Life Before Man (39 page)

Or not; she’s thought about that. She could have an abortion, stop time. She knows it’s easier than it used to be. She hasn’t yet told Nate, she doesn’t need to tell him. Everything could go on as before. Which is not what she wants.

She can’t tell whether he will be delighted or angry or despairing; possibly, considering his feelings about his two other children, he will be all three. But whatever his reaction is, she knows her final decision will not be based on it. Nate has been displaced, if only slightly, from the center of the universe.

She climbs the back stairs and walks forward through European Costumes, skirting the Chinese Peasant Art Exhibit, which doesn’t much interest her. As she rounds the corner towards the main staircase, she glimpses a square dark figure on the floor above. It’s Elizabeth. Elizabeth doesn’t see her. She’s looking over the balustrade, out over the rotunda. Lesje has almost never seen Elizabeth like this, unconscious. It’s as if she’s seeing her on the last day of her life. Lesje isn’t used to this; she’s used to thinking of Elizabeth as permanent, like an icon. But Elizabeth standing by herself, unconnected with anyone, is shorter, worn, ordinary; mortal. The lines of her face and body slope down. Even though she knows her own pregnancy will cut no ice with Elizabeth, may even make her delay the divorce as long as possible, to prove something – what? That she’s first wife? – Lesje can’t remember why she has been afraid of her.

Will they still be doing this in twenty years? Older women, old women, wearing black and not speaking; ill-wishing; never seeing each other, but each keeping the other locked in her head, a secret area of darkness like a tumor or the black vortex at the center of a target. Someday they may be grandmothers. It occurs to her, a new idea, that this tension between the two of them is a difficulty for the children. They ought to stop.

Still, she doesn’t feel like going through the charade of nodding and smiling; not right now. She ducks into the open elevator and is carried up.

She enters the Gallery Of Vertebrate Evolution the wrong way, past the
EXIT
sign. She’s feeling slightly dizzy, probably because she hasn’t eaten all day. Too much coffee. She sits down on the padded ledge that separates the pedestrians from the dinosaurs. She longs to smoke a cigarette in the soothing Cretaceous dusk before walking out into the blast-furnace of the afternoon, but she knows about the fire hazard. Instead she’ll just rest. It’s warm here also, too warm, but at least it’s dark.

Here are her old acquaintances, familiar to her as pet rabbits: Allosaurus, the carnivore, parrot-beaked Chasmosaurus, Para-saurolophus with its deer-antler crest. They’re merely bones, bones and wire in a scenery of dusty plastic, and she’s an adult; why does she continue to think of them as alive?

When she was much younger she used to believe, or try hard to believe, that at night when the Museum was closed the things inside it carried on a hidden life of their own; if she could only find her way inside she would be able to watch. Later she abandoned this day-dream in favor of a less extravagant one: the things were silent and unmoving, true, but somewhere there existed an implement or force (a secret ray, atomic energy) that would bring them back to life. Childish plots, based no doubt on the odd science-fiction comic book or on that Christmas matinée of
The Nutcracker Suite
she’d
been dragged to when they’d decided, so disastrously, that she should take ballet.

Now, however, looking up at the immense skulls towering above her in the dim light, the gigantic spines and claws, she almost expects these creatures of hers to reach down their fingers in friendly greeting. Though if they were really alive they’d run away or tear her apart. Bears, however, dance to music; so do snakes. What if she were to press the buttons on the filmstrips and, instead of the usual speeches or the cries of walruses and seals used to simulate the underwater voices of the marine reptiles, some unknown song were to emerge? Indian music, droning, hypnotic.
Try to imagine
, says the brochure she wrote, a guide for parents and teachers,
what it would be like if suddenly the dinosaurs came to life
.

She’d like to; she’d like to sit here for an hour and do nothing else. She’d close her eyes and one after another the fossils would lift their ponderous feet, moving off along the grove of resurrected trees, flesh coalescing like ice or mist around them. They’d dance stumpily down the stairs of the Museum and out the front door. Eight-foot horsetails would sprout in Queen’s Park, the sun would turn orange. She’d throw in some giant dragonflies, some white and yellow flowers, a lake. She’d move among the foliage, at home, an expedition of one.

But she can’t do it. Either she’s lost faith or she’s too tired; at any rate she can no longer concentrate. The fragments of new images intrude. She looks down at the pebbles, the bark chips, the dusty cycad trees on the other side of the ledge, a thousand miles away.

In the foreground, pushing in whether she wants it to or not, is what Marianne would call her life. It’s possible she’s blown it. This is what they mean when they say
maturity:
you get to the point where you think you’ve blown your life. She should have learned more, in advance, she should have studied more before jumping in; but she isn’t sorry.

True, there’s a chance she’s done a stupid thing. Several, many. Or she may have done a wise thing for a stupid reason. She will tell Nate today, this evening. Will he forgive her?

(Forgiveness is not what she needs; not, anyway, from Nate. She would prefer instead to forgive, someone, somehow, for something; but she isn’t sure where to begin.)

N
ate is running. He jogs up University, against the traffic, the sun glinting on the roofs and windshields of the oncoming cars, beating on his head. The blood in his ears is a gong, he heats like metal, the sidewalk thumps relentlessly against the soles of his feet. He tugs at his blue-striped shirt, neat citizen’s shirt for the collection of signatures, pulls it loose from the waist of his cords, lets it flap behind him. There’s a muggy wind which smells of garages and spilled oil.

At the Parliament Buildings he waits for a gap in traffic, sprints across, continues, under the porte-cochère, along beside the pinkish stone which used to be dingy brown before they sandblasted it. One day he may go into politics, he’s thought about it. Provincial, not municipal. Not federal, he has no yen for exile. But not yet, not yet.

His shadow paces him, thin and pinheaded, stretching away to his right, a blackness flickering over the grass. A premonition, always with him; his own eventual death. Which he will think about some other time.

He should pay more attention though, at least try. A regular schedule would do him good. Up at six, run for half an hour in the morning mists before the exhaust fumes get too bad. Then a frugal breakfast, watch the eggs and butter, cut down to a pack a day. With every drink a brain cell dies. Luckily there are billions of them; it will take him a while to go senile. If he could run he’d feel better, he could take hold, he knows it. Same time every day, on and on forever.

Right now he’s not going to make it around. Sweat drenches him, his breath rasps in his throat, oxygen sharpens all the edges. There’s nothing he will do forever. He heads for the War Memorial, halfway, but throws himself down on the grass before he reaches it, rolling onto his back. Small dots swim in the amniotic blue; rods and cones, black stars in his head. Beneath him grass strains upwards.

He’d like to be able to take Lesje somewhere, out into the country, the country which surely lies all around, though he can’t remember the last time he was there. But how would they get there? A bus, a walk along some uncharted and dusty gravel road? Never mind. They could make love, slowly and gently, under some trees or in a field, gold waving over them and the smell of crushed grass. The possible day shimmers ahead of him, an oval of light; in this light Lesje is indistinct, her features shine and blur, her dark hair melts in his hands, her body extended white and lean on the grass shifts itself, glows, fades. It’s as if he’s too close to her to be able to see her, fix her in his mind. When he’s away from her he can barely remember what she looks like.

Though he can see Elizabeth distinctly, every line and shadow. He used to take Elizabeth out into the country, before Janet was born, before he sold the car. But she didn’t want to climb fences and crawl under bushes and he’d lacked the trick of persuading her. Instead they went to auctions, farm sales, families giving up or too old who were selling off their belongings. Elizabeth did the bidding,
kitchen chairs, bundles of spoons, while he stood at the soft drink and hot-dog stand, hands in his pockets fingering pennies, keys, feeling out of place, a scavenger.

He thinks of Elizabeth, briefly, with detachment. For a moment she’s someone he once knew. He wonders what has become of her. It’s the walks they never took, the fields he could never convince her to enter he regrets now.

He sits, takes off his damp shirt and wipes his head and chest with it, then spreads it beside him for the sun to dry. He’s chilly now despite the heat. In a few minutes, when he gets his breath, he’ll light a cigarette and smoke it. Perhaps he’ll throw half of it away. Then he’ll stand up and put his shirt back on. He’ll wait for a gap in the traffic and run across the road, lightly, on the balls of his feet.

He’ll walk north, past the Planetarium and its hoarding, which he can see from here.
THE PLANETARIUM IS STILL OPEN
. They’re adding a wing to the Museum; Lesje says it’s none too soon.
ROM Wasn’t Built In A Day
, says the plywood wall, punning on the Museum’s name, pleading for money. Another worthy cause. They’ll suck him dry, despite his sawdust heart.

He’ll climb the steps and lean in the same spot where he used to do time for Elizabeth, one shoulder against the stone. He’ll light another cigarette, watch the museum-goers passing in and out like shoppers, and wait for Lesje. She won’t be expecting him. Perhaps she’ll be surprised and pleased to see him; once he could count on it. Perhaps she’ll only be surprised, and possibly not even that. He anticipates this moment, which he cannot predict, which leaves room for hope and also for disaster. They will either go for a drink or not. In any case, they will go home.

E
lizabeth stands looking at a picture. The picture is framed and glassed. Behind the glass, bright green leaves spread with the harmonious asymmetry of a Chinese floral rug; purple fruits glow among them. Three women, two with baskets, are picking. Their teeth shine within their smiles, their cheeks are plump and rosy as a doll’s.
A Fine Crop of Eggplants
, the caption says, in Chinese, English and French. Elizabeth reminds herself to pick up some hot dogs on the way home, the children’s request, and for herself cooked chicken. They’ll sit on the front porch, Nancy’s idea of a picnic. Perhaps by then it will be cooler.

A man in overalls, pushing a large floor-polishing machine, reaches Elizabeth’s corner and tells her to move. She walks along the wall. It’s just after closing time and most people have left the Museum. She’s been waiting for this comparative emptiness to take a close look at the exhibit, which opened four days ago, but which she’s been too busy to see. She’s pleased with the press coverage, though. China is news, unlike, for instance, India, which was news
several years ago, during that war. And the crowds have been good, though of course not as good as the long lineups they had for
The Art of Ancient China
exhibit a few years ago. People will stand in line for quite a long time to see gold, especially gold unearthed from tombs. Elizabeth still remembers the horses, those fierce-toothed horses from some Emperor’s grave. They weren’t gold; she can’t remember what they were made of, but keeps an impression of darkness. An omen, a catastrophe, rearing up, bearing down.

There is no catastrophe in these paintings, however.
The New Look of Our Piggery
, Elizabeth reads. She’s not much interested in pigs. These pigs are like toys, like the plastic pigs from the farm set the children still play with occasionally. They’re discreet and neat and evidently they don’t root or shit. Squashes and pumpkins grow like decorative borders between the rows of sties.

The floor polisher is following her. She crosses over, turns the corner into the second aisle. The paintings are hung on movable screens which divide the gallery. They’ve done a good job setting up the exhibit, she thinks; the life-size black and white photos of the actual artists add a nice touch. She can remember when this whole section was used to display medieval armor and weapons: crossbows, maces, halberds, inlaid blunderbusses, muskets. Only the parquet floor remains the same.

Do Not Allow Lin Piao and Confucius to Slander Women
, she reads, and smiles.
Everyone Helps in Building Each Others’ Houses
.

Suddenly Elizabeth feels, not lonely, but single, alone. She can’t remember the last time anyone other than her children helped her to do something. She knows it rains in China, even though it does not rain in these pictures. She knows the people there do not invariably smile, do not all have such white teeth and rosy cheeks. Underneath the poster-paint colors, primary as a child’s painting, there is malice, greed, despair, hatred, death. How could she not know that? China is not paradise; paradise does not exist. Even the
Chinese know it, they must know it, they live there. Like cavemen, they paint not what they see but what they want.

Persimmons Are Ripe at the Foot of Mount Chungman
, she reads. Orange-yellow globes crowd the page; among the interwoven branches girls climb, happy faces peer, bright and uniformly patterned as birds. Elizabeth blinks back tears: foolishness, to be moved by this. This is propaganda. She does not want to line up and learn to throw grenades, she doesn’t want to work a threshing machine, she has no desire to undergo group criticism and have a lot of other people tell her what to think. This isn’t what touches her so that she’s fumbling in her purse now for a Kleenex, a scrap of paper, anything she can use to blot her face. It’s the turnips in their innocent rows, ordinary, lit from within, the praise lavished on mere tomatoes, the bunches of grapes, painted in all their translucent hues. As if they are worth it.