Impossible Views of the World

by Lucy Ives

  I opted for euphemism. “Just keep me in your peripheral vision, Fred. That’s all I really need!”

  Fred seemed to take this remark seriously. He muttered, “OK.” He was listening, part of him now like a boy who is receiving an explanation as to why sadistically stepping on small invertebrate creatures is an ethical bad move. He was treating me with strange awe, as if the manifestations of my affect were some species of delicious arctic fish that had to be shipped live from afar then meticulously gutted lest some slip of the blade render the flesh poisonous. I could tell he was drawing from this conversation not so much information about the state of whatever was transpiring between the two of us as “life lessons” to which he would later refer, as he moved on through the series of carefully coordinated events that would form the rest of his “life.” And yet there was this thing, and all the while this thing was continuing to transpire. And there was some small unscientific part of Fred that did not just perceive this but agreed with me about what it meant.

  “I’m just saying, I don’t like your desire for total knowledge about me, if you know what I mean, Fred? That can only lead to pain. Didn’t Nietzsche have an aphorism for that?”

  Fred was silent.

  “Look,” I said, barreling violently on, “I fell in love with you and it didn’t work out. Too bad for me. I know you just want to share some office etiquette protips. I get that! I get it. It’s great! It’s very nice of you. Very thoughtful. I am trying. I just have to be able to care about you, even if you don’t care about me, and that isn’t easy. It actually hurts my pride, not to mention my sense of self-respect. I know based on my actions it might not be totally obvious, but I do have some.”

  Fred allowed the air to cease churning. “I just think,” he pronounced slowly, not without softness, “that for me life is easiest when I can care about a number of people.”

  “You are saying I make this impossible?”

  “I am saying that is not how caring about you seems to work.”

  [ 13 ]

  Here’s what, by the way, I knew: I, Stella Krakus, was either onto something major at the Central Museum of Art, or I was surrounded by a veritable clusterfuck of fever dreams and their respective paranoiac authors, into whose ranks I would soon perhaps, if I was not careful, be able to induct myself.

  If we can turn for a moment from the beautiful impossibility that was Fred, this fascinating hyperrational narcissist, if we can kind of freeze him where he sits, like the leftovers of that strange arctic fish to which he compared my feelings, I can attempt to articulate something about what I had lately learned. I can say that for starters Paul’s research, as read by me on the previous night, had not been easy to parse, at least not for a newcomer. There were literally hundreds of PDF’ed auction catalogs and scanned antiques periodicals extolling the magnitude of sales of earlier American art and furniture, detailing the particulars of various American artifacts. These were haphazardly grouped in a folder titled simply “FACTS.” I had begun to make my way through these.

  I had been hoping that there might be some obvious thread connecting these various documents of sales, like a single collector. But this appeared not to be the case. Nor was the market in question particularly uniform. There were important American hand-knotted carpets, earlier musical instruments, Hepplewhite, Colonial glassware, weather vanes, and so on, along with portraits, scenic watercolors, theorem paintings, and the like. Eventually I had given up on this cache and turned instead to the only slightly more perturbingly titled folder, “LIES.” This one had to make you wince a little, since it seemed to reveal Paul’s state of mind. I was willing, more than willing, to go along with him in the supposition that individuals were not being entirely truthful much or most of the time. But I found the distinction drawn between fact and lie a little rich. Or, to return to a term I introduced earlier, paranoid.

  Anyway, inside the “LIES” folder were somewhere between thirty and forty historicist academic articles addressing the arts and material culture of the United States. Included was a piece by Bonnie on periodicity in botany engraving and Fred’s well-known revision of certain canonical assumptions about Gilbert Stuart’s education. (My zebra piece was evidently deemed too “truthful” to make it into this anthology.) What Paul had amassed here was essentially the accepted wisdom, the scholarship. This was what people thought that American art before 1900 was.

  So, OK, possibly everything that everyone had managed to think about the history of earlier North American/Euro aesthetics was trash. I mean, it was unlikely, but fine, why not say it was possible, if that was what Paul meant by his folder title. We could consider the notion that all of these scholars were not just wrong but consciously and therefore nefariously (?) making things up.

  But it did occur to me that Paul might have meant something slightly different. Etymologically, fact and fiction are nearly synonymous, derived from Latin verbs meaning, on the one hand, “to make/do,” and on the other, “to make/form.” Since facts are, therefore, as I see it, practically semantically identical to fictions, one may invent one’s pleasant facts just as easily as one’s comfy, palatable untruths. And I have found that one can lie to oneself very effectively within the confines of one’s own mind. I wasn’t yet sure if Paul felt the same way. I wasn’t sure if he had ever been betrayed, or, if he had, on what sort of time scale. For duration, I felt, makes all the difference.

  I was thinking about the last meaningful conversation Paul and I had shared. The blessed solitude of my otherwise uncultivated cafeteria table had been, on the day in question, interrupted by the shadow of a tall, stooped figure.

  “Hello, Paul,” I said.

  “Hello yourself.”

  “How are you?”

  “What an awful question,” Paul told me.

  If I am recalling accurately, Paul’s tray contained an egg salad sandwich sliced on the diagonal, one small bottle of apple juice, a stack of twenty or so white paper napkins, a black plastic spoon, and one dish of pine-green gelatin.

  “I didn’t know they had that,” I said, indicating his dessert.

  “All cafeterias are required, by law.”

  I told him, “Neat.”

  Paul rotated the plate containing the sandwich so that one of its corner points was pointing directly at the center of his chest. He told me, “I enjoyed your remarks on Fluidomanie.” There was a sort of prurient glint in his eye, but I elected to ignore it.

  Paul was referring to http://mais-mon-ami-tu-t-es-tromped-omnibus.tumblr.com, a blog I used to keep but which is now, as of about a month or so ago, defunct. There had been some important developments regarding Daumier’s satirical series on drawing room séances. The mania for “fluid” referenced in Daumier’s title had mainly to do with the role of ether and other sorts of imaginary shareable goo in nineteenth-century communications with the dead. As I had contended in my post, ectoplasm, which had recently come on the scene in the acts of certain female mediums, was a curious, metaphorical substance. What were the full connotations of a performance in which a woman spontaneously “emitted” this uncanny jelly? It definitely had something to do with the changing role of women in industrialized society, but just what this role was became kind of a sticky issue upon closer examination.

  “Thanks.”

  “Not at all. Nice you’re going more material.”

  I asked to know what this might mean.

  “Oh. That you’re less driven by questions of technique and schools? You actually dare to read the artwork as an autonomous entity? It’s fun to see you try something new. I think otherwise you have a tendency to take a rather bloodless view?” Paul lowered a hand onto one half of his sandwich and raised it to his lips. The triangle of rye was inserted and compacted. Paul continued, “I assume that’s how they train you people these days. But you, Stella Krakus, possess an intriguing feral side.”

  Paul was an unusual sensualist. Crumbs began to collect on the front of his already dander-powdered dark blue sweater
. It was not lost on me that I could have chosen to entertain a more generous view of Paul’s person. As the department’s longtime registrar, he was ostensibly well respected, not to mention knowledgeable, and he was additionally nice enough to take an interest in my writing, such as it was, but I couldn’t help finding his physical appearance sort of awful. Now the second half of his sandwich met its end.

  I contemplated my cup of thin orange soup. All the food served here was vaguely revolting, and really what I wanted to do was go somewhere and think some more about some works on paper I had lately been researching. “I guess,” I told Paul.

  “But soon you’ll know,” Paul was saying, revealing one or two views of the interior landscape of his mouth.

  I was forced to look away. Now I asked, staring into my mug of lemon tea, “Was that what you wanted to talk about?”

  There came a series of forceful coughs. Paul rummaged in his napkins.

  I shifted my gaze back to Paul’s face.

  He was wiping his mouth, daubing the edges of his watering eyes. “How is that?” For a second he seemed terrified.

  “I just meant,” I began, “I mean, my blog is so silly.”

  “Silly?” said Paul. He seemed, if I may engage for a moment in understatement, disappointed. Deflated was more accurate. “Stella,” said Paul, “what you write is a lot of things, but silly is not one of them.”

  And it was funny now, thinking back on this exchange, which at the time had been interrupted by the arrival of one of Paul’s interns, whose name I think was Felix. It was as if I had struck some kind of nerve there with Paul, though at the time I did not have any reason to give it a second thought. It was a useful memory, or somewhat more useful, when it came to me now. When I thought about it in relation to G. G. Hennicott’s novel, for example. If Paul knew about Lorelei of Millbury, if he had been at all sympathetic to that rather unique romance, then perhaps this could have been related to his apparent liking for my fluidomaniacal reflections. Maybe he even saw me as a fellow Hennicott fan!

  Still, I had no idea what the connection between the book and the map was, frustratingly. Who had made the map? Why did Paul have it? And, most burning question of all, where oh where was the original? All the people running around my life were distracting me from what should have been the fruits of my labor, i.e., not drama but cold, hard, calculated knowledge. I would have been more than willing to meet all of them for a séance or some other summoning of the spirits, ectoplasmic goop notwithstanding, if only we could please let the matter of whatever was so troublingly wrong with me be! It was not the most sensitive thought a human being has ever had, seeing as my colleague was only recently at rest, but perhaps Paul Coral might intercede on my behalf, were I able to arrange a supernatural convocation.

  There was still a folder to go in what I had retrieved from Paul’s computer. This one was titled only “etc.” It was a lot smaller than the other two and contained just a couple of text-only documents. I hadn’t had the energy to go into it the night before. I could hold out some hope for that now.

  But for the moment I was still stuck on Fred’s line: “I am saying that is not how caring about you seems to work.” It was such an incredibly beautiful formulation, nearly demonic, when you took a moment to think about it. Something worthy of a mind fucker on the exalted level of a Caro, even, and Fred was still so early on in his game! Fred was a lover whose hold over me, though all but disavowed from his side, would not quit. He’d cut deeply, and somehow the incision continued, as if mechanical, automated. Indeed, I was able to expand my lover’s aphoristic phrase into something that made slightly more (if syllogistic) sense:

  Stella loves Frederick.

  Frederick loves Stella.

  For Frederick, upon reflection, the verb to love is defined as “loving multiple women, when he likes, with varying degrees of transparency regarding this behavior, with said mercurial transparency being a significant factor in his ability to love.”

  For Stella, the verb to love is defined as “loving one person.”

  Frederick understands Stella.

  Therefore, Frederick and Stella are not in love.

  I also, I need to be completely honest, even if it makes me grind my teeth and stamp my feet, had always known about Fred’s longtime girlfriend, even before I had reason to Google her on a weekly basis. She was a bicoastal financial advisor. She apparently gave Fred plenty of downtime to pursue his definition of love. I have only ever seen her face in photographs, but both Forbes and Frederick Lu insist she’s real.

  [ 14 ]

  It was not easy to sit there, to listen to Fred. He wasn’t just speculating about a world in which he could both love and not love, he was actively creating this world. I don’t mean to portray myself as a total naïf, but this was precisely the sort of dialectic I had gotten married in order to avoid.

  The problem was how simple it was to remember the feeling of being with him, even ten months after the event, how near to hand the memory was, his fingers moving lazily as I kissed him, me above him. I said, “You are so sweet.” It was so gentle. And a human being can feel so worn out.

  It does still make me feel a little better to describe some of what happened. Sort of fake the second night. We were both wanting to fuck all day long. Thinking of it constantly. I immediately took off my clothes. And it was sort of arid, intellectual or something. He did not come inside me. We were lying down and he seemed concerned that I might become pregnant. I explained that, due to the presence of 100 percent of his recent ejaculation on my stomach, plus the current state of my cycle, which did not involve the availability of an egg, this would be a miracle. Then I said that what he should be more concerned about was the fact that I did not come.

  “What shall I do?”

  “I can’t say,” I said.

  “Do you want me to go down on you?”

  “Yes,” I told him.

  I don’t remember if it took very long, but it was only when he put his fingers inside me that I eventually came. It was shallow, I had to press for it, and it was very clitoral. I was vaguely proud of myself for coming, all the same.

  Fred then wanted to know, “Keep going?” Why is it men say this? Do you want me to bite your dick or keep squeezing it or what is it? Surely no one wants that. I told him no.

  I was worried that I would have a cramp in my right calf muscle from flexing it so hard as I tried to get there, but subsequently I did not feel anything. I do not remember if I thanked him. I do remember that somewhere I asked him not to be possessive of me, not to “lead me around on a leash.” He was somewhat irritable at the time, probably exhausted. A peck good night and then back to my own brick hut.

  I became nonchalant myself, thinking this. Being able to narrate such things makes them seem manageable, clichés somehow. I could have said that “my heart had been aching for months,” that I had felt so low and not about a lie but about the fact that I could have allowed this to happen for something that didn’t seem like love. All the same, it wasn’t not love. I knew that I, like Fred, had made an argument to myself about my own way of living, about marriage and all else. I had accepted it, valued it—through argumentation. I had practiced my life. I could just as easily not practice it: Or, it was not going to be easy.

  I considered, in the vacant staff cafeteria, pawing at Fred’s chest. I considered telling him that he couldn’t keep doing this, that we could not keep having the same conversation in which he told me that he cared about me, kept me on the hook, all the while letting me know he didn’t care and didn’t have to. I wanted to tell him to stop letting me lead myself on. To stop emailing me every month and letting me hug him and inviting me out to platonic discussions like the current one, in which we would vivisect our still-breathing love. I wanted to say this, even as I wanted none of this, not a single part or iota, to ever, ever end. Because this was, naturally enough, the definition of Stella-Krakus love, and now that Stella Krakus no longer had a husband to distract her, she woul
d be able to live her particular species of love out with even greater specificity and less contradiction, with respect to its peculiar definition.

  Fred was waiting for me to say something.

  “I guess that’s true.”

  “What is?”

  “That I’d want you all for myself.” It was terrifying to say such things. “I’m like that. I’m not confused on that point, at least.” I attempted a smile. “Thank you.”

  “I’m sorry, why are you thanking me? Does this mean we’re going to see some improvement in office demeanor?”

  “Why not?” I told him. I wanted very badly to hurt him now, but I felt that it was unlikely that I would succeed with anything near the devastating effect that would make the attempt worthwhile. “Thanks, you made me realize what it is I need.” I produced another false smile.

  “Would you mind telling me what exactly that is? As a kind of courtesy?” Fred’s reaction was difficult to characterize.

  “Ha. Sure. A Band-Aid. I think I cut myself.”

  And with this cryptic non sequitur placed squarely between us, I bid Frederick adieu. I was like, “Got to answer some email!” There was no way in hell I was going to start being nice to him anytime soon, but as long as he remained ill at ease after a fashion that served my interests, we would be getting along well enough. NB: I never said my loving someone meant that I would always be transparent.

  Anyway, I had achieved a minor mental breakthrough, and it was time to see if my hunch was correct. I exited the staff cafeteria by way of the back stairs, headed over to the American Wing. I hung a left, scampered up a priceless lapis and ivory stair, extracted from the famous Quartier Oriental of the first Sapersmythe residence, to the second floor. On the American balcony daylight was describing diverse cased decorative things pertinent to the lifestyles of the robber barons of our nation. I passed a large display of ceramic spoons. I admired a tiered arrangement of silver gravy boats. As I passed, I examined the nearest of these servers, one that had a deft gooseneck handle, by which I mean, the actual miniature neck of a goose. The beak of this finely articulated head of fowl was clamped down over a lily pad. When the boat was filled to capacity, the goose would appear, amazingly enough, to be dipping the leaf daintily into the gravy. I went down the hall, entering one of the 1909-style display spaces maintained in memory of the Fultham-Rhys exhibition. Here furnishings are displayed on raised plinths pushed back somewhat unnaturally against the wall, though one still has a sense of domestic space—even if compacted, even without the obvious, diorama-esque artifice of the period room. It’s a dreary walkway, if you ask me, but something that balances the funhouse effect of the wing’s numerous period arrangements, which are complete with artificial skies and daylight just beyond the rooms’ windows.