Any person, she thought, who would enjoy looking at a picture like that, had something wrong with him.
She thought to herself as she left the room, if he would own those pictures, he certainly had some unnatural quirk. Folding her arms, shivering, she walked into the kitchen and stood before the oven.
There’s always been something the matter with him, she said to herself. She felt a presence; pressure of his thin, bony body. His breath in her face.
God, she thought. She shuddered.
Her own fault. Why did she look? It served her right. The pictures swam in her mind. I must get rid of them, she said. I have to. Why did I have to go rooting around? Will I ever be able to think of—sexuality as I used to think of it?
She lit a cigarette, smoked for a few minutes, and then put the cigarette out. Opening the refrigerator, she searched for something good to eat, some candy or dessert. She found the last of a pint of ice cream in the freezer; after she had finished the ice cream she felt better. Lighting another cigarette she began to wander about the house.
Her peace of mind gradually returned. She felt herself return to normal. What hysteria, she thought. Men, from the age of eight ►years and up, get and prize such pictures. Roger is normal. At the store such pictures probably pass from hand to hand; probably he had acquired them from another merchant along the street, or from Pete, or from Olsen.
Even boys, she thought. Writing on the walls of bathrooms. Writing on fences. Words, pictures. Natural and universal…from the time of the Egyptians to the present.
So it showed, after all, that she had got herself into an irrational frame of mind. She was ready to fly apart at any sign. Her perspective was gone; she had witnessed it leave her. My judgment, she decided, is faulty. At least this incident has one good outcome; it has made me aware of myself.
She turned on the radio and listened to music and then the news about Korea. On top of the bookcase was a collection of short stories by New Yorker and Harper’s writers; she made herself comfortable on the couch and began to read, starting at the back story and skipping first paragraphs and then pages, until she had gone almost through the volume without really reading anything at all. Finally she found one story that interested her; it had to do with New England, and she noticed the author’s name. A woman, she realized. She finished the story, enjoying the deft style of the writer.
I wish I could write like that, she thought. Perhaps her sense of rhythm would help her. Rhythm was important in everything.
Laying aside the book, she went into the bedroom and changed from her skirt and blouse into her leotards and cotton T-shirt. In the living room she put on a record of Ravel’s La Valse and after a bit she began to dance.
While she danced, a thought matured in her mind. I could call the Bonners, she thought. I can make sure.
She sorted through all the possibilities. If nobody answered the phone, she could assume that either nobody was there, or that Liz and Roger were there. If Chic answered the phone, she could assume that Roger was not there, but that Liz might or might not be there. If she was there, then everything was fine. But if she was not there—
“Oh God,” Virginia said aloud. She stopped dancing. The hell with it. It wasn’t worth it.
Picking up the phone she called her mother.
“Were you asleep?” she asked. “No, I asked you that before.”
“Maybe this time I was,” Marion said. “Roger isn’t here: I can tell you that.”
“I know where Roger is,” she said heatedly. “I’m not calling to find him. He’s down at the store, down in the basement working. I just called to find out whether you would like to have lunch with me downtown tomorrow.” It was the first notion that came to her mind.
“I suppose so. Is there something in particular you wanted to discuss with me?”
“No,” she said. “I’ll come by about twelve and pick you up. We can decide where we want to go after we get started.”
“Should I dress up in my finest? Are you going to take me to some fancy place?”
“No,” she said, “just wear your street clothes.” She hung up the phone. Now she felt better. Thinking about lunch with Marion cheered her up. They could talk.
To pass the time she considered the various limitations of Liz Bonner; she told herself that only by the remotest stretch of the imagination could Liz be conceived of as dangerous or effective. She elaborated the image that she had constructed of Liz, the short plump woman in the supermarket giving out free samples of crackers and cheddar cheese. With her name on the back of her uniform, she decided. The word LIZ in red thread, so that if anybody wanted to call her they would know how. Ernie’s Supermarket, the red thread declared. And I am called Liz, if you should happen to want me. Just call. I am here to serve you.
17
She held him in her arms; she held him in her, as close and far as he would go. She patted him and stroked his back and breathed through her mouth against his ear, so that she heard her own breath rushing back at her. The bedroom smelled of cinnamon.
“I’ve got you,” she said. “I could kill you.” I love you, she thought. What would your wife say?
Raising her hand she let up the window shade; she wanted to view him. Enough light entered the room, and she could see. In the next house the living room lights were on, and so were other lights in other living rooms, in the houses across the street. A porch light shone more brightly than the others; she saw, on that family’s front walk, a tricycle and a toy wagon. Lying there, she listened to radios and voices.
“They’re sitting around the living room,” she said. “Watching TV and darning socks.”
“Who?” he said.
“They all are. They’re talking about—” She considered. “Mr. Daniels is saying that county taxes are going up this next June. Mr. Sharp is saying that he likes to watch accordion players better than dramas. Mrs. Felton is saying that Tide soap is on sale at fifty-nine cents for the giant size. What time is it? Nine o’clock? What’s on TV? You’d know that; you sell TV sets.”
“I don’t know,” he said. His voice was muffled because his face was buried in the pillow and in her hair. She smoothed his hair back into place. The scratchy underside of his jaw pressed at her shoulder; she felt the bristles penetrate her skin as he spoke.
“You have a very nice back,” she said.
“Why?”
“You’re not fat. You don’t have rolls of fat all over you.” She shifted so that she could lift herself; she wanted to look through the window and see the entire street, each of the houses. “I like to think about them,” she said. “The people living out there. What do you think they’d say if they could see us?” She thought about Virginia; she always thought about Virginia. I’m lying here with her husband, she thought. That’s how I think of it. I have your husband, Virginia. Don’t hate me.
“Aren’t I hurting you?” Roger said.
“No. Don’t move.” She hugged him until she heard her own ribs crack. “You’re not heavy.” Much lighter, she thought, than he is. How different bodies are.
If they could see us, she thought, they would turn to stone. Yes, she thought; I can see them, marble statues, with weeds and brambles growing around them. The cracking apart of the walls. She saw the houses fall apart and decay. She saw the rosebushes grow over them, weigh them down, cause them to collapse. And the stone statues gaped. We have got old watching, the statues said. We could not look away.
“Why would it kill them?” she said. “Couldn’t they stand it? It’s not that bad…something else must do it to them.”
“Jealous,” he murmured.
She kissed him. You’re wrong, she thought. I love you, but you don’t understand. Why would they be jealous? Men are so odd. Walking along with a girl and telling other men by a certain code, Hey fellows, look what I get to lay. I know about you, she thought, holding him tighter. And maybe you do make a few of them jealous, a few who haven’t had any for a while. But the others;
> I’m thinking about them. Mr. Sharp and Mr. Daniels and Mrs. Felton.
She thought, they would stand gaping because they would feel themselves getting weak. Every second, the tiring out. The fumbling. When I am like this, she thought, I don’t get old. As long as I am lying here, holding him inside me, I neither sink nor fall. I do not go in any direction. I am simply me. As long as I want. As long as I can keep him here.
Superstition, she thought.
“Do you believe that?” she asked.
He seemed almost asleep. “What…”
“That you don’t get any older as long as you’re having sexual intercourse?”
Stirring, he said, “I never heard that.” He drew himself back onto his haunches, and then he slid to one side of her and lowered himself out; he put his face next to her throat and his arm on her stomach.
“You know why she hates me?” she said. Because I’m here, she thought. “Because she has to,” she said. “I’d hate her. I don’t blame her. You can only do this with one person…isn’t that so? If you’re here doing it with me, you’re not with her; you’ve left her out. I’ve taken you completely. I want to. That’s what I was after from the beginning.” What does Virginia get back? she thought. What do I leave when I’m through? What comes trembling back to the house, putting its feeble hand on the doorknob…a worn-out thing. Colorless. I got everything out of it, she thought. He poured himself into me; I felt him. He came into me with everything he is and has. The wet life inside the skin. The actual life. There is that one tiny place where it can come out, that imperfection. And if you know how—and I do—you can gather up that and tuck it away, and pretty soon, if everything is right, the person you love spurts across. And the part that tells you is the moment that he knows what he has done; he knows that he is coming, and he can’t stop; he has no control. He is leaving himself, leaving his body, and he tries to go back, and he can’t. Then you know you have him. You have got him.
Why, she thought, does he think he has got something? What has he got? Show it to me. He has only been somewhere; he has been here (she took a Kleenex from the box beside the bed and began to wipe herself off) and now he has left again. But I took in something, and it is still there. Despite what I’ve read in the Brittanica, I believe that what I took in is absorbed into my system and becomes a permanent part of me. I can feel it all through me. She lifted her hands and pressed them over her eyes. Powerful lights flashed, color and shapes. All the way, she thought. Everywhere. And if somebody knows, they can tell. Virginia could tell that night, as soon as she saw me. She saw it like a color around me.
“Are you happy in bed?” she said. In some woman’s bed, in the safest place. Stretched out peacefully. With her handkerchief she wiped herself. “Its sticky,” she said. “Is that so it’ll stick to me, inside me? So it won’t slip out?” It stuck; it remained in her. Have you any more? “Is that all? You’re worn out, aren’t you?” You don’t have much. Most of it’s for her. But I want it all. It’s mine; it belongs here, inside me. “I want to have your baby,” she said. “Think how he would be. I’d be a good mother.” I am his mother, not Virginia. I know how.
Even if I stay with Chic. I can have my baby, hold him with me, inside me. Raise him until he’s big…it’s mine. When I first saw you I knew that.
“Why are you small?” She knelt down on the bed and put her hands on him. “Do you want to be?”
“No,” he murmured.
Go to sleep. Sleep here with me, in this woman’s bed, not hers. I’ll take you as you sleep. I will hold onto you. What have you brought me? “I love you,” she said. She put her arms around him; she crushed herself onto him, and then she sat up, away from him. And then she stepped from the bed and stood. I will wrap you up, collect you in the tiniest bit. Smaller and smaller. But you will not be gone. A tiny bit, still.
“O God,” she said. I want to go on and on with you. Can I? Can anybody? Why are we here at all? How did we even get this much? Nobody offered it to us; nobody wants us to have it. I am not supposed to let you in here, tuck you in me—never. I’m supposed to get old and die.
She thought: One day he was fishing and he fell into the water and down to the bottom, away from land. He lived with the princess who was a turtle. The fisherman and the turtle.
Along the street the people were different; the houses were different; the dog that had greeted him was gone, dead and buried. The flowers were changed; the shape of all things had changed, so that he recognized nobody, nothing, not the grain in the towers, the stones, the ants on the ground. The lizards had gone away. The big trees, too. The marshes. The water itself had cooled. He thought, it’s getting toward nightfall. The water, no longer warm, became cold and clear, and he saw back up to the land and started toward it, remembering it. But all changed. Nobody knew him.
“What do you say to her?” she asked.
He mumbled, half-asleep in the middle of the bed, on the sheet. They had tossed the blankets back, to the floor.
Do you know who she is? What about her name? Can you open your mouth and say what her name is? If I asked you now, what would happen? Would something disappear, fly from the room as if pulled out backwards? Would objects spin off and disappear, as you see when they run a film backward? The feathers, from the heap, fly in clouds and fix themselves onto the turkey. The spray forms on the water, a figure rises feet-first from the water and ascends at great speed; the water collects and descends to cover the spot. Fragments of the burst balloon collect into the balloon again. The ground stirs and beneath it things move about. Through a crack, things are seen to be moving far below. And then the old withered senile things get up out of the ground; they sit up. They stand, they step out, they begin to wave their arms and talk. And gradually they return to the town and take up where they left off.
If she shouts her name, then everyone must wake. If anyone says her name, or their name.
In the street, the houses lit up, radios and TV sets playing, kids on the carpets, women in the kitchens, appeared to him to be different, and he looked for his own house. He searched for the garage and the front walk and the rosebushes growing on the trellis by the front door, and the boy’s toys left on the porch. The door was open but the porch did not look the same. The house was gone, too, and the garage and the rosebushes. Only the thorns and brambles remained. The weeds that had been cut, cut, every week. Over all the house.
While we’re here she got old and died. If I point at her, she’ll recede faster and faster, her mouth open, her hands up; her mouth moves, but she says nothing; I hear no sound, no name.
The door of the house opened and he entered, wearing the same suit and shoes and tie. Inside was only a dried-up crone. And when he asked her who she was, she did not remember.
But I did not do it to her. It was happening anyhow. I only lay here and held you down; I pinned you down here, to my bed.
“Hey,” she said, throwing herself down beside him. “Let’s go out back.”
“Where?”
“Outdoors.” She scrambled from the bed, caught hold of his hand, and tugged him after her. When he was on his feet she led him from the bedroom and to the doors that opened up on the garden.
Cold wind blew at them as they stepped out onto the grass. The grass was wet and all the yard was in darkness.
“I’m not going out here,” he said. “Somebody’ll see us.”
“They can’t see us.” Tumbling down to the grass, she brought him with her, to her. “Here,” she said. On the ground, in the dampness, where they could breathe. I can find you in the dark. She found him and put him into her, where he had been. Is it dark? Don’t get lost. I’m here, she said. Beneath you. Around you. Feel me on all sides? Don’t you know that’s me? His weight came to rest on her, pressing her into the grass. An insect, probably a spider, traveled across her leg and onto her hip. The blades of grass made her itch. She wanted to squirm. Move every part of me. I feel each muscle stir. I’m everywhere, now. In the dark she touch
ed him and she clasped her arms about him, flattening him to her.
Union with me, she said. What am I? The same as I always was. I don’t change. But everything else changes. I feel her getting old and hating me; I feel that as much as I feel the big life in me. Virginia, she said, I am right here: can you find me in the dark? Yes, you can. You know me by the way I smell; you recognize me. The smell of grass.
“Is she like me?” she said.
“Who?”
“Virginia.”
He grunted.
Virginia, you’re thin. You have a narrow body. What would you be like? Hard, cold as a stone. Dry as a leaf. Would you yell? Move?
I married him when I was nineteen. I was still living with my family, in Los Angeles; he and my father played cards, and my father, being a doctor, went to the dresser drawer where he kept the samples of medicine from the pharmaceutical houses and loaded him down with pills and tablets, everything he might want. My father liked him. They talked about the Japs and Roosevelt and the Soviet Union and Freud and Joe Hill. In the summer he and I drove up north, to the Salinas Valley, and looked at farms. We found a fine truck farm, vegetables and grazing land for cattle or sheep. He hates sheep.
“You hate sheep,” she said.
He grunted.
After a year or so I got pregnant. Jerry was born first, and then Walter. Gregg came last; he was always his favorite. We bought more land and had hogs, and we always had chickens and ducks. We raised alfalfa. He knows a lot about farming. He has made even a small farm pay. In fourteen years we’ve made it a going concern. Now Jerry is thirteen and Walter is twelve. Gregg is seven.
“Seven,” she said. “Isn’t Gregg seven?”
“About,” he said.
I pick apricots and peaches and the green satsuma plums from our trees. I dry the apricots on the flat wood door of the basement. I make jam from the plums and I make jelly from the grapes. On the stump behind the barn I hack off the chickens head; the chicken flaps about, scattering feathers. In the kitchen, Gregg stands by the table watching me as I open up the chicken to clean it; I explain to him what each of the inside parts is for. I show him the gravel in the gizzard. I let him handle the eggs that were going to come out someday. In the front room the baby is asleep.