The Female of the Species

by Lionel Shriver

  “Terrific. I’ll get high, the way I always do before a rock concert.”

  “You ever smoked?”

  “I’ve smoked concoctions you and your friends have never dreamed of, but the lowly marijuana plant, never.”

  “Then we’ll get you stoned out of your mind, my man. I’ve got some sinse that’ll shave hairs off your head.”

  “I’d like to keep my hair for as long as possible.”

  “I’ve hit a sensitive area, McEchern?”

  “I have middle-aged spread, but a full head of hair, Menaker. Don’t take shots.”

  “Got it. But I am bringing some smoke. And you will be one relaxed boy, let me tell you.”

  “Good enough,” said Errol, surprised at himself. “I could stand to be relaxed. I don’t think I’ve been relaxed in twenty-five years.”

  As their party collected on Gray’s front lawn before the concert, Errol noted that Raphael had hardly decked himself out. He was wearing faded jeans, old off-white long underwear, and ratty Converse All Stars; but he looked fantastic, and he knew it. Errol looked down at his own deliberate khaki slacks, the shirt which was “casual” but brand-new and never washed, still showing the creases from its folding in the original package, stiff with sizing from the factory. He’d kept his new desert boots carefully out of puddles for a month now, and why had he bothered? When Ralphie Sarasola hadn’t even combed his hair?

  “So what are we waiting for?” asked Gabe.

  “Madame Kaiser.”

  “You mean the old lady. She, like, caking on the makeup in there?”

  “No, the Wise One doesn’t do that. She’s probably finishing just one more paragraph of an article. I haven’t figured out whether Gray actually enjoys making people wait, but she definitely considers it her privilege.”

  “Hey, your sister’s all right,” said Nathan. “She knows more about rock and roll than I do. And she’s been all over the place!”

  Errol gritted his teeth and did not say, “So have I,” but, “Yes, all over the world.” Adulthood could be so taxing.

  Gray appeared at the door with that little pause of people who know how to make an entrance before she turned to lock it behind her. Then she looked at Raphael. Something was changing. Lately when the two were present at the same time the air hummed like a transformer, the voltage went up a few watts. When Gray drew toward Raphael, Errol could hear the creak of those porch boards like the crackle of a Jacob’s ladder.

  Errol retreated quickly to Gabe’s pickup with the crew; as they drove over to the hall, Gabriel lit up a joint and passed it around. As instructed, Errol pulled in the smoke and held his breath. Its acid, basil flavor was tangy and lasting, like a good Italian tomato sauce, and Errol savored this bitterness with his tongue.

  Their party had good seats, right in the pathway of two ten-foot speakers. Errol sat between Gabe and Gray. He watched intently as Raphael leaned over and kissed her. They both kept their eyes open. Can you focus on someone’s face that close up?

  I can’t remember. I haven’t kissed a woman for three years, and she wasn’t even important. Funny how crucial Julia has become simply for being the last one, the last paltry effort at having Relationships with Women. What a farce they were. So I could answer Kyle correctly, Yes, I have seen other women. Remember “going out,” dressing, usually at Gray’s, making a show of it. Putting on cologne. Fridays like this one, finally there being nothing more to do, no more restaurant reservations to call in, and I’d have to be sure I had the keys to my apartment—Gray always cracking some joke about “Don’t stay out too late,” and me trying to decide whether to drop the woman off and come back to Gray’s or take the woman back to my place and do it.

  Raphael’s arm was around her back. Errol moved over so that those fingers grazed his own shoulder. They had pretty nails, clean, trimmed.

  It was always hard to walk out that door. I always wanted to stay in the manse, even if I only read all night in the den. Then I could still hear the clack of the typewriter upstairs, the sound of her feet overhead, the flush of the toilet, running water; besides, it was her house. But duty called. So I’d spend the evening with some pretty, intelligent, witty woman, someone plausible—I was good at casting. And I usually did take them home and take off their clothes the way I was supposed to. I made sure I was a man. I know what this thing feels like, what Kyle thinks is so important. Then Gray said—Gray said I didn’t, or something. What did she say? “Maybe I’m overestimating your experience.” Well, maybe so, but that’s your fault, Gray Kaiser. So it hasn’t been so great. So my mind has even wandered, okay? I’ve thought about appointments; I’ve thought about.. You know what I’ve thought about, damn it.

  Errol moved his shoulder away from Raphael’s fingertips.

  My mind has wandered, and it’s your fault, Kaiser.

  The warm-up band began to play. They were loud, and Errol had to admit he liked them. The bass vibrated his diaphragm as if he were talking in a low voice. The guitar trembled in his bones; the synthesizer sent the smoke in his lungs into turgid, acrid little circles. The seat, too, shook from the drums, and Errol could feel the tom-toms hollow out his bowels.

  Hard Cheese on Tony were even better, but they frightened him. Somehow the music and the performance didn’t jibe; Errol had the feeling he was watching the picture from one channel and the sound from another. The music was tense; the musicians were languid. Loudly as he played, the lead singer moved calmly and bonelessly about the stage as if he were deaf. Yet the more dispassionate his delivery, the more the lyrics rippled with disdain. Errol shifted in his seat, feeling uneasy, disconnected, mistrustful.

  The band began with “Earnest Couples Sitting Alone,” “Queasy and Despondent,” “Muffins Stand for So Much,” “Two More Chaps in Gas Ovens,” “Mother Has Got Rather a Cold,” and “The Art of Being Shown over Houses.” In their second set they played “A Trip to the Bonesetters,” “When Father Papered the Parlor,” “Sheila Shrub,” “The Pudding without Protein Was Unattractive,” and “Nursie Panting at the Bridle.” As Errol listened to the words, he was overcome by a burdensome irony. He was sure Hard Cheese could write a perfectly hilarious song about his shirts with the factory sizing and his Hush Puppies and his little handful of fat upstairs in the bathroom mirror. So close to the front, Errol became convinced that the vocalist was mocking him in particular; he slumped inconspicuously in his chair.

  For their encore Hard Cheese on Tony returned for “Marjorie and Her Filthy Dog” and “Two Is a Crowd.” Errol braved a look to his right. Raphael had pulled Gray’s head to rest on his shoulder. His eyes were open and soft. Slowly Raphael turned to look straight back at Errol over Gray’s head. His eyes did not change but remained wide and furred. The white lights on stage flecked in his pupils and flashed in the oily surface of his skin. Errol looked back. Raphael did not blink. Here, the man seemed to say. Swallow this. Hold it in. I am your after-dinner smoke. I am the sting in your lungs, the heat in your eyes. It is I who make the flap of your diaphragm quiver, who make your bones tremble, your bowels grumble, your chair loosen in its bolts on the floor. You breathe me in. You inhale my arm around this woman. Here is your bitterness. And you are a sucker, Errol. You are a fool. You ask for pain and you get it. I will not pity you, for a moment. You feel the bass? I am the power of those chords. You feel the drums in your skull? I am sitting at those traps. I am on that throne, with my foot on the pedal. I am younger and this is my music. I play it at you. It overtakes you. You have been overtaken. You have been overtaken and you could have prevented it, so you are a fool. The only thing you could not prevent, though, was being a fool. That is what you were born and the rest follows from that and that is what is so pathetic.

  18

  “I told him.”

  “What?” Errol didn’t care. Such an awful morning. When he moved his hand to reach for his cup, it seemed it would never get there. Finally, the porcelain on his finger was smooth and warm. Please, Gray, shut up. I am n
ot a hero.

  “You know,” said Gray.

  It seemed minutes before her words slurred into his head. Oh, I know, do I? And why do I know so goddamned much? I want to be a carpenter. Jesus was a carpenter, right? So what’s wrong with that? I could be Jesus, but skip the parables on the hillside, and please skip the crucifixion. I mean, it’s clear to me lately that I’m a saint; I wouldn’t dismiss the possibility out of hand that I’m the son of God. However, I think I’ll be Jesus the Carpenter. I’ll skip the stuff about beams in people’s eyes and stick to the ones on the roof. I will redeem the sins of the world by constructing a series of perfect mortise-and-tenon joints. I think this tack will make me more popular than the cross gambit in the long run. It wouldn’t make everyone feel so guilty. Gabe, how about it? Set me up. Sit me in front of a red-and-white-checked oilcloth every morning. I don’t have to have Gray’s fresh-ground coffee; instant would do, bad instant, old, crusty, STALE instant—just get me out of here.

  “Errol, are you still asleep?”

  “I wish.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  Somehow the question struck Errol as hysterical, and he laughed.

  “You’re acting very strange lately.”

  Errol sighed and leaned back in his chair. “I spend a lot of time living other people’s lives, Gray. You know that about me, don’t you? Well, once in a while I live my own life. It’s not fun, but somebody’s got to do it. Whenever I do that, you see, whenever I’m not completely focused on what’s happening in your life, you think I’m distracted.”

  “Now, what did I say to deserve that?”

  “Nothing. I’m so sorry. I’m a terrible person.”

  “You are not, but would you snap out of this?”

  “You mean, would I please go back to living your life.”

  “Errol, did something happen to you I don’t know about?”

  “Oh no. You know everything, or just about. That’s actually what makes this whole thing interesting.”

  She paused. “I hope you’re enjoying this, because I’m not.”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll stop. I’ll go back to being ‘normal,’ and everyone will be happy, or whatever it was they were. Besides, Gray, honest to God, I’m not doing anything. I’m just talking.”

  “You were pretty strange last night, too.”

  “I was stoned.”

  “And you give me a hard time about going to a rock concert.”

  “You said we were investigating the culture. I was participating in the full ritual, that’s all. However, I must say I don’t remember the end of the evening. Did we go somewhere?”

  “We went out for drinks. And you were incredibly nice to Raphael. You paid him compliments, made conversation, bought him vodka, top-shelf.”

  “I was nice to him?”

  “You acted like his long-lost friend.”

  Errol smiled. “Splendid.”

  “Frankly, he started to avoid you after a while.” Gray paused, and inserted casually, “You don’t happen to recall what Arabella was bending your ear over, do you? After talking to Raphael, she spoke to you for quite a while.”

  “I do, come to think of it. She’s upset with you. She’s done all that work for you on matriarchies, but according to Arabella, you have yet to ask her to go with us in February to study the Lone-luk. Granted, it’s still only August, but she claims you’ve avoided the subject whenever she’s brought it up. And she’s really put herself out setting up the interviews in the South Bronx next week, but evidently you’re not even asking her to go with us to New York. You’ve asked Ralph.”

  Gray grunted.

  “Why not ask both of them to New York?”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “Why?”

  Gray drummed her fingers on the table. “She answers the phone a lot.”

  “She’s supposed to.”

  “Fast. Within one or two rings.”

  “So?”

  “Then she chats.”

  “What’s wrong with that? And you think I’m strange.”

  “She stays late.”

  “What are you getting at?”

  “More than she ever has, she stays and works late into the evening. She eats here more often than she used to. She gets the door.”

  Errol waited. Gray tapped the table with the pads of her fingers now in a slow, heavy rhythm. “She hurries to get the door. I’ve seen her.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “And then she chats.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  The tapping got slower and heavier.

  “She plays with my ferret.” She stopped tapping; her eyes blackened and narrowed and she sounded for all the world like an angry little girl.

  “Ah,” said Errol.

  “Yes,” said Gray. “Ah.”

  “I think maybe,” said Errol delicately, “you’re getting paranoid.”

  “I’ve always been a rational person.”

  Errol almost added, “Before February,” but bit his lip. “Did something happen last night?”

  “Nothing I could point to.”

  “Your evidence isn’t very persuasive.”

  Gray sighed. “I suppose not. I’ll try to stop being ridiculous.” She brushed the crumbs of coffee cake off her hands and began cleaning the kitchen.

  “Sorry I came back here. I should have gone home and left you alone with the protégé.”

  “It was fine. You walked inside and you were out. Raphael and I stayed on the porch. I was glad you were inside. I told him, but that was all I intended to do.”

  “What did he say?”

  Gray slowly wiped her hands with a damp dishcloth. She smiled shyly. “It was nice out last night. Lots of stars.” She stroked each finger with the cloth separately. “There’s a way he has, of smiling.” She wiped her forearms one at a time.

  “He doesn’t smile very much,” said Errol, watching. “Have you noticed?”

  “No, but when he does…” Gray wiped across the counters with her cloth. She swabbed down the canisters of sugar and flour. She took her damp forefinger and pressed it onto stray coffee grounds, picking them up one by one. She examined the grounds closely and rolled them around between her thumb and forefinger. “There’s a passage in Mahler’s Sixth. In the Andante. You know that symphony well?”

  “Since it’s one of your favorites, of course I’ve heard it performed ten or twelve times.”

  “The Tragic Symphony. There’s a moment when a flute rises, and a high, lyrical cadenza pulls out from nowhere. It’s the single place in that symphony where you can breathe; where the clouds break; where for a few measures everything doesn’t seem so terrible. Well, Raphael’s smile is like that, this particular smile. It pulls out of nowhere. It raises the hair on my arms.”

  She seemed happy, purling around that kitchen as if a cool, secret creek burbled quickly and serenely at her feet. Errol yearned to be hateful. He wanted to stay a stolid black lump in her kitchen, disgruntled and charred. It wouldn’t work. Gray seemed light this morning, and every move she made with that damp cloth was graceful. Her ankles were so slim. The water ran beneath the muscles in her face, and her voice spilled from her mouth as a stream through a sluice. Listening to her was like going for a swim He could not maintain his anger, so he gave up and dissolved the soot of his disgust into the brook of her pleasure. Bits of black grain by grain trickled away from him as he watched Gray pick up grounds with her finger, run the faucet over her hand, and wash the dark specks down the drain.

  “So you told him,” said Errol, “and he smiled.”

  “Yes,” she said. “That way.”

  “And?” Errol felt immersed in a horrible reservoir of understanding.

  “He was delighted.”

  “Why do you suppose?”

  “I don’t know. No reason. Just that it was the most charming and wonderful thing he’d ever heard.”

  “God, I hope he’s for real,” said Errol quietly.

  Gray’s face dropped. Th
e water drained away. The sluice ran dry. “What do you mean?”

  “Nothing.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Nothing,” said Errol staunchly. “I shouldn’t have said that. I’m sorry.”

  Having pulled the plug on such a clear, cheerful spring, Errol slunk away to his work for the day.

  That Sunday Errol drove Kyle to the airport, and when she said “Take care of yourself” in parting, Errol had a funny feeling he probably wouldn’t.

  “I’ve always felt bad about missing out on World War II,” said Errol. “It looks as if I’m going to get my chance. This looks like Dresden.”

  They were driving up Melrose Avenue in the South Bronx.

  “What’s the story here?” asked Raphael.

  Gray explained. “Landlords hire arsonists to burn their buildings for the insurance money.”

  “Can we leave a sign? I don’t want the insurance for my Porsche.”

  As they parked, Gray suggested they stay together for the first interview so Raphael could get an idea of the kinds of questions to ask; later she’d send him on a separate mission.

  Once they got out, Raphael shot his car a wistful look. He picked a dried piece of mud affectionately off the body, and checked twice that the doors were locked. He had set the alarms, all three of them. Then he paid a boy on the corner ten dollars to watch the car, with the promise of another ten if the car was intact on his return. Raphael might never have been here before, but he immediately seemed to understand how the place worked. Errol found himself thinking that maybe Raphael wouldn’t make such a bad anthropologist at that.

  The lobby had once been ornate, though its mahogany trim was slapped over thickly with dour green paint and the fireplace was filled with garbage. They picked their way upstairs. Roaches rustled through the trash. Shadows darted down the halls; Raphael shuddered on the landings. The stairwell smelled of old fat; Errol breathed through his mouth. The lights were out. The grating of their shoes was loud.

  Outside 6B Gray spoke to someone through the door; the woman who opened it held out her large hand to Gray and pumped it once, hard. “Leonia Harris; real pleased to make your acquaintance.” Her voice was deep, her vowels round.