The Soul Thief_ A Novel - Charles Baxter [37]
“You arranged this,” Nathaniel says. “You planned this out and arranged this.”
“Oh, no,” she replies. “The totally empty zoo? An accident. The bored sleeping animals? A mere coincidence. Don’t call me a bitch before you’re ready to back it up.”
“I never called you a bitch. I never did that.” The outside air has the enclosed noncirculatory staleness of a cedar closet, and Nathaniel feels his hands closing up into clenched fists. As he runs toward Coolberg, he hears Theresa say something whose exact words he can’t make out. But the sentence sounds like “Don’t hit him.”
When he arrives in front of Coolberg, Nathaniel says, “Stand up.”
“Hi, Nathaniel. Ever read this?” He holds up a book entitled The Wandering Beggar.
“No. Stand up.”
“Why?” He seems puzzled. “I’m glad to see you.”
“Stand up so I can slug you.”
“What good would that do? If you hit me, nothing would really happen.”
“Something would happen. I’d feel good.”
“Oh, but you’re not like a character in a movie. Why act like one? That’s a movie line. You keep underestimating yourself. You make yourself into less than you are. Well, you can hit me if you really want to, I suppose. I suppose you have the moxie for it. And by the way, I’m going to return your clothes and this pair of shoes in a few days, you know. I was always going to return them. I just needed them for a while.”
“Stand up.”
“Don’t be that way. Ah, here’s Theresa.” Coolberg does indeed stand up as Theresa joins them. She’s humming “Here Comes the Sun” in a high cheerful soprano. For some reason, her hands are crossed over her breasts. Ignoring her, Nathaniel hauls back and swings his fist into Coolberg’s stomach. But Coolberg is an unsatisfactory victim, and the sensation is oddly like punching a Bozo the Clown doll. Nathaniel’s fist meets little or no resistance, as if the fogged-in body it struck had anticipated and already made a place for the fist, accommodating this and every other occasion of physically intrusive violence, with fog. Nevertheless, Coolberg gasps and falls back onto the bench. The strangest part of it is that Theresa does not stop humming the Beatles tune as she reaches around Nathaniel to keep him from swinging his fist again. But how would he hit a man sitting on a park bench anyway? One blow must suffice.
“Okay…now you’ve done that…sit down.” Coolberg gasps.
After what seems to be a blank, a blackboard of empty space and time suddenly inscribed with a few chalky words of instruction that vanish as soon as they have appeared, Nathaniel finds himself sitting on the bench next to Coolberg. Despite his intention to leave these confounding people at the zoo and to drive home, here he is nevertheless, their straight man. Around Coolberg, good intentions have a negligible effect. Coolberg, the recipient of Nathaniel’s sudden attack, appears to have resumed reading The Wandering Beggar and now obligingly begins a plot summary. In the meantime Theresa has maneuvered her body, and herself, behind the two men and has one hand on Coolberg’s shoulder and another hand on Nathaniel’s. Her puppeteer fingers—she wears bright maroon nail polish—have him in a controlling grip. They rise and begin to caress his neck.
I love these stories, Coolberg says. They’re about the adventures of Simple Shmerel, who travels from village to village. It’s almost like The Arabian Nights.
Theresa kneads Nathaniel’s shoulder. Then her finger-tips move up to his earlobes.
This story, the one I’m reading now, is about Calman, the rich merchant, and Zalman, his coachman.
“I’m leaving,” Nathaniel says.
Zalman is a good coachman, honest and sober. He even goes to bed early. But he has a vice: he imitates his master. For instance, he walks with his hands clasped behind his back in a thoughtful posture, like Calman’s own attitude and bearing when walking, and he imitates his master’s tone of voice and uses many of the same words and expressions.
“Let go of me,” Nathaniel