Little Deaths, page 34
‘That worked?’
‘Why wouldn’t it?’ he asked, seeming baffled as to why I should be unaware of plans I’d not been told.
‘I wish you’d tell me what was going on if you plan on using me as an alibi. I don’t like it.’
‘You’re right,’ he said. The waiter brought our coffee; I had no appetite and declined a menu. Charles ran his fingers through his hair, as if combing it. ‘You’re absolutely right.’
‘Why are you hiding if you’ve got nothing to hide?’
‘That’s what you’d call it?’
‘If all you’re doing with Valerie is working, why do you tell Elaine and God knows who else that you’re out with me?’
‘You’re assuming I was with Valerie last night.’
‘Weren’t you? Is it so hard just to say?’
Charles lifted his cup to his mouth. His hand shook; he splashed coffee on his sleeve. ‘No need to be hostile,’ he said, allowing the stain to soak in. ‘Your work getting to you? Knew it was only a matter of time. Don’t get out enough.’
‘She knew I was lying. I didn’t want to lie to her.’
‘Your decision.’
‘I’ve had it, Charlie.’ Tossing my napkin on the table, I started to get up; he scanned the restaurant to see if anyone was watching. ‘You got me involved in this and I don’t even know what I’m involved in. Tell me what’s going on or I’ll go home and call Elaine at work and ask her.’
‘That’s unnecessary,’ he said, grabbing my arm, gesturing that I should sit down. ‘Get control of yourself. Hadn’t realised you were so angry.’
‘Give me a straight answer and I won’t be.’
‘I can understand transference,’ he said. ‘I’ll try to explain.’
‘Fine. Why all the secrecy?’
‘It’s a private matter, but I’ll share it with you if you insist,’ he said. ‘You know Elaine’s not the easiest person to get along with. Going through a difficult time in her life right now. The woman thing. Up some days, down the rest. We’ve had more than our share of disagreements since Cecily was born.’
‘You’ve never said.’
‘Nothing to talk about. Cecily’s a beautiful child, we love her dearly, but she was an accident, after all. Didn’t expect to have one so late. Bad timing. Knocked Elaine right off the fast track at her old firm Wasn’t in the forefront on parental leave. Now she’s got her own office, has to work twice as hard. Not many women want to be new mothers at forty-two.’ Charles shook his head as if reshuffling its contents to see what settled where. ‘Elaine didn’t.’
While speaking he tightened his old tie’s knot, aligning it precisely between his shirt’s frayed lapels. ‘Didn’t please her. Started transferring. Thank God she takes it out on me, not Cecily. Came to an agreement before it went too far, for Cecily’s sake. Had upper and lower bunks in the marriage bed since. Get along, though. You have to get along. You have to.’
‘Both of you always seemed happy.’
‘Essential precept of chaos philology, remember. Nothing’s as it seems,’ he said. ‘Situation like ours doesn’t make anyone feel secure. And she’s always been a worrywart. Insecure, like I’ve said. Won’t surprise you to hear she’s never thought much of my students. Early on, I introduced her to Valerie. It was the right thing to do, and it wasn’t.’
‘They must not have much in common.’
‘Both need my time.’ He watched the restaurant’s entrance as if expecting them to arrive simultaneously. ‘That’s my excuse, take it or leave it. Something about her just sets Elaine off. If she knew I was working with Valerie and not you, she’d eat us alive. No real person threatening her, but Valerie serves as the best model she’s found.’
‘Does Valerie know how she feels?’
‘She’s perceptive enough, I haven’t seen the need to tell her. Call me overprotective, but I don’t want to involve her in our problems.’
‘How can she not be involved?’
Charles sighed, as if accepting that he’d again have to explain the difference between noun and verb before the class could start in on the syllabus. ‘Questions like that complicate a simple situation. I try to help her, she helps me.’ Forcing his fingers underneath his collar, he scratched his throat. The skin on his lower neck was inflamed, as if badly sunburned. ‘Valerie comes on strong because she’s so defensive. She’s really very insecure. Thinks I’ll stop helping her if they keep saying things. Couldn’t do that, you can’t abandon people. She’d never polish her theories on her own. Valerie needs a certain discipline. I’m able to provide it.’
Between sentences he drifted, at moments appearing unaware of my presence. His explanation had been more straightforward than any he’d given me before; he’d revealed nominal truths shorn of convenient tangents. Nevertheless, I saw no reason to entirely believe him. ‘Charlie, if you were having another affair, what would you want out of it at this point?’
‘Why do you say another affair?’
He tapped his spoon rapidly against his saucer as if testing how many strokes it could sustain before shattering. His eyes could have been glass. I had neither the desire nor energy to hurdle another series of circumlocutions, and so reworded my question. ‘An affair, I mean. What would you want it to be?’
‘What if you ever had a relationship? What would you want out of it?’
‘That’s not important, Charlie.’
‘I’ve known women. Have a good marriage. Few problems, not many. Young women like Valerie want to work with me. Why would I have an affair?’
‘Hypothetical question. Forget it.’
‘Average person has an affair to have sex, I think.’ he said, peering into his coffee as if cribbing from notes earlier taken; staring at me when he found the answer sought. ‘Having sex’s a given with most people.’
‘I wasn’t asking about most.’
‘Ever imagine you’re in school again?’ he asked, his eyes half-shut. ‘Remember what it was like then? How you’d dream of having sex with a beautiful young woman. One who’d do anything. Anything.’
‘That was a long time ago, Charlie—’
‘Imagine you’re twenty, and with her,’ he said. ‘She’s naked. Squeezes your chest between her thighs till you can’t breathe. Drowns you when she sits on your face. Rides you like a horse and whips you to the finish. Rolls on her stomach, spreads her legs. Says do what you want, she can’t get away.’ His voice never rose above a stage whisper. ‘She screams your name.’
‘Charlie, stop.’
‘You’d like that, wouldn’t you?’ he asked. ‘Wouldn’t you?’
‘Stop it,’ I said, more loudly than I would have wanted; he fell silent, and lit a cigarette. ‘Please stop.’
‘Why’s that make you uncomfortable?’ he asked. ‘You brought it up.’
‘Why did you do that?’
‘Have to be careful applying chaos philology to anything other than a text,’ he said. ‘Finding out what’s what can be as hard on the one unravelling as it is on what’s being unravelled.’
‘I don’t know what’s the matter with you—’
‘Why do you distance yourself so fast whenever something takes a sexual turn? Always have. Ever wondered why? People don’t live up to your fantasies? Afraid somebody else’s doing better than you? Is that it?’
‘Leave it at that,’ I said, picking up my jacket.
‘Understandable how people might get the wrong idea about you if they were to only go by your behaviour.’ As I stood I looked at the floor, so he couldn’t see my face; I noticed that he wore only one sock. A furrowed black bruise encircled the exposed ankle. ‘Be realistic. My business is mine, yours is yours.’
‘I’ve got to go.’ I threw a dollar on the table. ‘If I don’t talk to you before Thanksgiving, give my love to your family.’
‘Just my family? You sure about that?’ A semblance of avuncularity reappeared on his features; his smile remained embedded in his face. ‘Thanks for your help with Elaine,’ he said. ‘I mean it. Have a good Thanksgiving.’
‘Don’t tell her you’re with me when you’re not,’ I said as I left. He had no further response; he’d probably stopped listening. Some texts defy unravelling. Upon reaching my apartment I discovered that Elaine had left a message on my machine.
‘Are you there, Charles?’ her voice asked. ‘Charles? Charles?’
Two weeks before Christmas, they had their annual party. For days I debated whether or not I should go, finally deciding on the afternoon anteceding the event. I worked late, editing manuscripts; by the time I arrived, everyone else was there. Half of those attending were Charles’s friends, half Elaine’s; there was little commingling of subcultures beyond the initial encounters.
‘Good to see you,’ Elaine said, greeting me by kissing the air in the vicinity of my cheek. Strangers might have imagined we’d only met once before, and not by choice. ‘Charles is in the kitchen. I told him to bring in more eggnog if he thought he could handle it.’
‘How are you?’ I asked.
She glared, as if offended by my question. ‘Have the man fix you a drink. You’re usually thirsty.’
The caterers had the setups in the library; they performed their duties with the enthusiasm of galley slaves. Cecily wore a red velvet party dress and spent the night believing that she entertained the guests. An eight-foot Norwegian pine bedizened with white lights and blue balls was in the living room; the soundtrack from A Charlie Brown Christmas played mercilessly over the stereo. The press of the crowd was so great that had it not been for those yuletide touches I should have imagined that a celebration of the Black Hole of Calcutta was underway. I shoehorned myself in near a group that appeared no less lawful than they did academic, and eavesdropped.
‘Is she here?’ asked a man whose eyebrows resembled caterpillars. ‘Tell me she’s not.’
‘She is,’ said an older woman with a forbidding mien. ‘Arrived with Lit’s Derridadas. They got away from her as fast as they could.’
‘He got her away from them,’ said a woman wearing red-rimmed glasses. ‘Shook them off like flies. I just can’t see the attraction.’
‘I’d hope it’s other than physical,’ said the scary woman.
‘Or intellectual,’ said caterpillar eyes. ‘Ah, there’s Columbine and Pantaloon now.’
They ploughed separate paths across the room, so intent on ignoring each other as to be unignorable. Charles wore a black pullover with oversized turtleneck. Valerie, perhaps believing the event a masquerade, came as a party favour, enshrouded in green ruffles. She’d wrapped a red silk scarf around her neck and carried a tureen of eggnog. ‘Match made in heaven, if you ask me,’ said the scary woman.
With deliberate steps Charles inched into the dining room, schmoozing briefly with those he passed. He reached the breakfast table; commandeering two empty chairs, he sat in one and placed his drink on the other. A sheet draped over the table and the legs of the guests sitting around it was imprinted with the phrase BAH HUMBUG! several thousand times. Valerie materialized so immediately at Charles’s side that she might have been teleported from space. Academics from departments other than theirs hovered buzzard-like around them; his cigarettes smouldered in the ashtray while he declaimed opinions.
Charles and I hadn’t seen each other since our contretemps; we’d spoken, once or twice, but the memory of his assault remained and I wasn’t anxious to talk to him. I squeezed down the hall toward the library, feeling as a clot travelling through a clogged artery. After refreshing my drink I lingered, casting glances in the direction of the momentarily distracting. Lawyers so often approached me that I felt I’d been in an accident. Returning to the dining room, I encountered Elaine. She stood in the doorway, watching her husband and his comely protegé.
‘You’re not leaving yet, are you?’ she asked me.
‘Not for awhile.’ She was smoking; I remembered how much trouble she had quitting while pregnant with Cecily, and I’d not expected her to backslide. Her gown sagged around her waist; I estimated she’d lost twenty pounds, either by accident or design, since August.
‘You’ve said hello to Charles?’
‘Hard to get his eye.’
‘Depends, don’t you think?’ By her intonation I could tell she expected no answer. ‘Go talk to him, why not? I’ll be over shortly.’
Valerie waved briskly as I approached. ‘You’ve got a school tie, too,’ she said, recognizing my cravat, having seen its mate often enough around Charles’s neck.
‘I didn’t know if you were coming or not,’ he said, smiling. ‘You know the chairman of the English department? Doctor Buebenhofer?’ The doctor, bald and dowdy, lounged in a chair across the table; looking up at me from behind the bowl of eggnog he grunted, as if to be polite.
‘Mutual,’ I said.
‘His latest project’s a video for the MLA,’ said Charles.
‘Doctor, let me tell you about something.’ Valerie said. He seemed nominally more interested in her than he had in me. ‘Charles and I are developing a new critical approach.’
‘I’ve heard,’ said the chairman.
‘Like to hear it from people who know what they’re talking about?’
‘No one works at a party,’ Charles said, interrupting. ‘Some other time.’
‘This isn’t work.’
‘Valerie!’ He spoke her name as he would have called Cecily’s. Tapping me on the arm, he gestured that I should lower my head, to hear something he had to say. Valerie scooted her chair forward, and then she reclined; with movements as obvious as they were subtle, she took his left hand in hers and pulled it off the table.
‘Having a good time?’ he asked, his mouth at my ear. ‘You’re not still mad at me, are you?’
‘I don’t understand why you acted as you did.’
‘There’re reasons,’ he said. ‘We should talk. We should.’
‘Well?’
‘Not here. Later.’ His gaze fixed itself upon the ceiling, as if he saw heavenly hosts hung from above. Valerie stared ahead, appearing hypnotized by the candelabra’s electric flames. Bringing up her hands, she fondled her scarf; loosening its knot, she retied it tightly, drawing the silk around her throat. ‘Shame to have trouble over the holidays,’ he muttered. Elaine smiled, sidling up to her husband.
‘Charles,’ she said. ‘I need to ask you something.’
‘Be right with you, dear,’ he said, not moving.
‘It won’t take a minute.’
‘After the party, Elaine.’
Bending down, she seized the tablecloth’s hem in her hands. With effortless motions she whipped it away; glassware and crockery shattered against the floor. Eggnog drenched the doctor’s tweed. Through the glass-topped table all saw Valerie’s panties hanging loosely around one knee, resembling a loosened restraint. Her feet were braced against the table legs as the curtain rose; at the instant of exposure she clamped shut her thighs, entrapping Charles’s hand within her dark curls. He couldn’t immediately free himself; when he did, jerking back his arm, his ring rapped sharply against the glass, concluding the cacophony, calling the company to attention with a resounding chord as if announcing a toast.
‘Are you moving in with her before or after Christmas?’ Elaine asked, her attitude preternaturally calm. She left the room, pushing Cecily back from the door. Her supporters hastened after her. Charles’s associates glanced at one another before filing into the hall, refusing to look behind them. The doctor rushed to the bathroom to see if his suit might be salvaged.
Valerie looked at me as she stood; matching my stare, she lifted her dress and pulled up her underwear with the aplomb of a bather preparing to leave the beach. Charles looked to have had electroshock, if not a lobotomy; he clasped his hands before him as if to say grace.
‘Honey?’ he called out. ‘It’s not what it seems.’
In February I ran into Valerie as she emerged from a drugstore on Columbus. ‘Got a few minutes?’ she asked, entwining her arm with mine. We went to the coffee shop on 86th. Valerie left her muffler on; the fluorescent glare illuminated a dime-sized bruise on her forehead.
‘Charles misses you,’ she said. ‘He’d never say, but I can tell. Half a dozen times I’ve tried getting him to call you, but it’s like talking to the wall.’
‘We argued the last time we got together before the party. Right here, in fact.’
‘I know. He felt bad about it, once I told him he should. Keep in mind he’s been himself more than he’s not been himself, lately.’ She dumped seven packs of sugar into her coffee and stirred it into a whirlpool. ‘You probably just misread each other’s texts, though I wonder for how long.’
‘The longer we were friends, the less I knew him.’
‘The first time I met you I thought you two were lovers once,’ she said, slipping off her shoes, lifting her legs onto the booth’s seat. Contorting herself into a variorum lotus position, tucking her feet beneath her, she began rocking back and forth, as if hearing music. ‘Your body language fooled me. But I can’t figure out why you’ve stayed friends so long. Do you know? Would you say, if you do?’
‘We went to school together.’ I hadn’t better reasons to-offer.
‘Do you like me?’ Valerie asked. ‘I mean, you don’t dislike me, do you?’
‘Why do you ask?’
‘Most of his friends think I’m bad for him. Elaine does, certainly.’
‘You’re surprised?’
‘We’ve had an equal relationship,’ she said. ‘I was sure you liked me. I’m glad you admit it. Men your age usually don’t talk at all. Ones my age never shut up. Are you as close-mouthed about yourself as Charles is?’
‘Different reasons.’
‘He’s better, but it’s still like pulling teeth. Ask me anything and I’ll talk about it, I have neither pride nor shame.’ Valerie patted her muffler while she bobbed in place; sighed, as if relieved it was there. ‘He talks about you.’
‘What’s he say?’
‘You care? You disappointed him. He thought you’d understand.’
‘How could I? Wouldn’t tell me what was going on—’
‘Charles said that’s what you should have understood.’ Valerie swept her hair from her face. ‘He told me he wanted to be closer to you, but you wouldn’t let him. When you think someone’s getting too close, you run. That’s what he said.’
