“It’s already tomorrow and I want to talk now.It’s no big deal, I just want to ask you a question.Is that all right? One teeny-tiny question? Or maybe not teeny-tiny, maybe more medium-sized.”
“You’re sort ofloaded, Kate.”
She doesn’t mind his saying this.“Do you believe in love?”
“I don’t know.No.Yes.I don’t even know what you mean.”
“O.J.believed in love.Even though he’s lying about killing his wife, in his heart he knows he did it, and he might even think he did it for love.”
“I don’t believe in killing, ifthat’s what you mean.”
“You know,”Kate says, pouring herselfmore wine, less judiciously this time,“people think thatloveis what’s best in each ofus, our capac-ity tolove,our need forlove.They think love is like God, and they wor-ship their own feelings oflove, which is really just narcissism masquerading as spirituality.You understand? Ifwe say that God is love, then we can say that love is God, and that gives us the right to all these chaotic, needy, lusting, insane feelings inside ofourselves.We can call it love,and from there it’s just a hop, skip, and a jump to calling it God.But here’s a thought.What ifGod isn’t love?And love isn’t God?What ifall those emotions we call love turn out to be what’s really worst in us, what ifit’s all the firings ofthe foulest, most primitive part ofthe back brain, what ifit’s just as savage and selfish as rage or greed or lust?”
“I don’t know, Kate.It sounds sort ofcounterintuitive.”
“Intuition?What is that?We intuit what we want to intuit.We never intuit things that are against our interests and desires.Maybe intuition is just one ofthe many ways we have ofelevating desire, making it some-thing mystical rather than base.Did you ever think ofthat?”
“No.”
“Love has become some insane substitute for religion, I think that’s what’s happened.And in this country it’s pounded in on us at all times, every radio station, everyTV station, all the magazines, all the ads, everywhere, it’s like living in a theocracy, it’s like living in Jordan and people are shouting out lines from the Koran from the top ofevery mosque.Love, love, love, but what they’re really saying is:Take what you want and the hell with everything else.We’ve even changed the Bible to go along with this new religion.When I was a kid, people used to read Paul’s letter to the Corinthians as being about charity—it used to be faith, hope, and charity, remember charity? the humility ofthat?—but now they’ve changed the translation and it’s not charity at all, it’s love.
Big old encompassing love, spreading all over everything like swamp gas.
Love is like a crystal ball, you gaze into its cracked heart and you see what you want to see.It’s really scary.It feels like the whole culture has gone insane.”
Daniel is sure that the best thing would be to remain silent, he has recited to himself his own domestic Miranda rights, but he cannot resist saying,“I haven’t gone insane, Kate, ifthat’s what you’re implying.”
“I know you haven’t, and I don’t think you will.I really feel as ifI’ve found a kindred spirit in you.And this isn’t intuition, or some mystical crapola about our being cosmic twins, or that it was written in the stars, because, let’s face it, that’s not how life is, life’s a bunch ofaccidents, senseless.We improvise, we keep it together.But with you, it’s more.It feels nice.And that’s why ifI were a betting woman, I’d put my money on us.I think we’ll always be together.”
He’s silent.Surely she doesn’t expect him to comment on this.
”We may have our hard times,”Kate says,“and we may have to take breaks from each other, maybe long breaks.But I don’t think we’ll ever be free ofeach other.And not because we’re the most romantic couple in the world, or anything like that.It’s a mysterious connection, a fuck-ing mystery…”She laughs.“Or a not-fucking mystery, or maybe a fucking-once-in-a-while mystery.Who knows? But I was sure ofit from the first time I met you, I just never told you.”
She’s silent and Daniel realizes he must say something.“Really?”
“Yes.I thought to myself, I’m never going to get away from this guy.”
“Did you want to?”
“And then I thought, And he’s never going to get away from me.”She rolls away from him but then slides over, pressing her hindquarters against his hip.“And I feel even stronger about it now.I just feel so grate-ful.I’ve got you, and Ruby, and my talent, and what’s left ofmy looks.”
She presses herselfharder against him.“I know what you’re thinking.
She’s drunk, she’s drunk.Once again.But I’m not.I was, maybe.Back at the restaurant, with those terrible people.But I’m sober now, and mean-ing every word.I couldn’t get drunk ifI tried.”
“Have you been trying?”Daniel asks.
He regrets saying it.It sounds so put-upon, so long-suffering.But the words are out, there’s no way to take them back.He waits for her reply, already devising how he will defend himself.But the plans aren’t necessary.He has not hurt her feelings, he has not irritated her.She is breathing deeply, and a few moments later her breaths deepen with a lit-tle aural fringe ofsnore.
Outside, an owl screeches in triumph.From farther away comes the manic whoop ofcoyotes.The colder it gets outside the more the crea-tures ofthe night seem to celebrate their catches, the triumph ofhaving survived another season.The world belongs to those who can satisfy their hunger.The rest are food.Even the stars in the sky shine out the story oftheir own survival.
[3]
They had no idea where they were going.They walked.The crunch of their foot-steps.The cries of invisible birds.Daniel cupped his hands around his mouth and called Marie’s name, silencing the birds.The noise of their footsteps on the brittle layer of dried leaves that covered the forest floor was like a saw going tirelessly back and forth.
They walked up a hill, zigzagging around fallen trees and swirls of bramble.
Daniel walked in front.He looked over his shoulder.Hampton was having a hard time keeping his balance.
“I’m ruining these shoes,”Hampton said.He leaned against a partially fallen
cherry tree and looked at the sole of his English cordovan.The leather was shiny, rosy and moist, like a human tongue.
The next morning, Daniel takes Ruby with him to a new bakery in the village, where he plies her with chocolate croissants and chocolate milk.Daniel recalls Iris having mentioned this place—chrome and glass, with a sort of1940s feel, overpriced, but with comfortable, long-legged chairs lined up facing the huge window overlooking Broadway— and he sits there with Ruby, ostensibly reading the paper and drinking espresso, but in reality watching for Iris or her car.After an hour ofthis maddening activity, during which he is unable to read more than a few headlines, and the coffee tastes like scorched ink, he takes Ruby back home with a cup oflatte and a cranberry muffin for Kate, who, to his surprise, is awake and dressed when they return.
“Where was everybody?”she asks.
”Breakfast,”he says, handing her the takeout bag.
”What did people eat in pre-muffinAmerica?”Kate asks, peering into the bag.She notices Ruby, whose mouth is ringed with chocolate and whoseT-shirt is spotted with it.Kate looks questioningly at Daniel.
“That’s what happens to little girls whose mothers sleep late,”he says, surprising himself with the bite ofhis own voice.
“I want to play with Nelson,”Ruby says.
It seems strange to Daniel:as his heart swells from the added freight oflove and desire, it becomes in its fullness less and less substantial, un-til it is like a feather in a stiffwind, unpredictably blowing this way and that, spiraling up, plunging down, rocketing sideways at the slightest provocation—the lucky-sounding ring ofthe phone, the melancholy shift ofthe afternoon light, the hum ofan oncoming car.He has resisted all morning the treacherous impulse to plant in Ruby the idea that she and Nelson get together today, but now, God bless her, she has come up with the idea all on her own, and his spirits soar.
“I don’t think
so,”Kate says.“Nelson’s father is home and that’s their private time over at Nelson’s house.”
Ruby looks at Kate, squinting, wringing her little hands, as she tries to think ofsome counterargument to this.But the combination ofKate’s professional needs and temperament has made the concept of“private time”sacred.Still, Ruby cannot hide her disappointment, and she even manages to enter into a brief, unsuccessful negotiation, during which Daniel stands transfixed, unable to shake the feeling that his happiness hangs in the balance.
In the end, Kate prevails.Not only can Ruby not go to Nelson’s house, but Nelson cannot come to hers.And when Ruby counters with all she has left—“Then I’m going to be so bored”—Kate says that maybe they can all go to Lubochevsky Farms, where the enterprising owners have devised a way to get tourists and even some ofthe locals to pay for the privilege ofharvesting the annual raspberry and apple crops.Daniel is taken aback by Kate’s suggestion.He cannot imagine her climbing the rickety stepladders, filling the flimsy baskets with apples, enduring the sunlight and the hefty autumnal bees.And then what? Eat the apples? In three years ofknowing her he has never seen her take a bite ofan apple.
No.There is only one explanation.She is concocting this little outing as a way ofroping him in, and when Daniel realizes this he reacts like some-one jumping away from an onrushing car.
“I have to go to the office,”he says.He feels the desperation ofa gambler:ifhe can just sit at the table, then maybe he can catch a card.
“On a Saturday?”
“Sorry.It happens.”He is experiencing that bicameral lunacy ofa man with a secret life;he is talking to Kate, making his excuses, arrang-ing his features in a way that would suggest regret.He is already gone.
“I need to work, too,”she says.“I’ve got two O.J.articles going, and both are due.”
“What is with you and that case? I thought you were a novelist.”
“He butchered his wife and might end up walking.I know we like to cheer for theAfrican-American side, but there is a question ofjustice at stake.I’m sure even Iris Davenport would agree with that.”
It is unnerving to hear her say Iris’s name, and he shifts his eyes, afraid for a moment that he might give himself away, though he is beginning to wonder ifthere is much secrecy to his secret life.He might be no better hidden than an ostrich with its head in the sand and fat feathered ass in the air.
“Why don’t we split the day, then?”he says.“All I need is two or three hours.I can take them now or I can take them in the afternoon.Or I can take them at night, for that matter.”It really doesn’t matter.All he needs is to get out ofthis house for a couple ofhours.But as soon as that thought crosses his mind, it is replaced by a second, more urgent idea.
He should go first, then Kate could work in the afternoon, and then he could take more time away in the evening.That way he could have as many as six hours.To do what?That part hasn’t been worked out yet.To cruise by Iris’s house?To patrol the village in search ofher car?To sit at his desk dialing and redialing her number?
“All right,”Kate says, her voice measured, a little cool.“Then you go first.”He knows she is onto him.He can feel the pressure ofher intelli-gence and her deep common sense.He feels like a half-wit miscreant tracked by a master sleuth.
His sense ofimpending exposure quickens his pace, and in minutes he is out ofthe house, in his car, and on his way to somewhere or other.
From the house onWillow Lane to his office in the middle oftown is a ten-minute drive and one that could, without any loss oftravel effi-ciency, bring him past Iris’s house, ifhe should choose to take that route, which he does.
The Saturday has turned warm;it’s already October, winter is next.
Daniel drives past the familiar landmarks ofhis childhood.Putnam Lake, with little puckers ofsilvery light caught in its waves, ringed by tall blue spruce;Livingston High School, surrounded by cornfields, its asphalt parking lot in the process ofreceiving freshly painted yellow lines;the infamous ranch house where his old friend RichardTaylor lived with his drunken parents, where you could walk right in without knocking, where there was no housekeeping, no food, no supervision, where the lamps did not have shades, and where Daniel drank his first whiskey when he was eleven years old, smoked his first joint at twelve, and, that same year, got into a ferocious fist fight with Richard’s deafolder cousin.
TheTaylor place was one ofa dozen houses around Leyden where Daniel spent his time after school, where he slept on weekends, where he hid like a little desperado.In those grim but somehow fondly remembered childhood days—when he was his own man, needed by no one, respon-sible to no one, when the unanimous possession ofhis selfwas a pleasure that outflanked every deprivation and annoyance—he would rather have been anywhere in the known world than in his own home.He would rather have slept in school than in his parents’house.
His parents were latecomers to parenthood, vegetarians, Congrega-
tionalists, campers, tall gray people with solitary tastes for reading, hik-ing, and the brewing ofhomemade beer.They were in their forties when Daniel was born, and by the time he was a teenager they were nearly sixty, their habits thoroughly calcified.The foods they liked, the Mozart that soothed them, their ten o’clock bedtime and their six-forty-five ris-ing, their hour-long ablutions, their CanadianAir Force exercises, their aversion to moving air (no air conditioners, no fans),their daily porch sweeping, their dishes, cups, and silverware cleaned in kettles ofboiling water—these were the things that Julia and Carl Emerson revered.These were, in their minds, the cornerstones not only ofcivilization but ofsan-ity;without them they would be plunged into madness.
When Daniel entered their lives they taught him not to touch the vases, which antique carpets to avoid, which lamps were safe to use.He was not to run, jump, or shout.He was not to play the stereo console in their parlor, nor was he to use the electric typewriter, the adding ma-chine, the juicer, the blender, either ofthe vacuum cleaners, or the elec-tric toothbrushes.Above all, the back halfofthe house was off-limits; this was where the Emersons saw their patients.Here was the waiting room with its intriguing collection ofoffbeat magazines—fromPreven-tiontoThe Saturday Review—the dark walnut apothecary case filled with amber bottles ofvitamins, the vanilla plastic skeleton hanging from a hook, and the his and hers chiropractic tables—neither ofthem ever worked on someone ofthe opposite sex.Here came everyone from beefy back-strained farmers to neurasthenic housewives, here backs were cracked, hips were realigned, toes were pulled, fingers were popped, heads were yanked suddenly to the left or right, moans were moaned, and for some reason that Daniel never could fathom, people re-turned again and again.
Daniel continues his drive along the outskirts ofthe village.There are tourists in town today—the weekend, the splendid color change, when the maples turn to flame and the oak leaves are the color ofhoney.It strikes him as funny that the town has become a tourist destination;he cannot imagine how the day-trippers pass the time.There are jokey T-shirts for sale that say Paris LondonTokyo Leyden.There are home-made jellies to be purchased.But the bagels here aren’t as good as in the city, and the same goes for the breads, the pies, the croissants.Shoes, slacks, dresses, hats—all are cheaper and better in NewYork.The restau-rants are merely adequate.The antique stores have been shopped clean and now sell items from the1970s.Still, every weekend, except for the long dead ofwinter, there are at least a hundred new arrivals, parading up and down the two-block commercial center, with an ice cream cone in one hand and aT-shirt in the other, glancing shyly at the locals and de-lighting when someone nods back or says hello.
Not far from the high school is the town cemetery, where the headstones are thin as place mats and worn smooth and illegible over time.It was to this graveyard, in the company ofall that Colonial dust and the ceaseless squirrels, that Daniel used to go when there was no one left to visit and it was still too early to go home.With the marker ofone ofthe Stuyvesants to support his back, Daniel read the books ofhis youth— S
alinger, Heller, Baldwin—and, in his thirteenth year, before his parents released him from their benign bondage and sent him offto a third-tier prep school in New Hampshire, it was here that he wrote poetry for the first and only time in his life.
They were not great poems or even good poems, they were not by most standards really poems at all.They were poetry as he understood it, the poetry ofwhich he was capable, and they ran through the changes of longing and desolation, seduction and heartbreak, trust and betrayal like a hamster on a wheel, celebrating lips he had never kissed, eyes into which he had never gazed, caresses he had yet to enjoy.They were for Baby, they were for Darlin’,they were for Janey, though he knew no one by that name, they were for Suzie, and though he did happen to know a Suzie, he did not love or even like her.In each ofthese poems, Daniel was alone, carrying within him a heart that ticked like a bomb.A great many ofthem began:And I walk…One wentAnd I walk through this night / with only one light / and that’s my heart, darlin’,burning for you.Another:And I walk and I walk and I walk and I walk /And wherever I go I’m looking for you.
But who was this“you”? She did not exist.There were girls in his daily world whom he liked and who seemed to like him, but they could not be fit into the staggering, narcoticized world ofhis desire, the atmosphere was not conducive, it made them shrivel and die.And then, one day, the longing was gone.He cannot remember a precipitating event.It just hap-pened, like the day he suddenly stopped believing in fairies and ghosts, or the day the notion ofSanta Claus was abruptly ridiculous.Weeks went by without him writing in his notebook oflove poems, and then it struck him that ifanyone ever came upon those verses the humiliation would not be survivable, and he brought them down to the river, thinking ofmaking a ceremony oftheir disposal, a kind ofburial at sea, but in order to get to the river he had to trespass across one ofthe immense riverfront estates and by the time he was at the water’s edge he heard the rumble ofa care-taker’s truck, surely on the way to roust him out, and he ended up tossing the notebook into the water wildly and running.
A Ship Made of Paper Page 6
