Eve in the City

by Thomas Rayfiel

  “I am arranging for your birth certificate to be made,” he went on, changing topics.

  Ask again, part of me begged. Ask one more time.

  “Birth certificate?”

  “For the marriage license. You must have documentation.”

  “Viktor, doesn’t it bother you that you’re going ahead with all this and I haven’t said yes?”

  “A woman says yes with her body, not with words.”

  “That’s the stupidest thing I ever heard. Besides, it isn’t even true. We haven’t had sex, remember?”

  “Had sex. As if it were something you could possess.”

  “Well, don’t you think it’s important?”

  “Who now is denying the spiritual nature of love?”

  I was confused. Because he is trying to confuse you, I told myself. Trying to keep you off balance, which is just the evil version of sweeping you off your feet.

  “In any event, you need proof of your existence.”

  “I don’t have any!”

  “My friend will produce it. He can make anything. Birth certificates. Social Security. I gave him information about you, about your mother, your birth date, the approximate location of the hospital. He says that should be enough.”

  “How did you know all that stuff?”

  “Things you said in conversation.”

  “So you’ve been planning this? You’ve been getting me to talk about myself and then writing it down, after?”

  “I have been listening to what you say, yes. Is that a point against me as well? Would you like it better if I treated you like some ‘dumb broad’? If I possessed your body and ignored your words altogether?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why do you always make the proof that I care sound like a bad thing?”

  “Sorry.” I always ended up apologizing to him. He got everything he ever wanted from me, and I still apologized. “But if your friend can make a birth certificate, then why can’t he just make us a marriage license?”

  “Don’t be absurd.”

  “What’s so absurd about that?”

  “Because then we would be living in sin.”

  I looked down at the phone.

  “He needs to know your last name. I think it should be something simple, so as not to draw attention. What is the most common American name?”

  “Probably Smith,” I yawned. “But there’s no way this is going to work.”

  “Yes, it doesn’t matter what we put,” he went on hurriedly.

  “After all, soon you will have to concentrate on getting used to your new name.”

  “My new what?”

  It was easier talking back to him this way, too. Directing my voice into the receiver. It gave me the distance I could never get on him in real life.

  “Your new name.” He waited. He was surprised I couldn’t figure it out. “You know. Eve Kholmov.”

  If the coffee shop was my neighborhood church, then Grand Central was the cathedral. There was a balcony overlooking the main floor. It was a bar, but didn’t feel like one. That’s why I liked it. You were outside, part of the bustle and flow, but separated from it too, sitting on a stool, sipping club soda, watching people go to the ticket windows, meet each other at the information booth, shop at the stores. It was past rush hour. There was still the clacking of the old-fashioned board, the kind that had millions of cards being flipped around until, by pure chance, a place, time, and platform number appeared, sending people off, just a few at first, a trickle, but then becoming more, more than just themselves, a crowd within a crowd.

  “Eve? Is that you?”

  I didn’t recognize Marron at first. She wasn’t dressed the same as the other times. She was wearing a denim jacket and had a bag hanging off her shoulder. Her hair was even blonder than before. She must have just colored it again. It made her face look dark, by contrast.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked.

  “Nothing. When I have to go to work, I come here first, sometimes. What about you?”

  “Catching a train.”

  We stared at each other. She could have just said good-bye and walked on. But she didn’t. I felt this deep urge for company, even though a minute ago I had been perfectly happy sitting by myself.

  “Where are you going?” I asked.

  “Connecticut. I have to buy a ticket. Want to stand in line with me?”

  “Sure.”

  She smiled. She had perfect teeth.

  “Where in Connecticut?” I called, as we went down the stone steps.

  “Greenwich. That’s where my mom is.” Her bag kept bumping against her. It made her look clumsy. “But I never get a schedule, so I’m always waiting. I like killing time here.”

  “Me too.”

  “It’s sexy.”

  I rolled my eyes. Everything was sexy to Marron. Except sex, I bet.

  While we stood, she crouched and unzipped her bag. She was excited, wanting to interest me. It’s almost like she wants to be friends, I thought, even though we were enemies, right? But why were we enemies? I had forgotten.

  “So you live at home?”

  “Not really. She’s remarried. But there’s a room for me. Look at this. Isn’t it beautiful?”

  She took out a bottle. It was shaped like wine, but clear, so you could see inside, to this peach, a whole round perfect blushing peach, somehow squeezed past the neck, preserved in thick liquid. If you tilted the glass you could see soft fuzz, swaying.

  “It’s Westphalian. That’s what they told me. I just saw it today, in the window of a liquor store.”

  “Is it her birthday?”

  “No. I just like giving people things. I like finding the perfect gift. The thing you never even knew you wanted. I do it with everyone I know, eventually.”

  “That’s nice, I guess.” I remembered she had bought Horace that scotch I got so drunk on. So what everyone needed was more alcohol? “Where’s Westphalia?”

  “Germany.”

  “Oh.”

  “Have you ever been to Europe?”

  “Are you kidding?”

  “You should go. Horace is going, this winter. He got a travel grant. You should go with him.”

  She put the bottle away and zipped up her bag.

  I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t understand what she meant. You’re sleeping with him, right? That’s what I felt like asking. That’s why we’re enemies. It all came back to me now. Why I was supposed to hate her.

  “What’s your mom like?”

  “She’s great. She’s more like a sister to me. And still a total babe.”

  “A what?”

  She laughed.

  “It’s the truth. We make other mother-daughters look like shit.”

  Women who thought they were pretty. They amazed me, the ones who took it in stride, like it was a quality they had, a virtue, something they deserved. I couldn’t get over that. Do you really think you’re pretty? I wanted to ask. I mean, in your heart of hearts, when you look in the mirror, do you like what you see? I guess Brandy did. But she was incredibly insecure. She clung to her prettiness because she sensed it was all she had. Which it wasn’t, I reflected. But it got in the way of everything else, whatever else was there. That’s why she kept emphasizing her looks. With Marron it was different. She probably felt about her face the same way a guy did about his muscles.

  After she got her ticket, we walked through the station.

  “I may have to get married,” I sighed.

  “Have to?”

  “To stay here.”

  “Are you an alien?”

  “Kind of. He is, too. Apparently two aliens make one citizen. You know, like two wrongs make a right? Although they don’t, do they?” There I went. I didn’t know what it was about Marron, but with her in particular I would just let go and say whatever was on my mind and sound like a complete idiot. It was the Real Me. “Anyway, we’re kind of made for each other. Still, it’s scary. The idea. Even if it’s not real.”


  “If you’re doing it, then it’s real. Right?”

  “I guess.”

  “Do you love him?”

  “Of course not!”

  “So what’s in it for you?”

  “That’s just what I asked. And he looked so outraged! He says he can get me a birth certificate. And I’ll have a real last name. His last name, but still, that’ll be nice, I guess.”

  “So he’s going to make you legitimate.”

  “He’s going to try.”

  We both began to giggle.

  “Good luck,” she got out.

  I should leave, I thought. I was already late. Viktor would be getting worried. At the platform, there was a train, but it wasn’t ready to take passengers. It was waiting there, all sealed up. Empty.

  I liked it that she hadn’t said, Congratulations.

  “How come you invited me to your Opening? I mean how did I get on your mailing list?”

  “Are you still hung up on that? What does it matter?”

  “Because I want to know. I want to know why things happen to me.”

  “I don’t know who half the people on my list are,” she said. “And I certainly don’t know why things happen to me. Do you?”

  “I guess because I deserve to have them happen.”

  “You mean they’re a punishment?”

  “Or a reward.”

  “Which is getting married?”

  I shrugged. I hadn’t thought about that. Marriage seemed like the ultimate combination of the two.

  “How do you meet anyone in your life?” Marron went on. “You really think you have any control?”

  “Don’t you?”

  “No! I think there are these forces that sweep you along. That bring you together. And then for a while you can’t get away from each other even if you try. And then the same forces rip you apart.”

  “What forces?”

  “Just . . . forces. Like the wind. Or gravity. Invisible powers. The city’s got a mind of its own. You can’t figure out where things come from. You can’t trace things back to their source. The population’s reached some critical mass and begun to think for itself.”

  How do I even know this lunatic? I wondered.

  “So, you don’t live with him?”

  She didn’t get it at first. Or pretended not to.

  “I thought maybe—”

  “Nobody lives with Horace. I don’t think even Horace lives with Horace.”

  “Then how do you know him?”

  “We went to art school together. He lets me have a key so I can crash sometimes. If I’m out late. Or if I have somewhere to be in the morning. And there’s a drawer where I keep clothes.”

  “Well, when you stay over, where do you sleep?”

  She blushed. I don’t think she was used to being asked such questions. It was different from being asked how she photographed her vagina.

  “You don’t get it. I’m like . . . this person Horace keeps around to keep other people away. At least, that’s what I think I am, to him.”

  “Are you kidding?”

  “It worked, didn’t it? I mean, that last time you were at the studio, I was there, too. You think that was an accident? And you’re the one who ended up storming out, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Well, have you seen him since?”

  “No. But I thought that was because you were his girlfriend.”

  She shook her head.

  “He’s going to Europe.”

  “I know. You just told me.”

  “You should go with him. He likes you. I mean he really likes you. I can tell.”

  What do you mean? I wanted to scream. Did he tell you? Does he like me the same way he likes you? Or is there a different way?

  “You’re crazy,” I said. “It’s not like he’s called me or anything.”

  “You told him not to call.”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “Then he won’t. With Horace you have to do all the work. He thinks he’s doing what you want, but of course really he’s making you do what he wants. He’s kind of annoying, that way.”

  She loves him, I thought. Not like me. I want to love him, maybe. But she wants to be rescued from her love, from her one-sided love. That’s why she’s telling me this. So I’ll step in and save her.

  They opened the doors.

  “You’d be good for him,” she went on, in this dreamy voice, talking to herself, maybe regretting what she had told me. “But I don’t know if he’d be good for you.”

  “You know, when I first met you, I thought you were a real bitch.”

  She opened her eyes wide.

  “Oh, I am way beyond bitch, Eve.”

  I nodded to the bottle in her bag.

  “What are you going to get me? I work in a bar, so it can’t be liquor. What do I need that I don’t even know I need?”

  She smiled.

  “I’ll think of something.”

  I followed her along the train, waved to her when she sat. She was surprised. She waved back. She looked happy, setting off on this journey, as if by telling all this stuff about Horace she had escaped her situation, dumped it all on me.

  It was too late to go to work. I would have to miss another night. Back out on the main floor, I pretended I had just arrived. People were tired, leaning against walls, looking past me. Maybe I wasn’t a crank. Maybe I was a reverse commuter. I’d read about me. I came to things when everyone else had gone. I came to dreams wide awake. At the balcony bar, someone else was sitting in my seat. Another me. A guy. A businessman, waiting for his train. My eyes kept going. They couldn’t stop. They were floating to the surface. They found stars painted onto the ceiling. A real live bird that had gotten lost, trapped in the building, flew past. My eyes followed it. You always follow something living over something dead. When they refocused, I realized that’s what he saw, the man who fell. That’s what he had been staring at, stabbed, when I came over: the night sky, constellations, patterns that imposed their will on our lives.

  I hadn’t cleaned up. I couldn’t face the prospect of putting things back the way they were before the break-in. I didn’t even remember what the room looked like, how it had gone. I took out a big black plastic garbage bag and started dumping. Even if objects weren’t damaged, the spell that made them special was broken. I never realized what a refuge my apartment had been. Out there, on the street, we kept our tight little distance, arms at our sides, trying not to touch, swaying like schools of fish. Up here, I had been able to expand, mingle with the molecules, spread out to the walls. That was all gone. I threw books into the bag, too. It didn’t matter anymore, my cute little ways of dealing with the world, the dollar paperbacks, the games I played with food, the games I played with my own desires. I looked around and saw what the apartment actually was, a bare, smelly attic room.

  At first, I thought throwing out all the ratty thrift shop cushions was what made the outside sound of traffic and air conditioners, that endless exhale, so much louder. Then I realized it had a source. I went looking, and ended up in the bathroom, staring out the window. Usually it was closed, except for a crack to let out steam, but after the burglars knocked out the bars they jammed the wood up high to get in. I tried shutting it. My hands strained. I pulled so hard I could feel my feet leaving the ground. Cool air fanned my face. I closed my eyes, like when the sun is bright you want to bathe in it, except it was nighttime now, so I rolled my head in this blast of meaty pollution and thought, Since they got in, why can’t I go out? I climbed up on the lip of the tub and managed to get one leg through. It poked around until it felt something solid, then planted itself. I drew in my shoulders, slid past the narrow opening, and landed, panting, on tar paper.

  So this is what it was like, being high up. I went to the edge and looked out. I could see across the Park, to the fancy buildings on Fifth Avenue. They shimmered. One had white walls. After a certain height, it began going back, a few feet every floor. There were balconies w
ith railings and dripping vines. Then, as it got higher still, the spaces became deeper. There were deck chairs, tables with parasols, I imagined, squinting, creating what I saw. There were sliding doors so you could come out and feel like you owned as far as you could see. Closer to the top, it all broke up into individual houses that had architectures of their own, their own sections of miniature roof. I could sense their apartness and luxury, until finally, at the very top, lights along the whole outer square of the tower melted into sky, so you were living right up there in the real Plan, not its imperfect earthly representation. That’s where I belong, I thought. Not on this sagging, sticky rooftop, not in an attic room where everything is in someone else’s name. Where is my name? Who am I going to be? Here it was, the famous skyline, this beautiful dangerous twinkling jagged row of teeth, and I had failed, so far. I hadn’t gotten where I wanted. But I was here, higher than before, five and a half floors, almost six. And I was ready to take on more. I jutted out my chin. The trick was to fail at increasingly higher levels. To fall up.

  “It’s got a rubber handle. Black. With little holes. To soak up the sweat, I guess.”

  “And what does the blade look like? Serrated or smooth?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. But it was really sharp. I can tell you that.”

  The store was listed in the yellow pages under Hunting Supplies. It looked fancy from the outside, with a window full of tweedy jackets and funny hats. Inside, it was more serious. There were racks of rifles bolted to green felt. Each had a little telescope on top. There was a big photograph of guys hunting elk in a Jeep. A passageway led to the back, where the entrance to the dressing rooms would be in a department store, except here there was a private policeman stopping anyone from entering without a sales clerk. I found the case of knives. A whole display, under locked glass, all in a circle with blades pointing so their shiny tips met in a starburst. I stared at the gleaming sharpness. It was a religious symbol. I couldn’t see what was holding them in place. Then I looked more closely and saw little bands of nylon thread.