Problems with People (5 page)

She led the way to the guest bath/laundry center with its washer and dryer side by side on a counter at eye level—as opposed to stacked—which he explained to her now: “When I did the remodel I had every intention of stacking the machines—they were made to be stacked—but then it occurred to me there was a better way, something I could do to make the laundry work easier, that is, put them side by side, that way no one would have to bend over to load or empty the lower-level machine. Option A was stacked machines with a
full-size water heater upright in an adjoining closet; option B was two small in-line water heaters down below behind sliding doors—see?—and side-by-side machines above. Obviously I went with option B, but that’s just me, not everyone would choose to do it that way.” “Oh,” she answered. “Okay.” Not good.

Since the guest-bath/laundry-center foot-traffic area was limited, she stood outside its door—culturally correct bodily-distance protocol—while he stood in front of the side-by-side machines; this room was toned down but for a few touches probably meant to blend it into the loud great-room scheme—incense burner, candelabra, beaten copper bowl of scented potpourri, a fringy or tasseled shroud of paisley tapestry hung above the mirror—maybe it was an old shawl converted to this purpose. With no further ado, he went to work. “I’m just going to jimmy this machine back and forth a little to bring it out and create some space between it and the wall, but not too much, because I don’t want to overstretch or put pressure on the hot and cold water lines, causing them to leak; they’re old-style rubber, thin walled and with a limited service life; I haven’t replaced them yet with new and better, updated lines; there are washing-machine supply lines now made of braided stainless steel with a PVC core—really good, super-strong, with brass hex nuts and a fifteen-hundred-psi burst strength.” He started his jimmying; he walked the machine out about nine inches; the front feet were now hanging off the counter; the machine had tilted just a little, but not enough so that a dime placed on top—even without lint-crusted soap stains in the way—would slide off onto the unfortunate and falsely-advertised-as-water-resistant
cork flooring panels. “Now I need a chair,” he said, “so I can climb up there, look over the top, and locate that ever-mysterious water shut-off valve whose location it’s dire to ascertain in case of emergency.” Again he meant to make a little joke, this one via incongruous language; again Lydia Williams did not take his bait; they were of slightly different generations; his hair was gray at the temples and some new sensibility of humor was in play that he wasn’t party to; he’d been left behind at forty-six. “I actually have a stepladder,” she said. “Would you want that instead of a chair?” “Either’s fine.” “I’ll grab the stepladder.” “Okay. I’ll wait here.” She took a half-step inside and seemed to mull, squeezing her chin between her left thumb and forefinger. “I think the stepladder might fit a little better,” she said. The beanie snaring her hair had slid a little to the left, so that the darkly netted chaos or the bird’s nest of her tresses was no longer on top but on the side, beside her neck, and something else—available to his eye now given the fluorescent light of the guest bath/laundry center—she had a few light freckles, a little umber mottling, that complemented her communist-cell peasant/artist look, or maybe it was a hip volunteer soup-line ladler in a hairnet look, a ladler with a social conscience who had retained artistic flair.

She went for the ladder. This gave him time to notice that the toilet bowl had one of those blue deodorizers in it—good—and that beside the incense burner was a packet of Pondicherry frankincense cones. With one hand he kept a little pressure on the tipped washing machine, lest it decide of its own accord to fall over—that would be a real disaster,
potentially injurious to him or to the toilet bowl—with the other he picked up the Pondicherry packet and read its promotional and informational material—made at Sri Aurobindo Ashram … hand-mixed … friendly to the environment … packed in wood-free cotton and banana pulp hand-made paper … he could hear Lydia Williams returning with the stepladder—the padding of her down booties across the cork floor—so he put the incense packet back and just stood there as if—for her benefit—he was content to do nothing but hold up the machine. “Great,” he said, when she showed him the stepladder and began unfolding it. “A three-step kitchen model. That looks like a good one.” “Be careful, though. Don’t get hurt.” “I’m always careful. Safety first.” “I did what you’re doing. But I didn’t see the valve.” “You pulled the machine out?” “No, but I used the ladder.” “I probably should have told you to pull the machine out.” “I got a pretty good look. I even used a flashlight.” “The deep, abiding mystery of the water valve,” he said. This time, finally, she smiled: he’d worn her down.

He took the ladder. “You’re sure you’re okay?” she said. “I’m okay.” “It’s just that you have to climb the ladder and keep the machine from tipping any further now that its front is off of the counter. That’s two things at once.” “I think I can do it, though.” “Maybe I should help.” “Tight quarters here.” “Yes, but, like this”—she came in, braced herself against the drop-in sink console, and pressed her right hand—bulbous finger pads, he noticed—strongly into the face of the slightly tilted washing machine—“I can hold it in place while you climb up and take a look.” “You don’t mind?” “No. It’s fine.”
“Well, if you don’t mind then, thank you, that’s helpful.” Whereas actually he was thinking that suddenly the two of them were jammed into this little room together and that the culturally correct distance protocol had been abrogated to the point where he thought he could smell her hair inside its beanie skull cap; after all, having risen already to step two of her ladder, he was above her now; the closest part of her to his nose was her hair; on the other hand, she would be aware, potentially, of the smells emanating from the nether portions of his body—what would that be like for her? Most people have little awareness of their own smells, this was something he knew because of a cousin who due to his restaurant work often smelled like cumin but didn’t know it; clothing heavily impregnated or infused with sweat and spice was not an impression he wanted to make right now, so how fortunate that this room was in his favor due to its hygienic blue-deodorizer scent and verdure of concealing Pondicherry frankincense. Something else: generally he was too slothful and depressed to do laundry, but by a stroke of fortune—or due to exploitation of a snowbound, errandless, in-home window of late Wednesday morning domestic energy—his clothes were right now washed, happily so given the rarity of current circumstance: proximity to a woman of child-bearing age; for that matter, proximity to anybody. And yet, rising to the third and final ladder step, he lacked confidence in his odors. It seemed to him he had to be—surely he was—an olfactory offense to Lydia Williams, and probably an offense in his other particulars. How could this not be the case?

Now he bent across the machine, draped himself over it
and looked down its back side. There were dust and cobwebs, there were hot and cold water lines, there was a power cord, but—no shut-off valve. “You’re right,” he said. “Huh.” “Come down now,” she answered. “The machine might fall over.”

Failure. Failure at the moment of expected triumph. Abysmal, and proof of his worthlessness.

He came down, she took the ladder away, he walked the machine back into place, by the time he was done she was back and he said, “Do you mind if I wash my hands?” “No.” And she gave him privacy to do it—she fled to the great room. Afterward he folded her hand towel to perfection. Then he came out and, standing beside her mannequin, said, “What’s wrong with me? Suddenly I remember where it is.” He went back and drew open the left-hand sliding door providing access to the dual-water-tank compartment. “Duh,” he said. “Shut-off valve. Stupid. I can’t believe it. Dumb. Moved it when I remodeled—there it is. Duh.” “Great!” “God, I’m stupid.” “Mystery solved—all’s well that ends well.”

He knew what that was—that was a dismissal.
Adiós, amigo, Auf Wiedersehen
, fool. Their business was done; she wanted him to go; he would not get a deeper, more thorough look at Kali, or for that matter, at any of the other goddesses on her wall. “All’s well that ends well”—meaning, the end. He would leave and she would straighten the hair inside her beanie, reinforce her makeup scheme—if there was one—remove the sweatpants, down booties, and shirtdress, and replace them with things outdoorsy, warm, and casual, find her reusable shopping bags, and go outside with a scarf around her neck and her phone on to join her peers at the
winter farmers’ market with its displays of expensive cheeses and organic nuts—all this while he went to visit his parents in New Holly, where they lived not far from the light-rail line and in walking distance of a place that sold chapatis because his mother no longer cared to make her own, plus—he’d counted—their neighborhood had six pho shops. “All’s well that ends well,” except, first, she wanted to know about his last name, Ghemawat, which, she said, she’d seen on the rental agreement—and which she now mispronounced. Was that her fault? Why set her straight? Why do anything? The whole thing was impossible. “From India,” he explained—meaning the name, not him, but certainly his answer could be taken to mean him—even though he’d been born three-quarters of a mile from where they stood right now and had never lived anywhere else, just Seattle. “Indian,” he told the fair-skinned Lydia Williams,
without knowing exactly what that meant about himself, or to what extent it was true, and feeling it was something he couldn’t explain anyway, nor did he want to explain it. Besides, it was time to let this tenant live her life, time to leave so she could get on with her Saturday. It would be wrong of him to stay another minute. Sure, he owned the place, but what difference did that make? The two of them had no more business together. “I’m going to get out of your way now,” he said. “Thank you,” answered Lydia Williams.

They turned onto the R510. Every town they passed through had plentiful “rubbish,” as his sister called it—barbed-wire compounds, and slovenly industry. His sister was a nerve-racking driver, not because she wasn’t careful but because she was too careful, forcing other travelers to use the oncoming lane to make high-speed passes. They were on a road with no shoulders and crazy truckers; the “veldt”—another of his sister’s terms—looked increasingly dramatic as they got farther from Johannesburg. Twice his sister stopped to use restrooms. Twice she took pills. Her hands trembled on the steering wheel.

They reached Pilanesberg—the Manyane Gate. She’d made a reservation at the Golden Leopard for a thatched-roof chalet that looked, to him, from the outside, better suited to the Lake District, but with a private patio and a barbecue on a stanchion that his sister called a
braai
. Inside, their quarters were air-conditioned. He was still jet-lagged; she was “away from death,” as she put it, and wanted, for now, to take in
the peace and do nothing, not go anywhere, not move, just rest. Besides, there would be better animal viewing as dusk approached—near dusk was when the animals came out. And so, settled in wicker chairs, they lingered in the cool chalet, talking about his photography and her cancer, and what he wanted to know, given that it was summer in South Africa and therefore hot outside: was the wig uncomfortable? It was okay with him if she took it off.

She took it off. Her skull was pitted. She’d packed her “boot” with food in coolers and bags—fruit, crackers, nuts, carrots, pomegranate juice, bread, a roasted chicken—all for him, because she couldn’t eat anything. Around three, she looked at her watch and said that she was excited about animal viewing, though at Pilanesberg the chances of a Big Five experience—lion, leopard, rhino, elephant, and buffalo—were not as good as at Kruger. The ever-promising thing about Pilanesberg, she told him, was that it was transitional, somewhere in between dry and wet and thus eclectic in flora and fauna; further, because it was close to Johannesburg, it had been aggressively managed, and stocked via a program of translocation called Operation Genesis. Should they go take a look now? Maybe it was time to go. Especially if he wanted to take pictures; the light was good.

They went. The guard in uniform at Manyane Gate waved them through and, almost immediately, after rounding a bend, they saw zebras on a hillside. Not long after it was wildebeest, then rhinos at a mudhole, then a hardworking dung beetle in the road, small, pushing a big ball of dung. He took a photo of the dung beetle and thanked his sister for bringing
him here. His sister, in the manner of a tour guide, told him that, for all of Pilanesberg’s glories, it had challenges and problems because it was surrounded by a fence and reclaimed from land that had been farmed and grazed. Here was one indicative difficulty: the male elephants of Pilanesberg had been culled from a herd at Kruger and were apparently psychotic, having survived a population-control killing operation that had stressed them beyond the breaking point. This was why they were busy, in their new home, raping white rhinos and goring them to death with their tusks. Another example: there was a lion in the park—a rogue, bad, a lone hunter, crazy—who serially killed lionesses averse to his advances and then, repeatedly, copulated with their dead bodies. Was it Pilanesberg that caused this, since, in effect, it was unnatural, a massive zoo?