The Tiny Wife

by Andrew Kaufman

  Andrew Kaufman

  The Tiny Wife

  A Novella

  2011, EN

  A robber charges into a bank with a loaded gun, but instead of taking any money he steals an item of sentimental value from each person. Once he has made his escape, strange things start to happen to the victims. A tattoo comes to life, a husband turns into a snowman, a baby starts to shit money. And Stacey Hinterland discovers that she’s shrinking, a little every day, and there is seemingly nothing that she or her husband can do to reverse the process. Can Stacey and the other victims find a solution before it is too late? The Tiny Wife is a weird and wonderful modern fable. Small, but perfectly formed, it will charm, delight and unnerve in equal measure.

  Table of contents

  BOOK ONE

  1 · 2 · 3 · 4 · 5 · 6

  BOOK TWO

  7 · 8 · 9 · 10 · 11

  BOOK THREE

  12 · 13 · 14 · 15 · 16 · 17 · 18

  ∨ The Tiny Wife ∧

  BOOK ONE

  ∨ The Tiny Wife ∧

  One

  The robbery was not without consequences. The consequences were the point of the robbery. It was never about money. The thief didn’t even ask for any. That it happened in a bank was incidental. It could have just as easily happened in a train station or a high school or the Musee d’Orsay. It has in the past and it will in the future, and shortly after 3 p.m. on Wednesday 21st February it happened inside Branch #117 of the British Bank of North America.

  The bank was located at the corner of Christie and Dupont in downtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada. There were thirteen people inside when the thief entered: two tellers, the assistant manager, and ten customers waiting in line. The thief wore a flamboyant purple hat and brandished a handgun. Having a flair for drama, he fired a single shot into the ceiling. Bits of plaster fell from it and got caught in the fake fur fibers of his hat. Everyone was quiet. Nobody moved.

  “While this is a robbery…” the thief said. His accent was thick and British, the kind that makes North Americans feel slightly ashamed. He flicked his head and a cloud of plaster dust swept into the air. “I demand only one thing from each of you and it is this: the item currently in your possession which holds the most sentimental value.”

  With a wave of his gun the thief directed the bank personnel to come around the counter and get into the line where the customers waited. At the front of this line stood David Bishop, a penguinesque man of forty-five, who trembled slightly as the thief came so close that the brim of his purple hat brushed against David’s bangs.

  “Well?” asked the thief.

  David reached inside his jacket, removed his wallet, and pulled out several hundred dollars.

  “You expect me to believe that money is the object currently in your possession holding the most sentimental value?”

  David Bishop became confused. He continued to hold the bills high in the air. The thief placed his gun against the man’s left temple.

  “What is your name?” the thief demanded.

  “David. David Bishop.”

  “David David Bishop, rip the money into little pieces and throw the pieces into the air.”

  Pausing briefly, David did as the thief demanded. Pieces of money fell to the floor.

  “Now, David, think. You have a lot riding on this. What is the most significant, memory-laden, gushingly sentimental object currently in your possession?”

  David Bishop pointed to a cheap-looking watch on his wrist.

  “Convince me.”

  “My mother gave it to me – years ago, when I left for university. I’ve just gotten it fixed and started wearing it again.”

  “Now that’s more like it!” the thief exclaimed. He took his gun from David Bishop’s head and the watch from his wrist. “Now go over there and lie on the floor.”

  David Bishop complied.

  With a wave of his gun the thief directed the next person in line to step forward. Her name was Jenna Jacob.

  In her right hand were two diamond earrings. She put these in her pocket, searched through her purse, and removed two wrinkled photographs.

  “Very cute,” the thief said. “How old?”

  “Ten and thirteen.”

  “You will never be more aware of how much you love them than right now.”

  Jenna Jacob nodded and, without being asked, joined David Bishop face down on the floor.

  My wife was next in line. I wasn’t there, of course, but she told me this story so many times, told me all these stories so many times, and with such rich and inclusive detail, that I not only feel as if I was there, but I’ve even begun to believe it. I remember how Stacey straightened her posture before stepping forward.

  “You look so much like my brother,” she said. This was true. The thief had the same crook at the bridge of his nose, and pale blue eyes that spoke of both arrogance and desperation.

  “Sorry, but that doesn’t exempt you.”

  “You know, you don’t have to do this.”

  “Maybe. But, more likely, I do.”

  “Why?”

  “You’ll see.”

  “Does it make you happy?”

  “It gives me meaning.”

  My wife nodded and then fished around in her purse and pulled out a calculator.

  “I was using this in my second-year Calculus of Several Variables class when the man who’d become my husband sat down beside me. I used it to help him with his homework. Much later I used it to figure out the night we got pregnant, and the day I’d give birth. I used it to calculate our mortgage and whether we could afford a second car or a second kid. There has not been an important decision in my life that I’ve made without it,” she said.

  All these things were true. That calculator really was the object that held the most emotional significance for her. It went beyond the things she figured out with it – my wife loved math. It made sense to her. It made the world make sense to her.

  She sighed deeply as she put the calculator in the thief’s outstretched hand. “Any way I can get it back?” she asked.

  “I’m afraid not. How long?”

  “I got it in first year.”

  “No, your husband.”

  “Seven years.”

  “And you still love him?”

  “I think so.”

  “Kids?”

  “Just one.”

  The thief nodded. He waved his gun, and Stacey joined the others lying face down on the floor.

  The thief worked through the rest of the line. Daniel James gave him his wife’s parents’ wedding photo, which he’d been taking to get restored. Jennifer Layone gave him a dog-eared copy of The Stranger by Albert Camus. Sam Livingstone, the assistant manager, who’d stood last in line, handed over the paystub from his recent promotion.

  When he’d collected an item from everyone in the room, the thief backed toward the door. At the exit, he paused.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, your attention please,” he said. No one got up, but everyone raised his or her head. “It has come to my attention that the vast majority of you, if you even believe you have a soul, believe it sits inside you like a brick of gold.

  “But I’m here to tell you that nothing could be further from the truth. Your soul is a living, breathing, organic thing. No different than your heart or your legs. And just like your heart keeps your blood oxygenated and your legs keep you moving around, your soul gives you the ability to do amazing, beautiful things.

  “But it’s a strange machine, constantly needing to be rejuvenated. Normally, this happens simply by the doing of these things, like a car battery recharging by driving.”

  The thief stopped, put his arm into his sleeve, and sneezed. “Excuse me,” he said. He looked at his watch.
“I’m really using a lot of metaphors today. Listen, I’m in a bit of a rush, so let me conclude. When I leave here, I will be taking 51 percent of your souls with me. This will have strange and bizarre consequences in your lives. But more importantly, and I mean this quite literally, learn how to grow them back, or you will die.”

  The bank was quiet. The thief threw his hat into the air and was through the doors before it landed on the floor.

  ∨ The Tiny Wife ∧

  Two

  The first manifestation began six hours later for Timothy Blaker, who’d stood seventh in line, four behind my wife. He was twenty-seven years old and worked as a bus driver. The object he had given the thief was an engagement ring, one he happened to have been eager to get rid of. He’d been carrying the ring for seventeen months, since the night Nancy Templeman, his girlfriend of two and a half years, had refused to accept it.

  Timothy had not seen her or talked with her since the night of his failed proposal, so when he opened the doors two stops east of Shaw on College and she stepped inside, he was surprised to see her. Nancy extended her hand but did not deposit change – instead, she reached into his chest and pulled out his heart. She held it in front of him. He watched it beat. The bus continued to idle as he watched her run back down the steps and into a waiting yellow Ford Mustang.

  Nancy stepped on the gas, the back tires producing much sound and smoke. Timothy Blaker gave chase.

  The bus did not corner as well as the muscle car, but, having no heart, Timothy drove fearlessly and managed to stay on her tail. The passengers stayed in their seats, watching with fear as all their stops went by. They were underneath the Gardner Expressway, heading east on Lakeshore, when he pulled up beside her. They raced neck and neck. They ran many red lights, but at Lawrence Street cement trucks gridlocked the intersection and they were forced to stop. Many of the passengers stood, alarmed, but their fear remained too great for any of them to venture toward the front of the bus.

  Timothy opened the doors. The cement trucks cleared the intersection. The light turned green and he jumped, landing with a metallic thud on the hood of the Mustang.

  Timothy looked through the windshield. He could see his heart on the passenger seat. He watched it beat. He saw her jerk the steering wheel to the left and the right. He felt himself get thrown violently around. The tips of his fingers ached, but he held tighter and tighter, and then she slammed on the brakes.

  Timothy was thrown from the hood of the car and landed on the asphalt. Three backward somersaults later he came to a stop.

  He was bleeding from his elbow. There was a large cut just below his eye. He jumped up and a sickening pain went through his right leg. The Mustang was three hundred feet away and pointed toward him. He looked at Nancy. She looked at him. He heard the engine rev. The back tires squealed.

  Timothy did not move. The yellow 1964 Mustang sped forward. It was a hundred meters away, and then it was fifty, and then it was twenty. He did not move or shut his eyes. He stood there, watching it approach. This standing, this not flinching, made him feel strong. The closer the car came, the greater danger he was in, the stronger not flinching made him feel. It came closer and closer. Timothy continued to stand his ground and, with less than ten feet between him and the front bumper of the Mustang, she again hit the brakes. The car stopped with sudden force. His heart was thrown from the passenger seat. It burst through the windshield, leaving a heart-shaped hole in the glass, and flew directly into his chest.

  ∨ The Tiny Wife ∧

  Three

  Three days after the robbery, and merely minutes after we’d finally gotten Jasper to sleep, our phone rang. It was our home line, which we usually let go to voicemail, but Stacey raced to answer it. Later she would explain that it had sounded urgent – an alarm, not just a ring.

  The caller was Detective William Phillips, who had stood ninth in line and had given the robber a large antique key. Detective Phillips asked if anything peculiar was happening in her life, anything new and, perhaps, inexplicable. She asked him to elaborate. The detective told her that in the last twenty-four hours he had received confessions from two different husbands, claiming to have murdered their wives. He went on to explain that both of these cases involved someone who’d been inside Branch #117 at the time of its robbery.

  Stacey asked for still more detail. Detective Phillips related the following stories.

  ♦

  Two mornings after the robbery, Daniel James, who had stood fifth in line and had given the thief a photograph of his wife’s parents’ wedding was tying his shoes when the lace in his right shoe broke. He put on his other pair of dark shoes and the lace in the left shoe broke. He changed into his light suit but, when tightening the lace on his right brown shoe, it, too, broke. He looked at the lace in his hand. He looked at the laces on the floor. “I have to leave you,” he said to his wife, but she was already gone.

  ♦

  That same day Jenna Jacob woke to discover that she was made of candy, an event she remained unaware of until she was in the shower and looked down and saw a white film swirling to the drain.

  Shocked and disbelieving, Jenna turned off the tap and wiped the steam from the mirror. Her skin was made of white sugar with mint speckles. Her hair was licorice. Her eyes were caramels. The longer she stared at her reflection, the less strange this candied version of herself became. She wrapped a scarf around her licorice hair, put sunglasses over her caramel eyes, and went downstairs. Her sons, aged ten and thirteen, barely noticed.

  When her kids wouldn’t eat their breakfast, she rubbed her hands together over their cereal bowls, dusting their Shreddies with sugar. When they wouldn’t get dressed and into the car, she broke off her pinkie fingers and used them as bribes. When she dropped them off at school, they were unusually eager to kiss her goodbye.

  Jenna returned home, called in sick, and spent the day watching television. Just after nine, her husband came home.

  “Sorry I’m so late,” he said. “It’s the Meyer’s account again. Why’s it so dark in here? Is there anything to eat?”

  Jenna patted the cushion beside her. Her husband sat down. He kissed her candied lips He kissed her neck and her arms and her face. They went upstairs, He kissed every part of her body.

  “I could eat you up,” he said, and, lost in passion, he did.

  ♦

  “Are you joking with me?” I heard my wife ask.

  “Unfortunately, I’m not. I’ve found several other cases. One in Halifax, three in the southern United States, also in Lille, France, Barcelona, and Winnipeg. It’s the same m.o. – purple hat, emotionally significant object, the whole thing. You are in danger.”

  “Am I?”

  “There will be a meeting of all the survivors, everyone who was inside Branch #117, this Monday at 7.15 at St Matthew’s United Church. I can’t stress enough how important it is that you attend.”

  “Well, thank you for your call,” my wife said. She hung up, but her hand remained on the phone.

  ∨ The Tiny Wife ∧

  Four

  That night I was in the bathroom brushing my teeth when Stacey called for me, and her voice held such urgency that I carried my toothbrush into the bedroom. She stood in front of the mirror, staring at the neckline of the T-shirt she most often wore to bed. She pointed out how baggy it was, which I hadn’t noticed – the neckline plunged, and now cleavage was showing.

  “Nothing wrong with that,” I said. I held her from behind. I tried to kiss her neck. She twisted away from me.

  “I’m shrinking.”

  “You’re not shrinking.”

  “You need to listen to me.”

  “Couldn’t it just be the laundry?”

  “Even inside, I can feel it. I’m shrinking.”

  “That guy’s just put this into your head and you’ve run with it. You know how you’re prone to run with things.”

  “For once can you not question everything I say?” Stacey asked.

 
; I sat down on the bed. There was a tape measure on the bedside table, unmoved from some renovations we’d been contemplating. I picked it up with my free hand.

  “Why don’t we measure you?”

  “I don’t know how tall I was before.”

  “It’ll be on your driver’s license.”

  “Right,” Stacey said. She ran downstairs and returned with her driver’s license and a pencil. I put my toothbrush down where the tape measure had been sitting. Making sure her knees were straight against the doorframe, I patted her hair down and stroked a black line on the white paint of the wall. We opened the tape measure.

  “One hundred and fifty-nine centimeters.”

  “Oh my God.”

  Stacey handed me her license. Her height was listed as one hundred and sixty centimeters.

  “They could have made a mistake,” I said. “Or maybe we should measure again?”

  I stood by the door. I measured again. Her exact height was one hundred and fifty-nine centimeters and one millimeter. I read the license again. It still said that she should be one hundred and sixty centimeters tall. Stacey continued to sit on the bed, staring at the wall.

  ∨ The Tiny Wife ∧

  Five

  In the morning we measured her again. She put her heels against the door jamb and straightened her posture. I pushed down her hair and made sure the pencil was flat. A second black line was made on the white paint. She stepped forward and I measured.

  I decided to be as precise as I could be. I measured to the millimeter. What I found was not good. Yesterday she stood 1,591 millimeters tall; now she was 1,581 millimeters, a loss of 10 millimeters overnight and 19 millimeters in total.

  We sat on the edge of the bed. Her feet didn’t touch the floor. I couldn’t remember if they ever had. I turned the tape measure in my hand. Stacey watched the floor and I watched her.