The Dogs of Babel

by Carolyn Parkhurst

  I walk through the aisles like a ghost, my basket empty. What do I want? It’s all laid out before me, anything I could possibly need. I have only to choose. I remember a time early in our relationship when Lexy and I stayed up all night, talking and making love, and ventured out at dawn to walk to this very supermarket to buy bagels and juice. “Don’t think about it,” I say out loud. “Don’t think about it.” I think about my dream, Lexy hidden in the closet all those months, waiting for me to find her. And then I know what I want. I want spaghetti and meatballs.

  I gather ground beef and parsley, tomatoes and bread crumbs and Parmesan cheese. I pay for my purchases and walk home under the pale morning sun.

  I put on some music while I chop the onions and garlic, break the eggs, measure the bread crumbs. Lorelei comes into the kitchen as soon as I pull the cellophane from the package of meat, and she sits on the floor, watching me with interest. I focus on each small task completely, letting it occupy all of my mind. Now you heat the oil in the pan. Now you plunge your hands into the cold meat and squeeze it between your fingers.

  By seven A.M., the house is filled with the warm scent of it. For the first time in months, it smells like someone lives here. I eat a big plateful, and when I’m done, I feed Lorelei three meatballs, one after another, from my fork. The way she takes them in her teeth is surprisingly delicate. I crawl back into bed and fall into a welcome, dreamless sleep.

  SEVENTEEN

  After our honeymoon, Lexy and I returned home to her little house, the house with the apple tree in the backyard, and settled in with a fresh sense of adventure. It was September, one of Lexy’s busiest times, workwise—something about the changing colors, the new chill in the air, the glimpse of Halloween looming on the horizon, makes people think about magic and masquerade in a way they rarely do in the warmer months.

  I loved to watch her work. She made her masks through a lamination process of layering torn bits of paper into a clay mold and brushing them with glue. She had experimented with other methods—there’s a commercially produced paper pulp mixture you can buy, and she had also tried a method of pureeing paper and wallpaper paste in a blender—but this was her favorite. Sometimes she left the masks to dry outside in the sun or the wind; more often she used an electric fan. After they were dry, she painted them with acrylic paints and finished them with a coat of varnish.

  She sold her masks at craft fairs and Renaissance fairs and over the Internet, and she also did occasional work for local theater companies; I remember in particular a wonderful donkey head she made for a production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. She had about a hundred designs, and she was always coming up with new ones. She got a lot of special orders. We’re not far from Washington, so there were always requests for political figures, especially in election years, but she also filled a few more unusual requests: a giant pepperoni pizza for a restaurant trade show, a bashed and bloody cow’s head for an animal rights protest. I never knew what strange new creature I might find in my home when I returned at the end of the day.

  One day, maybe a month into our marriage, Lexy greeted me at the door wearing a mask of my own face. The likeness was quite good; she had a particular talent for the details that make up a human face. “Hi,” she said in a gruff voice. “I’m Paul.”

  I laughed. “Wow,” I said. “That’s amazing. And I see you were kind enough to leave off the lines around my eyes.”

  She swatted me with something she held in her hand, a second mask. “Don’t be silly,” she said, in the same deep Paul voice. “I have an extremely youthful face.”

  “What’s that one?” I asked, pointing to the mask in her hand.

  She held it up. It was her own beautiful face. “Here,” she said, handing me the Lexy mask. “I’ll be you and you be me.”

  I covered my face with hers. “My name is Lexy,” I said. “My husband is a wonderful, wonderful man.”

  “Hi, Lexy,” she said. “You are one hot mama.”

  “I don’t talk like that,” I said.

  “Well, maybe you should.” She took me by the hand and led me into the living room. We sat down on the couch. “So,” she said. “Tell me about yourself.”

  “Well,” I said in my best Lexy voice, which wasn’t very convincing. “As you’ve already noticed, I am one hot mama.”

  She laughed. “See?” she said. “It just rolls off the tongue.”

  “I’m also a very talented artist, and I’m smart, and I’m funny, and . . .” I looked around the living room for inspiration. “And it looks like I even cleaned the house today, which was super-nice of me and above the call of duty. I hope I’m not turning into a housewife.”

  “You know, it’s funny you should say that. That’s exactly the thought you had while you were doing it, but you decided that since you’d already gotten your work done and you had some free time, it was probably okay. But enough about you. Let’s talk about me.”

  “Okay,” I said. “What are you like?”

  “Well, let’s see. I am a brilliant man, a wonderful professor, and I’m sweet and caring, and I can be very sexy in a befuddled sort of way.”

  “Stop,” I said. “You’re making yourself blush.”

  “Now, you, Lexy, are going to get up and open a bottle of wine and make your husband a wonderful dinner.”

  “No,” I said. “You’ll make dinner. You insist.”

  The next day, I nailed two hooks into the wall over the couch and hung our masks there. They are there still, the faces of Paul and Lexy, smiling and newly wed, presiding over everything I do. Now, when I lift the Lexy mask off its hook, I can run my fingers over all the curves of her face. Here is her nose, and here is her chin. Here are the holes where her eyes should be. Here are her own lips, though rendered forever stiff and hard, which I once kissed in every room of this house.

  And another day—I sink into the memory as if it were a warm bath—another day, I came home to find that Lexy had painted the kitchen while I was at work. We had spoken once or twice about doing something to brighten the room, but months had passed, and we still hadn’t gotten around to going to the paint store and picking out a color. That morning, I’d drunk my coffee in a room with the same dingy beige walls that had been there since before I moved in, but when I came home, I found my wife sitting in a room with walls the color of pale sunshine.

  “So what do you think?” she asked, smiling up at me as I walked into the kitchen. It was a cool night, but she had the back door open to let the evening air wash away the smell of fresh paint.

  “I love it,” I said, looking around. “It looks great. I can’t believe you did all this.”

  “Yeah,” she said. “It was more work than I expected. But I wanted to get it done before you got home.”

  “It’s wonderful,” I said. “What a nice surprise.” I bent to kiss her. She had a smudge of yellow paint just above her top lip.

  “There’s another surprise, too,” she said. “But you’re going to have to find it yourself.”

  “Here in the kitchen?”

  She nodded.

  I looked around, but I couldn’t see anything else that was different. I opened a cupboard and scanned its contents.

  “Chickpeas,” I said, pulling out a can. “What a nice surprise.”

  She laughed. “That’s not it.”

  “Are these new sponges?” I asked, picking one up from the sink ledge.

  “Relatively. But that’s not it either.”

  I went through the kitchen slowly, going through the cabinets, picking up mugs, heads of garlic, decorative platters we never used. “I give up,” I said finally.

  “You’ll find it,” she said. “Eventually.”

  I found it the next morning. I was sitting at the table, having breakfast, when I looked up from my newspaper and saw, toward the top of the wall in front of me, the word “you” glinting in a square of sunlight. The word was almost transparent; it was only the slant of the morning sun that made it visible. Trailing m
y eyes farther along the wall, I saw the word “I” and the word “love,” followed again by the word “you.” Following the line of words across the top edge of the wall, I could see that Lexy had written “I love you” over and over again, a hidden border that could only be seen in the morning light.

  Lexy came into the kitchen just then and saw me looking up. “Did you find it?” she asked.

  I got up and put my arms around her. “I found it,” I said.

  “It’s a translucent glaze,” she said. “I think you’ll be able to see it every morning.”

  And I do. In the beginning, right after Lexy died, I avoided the kitchen during those morning hours. If I had to go into the room, I kept my gaze focused on the floor. I couldn’t bear to lift my eyes. But now I look forward to it. I like knowing it’s there; it helps me greet each new day. Some mornings I sit in the kitchen and linger over my coffee for an hour or more, watching the sun shift across the wall, illuminating each repetition of the phrase until the afternoon shadows come and the words are gone.

  Do you see, then, the way that my Lexy liked to make a game of the things of this life? That she carried within her a fine sense of play that colored everything she did? Is it any wonder that I look around at everything she left behind and wonder if she may be playing with me still?

  EIGHTEEN

  I think I may finally be making some progress with Lorelei. I believe I am on my way to teaching her her first word.

  Here’s the way it happens: Lorelei is lazing on the carpet in a patch of sun, lolling on her back, and I’m observing her from across the room. As she lies there, she lets out a yawn, and as she yawns, she makes a noise that sounds like wa. I jump up from where I’ve been sitting.

  “Good girl!” I cry. I run to the kitchen and pick up her water bowl. It sloshes dangerously as I run back to the living room. Lorelei is sitting up now, roused by my sudden activity. “Good girl,” I repeat, and set the bowl down in front of her. She looks up at me, then at the bowl. Lazily, she sniffs at the water, then gives it a single lap with her tongue.

  “Wa,” I say. “Wa.” I remove the bowl and put it aside, up on the coffee table. I sit down on the floor next to Lorelei. I have to get her to repeat the sound.

  “Roll over, girl,” I say, pushing on her flank. She resists. “Come on, girl,” I cajole. “Roll over.” After a few tries, I’m able to roll her onto her back. But how to make her yawn again?

  She’s eyeing me warily. I remember a time, years earlier, when my nephew was an infant and I was watching my sister hold him in her arms. As I watched, my sister looked down into the baby’s face and fluttered her eyelids slowly up and down. She looked as if she were having trouble staying awake.

  “Are you tired?” I had asked. “Do you want me to take him?”

  “No,” she said. “I’m trying to get him to fall asleep. Sometimes this works.”

  To my surprise, after watching my sister do this for a moment or two, the baby let his eyes droop once or twice. In another minute, he was asleep.

  Perhaps the same tactic would work on Lorelei. I stretch out on the floor next to her and look into her face. I let my eyes flutter shut, then open them again as if it’s a very great effort. I close them as if they were made of lead. When I open them again, Lorelei is staring at me, her eyes open wide. I try a few more times, with no luck.

  Trying another tack, I yawn grandiosely. “Wa,” I say, yawning. “Wa.” I reach over and retrieve her bowl from the coffee table and set it down in front of me. “Wa,” I repeat, then lean over the bowl and pretend to drink. I sneak a glance at Lorelei. She looks, if this is possible for a dog, surprised. Just do it, I think. Don’t think about Lorelei’s tongue and the other places she puts it. You’ve got her attention; just go all the way. “Wa,” I say again, and plunge my tongue into the bowl. The water tastes stale. I lap it up and drink two big swallows.

  “Wa,” I say. “Wa.”

  Lorelei stands up, shakes herself, and walks out of the room, leaving me sitting on the floor in her patch of sun, the taste of dog water fresh on my tongue.

  Sighing, I get up and pick up the dish to take it back to the kitchen. I empty it into the sink—if I’ve learned anything from this little exercise, it’s that I owe it to Lorelei to change her water more often—and wash the bowl with soap, something I haven’t done in quite a while. I refill the bowl from the tap, but as I’m about to put it back in its regular spot on the floor, I stop. What if I make Lorelei ask for her water? I flinch slightly at the idea. One of the cardinal rules of dog ownership is that you never withhold water. Every dog book I’ve read contains this rule, set apart from the text in bold letters: Always have fresh, clean water available for your dog to drink. But I’m not talking about long-term dehydration. I’ll simply watch to see when Lorelei goes looking for a drink, and I’ll take the opportunity to work with her on the wa command. If it doesn’t work, I’ll give it to her anyway. I’m not heartless. I place the full bowl on the counter and wait for Lorelei to get thirsty.

  In the meantime, I go into my study. I take out my laptop to continue my task of listing the titles of the books Lexy rearranged. The books on the second shelf from the top are arranged as follows:

  You’re Out! A History of Baseball (Mine.)

  And Your Little Dog Too: Hollywood Dogs from Rin Tin Tin to Beethoven (Hers. I came across it in a used bookstore and thought she’d be interested. She seemed to like it.)

  Cooking for Two (Ours. Wedding gift.)

  Gray Girls (Mine. A collection of interviews with women who were in the audience of The Ed Sullivan Show for the Beatles’ first appearance.)

  Don’t Close Your Eyes (Lexy’s. She had a weakness for horror novels.)

  First Aid for Dogs and Cats (Lexy’s.)

  Put Me in the Zoo (Lexy’s. A picture book she’d had since childhood.)

  Where to Stay in Northern California (Ours. We’d been invited to a wedding in San Francisco, and we talked about taking a side trip to the wine country. But the wedding was canceled at the last minute—we never quite got the whole story, but there was some kind of scandal involving the bride and the father of the groom—and we never made the trip.)

  A Feast for the Eyes (Lexy’s. It’s a big, glossy cookbook with complicated recipes and beautiful pictures. Neither of us ever used it.)

  Thrill Rides of North America (Lexy’s. She loved roller coasters; she always said she planned to ride every single one in this book before she . . . well, that’s what she said. Before she died.)

  Clay Masks from Around the World (Lexy’s.)

  I’m Taking My Hatchback to Hackensack and Other Travel Games (Ours. We bought it on that first trip to Florida before we set out for the long drive back.)

  As I write down the last title, I hear Lorelei padding down the hallway on her way to the kitchen. I get up and follow her. I watch as she sniffs around the corner where I put her bowls. She licks her empty food dish, perhaps finding some microscopic particle left over from her breakfast. Then she sniffs the floor where her water bowl should be.

  “Wa, Lorelei?” I say. “Do you want some wa?” She looks up at me and twitches her tail in a miniature wag.

  “Say ‘wa,’ Lorelei.” I massage the folds of her throat. She lets out an impatient whine. The sound it makes is more mmnnnn than wa, but it’s progress.

  “Good girl,” I say. “Now say ‘wa.’”

  She turns away from me and goes back to sniffing around the empty bowl corner, as if a dish of water might have appeared there in a moment when she wasn’t looking.

  Maybe she’s not thirsty enough for this to work. I decide to up the ante. I take a bag of potato chips from the kitchen cabinet and give her one, then another. The sound of her crunching fills the kitchen. When she’s finished, I turn on the faucet. She looks expectantly toward the sound of running water.

  “Wa, Lorelei,” I say. “Wa, wa.”

  I stand and wait. Lorelei watches me for a moment, then turns and walks out of the kitchen
. I start to follow her, but by the time I’m halfway down the hall, I can hear the unmistakable sound of lapping coming from the bathroom. With a heavy heart, I turn into the room. There’s Lorelei, her head in the toilet, drinking long and deep from the bowl.

  NINETEEN

  During that first winter of our marriage, Lexy and I fought a battle between us. I wanted us to have a child. A baby with my features and hers. I imagined Lexy pregnant, holding our child within her, cradling it with her blood and her bones wherever she went. I imagined walking the leafy streets, pushing my son or my daughter—or both! Twins are not an unheard-of occurrence in my family—in a carriage, narrating the life of the neighborhood as we walked. “Look,” I would say. “The leaves are changing color. Look, there goes Mrs. Singh in her red car.” My child lying on her back, taking in the sky. I could almost see the soft curl of her hair. I wanted it very much. I wanted to spread a blanket on the grass when the weather got warm and to set my baby down upon it so she could reach for handfuls of grass and wriggling worms. I wanted to rescue a worm from her pudgy fingers before she put it in her mouth. I wanted to lift her up to the sky and hear her laugh. I wanted to dance her around the room when she was fussy and wouldn’t sleep.