Misinterpretation, page 11
“Let me go, Alfred!” she screamed. “Let me go!”
I took a few steps away.
“You’re afraid, huh?” she shouted at me. “You have an affair with my husband, and now you’re afraid. Come here, you cowardly slut.”
Random sentences came to mind, all of them absurd. It was better to say nothing. Vilma was looking at us, awaiting a response.
“It’s not like that,” Alfred said. “I’m not cheating on you.”
“He’s not cheating on you,” I repeated.
We sounded ridiculous.
“You two think I am stupid. Lying to me about going to some job interview, wearing your best suit, and yet here you are, meeting her in the park, holding hands and kissing. You didn’t think I’d find out, did you? I can read you like an open book, Alfred. A book with pictures, if you must know. The words are no use to me when it comes to you.”
She paused for a few seconds, breathing heavily, then turned to me.
“Come here. Come here, I said.”
I didn’t move. She came at me again, one hand under her baby bump, the other clasping the red purse. Alfred rushed behind and restrained her by enfolding her in his arms. The chess players, their attention arrested by the game, didn’t look up. The spectators around them, however, all turned eagerly in our direction.
“You’re not a translator.”
“Hush, Vilma,” Alfred said, watching her sternly. “We’re not having an affair. We’re friends.”
“I will divorce you,” she shouted back. “You know I will.”
“I am going to a job interview,” Alfred said, bringing the phone close to her nose. “Look at my phone. Here is my appointment. Read it.”
Vilma grabbed his phone from his hand and tossed it inside her red purse.
“What? Give me back my phone, Vilma.”
“You did lie to me, Alfred,” she said, pointing at him. “You know you did.”
She turned to me again.
“Are you happy? While I’m like this?” she said, pointing to her belly. “I will contact the organization. I’ll tell them everything about you. What kind of translator, are you anyway?”
“Not a good one,” I said quickly.
“That’s right,” she said. “You should be fired.”
“I already am,” I said, trying to placate her.
My words enraged her even more. Maybe she thought I was making fun of her. She lunged at me again. Had Alfred not come between us, she would have scratched my face with her acrylic nails.
He put his arm around her, pressing his orange folder against her chest, as he veered her toward the street. She shook off Alfred’s arms. But she stopped struggling and relaxed. When I looked back at them, he was placing his hand on her bosom and feeling her heart. What did Vilma’s heart look like? All I could think about were those slabs of meat hanging at the butcher’s. But after he did that, her brave front faded. The anger in her eyes vanished, replaced by a hurt and pleading expression. Her lips trembled as she looked up at his face. “Ashtu?” she was saying. Is that so? Her body, no longer stiff, leaned on Alfred’s. As they held each other close, her suffering, no longer her weapon, poured out of her. Her silent tears struck a chord within me. I had to look elsewhere.
They walked out of the park, their steps synchronized. I pictured the green hybrid animal stretching her legs toward the ground and smoothing down her skirt, before hobbling after them. The chess enthusiasts had forgotten the game and were staring at me, curious as to what I might do next. It was a three-person show, but the remaining actor was still on the scene. Did they expect me to burst into a song or dance? When I glared back, they turned around at once.
A WAVE OF EXHAUSTION overcame me. I lay down on the bench, the cracked planks scraping against my palms. The myriad sounds of the night echoed inside my mind. I kept my eyes closed. Everything felt weightless: Vilma’s jealousy, Alfred’s issues, even my arms and legs. I was sure I was floating in the air, just above the bench, my hair blowing in the breeze like in those stage tricks at the circus. Upon opening my eyes, I realized I hadn’t moved. But I still felt adrift. It was then that the vintage woman caught my eye. She was a few steps away from me, sitting on another bench. I recognized her at once. She was wearing a magenta velvet jacket that matched her lipstick, a long black skirt, and Mary Jane shoes. Just like at the dentist’s office, she reminded me of an old-school movie star suddenly come to life. I sat up. The dentist’s office, where Alfred had his root canal, wasn’t that far from here. Maybe she lived or worked nearby. She was on the phone. Her right hand moved upward and then down, as if she were holding a baton. What was she talking about? She rose to go and joined a group of people to the right of the Garibaldi statute, where the music was coming from.
I walked over to them, and to my amazement, some of the faces looked familiar. Years ago, my French roommate, the one who had wanted to become an actor, had invited me to some random party held at a woman’s loft in Bushwick. It was this same woman that the vintage girl had just hugged before moving on to other friends. The woman’s name didn’t come to me, but the party had been fantastic, full of quirky people who adored dressing up and dancing. It was that same crowd now, in front of me, swaying and leaping like no one was watching. Their glow-in-the-dark glasses, bunny ears, and mustaches pivoted and twirled to the music. Someone was playing the piano. Where was it coming from? To the left of the fountain, I noticed a grand piano on wheels. I drew closer. The man playing the piano was possibly in his nineties, wearing a white jacket with a red rose in his lapel. He had long white hair reaching his shoulders and played with his eyes closed. How had he brought the piano into the park? Had he pushed it there on his own? Another odd thing was that while it looked like his piano was the only instrument, the music sounded complex, a collage of synthetic sounds.
The woman was smiling at me. “Don’t just stand there. Dance. I’m Donna, by the way.”
It was the same woman. Of course, she didn’t remember me after so many years.
How long had it been since I had danced like that? My body felt light, like in those fun dreams when it’s possible to walk on air if you run fast enough. Gleaming, flickering straight lines. Zigzags. Meandering snakes. Everyone moved erratically, as if the adhesive that held their arms and legs together had come loose.
“You know what?” Donna said to someone. “These new shoes are killing my feet. I knew I shouldn’t have worn them today.”
“I’m getting tired, too,” was the response. “A cocktail would be nice.”
“I’m seriously thirsty for a real drink,” said a man in a top hat who had earlier introduced himself as a nineteenth-century gentleman asking for twenty-first-century reform. “Didn’t someone mention a party in the West Village?”
“That would be perfect. Right around here!”
“I know where the party is,” someone said. “Who wants to go?”
“Give us the address,” Donna said.
In fifteen minutes, we were inside the lobby of an apartment building.
“The party is on the fifth floor,” said the doorman.
We all moved toward the elevator. I felt like the heroine of my childhood, the spontaneous Alice who followed the white rabbit down the hole into a subterranean fantasy. Like Alice, I wanted to leave the current world behind, if only for a few hours.
The elevator doors opened into a spacious loft. The first person that caught my eye was a woman who reminded me of Helen. She was dressed in a white nylon dress. Her glamourous hat was embellished with tiny LED lights. She opened her arms in an embrace toward the man in the top hat to whom I had been talking earlier. Every aspect of the party was astonishing—it was like entering a museum of curiosities. A topless woman with a glittering eye mask cackled with laughter, her tremendous teeth hovering dangerously close to someone’s ear. Another woman (a duchess?) sat in a corner, wearing a floor-length burgundy gown. She carried a sign saying, I can read palms.
I offered her my hand.
“There is nothing you can see that is not a flower,” she said. “There is nothing you can think that is not the moon.”
“It’s so beautiful,” I said. “But what does it mean?”
She didn’t even consider an answer. She waved me away. Someone else wanted their fortune read after me. Lingering was discouraged.
I made my way through jugglers, people dancing on stilts, a fire eater, hybrid animals, dead celebrities’ impersonators. Donna introduced me to one of her friends, an Italian woman with a blue cage that fit on top of her head like a hat. A plastic cardinal was peeking through the unlocked door of the cage, but when she saw me eyeing the bird, she shut the door at once.
“Would you two like a Corpse Reviver?” she asked.
“Absinthe cocktails are our favorites,” Donna said.
I wondered why Donna said our, considering she barely knew me, but when the birdcage woman handed me a buff-colored cocktail, it didn’t matter. The drink was delicious, a bit tart, but effervescent, with a hint of licorice at the end.
“Take it easy,” said Donna, when I reached for a second one.
The first drink felt like nothing, except that the conversation around me was sounding familiar. Why was everyone suddenly talking about things I knew?
“It was certainly unusual for a Hollywood film of the fifties,” the birdcage woman was saying, “that the director was credited in the film’s title. The title card reads ‘Leo McCarey’s An Affair to Remember.’”
“Enough with the movie talk,” the duchess called out from the corner while reading someone’s palm. “Talk about something real.”
“Reality is subject to interpretation. What if the people in the movie are watching us?”
Then someone brought over an enormous chocolate chip cookie. A few people had to hold it up as they munched on it. I helped to carry it also, while trying a bite.
“It’s actually a mushroom cookie,” Donna was saying. “But it might have walnuts, too. Nut allergies anyone?”
“I’m not allergic to anything,” I said.
The cookie didn’t taste that great, but I couldn’t stop eating it. Reality and fantasy became even more mixed up as the night went along.
“Come to this room,” someone said. “Ready for some dirty dancing?”
Donna opened the door to a new room. A dense fog hung above the floor, coming all the way to our waists. The plain walls became luminescent, then images appeared. On the walls facing me and behind, they were showing the American Dirty Dancing, while on the walls to my sides, the Bollywood Dirty Dancing, a flawless frame-by-frame Indian imitation of the American version, was playing. The American and Indian films were the same, scene for scene. Patrick Swayze caressed Jennifer Grey’s arm, and the Indian actor did the same to the Indian actress. Jennifer Grey’s father accused Patrick Swayze of impregnating his dance partner, and so did his Indian counterpart. But the dancing was different. The steamy body contact and pelvic thrusts in the American movie were replaced by the gentle movements of the Indian dancers.
“The American Dirty Dancing is way sexier,” I told Donna.
But she was no longer around. The woman in an LED hat, the one who looked like Helen, was there.
“You look like my neighbor Helen,” I said. “Have you heard that before?”
“I know Helen,” she said. “She got evicted.”
“Does she have any friends and family? I’ve been worried about her.”
“I don’t know,” she said. “But she’s at another party right now. Across town.”
“Another party?”
“Yes. There’s always another party.”
“Exactly like this?”
“But of course.”
“That’s amazing.”
She turned on all her lights. It occurred to me I was conversing with a chandelier.
“You’re distracting me from watching the movie,” I told her. “Do you think you could turn off your lights? Or go to another room?”
And where was Billy? I wanted to watch the Dirty Dancing films with him. I should have stayed home. He was always uncertain about what to pack. He often relied on my help. I should have been there. Happiness looks small in your hands until you let it go and then you learn … Where had I read that phrase?
Billy appeared. He was trying on a jacket.
“Look, it’s wonderful,” I told him. “Two love stories at once.”
He took off his jacket. “Maybe it’s the sweater that’s not working. All along I thought it was the jacket.”
“Listen, I thought we’d watch these movies together.”
He turned to one of the walls.
“A love story? I don’t know about that. It’s contrived.”
“Lina says you always look me in the eye,” I told him. “Is ours a love story?”
Lina then came around, doing a jump-rope workout.
“Is it a love story?” I asked her. “He won’t tell me.”
“I’ve always felt,” she was saying, while skipping around me, “that other people don’t matter. I’m nicer to other people when I’m happy myself.”
“Everyone is,” Billy said, shrugging. “That’s how it works. But which of those sweaters should I pick?”
“Why should I decide everything?” I said. “Why don’t you ask someone else? Your mother. Or maybe Anna; that’s right, ask Anna.”
Billy evaporated into a mist. I found myself in the middle of a summer field. Cumulus clouds, gray, plump, soft, were hanging over my head. Near me, an Indian couple were holding hands.
WAKING UP IN A NEW and unfamiliar location frightened me at first. The first thing I noticed was that the walls weren’t a pale gray like in my bedroom at home, but a dirty yellow. I sat up immediately, only to sink much deeper into an air mattress, my legs almost touching the tiled floor. The mattress had deflated overnight, offering a worm’s eye view of a sparsely furnished living room immersed in the morning light. To my left, there was a messy kitchen with purple walls and appliances that had been painted in other vivid colors. There was a unicycle hanging from a metal rack, its lemon-colored wheel hovering above my head. The last thing I remembered was that party in Manhattan, somewhere in the West Village, drinking odd-looking cocktails and eating walnut cookies. But the limestone and vinyl-sided townhouses peeping just outside the window frames told me we were in Brooklyn or Queens. The more I looked around, the more familiar the place seemed. Yes, we’d come here the night before from the other party. In a cab or someone’s car? Who else was in the car? What had we talked about? Everything seemed vague.
It came to me that this was Donna’s place. On the wall behind my head, there was a mural, a New York City map showing attractions of various neighborhoods. The wall to my left was covered entirely by moss, branches, and rocks. The other walls were busy, too, with countless inscriptions, love quotes, and crude drawings—a pierced heart, a mermaid holding a rifle, a skull in headphones. Coincidentally, essential objects, like a sofa, were missing. She didn’t even own a dining table and chairs. She sat on tatami mats when she ate, she had told me, like in Japan.
I got up from the bed. Had Billy left already? Had he reached Europe? What time was it? My phone was dead. I didn’t see a charger, or a clock. I was still in my clothes from the night before. I heard footsteps. Donna entered the living room, wearing a blue kimono with one huge peacock on each side of her chest, their beaks open upward, as if wanting to bite off her chin. She had short, pasty legs that looked grayish from the knee down; she didn’t shave. Party images from the night before flashed in cinematic segments.
“How are you feeling?” she asked.
“Much better. You know, I came to your place before, years ago.”
“I know,” she said. “We talked about it. With Colette. The French girl.”
“We talked about it? We did not.”
“You ate a lot of that cookie last night. No wonder you don’t remember.”
“Did I? Thank you for letting me crash here.”
“No problem. Coffee?”
As she prepared the coffees, some of our conversations from the night before came to me. Donna was born and raised in Nashville and had moved to Brooklyn when she was nineteen. She’d been a runaway teen. By the age of forty, she had tried out forty-five professions—she’d been a dog walker, a flight attendant, an interior designer, a pole dancer, a bartender, a house painter, and the list went on.
“You can stay as long as you want,” she said. “Until your husband leaves.”
Her comment caught me by surprise.
“You talked about him a lot,” she said.
“I did? What time is it? Do you have a charger?”
“Would you like to get brunch?” she said. “A new Mediterranean restaurant opened up around the corner.”
Perhaps Donna and I would become friends, go to parties, meet new people, have charming, memorable adventures. The prospect was enticing. What was the point of seeing Billy that morning?
“Not today,” I said, with a lump in my throat. “Another day.”
“Sure. Text me.”
She gave me a charger and handed me a coffee.
“It’s 10:00 AM.”
“I have to go home soon,” I said. “I want to say goodbye to Billy. He’s leaving town for a few months.”
Donna seemed taken aback.
“Excuse me for saying this, but he is a jerk,” she said. “The way he behaved with the Kurdish women is unforgivable. He wasn’t even supposed to be home that weekend—why couldn’t you have friends over? And not only did he cheat, but now he’s leaving you to go and photograph a bridge?”
“He didn’t cheat,” I said. “What are you talking about?”
