Scissors

by Stephane Michaka

Good grief, Raymond, if I’d had any idea … Is she really the one I’m thinking of? We’re talking about the same Joanne? I’m writing because her name rings some kind of bell. Three or four years ago, a poet who was one only in her imagination sent me a package, an envelope stuffed with her verses. Well, believe it or not, I read them. On weekends I treat myself to poetry. I read Paradise Lost twice a year, and also Dante’s Purgatory, which is a documentary about the publishing business.

  Her verses were worthless. I hope her cooking’s better than her poetry. And I hope she knows how to fix drinks. I’ve always thought a person needs two reasons for being with someone else. One isn’t enough. Take the word of an expert, Ray: One isn’t enough.

  The more I read her, the more she exasperated me. A prime example of lyrical psoriasis, your Joanne. Not everyone can be Anne Sexton.

  But enough talk about poetry. I’ve moved the publication date of your collection up three months—an opportunity appeared and I had to seize it, I’ll spare you the details. I made an unimaginable spectacle of myself in the marketing department, and now those analphabets seem to be on board. For the first time, they’re going to devote as many resources to promoting a collection of short stories as they do to promoting a novel. They’re going to pull out all the stops. I have a meeting Monday about this.

  Your book’s publication date is July 20. The date when a man walked on the moon, and the date when I launch Ray into the literary cosmos.

  I think you should settle into your chair. Are you good and comfortable? You know I’m waiting for your corrections, I mean your validations of mine. I’d appreciate it if you’d get busy. Don’t forget I have a load of novels to take on between now and July 20. Poor me … Novels aren’t like stories, it’s a lot harder to remove their bones. When I get down to work on a novel, it turns into something like a wrecked car. Sometimes I take out the engine by mistake, sometimes I remove the chassis, and sometimes all four wheels because I think they’re useless. You get the picture? Ever since I started editing novels, I feel like I live in an automobile graveyard.

  Douglas

  P. S. Don’t be mad at me for that section about Joanne … If she is, as you say, “a woman from the working class, an alter ego,” so much the better. You know what happens when someone tries to step out of his proper milieu. Kipling shows the consequences in his story “Beyond the Pale”: The guy gets his balls cut off. Ah, Kipling, what concision. I don’t know why he’s considered old-fashioned.

  RAYMOND

  Joanne has given me two scarves. A blue one last month, to celebrate our meeting. Then, a few days ago, she signed a contract with a publishing house. Her next collection of poems will appear next fall. And to mark the event, she gave me another scarf. That one’s green.

  Their patterns are invisible to the naked eye. The label reads “70% cashmere, 30% silk.” I told Joanne, “These are luxury gifts. They’re too expensive for me.” She answered, “Nothing’s too expensive for you.” I was surprised to hear that, but I didn’t say anything.

  Joanne’s scarves really look good on me, although this isn’t the season for them. Who wears scarves in summer? I wrap them around my neck. One one day, and the next day the other. They keep me warm. Maybe even too warm.

  The idea of losing them terrifies me.

  MARIANNE

  He visits me without any warning. “You could have called me first,” I say. He wanders around the living room and smokes all my cigarettes. When I notice the scarf around his neck, I have to laugh. Ray has never bought or worn a scarf. It’s a gift from a woman, a way of marking her territory. Someone’s got her hooks in him. It’s serious this time. I can tell by how agitated he is.

  Or is it because he’s off the booze?

  “I’m happy, Ray. I’m so happy you’ve quit drinking.”

  “It’s not that easy. A daily struggle.”

  “I’m sure. Twenty years of alcoholism …”

  “Almost as long as our marriage.”

  The words strike me like a slap in the face. I’m stunned for a moment.

  “Did you have to say that?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Did you have to make that comparison? What’s your point?”

  “It was just a remark, that’s all.”

  “There are more positive things to say about our twenty years of marriage.”

  “What’s up? Are we going to have an argument?”

  “I didn’t force you to come here.”

  “I had to come. I’ve got a favor to ask you.”

  “I’m sure you do. You wouldn’t have come otherwise.”

  He sits down on the edge of a chair. Like a guy who’s just passing through.

  “How’s Edgar?”

  “He’s fine. We’re really happy.”

  I have a feeling I sound false. It’s part of the feeling I have that whatever I say about Edgar is always going to sound false.

  “Fabulous.”

  I’m sure he doesn’t give a shit. “How about you?”

  “I’m good. I quit drinking.”

  “I know, you just told me.”

  He looks at me out of the corner of his eye.

  “Did you think I could do it?”

  “Do what?”

  “Stop. Did you think I had it in me?”

  “What do you mean? What are you trying to prove?”

  “Nothing at all. Nothing, for Pete’s sake!”

  He loosens his scarf. It looks like it’s keeping him warmer than he wants. I lower my eyes to the carpet. If I look at him too long, I’m afraid I’ll start to cry.

  I stammer, “You have the nerve to tell me … You’re implying I didn’t believe you were capable of quitting … As if staying with me was what drove you to drink—”

  “That’s not what I said.”

  “Meanwhile this other woman, your Joanne—”

  “Did I mention her name?”

  I couldn’t hold myself back. I heard the name “Joanne” by accident from some friends who thought I already knew it.

  “You’re covered with her name. You’ve got it all over you, from head to foot. All I have to do is look at you and it goes right through me.”

  He tries but fails to flick on his cigarette lighter. He lowers his hands and talks with the unlit cigarette in his mouth. “What’s with all the dramatics? Am I the only one of us who’s taken up with somebody else?”

  “Yes, the only one!” I shout, praying that Edgar doesn’t come home at that moment.

  Raymond snatches the unlit cigarette out of his mouth. “We have to make our lives over! We both have to make new lives for ourselves!”

  “Oh, just the thing,” I say, gulping. “That makes me …” I can’t talk, and I just let the tears flow.

  “Marianne …”

  I press the palms of my hands against my eyelids. “Why did you come here?”

  I hear his legs bending. His joints crack. I move my hands and see him kneeling on the floor in front of me. He has literally gone down on his knees.

  He kneels there without speaking. Like someone gathering his thoughts.

  Several seconds pass.

  “Listen, you have to stand up. I don’t want Edgar to see you in that position. My husband’s not a wimp.” He remains on his knees. “Stand up!”

  He acts as though he didn’t hear me. He takes the hem of my skirt in his fingers and pulls me to him. “Marianne.”

  I turn my eyes to the entrance hall. The front door is wide open.

  I let my fingers drop to his hair.

  If Edgar came in now, our relationship would be over. I could go back to Ray with no scruples whatsoever.

  Yes, if he should come in right now, that would suit me fine. His jaw would fall off. His pamphlets on spirituality would be scattered over the carpet. I’d gaze at him defiantly. He wouldn’t be able to remind me once again that he picked me up in pieces and glued them back together with the help of the I Ching.

  Because Ray will always l
ove me. Whatever Edgar may say, Ray will always love me.

  He starts coughing. I come out of my reverie. A racking cough shakes his chest.

  “What’s wrong with you?”

  “Nothing.”

  He stands up. I see his trembling hands.

  Without a word, I go behind the bar and pour him a soda pop. The sugar in soft drinks reduces his need for alcohol. He’s stopped drinking, but he’ll never stop sugar. Or cigarettes, or writing stories.

  I hand him the glass and the bottle.

  “Do you have a new TV?” he asks, nodding.

  “It’s Edgar’s.”

  “What’s on this time of day?”

  “Nothing. It’s the elections.”

  He sits on the sofa, not coughing anymore.

  “You want a piece of cake?”

  “It seems my stories have political content.”

  “So no cake, then?”

  “I wasn’t really aware that they did, but the academics have detected it. Nothing escapes them.”

  I sit down across from him. “Is that a good thing?”

  “What?”

  “To have political content.”

  He furrows his brow. “That depends on what the content contains. I mean, on who’s analyzing the content.”

  “I know what you want to ask me.”

  He’s laid his scarf on the sofa beside him. The long piece of fabric curls across the cushions like a snake. I have a clear picture of myself chopping it in two with one blow, the way knights do in the tales of chivalry I assign my students.

  “This is a waste of time,” I say. “This is all a waste of time.”

  “What?”

  “You can have it. You don’t need to ask for it.”

  “…”

  “It’s her idea, right?”

  “Who are you talking about?”

  “Your poet girlfriend. God, I feel stupid! She’s managed to make me stupid from a distance.”

  I think about how much strength it’s going to take to get up and drive to school tomorrow. I don’t know whether I’ll have that much strength.

  “I’ll file the petition,” I say.

  “Huh?”

  “For our divorce.” There’s a silence.

  Then I hear him say, almost under his breath, “Thanks.” A sigh escapes me.

  He stands up and pats his thighs. “I have to go.”

  A thought comes to me. I won’t be in his stories anymore. He’s the one who’s leaving, but I’m the one who feels she’s been kicked out.

  “Thanks for the soda.”

  I watch him go away. I have no voice. I’m dispossessed. Twenty years of our life together, recycled into his writing. Stories that no longer belong to me.

  I pick up the scarf and throw it into the garbage disposal.

  I go back to the living room and sit on the sofa. I’m having trouble swallowing saliva. It accumulates in my mouth. I feel as though I’m entirely in my mouth, bogged down in my own saliva.

  An engine starts up outside.

  Edgar walks into the house.

  “Marianne? Was that your husband I just saw coming out of the driveway?”

  I try to gather enough strength to say, “My ex-husband.”

  But I can’t do it. I can’t pronounce that syllable, that word.

  JOANNE

  The night when he was supposed to come back from his wife’s house, I couldn’t sleep. I waited up for him.

  We weren’t living together yet. The sky was full of stars. I sat on the balcony. I was trying to recognize the birds by their calls.

  I was afraid Raymond wouldn’t come back, I was afraid he’d decide to stay there with her.

  I knew he was going to ask her for a divorce. I could see it in his eyes. He and I couldn’t go any farther unless he broke all ties with her. We’d told each other that, though not in so many words. His wife was present in every fiber of his body. I didn’t expect to root her out utterly, but their divorce could be a start.

  Three o’clock and he still wasn’t back. I made a wish. Forget the divorce. Let him stay married to her, but at least let him come back. Don’t let him be taken from me.

  No shooting stars. Abnormal in a summer sky. But after my father’s alcoholism, my brother’s death, and my two divorces, everything’s abnormal. Raymond came into my life like a shooting star. I tremble at the thought that I may not see him again. After so many anomalies, not seeing him anymore would be in the order of things.

  A star streaked across the night sky. I heard the rattling of that clunker he drives.

  He surged out of the darkness, grumbling: “I blew a tire twelve miles from here. I couldn’t get the jack to work, and I had all kinds of other problems besides!”

  I didn’t give him time to say anything more. I flung myself on him, and we made love.

  In the morning I made him some coffee and then went to work. Before I left, he sat down at his typewriter.

  When I called him around noon, he was still typing. In last night’s exertions, he said, we’d broken my bracelet. I looked at my wrist, and my glass bracelet was gone. I told him it wasn’t important, hung up, and left to teach a class.

  Yeats. “The Circus Animals’ Desertion.” We could spend weeks on this poem, don’t you think?

  During the class, I got distracted for a moment. Where had I read that a broken bracelet is the sign of a widow in India? I drove that thought out of my mind.

  Look at the last line. “In the foul rag-and-bone shop of the heart.” What do you think that refers to?

  The students looked puzzled and kept their lowered eyes fixed on those words, as if they were written in a foreign language.

  Not long afterward, Raymond and I moved in together.

  That way there was less chance of losing each other.

  DOUGLAS

  Are you talking to me? Are you wiggling your curves under my nose on purpose?

  Of course I know how to read. That’s what I’m paid for. It says General Expenses. That’s not one of my titles. I don’t see what that’s doing among my titles.

  Look, these charts of yours, I don’t care about them. I’m an editor, you understand? Ed-i-tor, that’s my profession. You dream about titles with sales on an exponential curve. I dream about titles that reduce the level of general stupidity. I don’t know whether we’re going to be able to understand each other.

  Raymond, yes. His new short-story collection. Of course there’s a market for it. Intelligence is a vast market. Sensitivity, too. An exponential market. What did you say? You wouldn’t give that to read it? How unfortunate. For you, I mean. You’ve excluded yourself from the market.

  Listen, if that’s what you’re looking for—“a big hit with every title”—my answer is that you’ve got a sure recipe for disaster. Do you understand me? Every time you aim for a big hit, it will be a disaster.

  What? You want to reduce my production? Cut back on my titles? “The majority stockholder.” Who’s that? I don’t know him, we’ve never met. Let’s have a look at him. Pull him out of your sleeve.

  You see the building across the street? Not the top floor, the one right below it. You see that office? It’s the fiction editor’s office. You’ll notice that it’s empty. Nobody’s occupying it. They can’t find anyone to replace me. No, no, you’d better look again. That’s not the photocopy room.

  So what exactly did you do before this? Let me guess. Television? Film? What? “Soft drinks”? You used to sell soda pop and you were recruited for the publishing business? Well, then it’s not your fault. It’s nobody’s fault.

  No, don’t turn down the air-conditioning, I’ve got an allergy. The air-conditioning won’t make any difference. I have a kind of pruritus.

  I’ve got one more minute?

  I’m going to tell you what I think. A world where sodapop salesmen are charged with promoting books is not at all reassuring. Not for me, not for my children, and not for my children’s children.

  That’s what
I think.

  Less than a minute. Brevity is the soul of wit.

  RAYMOND

  “Happiness,” yes. You could say that. But it’s a fragile happiness. The demons could appear again at any moment.

  To tell the truth, I would have relapsed without Joanne. The very thought makes me dizzy. To be aware that your happiness is hanging by a single thread, that it depends on just one person … I’d rather not think about it. And then there’s the thread I spin day after day, writing and staying sober and avoiding retrospection.

  I’m trying to hang in there. In the morning, when I look down at the eggs on my plate and it seems they’re about to jump at my face, when everything’s quivering and I think the milk bottle’s a quart of vodka, I tell myself I’m screwed, I’m going to relapse, it’s only been a year and my reprieve is over.

  A year’s not much, but in a year my life has come back, as though returned to its proper place. All I had to do is fall in love with a lady poet to whom you once sent one of those scathing letters you’re so uniquely good at. Joanne kept your letter as a souvenir. She showed it to me. Let’s disregard the passage where you say she’s “Sylvia Plath as barfly” and the other one where you call her a “soap-opera Elizabeth Bishop.” Let’s disregard all that. I want you to know that Joanne’s ready to smoke the peace pipe with you. She’s looking over your cuts, and she’s far from finding all of them bad. Some, but not all.

  And speaking of those cuts: I got a slight chill from your last letter, from your request that I ratify your changes without even looking at them. I know you’re under time pressure, but I’d like at least to glance at the manuscript before giving you the green light. Besides, it so happens that I have a new story cooking, which doesn’t leave me much time for going over old ones again. So Joanne’s applying herself to that task. As soon as I finish my story—it’s called “The Mattress,” for want of a better title—as soon as I finish it, I’ll let you know and we’ll finalize my collection.

  What exactly do you mean when you talk about “forcing the house to publish the collection right”? I thought you had the marketing division in your pocket. But I suppose I’m getting worried about nothing. At this moment, my sky contains no cloud. Why should I try to put one in?