, and someone broke into his house, and there’s nothing strange about that, either. But don’t you sometimes have the terribly vivid sensation that under this thing we refer to as ‘life’ is something that—how do I say this?—that there is this thing going on, and we make it, or it makes itself, possibly, and then there is this other thing that it looks like, or seems like, which is only sort of a top view of the first thing. A reflection, if you see what I mean. And usually those two things are exactly alike, or at least, reasonably alike. Or—well, I suppose you might say, they coincide, the bottom and the top. So, in any case, it’s as though we decide what our lives are going to be like—we deal in futures, or we manufacture pesticides, or we take a trip to Europe, or whatever it is, and everything seems to be just the way we’ve planned it
, because, in the vast majority of instances, it is. Exactly the way we’ve planned it. And so the thing that we think is going on is just like the thing that is going on, and everything is just the way we’ve decided it ought to be. But sometimes the…the thing on the top and the thing on the bottom are completely different—they’ve diverged, somehow, and we wouldn’t even know that they’d diverged, except sometimes the thing on the bottom just pops out, it pops out! Into the top thing. Because, suppose, for instance, that one of us—oh, goes to Venice, for example, and just falls into a canal. Well, I don’t suppose any of us would do that, but I mean people still die, for example. Not that that’s exactly—but, you see, things are going on in some continuous way, somehow, and, in a sense—Well, look. If you have a party, then people talk to other people. Things happen between people. Or even just happen, like somebody’s baby has Down’s syndrome, just to mention a—well, happen. When there isn’t anything to do about it, nothing, nothing, nothing at all to do about it, because things only happen in one direction—”

  Susan stopped, and a laugh bounced slowly out of Owen, like a rubber ball falling down steps.

  “It’s strange,” Susan said, turning to him. “I don’t know what I mean…”

  Susan was never much of a drinker, Jill thought. But in fact she herself was expanding outward, and the few sips of wine she’d had with dinner were causing everything to pass over the convex surface of the evening in long, slow, luminous flashes. Nick, at the other end of the table, seemed to be at the other end of a tunnel; the gentle sounds of conversation rode at the margins of a darkness enclosing her.

  There had been things—there was something about Owen…She had been angry, if she wasn’t mistaken, but the anger had consumed itself, leaving an ashy void. And something had happened—oh, Nick and Amanda had had…was it a quarrel? about Roo and her brother; and something had happened with Roo—yes, Roo had been wearing Jill’s dress, of all things. And before that was when Joshua had been so bad. And before that—oh, yes. Before that, she had visited the Binghams. Of course; she had visited the Binghams, and that must be why she felt so sad. And so ill, really—like an apple with a hidden soft spot spreading under the skin. It must be because of her visit to the Binghams that everything seemed so flat and bad—so stained.