The Female of the Species

by Lionel Shriver

“I don’t understand it.”

  “That’s just one of those mysteries you’ll have to puzzle out nights sitting up awake in bed by yourself. But let me save you the trouble. Know how it works? You see a woman and you like her and you go for her. It doesn’t work and you move on until something does, not move in and be ‘friends’ for the rest of your life and lock the bathroom door a lot. God, why do I have to tell you this? When can I give up on being your Big Sister? When are you going to give me advice for a change?”

  “I’ll give you some,” said Errol. “Lay off and shut up.”

  Kyle laughed. But she did shut up.

  Errol showed Kyle his apartment; they had dinner; after an evening of talking about food and how to decorate Errol’s flat, Gray snuck back into the conversation.

  “I see articles by her from time to time,” said Kyle. “I like to read them, as a way of keeping up with you.”

  It depressed Errol that to keep up with Gray’s articles was in fact to follow his own work. “Yes,” he said, trying to be mature about it, “she sometimes lists me as a consultant on her publications, which I appreciate.”

  “She writes some interesting stuff. But she can be—oh, how should I say it?—not very compassionate. A little hard.”

  “I’d think you’d like that.”

  “Why? You think of me that way?”

  “Well. Yes.”

  Kyle shook her head and laughed. “Errol, you never have forgiven me for locking you in that cabinet, have you?”

  He smiled. “No, I haven’t. I’m still angry. And that was forty years ago. What would my Freudian friends call me? Retentive. That’s it.”

  “Errol, I’ve raised four children, and I’m a regular sweetheart, a softie. A pushover even. I give them too much money. I let them come home and loll around the house eating sandwiches and watching TV when the poor confused darlings are between marriages. I brake for animals, Errol. I feed strays and give burns my quarters. I’m sorry, but I’m not who you think at all. And I feel so bad about that cabinet, yes, even forty years later, you sweet boy—” She reached over and tousled Errol’s hair as if he were still eight years old. “So please, let me apologize. I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

  They laughed, and finally at forty-eight Errol forgave her for locking him in that stupid cabinet.

  Kyle wanted to see Gray. They had liked each other before, if with a certain wariness; besides, Kyle had a taste for gossip, and Errol could let her in on the ground floor of this one.

  Sure enough, when they drove up to the manse, the white Porsche was gleaming out in front, pulled up to the bumper of the gray coupe. Errol rang the doorbell.

  “Come in!” cried a strained voice inside.

  Errol walked in with Kyle to find Gray and Raphael in their tennis clothes arm wrestling in the den. Gray didn’t look up as Errol entered the room; her gaze was locked with Raphael’s. The tendons stood out on Gray’s metacarpus all the way down her forearm; veins were beginning to rise. She had a pretty shoulder. There were hollows that formed at this degree of flex that Errol had never seen before, just about the size of a thumb; Errol had to resist the urge to touch them in the same way he had to stop himself from plumbing depressions of marble sculptures in museums.

  While the look on Gray’s face was one of pleasure, amusement, the muscles over her eyes were curdling and her head began gradually to lower toward the table.

  “Don’t get this wrong,” said Gray in a tight whisper. “This is a joke, Errol.”

  It was a joke. Errol looked at Raphael. There was no tension in his face, no pain, just an absurd gentleness. A small smile played over his lips. His own arm appeared firm, but not swollen. His shoulder was low; its lines were simple. He held her long, thin palm in his and seemed less inclined to defeat it, to press it down onto the table, than to keep it held in front of him indefinitely, balanced, force against force.

  He nodded at Gray. “I’m pleased,” he said. “I can feel it.”

  Gray rolled her eyes and with her mouth set in a wry contortion increased the pressure against his hand; the edges of her palm went white; small bulges of purple bloomed along her arm; the hollows in her shoulder deepened. Her neck bent, bowed. Her elbow smeared on the mahogany table. Her forehead kneaded and the muscles stood out on her jaw.

  At last a single indentation showed on his forearm. Yet the peak of their arms remained still. Gray did not push his hand one millimeter lower, so that the only movement in the pyramid was the rise and swell of muscles, the trickle of sweat from the crook of Gray’s elbow, the tremble of her grip.

  His eyes warmed from black to brown. “It saddens me to win. You know that.”

  Gray, whose head was now so low that she was staring into the wood grain, nodded with difficulty.

  “However, I don’t know how else to end this. You’ll tire. Eventually you’ll pass out.” His voice was low, even, easy. “So here,” he said, “let me help you.”

  Slowly, gracefully, the pyramid fell. Yet at no point did Gray relinquish her pressure, give in to defeat. When her arm was an inch from the table, Raphael looked regretful. In this last inch the two hands slowed and hovered, until they carefully lowered to the wood like a helicopter landing. Only then did Gray’s arm relax, but gradually, the way big engines die.

  Gray leaned back in her chair. Raphael spread her hand out on the table and traced her fingers. “You’re strong,” he said. “It’s magnificent to see.”

  Gray smiled. “It feels good. That complete resistance. You know the feeling? Sometimes I try to move furniture by myself—a couch, a filing cabinet, something ridiculous, two or three hundred pounds. I can’t do it, but I like to try. I like the feeling of applying more and more force, and meeting absolute resistance, absolute refusal. Watching the filing cabinet just sit there. The only reason I don’t pass out is that I always start laughing.” Finally, Gray took her hand back and swung around to her guests. “Errol, I’m terrible. How are you? It’s been so long. And, Kyle, I didn’t know you were in town. You’ve stolen your brother away! I’ve missed him.”

  “Actually, I’ve only been here a day.”

  “Quite the recluse, then, Errol. Was it something I said?”

  Errol mumbled something about work and could see that Gray understood perfectly well.

  “Who won your tennis game?” asked Kyle.

  “The master,” said Raphael. It was unclear to whom he referred.

  “So, Kyle, how long are you in town?”

  “A week.”

  “We’re getting tickets to see Hard Cheese on Tony next Thursday. Would you two like to come along?”

  “A new play?” asked Errol.

  “They’re a new-wave band,” said Kyle.

  “Oh, of course,” said Errol. “I guess with all the other new-wave bands we listen to day and night it’s easy for Hard Cheese on Tony to get lost in the shuffle.”

  “I’ve been to my share of symphonies,” said Gray. “I thought I’d try something different.”

  “Seems to me,” Errol attempted to say casually, “you’ve tried plenty that was different lately.”

  “I’d love to go,” said Kyle.

  “How do you know who they are?” asked Errol.

  “They’re from Australia. I helped edit their video for ‘Marjorie and Her Filthy Dog.’”

  “Oh, they’re the ones who did ‘Marjorie and Her Filthy Dog.’ There’s only one thing you need to clarify, then, Gray,” said Errol. “Are you serious?”

  “Why wouldn’t I be?”

  “Well, what’s the average age of the audience at one of these things? Twelve?”

  “You mean I’m too old for this.”

  “I’m suspicious of your impulse.”

  “What is it you suspect?”

  “Maybe we should wait to discuss this in private.”

  “Maybe we shouldn’t. I’m curious now. What is it you suspect?”

  Errol had the distinct sense of all three of them ga
nging up on him, but he took a deep breath and persevered. “The will to please…” he said steadily. “An effort to be youthful…”

  “I am fifty-nine years old. I’ll tell anyone who asks me. As for pleasure, I please myself, but I do sometimes try to please other people. If I didn’t, I’d be a totally inconsiderate, self-absorbed woman. Isn’t that so?”

  Errol said nothing, pressing his lips together.

  “When we go into the bush,” Gray continued, “do we tell tribesmen, ‘No, we don’t want to hear drums and crude wind instruments. We don’t want to pretend we’re something we’re not. But if you have a recording of Mahler’s Sixth Symphony, we haven’t heard that in a while’?”

  “The parallel eludes me.”

  “Raphael is, effectively, from another tribe. It’s simple graciousness to discover what his culture has to offer. It seems to me that our profession has a great deal wrong with it, a great many pitfalls, but I do embrace some aspects of our work: distaste for provincialism; reservation of judgment. When we’re weak in our work it’s when we fail to embody these qualities, never when we take them too far. Your suspicion, Errol, is bad anthropology.”

  Errol had the strangest experience. For a moment he didn’t know what was happening to him. The skin on his face prickled and grew hot. His eyes burned. His chest tightened, and it was hard to take a full breath. This feeling was so unexpected and inappropriate that Errol didn’t realize until it was almost too late that he was about to cry.

  He stopped it just in time. “Gray, I’d really like to speak to you alone for a moment.”

  She inspected Errol carefully and at last nodded. They went upstairs to her study, and Errol closed the door.

  “My sister is here,” he said with effort.

  “Raphael is here.”

  “All the worse, then.”

  “For both of us.”

  Time went by.

  “Why did you do that?”

  “Do what?”

  “Make me look—” Errol ran his hand through the air, looking for an adjective. He could not come up with an interesting one. “Bad.”

  “To shut you up, frankly.”

  “Why?”

  “You only remember what I said, don’t you?”

  “What did I say?” He honestly couldn’t remember.

  “That I was only interested in going to this concert to impress Raphael, and that I was trying to act younger than my age.”

  “You made me spell it out.”

  “I’d rather there had been nothing to spell.”

  “I didn’t mean—” He did mean, Errol remembered. He meant everything, and more.

  “You’re my closest friend, Errol.” She spoke now with steadiness and care. “But you can’t say anything to me. I can’t say anything to you. Our loyalty isn’t that perfect; no loyalty is. I’m sorry I did that to you in front of Kyle. But likewise, you watch what you say in front of Raphael. Though we’re close, we’re both capable of the unforgivable. We’re good anthropologists, Errol, but it’s a shame to waste all our tact, deference, and respect on total strangers.”

  Errol stood.

  “I’m apologizing,” said Gray. “What are you doing?”

  Errol found gradually he could breathe again. “Just now. You weren’t threatening me, were you?”

  “NO!” She stamped her foot. “It’s just I don’t want you to be cutting in front of that man downstairs when you know very well that you’re right, that I do want to impress him, so if you care about me you keep your mouth shut, or I will humiliate you right back, and probably better. Is that clear?”

  “Ever so clear.” Errol sighed. Everything suddenly appeared simple. “And you won’t accuse me of being a bad anthropologist in front of my sister, who is only too eager to believe that. And you will stop accusing me of being fusty.”

  “I won’t stop accusing you of being fusty if you don’t stop acting that way. For God’s sake, what is wrong with seeing what a rock concert is like? I’d like to find out.”

  “Nothing. Nothing is wrong with it.”

  “All right. All right, then.” Gray seemed confused that there was suddenly no argument. “So will you go?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I want you to go.”

  “You’re not just saying that?”

  “How often do I say things because I should?”

  “Not often enough.”

  “All right, then.”

  “You want me to go.”

  “I’ve missed you, Errol.”

  “It’s not the same, with Ralph here.”

  “I know. But I like having you with me. I feel”—Gray had a hard time saying the word—“protected.”

  “Well, have you two…”

  “No.”

  “Have you told him?”

  “No. I have to, soon. It keeps coming up.” She smiled. “So to speak.”

  “I’ll come, if that’s what you want.”

  Gray took Errol’s hand. “Splendid.”

  When they returned downstairs, everyone was absurdly relaxed. Raphael acted like a human being, and seemed to have had a personable conversation in their absence. Kyle said she knew the members of Hard Cheese and could call to get good seats. She told stories of editing rock videos, but actually listened (a little pointedly, Errol thought) when Errol described their matriarchy study coming up in February. Never having been to Africa, she didn’t react strongly when Errol told her about the Lone-luk, but she seemed excited when he mentioned they were arranging parallel interviews the following week in the South Bronx. Kyle had lived in New York for several years, and the idea of forging through those burned-out buildings and junkie-strewn streets seemed braver and more exotic to her than going on safari through Africa.

  When the four of them went out to dinner, they had a wonderful time, again in this absurd way, as if the odds against such an evening being civil, much less a joy, were so great that it struck them all as a challenging project. In fact, the time went so fast and they got so drunk and the conversation was so rapid-fire that Errol actually found himself looking forward to the concert later that week. Then Errol realized he was looking forward to a rock concert with Raphael Sarasola and felt, inescapably, a little crazy.

  17

  “I know you don’t want to hear this, Errol,” said Kyle as they were both recovering from mild hangovers the next morning, “but I think the two of them are pretty amazing together. I’ve never seen Gray around anyone who was her match before.”

  “Thanks,” said Errol.

  Kyle reddened. “I mean, except you—”

  “I know what you mean,” said Errol curtly.

  “Gray obviously thinks a whole lot of you,” said Kyle with care. “But there’s a way you don’t see people anymore when they’re too familiar.”

  “Swell. So Errol the Invisible Brother doesn’t measure up to the incomparably visible Sarasola.”

  “Well, frankly—”

  “Frankly what?”

  Kyle squirmed. “You’re a good-looking man, Errol. And you’re intelligent and funny; you’re sweet. In fact, you’re tremendous, I’m proud of you.”

  “I get the feeling there’s a big ‘but’ coming that I’m not going to like.”

  “But.”

  “Go ahead.”

  Finally Kyle blurted, “But Raphael Sarasola is the most handsome man I’ve ever seen.” She looked into her coffee. “Sorry.”

  “Don’t apologize. Mr. Sarasola’s looks are a matter of record.”

  “You’re up against one heck of a thing, Errol.”

  “In some ways I always have been.”

  “Errol, how can you stand it?”

  “I’m either a man of great character and endurance, or I’m an idiot. And don’t tell me which, because I think after twenty-five years I’d rather not know.”

  Impulsively, Errol called Gabriel Menaker.

  “Gabe, you like Hard Cheese on Tony?”

  “Sure. They’re a l
ittle after my time. But for new wave they’re top-flight. The drummer’s sharp. And the lyrics are nasty. Why’d you ask?”

  “I wondered if you wanted to see them in concert with me and some friends this week.”

  “Errol, my boy, are you going through midlife crisis?”

  “I told you to stop thinking that way, Gabe. Besides, this wasn’t my idea; it was Sarasola’s.”

  Gabriel’s voice perked up. “You mean Ralph’s coming? The lady killer?”

  “Yes, So if you have a woman you’re interested in, don’t bring her along.”

  “Well, you’ve sparked my curiosity, McEchern. Count me in. Maybe I’ll bring the boys.”

  “Gabe, it’s Errol again.”

  “Eight o’clock, right?”

  “Yes, but listen.” Errol felt as if he were back in seventh grade. “What do I wear?”

  He laughed. “I think: designer jeans, a silk shirt open to your navel, and a lot of gold chains…or is it spiked hair, black boots, and a dog collar? Honest to God, McEchern, I’m not sure. I think I should warn you, my boy, I’m gonna look old there. Most guys like me are still listening to their scratched-up Grateful Dead albums.”

  “The good old Grateful Dead.”

  “You’ve never heard of them, either.”

  “Sorry.”

  “You have been living in this country the last twenty years?”

  “Much of the time. Same country as you. Different tribe.”

  “My man, you do have a way of putting things.”

  “So does a friend of mine.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I want you to meet that woman.”

  “Can do.”

  “But something about middle-aged men in jeans has always annoyed me.”

  “Khaki.”

  “Good idea. Thanks, Gabe. And listen. Did you mean we’re going to be surrounded by teenagers?”

  “Pre-cisely.”

  “This whole thing is crazy.”

  “My man, McEchern. What d’ya say. This could be a riot. You’re right, it’s crazy. That’s why I’m going. There’s no sign at Ticketron says you gotta be under seventeen to get a seat. So, fuck it. I like their music, I like you, I like my crew. Fuck it. Maybe we’ll get high, that’d help.”