I Live With You (4 page)

We move stones in silence, then take a rest. Drink and wash and eat figs. I say, “I wish you were finishing the painting instead.”

“So you
do
like it.”

“I like what you’re doing.”

After a few minutes rest, Yawn begins to work at the rubble again.

I could cross by myself. Faster than Yawn and faster than those trying to get to us.

I head for the fountain and take a big drink. I put figs in my pockets. I leap on the rocks on the opposite side from where they’re coming for us. It’s the worst side, higher than the other. I can leap from rock to rock in a way most people can’t. I’m used to mountains and unstable talus.

Here and there I see gold tiles. One. Just one—for my mother.

But Yawn has seen me. I hear her give a dreadful cry. It lasts a long wailing time. It stuns me. It stops me that Yawn could cry such a cry. It can’t be Yawn.

I’m teetering on the remains of a pillar. I never fall. I’ve never fallen.

I open my eyes to a sky bluer than blue, to grass greener than green, to a landscape like home only more so. I hear the silvery sound of a stream. I see its glitter. I look down at myself and see I’m naked and I’m gold. I couldn’t even guess how valuable I am.

At first I try to hide my nakedness—as though someone watched, as I did, from behind the trees. But then I see, in the distance, a woman coming out from beyond the cedars. She wears a white flowing garment and has one breast bare.

My figs are on the ground in front of me but I’m not hungry.

Last night we already did as if turning the pages of this book. Now we’ll do it again. Perhaps there are more pages than I guessed at when I first saw it. Perhaps I’ll find out how it ends.

I LIVE WITH YOU AND YOU DON’T KNOW IT

I
LIVE IN YOUR HOUSE
and you don’t know it. I nibble at your food. You wonder where it went… where your pencils and pens go…. What happened to your best blouse. (You’re just my size. That’s why I’m here.) How did your keys get way over on the bedside table instead of by the front door where you always put them? You
do
always put them there. You’re careful.

I leave dirty dishes in the sink. I nap in your bed when you’re at work and leave it rumpled. You thought you had made it first thing in the morning and you had.

I saw you first when I was hiding out at the bookstore. By then I was tired of living where there wasn’t any food except the muffins in the coffee bar. In some ways it was a good place to be … the reading, the music. I never stole. Where would I have taken what I liked? I didn’t even steal back when I lived in a department store. I left there forever in my same old clothes though I’d often worn their things at night. When I left, I could see on their faces that they were glad to see such a raggedy person leave. I could see they wondered how I’d gotten in in the first place. To tell the truth, only one person noticed me. I’m hardly ever noticed.

But then, at the book store, I saw you: Just my size, Just my look. And you’re as invisible as I am. I could see that nobody noticed you just as hardly anybody notices me.

I followed you home—a nice house just outside of town. If I wore your clothes, I could go in and out and everybody would think I was you. But I wondered, how get in in the first place? I thought it would have to be in the middle of the night and I’d have to climb in a window.

B
UT
I
DON’T NEED
a window. I hunch down and walk in right behind you. You’d think somebody that nobody ever notices would notice other people, but you don’t.

Once I’m in, right away I duck into the hall closet.

You have a cat. Isn’t that just like you? And just like me also. I would have had one were I you.

The first few days are wonderful. Your clothes are to my taste. Your cat likes me (right away better than he likes you). Right away I find a nice place in your attic. Not an attic, more a crawl space but I’m used to hunching over. In fact that’s how I walk around almost all the time. The space is narrow and long, but it has little windows at each end. Out one, I can look right into a treetop. I think an apple tree. If it was the right season I could reach out and pick an apple. I brought up your quilt. I saw you looking puzzled after I took the hall rug. I laughed to myself when you changed the locks on your doors. Right after that I took a photo from the mantel. Your mother I presume. I wanted you to notice it was gone, but you didn’t.

I bring up a footstool. I bring up cushions, one by one until I have four. I bring up magazines, straight from the mail box, before you have a chance to read them.

What I do all day? Anything I want to. I dance and sing and play the radio and TV.

When you’re home, I come down in the evening, stand in the hall and watch you watch TV.

I wash my hair with your shampoo. Once, when you came home early, I almost got caught in the shower. I hid in the hall closet, huddled in with the sheets, and watched you find the wet towel—the spilled shampoo.

You get upset. You think: I’ve heard odd thumps for weeks. You think you’re in danger, though you try hard to talk yourself out of it. You tell yourself it’s the cat, but you know it’s not.

You get a lock for your bedroom door—a dead bolt. You have to be inside to push it closed.

I have left a book open on the couch, the print of my head on the couch cushion. I’ve pulled out a few gray hairs to leave there. (We’re both graying, though you less than I.) I have left a half full wine glass on the counter. I have left your underwear (which I wore) on the bathroom floor, dirty socks under the bed, a bra hanging on the towel rack. I left a half-eaten pizza on the kitchen counter. (I ordered out and paid with your stash of quarters, though I know where you keep your secret twenties.)

I set all your clocks back fifteen minutes but I set your alarm clock to four in the morning. I hid your reading glasses. I pull buttons off your sweaters and put them where your quarters used to be. Your quarters I put in your button box.

Normally I try not to bump and thump in the night but I’m tired of your little life. At the bookstore and grocery store at least things happened all day long. You keep watching the same TV programs. You go off to work. You make enough money, (I see the bank statements) but what do you do with it? I want to change your life into something worth watching.

I do begin to thump, bump, and groan and moan. (I’ve been feeling like groaning and moaning for a long time, anyway.) Maybe I’ll bring you a man.

I’ll buy you new clothes and take away the old ones, so you’ll
have
to wear the new ones. The new clothes will be red and orange and with stripes and polka dots. When I get through with you, you’ll be real… or at least realer. People will notice you. Your red cheeks. Your frown.

Now you groan and sigh as much as I do. You think: This can’t be happening. I’ve lived here and all these years nothing has happened.

You think: What about the funny sounds coming from the crawl space? You think: I don’t dare go up there by myself, but who could I get to go with me? (You don’t have any friends that I know of. You’re like me in that.)

Monday you go off to work wearing a fuzzy blue top and red leather pants. You had a hard time finding a combination without stripes or big flowers or dots on it.

I watch you from your kitchen window. I’m heating up your leftover coffee. I’m making toast. I use up all the butter. You thought there was plenty for the next few days.

You almost caught me the time I came home late with packages. I had to hide behind the curtains. I could tell that my feet showed out the bottom, but you didn’t notice.

Another time you saw me duck into the closet but you didn’t dare open the door. You hurried upstairs to your bedroom and pushed the deadbolt. That evening you didn’t come down at all. You skipped supper. I watched TV … any show I wanted.

I can go in your bedroom and lock you out just like you locked me out. I could bring up a good supper and the cat. Then you’d have to go sleep in the crawl space. It’s not bad up there. Lots of your things are handy, a bedside lamp, a clock….

I put another deadbolt on the outside of your bedroom door. Just in case. It’s way up high. I don’t think you’ll notice. It might come in handy.

(Lacy underwear with holes in lewd places. Nudist magazines. Snails and sardines—smoked oysters. Neither one of us like them. All the things I get with your money are for you. I don’t steal.)

How get through Christmas all by yourself? You’re lonely enough for both of us. You wrap empty boxes in Christmas paper just to be festive. You buy a tree, a small one. It’s artificial and comes with lights that glimmer on and off. The cat and I come down to sleep near its glow.

But the man. The one I want to bring to you. I look over the personals. I write letters to possibilities but, as I’m taking them to the post office, I see somebody. He limps and wobbles. (The way he lurches sideways looks like sciatica to me. Or maybe arthritis.) He needs a haircut and a shave. He’s wearing an old plaid jacket and he’s all knees and elbows. There’s a countrified look about him. Nobody wears plaid around here.

I limp behind him. Watch him go into one of those little apartments behind a main house and over a garage. It’s not far from our house.

It can’t be more than one room. I could never creep around in that place and not be noticed.

A country cousin. Country uncle more likely, he’s older than we are. Is he capable of what I want him for?

Next day I watch him in the grocery store. Like us, he buys living-alone kind of food, two apples, a tomato, crackers, oatmeal. Poor people’s kind of food. I get in line with him at the checkout. I bump into him on purpose as he pays and peek into his wallet. That’s all he has—just enough for what he buys. He counts out the change a penny at a time and he hardly has a nickel left over. I get ready to give him a bit extra if he needs it.

He’s such an ugly, rickety man…. Perfect.

There’s no reason to go into his over-the-garage room, but I want to. This is important. I need to see who he is.

I use our credit card to open his lock.

What a mess. He needs somebody like us to look after him. His bed is piled with blankets. The room isn’t very well heated. The bathroom has a curtain instead of a door. There’s no tub or even shower. I check the hot water in the sink. It says HOT, but both sides come out cold. All he has is a hot plate. No refrigerator. There’s two windows, but no curtains. Isn’t that just like a man. I could climb up on the back fence and see right in.

There’s nothing of the holidays here. Nothing of any holidays and not a single picture of a relative. And, like our house, nothing of friends. You and he are made for each other.

What to do to show I’ve been here? But I don’t feel much like playing tricks. And it’s so messy he wouldn’t notice, anyway.

It’s cold. I haven’t taken my coat off all through this. I make myself a cup of tea. (There’s no lemons and no milk. Of course.) I sit in his one chair. It’s painted ugly green. All his furniture is as if picked up on the curb and his bedside table is one of those fruit boxes. As I sit and sip, I check his magazines. They look as though stolen out of somebody’s garbage. I’m shivering. No wonder he’s out. (I suppose it’s not easy to shave. He’d have to heat the water on the hot plate.)

He needs a cat. Something to sleep on his chest to keep him warm like your cat does with me. Should I bring ours over? It would take you a week to notice he was gone. I could nibble at the cat food. I have already.

I have our groceries in my backpack. I leave two oranges and a doughnut in plain sight beside the hot plate. I leave several of our quarters.

I leave a note: I put in our address but not our telephone number. (He doesn’t have a phone anyway.) I sign your name. I write: Come for Christmas. Two o’clock. I’ll be wearing red leather pants! Your neighbor, Nora.

(I wonder which of us should wear those pants.)

I clean up a little bit but not so much that he’d notice if he’s not a noticing person. Besides, people only notice when things are dirty. They never notice when things are cleaner.

As I walk home, I see you on your way out. We pass each other. You look right at me. I’m wearing your green sweater and your black slacks. We look at each other, my brown eyes to your brown eyes. Only difference is, your hair is pushed back and mine hangs down over my forehead and I have to admit my nose is less aristocratic. You go right on by. I turn and look back. You don’t. I laugh behind my hand that you had to wear those red leather pants and a black and white striped top.

He’s too timid and too self-deprecating to come. He doesn’t like to limp in front of people and he’s ashamed not to have enough money hardly even for his food, and not to have a chance to shave and take a bath. Though if he’s scared by me coming into his room, he might come. He might want to see who Nora is and if the address is real. His pretext will be that he wants to thank you for the food and quarters. He might even want to give them back. He might be one of those rich people who live as if they were poor. I should have looked for money or bank books. I will next time.