I memorised this conversation.
It wasn’t a real conversation; it was more like a situation. I could have told my father that I was going to remember it all – make a mental note of it, so as to be able to drag it out again years later, think about it again and maybe understand it differently.
While my husband and I were driving to that city in the far north to pick up my father from the psychiatric institution there, we were listening to tacky music on the car radio; the sun went down, and the blinking red lights on the windmill turbine blades lit up; we had brought some coffee with us and wine gums and chocolate, and I was grateful without being able to explain it. Around midnight we were standing, all three of us, at a rest stop around a circular plastic table, my husband, my father and I; we were eating hot dogs with mustard and dry, toasted buns off paper plates, and we didn’t let my father out of our sight for even a second because we were afraid he would make use of the first unguarded moment to slip away across the fields. We took him back to the institution from which he had escaped, and I can see myself standing outside the glass door of the ward until the male nurse – he was holding my father gently by the elbow – had walked around the corner at the end of the corridor with my father, and of course my father did not turn around to look at me, and of course I wasn’t expecting him to.
But I do remember the ward number – 87. And my father’s smell during those years.
My father didn’t actually say, I would never buy a piece of cake from that pastry shop. He never said that, but it was probably what he meant.
He ate the entire piece of tart in spite of that; he ate it with that unique, fierce greed that I’d only seen up to that time in old people. He didn’t care at all about the gays. I suspect that what mattered was that I had bought a piece of tart for him and that despite everything I somehow knew that he used to love plum tart before he fell ill. It was all about this, and beneath it I’m sure it was also about something else entirely.
Letti Park
How beautiful Elena used to be! A beautiful, slender girl, black eyes, dark brown hair, taut as a bowstring, face flushed as if she were constantly pinching her cheeks. Elena was strong, plucky, cheerful and edgy; she was always on guard. She wore skirts over slacks like a gypsy, cheap jewellery, no make-up, and her hair was as matted as if she had lain in bed all day, smoking, flicking ash on the floor, spreading her legs. Evenings, though, she went to work in a bar on a street with broken cobblestones, dilapidated houses, open front doors, locust trees right and left, and birches in the courtyards. In the winter it smelled of coal and in the summer of gorse and dust. Elena was one of those women who, in the evening, put her hair up into a bun with a pencil. She would put a rust-red skirt on over a pair of mint-green slacks, unlock the bar, and sweep the cigarette stubs out with a broom. She’d fetch herself a beer and switch on the music and the string of coloured lights draped in the branches of the locust tree. Later everyone would come by. Elena was the most beautiful girl on the block.
Elena is standing in front of Rose at the cash register in the market hall; Rose recognises her too late, only after she’s already put her strawberries, sugar and cream on the conveyor belt. Had she recognised Elena sooner, she would have gone back and looked for something else to buy, but it’s too late for that now. Paul has just come up too and put his things down next to hers, a can of fish, tobacco and a bottle of port. Elena doesn’t turn around to look. She’s become heavy and old, phlegmatic, slow; yet still unmistakably Elena – almond eyes and hair like snakes, you can tell her skin is warm just by looking, and she has always been taller than all the others – but it seems she’s got involved in something. There’s someone with her, an Indian – stocky, energetic and strong, maybe with a tendency towards violence and looking a bit down at heel; he has dusty flip-flops on his feet, and his flowered shirt is stained. The Indian straightens out the items on the conveyor belt. Hands them to the cashier and then takes them back from her; he also packs them into a bag; Elena just stands there. Her mind elsewhere. Arms hanging down. Tomatoes, basil in a pot, candles and rice. Cigarettes. Two bottles of whiskey. Elena takes a purse from her bag and opens it like a book. She raises her head and looks at Rose. What does her expression say? Rose can’t tell. Elena looks like a sad giantess. A sad, bewitched giantess.
Christ Almighty, Paul says. Dammit. I can’t understand the slowness of these people. And the shitty cold in this store. It’s like a freezer in here. This is the last time we’re ever coming to this place, Rose. You hear me? Strawberries … Your delusional notions about still needing this or that.
Nobody can pronounce the word strawberries with as much contempt as Paul. He leaves Rose standing there and goes over to the newspaper rack; it’s not too cold to leaf through the papers. The Indian has become aware of a slight, filament-thin vibration. He takes the purse out of Elena’s hand, casting a glowering look at Rose. Does he know how beautiful Elena once was? Does he have the slightest idea? And would things be any different if he did know?
Rose!
Paul is calling to her, and suddenly Elena has become aware of something; she turns her heavy head from Rose to Paul and grasps the connection. Paul is holding up a newspaper, a tabloid in which he’s looked up his and Rose’s horoscope. For Paul, what Rose’s horoscope says is more real and true than anything Rose herself says, and if the horoscope says she should think carefully and finally tell her partner the truth, then Rose can prepare herself for a punishing week. Paul holds up the paper; the headlines report cannibalistic murders, approaching barbarians and rising water prices; he calls over to her, You should take some time off, Rose, slow down a little, and Elena turns her head back towards Rose.
Rose and Elena had nothing in common except that each had caught the eye of Page Shakusky. That each had been an image in Page Shakusky’s eyes. A vision. Rose, you see, was attending the university and Page Shakusky discovered her; he had stopped her as she was hurrying home from the university campus with no other goal than to make herself something to eat, to eat at her desk, and to go on studying. Rose had been hurrying past Elena’s bar, and Page Shakusky had jumped up from the lopsided garden table where he always sat and had intercepted her. Drunk, of course drunk, in those days he was never sober. He said, What a pretty, graceful girl you are with the walk of a giraffe and the charm of a songbird; everyone is staring at you. Rose didn’t fall for any of it. She shook him off and hurried on, ran up the stairs to her apartment, and once there, locked the door from the inside. She allowed Page Shakusky to pay her compliments but she didn’t fall for them. Page Shakusky persisted for quite a while. Mornings he would be lying outside her door; after she left her apartment, he would climb up on her balcony and wait for her to come home; he wrote her countless letters full of promises, vows and suggestive remarks. Rose would put her hands over her ears and close her eyes. She was reticent and busy trying to stay afloat in her life, and she knew that Page Shakusky was in reality much the same, except that he had thought up a different strategy. Getting involved with him was quite out of the question. He kept trying for a while longer, and then he stopped because he had discovered another convent-school girl, and then, suddenly, he got involved with Elena. And that was something different. He fell for Elena. Elena seemed to be free of any inclination to surrender. In fact, she seemed to be quite free generally. After six weeks she broke Page Shakusky’s heart; she broke it in half and quite casually into two pieces, and then she stuck the pencil back into her hair and switched on the string of coloured lights and sat down outside the door of her bar as if nothing had happened.
The Indian paid for his and Elena’s joint purchases. In a way that made it seem as if they had been going shopping together their entire lives, as if he had always paid for himself and Elena. Paul tosses the newspaper back on the pile and comes over to the cash register. The cashier is blonde and young; she picks up the strawberries and looks vacantly into Rose’s eyes. Paul is going to ask her what she does; he asks every young
cashier the same question.
Rose is reminded of Letti Park. Page’s present for Elena, but she can’t remember whether Elena had already left him by then or whether she only left him after this present. Left him with or because of this present. Elena had spent her childhood in Letti Park; she had told Page about it. And Page had gone off and photographed Letti Park for Elena. In the winter. An ordinary, dreary park on the outskirts of town, a piece of fallow land, with nothing to see, snowy paths, a deserted circular flowerbed, benches and a vacant lawn. Bare trees, grey sky; that’s all there was. But Page had reverently retraced the trail of Elena’s childhood. He had gone to see Rose to show her the photos – she was able to open her apartment door to him now that he had stopped his intense, careless courtship of her and was going with Elena – and she left the cup from which he had drunk tea with rum while showing her the photos standing on the kitchen table for days. He had pasted them into a book with great care and written the words, Letti Park, in a wild script on the cover of the book and below that – for Elena. For my Elena. Rose thought that one got a gift like this only once. But in spite of that, Elena walked out on Page sitting with his head down on the lopsided garden table; he was still sitting there in front of the bar, at seven o’clock in the morning, barefoot, eyes red from crying, and drunk. Later he vanished from both their lives. Rose moved away. Elena gave up her bar. The string of coloured light bulbs hung a while longer in the locust tree branches. Rose hasn’t been back there for a long time.
What is it you do actually, Paul says to the cashier.
And the cashier blushes delicately and says, I am studying economics; why do you ask?
Rose puts the strawberries, sugar, cream, port, tobacco and the tinned fish into paper bags. Paul points at Rose and says, Her horoscope says she should take some time off, and the cashier laughs and says, We could all use some time off.
In Page Shakusky’s book for Elena the park was black and white with not a soul in sight. A twilight realm. A floating, suspended, celestial world. Vague shadows among the trees and signs on the paths which you couldn’t read. Page’s nostalgic longing for Elena’s childhood, one longing among many.
Rose leaves the bags sitting on the counter and walks out of the supermarket to the car park. The Indian has by now stowed his purchases in the boot of his car; he slams the boot shut, inspects his rear lights, kicks a tyre, then gets in. Elena is already sitting in the car; she’s strapped herself in; she’s looking straight ahead.
On a piece of paper that Page Shakusky had slipped under Rose’s door at four o’clock early one morning back then, there was a sentence she still remembers even today: All the people in my dreams have your face. Page Shakusky had written this sentence to Rose. Even with all his failures, there was something indestructible, something bright about him, and Rose suddenly, ardently hopes that wherever he has ended up he is doing well. It can be enough to have been a face in the dream of another person; it really can be like a blessing, and she hopes that Elena still knows some of that; that Letti Park still matters – the wintry pictures, the promising shadows, the paths into uncertainty.
Behind her the sliding doors open and close again, and Paul comes out and says, What are you waiting for, Rose.
The Indian steps on the gas so abruptly it verges on contempt. Rose takes one step forward; holds up her hand. What is she waiting for?
Witnesses
For Matthew Sweeney
Ivo and I met with Henry and Samantha at a time when our marriage was almost on the rocks. Samantha was going to take over Ivo’s job at the institute; that was the reason for our meeting; they would still be working together there for a while longer, but then Ivo would leave and Samantha would stay on. Henry and Samantha knew that we intended to leave the city for professional reasons; ivo hadn’t mentioned this at the institute. That was all they knew. Henry and Samantha had just moved here, a couple in a second marriage, grown-up children, the last third of their lives; Henry was considerably older than Samantha. He wore baggy trousers and unironed shirts; his eyes were bloodshot, and he seemed worn out, but when he laughed, his entire face was transformed into that of a pixie, a childlike face; no one seemed to be able to hurt him.
We went to Anice; that year you went to Anice if you wanted to get good fish and couldn’t abide waiters who stood at your table and watched arrogantly as you ate. At Anice people drank beer in the front room, and in the back you could go on sitting at the long tables after having eaten, have another bottle of wine in comfortably muted lighting, and talk to one another without having to shout. For Ivo it was awfully depressing; he was terribly sad about all these circumstances, these procedures that seemed to testify to our middle age, our weaknesses. But nothing else had occurred to him. That was the problem; he didn’t know what else to do.
At Anice Ivo selected the trout. Samantha and I decided on the halibut. But I’m not so sure about the halibut, Samantha said, and then Henry said that he had once stood in a fish store and heard a lady ask the fishmonger for halibut – he pronounced the word ‘lady’ deliberately and as if it were his invention, a word without any history. He said, Just like our Samantha here at this table, she had said, What exactly is halibut. And what did the fishmonger say? What did the fishmonger say. The fishmonger said, Dear lady, halibut is the Lamborghini of the seas.
Henry slapped the palm of his hand on the table causing the glasses to jingle and Ivo to flinch. I looked at Samantha. Samantha was looking sideways at Henry. Her shoulder-length hair hung in tightly twirled curls, and she pulled the curls carefully behind one ear, holding on to them so she could see Henry properly, and her look was one of delight.
For my part, Henry said, I’ll take the cod. A fabulous local fish caught right outside the door; and apparently he didn’t feel he had to look at Samantha, to make sure of her.
Ivo and I were both in our first marriage, and we had one daughter, Ida; I would not be having any more children. Ivo, yes. Ivo would perhaps like to; sometimes I imagined him in a new version – everything starting from scratch; another wife, another house, a new child, a garden with cherry trees and lilacs, and matching porcelain dishes in the kitchen cabinets. And I was certain I wouldn’t recognise him any more. I wouldn’t recognise Ivo in his new life; he would be someone else; I know this is possible; that we are like that. He would retain his passion for fishing. He would go to illegal dog races on Sundays. He wouldn’t stop believing that licking the aluminium covers of yogurt containers caused cancer, and he’d still fall asleep lying on his right side, legs drawn up, one hand between his knees, and he’d say things in his dreams like, Have you checked under this chair, or Please put on something warm and hurry up. But as for all the rest? He would be speaking a different language, like his second child, to whom he would be an old and decidedly indulgent father, and who would have a name that Ivo and I would never ever have chosen. He would eat nuts for breakfast. His birch pollen allergy would be gone; sex would again be an abyss for him. All this; all these things. Surprises. But we hadn’t got to this point yet. Back then we were at the point where Ida, coming home from school, would walk right past us and go to her room, closing the door behind her and choosing not to eat anything for supper. We were just at the point where Ivo cried at night. We had it all still ahead of us – the packing of boxes, the drunken confessions; we were at the beginning of all that.
The waiter brought the fish and poured more wine. Ivo looked exhausted, and beads of sweat had formed on his forehead. He is a good, a prudent and a shy man. He carried on exactly the sort of conversation that puts you to sleep – about the inevitable structures at the Institute, then the stormy spring, then the crisis – but for me it was all right this way; it was an expression of our circumstances, our situation.
Henry stayed out of it.
I did too.
Samantha joined in, but after a while she cautiously changed direction; she started talking a bit about herself. She said she had been born near the coast and had then lived
for a while far away in the East; she had met Henry seven years ago, after his marriage ended; she emphasised that he was not married any more by the time she met him. Why was she emphasising this point? She said she was happy to be back.
Henry said he was here because of Samantha. Samantha was the sole reason for his being here. The only reason for his being on this ghastly, wretched earth at all. He said it matter-of-factly; he was busy with his fish, fiercely filleting it, pushing the skin to the side, and leaving it on the edge of the plate; he sucked each bone clean and appeared utterly content.
He said, Jesus, this fish is talking to me, and he brandished the wine bottle, preparing to refill Samantha’s empty glass, but she declined quite pointedly. Ivo, though, raised his glass and held it out to Henry with an expression of submission, and Henry filled it to the brim and they clinked glasses.
They drank a toast to nothing; they left it open.
I no longer remember why Henry started talking about the moon at Anice. Was it because we had just had a full moon? The full moon had brought with it a late spring; it had risen impressively above the roofs of the city and was still there in the clear morning sky at seven. Ivo had called my attention to it that morning before he got into the car to drive to work; we had both stood in front of the house with arms crossed looking up at the moon, so pale and white as if made of Chinese rice paper, and as if it had once belonged to both of us, and that this, for reasons not clear to us, was now over and done with once and for all.
At Anice, Henry said out of the blue that he had once met Neil Armstrong, ages ago, long ago, and I could practically hear Ivo, next to me, immediately beginning to mentally calculate, hear his tortured brain starting to count the years.
Letti Park Page 3