The Collected Stories of Deborah Eisenberg (20 page)

“Is it something unpleasant that you read?” I heard, and I looked up to see a man standing over me. He seemed so close, in my alarm, that every detail of the medal lying on his exposed chest looked immense: the hair around it and the skin, glistening with sweat, appeared magnified.

“No,” I said to the large white teeth above me. I snapped the book shut and walked off on trembling legs.

Soon I had gotten myself back under control, and I paused to see where I was. Next to me an opening in the street wall gave onto something that appeared to be a sort of general store. Inside, past dusty cases of beer stacked along the buckling aqua-colored wall, I found coffee and other things I needed. At the counter, two almond-eyed little girls painstakingly picked what I hoped was the correct amount of coins from a heap I put in front of them. Supervising this proceeding was a large woman in long, ruffled skirts, who grinned at me. I was painfully aware of being the absurd tourist, and I stared at the woman, who only grinned with greater gusto.

It took me quite some time to find my way back to the square, where I stood looking helplessly at the streets that twisted up in a funnel around me. Eventually I managed to identify my route back, but at its mouth a row of women now sat, wrapped in shawls, and as I approached they stretched out their hands without glancing at me. There was no way to avoid them. I divided my change into equal portions and distributed it among the women, being very careful not to touch them.

The first thing I saw when I opened the door to my apartment was my heartless line of creams and lotions on the bureau. I quickly put the jars into the medicine chest, and then I examined the packages and cans of food that Norman had provided. Later I lay down to read. But instead of holding the book, I was rising up to where I saw myself asleep. I dreamed of a cool, dark sleep that was ruptured almost immediately by noisy intruders who disputed and harangued for hour after hour in many guises and landscapes. Several times during the night they drove me into the solitude of wakefulness, at the boundaries of which they waited, shrieking and bobbing, until I was weak enough to be captured again.

In the morning I woke to see my few purchases of the day before on the bureau, where I’d left them. How odd this light made everything look—the coffee, the sugar, the soap—like menacing little idols. And later, when I opened the gate onto the street, I once again experienced a little shock, as if the town, simmering below me in the dusty gold, had just materialized to greet me.

I was determined to get a good start on the day, so I headed right down to the square, where I remembered having seen a news kiosk. Most of the publications for sale turned out to be comic books devoted to slaughter and tragedy, but there were several magazines with interesting pictures. I paid the older of the two boys who worked at the kiosk, while the other, who must have been around seven, stared at me, his face an upturned circle with a point at the chin.

In the heat of the afternoon, when shutters rolled down over the shop doorways, I inspected the restaurants and cafés that faced the square, but they were filled with roughly clothed men, drunk even at that hour, and foreigners speaking English or German at an arrogant volume. Sorrowful vendors circulated among the tables, and there were flies.

Persisting, I discovered a restaurant in a little courtyard that looked clean and quiet. After I settled at a table near a blossom-clogged fountain, I realized that the restaurant was part of a hotel, whose guests—small, ancient people in dressing gowns—spoke a language I did not recognize. I managed to order something from a young waiter, who encouraged my clumsy efforts with unwelcome enthusiasm, but when my meal came, steaming and covered with an assaultive spicy sauce, I could feel that the expression on my face replicated the one I had so often seen on my mother’s when she confronted her tray of trembling sickroom substances. I watched, humiliated, as the wizened diners around me ate hugely, with evident enjoyment, and I reminded myself that if I were in Chicago I would have no trouble obtaining a nice, crisp salad and a refreshing glass of iced tea.

Norman was on his terrace when I returned, chatting with a man and woman who seemed to be about my age. The three of them sipped from frosty glasses, and a small boy squatted nearby, barking menacingly at a baleful setter. “Stop that, please, John-John,” the man said.

“Oh, he’s all right,” Norman said, smiling at me in greeting. “Mister’s used to children, aren’t you, Mister?” The dog yawned with pleasure as Norman scratched his ear. “Mister and that old bunny rabbit belong to the people next door, but they like to come visiting.”

“Excuse us,” the man said as the boy sprinted off in tight circles, spluttering like a balloon releasing its air. “I’m Simon Peter Murchison, and this is my wife, Annette. And that dignified personage now disporting himself in the compost is our firstborn, John-John.”

“Would you believe it?” Annette said. “We bought that little shirt in Florence for him.”

“Don’t be in a rush, now,” Norman said. “Won’t you sit down and have a drink with us, please? Dolores—” he called.

“Where has our son picked up these
habits
?” Annette smiled, inviting me to marvel with her.

“Yes, we’ve been all over since he was born,” Simon Peter explained loftily.

“For pleasure?” I asked.

“For a pittance.” He chuckled in the direction of his drink. “University salary.”

“How nice to have a field that takes you around,” I said obediently, as I craned to read his watch.

“History of Ecclesiastical Architecture in Colonial Countries,” Simon Peter said. We all glanced up at the silhouettes of crosses that stood out on the peaks around us, black against the shining sky.

“These are so delicious, Norman,” Annette said, accepting a fresh drink from Dolores. “What do you put in them?”

“Oh, just about any kind of fruit you can think of. And then just about any kind of alcohol you can think of.” Norman winked at me.

“Are you teaching here now?” I asked Simon Peter.

“I’ve picked up a semester,” he said. “But essentially we’re based in Europe for the moment.”

Annette turned to me. “Do you know Europe?”

“No,” I said.

“You should,” she said. “You should try it. The things that are good here? They’re even better there. Of course, prices have really soared since we first went. But now here, even with the devaluations, prices are a completely different thing than they used to be. We’re priced right out now, on Simon Peter’s salary.” She cast a sour glance at the house. “You’ve certainly found yourself a bargain.”

“I’ve just come for a short time. Besides,” I said deliberately, “I inherited a small amount of money.”

“There,” she said. “You see?”

“Anyhow, we’re glad to have you with us,” Norman said.

“It seems like a wonderful place for children,” I said.

“In many ways, yes,” Simon Peter said with a vague judiciousness. “In many ways I suppose it is. At least they’re happy enough.”

“These children here can afford to be happy,” Annette said. “They’re spoiled rotten.”

“Well, anyway,” Norman said.

“No, it’s a shame,” Annette said. “I know these people. My parents came here every winter until I was twelve. These people are sweet, kind people; I grew up with them. They don’t want to hurt anyone—they’re Indians. But they’re so irresponsible. They keep having children and having children—they just can’t be taught to stop. And there isn’t enough food, there isn’t enough money, and so they starve. And now these people have become dishonest. You used to be able to leave them to take care of your house while you were gone, with all your silver or anything. Now they’ll steal your wallet right on the street.”

“They’re a fine people, really,” Norman said to me. “For the most part. And the little ones are darling.”

“John-John,” Simon Peter called warningly to his son, who towered over a plant from behind which the rabbit peeked out, twitching.

“No, I love these people, Norman,” Annette said. “But you can’t trust them anymore. Well, everyone has to eat, of course. I understand that. But they breed like—” Annette glanced with annoyance toward the shrubbery, where John-John now crouched holding a rock—“like I don’t know whats.”

“Well,” Simon Peter said, “the climate’s still perfect.”

“Have you been up to the mountain yet?” Annette gestured toward the empty sky.

“I’ve really just arrived,” I said.

“We’ll go while you’re here,” she said. “There are some very good market towns up there. You can still get the most marvelous textiles and ceramics for practically nothing.”

“How nice,” I said. “Well…” I felt I had spent enough time on these witless marauders. “I really must be going upstairs now.” As I stood, I realized how potent Norman’s drink had been.

“Will anyone stay for some supper?” Norman asked.

“Don’t you wish Mommy would let you?” Annette said to John-John. “Thank you, Norman. We wish we could.”

“Well, please come back soon,” Norman said. “Sandra will be dying to see you both.”

“Hush now, honey,” Annette said to John-John. “We’re saying good night.”

“She’s due in at the end of the week,” Norman said. We all looked at John-John as he tugged at Annette’s hand and loosed a descending wordless whine. “Sandra.”

“Well, isn’t that wonderful, Norman,” Simon Peter said, frowning.

So this was what was meant by “traveling,” by “taking a vacation”—these unnavigable currents, this sudden immersion in the lives of utter strangers, their thin, dreadful lives.

That night sleep came for me like a great ship sliding between the dark sky and the dark water, and it bore me off to a territory that I recognized with horror, as I lost consciousness, from the night before. My dreams coiled and merged until I could no longer sustain sleep and woke exhausted, tossed by a shrill crowd onto the bed where I found myself.

The air was faintly sparkly, and a freshness drifted in through the open windows. While I lay there, trying to emerge into full consciousness, a memory permeated me like a single low vibrating tone: My mother stood in the water, smiling at me. She would have been just slightly older than I was now. I wore a bathing suit the shade of vanilla ice cream, with the most special little candy-colored blobs—special, delicious colors. My mother held out her hand to coax me out farther. The cool sand where I stood became wet and wet again with a mild pulse of water. The sand gave beneath my feet each time a wave pulled back, then smoothed mysteriously before each return. I took my mother’s hand and walked into the water to where the sand became round stones. I looked at my divided legs, and at the stones that wobbled when I moved, in the clear, different thing. My mother was happy. When had I ever seen her so happy? Where could we have been? I clung to her hand and edged in farther.

When I woke again, the sun was a yellow rayed circle over the garden.

For about a week I saw nothing of Norman, and the curtains of the main house were drawn. But Dolores continued to come and go, smiling her luminous smile, and a gardener appeared several times to redistribute mounds of dirt with an aggressive air of weariness and expertise which was surely intended for Norman’s eyes. And so, as there seemed no need to inquire after Norman, I did not. In the mornings I hurried down to the news kiosk and then had my juice and coffee in the hotel restaurant while I looked at my magazines. I walked, then visited the dilapidated little museum in town, and after a midday meal I would join a busload of rapacious tourists to visit one of the nearby villages where Indians made textiles or worked copper, or I went to the square to read about the history of the area. Afterward, I shopped for the small evening meal I would assemble back at the apartment. I had no time to spare.

Then one morning, as I came downstairs, I saw Norman climbing out of his car with a load of parcels. He looked cheerful in his crisp white clothes, and he gave me a friendly wave as he headed toward the house.

“What have you brought me?” a woman called out to him from the doorway. “Treats,” she said. “Good. And look—an American girl. He’s wonderful,” she said to me. “He does everything he can to keep me from—to keep me amused. You
are
an American girl, aren’t you? You do understand what I’m saying?”

“This is our little tenant, Sandra,” Norman said.

“Well, at least he didn’t bring me the Van Kirks,” the woman continued. “Or the Murchisons. Or, God forbid, the Geldzahlers.”

“Oh, now, Sandra,” Norman chuckled hesitantly toward me.

“But they’ll be over soon enough. And besides,” Sandra said, “we love them. They’re our friends. Now”—she smiled formally at me—“are you going to stay and at least have a—a glass of juice with us, or are you one of those busy, busy people who have to rush off somewhere all the time?”

“Nowhere to rush to here,” Norman said.

“I’ll stay for a moment,” I said reluctantly, “but I do have errands.” What if the hotel stopped serving breakfast at a particular time?

“Dolores—” Sandra looked around and then left the room.

“So…” Norman said, sitting down.

I could leave my magazines until after breakfast, of course, but I hadn’t brought anything with me to read. Furthermore, I’d planned to go to the museum right after breakfast, and the kiosk wasn’t on the way.

“How nice,” I said to Norman, “that your wife has arrived.”

“Looks well, doesn’t she?” he said vaguely.

“Tell me,” Sandra said as she came back into the room, “do you play bridge? Or golf?” She was tall and athletic-looking, and her bright sundress suited her, but she had the hardened flesh of someone who has lain too long around a swimming pool.

“I’m not much for games,” I said.

“Good,” she said, pushing back her wiry bronze hair. She seemed exasperated by her own sensuous, slightly ramshackle vitality, and I felt grateful to have my orderly body. “Norman just plays to bore himself nerveless.” Norman, who had been fussing with some small pieces of wood, smiled up at his wife cautiously, but she avoided looking at him. “He used to make such fun of them. Thank you, Dolores.” She smiled brightly at Dolores, who set a glass of juice in front of each of us. “Alas. You must come and entertain me while he plays with his…
cronies.
” She turned to Norman suddenly. “What have you got there?” she asked.