Heft (5 page)

So I felt very upset.

“Show me the kitchen,” Yolanda said suddenly.

I pointed the way & I made sure she went first so I could walk behind her and not be seen.

This was a bad moment. I watched the tiny back of her and looked down & realized exactly how I must look, always, to anyone who sees me.

The kitchen was worse. She went through it opening cabinets and drawers—within each of them was a nest of crockery and pots and dishrags and cutlery and bowls—and, though I had done the dishes in preparation for her visit, they were all sitting where I left them to dry by the sink.

“No dishwasher,” said Yolanda.

I shook my head.

At that moment a mouse leapt out of one of the cabinets that Yolanda had left open and ran frantically in circles before darting out of the room. The girl shrieked & launched herself out of its path and then, once it was safely out of sight, clutched her heart and doubled over.

“Whoopsy!” I said, or something bright like that. “Well, there you go!”

“Mr Opp,” said Yolanda, “do you have a mouse problem?”

“No, no, no, no, no,” I said. “I haven’t seen one in years, actually.” (It was a lie.)

“I can’t work with mice,” said the girl.

I felt deeply embarrassed. “I assure you you won’t have to,” I said. This was with more coldness than I had intended, so I added: “Sorry.”

I told her about the rest of the house.

“The top two floors are bedrooms,” I said. (I pictured them. I can always picture them. It has been years since I have seen them. Third floor, two blue bedrooms with chintz curtains. All of them matching. My mother loved the curtains. Second floor, my childhood bedroom, a wooden train set still assembled. Second floor, the good bedroom for guests who never came. O the dust that must be burying them. O the disuse.) “Downstairs we have an office and a library.”

“A library in your house?” asked Yolanda.

“Well—no,” I said. “I just mean that there’s a desk down there, and that’s where we keep all the books.”

“Are you married?” she asked.

I realized then that I had said
we
: a habit I have never lost.

“No,” I told her, “I’m not married.”

An awkward pause ensued.

“You want me to start now?” she said.

“No,” I said. “I just thought you could have a look around.”

This was when my panic started: a pounding in my head & heart, a chill down my spine.
Out of my house
, I wanted to say.
Out, out, out.
Instead I sat down abruptly on my couch. The girl blinked.

“Can you come back another time?” I asked.

“You still have to pay for today,” said the girl. “That’s part of the deal.”

“I paid Home-Maid over the phone already,” I said. “It’s all taken care of.”

I wondered suddenly if I should tip her.

She shrugged and hoisted her purse up higher on her slight shoulder. “You’ll call?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said, but I intended to call Home-Maid before then and tell them not to send her anymore. Her or anybody.

When she was gone my house felt very empty as if it had noticed for the first time its own neglect.

I needed consolation so I made a feast for myself. Cookies made from coconut and macadamias and white chocolate. A bowl of peanut M&M’s. A few bagels, coated obscenely with seeds and grains and tasty little granules of salt. Bagels, laden with heavy coats of butter
and
cream cheese, and topped with a lonesome tomato slice, red & bleeding with juice. A pitcher of whole milk with a tall glass next to it. An Oreo-crusted chocolate cake. Three hamburgers and potato salad and creamed spinach that I had delivered from the diner on Seventh Avenue. I warmed the spinach on my stove. I put a dollop of cream cheese in the center of it. White in a sea of pearly green.

I gave myself permission to eat all of this & felt the thrilling release that such permission delivers. A soft little munching sound escaped me and immediately I tensed; I hate hearing myself. I do not talk to myself. I do not have conversations with myself in my home, the way I imagine some people do. It’s silly. My own voice repulses me.

Suddenly I remembered why I love very much to be alone, why I love to be utterly alone in my own quiet house, & love not to be looked at.

I had a very entertaining book to read. I turned on the radio & just by good luck it was Michelangeli’s version of a prelude by Debussy called “La fille aux cheveux de lin” which always calls to mind a specific memory of summertime.

In this moment I was happy.

•

When, later, the phone rang, I leapt for it as best I could.

“Arthur Opp,” I said, but no one was there.

“Hello? Hello?” I said. All I heard was breathing. Beyond that, the low hum of something like a refrigerator. Hearing it opened some old familiar chasm of need in me & allowed an unbearable loneliness to penetrate me just for a moment, just for the time it took me to appreciate the invisibility of the caller, the fact that it could have been anyone, anyone on the other end, but then the line went dead.

• • •

F
or several days I have been waiting for Charlene to reply
to my confessional letter. To pass the time I have been watching television, reading, pacing, cooking, eating, writing, & examining the picture that Charlene sent me of her son.

Charlene herself I remember as shy, quiet, blithe, small, curious, & observant. Therefore these were the qualities I automatically attributed to her boy as well until I looked closely at his picture, which made me reconsider my first impression. He is a different sort of boy altogether.

It is very strange to look at him. He is a portrait of potential energy. He is holding a bat. He is a big fair boy very determined to succeed. His batting helmet is casting a shadow over his left eye. His torso is a loaded spring, his forearms flexed and ready, his wrists cocked precisely. A fine blond fur on his arms is catching the sun. He is wearing a green and gold uniform & on the front of it I can see the letters
G-I-A-
. The background of the shot is blurry. He looks as if he might swing at the photographer. He looks like an athlete.

I can tell he’s a dreamer. He fears things. The death of his mother, perhaps, or his own death. Disobedience. Authority. He is trustworthy but he doesn’t trust others. In his heart there is bravery & cowardice. He is a baby & a man. His face is a boy’s face. His face is a crystal ball.

I am sure that other pictures of him show him smiling. I am sure that several girls have pictures of him smiling & that sort of thing. I am sure that several girls have pictures of him without his knowing it.

He is happy in school, I can sense it, and I want to say to him congratulations. On the baseball field he is thunderous and frightening to his opponents. In general he is probably not a favorite amongst his teachers but if he tried he would be.

His friends uphold him as their compass.

At lunch he never has to search to find a seat. Little things like that. He barely even notices.

He congratulates his teammates with a slap of the hand. He thumps them on their backs and they thump him on his. His coach collars him about the neck when he has done especially well.

His mother, when I knew her, wore clothing that was bright as peacock feathers. She wore red lipstick. She was impossibly young. She was shy. She did not speak very much. She wrote to me. I was in love with her.

If they decide to visit I must be prepared. I have been thinking of all the various ways I can make the house presentable. & myself presentable. I have been asking myself, What would a young boy like to eat? and telling myself, He would like to eat potato salad, hamburgers, hot dogs, and steak.

I’ll have particular things for Charlene as well. I remember the things that she liked & I will make it a point to have them on hand.

• • •

A
fter the debacle of the girl Yolanda’s visit, I decided to try
to clean my house myself. I got as far as pulling all of the books out of the shelves to dust them but by the time I did this I was quite tired & I had to sit down for a while. & then I sat for a while more, & now the books are still on the floor in a pile.

About a month ago a family just moved into the brownstone next door, the one formerly occupied by Marie Spencer &, in the upstairs apartment, Marty. This family is perfect: a young husband and wife, their three tiny sons. They seem perpetually to be going to or coming from the park. Yesterday it was very warm for the end of October and I caught them all walking down the street at noon. The baby was in a stroller pushed by his daddy. The two older ones were scampering ahead like two puppies or foals in a field. Who among you works? I thought—as if I am one to say anything at all.

As I was spying on them, my new neighbors, one of the boys caught me watching and held up a small brave hand in my direction. A salute. I lowered the curtain quickly & imagined becoming terrifying to him, some blown-up Boo Radley. I vowed in that moment to introduce myself to them, to go out on my stoop and say hello. Marty would have wanted me to. I felt a pang in my gut and had to sit down.

But then, a few seconds later, there came a knock at my door & I turned around and parted the curtain again, ever so slightly, & saw it was the young father who was standing on my stoop. The rest of his family was waiting for him silently on the sidewalk. My heart began to pound. O my goodness, I thought. I wonder if he wants to yell at me. I wonder what he wants at all. But I was not able to find out because I could not will myself to move. I was too afraid.

Then I was angry with myself for several hours after that & to make up for it I decided to reconsider this girl Yolanda. You know I thought I was not going to have her back but I told myself I had to give her another try. For one thing I think I am growing allergic to all of the dust in my house, for my own attempts to clean make me very short of breath. I called Home-Maid yesterday and asked if they would come again.

The operator said “What time, please?”

“Eleven in the morning would be excellent.”

She paused. Then told me that I’d have Nancy this time.

“No,” I said, “I had Yolanda.”

“She’s booked then,” said the operator.

“When is she available, please?” I asked.

It’s not that I liked her so much, it’s just that she had already seen the worst & I couldn’t go through it again with someone new. So Yolanda came at 1 p.m. today and I opened the door for her.

She began cleaning this time. I wasn’t quite sure where to put myself so I wandered out of rooms that she was in & into rooms that she was not in. For example she started in the living room and so I hid in my bedroom reading. I heard her tiny footfall as she pattered around dusting. And then I heard her stacking things. And then I heard a little knock on my bedroom door. I was sitting on the edge of my bed, not wanting to lie down in case she should need anything.

“Yes? Come in,” I said, and the door swung open and she popped her head in.

“Do you have a vacuum?” she asked.

I blanched a bit because I knew that I did have one but could not for the life of me remember where it was. I told her as much, feeling very embarrassed because now she knew that I didn’t vacuum.

“I’ll look for it,” said Yolanda, and took off for parts unknown.

I heard her running up the stairs & she was up there for about ten minutes opening and shutting doors & again I felt pierced by something. To have a little someone up there after all these years. I pictured her opening each door in turn, first the doors on the third floor—my mother’s chintz curtains fluttering, delighted to be set in motion after years of stagnancy—and then the doors on the second. I pictured my little train set and the collection of pictures I tacked on the wall as a child. O they were being seen by someone else. Next I heard her descending into the basement and a moment later she came up the stairs and shouted to me triumphantly that she had found it.

It sounded like a lawn mower starting. It had not been used in so long. She vacuumed the whole main floor and when she came into my room I shuffled out of it. Already the living room and dining room looked very different. Cleaner yes but also touched somehow. Different because someone else had touched them. I sat carefully down on my couch and put my hands next to me on either side. My couch felt different too. & the whole place had lost its regular smell and now smelled like lemon and pine.

Not knowing what to do I turned on the television but I wasn’t really paying attention to what was on. I was paying attention to the noises Yolanda was making as she moved about my room. Unlike me she talks to herself. I could hear her little childish whispers, the
p
’s and
b
’s and the clicks and
tsk
s. I think she was speaking in Spanish and I wanted to know what she was saying & I was afraid to know what she was saying all at once. I was afraid she was speaking out in annoyance & saying all the things that I thought about myself like how horribly dirty I had let my very dear house become.

Every now and then she emerged from my room carrying some little bit of garbage that I had not even noticed. A napkin or a plastic bag or a shampoo bottle. She took books out and put them on the bookshelf. Every time she passed me she offered me a little smile & said nothing. I pretended to watch the television, which was showing
Cash Cab.

By four o’clock she had cleaned the whole downstairs and five or six full garbage bags were sitting by my front door. I did not ask her what was in them. I presumed that I would not want to know.

“When does garbage go out?” asked Yolanda.

“I’ll do it,” I said. I felt hot in the face.

She shrugged and said “Red, blue, and yellow.”

“I’m sorry?” I said.

“Primary colors,” she said, & pushed her chin toward the television, where the host of
Cash Cab
was saying “
Ooooh,
close, the correct answer is red, blue, and yellow.”