Asking for Love

by Robinson, Roxana;

  Lying in the dark, Nora squinted at the clock Gordon had given her: three-seventeen. The cabin was small and coffin-shaped, narrow at each end. Even in the dark it was oppressive. Nora was wide awake, and hours lay between her and the daylight world, movement and speech. She pulled the sheet over her head, covering her face. She breathed slowly, through the sheet, trying to filter the worst of the fumes. Last night she had gone back to sleep like this, the sheet tented over her face. In the morning she had been covered with sweat and had a pounding headache, but at least she had slept.

  She breathed shallowly, trying not to draw carbon monoxide inside her. She imagined tiny capillaries in her lungs, clogged and sluggish from the poison. She noticed her heartbeat, and a pulse in her temple. Panic and claustrophobia began to flicker in her mind.

  The sheet was heavy, and sweat broke out on her forehead. Don’t think about suffocating, Nora warned herself. At once she threw off the sheet and sat up, her heart noisy, her face damp. The walls of the cabin pressed in. The black television loomed over her pillow, and the air was unbreathable.

  Nora climbed out of bed quietly and opened the closet door. She felt inside for a caftan and slid it over her head. She took her pillow, her quilt, and the room key, tightly wrapping her fingers around its clattering rings. Gordon shifted, and Nora paused. When he was quiet, she opened the cabin door.

  The corridor was bright and airless, and under her bare feet the carpet bristled, dry and synthetic. Holding her runaway’s bundle, Nora padded past door after door to the lower lobby. At the top of its angular staircase she pushed open the last door, onto the deck. Outside she stood still, taking a slow breath.

  Around her was the Egyptian night, vast, deep, spangled, the air a rich translucent black. The night came down to the deck, surrounding and embracing her. Overhead was space, high, luminous, star-filled. Learning the dimness, she saw low black shapes, like sarcophagi, lining the deck: deck chairs. She pulled a mattress off the stack, dragging it to the stern: The wooden deck was cool beneath her feet, and around the ship the river moved and murmured.

  On the eastern shore, cold spotlights glared over the docks, a cluster of gas tanks, and a chain-link fence. On the western shore—close, the Nile was narrow here—a low and ancient village hugged the river’s edge. Whitewashed buildings fitted neatly into one another and a small mosque raised a bulbous dome and elegant spire above the flat roofs. A night wind moved through the palm trees, and their long splintery leaves swayed, shifting black patterns across the whitewashed walls. The street was empty and silent, and it stopped abruptly: a few palms, then blackness. Fields would lie along the river, Nora knew, and behind them would be useless sand: the land was fertile only as far as the Nile had flooded. The Aswan Dam had ended the annual rampages; the river now lay meek and obedient between its banks forever. But in the past, the river’s wild spates had been the source of life as well as death. The invading floodwaters bore a cargo of bountiful black soil, dense and fertile. On the way to a temple they had seen the high-water line: it lay precise and absolute, like a boundary on a map. There was no gradation, no shading: the dark luxuriant soil stopped dead. Beyond it the earth was dry and empty, barren.

  Nora lay down on her mattress and tucked the quilt around her. The deck was dry, the air cool and sweet, and the sky radiant with stars. The engine throbbed far below, barely audible. Calm, like the night, settled on her. Peacefully Nora watched the village, full of secrets. The palm leaves shifted in the wind, and shadows moved against the white walls. Nora was safe and warm: encircled by water, enwrapped by her quilt, invisible in the dark. She was alone and happy in the strange Egyptian night. She pulled the quilt closer; she slept.

  The breeze was steady, the night silent, and Nora half woke often, half dreaming, tranquil. She blinked, confused, then pleased, to find herself by the mysterious village, in the deep parts of the night. Toward morning, though it was still black, the muezzin appeared in the mosque, and Nora woke to his thin, urgent cry. White-robed men appeared, gliding like dancers with long, hurrying strides, the heavy folds of their caftans swaying. The men made no sound, slipping in and out of the shadows like spies. Lit theatrically from below, the minaret was radiant, glowing and irresistible in the surrounding dark.

  Nora watched the hurrying men and wondered how it felt to be striding through the freshening air toward that ancient cry. She closed her eyes, opened them, and closed them again. She would never know. The only Egyptian Nora knew was Mr. Fouad.

  The first night, after dinner, the passengers were invited to the murky, lurid bar, with its gold-mirrored tables and smoked windows. Nora and Gordon sat on low banquettes, a strange sweet drink before them, in tiny, fussy glasses, ruby-red, with gold rims. On the dance floor a spotlight suddenly irradiated the ship’s manager, holding a microphone. He was dark and slim, with soulful brown eyes and a thick black mustache. His neat suit was somber, his collar and cuffs dazzlingly white. He spoke a precise and heavily accented English.

  “My name is Mr. Fouad,” he said, and bowed slightly. “I welcome you to Egypt, one of the Great Wonders of the World.” His voice was rich with pride, and he bowed again, ceremonially. He explained that the syrupy drink was a symbol of welcome; everyone took cautious, dutiful swallows. “I wish also to welcome you to the ship Hathor, another of the Great Wonders of the World.” He smiled happily at this modest joke, but it was clear that his pride was real: Mr. Fouad thought the grim geometry of the soulless boat was, simply, perfect. What Nora saw as bleak, disheartening, and artificial, Mr. Fouad saw as the triumph of technology over the old, antiquated ways.

  Mr. Fouad smiled, waiting hopefully for a response, and the passengers applauded politely. Mr. Fouad bowed again, and then, meticulously, he introduced each member of the staff. They stood lined up next to him, all smiling. “This is Miss Nadia, the housekeeper,” he said respectfully, and the passengers clapped. Miss Nadia, her smile gleaming in the dim light, stepped forward.

  Afterward, in the cabin, Nora sat cross-legged on her bunk. There was no room for both of them to stand at the same time, and Gordon, who was tall and portly, towered majestically before her, unbuttoning his shirt. The top of his head was perfectly smooth and burnished, like an objet d’art or a piece of polished alabaster.

  Nora asked, “Didn’t you think all that was wonderful?”

  “‘Wonderful’?” repeated Gordon. He raised his eyebrows. “I’m not sure that ‘wonderful’ would be the word I’d choose.” He sounded tolerant, amused. “Why did you think it was ‘wonderful’?” He put quotation marks around her word.

  At his tone, Nora turned cautious. “Oh, I don’t know,” she said. “I just thought Mr. Fouad was sweet, with his big thick mustache and his white shirt. I liked the way he was so proud of everyone, the waiters, the stewards, the housekeeper. And they were all so proud. And they had such beautiful, brilliant smiles.” Mr. Fouad’s dark, glowing face, his elegant gestures, the ceremony and strangeness, had reminded her of those figures in the paintings, lithe and vital and mysterious.

  Gordon laughed briefly. “My dear girl, you sound as though we’d seen some ancient tribal ritual. This is like showtime in Las Vegas. These people do this at the start of every cruise, every week, fifty-two weeks a year. It’s not exactly a spontaneous outburst.”

  “But that’s why it was so nice,” Nora protested. “Even though they do it all the time they were still so proud of themselves, proud of the boat, proud of Egypt.” Nora could see Mr. Fouad, turning courteously from side to side, the spotlight shining down on his narrow shoulders, illuminating his precise and radiant smile.

  Gordon shook his head, still smiling. “Well, you’re rather easy to please.”

  Nora, pulling her dress over head, did not answer.

  After a pause Gordon turned to her again. He had a majestic voice, deep and resonant. “I must say, I’m a bit mystified. I’d have thought you’d like the tombs, the temples, the paintings. I didn’t think I’d brought you all the way to E
gypt to admire the headwaiter.” He smiled again, as though this were a joke they could share, her sophomoric response to Egypt.

  Nora looked steadily back at him. She smiled, but said nothing.

  Before she married Gordon, Nora had made a vow: she would not fight with him. She did not have the heart for another divorce; she could not afford a second failure. She would never permit a fight to begin. Any anger he felt, any hostility, any criticism, she would absorb. None of it would be reflected back at him. Nora believed she could do this; she believed she had to. All her life she had relied on passion, and it had always betrayed her. This time things would be different. This marriage would be based on sympathy, loyalty, affection. She would take responsibility for its success. She would be vigilant; she would not allow anger to make its chaotic inroads into her heart.

  Nora’s dress lay in a green pool in the cradle of her lap. She reached behind her back and unhooked her bra. Naked to the waist, she waited for Gordon to finish so she could stand. His back turned, he held on to a shelf with one hand as he stepped ponderously out of his trousers. On either side of his pale solid back a crease of thick skin slanted diagonally down. The flesh itself was somehow womanly, heavy and slack, loosened forever by age. The skin was soft and pale, but not smooth: moles, pockmarks, bumps, stood out on its pallid landscape.

  Gordon turned to face her. Along the ridges of his shoulders were meandering hairs, long and white. His chest was androgynous. On either side of the sternum, flesh that would once have been hard and flat now drooped, pendulous, like breasts.

  It distressed Nora to see the damage done to Gordon’s body by age; it distressed her to feel her own response. She did not love his flesh, which shamed her. I should have known his body when it was young. I should have grown old with him, seen him change beside me, she thought. But she had known him for only eight months, and had seen none of his changes.

  “Don’t you think?” Gordon asked.

  Nora had not been listening, and felt doubly guilty. She had been disloyal and inattentive. “Yes,” she said, at random. Stiffly Gordon leaned over her, putting his hands on her bare shoulders for balance. The touch on her skin was unexpected. As he leaned his body toward her, pale and massive, Nora felt suddenly at risk, her breasts naked and vulnerable. She wanted to cover herself, to protect herself from him, as though he were some stranger, not her husband.

  “Good night,” Gordon said loudly. He kissed Nora on the mouth. The kiss was firm and dry, a seal on the day.

  “Good night,” Nora said.

  Gordon turned his back again and began the cumbersome process of lowering himself down into the narrow bunk. As he maneuvered, Nora kept sympathy on her face, in case he wanted it, but he did not look at her again. When he was settled on his back, he lapped his hands, one over the other, on the crest of his high firm stomach and closed his eyes for the night.

  Now, up on deck in the cool air, Nora thought of him, below. She hoped that he was sleeping peacefully, and that he had not waked up to find her mysteriously absent. She wondered what he would think if he did. She had no idea. She did not know him well enough. She had married a man she did not know.

  All her life Nora had believed that things were improving. She had seen impecuniousness, haphazard living arrangements, arguments with her first husband, disappointments at work, as temporary. She had always trusted that the landscape would open at last into a broad and sunny plateau. When she left her husband, she felt she was doing something brave and commendable: her ideals would not permit her to lead a second-rate life. She felt that she was rejecting something shoddy, unacceptable, and that she would move on to something finer: a real marriage. And at the small publishing house where she worked, she had thought she would keep moving up, to better things.

  One evening last winter Nora had opened her front door and stepped into her dark foyer. As she did so she thought suddenly, This is the best apartment I will ever have. I will never live in a better place. The thought was startling and painful, a blow. She closed the door, and the sound of the locks clicking into place behind her was sickening.

  She stood still, in the dark. She did not turn on the light; she did not want to see the cramped and awkward living room beyond the tiny hall, or the hall itself, with its rickety table piled with mail and books and out-of-place objects, or the grimy, cracked plaster walls. She would be here in this dreary, inconvenient place forever. Even worse, she thought that she would never need more space: her daughter was nearly through college. Diana would not come back to live in the tiny second bedroom, with its thin curtains hanging slackly at the barred window. Nora’s life was drawing in. Standing inside the door she felt hollow, as though something had dropped away beneath her. She closed her eyes.

  She would not go on to better things at work either, she thought. Her publishing house was being taken over by a conglomerate, and though Nora had been assured nothing would change, it came her to now that this was, of course, not true. It would all become more commercial; the new staff would be uninterested in the books Nora wanted to publish. She would be lucky to keep her job. And she would not marry again, she could see. New York was full of divorced women, and men her age married women twenty years younger, smooth-faced women who lied about not wanting children. She would be alone.

  Nora put down her plastic bag of groceries and sat down on the battered chair, jammed too close to the table. Her shoulder touched the stack of mail, and a stream of papers, magazines, and catalogues spilled smoothly off, like a pack of new cards, into a glossy, layered pool of chaos on the floor.

  It was soon after that awful evening that she met Gordon. He was seventeen years older, which was surprisingly comforting. Men her own age were prickly with competitiveness, challenge, anger. These brutal edges seemed to have been worn smooth on Gordon, who was courtly and protective. His wife had died, and he had retired from the law. He spent his time on boards, of companies, museums, the opera house. The opera was his great love, and this seemed appropriate to Nora, that he should be so drawn to something so elegant, so dignified and civilized. He seemed wise and lofty, and it was a relief for her simply to be in his presence. He lived in a handsome duplex in the Eighties: there was room even for Diana. When he asked Nora to marry him, it seemed a miracle.

  Her head still deep in her pillow, Nora opened her eyes. Something was intruding on the steady vibration of the engines: a rhythmic overlay of slow footsteps. A watchman, she thought, pacing the deck. She hoped it was a watchman and not someone less bound by duty: it was very dark, and very late. Nora was lying down, in her nightgown, and did not want an encounter. She drew her legs up to her chest and pulled the quilt over her head. She hoped he would think she was asleep and leave her alone.

  The footsteps approached slowly. Maybe he wouldn’t see her. Nora huddled into the hollow of the mattress, crossing her arms on her chest and closing her eyes, as though this made her invisible. What if he shouted at her, officiously citing some rule and ordering her back to the cabin? What if she had to stand up ignominiously before him, clutching her bedding, stumbling back along the deck in the gloom? Nora thought of the airless cabin and its fumes. She hugged her knees to her chest.

  The footsteps were louder. They had quickened and changed direction: he had seen her. The footsteps stopped at Nora’s head, and she heard a faint positioning shuffle. She held her breath and did not move. Perhaps he would think this was a pile of bedding and try to pick up her quilt. She would hold on to it, and they would struggle absurdly. She could feel his presence next to her, she could hear him breathing. His feet were directly at her head. She wondered how long she could hold her breath. If he thought she was asleep, surely he wouldn’t wake her up.

  “Excuse me,” the man said. His voice was low and very serious. Nora’s heart was pounding, and she began to sweat. The voice was right next to her head: he had crouched beside her. Nora wondered if he was going to touch her. If she feigned sleep, he might touch her to wake her up, but if she admitted she
was awake, she would have to speak to him. She waited, hoping that he would leave. She ran out of breath, and let out the air from her lungs slowly, in a long silent stream. He did not move. She thought of the Rousseau painting The Sleeping Gypsy: the figure stretched out in an open field beneath the brilliant moon. In her mind, he seemed so calm, the Gypsy, in his bright clothes, so confident of his safety. The animal—a lion? a leopard?—stood over him, lashing his tail, regal and murderous.

  “Excuse me, madam,” the voice said again, very close. Nora raised her head from the pillow. Trying to sound aloof and testy at being disturbed, she said, “Yes?” She hoped that she did not sound weak or helpless. She hoped that she did not sound as though she was in her nightgown.

  It was Mr. Fouad. He was squatting at the head of her mattress, gazing straight down into her face. She saw the dark V of his legs on either side of her, the solid line of his joined hands above her. He was still in his dark suit, his collar and cuffs gleaming.

  “Mr. Fouad,” Nora said. He smiled at her, not moving. He was very close to her. His upside-down face hung over hers, and she could feel the warmth coming from his body, from his legs.

  “Ah, Mrs. Newhall,” he said gently.

  There was a long pause, and Nora could hear him breathing. She wondered what he was thinking. She felt her armpits dampen, her heartbeat quicken. Holding her head up was uncomfortable, and it brought her face very close to Mr. Fouad’s legs, close to the center of his body. She could smell his strange, cinnamony smell, warm and strong. His hands, his brown, long-fingered hands, were very close to her face. One finger gently stroked another. Mr. Fouad was watching her intently, and she could not help thinking of his fingers touching her. Nora dropped her head back down into her pillow, to withdraw, but she wondered if it suggested yielding, giving way.