Surfacing - Margaret Atwood [43]
“Why?” I said. “What’s wrong?” He hadn’t said anything at lunch that could have upset her.
“I guess you think he’s hot for you.” Her mouth stretched down tight with the lips inside, a toad’s.
“No,” I said, bewildered, “why would I think that?”
“Those things he says, you know, like about your ass and being fully packed,” she said impatiently.
“I thought he was teasing.” I had thought that too, it was just a habit like picking your nose, only verbal.
“Teasing, shit. He was doing it to me. He always does stuff like that to other women in front of me, he’d screw them with me in the room if he could. Instead he screws them somewhere else and tells me about it afterwards.”
“Oh,” I said. I hadn’t deduced that. “Why? I mean, why does he tell you?”
Anna brooded, her dishtowel slack. “He says it’s being honest. What a turd. When I get mad he says I’m jealous and possessive and I shouldn’t get uptight, he says jealousy is bourgeois, it’s a leftover from the property ethic, he thinks we should all be swingers and share it around. But I say there are these basic emotions, if you feel something you should let it out, right?” It was an article of faith, she glared at me, challenging me to affirm or deny; I wasn’t certain so I didn’t say anything. “He pretends he doesn’t feel those things, he’s so cool,” she said, “but really it’s just to show me he can do it and get away with it, I can’t stop him; all that theorizing about it is coverup bullshit garbage.” She raised her head, smiling, friendly again. “I thought I should warn you so you’d know if he grabs you or anything it won’t have much to do with you, it’s all about me really.”
“Thank you,” I said. I was sorry she’d told me; I still wanted to believe that what they called a good marriage had remained possible, for someone. But it was kind of her, thoughtful; I knew in her place I wouldn’t have done it, I would have let her take care of herself, My Brother’s Keeper always reminded me of zoos and insane asylums.
CHAPTER TWELVE
The slop pail was full; I carried it to the garden to pour the dirty water into the trench. Joe was lying by himself on the dock, face down; when I came to rinse the pail he didn’t move. Anna passed me on the steps, wearing her orange bikini, oiled for her sun ritual.
In the cabin I set the pail under the counter. David was pondering his chin bristles in the mirror; he slid his arm half around me and said in a guttural voice, “Come wiz me to zee outhouse.”
“Not right now,” I said, “I have to do some work.”
He mimed regret. “Ah well,” he said, “some other time.”
I took out my samsonite case and sat down at the table. He leaned over my shoulder. “Where’s old Joe?”
“Down on the dock,” I said.
“He seems out of sorts,” David said, “maybe he has worms; when you get back to the city you should take him to the vet.” And a moment later, “How come you never laugh at my jokes?”
He hung around while I set out the brushes and paper. Finally he said, “Well, Nature calls,” and soft-shoed out the door like the end of a vaudeville act.
I swivelled the caps back onto the paint tubes, I had no intention of working: now they were all out of the way I would search for the will, the deed, the property title. Paul had been certain he was dead, that made me doubt my theory. Perhaps the C.I.A. had done away with him to get the land, Mr. Malmstrom was not quite plausible; but that was preposterous, I couldn’t start suspecting people for no reason.
I rummaged in the cavity under the wall bench, went through the shelves, groped under the beds where the tents were stored. He might have filed the papers in a safety-deposit box, earlier, in a city bank, I’d never find them. Or he might have burned them. At any rate they weren’t here.
Unless they were in among the pages of a book: I checked Goldsmith and Burns, holding them by the spines and shaking, then I thought of his lunatic drawings, the only clue I had that he might not be dead. I’d never gone through all of them. In a way that