Current Affairs

by Raskin, Barbara;

  “Why didn’t your husband want this story?”

  “Is Shay Karavan involved in any way?”

  “Does the DEA know you are in possession of this document?”

  “What do you hope to accomplish, Ms. Myers, by releasing this?”

  “Do you work with the Dukakis campaign? Are you supporting Dukakis for president?”

  “Have you ever been to Nicaragua?”

  “How did you come into possession of this interview?”

  “No comment,” I say.

  “No comment,” I say each time they ask how I came into possession of the document, and each time they ask about Shay or Eli. Some of the other questions I try to answer; Bo fields different ones. But when he stands up, clearly prepared to make a statement, I listen like all the reporters in the room.

  “Some of you might have seen a small Metro article in the Post this morning about an attack on a Northwest home last night. A car carrying three narcoterrorists smashed through a glass wall of Ms. Myer’s house. They were attempting to find the original copy of the interview that Ms. Myers just distributed to you. She’s behaved both coolly and bravely. Because of Ms. Myers, and her neighbors, who came outside in time to get the license-plate number of the car, we were able to find the registered owner. Two of the men in the attack car are well-known dealers linked to José Ocheros, the owner of the Ariel club in Georgetown. They were inside the house of the registered owner, just sitting in the goddam kitchen—making microwave popcorn,” Bo chuckles. “They were arrested, taken to the Second District lockup and, by morning, had agreed to testify against Ocheros. So he was picked up and brought in for questioning around eight-thirty this morning. Our drug operatives have always suspected Ocheros laundered drug money for Nicaraguan contras by buying Georgetown commercial real estate in his own name. We’ve got plenty of evidence ready for presentation to the grand jury that’s currently sitting.”

  Surprisingly, this information seems to interest the reporters, most of whom cover only national news and usually consider local stories beneath their dignity. They question Bo and he provides a number of details about the arrests and the detainment of Ocheros at the D.C. lockup. He also provides detailed background material about the contras’ involvement in the D.C. drug trade. People listen to Bo because he speaks with an air of urgency that sounds both dramatic and authentic.

  It is toward the end of this question session that Hannah suddenly appears in the doorway, sporting a brand-new costume, pushing her Safeway shopping cart and swinging her Lord & Taylor shopping bag from one wrist. Today she is wearing a woolen serape over a large pink beach towel she has tied around her waist.

  Pausing, she surveys the well-kempt, dressed-for-success-in-the-tropics crowd.

  “Whazzall this?” she asks me in a loud raucous voice. “They’re making it too crowded in here.”

  An uncomfortable chuckle passes through the crowd. Here is a street person turning up her nose at an elite congregation of top-flight correspondents who are slumming only long enough to score a story.

  “It’s too hot in here,” Hannah repeats in the silence that follows in her wake. She wipes her face with the clawed fingers of one hand. “Better in the park. Better in the zoo.”

  “I can borrow a fan somewhere so you can stay here tonight, Hannah,” I offer.

  But she has turned around and begun pulling her shopping cart back toward the doorway.

  “The park’s better,” she says, nodding cordially to the people making way for her. “It’s not so hot.”

  Now none of the journalists know where to look, how to avoid meeting each other’s eyes and acknowledging the implicit meaning of Hannah’s impromptu, but perfectly timed, visit.

  “Why didn’t the Justice Department do anything about Hall’s confession?” a young woman asks me.

  “I personally don’t think they knew about it,” I answer, still watching the impact of Hannah’s departure. “I think DEA just sat on it and never turned it over to Justice. I guess you folks are going to have to investigate that whole scenario because I can’t. I’m not a journalist. I work, you know.”

  They appreciate my little joke.

  By now I, too, am unbearably hot. My clothes are sticking to my body, my hair to the sides of my face.

  At last the reporters begin to drift off in twos and threes. Most of them pause to leave some money on the front windowsill as they pass through the doorway. Some of them are still reading my handouts; others are talking excitedly among themselves like students leaving a college classroom after the return of their blue books, rereading their own answers while comparing grades with each other.

  When everyone is gone, Bo walks over to me.

  “What do you have to do now?” he asks in a new, very private and personal way.

  “Nothing. I did it, I think.”

  “I’d say so.” He grins down at me proudly.

  My heart goes crazy.

  “So c’mon then,” he says, jerking his head. “Let’s go over to my place. We’ll break a few eggs and make a coupla omelets.”

  Ahhhh. A rich image.

  “Okay. Just let me lock up, Bo. And count the loot.”

  “Looks to me like you did pretty good,” he chuckles.

  “I think so too,” I agree.

  In fact, I think I did great.

  14

  Eli is standing outside the doorway, squinting in the still-harsh sunlight.

  I am so shocked to see him that I don’t say anything. I just stand there, perfectly still, staring up at him. In one hand I’m holding the ninety-eight dollars contributed by the reporters and, in the other, my keys to the storefront. Bo is at my side.

  “You were great, Natalie. Real professional,” Eli says with quiet approval.

  His forehead is blistered with beads of sweat. His shirt, wet with perspiration, sticks to his chest, drawing a damp map of some unknown continent.

  “I did it because you said—”

  “You did it because you had to,” he voices over me. “And you did it very well.”

  Interior commotion. Then:

  “Eli, this is Bo Culver, the detective I told you about? Bo, this is my husband, Eli Myers.”

  They shake hands.

  “Been past your place yet?” Bo asks.

  “Just long enough to shove my suitcase inside. Looked pretty bad. I hear you had quite an experience last night.”

  I don’t ask how he heard; I only nod.

  “I guess I owe you some thanks,” Eli says formally to Bo.

  Bo shrugs. “Not really. Well, I’m outta here. Back to the precinct. Lots of paperwork to do.”

  He shakes hands with Eli again, nods at me and then walks back toward Kalorama Road.

  I feel like I’ve just lost my best friend. After a moment, I look at Eli inquiringly. No—apprehensively. He looks back at me with deadly resignation.

  SNAPSHOT

  This is the photo taken by the wife of the justice of the peace who married Eli and me in Green Bay, Wisconsin, at eight-thirty in the morning after our night drive from Minneapolis. Although still early, it had already begun getting hot, and when we stepped outside onto the porch for our wedding picture, we were looking directly into the sun. Eli had frowned; I had squinted. But as years passed, and I studied that photo more carefully, I realized there was more than sunlight in Eli’s eyes. I think he was crying, not from joy or excitement, but with sadness. I think he loved Shay so much he married me, on the rebound, so as to stay faithful to her in his own strange way. Or maybe he just wanted to stay in her life.

  Although my heart still hurries when I remember the “us” from long ago, it is clearly too late to think about any of that now. From this moment on, our relationship is totally different. We are like formal friends now, polite and careful.

  “Want to get something over at Millie and Al’s?” Eli asks.

  “Sure.”

  “Your hair looks real good like that, Nat. And you’ve lost some weight.”r />
  I decide not to respond.

  We cross the street and walk up the block to the tired old restaurant that doesn’t even try to compete with its upscale neighbors. The heat and humidity slap up against us. Eli’s hair is curdling atop his scalp. We walk close beside each other, like we always do, but I can feel his determination to say what is necessary to end our marriage. He is going to take care of this last piece of business with the same thoroughness and dispatch as he does everything.

  I feel myself filling up with dread now that it’s about to happen. I am suddenly afraid to attend my own sentencing. I want to postpone it in hopes of some sudden clemency.

  Inside Millie & Al’s, we sit down in the same scarred old booth where we’ve always sat. Eli orders us beers and smiles nostalgically at the waitress.

  “What made you change your mind about returning the interview?” he asks me.

  “Oh, different things. You were one of them. Listen, I’ve got to wash my face,” I say. “I’ll be right back.”

  What I really want is to see how I look. I want to take a mental snapshot of myself in the mirror so when I remember this encounter I’ll be able to know how Eli saw me. The light in the ladies’ room is dim and the mirror cloudy, but I can see how I’ve begun to resemble one of those female models in a black-and-white Calvin Klein ad. Despite the cuts and scratches on my face, I’ve begun to look like one of those existential-eyed women, leaning up against a thick, sun-bleached wall, on the hillside of some Greek island that is eternally erupting and tumbling back into the sea in an orgasm of beauty. Drama has begun to adhere to me.

  I like how I look because now I look the way I feel.

  I try to calm down as I walk back to rejoin Eli in our booth, but a symphony of contradictory emotions is roaring through my head.

  Seated, I pour beer from a bottle into my glass.

  “This is hard to say,” Eli begins. “I really don’t know exactly how to say it. Except, well … it really isn’t working out, is it, Nat?”

  “What?”

  “Our marriage—it isn’t working out.”

  Though I’ve been waiting for this pronouncement, the passive construction of his sentence sends rage whipping through me. A hard stubbornness establishes a beachhead in my breast.

  “You know what I regret?” he asks.

  “What?”

  “That we didn’t adopt any kids.”

  That’s an easy charge to rebut.

  “It never really seemed like you wanted to, Eli. I mean, whenever I tried to talk about it, you mostly just grunted.”

  “Grunted?” he repeats, insulted by the word. “That’s not true.”

  “And when we were ready to do it, you accepted the San Francisco assignment, and the waiting time ran out on us.”

  He shrugs.

  “Well, you’re only forty-five, Eli. You can still get married and have ten kids of your own.”

  He looks away, silenced by this truth.

  “Is that what you’re going to do, Eli? Remarry and start a family? That seems sort of unfair. My turn is over, huh? I’m like one of those Middle Eastern queens who gets deposed for failing to produce a male heir.”

  “That’s not why. If it was about kids, I wouldn’t have stayed this long.”

  “Well, what is it about?”

  He doesn’t answer. He is looking off toward the front window.

  “Eli, were you still in love with Shay when we got married?”

  He sighs with ancient disapproval at my question.

  “Please, tell me.”

  “Of course I wasn’t.”

  “Did you ever really love me?”

  “Of course.”

  “But now you’ve just stopped?”

  Silence.

  “You know, in a weird way I’d feel better if I knew you never loved me, Eli. It would make this a little easier.”

  He grimaces with impatience. “I’m not going to say that, Nat. All I can say is that it just isn’t working out anymore.”

  “What’s ‘it’?”

  His face clouds over with anger.

  “Well, maybe this is just as well,” I say, shrugging. “You always made me feel pretty shitty about myself, Eli.”

  Since he doesn’t ask what I mean, or deny it, I say it again:

  “You always made me feel second-class.”

  “I didn’t mean to, Natalie. I’m sorry if I did. And you really look astonishingly beautiful right now. Do those cuts on your face hurt?”

  SNAPSHOT

  Here’s me and Eli and the Nelsons in Moscow last year, shivering in our bulky, shapeless overcoats and boots. We’re standing in knee-deep snow with the crest of the Kremlin behind us. Something had happened that morning which hurt me a lot. We’d been eating breakfast in the Nelsons’ big chilly apartment and talking about the cold war and Russia’s current posture in the world, especially in Eastern Europe. I had disagreed with what Eli and the Nelsons were saying. I even made a short but impassioned speech about Gorby and the movement toward a U.S.-Soviet political thaw. Then Eli had turned to me, put his hand atop mine on the table, and said, “You don’t understand, Nat.” “I do understand, I just see it differently.” But then he’d patted my hand so patronizingly that I’d flushed and fallen silent with embarrassment.

  “Not as much as some things.”

  For a while he doesn’t speak, can’t speak. Then:

  “You took off like a bat out of hell at that news conference, Nat. You really did a great job. You’re going to get a lot of exposure from that. You’ll see. You’ll be playing in the majors from now on.”

  “What about our house?” I ask.

  “I’m sure the insurance will cover it, but it will take a long time to get it repaired. We’ll have to put everything into storage for a while because there’s no way to secure it with that back wall smashed the way it is. And since we can’t stay there, we might as well use this opportunity to try living apart for a while. Each of us can try out some new things, on our own.”

  I can’t tell how far Eli’s progressed in his thinking about divorce. If we do split, we’ll have to sell our house. Eli will probably try to be fair about dividing our assets, and I am self-sufficient anyway. But I know I will never again have a beautiful home or the security and fun that Eli once provided for me.

  “I’ll never live in another house,” I say.

  He dons his Columbo confused expression and slumps over in his Matthau manner. What he’s trying to establish is that, while what I’ve said is probably true, he can’t help it. It’s not his fault I’ll never live in a house again and, anyway, that’s hardly an earth-shaking tragedy.

  “Were you with a woman down in Atlanta, Eli? Someone else?”

  “Yes. Yes I was.”

  I have to recoup for a few minutes before I can speak again.

  “Well, does that sound reasonable to you?” Eli prompts me. “About the house and all that?”

  Rage erupts inside me.

  “Would you please tell me why you want to do this, Eli? I mean, where do you get off unilaterally deciding you’re going to turn my life upside down?”

  “It’s not an easy thing, Nat, but I’m burned out. I’ve got nothing left inside. For me or for you.”

  “Well, you’ve got something left for her.”

  Carefully I pour the remainder of my beer into the glass, which I tilt so as not to raise any foam.

  “Do you like that cop?” he asks me in a gentle voice.

  I ignore the question and ask where he’s going to stay.

  “I’m not sure. I’ll find someplace to camp. I wanna see if I can get a sabbatical from work. Spring myself loose for a while.”

  “I was almost killed last night, Eli. Some men came to kill me.”

  “I know, Nat.”

  “How’d you hear about it?”

  “Someone from my office called to tell me. So I just went out to the airport and I got on the first flight outta there. It sounded like a god-awful ex
perience.”

  “And how’d you hear about my press conference?”

  “Same way.”

  We’ve finished. We both smile vaguely at each other.

  I feel forlorn. Bereft. Like one of Jean Rhys’s abandoned female characters anguishing over the advisability of ordering a second Pernod on the shadowy terrace of some stingy, street-front café, where she wants to linger, watching the gaiety pass by, and thus delay returning to her morose hotel room, where memories wait to riot during the darkness of her barren nights. But she cannot order another drink because she fears the opprobrium of the proprietor … the cashier … the waiter … the other patrons … the passersby.…

  Eli pays our bill and we walk outside.

  “What are you going to do now, Eli?”

  “Go back to the house.”

  “It’s such a mess.” I grimace. “But, then, so’s life.”

  Now he seems somewhat reluctant to leave.

  “How ’bout you? Where’re you going?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe Christopher’s. I can stay there until he gets back.”

  “Well.”

  Eli sighs, but he can’t think of anything else to say. After a while he hooks his arm around my neck and awkwardly draws me close enough to kiss the crown of my head.

  Then he turns and walks away.

  I go half a block in the other direction.

  From an outdoor telephone booth on the corner, I call Bo, who exudes excitement when he hears my voice. He says he was waiting by the phone, that he’ll be over in five minutes to pick me up, that he’s going to take me home to his place—if I’m still free for dinner.

  But when I get in his car, I suddenly feel enormously shy. I don’t want to talk about Eli or what happened. I don’t even want to think about it. He, of course, asks immediately.

  BO: So? What happened?

  ME: (Silence.)

  BO: What’d he say?

  ME: We’re going to close up the house for a while. We’re going to have a trial separation.

  BO: How do you feel about that?

  ME: Pissed.

  BO: Just pissed?

  ME: (Silence.)

  BO: One of my sisters just got divorced. Last year, actually. She’s forty-five and she said if she’d known how it felt to start dating again, she’d never have left her old man. She says now she spends her Saturdays getting ready for dates with men who don’t like the same movies she likes and who don’t want to buy her any popcorn.