The Age of Grief - Jane Smiley [23]
“What?”
“Power drills are a dangerous business.” Thus your inner life inexorably proceeded, not exclusive of these hands with which I stood you up, the sharp corner of the table around which I steered you, the toilet I placed you next to, but relegating all of our surroundings with no compromise. “Piss!” I ordered. “That’s easier said than done,” you said, already doing it, your eyes adamantly closed.
Man, unconscious, naked in my bathroom, warm skin in jeopardy of cold surfaces, porcelain and metallic. The fluorescent light whitening and fattening him, the muscles in his narrow bony feet (the little piggy that stayed home shorter than the one that went to market) tensing and relaxing as he loses and regains degrees of balance.
Your body. I guided it into the bedroom and set it up at the end of the bed. “Lie down, Jeffrey,” I said, poking the small of its back. It toppled onto the bed, face down. I covered it up, pink sheet, red thermal blanket, white quilt; under its cheek, a down pillow. I hung up my own clothes, climbed into bed with it, turned out the light. Black shades, navy curtains, it was dark. I did, as you can imagine, kiss it on the cheek, laid an amicable hand on its scapula. I thought again of Einstein. I fell asleep, and woke up disoriented, fucking. “Where am I?” I said. In response, you came. But way of explanation, I added, “It’s very dark.” You simply said, “Mary.” Truly that is my name, although the name of many. You used a very one-in-the-afternoon, fully conscious, what-shall-we-have-for-lunch sort of intonation. In the morning you were gone in a pair of my jeans and a sweat shirt.
It is January. I was glad to have kept your shoes. Since then, four weeks ago, where have you been? I do not accuse, I simply wish to know. That and where you intend to be, which will become increasingly important from now on.
Long Distance
K irby Christianson is standing under the shower, fiddling with the hot-water spigot and thinking four apparently simultaneous thoughts: that there is never enough hot water in this apartment, that there was always plenty of hot water in Japan, that Mieko will be here in four days, and that he is unable to control Mieko’s expectations of him in any way. The thoughts of Mieko are accompanied by a feeling of anxiety as strong as the sensation of the hot water, and he would like the water to flow through him and wash it away. He turns from the shower head and bends backward, so that the stream can pour over his face.
When he shuts off the shower, the phone is ringing. A sense that it has been ringing for a long time—can a mechanical noise have a quality of desperation?—propels him naked and dripping into the living room. He picks up the phone and his caller, as he has suspected, is Mieko. Perhaps he is psychic; perhaps this is only a coincidence; or perhaps no one else has called him in the past week or so.
The connection has a crystalline clarity that tricks him into not allowing for the satellite delay. He is already annoyed after the first hello. Mieko’s voice is sharp, high, very Japanese, although she speaks superb English. He says, “Hello, Mieko,” and he sounds annoyed, as if she calls him too much, although she has only called once to give him her airline information and once to change it. Uncannily attuned to the nuances of his voice, she says, “Oh, Kirby,” and falls silent.
Now there will be a flurry of tedious apologies, on both sides. He is tempted to hang up on her, call her back, and blame his telephone—faulty American technology. But he can’t