by Mirvis, Tova
Watching fueled her restlessness. She wanted not just bodies laid bare but minds. With so many existing forms of surveillance, surely someone could invent a means of seeing inside people’s heads. Online, she entered Claudia’s and Leon’s names in combination, as if this might turn up what she wanted to know, the search engine powerful enough to access not just posted words but private thoughts. You should be able to Google your neighbors and hear conversations that took place behind closed doors. Google your friends and uncover their varieties of unhappiness. Google your husband and find an explanation for why, on the phone or in rare moments together, he sounded more distant than usual; add in the words our marriage and see a description of who you were going to become.
Only before going to sleep did Nina remember to check on Hop, the pet Max had already started to lose interest in. Unable to recall the last time she’d fed him, Nina steeled herself to the possibility that she’d killed him.
Not only was Hop alive, he was thriving. In the absence of attention, Hop had taken the final leap. Finally more frog than tadpole, he had emerged from the water and stood on the rock, calmly taking in his surroundings. It was almost midnight, but Nina tiptoed into Max’s room.
Breaking the cardinal rule of their existence, Nina woke a sleeping child. Max opened his eyes, confused, then thrilled. In the living room, they all looked into the bowl, Jeremy taking a break from his work, Max leaning in so close that his breathing fogged the glass.
“How did Hop know how to become a frog?” Max asked them.
“That’s just what they do,” Jeremy explained.
“It’s how their bodies work,” Nina said. In her son’s eyes, a look of pure wonder, the world on the cusp of breaking wide open.
In the morning, Nina took the kids to the neighborhood pet store where the man behind the counter packaged six insects in a small cardboard box with holes punched in the top.
“These should last you a week. But you’re going to need to feed the crickets too,” he said.
While Nina worried about the prospect of housing an entire food chain, Lily waved to the fish and Max eyed the snakes, deciding which animal he wanted next. There was no need to trek to the Central Park Zoo when they could wander through a store in which chameleons, lizards, and turtles were stacked in glass tanks. At night, when the lights were turned off, the store was aglow with eyes. Taped to the back of the tanks were pictures of tropical escapes, the same lush fantasies that hung in the window of the travel agency next door. But only the geckos were fooled by these backdrops, their arms and legs suctioned to the back of their tanks, stunned to come up against glass.
While they gazed at the animals, Wendy came into the store to order five hundred goldfish for Hippo Park’s summer carnival which she had volunteered to organize. Still embarrassed by the Gymboree tantrum, Nina pretended not to see her and tried to walk out. But there was no escape; the kids caught sight of each other and Harry threw his arms around Max, suddenly long-lost friends. Together, they pressed their faces to the tank of baby gerbils in a bald, red, wriggling heap.
“They have to separate the daddies because they might eat the babies,” Wendy explained matter-of-factly.
“Do the mommies ever eat the babies?” Sophie asked.
“The mommies! Of course not,” Wendy said as the kids moved on to the rats, exclaiming over them as though they were exotic creatures never before seen in the city.
“Can we get one?” Sophie asked.
“I’m so glad to see you taking such an interest in animals, Sophie,” Wendy said, and turned to Nina. “Normally I have a no-screen-time policy, but I decided to make an exception for National Geographic DVDs.”
“Please?” Sophie begged.
“You have a goldfish, honey,” Wendy said.
“I’m sick of Swimmy,” Sophie said.
“What do you have?” Wendy asked Nina as they walked out together.
“We have a frog. Or at least now we do. Max brought home one of the class tadpoles,” Nina said. Frog trumped fish. She’s exposing her child to nature, bolstering his sense of competency. She’s willing to feed live crickets to live frogs, all for the sake of her child.
“Can you believe that sign?” Wendy said when they’d walked farther uptown and passed Georgia’s. “When I saw it a few days ago, I thought it had to be a joke. It’s not really my problem, I know. In a few months I won’t even be living in the city. But it’s the principle that matters. I’m not going to let them get away with this. I’m going to call the owner and—”
“That bitch,” Sophie said.
Wendy’s face turned as pink as Sophie’s wardrobe. “What did you say?”
“You said, ‘That bitch hates kids.’”
“No one hates kids, honey,” Wendy soothed. “You must have misheard me. And I certainly don’t remember using that word, but it does sound like that’s what you heard, doesn’t it?” Wendy turned to Nina. “They’re upset that they were yelled at by a stranger a few weeks ago.” She turned back to the kids. “Were you scared? Do you want to talk about it again?” Wendy said.
Kids could say what they wanted, but the mothers were supposed to speak softly and have eternal patience. They talked to their kids this way, Nina realized, not because they wanted to respect their needs, but because they were terrified. The truth they took such great pains to cover: the kids were in charge.
“Do you ever get angry at them?” Nina asked.
Wendy looked up in surprise. “Of course not. They’re delicious,” she said as Sophie tugged on her arm, and Wendy gave that same joyous gaze, that same indulgent smile. Underneath perfect, Nina realized, she would only find more perfect.
“We’re just going in for a minute,” Nina said to Max and Lily once Wendy and her kids walked away and she realized that Leon was inside the café, reading.
Offering a prayer to the God of Tantrums, she navigated the double stroller into the café. Leon looked up at her with surprise, but it was apparent from his face that he was glad to see her.
“You just missed the old couple who scream at each other in public,” he said, sitting at the same table where she’d seen him and his family a few weeks before.
“They upgraded from Starbucks?”
“They started fighting as soon as they sat down. It’s hard to follow the argument, because they start up so quietly. Next time I should ask them to speak up.”
“Ask for some background information,” Nina said.
“Give me a list. I’ll go up to them and say, ‘You know that woman with the two kids? Here’s what she wants to know.’”
He invited her to sit, and she did, surprised to feel so comfortable with him when her other friendships had been whittled down to those people whose kids were close in age to hers. Until now, she’d thought of men his age only as fathers, not friends.
A half-eaten cupcake sat on Leon’s plate. At every table in the café, adults were eating cupcakes. Only one table was without food, and there, with a woman, was her neighbor Dog Man, though because he was neither in the lobby of their building nor with the dog, it took her a moment to recognize him.
“You’re staring,” Leon said.
“He lives in my building,” she said.
“You know who she is, don’t you?” Leon said. “She’s the owner of the café.”
“He likes to complain,” Nina said. “He hangs angry signs all over our lobby.”
“Whatever it is, they’re taking it very seriously. Neither of them looks happy,” he said.
“Believe me, he’s thrilled to have a complaint,” she said.
“You should sit closer,” Leon teased, and though Nina laughed, she felt a flicker of guilt. It was one thing to spy on strangers, but he had started to feel like a friend. When she talked to Leon, she couldn’t erase the picture of him sitting across from his wife, nor could she forget the image of his daughter and her boyfriend entwined on the couch.
“Are you okay?” Leon asked.
“Do
I look something other than tired?”
He cocked his head, studying her face. “I’d say wistful,” he decided. “Come on, what do you mommies say? ‘Use your words.’”
She could say something about Jeremy or the kids—pull something from the growing stockpile of discontent or from one of the neighboring piles of joy. She could confess that she was tired, not because the kids were still up several times each night, but because it didn’t matter where Jeremy’s body was when his mind was increasingly at work. What she felt most fully of him was his absence. No matter what beliefs she and Jeremy had long ago set out with, she was in this alone.
“I know your wife,” Nina said, trying for casual, but something more complicated broke into her voice.
“Really. How?”
“I went to Columbia. I took her class.”
“How did you know she’s my wife?” he said.
“I saw you here a few weeks ago. I was walking past.”
“Was she a good teacher?”
“I loved her,” Nina confessed.
“I don’t suppose she seemed like the type of person to be screaming out the window. I probably shouldn’t have told you that,” he admitted.
“Don’t worry, I don’t think she has any idea who I am. I see her around the neighborhood, but she never remembers me.”
“She’s terrible with faces. And she’s very preoccupied these days. She’s not teaching anymore and is spending a lot of her time at the library because she can’t concentrate at home. Emma’s cast is coming off next week, but Claudia is convinced that it’s more than just the ankle, and she’s probably right. She usually is when it comes to Emma.”
“What do you think it is?” she asked.
He lowered his voice. “I don’t know. I try, but after all my years as a parent, the truth is, I really have no idea,” he said, and this time, she heard not just friendly banter between parents but the darker undertones as well. She stopped seeing him through the frame of a window or the crosshairs of her mind’s imaginary lens and instead saw him as he sat before her. On his face was a sadness and vulnerability she hadn’t seen before. At the corners of his eyes, wrinkles of worry and fatigue that made him look older. At their epicenter, pools of discontent.
“I want to go home,” Max said.
From his inflection Nina could gauge how much time remained before a meltdown. She promised they would go in one minute. She would buy cupcakes on the way out. She rummaged through the diaper bag. Every pretzel bought ten seconds. A package of goldfish crackers, five gorgeous minutes.
“Are you interested in stained glass? Is that why you took Claudia’s class?” Leon asked.
“It was a nineteenth-century survey class. I majored in art history and at the time I was considering going to graduate school. I wanted to be like her. She used to have so much passion in her voice when she lectured. I even went to talk to her once, hoping she would encourage me,” she said.
“And did she?” Leon asked.
“I asked a lot of questions but was too shy to say more. She probably saw countless students like me who weren’t sure what to do with their lives. Even if she had encouraged me, I probably wouldn’t have pursued it. I decided to go to law school because I was sure that I’d graduate and always know exactly what I was doing. But on maternity leave, I started to question why I was a lawyer in the first place. When I gave notice, all I had to do was explain my decision in terms of the kids. I didn’t have to admit how little I liked my job. I’m supposed to claim that I’m fulfilled by being home, but the truth is, I’d be working if I liked what I was doing.”
“Are you still interested in art?” Leon asked.
“It’s been so long since I thought about it. I don’t know what I’m interested in anymore,” Nina said.
Inside his pocket, his cell phone rang, but he made no move to answer it. Nina made halfhearted motions to pack up, but she lingered. The tingling in her body took her by surprise—since Lily was born, her body belonged primarily to the kids. Lily lunged at the sight of her nipples; Max liked to fall asleep lying atop her. Her most titillating fantasy was of a bed in which she slept undisturbed.
“If you ever want to rekindle your interest, Claudia has a great library. I’m sure she’d be happy to have you come over and borrow a book,” Leon said, and scribbled his cell phone number on a napkin.
She looked around, worried that her feelings had been evident. She should ask herself what she was doing. She should retreat to a safer place instead of standing on the edge of something she wasn’t willing to name. And yet, a voice inside her, one she hardly knew existed, pushed aside her impulse for caution.
“When?” she asked.
In the reading room of the New York Public Library, Claudia waited for Maurice. Several times her eyes played tricks on her—every man who entered the room was, for a moment, the one she was waiting for.
In vain, Claudia tried to reassemble an image of Maurice. She remembered the dark hair and glasses, but his facial features had blurred. When she met him, she’d thought of him as close in age to Emma. But now he was nearer to her age, more distinguished, more sure of himself. When she first felt Maurice’s eyes on her, she had worried that she was supposed to know him, but if he’d been her student, she’d never remember his name. She could recall every detail of a work of art, but names and faces slipped irretrievably from her mind. She had been baffled by his apparent interest, then flattered. Though her impulse was to pretend to be unaware that he was watching her, she had forced herself to meet his eye.
Waiting for him to say something, she had followed his gaze to the pages on her lap and understood. It was not her but John La Farge he was curious about. But rather than being disappointed, Claudia had been even more intrigued. The possibility of a shared interest was as tantalizing as if it were her face that had captivated him. To discover in someone a mutual love for a subject was as alluring as any other kind of love.
If she were to see him again, she would get his number, ask if he wanted to meet for a cup of coffee, to discuss the La Farges, his and hers. She and Maurice would pore over pictures and descriptions. She would describe how the abundance of color and the play of light in these windows had long ago captivated her, and confess her desire to establish the existence of one more La Farge window. Though it was unlikely she’d be able to locate the actual window, it was enough to prove that after all the windows La Farge had completed, he had the vision and drive to create one last great work.
Claudia had shown Leon her article when it was accepted for publication, but as far as she knew, it lay buried in his piles of unread newspapers and journals, an oversight she tried not to take personally. There was no point raising the issue, no point protesting the givens of their life. It was easier to talk about Emma, who had become agile on her crutches and was out most nights with friends.
“The cast is coming off next week,” she’d reminded Leon as she sat in her customary place next to him on the couch.
“I know. I was thinking about going with her to the doctor,” Leon had said. “I thought it would be nice for her to have company.”
“We could all go. We can make it a celebration,” Claudia had suggested, but then reconsidered. “Actually, you should take her by yourself. You should have some time alone with her.”
When he readily agreed, she felt envious, though for years she’d wanted Leon to be more present for Emma. “You’re her father. Can you at least try?” she had asked him countless times, to no avail. She and Emma had grown accustomed to his absence—even when he was right beside them, he had an air of impatience and distraction. When she first met Leon, they’d both understood the desire to surround themselves with their work. The sight of him immersed in reading, his mouth slightly open as he bent over a book, enabled her to sink more fully inside her own work; in some alternate sphere, their respective subjects interacted with one another, his people living inside her buildings, enchanted by her windows.
But as his
career flourished and hers floundered, as she was drawn deeper into the vortex of family life and he farther from it, she alone had discovered the impossibility of living for work alone. He still spent his nights at his desk, hardly noticing that she was no longer at hers. Any notion of being engaged in a silent conversation had faded. No longer expecting more from Leon, she had stopped asking about his work, having realized that he had little need to talk. She had stopped trying to discuss her own work as well. It was better to say nothing than to have your excitement met with indifference; better not to talk than to find you were talking to yourself.
In the library the next day, she checked Columbia’s departmental website. She Googled Maurice’s name and subject matter, hoping that even with such scant information she might find mention of a talk he’d given or a paper he’d published. She searched for his dissertation topic, using every combination she could think of, but she found no trace of him. Claudia e-mailed the former colleague with whom Maurice was studying, under the guise of telling him about her article. In her last sentence, in as casual a tone as she could manage, she wrote that she’d happened to meet a promising student of his. She was embarrassed at her persistence, sure that her intentions, murky as they were even to her, were apparent.
A day later, her colleague sent back congratulations but said there must have been some mistake. He had no student named Maurice, not now or anytime that he could remember.
This man, this Maurice, had such a presence in her mind, and yet, as far as she could tell, he didn’t actually exist.