Lion Eyes

by Claire Berlinski

  I realized how I sounded, and shut up.

  Lynne sat down on the edge of the sofa, placing one of her feelers on Sam’s thigh; Sam sat next to her, stretching out his legs and hooking his thumbs underneath his suspenders. They looked perfectly natural together. I went to the kitchen to get the wine and noticed that the glasses had spots. I gave them a quick rinse. By the time I came back out, Imran had taken control of the conversation.

  “—a new patient, a stammerer who’s a 37-year-old virgin—”

  Sam and Lynne were looking at him with bewilderment, but Sally seemed fascinated. I was grateful for her social skills. “Here’s the wine!” I interrupted. I passed out glasses and poured to the rim. Sam downed half of his in a single gulp. I followed suit. I looked at my watch: it was 7:15.

  Arsalan had promised to bring caviar, and I had planned to serve that as the hors d’oeuvre. I’d put out crackers, hard-boiled eggs, and crème fraîche, but the caviar hadn’t arrived. Everyone looked hungry. I rummaged around the kitchen cabinet and found some peanuts. When I placed them on the table, Lynne flinched, visibly.

  “Oh, God,” whispered Lynne, looking up at Sam.

  Sam looked at me as if I’d just set out a bowl of maggots. “Claire, Lynne’s allergic. If that gets in her food she’ll die.”

  “Oh,” I said, quickly taking them off the table. “I’m so sorry.”

  “You couldn’t know,” said Lynne. She turned to Sam and whispered. “Didn’t you tell her?”

  Given a choice between admitting to Lynne that he hadn’t and making me look like a murderer, Sam chose the latter. “Of course I did,” he whispered back to Lynne, loud enough for everyone to hear. Lynne pursed her lips and gave me the look you’d give to an idiot who’d tried to dry her cat in the microwave. Sam put his hand on Lynne’s insectoid thigh and scowled at me protectively.

  Well, I thought. This is getting off to a great start. Imran looked as if he just might be gearing up to ask me why I felt so much rage toward my guest that I’d wanted to kill her. “I’m just going to whip the egg whites for the dessert,” I said and scurried off to the kitchen.

  I applied myself to the egg whites. The eggbeater was stiff, and the eggs didn’t whip well. I beat them and beat them, but all I got was mild foam. Where was Arsalan? I poked my head out of the kitchen and saw Sally looking at her watch. Sam was gazing longingly at Lynne, who was listening to Imran with intense concentration on her face. I didn’t know what Imran was saying, but I feared it might be something that would prompt Lynne to go into a neurotic reaction—she looked to me like the sort. God, I hoped he wasn’t telling her that anaphylactic shock was in fact typically an expression of repressed rage and internal conflict about achieving orgasm.

  Whatever was going on, I supposed I ought to head it off at the pass. “So,” I said, striding out of the kitchen. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but who here is good at beating egg whites? They’re not whipping up the way they’re supposed to. Lynne? Are you a good cook?”

  “Hopeless, I’m afraid.”

  “Anyone?” I asked.

  Sally looked at her watch again, and looked at me.

  Imran cleared his throat. “Sally,” he said in his low, slow, psychotherapist voice, “I’ve noticed that you’ve checked your watch several times since we sat down. Are you waiting for something?”

  Sally looked startled but recovered quickly. “No, no,” she said breezily. “I was just wondering what time it was.”

  “I see.” Imran leaned in her direction, adopting an active-listening posture. “Were you aware that when I asked you that question, your body language changed?”

  “It did?” asked Sally.

  “Yes, and it just did again. Your shoulders tightened, and you crossed your arms and legs more securely.” I felt my shoulders tightening too.

  “Really?” Sally uncrossed her arms and legs. “I wonder why?”

  “May I offer a thought?” said Imran. This seemed like dangerous territory, but I was too curious to see where he was going to try to stop him. “I’ve noticed that when I consult a timepiece repeatedly, it’s often because I feel anxiety.” No shit, Imran. “It’s quite normal to feel anxiety in new social situations. In our modern safe world, you see, the survival fear has transmogrified into the popularity fear. Social survival is the new survival. I would suggest that when you feel the urge to consult your watch, you instead focus on deep, steady breathing and good posture instead.”

  Everyone looked at their watches.

  “You might find it helpful,” Imran continued, “prior to entering a new social situation—” The doorbell rang. Sally and I both whipped our heads around.

  “I’ll get it,” I said, leaving them to discuss Sally’s anxiety. Before opening the door, I took a deep breath and stood up straight.

  “Hi there,” said Arsalan, smiling broadly. His arms were full of things—a carry-on bag, a hanging bag, a plastic box with a handle. “Sorry I’m late. Those fools at customs convinced themselves this must be some kind of weapon of mass destruction. I told the inspector, ‘You really don’t want to put your hand in there, my friend; trust me,’ but he didn’t believe me.” He lifted the box slightly and gestured toward it with his head.

  “What is it?”

  “Wollef, of course.”

  • • •

  Our eyes met. For a moment we just stared at each other—I wasn’t sure what to say. I had imagined him so many times, and now, at last, here he was in front of me. He looked just the way I’d pictured him. He was plump and slightly cross-eyed, and his ears stuck out straight to the side, like Yoda’s. At last, I found my voice. “Well hi, Wollef,” I said. “Hello there, pussycat. You’ve had a long trip, haven’t you, sweetheart?”

  He glared at me. He really looked like Yoda. Cat am I. Patronize me do not dare. Finally, he sneezed.

  Wollef, said Arsalan—who also looked as I’d imagined him—had not cared for the cramped conditions of air travel any more than the rest of us generally do. He had tried taking him out of the box to comfort him, but a flight attendant had come over and had told him to put the cat back: if he went berserk, she warned, it would be a safety hazard. Wollef howled plaintively in his box until Arsalan snuck him out again, put him under his shirt, and stuffed him like a lumbar support in the space between his seat and the small of his back, where the cat had remained, mercifully silent, for the duration of the flight. The flight attendant had not noticed the whiskers and the tail poking out from underneath the armrest.

  Arsalan had produced all the appropriate vaccination certificates at customs, as well as his invitation to the UNESCO conference. Nonetheless, he had aroused the inspectors’ suspicions. “It happens to me everywhere I go these days,” he said without rancor. “I can’t really blame them; I’d look closely at Iranians too if I were them. But any idiot could see there was a cat in there.” Wollef had by that point been tired, confused, and frightened. Not surprisingly, when a gigantic hand in a rubber glove began probing the interior of his box, he did what any cornered animal would do: he opened up a gigantic can of whup-ass on the glove.

  The inspector had yanked his shredded hand from the box. “Oui, ceci est un chat,” he concluded hastily, and summoned first aid. Miffed, he had detained Arsalan and Wollef until a Persian translator could be found to vouch for the authenticity of Wollef’s rabies certificate.

  “We should give him some water,” I said to Arsalan, “and something to eat. He’d probably appreciate a litter box, too. You should have told me he was coming. I would have had everything ready for him.”

  “Well, I didn’t know until this morning. I wasn’t planning to bring him. The maid’s daughter was supposed to care for him—her mother is visiting her sister in Teheran, you see. But fifteen minutes before I was supposed to leave, she still hadn’t shown up. She’s totally irresponsible. And I just couldn’t leave him without being sure, so—”

  “Of course. Why don’t we take him into the kitchen and see what we can fix
up for him? He’d probably be more comfortable alone in the kitchen than outside with all those strangers, don’t you think?”

  “I think both of us would be, really,” he said gently.

  I looked at him and suddenly felt awful about the awkward dinner party to which I was about to subject him. He must be so tired after a long day of traveling with an anxious cat. I didn’t allow myself to think of the other reasons I might feel guilty. “Hullo, ”boomed a jovial voice behind me. I turned. Imran looked well into his cups already. “Sorry to interrupt; must go to the loo,” he said, undoing his belt buckle. He squeezed past me and into the toilet by the front door. He closed the bathroom door, banged up the toilet seat, loudly unzipped his fly, and began urinating with a great sigh of pleasure. He was, from the sound of it, having no problems with his prostate. Then, still urinating, he began singing the chorus from the “Ode to Joy.”

  Freude, schöner Götterfunken, Tochter aus Elysium—Whush! Whush! Wir betreten feuertrunken, Himmlische, dein Heiligtum! Whush! Whush! Whush! It sounded as if Secretariat was in there taking a leak with Caruso. Whush! Whush! Whush! Wollef started howling. Deine Zauber binden wieder, Imran sang grandly. I looked up at Arsalan, whose eyebrows were drawn together in puzzlement. Imran kept pissing. Arsalan could not have looked more confused. Finally, he leaned over and whispered in my ear—I could feel the warmth of his breath—“That’s astonishing! No wonder the other one can’t tell!”

  For a moment I had no idea what he meant, and then I understood his confusion, and despite everything I started laughing uncontrollably—I mean, completely uncontrollably. I started laughing and I just couldn’t stop. Arsalan looked even more confused. I finally managed to choke it out. “No, no, that’s Imran, not Samantha. Imran really is a man.” When he understood, he started laughing too, which made me laugh even harder. Neither of us could stop. My face was contorted with the effort of trying to stop. Imran’s stream slowed to a dribble, and for a moment we both managed to get ourselves under control. Then it started again. Wo dein sanfter Flügel weilt! I doubled over. So did Arsalan. I started making weird snotty snorting noises; he began choking and coughing; so did I; he slapped me on the back.

  We were both still convulsed in hysteria when Imran emerged. “Hullo, I’m Imran,” he said, offering his hand to Arsalan.

  Arsalan smiled at him. He had a truly joyful smile. I hadn’t been expecting that; he hadn’t been smiling in his photograph. “Arsalan. Nice to meet you.” They shook hands.

  “Looks like you two are making good initial contact. Keep bonding,” said Imran. He clicked his heels, spun around, and walked back to the others.

  I looked at Arsalan again. He had looked intimidating in his photograph, but in person he looked warm. I was absolutely certain this man planned me no harm. I wondered how long it would take for everyone in the living room to leave, and whether, perhaps, if we locked ourselves in the kitchen and refused to feed the guests, they would just give up and go away.

  “Come on,” I said, taking him by the arm. “I’ll introduce you to the others.”

  • • •

  Arsalan refrained admirably from staring at Sam. Sam stared at Arsalan. Sally exchanged a pleasant, professional handshake with him, making pleasant, professional eye contact. Lynne cringed at the sight of Wollef—she was allergic to cats, too—but evidently she was not mortally allergic to them; she would be fine, she said, if she took a Claritin. I poured everyone more wine. I put the caviar on the table: Arsalan had brought the largest tin of it I’d ever seen. Everyone exclaimed that this was a very wonderful thing for him to have done. I took Wollef to the kitchen and gave him a bowl of water and a plate of tuna fish; he rejected both and bolted, ending up under my bed.

  Arsalan looked pained. “I didn’t realize he’d hate traveling this much,” he said, taking a small finger of tuna, getting on his hands and knees, and trying to coax Wollef back out with it. He spoke to the animal in Persian in a low, gentle voice. Wollef remained under the bed.

  “He probably feels safe there. Maybe we should just let him stay there until he feels more comfortable?” I suggested. “We can put some food and water under the bed for him.” Arsalan reluctantly agreed; I could tell he was feeling guilty. “We can put some blankets under there too.” My only concern was a litter box. I turned one of the lasagnas out onto a serving plate, washed the baking tin, and filled it with soil from a dying houseplant—Dr. Mostarshed, alas, had overwatered it. “There,” I said, putting it under the bed. “He should be fine.” I got down to look. Resentful eyes glittered back at me.

  Arsalan and I were side by side, on the ground, looking under my bed. My shoulder brushed against his. He noticed and I noticed. Neither of us said anything. Neither of us moved.

  “Arsalan and Claire!” Sally sang out from the table. “This caviar is fantastic! Come have some before we finish it all!” Arsalan, obviously wondering if it would be ill-mannered to crawl under the bed with his cat, stood up reluctantly to take his place at the table. I followed suit.

  Arsalan pulled out my chair, then sat down next to me—directly opposite Sally. “So, Arsalan—” Sally began, but was interrupted by Lynne, who with a great whooping convulsion began sneezing. She sneezed about ten times in a row. “Excuse me,” she said, and ran off to the bathroom. She came back with toilet paper in her hand and a very red nose.

  “Are you okay?” Sam and I asked simultaneously.

  “Ibe fide. Id’s just the cat.” She wiped her nose and rubbed her eyes.

  “Don’t rub,” whispered Sam. “It will make it worse.” Sam looked tense. Apart from saying hello to Arsalan, he’d barely spoken since I put out the caviar. I topped up his wine glass. Lynne reached over and rubbed his thigh affectionately; he smiled at her, but it was a thin-lipped half smile. I wondered if something was bothering him, other than the obvious. His letters had been so lively. Was he always such a drip in person?

  I got up to clear the plates and fetch the lasagna. When I returned, Arsalan was making small talk about the museums of Paris with Lynne, who was wiping her running nose and dabbing her watery eyes. Imran was talking to Sally about her father. “That does sound hurtful,” Imran said while loading a huge mound of caviar onto his cracker. “I would attribute your dad’s comment to envy. I see it as a psychic eructation of pain. Parents also have failings and neuroses—”

  “Claire,” said Sam quietly, beckoning to me with his index finger. I walked over to him. He stretched up to whisper. “Would you happen to have any Tylenol?”

  “Oh sure. Follow me.” He followed me into the bathroom; I opened the medicine chest. “Will ibuprofen do?”

  “That’s fine.” He grabbed the bottle and shook out a few pills, then gulped them down with a swig of water from the tap. Standing up, he winced in pain.

  “Headache?” I asked sympathetically.

  “Time of the month.”

  Before I could respond, Lynne opened the bathroom door without knocking. There was no lock; I’d broken it long ago and never fixed it, since it would have been expensive and I lived alone, anyway. I jumped so high my head nearly hit the ceiling, but Sam didn’t even flinch. I had to hand it to him; he had balls of ice. “Honey? ” Lynne said. “Are you okay? ” She looked nervous and fluttery. I wondered if she might be jealous; Sam had, after all, whispered something in my ear, then disappeared with me to the bathroom. I wondered how he had explained our relationship to her.

  “Yeah, I’m fine. Just a real stiff neck from that flight,” he said, stretching his neck from side to side.

  “Oh, you poor thing! Come over to the table and I’ll give you a neck rub.” Sam cast me a helpless glance and followed Lynne’s pointy boots back to the table. Lynne turned her chair toward him and began rubbing his neck, digging her bony thumbs into his trapezius muscles like a manic Roto-Rooter. If he didn’t really have neck pain before, he certainly had it now.

  “Neck pain?” Imran asked Sam.

  Sam nodded manfully. “Old baseball
injury,” he said. Arsalan caught my eye; he looked as if he were trying not to laugh, which made me worry I was going to start laughing again, too. I bit my lip hard. I had to look away from him. I busied myself by making sure everyone had enough lasagna and salad.

  “In my experience,” Imran offered, “neck pain, like gastric distress, is often related to suppressed emotions. I notice that I suffer from neck and joint pain when I’m holding in my feelings too tightly.”

  I suddenly noticed that my neck was aching, and stretched it side to side.

  “Neck pain?” Arsalan whispered to me. I nodded. He put his hand on my neck and rubbed it gently.

  “Really,” said Sam at the same time, looking as if he might like to inflict neck and joint pain of the nonsomatic variety on Imran.

  “Oh, very much so,” said Imran. “I also notice that your energy and mood have changed over the course of the evening. Are you feeling fatigued?”

  “Jet lag.” Terse.

  “I’ll offer you a thought,” said Imran in the paternal voice he uses when addressing highly disturbed people. “The more emotionally expressive I am, the less tired I feel. I’ve found this to be true for many of my patients.”

  “You don’t say.”

  “I do indeed. Secrets are tiring. Suppressions and repressions, too.” He looked meaningfully at Sam. Sam looked at me with alarm. I shrugged as if to say, I have no idea what he’s talking about. I looked meaningfully at Arsalan. He raised an eyebrow. He stopped rubbing my neck but left his hand on my back. Sally looked meaningfully at Lynne, who didn’t seem to notice. The room was suddenly very quiet. I heard a scratching sound and looked in the direction of the noise. Scratch, scratch.