The Shadow Man

by Sofia Shafquat

  “For how long?”

  “Long.”

  “Good,” I breathed the word happily. “I’m terribly glad.”

  The Unicorn took out a cigarette. “So what’s doing?”

  I shuddered. “Nightmares.”

  “Nah,” said the Unicorn. “You can’t be serious.”

  “I don’t mean dreams. I mean terrible things have happened.”

  “Oh, yeah?” The Unicorn had the cigarette between his lips and was fumbling in his pocket for a match.

  “I had this crazy roommate and she moved out.”

  “What’s so terrible about that? Sounds good to me.” The Unicorn had removed the cigarette from his mouth and had placed it in his pocket.

  “Well, I guess it was good. But it left me very confused.”

  “What dire offense from amorous causes springs, what mighty contests rise from trivial things …”

  I smiled gratefully. “I knew you would understand.”

  The Unicorn nodded. “Alexander Pope. The Rape of the Lock. Count on some poet, any poet, to understand.”

  “Well, I don’t know any poets,” I said, “but I know you.”

  “Slight is the subject, but not so the praise.” He winked. “You’re all right, Leslie. You have my thanks.”

  I stared at him in surprise. “You remembered my name.”

  “Why would I forget?”

  I hesitated. “I don’t know.”

  “Hear and believe! thy own importance know.”

  I shrugged, embarrassed. “I didn’t think I was important.”

  The Unicorn, his palms dangling over his knees, held my gaze and nodded.

  “Well,” I hesitated again. I didn’t know what to say.

  “Calm down, Leslita,” said the Unicorn. “We have months ahead of us.”

  I dug my hands deep in my pockets. He was right. As much as I wanted to tell him everything and ask him everything, I didn’t know where to begin. I had spent the past weeks in a jungle: overgrown, threatening and knotted with vines. I had pushed and shoved against the madness, crashing through a thicket here, pulling at a vine. And now it had suddenly changed. I was in a glen, open and light, where friendly things grew. There were little vines, hung with blossoms, little green tufts on the branches of trees. And there were paths everywhere, paths winding neatly—into groves, around bushes and over streams. It was hard to choose where to go.

  The Unicorn was watching me carefully. “Obedient to the light that shone within her soul, she went, pursuing the windings of the dell.”

  I felt myself jump. “How did you know to say that?”

  The Unicorn hitched his shoulder in a tiny shrug. “Good guess.”

  “What was it from?”

  “Percy Shelley. The Spirit of Solitude.”

  “Oh.” I sounded ignorant, hollow, flat.

  “Don’t worry,” grinned the Unicorn. “You’re not as ignorant as you think.”

  I gasped. I stared hard at him.

  “I know. You think I’m a mind reader.” He folded his hands behind his head. He had a rip in the underarm of his longjohn top.

  I shook my head.

  “Don’t sweat, Leslita. Live it day by day. All delicate days and pleasant, all spirits and sorrows are cast—far out with the foam of the present that sweeps to the surf of the past.” He gestured grandly to the ocean. “That’s a line by Swinburne. Hymn to Proserpine. What’s he saying?” He gave me a second, more for effect than for an answer. “He’s saying past and present meet. It’s important to remember that. But what I’m saying is, you live on only one half of that union. The present is all you have. And, if you ask me, it’s the better hotel room.”

  I nodded. I really wasn’t sure I knew what he was saying. I stared at his face. He smiled kindly. I felt a diving, a tearing of something inside me. I wanted to grab his face and ask him questions. But the questions were only an urge, a drive, a pushing that had no form. There were no words. I put my hands to my face, wiping, feeling the weight of my head. The drive stopped. I took a deep breath.

  The Unicorn was watching me carefully.

  “How do you know so much poetry?” I said, after a while.

  He shrugged, reaching in his pocket for the cigarette. “Chance, sheer chance.” He winked. The glint remained in his eye.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Two Step

  Kevin’s car was back in its spot along the curb. Light glowed from the slats of his blinds. He was home. I wondered whether he was going to act embarrassed or not. He was going to have to say something about Cornelia sooner or later. After all, we were neighbors, and I was still the keeper of his mail. And, last but hardly least, he—or something related to him—had caused her to move out.

  I decided to roll the ball first. I phoned him when I got in the door. He picked up on the second ring. He was the kind of person who often didn’t answer his phone when he was home. Sometimes, seeing his light on, I would call him about the mail he had asked me to collect, and he would let his machine take the call. It made me feel funny and somehow subhuman that he had this desire to leave people to his answering machine. So I was surprised when he picked up the phone.

  “Kevin,” I said in my levelest voice. “This is Leslie.”

  “Leslie,” he said very levelly and considerately, “How are you?”

  “Fine.” I hadn’t thought quite how to put what I was calling to say. “Umm, Kevin. I just want you to know that whatever happened with Cornelia that night … umm, you don’t have to worry. She moved. She moved that night. So if you feel awkward or anything, you don’t have to worry about it. She’s gone.”

  “Oh. Well, it’s nice of you to call.” I heard him trying to chuckle. “Let me say this.” He paused. “She was very, very intoxicated. And—I’m really sorry you lost a roommate.”

  “Believe me, it doesn’t matter. It’s probably better this way. I just didn’t want you to feel uncomfortable.”

  “Well, that was nice of you. Thanks a lot. It was nice of you to call.”

  I hung up the phone slowly. There was something very beautiful about his voice. It was so deep, almost like a tone, not a voice, a low signal that issued from the middle of the earth, the place where when I was little I had pictured a constant fire burning, stoked by the reason the earth whirled around the solar system. But there was this Cornelia thing I didn’t know about. A part of me felt too polite to ask questions, and another part of me felt dimly betrayed. Well, it was not my business. I had written the release for embarrassment between us, so we could revert to the two-step that was now our practiced art.

  Step-close-step, step-close-step, step-close-step. What a convenient dance. You never did anything different, you always remained exactly the same distance apart. Hello, Leslie, thanks for calling, gee you’re so nice, she was very drunk. Gee, I’m sorry you lost a roommate. Instead of Leslie, honey, you’re so wonderful, you tried so hard, and were trampled on. What a thing to go through. Are you okay? Is there anything I can do? I’m sorry if I was a part of this. It was just, Gee, Leslie, that’s life, isn’t it? Step-close-step, step-close-step, hey, don’t come any closer. I’m sorry the world fell down on your head, but no, don’t come any closer, stay right there. You’re a good neighbor, Leslie, thanks for getting my mail.

  I pressed my forehead against the cool glass of the front window and stared at the little lights in the evening outside. What was it that Larry had said? I had picked him up at La Guardia Airport and we were inching homeward through the snarl of New York traffic. Larry was lecturing, his hand raised to ward off a collision and to emphasize his spoken points. “Leslie, honey, the authenticity of a person is a factor you want to know right away. Gauge it well. Never do anything with a person who isn’t authentic—okay, angel? You’ll know immediately. It’s something you know in the first four minutes of meeting a person.” We were nearing the toll booth and he dug in his pocket and came up with a hundred-dollar bill. “Oh, Lord,” he said. “I don’t think they’re
going to take this.” And then we were struck from behind. It was a jolt, thudding and final, and we both got out of the car, and there was a massive yellow Chevy in back of us with a Hispanic man climbing out of the door. He had a couple of days’ worth of beard and he was thin and wiry.

  “Honey, check your bumper and be sure to get all his numbers,” Larry said sternly as he crammed the hundred back into his pocket.

  The Hispanic man looked at me frantically and leaned over, brushing his palm across my bumper. “Mees, is nothing. Nothing, mees.” He straightened up and took my forearm in his hand, pressing it. “Nothing.”

  I looked into his Latin eyes, brown and deep and beautiful, and shook my head. “You’re right,” I said. “It’s nothing. Don’t worry about it.”

  I never forgot the Hispanic man’s eyes and the way he looked at me. He was upset, and he was real, and I felt the urgency of his touch on my arm for a long time afterwards. Larry had scolded me for not getting his number. “You never know, sugar, you never know.”

  “You do know,” I corrected. “You always know. You know in the first four minutes, remember?”

  Muriel was staying at the ashram. Her number did not answer and, growing worried, I looked in the phone book and dialed her mother. Everything was fine; Muriel had gone to see Janice. “Tell Muriel,” I said, “that Cornelia moved.”

  I hung up the phone, the receiver rocking under my hand. The peal of a ring made me jump. It was Raul.

  For a second or two, I panicked. Was it something about the car?

  “No, no.” Raul laughed. “The car’s doing fine. I was actually calling about your roommate.”

  “Oh,” I said. “What about her?”

  “How’s she doing?”

  “I don’t know,” I answered flatly. “She’s gone.”

  “Gee,” said Raul, “I’m sorry to hear that. I remember her mentioning she was interested in flying.”

  “Well, she went back to a pilot, so you don’t need to worry.”

  “Hmm,” said Raul. “Whaddaya know.” He paused. “Would that be—um, the same young man that she was so—negative about?”

  “That’s him.”

  “Hmm,” he said again. “Gee.”

  I waited.

  “Well,” Raul ventured, “would you be interested in some airtime?”

  I hesitated. Did he mean I was second fiddle? “No,” I answered.

  He was bound to say “Hmm” once again, and did.

  “Well, um, okay, Leslie. It was nice talking to you. The car, like I said, is doing great.”

  “Good,” I declared. That was the end of the call.

  The phone rang again a few minutes later. It was no doubt Raul. “Um, Leslie?” he began.

  “Yes.” I rapped it like a door knocker dropping once and only once.

  “Leslie, this is Kevin.”

  I jumped. I scrambled post-haste to yank myself together. “Hey, listen,” the voice continued. “I just wanted you to know. I’m out of town this week.”

  I fumbled for words. “I—I already knew that. Your lights haven’t been on. I emptied your mailbox tonight.”

  “Well, that’s very nice of you. I forgot to tell you I was leaving.”

  “Don’t worry. I can usually figure it out.”

  There was a pause. “Well,” he said, “I just wanted to let you know. Thanks a lot for getting the mail.”

  “Is there something else you want me to do?”

  I thought he hesitated, very briefly. “No. Thanks for offering. I’ll see you when I get back.”

  I put the receiver in its cradle. Great. Thanks for offering, Leslie. Thanks for getting my mail. Do you do windows? Hah! Good joke, Leslie, I told myself. It was a quarter to ten. I made a cup of tea and climbed into bed. Three or four sips of boiling hotness was what I wanted. The phone trilled again as I held the mug and inhaled the steam. I stared through the dark into the hall. Who was it now? Raul? I climbed out of bed and pulled the phone and its cord into the bedroom.

  “Hello, Leslie.” It was Kevin. “Sorry to bother you again.”

  “That’s okay,” I said. Now what, I thought. Did he want me to mow his lawn? “What’s the matter?” I asked. “Is there something you need me to do?”

  “Huh. Well … yeah … Hey, Leslie, are you busy this weekend?”

  I felt myself frowning. “No.”

  “Um, do you want to maybe go to dinner somewhere?”

  The blood rushed to my head. “Dinner? With you?”

  Kevin gave what I thought was a nervous laugh. “Sure,” he said forcefully.

  I sat back against the pillow. My brain rifled through the hundreds of arm’s-length interactions Kevin and I had had. Each time he had run away. Each time, another acorn of frustration would roll into the pile that rose larger each season on my side of the fence. And suddenly, this minute—this very minute—those hundreds of dry little acorns were tumbling into oblivion, tumbling and crumbling, clattering over each other in their haste to make way for what had always been there. For that was the truth. I had always known it, I had known why he was running, and now he wasn’t running, he was there.

  “Well?” said Kevin. “Do you want to go out to dinner?”

  “Where are you calling from?” I asked.

  “Washington. D.C.”

  “Washington D.C? You live next door to me in California and you’re calling from three thousand miles away to ask me out to dinner?”

  “Yeah, well, I had a really good time with you the other night. And you’ve been so nice about my mail. I thought it would be nice to finally do this.”

  “It would be very nice,” I agreed.

  “How about if I call you Saturday when I get in? Is that good for you?”

  “That,” I said, smiling at the darkness, “would be just fine.”

  I hung up the phone and set it carefully on the floor.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Dolores

  Muriel came back to town in the middle of a Santa Ana. Dust borne by the desert wind had piled on my step in small drifts. I swept at it gently with a tall broom and small dustpan, my laconic neighbor and his chihuahua looking on. The chihuahua growled as I bent toward the pavers. “Quiet, Boss!” her owner ordered. The dog’s name, I remembered, was Boss. The neighbor’s name was initials. R.B. R.D.? I never said it out loud for fear of using the wrong letter. I pushed carefully at the dust piles with the broom.

  Boss growled louder as I put the broom on the ground to answer the phone.

  “I called you at work,” said Muriel. “They said you already left.”

  “I got out early.” I hesitated, wondering how I was going to say it. “Guess what.” There was a flat little silence. “Cornelia moved out.”

  “I know,” said Muriel. “My mom told me.”

  “Well, you were right,” I said.

  “Huh,” said Muriel. I told her Cornelia had gone back to Geoff. “Huh,” said Muriel again.

  Then I told her Kevin had called. “Kevin from next door?” Muriel asked.

  I told her we were going out the next night. “Wow,” said Muriel. “What do you know.” She told me about the ashram. She had met Janice’s guru. She had gotten very calm from the experience. She no longer worried about Cornelia’s thumb. “The guru said Cornelia did it to herself. It was karma.”

  “See!” I crowed. “I said the same thing!”

  “You did?” said Muriel. “I can’t remember.”

  Kevin coughed outside my door before he knocked on it. I knew it was a little past seven. I was sitting cross-legged on the carpet, cutting articles from magazines. I had begun at ten minutes to seven.

  I let him in. He flinched as I opened the door, as though he would have to make the best of what he was getting into.

  “Hi, Leslie,” he said in his deep voice. He wasn’t a massive kind of guy, but he had this deep voice.

  “Hi. Do you want to come in?” I asked.

  “Well, sure.”

  He stepped g
ingerly, and then more gingerly as he saw the magazines scattered on the floor. I knelt down and piled them together.

  “That’s quite a few magazines,” he said.

  “Sometimes I get behind,” I explained, stapling a set of loose pages together.

  “Are you cutting things out?” he asked, noticing the scissors.

  “For my files,” I said.

  “Your files?”

  “I have these files. Lots of files. One set is called Lifestyles of the Eighties.”

  “You’re kidding,” he said. “You have a file called Lifestyles of the Eighties?”

  “Yup. It takes up half a drawer.”

  He looked around. “I always had this impression you were very organized.”

  “Well, I work in a law firm.”

  “Oh, right. I guess that helps.”

  He sat with his fists clenched at dinner. He was able to talk pretty freely, it seemed, but his fists stayed clenched at the eleven o’clock and one o’clock positions over his plate, and finally I decided to say something.

  “Why are your hands like that?” I asked.

  “What? My hands? Like what?” He automatically uncurled his fingers.

  “Like that.” I reached over and bent his left hand back into a fist.

  “Oh. You know, I never noticed. Is it bad? I guess it’s bad, huh?”

  I nodded.

  “I guess I’m still being careful. Reserved or something. I guess I have to feel like I trust you.”

  I nodded again, more slowly. “I guess you do,” I said.

  Dear Diary: Kevin ran away again from me tonight. He dropped his head on my shoulder on the living room couch and then we necked for a little, while and then we lay on the couch and he kept thinking aloud about whether or not he should sleep with me, and I said, “Maybe you won’t know what to think when you wake up tomorrow morning,” and he said, “Maybe that’s it,” and then I said, “Well, maybe because you’ve known me for such a long time this feels a little strange to you,” and he said, “Yeah, maybe,” and then he said, “You know, you’re really nice, you’ve given this all a lot of thought, haven’t you?” and then he said, “I should have my head examined, I should sleep with you, I don’t know why I’m not, I should really have my head examined.” And then he got up and said, “Well, I’m going away for a couple of days next week. How about if I call you when I get back?” And I said, “Okay.”