What he said next blew me away. I felt like, this moment wasn’t real, because in a softer voice he told me, “How I missed you.”
For a second I wanted to say, Really? It don’t look at all like you missed me, isn’t it so, Lenny? And don’t even think you can use me, and then like, walk all over me. I may look like shit right now. I reckon I do—but no, you ain’t gonna dump me, never, never again! And anyway, where is she, where is the dear wife, Natasha?
But instead, in a meek tone, I said, “How can you even say you missed me. You, you told me to go away.”
At that moment Lenny was lost for words, because he knew me, knew me well enough to get what I hadn’t said, too. So he took off his winter coat and hung it around my shoulders, very gently, like he was afraid I would break, somehow. And suddenly, it felt kinda good.
“You are shivering,” he said then.
“Me,” I denied, “shivering?”
And he offered, “Let me take you home.”
So I hid my face behind the collar of his coat, knowing it’s gonna smell awful bad by the time I’m gonna have to give it back. “Home?” I said, and now my voice was muffled. “Me, I don’t have a home.”
“I meant,” he corrected, “let us go home, together.”
Which brought up the anger in me. “You,” I raged, “I don’t need you! And don’t you think that I do—’cause I swear, I don’t! You told me to go back, back where I came from. So here I am, Lenny. I’m down in the muck, deeper than deep.”
He stretched out his hands to me, like he wanted to pull me in, to save me. And in spite of myself I flung the coat off, and shoved it, right there, into his open arms. “Take the stupid thing, and your pity, too! Stop acting so grand, and feeling so, so sorry for me! And you,” I pointed, “you go back! Go the hell back where you came from!”
People started looking at me now. They whispered to one another and pointed at me, like I was naked or something, which made me hot, crazed even. I blushed. It felt kinda strange, being visible again. The anger surged in me, it threatened to burst out, like, any moment now. And Lenny tried to say something—but me, I won’t let him.
I raged on, “Don’t you dare say nothing to me now!”
And he said, like he didn’t even hear me, “How I missed your voice.”
And I said, “So listen to me, and listen good: I can get food, and I can get a place to sleep, and on a good day I can get a job, even! One day, Lenny, one day I’m gonna get back on my feet, I swear I will—and for sure, I’m gonna do it without you.”
And he said, “I know it. I have no doubt about it.” And then he added, “But Anita, I need you—”
“For that,” I countered, “you can get that girl. I bet she’s gonna come back to you, like, in the flick of a finger, and be fucking nice, Lenny, and spend the night.”
“No,” he said. “Now, you listen: it is you I need. I miss you.”
“Don’t,” I said.
To which he said nothing, but his eyes did his pleading for him.
And I said, “You can’t beg a beggar.”
And he said, “You may not believe it. I do not believe it myself, when I hear myself saying it—but really, I even miss the way you speak.”
And I said, “I ain’t gonna talk fancy no more, Lenny.”
And he said, “Not to worry: you never did.”
So I had to make it extra clear to him, “I ain’t gonna enunciate them words, like you told me to, Lenny.”
“I understand,” he said. “This is so incredible. I can listen to you all night long.”
And I said, “You can?”
He took a step closer. “I should learn it from you, Anita.”
“Learn what?”
And he wrapped his coat around me, even gentler than before. “Like, your way to say it.”
“Say what?”
“Them words,” he said, winking.
“You making fun of me?”
“No,” he said, serious now. “It is so cold. Let us go now, Anita. Let us go home already.”
In the five years since then, I’ve noticed a change in him. There wasn’t that feeling no more, like he was waiting for something to happen, or for his wife to knock on the door, any moment now. Somehow, she wasn’t there, which made me grow edgy. I couldn’t fight her, ‘cause how d’you fight air? How d’you crush it? How d’you know when to duck, or even, when you’re open to attack?
In my mind, she’s become a threat, an unseen presence, about which he refused to say a word.
And the heat between us has cooled off. I would dab some perfume on my wrist, and light a candle next to the bed—but instead of coming in, Lenny would stay out there, on the balcony, perhaps to write, or to press them keys on his tape recorder. Some evenings he would call me to join him, and we would just stand there, watching the sky getting dark as the sun went down behind the opposite building.
At times, Lenny would bring out his typewriter and let me play with it. I would set my fingers in place, and spread them on the keys, like I could type. He would ask me to talk about my ma, like, what she had told me before the accident, or what had happened to me during the lost time, out there on the street. He wanted me to tell all this, not to him—but to his tape recorder.
And once I started, I could say anything—any damn thing—without him cutting in, or getting angry, or making a sound, even.
I would be in a different place then, so far away, as to forget he was there, listening. Record. I would talk and talk. And if it was too much for him, Lenny would surprise me by taking himself elsewhere: he would go inside, and sit on the bench, and wait till I was too tired to go on. Stop.
After such a night, it would be hard for me to fall asleep. And if I did, I would soon open my eyes with a feeling of dread in my heart, and like, trying to break out of a bad dream. It’s always the same dream, too, and it’s been coming back, over and again, to haunt me.
Just yesterday—when I laid there in bed, bleeding all day, not even knowing where I was—that was when at last, the dream found me.
In it, I find myself in a public place, which is strange to me—even though I know, somehow, that I’ve already been here. I’ve visited this place, perhaps the night before.
It’s raised like a stage, and flooded with light: a harsh glare, which blinds me. For a minute I can’t see nothing in the dark, beyond that ledge—but I know that them faces are out there, blank and blurry. They’re all there, hushing each other, gazing at me.
I see myself standing there in front of them, naked.
Red-faced, I hunch up as tight as I can. I fold over my thighs, trying to hide, to cover my body, my shame—but my hands, they’re way too small, so my nipple slips out of my fingers. And there it is, circled by light, for all to see, and to jeer at me, and to lick their lips, which is like, glistening out there, tiny sparks hissing in the distance.
For a little while, my sleep is light. And so—even as I’m looking straight into that spotlight, or like, reaching down to touch the ledge of that stage—I can tell that all this is false, it’s nothing more than a dream. But then I fall deeper, even deeper into it, and now I really believe what I see:
Some thread is crawling on my skin. Laying across my knees is a strap of fabric, which is frayed and stained, here and there, with my blood. When I pull it in, trying to drape it around me, or use it for a blanket, it resists. It don’t hardly give in, ‘cause it’s tied to something—no, somebody—standing right here, directly over my bare back.
Me, I don’t want to turn, but I take a peek over my shoulder. Wrapped in layers of rags and straps and loose ends, all of which is tattered and like, drenched in reds and browns, the figure seemed shaky. He lifts one leg, and tries to balance himself, teetering—this way and that—on one foot. His hand tries to touch the back of my neck—and misses it, grabbing a handful of air, instead.
And his blood-red lips, they’re curled up, in something that looks an awful lot like a smile. A mocking smile, one that
don’t change.
In my dream, my feet must have frozen. I can’t move, can’t run away from him, or even climb off the stage, because at that point I’m weak, and too scared to even breathe, and because of that thread, which binds us. And so, rooted to that spot, I look up at him. At this close range, our eyes meet, and my heart skips a beat, ‘cause at that second, his are empty.
Suddenly I catch sight of someone else, someone standing way over there, in the distance, behind him; behind the curtains, even. Except for her hand, which is caught in the light, it’s hard to even notice her, ‘cause at first she’s like, real shy, even modest, and keeps herself in the shadows, out of the spotlight.
But then, she changes. Her long fingers, they’re gathered, one by one, into a fist. And twisted around her little finger, you can find—if you focus—the ends of the rags, and the straps, and the thread, all of which extend from there to here, where he stands; all the way, to the joints of his wrists and his elbows, tying them like, real tight.
And from backstage, she’s pulling him—raising, dropping, tightening, loosening—making the puppet move, shake, jiggle, even dance on the tip of his toe, and like, bringing him, somehow, to life. I gasp, thinking: she can twist him around her little finger, if she wants to.
Me, I cringe as he puffs, breathing something in my ear. “Go, go back home, go,” says the puppet, in a voice that is not really his. “Go to the place, the place where you came from, you came from. Go back to your ma, ma, your mama.”
And to the sound of teeth gnashing, I force my eyes open, and in one rip I tear the thread and break out, out of this dream, and find myself back here, like, in a safe place again.
And the last thing—just before the stage falls away, and things seem to blur out, and other things become solid, like the ceiling above my bed, which is finally all clear—the last thing I do is wonder, is she playing us all? Am I being twisted here, twisted around her finger, like he is? Am I a puppet, too?
Like, how can I be sure that I’m not?
I wake up. The first thing I do is move, ‘cause I ain’t frozen no more. I move them joints—the joints of my own wrists and elbows—every which way, to make sure I can do it at will. I look at them from this side and that, to check that they ain’t tied, or pulled by something, like some blood stained thread.
And the second thing I do is say aloud to myself, “I told you so. I told you so, didn’t I?”
My Own Voice
Chapter 8
I’m here, and this is amazing. Crumpled in front of me is his first attempt at telling my story.
Last night was real special for me. He came back from work, and after his son had moped about the place and finally, gone out for a drink or something, which was right after dinner, Lenny stepped out to the balcony, and instead of pressing them keys on the tape recorder, he opened his notebook—the thick one, with the worn cover, which must have seen better days—and said, “Come over here, Anita. Let me read you a little something.”
I did. I plopped down and made myself comfortable on his knees.
The page rustled in his hand and he said, “This here, it is one of my early stories,” and out of his notebook he started reading, like, Leonard was first introduced to Lana at his boss’s house...
At once I thought, Leonard? Why Leonard? The name sounded too important, to formal to my ears. Plain Lenny would have been so much better, because after all it was his voice, and the story was clearly about him.
Them writers, sometimes they play these kinds of games, and use code names, I reckon, to distance themselves from themselves.
Anyway, I didn’t hardly say anything, ‘cause me, I was glad, so glad that this time, he let me in, and here I was, awful close to him. I’d known him, on and off—more off than on—for ten years, and in all that time I’d never, ever heard him read from his notebook for me. Strange: since the beginning he’d been a bit vague about his writing, slippery even. And I didn’t mind. No really, I didn’t, because... Well, because I accept Lenny. He is what he is: the keeper of secrets.
As it happened, I didn’t hear his story last night either. This time, it was my fault. Right after the first few words I relaxed, and felt so at ease, and so warm inside, that I caught myself yawning.
My head lolled to one side, then another, and I think I dozed off—but anyway, Lenny didn’t mind this time, not at all, “Because,” he said, “it must be because you are pregnant. And the bleeding, too, must take a lot out of you.”
He let me slip off his knees, and then moved aside so I could share the seat with him. “Your eyes,” he said, “they are glazing over. Lean on me, right here. My God, Anita, you look so pale, so tired. Well, who can blame you?”
Which was kinda good, ‘cause he didn’t have a clue that it wasn’t just me being pregnant, and tired, and what not—but on top of everything else, it was his writing, and all them words, the fine words he used, which confused me and made me drowsy.
Lenny was like, delighted by his own writing, and by me being there, silent, without butting in, because according to him Natasha, his ex-wife, had laughed at him more than once, in the early years, the years of her success, during which he was out of a job. He hadn’t forgotten the insult, but managed to swallow it, somehow—only to spit it out now, so many years later. She would say, like, Who does he think he is, Dostoyevsky?
Unlike her I just clung to him, and took in the moment, and tried to listen, as best I could, first hearing the sound of his voice and then, deep inside, the throbbing of my heart.
And then... Then I closed my eyes.
When I woke up—it must have been long after midnight—he was still reading, jotting down notes, erasing, and from time to time, pressing this or that key on the tape recorder. And he was talking, talking to me or, perhaps, to himself. Rewind, Play. Play, Rewind.
I propped my head up on his shoulder and looked up at his mouth, and the little muscles at play all around it, which didn’t look near as tight as they’ve been, say, in the past few days. I could see that something had come over him: something even stronger than his passion to write. A great relief, that’s what it was. Like, a load had been taken off his heart.
I bet it happened when he gave up his secret to me, the one secret he guarded most of all, which was funny, ‘cause it wasn’t even his—but Natasha’s.
Now that I knew about her illness I felt kinda dizzy in my head. Like, I was playing with danger, soaring, even hovering in midair, over the high side of a teeter-totter, and spotting Natasha over there, on the opposite side. By some twist, our fate was like, linked. This time around, her luck was down, mine—up. I could sense the shock, the deep fall she’d taken, and the hard hit against the ground.
And I figured that now, she didn’t barely have a way to come back. She wasn’t a threat no more.
Meanwhile, Lenny went on scribbling. His right arm was holding the pen, his left—hugging me, which was cool. The night air was swirling around us. I watched the setting of the moon as it flowed down, so slow—so magical, even—till it fell away behind the outline of the next building. A star here, a star there gave a faint glint. Time slowed down, like, by some spell. I had goosebumps, ‘cause I couldn’t remember no moment but now, and no place but here, when I felt peace, complete peace between us.
And after a long while I caught the hint, the first hint of dawn, and I touched him, with nothing, nothing at all coming between us—not even that thing, whatever it was, Dostoyevsky.
I can’t remember how he took me to bed. By the time I got up this morning, Lenny was already gone.
So now, it’s a new day.
I go out to the balcony, listening for echoes from last night, like, echoes of me and Lenny. First I try to Rewind, Play. Then I Stop, and try instead to bring them voices out of memory. I prick up my ears for anything, any little thing that’s still here, still left from that charm, that moment of pure calm—but no: all’s quiet, quiet in the most regular, humdrum way, with a distant buzz of street noises.
It’s late in the morning, which you can tell, ‘cause the dew on the railing has dried up by now. His desk is bare, not even a pen left here, on the glass surface. And on the floor, a film of dust has already covered our footprints, so it’s awful hard to believe that last night really happened, that it wasn’t just another dream.
His notebook is nowhere in sight—but then, under his desk, right there in the trashcan, I can see a bunch of papers peeking out over the edge. I take them out, and smooth the edges, and try to flatten the creases, and blot out the ink stains.
According to him, only one of his stories was published, like, ages ago. The rest of them wasn’t, on account of the fact that Lenny don’t send them to no magazine editors, because, he says, he isn’t quite finished improving a phrase here and there, and besides, most of them stories, they’re just too private. So the more he tells you, the more he seems to leave something out.
Here, look: the first page is kinda messy. It’s that story, the one he managed to publish, the one he read for me last night. Me, I can barely recall what it is I’ve heard. I think it’s about a girl, a girl with blond streaks in her hair. Lana.
To win her over, a man can be seduced to do just about anything, and like, give up the one thing about himself which he values the most. Now as far as Lenny goes, I’m way too easy, which means, this girl isn’t me. And for sure, she isn’t Natasha.
Not long ago Lenny told me, “My writing is not the place where the fiction is,” which I find strange, ‘cause if not in his stories—then, where else can his fiction be? Is he writing the truth—and living a falsehood? If this is so, then the girl from his story must be real. More real than me, anyway.
Whoever she is, she must be someone he’d known way back in the past. I don’t think he’s seeing her now. I really don’t.
Then again, I may be totally wrong: perhaps the only place where she exists is like, on paper, which explains why he didn’t barely give her a strong, clear voice. To me, she seems a bit sketchy. In six pages of dense scribbles, the only line he let her say is like, What is it with you tonight?
My Own Voice Page 7