by Craig Nova
“Is the fox here?” said a woman in beige pants and a silk blouse who had come up behind Virginia.
“And the foxette,” said a man who was behind her. All Russell knew about him was that he rode a bay horse. He was wearing a blazer now and was holding a snifter of brandy.
“Oh, Christ, don’t be a bore,” said Virginia. Then she turned to Zofia and said, “He’s too stupid to mean anything.”
The man blinked and had another sip. Then he shrugged and walked away.
“Let’s get something festive for you two to drink to celebrate the end of the season,” Virginia said to Russell. “Come on.”
Russell followed her into the kitchen, where she took a beer out of the refrigerator, a German one. As she poured it, she said, “Zofia seems upset.”
“I guess,” said Russell. “I don’t know.”
She gave Russell the glass and said, “Well, here’s to a wonderful season. Thanks for doing such a good job. Of course, I was trying to catch you all along. But I never did. Maybe next year.”
“Maybe,” Russell said.
“But I was close there a couple of times,” she said.
“That’s how it looked to me,” Russell said.
“It wouldn’t have taken too much more,” she said. “If you had slowed down just a little. I wanted to catch you.”
She said this with a smile, as though it was still just good fun.
“Which hunt did you like the best?” Russell asked. He looked around and saw that Zofia was in the living room, waiting. He waved.
“In the riverbottom,” said Virginia. “I love that. The heat in the early season, and the colors later on. By the way, do you know how to ride?”
“No,” Russell said.
“Would you like to learn?” she said. “I could teach you. Please. It would be fun.”
“I think I need something for Zofia,” said Russell.
“Of course,” said Virginia. “I don’t know what I could have been thinking.”
Russell worked his way through the fragrance of liquor and perfume, wool and cologne, and found Zofia, who was looking down into the fire, which gave off a harsh plane of heat that scorched rather than warmed. She took the glass and said, not looking at him, “So, what did she try this time?”
“Come on,” Russell said. “So what if she likes to flirt.”
“It’s not flirting,” she said. She looked at Russell with a hot, teary glance.
“Oh, no,” he said. “I’m sorry. I really am.”
They stood by the fire. She swallowed.
“I don’t want anyone to see me upset,” she said. “I don’t know what’s gotten into me.”
“Well, then, I’ll tell you a joke,” he said.
“What’s the joke?” she said, her voice pleading a little, asking him to change her mood so that she wouldn’t have to stand there and make a scene, which was all the more possible as she sensed how embarrassed she’d be if she did. Russell told her a joke about a genie and three wishes. When he finished she started to laugh, but that was worse, because it was that close to changing into something else. She finished her wine and said, “I don’t know how much longer I can stay here.”
“Look, she was just flirting. It didn’t mean anything. Not to me, anyway,” said Russell.
“I’m not a ‘foxette,’ ” she said. “I don’t drive a Mercedes. I don’t have dresses that come from Calvin Klein. I work for a living.”
“Me too,” he said. “My dresses come from Wal-Mart.”
“Don’t,” she said. “Don’t make jokes.”
They looked at some maps that were on a table between two sofas in front of the fireplace. The maps showed land where the people in the room had hunted, and Russell imagined running through the brush and along the edges of the cut fields. They knew which sections were too dangerous for the riders—the wet, slippery places where the fences were too high to jump, although in the excitement of the moment someone might try. Virginia came back now and took out a new map and showed them a section that they had just gotten permission to hunt. She sharpened a pencil and Russell smelled the bitter scent of the cedar out of which it was made. Virginia marked off the boundaries, and showed them sections that she thought would be good, more bottomland with rolling hills around it.
She looked at Russell and said, “Is the fox going to like that?”
“Yes,” Russell said. “Very much.”
“Excuse me,” said Zofia. “Could you tell me where the bathroom is?”
“Right over there,” said Virginia.
“I thought I’d freshen up,” said Zofia.
“Of course,” said Virginia.
Zofia walked away.
“You know, I meant that about the riding,” said Virginia.
“Let me think about it.”
“You won’t regret it,” said Virginia.
He looked over at the door of the bathroom.
“Excuse me,” he said.
Then he went to the door and tapped.
She said, “Just a minute.”
“It’s me,” Russell said.
“Oh,” she said. “Well.”
One of the hunters came up to Russell and said that he’d had a great season, one of the best. He was thinking of getting a new horse, but he wasn’t sure. But he had a theory about horses, which was that if you were going to hunt them, the way they got better was to use them as much as you could. Still, he had noticed that when he got a horse just right, it died. So he guessed maybe the thing was to keep one coming along.
The door opened.
“After you,” he said.
“No,” Russell said. “Go on.”
The man went in.
“Did she flirt some more with you?” Zofia said, as they walked away from the door.
“No,” Russell said.
“Liar,” she said. Then she looked around the room. “I’m pregnant.”
Virginia came up and said to Zofia, “I was just saying to Russell that maybe he’d like to learn how to ride this winter.”
“Oh,” said Zofia. “He’d love that.”
“If I have time,” Russell said.
“You’ll make time,” Zofia said to him. “Surely you can do that?”
“That would be wonderful,” said Virginia. “You’ll encourage him, won’t you?”
“Sure,” said Zofia. “He knows what I think.”
Virginia smiled. Then she excused herself and went toward the kitchen. Another member of the hunt came up and said, “The fox. Well, well. I’ve been waiting to meet you. You know, I’ve noticed that the way you lay the scent is like the real ones.”
“Thank you,” Russell said.
“Although maybe you are a little easier on us than a real one. I notice that you don’t go over any six-foot walls.”
Beyond him Russell saw the other members of the hunt, who were suspended in that yellow light which was perfectly filled with perfume and the odor of bourbon, and here and there he saw a woman’s hair, blond or red, all perfectly combed and shiny. Sportcoats, bald heads, green ties, wool pants: there was something impossibly stilted about the room, a combination of L.L. Bean and Brooks Brothers. Zofia glanced at him and then at the man who said they had put down the scent like a fox. Even here, in this room, Russell had the almost tactile sense of something changing, and he wanted to touch Zofia, to put his hand on her arm, but she just stood there looking at him.
“Well,” the man said as he left. “Keep up the good work.”
“So,” Zofia said. “Riding lessons, hmm? Is that what you are going to call it?”
“Let’s get out of here,” he said.
“Why?” she said. “Aren’t you having a good time?”
“No,” he said. “I just want to be someplace where we can talk.”
“What’s wrong with here?” she said.
“We don’t have to do this.”
“Do what?” she said.
“Here’s to the fox,” said a woman he had met onc
e before. “Finally caught up with you. Well, I wanted to thank you for a lovely season. Exciting. Wonderful.” She looked at Zofia. “And this is the other half of the team?”
“Yes,” said Zofia.
“I wonder,” said the woman. “You know, when you are running around out there, have you ever seen a fox?”
“Yes,” said Zofia. “We saw one. Just once.”
“No kidding,” said the woman.
“It looked right at us,” said Zofia.
“Maybe it was rabid,” said the woman.
Zofia just looked at Russell.
“I don’t know. Maybe it was trying to warn us.”
“Well,” said the woman. “What was it trying to warn you about? If that’s what it was doing.”
“Getting caught,” said Zofia. “Being unprepared. Being surprised.”
“Maybe it didn’t mean that at all,” Russell said.
“Oh?” said Zofia. “What else could it have meant?”
“That you don’t throw chances away.”
“It takes two to do that,” said Zofia. “I didn’t see any other foxes around.”
“That’s because foxes are solitary,” he said.
“That’s right,” said Zofia. “Maybe one gets caught and the other is left alone. What then?”
The woman who was a member of the hunt looked from Zofia to Russell and then back again. She looked into her empty wineglass and said, “Well, it was nice talking to you. See you in the fall.” Then she walked away.
“Come on,” he said.
“Come on, what?” she said.
“You didn’t have to tell me here,” he said. “I didn’t do anything to deserve that.”
She bit her lip. A young woman who had been hired for the occasion came along with a plate of pieces of toast with caviar on them and salmon on small triangles of rye bread with a tiny slice of pickle. She put the tray out for Zofia, who just shook her head.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “Oh, shit. What am I doing?”
“Come on,” he said. “Let’s get out of here. Let’s go.”
“Let me pull myself together,” she said. “Just wait.”
He tasted the hops in the beer. The liquid looked like sunlight on a fall afternoon, more like the color of wheat than anything else. He wanted to think about this as a way to slow things down, to get a moment to know what to say, or do.
They said good night. Then they were outside, in the cold air, and Zofia said, “I’m so sorry. I should never have done that.”
“Let’s get in the car,” he said.
The engine turned over with only three or four gasps. On the back roads the lights picked out the shapes of the trees, large and bent. The whirring of the heater was like the sound of a desert wind: nothing but the hint of dryness and desolation. They came down to the edge of a field and saw a deer at the side of the road, eyes like green and blue membranes. Then it trotted off, into the scrub.
At home they pulled up in front of the house and then the lights from the car faded away. She got out and went into the house and Russell came behind her. Zofia turned on the back porch light and then reached into the trash and took out two bottles, a beer bottle and one for apple juice, and then went out behind the house where the chimney rose up from the foundation. She stood there and threw one bottle and then another, throwing the second into the glass plosh of the first, and as she did she said, “Goddamn it. Goddamn it.”
Then she reached down and tried to pick up the pieces of glass and cut herself. She looked at the small rill of blood with a bright head that ran from her finger and then she held it out to Russell and said, “Suck it. That stops it,” and then he tasted the blood in the cold under the stars.
In the kitchen, Zofia got a drink of water and then went into the bedroom, where she took off her black dress and got into bed in her underwear. Something in her attitude, in how she pulled the covers up to her neck and threw her head into the pillow, made Russell hesitate. He was certain that words weren’t going to fix anything, and that the worst thing in the world would be to say, “What’s wrong?” or “You know, I love you.”
So he was left trying to show that he was alert. Maybe all it took, he guessed, was a lack of tension. Maybe he could reach her just by relaxing so completely as to be able to absorb all the tension in the room. He tried to fill the room with certainty. He was there. He knew something was wrong. He would keep his mouth shut.
He took off his clothes, as though being naked would help, as though she would realize there was nothing for him to hide behind, or any way for him to be devious. Then he went around and got into bed on the other side, slipping in behind her, trying to keep the rustle of the sheets down to a minimum. He tried to breathe in the same cadence, as though even the differing sounds of their breathing would be a distraction.
“We have just been playing, and this is not a matter of playing. It is serious. Do you know what serious is?”
“Yes,” he said. “I do.”
“But that’s just about strangers,” she said. “Just people who are breaking the law. I mean about us.”
“I think I understand,” he said.
“No, you don’t,” she said. “You don’t understand vulnerability.”
Don’t understand vulnerability? He swallowed and found that he was trembling a little.
“I think I do,” he said.
“No,” she said. “You know why? You will never have to sit here at night with a child you love more than you can bear, hearing it breathe at night, maybe with asthma, with a cold, and while you hear that wet breath, you won’t ever have to wonder if you are going to be left alone. You won’t ever have to worry about being a cop’s widow.”
He knew it was a mistake, under the circumstances, but it was all he had. He said, “I love you.”
“Great,” she said. “Now, that’s fucking great. And what is that going to do under those circumstances?”
Outside a car went by, and the tearing sound of the tires on the wet pavement came into the room.
“What do you want me to do?” he said.
“I want you to listen to me,” she said.
He curled up behind her and put his head next to hers.
“What are you doing?” she said.
“Listening,” he said.
She was quiet for a while, and then she said, “Well, I guess the problem is I haven’t got much to say.” Then she pushed back against him and started crying, saying, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to say such horrible things.” She appeared almost too exhausted to speak. “I wish I had the energy to have this baby, but I don’t. That’s why I wanted to keep it a secret—I didn’t want you to know that about me. But I don’t think having a baby is the right thing to do now.”
FRANK KOHLER
THE BUS STATION WAS ON THE NORTH SIDE OF town in a house trailer next to a Mobil station. It sat in the midst of a strip—a True Value hardware store, a McDonald’s, a Price Chopper, a US Cellular store, National Auto Parts, all of which made for a collision between the familiar and the anonymous. Kohler parked next to the house trailer with the wooden steps in front, which looked like they went up to a deck, but it was just the aluminum door.
“Did you and Dimitry grow up together?” Kohler said.
“What?” she said. She moved in the seat, making it creak. “Yes. You could say that.”
“Why does he want to come here?” he said.
“Moscow is a hard place now,” she said. “They’re pulling generals and bureaucrats out of the river every night, and desperate people are trying to make money, but they don’t know how. Just outside of Moscow we have a four-lane highway, just like 91, the one you have here, and one day I saw a man there, in the rain, trying to sell mattresses. He was just pulled over like he had a flat tire, but instead he had his mattresses out there.”
She shrugged.
“It’s better here,” she said.
Just now the sun came out behind the gray trees. The patte
rn of the trunks was a schematic of struggle, all of them reaching upward and competing for the light. The clouds were a soft brown underneath, like wood smoke coming from a fire damped way down. In the distance they heard the swish, swish of the cars as they went by on the highway.
“What’s your cousin’s name?” Kohler said. “I mean his whole name.”
“It’s a long Russian name,” she said. “It would be hard for you. Dimitry is enough. Just plain Dimitry. He’s probably not going to stay long.” She smiled. “That’s Dimitry for you. He likes to keep moving.”
“Oh,” he said. “What’s he do for a living?”
“Dimitry knows how to take care of himself. He is clever that way,” she said.
“Like what?” he said.
“He used to sing in a Georgian restaurant on the Arbat. It wasn’t a lot of money, but he could get by, and then he had a shop in the subway, selling CDs and cigarette lighters. Pirated CDs, of course, from the gangs. And diplomas, too. If you wanted a diploma from Harvard or Yale, Dimitry could get you one.”
Kohler thought about this for a moment. Maybe Dimitry could get him one from MIT. But then what good was the diploma without a transcript? Then Kohler tried to imagine just what she was thinking. Excitement at seeing her cousin, he guessed. That would be helpful, if only as a reminder of home. Or what used to be home. As he sat behind the wheel of the car, he understood her sense of isolation and banishment from Russia, since this was the way he felt about where he had grown up. It wasn’t that he couldn’t go there, or that he even wanted to, so much as that what he had known there had vanished, and living with the disappearance of what one loved, even if other people had thought it was tawdry, left him with a sense of having been banished. This, he thought, was one of the things that bound him to Katryna: it was an intimacy too delicate for words.
The bus pulled into the parking lot, lumbering over the apron that went into the street, and then it came up to the house trailer and stopped with a rush of air and a constant swaying from side to side as it rocked back and forth on its springs. Not a mainline bus like Greyhound, but an outfit Kohler had never heard of. Wayward North. The door swung open and the driver, a fat woman, got out and hitched up her pants and then opened the door to the compartment that held suitcases.