by Various
When I bent to kiss Lisa, her hair smelt of cigarettes.
Logically, I know there could have been any number of people smoking around Lisa during the day: people at work, in the street, at the bus stop. But the smell had been too familiar. Too familiar by far.
That night, even though I have to be up at six the next morning, I go to touch the poem sitting on the chest of drawers.
Lisa stops me. “Not tonight, Jim. I’m tired. OK?”
“OK,” I murmur. “OK.” Then I glare at the yellow flowers as if this is all their fault.
VI
Coming home one evening the following week, I find a cigarette butt on our front lawn, lying in the grass under the living room window. It’s small and wet and squished, but I pick it up and hold it between my fingers and look at it for a long time.
I don’t say anything to Lisa. She doesn’t say much to me either. It’s becoming the way of things. But that night, I creep out of bed and, very slowly, pick up the poem in its ceramic pot. Then I carry it downstairs and put it on the dining table at the rear of the living room. I pull out a chair and sit in front of the plant. In the darkness, the yellow of the petals palls to grey.
I touch the curlicue stem, gently, and a voice like a Saint Lucian beach recites:
Two lovers lie together sleeping,
In their dreams their lives they share.
Entangled in their secrets’ keeping,
Two lovers lie together. Sleeping
Is the world without, none peeping
On the inner world, the bedroom where
Two lovers lie. Together, sleeping.
In their dreams, their lives they share.
Maybe it’s just because it’s late, and I’m tired and agitated and heartsore, but the final two lines sound different to how I remember them. I touch the plant again, and again it delivers the poem. I listen hard to the last part.
Two lovers lie. Together, sleeping.
In their dreams, their lives they share.
Where once it prompted an intense wave of satisfaction, the couplet now makes me uneasy, as though there’s some sinister meaning lurking beneath the innocuous words.
I sit there in the dark and listen to the poem over and over, trying to uncover the secret of those lines.
Eventually, brain throbbing and eyes aching, I give in. I take the poem back upstairs, then slide back into bed and stare at the ceiling. I think about Lisa and the cigarette butt. Then I think about lying, and sleeping, and dreaming, and sharing.
VII
My head is pounding from lack of sleep, but I get up at my normal time of 6am. I dress in my usual work clothes: suit (grey) and tie (navy blue); clean shirt; smart shoes. Lisa stirs under the duvet but does not wake. I do not kiss her goodbye.
I take my briefcase and coat from the hall and go outside. It’s November, and the morning is clear and cold. The car starts on the third try, and I reverse out of the driveway. I drive round the corner and park the car where it won’t be spotted by Lisa when she heads out for the bus. Then I walk back round to Mrs. Entwistle’s house.
It’s early, so the old woman doesn’t open the door when I first ring the bell. It’s only after several minutes of waiting and ringing and waiting and ringing again that I hear the slow shuffle of her feet descending the stairs. When she opens the door, it’s only by a crack, and she keeps the chain on.
“Who is it?”
I feel a moment of shame when I see the fear and suspicion on her elderly face, but then I think of Lisa and the cigarette and I thrust the feeling away.
“It’s me,” I say. “It’s James Lewis.”
“Oh! Mr. Lewis.” Mrs. Entwistle sounds relieved. “I didn’t know who it was, this time in the morning. I didn’t know who it could be.”
“Can I come in please?”
She blinks at me, still bleary from sleep. “Is something wrong?”
“Yes,” I say. “Yes, I think it is.”
“It’s not Lisa?” she asks, concerned.
“Look, can I come in?”
“Yes, yes, of course.” Mrs. Entwistle backs away and fiddles with the chain. It takes her a minute, but then she has it unhooked and it falls away. She opens the door wider. She is wearing a mauve dressing gown and no slippers. Her feet are small and blotchy, roped with swollen blue veins. “Come in, come in,” she tells me.
I step over the threshold and close the door behind me. Mrs. Entwistle beckons me into the living room. There, she gestures to the couch, but I shake my head, so she remains standing too. She studies my face.
“What is it, James?” Her anxiety appears genuine, but I don’t trust it. Like the poem, it seems to be hiding something.
“The poem,” I say. “The poem you gave to Lisa and me.”
“Yes, I remember. A triolet, wasn’t it? Most lovely.”
“Lovely!” I snort. “I don’t think so. Oh, I don’t think so.” I’m shaking my head over and over; I don’t seem to be able to stop.
“What’s this?” She frowns. “I thought you liked it.”
“It’s changed!” I say, and suddenly my frustration all rushes out at once. “It’s changed, you old hag! It’s all gone wrong!”
I half expect Mrs. Entwistle to cringe away from me, but instead the old woman’s face goes hard. “It hasn’t changed, Mr. Lewis,” she says primly. “None of my poems change. It’s not in their nature.”
“I’m telling you, it’s different,” I insist. “I was listening to it last night, and it—”
“It won’t have changed,” Mrs. Entwistle repeats. “The poem is still the same poem. But, I suppose, it may have grown.”
“Grown? Grown? What the hell does that mean? It doesn’t look any different. It’s the poem that’s different.”
She shrugs. “If you insist,” she says, in the tone of a teacher humouring a wrong-headed pupil.
My anger builds. “You’re some kind of witch,” I accuse. “These poems, you give them away like they’re presents, like they’re blessings. But they’re not. They’re not. That thing—it’s some sort of spell, isn’t it? And now Lisa… Lisa…”
My knees feel suddenly weak. I drop onto the couch. “It’s ruined everything,” I moan.
Mrs. Entwistle stands over me. “I’m no witch,” she says, “and my gift to you and your wife was no spell. It’s just a poem.”
“But what does it mean?” I cry. “‘Two lovers lie’—what does it mean by ‘lie’? What kind of lying? And which lovers? Which two? ‘In their dreams’, it says. In whose dreams? In mine? Who’s sleeping? Am I sleeping? Is Lisa? With whom? Jesus, what does it mean?”
Mrs. Entwistle looks down at me with sad eyes. “It’s a poem,” she says again. “It means what you make it mean. It means what you think it means.”
I put my face in my hands. “Great,” I groan. “That’s just great.”
On my way out, I brush again against the bush with the red flowers.
The Jackdaw Prince, it says, old as the hills…
“Shut up!” I growl at it. “Goddamn it, can’t you just shut up!”
The Cat King will not catch him, it replies, gravely.
VIII
I don’t go to work that day. I don’t go home either. I just get in the car and drive. I take the A-road out of town, and then I take every back road I come across until I’m way out in the countryside. There are no clouds in sight, and the air is a pale winter blue.
I follow a winding road and find myself at the top of a ridge, overlooking a steep-edged valley. I can see for miles. There’s a viewing area by the side of the road, with a faded sign and a small car park. I pull over, tyres crunching on the gravel, and then I just sit in the driver’s seat looking out at the fields and the woods, the verges and the hedgerows, the hills and the villages spread out below. I gaze at the vista of greens and browns, and think about how, if I were to touch any of those plants, they would remain silent. They would not spout pernicious, ambiguous verse. They only mean one thing: thems
elves.
The thought is comforting, and after a while I drift into sleep.
It’s dark when I awake. I check my phone and find I have four messages: three from the office and one from Lisa. I turn the phone off. Then I start the car and drive carefully back into town. I feel much calmer.
The November night has come early, and the lights are on in the windows of all the houses in my neighbourhood. I head home, but when I get to the house I find myself driving right past it. I drive past Mrs. Entwistle’s place too. But when I get to Bob and Carol’s I ease on the brakes and let the car dawdle outside. They haven’t drawn their curtains yet, and I can see right into their front room.
Peeping on the inner world, whispers a voice at the back of my mind.
I cannot see Bob, though their car is in the driveway. Carol, however, is sitting in an armchair with her back to the window. Her left hand is lying on the armrest, palm up, fingers curled slightly inwards. The top of her head peeks out above the chair, and it lists slightly to the right. She is asleep.
I wonder where Bob is. I wonder if I would find Lisa at home, if I went back there.
Together, sleeping.
Bob and Lisa, I think bitterly. And in another sense, Carol and me. Except I’ve woken up. Poor Carol.
I drive on before my lingering gets too suspicious, and I surprise myself again when I stop outside Sarah Ealing’s house. Only once I’m there do I realise why I’ve come.
Her poem; yes. I can picture it now, with its lone violet flower, the petals curving upwards to cradle the stigma waiting at its heart. And Sarah’s blush, I can see that too. We had thought it mere embarrassment at the time, but now another detail of the incident springs to mind: how Sarah’s eyes flickered to Lisa as she put a denying hand upon my own.
Seven years, Sarah had told us; her poem had flourished for seven years. Now, sitting outside her home, I ache to know whether the plant remains as hale as it was that day. Had it “grown” like mine and Lisa’s, so perversely? Or did it endure still, as elegant as it ever was?
I summon my courage. Leaving my briefcase on the passenger seat and my phone, switched off, in the glove compartment, I get out of the car and go ring the bell.
Sarah does a double-take when she opens the door. She’s wearing pyjama bottoms and a knitted, oversized jumper. There is a pair of reading glasses perched on her nose, and her hair is pulled up into a scruffy ponytail.
“James,” she says. “Did you—Did I forget—Did we arrange…?” She peers behind me, presumably looking for Lisa.
“No,” I say. “No, don’t worry.”
“Then why… Sorry, but why are you here?” Her gaze moves over me, and suddenly I’m aware of my hair, dishevelled from my nap in the car, and my crumpled work clothes. “Are you all right?” she asks.
I open my mouth and shut it again. I honestly don’t know if I’m all right, but I suspect that I’m not.
Sarah looks at my car, parked in the street, then back at me. “Do you… Do you want to come in?”
“All right,” I say.
I wipe my shoes on the mat, though they’re pretty much spotless as all I’ve been doing is driving around all day.
We stand awkwardly in the hallway.
“Would you like a—” Sarah starts, but I interrupt her.
“Your poem,” I blurt out.
Alarm flits across her face. “My poem?” Her tone is wary, but also—I think—ever-so-slightly wistful. “What about it?”
I pause, biting my lip. “Can I… Can I hear it?”
“It’s—”
“It’s private, I know.” I smile at her wearily, trying to show her that I understand; I understand now what she meant by that blush, by those words. “I know.”
She looks at me, her expression guarded.
“Please,” I say. “I’d really like to hear it. Please.”
Her eyes soften. Slowly, she reaches out and takes my hand.
José Iriarte became eligible for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer with the publication of “Yuca and Dominoes” in Strange Horizons (Nov. 2013), edited by Brit Mandelo, Julia Rios, and An Owomoyela.
Visit his website at labyrinthrat.com.
* * *
Short Story: “Yuca And Dominoes” ••••
Novelette: “Cabrón” ••••
YUCA AND DOMINOES
by José Iriarte
First published in Strange Horizons (Nov. 2013), edited by Brit Mandelo, Julia Rios, and An Owomoyela
• • • •
CARMENCITA SWAYS into Ana Teresa as they stagger down the sidewalk, shooting pain up and down Ana Teresa’s bad leg and nearly knocking her over. The sour stench of vomit wafts off of Carmencita. She says, a little too loudly, “You’re a good friend. I’m glad I’m stuck here with you.”
Ana Teresa is in no mood to listen. It’s Carmencita’s fault they’re walking through Miami’s Little Havana at two o’clock in the morning, drunk and underage.
“Thanks,” she says anyway. “We’re not stuck, though. Keep walking; we’ll make it. If we’re lucky, your parents and my grandparents won’t even find out.”
Carmencita shakes her head. “I don’t mean here. I mean, yes, here, but not here on Eighth Street. I mean all of it. We’re all stuck here. ¿Entiendes?”
“No, but that’s okay.” She doesn’t expect Carmencita to make sense right now anyway.
“We’re stuck at Casa Varadero. Nobody…” she trails off. Ana Teresa puts a hand on her friend’s arm to steady her. “Nobody ever leaves,” she finishes at last.
“I’ll leave.” Damn right she will leave. She has too many awful memories tied up with the ancient apartment building for her to stay. Two more years of high school and then she is done with Casa Varadero, done with Little Havanah, done with Miami, even.
“No you won’t,” Carmencita says, her head shaking. “It’s a curse. Or something.”
Ana Teresa frowns. “Don’t be stupid. It’s an apartment building, not a jail. People leave all the time.”
“Yeah? Like who?”
Several darkened shops and businesses fall behind them while Ana Teresa tries to think of an example. She stares in the windows while she focuses. A bakery with a giant hand-lettered sign that says “Pasteles de todos tipos.” A Spanish book store. A Domino’s Pizza.
“Hector,” she says at last.
Carmencita snorts. “Weekend neighbor. Doesn’t count.”
“Osvaldo and Cristina.”
“What are you talking about? They’re up on the third floor, right over you guys.”
“Now. But they used to live on the first floor, and then they moved away when Osvaldo got a job in Vermont.”
“Right, but they moved back when Cristina’s asthma flared up. Which means I’m right. You can leave, but you always end up back here.”
She shrugs. “Whatever.”
Carmencita drapes an arm around her. “Like I said, we’re stuck.”
Ana Teresa wrinkles her nose at another wave coming off of her companion. Tequila, garlic, and ropa vieja.
“I will leave,” she mutters. “Count on it.”
• • •
Little Ana Teresita’s first day living at Casa Varadero is a mess of familiar things in unfamiliar places. The room she slept in a dozen weekends a year before her parents moved up north now sports an assortment of toys and knickknacks taken from her bedroom in East Aurora.
Her grandparents must have gone in there while she was in the hospital and picked through her things. She doesn’t bother to see if they got her favorites. She wishes they had let her visit her old house before they packed her into the back of their avocado-colored Impala and headed south on the interstate.
Even if her parents would never be there again.
She half-hops-half-limps over to the bed and sits, easing her crutches down next to her. She tries to think of this as her room.
Abuela pops into the doorway after a minute, her eyes sad. She crosses
the room and pulls Ana Teresita close, pressing her lips against the top of her head. After a long kiss, she says, “I need to start dinner, mi vida. You should go outside while it’s light.”
Ana Teresita twirls her crutch meaningfully.
“Abuelo is playing dominó down en el patio. Why don’t you go keep him company? For luck.”
She wrinkles her nose at the thought of riding down in the tiny elevator that smells like cat pee. She doesn’t feel lucky, but she goes anyway.
The U-shaped apartment building encloses the patio on three sides. An ancient banyan tree dominates the courtyard, providing shade for a half dozen permanent tables with built-in chairs, where the retired men who live in the building play dominó most days.
Ana Teresita steps around the banyan to visit the shield—a plaster disk five feet across, embedded into the dirt separating the tree from Seventeenth Avenue. The monument has always drawn her, with its blue and red tile chips in the shape of the Cuban flag, flying over a sandy beach made of yellow and lighter blue chips. Just inside the top edge, black tiles spell out “Pueblo en exilio, unido para siempre,” while the name “Casa Varadero” adorns the bottom. She longs to run her fingers across the smooth mosaic, but it would be too much trouble to get back up. She scans the dominó tables for Abuelo instead.
When she sidles up to him, he scootches over on the molded mesh chair to make room. Three of the tables are full, while another has two players killing time with a one-on-one game. Most are old men, and most smoke cigars, but one of Abuelo’s opponents is a woman, who manages her tiles and keeps up her end of the conversation without ever taking the cigarette from her mouth. The smoke mingles with the fragrances of yuca and platanitos from the apartments. Ana Teresita never smelled anything like that when she lived in Chicago.
It smells like home.
“It’s good to see you again, Ana Teresita,” says Abuelo’s partner, a man she does not remember. An empty styrofoam cup sits on the table in front of him, stained brown from his afternoon cafecito.