Herb's Pajamas

  HERB’S PAJAMAS

  ABIGAIL THOMAS

  Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill

  FOR RICH, WITH GRATITUDE AND LOVE

  CONTENTS

  WALTER’S BOOK

  EDITH’S WARDROBE

  HATS

  NEGLIGEE

  GLOVES

  HANDKERCHIEFS

  FUR COAT

  LEOPARD-SKIN SKIRT

  TOTES

  FIG LEAF

  SUNGLASSES

  SHOES

  SHOPPING BAG

  BIRTHDAY SUIT

  UNDERWEAR

  NO POCKETBOOK

  BUNNY’S SISTER

  HERB’S PAJAMAS

  WALTER’S BOOK

  WALTER STANDS IN front of the open icebox. He peers inside, leaning down for the milk. It is three-thirty in the morning. Closing the icebox door, Walter shuffles over to the cupboard and reaches for the cereal box (left-hand corner, bottom shelf), pivots to take a bowl (blue with a single chip) out of the dish rack, then stands at the counter and assembles a helping of cornflakes. He does all this in the dark. Then he sits down to have what he calls his breakfast. “It’s not called breakfast in the middle of the night, Dad,” Julie has pointed out to him. “It’s called insomnia.”

  Walter doesn’t think so. Insomnia is where you can’t get to sleep at all. Walter can get to sleep all right, he just can’t stay asleep. One minute he’s out cold, the next he’s staring at the ceiling. Walter is fifty-five; at his age you probably need less sack time. He should really use these hours to work, but instead he goes padding around in the dark. He’s proud of being able to get through the tricky living room without knocking into anything, without tripping over the footstool; he loves knowing exactly when to put his right hand down to brush the worn velvet of his old red couch. He loves negotiating the long dark hall and knowing where to turn left for the kitchen. He loves the odd sparks his hand makes in the dark when it connects with the icebox handle.

  Walter munches away now, spoonful after spoonful, his head full of the details of cereal. It takes a full two minutes for the texture of cornflakes to change from crisp to soggy, Walter knows, and he has never minded soggy. Soggy has its own virtues, he maintains, and tonight when he has eaten the last delicious spoonful (gritty with sugar) he sighs, and gets up to rinse the bowl. Then he stands in front of the kitchen window. A southern exposure. Most of the city is dark. Walter looks down at the fourth floor across the street, where there are always lights burning in the third window from the left. “It’s a plant light, Dad,” Julie has said, but Walter doesn’t think so. He senses a kindred soul. He stands there some minutes, like a wading bird, on one leg. Then he turns and heads back to bed.

  It is easier on the way back, his eyes accustomed to the darkness.

  TONIGHT THERE IS a thin bar of light under his daughter’s door. He doesn’t want to notice, but he does. It was there last night too, and when he knocked it was instantly extinguished. Tonight he hesitates, then knocks gently. The light stays on and he takes this as a sign to knock again, which he does, and pushes the door open. The air is filled with cigarette smoke, layer upon layer, like stratus clouds, which the opening door disturbs.

  “Julie?”

  “Hi, Dad.” Julie is sitting by the window. She looks small, too small to smoke so much, that’s what Walter is dying to say. She was supposed to be quitting. She and her mother were both quitting together. Ellie told him last week.

  “Smoky in here.” Walter pretends to do the breast-stroke. He can see a half-eaten Peppermint Pattie on the arm of her chair.

  “Very funny, Dad.” She is only half turned toward him. She has been looking out the window, the curtains are open. The sky is a violet black, very beautiful. Somewhere a red beacon goes on, off, and Walter can make out the dark shape of a water tower impossibly visible against the night sky. What a beautiful city this is, thinks Walter for the millionth time.

  “You all right? It’s four in the morning.”

  “I’m fine, Dad.” She smiles at him.

  “But you’re up.”

  “I’m up.” Julie stubs out a cigarette. “So are you.”

  “I had a little cereal.”

  “I know, Dad. Breakfast.” On Julie’s bedside table (painted red, decals of Dumbo and Bambi unsuccessfully scraped off the left-hand corner) are three more Peppermint Patties (a passion she shares with her mother) and a teacup half full of tea in which float several cigarette butts.

  “That’s disgusting,” he says, grimacing at the cup. “That alone should persuade you to quit.”

  “Right”

  “Why are you up? Everything okay?”

  “Insomnia, Dad. Don’t look so worried. I probably got it from you.”

  “Is your mother aware of this?” Walter asks. He would like to hug her but settles for resting his hand on the back of her chair.

  “Aware of what.”

  “Of your being up at night a lot.”

  “She knows.” Julie is lighting matches now, and letting them burn down to her fingertips. He wishes she would stop.

  “What does she do?”

  “She makes me hot milk. No, Dad, don’t. Really. Please don’t. I’m fine, really.” Julie takes half a cigarette out of her pocket and lights it carefully. She is wearing Ellie’s fuzzy old pink chenille bathrobe. It is ratty and soft and sometimes when neither his daughter nor his former wife is around Walter sleeps with it in the bed next to him.

  “I thought you were quitting,” he says, unable to help himself. “You and your mother both.”

  “Mom hasn’t had a cigarette in five days,” says Julie briefly. She blows a smoke ring and tucks a strand of hair back off her face. Her dark eyebrows, more startling than usual, remind him of the spread wings of some ocean-going bird. It always amazes him how beautiful his child is.

  “You know all the carcinogens are in the part closest to the filter.” Walter can’t help himself.

  “Really.” She taps the cigarette against the side of the ashtray, looking up at him curiously.

  “So if you’re going to smoke half, why not the first half?” Walter’s hands are now hanging at his sides.

  “I did smoke the first half, Dad,” says Julie conversationally. “Now I’m smoking the second.”

  There seems no good answer to this.

  “Dad, I’m pooped. Let’s go to bed. You go to bed, okay?”

  “All right then,” says Walter, but he makes no move to leave. “Think that’s the bridge?” he says finally. He is looking at the red beacon way uptown.

  “Go to bed, Pop.”

  Walter, heartened by her use of the word “Pop,” bends down to kiss the top of her head. “You’re sure there’s nothing I can do?”

  “Nope,” says Julie. She turns back to the window. Walter is uncomfortable just leaving her there like that.

  “I thought you were going to bed,” he says, hesitating at the door.

  “Dad,” she says firmly. “Sweet dreams.”

  “Sweet dreams,” says Walter. “Sweet dreams.”

  But Walter cannot sleep. He lies on his back, his side, his stomach. He sits on the edge of the bed. He recites “Dover Beach,” the first poem he learned by heart. Dawn surprises him an hour later, the sun rising beautifully red over Queens.

  LAST WEEK WALTER’S former wife, Ellie, had spent the night. Julie was due back from school for a spring break and Ellie had turned up out of the blue with an armful of Julie’s spring clothes. Walter had been reading the newspaper when the doorbell rang. “It’s me, Ellie!” she had shouted into the phone downstairs, and he had buzzed her up, straightening his tie in the mirror and brushing back his hair with the palm of his hand before answering the door. It was the third time she’d dropped by in three week
s. She had seemed nervous when she came in, and had sat down abruptly on the couch. He had sat opposite her in the yellow chair, his hands on his knees.

  “Walter,” she had begun, “I think we should talk.”

  “Yes, Ellie?” he had said, leaning forward perhaps a bit too eagerly. She seemed lonely, he had thought perhaps she was coming back. Perhaps he had smiled too quickly, because her mood had changed. Instead of talking, she had picked up a black clam shell from the coffee table.

  “You still have this?” Picking it up and turning it over in her hand.

  “Of course I do,” he had said.

  “And this too?” She had held up a windshield wiper, flattened into the shape, she had once thought, of a flying bird. She had picked it out of the gutter on Broadway herself, twenty years ago. He had nodded. She was looking around the living room as if she hadn’t seen it a million times over the last twenty-some years. “Walter, everything looks just the same as it did when I moved out.”

  “Yes,” he had agreed, “I suppose it does.”

  “Doesn’t that seem strange?”

  “Everything is how I like it, Ellie, I’m comfortable here. This is my home.” And yours too, if you want it, he had forborne saying.

  She had stood up and said, “What’s in the kitchen. I’m hungry.”

  She had stayed for supper. Made supper, even. She had fussed a lot (“Is this what you call a chicken?” “How old is this rosemary?” “Have you no fresh garlic, for god sake?”), but he had thoroughly enjoyed it. He knew she was in a good mood when she bossed him around. (“Get me a sharp knife, no, a clean sharp knife, hand me a bunch of that flour, please, what? Is this all the flour? Don’t tell me!”) He had loved every minute of it. Fuss, flour on the floor, the smell of oil and butter smoking on the stove. The hiss and sizzle of delicious things hitting a hot frying pan. Ellie exclaiming on the sorry state of his kitchen floor (mopped that very morning) and refusing to touch his dish towels. He had stayed in the kitchen and watched her cook, his hands behind his back, while she frowned and measured and threw things together. Then they had eaten the chicken she had invented (using honey and soy sauce and an ancient bottle of horseradish) and it had been delicious. After supper they had watched a Star Trek rerun sitting on the red velvet sofa side by side (Walter holding his breath) and then she’d asked him questions.

  “Have you gone out at all in the last six months?”

  “You mean out out? As in with a woman?” He had shaken his head. “Why would I do that?” He had been genuinely bewildered.

  “I was just wondering. I think you need to see more people. You know. Have a date or something.” She’d patted his hand. He had withdrawn it.

  “I have what I need,” he had said. “Really.” It had seemed to him something was right on the tip of Ellie’s tongue, but “Oh, Walter” was all she’d said. Then when the thunderstorm had broken Ellie had looked dubiously out the window. “Why don’t you spend the night, Ellie,” Walter had suggested, and at first she had hesitated. But rain had spattered against the windows, the wind had howled, thunder had crashed, and Ellie had said she would, if it was really all right with him. She would sleep on the couch if he still had the old army blanket.

  “Nonsense,” he had answered.

  Five minutes later, teeth brushed, nightclothes donned (Ellie in a pair of his pajamas), they had stood next to the bed together. “I can sleep on the couch, Ellie, if you’d be more comfortable,” said Walter. He’d been oh so aware of his wife’s body in his old pajamas, her breath smelling of toothpaste.

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Walt, this is your house,” she’d said. That was disappointing, the way she’d said “your house” like that. But he’d loved having her there, heaped up like a small warm sand dune beside him. It had seemed a long time before her breathing was regular. “Ellie?” he had ventured once. “Are you awake?” but she hadn’t answered. In the morning he had woken first, and turned his head to look at her. Didn’t she know how good this was? How right they were together? Look at how relaxed she looked sleeping in their bed again. He’d spent a moment adjusting his breathing to match hers. Then, on sudden inspiration, he had gotten up quickly and quietly and made real coffee, not just instant. Ten minutes later she’d appeared in the kitchen, all dressed, just as he was about to break eggs into a bowl. He had set the table with napkins and everything.

  “French toast, how does that sound?” He’d been smiling.

  “Oh, god, Walter,” she’d said, clearly upset, “I wish you hadn’t done this. I should never have spent the night.” He had been bewildered and disappointed. “You know I love you, Walter, but we need to talk.” He had nodded his head. “Of course, Ellie, of course,” and then she’d left quickly and he could hear her through the front door as she waited for the elevator saying, “God, god, god, god, god.”

  WALTER RIDES THE subway this morning, he wants to surprise Julie with chocolate croissants from Zabar’s. The train is crowded but at Ninety-sixth it clears out and Walter finds a seat next to an old man who is writing laboriously in a tattered blue notebook. Walter glances over. The headline at the top of the page reads “A Brief Description of My Pain.” Walter is moved to continue. “I have pain and swiftness in my lower back and it shoots down my left buttock.” Walter looks more closely at the man. He is obviously poor: the large toe of his left foot has worn a hole in the canvas shoes he wears and the knees of his old trousers are stained. The collar of his shirt is frayed and the cuffs torn. There is grime in the seams of his neck. But his face shines with the dignity of concentration. Walter marvels at his use of the words “swiftness” and “buttock.” “It is also in my left calf,” Walter continues reading, “also the three toes of my left foot are numb.” Beyond that Walter cannot read, the man’s arm covers his page as he thinks. There is a kind of holiness in his accuracy, thinks Walter, a kind of faith. This man believes in something.

  My wife has left me, thinks Walter. My child doesn’t sleep. There is pain and swiftness in my life.

  He hardly noticed it at first, just a tingling in his extremities. It was even somewhat pleasurable, at least for a while. After a couple of hours, though, as the intensity of the sensation increased, he became frightened.

  Walter puts down his pen. It is late morning, Julie is still asleep. Chocolate croissants sit on a plate on the kitchen table. Walter’s study is lined with books. A bookcase is as good as a fireplace, he has always thought. He sits in his old Morris chair, pissed on once (maybe more than once) by an old tomcat Julie had rescued from the wilds of Riverside Park twelve years ago. They had kept it three days. No doubt he should be attending to the stack of manuscripts (Walter is a copy editor for a textbook publisher; his specialty is children’s math workbooks, grades one through seven) but instead Walter leans his head back, gazing at the ceiling. On damp days the old chair still smells. Who was it that kept a basket of fermenting apples under his desk? He closes his eyes, then picks up his pen again, adjusting the long yellow pad on his knee.

  So when the voice spoke in his mind he was almost relieved.

  IT: You have nothing to fear, I’m a Superior Being that just has a momentary need of your body and brain. I will relinquish them in due course and undamaged.

  HE: And when might that be?

  IT: Perhaps a few years, perhaps a few days, who knows.

  HE: Will the numbness and tingling continue as long as you’re here?

  IT: Yes, since I need a little more power than your nervous system can supply, but I believe that you’ll get used to it. Forgive me now if I temporarily discontinue this interesting chat, but I have things to do that require attention.

  Where was all this coming from? Ellie had asked him about the new book and he’d said it was going well. It was going well. But what was it? How could this be happening, the voices in his head?

  He found that although his body had not moved he seemed to be on a beach, and it was a warm sunny summer day. After a few moments he realized that he was
remembeing a period early in his marriage, when he had loved that beach, those summers. He found that he could move the scene a bit up and down the shore. Suddenly, miraculously, there was his daughter, aged about four, talking to the waves. And there was his wife, her black hair in thick curls around her face, wearing her yellow bathing suit. She was saying something that he could not quite hear. The whole scene, the sky, the sun, the water, seemed to freeze into a radiant timelessness.

  Then the voice came on again.

  It: Sorry to leave you alone for so long, but it was necessary. Did you like the memory?

  Walter puts his pen down again and blows his nose, wipes his eyes.

  ELLIE MOVED THE furniture around a lot in the weeks before she left. Walter would come home and find the couch in the middle of the room and the television in the closet. “What’s going on?” he’d call out jovially, “Where is everything?” and Ellie would fly off the handle. “I didn’t mean to criticize,” he’d say. But he remembers the look of uncertainty on her face and within hours she’d have moved everything back. Then for a while she had wanted to move out of the city altogether. Maybe even out of the state. “Julie’s in college,” she’d said, “we’re free to move if we want. We’ve been in this apartment for twenty years now, Walter.” He had let her wear herself out on that one. “Come look with me,” she’d said, and he had gone to oblige her. “It’s very nice. But don’t you think you would be bored? Grass is just grass, after all, Ellie, but the city is different every minute. Did you notice the mildew on the floorboards by the sink in the bathroom?”

  One day she had stopped talking about it.

  JULIE IS AWAKE now. He can hear the bedroom door opening and the bathroom door closing and the muffled sound of a radio playing rock ‘n’ roll. The hiss of the shower. Those exhilarating signs of life. Walter loves the sounds of his daughter rising. Sometimes he can even (through some accident of acoustics), hear her metal hangers scrape in the closet while she decides what to wear. Now she is moving around in the kitchen. He hears a cupboard open and close, dishes being set down, drawers being shut. The fridge opens and closes twice. He doesn’t want to hover. No point in crowding her. “Dad?” she calls, and he is out of his chair like a shot.