The Seal Wife - Kathryn Harrison [59]
Looking at the illustration tacked to the wall, the way the white fabric goes in one end of the mangle and then comes out squashed, the smiling woman’s hand on the crank. Sitting on her bed and then smoothing it afterward, erasing his presence. Opening the door of the stove to see what’s inside, embers or ashes.
Finding both house and stove cold, he clears out the ashes and lays a fire for her, first taking a handful of dry grass from the basket by the door, then picking among the kindling in the wood box, just as he used to watch her do. But then, walking away from the house, he reconsiders, quickly he retraces his steps, puts the tinder back where he found it, curses at the difficulty of regathering the ash he deposited outside the door. One errant breath of wind and it blows from his hands, scatters on the floor. He has to sweep, then, and sweep again, and sweep a third time, clumsy in his haste. He fairly runs into the town and straight to a bathhouse, where he strips behind the curtain and pays the attendant to beat the ash from his clothes while he washes it from his face and hair and hands.
BUT HE’S BACK the following day. He’s in her house when he hears the noon whistle blow, probing himself for guilt, but all he finds is excitement, ascension, joy. Like the feel of kite line in his hands that first time—the tremble of connection to something alive, alive and exalted. Something flying high high above him.
He pries the lid from the tin where she keeps sweets to see: how many are there? Having checked the first time, he must do it the next, and the one after, can’t not keep track of just how many she eats in a day: one. A week: seven. One each day, without exception.
Of course, he knows this about her. He knows how strict she is with regard to what she allows herself. One sweet. One pipe bowl of inexpensive tobacco. One tub of hot water, filled only enough to cover the mark, a birthmark, on her left hip. Walking around the room, hands shoved in his pockets, avoiding the window, Bigelow thinks about the woman. One carrot, a single slice of meat. One slice of bread to catch its juice. And, lying beneath him, one orgasm.
Strange, the effect on him of her restraint. He cannot quite understand it. And is restraint the right word? One slice, one sweet, one long, shuddering sigh: perhaps these are enough. Enough for her.
Bigelow reviews, as he has countless times, the way she unwraps a toffee, prying the silver paper up with her fingernail. While she chews, she smoothes the little square of foil on the table’s surface, then, when it is flat, she folds it. When her teeth stick together, she moves her jaw from side to side to unstick them. This series of moments, each fondled in its turn like a bead on a string: it would not be inaccurate to regard it as a prayer.
THURSDAY, another Thursday that he’s skipping his visit to Miriam. He’ll resolve this mess—how? how?—well, somehow. But not today. A storm is gathering, and the wind is going to lift his kite that last, sixth mile it’s never reached. Bigelow cables and picks up readings, raises his red and black storm flags, draws his map, and gets it to the post office early. He jogs home, sweating under his heavy parka, making a mental list of what he needs to take with him up the bluff. He’ll have to hurry if he wants any light. No time for lunch. No secret visit to the woman’s house. Snow glasses and water bottle and theodolite and field book and—he slams in his door, and there Miriam is, sitting at his table.
She’s washed his dishes, made his bed. The place looks clean.
“Oh,” Bigelow says, trying to keep hold of his list, losing items. Where’s his rucksack?
Miriam hands him her notebook. Where were you last week? And the week before? I expected you.
“I have to take the kite out today.” Bigelow sees his rucksack under the drafting table, seizes it, and begins cramming things inside.
What about me? she writes, and she holds the words in front of his