“What’s this from?”
“Mole. They cut it out.”
The white scar was an island surrounded by tanned skin, evidence that Rachel’s living had consequences.
“You should be more careful about the sun.”
Rachel rolled over and reached for Benny’s hand. She led her finger to another scar, this one on her sternum above her left breast.
“This one’s even more interesting.”
Benny used Rachel’s cell to phone the lab and ask Jon to turn off the electrophoresis. She and Rachel went for dinner at the Great Jones Street Café. Rachel had to sit with her tingling back away from the chair. She drank a couple of shots of cayenne-infused vodka, hoping it might relieve the prickly heat of her sunburn. They went back to Rachel’s apartment. The sunburn had progressed to the point where Rachel couldn’t lie on it at all. She pulled her shirt over her head, took her bra off, and lay on the bed on her stomach, moaning. Benny rubbed a mixture of aloe and oil that Rachel had made onto her back as gently as she could, feeling the trapped heat coming off.
For the rest of the summer and into the fall Benny and Rachel trained together for the NYC Marathon. Five mornings a week they met in the park and ran as many as ten miles before Benny went to the lab and Rachel jogged another three miles back to her apartment, then went to school. They entered a 10K race in Central Park in October. Rachel was out of sight soon after the race started and Benny was left pushing as hard as she could. It was quiet out there after the rush of the starting gun and the jostle of legs and arms. There was the grunting and puffing and occasional spitting of the runners near her. She always went faster in a race, pushing herself to the point of puking, the pain in the centre of her chest unfamiliar from her training. She paced herself well and passed two men in the last five hundred metres.
Rachel had finished almost two minutes ahead of Benny and was waiting for her, cheering her as she crossed the finish line. They walked together out of the park and went looking for something to eat.
When the first week of November arrived, Benny felt prepared to run the marathon. It helped that she had run twenty-five miles at a decent pace with Rachel two Sundays before. Rachel and Benny started the marathon side by side, running across the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge to the rhythm of twenty-five thousand pairs of pounding feet. They stayed together for the first eight miles. Benny’s breathing was fluid, her legs grabbing the pavement effortlessly as if she were levitating. She went ahead of Rachel despite her friend’s warning to slow down. It was in the Bronx with six miles to go that her early speed caught up with her.
The fatigue she experienced and assumed she could run through increased until her body quit on her. There was no sensation in her hands or feet and she had to stop running. She continued to breathe easily, but her legs were on the verge of not working. She took a few awkward steps. There was an ambulance nearby, its rear doors open to the sunshine, an attendant leaning against the panel watching runners pass. Benny staggered toward him. He helped her into the ambulance and drove the short distance to the next pit stop, where two women were sitting in lawn chairs behind a table. They sat her down in a chair, wrapped her in a Mylar blanket to keep her warm, and offered her something to eat. They left her to her thoughts and returned to watching the racers pass by, runners unhindered by the embarrassment of polyethylene capes and bologna sandwiches on white bread.
Benny asked for directions to the nearest subway station when sensation returned to her feet and hands. One of the women pointed over her shoulder. Benny had to convince the man in the token booth that marathoners were entitled to ride the subway free that day. He shrugged at the crazy wrapped in a silver blanket. Commuters glanced over at her, bemused. She shivered on the subway and on the walk the few blocks home. She looked straight ahead. When she got to her apartment she took off her running clothes, drew a bath, climbed in, and beat her fists against the sides of the tub. When she pulled the plug, her tears and seven months of training went down the drain.
24
Forest Garden
Nothing stays the same for long, especially joy. Lina is scything long grass along the edges of our garden. Constant vigilance is required to keep the wild spaces from encroaching into our beds. She swings the scythe back and forth, bare-breasted in the June heat like a bronzed fertility goddess. The hawkweed and birch saplings are laid low with each swing. I lean on my rake, admiring the muscles on her shoulders and upper back, and then she yelps. I drop the rake and run to her. She is bent over, looking into the grass. At her feet is the writhing gloss of an Eastern Green snake, nearly cut in half.
“Aw, shit,” I say.
It leaks a little blood. She picks it up and it wraps the tip of its emerald tail around her finger. She places it beside a stump out of the way. I try to hug her, but she pushes me away and stomps off. I don’t know what’s bugging her. A few minutes pass and she comes over to where I work.
“It’s all right for you to live up here by yourself and never see anyone but me. I feel like I’m in a cage.”
She walks away again. She launches herself into her tent, where I hear furious shuffling, then she emerges with her backpack and water bottle.
“Where’re you going?”
“Away. I don’t know when I’ll be back.”
Late that night I listen to AM radio. The news of epidemics and environmental collapse would make it hard to get to sleep even if I weren’t anxious about Lina’s whereabouts. There’s an upsurge of TB, cholera, and typhus, and not only in the Third World. Something resembling Marburg virus has hit Toronto, hundreds of cases of flesh-eating disease in Buffalo. The gangrenous limbs, the deliquescence of internal organs, the cases of bloody tears. There are rumours that terrorists have got hold of Russian stockpiles of smallpox virus.
Being animals, we are hardwired to anticipate disaster. Our ancestors were like the sparrow in a bush, stressed by the crow flying in to steal its fledglings. Those of us who, until recently, have lived our lives in peace and abundance translate our fears of starvation, predation, and war into an imminent retributive holocaust. As much as I hate religious fanatics, especially Christian ones, their vision of the Apocalypse as punishment for our sins makes sense. It’s just that ours are collective misdemeanours, not personal ones. And where many see retribution coming from a patriarchal god created in their own image, I see a planet that we have left no choice but to fight us — as if we are a contagious disease. She uses plagues of insects, droughts, and mudslides, hurricanes in Nova Scotia at the wrong time of year. She wants to drown us, swallow us up, or blow us off her.
I sleep fitfully, wondering where Lina is.
25
New York City
Benny was in a funk and hadn’t run all week. It was Friday night and she had come home from the lab to lie down. Dropping out of the marathon had discouraged her. Lab work was not going well. Something else was bothering her that she couldn’t quite grasp. She felt panicky, as if she had forgotten to do something important and time was running out. The phone rang and Benny picked it up to stop it from ringing, not caring whose voice was on the other end of the line.
“I won more tickets for us.”
When she heard Rachel’s voice, Benny realized what had been eluding her. Her friend was going to Peru to study with an ethnobotanist for six months. Benny was going to miss her. She had seen Rachel at least five times every week all summer and had grown reliant on having her around. Her flight to Lima was on Sunday.
“Congratulations.”
Rachel had a habit of winning tickets to concerts and ballet and theatre from NPR when she called them during her lunch break at school. She had won two tickets to see the Tokyo String Quartet at the 92nd Street Y the following night. They agreed to go together so they could say goodbye.
Benny walked to the park in the sun to meet Rachel under the elms near 69th Street. She arrived early and found a bench to sit on. People passed by on the paths and on the grass, pushing strollers and rollerbl
ading. A woman was chasing her young son as he headed for the road. A short man with a silver crewcut and a black leather jacket was bent over talking sternly to a puggle with an intent look on its face.
“You little devil. You know daddy only brings one bag with him on our walks.”
Benny heard footsteps behind her and turned to see Rachel, who wore a blue hoodie under her jacket, a black ball cap, and black Converse sneakers. Her ragged hair hung into the hood of her sweatshirt. They walked uptown to the Y.
They held hands as they listened to three Mozart string quartets. The music pressed under Benny’s wings, offering her the lift she needed to move through the close air of the hall, above where they sat. She hovered near the ceiling, like the couple flying in the Chagall painting she loved to look at through the windows of the Metropolitan Opera. There she was with Rachel, sitting side by side below her, their arms entwined and Rachel’s breath audible when the music was gentle and quiet. The music brought a simultaneous sense of happiness and loneliness.
The magic ended with the music and they were outside, walking through the park to the West Side. They headed to Café Lalo for dessert, where they talked of the music and Rachel’s trip. Rachel invited her to her apartment for a drink.
She offered her brandy once they were inside.
“Could I have a cup of tea?”
Rachel put the kettle on and while it was heating poured herself a drink. Benny stood at her bookshelf looking at the spines. Still Life with Woodpecker, Their Eyes Were Watching God. There was a photo of her skiing at Stowe on the windowsill. Rachel put a tablespoon of sencha tea in the pot and poured the boiling water over it. Benny opened a cupboard and found a mug with Chagall’s “Promenade” on it. The artist holding his wife’s hand as she floated above him.
Rachel stood beside her and Benny leaned in for a kiss. She smelled the lemon soap that Rachel used, an exhalation of brandy between the lips, and then felt tacky lipstick. Rachel’s lips were ripe fruit, a persimmon, with their rosy red flesh. Benny lingered for a moment, then pulled her head away. Rachel was biting her lower lip, wide-eyed and sighing.
“I thought you’d never get around to this,” she said.
Rachel raked her fingers through Benny’s hair. When their lips touched again Benny was reawakened into the dreamy anticipation that had enveloped her earlier in the evening. Rachel turned out the light, took her hand, and led her to bed. The faster they moved, the less Benny could worry about what was to come. She had no idea what to do other than kiss Rachel and run her hands over her back.
Benny grabbed Rachel’s hoodie at the waist, wanting to get inside. She pulled it over Rachel’s head and threw it on the floor. Benny traced a line on her skin from her throat, across one shoulder, and down her upper arm. She continued down the downy hair on Rachel’s forearm until she found her fingers. Benny wrapped her palm around each one and gently pulled, then let go. Rachel’s eyes were fixed on hers. Benny let her fingers return up the underside of Rachel’s arm and felt the fur in her armpit. She ran along the fullness of the edge of her breast and down her waist, as if she were sculpting a lover from her warm flesh. Benny buried her nose in the scent and softness of Rachel’s hair and neck. Rachel was strong, her hands kneading the muscles of Benny’s back. Benny reached down and unzipped her, pushed her pants off her hips. Rachel did the same for her.
They didn’t get much sleep. They dozed off, but desire would wake one or the other of them, and they began once again to kiss and love each other. Rachel fell asleep in Benny’s arms. Benny wondered how she had let her fear and the pain she had experienced in high school prevent her from enjoying sex for the past six years. She regretted that. Once in the night she woke with Rachel staring at her, resting on her side on one elbow. She smiled at her.
“What time is it?”
“You do this thing in your sleep where your lips keep pressing together as if you’re about to say something.”
How could she know such a thing? She had always slept alone.
“What are these from?” Rachel had an index finger on one of the scars below her belly button.
“I used to get pains when I was a younger. They did exploratory surgery to see what it was.”
“And?”
“And the pain went away.”
Rachel lay down and put her arm around Benny. Benny nuzzled into the crook of her neck and felt her head rise and fall with each of Rachel’s breaths. She could hear Rachel’s heart.
“Does Brian know about this?”
“I didn’t know about this until last night.” She laughed.
“Will he care?”
“He knows what I’m like.”
Benny took a deep breath and exhaled.
“These scars? They mean I’m sterile.”
Rachel raised herself up on her elbow. “What? How do you know?”
“It’s probably genetic.” She paused. “It is genetic. Definitely genetic. There were telltale signs when I was younger. I never had a period. I had to go to specialists who poked and prodded and did everything but bleed me with leeches. That was their diagnosis. ‘Genetic abnormality.’ That’s when I got these.”
She pulled the sheet down again and touched her scars. She closed her eyes. She told Rachel the whole story, just kept talking so she couldn’t think long enough to stop. When she finished she wanted neither of them to leave that bed or to speak ever again. She wanted to dissolve into Rachel’s arm, sleep deeply again and wake in some other time. She had never told anyone the whole story. They made love again before falling asleep.
Early the next morning Benny sat up in Rachel’s bed, a blanket covering her outstretched legs. A thin band of light under a bank of clouds showed the sun was threatening to rise. Rachel was packing for her trip to Peru.
“I have a bad feeling about this.”
Rachel straightened from stuffing T-shirts into her backpack. She yawned.
“About us?”
Benny shook her head. “You going away.”
“We’ll be running again before you know it. You’ll be so busy you won’t have time to miss me. It’ll be a blip of absence.”
A blip of absence. There was no such thing. Benny had learned that absence was half of a binary switch. On or off. There was nothing in between. Of 0 and 1, this felt a lot like 0.
“Promise you’ll come back.”
“I promise I’ll come back.” Rachel got off the bed. “I’m going to be late if I don’t get ready.”
Downstairs Rachel kissed her goodbye and retrieved her coat from the hall closet. The two friends left the apartment onto 6th Street and waited for the cab. They hugged when it pulled up and Rachel whispered in Benny’s ear, “Keep running.”
She would as soon as she got home, but first she decided to walk all the way uptown. The roads in Central Park were icy, bare branches silhouetted against a bright sky. She thought of how it felt to have Rachel’s hands on her back and wished she could have shared with her the light coming through the trees, the metallic breeze against her face.
26
Forest Garden
I am sitting on the little stone wall smoking Lina’s herbal mixture. Down the gentle slope in front of me grows a young chokecherry tree that hasn’t borne fruit yet. I really should cut that tree down before it gets too big and shades the vegetables, but I like the look of it and its speckled bark in the midst of the garden.
That Mylar blanket of Benny’s is probably long gone by now. It was made of PETE.
Lina walks her bike up the path, past the tree, and sits down beside me. She looks sheepish and contrite.
“Where’d you spend the night?”
“In a tree house.”
Puff, exhale.
“Who has a tree house?”
“Charles.”
Chucko. The guy from the land co-op. The tree house is intriguing, but I don’t want to hear her say anything else out loud so I don’t ask. I know what happened, and she knows I know, but as long as we don’t ac
knowledge it I can pretend that nothing has changed.
I may not say anything, but I can’t stop thinking about it. I don’t know what she sees in Chucko. I know she admires his politics. His self-righteous, activist, holier-than-thou politics. Lina is quirky for heavy beards and long, lanky hair. Chucko has this disgusting furry thing on his cheeks and jowls that makes me shiver. His facial hair is thick enough to store objects in, and he does: chopsticks, pens, bits of his last meal.
“I don’t trust him.”
“Don’t be jealous,” she says.
Jealous? I’ve never been jealous in my life. That’s a stick people use to measure love.
Lina bikes over to Margaretsville, leaving me alone in the woods for the night. Chucko has invited her to harvest kelp from the sea in his canoe early the next morning. I am in my cabin trying to think of anything but them, but what they get up to before they begin paddling is a source of vile speculation on the part of my disobedient mind. I imagine her kissing his beard, trying to find his lips. Lina has always encouraged me to stop shaving. Perhaps I should have, but I’ve never liked having facial hair.
Chucko takes to visiting our homestead. He drives an old beater. He seems proud of the fact that he found a ’73 Satellite Sebring Plus, in excellent condition, and is driving it into the ground. He covered it with yellow house paint, then painted over that with green slogans. “Say no to GMOs!” “Would you eat YOU’RE dog for dinner?”
His bedroom is in a forty-foot white ash. She tells me it’s fun to sleep up there. The tree sways with the slightest breeze at night. Each morning the resident red squirrel — she says they call it Pete — visits them, dashing in one window, eating table scraps, then darting out another. No doubt Pete pees on Chucko’s pile of unwashed clothes on the way out.
The Rest is Silence Page 16