The professor begins to point out certain aspects of the model and Iris moves away as if another object in the room needs her urgent attention. Some minutes later Raif comes over with the woman, whom he introduces as a colleague. Her name is Meike. She is in her thirties and almost too tall, her hair almost too heavy, to be beautiful. But she is beautiful. She has the profile of a wizard.
That was so interesting, says Meike. Thank you so much.
Iris has just understood. Her thick glasses, her loose gaze, the hand on Raif’s arm.
You’re blind!
Both Meike and Raif laugh, although he looks shocked. Iris is shaking her head.
I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—
That’s OK.
Is it? Iris scrutinises Meike’s laughing face. She can’t tell.
I’m more like partially sighted. So a bit blind, yes. Quite a bit.
She puts her hand on Iris’s arm and everything is alright.
In which case we can help, says Iris. I mean with the horse. Audio texts, high-resolution images, whatever you need, really, we’d be very happy to …
Raif thinks Iris is terribly upset. He doesn’t know that she’s not the type to dwell on minor catastrophes. She will mend what she can and move on. And she prefers to do something rather than talk about it and wants to stop talking right now. Meike interjects.
Is it possible to touch the horse?
It’s the one thing that Iris can’t help her with.
When I first came to work here you could. The horse had no case then. Come to think of it, we didn’t use gloves either unless there was a known hazard.
Raif speaks without thinking.
Do you miss touch?
I don’t know, she says. I’m used to using gloves and anyway we know now what damage we can do to things just by touching them.
Even lightly? asks Meike.
Iris pauses. She doesn’t want to have this conversation with Meike. She wants to have it with Raif.
The slightest touch will leave a residue, she says. The surface may be compromised.
Raif echoes Iris so quietly that he might be whispering in her ear.
The slightest touch.
Either Meike hasn’t picked up on the tension or she doesn’t want to be left out. She has another point to make and turns to address the rest of the group.
Apparently we can’t touch the horse. It’s extremely fragile and its surfaces might be compromised.
It was a working model, Iris says. So it has withstood plenty of human contact. I mean, look – it’s still intact, still functional after a hundred and fifty years.
The others look to Meike, who continues.
But it’s obsolete. It’s varnish and paper.
So does it teach us something about papier-mâché or the horse? says the professor.
Raif sees that Iris is distressed. He surprises himself by wanting to speak for her.
The model teaches us what this man at this time thought a horse was – which is just as important as what a horse is.
He is standing close to her, he is speaking for her, they are once again side by side.
When the group leaves, Iris stays behind. Raif walks Meike out but then comes back.
You were so kind, he says, and your talk, your talk was—
A disaster.
She realises that she’s somehow made things awkward again and she gives way.
Look, she says with unnecessary firmness, do you want to have lunch?
Now?
No. Some other time.
He waits for her to say why. Is there something she’d like his advice on? Is there a project coming up to which he might contribute? But she doesn’t. They stand there and smile at each other.
Yes, he says. That would be. Yes.
In the months since they first met, they’ve been brought together by chance and design. They’ve been wading out of themselves and towards one another despite all that has risen up or pulled them back. And now they’ve said, indirectly but out loud, that they want to meet and need no excuse to do so.
he wants to speak
Raif isn’t tentative with Helen because he lacks the capacity to feel strongly. Perhaps just once we feel enough to erupt out of our constructions and offer our full selves. Raif wanted everything with Liis, believed everything, felt everything. How to recover?
And because he’s never known how to answer the question people always ask – Who are you? – he has developed a habit of silence. Liis was someone whose reticence met his own. After she died his silence was no longer met and he understood that if he did not speak while someone was there – his father, his wife – he might never be able to do so. And there were things he needed to ask and to say.
Three months after Liis’s death, Meike walked into his office and he felt a roaring in his body – something he’d known before his marriage, when he’d been less guarded and more determined about sex. This was another way in which he’d grown silent. He soon realised that Meike had this effect on everyone and that it provoked as much fear as desire. She drew everyone’s gaze but because she did not return it, people felt that they’d never quite seen her.
He took her to the talk because she’s working on nineteenth-century educational models. Also (but he did not know this) because he wanted Iris to see him at his most alive. He didn’t realise that turning up with a beautiful unexplained woman might confuse the situation.
*
Having agreed with Iris that they will have lunch soon, he catches up with Meike at the station. They get on the same train, which is crowded and they have to stand. As ever Raif feels the roaring in his body (has it been caused by Iris?) and he works hard in the lurching carriage not to brush against her.
Well, isn’t she exotic!
The man who says it is in his fifties, smartly dressed, staggering and red-faced. Raif turns to him.
At school he said nothing to the king of the boys. He said nothing to his mother and nothing to his wife. Now he wants to speak.
What did you say?
The man snorts. A couple of people laugh while others tut and shake their heads. The man prods his finger unsteadily in Meike’s direction.
I said isn’t she exotic. And who the fuck are you, anyway?
I’m the person who’s going to tell you to apologise, Raif says.
He’s still full of astonishment at the step he and Iris have just taken. Why did they wait months to say anything? All that talk about the merman and the cloud mirror, those messages about the weather, when it could just be said. We want to meet. Anything could – and should – be said!
Meike turns to face the man, who tries to step back.
Is she looking at me? Why’s she looking at me?
Apologise, says Raif.
As the man burps and smirks and waggles his head, three teenage girls pull out their phones and take his picture.
There, one of them says. You’re going to be famous.
What the fuck do you mean? says the man. You can’t do that.
Do what?
They put their phones away but they keep staring – not at Meike, at him.
Other passengers have gathered courage now. Some are muttering about the man being a disgrace while others say Leave him alone … He doesn’t mean anything by it. The lights in the carriage flicker as the train rasps and rattles on.
She’s a witch! the man slurs. A fucking witch.
The teenagers brandish their phones again.
Care to repeat that? one of them says. You’ll be really famous then.
She’s not a witch, Raif says quietly. She’s a wizard.
To Meike, the encounter with the drunk is routine. For Raif, it’s momentous. He knows she doesn’t need his help, let alone his protection, but he has spoken. It’s a small thing. He’s not what anyone in the carriage will remember but he believes he’s found a way to say things and that people will listen.
The drunk has shut his eyes and seems about to fall asleep on his feet
when a jolt brings him to and he sees that the annoying little man and the blind witch are still there.
Think this is my stop, he says to no one in particular.
Raif moves to stand between him and the doors.
Then you need to apologise.
He has not raised his voice but the man looks childishly down at the floor.
OK then, he says and turns to Meike, holding out his hand.
The lights flicker again. A few people giggle in response but most are focused on Meike. She reaches out her hand as if about to take his, only she doesn’t. She lays her fingers on his wrist and slowly traces the length of his arm, her hand coming to rest on his shoulder. Raif has never seen anyone look more paralysed.
The lights flicker again and go out just as Meike pulls back her hand and slaps the man hard. Or does she? No one has seen. No one has a photograph.
space so easily overthrown
Up on the hill we can see right across the city and so locate ourselves outside it. We can follow two strangers coming towards each other as if we were telling a story. They are of no more significance than any other two among the millions and yet each step and gesture they make will be somehow familiar. They are not new to this and neither are we. We must recognise, through these strangers, what it means to repeat ourselves and we must decide whether repetition is a way forward or back.
Every year the towers grow taller, giving those permitted to enter them increasingly remote perspectives. Those who have no place in the towers can pay to visit, via a sealed lift, the top of the highest (or close to the top). If you rise to the seventy-second floor, the city will cease to make sense because at such a height all detail is lost. You will see brick, concrete, glass, steel and stone as texture rather than place.
Only the river becomes more clear. It is the one unbroken thing, strange and seemingly alive, indifferent to the city that lines its path. The river pulls in what light there is and passes through. The point is not to map the city but to find our way towards each other within it while the river runs on.
display
Iris proposed lunch so she leaves it to Raif to suggest where they might meet. He overhears a colleague talking about a pub that has log fires and good food and he looks it up and sends Iris the address. She’s charmed because it’s called The Blue Iris.
The daylight is like lamplight. Iris concentrates on finding the right tiny street among the rotting timbered facades, the efficient cafes, the quaint sex shops with their smudged cardboard signs, the side doors open onto anonymous stairs. When she arrives at The Blue Iris she’s shown to a long mirrored room with clubbish armchairs set intimately around small tables. Raif is already there.
I’m so sorry, he says. This was a mistake. Do you mind?
Do I mind?
The place I meant to book is called The Blue Horse. Shall we find somewhere more … I don’t know … not so …
Iris has picked up a menu.
They do nuts, crisps, cheese and ham. That’s fine by me. Shall we get a drink?
He doesn’t understand this unsmiling woman but evidently she can solve anything. As soon as they’ve sat down it seems wonderfully usual to be in this bar together on a weekday winter afternoon. Iris leans back in her chair, looking just right in her charcoal dress. It is more tailored than anything he’s seen her in before (or perhaps he’s only just allowed himself to take her in). She knows how to place herself and what to say. When the waiter comes over she orders for them both, making a technical adjustment to her drink.
Raif remembers the photo on her phone.
Are your children looking forward to Christmas?
I suppose so. It’s difficult.
Oh?
Their father and I are no longer.
He waits for her to say no longer what but she doesn’t.
I’m sorry, he says. That must be very sad.
I’m not sad.
But she is. She will never be happy in a complete way again.
What about you? Do you have children?
She sounds brisk, as if she’s telling someone off.
Children? Sorry, no, I’m afraid not. No children. My wife died.
Other women to whom Raif has given this news have leant forward, taken his hand and gently prompted more detail. Iris takes a gulp of her drink and fixes her gaze on a corner of the ceiling.
Were you happy? You and your wife?
She’s thinking of David, who might die too.
Raif is surprised into saying something that’s never occurred to him before.
It made me happy to love her.
Iris looks at the corner of the ceiling again.
I did my best to love my husband.
But you didn’t?
I believed I did. No, that’s not true.
She tries to think of something more encouraging to say.
And did she love you, your wife?
He borrows his mother’s explanation.
She was in shock.
This is something Iris can get hold of. She relaxes.
What do you mean?
He tells Iris the story of Liis in New York.
That was your wife? I read about her somewhere.
Iris hasn’t asked how Liis died, which he thinks is a matter of delicacy whereas she isn’t much interested. She wants to know about how the defection of Liis’s father played out but Raif has no more details to offer and doesn’t want to tell her that the story may be someone else’s. They talk and drink, not noticing the bar fill up, the lights dim and the mood change. The waiter removes the vase of bright winter berries from their table and replaces it with a lantern. Music they hadn’t noticed grows louder.
Iris talks about how many objects there are in the stores that have never been displayed.
I don’t think an object is less important because it isn’t seen.
What kind of thing is never displayed?
I suppose the ones that don’t provide an answer or tell part of a story. And the ones that aren’t valuable or rare or just don’t look like anything.
Are you saying there are objects in your collections that are boring?
Not to me but yes. There are things that are too shocking to be seen as well.
So what constitutes boring?
A broken stick? Sixteenth-century and the standard measurement here for a couple of hundred years but to families on a day out and tourists on an itinerary, it’s a broken stick.
Raif tries once again to take a step towards her.
Would you rather be shocking or boring?
He is being playful but to Iris this is a serious question and she gives it thorough consideration.
I’d like to look boring but have a shocking history.
Is that who she is? He thinks it might be.
The music is turned up once more and a nearby couple start to dance. They barely move but dancing gives them permission to lean fully into one another. Their bodies tilt, so slowly, to one side and then the other. And then the music lurches and the woman throws back her head and the man presses his mouth to her throat. Then they open their eyes and remember where they are. Raif and Iris watch them.
a yardstick
Everything used to be measured according to ourselves. There was the hand, the foot and also the yard, which was (among other things) the distance from the king’s nose to the tip of his outstretched thumb. (But which king?)
The museum possesses instruments designed to measure criminals’ skulls, the barrel of a gun, the earth’s density, the brain’s activity, the breath, the truth. All depend on a constant. Queen Elizabeth I had this particular yardstick made of bronze as the standard for the nation. It was the measure of all measures for almost two centuries.
As people travelled the world, they met other forms of measurement. They needed a constant that could accompany them on their travels. A committee was formed which decided that this international constant would be a measurement that could be multiplied up to the full extent of the earth a
nd so applied to any extent – a ten millionth of a quarter of a circle around the earth. It took six years, at a time of great sickness and war, to measure the designated distance and to define what was called the metre, and which was more or less the distance from a king’s nose to the tip of his outstretched thumb.
The standard mètre des Archives was cast in platinum in 1799 but through the next century of enlightenment and revolution, uncertainty grew. People were looking more closely now, naming the elements and exposing their instabilities. In the great compromise of 1889, a series of standards were cast in a platinum-iridium alloy, one of which took the place of the mètre des Archives, and one of which was received by Britain.
But how could the modern world measure itself by a single metal bar? People searched once more for a natural constant that did not have to be compared or cast and, a hundred years after the platinum-iridium bar, settled upon the speed of light. And here we are, the structure of light breaking down and its constancy in question.
rain
Iris is offered a last-minute place at a conference in Paris because one of her colleagues has fallen ill. She accepts. Travel weakens us so that memories, especially sense memories, can be overwhelming. If you’re in a foreign city, in a place that’s hard to take in, listening to a language you don’t speak, and you suddenly encounter the scent or detail of someone you absolutely know, it can be shocking.
She is woken by rain. She’s in a room under the eaves in a university block and the sound returns her to an attic room where she slept with a man for whom she left a life. Beyond that lies the room they ran away to, where they made love in the dark during an electrical storm. The lightning photographed certain moments she can still see.
The rain reaches her before she wakes so that by the time she does wake, she’s already in pain. The grief of that other man’s absence is real and new. Iris has to walk all day to get past it and during that time she feels nothing for Raif, nothing for David, nothing for her daughters. She walks until she feels nothing at all.
In the City of Love's Sleep Page 11