Visible City

by Mirvis, Tova

  She picked up a glass bottle, the most delicately formed, the brightest blue, and cradled it to her body. She tried to stop her hands but couldn’t. Anything to free herself from the rising pain, anything to change the way she felt right now. She threw the bottle out the window, to the construction site below. One day, when this building was deemed outdated, the shards of blue glass would be discovered amid the wreckage. She was deprived of the pleasure of hearing it shatter, but she reached for the next bottle, and the next one too. How easy it was to destroy something she’d cared so much about preserving. But for what end? Why save what had no purpose? She wanted to shatter every illusion, false promise, false hope.

  Claudia went back to the living room and grabbed the keys. Outside, she walked down the street until she found the spot where Leon’s car was parked. As she unlocked the door, she hoped an alarm would sound. In a rush of sirens and lights, she would be arrested for breaking and entering. For far too long, she had accepted Leon’s need for solitude. Until now, she hadn’t thought she had the right to intrude.

  In a bright, noisy procession, Wendy marched Sophie and Harry uptown. The cookies, packaged in white bakery boxes, were in the bottom of her stroller, safe from the jostles and the pleas that we promise we won’t touch, we just want to look.

  How perfect they must look to everyone they passed, the kids dressed in bright fall jackets, their hats festooned with tassels and pompoms. But Wendy couldn’t stop replaying the fury that had overtaken her as Sophie screamed and Harry bit. Her smile was a growl. Her teeth had become fangs. Determined to wrest an apology from Harry, she had been overcome by an impulse to sink her teeth into his arm, to show him how it felt. He’d put his hand near her mouth, as though offering himself up, and in that moment, she had wanted to consume him alive.

  A second later, she was mortified. No one else had ever felt such an impulse, no one ever. If another mother confessed to something half as bad, she’d have called Child Protective Services. Only at the last second had she pulled herself back: she’d kissed Harry’s fingers and smiled, but in that moment, she’d become newly, exquisitely aware of her children’s vulnerability.

  Positioned within screaming distance of Georgia’s, Wendy pulled out one imperfect cookie after another. They didn’t match what she had envisioned or what she could have produced had she made them alone. But she was worried less about the cookies than she was about the kids. She searched their faces for signs of damage; with every flicker of expression that passed across their faces, she wondered how she had changed in their eyes.

  On the walk uptown, they’d passed a familiar-looking woman sitting in a parked car. As Wendy laid out cookies and talked to the other moms who’d joined her, she realized it was the woman whose picture had appeared beside hers in the Times.

  She couldn’t tolerate the vulnerable looks on her children’s faces. She was not the selfish woman portrayed in that article; she was not the screaming mother her kids had caught sight of.

  “Come with me,” she announced to the kids, who were awaiting their first customer.

  Holding one of the boxes of cookies, she marched Sophie and Harry over to the car.

  “You’re ‘the art historian who frequents the café,’ aren’t you?” she said when Claudia rolled down the window.

  “And you’re the mother who doesn’t want to have to stay away from cafés until her kids are grown,” Claudia said.

  They stared at one another. All her anger, all her readiness for a confrontation, so long stored up. Here was her chance to unleash it. The woman looked so different from the way she remembered her, softer, with kind, forgiving eyes. At the café she had seen a woman who had wanted to offer rebuke; in the article, she had read of a woman who had no tolerance for anyone besides herself. But which was she, which role did she play? She wasn’t sure of herself anymore.

  “Do you have any idea how hard it is?” Wendy asked. Her voice was shaky, not her own.

  “Oh, I do,” the woman said, sounding surprisingly rueful.

  “Do you know how hard I tried to make them be quiet? What is it I’m supposed to do?” Wendy said.

  “I’m sure you don’t want to hear this, but in the end, you have no control over who they’re going to be. Eventually they do what they want,” she said.

  The woman may have intended her words as a warning, but Wendy felt only relief. She had lost control with the kids and they had survived. In this moment, she wanted to silence the constant thrumming, chiding voice in her head. She wanted to hold up her hands and call the time-out to end all time-outs.

  Balancing the box of cookies on her hip, Wendy opened it and pulled out a dappled creation.

  “Would you like one?” Wendy asked. “The kids made them. They’re delicious.”

  Claudia took the peace offering, and Wendy and the kids ran back to Broadway, to the table laid with their creations. She pulled out a CD player and turned on 101 Disney Favorites. “It’s a Small World” came blasting out, loud enough to be audible over the small crowd across the street, holding placards. Wendy too had come with signs, hand-painted and decorated with stickers and glitter, which read The Outside Voices Café. The children wiggled and laughed, touched the merchandise, licked it when no one was looking. None of the pedestrians who spied this infraction reported them, nor did they mind the space they occupied or the noise they made. Who could pass without stopping, without smiling? They were children, noisy, messy, delicious.

  “Hop is gone,” Max announced to Emma, who had arrived to baby-sit in the midst of their frantic searching. Through some extraordinary combination of will and desire, the frog had catapulted out of its bowl.

  “We’ll find him, don’t worry. When I was little, I had a bird that escaped from its cage and it flew around the apartment until bedtime, then happily went back in,” Emma said, and took Max’s hand. Nina tried to catch her eye, but she was focused solely on the kids. She had missed Emma but assumed the kids had forgotten her, their love for her temporary and fickle. But Max and Lily saw no betrayal in her absence; they were thrilled when she walked in the door.

  “He’ll show up,” Emma promised Max when they had searched the apartment and there was no sign of the missing pet.

  “What should we do now?” Max asked, ready to call off the search.

  “We’re going out,” Emma said. “I have a plan. Is it okay if we come home a little late?”

  Nina agreed, still trying to catch Emma’s eye. “The kids missed you. I missed you too,” she said as Emma bundled the kids into their jackets.

  “There’s been a lot going on,” Emma said. “Maybe you already know. Things are very hard at home, with my parents. But I’m not staying there anymore. And I’m not going back to Steven either. I found my own apartment. I’m moving in today. And I got a job. I don’t know if I’m going to be able to baby-sit as much.”

  Nina was surprised though she shouldn’t have been. The haze of indecision, the grip of paralysis, eventually lifted. Sooner or later, everyone moved forward in their lives.

  “The kids will really miss you. So will I,” Nina said. “I guess we won’t be neighbors anymore.” Inadvertently she glanced at the living room windows, almost wishing she could restore Emma to the image she had seen through the window. How badly she wanted to say to Emma, Did you know I was there watching you, or did I simply see what I wished to be there?

  Emma was trying to get the kids out the door, but she followed Nina’s gaze to the window, then finally met her eye. “When I first came back home, I used to stand by the window and imagine that someone looking in might understand me. But why would anyone be standing there watching me? Why wouldn’t people be focused on what’s going on inside their own apartments?”

  Emma hustled the kids out of the apartment before Nina could think of how to respond. Alone, she prowled the apartment, tossing toys into baskets in an attempt to create order. She looked across the way, but in the daylight, she could see little. Emma’s words replayed in her hea
d. She had tried to escape her own life by immersing herself inside the lives of others. If she didn’t seek refuge in other people’s lives, what would she finally see?

  No swelling crowds overtook the sidewalk and blocked traffic, no chorus of voices was wrapped together into one. But Arthur wasn’t dissuaded. Afraid of being late, he had walked swiftly, weaving purposefully around those who were in his way, carrying the posters he planned as a surprise for Barbara: black-and-white replications of John La Farge’s most famed works, and underneath, the proclamation SAVE THE WINDOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!, the exclamation marks for Barbara, the bold letters and all caps for him.

  Beneath each picture, he’d listed facts about La Farge, along with the information about the newly formed Committee to Save the La Farge Window. Arthur handed signs to the ten or so people assembled and looked up and down the block, hoping to see throngs of approaching supporters. A man was lingering with a look of bewilderment but didn’t join them. A woman who did join was disheveled, and instead of holding the sign Arthur handed her, she stared into it, mesmerized.

  When he and Barbara first met at her apartment, he had been distracted by the lingering memory of Georgia, with her long, tousled hair and creamy, freckled skin. But the harder they worked, the more he was drawn to Barbara, fiery and energetic, short and clipped, tough and knowing. He awoke each day with renewed purpose. He came to Barbara’s apartment brimming with ideas. And then, one night, as they wrote press releases and drafted letters to lawyers and local council members, he realized that his ever-present image of Georgia had faded. He could see only Barbara.

  He didn’t dare believe that his feelings might be mutual. But Barbara looked so happy when he arrived at her apartment and invited him to stay for dinner. Accustomed to being disliked, he hardly knew how to interpret her apparent interest. So as not to jeopardize the pleasure of their newfound friendship, neither he nor Barbara mentioned their previous encounters until the morning they decided to walk their dogs. Lacking their owners’ polite reserve, the dogs began barking furiously. But dogs don’t get to choose their friends, and though he and Barbara each offered apologies, it was easy to laugh them off and chalk them up to the fact that dogs will be dogs.

  “Is anyone here from the press?” Arthur whispered.

  Barbara shook her head. “They’re not coming.”

  “It’s still early,” he said, lifting his sunglasses.

  “Do you know how many times I’ve stood here and waited for someone to show up? You haven’t been out here like I have. Trust me. They’re not coming,” she said, and looked as though she expected him to walk away. He looked at her searchingly, trying to understand what he had done wrong.

  Her anger turned to fear. She turned her eyes upon his and her voice became hesitant. “I don’t want to do this alone anymore,” she admitted.

  “Then you’re in luck,” he said.

  There were seven of them, then four, the slogans tepid when chanted by so few people. But they’d outlasted the nursery school kids across the street, who, despite meltdowns and accidents, managed to stay in business all afternoon. Soon, Barbara and Arthur were the only ones left.

  “We’re not done yet,” Arthur said. He took her hand and shyly interlaced his fingers with hers. Then from his knapsack he pulled out two rolls of masking tape. From a small bag he produced two cookies he’d bought, both shaped, however vaguely, like dogs.

  The car was gone. Leon knew exactly where he’d parked it and yet, when he walked past that spot, a black Camry was in its place. He walked up and down the block, past children selling cookies, past a small group protesting some unknown offense. He was becoming increasingly concerned that his car had been towed or stolen—but his spot was good until tomorrow and who would steal an antiquated Volvo?

  He looked around for someone who might help him. The street was crowded, but no one cared about the distress on his face. He felt an unfamiliar yearning to stop a passing bystander in need of help or comfort; they could sit on the curb and he would tell all.

  He tried calling Claudia, who, for all he knew, was still in Boston. As he left a series of messages, he became increasingly worried about the meaning behind her absence. He should have known, of course, her travel plans; he should know why she had gone, what she had learned. There was no hiding from his own culpability. Claudia had made no terrible transgressions, nothing he could offer to justify the fact that he did not want this any longer, nothing except the feeling of falling into an inescapable slumber. He could no longer look away from the slow seepage of his feelings for Claudia, over months, over years.

  He stopped trying to reach her, stopped trying to try. He thought instead of Nina. He had counseled himself on all the ways it was improbable, impossible, a path surely paved with pain. Until now he hadn’t been sure that he would have the courage to tell Nina the idea that he was holding on to as though it were a life raft. But that practical restraining resolve was gone. So many of his patients came to him seeking permission to act in accordance with what they felt; they paid him to reassure them that they were not bad, to bolster what they knew to be true of their lives. They came to him, like people strapped and bound with ropes, wanting to know: were you allowed to change course?

  He had to find Nina, talk to her. The two of them could be together. Not for a few weeks, not just for the tenuous uncertain present. In his mind, he created the story they would tell themselves and others: We fell in love. We were married to other people at the time but we were both unhappy. We wanted to be together. His life was once again before him. In so many ways, his life was his to start again.

  “We’re riding the subway,” Emma announced. “Come on, Max. It’s going to be fun. If you want to be a real New Yorker, you’ve got to take the train.”

  Max’s eyes pooled with concern, but avoidance worked for only so long. Eventually you had to face your fear. Max slipped his hand into hers, offering his agreement. Her good mood was infectious. Emma had half expected her mother to try to talk her out of her plans, but to her surprise, there had been no such impulse. The permission she had been after had been hers to grant all along. It might be a little late to be making such a discovery, but there it was nonetheless.

  They bought a MetroCard, planning to ride the trains as far as they wanted. Emma showed Max the subway map and let him choose the route. Lily sat in the stroller, happily licking her shoe. Giddy with relief, Emma laughed at the sight. On the train, Max lost himself in the view out the window. Amid the crowds, they were the only ones not in a hurry. The subway car’s placards advertised a buffet of possibilities. Learn English. Lose weight. Report suspicious packages. And If you see something, say something. And There are sixteen million eyes in the city. We’re counting on all of them.

  Max was so engaged by his conversation with Maurice that she decided it didn’t matter that she’d forgotten the diaper bag.

  “It’s part of the adventure,” she said when he held out his hand for his regularly scheduled snack. “We have to see if we can survive—at least until we can buy something at a newsstand.”

  She too was hungry, but in her own bag she carried no Ziploc baggies filled with food. All she had was Steven’s manuscript, which she’d brought along on this journey to nowhere.

  She pulled it out and started leafing through the pages. Despite Steven’s claims that he was nearly done, whole sections were missing, and in their place were typed notes to himself, in bold and all caps. Fragments of sentences appeared next to those perfectly hewn. Paragraphs that began beautifully trailed off into blank white space. He’d given her the novel, imperfect, unfinished. Whatever struggle with his work he was engaged in he had kept hidden from her. She was tempted to call him, to ask him what it meant that in the face of her own difficulties he had pretended to be effortlessly working. It was so easy to grab this chance to ply him with questions, to seek out the closeness she had so badly craved. But she wasn’t going to do it. Since she was a teenager, she’d gone from one boyfriend to anoth
er; there was rarely a stretch of more than a month or two when she was not connected to someone. Now she was ready to be truly alone—she wasn’t even sure yet what this meant. Nothing to anchor herself inside of, nothing that gave the feeling of being held down. She had thought that when she was finally an adult, life would be firmly rooted, but she was learning what a wishful illusion that was.

  “Tell me about the zoo,” Max begged.

  “Didn’t I tell you already?” she asked.

  “More,” he insisted.

  She thought for a minute. “Okay, here’s the part I didn’t tell you yet—and remind me when we get home, we should tell this to your mom too. I have a feeling she’d appreciate it. Once you see the night zoo, you can never really go back to how you used to be. For some people this might not be a good thing, but it’s true. You might go home, but you never go back, not for long anyway. Do you know what happens the next time you go to the zoo? You always have in the back of your mind what it looks like at night and you can’t help but wish you were there again. It’s not just the zoo that’s different. It’s you that’s changed.”

  She held Max more closely in her arms, and he nuzzled against her. If she peeked inside his head, surely she’d see images of those animals running free at night. Kids knew the pleasure of such sprints, yet where along the way did they forget? It was one of the reasons she wanted to be around kids. That night she had run from her apartment, it was from fear, from panic, from a desperate need to make something change. But there had also been an unyielding sense of her own capacity for forward motion and speed.