This Is All a Lie

by Thomas Trofimuk

The Lover

  Tulah’s Snow Journal

  Saturday, December 22, 2007 #301

  The whole city has been waiting for this. No one likes a brown Christmas. Or a green Christmas. But the way we’re rushing pell-mell toward burning as much fossil fuel as we can, as quickly as we can, it’s just a matter of time before snow becomes a rare and wondrous thing. This morning, there were people up and down the block sitting on their front steps drinking coffee and reading, or smoking, or just talking. It was +6 and overcast – everyone looking up and wondering if maybe tonight it will come. Around 4 p.m., the temperature starts to fall. It’s not a dive, it’s more like a sigh, and suddenly, you could see your breath. Around 7 p.m., it starts to snow. A sprinkle. A few flakes first, twirling through the cool air, then a few more, then a steady fall. The first flakes melt into the ground but after an hour, the snow is too much and it starts to accumulate…

  When Tulah is thirty-two years old, her lover gives her lingerie for Christmas, which is stupid because if she wears it in front of Ray, she’ll be forced to lie. She could. It’s not that she couldn’t lie. It’s just that lingerie was one step over the line. It’s a lie that would be complex and it would carry the threat of unravelling. It would be a repugnant lie. The lingerie was a sensual, sexual, intimate gift. The Lover’s intentions were fine, but his instincts were faulty. If she took this lingerie into her everyday life, it would be an unforgiveable intrusion. It was too much. Lingerie had implications she could not reconcile.

  She meets him in a Holiday Inn near the airport, three days before Christmas. Her mother is watching the girls and Tulah tells everyone she is doing last-minute Christmas shopping. It is their seventh time together. Tulah had promised herself it would be okay – she could absolutely acknowledge it as a horrible mistake if she met him only three times at most, then four, then six. Now it was no longer possible to think of her behaviour as a mistake. She was doing this on purpose, because she wanted it. She was ashamed and excited and insatiable.

  The third time they met was at the Hilton, uptown. He ordered a bottle of Grey Goose vodka and they drank shots sitting and looking out across the city skyline. He’d asked her about her husband and Tulah thought it was over. If they made the husband real, how could they possibly go on?

  “He’s a good father,” she said. “And a decent human being.”

  The Lover poured her another shot of vodka. “Is he mean to you ever?”

  “Mean? No. But, don’t all marriages get a little mean as they age?”

  “Perhaps. But he doesn’t beat you, does he? He’s not cruel?”

  “Why are we talking about my husband? I don’t want to talk about my husband. Let’s pretend there is no husband.”

  “I was curious about why you were here, with me, in this hotel. I think I need a reason.”

  Tulah takes a breath. “I’m here because I feel broken. I feel lost and really fucking alone sometimes.” The tears stream down her cheeks. “It has nothing to do with my husband.”

  “I’m sorry.” He pulls her toward him and she rests her head on his chest. “I am sorry.”

  * * *

  This was not just lingerie. It was La Perla – Italian and expensive. A grey-blue body-suit that played with shadows and lace. It was stunning and she did not want to know what it cost. She wore it for him. She tried to tell herself the lingerie made her feel sexy, but that wasn’t it – meeting an almost stranger in hotel room for sex made her feel sexy. For a little while, she was not a mother to two daughters. Nor was she a wife. She was nothing but passion and desire. She was something uncontained and wild. The Lover told her he expected nothing and this lack of expectation burst the bounds of possibility. It seemed they both showed up because they wanted to and that was everything.

  The Lover has a flight to New York at 6 p.m. He turns in the doorway. His eyes are grey in this light. His face softens as he smiles and then he is gone. Tulah does not get out of bed. She feels horrible and alone. She closes her eyes and begins to regret this betrayal. The fact she’s lying to everyone – her mother, her kids, Ray’s mother, Ray. Everyone she cares about. And why? Because she feels she needs a couple hours of pleasure from an uncomplicated man. Because when she is with The Lover, she could reinvent herself – she could be someone new – and sometimes she yearned to be someone new. But it was never a full meal. The Lover was thorough and generous, but it was never enough. There was an elemental part missing. There was no past, and certainly no future. It’s not that Tulah wanted to live in the past or in the future, but she liked the potential of them in the room with her. It was comforting. In fact, these hotel meetings always left her feeling emptier and more alone than she could imagine, and ultimately, stranded inside a world she wanted no part of.

  “I will not do this again,” she says into the empty room. “I will never do this again.” This is the same mantra she has spoken the past six times. It has become her perpetual assurance – if she says it, she will be with The Lover again. It has become the opposite of the meaning of the words that form it.

  She raids the mini-bar and makes herself a double gin and tonic. The Lover puts these rooms on his corporate card. He would insist she help herself. She has one sip and pours the drink down the drain. She does not want to be drunk, or even tipsy. In the shower, she lets the temperature become hotter than comfortable – to the point of being painfully hot. She wants to scald away any trace of him. She is disgusted with herself and at the same time, she is thinking about the next time. She does not hesitate to embrace the delusion that there is something fulfilling yet to be discovered with The Lover. She stands in the shower until her skin is red and tingling.

  Tulah is afraid that some part of her believes she and Ray are at the end of their marriage and that she has lost all hope. She used to know what romantic love was, she could tap into it and easily understand it. Now? It was as if someone was speaking Farsi. She knows how to love her daughters but beyond this love, she is lost. Marriage was a promise against this behaviour but sometimes the boundaries of marriage needed to be tested and it was best to do this behind closed doors. Tulah smiles. She knows this is bullshit. It’s a bullshit rationalization but it almost makes her feel better.

  She stuffs the lingerie into a plastic bag and slips it into a garbage can in the lobby of the hotel. As she leaves the hotel, she sighs, and shivers, and mourns the lingerie and how it made her feel. But she knows she cannot carry the lingerie forward into her life.

  After the girls are in bed, Tulah has another shower. She scrubs herself hard. She soaps and re-soaps, and when she emerges she does not dry off, but jumps into bed and starts to kiss Ray. She kisses his lips, and neck and chest and belly, and she moves him into her mouth. His book falls to the floor and she begins to please him. Ray wants to touch her – he moves his hand around her buttocks, but she tells him no. She wants to give him pleasure. This is a one-way street. She needs this. “Be still. Let me do this,” she says. Tulah is thorough, and driven, and when Ray is spent, she is happy. She feels close again. It’s a frail closeness but it soothes her. She has created a bond, a sanctuary of hope. They have mixed together physically and this is a good thing. They watch TV for a while and Ray falls asleep before her. She turns the TV off. She feels such an overwhelming guilt and it threatens to drag her into darkness. But it is Christmas and the girls are bubbling with excitement. She will smile and be joyous, for them, and she will bubble with excitement, for them. She spoons herself into Ray, finds the place where they fit. Her breathing shudders and she hopes he does not notice. She leans up, touches the top of the clock radio to check that the alarm is set to the correct time, and then turns the radio on and starts to listen to an interview about global warming. She is quickly asleep.

  She does not think she is dreaming. It is not that sort of dream. She is on an airplane and she is giving blowjobs to everyone. She keeps her seatbelt on and men come to 6C and line up and wait. The
flight attendant announces the woman in seat 6C is giving blowjobs and she’s really good. She warns that if the captain puts the seatbelt sign on, everyone will have to move back to their seats and buckle up. Tulah does not look at the faces of the men and she is unable to move her arms. It’s as if her arms are paralyzed. She is happy the men are unnamed, and unknown. Everything is simple, except her jaw is tired. After a while, she starts to feel that she might be dreaming. She wonders if these men are all the men she has ever slept with. She wants to look up but she can’t. The airplane goes through some turbulence but the line-up of men who are waiting does not decrease. The seatbelt sign goes on but the men in the aisle ignore it. She wonders how long the flight is. She wonders where the airplane is going. She does not remember booking a flight. Tulah has to pee and she begins to worry that she will not be able to get out of her seat and down the aisle in time. She has too much work to do. But she really has to pee.

  When she wakes up, she is on the verge of peeing. She hops out of bed and tiptoes quickly into the bathroom. Sitting on the toilet, she remembers her dream. She is relieved it was not real and at the same time, fascinated by her own subconscious.

  * * *

  Merry Christmas to you, too. Ray curls on his side. Tulah has surprised him. She wouldn’t let him touch her – not this time, and it was amazing. They were both relaxed and it was the perfect antidote to the insanity of Christmas. They’ve found presents for the girls, their family, and a few friends. They know where the family is going to gather for Christmas dinner. Christmas cards were mailed out weeks ago. And now, if it would only snow.

  Tulah tucks herself behind him, fits her body into his and pulls herself tight. She shivers and Ray wonders what it is that is reverberating in her, but lets it go.

  * * *

  Lauren Smith storms into the office on a Tuesday morning and demands to see the principal. She has a kid in one of Tulah’s classes and she has grave concerns. Tulah knows that every couple years, she’ll lose a student or two after her first class, and there were always complaints from parents and sometimes students, who were offended by her insensitivity – by her intolerance and close-mindedness when it came to the idea of creation. Sometimes there were demands that she be fired because of her refusal to acknowledge creation in her science class. Tulah enjoyed these conflicts. She loved the meetings with the principal, the school board, and the indignant parents. Lauren Smith was threatening legal action and demanded a meeting. Tulah was in the middle of her class when she got the call from Principal Hartman.

  “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth,” Lauren Smith said. The little sausage-roll curl of hair on her forehead bobbed up and down as she spoke. Tulah found this distracting. “It’s in the Bible. God created the heavens and the earth.”

  Behind Lauren Smith, Principal Hartman closed his eyes and tried to even out his breathing.

  I wish God would come and create some common sense in this woman right about now, Tulah thought. “That’s a beautiful story,” she said.

  “It’s not just a story.” Lauren Smith said. “It’s our faith. It’s what the Bible says. And as a taxpayer, I have a right to insist that it be taught in this school.”

  “I agree with you,” Tulah said. “In fact, it should be taught in every school.”

  “Oh? I didn’t know…” Lauren Smith said, pleased but hesitant. “I’m happy we see eye-to-eye on this…”

  “…but not in a science class,” Tulah said. “It’s theology, not biology. Those are two different things.”

  “But we believe in creation. We believe God created the heavens and the Earth. I want my child to learn about creation.”

  “Here it comes,” Principal Hartman said, quietly.

  Tulah wanted to tell this woman the fact she believed in something did not make it true. She stopped herself. She pulled back her gorge. She surprised Principal Hartman. “Well, I don’t know what to say. There’s some pretty sound evidence to support the idea of evolution. And we’re pretty certain Homo Sapiens have been roaming around this planet for at least two hundred thousand years.”

  “If you’re saying gays have been around for two hundred thousand years, well...”

  “…Homo sapiens. Not homosexuals. Homo sapiens are humans.”

  “So you’re saying I got gay blood in me?”

  “What? No…that’s not…That’s absurd.”

  “Look, we believe in creation and I do not think it’s too much to ask that creation theory be taught.”

  “But I teach biology. Biology is a science.” She was not condescending. She really believed she could educate.

  Lauren Smith turned her back on Tulah and looked directly at Principal Hartman. “This woman thinks we’re all homosexuals. I want my son out of this, this person’s class.”

  “Of course, you do, Ms. Smith,” the principal said.

  Tulah wanted the discussion – the opportunity to teach beyond her students. It would not be so pleasant if her principal wasn’t so supportive. Principal Hartman had her back. There was always the option to take Mr. Rubinski’s religion course in period six, and of course, Ms. Bergman’s science class. Ms. Bergman included a robust discussion of creation in her class. She included it as an alternate theory – she gave it merit.

  Every few months Susan Bergman invited Tulah and Ray for dinner and every few months, Tulah declined.

  Ray was willing to take a chance on Susan Bergman. He was curious about the potential conversation. “Why don’t we go for dinner, just once? Maybe they’re really nice.”

  “Well,” Tulah said, “Susan Bergman is an idiot. No matter how nice they are, this simple fact won’t change.”

  “It’s one faith-based disagreement. It’s nothing.”

  “It’s science, Ray.”

  “You can’t judge a person based on their take on evolution.”

  “Why not?”

  Sometimes, Tulah was more stubborn than Ray thought possible.

  * * *

  Ray’s mom has cataracts and she needs Ray to drive her to her doctor. The operation to remove her cataracts is in two weeks. He takes the morning off work and picks her up. He watches as she pecks her way, carefully, delicately down the front steps. She is slower now, he thinks.

  In the car, he remembers the last time she had struggled with the seatbelt, so he fastens it for her. He clicks her into her seat.

  They are downtown, stopped in traffic and Ray’s mom turns her body to look at him. She shifts in her seat so that she does not have to turn her neck. As if turning her neck is a difficulty. “Have you ever thought about finding your birth mom?” she says. “I’m not going to live forever, and I believe she loved you.”

  “I’ve got one mom,” Ray says.

  “You would not hurt my feelings if you…”

  “…I’ve got a mom,” Ray says.

  “But I’m just saying…”

  “…I know what you’re saying,” he says. “I’m just not built that way. I’m curious about the world, but not so much about this. It was enough that there was a letter. I know giving me up was difficult, and it was about love.”

  “That’s all you need?”

  “Well, I have you, mom.”

  “Yes, you do,” she says.

  Chapter 9

  Evelyn McHale

  “Success and rest don’t sleep together”

  – Zhanna Petya

  Imagine a small girl living in an apartment in Kursk, in 1985. Every day her father comes home from work and every day she waits. She is perhaps four years old. At the back entrance there are three steps, and every day the girl leaps from these steps into her papa’s arms, and he never fails to catch her. Sometimes he is distracted by life, and hard days at work, and he is caught off guard by his jumping daughter, but it always makes him happy to catch her. She always makes him smile.

  Nancy
will not remember this when she grows up. It will be the memory of a story told to her by her mother. She will wish it was her own memory, because she can only imagine the feeling of safety in this ritual. To trust this much is incomprehensible to her.

  * * *

  “Ray?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you remember that picture of the woman who jumped off the Empire State Building? The one where she looked like she was asleep on that car? It was like the top of the car made a nest around her body.”

  “Yes, I remember.”

  “She looked so peaceful. I’d like to be that peaceful. I love that picture.”

  Ray knows this picture well. A paragraph in Life magazine and the poignant photograph. Her name was Evelyn McHale, and it was May 1, 1947. She jumped from the observation deck of the Empire State Building. She was wearing a red dress – at least modern colour images of the black and white photo made it red. The picture haunted Ray, as it was both captivating and horrifying. Evelyn McHale was an attractive woman who was still clutching her pearl necklace when her body carved out a crumpled metal nest in the top of a car after falling for eighty-six floors. Her feet and ankles were mesmerizing. Her ankles were crossed, as if she was relaxed and at peace – as if she was resting for a while and accidentally fell asleep. This was the mystery of the photo for him. Death and sleep were confused in the moment of this picture. No one knew why she jumped. She was getting married in June, to a guy named Barry. The note she left up top said she didn’t think she would make a very good wife – she was too much like her mother and her once-and-future husband would be better off without her. Why would she write: ‘Tell my father, I have too many of my mother’s tendencies’? What was wrong with her mother? What the hell happened to Evelyn McHale? To everyone in her life, up until that morning, she’d seemed happy.