What Happens at Night

by Peter Cameron

  The man sat in the lobby for most of the evening, drinking schnapps. A woman dressed like a prostitute came and sat beside him for a while, saying nothing, just smoking a cigarette and suggestively crossing and uncrossing her stout legs. Twice she asked him for the time—Do you have the time?—and twice he told her he did not. After his second disavowal she got up and went into the bar, but she reemerged moments later. Would you like a man? she asked. With me or alone. It is the same price. He told her he did not want a man. She acknowledged his lack of desire with a sigh and sad nod, but remained standing there in front of him, as if trying to think of something else that might entice him. But after a moment, apparently stumped, she shrugged and returned to the bar.

  Soon after that encounter, feeling pleasantly smoothed by the several glasses of schnapps, he returned to the hotel room. His wife was sitting up in bed reading The Dark Forest. She looked up from her book and watched him as he undressed.

  Tomorrow morning I want to go see Brother Emmanuel, she said. I want to go alone. I think it’s better that way. I know you’re skeptical and so I think it’s better you’re not there. I’m sorry.

  No, he said. I understand. It’s fine.

  I’ll go to the orphanage with you, she said. In the afternoon. But in the morning I’d like to see Brother Emmanuel.

  That’s fine, he said. Do whatever you’d like. I’m tired.

  You’ve been drinking?

  Yes, he said.

  With your friend?

  No. I’ve been drinking alone. Well, a prostitute joined me for a while.

  Was she pretty? Were you tempted?

  No, the man said.

  No she wasn’t pretty or no you weren’t tempted?

  No to each, he said.

  Because I wouldn’t mind, you know. In fact I’d be happy for you.

  You’d be happy for me if I slept with an ugly prostitute?

  Well, no—not happy. I’d be relieved. You know how bad I feel about our sexual life. That’s why I’d be relieved if you slept with a prostitute. I realize it’s selfish of me. I feel bad about that too.

  Well, don’t worry. I won’t sleep with an ugly prostitute just to please you. He went into the bathroom and looked at his face in the mirror. He had never slept with a prostitute—not so much from lack of desire; it was the negotiations and transactions that stopped him. He couldn’t imagine successfully navigating them. For a moment he thought perhaps he should go back down to the lobby and sleep with the prostitute as a sort of learning, confidence-building exercise, and if it made his wife happy so much the better. And it might be his last chance—he wouldn’t feel right doing it when he was a father.

  The woman had turned out the lights. He thought about mentioning the yoghurt hiding behind the drapes but decided it was best left till morning. He felt his way around to the far side of the bed and slid in beneath the coverlet. His wife did not acknowledge his arrival in the bed. He lay there for a moment and then said, Are you awake?

  Yes.

  I’m sorry you think I’m skeptical. I do support you.

  But equivocally, she said.

  I’m sorry. I wish I could support you in the way you need, but it seems wrong to pretend what I don’t feel. Would it be better if I did?

  Of course it would, said the woman. It means nothing to me, it doesn’t help me, your honesty. It hurts me.

  Honesty again—the man did not understand it. I want to help you, he said. But I want to be honest with you too. Otherwise I don’t think I can be any help to you.

  I suppose that’s the really sad thing, the woman said. The thing that really does separate us.

  What?

  That you want to be honest with me.

  I don’t understand, said the man. If you don’t want me to be honest, tell me. And I won’t be.

  No, said the woman. That’s what’s sad. I don’t want to have to tell you how to be, because then you aren’t being yourself, you’re being who I tell you to be, and that’s meaningless. I’d rather you be yourself and hurt me than pretend to be someone else.

  The man said nothing. What could he say? He felt angry and tired and condemned. Her tenacity, which he had once admired, for he felt it made up for a strength he lacked, now overwhelmed him. She had sued the law firm where she worked when she was not made a partner, claiming discrimination based upon her health status, for her illness and its treatment had prevented her from working very much in the last year or two. The case was settled out of court and she had won a very large settlement, and now she seemed to battle everything in the same way.

  He realized he wished she were dead.

  He turned away from her and faced the wall. After a moment he heard and felt his wife shift in the bed and turn toward him. And then he felt her hand on his shoulder, pressing against it as if she were supporting herself.

  I’m sorry, she said. I know I’m making things impossible for you. I would stop myself if I could. But I can’t. Something—some kind of self-control—has left me. Of course everything is leaving me, but that has gone first. She turned away from him and began to weep.

  His meanness stopped him from turning toward her, holding her. And every second he did not do it made it more difficult to do. And then, suddenly overcome with tenderness and shame, he turned and reached out and pulled her back against his body and held her tightly. After a while she stopped crying and pushed herself back against him. Her body had lost all of its voluptuousness and weight, and so it felt almost like nothing. To make it more real he slid his hand inside her silk underwear and cupped it gently between her legs, feeling the soft warmth there. They both felt him growing hard.

  She reached down and moved his hand away.

  Sorry, he said.

  No, she said. I meant . . . She reached behind her and held his penis in her hand and felt it swelling, like an animal that was alive, and shifted herself closer to him, and fitted herself onto him. She heard him gasp, or sigh, and he held her tighter and fucked in the gentlest way, rocking against her, and moved both his hands onto her breasts, and she felt the somewhat rough skin of his palms encasing them, and he turned his head sideways and laid it against the back of her head so that his mouth was near her ear, and she heard him say, I love you, I love you, I love you, in time to his timid thrusts, and she reached behind and grasped his buttock and pulled him more tightly into her, and rocked back against him, thinking of the golden eggs, the beautiful golden eggs he was planting inside her.

  FOUR

  The woman left immediately after breakfast to see Brother Emmanuel.

  The taxi driver, a woman, wore a man’s fur-collared overcoat atop a flannel nightgown. Her head was studded with metal curlers over which she wore a net beaded with bejeweled butterflies.

  Could we make two stops? the woman asked. Could you take me two different places?

  Not at once, the driver said.

  No! Of course not. I meant take me one place and then wait and then take me to another. I’ll pay you for the time I wait.

  The time I wait! All life is waiting.

  I want to go to the orphanage. And then to Brother Emmanuel’s. Do you know these places?

  Of course, said the driver. I know all places.

  Good, said the woman. Then please take me. The orphanage first.

  The driver put the car into gear and slowly accelerated. She gripped the steering wheel tightly with both of her hands and leaned her whole body forward, so that her bosom pressed itself against the wheel, and peered intently out at the snow-covered road that tunneled before them. She maintained the same exact slow speed, as if there were a bomb in the car and any acceleration or deceleration would cause it to detonate.

  The woman remembered driving with her parents as a child and passing a long line of cars moving very slowly, with their headlights on. She asked why they were driving like that and her father told her it was a funeral cortege and that all the cars were driving to a cemetery to bury a dead body. Wait, he said, and in front of all
the cars, the first car in the line will be big and black and look different from any car you’ve ever seen. And he had been right, and for the longest time after that the woman thought her father had called the procession of cars a corsage, and she always thought it was odd that a word could mean two very different things. But she knew that flowers figured in both death and burial and in dances and galas so perhaps there was a link after all.

  When the taxi had stopped in front of the orphanage the woman leaned forward and said, You will wait?

  Yes. For one hour, not more.

  Oh, I’ll be much quicker than that, said the woman.

  Go, said the driver. I wait.

  So the woman got out of the taxi and entered the orphanage. The vestibule was empty. She waited for a moment and was about to push the bell beside the inner doors when one of them opened. The nurse they had seen the previous day was now wearing knit slacks and a ski jacket. Good morning, she said.

  Hello, said the woman. I’m—

  I know who you are. You are here to see your baby? Does your husband come too?

  No, said the woman. This morning I come alone.

  Men! They are always like that. Come, and we will go see your baby.

  Several babies were wailing when they entered the room upstairs. The woman asked the nurse—or whatever she was—if she could take the baby into another room, so she might be alone with him, in a quiet place.

  Yes, said the nurse. We have a room for such a visit. We take your baby there. She reached down and unhitched the leash from the harness the baby wore and hoisted him out of the crib. He is fat one, she said. Full of health. Let us give him new cloth, and he will be clean for you.

  May I do it? the woman asked.

  You want?

  Yes, said the woman. I would like to change him.

  If you want, good. We go here. The nurse carried the child over to the changing table and laid him down. Then she stepped away and indicated with one arm that she had relinquished control. The woman stepped closer and leaned over the child and lowered her head so that her face almost touched the baby’s face. She closed her eyes and inhaled the complex smell, which was layered, like those perfumes that are made of musk or civet, and had a dark, fungal base. She breathed it in deeply.

  She wished she had a memory for scents.

  It wasn’t until she had removed the pinafore and overalls that she remembered he wore old-fashioned cloth diapers. She was less sure about how to handle these and worried she might prick his skin with the safety pins. But she did not. The new diaper she put on him was not as tightly or elegantly affixed as the one she had replaced, but the nurse, after adjusting one of the pins, nodded her approval.

  Is it time for him to be fed? the woman asked.

  Oh no, said the nurse. He had his bottle before.

  Oh, said the woman.

  You would like to feed him?

  Yes, said the woman. If it won’t be bad for him.

  It doesn’t hurt. He is always hungry. Fat boy. Let me get bottle. Pick him up, she said. Hold him.

  The woman picked up the baby and held him against her, one arm on his back and the other holding his head. She began to jounce him gently but apparently he did not like this for he began to cry. She stopped the jouncing. He continued to cry. The woman held him a little more tightly and murmured to him. Baby, baby, baby, good baby, good baby, baby, baby, baby . . .

  He was still crying, but less determinedly, when the nurse returned with the bottle. Come, she said. I take you now to place for visit.

  The woman followed the nurse out of the room and down the hall. The nurse opened a door and turned a light on. This room was much smaller than the other rooms the woman had seen. It contained a cluttered desk and metal bookshelves crowded with cardboard and plastic boxes. Also, a wooden rocking chair on gliders with gold-and-brown-plaid tweed cushions.

  The woman sat down in the gliding chair and the nurse handed her the bottle.

  The woman held it but did not offer it to the baby. It was made of glass and was warm.

  Feed him!

  May I be alone? the woman asked. I would like to be alone with him.

  Alone with your little one, said the nurse. I understand.

  Thank you, said the woman.

  He is good baby, said the nurse. Already he love his mama. She turned and left the room, closing the door behind her.

  When the woman was sure the nurse had moved away from the door, she put the bottle on the desk, stood up, and turned off the fluorescent overhead light. It was dark in the little room, but some light shone through the window in the door. The woman retrieved the bottle and sat back down in the chair. She slowly lowered it toward the baby’s mouth and gently pressed the amber nipple against his lips. He stopped crying, and his lips parted. He began sucking.

  As he nursed he stared directly at her, as if the flow of milk were dependent upon maintaining constant eye contact. Every few moments he would lift one of his fists toward her face.

  He drank about two thirds of the bottle and then stopped abruptly and pushed it away from his mouth with one of his hands.

  No more? the woman asked. She put the bottle on the desk and lifted the baby and held him against her and patted his back. She wondered, Was it a mistake for me to come and see the baby? Not for him, but for me? I wish I still had my old body, my complete body. I understood that body. I fit perfectly inside it. Even if it is a mistake, I was right to come. Whatever happens, it will matter that I have held him like this.

  She felt him fall asleep while she held him. She stopped patting his back. She lowered her mouth so that she could speak directly into his ear.

  I’m sorry, she said, but you can’t be mine. But you will be his. All his. You must love him and take care of him. Many things he will do wrong but the important things he will do right. So try not to judge him, or blame him. As I have. If we are doing the wrong thing, a bad thing, a selfish thing, forgive us. It was my idea, so forgive me. I know how alone he is. He needs you.

  Baby, baby, baby. Good baby.

  An hour later, the woman arrived at Brother Emmanuel’s. She paid the driver and walked up the front steps as the taxi rolled slowly away. She pressed the bell.

  After a moment the door swung open and Brother Emmanuel’s helpmate stood inside the open door.

  Ah, she said. You’ve come back.

  I have, said the woman. May I come in?

  All are welcome here. She opened the door wider and stood aside.

  The woman entered the house of Brother Emmanuel. The helpmate shut the door and helped her take off her parka.

  What is your name? the woman asked. You know my name and you have been so kind to me. I would like to know your name.

  My name is Darlene.

  She held the woman’s coat folded over her arm, and held her arms close to her body, and by embracing her coat, the woman felt that Darlene was symbolically embracing her.

  Well, said Darlene. So you have come again.

  Yes, said the woman. I have come again. I have come to see Brother Emmanuel, but if he cannot see me, I would like to stay here a little while. I feel safe here.

  Safe? Safe from what?

  Safe from my body, the woman said. Safe from the world.

  Then please come and sit down. Would you like some tea?

  Oh, I would, said the woman. I would. Thank you!

  Go and sit near the fire. I will get the tea. She indicated the opened doors into the sitting room and disappeared through one of the doors beneath the stairs.

  The woman stood in the hall for a moment, forgoing and anticipating the relief and pleasure she would feel upon entering the sitting room, for she realized it was there, in that bright and warm and fragrant room, that she had felt at peace with the world, and not been made to suffer it.

  After the man helped his wife into the taxi and watched it drive away, he returned to the lobby and sat in one of the club chairs. Someone had left an in-flight magazine on the table before
him with a photograph of Peggy Fleming on the cover. Peggy Fleming? Out of curiosity he picked up the magazine and leafed through it, but he could find no mention or photographs of Peggy Fleming, or any other figure skater, in its pages.

  He tossed the magazine back onto the table. It skittered across the polished surface and disappeared over the far edge. I need to get out of here, he thought.

  The man walked in the opposite direction from the restaurant and orphanage, deciding he would turn corners at random until he was lost.

  The wind was cruelly blowing the snow directly into his face, and turning corners did nothing to alleviate the problem. So he ducked his head and buried his chin in the folds of the scarf that was swaddled around his throat.

  When he had lost all sense of direction and felt well and truly lost, he slowed his pace and began to pay attention to the shops he passed by. A warm golden light shone out of one, and he peered in though the foggy windows: a café, or bar, with a counter and several small tables lined along the walls. The lights were brightly lit and some sort of balalaikaish folk music leaked into the cold outside air. And then he noticed a huge, fur-shrouded figure sitting at one of the tables, with its back to the windows, and he recognized Livia Pinheiro-Rima’s Russian black bear coat. He pushed open the door. The small room was empty except for the single figure hunched over a bowl of what appeared to be steaming soup. Livia Pinheiro-Rima was swaddled in the great coat and wearing a large, complicated fur hat. The man watched as she carefully lifted the soup to her lips, blowing gently upon each spoonful before hurriedly devouring it.

  Something about her aloneness and the almost devout attention she paid to her soup made the man feel as if he were intruding upon a private scene. He was about to turn and try to slip back out the door when a woman emerged from the back part of the café through a pair of little swinging doors.

  She said something in the native language that the man assumed was a greeting, but there was a harshness to her tone, as if she had been expecting him and he was late.

  Livia Pinheiro-Rima laid down her spoon and turned toward the door. Look what the cat drug in, she said. You’re a sight for sore eyes. The more the merrier! Then she turned and said something to the woman in the same hectoring tone she used with Lárus. The woman bowed and scuttled back through the swinging doors.