My Mistress's Sparrow Is Dead: Great Love Stories, From Chekhov to Munro

by Jeffrey Eugenides

  Out in the minivan I said, Well, I am decided, and Carolyn said,

  Well, I am, too. And then there was this long dead silence, because I knew and she knew that what we had both decided was not the same

  decision, not at all, that old crony had somehow rung her bell!

  And I said, How do you know what she said is even true?

  And she said, I just know.

  That night in our double Privacy Tarp, Carolyn nudged me awake and said, Jon, doesn’t it make sense to make our mistakes in the direction of giving our kid the best possible chance at a beautiful life?

  And I was like, Chick, please take a look in the Fridge, where there is every type of food that must be kept cold, take a look on top of the Fridge, where there is every type of snack, take a look in our Group Closet, which is packed with gratis designerwear such as Baby Gap and even Baby Ann Taylor, whereas what kind of beautiful life are you proposing, with a Fridge that is empty both inside and on top, and the three of us going around all sloppenly, because I don’t know about you but

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  my skill set is pretty limited in terms of what do I know how to do, and if you go into the Fashion Module for Baby Ann Taylor and click with your blinking eyes on Pricing Info you will find that they are not just giving that shit away.

  And she said, Oh, Jon, you break my heart, that night when you

  came to my Tarp you were like a lion taking what he wanted but now you are like some bunny wiffling his nose in fright.

  Well, that wasn’t nice, and I told her that wasn’t nice, and she said, Jesus, don’t whine, you are whining like a bunny, and I said I would rather be a bunny than a rag, and she said maybe I better go sleep somewhere else.

  So I went out to Boys and slept on the floor, it being too late to check out a Privacy Tarp.

  And I was pissed/sad, because no dude likes to think of himself as a rabbit, because once your girl thinks of you as a rabbit, how will she ever again think of you as a lion? And all of the sudden I felt very much like starting over with someone who would always think of me as a lion and never as a rabbit, and who really got it about how lucky we were.

  Laying there in Boys, I did what I always did when confused, which was call up my Memory Loop of my mom, where she is baking a pie

  with her red hair up in a bun, and as always she paused in her rolling and said, Oh, my little man, I love you so much, which is why I did the most difficult thing of all, which was part with you my darling, so that you could use your exceptional intelligence to do that most holy of things, help other people. Stay where you are, do not get distracted, have a content and productive life, and I will be happy too.

  Blinking on End, I was like, Thanks, Mom, you have always been there for me, I really wish I could have met you in person before you died.

  In the morning Slippen woke me by giving me the light shock on the foot bottom which was sometimes useful to help us arise if we had to arise early and were in need of assistance, and said to please accompany him, as we had a bit of a sticky wicket in our purview.

  Waiting in Conference Room 6 were Mr. Dove and Mr. Andrews

  and Mr. Delacourt himself, and at the end of the table Carolyn, looking

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  small, with both hands on her pile of Exit Paperwork and her hair in braids, which I had always found cute, her being like that milkmaid for Swiss Rain Chocolate (LI 10003), who suddenly throws away her pail and grows sexy via taking out her braids, and as some fat farm ladies line up by a silo and also take out their braids to look sexy their thin husbands look dubious and run for the forest.

  Randy, Mr. Dove said, Carolyn here has evinced a desire to Exit. What we would like to know is, being married, do you have that same desire?

  And I looked at Carolyn like, You are jumping to some conclusion

  because of one little fight, when it was you who called me the rabbit first, which is the only reason I called you rag?

  It ’s not because of last night, Jon, Carolyn said.

  Randy, I sense some doubt? Mr. Dove said.

  And I had to admit some doubt was being felt by me, because it

  seemed more than ever like she was some sort of malcontentish girl who would never be happy no matter how good things were.

  Maybe you kids would like some additional time, Mr. Andrews said.

  Some time to talk it over and be really sure.

  I don’t need any additional time, Carolyn said.

  And I said, You’re going no matter what? No matter what I do?

  And she said, Jon, I want you to come with me so bad, but, yes, I’m going.

  And Mr. Dove said, Wait a minute, who is Jon?

  And Mr. Andrews said, Randy is Jon, it is apparently some sort of pet name between them.

  And Mr. Slippen said to us, Look, guys, I have been married for

  nearly thirty years and it has been my experience that, when in doubt, take a breath. Err on the side of being together. Maybe, Carolyn, the thing to do is, I mean, your Paperwork is complete, we will hold on to it, and maybe Randy, as a concession to Carolyn, you could complete your Paperwork, and we ’ll hold on to it for you, and when you both decide the time is right, all you have to do is say the word and we will—

  I’m going today, Carolyn said. As soon as possible.

  And Mr. Dove looked at me and said, Jon, Randy, whoever, are you

  prepared to go today?

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  And I said no. Because what is her rush, I was feeling, why is she looking so frantic with furrowed anxious brow like that Claymation chicken at LI 98473 who says the sky is falling the sky is falling and turns out it is only a Dodge Ramcharger, which crushes her from on high and one arm of hers or wing sticks out with a sign that says March Madness Daze?

  And Slippen said, Guys, guys, I find this a great pity. You are terrific together. A real love match.

  Carolyn was crying now and said, I am so sorry, but if I wait I might change my mind, which I know in my heart would be wrong.

  And she thrust her Exit Paperwork across at Slippen.

  Then Dove and Andrews and Delacourt began moving with great

  speed, as if working directly from some sort of corporate manual, which actually they were, Mr. Dove had some photocopied sheets, and reading from the sheets, he asked was there anyone with whom she wished to have a fond last private conversation, and she said, Well duh, and we were both left briefly alone.

  She took a deep breath while looking at me all tender and said, Oh Gadzooks. Which that broke my heart, Gadzooks being what we sometimes said at nice privacy moments in our Privacy Tarp when over-

  whelmed by our good luck in terms of our respective bodies looking so hot and appropriate, Gadzooks being from LI 38492 for Zookers Gum, where the guy blows a bubble so Zookified it ingests a whole city and the city goes floating up to Mars.

  At this point her tears were streaming down and mine also, because up until then I thought we had been so happy.

  Jon, please, she said.

  I just can’t, I said.

  And that was true.

  So we sat there quiet with her hands against my hands like Colo-

  nel Sanders and his wife at LI 87345, where he is in jail for refusing to give up the recipe for KFC Haitian MiniBreasts, and then Carolyn said, I didn’t mean that thing about the rabbit, and I scrinkled up my nose rabbit-like to make her laugh.

  But apparently in the corporate manual there is a time limit on fond

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  last private conversations, because in came Kyle and Blake from Security, and Carolyn kissed me hard, like trying to memorize my mouth, and whispered, Someday come find us.

  Then they took her away, or she took them away rather, because she was so far in front that they had to like run to keep up as she clomped loudly away in her Kenneth Cole boots,
which by the way they did not let her keep those, because that night, selecting my pajamas, I found them back in the Group Closet.

  Night after night after that I would lay or lie alone in our Privacy Tarp, which now held only her nail clippers and her former stuffed dog Lefty, and during the days Slippen let me spend many unbillable hours in the much-coveted window seat, just scanning some images or multiscan-ning some images, and around me would be the other facility Boys and Girls, all Assessing, all smiling, because we were still on the twice-a-day Aurabon®, and thinking of Carolyn in those blue scrubs, alone in the Lerner Center, I would apply for additional Aurabon® via filling out a Work-Affecting Mood-Problem Notification, which Slippen would

  always approve, being as he felt so bad for me.

  And the Aurabon® would make things better, as Aurabon® always

  makes things better, although soon what I found was, when you are hooking in like eight or nine times a day, you are always so happy, and yet it is a kind of happy like chewing on tinfoil, and once you are living for that sort of happy, you soon cannot be happy enough, even when you are very very happy and are even near tears due to the beauty of the round metal hooks used to hang your facility curtains, you feel this intense wish to be even happier, so you tear yourself away from the beautiful curtain hooks and with shaking happy hands fill out another Work-Affecting Mood-Problem Notification, and then, because nothing in your facility is beautiful enough to look at with your new level of happiness, you sit in the much-coveted window seat and start lendelling in this crazy uncontrolled way, calling up, say, the Nike one with the Hanging Gardens of Babylon (LI 89736), and though it is beautiful, it is not beautiful enough, so you scatter around some Delicate Secrets lingerie models from LI 22314, and hang fat Dole oranges and bananas in the

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  trees (LI 76765), and add like a sky full of bright stars from LI 74638 for Crest, and from the Smell Palate supplied by the antiallergen Capaviv®

  you fill the air with jasmine and myrrh, but still that is not beautiful enough, so you blink on End and fill out another Work-Affecting

  Mood-Problem Notification, until finally one day Mr. Dove comes over and says, Randy, Jon, whatever you are calling yourself these days—a couple of items. First, it seems to us that you are in some private space not helpful to you, and so we are cutting back your Aurabon® to twice a day like the other folks, and please do not sit in that window seat anymore, it is hereby forbidden to you, and plus we are going to put you on some additional Project Teams, since it is our view that idle hands are the devil’s work area. Also, since you are only one person, it is not fair, we feel, for you to have a whole double Privacy Tarp to yourself, you must, it seems to us, rejoin your fellow Boys in Boys.

  So that night I went back with Rudy and Lance and Jason and the

  others, and they were nice, as they are always nice, and via No. 10 cable Jason shared with me some Still Photos from last year’s Christmas party, of Carolyn hugging me from behind with her cute face appearing beneath my armpit, which made me remember how after the party in our Privacy Tarp we played a certain game, which it is none of your beeswax who I was in that game and who she was, only believe me, that was a memorable night, with us watching the snow fall from the much-coveted window seat, in which we sat snuggling around midnight, when we had left our Tarp to take a break for air, and also we were both sort of sore.

  Which made it all that much more messed-up and sad to be sleeping once again alone in Boys.

  When the sliding wall came out to make our Gender Areas, I noticed they had fixed it so nobody could slide through anymore, via five metal rods. All we could do was, by putting our mouths to the former gap, say good night to the Girls, who all said good night back from their respective Privacy Tarps in this sort of muffled way.

  But I did not do that, as I had nobody over there I wished to say good night to, they all being like merely sisters to me, and that was all.

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  So that was the saddest time of my life thus far for sure.

  Then one day we were all laying or lying on our stomachs playing

  Hungarian Headchopper for GameBoy, a new proposed one where you

  are this dude with a scythe in your mother’s garden, only what your mother grows is heads, when suddenly a shadow was cast over my game by Mr. Slippen, which freaked up my display, and I harvested three unripe heads, but the reason Slippen was casting his shadow was, he had got a letter for me, from Carolyn!

  And I was so nervous opening it, and even more nervous after opening it, because inside were these weird like marks I could not read, like someone had hooked a pen to the back leg of a bird and said, Run little bird, run around this page and I will mail it for you. And the parts I could read were bumming me out even worse, such as she had wrote all sloppenly, Jon a abbot is a cove, a glen, it is something with prayerful guys all the livelong day in silence as they move around they are sure of one thing which is the long-term stability of a product we not only stand behind we run behind since what is wrong with taking a chance even if that chance has horns and hoofs and it is just you and your worst fear in front of ten thousand screaming supporters of your last chance to be the very best you can be?

  And then thank God it started again looking like the pen on the foot of the running bird.

  I thought of how hot and smart she had looked when doing a cross-word with sunglasses on her head in Hilfiger cutoffs, I thought of her that first night in her Privacy Tarp, naked except for her La Perla panties in the light that came from the Exit sign through the thin blue Privacy Tarp, so her flat tummy and not-flat breasts and flirty smile were all blue, and then all of the sudden I felt like the biggest jerk in the world, because why had I let her go? It was like I was all of the sudden waking up! She was mine and I was hers, she was so thin and cute, and now she was at the Lerner Center all alone? Shaking and scared with a bloody hole in her neck and our baby in her belly, hanging out with all those other scared shaking people with bloody holes in their necks, only none of them knew her and loved her like I did? I had done such a dumb-shit thing to her, all the time thinking it was sound reasoning, because isn’t that how it is with our heads, when we

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  are in them it always makes sense, but then later, when you look back, we sometimes are like, I am acting like a total dumbass!

  Then Brad came up and was like, Dude, time to hook in.

  And I was like, Please Brad, do not bother me with that shit at this time.

  And I went to get Slippen, only he was at lunch, so I went to get Dove and said, Sir, I hereby Request my appropriate Exit Paperwork.

  And he said, Randy, please, you’re scaring me, don’t act rash, have a look out the window.

  I had a look, and tell the truth it did not look that good, such as the Rustic Village Apartments, out of which every morning these bummed-out-looking guys in the plainest non-designer clothes ever would trudge out and get in their junky cars. And was someone joyfully kissing them goodbye, like saying when you come home tonight you will get a big treat, which is me? No, the person who should have been kissing them with joy was yelling, or smoking, or yelling while smoking, and when the dudes came home they would sit on their stoops with heads in hand, as if all day long at work someone had been pounding them with clubs on their heads, saying they were jerks.

  Then Mr. Dove said, Randy, Randy, why would a talented young

  person like yourself wish to surrender his influence in the world and become just another lowing cattle in the crowd, don’t you know how much people out there look up to you and depend on you?

  And that was true. Because sometimes kids from Rustic Village

  would come over and stand in our lava rocks with our TrendSetters & TasteMakers gum cards upheld, pressing them to our windo
w, and when we would wave to them or strike the pose we were posing on our gum cards, they would race back all happy to their crappy apartments, probably to tell their moms they had seen the real actual us, which was probably like the high point of their weeks.

  But still, when I thought of those birdlike markings of Carolyn’s letter, I don’t know, something just popped, I felt I was at a distinct tilt, and I blurted out, No, no, just please bring me the freaking Paperwork, I am Requesting, and I thought when I Requested you had to do it!

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  And Dove said sadly, We do, Randy, when you Request, we have to

  do it.

  Dove called the other Coordinators over and said, Larry, your little pal here has just Requested his Paperwork.

  And Slippen said, I’ll be damned.

  What a waste, Delacourt said. This is one super kid.

  One of our best, Andrews said.

  Which was true, with me five times winning the Cooperative Spirit Award and once even the Denny O’Malley Prize, Denny O’Malley

  being this Assessor in Chicago, IL, struck down at age ten, who died with a smile on his face of leukemia.

  Say what you will, it takes courage, Slippen said. Going after one ’s wife and all.

  Yes and no, Delacourt said. If you, Larry, fall off a roof, does it help me to go tumbling after you?

  But I am not your wife, Slippen said. Pregnant wife.

  Wife or no, pregnant or no, Delacourt said. What we then have are two folks not feeling so good in terms of that pavement rushing up. No one is helped. Two are crushed. In effect three are crushed.

  Baby makes three, Andrews said.

  Baby does make three, said Delacourt.

  Although anything is possible, Slippen said. You know, the two

  of them together, the three of them, maybe they could make a go of it—