The Collected Stories

by Leonard Michaels

  She remembered him so well. She had called out his name in the street. How could he say, “Who are you?” Another man might have been able to say it. Not Nachman. In a few hours, she would expect him to show up and meet her husband. The prospect of joining strangers for dinner had something adventurous about it, even devilish and appropriate to New York. Nachman didn’t know anyone in the city who was as friendly as his old friend Helen Ferris, whoever she was. Any moment it would come to him. Her wide cheekbones and dark, roundish, somewhat fleshy face, with its maternally sexy brown eyes, looked Semitic, maybe a little Asian, but she might just as easily be Mexican or Puerto Rican. He’d known women who looked like her, but remembered none named Helen. She was quite attractive, though a little scary. You’d think he’d remember her for that reason. Had she noticed his confusion? People can tell if you recognize them or not. They see it in your eyes, hear it in your voice. If she knew Nachman didn’t recognize her, then she was complicit in his failure to admit it. Oh well, Nachman would get the question out of the way when he saw her again. It would be more embarrassing later than it would have been a few minutes ago, but he would show up for dinner and confess. The key to Helen Ferris’s apartment was in his pants pocket. Her card was in his wallet. It said Helen Ferris, Editorial Consultant, but it told him nothing about who she was.

  Dinner was still a few hours away. Nachman continued walking aimlessly, trying to remember. How do you try to remember? You make yourself passive, receptive, available. If it comes it comes. A strange kind of trying. He wondered if there had been a clue to her identity in what she’d said. Unfortunately, Nachman had done most of the talking. The look in Helen Ferris’s eyes and her red smile came to him; nothing else. She refused to step from the shadows of his mind.

  The late-October weather felt summery, but as the afternoon wore on, Nachman detected a quality in the breeze that was too poignant for summer, had too fine an edge. Another year was almost over. Nachman liked the poignancy, could almost see it in the changing light. The sun would soon be lower in the sky. Shadows would grow longer. Darkness and cold would invade the streets and challenge people’s energy, give steel to their thoughts. Nachman felt as if he were walking heroically into the heart of the drama, the adventure of the city, and not just because of the season. Helen Ferris was part of New York’s endemic adventurousness. The crowds, the traffic, the buildings, the changing weather, the city’s infinite complexity, its unknowability — who could comprehend it? Nachman felt exhilarated. From a certain point of view, there was even adventure in being stood up at the cryptology conference. Invited, all expenses paid, to come three thousand miles, only to find nobody who gives a damn whether you came or not. No explanation, no apology. Not even a note at the hotel desk. This couldn’t have happened in small-time towns like London, Paris, Rome, Berlin, and Tokyo. That’s what made New York great. Nobody gives a shit about anybody.

  The truth is that Nachman was enraged. He had smiled as he talked to Helen Ferris. He hadn’t let her see his anger. She might have thought he was angry at her.

  Nachman then chuckled to himself, and shook his head ruefully, as if he required a moment of private ironic theater. His mood became philosophical. After all, he was morally compromised. He’d agreed to the interview in bad faith. He had no intention of changing jobs and had wanted only to visit his father. In fact, he had planned to go directly from the airport to his father’s apartment, but when he phoned — once from the plane, then, again, from the airport — nobody had answered. His father was old and forgetful. He might have gone out. He might even have left town to visit relatives in Connecticut. So Nachman had taken a cab to the hotel. He’d visit his father tomorrow, if the old guy answered the goddamn phone. If not, he’d fly back to California, feeling he’d wasted his time.

  As for the sense of adventure, the weather and all that, it was a fantasy, a kind of lie. Nachman had been trying to give value to his trip. He could kid himself only so long before self-contempt made him see things as they were. Only a fool would accept an invitation to meet somebody who had no name. Nachman was a fool. That was now an established fact. Good. He felt much better.

  A few hours later, Nachman entered a building in Chelsea. The doorman, who had been given Nachman’s name, said, “Go right up. Apartment 14-B.” The elevator was brightened by three half-mirrored walls. Nachman could see himself from head to waist in triplicate. Three half-Nachmans made him feel less, rather than more, visible. The reflections seemed mental rather than physical, mere versions of himself. He felt suddenly claustrophobic, as if the elevator were overcrowded.

  Below the mirrors, there was a walnut-stained surface embossed with carved flowers. A brass strip marked the place where the wood met the gray industrial-carpeted floor. The elevator door was two panels of brown enameled steel. They slid separately, one behind the other. Nachman studied the light fixture directly above his head. A fat bulb glowed through a bowl of cloudy glass that was subtly textured with incisions radiating from the center. The elevator spoke for the building, thought Nachman — a confusion of materials suggesting luxurious waste. It carried him slowly to the fourteenth floor, then stopped with a jerk. Nachman had the familiar sensation of a lightness in his belly and lead in his feet.

  Nothing about Helen Ferris had come to him. Nachman supposed he must have known her when he was a graduate student at U.C.L.A. He’d had quite a few acquaintances then, men and women with whom he’d since lost touch. There had been parties where he’d fallen into intense and transitory intimacy with people to whom he’d only nodded as they passed on campus later, avoiding eye contact. Wait a minute. Hadn’t he once left a party with a dark girl who had been too drunk to drive? Hadn’t he driven her in her white Jaguar to her parents’ house in Beverly Hills? Hadn’t they … what? The elevator doors opened. No, her name was Dolores. She looked nothing like Helen Ferris. The elevator doors slid shut behind him, and the elevator descended, taking Dolores to oblivion.

  There were four apartment doors, two on either side of the hall, which was carpeted in the same way as the elevator and was stunningly silent. Dim lights, set in elaborate brass sconces, trailed along the walls. Nachman found the door marked 14-B. He looked at a brass-rimmed eyehole as he pressed the black nipple-like bell. He heard a muffled gong inside the apartment. He waited. Nobody answered. He pressed the bell again and waited. Nobody answered. The key worked. The door opened into a large room.

  “Hello,” said Nachman, careful not to shriek. “Anybody home?” No one responded. He stepped inside, shut the door, and realized that he wasn’t alone. An odor of perfumed soap lay on the air, which was faintly moist and warm. He heard water running and glanced at what he guessed was a bathroom door. It was partly open. Someone was taking a shower and had heard nothing because of the noise of the running water. Nachman was reluctant to shout. People taking a shower feel defenseless and are easily frightened.

  Nachman stood in the large room. It was maybe forty by twenty feet, with a gleaming maple floor. No rugs. A bar counter separated a kitchen area from the rest of the room. Furniture was clustered in the middle, floating in space. A glass-topped coffee table was set lengthwise between two red sofas, with black chairs at either end. Nachman noticed an imposing desk against a wall, and a library table carrying stacks of papers. The room had tall windows that looked across the avenue toward the windows of other buildings. Near the farthest wall there was a dresser and a bed with night tables and reading lamps. To the right of the bed a spiral stair led to an opening in the ceiling, apparently the second floor of the apartment. A suitcase was on the bed. It sat in the middle of a bulky white comforter that had been flung back, revealing silky cobalt blue sheets. At the foot of the bed was a large television on a wheeled aluminum stand that held magazines on a shelf above the wheels. In the ceiling there were two rows of track lights.

  Who was in the shower? Helen or Benjamin Ferris? In answer to his question, Nachman heard voices. They were amplified in the largely hollow sp
ace of the room, as in the barrel of a drum. The man’s voice was emotionally neutral. The woman’s voice was strained, higher pitched. It was Helen Ferris. “I’m not finished. Why don’t you get out and let me finish.”

  They are showering together, Nachman realized.

  “I don’t want to have to talk to him alone.”

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake. You can talk to him until I come out. Fix him a drink. Turn on the TV and watch the ball game. Men like sports. You won’t even have to talk to him. Be nice for once in your fucking life.”

  “Hey hey, hey. I’m supposed to be nice? Like I invited the schmuck to the apartment? I’ll pick up the check at dinner, baby, but that’s where it ends. This is your affair.”

  “Don’t start with the affair business. He’s not my type.”

  “You have types?”

  “I’m nice to your friends, Benjamin, even when they bore me to death.”

  “Friend? You said he didn’t even recognize you.”

  “So what? He’s drifty. Not your average New York cocksmith, like some persons I could name. I’ll remind him who I am at dinner.”

  “I’ll be sitting there, for Christ’s sake. He’ll die.”

  “He won’t know I told you anything. Besides, he probably doesn’t remember that, either. He’s practically certifiable. I think his fly was unzipped.”

  “Don’t make me jealous.”

  Helen Ferris laughed.

  Benjamin Ferris went on: “What’s the guy’s name? Nachman?”

  “What’s wrong with Nachman?”

  “I didn’t say there was anything wrong with it.”

  “It’s your tone. You think Ferris is so beautiful? People are always saying, ‘Like the Ferris wheel?’ It bores me.”

  Nachman walked past the bathroom, crossing the thirty feet or so to the television set. He put the key on top of the TV. He’d heard enough. He was leaving. As he drew his hand away, the key fell to the floor. It had stuck to his fingertips, which were slightly damp. So were his palms. He was perspiring. The key made a sharp clink when it hit the floor. Nachman bent quickly to retrieve it, as if to undo the noise. If they had heard the key, they knew he was in the apartment. He couldn’t leave. He would have to confront them. No. He would shout hello, pretend he’d just arrived. They would pretend that they didn’t know he’d heard them talking about him. Every word the three of them said would be a lie. He put the key back on the television, and it remained there as he drew his hand away.

  He’d never before overheard people talking about him. It was unnerving. He’d been radically objectified, like an insensate rock, while his soul floated in the air. A general hurt spread within his chest and began to seep like a poison throughout his body. He couldn’t think clearly. It was hard to breathe. Again Nachman felt an impulse to leave, but he couldn’t simply walk back to the door. If they heard the door shut behind him, they’d feel terrible, knowing Nachman had heard them. Why should he care? Nachman cared.

  The open suitcase on the bed was large and old-fashioned, made of yellow leather like a beautiful Gladstone, with straps and metal corners. Looking at the suitcase, Nachman felt as if he were doing something, not merely suffering. What he saw in the suitcase told him that Helen and Benjamin were packing for a trip. How nice. They did things together — showered, traveled, bickered, and said vile things about people who had never done them any harm. Their conjugal solidarity was daunting.

  If Nachman had stayed in California, he’d have gone to work in his office at the Institute of Mathematics and never heard himself described as a drifty man who walks about with his fly unzipped. Nothing she had said was true, but she had said it. She actually said it. We were all going to die, but Helen Ferris had to kill people.

  The voices persisted, but Nachman focused on the suitcase and tried not to listen. Shirts, underwear, dresses, trousers, and tennis shoes lay in a confused pile, and a stack of papers had been tossed on top. Nachman admired the indifference with which the expensive-looking clothes had been flung into the suitcase. He saw passports and airline-ticket envelopes among the papers and reached out to open them. His hands were shaking. His heart swelled as he intruded upon the privacy of strangers. How could he do this?

  Before he’d engaged the question, he felt a soft pressure against his lower leg. He looked down and saw an exceptionally fat Siamese cat. It must have hidden under the bed, frightened of Nachman, but then decided he was no threat and emerged to brush against his leg. The cat leaped onto the bed and stepped into the suitcase, settling on top of the papers, as if it knew that Nachman had been about to look at them. The cat wanted Nachman’s attention. Nachman stroked its back. A fat purring friend come to comfort and console him. While he stroked the cat with one hand, he tried to lift the corners of the papers with the other.

  There were no rugs or drapes in the room, nothing to absorb the voices, and the moisture in the air only sharpened them. Nachman wasn’t listening, but then, abruptly, the water noise ceased.

  “He’s had a hard time,” Helen Ferris said. “He flew across the country to meet someone at the conference and he was stood up. I felt sorry for him.”

  “If I were stood up, I wouldn’t tell anyone. Word gets around. People think you’re a schmuck.”

  “He tried to be cheerful, but I could tell he was furious. The minute I said hello, he started venting like a maniac.”

  Helen Ferris’s voice changed, becoming husky and teasing.

  “Tell me, Benjamin,” she said.

  “What?”

  “That I am beautiful.”

  “Come here.”

  She laughed. “No, no, no.”

  Nachman glanced toward the bathroom door. He imagined Helen Ferris’s dark-brown hair, cut level with her chin, now a wet black shining cap about her eyes and cheeks. Her mouth, free of lipstick, was softened and bloated by hot water. Nachman thought she’d look better without lipstick. He remembered her motherly sexy eyes. Barefoot, she was maybe five two. She stood as high as his chest. She had wide hips. Did she have large breasts?

  She squealed. The note was pitched so high that Nachman thought — terrified — that she had entered the room and was staring at him with shock and revulsion.

  He shut the suitcase instantly. On the cat. It thrashed against the leather. Instead of flipping the case open, Nachman pressed the lid down harder, as if to hide the evidence. Not too hard, not hurting the cat, but thus, unintentionally, Nachman gave it time to piss.

  When he realized that he was alone and hadn’t been seen, he opened the case. The cat sped across the blue silk sheet and leapt onto the maple floor, trailing turds of fear. It vanished behind the bar in the kitchen area, and Nachman saw that it had deposited about a gallon of liquid in the suitcase. Letters and legal papers had softened and wrinkled, edges curling as urine attacked their fibers. Trapped in the suitcase, the cat had spun beneath Nachman’s hands, hosing in all directions.

  In the elevator, Nachman kept his eyes on the doors and didn’t glance at the mirrored walls. He didn’t want to see his reflection. In a spasm of superstitious dread, Nachman thought that if he saw it he might be obliged to leave it behind. He wanted to get entirely out of the building, taking himself and his reflection far away from the Ferris couple, particularly the naked, squealing Helen Ferris. The Ferrises had taken something from him, torn a hole in his existence. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the doorman nod. Nachman went by with no acknowledgment and was immediately outside in the anonymous street. He wanted no human recognitions, however minimal, as he headed downtown. Strangers passed like ghostly shapes in the night. Nachman walked mindlessly, block after block until, gradually, he stopped feeling devastated and, in the cool nighttime air of the city, recovered the good simplicity of being himself. “A fool,” he said, “but mine own.”

  He thought about finding a restaurant and having dinner. But he decided he wasn’t hungry and continued walking. In Washington Square Park, Nachman came to an empty bench and sat down. The
paths were shadowed by trees, through which lamplight shone brokenly. He couldn’t make out the features of passersby, and assumed that he was more or less invisible to them, too. Alone, unknown, unseen, he became deeply peaceful and free in his thoughts.

  He thought about Helen Ferris. Her smile, which Nachman had read as anticipation, he now understood had meant something different, like expectation. Nachman had been expected to light up just as she had, but he’d failed to recognize her. He was no longer the person he had been. A part of his life was gone.

  She’d given him her card, though God knows what she thought of him now. Perhaps she believed Nachman, not the cat, had pissed in her suitcase. He could phone her tomorrow, or perhaps the following day from California, and explain what had happened. He could ask her to tell him her maiden name. If he finally remembered who she was, he might then be enriched by memories of himself. Memories are far superior to photographs, for example, which are good only for nostalgia, not understanding. But did Nachman want those memories? The Nachman he no longer remembered was certainly himself. After all, who else could it be?

  It’s been said the unexamined life isn’t worth living. Nachman wasn’t against examining his life, but then what was a life? The day before yesterday he’d been in California, and tomorrow he could be almost anywhere on the globe. He could change his name, learn a new language, start a new existence. He could go to an exotic place, get married, have children of various colors and surprising features. It was easy enough. People did it all the time. He could herd yaks in Mongolia, or be a slave trader in Sudan. It took no courage to consult a travel agent. Such metaphysicians were in the phone book. “Get me a flight to Mongolia,” said Nachman to himself. “One way.”

  But Nachman wasn’t adventurous. He had no passion for change. As for “a life,” it was what you read about in newspaper obituaries. The history of a person come and gone. Nachman would return to California and think only about mathematics. Numbers have no history. For history something has to disappear. Numbers remain. Just wondering about Mongolia, with its bleak and freezing plains, made him homesick. He yearned for his office and his desk and the window that looked out on the shining Pacific. He’d never gone swimming in the prodigious, restless, teeming, alluring thing, but he loved the changing light on its surface and the sounds it made in the darkness. He didn’t yearn for its embrace.