How to Start a Fire

by Lisa Lutz

  “How has George seemed to you?” Bruno asked.

  It had been a while since Anna had heard from George. Sometime after she drugged herself up and flew to Chicago to help George deal with Jeremy’s betrayal, which turned out not to be a betrayal at all, their communication slowed. Anna could tell there were times in their relationship when George was being deliberately distant, rebuking her for some unknown slight. Anna was so accustomed to disappointing people that she never took these silences very hard. She simply waited them out, phoning or writing every few months until they passed.

  “I haven’t talked to her lately, to be honest. Is the divorce final?”

  “Yes. They tried counseling, but Jeremy couldn’t forgive her. She’s thinking about moving to my lake house for a while with the boys.”

  “I’ll call her,” Anna said.

  The last time they’d spoken, George asked about rehab and Anna pretended it was a paid vacation. And Anna would vaguely inquire after the family, never saying Jeremy’s name so as not to remind George of her last drug-fueled encounter with Anna.

  “Did she talk to you about her marriage?” Bruno asked.

  “She did. But she told me it was great, until she called me that time and it wasn’t.”

  “Seems a shame to end an entire marriage because of a misunderstanding.”

  “Marriages have ended for less,” Anna said.

  Bruno pulled his rental car in front of Anna’s apartment. He wasn’t looking for a parking space, Anna noticed.

  “Don’t you want to come inside?” Anna asked.

  She had assumed that Bruno would spend the night, as he had in his past visits.

  “I don’t know if that’s wise,” Bruno said.

  “Why?”

  “Because as much as we like each other’s company, when it’s over, we always feel a little bit guilty. I want you to take care of yourself.”

  “I would really like it if you came upstairs,” Anna said.

  She had spent the last ninety days of her life alone in bed. It was another form of sobriety, one that she had planned to end that night.

  “So, that’s it? The last time was the last time?” Anna asked.

  “It’s for the best.”

  “I would have liked to have known then that it was the last time. Not months later.”

  “Does it make a difference?” Bruno asked.

  “It does to me. I really want you to come upstairs.”

  She could sense his resolve weakening. She had an animal instinct for that kind of thing. Bruno drove through the narrow side streets, lined with cars parked so closely together they looked like toys that had required a giant hand to fit them in place.

  “There’s no place to park. It’s a sign,” he said.

  “There are no signs,” Anna said. Although there were always plenty of signs when it suited her. “My neighbor is out of town,” she said. “Park in her driveway.” She was lying, of course. The neighbor was an elderly woman who was usually asleep by ten and took her car out only to go to the beauty shop and the store. She was unlikely to notice anyone in her driveway. Although if she did, she had the towing company on speed-dial.

  Bruno followed Anna into her apartment. It was clean and orderly, since she had been expecting a visitor. Earlier that afternoon, plates covered with congealed food had towered in the kitchen sink, dirty clothes were strewn across the floor, and her trash and recycling hadn’t been removed in more than a week. An odor of trash lingered, which Anna tried to mask with incense.

  Bruno followed Anna into her bedroom without protest. He sat down on the bed, and Anna unknotted his tie. He cradled her face in his hands and said, “This is wrong.”

  “I. Don’t. Care,” Anna said with a shadow of a snarl.

  It was then that Bruno knew she wasn’t better, but his shirt was undone and Anna was kissing his neck and he wanted her more than he wanted to do the right thing. Anna could sense that Bruno was thinking again and fumbled with the button on his pants and the zipper. She threw her dress over her head, slipped out of her panties, and climbed on top of him before he could do any more thinking. It was only when he was inside her that her thoughts, that constant nagging commentator that lived in her head and told her how awful she was, clicked off. For a few minutes, she felt at peace.

  Bruno held her in a boa-constrictor embrace for eight and a half minutes. Anna watched the clock, willing him to stay as long as possible. When he unfurled his arms, it felt like her body was falling apart, her organs and limbs and flesh disconnecting, as if Bruno himself had been holding her together.

  “Forgive me,” he said.

  “I wish you wouldn’t say that,” Anna said.

  “I’m going to go now,” he whispered.

  “So that was the last time?” Anna asked.

  “That was the last time,” Bruno said.

  Anna remained in bed, curled up in a ball, while she listened to the rustle of clothes as Bruno dressed. The bed creaked as he climbed next to her to say goodbye. He kissed her on the neck. Anna never turned to look at him. She didn’t even say goodbye. She listened as Bruno walked slowly down the hall and let himself out the front door.

  Tears streamed down Anna’s face until she decided that she wouldn’t cry over a man, especially one she was never supposed to have been with. She crawled out of bed and splashed her face with icy water, which softened some of the ruddiness. She tossed on a pair of jeans, boots, a sweater. Grabbed her overcoat and left her house.

  She wanted a drink but reminded herself that she didn’t do that anymore. Or take drugs or fuck strangers. She had to bat away a wild variety of impulses. She walked briskly in the cold fall air and focused on putting one foot in front of the next until she reached Downtown Crossing and found the alluring fluorescent lights of a used-book store in the distance.

  She entered the bookstore and was engulfed by the central heat. It was like a warm bath. She strolled the aisles, which were overtaken by overstuffed bookshelves, kind of like untended ivy. Her eyes followed the stacks, assembled with a loose sense of alphabetical order. She had all night, so she started at the beginning, turning her head at ninety-degree angles that followed the horizontal, then the vertical stacks.

  A tattered paperback caught her eye. Sixty Stories, by Donald Barthelme. She drew the book from the shelf and crouched in the corner, leaving room for other patrons to pass, even though there were none.

  The book had an itchy familiarity and yet Anna couldn’t place it. She skimmed the pages for an hour. The surreal dialogue and disjointed narrative felt oddly comforting. And then she came upon a passage that she knew. It drove her back fifteen years and her memory clicked in so vividly, it was like she was watching a movie of herself.

  —What did you do today?

  —Went to the grocery store and Xeroxed a box of English muffins, two pounds of ground veal and an apple. In flagrant violation of the Copyright Act.

  It was no longer the silent voice in her head reading these words. She heard Malcolm speaking as if he were there, tucking her into bed, that time she escaped to the Princeton dorm. Age fifteen.

  Anna got to her feet and ran out of the store, unwittingly committing her first crime of the night—a misdemeanor for stealing a two-dollar book. She sprinted four blocks at top speed until the icy air burned her lungs. She stopped, gasping, and doubled over until she could breathe without struggling.

  She was helpless against a flood of tears. She sat down on the curb and let herself crumble and wondered how long she could live with that feeling. Then she realized she didn’t have to feel anything at all.

  1998

  Santa Cruz, California

  Kate had been in a television stupor for seven hours straight when Detective Russell rang the doorbell. Kate climbed the stairs from the basement and peered through the peephole. A man stood in front of the door, eyes cast downward. She could see only the thick wavy hair surrounding a bald spot at the top of his head.

  “Who’s there?
” Kate asked.

  Russell lifted his head and answered, “Detective Russell.”

  It had been four days since Roger Hicks had walked into the High Street home and attacked George in her sleep. It had been four days since Kate had hit him over the head with an empty vodka bottle and put him in a coma.

  Kate opened the door and hovered in the foyer, inadvertently blocking the detective’s entrance. It was past noon, but the detective noticed that she was wearing pajamas. The top was the same one she’d been wearing when he’d interviewed her. Sheep jumping over stiles. It looked like she hadn’t changed out of those pajamas since he’d seen her last.

  “What happened?” Kate asked.

  “Can I come in?” Russell asked. He didn’t wait for an invitation but slipped past Kate and found his way to the kitchen. He had been there before. He pulled a chair from the table and took a seat.

  “Sit down, Kate.”

  “He’s dead, isn’t he?”

  “Please, sit down,” the detective gently said.

  “Are you going to arrest me?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “I was going to offer you coffee or some other beverage, but if you’re going to arrest me, that would be weird.”

  “A cup of coffee would be nice.”

  “So you’re not going to arrest me?”

  “Should I arrest you, Kate? Is there something you’re not telling me?”

  “Like what?”

  “Did you know the intruder?”

  “I told you, Detective. I didn’t know him.”

  “Have a seat.”

  “But I thought you wanted coffee.”

  “Right. Coffee. Then sit,” Russell said. He had interrogated and interviewed all kinds in the ten years he’d been on the force, but something about Kate Smirnoff completely derailed his process.

  Kate poured the detective a cup of three-hour-old coffee and nuked it in the microwave. “It’s not going to taste good. Do you want milk and sugar?”

  “Sure,” the detective said. “Where are your roommates?”

  “George’s parents wanted her to come home.”

  “Is she okay?”

  “I think so. The whole thing happened so fast.”

  “And Anna. Where is Anna?”

  “I don’t know. She left early this morning. Maybe studying.”

  “Do you have family nearby?” Detective Russell asked.

  “No. Why?”

  “Maybe you should go home too for a while.”

  “This is my home,” Kate said. She set the mug of coffee on the table with a carton of milk, a box of sugar, and a spoon. Then she pulled out a chair and sat. Russell poured milk into the stale coffee and then added two teaspoons of sugar.

  “Do you have family?”

  “When did he die?” Kate asked.

  “Last night. This morning. Around 2:00 a.m. The swelling in his brain didn’t go down.”

  “So I killed him,” Kate said. She wasn’t looking for confirmation; she was merely stating a fact, a fact that she was going to have to get used to. She felt a deep wave of nausea followed by a hot and prickly sensation in her neck.

  “I killed someone,” Kate said. Her eyes started to water, but she kept them open until they dried out. No tears fell.

  “It was justified,” Detective Russell said.

  “I shouldn’t have hit him the second time.”

  “You were scared.”

  “Does he have a family?”

  “An ex-wife. A daughter. A sister. We’ve notified them. His parents are deceased.”

  “Is there something I’m supposed to do?”

  “No. We’ll keep your name out of the papers. Try not to think about it.”

  “That never works. In fact, you just made it more impossible by saying that.”

  “Memories fade.”

  “I know. But they just fade. They never go away.”

  Anna, too, tried not to think about it. She went to the library, to the park, to the movies, even to an arcade, where she played several rounds of Skee Ball with a pair of preteen boys, trying not to think about it. But all she did was think about the night she couldn’t remember. An insidious guilt took hold inside her stomach and wouldn’t let up. The refrain she silently spoke—I don’t know anything; I was asleep—became more and more of a lie every time she repeated it. She hadn’t slept in the four days since she’d slept through the night in question. While Detective Russell was at her home telling Kate that she had just become an unwitting killer, Anna went to the police station and found his partner, Detective Rose Williams.

  “I’m sorry to bother you, Detective,” Anna said as Rose led her down a corridor with winking fluorescent lights.

  “It’s no bother. I’m glad you came by. Did you see Detective Russell?”

  “No. Why would I see him?”

  “I think he was dropping by your house this morning.”

  “I left early this morning.”

  Rose knew that Anna’s next question would be Why was Detective Russell visiting my house? Rather than play her hand, she waited to see Anna’s first.

  “What brings you to the neighborhood?” Rose said, sliding out a steel-framed chair for Anna and taking a seat in a plush leather chair she’d brought from home. She actually had to chain it to her desk, it was so coveted among the relics in a twenty-year-old squad room.

  “I was asleep when it happened,” Anna said as she sat down.

  “I know. That’s what you told me when I questioned you. You were still a little sleepy at the time.”

  “I had been drinking.”

  “I could smell it on you.”

  “Sorry. I had had a test that day. I had been studying around the clock leading up to it. I’m premed. But, um, I’m not as good at it as most of my classmates. Anyway, I was drunk and so I didn’t hear George scream.”

  “Your friend is okay, that’s all that matters.”

  “Right.”

  “Is there something else? Something you want to tell me?”

  “I saw him, the intruder, when he was being taken out on the gurney.”

  “You told my partner at the time you’d never seen him before. Have you changed your mind?”

  “No. I don’t know. I was tired. Can I see him? Do you have a picture of him?”

  Rose sifted through files on her desk. She had a hospital photo, but it wasn’t the best likeness. Fortunately, Hicks had a record. She found a two-year-old mug shot in her case file. She slid it across her desk.

  Rose’s telephone rang as Anna picked up the photo. The detective missed the two-second flash of recognition that crossed Anna’s face. There were four hours that Anna couldn’t recall. But what she did know was that Roger Hicks sure looked familiar. Maybe she’d seen him in the bar that night. Maybe she’d talked to him; maybe she’d invited him home. She couldn’t remember any of that, but that didn’t mean it didn’t happen.

  Anna placed the photo back on the desk as Detective Williams ended her call.

  “Do you know him?” Rose asked.

  “He might look familiar. Maybe I’ve seen him around, but I can’t say for sure. How is he doing?” Anna asked.

  “He died early this morning.”

  After a long and nail-biting application process, Anna was finally accepted at a medical school in St. Louis. George was leaving in a few months for a forestry post in the Russian River Valley. Kate had no plans. If pressed to come up with one, she said that her plan was to stay put. Kate had a stubborn streak, no doubt, but if Anna set her mind against someone else’s mind, Anna won. And Anna, after learning that she had had a hand in turning Kate into a killer, wasn’t going to leave her alone in a giant house in Santa Cruz in front of a television set.

  On the drive home from the police station, Anna solidified her plan.

  Kate was on the couch watching television, as predicted. George once commented that TV was Kate’s cocktail. And Anna told George that men were George’s cocktail. Anna had held
her vodka on the rocks aloft and said proudly, “And my cocktail is a fucking cocktail.”

  Anna entered Kate’s basement abode carrying several moving boxes and silently began packing Kate’s belongings. It wasn’t until the commercial break that Kate even noticed Anna’s presence and activity.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “I’m packing,” Anna said.

  “But those are my things.”

  “I know. You’re coming with me.”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” Kate said. “I’m staying. Not only in this house, but on this couch.”

  In fact, it was Kate’s inertia that made what seemed an insurmountable task—making a grown woman move from Santa Cruz, California, to St. Louis, Missouri, against her will—possible. While Kate munched on dry cereal and watched one program after the next, Anna took her study pills and continued packing. She packed for almost three days straight with just a few hours of rest when her body physically couldn’t lug another box.

  She phoned a moving company and made all the arrangements. She packed all of Kate’s personal effects that were not in her direct line of vision, and she’d wait for Kate to take a shower or use the restroom or sleep, which Kate still managed to do, and then pack more of Kate’s belongings. Anna even crushed a sleeping pill into Kate’s cocoa the last night. By morning, virtually all of Kate’s worldly possessions were sealed up in boxes beneath a sound barrier of packing tape.

  Anna phoned George as soon as her plan had taken shape. George supported the unorthodox scheme since she had decided to move home for the summer. She hadn’t known what to do about Kate, and now that problem was solved. George returned to the High Street house to pack up her own belongings, offer Anna any backup she needed, and say her goodbyes. She arrived the night Anna roofied Kate and helped finish packing Kate’s room.

  “Are you sure about this?” George asked, suddenly realizing how extreme a measure they were taking.

  “I’m not leaving her alone.”

  When Kate awoke, disoriented by her barren room, she wondered if she was dreaming. Just then the moving truck arrived, and Anna began barking orders. When Kate protested, Anna informed Chuck, the senior member of the crew, who seemed in charge, that he should ignore Kate. She was her mentally ill cousin with postconcussion syndrome, which caused her to forget everything that had happened the day before. Anna explained that while she had been telling Kate for months that they were moving to St. Louis, Kate was incapable of remembering it the next morning. George echoed Anna’s directive.