~ ~ ~
Beyond the windows of Robert’s car, the wind seems to assume shapes, even bodies with distinct personalities, that for a moment brush past, then dissipate, and are gone. Partway home Robert realizes that he doesn’t have his wallet on him. By the time he makes it back to the restaurant the band has changed out of their mariachi outfits and is packing up for the night.
“Your wallet?” says the hostess. “Antonio found it,” pointing. “Must’ve slipped out of your pocket.” Robert checks: everything’s still there.
“Hey, what are you drinking?” Robert asks Antonio, joining him and a couple of his bandmates at the bar. He buys the guitarist a whiskey neat and asks for a water for himself. “I’m driving,” he explains.
“Here’s to driving!” Antonio says, and he and his bandmates turn their glasses up.
“You have a real depth of sorrow to your voice when you sing, by the way,” Robert says. “I meant to say that when I was here earlier. I think it’s really admirable, how you can convey that.”
“Well we’re pretty broke all the time, and it’s sad, not having money. I mean, have you tried being a professional musician? We play in these shit little restaurants — no offense, Amy,” he says to the hostess, who ignores him, “—and just scrape by. Not a lot of money to be made, playing music. Hugo here guinea-pigs on the side.”
Hugo shrugs. “I take some pills, they give me money. There are worse things.”
“He only does it occasionally, mind you.”
“One time I vomited every fifteen minutes for the duration of the study. That was a dark time. But I’m young, still.”
“So you ran away from the military?” Robert says.
“It was a stupid thing to do. I’d heard that we were to be engaged in Afghanistan. But in the end, very few soldiers went. It seems I was too hasty.”
“Do you like America?”
“Sure, there’s a lot of freedom.”
“How does it compare to Hungary?”
“About equal, in terms of freedom. Still, I have at times an overwhelming longing for the beauty of the northern Hungarian landscape.”
“Oh boy, I know all about longing,” Antonio says, giving Hugo’s shoulder a friendly punch. “Amy, over there? Jesus, the longing that I have for her. Her hair is like flax. Isn’t her hair like flax? And her eyes are like little chips of something, like something that’s been chipped off… ”
“I used to be in a band,” says Robert. “I played drums. We played the Vogue, here in Indianapolis.”
“There’s not much use for a drummer in a mariachi band,” says Hugo, frowning. “It is not the tradition.”
~ ~ ~
“I still care about you very much,” Viola says, in bed with him that night. “I think it’s important for you to know that.”
Robert continues facing the wall on his side of the bed. “I know.”
~ ~ ~
The FBI agent emails Viola. “What were you thinking about the first time you masturbated?” he writes. Viola stares at the screen of her laptop, then closes it.
~ ~ ~
Robert’s father calls to tell him about the hallucinations that his grandmother has started having. “She’s at the hospital now. But they can’t find anything wrong with her. She’s in perfect health, except for the hallucinations. They said maybe it has to do with her salt, that she wasn’t getting enough of it.”
“Salt?” says Robert.
“Apparently that can cause that. Not enough salt.”
Robert goes to visit his grandmother, in the suburbs. She lives in a lovely house in a development that began during the boom and was never completed, because the housing market tanked. Empty lots are scattered throughout the neighborhood. Still, the houses that were finished have all been sold, and her neighbors, from what Robert knows of them, are reasonably friendly.
“I heard things were a bit rough earlier this week,” Robert says.
Robert’s grandmother leads him into the living room by the arm. “They made such a fuss out of everything. I don’t think it was at all necessary.”
Robert’s grandmother sits in one of the two beautifully upholstered, uncomfortable chairs underneath a watercolor painting of trees. She seems to be confused about the salt thing. “They told me there I needed to watch my salt,” she says. “But I don’t eat hardly any salt. I’m very careful about that.”
“They said you needed more salt, Grandmother,” Robert says.
“Is that what they said?”
Robert changes into his shorts and running shoes and goes for a run. He traces the entirety of the housing development, running down each of its branches, circling around the cul-de-sac that tips each, running back. Uncompleted houses sit, half-built, an air of expectancy gathering around them, as though construction halted just an hour before and will resume at any moment. Cars slow down as they pass. The drivers, most of them elderly, wave.
Later that evening, Robert’s grandmother asks him how many people are in the house. Robert is sitting on the couch in the living room, reading the thin local paper. He tells her, carefully, that it’s just the two of them. He feels suddenly disoriented. Without quite thinking it, he gets the feeling that he might somehow be wrong, that she might have access to some knowledge he doesn’t. The skin at the back of his neck crawls.
“Where’s your father?”
“He’s at his house, in Geist,” Robert says. Robert’s grandmother peers around the room, then her focus comes to rest on a spot on the couch somewhere to Robert’s left.
“Who’s that?” she says. “I don’t like him.”
Robert stares at the empty spot.
“Him,” his grandmother says, waving her hand at it violently.
Robert’s parents arrive. “I don’t know what to do with her,” Robert says.
“Let’s get her into bed,” Robert’s father says. Robert and his father attempt to lead her from the couch into her bedroom. It goes fine for the first several steps, and then Robert’s grandmother refuses to go any further. She insists that there’s a hole in the carpet, right in front of her.
“A pit,” she moans. “A pit.”
“There’s no pit there, Grandmother,” Robert says. “It’s just your carpet.”
“What are you trying to do to me?” she asks. So Robert and his father lead her around the pit and into her bedroom.
“Should we call the paramedics?” Robert asks.
His grandmother insists that she is staying right where she is. “I don’t know what you are trying to do to me, but I am staying here.” The paramedics, when they arrive, come storming into the house, confident broad-shouldered men bearing medical equipment. One shines a light into her eye.
“This happened once before,” Robert’s father says. “Earlier this week. They said it was salt.”
“Salt?” asks a paramedic, his blunt healthy fingers tenderly feeling Robert’s grandmother’s wrist for the pulse.
“At the hospital. They couldn’t find anything wrong with her. But they said that not enough salt—”
“I’m not leaving,” Robert’s grandmother says, to the paramedics. “I do not want you in my house.”
“We’re just making sure you’re okay, ma’am,” the paramedic says. “Your son and your grandson here were concerned about you, is all. They say you’ve been having some hallucinations.”
“I have been doing no such thing.”
The paramedic asks her name, the year, who the current president is. She hesitates a little on the last question, but eventually gets it right.
“You can’t do anything for her?” Robert’s father says.
“She’s conscious, and coherent,” the paramedic says. “If she says she doesn’t want to go, we can’t make her go.”
Robert sits with his mother and father in the living room, around the glass-topped coffee table. His grandmother has finally gone to sleep. “Your mother thinks she’s making it up,” Robert’s father says.
“I don�
�t think she’s making it up,” Robert’s mother says. “I just — Did you see how fast she came out of it, as soon as the paramedics got here? Just like that, and she was totally coherent.”
“Probably it was adrenaline,” Robert says. “Probably it was a shock to her system, all those strangers in her house, all at once.”
“I just think,” Robert’s mother says. “Well, all of her friends are getting sick now, and she sees how much attention they’re getting… ”
“I think it’s all the pills she’s on,” Robert’s father says. “She keeps getting them confused, recently.”
“If it was that, don’t you think they’d have found out about it at the hospital?” Robert’s mother says, in a sharp whisper.
“She’s asleep,” Robert’s father says. “You don’t have to whisper.”
“Oh, I don’t know what she is,” Robert’s mother says.
~ ~ ~
Robert volunteers to stay the night, to make sure that his grandmother is okay. He makes himself a bed on the couch in the living room, his head a few feet from the door to her room. He thinks about pits that suddenly open up in the floor. He thinks about the possibility that there could be other people, other voices, swirling in the room around him, invisible.
“Robert,” calls his grandmother softly, during the night. “Robert.” Robert walks into her room and stands beside her bed. Her small fragile hand grips his. “Robert, I was just playing,” she says. “You believe me, don’t you. Robert I don’t want you letting those men in my house anymore.”
~ ~ ~
Robert and Viola meet with Robert’s parents to discuss the question of Robert’s grandmother. Robert’s father, who is retiring as a partner from his firm this year, tells Viola that she looks lovely and asks if she’s heard the one about the talking Mexican cigar. Viola, who has always had a soft spot for Robert’s distant and surprisingly awkward father, smiles and says that she has not.
Robert, Viola, and Robert’s parents sit around Robert’s parents’ kitchen table in Geist, in the suburbs. Robert’s younger brother, who does IT for a company in Houston, is on speakerphone. “Hello?” Robert’s brother says.
“Coming in loud and clear,” Robert’s father says.
“Hello?” says Robert’s brother.
Robert’s mother says she thinks that it’s time to seriously consider the possibility of an elderly care facility. “I know we’ve been putting this off as long as we can,” she says. “And ultimately of course it isn’t up to me.”
Robert’s grandmother has come to believe that there is a tremendous emptiness underneath her house that might swallow her at any moment. “Do they still think it’s the salt?” Robert asks.
“They don’t know what it is. She’s old,” Robert’s mother says.
“She’s in perfect health,” says Robert’s father.
“Except for the hallucinations,” Robert’s mother says. “Honestly, you would think she would want to move.”
A staticky crashing sound comes through over the speakerphone. “I’m okay,” says Robert’s brother. “I was trying to replace a light bulb, but I’m okay.”
“Did you fall? Are you hurt?” Robert’s mother wants to know.
“You okay, champ?”
“Hello?” says Robert’s brother.
“I feel like if she doesn’t want to go she shouldn’t go,” Viola says.
“How do you clean up these compact fluorescents?” Robert’s brother asks. “You just like sweep it up? Is that safe?”
“I’m looking it up on my phone right now baby,” Robert’s mother says.
“Hello?”
Robert’s parents wave to Robert and Viola as they pull out of the driveway, the cellphone containing Robert’s brother’s voice held aloft in the air to indicate that he, too, is saying goodbye. “Are they happy?” Viola asks. “Your parents.”
Robert gives this some thought. “I think maybe you put too much emphasis on being happy,” he says. “People don’t always have to be happy.”
“I don’t see why it’s such a big thing to ask.”
They stop at a drug store on the way home to pick up headache medicine for the headaches Robert has been getting recently. “There are things more important in life than happiness sometimes,” Robert says, scanning the aisle.
“Like what?”
“Like family. Or ethical convictions. Or helping others.”
“Don’t those things make you happy? Isn’t that the point?”
At home that night, Viola looks through old photo albums of Robert in college, his almost uniformly blond friends, well-tanned, girls bikini’d and with lovely teeth, some of them of course Robert’s exes, not all of them, some percentage that Viola has not taken the time to calculate. What beach is this, Viola thinks, that they seem always to be on, somehow, in Indiana? Who wouldn’t be happy with this life, Viola thinks, this blond, well-formed husband?
~ ~ ~
Viola writes back to the FBI agent: “The first time I masturbated I was eleven. I don’t think I understood what I was doing, then. As far as I can remember I wasn’t thinking about anything in particular, but I remember feeling slightly ashamed because I was touching myself.”
The FBI agent writes to Viola: “Please answer the questions exactly as they are asked. If I require additional information I will tell you.”
Viola writes to the FBI agent: “When I fantasize, I fantasize about faceless men, or men I don’t recognize. Like, I specifically don’t recognize them in the fantasies. Sometimes their faces are covered in shadows, or are grotesque in such a way that I am unsure, in the fantasy, whether or not they are wearing a mask. These fantasies often involve some degree of violence or coercion, though of course I find violence in real life repugnant.”
~ ~ ~
Viola goes out with her friend Bethany to a bar with a small dance floor near the back. Viola is acting as “wingman” for her friend Bethany. Whenever any men come up to her to ask if she’d like a drink, Viola says, “I am the wingman. This is my friend Bethany.”
“You’re a mighty pretty little wingman.”
“Thank you.”
“Would you like a cigarette?”
“Okay.”
“How about a dance?”
“You don’t want to dance with me,” Viola says, accepting a light for her cigarette. “I’m terrible. Legs and arms all over the place. Dance partners seriously injured, on more than one occasion. I’ve put men in casts. Now my friend Bethany, on the other hand…”
Viola and Bethany sit at the bar looking out at the dance floor. A tiny disco ball spins near the ceiling, scattering light across the dancers. One short and hirsute man in particular buzzes from partner to partner, as if gathering pollen from each. “I think one of the problems with growing up as a kid who spent basically all of her time reading is that it’s hard to accept the idea that this single life is all you get,” Viola says. “You get so used to the idea of a narrative arc to things, of life as a sort of meaningful unit, of being able to switch from one life to another and from one head to another. And on some level you begin to think that that’s how things actually are, that you can try something out, and if you don’t like it, you can just switch. That at some point you get to be everything. Then suddenly you’re twenty five years old, thirty, and you realize that you only actually get one life and one head to be inside of.”
Bethany gives her a look.
“Well, okay, I realized it before. Like, logically speaking, yes. I’m talking about, just… just this sense, not really at the level of thought, but the sense that the world works more like books than like, you know, the world.”
Viola and Bethany talk to a pair of men who claim to be airline pilots. Viola introduces herself with a fake name. “Have you ever almost crashed?” she asks.
“Flying is actually a very safe means of travel,” the handsomer of the two says. He is wearing a black tie with a tight blue shirt with a little bit of stretch to it, which shows off
his physique nicely.
“What’s the closest you’ve ever come to crashing? Did you announce it? Did the little things pop out from overhead? The masks.”
The handsome pilot looks at her, concerned, then turns to give Bethany a smile.
Robert is already in bed by the time Viola gets home that night. He tells her she smells like smoke. “Of course I smell like smoke,” she says. “It was a bar. People were smoking. Jesus, Robert.”
“Are you drunk?”
Viola struggles to get off one of her shoes, nearly falling backwards in the process. “I’m tipsy.”
Viola gets off the other shoe, then awkwardly pulls off her tights. She clambers into bed beside him and starts pawing at Robert’s chest. “I don’t want to do this right now,” Robert says.
“You are my husband,” Viola says. “My well-formed husband and I would like you to fuck me.”
Robert goes to get Viola a glass of water.
“Jesus, Robert,” Viola says when he returns. “I don’t want to break up. I don’t want us to just be done, Jesus. Is that what you think I want?”
“Here, drink,” Robert says.
“What time is it,” Viola says, taking the glass. “Jesus.”
~ ~ ~
Robert looks up images of bathroom sinks on his computer at work. He’s thinking about getting rid of the countertops in the bathroom entirely and replacing them with a pedestal sink. He looks through several blocky modernist pedestal sink designs. Maybe something more classical, he thinks.
Interns mill about the offices, becoming more sure of their future success with every passing day.
Does Not Love Page 5