The Wall of the Sky, the Wall of the Eye

by Jonathan Lethem

“That’s fatuous.”

  “What’s the worst thing that ever happened to you?”

  She was silent for a full minute.

  “But there, that’s the first fatuous thing I’ve said. Asking you to consider my situation by consulting your experience. You see? The virus is loose again. I don’t want you to agree that our lives are the same. They aren’t. I just want you to listen to what I say seriously, to believe me.”

  “I believe you.”

  “Don’t say it in that tone of voice. All breathy.”

  “Fuck you.” She laughed again.

  “Do you want another drink?”

  “In a minute.” She slurped at what was left in her glass, then said, “You know what’s funny?”

  “What?”

  “Other people do feel the way you do, that they’re apart from everyone else. It’s the same as the way every time you fall in love it feels like something new, even though you do the exact same things over again. Feeling unique is what we all have in common, it’s the thing that’s always the same.”

  “No, I’m different. And falling in love is different for me each time, different things happen. Bad things.”

  “But you’re still the same as you were before the first time. You just feel different.”

  “No, I’ve changed. I’m much worse.”

  “You’re not bad.”

  “You should have seen me before. Do you want another drink?”

  The laminated place mat on the table between them showed pictures of exotic drinks. “This one,” she said. “A zombie.” It was purple.

  “You don’t want that.”

  “Yes I do. I love zombies.”

  “No you don’t. You’ve never had one. Anyway, this place makes a terrible zombie.” He ordered two more margaritas.

  “You’re such an expert.”

  “Only on zombies.”

  “On zombies and love is bad.”

  “You’re making fun of me. I thought you promised to take me seriously, believe me.”

  “I was lying. People always lie when they flirt.”

  “We’re not flirting.”

  “Then what are we doing?”

  “We’re just drinking, drinking and talking. And I’m trying to warn you.”

  “And you’re staring.”

  “You’re beautiful. Oh God.”

  “That reminds me of one. What’s the worst thing about being an atheist?”

  “I give up.”

  “No one to talk to when you come.”

  2

  Morning light seeped through the macrame curtain and freckled the rug. Motes seemed to boil from its surface. For a moment she thought the rug was somehow on the ceiling, then his cat ran across it, yowling at her. The cat looked starved. She was lying on her stomach in his loft bed, head over the side. He was gone. She lay tangled in the humid sheets, feeling her own body.

  Lover—she thought.

  She could barely remember.

  She found her clothes, then went and rinsed her face in the kitchen sink. A film of shaved hairs lined the porcelain bowl. She swirled it out with hot water, watched as the slow drain gulped it away. The drain sighed.

  The table was covered with unopened mail. On the back of an envelope was a note: I don’t want to see you again. Sorry. The door locks. She read it twice, considering each word, working it out like another language. The cat crept into the kitchen. She dropped the envelope.

  She put her hand down and the cat rubbed against it. Why was it so thin? It didn’t look old. The fact of the note was still sinking in. She remembered the night only in flashes, visceral strobe. With her fingers she combed the tangles out of her hair. She stood up and the cat dashed away. She went out into the hall, undecided, but the weighted door latched behind her.

  Fuck him.

  The problem was of course that she wanted to.

  It was raining. She treated herself to a cab on Eighth Avenue. In the backseat she closed her eyes. The potholes felt like mines, and the cab squeaked like rusty bedsprings. It was Sunday. Coffee, corn muffin, newspaper; she’d insulate herself with them, make a buffer between the night and the new day.

  But there was something wrong with the doorman at her building.

  “You’re back!” he said.

  She was led incredulous to her apartment full of dead houseplants and unopened mail, her answering machine full of calls from friends, clients, the police. There was a layer of dust on the answering machine. Her address book and laptop disks were gone; clues, the doorman explained.

  “Clues to what?”

  “Clues to your case. To what happened to you. Everyone was worried.”

  “Well, there’s nothing to worry about. I’m fine.”

  “Everyone had theories. The whole building.”

  “I understand.”

  “The man in charge is a good man, Miss Rush. The building feels a great confidence in him.”

  “Good.”

  “I’m supposed to call him if something happens, like someone trying to get into your place, or you coming back. Do you want me to call?”

  “Let me call.”

  The card he handed her was bent and worn from traveling in his pocket. Cornell Pupkiss, Missing Persons. And a phone number. She reached out her hand; there was dust on the telephone too. “Please go,” she said.

  “Is there anything you need?”

  “No.” She thought of E.’s cat, for some reason.

  “You can’t tell me at least what happened?”

  “No.”

  She remembered E.’s hands and mouth on her—a week ago? An hour?

  Cornell Pupkiss was tall and drab and stolid, like a man built on the model of a tower of suitcases. He wore a hat and a trench coat, and shoes which were filigreed with a thousand tiny scratches, as though they’d been beset by phonograph needles. He seemed to absorb and deaden light.

  On the telephone he had insisted on seeing her. He’d handed her the disks and the address book at the door. Now he stood just inside the door and smiled gently at her.

  “I wanted to see you in the flesh,” he said. “I’ve come to know you from photographs and people’s descriptions. When I come to know a person in that manner I like to see them in the flesh if I can. It makes me feel I’ve completed my job, a rare enough illusion in my line.”

  There was nothing bright or animated in the way he spoke. His voice was like furniture with the varnish carefully sanded off. “But I haven’t really completed my job until I understand what happened,” he went on. “Whether a crime was committed. Whether you’re in some sort of trouble with which I can help.”

  She shook her head.

  “Where were you?” he said.

  “I was with a man.”

  “I see. For almost two weeks?”

  “Yes.”

  She was still holding the address book. He raised his large hand in its direction, without uncurling a finger to point. “We called every man you know.”

  “This—this was someone I just met. Are these questions necessary, Mr. Pupkiss?”

  “If the time was spent voluntarily, no.” His lips tensed, his whole expression deepened, like gravy jelling. “I’m sorry, Miss Rush.”

  Pupkiss in his solidity touched her somehow. Reassured her. If he went away, she saw now, she’d be alone with the questions. She wanted him to stay a little longer and voice the questions for her.

  But now he was gently sarcastic. “You’re answerable to no one, of course. I only suggest that in the future you might spare the concern of your neighbors, and the effort of my department—a single phone call would be sufficient.”

  “I didn’t realize how much time had passed,” she said. He couldn’t know how truthful that was.

  “I’ve heard it can be like that,” he said, surprisingly bitter. “But it’s not criminal to neglect the feelings of others; just adolescent.”

  You don’t understand, she nearly cried out. But she saw that he would view it as one or the ot
her, a menace or self-indulgence. If she convinced him of her distress, he’d want to protect her.

  She couldn’t let harm come to E. She wanted to comprehend what had happened, but Pupkiss was too blunt to be her investigatory tool.

  Reflecting in this way, she said, “The things that happen to people don’t always fit into such easy categories as that.”

  “I agree,” he said, surprising her again. “But in my job it’s best to keep from bogging down in ontology. Missing Persons is an extremely large and various category. Many people are lost in relatively simple ways, and those are generally the ones I can help. Good day, Miss Rush.”

  “Good day.” She didn’t object as he moved to the door. Suddenly she was eager to be free of this ponderous man, his leaden integrity. She wanted to be left alone to remember the night before, to think of the one who’d devoured her and left her reeling. That was what mattered.

  E. had somehow caused two weeks to pass in one feverish night, but Pupkiss threatened to make the following morning feel like two weeks.

  He shut the door behind him so carefully that there was only a little huff of displaced air and a tiny click as the bolt engaged.

  “It’s me,” she said into the intercom.

  There was only static. She pressed the button again. “Let me come up.”

  He didn’t answer, but the buzzer at the door sounded. She went into the hall and upstairs to his door.

  “It’s open,” he said.

  E. was seated at the table, holding a drink. The cat was curled up on the pile of envelopes. The apartment was dark. Still, she saw what she hadn’t before: he lived terribly, in rooms that were wrecked and provisional. The plaster was cracked everywhere. Cigarette stubs were bunched in the baseboard corners where, having still smoldered, they’d tanned the linoleum. The place smelled sour, in a way that made her think of the sourness she’d washed from her body in her own bath an hour before.

  He tilted his head up, but didn’t meet her gaze. “Why are you here?”

  “I wanted to see you.”

  “You shouldn’t.”

  His voice was ragged, his expression had a crushed quality. His hand on the glass was tensed like a claw. But even diminished and bitter he seemed to her effervescent, made of light.

  “We—something happened when we made love,” she said. The words came tenderly. “We lost time.”

  “I warned you. Now leave.”

  “My life,” she said, uncertain what she meant.

  “Yes, it’s yours,” he shot back. “Take it and go.”

  “If I gave you two weeks, it seems the least you can do is look me in the eye,” she said.

  He did it, but his mouth trembled as though he were guilty or afraid. His face was beautiful to her.

  “I want to know you,” she said.

  “I can’t let that happen,” he said. “You see why.” He tipped his glass back and emptied it, grimacing.

  “This is what always happens to you?”

  “I can’t answer your questions.”

  “If that happens, I don’t care.” She moved to him and put her hands in his hair.

  He reached up and held them there.

  3

  A woman has come into my life. I hardly know how to speak of it.

  I was in the station, enduring the hectoring of Dell Armickle, the commander of the Vice Squad. He is insufferable, a toad from Hell. He follows the donut cart through the offices each afternoon, pinching the buttocks of the Jamaican woman who peddles the donuts and that concentrated urine others call coffee. This day he stopped at my desk to gibe at the headlines in my morning paper. “Union Boss Stung In Fat Farm Sex Ring—ha! Made you look, didn’t I?”

  “What?”

  “Pupkiss, you’re only pretending to be thick. How much you got hidden away in that Swedish bank account by now?”

  “Sorry?” His gambits were incomprehensible.

  “Whatsis?” he said, poking at my donut, ignoring his own blather better than I could ever hope to. “Cinnamon?”

  “Whole wheat,” I said.

  Then she appeared. She somehow floated in without causing any fuss, and stood at the head of my desk. She was pale and hollow-eyed and beautiful, like Renée Falconetti in Dreyer’s Jeanne d’Arc.

  “Officer Pupkiss,” she said. Is it only in the light of what followed that I recall her speaking my name as though she knew me? At least she spoke it with certainty, not questioning whether she’d found her goal.

  I’d never seen her before, though I can only prove it by tautology: I knew at that moment I was seeing a face I would never forget.

  Armickle bugged his eyes and nostrils at me, imitating both clown and beast. “Speak to the lady, Cornell,” he said, managing to impart to the syllables of my given name a childish ribaldry.

  “I’m Pupkiss,” I said awkwardly.

  “I’d like to talk to you,” she said. She looked only at me, as though Armickle didn’t exist.

  “I can take a hint,” said Armickle. “Have fun, you two.” He hurried after the donut cart.

  “You work in Missing Persons,” she said.

  “No,” I said. “Petty Violations.”

  “Before, you used to work in Missing Persons—”

  “Never. They’re a floor above us. I’ll walk you to the elevator if you’d like.”

  “No.” She shook her head curtiy, impatiently. “Forget it. I want to talk to you. What are Petty Violations?”

  “It’s an umbrella term. But I’d sooner address your concerns than try your patience with my job description.”

  “Yes. Could we go somewhere?”

  I led her to a booth in the coffee shop downstairs. I ordered a donut, to replace the one I’d left behind on my desk. She drank coffee, holding the cup with both hands to warm them. I found myself wanting to feed her, build her a nest.

  “Cops really do like donuts,” she said, smiling weakly.

  “Or toruses,” I said.

  “Sorry? You mean the astrological symbol?”

  “No, the geometric shape. A torus. A donut is in the shape of one. Like a life preserver, or a tire, or certain space stations. It’s a little joke of mine: cops don’t like donuts, they like toruses.”

  She looked at me oddly. I cursed myself for bringing it up. “Shouldn’t the plural be tori?” she said.

  I winced. “I’m sure you’re right. Never mind. I don’t mean to take up your time with my little japes.”

  “I’ve got plenty of time,” she said, poignant again.

  “Nevertheless. You wished to speak to me.”

  “You knew me once,” she said.

  I did my best to appear sympathetic, but I was baffled.

  “Something happened to the world. Everything changed. Everyone that I know has disappeared.”

  “As an evocation of subjective truth—” I began.

  “No. I’m talking about something real. I used to have friends.”

  “I’ve had few, myself.”

  “Listen to me. All the people I know have disappeared. My family, my friends, everyone I used to work with. They’ve all been replaced by strangers who don’t know me. I have nowhere to go. I’ve been awake for two days looking for my life. I’m exhausted. You’re the only person that looks the same as before, and has the same name. The Missing Persons man, ironically.”

  “I’m not the Missing Persons man,” I said.

  “Cornell Pupkiss. I could never forget a name like that.”

  “It’s been a burden.”

  “You don’t remember coming to my apartment? You said you’d been looking for me. I was gone for two weeks.”

  I struggled against temptation. I could extend my time in her company by playing along, indulging the misunderstanding. In other words, by betraying what I knew to be the truth: that I had nothing at all to do with her unusual situation.

  “No,” I said. “I don’t remember.”

  Her expression hardened. “Why should you?” she said bitterly.<
br />
  “Your question’s rhetorical,” I said. “Permit me a rhetorical reply. That I don’t know you from some earlier encounter we can both regret. However, I know you now. And I’d be pleased to have you consider me an ally.”

  “Thank you.”

  “How did you find me?”

  “I called the station and asked if you still worked there.”

  “And there’s no one else from your previous life?”

  “No one—except him.”

  Ah.

  “Tell me,” I said.

  She’d met the man she called E. in a bar, how long ago she couldn’t explain. She described him as irresistible. I formed an impression of a skunk, a rat. She said he worked no deliberate charm on her, on the contrary seemed panicked when the mood between them grew intimate and full of promise. I envisioned a scoundrel with an act, a crafted diffidence that allured, a backped-aling attack.

  He’d taken her home, of course.

  “And?” I said.

  “We fucked,” she said. “It was good, I think. But I have trouble remembering.”

  The words stung. The one in particular. I tried not to be a child, swallowed my discomfort away. “You were drunk,” I suggested.

  “No. I mean, yes, but it was more than that. We weren’t clumsy like drunks. We went into some kind of trance.”

  “He drugged you.”

  “No.”

  “How do you know?”

  “What happened—it wasn’t something he wanted.”

  “And what did happen?”

  “Two weeks disappeared from my life overnight. When I got home I found I’d been considered missing. My friends and family had been searching for me. You’d been called in.”

  “I thought your friends and family had vanished themselves. That no one knew you.”

  “No. That was the second time.”

  “Second time?”

  “The second time we fucked.” Then she seemed to remember something, and dug in her pocket. “Here.” She handed me a scuffed business card: CORNELL PUPKISS, MISSING PERSONS.

  “I can’t believe you live this way. It’s like a prison.” She referred to the seamless rows of book spines that faced her in each of my few rooms, including the bedroom where we now stood. “Is it all criminology?”