Agyar

by Steven Brust

  “I don’t want you to be unhappy.”

  “My happiness isn’t your responsibility.”

  “I know that. But still—”

  “Yes. I understand.”

  “What did it feel like, when you were jealous?”

  “It was ugly, but only slightly ugly.”

  “What does this feel like?”

  “It’s uglier.”

  She walked up to me (actually, it was more like cross c to r) and put her hands on my shoulders. She looked directly into my eyes and said, “You don’t expect me to leave Jennifer, do you?”

  I kept very careful control over myself and said, “No. I don’t expect you to, and I’m not asking you to.”

  She remained where she was and said, “Well, then?”

  “I don’t know.” I felt myself smile a little. “You are giving me a new experience, for which I thank you.”

  “You’re welcome,” she said, and kissed my mouth lightly.

  “However,” I said, “I’m not exactly certain what to do, or, for that matter, what I feel.”

  “I know what I feel,” said Susan. “I love you.”

  I was hit by a sudden, and mercifully brief, sense of vertigo. The heavens were uprooted and the world spun around me, and all I could think was, This is real. I did not make her do this, this is real. This is real.

  Now that I think about it, the only other time in my life I’ve felt anything like that is when Young Don got me with the shotgun; there was the same onrush of significance in waves, and the same disorientation, and feeling of, Has my life been nothing but a preparation for this moment? I let the waves pass over me, not really caring if I drowned in them.

  When I had regained my equilibrium and opened my eyes again, I found that she was still staring directly into them. I put my hands very lightly on her waist. “That,” I said, “is not one of the possibilities.”

  Her eyes widened. “How not?” she said.

  “It just isn’t.”

  She took my hand and began leading me up the stairs. “I think I can prove you’re wrong,” she said.

  “Yes,” I said. “You probably can.”

  And she did, too.

  TEN

  vi⋅cis⋅si⋅tude n. 1. Usually plural. Any change or variation in something; mutability. 2. Natural change or variation; alterations manifested in nature and human affairs. 3.a. An alteration or variation in fortune …

  AMERICAN HERITAGE DICTIONARY

  An unsatisfying sort of day. I was feeling lazy at first, so I just sat around talking to Jim for a while. I asked him if he had ever married. He said, “Oh, yes. Had three children, too. The youngest was born a free man.”

  “What ever became of them?”

  “They moved away. They’re all dead now. We never saw much of them, except for the one who …” His voice trailed off and he looked troubled.

  “Who what?” I said.

  “Who was … different.”

  “Retarded?”

  “No.”

  “Crippled?”

  “It doesn’t matter. We kept her with us, and it was all right. But she couldn’t have gotten an education anyway, because she was a girl as well as a Negro, so it doesn’t matter. She was a sweet little girl, all her life.”

  I looked at him for a while, wanting to ask him more about his family, but then I decided that perhaps I should not. He said, “You ever married?”

  “I was engaged once.”

  “Oh? What happened?”

  “I met Kellem.”

  “Oh. I wonder if she was ever married.”

  “Yes, she was.”

  “Really? What ever became of her husband?”

  “Make a guess, Jim.”

  He frowned. “You mean, she—”

  “Right.”

  “Oh.” He spent some time thinking about that, then looked at my chest again and said, “I wonder if that bothers her.”

  I threw away a snappy answer and actually thought about it, wondering too, but I couldn’t make up my mind. How much of Laura did it explain? What happens when you’re driven to something by your animal needs and then come to regret it? I don’t know. I avoid that problem by never doing anything I’ll have cause to regret, but in her case—

  Rubbish. What difference does it make? She is who she is, and how she got that way is none of my concern.

  Still, it does give one to think.

  Jim said, “You’ve been writing a great deal.”

  “Yes,” I said. “It eases my mind.”

  He frowned. “Sometimes when you say things, I don’t know if you’re being ironic.”

  “Sometimes neither do I,” I said.

  “Well?”

  “Well what?”

  “Why are you so involved in writing down everything that happens?”

  I shrugged. It made me uncomfortable to talk about; I don’t know why. I said, “When it’s all done I’ll have it published and I’ll become a famous author.”

  “Now,” he said, “you are being ironic.”

  “Yes.”

  “I had a friend who wrote a book once.”

  “Oh?”

  “He said it was more work than it was worth.”

  “It probably is,” I said.

  We drifted off onto other subjects that I don’t remember very well. After a while I became restless and left, making my way over to Susan’s, where I made certain that she was alone before I knocked on the door.

  She was in a mood to go out, so I took her to a motion picture at one of those places with about nineteen screens under one roof. The picture was called Another 48 Hours, and it was an enjoyable film, if mindless. I thought the girl in the cage was quite attractive.

  So did Susan.

  After the movie we went back to her house and sat around for a while, just talking.

  She said, “Jonathan, are you ever going to spend the night with me?”

  I felt, I admit, a certain thrill at the question, along with worry that she might insist on an answer. I said, “I’m glad that you want me to.”

  We were sitting on the couch, my arm about her shoulders. She moved a little closer to me. I said, “There will be a time to talk of the future, perhaps, but now isn’t it.”

  “I hadn’t been speaking about the rest of our lives.”

  “No. Nor am I encouraging you to. If we decide that we want to talk of such things, we always can. There is no need to just now, don’t you think?”

  “I agree,” she said, which took care of the discussion of sleeping arrangements for the moment. I moved toward her, pressing her very gently back onto the couch. I was careful; she was so very, very sweet.

  Sometime later I returned home to this faithful typewriting machine to pour out my confusions; or, at any rate, to recount the experiences of the day. Now they are recounted, and there is nothing to add.

  I went over to the Tunnel today to look at the sights and to think. There was a tall, bearded, scraggly-looking fellow standing in the recess of a building, and as I passed he asked if I could give him some money.

  “No,” I said.

  He said, “Are you sure, man? Even five dollars would help.”

  That stopped me. I turned to him and said, “Five dollars? Five dollars? What happened to ‘can you spare a dime’?”

  He looked puzzled, and I walked on. If I’d been him, I’d have made a remark about inflation, but I don’t think he was of entirely sound mind. The result, however, was that I happened to notice a United Way billboard that I’d passed a hundred times before, and it got me thinking about charities.

  I’ve never given anything to charity; I don’t know why. I am not a heartless man, but something about giving money to I know not what organization to do I know not what with is repugnant to me. I have helped my friends when they needed help, and I expect them to do the same, and it isn’t even that I don’t care what happens to complete strangers, and don’t wish them the best.

  Maybe it’s that it all seems so
futile.

  No answers, here, but it is another thing to think about, since I seem to have become involved in self-examination lately, for whatever reason.

  Everyone, and I include myself, has a need, I think, to feel that he is helping other people. Some of us limit it to friends, others want to help strangers, while still others eschew what they consider trivialities and find whatever cause seems to them to strike at either the most important issues or the most fundamental. It’s hard to say that any of these methods is better or worse than any others.

  No, I take that back. I don’t like being approached on the street, or by charities, because they make me think that I owe something because I have a share in whatever brought them to this state, and that is untrue and irritating. Whether it is some bum standing on the street, or a huge billboard depicting starving children in Africa, they are saying, “If your life is better than this, it’s your fault mine isn’t as good,” and I just won’t accept the guilt for that. I didn’t build this world, I don’t control it, and when I succor a friend, or even a stranger, it is because I want to.

  I feel no shame because, though I bear the guilt for my actions, I refuse to accept blame for things with which I had nothing to do, and I don’t do things for which I ought to feel shame.

  I am not without a conscience; I merely have no need for shame.

  10 March

  Traci Kaufmann

  2216 N. 7th St.

  Apt 11A

  Akron, OH

  Dear Traci:

  I hope this letter finds you well. It is some time since we have corresponded, and, if I may, correspondingly longer since we have seen each other in the flesh, but memories, as they say, linger on, and we have more than our share of those.

  Had I received a letter from you like this, my first thought should have been, “What does she want of me?” I do not doubt that this same thought, with regard to myself, is flashing across your brain. Well, I will pretend to nothing different. A situation has come up in which you could help me immeasurably. Are you traveling these days? Is there an airport in Akron? I can certainly send you money for tickets.

  As to the service itself, well, I have no doubt that you can guess its nature, but let the details wait until we are together again. Should you be uninterested in helping me, well, come anyway, and we can sit around and remember evenings in Belgrade, and nights in Vienna.

  I am including my address. Please let me know if you are free, and, if so, when.

  I Remain, as Always,

  Your Servant,

  Jack Agyar

  I met Bill once more today. It was still early evening, and he was out prowling the neighborhood with a determined look on his face. I stopped and said hello. He said, “Have you seen any stray dogs around here?

  “No,” I said. “Can’t say I have. Did Pepper run off?”

  He shook his head. “No. Another dog got into our yard and killed her.”

  “Oh. I’m sorry. What did it look like?”

  “I don’t know; I didn’t see it. It must have been big, though, judging from what it did to Pepper.”

  I winced and repeated that I was sorry.

  “Well,” he said. “I’m going to be keeping a close eye out around here, and I’ve been asking everyone else to do the same.”

  “I will.”

  “Good.”

  He nodded and went on his way, looking pathetically determined.

  I got to Susan’s house, and, once more, checked to see if she was alone. This time I heard soft voices in the bedroom, and I assumed one of them was Jennifer’s.

  For just a second I wanted to break the window and descend on them in a storm of blood and anger, then I thought to escape entirely; to go far away where I’d be out of the reach of such thoughts. My next idea was to enter and pay Jill a visit, but I did not trust myself sufficiently; it would be inconvenient if she were to die.

  In the end, I sat there, a cold wind blowing across my body, and I studied the stars through the passing wisps of clouds, undimmed by any moon. I do not know how long I waited there, or what I thought I was waiting for, but I suddenly became aware that the door had opened, and Jennifer had left the house.

  I remember thinking that her step was very distinct; she leaned forward a bit as she walked, so the scuffling sound came after the step, almost as if she were skating. To my eyes, as I followed her, she was a dark blur against a dark street, but I could follow the pinpoints of the occasional porch or living-room light that she blotted out as she passed before them.

  It would have been so easy to fall on her then, as she walked, and have done with it, and I do not know why I didn’t do so. But in the end she came to a very small house, all dark inside with a heavily textured roof and a squat chimney to which a TV antenna was attached. The house did not seem to have many windows. As I watched, a half-moon rose and made the stars fade just a little.

  I thought, then, about knocking on the door and seeing if she wanted to invite me in for a chat, but it didn’t seem to be such a good idea because I wasn’t certain what to say to her, or how I’d feel if she did, in fact, did not wish to talk to me. I had to assume she knew about me; did it bother her? Did I care if it did?

  If it means so much, why am I so confused and ashamed at my own feelings? If it means so little, why do I feel betrayed whenever I know they are together?

  I’ve written a letter to an old friend who could solve this problem for me, but now I’m not certain if I want to send it. I guess I’ll just leave it sitting here for a while and decide later.

  Exhaustion, weakness, and trembling are, I think, a small price to pay for life and freedom. We can call that tonight’s lesson and be done with it, but where’s the fun in that? This evening I have had a brush with death or captivity, and learned something important. At this moment, the effects of the escape are so strong that I cannot determine what I have learned, but the exhaustion, I know, will pass.

  I remember that, when I rose, the thought was with me that I had not seen Jill for some days, and it wouldn’t do for the poor dear to feel neglected, so, after showering and brushing my teeth, I put on my coat and went out to find her. I could just as easily have brought her to me, but it was a clear, if cold, night, with the stars showing as much of themselves as they dared to in the city; the Big Dipper wheeled over my head and Orion smiled down on me.

  Or so I thought at the time. Now, I wonder if he was not laughing at me; but that is as much nonsense as the other; the stars are merely stars, and I put no more weight on their attitudes than I do on dreams.

  Numerology, on the other hand, is a proven fact.

  That was a joke, Jim.

  To continue, then, it was still early in the evening, well before moonrise, and Fullerton was still busy with rush-hour traffic. I was just turning onto Twenty-sixth when I felt a light hit my face—one of those lights that you instantly realize has been directed at you.

  The heart is like the stomach—one doesn’t notice its existence until it misbehaves. Now in my case—but never mind. I stopped, turned, and looked directly into the light, which was painful, but I didn’t know what else to do. I waited, feeling as if all of my nerve endings were on top of my skin.

  I heard two car doors open at once, and the unmistakable voice of officialdom said, “Hey, buddy, can I talk to you for a minute?” I had to decide what to do right then; there was no time for thought. Had I considered it, I might have allowed them to arrest me, because there were things to learn at the police station. But as I said, there was no time. I could, I think, have killed them, but I have been given to understand that killing policemen is not something to be undertaken lightly; so I turned and ran.

  One of them yelled “Stop, asshole!” which gave rise to some scatological thoughts that would have been funny under other circumstances. I tried to think as I ran. There are things I can do that could keep me hidden, but they take time. I could certainly outrun them to get the time, but I can’t outrun bullets.

  I fo
und an alley, ducked into it, and saw that it did not dead-end. This wasn’t entirely luck; I have noticed that Lakota tends toward alleys that run from street to street. I heard their footsteps behind me, and one of them was threatening to shoot. Did he mean it? What did they want me for? Under what circumstances, if any, were they allowed to shoot fleeing suspects? I suspected they would stay within their rules (I was, after all, white, and at the worst wanted for a simple, if violent, crime), but I didn’t know what those rules were.

  I took a gamble and just ran. I heard one of them cursing, very faintly. They were a good distance behind me; perhaps fifty yards. What would they do now? Call for assistance? Did they have hand units, or would they need to return to their car?

  Fifty yards ought to take a man in good condition but weighed down with gun, nightstick, etc., at least five seconds to run. More like ten or even fifteen, but call it five. Enough? Maybe.

  I tried to order my mind while running, and after a few steps realized that all I was accomplishing was to run more slowly and lose some of the lead I had built up.

  I turned a corner, took five steps, and stopped. I was on a residential street running parallel to and a block from the Ave. It was a busy street: three lanes of one-way traffic, but no businesses were at hand to lend too much light to the proceedings. The nearest street lamp bathed me in its cone of luminance. It’s funny, the sort of details one notices.

  Some factors that I considered: The weather in Lakota comes off Lake Erie, and is unpredictable at the best of times, winter not being the best of times. There were mounds of dirty, plowed snow built up off the sidewalk and spilling over onto the street. Furthermore, it was a rather humid day for midwinter.

  I heard footfalls, and started off again, at a good pace, but only walking. There was a weakness in my legs that I liked not at all. I heard mutterings behind me, as if one of my pursuers were speaking, followed by a hum of white noise; yes, they could call for help without returning to their car. They were doing so.