The Ruined House

by Ruby Namdar

  The elevator arrived. Andrew strode briskly into it, borne on a wave of euphoria that rushed to fill the inner void. He felt his old self coming to life like a Phoenix spreading its wings. Should he push the concept to its limit by serving the tenderloin all by itself, with no first course, no vegetables, no dessert? A solo performance! A magnificent cut of red meat, served with decadence, accompanied by a great, iconic Old World wine: a Saint-Émilion or Saint-Julien whose pedigree declared itself with every sip. Rejuvenated, he rode the elevator like a drunken satyr bound for the bacchanalia of his dreams. Yes! The theme would be “Red on Red,” or perhaps “The Red Banquet,” a subtle homage to Matisse’s The Dessert: Harmony in Red.

  His brain effervesced with sugary excitement, he suddenly had an idea for a wonderful new article: the aging of meat as a metaphor for European culture vis-à-vis the New World ideal of the fresh steak. It would have fascinating footnotes combined with striking verbal and visual imagery: an Old Master Vanitas, a quote from Rabelais. The Aesthetics of Dissolution. Marco Ferreri’s La Grande Bouffe. Serrated petals, redolent with sick, unrestrained sexuality, drooping limply to a brocaded tablecloth. A spectacle of feathers, no longer gripped by the pheasant’s iridescent, rotting flesh, falling out of the picture one by one. And why just an article? It could be a video installation. He would get in touch with his old friend Barbara from Performance Studies. In fact, why not invite her, too? She was never dull. A stroke of pure genius! His brimming imagination was lord of all things. But wouldn’t it, he wondered as the elevator continued its slow ascent, be wasted on the mainstream academic types he would have to invite? For a moment he felt proudly conscious of being, in his lonely refinement, an eagle trapped in the narrow world of country crows and street pigeons.

  The elevator reached the tenth floor. Andrew sprang from it and flew to his apartment on new wings. He could all but hear them beating as they bore him along. He must write down the amazing thoughts that had come to him with a bang, like the clatter of coins from a slot machine. As he passed the neighbors’ doors, he slid his hand into his pocket to search for the key, not wanting to lose a precious second. Almost breathless with excitement, he inserted the key in the lock. Then, his hand refusing to complete the turn it had begun, he froze.

  All at once, without warning, the bubble of his euphoric high burst. The void was back. His wings fell apart. Their wax joints melted. The gray plume of their useless feathers followed his naked body’s plunge into a blue sea. The absurdity, the complete absurdity, of it all! The juvenile, obvious banality! The dinner, the article, the installation—the same ideas that had caused him to soar a minute ago were now revealed to him in all their nakedness as the stalest of mannerisms, pure impotence masquerading as genius. His preposterous fantasy of a trendy media event made him cringe. He felt ill again. His bounce sagged beneath its own weight.

  Andrew turned the key with difficulty, pushed open the door, and stood on the threshold, feeling too weak to take another step. The warm, repellent smells of the airless apartment paralyzed him anew. He squinted, his lungs preparing to fight for oxygen. Just shutting the door behind him seemed more than he could manage. And now, too, something was dragging on his arm, making him lean against the doorway to keep his balance. He looked down and saw the package of meat, its plastic handles stretched to the breaking point. Forcing himself to enter the smelly apartment and shut the door with his last strength, he hurriedly bolted and double-locked it as if fearing an imminent burglary. He turned to go to the kitchen, felt another sharp tug, and let out an exclamation of dismay. One of the plastic handles had broken, leaving the other to bear all the weight. A second later it snapped, too, and the package fell to the floor with a chilling plop. Andrew grabbed it frantically and ran with it to the kitchen, determined to banish it from sight. He looked wildly around him. Where could he put it? What was he supposed to do with the damn thing? Its two handles now drooped like the antennae of a squashed bug. He couldn’t bear to look at it another second. Should he throw it in the garbage? At $39.99 a pound, that would be lunatic. Times seven and a half—how much was that? Not enough to keep him from opening the little cabinet beneath the sink, throwing the moist, heavy bag into the garbage pail, replacing the lid, and shutting the wooden door. In the sudden silence, the hidden meat seemed to fizz with an unheard but deafening sound. Andrew stood listening. Was that all he had needed to do? Could it really have been so easy? It wasn’t as simple as that. In an hour, the meat would start to rot. Maggots would infest it. A corpse-like smell would spread from the pail, penetrating the wooden door beneath the sink and filling the apartment with its dark stench. Fat white worms. They were said to live in the flesh, waiting for the moment to breed.

  The slow, hollow seconds ticked by. The strange fizzing continued. The dead tenderloin had come back to life, bubbling and gurgling behind the wooden door. Andrew opened the cabinet, lifted the lid of the pail, and peered into it, not knowing what to expect. The package lay there like a corpse in its shrouds. He overcame his revulsion, stuck in a hand, and pulled it out, smeared with rotting fruit peels and a cloudy liquid of unclear origin. Keeping his lips tightly shut and his nose turned away, he opened the package on the granite counter and removed its inner bag, which was sealed with a red plastic clip. The warm cut of meat in its pink tissue rested in its puddle of blood. He threw the empty package into the pail and scrubbed his hands thoroughly with warm water and soap. Should he throw the meat down the incinerator shaft? There was something liberating, therapeutic, in the thought of the hideous tenderloin plummeting down it, bouncing off its dirty walls and smashing to pieces at the bottom. No more tenderloin! It would be gone forever, taking with it all guilt, all sin, all worry, all of life’s disgrace.

  Andrew took desperate gulps of the unhealthy, endlessly recycled air, and suddenly he felt that he couldn’t possibly step out of the apartment with such a thing. He couldn’t step out of the apartment, period. Holding the inner bag in both hands, he opened the refrigerator with his knee. In the growing gloom of the kitchen, it cast a cold, greenish light. He leaned forward, feeling sick, chose a far corner of the bottom shelf, maneuvered the meat into it, shut the refrigerator, and ran from the kitchen as if the tenderloin were a murder victim about to rise up, break loose, and chase him through the dark apartment. Although turning on a light might have helped repel the nightmare, he groped his way to the bedroom in the dark, without lighting it.

  The stuffy heat was unbearable. The exhausted air conditioner wheezed quietly in the darkness like a large sea mammal cast ashore. Enough! He couldn’t go on like this. Why not just end it? He would crawl into the bathtub with a bottle of whiskey and a box of sleeping pills, or else slash the veins in his wrist and marvel effetely at the red flowers of blood spurting smokily into the hot water. Cut it out! There wasn’t a dumber or more self-pitying fantasy than dying in the bathtub like a Hollywood diva. Whiskey and sleeping pills, really! Sleeping pills? He had forgotten completely about them! He had been so obsessed with the crappy candy bars that he hadn’t remembered to buy them!

  Andrew gave a start and turned to go to the front door, which was barely visible in the dimming light. Yet the thought of the doorman standing with his arms crossed, a crooked smile on his face and a gleam of what Andrew felt sure was sadistic pleasure in his eyes, made him realize that he couldn’t go anywhere. It was simply out of the question. He would get along without the goddamn pills, at least until tomorrow.

  Andrew shuffled out of the living room with his eyes shut, hands groping in front of him, experiencing the degradation of blindness. The allure of it, too, for he continued that way to the bathroom, running into walls and doorways and cautiously seeking the medicine cabinet above the sink. Only when he found it did he open his eyes, sorry to part with the peace of seeing nothing. He looked for the little bottle of Tylenol in the dim light of the streetlamps shining through the back window. He unscrewed it, shook out two pills, swallowed them without water, and replaced the bottle
on its shelf. Not that he knew what good they would do, but sending them on their scratchy path down his throat made him feel he was doing something. Without drinking or brushing his teeth, he went to his bed and lay down with his hands gripping the mattress. Once more he yielded to the pleasant illusion of being blind. The distant, familiar sounds of the city drifted in and out. His eyelids twitched. Time passed unnoticed. He lay without moving, unsure if he was asleep or awake.

  A loud ring startled him, waking him from an anesthetizing dream of nothing. Who could be calling at this hour? What did they want from him? He turned over on his side, drawing his knees up and covering his ears with his hands, trying to ignore the persistent ring. He knew what would happen if he picked up the receiver. He could hear Walter’s severe, wintry voice pronouncing its harsh verdict. She’s dead! I thought you were with her. I thought you were watching over her.

  Hello, Dad? Is that you? What do you mean, Mom is dead? How can that be? She was just calling to me a minute ago. She asked me to come to her room, but I wanted to stay by the window looking out at the infinite depths, at the big blue sharks swimming so far down that they look like aquarium fish.

  He mustn’t break now. He had to stay focused, to keep the hot, choking tears from erupting and sweeping everything before them. The minister will send the limousine tomorrow, but who will help me carry the coffin? I can’t lift it by myself, I need help. A simple box coffin, made of rudely cut pine.

  21

  Four forty a.m. Andrew’s eyes opened all at once, as if released by an invisible spring. He lay without moving, staring at the ceiling, bound to the sheet by spidery threads. A shiver ran through him, making its way upward from the soles of his feet with the tortuous slowness of a CT scan. A childish, irrational dread evoked dim scenarios of horror. There was someone in the apartment! A menacing being was lurking in the dark’s dreadful void, lying in wait. He shut his eyes tight in the no less childish belief that this would make him invisible. The shiver traveled in an exact line, crossing his diaphragm on its way to his neck. He felt he was choking. Fear gushed from every pore.

  Andrew jumped out of bed, threw off the sheets and blankets twined around him like the arms of an octopus, bounded to the door, and flicked the light switch. Light flooded the room, driving away the shadows and flattening the imagined depths between them. He looked around fearfully, surprised how little there was to see. Taking a deep breath, he stepped into the hallway, restraining himself from breaking into a panicked run. He made the rounds of the apartment quickly, turning on every light while resisting the urge to look behind doors and into closets. Get a grip on yourself, man! Get a grip on yourself! Don’t fall apart on me now! Don’t lose it! The lights, switched on one by one, awakened the dark apartment from its slumber. Bathed in an eerie glare, it looked like the site of an all-night party to which no one had come.

  How could anyone live all alone like this? It was unnatural! Andrew stood wide awake in the living room, stunned by the light. Although it had indeed chased away the demons that drove him from his bed, the false daylight had wormed its way into him. It was the middle of the night. Everything was closed. What was he supposed to do now? Instinctively, he turned to the computer lying neglected on his desk. Of course! He would check his e-mail and surf the Web to see what was new. No, Andrew shuddered at the thought, he turned his back to his desk and wandered aimlessly into the dark kitchen.

  22

  The stainless-steel door of the refrigerator gleamed under the light’s assault. Andrew yanked it open, held his breath, and peered inside. The long tenderloin, rescued from dark oblivion, was clearly visible in its blackening pool of blood. It seemed to have turned gangrenous in the course of the night. Andrew slammed the door as though to lock it up forever and escaped to the living room, rubbing his hands as if cleaning them of the blood they hadn’t touched.

  Like a sleepwalker, he wandered through the overly bright living room, bumping into furniture as if it were invisible. Even away from the refrigerator, the thought of the long, cylindrical cut of meat with its pointy, sensitive-looking tip haunted him. The sea-tinted memory struggled to rise again. Shapeless shadows drifted upward from the depths, splinters of a distant, haunting vision, thrashing the water, surfacing and vanishing once more. A morbid curiosity sent him back to the kitchen. Breathing heavily, he stood for a long while before the large coffin of a refrigerator while mustering the resolve to open its door. The tenderloin lay by itself on the bottom shelf as though having driven away all else. How, Andrew asked himself in astonishment, had he failed to see it immediately? It looked just like a huge, uncircumcised penis! He stared at it in disgust, overwhelmed by the obvious metaphor.

  The haunting fragments of memory, rising and sinking through all the levels of consciousness, suddenly meshed. A curious, forgotten item from long ago sprang to life in Andrew’s mind. It was a primitive piece of scrimshaw, one of those whale-hunting scenes that sold for absurd prices in the antique shops of Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard, and Nantucket, with a grim black-and-white engraving of a dead, giant sperm whale lying helplessly on the deck of a ship between barrels and coils of rope, awaiting its dismemberment. Its huge sexual organ—a shockingly long, flexile black appendage—lay beside it as though mocking its owner’s demise. The impression it made on Andrew was so disturbing that, in the hope of mastering the disquiet it caused him, he thought of buying the strange object and bringing it back to New York. In the end, of course, he didn’t. It was no doubt too expensive and who would want such a horror in his home, anyway?

  The memory burst with an unpleasant splatter. What was he to do with the damn tenderloin? There had to be some solution. He couldn’t just leave it to rot in the refrigerator. What did rotten meat look like? Once it had been a common sight: the carcasses of animals by roadsides, bloated human bodies crawling with worms. Nowadays, you didn’t see such things—not in America, anyway, not in New York. He had to get away from such morbid thoughts. Should he make a meal of it after all? Turning to his cookbooks, he chose several colorfully illustrated volumes and carried them to the living room, clinging to their glossy solidity as if it were a guarantee of sanity.

  The light was too strong. How could he read? Andrew threw the cookbooks on the coffee table and sank heavily into the couch. The air conditioner, which was on its last legs, had begun to leak during the night, causing a puddle to form on the floor and nearly touch the black rug. The wet, shapeless rag of the cashmere blanket lay at his feet like a skinned, wrinkled hide. Andrew kicked it aside. The whale’s amputated sex lay beside the hulk of its dead body. Why were they called sperm whales? What an off-putting name! It made one imagine them swimming in great, sticky halos of milky semen or else masturbating all day long. Wasn’t Moby Dick a sperm whale, too? He wondered if they really had such big penises. Where did they keep them? In their stomachs? Buried under their skin?

  Andrew leaned forward and took a cookbook from the top of the disorderly pile. The Encyclopedia of Meat: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know. He leafed impatiently through the illustrations in the opening pages, which made him think more of an anatomy textbook than of anything having to do with food. Venison. Fowl and Game. Wild Boar. Duck. Partridge. Where was the beef? Filleting a goose breast. The meat is separated from the bone with a short knife. Start with the neck and work toward the lower abdomen, making sure to cut with the grain. The fatty meat clung desperately to the scarlet muscle, its soft tissue crumbling from the effort. A jet of reflux surged up Andrew’s throat, which contracted spasmodically to block its passage. He slammed the book shut and pushed it away, shutting his eyes and trying not to think of the deboned breast, its skin hanging in driblets. The cruelty of the knife left him aghast.

  But he couldn’t stop reading now. He had to do something with the tenderloin. He picked up the book again and searched in vain for the beef section. There were a staggering number of illustrations of raw meat. The long muscles, the round muscles, bones sawed lengthwise and crossways, ligam
ents, fat, cartilaginous joints. The illustrations were hyperrealistic, thanks to the latest state-of-the-art digital cameras. Where had all those nice old cookbooks with their down-to-earth, practical advice gone? They made you feel at home, not in some goddamn slaughterhouse. Beef. Beef. Beef. Here it was. Aging. Assado. Barbecues. Beef bourguignon. Demi-glaces. Goulash. Marinades. Stews. Strips of lard are inserted with a special hollow knife into tough, chewy cuts of red meat. Andrew stared transfixed at the color photo. The strips of lard were burrowed in the meat like maggots in dead flesh, their soft, little tails wiggling helplessly on the glossy paper. What ever happened to that fat blogger and his lost foreskin? He must once have been a chubby infant clutching desperately at a blue-veined flap of skin to save it from the knife. The tenderloin flops heavily, screaming with pain, onto the red-hot skillet. The white worms shrivel in terror, fleeing into the charred cut of meat. Soft baby penises. Slash them. Burn them. Yes, burn the fucking meat! Stick it in a high-temperature oven and let it go up in smoke. It would fight. It would writhe in the oven’s inferno, begging for its life. Not for long, though. The fire would get the upper hand. First would come the fat. It would turn golden, then brown, then black, then carbonize completely. Next were the cartilage and the joints. The muscles would dry, stiffen, burn. Their fluids—their blood, their plasma, their water—would slowly evaporate. The tenderloin would surrender, give up its hold on life, shrink inward, shrivel to a hard concentrate. It would cease to be itself and disappear forever. No more meat. No more anything. Just black, nameless matter. What happened to the bones there, at Auschwitz? Something of them must have remained in the ovens. They couldn’t have all gone up the chimneys. But what did bones have to do with it? There were no bones in a tenderloin. There were bones in penises, though. Yes, most mammals had a bone in their penis. He had read it somewhere. Something about blue whales. They had a huge penis bone that could come to six feet or more. What was done with it when the whale was cut up? Was it used for anything? Carved? Thrown back in the sea?