The Female of the Species

  “A mouse, or just a spider?” Gray wondered.

  Arabella came into the kitchen. “Why didn’t someone tell me there was something wrong with Solo? I just opened the door to play with him and he went crazy and shot out of the cage.”

  “Did you put him back?” asked Gray.

  “How could I? I have no idea where he went.”

  “Well, don’t just stand there. Go find him.”

  “He’ll turn up. But what’s wrong with him? He made the most horrible little noise. Is he sick?”

  “I don’t know what’s wrong with Solo, but you know I like to keep the ferret away from Bwana. Go find him and put him back in his cage.”

  “You think Bwana would kill him?”

  “On the contrary, Bwana’s terrified of that animal. I’m more nervous about the dog. Errol, would you please take care of it? I’m exhausted.”

  It wasn’t until Gray went upstairs that it struck Errol she was already getting on a skewed sleeping schedule and she’d just escaped her first meal. These next two weeks were going to be a challenge.

  When Gray got up that afternoon, Errol and Arabella had still not found the ferret.

  Gray left briefly to send her recommendations to Ford by Federal Express. When both Errol and Arabella offered to do it for her, Gray held the folder to her chest with a funny possessiveness and claimed she could stand to get out of the house.

  “Any calls?” asked Gray wearily on her return. Errol shook his head.

  It was Bwana who found the ferret. Or rather, the ferret found Bwana. Errol was just corraling Gray for dinner in her office when hysterical barking came from the staircase landing. They both arrived to find Solo hissing with bared teeth and wild black eyes at the dog. Bwana was wedged into the corner of the landing, pressed against the wall. His pink-gray eyes were shot with red. His whole body was trembling, and his bark was high and raspy.

  “Solo,” Gray called down. She whistled. “Solo!”

  The ferret didn’t respond, but made slashing forays at the dog, which was unusually brave for such a small animal—there was something wrong with this standoff; surely the dog should be cornering the ferret, not the other way around. As he and Gray approached the two pets, Errol looked more closely at the ferret. Its eyes were wider and wilder and blacker than ever, and saliva was dripping from its teeth. Its motions were jerky and frantic, though it was usually a graceful creature. Gray was walking down to pull the ferret away, but Errol stopped her. “I think there’s something wrong with him, Gray, stay away. I swear he looks rabid. I wouldn’t touch him.”

  Bwana’s bark had thinned into a high, wheezy whine; he kept trying to back up farther and pressing up against the wall.

  “Errol, I’ve got to get him away from Bwana. He’s an old dog. It’s not good for him to get so upset.”

  “Listen, if that ferret is rabid, he could give it to Bwana, and that’s it for the dog.”

  “Solo!” Gray whistled again. Yet to appeal to the pet as an affectionate creature with normal loyalties at this point was clearly a waste of breath. Solo was raking the floor with his claws, and his charges at the dog were getting closer. For a moment or two Errol was stumped, for he had no interest in being bitten by a rabid weasel himself, even for his favorite weimaraner. However, Errol had been in training, hadn’t he? Carrying it was enough. Though he could no longer remember putting it there, the bright chrome switchblade was lying smoothly against his thigh.

  “Gray, I’m sorry, but I don’t know what else to do.” Errol pulled the knife out and flicked it open.

  “Errol, you don’t know what you’re doing with that thing—”

  “You’d be surprised.”

  She was. Perhaps she was even impressed, as Raphael had promised. Errol held the knife by the blade, and just as the ferret made a particularly ferocious jab at the dog, he flipped the knife toward the flurry of brown fur. The blade turned through the air and pinned the weasel against the floor.

  Errol walked down a few steps and looked at the ferret, which was still alive. He’d stabbed it just above one of its front legs, and it was struggling against the switchblade, its head and neck pressed down to the floor. As Errol looked straight into the animal’s eyes, the wildness and raving behind them slowly died; the piercing black beads gradually glazed over, and that sense Errol had always had of perception there, of cleverness and treachery, gave way—their glimmer grew dim, their pupils shrank, until finally the sharp, keen-edged face looking up at him went completely blank. Though Errol had never really liked the ferret, to see such edge and brilliance fade and flatten saddened him, and he imagined he would actually miss the flash of those eyes, the litheness of its body, even its wicked hiss as Errol walked into the den. Though hostile, at least the hiss was acknowledgment, and since the ferret had reserved this particular acid sound for Errol alone, it had always made him feel singled out in an almost pleasant way. He had enjoyed, as Walter would say, the sting.

  Gray, however, had gone to the dog. Perhaps Errol had done the right thing with Solo, but too late. Bwana had collapsed in the corner with a quiet, choking sound. Gray sat on the floor next to him and pulled his head into her lap. His mouth fell open and his tongue lolled; his breathing was labored and clogged. “Sh-sh,” said Gray. “He’s gone, Bwana. You’re okay now. Bwana, come on now. You’re in great shape.” She stroked the dog’s head and smoothed down his flanks as they rose and fell with difficulty. His eyes were bright red now, and full of pain. “Sh-sh,” she crooned, “he’s just an old ferret, a sly, spiteful little rat. He can’t hurt you anymore. Just relax, Bwana. You’ll be all right. Just take it easy, you’ll be fine.”

  Yet Bwana coughed twice; his body convulsed and lay still. After a couple of abrupt twinges, as if Gray had applied electric shocks, his body relaxed into her lap. For the first time since Raphael had walked down the stairs and out the door, Gray let her head fall back against the wall and, running her hand over and over down the length of the long gray body, cried with a surrender such as Errol had never seen.

  26

  The house seemed quieter by far without Bwana, though that was strange, since the dog had hardly made a sound when he was alive. At best in a given day Errol might have heard his toenails click down the stairs, his tail rap once or twice against a wall, or a low throaty purr, like a cat, when he was waiting to be fed. The silence had less to do with sound, then, than with the sensation when Errol and Gray returned from their afternoon walks that they were the only animate creatures in the house; unfortunately, Bwana’s absence helped accentuate that not only were there no toenails clicking across the floorboards but there was no young man lolling in the den, either, clinking his ice cubes, drinking up Gray’s liquor, sitting in her chair.

  These walks were hard work. The night of Bwana’s heart attack it had begun to snow, and the following blizzard left Boston buried in drifts several feet deep. That was all right, though; bundling up and pulling on snow gear gave Gray something to do, and slogging along the white sidewalks leaning into a stiff wind made their strolls seem more eventful. The spareness of their conversation fit this landscape well, and Gray’s complexion blended nicely with the snow.

  Errol followed Gray’s instructions as loyally as he could, though he succeeded in getting her to eat only about half the time, and then little. Still, she lost weight more slowly than if he hadn’t been there threatening to feed her by the spoonful like an invalid if she didn’t swallow something. She admitted, too, that there were nights after he put her to bed when she lay staring at the shadows on the ceiling through to morning, or looking out the window at the moonlight on the snow, but at least it was better for her to rest than to roam about the house all night. Also, as he’d been told, Errol took the phone off the hook at midnight and replaced it at seven, though after a few days of this they both knew this was nothing but ritual or conceit. During the day Gray received routine business calls, and into the second week her pulse would only mildly quicken when the phone rang. br />
  Most poignant for Errol were the afternoons when he walked in on her and she was sitting by the phone, meditatively tapping the black plastic. While he’d seen her dial numbers, she never picked up the receiver; she’d only listen to the dial purr on its return and smile sadly. Errol supposed this was safe enough, though it chilled him; it was a little bit like watching someone play with an unloaded gun.

  The ferret had tested positively for rabies; since it had bitten her the night before it went wild, Errol had to take Gray for several shots. They were painful, and Errol regretted they couldn’t vaccinate her against the disease from which she was really suffering. However, it seemed that the only antidote to the kind of poison she had swallowed was this gradual flushing out with the days, weeks, maybe months of her life. With Gray now approaching sixty, this struck Errol as a costly cure.

  As for Arabella, after the first week she, too, must have stopped waiting for the phone to ring and a certain languorous voice to ask her out to dinner, and in her disappointment she was capable of giving Gray a sincere apology. Errol was surprised, too, how graciously Gray accepted it, given that crude “tribal justice” of hers. Yet there were no tangible repercussions for Arabella’s transgression. She kept her position as Gray’s graduate assistant, and they even seemed to be getting along better than before. Gray finally told Arabella to stop calling her Dr. Kaiser.

  As for Errol, he realized now how he’d imagined this time, and how often he’d imagined it, too: Gray would be crushed for a while, of course, but in her upheaval she would lean on him—and certainly she was doing that. And then…There was no “And then…” Gray was his friend, and he would help her—feed her, walk with her, put her to bed. Errol didn’t feel inclined to expect more.

  It was, all in all, incredible that this lasted only fifteen days. Evenings were especially interminable, and Gray would reach for magazines she’d already read cover to cover; Errol roamed the house desperately, looking for trash to take out or something to repair. A few nights they even resorted to TV.

  The day before her birthday Gray got extremely edgy. There was no feeding her, and she paced upstairs all night. She placed all receivers solidly in their cradles.

  “Gray,” said Errol carefully, “I know tomorrow’s your birthday. But he’s not a very sentimental guy.”

  “We’ll see,” Gray snapped. Errol left her alone.

  That morning they agreed to have an “acknowledgment” in the evening—Gray wouldn’t call it a party. She told him she wanted to spend the day in the house by herself. What she’d be doing, they both understood, was waiting.

  It suited Errol to get away, even if it was her birthday, for he anticipated that, whatever happened with that doorbell, with that telephone, the evening would be difficult.

  That morning he went shopping for her present. He had excellent luck finding just the right thing.

  Errol took his gift back to his own apartment and picked up the mail. Most of his mail went to Gray’s, but he directed a few things to this address. In a stack of special offers, an Audubon solicitation, and a SANE newsletter, Errol found a letter with a curiously illiterate address and one envelope that he was half hoping, half dreading would be there today. To put off reading it, he opened the envelope addressed with the big block letters, “Arol McEkern, Boston, Mass.,” confirming that miracles do happen, even in the post office:

  Dere Mr. profeser McEkern,

  I here from yor frend Waltar. He write a nice letter. For all intensive perpos he my pen pal now. My english teacher say writing letters be good practis.

  I tell Waltar about Ray. He seem like he understand. He write he sad sometime. I send him my pitcher I had took at Woolworth.

  It cold here in New york, yesterday it 15 degree but below zero with the windshield factor.

  Say hay to yor frend mis gray. She seem sad some to. I have a nice time when you was here. I tell all my frend profeserrs come see me, they think I fooling.

  Hope you rember me.

  Yor frend,

  Leonia Harris

  Errol smiled. He read it several times. Then he went on to actually open the mailing from the Audubon Society and thought about sending them money; he glanced over the SANE newsletter and noted that, according to several names he respected, he had ten more years to worry about the comparatively trivial decision with which this upcoming envelope might present him before the entire planet was ravaged by nuclear winter. Errol wondered what kind of comfort that was. Unfortunately, Errol did not need a set of vinyl suitcases or matching his ’n’ hers terry-cloth jumpsuits, so there was nothing left to do but open the last piece of mail.

  Errol went to fix himself a cup of coffee, but found he had no milk. Closing the refrigerator, he walked deliberately back to the table and made himself open the flap and unfold the letter. In a single moment he knew what it said; though lackadaisically he went on to read the entire text, it was only for one more distraction, for as of that moment the decision was imbedded in his life.

  Errol watched his own reaction to this piece of paper with interest. The letter said what, presumably, he’d wanted it to. Yet something had just happened in his stomach; he finally understood why Gray had so much trouble eating.

  Errol went for a long walk that did him no good. He returned to his apartment and called Ellen Friedman. She was excited by his news, though with a slight backwash of disappointment. He told her he had plans for the evening but that he’d love to have a drink with her late that afternoon. He needed desperately to talk, and not to Gray.

  It was a day of more than one piece of information, however. When Ellen arrived at his apartment she’d lost the energy and enthusiasm he’d heard over the phone. She seemed wistful. He fixed her a drink, and she sat at the table playing with the ice cubes. Errol found himself doing all the talking. Ellen said “Uh-huh” a lot. He imagined he was depressing her or burdening her or even making her jealous, but when he looked at her more closely, he noticed that she wasn’t even paying attention.

  Errol waved his hand between Ellen and her glass. “Ellen?”

  “I’m sorry. It’s just, you know, the thing this afternoon. I suppose I should be happy, or at least unaffected. But when you get older it’s harder to brush these things off, no matter who it is.”

  “What do you mean, exactly?”

  Ellen cocked her head. “You haven’t heard, then?”

  “Heard what?”

  Then she told him, and more quickly and casually than Errol would have preferred, but then she didn’t really understand; there was no reason she should have.

  Errol sat down dully. He told himself it didn’t matter. That it was the same without this. Still, his chest ached; he felt physically heavy.

  “Errol, are you all right?”

  Errol sighed. “Has anyone told Gray Kaiser?”

  “Not that I know of, but she may have heard; I couldn’t say.”

  Errol asked Ellen one more question, because he had to, because he’d later be responsible for answering the same question himself. Then he stood abruptly and felt the blood rush from his head; he felt momentarily dizzy. “I have to go immediately.”

  “Okay. And good luck deciding, Errol. I’m sorry I wasn’t attentive. We can talk later. And I don’t envy you if you’re the one to tell Gray.”

  “No. You shouldn’t.”

  Ellen kissed him goodbye, long and sexually on the mouth. She was a surprisingly aggressive woman. He liked that. And he had never more keenly needed the luck anyone had wished him in his entire life.

  27

  Errol arrived at the manse with his present for Gray and two pieces of information. He wished desperately to divest himself of all three at once, but after he rang the doorbell with the formality the occasion demanded and Gray opened the door with a ravaged expression, Errol knew that he could give her the present now but he’d have to hold on to the information a while longer. He would have to wait to tell her until the time was right, and Errol knew very well that t
he time would never be right.

  “Happy birthday,” said Errol, kissing her cheek and handing her a leash.

  “Errol, thank you. He’s lovely.”

  “It’s a she.”

  Gray stooped in the foyer and stroked the new dog. It licked her face lavishly and pawed at her dress. Unlike Bwana, this dog was affectionate and seemed warmly disposed toward everyone she met. “What kind is she?”

  “Probably a mutt. I know Bwana was pure-bred. Does it matter?”

  “Not at all. She’s beautiful.”

  “My guess is part-retriever, part-Dane, maybe a little collie.”

  She was a large dog, almost as big as Bwana, but with longer hair, and gold rather than gray. She was old, too, and as a result not stiff and reserved but soft and ungainly, and inclined, Errol had noticed, to romp, as she might have as a puppy, but less successfully. When Errol had taken her with him to the park that afternoon, the dog had leaped at squirrels and jumped over drifts, but often ended up plowed into the snow. She was a good-natured animal, though, and these difficulties didn’t seem to disturb her; she’d roll right back up and bound heavily off toward one more drift.

  “I got her at the SPCA,” Errol explained. “They were going to put her to sleep when the place closed tonight. It seems they took the dog away from some lout who beat her all the time. The man at the kennel said most abused animals get either surly or spooked, but not this one. She’s a forgiving animal, he said.”

  Errol took off the leash and let the dog explore the house. They both looked wistfully after it; eager for distraction of any kind, Errol hoped it would return soon. Errol could talk about that dog for hours.

  “How’s your day been?” asked Errol.

  “How do you think?” said Gray, watching her new pet flounder on the staircase.

  “Difficult, perhaps.” He wanted badly to add, “But this is nothing,” instead asking her, “So how’s sixty?” as casually as he could.