by Alex Laidlaw
As for Franklin, I didn’t see him as often as I’d like. When I did, it was only in passing. Him coming out of the early session of our course on the existentialists, me going into the later one. I wanted for us to sit together and talk. I tried to stop him in the hallway to say hello. I would try to make a joke, but our conversations were always clipped and full of hesitation. Franklin was distracted. He looked sad. He looked uneasy, like he didn’t want to see me. I didn’t take it personally. I figured I reminded him of things he would rather forget.
The days were short and the nights were long. I was staying up late, and the rains came. On Halloween I dressed as a doll with my hair tied into a bun, my cheeks and lips painted red. Elliot was Humpty Dumpty. He’d given himself a paunch and wore suspenders with a helmet painted white like an egg. I remember Chris’s costume too, although I thought it was a lazy one. He went dressed in his regular clothes, but with a carved-out pumpkin on his head. We went to a party that night, and at some point someone pulled the pumpkin off his head, and smashed it to pieces on the living room floor. I remember Chris standing over the remains of the pumpkin looking defeated, overwhelmed at the senselessness of what had happened. But the party was like that—things got broken, drinks were spilled. The neighbours complained about the noise, and eventually felt they had to call the police. I mean, it was a sloppy night, one that brought out the worst in us all.
Now, I scratch my head, wrack my brain, but try as I might, I can’t remember anymore how Annie was dressed. At any rate, I remember that she was morose. This wasn’t a party well suited to her. It wasn’t suited to anyone, but especially not to Annie since it jarred against her notion of the basic decency of others. That night she wound up drunk. She fought with Elliot. He tried to kiss me several times while she was out of the room, but I dodged him. I took the high road, insisting that he did too. Eventually Annie said something about walking to the ends of the Earth and disappeared. Only later I learned that she wound up puking by the side of the road and falling asleep on a neighbour’s lawn.
Soon the police arrived and started emptying bottles, dispersing the crowd. Annie was gone. Chris was nowhere to be found. And then, just as I was wondering what I should do, Elliot grabbed me by the hand and led me down the driveway into the street. He didn’t let go of my hand, but kept pulling me down the street, away from the party, away from the noise.
What are we doing? I asked him.
I don’t know for sure, he said.
I told him I needed a pack of cigarettes, and so it was decided he would walk me to a store, but it quickly became apparent we weren’t headed for a store, nor to any place in particular. We wound up wandering and talking about Annie. He talked about their relationship, how it hadn’t been good in a while. That it wasn’t working anymore was obvious, but he said that Annie refused to admit it. Later we had found a little beach and were sitting on a log together, tight together, close as a way to stay warm.
Do me a favour. Do to me now like I did to you before, I said.
What’d you do to me before?
I resisted you, I said.
I kissed him, but he didn’t resist. Instead, we pressed into each other, trying to get as close as was humanly possible. We pressed into each other urgent and hard, like separated lovers coming together at last.
That was the end of something, like the unravelling of a story that had gone on too long and had become awkward to tell. There were no surprises here. There was nothing to hide and no lessons for any of us to carry away. It was like a ringing of bells and nothing more.
After it had come to light what Elliot and I had done, Annie left the house and took a leave of absence from her classes. She left the city and stayed for a while with her parents, at least until she was well enough to return. She even had herself excused from writing several of her midterm exams, and I had to wonder what excuse she’d given, or whether the university had simply accepted the truth, that she was suffering yet another broken heart.
One Friday night, as I was sitting in the living room, Franklin came by the house with no other reason but to see me. I told him about an email that Annie had sent in which she’d mentioned she was having thoughts of killing herself.
And what did you respond to that? Franklin asked.
I told her I was scared, I said, scared to hear her thinking that way.
So you lied?
Of course, I said. Anyway, she’s being ridiculous. She doesn’t really want to end her life, she’s only saying so because to her it’s a novel idea. What she doesn’t understand is that everybody thinks about it, practically all the time.
You think about it?
Of course I do. Everybody does. But I’m not going to do it, and neither will she.
If you don’t think she’ll do it, then why lie? asked Franklin.
Well, I said, what’s the point of rubbing salt in her wound?
Franklin seemed to think about this. But, he said, in some way isn’t your dishonesty the wound she’s had to suffer?
Sure, but Annie doesn’t really want honesty. She can’t even be honest with herself.
It does seem unlikely she would ever kill herself, Franklin said. But it is probably for the best you didn’t tell her that.
It was an honourable lie, I said.
Sure, if such a thing as honour exists.
We went on like this for a while, talking in the living room, sitting at opposite ends of the couch. I had my legs curled up beneath me to keep my feet warm. Franklin, on the other hand, was wearing his coat. He had both feet planted on the floor as if he were sitting in a waiting room. After a while, he suggested we get stoned.
I thought you were off it these days, I said.
Was I? Franklin asked and shrugged.
The trouble, I explained, was that I had had a cough all week, and what had started merely as a tickle in the throat had moved and settled into my chest. So, I didn’t want to smoke. But I did have some butter in the fridge which had been infused with cannabis. It was a gift to Annie from one of her friends, which she had intended to use to make brownies. In her absence though, I told Franklin, I’ve been spreading it on crackers and eating it as a regular snack. I could make us some crackers, I told him.
How about a smoothie? Franklin countered.
Twenty minutes later we had ingested the drugs along with some berries, banana, honey and almond milk. Now we wondered what to do with the night. Franklin wanted to meet up with friends, but I didn’t want to see anyone. I still didn’t know any of Franklin’s friends, and didn’t want to be introduced to them. It made me wonder about the nature of our relationship, but to my mind, Franklin existed as someone outside of all social context. He was someone who had fallen into my life, someone who had found his way, unattached, into an otherwise empty house.
Franklin dialled several numbers but couldn’t get a hold of anyone. I was relieved. The truth was I would have been content for us to spend the whole night in the living room. Franklin suggested we go for a drive. He had his father’s blue sports car parked outside in the driveway, and since I couldn’t readily think up an excuse not to go, that’s what we did.
Franklin started driving and I felt nervous because I didn’t know where we were going. He drove into the city, over a bridge, into the industrial zone, then downtown and beyond, following the coast. He took us onto the highway and then off it again, and while we weren’t talking and while I wasn’t thinking about anything in particular, I realized that the anxiety I felt had to do with Annie and Elliot. It was in the background of every moment now, this feeling that life could be dangerous, that people could be hurt, could be damaged. That I could be responsible. Who knows, I thought, if Franklin and I might not do something reckless.
After driving aimlessly for an hour, we left the city, and it was only then that I felt relief. A physical warmth came over me, a comfort growing from the pit of my stomach. We headed north up the coast, through an old-growth forest, winding at the foot of a mountain.
We drove for many hours and only started talking again as the landscape changed. Franklin, seemingly unprovoked, told me about a woman Nietzsche had loved named Lou Andreas-Salomé. Nietzsche had even proposed to her, but she hadn’t wanted to get married. In fact, she’d been opposed to it on philosophical grounds. So, the two of them had a falling out. Later Salomé married someone else and then had an affair with the poet Rainer Maria Rilke.
Even though she’d been married, Franklin explained, by the time of the affair, she’d already been celibate for a number of years, in accordance with her philosophical principles. Rilke though, at least for a while, changed all that. He was fourteen years younger than her and their affair lasted almost three years. Salomé was the one to break it off, but the two of them remained close. They shared an intimate friendship lasting well over a decade.
What intrigues me, Franklin said, is just how fitting it is to each of those men.
What do you mean? I asked.
Just how in keeping it is with who they were. Can’t you picture, for instance, Friedrich retreating with a broken heart, defeated and embittered, fleeing into seclusion to philosophize with a hammer? And Rilke, on the other hand, staying close to the woman, close to the situation, potentially painful, but also beautiful and apparently potent?
Apparently?
Judging by the friendship they forged from it, said Franklin.
Okay, I said, I get it. But my question is, who was she?
Salomé? She was a writer, a poet, a philosopher.
I didn’t say anything then. I thought that something must be missing from the story, but I couldn’t guess what it was.
Franklin asked if Annie knew that I was still seeing Elliot. He said, Elliot is a very handsome man. You two would make gorgeous babies.
It’s true, he’s a good-looking man, I said. I rested my head against the window.
We drove until we reached the next town, several hours up the road. Franklin pulled up at the local rink where there was a hockey game being played between teams made up of teenage boys. We went in, bought coffee in Styrofoam cups and sat with the other spectators. These were mostly parents of the players, also groups of friends and girlfriends. Franklin chose to side with the team in blue and cheered them exuberantly. He called out: Let’s go boys! Let’s take these bozos to the cleaners! No one else in the place was shouting and pretty soon the players themselves were looking up in our direction.
During a break in the play, Franklin told me he had kissed Julia.
You remember Julia? he said. She’s an old friend. You went to her house for a party last spring.
Right, I said. Of course, Julia. The girl with the enormous eyes.
I never noticed before. I guess you could say her eyes are big, Franklin said.
Not big. Enormous. Her eyes are these grand, spectacular things.
I’ve known her since the first grade, Franklin said. She’s been one of my oldest, closest friends. Then, I don’t know why, but I wound up kissing her yesterday.
And what was that like? I asked.
It was a little bit strange.
A week or two later, Annie came home, and things were almost as they’d been before. For a few days, we were back to being friends, spending evenings talking about nothing, being stoned together and getting carried away.
One night we had an idea to trace every shadow in one of the rooms in the basement. The room was full of junk left over from previous tenants. It was the only room in the house that was full, packed to the rafters with boxes, books, rusted pots and pans, old bicycle tires. Whenever we turned on the light, all this junk would cast an array of shadows over the walls and the floor. We went in there with a box of sidewalk chalk and spent a few hours tracing the shadows. It felt good to be working together, with nothing more between us than our concern that we might not have enough chalk to finish. When we were done, we emptied the room to see the effect of our work. Annie took a few pictures, but then she said she was tired. She went to bed and I waited, then after I figured she’d fallen asleep, I slipped out the back of the house and started the long walk over to Elliot’s place.
When I arrived, I told him all about the shadows, the chalk, about working with Annie. Looking betrayed, he asked me how I could do that. To be Annie’s friend, and then the next moment be pulling back the sheets on his bed?
I don’t understand, he said, whether you’re cheating on me, or cheating on her.
I don’t think I’m cheating on anyone.
But you are lying, he said.
He was right, but by now all of this had come to seem so inevitable to me, so unexceptional, that more than anything else, I felt tired of it. Could I have been gentler, perhaps more considerate? Sure. Could I have chosen to behave in a different way? Of course. But what was the point? These things had already fallen into place, had taken shape, and who was I to resist?
All I’m doing is putting one foot in front of the other, I said.
In Elliot’s room there was a tape deck with a few cassettes that he and I had played over and over. One was Billie Holiday singing “All of Me” and other songs. I knew then that these songs would be drilled into me, that years later I would hear them and be taken back into Elliot’s room. Whenever a cassette needed to be flipped, we took turns. One of us would get out of bed and cross the room to the stereo. And at that time it was no small thing to be naked, standing, while the other one watched. When it was my turn, I padded quickly and nervously over the floor. I stood at the stereo with my back to him, and when I turned, he was sitting up watching me. I stood there practically frozen.
You look good, Elliot said. You’re a very beautiful girl. Even more so, the more I get to see of you.
The first time we slept together we brought all the blankets down onto the floor. When it was over we brought them back to the bed. Elliot started the cassette and I fell asleep, only to wake up hours later as the sky was already blue. For a moment I felt such a deep sense of satisfaction, and I knew that whatever would happen in life, I would do anything, would give anything to feel this way again.
Things quickly degraded between Annie and me. Sometimes she would come to my room, knock at the door, and when I didn’t answer, come in anyway and find me lying on the floor. Evidently she wanted to talk. Or, she wanted me to talk. But what did she expect? Some kind of an explanation? Some display of remorse?
The truth is I didn’t feel any remorse. I knew I probably should, but whenever I went looking, it just wasn’t there. So Annie would lie down next to me, both of us on the floor, neither of us saying anything.
Once, after I thought she’d gone to bed, I got ready to leave the house again, but this time Annie met me on my way out the door. Standing in the entrance together, I could see that she had an umbrella in her hands.
You should take this, she said. It’s going to rain.
I shook my head. I don’t need it.
But it’s going to rain, she said.
If it rains, I’ll get wet. I’ll be fine.
I walked the length of our road for half an hour before the sky opened up, at which point I turned and went back home. When I got in, she was sitting in the living room.
I didn’t expect you back, she admitted. I thought, you know…
I know what you thought, but I was just taking a walk.
Annie sighed, but it was more like a groan. Sometimes I’m still so mad at you, she said.
I nodded.
You sold my piano.
I looked up at her, ready to laugh, but I could see it wasn’t a joke.
A few days later she left again.
It was December now, and time to prepare for exams. Franklin and I got together once or twice with the goal of studying the existentialists. We met on campus, found a quiet spot, opened our notes and books, but inevitably fell into talk of other things. Our relationship had cemented itself, had evolved into something independent of Annie. We were getting along. We enjoyed each other’s company.
; On the night before the exam, Franklin invited himself to the house. He suggested we spend the evening studying, then get a good night’s sleep, and in the morning drive to the university. Since Annie was away, Franklin would spend the night sleeping in her room.
He came by just after dark, toting an overnight bag. The first thing he wanted to do was to put his bag away in the room. We opened up Annie’s bedroom door, turned on the light and went inside. Franklin took a few steps, then fell face down on the bed. He took a deep breath and sighed.
As usual, Annie had somehow managed to make her bedroom nicer than the rest of the house. The room was comfortable and inviting, and although she hadn’t been living here in weeks, the place was still fragrant and warm.
Franklin sat up on the bed. He said, I know I told you I wasn’t, but I think I’m in love with Annie again.
Really? I asked. Since when?
Since maybe just now, he said.
I turned away and started poking around the room, looking for a distraction. On the window sill was a photo of Annie’s parents and her younger brother. Next to it was a long grey feather and a bluish, small, round stone. On the wall next to the window was a calendar still set to the previous month.
I lifted the page, and speaking over my shoulder said to Franklin, She’ll be coming back in three more days.
Will the two of you be able to sort things out?
I didn’t answer. When I turned around I saw that Franklin had a book in his hands, Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet. He started reading out loud.
It is good to love, because love is difficult. That is why young people, who are beginners in everything, are not yet capable of love: it is something they must learn. But learning time is always a long, secluded time ahead—is solitude, intensified. Loving does not mean at first merging, surrendering and uniting with another person—for what would a union be of two people who are unclarified, unfinished and still incoherent?