A wave breaks outside, though they can’t hear it, and then he sees a flash of her—the dancer, the peacock. She comes in bursts, emotions tugging him from this moment, with the rush of her smile, those long fingertips, her laugh, Liv’s arms around her. Sophie starts to spin, his memory rushing in now, the dry martini, him in the purple shade, her arms two arcs. He pushes that away, wants only to stay in this moment with her, the two of them and the sound of her breath as her body forces air in and out. The whip of her figure through space. So often we watch the body move drenched in notes that tell us how to feel about it; to watch in silence is to know the breath at each movement, the chance of success against the gravity of failure.
Click. He places her in his memory, snapshot over her shoulder, arm raised, her eyes delicately facing downward. Click. The languid arch of her back as she creeps forward, losing the precision of before. Click. The arch of her feet that seem poised to snap or spring her straight through the ceiling.
Lucien always imagined eyes and sight and perspective worked just like the camera, recording things as they are, objectively. Here he wonders if we could truly see through another’s eyes, would our color blue be the same as theirs? How about red? What if another person’s blue was your red? How could we ever know? For that, he wishes he could remember whatever he had seen on Mem. How the world looked, even in the most basic sense. Something of what it felt like to see, as another. And now here is Sophie, staking out her space, filling it with movements through every inch of air. Making what was otherwise empty alive and beautiful. Showing him how she sees.
She rises light, then comes down hard. He feels the smooth wood against her feet, and the weight on her shoulders as she hunches only to once again float up to relevé. It’s as if the gods would not have it, as if they could not help but pull her back up to the sky, and for a moment she looks entirely free, her toes hardly touching the ground, though they bear the entire weight of her.
“Sophie,” he whispers, approaching her from behind.
The name now means something, attached to a memory entirely his own. Lucien matches his body to hers, only inches left between them, the hovering baby hairs outside her bun tickling his nose. Before he can tell her, before he can reintroduce himself, revisit those things that might help them both to remember, his hand grazes hers.
She jumps. In another breath she is across the room, backed into the frame of her bed.
“Sorry,” he says, and takes a step toward her, but she shrieks so loudly that he reaches both hands to his ears. Her eyes look straight past him now, and she cringes at something he cannot decipher. He turns, but sees nothing.
“Sophie!” he says. “Listen to me, Sophie. It’s okay.”
No, no, no, no, she says, beating her head with the base of her wrists.
“I’m sorry.” He waves his hands in front of him, helpless, and backs up across the room. “Look, I’m over here. I didn’t mean to—I thought… What did I do? Talk to me?”
Two nurses push through the door, rushing straight to Sophie without seeing him, and Lucien slips into the doorway. One holds a syringe extended, and the other holds long gray bands that are quickly wrapped around Sophie. The latex stretches thin over her points of pressure, nearly white at her elbows. She screams, voice cracking, and something inside of Lucien feels like it is breaking.
Then the door is shut with him on the other side, and Sophie’s screams become muffled like the waves outside the window, tightly sealed out, but crashing, continuously, relentless.
Chapter 13 BEFORE
Last week, a body was dredged up from the bottom of Echo Park Lake.
Police cars parked up and down Laguna Avenue. Lucien’s neighbors introduced themselves for the first time to share their annoyance over the street parking, as if this inconvenience overshadowed the body, lifeless and waterlogged, the witnesses, the family to be called. But life is a string of selfish responses, Lucien thought as he nodded along, holding his groceries, a box of cereal and orange juice.
When Lucien first saw Echo Park Lake from his window, it struck him as a mirage, its glittering water broken only by swans languidly crossing its surface and couples in swan-themed paddleboats looping the lily pads. On weekends when large families cook out, the smell of carne asada and hot dogs drifts up to his window and fills him with hunger but little appetite. Children chase each other, shrieking, around and under picnic tables, and part of him feels sorry for them—the inevitable loss that waits as they play at being afraid. By evening, pink light fills his entire apartment, just before everything darkens. And drunken shouts ripple off the water.
He first met Liv outside the Victorian house, around the same time everyone was talking about the dead body, and the parking. She was picking up the pieces of some smashed Halloween pumpkins; one she’d carved with Beet It in fine cursive, another featured an intricate rendering of assorted vegetables. It was hard to be sure whether they had been smashed for the bad pun, or in protest of Michael Jackson. Even picking up the rotting pumpkin pieces, Liv seemed delighted. This fascinated Lucien; it still does, though the closer he gets to her, the more that fascination makes her feel further and further away. Now especially after sex, it’s like they’re floating in oppositely traveling ethers, her fingertips curling around his. Almost impossibly, holding on.
He sneaks by the window of Astral Bodies on his way out, the latticework casting shadows over Liv’s curated selection of ceramic mugs and succulents alongside her juices. He wonders who it is that commutes from home to sit in another quieter home, in a city that stretches indefinitely with the same quiet, low energy. Lucien first went in looking for hand soap after moving in. He found it. Only, the soap was twenty-seven dollars, powdered, and alkaline, whatever that means. He thought at least he could get a black coffee instead, but that was eight dollars and came with your choice of ashwagandha, ghee, or coconut oil.
The past few weeks in Los Angeles seem at once like a long weekend and also like months and months could have already passed, with nothing anchoring Lucien to time; no balancing jobs and friends with his responsibilities to his mother, her doctor visits. No events or odd jobs; no work of his own. The days progress, untouched by season, and instead of being liberating, this feels like a trap—as if leaving Los Angeles might one day hit him like an astronaut returning from another galaxy, only to find that his world has grown old without him. It’s no wonder his grandmother lost touch with reality. There isn’t any to hold on to.
* * *
…memory goes, not all at once, but like lace, a hole here, another there, Lucien reads to his grandmother from the newspaper unfolded across his lap. One of the many things she saved over the years that he has scoured for ideas since being here, this Financial Times from 2012 had selected fiction around the holidays. She must have loved the story, to save it all these years. Or was she already fading then, all by herself. Maybe she read it over and over, surprised each time.
He pauses to study her eyes. They sparkle green, like his mother’s, like his.
“You wrote that?”
“No I’m Lucien, your grandson.”
Her eyes shift with confusion.
“You know me, I can’t write shit.” He laughs, inviting her to join him; at the very least, to tell him not to curse.
“Well, it’s beautiful.”
“This was a story you kept,” he continues. “Written by Teju Cole.”
She nods and smiles, unclasping her tight grip on his hand. He watches her face for some recognition. She points back to the page. He reads a few more lines, until her eyes close, and then he folds the paper.
“Nice of you to visit,” she says wistfully. “You’re a wonderful writer.”
Lucien wants to shake her.
“Thank you,” he says flatly instead, to her eyelids.
When he looks up, Mickey Mouse in the safari hat stares back at him from the cleared shelf across the room. Mocking him. He walks over to the stuffed animal and slaps it down, but the har
d plastic nose makes contact with his fingernail and it stings. He sucks his finger and picks up the little plush body. Then he walks back to his grandmother’s chair and sets Mickey down on the side table. He crouches to her level again, studying her now that her eyes are closed.
This might be what his mother would look like, older, in another universe where she had the time. He looks for the traces. The long, strong nose. The same smile lines, because if he remembers anything, it’s that they laughed the same. His grandmother’s brows look like his own, arched more over one eye. They give the illusion of her attention, even now.
Would his grandmother recognize him without the illness? An adult, no longer the goofy kid always happy to go along, fascinated by everything he saw. An adult, he thinks again, disparagingly. Her skin looks sallow against the thin polka-dotted cotton of the nightgown she seems to wear every day. Would it be weird to intervene in her clothing options? Why should the nurses listen to him? He wears the same striped sweater every day, or the faded green flannel, and the gray T-shirt he hopes they assume he has in bulk. But who bought this generic gown? He cannot believe she would have chosen it. Every photo he’s found shows her in silk robes, feathers along the bottom. Even in his limited memory, he remembers her in color.
Next to her on the side table attached to her floor lamp is a small pill bottle like any other, with an official label that reads MEMOROXIN 780, 110 MCG. FLORENCE J. BENNETT. This is the first day they’ve had more than a passing moment alone. Lucien remembers the Halloween party the other night, everyone rushing upstairs. Desperate for whatever Florence has here in excess. The limp hand on the floor. Reaching.
He lifts the bottle and twists off the top. The pills sparkle, iridescent inside the orange plastic. He carefully taps a single pill into his palm and studies it. When it rolls along his palm, a trail of shimmer comes off, right along his lifeline. Shit. He pinches the pill, more coming off on his fingertips, and drops it in the front pocket of his shirt.
His heart beats fast against it.
He replaces the lid and returns the bottle to the table. He glances at Mickey, and Mickey looks back at him with bright, empty eyes. The past two weeks, it’s never occurred to him that the pills she takes are something he could experience, or that he could follow her to where his mother was still alive—to live in that consciousness, in any but his own. The nurses won’t notice one pill. There must be forty, fifty in there. And why shouldn’t he, this is practically in his blood. Just a taste, anyway.
Maybe he won’t even try it.
He wipes the pearly residue on the side of the recliner. His face feels flushed, his T-shirt damp though it’s barely noon. Florence’s house, with its generous shade and thatched roof, has no central air, not even a proper AC unit. He imagines she never needed it before. The only time Lucien visited Los Angeles, he must have been twelve. She kept all the windows open, a cool breeze following the speckled light from the courtyard. Everything about Los Angeles felt easy.
His mother had several meetings for an exhibition she was being featured in at LACMA titled Women in Color. The show highlighted female artists in the last century who didn’t shy away from color. His mother scoffed at the title and its premise, especially the fact that it was a show of all white artists. One night she came home, when Lucien and Florence were eating pasta in the backyard, and exclaimed, Any show at a major museum is always twenty years too late, and thirty years behind.
Lucien spent their entire stay playing with an old Polaroid camera his grandmother gave him, photographing plants and lizards in her small overgrown yard, and walking around her neighborhood, exotic and strange. The air felt brighter, and so did the people. His mother was busy with meetings all weekend, and when she wasn’t she was painting in the courtyard, frantic and inspired. Unreachable, as he photographed the fallen bougainvillea petals clustered around her feet and slowly watched them turn to color.
At one point his mother proclaimed that they were moving to Los Angeles, that she had no idea why she had ever left the California light, but then two days later she and Lucien were on their way back to LAX and never visited again. His grandmother called regularly after that for a while; she liked to ask him about photography, for him to describe any interesting images he’d captured. Then either she stopped or his mother stopped answering. He could never tell if his mother was embarrassed of Florence, or if they simply had different energies, forever pushing and pulling in opposite directions, better off loving one another from afar. Lucien saw so much of each of them in the other. And yet the only thing either of them agreed on, it seemed, was him.
The French doors to the courtyard are shut with the blinds down. Lucien stands to open them and let some of the fresh air inside or, at the very least, unsettle the scent of sanitizer and gauze that has taken over. The courtyard is once again cluttered with bougainvillea petals in fuchsia, coral, and faded brown, rustling as the doors swing open. Lucien remembers how the petals floated in the breeze, that image of his mother’s feet, overlaid on this new reality. He wonders if his grandmother still has that photograph, something he could take. He closes his eyes, trying to remember the honeysuckle from the neighbor’s yard, but he cannot get past all that sanitizer.
No wonder she doesn’t remember a thing stuck in here. His mother would never have let this happen had she known, had she been out here to see what this treatment entails. Or maybe she had, maybe she did. He considers, for a moment, that this was all her doing, her instruction. Then he lets himself settle into resenting her, if only briefly.
Mostly, the fresh air makes him want a cigarette. But so does everything. All this sunshine makes him want a cigarette. The way the nights here have a chill and the light turns tangerine over the skyline makes him want a cigarette. And the way his nerves tighten every time he gets into the car to go someplace makes him want a cigarette. The way he wants more than ever to focus on his body, on the air he breathes, makes him want a—
“What do you say we give your grandmother a rest?”
A young nurse stands in the doorway. She waves up a hand in apology.
“I’m sorry,” she chuckles. “Oh my lord, your face.”
Decades younger than the other nurses and with a bright smile, she is a relief in that stuffy room. Lucien sidesteps his grandmother’s recliner, suddenly feeling himself looming beside the nurse’s petite frame and the low ceilings.
“I don’t think we’ve met. I’m—”
“Lucien. The grandson, of course. I’ve spent a lot of time with your photographs, with Florence. You’re a cutie.”
Lucien’s cheeks burn like a wine stain spreading.
“Were a cutie—as a boy. Oh god,” she laughs. “I’m Trina, nice to meet you.”
“Really nice to meet you, Trina.”
“I switched off with Gloria a while ago, but I heard you back here and, you know, wanted to give you some time. She loves the company. And the reading. Don’t you, Florence?”
Florence’s eyes remain closed, a slight smile to her mouth. As nice as Trina seems, Lucien recognizes the practiced optimism, implying his presence means a damn thing. He faced the same prescribed kindness, the soft eyes and gentle nods, from the nurses caring for his mother over the last few years in New York. During the bad days, their optimism had felt like ridicule. And his mother’s recovery after each episode had only validated their pretension. Maybe this is just something nurses are specifically trained in, between administering intravenous medications and taking vitals. Such treatment from an older nurse was one thing—from someone his own age it feels like a betrayal.
Trina walks closer, humming as her cotton uniform swooshes, clinging to her curves. Her dark shiny hair is pulled up in a tight ponytail, the arc of which just touches the back of her neck. The room feels different with her there, more alive. She is so much better at being here than he is. As she leans down next to his grandmother beside him, he smells her fruity shampoo.
“Time for some memories, pretty lady,” says T
rina as she takes her wrist for a pulse. She nods once, satisfied, and his grandmother gazes at her now with calm, happy eyes. “Doesn’t she look lovely today?”
Trina turns to Lucien, and he realizes he has no idea how to talk to his own grandmother. Not in this state. Not compared to the ease at which Trina moves around her, lightening the absence that lurks behind Florence’s eyes, inside her entire body. For a moment, he resents her.
“Isabel,” his grandmother whispers, looking up at Trina.
A deep, sharp pang at her name. In this room where his mother spent so much of her life, she is both remembered and forgotten all at once. In some ways, she is still alive. Trina smiles—not correcting her—and brushes a white wisp of hair out from his grandmother’s eyes, tucking it behind her ear.
“That’s real good, Florence. Must be your guest. Sparking all kinds of memories.”
Florence leans farther into her touch. He admires the generosity of her comfort. He also wonders just how much of his grandmother’s misplaced memories Trina has heard. Trina reaches for the same pill bottle, and Lucien holds his breath. A tiny pill sparkles under the lamplight as she places it on his grandmother’s waiting tongue.
Lucien steps closer. Florence’s entire body relaxes, and her muscles seem to unfold. The tiniest wrinkles in her face soften, as though the years are dissolving away from the inside out. To anyone else these changes might be imperceptible, but Lucien has been watching her closely, attentive to even the slightest spark that might hint at some internal progress. He wonders where she goes, remembering the pill in his pocket, and suddenly he’s desperate for it. Maybe his mother is there.
Just then, Florence’s eyes open wide for a moment, sparkling green. He leans in closer, forgetting Trina, forgetting the stripped-away shell of this once home, forgetting everything but what he might find in her eyes. But those same eyes that once opened wider at the sight of him quickly become crowded by an opalescence that could make even the hollowest of objects appear full, their emptiness obscured by an impenetrable sheen.
The Shimmering State Page 13