The Folded World

by Amity Gaige

  Shit! he shouted, lungs burning. Alice!

  In his memory, the time passed, his gums pained him, his face roughened. And still later, how many afternoons spent running, just running, for no reason, just because he could.… The school bell would sound, and like a shot he was off, jumping over roots, skidding around corners. He would run past the P.O., the Sip and Dip, he would run past the beauty salon over which lived a hairdresser’s daughter whom he always hoped to catch half-dressed in the window. He would just run. He never knew why. He assumed he ran because he was free. He assumed he ran because he was good at it. But now, running around the fog-bound bend of an empty road, he understood. It had been practice. Every run to prepare to run for his life.

  The road drifted upward; he ascended. Deep into his second mile of sprinting, he was pushing the limit of what his body could bear. The fog had thickened. He could see nothing until it was upon him. The trees on either side of the road bowed in and out of whiteness, dark and wet. He could hear a car whirring toward him in the distance, the sound echoing off the walls of air, seeming to come from all directions at once. He shed his sweater and dropped it by the side of the road. A flash of color parted the fog, and Charlie jumped away from the spray of gravel, crying out as he stumbled into a ditch, one knee down, his hand opened against the black street, a man crawling out of the ground. The car sped back into the fog before he even saw it. Coughing into the crook of his arm, choking now on his own dry throat, he pulled himself upright and resumed, running crookedly up the hill.

  He clutched at his undershirt, then yanked that off too. Behind him, tires screeched. He glanced over his shoulder. An accident? He could not stop now. He looked up to where the road disappeared into whiteness, and he looked down to where the road disappeared into whiteness. Panting, turning, he squinted back down the hill. What? What was it?

  Someone was coming. Someone was coming around the bend of the road toward him. The figure disappeared again into a patch of fog.

  Blindly, Charlie called out, swatting away the thick air.

  Who’s there?

  The figure again emerged nearer. Charlie stopped.

  Who’s there?

  Charlie?

  His eyes widened. He opened his eyes with the hope that if there was any chance that it was her, he could will it so. Through the whiteness Charlie Shade began to run again, this time back the way he’d come—at first doubtfully, then faster, then at full stride, making a whooping sound despite himself, despite his heaviness, or because of it. She was his city, his conspiracy. She was his wife. The miles rolled off his shoulders. He could have run forever.

  Crying out, she ran sloppily, her sore breasts swinging, her hood falling backward, exposing the hopeful bud of her face. She glanced back to the idling car where the babies waited, in their sloppy outfits, amazed by the miracle of an icicle out the window, gossiping softly—how much they already knew about love from one another. She pushed her hair from her eyes; she could see him now, shirtless and rubbery legged, wobbling in and out of the fog. Suddenly, within sight, he sank to his knees in the road, laughing, if not a little crazily, his face red as a beet. She got on her knees also and crawled to him and pulled him close. She was joyful for whatever tiny turn she had taken since, whatever small correction she had managed, that treasured, final conviction that had struck her up in that cold window, the conviction that made her come down and tell the boy that she wished him luck, that she had to go, and that she hoped he would discover for himself someday what she too had discovered just then—that the universe was treacherous only in that it would outlast you, and knew your death and slowly breathed you in your whole life, but that despite all this, there were small ruins all over the territory, the posts and beams of people who built there regardless, on fog, on blackness, on starlight, houses in which they were safe merely by being in them together.

  At last. At last she had broken backward into the great intention of her life and could see it all with such magnificent sweep. She could let go now. She could step into the furthest realms. It was so easy now. It was so quiet. She leaned back against the headboard. The pill bottle went rolling to the floor. Just as a part of her leaned back, giving in, another part of her began to move, possessed of a great energy. She sat up. She was up and running now. She was bursting out the door. She was moving fast, her cardigan flapping. She was running so fast that the street underneath her lost its hardness and turned to a kind of buoyant, rubbery surface. She ran down Road Four stumbling and laughing and with the help of a slight tailwind her hair pulled back from her face and Opal was flying.

  The tongues of her sneakers caught in some bushes. Pumping her arms, she kicked herself free. Soon, she was sailing higher. Lifting her feet, she cleared the top of the tallest tree. She remembered being born all sticky and gooed up. Everybody, uglyborn the same way. It seemed almost lovely to her now, almost sweet, even being pulled out of her mother with forceps. All of it, even Uncle Ad and his laughing outside the tool shed. Flying, she remembered every day of her life: the day she wanted a candy cane so bad that she pushed off and went after it herself and the lady her mother cried Well I’ll be damned Dave look she’s walkin’, she remembered her first burn, her first correctly lettered word, the surprise of salt, the first time she was frightened when she came across a claw-footed bathtub, the first morning she heard music, the first time she saw a black man, riding up past her on an escalator, the first day she sinned, the first joke she laughed at, her first fistful of silk. Oh the feel of silk. Oh the little girls from school who were so doted upon that ribbons simply sprouted in their hair.

  Sailing over the trees, Opal realized she wasn’t even jealous anymore. She wasn’t even curious why not her. Why no silk for her. For she loved them all: the black man on the escalator, the spoiled girl with the ribbons, the rapist, the horse, the ant, the bee, the dust mite, the worm, the politician, the mistress, the saint, the marauder, the Indian, the Chink, the Jew, dead men, living men, babies, the dean of arts and sciences, the devil, Jesus, Daddy, Mommy, and even Opal herself, that girl back there in the bed lying so still, she loved even her, with her freckled lips and her hair all crooked on the pillow. And she loved the cold day as she slipped upward into it. For now she stopped her kicking and realized she no longer had to try. The time of great effort was finally over. Underneath her sneakers floated the peaceful world—the rooftops the color of rust, the brittle gardens, the dogs in their yards, seagulls, slope-shouldered grandmothers in galoshes being helped into cars, the traffic, the traffic, the soft blinking of the lights.

  She flew over the city park. Below her, she spied a girl and a boy on a bench. The girl wore a Catholic school uniform and her knees were bare. But the boy—just as Opal flew overhead—looked up and drew his breath. His dark handsome gaze followed her path across the sky. Why, he could see her! She waved at him. Hey, boy! He looked a little alarmed. Her shadow crossed his face.

  Don’t worry! she shouted. I’m fine! I thought I’d regret it but I really don’t!

  The handsome boy stared up at her, the girl beside him chattering on. Opal laughed. She loved them, she loved them both, loved them all—the sane and the insane, for they would all, in their own time, sit at the same great table. She didn’t regret it and she didn’t pity or envy anyone, most especially not herself.

  She turned forward just in time to dodge the TV tower. The tower blew past in a cacophony of voices and corny music, then receded. Below her were the outskirts of town, obscured now by encroaching clouds of fog. Patches of fog skidded by underfoot. In snatches, the view of the ground was hidden then revealed again. Below her, she saw a lady at her mailbox, looking in, looking hopeful. On the straight road that led back to town from which she’d come, a red beat-up car puttered along, one headlight missing. A man and a woman sat in the front; she could see their knees. The car slipped into the fog.

  Hey! Opal cried out. Hey if it isn’t Charlie Shade! Hey Charlie! Up here!

  But just as quickly
she smothered her words with her hand, and the familiar car swept past underneath her feet, rustling her pant legs. To her relief, she’d gone unseen. For what she realized was that she did not want him to see her, he who had already dragged her back once before, dragged her back inert like a body across the field of surrender, waving his hanky. He for whom she had defied orders. It could only go on so long. She could only protect him so long. That’s what she suspected anyway. He looked nice enough from up here, but down there he was somehow horrifying.

  She sighed and turned forward, a little sadly, sailing through the silence and peacefulness, the air completely opaque with fog now, the wind growing stronger. Some day—tomorrow, never—he would understand.

  She grew thoughtful. The fog had healed itself up behind her and now she was sailing up out of it, into an inky atmospheric darkness. She realized now that she was flying away from the sun. The further she got, the sky grew darker and the wind stronger. The thin moon was a lick in the sky. The stars gazed at her frankly. The wind howled.

  The wind blew the braid from her hair, and blasted the clothes from her body, and soon she was flying naked and white through the darkness. The wind was polishing her edges. Sparks shot from her feet. Her veins glowed pink underneath her white, wind-polished skin. And then she saw that she was becoming not flesh but stone, the rarest of stones—the iridescent stone, in fact, for which she had been named. Finally, her body was a gem, a treasure, an exception. She was a completed moment of beauty.

  “Cut it all off,” she said. “I mean it.”

  “Marlene,” replied the woman standing behind her, lowering her scissors and putting one hand on her hip. “Are you in a funk? A girl should never get her hair cut in a funk.”

  “I don’t want my hair cut, Judy. I want it cut off.”

  The two women stared hard at one another in the mirror. The hairdresser—Marlene’s age, but with orange lipstick and large breasts snug in a white angora sweater—raised her opened scissors. Behind them, a lady under the dryer coughed into a Kleenex. The hairdresser tenderly adjusted the plastic cape.

  “Quit stalling,” said Marlene. “Just cut it off, for Chrissakes. Use a razor.”

  “I’m not a barber, Marlene. Only for the neck.”

  “Fine, for the neck then.” Marlene leaned forward. “Well?”

  When she felt the first cold snip of the blades at her ear, she sighed. She leaned back and closed her eyes. The sense of relief was overwhelming. She had worn her hair exactly the same her entire life, hovering bluntly and conservatively just over the shoulders, just as she had worn the most conservative and unrevealing clothes and still covered her shoulders with a cardigan. So with every snip, evidence fell to the floor in tiny piles. The evidence was memories—memories of tugging, twisting, properness, communion ribbons, French braids (those sadistic French), the hands of her mother Inez brushing, digging, looping, talking with the particular accent of a woman with bobby pins between the teeth. This ritual Marlene had performed herself with Alice many times. Sit still.

  No.

  Don’t you want to look pretty?

  No.

  Yes you do.

  No I don’t. You want me to look pretty.

  Well hang me for that.

  I like it snarly.

  I’ll bet you do.

  Marlene exhaled. She felt the blades now right in front of her eyes. The cold blade on the bridge of her nose, then, snip.

  “Well,” she sighed. “Goodbye, hair.”

  “Oh, don’t be so dramatic,” Judy crowed. “This is ridiculous. Women pay loads of money just to get it black and perfect like yours. What in the name of Mike are you so upset about, anyway?” The hairdresser stood large in front of her now, working her elbows. “Huh? What’s stuck in your craw, Marlene? A spat with somebody? What?”

  “My daughter,” she muttered.

  The woman scooted to the side, revealing Marlene to herself in the mirror, uneven, crazy looking, half-shorn.

  “My daughter is a Jezebel.”

  “A what? You mean Alice? The girl who put up with you for twenty-odd years? The girl who gave up going to college to just to keep you company? That girl?”

  Marlene blinked. Hair rolled silently down the plastic cape.

  Chignons. Ponytails. Pigtails.

  I hate pigtails. Pigtails are for pigs.

  Well then darling, how shall I please you?

  Leave it down.

  Down?

  Down, like a lady.

  Like a lady. You’re only eleven.

  I want to look like a lady. I want to look like you, Mama.

  Oh cara. You don’t want to look like me.

  I do. I want to look just like you always.

  Oh Marlene.

  Leave it down, Mama.

  Eu te amo, Marlene.

  Eu te amo, Mama.

  And now the salon was spinning, the ladies staring out at her from under their conical hats, daubing their lips and brows, until she was facing the mirror again.

  “Voila,” said Judy.

  Marlene stared, silent. Judy bent over.

  “Hello? What do you think?”

  Marlene blinked rapidly. Her eyes were wet.

  “No more pigtails,” she said.

  “No,” said Judy. “No more pigtails for the big girl.”

  “My mother used to put it in pigtails. I hated pigtails. But I wanted to please my mama. She was beautiful. I miss her.”

  Marlene ran her hand over her head. Then she ran her hand to the back of her neck, and up, where the bristles were short and amazingly soft. She smiled.

  “There you go,” cooed the hairdresser. “Isn’t it soft? Doesn’t it feel—”

  “Free,” said Marlene.

  “That’s it. It feels free.” The hairdresser appraised herself in the mirror, pulled a shank of her own ash blonde hair over her shoulder. “Maybe I could go short myself. What do you think?”

  Marlene pulled the plastic cape from her body. The floor around her was covered with a ring of black hair. She was ready now. She was emerging from the chrysalis new and sleek and brave, better able to maneuver, ready for a less freighted life, unmoored and unburdened, forgiving, unfussy, wash and go. When she got home, she would pick up the phone, and she would call. She knew where he was. It was his turn to listen. She would clear her throat when he answered. She would speak clearly. And she wouldn’t be afraid. She would say, Hello Daddy? It’s me, Marlene.

  Epilogue

  Certain mornings, the fog moved like ghosts. It curled up off the sea in human shapes. Other days, the sea was clear as a fact. Flat sea, flat sky. The sight could clear the mind. Once, that winter, the small bay had frozen, catching several small craft cockeyed in the ice. Next to the sea’s cathedral vastness, certain doubts did not cloud the mind. Why were we here on earth? What were we doing? The sea answered that wordlessly. It was enough to watch. It was enough to watch the surface strain and foam in the wind. Along the stubbly grass between the road and the bulrush, two little girls threw breadcrumbs into the wind. The crumbs blew back over their heads into the road. Seagulls, elegant white scars, held themselves aloft in the air.

  She lifted the window. Paint chips fell onto her desk. “Evelyn!”

  The little girl looked up at her, squinting.

  “Keep off the road. You are not to stray one inch from the grass.”

  “She dropped her bread,” said her sister, stepping into the shadow of the house. “She had to get her bread off the road.”

  “What bread?”

  The little girl standing in the shadow bent her head. The dark-haired girl in sunlight continued to blink up at the attic, licking her lips.

  Alice rested her elbows on the sill.

  “Are you girls feeding your lunch to the seagulls again?”

  “No,” said Evelyn.

  “Just a little,” said Frances. “Just the crusts.”

  “And what will you eat for lunch?”

  “We’ll trade,” said
Frances.

  “Trade what? What will you have left to trade if you feed it to the seagulls?”

  “Look, look, here comes the bus!” said Evelyn, running to her post, her dark hair shaking glossily in the sunlight. She hugged the signpost as if it were a boyfriend. She waved up at her mother. “Bye, Mommy! We’ll miss you! Have a good day!”

  “Study hard, Mommy!”

  “You study hard,” Alice said.

  “We love you, Mommy!”

  Alice waved. “I love you too. A trillion times I love you.”

  She closed the window. The school bus came, took them in, and thundered away down the road. She stared down at her book. The house was quiet. It always took a while to adjust to the twins leaving. A kind of maternal cramping always came with the withdrawal of the bus. She removed her glasses, placed them beside her book. Sometimes it was hard to concentrate on her studies. The reading was extensive and dense; she not-so-guiltily wrote stories in her notebook for fun. Her handwriting, graceful now that it was practiced, filled pages. She stood.

  The house was old and beautifully decrepit. It stood shoulder to shoulder with a row of motley houses overlooking a poor man’s glimpse of striking blue ocean. Down the road stood a processing plant and a pile of scrap metal upon which cranes snacked at night. But always in the air was the sea. The sea roamed throughout the drafty house. In the summer, the air smelled of fish and rot and swamp, but she loved even this smell. She stepped softly down the attic stairs to the second floor.

  She drew her hand along the wallpaper of the hallway. On the wall she had kept, for the sake of intrigue, an oval framed photographic portrait of a woman that had been left by the previous owners. The woman had a small, curled mouth, an expression of suppressing laughter. Alice leaned toward the photograph. And what are you laughing at, she whispered. She moved on down the long narrow hallway.

  Finally she reached the bedroom door. She placed her hand against the lacquered wood. In the distance, the sound of a ship cutting toward the Bay. She pushed open the door.