Eventually, Ray found a pretty good reproduction of the picture, framed it and hung it in his office. It was only half morbid. He made a point of remembering her name. For some reason, Ray could not bear the thought that Evelyn McHale would be forgotten. Even though she wanted to be forgotten, he could not. He knew he was likely not the only person in the world to have been smitten with some sort of feeling for this woman. He understood this and did not care.
“She was dead, too,” Ray says. “Yes, she was peaceful looking, but she was also dead. The thing you should know, the thing you can’t see in that picture, is that her insides were basically liquefied when she landed. When they tried to move her, everything fell apart. That’s not so pretty, is it?” Ray is not entirely certain about this, but it sounds true.
Ray hopes the picture in his office was not an omen of some sort – a bad omen pointing toward this moment.
No, she’s playing with him, torturing him – that’s all. She will not kill herself over him. She’s smarter than that. Ray thinks about his own life – the moments of beauty and grief, sadness and joy – all the things that have given meaning, all the proofs against pointlessness. The birth of the girls. A dinner with a stranger in Macon, France – a woman who told stories about her grandmother meeting Ernest Hemingway in Africa. Sharing a bottle of 1979 Volnay with a climbing buddy at the base of Mt. Robson – lugging that bottle up there, along with all the climbing gear – taking the first sip and knowing the extra weight of that glass bottle was worth it. Sitting through the rehearsal of Mahler’s Symphony of a Thousand in New York, at Carnegie Hall. And he remembers being so deeply moved by a Picasso sketch in an art gallery in Luzern, Switzerland – that he’d changed his flight so he could stay an extra week and visit it a few more times. It was a girl with a narrow face, downcast eyes, and an unsettling sadness. He can still close his eyes and see her.
“Ray!” she says.
“What?”
“What are you doing down there? I asked you a question.”
“I’m here. Your voice cut out. I don’t know why. What did you ask?”
“I asked you if you would mind coming to my funeral.”
“There isn’t going to be a funeral, because you’re not going to do anything stupid. You’re upset, that’s all. It’s okay to feel sad. It’s okay to feel really, really sad. I’m not offering advice but feel whatever you need to feel and then tomorrow morning, move forward. Take a breath and move into the day.”
“Hypothetically speaking. If I die before you, would you come?”
“Of course, but that’s not going to happen.”
He wonders if there is some way he can call the police – tell them he’s got this woman on the line who is talking about killing herself and he’s worried. But he has only one phone and she is listening to everything he says. He could write a note and pass it to someone on the street, but first he will try to get her to back away from the railing. But what if the police want to interview him, or afterwards, come and talk to him at the house? What if they call him at home? What if one of the cops is virtuous about marriage and decides to ‘accidentally’ make things right? What if this cop wants to tip the scales back toward truth? Because he will have to explain why and how he is on the phone with Nancy. He will have to use words like affair and mistress and married.
“What is this really about, Nancy? You know I can’t stay here all day…”
“…yes you can. You’ll stay there for as long as I want you to.” Her voice is uplifting and pleasant, which makes it ominous.
* * *
At the edge of the balcony Nancy looks out over the city. The grey sky is reflected back at her in a thousand cold windows. It’s cool enough to snow, maybe. She tests the air to see if she can see her breath. She takes another drink of Ray’s goddamned whisky. She thinks about falling through space. She ponders her intention to jump – or rather, fall off the edge. Thirty-nine stories. She will climb over and tuck her toes between the deck and the bottom of the railing. She imagines letting go, falling backward through the air – her stomach fluttering. She will say goodbye to Ray and drop the phone on the balcony floor, and she will let go. After this, nothing she does, or thinks, or feels will matter. Nothing she does matters now. No difference. Hanging on, or letting go. It’s the same thing.
“Dasvidaniya,” she will whisper, “dasvidaniya.”
Once she is falling through space, she will look for acceptance. She will claw her way through fear and find resignation. “Okay,” she will say to herself. “Khorosho.” Once she has accepted the inevitable, anything will be possible. She can see herself falling through space – a ragdoll tossed into the air. And the wind. The sound of the wind is amazing. And then she is flipping around and simply flying away from her life. Her clothing will dissolve into particles and the air around her will transform into strong wings and she will fly away. Matter will be transformed. She and the air will be the same thing. She will transcend. Somewhere in California, there is a forest that will accept the broken, and the broken-hearted. She will know this in her bones. She will not understand how she came to know it, but it will not matter. Sitting in the high branches of an ancient sequoia near the ocean, she will heal. Sequoias are good for healing and this one is over 3,000 years old. It knows about healing. She will not remember the years that brought her to be in need of healing. Time will not behave in the sequoia forest. Mostly, it will not exist. It will barely tick. The world is irrelevant here. Only breathing is important. After forty years, or thirty months, or perhaps twenty seconds, Nancy will come down from the sequoia and find herself in a small town in Oregon, where she will find work in a daycare. The children in the daycare will love her and she will love them more. She’ll rent a flat above a used bookstore. The owner, a large man named Buddy, who owns two albino Dobermans, also runs a small grow-op in the garage behind the bookstore. One day, after Nancy has lived in the town for almost two years, she will meet a seriously happy man named James Finkelstein, who is a lawyer, and she will fall in love with him. The first thing James Finkelstein says to her will be delightfully odd: “It’s about time you came down from that sequoia. I’ve been waiting for you.”
She will smile. “Why would you say something like this?”
“Sequoias are ancient and sacred,” he will say. “There’s something sacred about you.”
“But not too ancient, I hope.”
He will stick out his hand. “James Finkelstein.”
Nancy will recognize the opportunity to reinvent herself in that moment.
“Zhanna,” she’ll say. This is her mother’s name. “I am Zhanna.”
They will have four children – two girls, two boys. It will be the right time, and the right man. She will give birth with a midwife named Sunshine. Only the fourth baby will need more than a midwife – he will be born in St. Joseph Hospital, in Eureka. Nancy will be happy in Oregon. She will grow to love the rain and the colour green. She will wake up every morning and laugh.
At the edge of the balcony, Nancy wipes the tears from her face. She loves this imagined life in Oregon – it makes her happy, and sad. She is only sad about it because she knows how desperately far away it is. It is such a far-flung dream.
She has probably never seen a sequoia tree but she thinks she would like to see one. It’s difficult to fathom a tree that is thousands of years old – a tree that was alive when Jesus was traipsing around the deserts of Galilee taking about love and peace, and heavenly kingdoms. She shakes the balcony railing with one hand. It does not budge.
* * *
In mid-May, Ray arrived at work with a question. “Listen,” he said to an elm tree on Euclid Avenue. “I know you probably know nothing about love, about romance, about women, but you have seventy years, maybe a few more, of watching, so perhaps you know a little about human behaviour.” Ray closed his eyes and felt the sway of the bucket. He could easily imagine the tree wanti
ng to tell him about a car that stopped at its base a week ago – a man and woman having a horrible argument on their way to a party. The man is furious. The woman is indignant and stubborn. She has an accent – Polish, or Russian, or Hungarian – the tree can’t be sure. They are screaming at each other when the woman gets out of the car – even though it’s blocks to the party at their friends’ house, and she’s not exactly sure which house it is, she’s done with this argument. The man drives away. The woman walks to the party. When she gets close to where she thinks the house is, she stops and listens for music, or people talking. She hears music. The tree doesn’t know that the woman will drink to get drunk at the party. An hour beyond this argument, she is staggering drunk. Nor does the tree know the man goes home and listens to one of his wife’s favourite albums – The Dave Brubeck Quartet’s Time Out. He plays the album. He turns the lights out and drifts. He gets up to flip the record over and keeps repeating this pattern until he falls asleep, the record plays through, the needle lifts and gently moves to its off position.
Ray shook his head. He opened his eyes and looked up into the high, sweeping branches and breathed. “Listen, tree, do you think it’s possible for a man to love two women at the same time? I mean, of course the women will be different and this difference will colour the love, but still, do you think this is possible?”
The tree said nothing.
“Not that I am considering this,” Ray added. “We’re just talking. And I’m only curious.”
* * *
A delivery truck pulls up beside Ray’s car and stops. It seems it’s going to stay there. The driver gets out and walks around the front.
“Hold on,” Ray says into the phone.
He lowers his window. The driver is intense and talks quickly. “Do you need to get out, sir?”
“I don’t want to hold on,” Nancy says. “What’s going on? What are you doing?” Nancy gets up and walks out onto the balcony. She leans over and sees the top of the truck, a grey rectangle.
“Eventually,” Ray says to the driver. “How long are you going to be?”
“We’ll need an hour, maybe a bit more.”
“That’s fine,” Ray says. There are no advertisements on the truck, which is a dull grey colour. They could be delivering anything. This conversation could not possibly go any longer than an hour but if he has to sit and wait for a bit, it’s fine.
The driver moves on, looking for any other cars with people in them.
“Who are you talking to?”
“There’s a truck blocking me in. I was talking to the driver. He called me ‘sir.’”
“So?”
“So, I’m not a ‘sir.’ I’m just a guy. Old people are ‘sir.’ Elton John is a ‘sir.’”
“Maybe you are old to him. Anyway, he was being respectful. Just take it and don’t over-think. Jesus Christ, you over-think things. What are they delivering?”
“I don’t know. Maybe someone is moving into your building. Maybe someone is getting new furniture. Do you want me to ask?”
“No. I don’t care.”
“I’d like to think they’re moving a grand piano.”
“I said I don’t care…”
“And yet you asked. You said – What are they delivering?”
“I know what I said, but I really don’t care. I was just filling space.” She’s trying to keep her voice calm and controlled but Ray is pushing her.
“Maybe I should ask. Because it would be beautiful if they were moving a grand piano. There’s something romantic and nostalgic and delightful about the rigmarole around moving a piano. You know. The fat guys standing around scratching themselves and looking at the piano suspended from a rope and pulleys – you know, a block and tackle…”
She is confused by the term ‘block and tackle.’ She does not know what it means but she will not ask him. “…I said I don’t care.”
“Are you sure? Because it’s no problem.”
“No. I do not care.”
“I’m just saying it would be really quite wonderful if it was a piano…”
She is silent for perhaps ten seconds. As he is about to ask if she’s still there she comes back. “What are you doing, Ray?”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re fucking with me. Why? Why would you do that? Do you really think now is the right time to throw stones at this Russian bear? I mean, timing-wise, do you really think this is a good time for that?”
He stops. Because this makes him nervous. Because they really have nothing more to say to each other. Because this is beyond pointless. He could go on. He is way beyond regretting answering her call.
“Well? Are you going to keep irritating the bear? Because, I’m telling you, Ray, that’s how people get killed.”
“Okay,” Ray says. “No more talk about pianos.”
Ray hears shouting behind the truck and somebody down the block is laying on their car horn. Traffic is down to one lane and this must be causing problems. All he keeps thinking about is a world context and none of it is cheerful. He wants to remind her there are people suffering all over the world – and most of this suffering has to do with war, injustice, poverty, religious fundamentalism, violence. There are sick people who want to be alive – who desperately want to be alive. Ray takes a big breath.
“Nancy, I want to tell you something and I want you to listen carefully.”
“Will it cheer me up?”
“Just listen, okay?”
“Okay.”
“So here’s the thing. I really think you should grow the fuck up. I’m sorry I hurt you but grow up. Get up tomorrow morning and shake this off. And move on with your life.”
“Do you think jumping off my balcony is grown up?”
“No. It’s stupid.”
“I think it’s very grown up. I think it’s mature and sophisticated.” She takes a deep breath, holds, and then exhales. “I’m sad, Ray, and alone. I feel so alone. I can’t grow up out of this sadness. It’s massive. And I can’t stop feeling alone because I am alone.”
She starts to cry. Her tears are so sudden they surprise her.
“I liked you better when you were talking nonsense about pianos. I don’t like it when you yell at me.”
She sees the angel standing on the balcony, its back to her, looking at the city. She is not surprised by this. If someone had been in the room watching her, they would not have known she was shocked. Her heart was beating fast, and her face was flushed a little. Other than this, she appears unmoved by the angel. As if she sees angels all the time. She wants to ignore this angel. She wants to treat it like a train that is coming down the tracks toward her but will, at the last minute, veer off onto a different track. She wants to pretend it’s not standing out there because of her. Or, if it’s here because of her, it’s just going to listen. It’s a grey-coloured angel. It seems to be dressed all in grey, and in the overcast day, its skin appears to be grey too. Its shoes are black and pointed. Its wings are massive, extending a metre above its head and its bottom feathers brushing the balcony deck. They are almost not there, as if they exist in more than one place at the same time. They fade in and out of focus and at their most corporeal, they are translucent. Nancy looks away from the angel. She’s not ready for angels.
8½
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern
You might be wondering about Patience and Sarah. Are you? Are you wondering why they’re not more front and centre? Well, it’s not their story. They are basically Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Wandering around in the background as Tulah and Ray try to sort things out. You might be thinking – Rosencrantz and Guildenstern? Huh? Is this a tragedy? Do you think the girls die? You remember a lot of people died in Hamlet. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern definitely died in Hamlet. But the girls? No. No. No. Who would kill off a couple of sweet girls like t
his? Patience and Sarah do not die. They’re fine.
They have the usual childhood illnesses, colds and flus and so on.
But in the context of a book called This Is All A Lie you would have to say yes, both girls die when lightning strikes a tree in the back yard. They run out to see if the tree is okay, and it falls on them and kills them both. Nudge-nudge, wink-wink.
Perhaps you’re starting the see how exhausting this continual lying thing is. Honestly, it’s a full-time job. But it’s not all lies is it? You can start to see what’s true, can’t you? And if you live with a lie long enough, it can start to be true. But seeing the truth inside a lie is different from the delusional, unconditional acceptance of a lie.
You can rest easy about Patience and Sarah – they’re fine. They’re alive at the end of the book, or the beginning – or both if you’d prefer. Their parents are constant, which is what kids want. They have boundaries and they are well loved. You don’t have to worry about the girls.
Anyway, why would you want the heaviness of children running around? Children need, and need, and need some more. They are weight, and responsibility, and worry. This is not to say Ray and Tulah don’t worry about their kids. They do, and not just when they’re ill. They take all their responsibilities as parents seriously. They worry about the girls in school – Tulah knows first-hand the savage cruelty of eighth-grade girls. They worry about the planet – about a planet overheating and the consequences of disappearing ice caps. There are days when Ray worries about lions, elephants and certain whales, and how his girls might never see one of these creatures in the wild. And dating. Ray can’t even being to think about his girls dating.
* * *
coquetry
noun (pl) -ries
flirtation
* * *
Here are some facts for you – so you have a better picture but not a bloated one. Patience Marie was born in 2004 and Sarah January followed about a year later. Both were born in the Holy Trinity Hospital on Spadina Avenue. Tulah opted for natural births for both girls and followed through on that promise. Patience was born to the sound of Miles Davis – the soundtrack from a 1958 Louis Malle film called Ascenseur pour l’échafaud. Sarah was born to the less-than-half-an-octave vocal range range of Leonard Cohen. Ray thinks he remembers hearing “Dance Me to the End of Love.”
This Is All a Lie Page 19