The Female of the Species

by Lionel Shriver

  “No,” said Raphael wearily, “you won’t do that again.”

  Errol cased the two side by side. Walter had the weight over the younger man, but that was the end of it. It was so obvious that Raphael could decimate the man in a few blows that the fight was over already. They were back to an adult way of settling things: tally and verdict. When in one set of figures each number is larger than in the other set, there isn’t even any point in taking out pencil and paper.

  “See, it doesn’t matter if I go or stay,” Raphael explained patiently. “It wouldn’t matter if I never came. I have no effect on your wife, Walt. Neither do you. If she doesn’t like the way this afternoon turned out, she’ll change it. If she didn’t like what I said, I’ll have said something else. I wouldn’t flatter myself that I could damage her. You shouldn’t flatter yourself that you can protect her. We’re putty, Walt. Maybe she isn’t married to you at all. Maybe she’s married to me.”

  Walter may have been used to nonsense, but he still shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other. He looked at the sky. “Not a beer,” he said. “Jack Daniel’s.”

  During all this Gray and Errol had been teaching Sasha to throw a Frisbee.

  “Sasha,” said Raphael, perhaps tired of Walter already, “throw it here.”

  The Frisbee came dutifully wobbling over to Raphael. He picked it up and threw it high enough that the gleaming of the sun obscured it at its peak; Sasha squinted. Gently it came banking back down and returned to Raphael, who caught it by reaching behind his back. Sasha smiled. “Teach me to do that.” Raphael gave him some tips; Sasha tried and got the Frisbee a few feet up; it did return to him. “Teach me more.”

  Raphael showed him how to spin the disk on the tip of his finger. The Frisbee hovered, whirring, over Raphael’s hand, and with his forefinger pointing up and his face gentler than usual, he looked like Da Vinci’s St. John the Baptist gesturing heavenward. Errol apologized to himself for the analogy, but Raphael had Renaissance features, and sometimes these images were overwhelming.

  Sasha tried and dropped it several times, intently.

  “Sasha,” said Walter, “toss it over.”

  Sasha looked at his father warily, then threw the Frisbee to Raphael. Again the two hardly stopped looking at each other. Raphael returned the Frisbee to Sasha and told him generously, “Throw it to your father.” Only then would Sasha toss it to Walter. When Walter threw it back, though, it curled on its side and dropped to the ground. Sasha rolled his eyes and retrieved it; he wouldn’t send it to his father again.

  “Raphael is good with that thing, isn’t he?” said Ida to Walter.

  “Just swell.”

  “He’s gotten rather nice-looking, hasn’t he?”

  Walter licked his lips. “He always looked all right, Ida. You pointed that out a number of times.”

  Ida sidled closer to her husband. “They have the same eyes.”

  “Yes, Ida. I noticed that a long time ago.”

  The incredible patience! Errol was astounded. Casually Errol walked closer. What was Walter’s secret? How did he do it? Ida could say anything and Walter would breathe and shake his head and say something understated. Then, this murmur of indefatigable suffering had a weirdly familiar ring to it. Errol recognized with a chill that it was the sound of his own voice.

  “He hasn’t gotten over me,” said Ida, with a grim little smile.

  “He never will,” said Walter. “That’s the way those things go, when you’re a kid.”

  “It’s not ‘those things.’ It’s me.”

  “It’s those things, Ida. You’re not exactly Elizabeth Taylor anymore.”

  “Elizabeth Taylor isn’t Elizabeth Taylor anymore,” said Ida, sulking. “She’s fat. At least I’m not fat.” Ida tapped her foot. “He might still go away with me.”

  “Go ahead, Ida.”

  “No, really.”

  “Go ahead, really.” Walter sounded so tired. In Errol’s head everything Walter had ever said sounded tired.

  “I can’t believe he’s running around with that old bag,” said Ida, rather loudly.

  “She seems like a pretty interesting character to me.”

  “I bet she can’t do anything with him in bed besides tuck him in and sing ‘Rock-a-bye-baby.’”

  “She’s got a lot of getup and go with a Frisbee.”

  “A man and a little piece of plastic are hardly the same thing.”

  “You mean all this time you knew there was a difference between objects and people and you never let on,” said Walter. “You’re a sly dog, Ida.”

  “She acts so high and mighty—”

  “All she’s doing is playing Frisbee.”

  “She’s showing off.”

  “The kid is showing off. She’s just throwing the thing.”

  Walter stopped to watch. The Frisbee had rolled across the street, and Gray threw it from the mill. It was true she never twirled it or caught it under her leg, but her tosses were always long and low and smooth. The Frisbee was white and caught the sun; it made a sleek picture hovering gradually across the road and skimming a few inches over the roof of Raphael’s Porsche.

  “In fact, she’s pretty well preserved, Ida. Maybe you should find out her secret.”

  “I bet she sleeps in a coffin and sucks blood.”

  “That’s your trick, sweetheart,” said Walter softly. “It’s not working.”

  But Ida didn’t listen. She was watching her son with satisfaction. “He’s going to be pretty,” she said, “I made sure of that.”

  Errol had had enough, and walked away. There was something sickening about that last statement of hers. Errol would hate to be around this happy family in ten years. It would be the kind of trio about which movies are made: a damning retrospective on a man’s early life which explained why he later became the second Boston Strangler. By the end of the movie you’d be entirely sympathetic, too, and when he stepped into the electric chair you might even cry, because you’d know very well who should really get strapped into that thing, even though technically she hadn’t strangled anyone.

  Diving for a toss, Sasha fell hard on the walkway. Everyone stopped. Ida and Gray started toward the boy, but Raphael shot them both looks and they hung back. Raphael approached the child, but didn’t reach to pick him up. Sasha looked up from the concrete at the man who was not helping him. Slowly, not taking his eyes off Raphael, he drew himself upright. His hands and knees were bleeding, but the boy didn’t cry.

  “You know you’ll be all right, don’t you?” said Raphael.

  Sasha nodded.

  “And you know you’ll always be all right, don’t you?”

  Sasha nodded again.

  “I’m going to have to go. I’m going to give you some advice first. You’re going to remember it for the rest of your life. Are you listening?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Ready?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “This is serious.”

  Ida hovered a few feet away, and looked ready to whip her son out from under Raphael at the first opportunity. Even Errol had an odd feeling of wanting to save the boy from some terrible spell that was being cast on him, a curse that would follow him until someone shot him with a silver bullet or ran a stake through his heart or burned down his entire castle. Sasha should have run off to his mother by now, and for God’s sake, he should certainly be crying. Blood was beginning to run down his leg in streams.

  “First,” said Raphael, “keep quiet.”

  “Okay.”

  “That’s harder than you think.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “There’s only one other thing. Ready?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Don’t count on anyone.”

  Sasha looked back.

  “Do you understand?”

  He shrugged.

  “Say it.”

  “What?”

  “What I told you.”

  “Keep quiet.”

  “Good. What
else?”

  Sasha thought a minute. “Don’t count…”

  “Go on.”

  “Don’t count on anyone.”

  It was a truly bizarre experience to hear a child of five or six repeat this advice. It gave Errol the same shiver as photographs of children with progeria. Errol would have comforted himself that the boy didn’t know what he was saying, but when Ida came up to him to help him with his cuts, Errol could only conclude that Sasha understood Raphael’s advice perfectly well.

  “Let’s go inside,” she said. “I’ll clean those hands and knees right up.”

  When she took him by the hand he pulled away. “I’m okay.”

  “Sweetheart, we’ve got to get the dirt out or you’ll get infected.”

  Again Sasha shook her off. “I’ll do it.” Shooting a conspiratorial glance at his mentor, he marched inside by himself. Raphael smiled.

  “Well, you’ve created a regular little hero, haven’t you?” said Ida.

  “Being your son is heroic by definition.” He watched the screen door bang behind the boy.

  Errol had followed all this standing by Walter. “You like having a kid?” Errol asked, making conversation.

  “I don’t know. I don’t really have one.”

  “No?”

  “He steers clear of me. She tells him stories, see. I reach for him, he flinches. And I’ve never hit him once.”

  “That’s odd.”

  “No. Nothing’s odd. Not anymore.”

  Errol knew it wasn’t polite, but he had to ask, “Do you ever think about leaving her?”

  “Think, sure. Do it, never. Then what would I do, go marry a nice girl? I’d probably flip out. I’d end up beating the crap out of her just to get her to say something with a little sting in it, you know?”

  “I’d think you’d get tired of sting.”

  “You think I’m some sort of henpecked asshole, don’t you?”

  “Well,” said Errol amenably, “if there are going to be people like Ida, I suppose there have to be people to put up with them.”

  Walter nodded to Ida and Raphael. “She’s coming on to him.”

  It was true. She was standing right up against Raphael; he didn’t step away, either, though Errol looked up to find Gray seated on the porch with an excellent view. Gray looked worn out and increasingly annoyed; Errol was sure she’d gotten all the amusement she was going to out of this escapade, and was now waiting for it to be over.

  But it didn’t stop. It wasn’t just a passing moment. Ida didn’t move away. Raphael leaned closer. He must have felt her breath on his chin. Errol stopped talking to Walter and craned his neck. Gray uncrossed her legs on the porch. Only Walter was not incredulous. It was a fact, then, that nothing was odd to him anymore.

  Raphael reached up and placed his hand gently on Ida’s cheek. Errol decided: Great. Do us this favor. Kiss her and we will dispense with you quickly. Kiss her and Gray will stand and lift the keys from your pocket as she strides down the walkway, and the two of us will take your car back to Boston and leave you stranded here where you started: back with this mess, and a hovel across the street that has rats again, and Ida older and worse than ever, Walter harder to entertain, at last impossible to surprise, until you screw her in broad daylight on the grass and he yawns and goes for his beer. Not even Jack Daniel’s, he won’t need it, but Rolling Rock, Bud, something cheap. Fine. Do us all that tremendous favor.

  A sound cracked across the lawn. Raphael had slapped her. Only once, but so hard that Ida almost fell over.

  “Now don’t tell me,” he said tenderly, “I never did you a favor.”

  Ida looked up at him and rubbed her cheek. She looked wary, but amused also; pleased. “How do you figure that?”

  “You’ve been dying to have someone smack you for twenty years. You beg them and beg them and they just won’t do it. I hate to see you suffer, Ida. Maybe I came all this way just to help you out.”

  “That’s real smart. You tell yourself that everything you do to people they’re asking for. Then you can do whatever you want.”

  “‘People put themselves in the situations they put themselves.’ I’ve never forgotten that. A miracle cure for responsibility. One of the most useful things you ever gave me, dear.” And now he did kiss her, lightly, on the forehead. Then he turned and reached toward the porch, and Gray came down the stairs to take his hand. The two walked across the street to the car, saying nothing, not looking back.

  Errol shook Walter’s hand. “So long, Walt,” he said warmly. “Enjoy.”

  “Endure, maybe. That’s all I ask.”

  “I admire you,” said Errol.

  “Then you’re the only living human being who does.”

  “No, I do. I should put you in touch with someone. Seriously, you two should write. Her name is Leonia Harris, and she’s a big black woman in the South Bronx. She’s in for the duration, regardless. You’d understand each other. Here.” On this odd impulse, Errol reached for a scrap of paper and a pen. The first piece he found had Anita Katrakis’s address on it, which he put wryly back in his pocket. He scribbled Leonia’s address and gave it to Walter. Errol slapped him lightly on the shoulder and walked away, waving goodbye to Ida. The funny thing was, stranded there, getting older on that same front lawn, her black hair lank, her face red on one side and white on the other, her knees knobby, her perch unstable in those high-heeled shoes, she seemed actually grateful to Errol, and waved back, though they hadn’t spoken that whole afternoon. Errol would always remember her left alone there on that lawn, squeezing out that one drop of niceness like water from a stone.

  Once they were in the car, Raphael reached for the ignition, but Gray put her hands over the keys. “Before we go, kiss me.”

  Raphael looked at her.

  “I’m serious. Now. Just once.”

  Raphael turned back to the steering wheel. “I don’t feel like it.” He started the car. As he revved the engine, Gray reached over simply and took the key back out again. The motor died.

  “I said now.” She held the keys in her lap.

  Raphael looked at her incredulously. “You’re not giving me my keys unless I kiss you?”

  “That’s right. On the lips.”

  “If we were sixteen this would be funny.”

  “If we were sixteen this would be a joke.”

  Raphael looked into her face. Actually, for someone who had just begged to be kissed, her expression was quite dispassionate. He looked down at the keys in her lap. With an air of clinical curiosity, he did kiss her lightly on the lips. Gray raised her eyebrows calmly and dangled the car keys in his outstretched hand.

  “You’re going to explain what that was about?” asked Raphael as they started toward Boston.

  “I needed to experience human emotion for a change.”

  “There were plenty of emotions back there.”

  “They weren’t my favorites.”

  “No?” Raphael chided. “Hatred is exhilarating. I can get high on it.”

  “You hate her?”

  Raphael considered. “No.”

  “You hate Walter?”

  “Oh no. Who could hate Walter?” Raphael had a way with Walter’s name.

  “Then Walter hates you.”

  “Walter likes me. That’s one of the reasons he’s sick.”

  “Then I don’t understand. Where’s all this hatred you’re high on?”

  “From my father, for one.”

  “A matter of debate. But from whom else?”

  “Ida.”

  “Ida doesn’t hate you. She couldn’t if she tried.”

  “What, you think she loves me?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. Ida can’t—she isn’t—Ida’s unplugged. You said it yourself: she doesn’t exist.”

  After they rode a while, Gray told Raphael, “I didn’t like it when you dropped those glasses. It was chilling.”

  “No? I loved it. I haven’t enjoyed anything more in weeks.”

  �
��Thanks.”

  “You’re touchy today,” said Raphael with irritation. “It’s unattractive.”

  Gray said nothing. The word “unattractive” hung in the air for a long time.

  21

  Things were beginning to happen. Little things, Errol told himself. Everything’s fine, Errol told himself. Errol even told the dog: Bwana, relax. We’ll wait this out. She’ll get bored, right? How much can a guy that age have to say to her? She’ll wake up one day with that man taking more than his share of the bed and feel crowded. Or she’ll look out the window and find him once again waxing that stupid car, and she’ll roll her eyes and decide she’d like someone around with a little more maturity. Or better yet, Bwana: she’ll go off to Ghana in February—we can wait five months, can’t we? and he’ll disappear, and in the meantime she’ll realize she’s a brilliant professional who doesn’t need to be jerked around by some little twenty-five-year-old nobody.

  Bwana would stare back and hit his tail against the wall skeptically.

  Bwana had good reason to be skeptical. Raphael turned up often in the kitchen now with that towel wrapped insolently around his waist, or in the den with the red baseball cap cocked over hundred-dollar cognac. Yet suddenly sometimes three or four days would elapse and no Ralphie. He didn’t stop by; he didn’t phone. At times like these Errol breathed easier, but Gray paced and stayed up late and listened to Mahler sym phonies turned up incredibly loud. Or sometimes she’d be blasting one of her favorites all over the house and then just—turn it off. Then Errol would know not to talk to her, and he’d find himself tiptoeing down the halls and holding the bolt in when he shut doors behind him.

  It was September, too early to put on the heat, but on certain evenings a chill would set in; Gray would go about the house closing all the windows. Even with the windows closed, a draft seemed to cut through the upper floor and down the staircase. Gray would put on a sweater, then a jacket, maybe two layers of socks, and still Errol would find her upstairs pacing from her office to her bedroom rubbing her arms. Sometimes her teeth would actually chatter.