A Sliver of Glass

by Anne Mazer

  Now the secrets seem to avoid her, to fly around her. She sees herself as an empty space at the center, a hollow, a dome of silence that secrets dare not cross.

  When she was four or five years old, she sat on a blanket in the middle of a field. Adults were huddled in little groups, whispering, while the children ran wild. They screamed and climbed trees, rained apples on one another’s heads, jumped over ditches, snatched flowers in their fists. When they were tired they dropped to the ground, where they clustered together, telling secrets.

  She sat alone on the blanket with a book of pictures open on her lap. She could feel the secrets around her in the air, the humming words making their way from group to group. Come, come, come, the secrets said. Tell us …

  The children whispered and beckoned to her. She surely must have a secret. Something simple or amusing or even silly. There were secrets in everyone, even in babies.

  Why didn’t she run over to them? Why did she sit on the blanket and blindly turn the pages of her book?

  The other children kept calling to her, and she did not move. She felt empty, like clear glass, or like air expanding. She was watching the secrets move, leaving long silvery trails that took on different hues as they went from one child to another.

  She didn’t want their secrets. They would wind their way into her, twist around her thoughts, bind her movements. She wanted to keep herself cool and free and empty.

  The children got up to play again, trailing their secrets behind them. Sitting on her blanket, she watched them until the sky darkened and their parents called them to leave.

  The girl with the long brown braids is ten now. Her braids are gone. She wears blue jeans and a baseball cap to school and carries a red backpack, which she swings from one arm. The other children stay away from her; no one wants to be her friend. If she were poor and meek, they would feel sorry for her, whisper pitying stories, take her to lunch and feed her sweets from their bags—but she is not poor or meek. So they won’t sit with her at the lunch table. They won’t share their books with her. They won’t do sums on the blackboard when she is there.

  She wishes that someone would talk to her. She wants to tell them that they have nothing to fear from her. She doesn’t want to hurt them. It’s only that she can see their world of secrets—can see them growing up like weeds, bursting through walls, tangling on the floors, hanging from ceilings—secrets that will eventually choke off all air and make it impossible to move.

  She only wants to hack through this thick undergrowth with a sword, to clear it out and open it up.

  That is her secret.

  5

  THE GOLDEN TOUCH

  For years, M. had thought of nothing but gold. Gold was power; gold was riches; gold was shining, beautiful metal.

  Gold filled two of his storehouses. His horses had harnesses of gold; the banisters and washing bowls in his house were made of beaten gold.

  His gems and treasures were a means to buy more gold; his wife was someone to adorn in gold. He loved her most when she wore a gold tiara in her hair, a finely woven golden gown, and gold chains around her neck, arms, and ankles. Her hair, too, was long and golden, but how many times had he told her that she would be even more beautiful if it were made of golden wire?

  His children received gold coins on their birthdays. M. brought them up to love and revere gold, to hold it above all else.

  One day, as M. walked toward the stables to see his favorite horse, something shining caught his eye. Golden dust glittered on the ground beneath his feet. Dropping to his hands and knees, he began scooping it up. More and more gold appeared. He heaped it in mounds like piles of sand. When he reached for a shovel to work more quickly, it turned to gold at his touch.

  M. danced around the yard for joy, leaving a trail of golden footprints. Entering the stable, he brushed against a battered wooden trough and a lamp that hung from a hook on the wall. These ordinary objects were now priceless treasures.

  A mouse scurried past him, flicking its tail against the edge of his foot. Now it was a golden mouse, a toy, an ornament. M. picked up the little creature and touched it with his lips.

  Soon he would have more gold than anyone else on earth.

  When he went to his favorite horse, one affectionate pat turned the animal to shining gold. M. tried to feed the remaining horses without touching them, but in his hand the hay changed to golden wire. “The horses will starve,” M. said. “Perhaps it is kinder to turn them to gold. And after all, they are still beautiful.”

  One after another, he stroked the manes of the remaining horses. His footsteps rang against the golden planks of the floor.

  As he left the stable he saw his son carelessly tossing coins in the air. M. hated waste. “Stupid boy!” he shouted.

  M. broke off a switch to strike his son, but the stick instantly turned to gold.

  When the boy saw this, he backed away from his father.

  “Come here!” M. ordered, but his son grabbed his coat and ran away.

  “What a treasure,” M. said softly, forgetting his anger toward his son; forgetting he even had a son. He caressed the stick gently. Each twig and bud was solid gold.

  Clutching the stick, he hurried to the house to show his wife. He didn’t see his infant daughter crawling over and reaching up to him. He didn’t feel her hand touch his leg, but when his wife screamed, he looked down and saw a small golden statue. Groaning, he embraced his wife. She too turned to gold.

  “Better gold than salt,” M. said to himself. He threw himself down on the couch, bruising his head on the golden pillow. When he awoke from his nap, he was hungry and thirsty. But there was no one to fetch him a cup of tea, no one to bring him his supper. And when he did his accounts, no small daughter to accompany him from treasure house to treasure house. Only two statues stood by the front door. A small golden child held out her arms to be picked up; a golden woman cried out in horror.

  In the library the desk was gold, books stiffened under his hand, and the flames in the fireplace turned to pale gold filament.

  By this time his house was entirely gold, even the stairs and the pictures on the walls. His chairs were of gold and so were the rugs. When at last he went to lie down, instead of a soft, welcoming bed, he met cold, shining metal. His shoes turned into gold, but he managed to slip out of them. It was impossible to remove his heavy golden clothes. They rubbed against his arms, leaving raw, red marks on his skin. Nor could he light the lamp; and when he wept, gold dripped off his face in shining globules.

  In the morning M. had nothing to eat or drink. Food turned to gold in his mouth. Water froze on his lips. He went to the cornfield, but at a single touch, the stalks rustled and stiffened into beaten gold. The sun blazed down, and the reflection from the cornstalks blinded him. He stumbled to the orchard. He could no longer run, for his clothes held him closely in a rigid embrace. Solid blades of grass stabbed his bare feet as he walked, and he tripped over heavy golden flowers. When he reached for a pear hanging from a branch above his head, it turned hard and heavy. The pear tree now bore golden fruit.

  Nothing moved in the yard. The stable was silent. The horses no longer whinnied in their stalls; he could no longer feel their warm breath on his face. M. cried out for his wife and daughter.

  “I would do anything to lose this accursed touch!” he cried.

  The sun beat on his face, and he slumped down in a stupor. A fly landed on his leg. Dazed, he brushed it away.

  The fly hovered around him and then landed again on his arm. “Go away,” M. muttered.

  Suddenly he sat up. The fly grazed his fingers and flew away.

  “Can it be true?” M. made his way to a small stream at the edge of his property. There he scooped water into his hands, then let it flow through his fingers back into the stream—clear, wet, and not at all golden.

  M. fell to his knees and thrust his head into the water. He drank until his thirst was quenched.

  He walked to town to buy food, noticing
with relief that the earth under his feet was brown and dusty. The trees he touched remained green, and when he stopped to rest against a fence, it was still wooden when he set off again.

  When he reached the town, people ran from him. M. scattered golden coins over the ground. “Gold!” he cried hoarsely. “As much as you want for a loaf of bread!”

  But the townspeople bolted their doors and refused to talk to him.

  He pulled out golden pears from his pockets, then flowers, sticks, and bees. “A fortune! A fortune for anyone who gives me a piece of bread.”

  “You have enough gold!” a women cried. “Go away. You can’t have me, too.”

  Every day of his life, he had eaten fruit from his orchards, and grain from his fields, drunk wine from his vineyards. He had never been hungry. Now he craved food above all else.

  M. caught a glimpse of his son, who was watching him from behind a tree. “My son! Help me, my son!” he called.

  The boy turned away.

  “It’s me, your father! Come here! Help me!”

  His son began to run.

  M. tried to chase after him, but in his grief he stumbled and fell. “My son!” he cried in despair.

  The boy did not answer. In a moment he had vaulted over a fence and disappeared from sight.

  M. packed up his treasures and walked on, going from one town to the next. The news of his gift had spread. No one knew he had lost it. Men, women, and children fled at the sight of him. At times someone left him a loaf of bread, a few oranges, a jug of water. But no one would speak to him, no one would invite him in, no one would touch him.

  As he went from place to place, M. often thought he saw his son. He saw him at the back of a fleeing crowd, he saw him slipping out of a doorway, eating at a market stall, or carrying bags for a few pennies. But whenever he called out the boy vanished. Perhaps it was not even his son.

  He began to see the boy everywhere. Every stranger had his face. M. searched the crowds, the alleyways, the parks of each town he passed through. A new kind of hunger had awakened in him.

  6

  CALL ME SOMETIME

  I.

  In the beginning, when they called, they didn’t say anything.

  I would pick up the phone and hear a low-pitched vibration on the other end.

  “Sometimes the wires are wacky,” my mother said.

  I noticed that the calls came in at the same time every day. 8:02 in the morning. 1:15 in the afternoon. 6:57 in the evening. And I was the only one who got them.

  If my mother answered, it was one of her friends.

  If my father answered, it was a business call.

  If my brother answered, someone needed to know the homework assignment.

  But when I picked up the phone, the wires hummed.

  “Hello?” I said. “Hello? Is anyone there?”

  Hhmmmmmmmmmm …

  “Who is this? What’s going on?”

  Hhhmmmmmmmmm …

  “Your girlfriend, Jeremy,” my brother teased. He had a girlfriend and thought I should, too.

  “Damned nuisance!” my father muttered.

  “Are you sure you’re not dreaming, Jeremy?” my mother asked.

  “Someone’s trying to reach him,” said my father.

  “But who?” I asked.

  The phone company came out and checked the phone, the wires, and the cables.

  There was nothing wrong with our equipment or hookup.

  “They’ll get sick of calling sooner or later,” my father said.

  The calls kept coming in.

  “Hello? Hello? Is anyone there?”

  Hmmmmmmmmmmmm …

  At school I tried to find out if I had a secret enemy.

  I asked if any of the other kids had ever gotten a call like this. No one had.

  One of my teachers said, “Buy a whistle. When they call you, blast it into their ears.”

  “I don’t know if they have ears. All I ever get is this hum.”

  “But try the whistle,” said my teacher. “It might work.”

  But no matter what I tried—whistling, humming back, hanging up—the calls continued as before.

  The phone rang.

  “Hello?”

  Hhmmmmmmm …

  “Who is this?” I asked. “What do you want?”

  Hhhmmmmmmmmmmmm …

  I waited. The vibration became deeper and deeper.

  HHHHMMMMMMMMMMMMMM …

  “I’m not hanging up until you tell me who you are.”

  Suddenly the humming stopped. A living silence gathered itself together. I could feel it coming over the wires, creeping out, surrounding me like a mist.

  “Hello? Is anybody there?”

  “Wweee’re hhhhere,” said a muffled voice that sounded not quite human.

  “Who is it?” I asked. “Answer me!”

  “Us, us, ussssssss …”

  I cleared my throat. “It’s about time you talked! What’s the big idea?”

  Loud laughter that was both high- and low-pitched came over the receiver. “J-J-J-J-J-Jerrrremmmmy.”

  “Who are you?” I demanded again.

  “Someone you know very well …” The voice was echo and squeal, cello and viola, wind and water.

  “Elise??? Grover?? Bill??”

  “No … you’re not even warm. Or cold, either. You can do better—better—than that.”

  “Mr. Roman? Debbie next-door? Susie the midget?”

  “Terrible guesses, terrible guesses.”

  I could feel my face getting hot. “Will you quit playing games? I want to know who you are! Right now!”

  Suddenly there were two voices.

  “What is going on?” I cried. “Tell me now!”

  “We’re your double.” The voices had merged once more. “And the double of your double.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “We’re you. And you’re us.”

  I sighed in exasperation. These guys were nuts. “If you’re me,” I said, playing along, “why do you call me all the time?”

  “To hear the sound of your voice,” bellowed one of them.

  “We’re incomplete without you.”

  “At sea and lost.”

  “Pale and incorporeal.”

  “Do you have bodies? Faces? What do you look like?”

  “We look like you, silly.”

  “We both have curly brown hair.”

  “And skinny legs.”

  “Don’t forget that scar above the eyebrow.”

  “And the cut in the lower corner of our right palm.”

  I turned my hand over and studied it. Sure enough, there was a fresh cut in the lower corner. How had they learned that?

  “How do you know that?” I asked.

  “We do everything you do,” they said.

  “We live in your house, wear your clothes, eat your food, and hang out with your friends …”

  “I’ve never seen you,” I protested.

  “We’ve been invisible—indivisible, hardly existing,” they said together. “That’s why we keep trying to call you.”

  “We want to live where we belong. With you.”

  The voices whispered, one in each ear. They told me what I had done that day and the day before. They described a rock I carried in my pocket for luck, told me how many pieces of gum I chewed each day, and the color of my underwear.

  I rubbed my face. Two voices who knew everything about me? Who looked like me down to the last hangnail? Who hung on my every word? Who wanted nothing more than to be with me? What kind of a joke was this?

  “Sorry, not buying today,” I said, and hung up the phone.

  II.

  The next morning, when I sat up in bed, they were there. I stretched my arms. Bam!

  “Ow! Ow! Watch it, will you?” I heard.

  “You just poked me in the nose,” the other voice said.

  “You got me in the chin.”

  “And you weren’t very polite last night.”<
br />
  “Not nice to hang up on your own selves.”

  “Sorry,” I muttered. This was no joke. The phone was one thing, but now they were in my bed! How was I going to get them out of here?

  “Where are you?” I asked.

  “Right here. Here.”

  “Where?” I kicked out.

  “Watch our toes!”

  I swatted the air around me. “Where are you?”

  “With you. By you. We are you.”

  I jumped out of bed and looked in the mirror, half thinking I’d see them, or at least a faint double vibration in the air around my head. But all I saw was the bed, bureau, and desk. And my own face and body. No more.

  Something flickered at the corner of my eye. Then I saw them. A version of my own face and body—in duplicate—on either side of the bed. They looked quite a bit younger, almost too young for school. Their faces were pudgy and babyish; their legs were kicking restlessly.

  They were unmistakably me.

  My brother knocked on the door. “Jeremy! Mom says get your head out of the clouds. Breakfast is ready. Hurry up or you’ll be late for school.”

  I went to the closet to get a T-shirt.

  “I don’t think you should wear that one,” said a high voice to my left. “You’ve already worn it four days this week.”

  “Wear it,” said the other. “It’s so good-looking. No one will notice if it smells a little.”

  I pulled on the T-shirt. It did smell. I took it off and sorted through my clothes.

  “The blue one,” said the deep voice.

  I reached for it.

  “Yellow,” said the high one.

  I grabbed another T-shirt from the bottom of the pile. “All right! I’m going to wear this one! Good-bye!”

  “We’re coming with you.”

  “No! I don’t want you!”

  “But we’ve waited so long to be together,” said one of them.

  “You’re part of us,” said the other. “We can’t be separated. We’re part of you.”

  “Evermore,” they said together. “Evermore.”

  III.

  In homeroom my doubles pinched my fingers during the Pledge of Allegiance.

  They made fun of the principal’s morning talk.