“Jane?” His voice was hoarse and muffled by the heavy door. “Jane Levitsky?” As though she were someone he knew only vaguely and hadn’t heard from in a long time.
“Can I come in? Whatever you’re doing in there, I promise not to tell anyone.”
A chair scraped across the floor; papers rustled. “Just a minute,” he said. He coughed, a drawer slammed shut. Jane rattled the doorknob.
At last the door opened. Sigelman stood in the doorway in his rumpled shirt, gray-faced. His shaved jowls sagged. “What do you want?” he said. He frowned at her and the jowls wobbled, but he stood back to let her in.
Something came over Jane as she crossed the threshold. A shiver of nostalgia and longing went through her, as though she had stepped back through the curtain of years. Not that Sigelman’s office was actually very much like her father’s study. It was darker, messier, the air stinking of tobacco and heavy with a kind of angry passion, whereas her father’s had been calm, tranquil, solemn—the quiet center of the world. Still, the shelves were crammed with books in half a dozen languages, and more books lay in heaps on the floor along with papers, academic journals, piles of old, unreturned exams. Both rooms had Oriental rugs on the floor, but Sigelman’s was red and gray and black while her father’s had been blue and gold. In both, little jugs and wall hangings and paper knives—souvenirs of half-forgotten travels—stood dusty on shelves and windowsills, mostly concealed by more books. A lifetime’s worth of books, treated with simultaneous reverence and disregard, as ubiquitous and precious as oxygen.
Jane lifted a pile of bound volumes of the Journal of Slavic and Soviet Linguistics off a chair and found a place for them on the floor. “The library’s been looking for those,” she said, sitting down and pulling her sweater closer around her. “They send out e-mails weekly.”
Sigelman ran a hand along his head and looked irritated, as though he had expected to find more hair. “That’s what you came in here to tell me?” He walked around his desk and sat down behind it.
“So,” she said. “You went to see Greg Olen.”
Sigelman grinned, suddenly pleased. He strummed his thumbs along the slats of his chair. “Rumors flying, are they? Is that what’s got you bent out of shape?”
“I’m just taking a collegial interest,” Jane said.
“Of course,” he said. “Collegial.” There was a tautness between them suddenly, a bright electric connection.
“So,” she repeated. “What did he have?”
Sigelman lifted his hands and turned them over, showing her their emptiness. “Do you know that he fancies himself a writer?” he said jovially. “Everybody’s writing novels these days, apparently.”
“Really,” Jane said.
“Yes,” Sigelman said. “He wanted to talk to me about his craft. As though I would be interested in anything he had to say on that score, just because a trickle of Karkov blood runs in his veins!”
Jane said nothing, hoping he would tire of the subject.
“I mean,” Sigelman said, “he never even met his great-great-grandfather! Karkov died in 1889.”
Or his great-great-grandmother, either, Jane thought. She said, “I know when Karkov died.”
“Who said you didn’t?” Sigelman leaned back comfortably in his chair.
Jane tried again. “Did he show you any papers? Letters? Manuscripts?”
Sigelman opened a drawer, took out a cigar, bit it, tapped his pockets as though looking for matches, then put the cigar down on his desk.
“I thought you were occupied with the archival material,” he said.
“I am,” Jane said sharply.
“And so busy,” he went on, “that you haven’t even gone back and finished that letter you told me about. Maybe your plate is already over-full.” He smiled, a slow, galling smile. The cigar lay on the desktop like a dead mouse.
“I just wondered if anything you saw might bear on Lady of the Snakes. I know it’s not your favorite work, but some of us would be interested.”
“You know,” Sigelman said, “I think perhaps you’re right. I may have been underestimating it. Lady of the Snakes! The last book, after all. Perhaps a signal of a new direction. Almost an anticipation of modernism, if you look at it in a certain light. I’ve been thinking I should give it another chance. A little more of my attention.”
“How generous,” Jane said.
“I’m nothing if not generous,” Sigelman said, picking up the cigar and rolling it lovingly between his fingers.
Jane could see he wasn’t going to give anything away. Besides which, she had to teach in fifteen minutes and she wanted to check her e-mail to see if there was anything from Valdes. “That’s what everyone says about you,” she said, standing up to go.
“As long as they’re talking,” Sigelman said, showing his yellow teeth.
Jane went into her office, leaving Sigelman to lurk like a troll in his cave. Knowing whatever it was he knew, or not knowing it.
There were no messages from anyone at the Newberry.
…
When Jane left the building in the late afternoon, the snow had begun. Big wet flakes poured out of the clouds and stung her cheeks as she trotted toward the parking lot, too impatient to wait for the shuttle bus. Passing cars sprayed dirty slush onto the sidewalk.
At home Felicia was stretched out on the couch with Maisie in her lap, watching a soap opera. Stuffed animals, toy trucks, wooden beads, plastic bananas, and cardboard pizza wedges were scattered everywhere, and the smell of last night’s macaroni and cheese hung in the air.
“Hi,” Felicia said. “That’s some weather out there.”
“Oh, it’s not so bad,” Jane said, reminding herself that she had never specifically forbidden Felicia to watch adult television with Maisie.
“It’s time to go to the pool,” Jane told Maisie. “Let’s go find your bathing suit!”
“No!” Maisie grabbed on to Felicia. “No swimmy!”
“She didn’t have a nap today,” Felicia warned.
Jane nodded, then pulled Maisie off Felicia and carried her upstairs. “Remember all the kids who were there last week? Kara and Benjamin. Who else? Zachary?”
“No swimmy!” Maisie cried, squirming and kicking.
Outside Maisie was further aggrieved by the weather. “Don’t like snow!” she wailed while Jane struggled to strap her into the car seat.
“No,” Jane agreed. “Neither do I. Not in May, anyway.” She wasn’t wearing boots, and her shoes were soaked through. Snow clung to all the windows and would have to be scraped off. She could dimly perceive that the sensible course of action was to skip today’s lesson, but she felt she had already committed too many resources to turn back now.
When they got there, Maisie refused to go near the water.
“Come blow bubbles with us!” the swimming teacher said. She was a blond high-schooler in a red bikini that covered almost nothing. “It’s fun!”
Maisie buried her face in Jane’s soft stomach and refused to answer.
“Let’s ride on the float,” the swimming teacher said. “Don’t you want to ride on the float?”
Maisie pressed harder into Jane’s middle as though trying to get back inside.
“Come on, silly goose,” Jane said impatiently. “Just stick your toes in.” She picked Maisie up and carried her to the edge of the pool. It was clammy down here in the YMCA basement, badly lit with dusty, yellowish fluorescent tubes. The tile floor was a dull, muddy brown so it was hard to see the puddles scattered across it. A stand of scarred wooden bleachers was pushed up against one wall, and here the waiting parents sat, trying to keep their bundles of winter jackets and snack bags from falling through to the floor.
“No! No! No!” Maisie screamed. The other children looked at her with worried monkey faces.
“Maybe we better try again next week,” the swimming teacher said. “It’s better not to force them.”
As though, at sixteen years old, she knew anything about
children!
“We’ll just sit and watch,” Jane said. She sat on the bleachers holding Maisie tightly, rigid with fury. The other mothers looked at her, sympathetic or judgmental, it was impossible to tell. The one father in the group watched the swim teacher, whose breasts bobbed and swung, half-inside the two triangles of red cloth.
“Go home,” Maisie said into Jane’s coat.
“No,” Jane said.
“Yes!”
“No. If you won’t go in the water, fine. But at least we’ll stay and watch.”
“Home!” Maisie said.
Jane ignored her, but a few minutes later, when she felt a spreading wetness across her lap where Maisie’s urine had overwhelmed the swim diaper, she was forced to admit defeat.
She couldn’t get the car up the driveway. The pavement was slippery with new snow and the car kept sliding back down, so in the end she had to leave it on the street. Maisie had fallen asleep. Jane lifted her out of the car seat and hoisted her onto her shoulder. She carried her inside and up to her room, laying her on her bed with her snow-suit and boots still on.
The house felt cold and empty. Jane changed her clothes and went downstairs. She sat on the couch looking out at the snow, which blanketed the street and mounded on the parked cars. The tree branches and electric wires were heavy with it. The sky glowed strangely, orangish gray, and most of the houses were dark, though one or two lit up as she watched, as the people who lived there got home from work. Jane let herself float from minute to minute as the light drained from the sky. She felt out of time, unreal, disconnected from the clockwork of ordinary life. Her eyes relaxed and went unfocused, and the snow was like static on a television screen, the whole world whited out. Why, after all, should she ever get up? What if she stayed here on the couch in the dark forever, never rising to answer the phone or cook a meal or write a check? What if she never met with another student or presented another paper? What if she never found out what happened to the letter from Masha? What difference would it make to anyone?
And then, like a pathetic fallacy, she heard the weeping inside the wall behind her. But of course it was just the pipes, the water running—the basement shower, from the sound of it. She blinked and almost swam back up to alertness, but then she decided not to bother. She didn’t care. Felicia could come upstairs, could even try to talk to her; it didn’t matter. Of all the things unimportant enough to get up for, right now Felicia topped the list.
The snow kept falling. The shower stopped, and a little while later footsteps clattered up the basement steps. She heard the door that led into the kitchen open and slam shut. Someone came around the corner, but it wasn’t Felicia. It was Billy, with wet hair, a towel around his waist, his clothes in his hands. He was whistling. He didn’t see Jane in the dark until he was almost in front of her, and then he stopped short. His face didn’t change much that Jane could see, just went hard around the jaw. He didn’t say anything, and neither did Jane. She felt a jolt of cold go through her, as though all the windows in the room had suddenly been thrust open. It was very quiet, and then she could hear the pitiful, watery weeping again as the basement shower started up once more.
Billy said, “I’ll get dressed.” He moved toward the stairs.
Jane said—or at any rate the words came out of her reflexively—“Don’t wake the baby!”
He paused and looked at her. His face was stern and wild—strangely alive. It was as though the stiff mask of himself he’d been wearing for months had fallen away, and here he was now—Billy, whom she had missed without even exactly knowing that he was gone. “Maisie is not a baby,” he said, and then he went upstairs.
Billy, whom she had loved.
When he came down again he was dressed in black pants and a black T-shirt. She almost commented on his bad-guy costume, but then she noticed her teeth were chattering. It was as if the air around her had gone sharp, a cloud of ice crystals through which she squinted, trying to make out what was going on. Her consciousness seemed to be shrinking to a single cold point, like a dead star, while Billy went around the room closing the shades and switching on lamps. He hung up Jane’s coat. Jane watched him. She knew she had to gather herself together. She had to get up, to say something.
“You better go tell her to take her stuff and get out of here!” she said. It was the best she could do.
Billy went into the kitchen. She could hear him going down the basement steps. The thought of the two of them in that room together made her stand up. How could she have been so stupid? She went through the kitchen and down the steps, and there they were, sitting on the bed. Felicia was crying. Billy’s eyes were red.
“You!” Jane cried, pointing at Felicia. “You have to pack! Get up! Stop crying—stop it!” Felicia stood up, but she was too slow for Jane, who went to the closet and started pulling clothes from hangers and throwing them on the bed. “Where’s your suitcase?”
Felicia pulled her backpack out from under the futon frame.
“Five minutes!” Jane cried. She held her palm up with her fingers extended, the way she did to students taking an exam as the end of the period neared. Then she went back upstairs. In the bedroom with the door shut, she sat down, the heels of her hands pressed into her mouth, her teeth biting into the flesh. The taste of her own skin nauseated her. She cried, telling herself she had to stop before she woke up Maisie, but she couldn’t stop, and, anyway, nothing was going to wake Maisie tonight. She slept on and on through Jane’s sobbing, and through the footsteps downstairs and the sound of the front door opening and shutting and the car starting up on the street. Twice Jane got up and went into Maisie’s room and looked at her, wishing she would wake up so Jane would have something to do. But she didn’t. She slept all night in her wet clothes and her snowsuit and her felt-lined navy blue boots. Probably she would get a rash, Jane thought, which seemed to her just one more bit of unavoidable suffering.
Once Billy came up and opened the bedroom door. “Janie,” he said softly.
“Go away!” she hissed. The sight of him made her feel physically ill, and she shut her eyes and waited until he was gone.
At last it began to get light. Gray dawn crept under the window shade. After a while Jane got up, went to the bathroom, and drifted automatically down the hall to her study, her hand trailing along the peeling beige wallpaper. At her desk she turned on the computer and waited for it to warm up. When she checked her e-mail, Stefan Valdes’s name jumped out from the list of senders. The letters of the subject line—a maddeningly neutral “Inquiry”—shimmered on the screen. Jane double clicked and the message popped up.
Dear Dr. Levitsky,
I am sorry to have to inform you that we have reached the end of our investigation into the document we spoke of. We can find no evidence that such a letter ever formed part of our collection. As far as we are concerned, this matter is closed. I regret not having been of any further assistance.
Yours sincerely,
Stefan Valdes
Curator, Modern Manuscript Division
Jane didn’t realize how much she’d been counting on a different answer until she finished—as though, if the letter had been found, every terrible event of the last twelve hours would have been reversed or somehow proved untrue. Instead this news—if it could be called news—only confirmed that her world had fallen apart. She felt nauseated again, bile shuddering upward, her whole body rebelling against what was happening. Billy and the letter had both been stolen from her. Without meaning to, she had allowed it to happen. She’d been distracted and trusting, and she had paid a steep price for it. She swallowed hard and tried to think what to do. She looked at the clock. It was only a few minutes after seven. She opened the bottom drawer of her desk, pulled out the telephone directory, and looked up an address.
Finally, now, Maisie woke and called out, “Mama! Mama! You didn’t read me two books yesterday night!”
Jane stood up and stumbled down the hall, dizzy with exhaustion. “You fell asleep too fa
st,” she said.
“No, I didn’t!” Maisie said. Her cheeks were rosy and she smelled of sleep.
Jane took off her snowsuit and changed her diaper. She put her in clean clothes, kissed her, and held her close.
“Downstairs, Mama,” Maisie said, wriggling. “Down, down!” She was bright-eyed and her curls were tangled and her lovely pale, plump stomach pushed out from under her shirt. Jane felt she couldn’t bear to let her go, and at the same time all she could think about was getting out of the house, getting away from everything, even Maisie.
In the kitchen Billy was drinking coffee. He was unshaven and his hair stood up on end. He wore an old sweater that, although it was not the sweater he had given to Felicia, recalled it clearly enough to make Jane see how, if you had a gun, you could kill somebody.
“I want Cheerios!” Maisie said. “I want juice! What you drinking, Daddy? Can I drink what you drinking?” Jane put Maisie down and she trotted across the linoleum to Billy, who picked her up and perched her on his knee.
Jane turned away and stumbled out of the room.
Chapter Thirteen
OUTSIDE THE DAY was bright and the thermometer was rising fast. You could almost see the snow melting. It sank into the ground and spluttered down the streets into the gurgling storm drains. Jane had her keys in her hand, but she didn’t want to take the car. She needed to walk. Her skin felt cold even in the sun, and her heart was icy. She kept her eyes on the sidewalk, cracked and stained, studded with old gum. That was life—filth and decay, things trampled underfoot. Everything else was false, like a dream of flying from which one must awaken to gravity.
She walked and walked, up Gregory to Commonwealth and across the railroad tracks. Then she turned west again, not toward campus but skirting it to the little lakeside neighborhood where once, a long time ago, assistant professors like her would have been able to afford a house. As she fell into a kind of trance of walking, pictures began to appear in her mind: Billy and Felicia naked on the futon downstairs, Billy’s long body stretched out from end to end while Felicia knelt over him, kissing and sucking. Jane could picture her hair cascading over him, her smile as she offered him breasts that hadn’t been thinned by nursing, lips that had been seasoned to perfection by other men. She pictured Felicia whispering in his ear, telling him how good he was in bed, how smart he was, flattering him with all the clichés of sexual attraction. Should Jane have done that? She had thought authentic, distracted love would be enough, but now she saw that something else had been required. Revealing clothes, long golden hair, lacy underwear. How appalling that these were the things men wanted after all! She thought of Billy’s face, which presented itself to the world as a mask of composure, the way it melted during sex into neediness: eyes narrowed, mouth slackened. The way the skin on his neck looked when he arched back in pleasure, blue veins beneath pale skin. The private architecture of his jaw, no longer private now.
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