Nick did not give up right away. For two months, he drove up every weekend to shout at her through the door. Because she knew he would come on weekends, when there were fewer demands on his time, she was prepared for him. Sometimes she came to the door to listen, although she never opened it. Sometimes she stayed upstairs and pretended she was not home.
At the beginning of autumn, he arrived with an older man, who turned out to be another lawyer. Cheryl let them inside. Nick was ready for a formal separation, with the divorce to be final in a year. She would have her house, the money her parents had left her, the furniture and books they had taken from this house shipped back to her, and a cash settlement from Nick because he wanted to be fair. There was no point in contesting the terms. Nick was being more than generous, and for her to fight a long legal battle would inevitably require telephone calls.
Nick looked miserable when he left with his attorney. Cheryl did not know why. They had solved everything in a civilized, reasonable way, and he would get over her in time.
Her life was hers once more, Cheryl thought as she went upstairs to her bedroom. She had left the phone in the living room disconnected. She would no longer be plagued by the demands of others, by the need to make herself understood to them, by calls from the outside world. How odd it was that she couldn’t feel happier about that. She had what she wanted; why did she still feel vaguely uneasy and afraid?
She went to bed early and fell into a dream.
She was standing in an empty room with walls of glass. Through the walls, she saw people pressing against the glass, calling out to her soundlessly. She knew what they were saying; they wanted her to come out. Nick was there, and his mother, and several of her college classmates. They wanted her to join them, to throw herself into the messy, painful, disorderly, unpredictable and upsetting business they called life. She shrank back, afraid they might shatter the walls and drag her outside.
Cheryl woke up the next morning feeling drained, as though she had not slept at all, and glanced at the clock on her nightstand; it was nearly noon. Then she heard the sound, one she had never expected to hear again.
Two telephones were ringing in unison. One chirped at her; the other had the loud, jarring ring she remembered from her childhood. She could almost believe that the phones were right there in her room.
She quickly got out of bed. The telephones stopped ringing, then started up again.
Cheryl ran downstairs, then clambered down the steps to the basement. The black telephone in the recreation room still sat on a table in the corner. She had never had it reconnected; it could not be ringing. Yet the ringing went on, the chirping near her right ear, the more grating bell near her left.
The ringing stopped, then began again.
Chirp. Ring. Chirp. Ring. Chirp. Ring. Chirp. Ring.
Silence.
Chirp. Chirp. Chirp.
Silence.
Ring. Ring. Ring. Ring.
Cheryl found herself kneeling on the floor, hands over her ears.
Ring. Ring. Ring.
Chirp. Chirp. Chirp. Chirp.
The phones would never stop ringing, she realized, because they were inside her now, and they would never stop.
Ring, Ring, Ring.
Chirp, Chirp, Chirrrrrp …
Bond and Free
I can’t remember anything that happened to me before I came here, and neither can the others, or if they can they’re not saying. Tamu says he can, but he’s lying, as he lies about everything else. He is squatting on the balustrade now, peering at the green meadow that surrounds us on all sides. He sits on his heels and balances on his toes. His brown skin seems to gleam in the sunlight. He is mocking me, waiting to see how long I can stand it before I get up and rush across the balcony to him, afraid that he might slip and fall to the ground a hundred feet below. But I no longer care. I realize at last that Tamu with his almost perfect reflexes will not fall and will not do anything that will actually endanger him in any way. His balancing act is a lie, his pre-cariousness on the edge of the balustrade a falsity. He turns his head toward me, and I smile.
“Stop moving your face,” Tomas says. Tomas is busy applying my make-up, and he gets upset if I ruin his handiwork. It takes him at least an hour to do it every day, and that doesn’t include the time he spends on my hair. Then he expects me to spend the rest of the day doing nothing that would endanger his creation. That usually means doing nothing at all except reading or talking with the other patients. Last week I defied him and went down to swim in the pool. When I came out of the water with my hair plastered flat against my head and my make-up ruined, poor Tomas almost cried; he had spent three hours on me that day. He sulked for two days afterward, and I was able to roam around outside letting the wind whip my hair, able to eat without worrying about my lip paint. Then Tomas stopped sulking and my holiday was over.
Tamu is standing on his head now, hands in front of him, knees on his elbows. “There,” says Tomas. “I think you’re done.” He holds his hand mirror in front of me. I am black and gold today, black lines over eyelids and brows, gold dust heavy on my lids and sprinkled on my cheekbones. My hair too is thick with gold dust, my lips painted gold, my eyes made black by lenses. Tomas has dressed me in a black velvet dress, and golden earrings hang like chains to my shoulders. Even my skin is golden today; my tan has begun to fade. “Please don’t,” he says, “move unnecessarily.”
“I can’t,” I say, “move at all.” The heavy velvet dress, stiff with stays that push my breasts up and pinch my waist in, is a cage. I can feel sweat under my arms and between my breasts. “I don’t know why you couldn’t find something more comfortable; I can hardly breathe.” I am taking short, shallow breaths, unable to inhale deeply, and I am afraid that if I stand at all, I may faint.
“You were comfortable yesterday; you don’t have to be today.” Yesterday was a green leotard, green eyes, green spray on my hair. Tomas didn’t like that effect and he didn’t like the leotard. My thighs were too thin; my stomach was a bit too round. He had told me not to eat any supper because I was getting fat, and so I ate twice as much as I usually do. He is retaliating. It will be a miracle if I can eat at all now, with the stays pinching at my waist.
“Perfect,” Tomas murmurs, “perfect. I love you, Alia; that’s why I make you beautiful. And I love you even more today; you’re more beautiful than I’ve ever made you.” I glance at him and notice the bulge in his crotch, under his shabby pants.
“Why are you such a slob, then?” I ask. Tomas is heavy around the waist and his dirty brown hair hangs down to his chest. He is wearing what he always wears, brown pants and a torn white vest. The vest is unbuttoned and spotted with stains. “Why don’t you use some of your expertise on your own ugly self?” I look at his paunch and make a face. He seems upset now, not because of what I’ve said, but because he is afraid I’ll disturb my make-up by showing any expression at all.
“I’m making you beautiful,” Tomas protests. “Why should I waste the time on myself when it’s obvious that nothing will come of it anyway.” He pats his stomach. “I suppose I could diet. I love you, Alia. You’re perfection today, a vision. …”
“A vision!” says Tamu, who has given up on his balancing act for now. “A vision I would prefer to see naked and on the bed inside.”
“You had enough last night,” I say. Tamu leers at me. I stick out my tongue at him.
“Stop that,” says Tomas, “you’re going to ruin your make-up.”
“I’m dying,” says Tamu. He sits on the arm of my chair. “Dr. Ehlah said I was dying. My insides are rotting away. I’m going to suffer terribly.”
“Why don’t you jump off the balcony, then?” I reply. Tamu is unable to keep from lying.
“Because then I couldn’t see you any more, Alia,” he says. “Because then I couldn’t spend all that time plowing your furrow. I don’t mind suffering when I think of all the happy hours that await me in your presence, hours that will take my mind off my suffer
ing if only for a little while.” Tamu stands and begins to turn on his toes, stretching his arms toward the sun.
“Let’s go downstairs,” Tomas says. “Let’s go and sit in the ballroom so that everyone else can see you.”
“I can’t move. I can’t even get through our room in this thing, let alone down the stairs.” I feel perspiration on my face. Tomas begins to dab at it with a handkerchief.
“I don’t want to die,” Tamu suddenly shouts. “I want to live long enough to see my parents again, they were such fine people. They lived in a beautiful house in a large city. We had purple carpets on the floor, velvet carpets, and I would stand on them for hours, rubbing my feet on them, and sometimes I would even roll across them naked. They used to bring me little girls to play with.”
“I thought they had a fine ranch with horses,” I say, “and that they used to bring you little boys.”
Tamu is pouting now. I am not supposed to notice his lies and have hurt his feelings by mentioning an old story. He sulks for a few seconds, then brightens. “They had the ranch too,” he goes on, “and a cottage near a woodland glade. I used to watch my mother there while she was taking on the gardener.”
I have to admire Tamu, in a way. At least he can invent a past. He and Tomas are much more intelligent than I am, and they can always find something to say about anything. I can do nothing but respond to their talk, rarely having anything of my own to offer. I expect this with Tomas; he is older and has been here for ten years or more. But Tamu is only fourteen. I should be cleverer than he. I have been here three years and am almost seventeen. Tamu has been here three months. I introduced him to Tomas, I let him move his bed into our room, and he doesn’t show me proper deference. He is only the intermediary between Tomas and me, the tool through which Tomas expresses his love for me physically, and yet he insists on acting as if he is autonomous. But he is only a tool which pounds away in my open orifice while I cry out my love for Tomas, and afterward presents his ass to Tomas while Tomas cries out to me. It is I who lie in the big bed with Tomas during the night while he gazes down at my ruined make-up and speaks to me about how short-lived his art is, how soon beauty dies. Tamu has to lie in the small bed. Let him prance around with his pretty ass! He is only a tool.
“Why are we here,” Tomas says, “and why can’t we remember? I must have asked myself that a million times.”
“I don’t know why you do,” I say. “The doctors told us. We’re prone to certain illnesses and have to be kept in a restricted environment.”
“I don’t think that’s true. I didn’t believe it when I first came here, and I don’t believe it now.”
“What difference does it make?”
“Aren’t you curious, Alia?”
“Sure,” I say. “But I’m not going to sit around thinking about it. One day, I’ll just get up and walk out of here, and I’ll keep going until I see what’s outside. You can come along if you want.”
“But you can’t just walk out of here,” he says, looking worried.
“Why not? No one will stop me. I can just keep going, as far as I want to. I walked out once and stayed away for the whole day; I didn’t come back until after supper; you remember, you were really upset. But the doctors didn’t care.”
Tomas is agitated. “You can’t,” he says. “You’re susceptible to certain diseases; that’s why you’re here.”
“But I thought you didn’t believe that.”
“Well, I don’t entirely, but I haven’t disproved it either. If I’m going to find out anything, I’ll find it out here.”
“Suit yourself,” I say. “You should come along, though; it might be a real adventure. This place is so boring I’d think you’d welcome the chance.”
“I don’t think it’s boring. There’s a library, plenty of people to talk to, and you, Alia. Why should I be bored?”
I begin to shrug my shoulders, then feel the pinch of my stays. Tamu is turning cartwheels now. “I’m dying,” he shouts to us. “My bones will rot away until I can only flow across the floor.” He begins to dance across the balcony, whirling faster and faster, his arms straight out from his shoulders, until I am almost dizzy watching him. I reach for Tomas’s hand. He holds it, then kisses my golden-nailed fingers.
“You are beautiful,” he says.
The fire of sunrise blazed beyond the balcony. Awakening, Alia sat up in her large brass-railed bed and gazed across the room.
Tomas had betrayed her again, creeping out of bed in the middle of the night to Tamu. She could see their bodies huddled together under Tamu’s sheets, moles burrowing under the bedclothes.
Tamu was only an intermediary. Alia had never made love to him unless Tomas was present and able to witness the act. Yet Tomas had gone to Tamu while assuming that she still slept; she had heard their moans and remembered that it was Tamu’s name he called out and not hers.
Well, thought Alia, it hardly matters now. She was leaving this morning. If the others were content to sit around here, that was their business. She had wanted Tomas to accompany her, but he, along with everyone else, preferred to huddle in the hospital even though he, and almost everyone else, did not really believe what the doctors had told them. No one had forbidden them to leave; none of them really wanted to go.
She put on her walking boots, straightened her slacks, and checked her small knapsack. It was filled with food packets stolen from the kitchen and a canteen of water. She had a knife and could sleep on the ground using the knapsack as a pillow.
Alia hoisted the knapsack onto her back, then turned toward Tamu’s bed. The two were still sleeping. She opened the door and walked out into the red-carpeted hallway.
No one else was up yet. She walked down the hallway to the elevator and pushed the down button. Tomas was afraid of the elevator and never let her use it; Tamu laughed at Tomas for his fear but wouldn’t ride it either. The doors opened and she stepped aboard.
The elevator hummed down to the first floor lobby and stopped with a jolt. Alia paced through the lobby. Her booted footsteps echoed on the smooth white surface of the floor. Other Alias marched on either side of the large room, reflected from the mirrors that lined the halls. All of the Alias moved toward the arched doorway, then disappeared, leaving only one to pass through the doorway and outside the hospital.
The morning air was cool and the grass around the building still dewy. As she walked, Alia saw the tips of her boots darken with moisture. She pivoted and looked back.
The hospital seemed to tower above her. It was an ugly building, tall and square with baroque balustrades surrounding balconies on every floor of the thirty-story structure. The heavy wooden doors, propped open, which led into the lobby seemed out of place, an afterthought. She turned away from the hospital. Grasslands surrounded the building on all sides; the only tree she had ever seen was the weeping willow near the back entrance.
Alia set out across the green field in front of her. She hoped Tomas wouldn’t worry, remembered seeing him under Tamu’s sheets, then began to wish that he would worry a little. He would have to dress someone else today, if anyone would sit still that long. She laughed to herself.
The knapsack had grown heavier. Alia stopped, removed it, and sat down. She was still surrounded by green meadows, and she could still see the hospital. It was small and close to the horizon, a grey block against the blue sky.
She couldn’t have made much progress if she could still see the hospital. Annoyed, she stood up and began to drag her knapsack behind her. The cursed thing seemed to be made of lead.
Alia trudged on, dragging the knapsack. Occasionally she turned and, seeing the grey block, would keep going. The weather had grown warmer, and her clothes were sticking to her. She pushed on, dragging the knapsack up a small hill and down the other side, through a field of dandelions and up another small hill. She moved on until she was exhausted and had to stop once more.
She fell next to the knapsack and stretched out on the ground, catching her breath
. At last she sat up and climbed to her feet.
The hospital had vanished.
She sat down again, facing her long afternoon shadow. At last she was free of the place. If Tomas had been with her, he would be trying to guess what was beyond the meadow, if indeed there was anything beyond the meadow. Alia was content to wait. She shivered, suddenly apprehensive.
Alia had found some trees by nightfall and decided to sleep under them, feeling somehow, that she would be safer there. By morning, she regretted the decision. The ground under the trees had been harder than the soft meadowland.
She began to walk around the trees, feeling numb in the cool morning air. Her jacket was damp with dew. “This is ridiculous,” she said aloud, “walking all this way to see five trees.” Her voice sounded hollow. She shuddered and decided not to talk to herself again.
She hoisted the knapsack onto her back and set off. Occasionally she looked back. The trees moved closer to the horizon and finally disappeared. A song Tamu had taught her ran through her mind, repeating itself monotonously.
At noon she sat down to rest. The silence of the grasslands had grown oppressive. She pulled out her canteen and drank noisily, smacking her lips between swallows. She opened a packet and gnawed at the rubbery chicken inside, then let out a loud belch.
Ahead of her was a very high hill, higher at least than any she had seen so far. She noticed a small structure on the side of the hill, squinted at it nearsightedly, but couldn’t see what it was.
She hurried toward the hill, curious now. She moved quickly, ignoring the warmth of the sunlight and the increasing heaviness of the knapsack she was dragging.
Reaching the hill, she began to climb toward the structure. It was a well. She had seen a painting of a well in the library; in fact, this looked like the same one: brown stones, wooden bucket parked on the edge, wild violets growing nearby.
There was one difference. She could see a wooden plank resting against the well. Someone had painted white letters on the plank. She read the message:
Eye of Flame Page 9