The Binding Chair (31 page)

In the dream, ice lay over warm water, and in the dream May liked the shoes, she loved them. They were her partners. They were all the partners she required. Alice and the captain—the captain who was Evlanoff—stepped aside, the piano played under unseen hands, and the drowned passengers cleared the center of the floor to watch May dance, an audience too awed, too breathless, to applaud.

In her sleep, Alice murmured. With her head tucked under Evlanoff’s chin, her right hand found his left.

“You were waltzing last night,” he’d tell her the next morning. “I was talking about a piece of music as you fell asleep. ‘The Blue Danube.’ They were playing it at the hotel, and it must have slipped into your dreams.” Alice nodded against the pillow; she rolled toward him, her eyes still closed.

“A good dream,” she said. “An old favorite.”

O
UT IN THE
bay, in order to hear each other over the noise of the water, May and Suzanne were yelling things they’d never before whispered.

“I thought you were braver,” Suzanne accused.

“You were wrong.” May had stopped treading water and was on her back, her face barely above the surface. The swells picked the women up, and then put them down. Over and over. They hadn’t felt it so much when they were swimming. “You saw I left my cane uncovered and followed me anyway,” May said. “Why?”

“I have no life. Apart from. You. You know. That.” Suzanne panted between clauses, between words.

“Yes.” May raised one arm, began stroking again. “That’s why I’m taking you with me.”

Suzanne dog-paddled feebly after her. “How long. Have you. Planned. This.”

“I didn’t,” May said. Her backstroke was fast. “I’m going to swim out farther,” she warned.

But with a sudden, violent, clawing leap, Suzanne had climbed onto May. It was something, May realized, that she ought to have anticipated: a strength she knew well, that of desperation. Suzanne didn’t speak, she keened.

Here
I am already, May thought.
In the lake of blood, hearing the cries. What was it? One gasp in trade for each peal of the bell?

She went under with Suzanne like a cat on her shoulders, battering her head. May let Suzanne push her down, she accepted her weight as assistance, remembering the young swimming instructor, entire days spent practicing holding her breath. Silver bubbles streaming from her nose past her open eyes.

Down. She had to stay down. Under. But in spite of herself she wriggled out of Suzanne’s arms and legs and surfaced a few yards away, gasping. Then she swam, kicking as hard as she could—kicking both to propel herself and to obliterate the noise of Suzanne drowning. Even so, as she swam, it struck her that the sound of Suzanne dying was the same as that of her living: a clattering, choking cough.

May concentrated her will and forced the air from her lungs. She dove with her eyes closed, plunged downwards in a modified, underwater breaststroke. Six feet below the surface, seven. Now it must be ten, twelve. She felt the water pressing her all over. It stabbed into her ears, and she wondered for a moment if Arthur’s tinnitus had caused him pain. Could it be that she’d never asked? Stones clacked together on the sea’s floor. Or was she hearing the noise of her own pulse, erratic, panicked without oxygen?

Eyes shut tightly, May stroked, stroked. Swimming was hard now. She’d made it as hard as walking.

Where was the buck? The white buck with silver antlers, a bridle set with jewels, a saddle carved from jade. Just outside the city, the city of Shanghai, deer drank from the dirty Whangpoo. They left prints of their cloven hooves in the silt. Arthur had shown this to her. He’d stood on the bank, pointing. “Look,” he said. “Your footprints are no bigger.”

Where was her white buck? Wouldn’t he arrive, as he had before, to rescue her, to carry her away? Without breath, May’s chest burned. She was cold, so cold, but inside it was as if she’d inhaled fire, she saw not black but red. Swells of red before her eyes. Her blood was banging inside her head. Cymbals. A parade. The clanging of the firehouse bell.

A man jogged across the Garden Bridge, a gold harp on his back. Shanghai. Here was a city where anything was possible.

She was waiting. She could wait, she’d always excelled at it. Look how long she’d waited for this. A minute more, two at most. That would be all: her body would end it.

She opened her mouth and her heart to the water.

A
CKNOWLEDGMENTS

The author wishes to thank Stella Dong, Dawn Drzal, Janet Gibbs, Joan Gould, Nan Graham, Emily Hall, Colin Harrison, George Hayim, Kate Medina, Aziza Mowlem, Christopher Potter, Meaghan Rady, Joyce Ravid, Deborah Rogers, and Amanda Urban.

A
BOUT THE
A
UTHOR

K
ATHRYN
H
ARRISON
is the author of the novels
Thicker Than Water, Exposure
, and
Poison
. She has also written a memoir,
The Kiss
. Her personal essays have appeared in
The New Yorker, Harper’s Magazine
, and other publications. She lives in New York with her husband, the novelist Colin Harrison, and their children.