Disturbances in the Field (46 page)

“Weather?” said Don. “But look out the window. Today is a gorgeous spring day.”

It was indeed. With no effort, though, I could see the snow. Two young policemen had come to the door that early evening, one black and one white, one tall and one short, their dark slickers dripping onto my doormat. They had their hats in their hands, and snowflakes glistened and melted in the black cop’s thick Afro. They were solemn and nervous—I should have sensed it. But I was curt. I had been in the middle of a Bach toccata, and was sure they had come about the latest burglary, our building’s third in two months. Hadn’t I told the fellow who interrupted two days ago? I never heard anything—there was always music going. The white one said they’d come in regard to my children. Still curt, several beats behind, my ear lodged in a run of the toccata:
My
children? Some mistake. Big ones right here, little ones safely out of the city for the day. When the black cop leaned forward to say, “Please, ma’am, listen a moment,” I drew back. At his next words, that word “bus,” I crumpled like someone whose bones have suddenly disintegrated. Alan’s yellow skateboard skidded down the hall to escape the news, and I with it.

It hurt but I hardly noticed. It didn’t swell up till days later. Leaving the cemetery, Althea wanted to know why I was limping. No one else remarked. I was leaning on Victor’s arm and listing like the
Titanic
in the film; to be expected. Only Althea knew sorrow would not make me list, but stand straighter. She stood very straight herself, like a child being measured. Thales could have calculated the height of the pyramid by the accuracy of her shadow.

Mornings I would wake at four or five, having slept briefly after our late-night talks and silences; for a moment I would know only the dark and the configuration of bodies and blankets. Then, oh yes. That pit. That ravine they fell in, now in me, snow-covered. And the ankle would hurt, a dull local throb, like a buzz, an insistent fly that you’ve given up shooing, that you tolerate. It was a minor sprain which should have disappeared quickly, but I kept on limping, reluctant to allow it full weight, and when it rains—for it no longer snows, the snowy season is past, the globe tilts farther every day from the time when they lived, carrying me farther from them every day, if only I could stop its revolving—when it rains, I get a twinge like a siren circling the ankle. It’s not a bad pain; it soon settles into the dull throb, and with it I remember the slickers dripping onto the doormat, the melting flakes in the cop’s Afro, the feel of bone collapsing in the damp air. I remember rainy nights in the dormitory when the four of us sat around eating cookies and smoking horrid sample cigarettes, backward girls, not yet dreaming of love, far less of loving children and losing them, but giggling over novels in which weather too blatantly expresses the emotional states of the characters; a pathetic fallacy.

“You have it backwards,” Gabrielle said. “The term pathetic fallacy refers to the outside manifestation, to the weather and not to the person. Strictly speaking, your ankle is an objective correlative.”

“Thank you.”

“Once an English major,” said Don, “always ...Well, Lyd, hopefully it will clear up. If not I’ll have to X-ray you again.”

“Hopefully.” Gaby spoke with distaste, and the finest trace of an accent. “‘Hopefully’ is an adverb describing the way an action is carried out. The gladiators entered the arena hopefully. It is not a general term to convey the feelings of the speaker.”

“I know that,” Don said. “But it’s passed into the language by now. It must fill some need. Don’t you think you’re waging a losing battle, love?” There was such a silken ease to him. Maybe she had foreseen it long ago—she did have an instinct for discerning potential. She told me once that she was trying patiently to draw the male supremacist teachings of the culture out of him, like sucking poison from a comrade’s snakebite. It was unlikely that she would ever succeed completely, and I was glad: he might lose just that wry chivalry which made him charming instead of dull. Treacherous though it was, I wanted a drop of the poison to remain.

“We should still fight hopefully,” she said. “It’s wrong.”

Don sighed with good cheer. “Try not to walk on it more than necessary, Lydia, and soak it in cold water. Don’t neglect yourself, healthwise, that is.”

Gaby’s eyes flashed their two colors; her smile was immediate but grudging. “You use those words on purpose to irritate me.”

“To aggravate you, do you mean?”

“You two could work up a terrific floor show. I’ve never heard you like this before. What’s happened?”

“We have mellowed with age.” Don reached over and took her hand. “Haven’t we? We have forgiven and forgotten everything, so it’s as if we just fell in love.”

“Hopefully,” said Gabrielle.

Forgiven and forgotten what, I was starting to ask, but the doorbell rang. George’s warmth pervaded and changed the air. “It’s wonderful to see you,” I said, and I meant it. His shirt was half-open; a gold chain nestled in the hair on his chest. Still a dandy, and men’s affectations, alas, appear sillier than women’s. There clung to George the convivial, wistful aura of an organ grinder. He refused a martini—had to keep sober for his date tonight—but accepted a glass of wine with seltzer and a handful of cherries.

“You just missed Nina,” Gaby told him.

“No, I met her outside. Her car was parked right down the street. We talked for a few minutes.”

“All this coming and going,” I said glumly. “It’s like one of those French plays, a new scene every time someone walks in or out.”

“I had the strangest walk over here,” George said. “Twelve blocks crowded with incident. First, right on my corner I saw two little boys, around nine or ten, steal four apples from the fruit stand and run off. No one seemed to notice. Then a few blocks up Broadway I saw two teen-aged girls steal some paperbacks from an outside rack. They tucked them under their sweatshirts. They didn’t even run. I was beginning to wonder if something was wrong with me—I didn’t have any urge to stop them or say anything. It wasn’t that I identified with the kids particularly. I just observed. I remembered you once said I had no character, Lydia, and maybe you were right. Well, anyhow, crossing Eighty-eighth Street I happened to glance west, and down the block was a guy reaching into a woman’s stroller. He pulled out her purse and ran. She yelled, the baby yelled. I started to run after him. It was automatic. I mean, I didn’t feel the character stir within me or anything of the sort. I chased him across West End Avenue and all the way over to the Drive, and then he dashed down a flight of steps into the park. When I got down there he had vanished. I was really disappointed—I wanted to catch him. I didn’t even go back to tell the woman. I just went on up the Drive. Maybe she thought I was in cahoots.”

“I never meant you had no character in that sense.”

“I know. I was only kidding. But how do you explain so many in one day?”

“It’s probably always happening,” Gaby said. “But the chances of seeing three—Nina would have to figure that out.”

Don tapped ashes from his pipe. “Unless today is some secret thieves’ holiday. A counterpart of Labor Day or May Day.” He swallowed the last of his martini and stood up. “We’d better go.”

“I hate to leave, Lydia, but ...”

“If we don’t show, Webster will have my head, sweetheart, not to mention my grant money. Think of all those hobbling children—”

“Okay, okay, stop apologizing. Oh, your groceries, Gaby—in the refrigerator. Hold it, I’ll get them.” But when I got into the kitchen something happened. I hadn’t the will to move any more. I sat down and lowered my head to the table. Gaby came looking for me.

“Lydia? Oh God. What is it?” She bent and put her arm around me.

“It’s nothing. Only everyone’s going. This is the first night with no one ...”

“Where are the kids?”

“Althea’s sleeping at a friend’s. That was her on the phone before. Phil’s in Boston at a rock concert. I won’t get through the night alone, I know it. As it is, it’s endless.”

“You’ll get through. Look, I must go—he needs me there. But I’ll come back when it’s over. It won’t be that late—eleven.”

“No!” I hadn’t meant to shout it. “It’s now! Everyone walking out the door!”

“Call Victor. What do a couple of insane weeks matter? He’d be here in a minute, you know that. You do know where he is, don’t you?”

“Sure I know where he is. He’s over in the East Sixties with some flabby old cunt.”

“Lydia!”

“Oh, pardon my language. I forgot you’re a purist.”

“It’s not that. You told me once how you hated that word. You said you could never use it for anyone.”

“I was mistaken. I see now it has its uses.”

“Well, call him anyway.”

“No.”

“Give me the number, then. I’ll call.”

“No.”

George came in. “What’s the matter?”

I was an idiot making this scene. I was certainly not imitating the better type of person. The better type of person would not cry uncontrollably in public over spending the night in an empty house. Gabrielle murmured to George and he groaned, a weary, drawn-out sound. “Go on. I’ll stay.”

I stopped as abruptly as an infant lifted up out of its crib, and went to wash my face. At the door as they left, George kept his arm around my waist, holding me up. “You’ll be okay,” he whispered. “Take it easy.” Victor and I used to stand that way when guests left. “‘Bye. See you soon.” Definitely no Job’s comforters, those three pals. Job’s comforters hounded him, wouldn’t leave him alone, sat by his side day and night shredding logic. George’s hand slid down my hip. Make it an accident, I prayed as I closed the door and moved off.

“So, what did you have in mind to do this evening?” he asked.

“What I planned to do was listen to Esther. She’s as good as
Saturday Night Live.
I suppose I could work on the ‘Trout.’”

“The least you can do is keep me company, kiddo. I’m here as your guest, not your babysitter.” He was grinning but I could tell he was irked. “I’ll play Monopoly if that’s all you’re up to. But first there are a few, uh, needs I have. I’ve got to make a phone call, for one thing.”

“Oh God! The yoga teacher. I forgot all about her. I’m sorry. Honestly.” Go, I should have said right then. Go in peace. But I didn’t.

“Also I could use a pizza. A Sunday
Times.
A nice place to sleep—later, that is.”

I straightened up. “Very well. We can call for a pizza at once. Immediate gratification. The
Timeses
aren’t ready yet but at around ten we can go out to the corner and get one. So the gratification of that need will only be deferred a short while. It won’t fester unfulfilled, in the field. As far as sleep, you can have your pick. My bed alone could sleep an army. What do you like on your pizza?”

“Not anchovies.”

I ordered a pizza with green peppers and sausages, and then George called the yoga teacher and made his apologies. A sick friend. She must have offered to join him in his vigil. “Thanks, that’s sweet of you, but it wouldn’t work out. ... Yes,” he said, “she is, but it’s not at all the way you think.” True, but how is it then, I wondered. How? They didn’t talk for very long.

“I am sorry, George.”

“It’s okay. You’re a much older friend. I’ve only seen her a couple of times.”

“Still, she offers you something. I’m not offering much.”

“No,” he agreed.

The pizza arrived, and I locked the door after the delivery boy, feeling like a jailer. “Come in here. I’ve gotten to like eating in the bedroom. I’ll get us some wine.” We sat opposite each other on the huge bed, the box between us.

“Do you hear from Victor?” he asked.

“He called yesterday. He calls constantly. It’s like his voice is here. The Shadow.”

“He called me too, the other day. He didn’t sound very good. He said—”

“Please don’t tell me what he said, all right? I don’t want to know.”

He carefully extricated a slice of pizza from the pie. “I’ve been meaning to mention, I heard you last week at that Baroque Marathon thing. I happened to pass by at the right moment. I didn’t know you played the harpsichord.”

“You were there? I didn’t even see you. That’s nice. So what did you think?”

“Sounded fine to me. I’m no judge.”

I smiled. “You’re discreet. Competent but hardly inspired, is the best I’d say. The harpsichord is peculiar—the action feels totally different. Still, it was all right. Rosalie’s trying to keep me busy. She and Carla were terrific, I thought. Weren’t they?”

“Yes. Rosalie is always amazing. Why isn’t she more famous?”

“She had a late start. She’s not ambitious enough, either, in a commercial way, I mean. Listen, George. You want to be entertained? I can tell you a dream. I have the oddest dreams, since he left.”

He tossed aside the crust. “That is what is called a busman’s holiday.”

“You don’t have to analyze it. Just listen. I’d like to hear what it sounds like.”

“Sweetheart, I’m a captive audience.”

“Yes, you are, I guess. Well, I’m on this deserted subway platform at three in the morning, carrying a huge slab of raw meat in my arms. A whole side of beef.”

George’s mouth, surrounded by pizza, beard, and mustache, crinkled into a broad smile.

“If you’re going to laugh at me—”

“Tough shit. You said not to analyze. You didn’t say not to laugh.”

“All right. I keep peering down the track for these two headlights that look like big eyes coming at you in the dark, but for a long time nothing comes. Finally one does, and another and another, but none of them are my train. I’m getting very anxious. The only other people waiting are a few heavy men in work clothes, back from working the night shift somewhere. They see me standing there clutching my side of beef, and not one of them bats an eye. Like this is quite an ordinary sight. Finally the right train comes and I get on, dragging my meat along with me. It’s one of those old BMT cars. Remember, the kind with the pairs of straw seats all facing in different directions?”

“Mm-hm.” He nodded.

“When I first came to New York there were still a few of those left. So I sit down on a straw seat. The car is pretty empty—the workmen, a couple of elderly ladies, the ones who clean office buildings at night, in flowered dresses and oxford shoes and funny pillbox hats, and a pair of teen-agers with that dazed sweaty look you get from necking too long at the movies. Nobody seems to notice me or my meat. But I notice something. The meat is smaller. It’s about three-quarters of what it was on the platform. And—this is very weird—after each stop it shrinks a little more, till it’s the size of, oh, maybe a ten- or twelve-pound rib roast.”