The Lucky Star

by William T. Vollmann

  18

  Another year went, so that she could stay away at night no matter what her mother said, which was now almost nothing, although Karen slowly grew yoked to the conviction (which she told herself had oppressed her from the first) that during their most intimate acts E-beth was imagining other women—because there always came the moment when E-beth would go away, possibly to play with someone else—lovely, smiling E-beth, whom no one and everyone knew. But, oh, how alluring her smile, which yearned and promised rather than demanding!

  Then came that other smile, when Karen had done her job, and E-beth’s eyelids began to close, but her neck-tendons stood out and she was grinning crookedly; she seemed to be concentrating on a funny little story that the girl had told her long ago; and in joy she cried out. This made Karen happier than anything.

  She used to ask what if anything could be singular in E-beth’s love for her; she had given E-beth permission to love as many others as she chose, even to love them more than she loved Karen—but only if there were some specific way that she loved Karen alone! Of course whatever E-beth said to reassure her, however strikingly and even beautifully it might be stated, lost its vibrancy even before the goodbye kiss—because our Karen resembled her mother! She could not prevent herself from wondering whether her lover’s declaration was luminous precisely because she had grown accomplished at whispering it to others . . .—and so E-beth, realizing that no words could satiate Karen’s hungry sadness, grew annoyed.

  Tacked to the wall of E-beth’s bathroom presently appeared a photo of a woman in boots and garters, spreading herself from behind.—Who’s that? said Karen.—Oh, my ex.

  There came the morning when E-beth remarked that although she still loved her best (in proof of which she now tattooed their initials in a heart on the back of her ankle), there happened to be a nameless girl, whom she had kissed two months ago, then slept next to for three nights, not that Karen should imagine that she and the other girl had done the special things that she and Karen did, even though, come to think of it, she had climaxed once, not that she cared to tell exactly how that had been achieved. E-beth next explained that whatever she did with the other girl would be secret; Karen was never to ask about it, not that she should worry—although a week later, E-beth stopped reasserting the fact that she loved her best . . . so there were angry tears, mostly on Karen’s side, because E-beth also said that she was in no mood to lie down with Karen; nor did she especially want Karen to give her advice on her personal life.

  Eventually they got back to making love, as a favor to Karen.

  That night, after the girl had slowly, carefully licked E-beth’s pussy even though it tasted bitter-stingingly of contraceptive jelly, and E-beth had happily climaxed, they fell asleep; then it was very early morning and she heard E-beth climaxing in the bathroom.

  They went out to the All Star Diner, E-beth’s favorite, for breakfast. Karen’s sadness swelled almost past bearing. Ever more caught up in her delicious longing to lick E-beth’s groove, whose complex dark lips she now knew so well, she sincerely believed that given one more chance, just one, she could boomerang her sweetheart’s affections sizzling back! Who am I to say that it would not have been so?—Halfway through their omelettes, E-beth went out to the phone booth in the parking lot. Karen crept to the restroom to throw up. When E-beth returned, she wore her irresistible old smile. Perceiving her lover’s expression, she instantly grew angry, and said: I’ve told you not to ask about that.

  And so Karen, whom almost everyone, her mother most definitely excepted, now called the lesbian, resolved to be more loving and compliant with E-beth than ever before.

  You Seem a Little Sad

  And Virgo, hiding her disdainful breast,

  With Thetis now had laid her down to rest.

  THOMAS SACKVILLE, EARL OF DORSET, 1563

  Ah, Catulla, dearest, that you were less lovely or less vile!

  MARTIAL, 1st cent. A.D.

  1

  You seem a little sad, said E-beth.

  Maybe a little.

  You’ll feel better when I hold you tonight, won’t you?

  The lesbian scarcely dared to look at her. It came easier to stare straight ahead, watching the sunlight retreating up the hills. The highway was already in shadow. E-beth drove fluently, rubbing her slender gentle fingers across the lesbian’s knee. For more than an hour they sat silent. Now only the summits of the forest hills remained bright. From the corner of her eye she caught E-beth twisting a strand of hair around her thumb.

  It was the last night of their vacation. The lesbian sat on the edge of the bed. Standing by the window, E-beth said: All right, then, Karen. If you really want to know, it’s because you haven’t been discreet.

  About what? You’re the one who taught me not to be ashamed—

  I don’t care who knows that I like girls. But our relationship was supposed to stay secret.

  I swear I never told anyone your name . . .

  That’s what you wanted.

  But now I don’t! I’m proud of our relationship!

  Well, I’m not. It’s over.

  What you’re saying is—

  You know what I’m saying.

  The girl had risen. Slowly, she sat down again, struggling not to feel. Looking at her hands, she whispered: This doesn’t make sense to me, because—

  If it doesn’t, it doesn’t, said E-beth, lighting a cigarette. Anyway, it’s time for you to find somebody else.

  The lesbian could not speak. When her cigarette was done, E-beth, her body smooth as marble as she leaned back on her left arm, her small breasts perfect to hold in some lucky girl’s hands, exhaled and laid the smoking butt in the ashtray. She looked out the window. Then she said: I’m restless. I might be out all night.

  A vacuum surrounded the lesbian. Everything from and to her had been somehow interrupted.

  ’Bye, said E-beth.

  For a considerable time the lesbian could hear her descending the concrete stairs to the parking lot. She could not hear when the car drove away.

  Standing up, she drew the curtains, unable to cry out. (I who tell my corrupt version of her story years later assert that precisely what she needed in order to become the one whom we would love above all others was E-beth, cruel and rejecting. But the retired policeman credits Karen’s mother.*)—The bathroom door was open. E-beth had left the light on. Very slowly, the lesbian approached the mirror, as if discovering whether or not her face had changed would teach something that would save her. What she saw could have been a woman’s marble semblance wide-eyed upon her own sarcophagus.

  Beside the plastic-wrapped cake of motel soap stood a jar of ear-cleaning swabs. She withdrew one swab. Each end was a cotton ball. Slowly she knelt down on the cold tile floor. She raised the toilet seat. She bent over the bowl. Then she opened her mouth. Probing with the swab, she found the correct place almost at once, tickling her tonsils so that she vomited. The feeling was almost sexual. Then she began sobbing.

  After a long time she rose and returned to the sink. When she bent over the tap, rinsing the foulness out of her mouth, she saw vomit in her hair.

  2

  The reason for her great pain was this: Once E-beth rejected her, Karen could no longer deny that she was, and always had been, alone.

  3

  Needless to say, she had grown so accomplished at not feeling whatever pain inhabited her that even while she was weeping and vomiting up E-beth’s cancelled promises, her experience consisted of shock without emotion. Once this ending settled into her bones with the undeniable conviction of illness, she began to exist without hope, but thankfully also without feeling, so that if she were to die it would not signify; even bodily anguish while dying might be easy, on account of her indifference.

  Meanwhile she reasoned with E-beth—this being an entirely rational matter. She promised to
improve herself. She also pleaded.

  No, said her ex-lover. I’ve told you that we’re done.

  But what should I do?

  Find another girl.

  I don’t want to!

  Good for you, said E-beth.

  All I want is you.

  Karen, the reason you’re making this so difficult is because I was the first to make you climax. You might not even be gay. Sometimes you act like a closeted heterosexist.

  I’m not!

  Then I’ll take the credit.

  For what?

  E-beth lit a cigarette.—If nothing else, she said, I was the one who brought you out.

  Excuse me just a second, said the lesbian. Locking herself into the bathroom, she ran the water loud, bent over the toilet and tickled her tonsils with a paper clip until everything came up as easily and powerfully as if she had won some kind of relief. She kept retching thin brown mucus. Her throat was burning. She flushed the toilet. Looking in the mirror, she wiped the vomit off her face. Then she swished and gargled two capfuls of E-beth’s mouthwash, just in case E-beth might care to kiss her.

  4

  There was a bandage over E-beth’s ankle tattoo. She explained that new work was being done on that area.

  5

  Nowadays E-beth never answered the phone. They saw each other less and less. One Sunday morning they met for coffee; E-beth was late and grumpy. The lesbian said: There’s something I want to ask you.

  As long as it’s not the same old thing.

  That time I went down on you, and tasted, well, I thought it was contraceptive—

  E-beth raged coldly: First of all, I told you not to invade my personal business. Second, how would you know what spermicide tastes like? Third, I’m leaving right now and don’t call me.

  6

  It seemed, as in such situations it always does, that she would never get over E-beth. (Unlike the Madonna, who could restore the sight to any princess whose eyes had been pecked out by a magic bird, all the lesbian could do was to love and love.) Sometimes she used to go past E-beth’s apartment, and it almost maddened her to think that her ex-lover might be in there, without her, and presumably with someone else. As most of us do, E-beth had “moved on.” In one of their final meetings, she explained to the girl—who by then would have done anything, even moved next door merely to see her walk in and out with her other women—that she needed to grow up. Not only was she no good in bed, she was spoiled, and afflicted everyone around her with her impossible attitude. Moreover, she never felt good about herself.—You don’t realize how hard I’ve tried, said E-beth—who was right as usual.

  So the lesbian went home to her mother.

  7

  Her mother was worried, so she took her to a therapist.

  The therapist said: Karen, this is all between you and me. You can trust me.

  Thank you, said the girl.

  Your mother’s concerned about your weight. Do you know what bulimia is?

  I think so.

  You may be bulimic.

  I don’t want to talk about it. I’m fine.

  Karen, your mother said something about another girl.

  She . . .

  Do you want to talk about that?

  No. I told you I’m fine.

  Karen, is anything going on at home?

  What do you mean?

  Is there anything you want to tell me?

  The girl shook her head.

  The therapist, who was greyhaired and had some sort of palsy, laid her trembling hand on her other trembling hand, smiled and said: Don’t worry, Karen. You’re not a lesbian.

  8

  What is it? said E-beth at the fourth ring.

  I wanted to hear your voice once more.

  Karen, please listen to me. I’m trying to say this nicely. I wish you love and happiness in your life. What you and I did together, that’s over. It’s never going to come back. If you don’t let go of your need for me, you won’t ever have anything, because I’m not there for you. Do you understand me, Karen?

  But I still don’t understand why.

  We’ve talked this through, over and over. Karen, please don’t contact me in any way. Not in a year or twenty years or ever. Karen, this needs to be our last conversation. If you send me a letter, I won’t open it. If you call me again, I’ll report you for harassment. If you see me on the street, we do not know each other. And now I’m ending this. Goodbye, Karen.

  The lesbian was standing on the sidewalk. Her chances of indefinite remission were small. Hanging up the heavy black receiver, she left the phone booth and, quietly as she could (imagining E-beth’s face so fixed and cold), reentered Jingle’s Bar and ordered another Hot Bitch straight up. It stung her throat. She watched the unmoving wind chimes and the plastic dragonfly which dangled on wires from the ceiling. Locking herself into the ladies’ restroom, she raised the lid of the reeking toilet, bent over it, and expertly sicked up her liquor, which burned even more on the way out. Then she sorted through her ring of keys, found the sharpest-ended, and stabbed it into her palm. Outside, someone tried to turn the door handle. She flushed the toilet, spat vomit into the grimy sink, and cupped tapwater in her hands, but just as she raised it to her mouth someone kicked the door sharply, and her heart pounded. She went out.

  You were in there a fucking long time, a woman said.

  Sorry, said the lesbian, feeling tipsy or maybe dizzy. Making a fist to conceal her bleeding hand, she sat down at the bar. Then she stood up.

  The bartender looked her up and down. He was the old man who used to like her. He asked: Did you get sick?

  I didn’t make a mess; I cleaned up everything.

  That’s what they all say. And I’m the one who—why don’t you go home? Hey, where’s your friend?

  Sorry, said the lesbian. I’m really sorry.

  I can’t serve you anymore.

  At the corner store she bought mouthwash. She swished and gargled in an alley.

  The Island

  It is more than a coincidence that inverts have a fondness for islands.

  FRANK S. CAPRIO, M.D., 1954

  And from this moment on I shall strip myself that I may clothe myself.

  THE APOCRYPHON OF JAMES, bef. 314 A.D.

  1

  When someone longs for “the past,” what she truly pines for is return into her vanished self, bearing all knowledge of what she has since become and lost, because how could this awareness not embellish the cherishing of that ancient hidden jewel of happiness now restored to her? But she also wishes to be spared this selfsame loss and knowledge which must shadow the jewel’s green flame. Hence what she wishes is to unify a contradiction, without which the more trivial impossibility of time travel would be no good to her. That treacherous face she still adores, if she could make it love her again, all the while remembering its present readiness to turn away, wouldn’t that be saddest of all?—Nostalgia is nothing more or less than a drive to square a circle.

  So the lesbian, unable to convince herself either that E-beth might possibly let her back into her heart or that E-beth had shut her out forever, lay sweating in bed, with her clothes on. It was two in the morning. She heard the doorknob begin to turn. By the time her mother crept in, she was already on her feet and looking out the window.

  I thought your light was on, said her mother. Wasn’t your light on just a minute ago?

  No, Mother.

  Then why aren’t you in bed?

  I’ll go to bed soon, I promise.

  Karen, why are you so upset?

  I don’t feel well.

  You’re upset at me, aren’t you?

  No, Mother.

  You know, sometimes I get the craziest notion. It almost seems that you don’t love me, said the mother, gliding steadily forward. The girl c
ould not bear to look into her eyes.

  2

  She had of course written letters and torn them to shreds; don’t we all? If she could persuade E-beth to once more kiss her, why wouldn’t they dwell again within that green jewel whose fire nourishes and whose faceted infinities hide intimacies from the world, so that the past could be present, forever?—But the intervals between her and the older girl began to weigh her down like those sweaty blankets now pressing on her heart and snaking around her throat. E-beth probably wore a different look now. She was a different person. And even if she had not changed, how pleasant would it feel to be rejected by her again—to suffer that again, seeing E-beth’s face so fixed and cold? So she tried and failed to square the interior circumference of her skull.

  Again she crept into her room to lie down; but this time, perceiving her ministrations to be rejected, the mother took offense and hounded her back onto her feet, which might not have been the worst result. The girl did her math homework, counting and recounting zeroes. E-beth came into her dreams, in order to reject her again and again, until Karen could believe in it; week by week the incision deepened, as if the other woman could actually be bothered to be present, in order to keep sawing into her heart.

  3

  On what she correctly suspected to be her last visit to E-beth’s place—for its stated purpose was for her to gather and remove her belongings—she had entered the bedroom while her ex-lover sat on the living room couch, smoking a long cigarette and jigging her booted toe in the air. Concealing her tears in order not to provoke further annoyance, the girl searched dresser, closet and nightstand for any of her own relics, and, finding none, continued her researches in the bathroom. Discovering that her half-used lipstick had been purged, she felt something far less definable than resentment or grief—indeed, something secret, which impelled her to do another secret thing; so she returned to the bedroom and from under the mattress stole that snapshot of the long-braided young woman sitting on a bed, with the solarized Beatles on the wall behind her. In the doing, this act consoled her. But on her return to her mother’s house, when she took the photo out of her billfold she could not fathom why she had desired it. She thought to tear it to pieces—or mail it back to its owner—or take it to the blue house where its subject presumably lived. In the end she hid it behind the encyclopaedia volumes in the living room bookcase. Then she forgot it.