The Soul Thief_ A Novel - Charles Baxter [28]
“What did he say?”
“Oh, you know.”
“Actually, no, I don’t.”
“Well, he said he grew up in Milwaukee, until his family moved to New York, an apartment on West End Avenue. Didn’t you live in Milwaukee, too? And New York? That’s quite a coincidence. Anyway, he said he has a sister who was in a car accident and is mute. That’s a shame—I felt bad for him. He said his father died when he was quite young, of a stroke—”
Nathaniel sits up quickly. He feels cold sweat breaking out on his forehead, and his chest heats up. “Wait! What? He said what?”
“You heard me.” She looks over at him. “What’s the matter?”
For a brief moment, Nathaniel looks down at his shape under the comforter, as if some part of him is no longer there. Where his right foot should be, nothing. Quickly he scrambles out of bed and rushes into Jamie’s bathroom. His stomach has been seized with a sudden twist of electric current. He is afraid that he may be having a heart attack. A metaphysical nausea instantly converts itself into physical nausea, and he leans over the toilet bowl, staring downward. The seizure feels like a heart attack located in his gut. Maybe, he thinks, a heart attack can strike anywhere in the body. You could have a heart attack in your brain.
Jamie appears in the bathroom doorway, as naked as he is. In the midst of his nausea, he admires her legs. They are solid; they will not disappear on her. They will continue to hold her up, and maybe she will hold him up. “Nathaniel,” she says, “what’s going on?” She approaches him and puts her arm around him as if to support him, to keep him from falling.
He glances down to see if his right foot still exists. It does. It has returned. This is crazy, he thinks.
“That’s not his life,” Nathaniel says. Anger arrives belatedly. “The stroke, the mute sister, Milwaukee, New York—that’s all mine. That’s not his. It’s my life.”
“He’s claiming your life?” Jamie asks. “That’s preposterous.”
“Okay, yeah, I know. But that’s what he’s doing.”
“Are you feeling sick? Are you okay?” In the mirror’s reflection, Jamie’s face shows high-level concern, her dazzling eyes signaling that she’s at home and the lights burn brightly. At this moment, when Nathaniel sees her face reversed in the mirror, he thinks that Jamie is the most beautiful woman he has ever looked upon, even though she is not beautiful. He is having another Gertrude Stein moment. She is beautiful although she is not beautiful.
“I have to go,” Nathaniel tells her. On her bathroom mirror she has stuck a little decal that says WATERFOUL OBSERVATION SITE. In the bathtub is her collection of yellow rubber ducks and ducklings and orange shampoo bottles. The bathroom smells of primal girl. One of her metal dirigibles hangs from the bathroom ceiling. Jamie’s little tchotchkes constitute a conspiracy of the hapless and lovable and airborne.
“Can’t this wait?”
“I mean, it won’t. No, it can’t wait,” he says, his verbal confusion adding to his rage. Something must be done. He feels like pulling down a few window shades and tearing them into small bitter pieces.
“Why did he do all that? Why does he want your life? Is he in love with you?”
Nathaniel says nothing.
“I bet he’s in love with you.” She stands behind him and reaches around him to lean her head against his shoulders. “I’m sort of worried about you.” She waits while Nathaniel notices that “sort of”—must everything she does be qualified?—and she touches him on the chest. “You’re not going to hurt him, are you?