Fantastic Women: 18 Tales of the Surreal and the Sublime from Tin House

by Неизвестный

  “Your mother called me at work this morning,” said Gordon. “She said you’ve been having—” here he paused, and rubbed his eyes. “She said you’ve been having visitors.”

  “Did she?” I said.

  In the pause following my question we could hear the infant babbling from the nursery down the hall, and the lower, more nasal babbling of my mother in turn.

  Gordon sighed again, making a frond on the miniature palm behind his chair bounce a little. Sighing did not become him. It did something prissy to his demeanor.

  “She said you’ve been taking in people off the street. She says she’s walked in on you talking to them in the kitchen a few times, and that you act like it’s normal and say they’re friends of yours, but she thinks you’ve never seen them before in your life. She’s concerned.”

  At this moment I felt another deep pull to the nursery, but instead I pressed my top teeth into my bottom lip and squeezed my thumbs equally hard with my fingers.

  “You’re irritated,” Gordon said.

  “She’s overreacting,” I said. I tasted some blood from my lip. Still, I maintained the gentle, controlled tone I had used earlier with my guest, about whom I was beginning to worry, imagining him alone in the kitchen. “I hope you’ll agree with me that it’s not a crime to have guests from the other side of the tracks, as it were.”

  Now Gordon’s pink-tinged eyes had locked onto me with an intensity that made me falter.

  “Well, it’s nothing to worry about,” I said. “They’re harmless. They never leave the kitchen. I give them a cup of coffee, we talk for a while, they leave. That’s all.”

  “That’s all?” Gordon closed his magazine. He put it on the side table by his chair, covering a small brass paperweight of a reclining nude. “Where do you find them, your visitors?”

  “I despise that tone,” I said. “I hope you don’t use it with your clients.”

  “Don’t change the subject, Bettine,” said Gordon.

  “What does it matter where they find me? Maybe I’m found.”

  “How do they get our address?” Gordon had softened the interrogative edge to his voice; nonetheless I could see he wasn’t about to stop questioning me.

  “How does anyone know anyone’s address?” I laughed. “If someone has a positive experience, they pass on the information. Isn’t that how it works?” I took a step closer to my husband’s chair.

  “We have so much,” I continued. “They have nothing. Why not give something?”

  Gordon didn’t answer. He rubbed his eyes for a long time, making a revolting sticky noise. Then he began to speak, slowly. “Help me out with this, Bettine. I’m having trouble getting my mind around this.”

  “Around what?”

  “This idea that you are inviting total and complete strangers into the privacy of our home. Could you explain it to me one more time?”

  “Fuck yourself, Gordon.” This was not what I’d meant to say. This was not who I was. I felt tears hot in my eyes.

  For a moment Gordon seemed about to stand and reach for me, but a noise made us both turn. My forgotten guest was dragging his pail across the Moroccan rug, making his halting way toward us.

  Feeling the blood rush to my head, I stepped quickly out of Gordon’s reach and spoke to my friend. “Please, come in. I’m so sorry for my rudeness.” I placed my hand on his shoulder, bending my knees slightly. “This is Gordon, my husband.” I tilted my head at Gordon, who was standing now, his arms folded.

  I realized then that I didn’t have the small man’s name. “And this,” I said, avoiding Gordon’s eyes, “is our guest.”

  Gordon said nothing. I raised my eyes just enough to see that he was scrutinizing the small man coldly. His nostrils were flared. The small man had fixed his own gaze on a spot under the side table; when I touched his shoulder again, I saw, on the tip of one of his eyelashes, a tear. It beaded and dropped, slowly.

  It would be a lie to say that I gave what I did next a lot of thought. Like swearing at my husband, I did it on impulse. I’d not brought any of my previous guests into any room other than the kitchen. Of these handful of sad, often smelly men and women, none of them had asked to see more of the place, and only two had needed to use the bathroom.

  “Please come with me,” I said. I turned my back on Gordon and led my charge down the hall, ignoring the sound of his bucket scuffing the parquet floors. I showed him the den, with its two computers and the thirty-six-inch flat-screen television Gordon had bought la famille for Christmas. We looked in on the spare room, the bathrooms, the master bedroom; I opened closets, revealing my pairs of shoes in their labeled boxes, and Gordon’s racks of suits and stacks of shirts; I even invited my new friend to try out the King (our name for the bed) but realized too late it would be impossible for him to leverage himself onto the mattress. I told him where things were, towels and lightbulbs and rubbing alcohol. Through all of this, my guest offered appreciation, bobbing his egglike head, smiling widely. Caught up in his enthusiasm, I pulled out my underwear drawer. Although my guest continued to nod and smile, I realized what I’d done and, feeling my cheeks prickle, I explained that I needed to do laundry and wanted to see how many clean pairs I had left. “Let’s go to the nursery,” I said.

  We crossed the hall.

  “Thank you for showing me your lovely home. But I’m afraid I’m messing up your floors.” He pointed at a whitish scrape where he’d pulled his bucket along.

  “What? No.” I waved this away. “A little oil soap and it’s gone.” By this time I’d expected my mother or Gordon to appear, but they hadn’t.

  I had only one clear thought as I stood outside the closed nursery door that separated me and the small man from Caroline and my mother: This was not how I wanted my child to be raised. I threw open the door and pulled my guest in beside me. Near the window that looked out on a pretty little garden on the roof of a shorter neighboring building, my mother was feeding the baby in the rocking chair. In contrast to the downy orb of my daughter’s head, my mother seemed made of angles. Her cheekbones jutted out beneath her eyes, her thin neck supported a small pointy head, emphasized by the ponytail into which she pulled her hair. We had the same stark coloring, me and my mother, and similar body types. People said we were the spitting image, but my mother liked to point out that she was French, whereas I was half American. “It is why she is so much bigger,” she would sometimes remark, as if this were charming.

  “Hi, Mom.”

  Without missing a beat in her rocking, she shot me a vicious glare. Her eyes narrowed, as mine do when I’m angry. Then she returned her gaze to the baby. Caroline waved her little paws and looked back at her grandmother as she suckled the bottle rhythmically.

  “She’s beautiful,” whispered the small man.

  “Thank you,” I said. “I think so, too.”

  “Mon dieu,” my mother said. “What on earth is wrong with you?”

  The small man looked alarmed. “Madam, I—”

  “I meant no offense to you, Monsieur; I was speaking to my . . . daughter.” She managed to make the word “daughter” sound as though it were being ground into dust under her heel. Still, she spoke softly so as not to disturb Caroline. “Forgive me, Monsieur, but I must speak to her.” Her eyes went back to the baby. “I don’t think it’s a good idea to allow unknown persons into your home. Not when you have a child, not when you’re alone, not ever. It’s time to use common sense.” She shifted her gaze away from Caroline, to the small man. “I’m sure you’re a very fine person, Monsieur . . .”

  “Carlos, I just go by Carlos.” He spoke his name clearly. I looked at him. He smiled at me, and winked.

  “Monsieur Carlos. But I’m going to have to ask you, in lieu of my daughter’s sense, to leave right away. It’s simply not a good time.”

  I felt the urge to lie down on the floor. I said, “This is my home. You don’t have the right to order my guests around. You don’t have the right—”

  “It’s ok
ay,” said Carlos. “She’s right. You’ve been very hospitable. More so than anyone I’ve ever met.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “But I am the decision maker in this household, not her, and I have not asked you to leave.” Pointedly, I looked at him, acting as though my mother were now invisible. “I like your company. In fact, I’d like you to stay for supper.”

  “Bettine,” my mother said. “Stop being irrational.”

  “Please,” said Carlos huskily. “That’s too kind.”

  “Not at all,” I said. “Do you like chicken?” I put my hand on the doorknob. It was a good thing my mother was stuck in the rocking chair; otherwise, from the look on her face she might have tried something physical.

  “Bettine!” my mother called after us.

  Briskly, I walked back down the hall with Carlos chinking behind me. We moved through the living room without pause; from the corner of my eye I glimpsed Gordon in his chair—he appeared to be reading his magazine again.

  “Listen, Carlos,” I said, once we were in the kitchen. “I need to do some grocery shopping.” I felt a little out of breath. I thought of lying on the couch in the living room, with my own magazine and a glass of wine. I thought of Caroline.

  “We have to go out, you know, to get the food.”

  Carlos nodded.

  But when we entered the foyer he dropped to his knees. And then he crawled underneath the mahogany secretary, pulling my husband’s coat up over him. I was amazed by how quickly he’d moved. I stood there for a minute, unsure of what to do.

  “Carlos?” I knelt down and tried to see under the desk. My father, who didn’t live to meet Caroline, had brought it from Africa when I was a child. It had a masklike face carved into the center of the fold-up lid, a visage with downward-pointing eyebrows and a beak nose; flowers, birds, and vines were carved across the drawers and the legs, which rested on claw feet. Carlos seemed to have curled up tightly under Gordon’s coat, though his bucket foot was sticking out. I had the feeling he just wanted to sleep. I understood. But I couldn’t leave him there. I couldn’t let him stay.

  There was no response, and I peered further under the desk. He had the coat pulled up to his chin like a blanket. “Carlos, I’m sorry. You really need to come out now.”

  Carlos sniffed and closed his eyes. He had jammed himself well in. “I know,” he said. “I know.”

  “Please,” I said. “You can come back anytime. Tomorrow, if you like. I’ll make more coffee.” I knew then that this wouldn’t happen. “This is really not a good time for this,” I said. I was panting.

  Carlos lay silent. We both stayed where we were, breathing, for several moments.

  Sometimes, when I think back on that day, I see Carlos’s foot sticking out from under my father’s desk and I can’t breathe and I feel I have to lie down. Given another chance, I might have chosen differently. I might have, I might have.

  “Gordon!” I called. Now it was my voice that sounded shrill and uneven. “I’m sorry. I need your help here.”

  Within moments my husband stood at the entrance to the foyer. He took in the scene: me, crouched on the floor, Carlos wedged under the secretary with the coat. I got to my feet and walked over to Gordon. We were nearly the same height.

  I thought he would be angry with me, but instead he looked into my eyes with his whole face, in that way he had when I first knew he loved me. He’d asked me to go swimming in the ocean. I wore a two-piece bathing suit and splashed him with my feet although I’d known him for only a short time. When I stopped splashing I saw he was looking at me not just with his eyes but with all his features open and shimmering in a kind of abandon, hiding nothing, seeing everything, inviting me to float across that plane of water, high above the fathoms, and glide into his life.

  In our foyer, I gazed back at my husband. His blue eyes veined with pink seemed the most familiar colors on earth. We didn’t have to say anything. Together, Gordon and I lifted the antique secretary off Carlos. Together, we carried him, his form motionless, stunted, heavy, through the door and onto the elevator. He didn’t struggle, nor did he help us. He said nothing; he barely breathed. We rode down from our floor, silently, our burden between us, and bore him across the flagstone lobby. We delivered the small man outside, onto the street.

  About the Authors

  AIMEE BENDER is the author of four books; the most recent, The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake, was the recipient of the SCIBA award and an Alex Award. Her short fiction has been published in Granta, GQ, Harper’s, Tin House, the Paris Review, and other publications, as well as heard on PRI’s This American Life and Selected Shorts. She lives in Los Angeles, where she teaches creative writing at USC.

  KATE BERNHEIMER is the author of three novels, including The Complete Tales of Lucy Gold, and the story collection Horse, Flower, Bird, which is illustrated by Rikki Ducornet. She also edits fairy-tale anthologies, including My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate: Forty New Fairy Tales.

  JUDY BUDNITZ is the author of two story collections, Flying Leap and Nice Big American Baby, and a novel, If I Told You Once.

  SARAH SHUN - LIEN BYNUM is the author of two novels: Ms. Hempel Chronicles, a finalist for the 2009 PEN/Faulkner Award, and Madeleine Is Sleeping, a finalist for the 2004 National Book Award and winner of the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize. Her fiction has appeared in several magazines and anthologies, including the New Yorker, Tin House, the Georgia Review, and The Best American Short Stories 2004 and 2009. The recipient of a Whiting Writers’ Award and an NEA Fellowship, she directs the MFA program in writing at the University of California, San Diego. She lives in Los Angeles and was recently included on the New Yorker’s 20 Under 40 list.

  LUCY CORIN is the author of the short story collection The Entire Predicament (Tin House Books) and the novel Everyday Psychokillers: A History for Girls (FC2). Her stories have appeared in American Short Fiction, Conjunctions, Ploughshares, Tin House, New Stories from the South: The Year’s Best, and a lot of other places. She’s been a fellow at Breadloaf and Sewanee, and a resident at Yaddo and the Radar Lab.

  LYDIA DAVIS is the author of Varieties of Disturbance, which was a National Book Award finalist; Samuel Johnson Is Indignant; Almost No Memory; The End of the Story; and Break It Down. Her latest book is Collected Stories. Her work has appeared in Conjunctions , Harper’s, the New Yorker, Bomb, the Paris Review, Tin House, McSweeney’s, and many other magazines and literary journals. Davis has translated works by the French writers Maurice Blanchot and Michel Leiris; she has also completed a highly acclaimed new translation of Marcel Proust’s Swann’s Way for Penguin Classics and a new translation of Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary. Among other honors, she has been awarded a MacArthur Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and a Lannan Literary Prize and has been named Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French Government. In 2003, she won the French-American Translation Prize, and in 2005 she was inducted into the Academy of Arts & Sciences. She lives in upstate New York with her family.

  The author of eight novels, three collections of short fiction, a book of essays, and five books of poetry, RIKKI DU CORNET has twice been honored by the Lannan Foundation. She has received the Bard College Arts and Letters Award and, in 2008, an Academy Award in Literature. Her work is widely published abroad. Recent exhibitions of her paintings include the 2007 solo show Desirous at the Pierre Menard Gallery in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and the group shows O Reverso Do Olhar in Coimbra, Portugal, in 2008, and El Umbral Secreto at the Museo de la Solidaridad Salvador Allende in Santiago, Chile, in 2009. She has illustrated books by Jorge Luis Borges, Robert Coover, Forrest Gander, Kate Bernheimer, Joanna Howard, and Anne Waldman, among others.

  JULIA ELLIOTT teaches English and Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of South Carolina. She sings and plays keyboards for the band Grey Egg. Her fiction has appeared in Tin House, the Georgia Review, Conjunctions, Puerto Del Sol, the Mississippi Review, Fence, the anthology Best American Fantasy 2007, and othe
r publications.

  SAMANTHA HUNT’s second novel, The Invention of Everything Else, was a finalist for the Orange Prize and winner of the Bard Fiction Prize. Her first novel, The Seas, won a National Book Foundation award for writers under thirty-five. She lives in Tivoli, New York, and teaches at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn.

  MIRANDA JULY is a writer, performer, and moviemaker living in Los Angeles.

  KELLY LINK is the author of three collections: Pretty Monsters, Magic for Beginners, and Stranger Things Happen. Her short stories have won three Nebula awards, a Hugo, a Locus, and a World Fantasy Award. She was born in Miami, Florida, and once won a free trip around the world by answering the question “Why do you want to go around the world?” (“Because you can’t go through it.”) Link lives in Northampton, Massachusetts, where she and her husband, Gavin J. Grant, run Small Beer Press and play pingpong. In 1996 they started the occasional zine Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet.

  LYDIA MILLET is the author of eight books, including a story collection called Love in Infant Monkeys (2009), which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, and a novel, How the Dead Dream, the first in a series whose second and third installments, Ghost Lights and Magnificence, will come out from W.W. Norton in fall 2011 and fall 2012. Her first novel for young readers, called The Fires Beneath the Sea, was published by Small Beer Press in May 2011.