Fight No More

by Lydia Millet

  Without it the duty weighed more.

  In the morning she was eager to go, her bag neatly packed. She’d packed it fastidiously, so as to spend more time alone in her room. Marnie drove her to the airport. She said she didn’t know when she’d be in L.A. next. “Well, you’re always welcome,” said Nina.

  A white lie. But Marnie wouldn’t call her bluff.

  And Marnie wasn’t her sister, she thought, rolling her bag through the doors to the terminal. Not really. That woman used to be her sister. Long ago.

  She texted Ry after the plane landed, when it was still taxiing. He was the only one who understood. He’d sent her links to songs Lynn liked, songs he and Lynn had played together. Drum and bass. Sometimes they’d made their own arrangements. Or sometimes he just texted one word, Missing.

  Let’s get a drink, she typed.

  Sure, he typed back.

  On the curb at LAX she waited for her ride staring at the white spaceship. The flying saucer, futuristic. She’d never known what purpose it served but she’d always liked it. Someone had said there was a restaurant there, or once had been. At first the restaurant had rotated, many years ago, but no longer.

  People passed with their suitcases. Some backpackers, muscular and healthy, speaking another language. Swedish? Or Norwegian. Then a monk. Orange robes. He lit up a cigarette. Was that even allowed? Could you still smoke, once enlightened?

  Maybe you smoked even more.

  What was enlightenment? Insight, she’d read. Deep understanding. Freedom from desire. Sure, that made sense. But desire for cigarettes, wouldn’t that count? Easier said than done, obviously. Maybe he was a beginner monk. Though he looked pretty old.

  But say you succeeded and erased desire. Say you had no cravings and no petty self-interest, but only a feeling of humility. Surpassing peace. She’d read that too. Surpassing peace.

  What then?

  If you weren’t a monk, but still overwhelmed by that humility, how did you spend your days?

  Maybe you could devote yourself to service. Show up at a soup kitchen or a homeless shelter, work for free. Would they let you? And what about rent, what about not becoming homeless yourself? How did you work for free? And also still have enough to eat?

  Life wasn’t set up for surpassing peace.

  She dropped her bag at home and got in the car, drove to meet Ry at a bar on Sunset. It was a dive bar, old and dim. Ry didn’t like bright light. He hated it. He had to be under bright lights onstage—he’d gotten used to it, he said. He shrank into his instrument and disappeared. But in regular life there was no instrument, so he had to stay tucked away. They sat at a dark corner table.

  She told him about the trip to Austin, about Marnie and Lewis. In the end, she didn’t have much to say about it. Except for the turtles. And the birds. The salamanders that hid.

  Ry nodded. He didn’t say much either.

  He had a talent for sympathy.

  A drunk guy blundered up to them. It was a bar that had a lot of regulars—day drinkers, unshaven.

  “Let’s have Christ for president,” sang the drunkard along with the jukebox.

  “Fat chance,” said a woman on a barstool.

  “Spot me a beer,” he said to Ry. “It’s what Jesus would do.”

  Ry hesitated a moment, then took out a five and handed it over.

  “Happy hour,” he told Nina. “The PBRs are four bucks.”

  “You’re the risen messiah,” said the drunkard, and swayed his way back to the bar.

  “Been waiting a long time to hear that,” said Ry.

  But after a few minutes another drunk guy came over, younger and with a shaved head.

  “Heard you’re giving out beers,” he said.

  Ry looked at him, then at Nina.

  “I gave out one,” he said.

  “If one, why not two?”

  “Oh for Chrissake,” said Ry.

  By the time they left he’d paid for three more drinks and all his cash was gone. The man he gave his last bills to—four ones, all that were in his wallet—was irritated. He took them, but shook his head and muttered something they couldn’t hear.

  “Maybe he expected you to offer your credit card,” said Nina, on the pavement.

  “Break out the plastic,” said Ryan.

  “Give an inch, they’ll take a mile.”

  “I wasn’t trying to impress you. I’m just bad at saying no.”

  “Hey,” she said, and jostled him with her elbow. “I was already impressed.”

  In his face she thought she saw a flash of hidden feeling—regret or embarrassment. As though he might be saying to himself: Remember, we’re just friends.

  Or maybe she was flattering herself.

  Anyway, it didn’t really matter. Because they were.

  Driving down Crescent Heights she thought about taking a shower. She’d take a shower as soon as she got in the front door. Good to be back in L.A. Her car and her city.

  Lights, red and blue, flashed in the rearview mirror.

  Shit! Shit. How long had it been behind her? How many drinks had she had? She couldn’t remember. Even two could put you over the limit. Her shoulders tightened as she turned into the side street. Breathing was fast. They could suspend your license. Arrest you, even. Couldn’t they? Lynn had been patted down once. The cop had kicked his feet apart, like on TV. Bound his hands with a plastic tie. He’d been sober and driving six miles over the speed limit.

  Did she have her registration? Insurance? It was on her phone, the insurance. An app. Her phone was almost out of juice, the charger still packed away. Her suitcase in the trunk. Fumbling in her bag in the passenger seat, in her wallet . . . she flicked on the overhead.

  A flashlight. She rolled down the window quickly. Couldn’t see his face.

  “License and registration, please.”

  She got them out of her wallet, fingers shaking. “My insurance is current, but I’d have to pull up the app and maybe download—something—”

  Babbling. Police always made her nervous. Even before Lynn’s stories. Did the policeman hear her? She tapped on the app. Password. What was it? Oh. The usual. She used the same password for everything. View Your ID Cards.

  Would he ask her to walk a straight line? Touch the tip of her nose?

  “Do you know why I stopped you, miss?”

  “No, I’m sorry. I’m really not sure.”

  “You can’t tell me what you did back there?”

  She tried to cast herself back, but it was a blank. She’d been driving, was all. Wanting to take a shower.

  She looked at him. Sharp nose, small eyes.

  “I don’t know, Officer.”

  Lynn said to always call them officer. They needed to dominate.

  “Have you had anything to drink tonight?”

  He asked her right out. Just like that. And the car hadn’t even been weaving!

  Did she have to answer?

  There was a shout and he turned away to look behind him. Across the street, on a lawn, two men were in a huddle. She tried to make out what they were doing, but it was too dim. There were street lights and porch lights but trees too, and the men were tossing around beneath one, in a pit of shadow. One of them was yelling.

  The policeman crossed the street, flashlight out, breaking into a jog.

  She could just drive. Pull away from the curb, screeching. A fugitive! The cruiser giving chase. Chaos!

  He hopped over the curb and onto the grass, the spot of his flashlight bouncing. Then the men were running, and he was running. All three of them ran around the side of the house.

  Disappeared.

  She sat waiting. She was alert.

  A gunshot might sound. Or a cry.

  But there was no gunshot.

  Other cars passed her open window, stopped at the light ahead. One had a thumping bass that made her head hurt. Subwoofers, Lynn had said. So obnoxious. She tapped her phone lightly on the steering wheel and sat staring at the red light, impatient
for the car with the bass to drive off.

  She couldn’t drive off, though.

  She turned on the radio.

  If the policeman came back, he might make her get out of the car. Might kick her feet apart and cuff her hands with a plastic tie. At least then she’d be echoing Lynn. Doing what Lynn had done, or what had been done to him.

  Her life could be lived as an echo, her movements organized to imitate his. Take what she knew of his history and live in it herself. A playback, a ripple. A phantom of him.

  The real ghosts were the ones that lived under your skin.

  Still no one came back. From the row of houses, the shadows of the trees, there was nothing.

  Should she just go?

  Twenty minutes had passed. Maybe more.

  She almost stepped on the gas. Her foot rested there. But then—she wasn’t that drunk. She didn’t feel drunk at all. She would stay. She’d be OK.

  She opened her door and got out, walked back to the cruiser. Raised her phone and snapped a picture of the plates. Called it in.

  The policeman had pulled her over for a traffic violation, she told the dispatch woman. But now he was gone.

  Dispatch said thank you, then told her to stay where she was.

  More waiting. That was the reward for the dutiful phone call. She leaned against the side of her car.

  But she felt restless.

  When there was a lull in traffic she crossed the road, walked in the dip of shade under the trees. Along the side of the house, where there was a green, curled-up hose and garbage cans, she heard something. A cat? Something crying, maybe.

  Behind the house was an alley. An orange tree hung over it, or maybe lemon. Some rotten ones on the ground.

  Lying beyond them, near a curl of old carpet against a low wall, was a man. The policeman. She ran over, bent down.

  He lay on his back, one of his arms and his head shaking. His eyes were open, but he didn’t turn his head to look at her.

  “I called them! They’re coming,” she said.

  She couldn’t see what was wrong with him.

  Maybe he nodded, or maybe it was the shaking.

  “Can you tell me what happened?” she asked.

  She looked at his torso, his legs. Was there an injury? A hole in him? She couldn’t tell. Should she touch his shirt?

  “Did someone shoot you?”

  He moved his head back and forth. Looked like no. And she hadn’t heard a shot, but she couldn’t be sure. Beneath his back there could be blood pooling.

  He mumbled something, or tried to. Medicine?

  She asked him if he meant he was sick. Did he have medicine on him? Medicine she should give him?

  But he was fading.

  She’d call again and tell them he was in the alley. But she’d left her phone in the car. Hadn’t brought it. Thoughtless. She’d have to leave him here to make the call.

  When he’d stood at her car window, looming, his nose had been sharp and his eyes small. Now they weren’t sharp, weren’t small as he lay there. Just a man’s face. The eyes were closing. He could be falling asleep, could be dreaming.

  He had a gun at his waist. Also resting.

  She was useless. She had to go make the call and bring the others. Tell them to send an ambulance.

  Still, kneeling beside him she could barely make herself get up and walk.

  She’d met Lynn this way—over a man stretched out on the ground, a man who was hurt. The day his friend had almost drowned. She’d had to call the paramedics then too.

  Maybe that was when affection crept in. When it seeped in, unexpected. At least, for her. It wasn’t just sympathy. It was more.

  Was it just her this happened to? Or was it this way for all of them? That when they fell they could be loved?

  Love came when they laid their bodies down.

  OH CHILD OF EARTH

  It wasn’t the lawsuit that prompted her decision, the lawsuit Paul decided to bring against the deaf guy in the beat-up Hyundai who put a two-inch ding on his BMW and didn’t have enough insurance to cover the paint job at his overpriced body shop. It wasn’t the time he scrolled through apparently comical images on his phone, chuckling and shaking his head ruefully, while Lora was crying next to him in the kitchen. (She saw that one from a position behind him as she stood leaning on the walker, her jaw dropped in amazement.) Or even the time she heard him say to Lora, before God and everyone, including his own son, Your tits look droopy in that bra. Sober as a judge when he said it. Not that drunkenness would be an excuse either. He would never have pulled that with his first wife.

  It was not any of these incidents, nor many others she’d witnessed. Although they were all neat demonstrations of her son’s poor character. Moral and otherwise.

  No, it was simply the realization that he didn’t need her money, didn’t need anything from her anymore, but others did. There were others in need.

  So she made an appointment with the estate lawyer and had Lexie drive her there. She wasn’t wealthy by Paul’s standards, of course, but her dear old house had sold well enough. She wanted the money from it to mean something.

  The lawyer’s office was in Century City, whose verticality she used to feel was so out of place. Las Vegas without the lights or casinos. Lexie went off on a grocery run after getting her situated in his waiting room. A woman on the sofa opposite, legs crossed and expensive bag nestled beside her like a small, curled-up dog, was talking on her cell. “First he said Muslims were the worst customers. But then suddenly he started going on about Indians. Yeah. From India. Right, there’s crossover. So he like, zeroed in. From Muslims to Indians. Indians are the worst, he said. He goes, there was this one Indian? He was such a tool! The other customers were in shock, he said, as they witnessed this Indian guy’s behavior. He said, you could feel their ideas about Indians . . . just expanding.”

  Then the lawyer’s receptionist called her in, and there was the usual struggle to get up. She had to let the receptionist help.

  She wouldn’t mention the changed will, of course. Didn’t want anyone to feel beholden. She’d laid her plans, that was all. Half the funds would go to Jem and Baby Rae in case Paul went bankrupt and couldn’t provide for her grandchildren: a fool and his money, etc. The rest would go to Lexie. She’d written a note to Paul explaining her logic. So that he wouldn’t take it as a personal affront.

  He would take it that way, of course, despite the note, but she had done her best. And he’d get over it. It was pennies to him. Chump change.

  She didn’t plan to die yet, not while she could still read and write, but she was well prepared. The trick would be to choose her moment. After her usefulness was gone, before the onset of Alzheimer’s or dementia. Whichever card she was dealt. A narrow window, possibly. Could be easy to miss.

  Well, that was always the trick. And no second chances.

  Her people were decent planners as a rule, the people of the book. Of course she was fully assimilated: the missionaries hadn’t even known she was a Jew, or not till long after the war, at least. She only found out herself when she was eight. A faux WASP. A WASP by the grace of Stalin. She liked to think her war-orphan upbringing might justify some leniency from Yahweh over the defection, should he be proven, quite surprisingly, to exist. Other Jews wouldn’t forgive her, that was true. But he might.

  Had she been a better parent than her parents would have been, had they lived? The evidence was against it. She’d gone through her old photos yesterday and thrown out some, but kept the faded sepia-toned print she had from their wedding day. Vilnius. Her father had died in Siberia at Kolyma Gulag, likely frozen, while her mother and sister had fetched up at the other end of Soviet space and probably starved to death. She had a picture of the sign at the front gate of the camp where they’d disappeared. Translated, it read: AKMOLA LABOR CAMP FOR WIVES OF TRAITORS TO THE MOTHERLAND.

  She’d been dreamy that day, felt almost nostalgic as she picked through the folder of old photos, her own weddi
ng, Paul as a baby and then as a boy. She gave those all to Lora, who exclaimed over them. How cute! She’d have them scanned right away! Order a special album!

  Turning back to her screen, she bit into a cracker and skimmed a new Levada poll on current perceptions of Stalin. 54% of Russians now believe he was a wise leader who led the nation to prosperity, it said.

  The cracker turned to sawdust in her mouth.

  She sat there for a minute. Helpless.

  Then picked up her cell, called Lora to come back.

  “Oh, sure. But can I do my nails while we talk? I know you don’t like the smell. But the salon was all booked today. I couldn’t get in. And they look terrible.”

  “Of course, dear. Yes.”

  So Lora came in, tottering on some glittery high-heeled sandals that seemed to have liquid floating in the platforms, and opened a window. She slipped off the sandals and took out bottles from a kit she carried, various bits of plastic. Arrayed them on the coffee table.

  “What are those?”

  “Oh! It’s so sweet you don’t know! Toe separators. See? You put them on like this.”

  She slid the foam mold between her toes.

  “Haven’t you ever gotten a pedicure?”

  “I have not,” said Aleska.

  “You should go with me next time!”

  “Surely I’m too old to start. I wouldn’t want a stranger having to touch my crone’s feet.”

  “It’s fun! They do like, calf massages. Exfoliation! You should totally go with me!”

  Exfoliation. Jesus. The child bride, as Jem used to call her, was ignorant of aged bodies. Her skin was paper-thin. It would peel off in strips.

  “The truth is, I wanted to ask you something.”

  “Shoot!”

  She plied a cotton ball, dabbing at the toenails. Bright red on the cotton like blood on snow.

  “First, dear, I don’t know if I’ve thanked you enough. For letting me live in this guesthouse.”

  “Oh my gosh! Of course. It’s actually great. Is everything OK? It’s not too small?”

  “It’s perfect. And I know it was all you.”

  “No, I mean—Paul wanted it too.”

  “Mmm. But you pushed for it, didn’t you?”