A Window Across the River (30 page)

The father came out of the room for a moment. He bent down at the water fountain.

Nora went up to him and held out the necklace.

“This is for your little girl,” she said.

He didn’t seem to want to take it. She took another step forward, and he drew back, almost as if he was afraid of her, but she pressed the necklace into his hand, and his grief made him too sluggish to do anything but accept it. She quickly walked back into the waiting room, and he didn’t follow.

She still felt weak, and she sat down on a couch. After a little while a nurse approached her—a hip-looking modern girl, with a very weird haircut and a very sweet face. She looked a little like Isaac’s Renee, but a few years older and a few years calmer.

“I’m not sure we have you listed on our appointment schedule,” she said. She had a singing voice. She looked down at her clipboard. “What’s your child’s name?”

Nora looked at the nurse’s kind face, and felt the force of her youth—she couldn’t have been out of her twenties, and she was radiant with good health—and she thought that she must be a remarkable woman. She spent her days caring for children, many of whom were so young that they didn’t even realize she was trying to care for them, so young that they responded to any attempts to care for them by screaming.

Nora remembered Isaac’s uncle Carl, with his theory that we’re all bound in an eternal circle, animals destroying animals who have destroyed animals. But there are other circles.

She thought of her own desire to stop taking care of anyone, and she saw how hollow it was. It was like a dream of stripping away a part of her own nature.

The nurse glanced up from her clipboard, with a small soft smile that said she wanted to be of help.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “Who’s your child?”

Nora had never had an experience of déjà vu—not until now. She had the sense that she’d encountered this young woman before, a long time ago, although that couldn’t have been true. She had a confused rush of feeling, and before she could assess the words that were coming to her lips—she would have rejected them if she’d had time to think—she answered.

“You are,” she said.

The nurse looked at her with puzzled concern. “Are you all right?” she said.

“I’m sorry,” Nora said. “I kind of wandered in here.”

N
ORA RAN HER HAND ACROSS
the window and wiped away the wet. She wanted to see the lights of the city as her bus crossed the George Washington Bridge. She was on her way to see Isaac.

He didn’t know she was coming. She’d been calling him for over a week without reaching him. She hadn’t left any messages; she wanted to talk to him face to face.

It was early on a Friday night. She didn’t know if he’d be home, but she thought she’d give it a try. She thought she’d try him at his apartment, and, if he wasn’t there, at his darkroom.

She walked from the bus stop. It was raining, but very lightly. She waited until someone was leaving his building and slipped into the lobby before the front door closed. She didn’t want to ask him to buzz her up, because she was afraid that he wouldn’t.

And she didn’t want him to be able to prepare himself. If he wasn’t expecting her, then the look on his face when he saw her would tell her everything she needed to know.

But when Isaac opened the door, Nora didn’t even notice his expression. She was too shocked. His cheek was all mashed and caved in.

“You should see the other guy,” he said.

“You’re not serious. Are you? Were you in a fight?”

He didn’t say anything. She saw that he wasn’t going to tell her.

“Hi,” she said.

He still had his hand on the doorknob.

“Aren’t you going to invite me in?”

“Of course,” he said, and stepped back.

She walked into the living room. As she passed him, she tried to feel the air around his body—not merely to breathe it in, but to sample it in some way that was larger and harder to define. It felt unresponsive, unremarkable, flat. He wasn’t happy to see her. Which shouldn’t have been a surprise.

She felt her courage draining away. The sight of his caved-in cheek had alarmed her. She was reminded of his fragility, and she was afraid that if they did get back together—which was, after all, what she was here for—she would hurt him again.

She considered just making idiotic small talk for a while and then slinking back home. But no. That wasn’t the way.

She took off her jacket and sat on his couch. She’d cheated a little by wearing a dress and putting on a perfume that she knew he liked. She wanted to meet him soul to soul, but it never hurt to wear a dress.

“I’ve been calling you a lot,” she said.

“Really? I haven’t gotten any messages.”

“I haven’t left any.”

She expected him to offer her something to drink; merely out of habit, he’d make an effort to be sociable. He didn’t. He just sat across from her, looking uncomfortable, with his hands on his knees.

“Nora?”

“Yes?”

“Why are you here?”

She thought of making operatic declarations, telling him everything that had gone through her mind over the past two weeks. Telling him about her visit to the pediatric ward, where the cries of the beautiful child whose name she would never know had shown her that freeing herself from the needs of others was a naive ambition, that the feeling of connection was rooted just as deeply within her as the need to create. Telling him that if she couldn’t remain lashed to her desk—if she didn’t want to—then she wanted to be with him. Because it was in his presence that she felt most alive. If her fate was to spend her life struggling, doing battle with some man in the effort to preserve her autonomy, then he was the man she wanted to do battle with.

But she didn’t say any of this. She didn’t want to make a speech.

“I’m here for two reasons. I wanted to remind you that you left that bass in my apartment. If you want it, you should pick it up. Or ask your brother to come get it. I would have brought it with me, but it’s bigger than I am.”

“Thanks for reminding me. I’m sorry it’s taking up space. I have to be in the city tomorrow afternoon. I’ll stop by and get it, if you’re going to be around.”

“Thank you.”

“What’s the other reason?”

“Billie asked me for something before she died, and I need your help with it. She said that for her birthday, she wanted me to go dancing with the person I’m sweet on. And her birthday’s coming up.”

“And I’m the person you’re sweet on?”

She’d expected him to smile, but he wasn’t smiling.

“Yes. You are.”

“Even though I don’t have wildness in me?”

“Isaac. I’ve told you many times what it’s like for me. You always seemed to understand it when I told you what it was like to write about other people. I borrowed from you for the story, but that isn’t you. I borrowed a side of you. I borrowed one of your ribs. But that isn’t you.”

“Did you ever finish it, by the way?”

“Yes. I did.”

“What are you planning to do with it?”

This was a question she’d been hoping he wouldn’t ask. But he’d asked it, and she had to tell him the truth.

“It’s getting published.”

“
Boulevard
?” Three of the five stories she’d published had been published in
Boulevard.

“No. This one’s getting published in the
Atlantic.
” The version of the story that she’d sent them, as ragged as she’d thought it was, had won the contest.

He didn’t say anything. He was trying to take this in. “Congratulations,” he finally said, but he didn’t look happy.

He stood up. “I’m afraid you came at a bad time. I’m meeting some people for dinner, and I was already late when you got here. I’d give you a ride to the bus stop but my car’s in the shop.”

“Still?”

“It’s been in and out for the past month.”

“That’s okay. It’s pretty out here. I like the walk.” She put her jacket back on.

He was already at the door, holding it open, but she didn’t want to go tamely home. “What about the dancing?” she said.

A faint smile—as angry as he obviously still was, he couldn’t help but smile at her persistence.

“I don’t know. I really don’t know. When’s her birthday?”

“Next Saturday.”

“Well, like I say, I’m going to be in the city tomorrow, and I’ll come by and pick up the bass. I guess I’ll let you know.”

Nora walked to the bus stop in the light faint rain, wondering what he’d decide. She couldn’t guess. She didn’t know if
she
would want to get back with herself if she were him.

But she hoped he would. He’d once told her that she had to respect her demon. She hoped he’d remember this, even now that the demon, the goblin, her unforgiving inner eye, had turned its gaze on him.

Love me, love my goblin, she thought. But she didn’t know if it was possible.

She got on the bus, wondering if this was the last time she would ever make this trip. She was looking forward to the rest of the night with a mixture of pleasure and sorrow. Pleasure, because she’d be spending the night writing; sorrow, because she’d be continuing to expose Billie to the coldness of her imagination.

She wished she could tell Isaac that she was going to change for him, but she couldn’t.

A
FTER
N
ORA LEFT,
I
SAAC GAVE
himself an insulin shot, and then went out to join a few friends for dinner. The restaurant was within walking distance; the rain was so light he didn’t bother to open his umbrella. During the meal he didn’t think about Nora. He thought about her as he walked home.

It was a no-brainer. He wasn’t even going to be around next weekend. He’d be in Washington, moderating the panel discussion at the Folger Library. He’d decided to accept the sop Nadine Lyle had thrown him—the place at the kiddie table. Even though he wouldn’t be on the panel with Avedon and Mann and the other hotshots, the conference was an opportunity he didn’t want to miss. He’d be meeting a lot of influential people: photographers, editors, agents. If he ever wanted to get back into the picture-taking life, he’d be a fool to pass it by.

He walked slowly through the calm streets. He was glad he’d moved out here. It was a blessed retreat from the city. He knew he could never go back.

He was trying to understand Nora. How she could write what she wrote about him and still say that she was—what did she say? Sweet on him.

He supposed he could half understand it. In the weeks since he’d read her story, he’d thought about it a lot, and he’d
come to a conclusion that surprised him. Nora was wrong about her writing. She’d always said that her stories had no compassion, but that wasn’t quite accurate. Her portrait of him was a perfect rendering of the person he was afraid he might be. She’d intuited some of his worst fears about himself and written a story based on the premise that they were true. To write about him with such damning finality, as if he would never rise above his limitations—that, it was true, could be called cruel. But to go so deeply into his inner life that she could unearth his most intimate fears about himself—that was a large act of sympathetic imagination. She wasn’t like a Diane Arbus, whose camera turned her subjects into freaks, but like a Bill Brandt, who plunged his subjects into harsh shadow and harsh light, and revealed them as no one had revealed them before.

What the hell am I defending her for?

When he got back home, it was only ten o’clock. He turned on the ball game, and then he turned it off. He went to the window and looked out at the city. There was a huge body of fog coming in from the north, making its stately way down the river. The city kept fading out and reappearing.

The photographs from his show, although it had ended weeks earlier, were still in their frames, stacked against the wall.

Maybe he had no right to be disappointed that his show had come to nothing. If your devotion to something can be measured by how much you’re willing to give up for it, he wasn’t sure how devoted he was. He used to be devoted, but he hadn’t been in a long time. So what did he expect? It was as if he wanted the rewards without having made the sacrifices.

He wasn’t even sure
why
he wanted to go to Washington—
why
he was still dreaming of reviving his career.

Sometimes he thought it was because he missed taking pictures, but that couldn’t be it. If he missed taking pictures that much, he’d just start taking them again.

Sometimes he thought that what he really missed was the belief that there was an overarching meaning in his life. This was something he’d had since he was a boy, first because he was dedicating himself to God, then because he was dedicating himself to taking pictures: a thread that tied one day to the next, a bright thread of meaning that took the loose purposelessness of everyday life and gave it form and value and direction. He didn’t have that anymore.

But maybe photography could no longer provide that. Maybe it was time to admit that he was happier doing what he did now—going to work and doing a job and coming home—than he’d been when he was taking pictures, and that the thing that was missing from his life now, the bright thread of meaning, wasn’t art, it was love, love and family. Maybe the trip to Washington would be a trip in the wrong direction.

For years he’d been in the habit of thinking that because he wasn’t taking photographs single-mindedly anymore, he’d let himself down. But maybe he’d been wrong. Maybe the ability to change course—to admit to himself that his old vocation didn’t nourish him enough anymore—was a sign of sanity and strength.

But even if all that was true, it didn’t mean he should let Nora back into his life. He now had firsthand knowledge of what it was like to get the Nora treatment, what it was like to be the subject—the target, really—of one of her stories. It was painful to know that her story would soon be running in the
Atlantic,
that thousands of readers would soon have the opportunity to read about his flaws.

Now that she’d broken through, now that she’d learned to
write as freely as she needed to, even at the expense of someone she loved, what he’d have to look forward to, if they made a life together, was a succession of decades in which everything he did would be documented with a merciless eye. Was he up for that? Forty years, perhaps, of being loved in daily life and lacerated in her stories?