by Jesse Ball
* * *
* * *
I looked at the interlocutor and he was looking at me. I said, she and I, we met, and some months passed. Some months passed, and I said to her, Rana, why don’t we take a car into the country. We are always here in the city with other people around. Why don’t we go somewhere where people aren’t. It might be nice. She was nervous about the idea, so I told the interlocutor. I could see that. She appeared to fear the idea that we would go into the country. Despite the fact that this was a perfectly ordinary, a perfectly acceptable idea, it nonetheless brought a reaction that I could not in any way have anticipated. Away from the city? She was unnerved. Her face became pale. But, she was such a strong person, was always ahead of me, always more consistent, more sharp, and so now that I had hit upon this weakness, I leapt. I said, actually said, I can hardly bear to say it now, but I said to her, I told the interlocutor, I said, come now, you aren’t afraid of going into the country? She said she was not afraid of going into the country. If I wanted to go, we would go. She said this simply, and somewhat breathlessly. I was pleased. Then, why don’t we do it? I continued ruthlessly. It doesn’t matter to be where we can be with other people, where there are services, things, rooms full of belongings, does it? No, she said, it doesn’t. But, I could see that she was afraid, and I could not see why. Still, I pushed her. And so, one morning, when no one was around, we loaded up her car with some canvas bags and a suitcase, and drove out of the city, to spend a week at a house her parents had. They had many houses, and this one was nearby—it was in the country, two days’ drive away. To that house, we drove. She cried a bit as we left, and I couldn’t see why. She was crying and I tried to console her, I said, Rana, what is it? And she would only say, nothing, nothing, nothing. Nothing, nothing. When I pressed her, she said that she didn’t know. It had come over her, she didn’t know why. What it was she was feeling, she deemed, was unexplainable. I did not press her. I said something like, well, I am sure you will feel better once we are in the country. That is probably true, she agreed. As we drove, she sat sometimes in the seat beside me, the passenger seat, and when she did she would sit turned so that she could watch me. The top of the car was down, and so her hair would be blowing away in the wind, or alternately she would bind it back with a cloth, and then it would go nowhere, it would just sit neatly beneath the cloth as the wind beset her face. Either, in the first situation, she would allow her hair to be loose, and she then would appear to me out of the corner of my eye as some blinding valkyrie, some effulgent flood of a thing, beauty knowing no boundaries, burning at the edges of itself, or she would bind it down, bind her hair down in a simple cloth, and in binding it down she would transform, all this in the corner of my eye, into a perfect outline of a thing, a nature of natures, a sylph or naiad. This was my passion. I would look at her, actually turn, moved by her appearance to stare at her, and forget the road. At such times her reaction was the opposite of that which anyone could expect. She would say nothing, and stare back at me, face tinged with a smile, until I, coming back into my mind, would realize: I am driving off the road: we are at our deaths! At this very moment I am inches from the edge of the road! Then, I would swerve, and save us, and we would continue. This must have happened nine or ten times, and she never spoke a word about it. She would watch me as I drove and we would talk of other things. At first when we were traveling quickly, it was difficult to hear one another, but when we had gone beyond the city some ways, the roads were all narrow and curved, and then we drove slowly for the most part. When she didn’t sit beside me, there were other places she would sit, and in each she appeared to my eyes quite remarkable. In a sense, I am sure, it is true that she was not beautiful at all, not, as someone would say, a beautiful girl. Rather, she was the utmost extension of an idea of what a particular sort of girl should be. For me, it happened that this was the very type for which I had no defense, none at all. She would climb over the seat and sit amongst the suitcases in the backseat, sprawled out almost flat. Then she would look up into the sky and sigh, and speak to herself. I could hear almost nothing that she said then. At those times, I adjusted the mirror, so that I could look up from the road now and then and see her. Likewise, in the mirror, she could see my eye, so I told the interlocutor. I said, the car was a bit of an antique. I explained this antique car to him, there in the office, using my hands to show its dimensions. It had broad bench seats—really the most comfortable possible car for a drive like that. Her family had the most perfect taste. They didn’t own anything that wasn’t simply great. They owned many things, many, many things and all of them were great. I, on the other hand, owned almost nothing, and the things that I owned were, although carefully chosen, not the finest in the land. In fact, it happened when we met, when I met Rana, that I was embarrassed to bring her to my home. We spoke of this when we were in the car. She was driving and she had large sunglasses on. These were almost the sort an old woman would wear who wanted nothing to do with the sun or anyone beneath it. She said they helped her see the road. She said, do you remember when we first met, and you wouldn’t let me come to your house? For three weeks, I kept begging you, and you would tell me, all right, come to my house, and then you would give me an address, and I would go there, and when I had gone there, it would be a different house—the house of a friend of yours, or the zoo, or a tea shop, or a glovemaker. A glovemaker. She laughed. I never told you to go to a glovemaker’s shop, I said. I don’t even think there is such a thing anymore. Oh, there is, she said. But, I did let you come, I told her. I did, but it was only after…at that point, I told the interlocutor, she interrupted me to finish my sentence. She did that often, so I told the interlocutor, because she had seen an old film as a girl in which the two actors, who were deeply in love, had as the badge of their love that they would finish each other’s sentences. And so, it was in her mind, she was adamant, adamant about it—that she would finish my sentences, and that I should finish hers, and that it would be a good proof. She said, it was only after your house had been robbed. I didn’t get to see it with your things in it. Well, you did, so I told the interlocutor, telling him what I told her, you did go to the house. I said, my house was robbed, all the things were taken out of it. I had planned to invite her and show her my apartment, which was really only one small room in a boardinghouse, but I was going to show it to her, so I told the interlocutor. I lived in a boardinghouse, and there was only a feeble old lock on the door—a double-cut skeleton key would open it, a key such as you could buy—you could actually buy it at a locksmith. You didn’t even need to break in. You could go to a locksmith, buy the key using the change in your pocket, and then be able to open my door with no fuss at all. In fact, I continued, I often suspected that anyone in the entire house, in the boardinghouse at large, could open anyone else’s door. I was of the opinion that all the locks were the same. I did not, however, ever, at any time, try any of the other locks. I wanted to, but was afraid I would be found out, as most of the other boarders rarely left their rooms. They were mostly shut-ins. In any case, I returned one day to find the door locked, but within the room there was nothing at all. It was as if the room had been cleaned out. My assumption was: There has been a mistake. All my belongings have been thrown out in the street. It is because there was a belief that I did not pay my rent—and this must have been the opinion of the landlord, and it was an opinion that he acted on. However, this line of thinking gave me comfort because I had paid my rent. I would be due some remuneration if my things had gone. It would not be so bad, so I told the interlocutor, relating my turn of thought. Yet, at the front desk, I was informed that my rent was paid in full, that this payment was understood, and that I had not been evicted. The manager, a yellowed, rancid sort of man, the type who seldom clips his nails, who believes they need be clipped less often than you and I do, he said, it has been happening almost every day lately. Someone comes down here complaining of being evicted. Really, it is just that a thief has taken your things. You w
on’t get them back, I wager. I’d guess you’d be lucky to see any of them again. A feeling that I had had before—a sentiment that maybe the other people in the boardinghouse were shut-ins simply in order to keep their rooms safe, now came again. I had once inquired about putting a second lock on the door, but had been derided. What do you have that is worth the price of a lock, the landlord had said. So, I shouldn’t have invited her, I told the interlocutor. I had invited her, but I shouldn’t have. In the first place, to bring her to a shabby boardinghouse—this was a joke of an idea. Who would bring a girl like that there? But, once you took into account that I had put a great deal of care, an immaculate care, I felt, into picking various small and good objects and placing them here and there in this room…The room was quite tiny, and so it was easy to furnish—it hadn’t taken very much skill, just care, and I had done it to the best of my ability. I had put things here and there, and made it rather nice. I was eager to show the place to her. I was terrified that she would realize the yawning divide that separated her grace from the constant forced bowing and scraping of my sad situation, which is to every month, at the end of the month, in the last days of the month, have actually zero money, and be waiting in a fast for the time when there will be even a few coins to buy anything at all. However, she had been so kind and so gentle, that I felt there was something in me to praise, and that furthermore, by showing her the room, I would show her some hidden resources that I had—something about me maybe she hadn’t yet seen. Whether this was a fabrication remained to be seen. In my life I had often had such delusions of grandeur, and when the time came, they were always knocked down. But, perhaps this once, I thought, and then the day came when I returned to my room, unlocked it, and stepped inside and found nothing there. I had actually told her that morning, come to this address at eight in the evening. It is a boardinghouse. My room is no. 37. She was to be away all day, and then would come straight here. The idea was that I would go and buy two items that were good enough for her. One was a loaf of bread from the best bakery in the city. The other was a small piece of cheese from a grocer near the museums. Neither one of these items would be at a disadvantage anywhere. Even if they were to appear in my room, that low place, they would maintain the real integrity of their quality. I felt I could give her a good morsel of food and not be embarrassed. However, now there were no possessions at all. When I spoke to the manager, so I told the interlocutor, he said that he would give me a chair and a small table and a pallet, but only for the time being. He did so, and I was overwhelmed with the feeling that these were the table, chair, and pallet that had just been in my room. He saw my reaction and said, everyone here has pretty much the same furniture. Don’t think too hard about it. Then he turned away. The situation was, therefore, that I was sitting in my room on the one chair, at the one table, looking over at the pallet that was pushed into the corner. A small metal device for heating things was in the corner. It was actually screwed into the wall, and they hadn’t taken it. You remember, she said, as we drove in the car, it was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. I told you, I said to you, she said, it was the most wonderful thing anyone has ever done for me. Do you remember my face when you showed me your room and your things? Do you recall how pleased I was? She was driving quickly, and I had to lean over the gear-shift to speak to her. I said, it was only that I wanted you to like me. Well, I like you, she said. What had I done to please her so? I asked the interlocutor. Well, I had gotten a sheet of paper, a roll, almost a spool of paper, a long spool, and a pen, and some tape. I bought the bread and the cheese and a small glass jar. I bought one orange and a very small strainer. I went back to the house. I laid out three or four lengths of paper, tearing each off, and put the food items on it on the table. I put the table by the window, where the streetlight would shine on it. Then, I went around the room and where each thing had been—where each of my belongings had previously stayed—I wrote the name of it on a small piece of paper, and described it, and taped a placeholder there. So, she said, when I came into the room, I could see what your life had been like. I could run about at my own pace and read your tiny handwriting and learn how the room had been. Then, you squeezed the orange for me to drink, it was sour, and you said you had gotten a sour one on purpose, that it was a special savory orange, and we ate the bread and cheese and lay in the dark. The road ahead dimmed to a tunnel and we shot through the side of a hill, and out again and we were high above a terrain of low hills on a mountainside. What had been a hill on the far side was now a mountain, here where the ground fell away. The road ran in loops to the bottom. In the distance, there, she said, is an inn. Do you see it? I could not. It is there, over that way, she insisted. I think we could stay there tonight.