Tonight, Jennie thought. She had to call him that night, before it was too late.
At seven o’clock Jennie sat down at the dinette table with the list in front of her, carefully positioned in the centre of the place mat. Maybe she could just write. She could xerox the letter and send it to all three at the same time. She growled and stood up by the phone.
She tried the one on 72nd Street first, the one she considered the least likely. After four rings her heart slowed. Not home. She could try the others tomorrow. In the middle of the seventh ring a man’s voice, a light thin voice said, ‘Hel-lo.’ He sounded excited, like he was expecting somebody.
Jennie said, ‘I’d like to speak to Michael Gold.’ She sounded like a salesman.
‘Speaking,’ the man said, more subdued.
‘Oh. I mean, oh—’
‘Oh to you too.’ He laughed.
‘You’re not—you’re not the Michael Gold from Poughkeepsie.’
‘Sorry. From Denver to Manhattan, that’s me. But I once stayed a week in Ellenville, if that’ll help.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Jennie said. ‘I’ve got the wrong number.’ The wrong Michael Gold laughed again as Jennie hung up.
She tried the number in Founder’s Heights next. On the third ring a soft voice said, ‘Hello.’ Jennie wasn’t sure if it was a man or a woman. It was old, or maybe the wheeze made it sound older.
Jennie said, ‘I’d like to speak to Michael Gold, please.’
There was a pause, and then the woman—Jennie thought it was female—said, ‘Who is that?’
‘I’m someone…I used to know him.’
‘What do you want? Who the hell are you?’
‘I just want to speak to Mike. Can’t I speak to him?’
‘Michael Gold is dead.’
‘Great mother,’ Jennie said. ‘How? What happened?’
The woman shouted, ‘He died five years ago,’ and slammed the phone down.
‘Five years?’ Jennie repeated. ‘You said five years?’ She realised she was talking to a dialling tone. She dropped the phone on the hook, then collapsed in her chair, with her head tilted back and her arms hanging loose. Poor woman, she thought, and then, sitting up, Better her than me.
At least now she knew which one was Mike. Greene Street. Maybe he had a loft. Unless he lived at one of the addresses she’d rejected. She couldn’t see Mike at Sutton Place. Of course, he could have left the city. Or got a place in Queens. Or just an unlisted number. Or changed his name. She stood up again and started dialling. If only she could forget it. Take a shower. ‘You forget it,’ she said out loud. ‘You’re not buying me off with a shower. If I wait any longer you’ll probably put his phone out of order. I want my husband back.’
The ring sounded tired. It went on for a long time, with Jennie shifting her weight from one side to the other. ‘Come on,’ she said, not sure if she wanted him to be home or out.
And then he was there. The same flat telephone voice, that slightly suspicious ‘Hello?’
Jennie could see, all over again, the judge sitting above her in his silver mask, she could hear the crack of his hammer-shaped sky totem striking the ebony bowl of the Earth.
‘Hello?’ Mike said again.
‘Hi, Mike,’ Jennie said. ‘It’s me.’
Silence. She thought she heard a faint ‘Fucking hell,’ but he must have put his hand over the mouthpiece, because even the radio in the background—she hadn’t noticed it before—dropped away. He was deciding what to do, and she had to stop herself from laughing as she imagined Mike trying to work out the proper, the correct response. He must be furious, she thought. He’d love to hang up but he can’t. That would mean he would know who she was. In fact, even thinking about it implied—
‘Who is this?’ he said.
‘Come on, Mike. It’s me. Jennie.’
‘I don’t know any Jennie.’
‘Come on Mike. Stop it.’
‘Stop it? Are you out—’ He caught himself. She heard him tell someone, ‘It’s nothing, just some crank call or something.’ To her he said, ‘Look, I don’t know who you are—’
‘I’ve got to speak to you, Mike. There’s something you’ve got to know.’
He said again, louder. ‘I don’t know who you are, but you’ve got—’
‘It’s about the annulment.’
‘You’ve got the wrong number.’ He hung up.
Jennie almost called him back, but she knew it wouldn’t work. He’d feel justified this time in hanging up immediately and then leaving the phone off the hook if she tried again. But God, she’d sure got him going. Laughing, Jennie held out her arms and snapped her fingers, the way you did when you finished a purification.
She sat down, then jumped up to take a bottle of Coke from the shelf. She poured herself a little in a juice glass. Sipping at it she thought how objectively she’d probably made things worse. She’d put him on his guard. But it felt so good to have done something. And at least she’d proved she knew him. Whatever that lawyer had said at the annulment hearing. She knew Mike better than anyone.
Anyone…Who was he talking to? Jealousy sliced through her euphoria as she imagined him living with some woman. Someone pretty, she decided, with bouncy blonde hair, even more bouncy tits, and an adoring simper as she listened to Mike build his exploits at some travel agency into a swashbuckling movie. If he still worked at a travel agency. Maybe he’d switched to selling real estate. For all she knew, he worked in an art gallery.
Who was he speaking to? Was he married? He wouldn’t just get married again. Maybe he’d met her that time in New York, after he’d run away from Jennie in the parking lot. But how could he just move in with someone? As if their years together meant nothing to him.
She set down the glass. Of course it meant nothing to him. That was the whole idea. Far be it from Good Citizen Michael Gold to disobey a fucking court order. What a shock it must have been for him. He would never think of calling her. She wondered if he’d managed all this time to dislodge from his consciousness, gently but firmly, any images or memories of her. ‘No,’ he’d tell himself. ‘Mustn’t think such thoughts. That’s not correct.’ Bastard. She could bet that Mike didn’t keep any secret cache of pictures hidden in an old box somewhere.
A raiding party of tears was gathering in her eyes. Goddamn hormones. But at least she was doing something. She wiped her eyes and grabbed a pencil from the table beneath the phone. On an old envelope half covered with a shopping list (one of a series never filled) she wrote ‘NEXT STEP.’ After a moment she added, ‘1. No sense in calling again.’ He’d probably just get her arrested. She stared at the paper.
How did people get annulments in the old days? Did a judge do it, like now? That seemed wrong, somehow. Too bureaucratic. Maybe they went to a speaker. Go down to an oracle centre and listen to the word of heaven destroy your marriage. What was she talking about? In the Time of Fanatics they didn’t have neat little Oracle Centres with plastic booths and machines blowing mist, and receptionists in cute uniforms like airline hostesses. And you didn’t just go and make an appointment, you had to submit yourself for judgement. Humble yourself before the divine voice. And the speakers didn’t just analyse a bunch of cards and coins. When they spoke they really said something. In the Days of Awe speakers burst out of the skin of society, howling and spinning down the streets until the healers and the older speakers got hold of them and taught them how to channel the sacred fire.
You just didn’t have things like that any more. She smiled, thinking of Gloria, or maybe Al, running through the hive dressed in the other’s clothes, waving his/her arms at frightened kids on bicycles. Why didn’t you have things like that any more? Was it just because people didn’t want them? People like Mike? If Michael Gold had had to plead for an annulment by lying face down on a cement floor with mud all over his naked body he and Jennie would probably still be married.
She wasn’t getting anywhere. She leaned forward and tapped her pencil on the
paper.
Greene Street appeared to be making an effort to live up to its name. Here and there on the sidewalk three foot high concrete boxes displayed clusters of white roses and tiger lilies, the flowers holy to Miguel Miracle-of-the-Green-Earth. At the top of the street, near Houston, stood the smallest sacred grove Jennie had ever seen: three scrawny trees with life signs carved into their trunks and a wire fence to keep away dogs and children.
The few people on the street didn’t seem to take much notice of the neighbourhood’s attempt at sanctification. They detoured round the trees without even a glance, let alone a step to touch the leaves or earth. Jennie surveyed the block’s mixture of income levels. Only in New York, she thought, would you find a jewellery store on the ground floor of a condemned factory.
On the ground floor of Mike’s building was a restaurant calling itself ‘Green Delights’. The thick metal plating over the door and window made it impossible to see inside, but the thin black letters on the silver sign suggested it attracted the same crowd as the two art galleries, one on each corner by Houston, guarding the street like a pair of lions. Above the restaurant the building rose to six storeys of narrow windows and grimy brick. Jennie could well believe it was once some Old World sweatshop, with immigrant women chained to sewing machines, and electric shock to cauterise their internal spirit centres. What was it now? Luxury apartments, with slate floors and chromium spotlamps? She refused to believe it. Mike could never afford something like that. Unless his new girl friend was giving him money.
It was slightly before nine on Sunday morning. Jennie had spent the night at Hudson Street, showing up without phoning and for once embarrassing her mother. Apparently Beverley had planned some sort of ceremonial sex project with one man and four women from her latest ensemble. They’d moved all the furniture out of the living room and drawn a chalk outline on the floor of a spreadeagled androgyne with double genitals. Various objects lay at the hands and feet and head. Jennie avoided looking at the men and women sitting on the floor. She announced to her mother that she would spend the night in her third floor bedroom, and then marched out. Beverley called to her from the bottom of the stairs. ‘I’m sorry, Jen,’ she said. ‘I didn’t know you were coming. You should have called.’ Jennie kept going.
She’d slept fitfully, partly from anxiety, and partly from the hours-long tape of chaotic noises booming through the house. Now she had taken up her post across from Mike’s building, dressed in a blue suede jacket over a blue sweater streaked with silver, dark jeans with rolled up cuffs, and shiny blue lace-up shoes. A blue wool scarf trimmed with leather protected her from the hard gusts of damp November wind. Not enough, however. She’d forgotten she might have to stand around for hours. She was already chilled. She wished she’d worn her fake fur coat and her hat with the silly flaps. She could have taken the thing off as soon as she’d spotted him. As if Mike would notice or care what she was wearing. She shook her head. As long as he didn’t notice her shape. When she’d dressed that morning she was sure the sweater covered her; now she found herself checking constantly in the window of a shop selling kitchen appliances. She tried standing very straight and pulling in her stomach. She couldn’t decide if that made it better or worse.
Jennie reached into her jacket to press the lump under her sweater. Her own genuine relic hung there, Li Ku’s bit of torn skin in a small gold pouch attached to a strand of silver cord. In the years she’d had it she’d never shown or mentioned it to anyone. ‘Li Ku,’ she whispered, ‘in beauty and truth lives your name forever. Please send me some of your fire. I’m cold and I’ve got to stay here.’
After fifteen minutes she decided she better not count on Li Ku protecting her from the chill. The sky had grown greyer and the wind had picked up. Hours, she thought. He might not even come out at all. Maybe he and his new pal had screwed all night, like Beverley, and now would sleep the whole day in a kingsize bed in front of an electric log fire. Should she ring the bell? She’d gone over this so many times. If she rang his apartment she’d have to announce herself on the intercom and then he not only wouldn’t let her in but he’d know she was there.
She looked around. There was an open pizza parlour, Angelo’s, halfway down the block. If she got a window seat she could still watch Mike’s door. She walked quickly to Angelo’s, hesitated in front of the door, then continued on to a newsstand where she bought a copy of the Sunday Times and a Sacred Digest.
Inside, Jennie’s breath added to the steam that already clouded the doors and windows. Worried she might miss Mike she hurried to a red Formica-topped table near the window and rubbed a section of glass before she even put down the paper. She sat down on the armless wooden chair. Warmth. Joy. With her eyes fixed on the window she took off her jacket and scarf, then leafed through the paper for the magazine section. The cover story was called ‘What next for the budget?’ and showed the President sitting in her oval office while representatives from the Sacred Democrats and the Republican Revolutionaries laid some kind of offerings on either side of her desk. Good old New York Times, Jennie thought. Boring, boring, boring. Anyway, she couldn’t read. Even just leaving through the pages she kept jerking her head up, afraid he’d slip past her. What did they do on TV? Hold the paper up without reading and peek over the page. She wished she had special powers like the CIA agent on Demon! If only she could turn her body into smoke and hover over the doorway. Probably set off a smoke alarm.
When Jennie glanced at the counter she discovered that the owner was staring at her. She should have gone up and ordered. Maybe he’d get angry, tell her to leave. She looked out the window once more then got up and walked over to the counter.
Except for an Hawaiian shirt tucked into his tight jeans the owner looked like a Hollywood Italian—wavy black hair, large eyes and long lashes, straight nose and wide mouth. Jennie thought, Your mother must have done some powerful beauty offerings when you were born. Smiling slightly he leaned forward with his forearms on the glass case above the counter. His hands and wrists were white with flour.
Jennie said, ‘Uh, do you have breakfast? Eggs or toast or something?’ He shook his head. Jennie wanted to run back and check the window but she forced herself to say, ‘I’ll just have a coffee then. For now. I’ll have a slice of pizza later. A little later.’ He nodded and Jennie hurried back to her table to rub the fog off the window again.
Her eyes dropped down to the newspaper when she heard him bringing the coffee. He leaned past her to look out the window. ‘No parade?’ he said. He had a strong New York accent.
She looked up at him. ‘Parade?’
‘Isn’t that what you’re waiting for?’
‘What? Oh, no, I’m just waiting for someone, a friend of mine.’ He nodded. She said, ‘Are you Angelo?’
He laughed. ‘No, I’m Sam. Angelo’s gone. Vanished.’
She checked the window before she repeated, ‘Vanished?’
‘Yeah. Went on a pilgrimage to one of the rock towers. Down in Texas or some place. Anyway, he transported. Lifted smack into the pattern and never came back. His body’s up in one of those state hospitals.’
‘And you got this place.’
‘Yeah. City auction.’
He had his hand on a chair and Jennie could see he was about to sit down. Quickly she said, ‘Look, do you mind if I sit here for awhile? I don’t know when—my friend—the one I’m waiting for, he’s not expecting me.’ She looked out the window.
Sam’s shrug was so smooth he might have practised it in front of a mirror. ‘Whatever you like,’ he said, and strolled back to the counter.
For a while Jennie either looked out the window or pretended to read the paper, afraid to turn her head and discover that Sam was staring at her, leaning forward with his arms on the glass. Finally she got up and announced, ‘I’m just going to look outside a second. I’ll be right back.’
Sam said, ‘I’ll guard your stuff.’
Outside, Jennie stood hugging herself against the cold. �
�Come soon, Mike,’ she whispered. ‘Please come soon.’ She was about to go in when she spotted something yellow and white at the base of the building next door. Some kind of toy or doll lay between an empty garbage pail and a stack of soggy cartons.
When Jennie picked it up she felt a sudden shock in her ‘serpent coil’, the spot in the solar plexus just below the navel. The thing was a Revolution Mouse doll, the toy created decades ago to celebrate the Parade of the Animals. Four inches tall, the doll had a human body and a caricature of a mouse’s head, with painted eyes and large round ears. Jennie tugged gently at the oversized head. At first it resisted, but then it came off with a soft plop. Underneath was a child’s face, gleaming in its original gold paint, with pink lines radiating from around the black eyes.
Jennie held it cradled in her hands, as if the wind might harm it after so many years. The one-piece yellow suit was torn and spattered with grease, the painted on white shoes and gloves were all scratched and discoloured. It must have lain there for a long time, maybe covered in mud or hidden by some construction or something. And now it had found its way to Jennie Mazdan, on her quest to get back the husband stolen from her by the Agency. It was a sign, a gift to tell her she was doing the right thing. She looked around at the street, as if some refraction of light would allow her to see her benefactors. She said, ‘Devoted Ones, I thank you for your devotion. I know that nothing I have done deserves your precious intervention.’
A part of a version of the Story of HE WHO RUNS AWAY
At the end of their journey the Army of the Great Liberation came to a mountainous country thick with clouds. These people had long known of the Liberator’s approach. They had seen his ‘sacred messengers’—children born with oily grey wings—scouting the peaks. Their speakers had cast reading after reading with the coloured stones they used for an oracle. The answer was always the same: ‘The unknown river breaks through the rock. No escape.’ Most of all they had the testimony of the refugees. So many had come to this dim land, which called itself the Homeland of the Sun, that the government had ordered them into warehouses, where they lay in stacks, breathing out memories of their lost worlds. Outside, the warehouse guards grew dizzy with images of bright sun or turkey dinners or children playing games on narrow streets.
Unquenchable Fire Page 24