Gould (12 page)

congratulatory
     self-congratulatory feelings or self-congratulation—but you'll say more in coming months. You'll have to, for I'll just about be the only person you'll see,” and she said “I'm breaking my silence oath, so don't tell me I did. If you don't let me go—meaning if you don't leave in the next five minutes—then I'll not only shout and scream but bite and fight and break windows and lamps and your head if I have to. And after I've drawn attention from the outside or the other tenants and the cops smash the door in or get you or the super to open it, I'll make sure you're put in prison for as long as possible—not only for keeping me here, and ‘kidnapping' they'll call it—but I'll say you did ten times worse than that: beat me, threatened my life, anything where I don't have to furnish visible proof; the beating I can do with little pinch marks to myself. I'll lie my heart out, that's how I'll settle my score with you,” and he said “I'm sorry you feel that way, but it doesn't scare me off,” and she said “Who cares about scare? It's what I'll do to end this satire of male brainlessness, brawn and day-dreamy revenge,” and he got a scarf from the dresser and stuck it in her mouth as a gag and knotted it in back, tied up her arms and legs with other scarves and tights, knew absolutely he shouldn't, that he should untie her and go but he still hoped, at the same time knowing he'd made the whole thing hopeless, that he'd think of something to change her mind about the baby or she'd change it on her own, quickly made two sandwiches and a salad and dressing, got a glass of water—no, water, she'll tie it to being a captive and say something like “How come also not just crust or dry bread?”—dumped the water and filled the glass with apple juice and ungagged and untied her and told her to come to the table to eat. She stayed on the bed, said “See the stain?” touching a dark spot on the bed cover; “that's urine—I had to go again—and I don't care. I don't want to go to the bathroom again while you're here and pull down my pants,” and he said “Then do it that way, but you'll get a bladder infection and rash, and I'll eat in here,” and brought in the food though he didn't want to eat, wasn't hungry, was only doing it for effect and she no doubt knew it—so why did he persist in doing it if he knew she knew it? because maybe she didn't—tossed the salad and put the sandwich plates and salad bowl and utensils on the bed and the glass on the night table—no, he was doing it because he didn't know what else to do, or was stalling, doing futile things to give her time to change her mind—and sat beside her and ate. “Surely you got to be hungry,” putting salad on her plate and sliding it to her and she pushed it back. Phone rang and he said “God, the phone, you could've called when I was bringing in the food—let's let it ring,” and she said “Anything you want,” and looked away from it and then lunged for it on the fourth ring; he blocked her hand, knocking over the juice as he did, picked the phone up and held it till the ringing stopped. “Sorry for the mess,” wiping it with his handkerchief and she closed her eyes and peed and he said “How do you expect to sleep in that smelly stuff?” and moved to the chair with his food. “Anyway, I know you're doing it intentionally, and it's not going to get me to release you,” and she said “Intentionally, sure, like I now don't have to make number two. I was holding it in long as I could but I can't anymore. Will you let me do it in private or do I have to do it in my pants? Even when we were together I wouldn't let you see me and you also didn't want me to see or hear you,” and he said “What do you mean ‘not hear me'?” and she said “By turning the faucet on,” and he said “That was a habit I got from my mother and I thought it polite, like lighting matches over the toilet after,” and she said “I don't care; what about me now?” and he said “There's a little window in the john, so I wish I could but I can't. What I will do is not look,” and he let her go inside the bathroom, turned around but kept his foot in the door in case she ran up to it and slammed it on him and tried to lock him out, and she turned the tub faucet on hard and flushed the toilet several times. “I'm a little tired from all this,” he said, when she wanted to get past him; “we should probably clean up—
I
should—and go to sleep. You want to brush your teeth first?” and she said “I could care less what my mouth smells like with you. Worse the better I'd think,” and he said “I was thinking of your teeth, but do what you want,” and took the phone out of the socket, brought it with him when he took the dishes back to the kitchen, peed into the sink because he didn't want to make another stop in the bathroom, put the phone back in and said “I'm only doing that so everybody will think things here are normal,” changed the sheets, said “If you don't mind, though even if you do, and again I'm not going to try anything with you, we'll sleep together, but this time I'll take the side of the bed by the phone,” she changed behind the closet door into another pair of pants, he always slept nude with her but kept his boxer shorts on and they got into bed. “Maybe in the morning you'll wake up,” she said, “—know what I mean?” and he said “And maybe you, I'd like that,” and shut off the light. She had her back to him and after a few minutes he said “You want to talk about it some more?” and she said “No thanks,” and he thought The “thanks,” and it wasn't said harshly, was she softening or just saying it that way so she wouldn't hear anything harsh back from him or just anything back and she just wanted to go to sleep? And after about fifteen minutes, when because of her faint steady breathing he thought she was sleeping, he moved closer and tried holding her but she threw his arm off. “Are you kidding? Never have I detested the guts of anyone more. You're scum to me, the worst perfect scum there is. I'll never be able to be anything but thoroughly repulsed by you, is that not clear?” and he said “I'm sure you'll get over it,” and she said nothing and he said “Good night,” and she said “Shut up.” She slept awhile, or at least she didn't move around, he thought, and she made occasional grunts and sputters and snoring noises. When she got out of bed in the dark he said “No phone calls or running out,” and she said “I have to pee—you don't see the direction I'm heading? Anyway, haven't you given this thing up?” and he said “No I haven't,” and followed her and turned around and waited at the door. Phone rang in the morning and she reached over him for the receiver but he grabbed it and said hello and the woman who called said “Maria?” and he said “No, a friend, Gould; she had some very early appointment today and I'm still a little tired; I'll tell her you called, good-bye,” and she said “Who was it?” and he said “A woman. I shouldn't have answered, maybe—so early, and tired, I could've blown the whole thing with my words—though giving my name out like that makes it less suspicious and now you know I'm serious,” and she said “Oh yes?” and he said “About the whole matter. We're almost in day one of your double confinement—” and she said “Oh, wordplay, no less,” “—and I'm still hoping you'll come around. Please, Maria?” and she said “I can't believe you're still harping on this. It's wrong, insane, inane and everything else, don't you know?” and he said “That line seemed rehearsed; you've been thinking of using it the last hour?” and she said “I'm not able to think of it spontaneously? What arrogance,” and he said “You're right. I'm sorry,
that
was inane. All I should have said about it was ‘So you've said, but here we are,'” and she said “It can't last  .   .  what, till this afternoon before you feel totally debased and revolted by yourself?” and he said “I'll try to hold off on that longer. We only have seven months, a feather in time or something, or maybe only six—I'll have to do some research on that; but at least here till tomorrow night or Monday, when I'll call Benny.” “Suppose I said I would have the baby, why would you ever believe it now?” and he said “I wouldn't. This forced confinement is for the next six months or so no matter what you tell me,” and she said “Boy, are you ever going to be bored with me. I won't even say what I'll be with you. You'll be lucky if I don't stab you in the chest in the next two days, and not out of anger so much as your presence driving me crazy,” and he said “I'll look after myself, but one thing for sure is I'll never hurt you. I'll disarm you, overpower you gently    .  hold it, I have to pee,” and he took out the phone, shut the bedroom door, kept the bathroom door open and went to the toilet, wiped, wanted to wash his hands and also brush his teeth but thought “Better get back, she could yell out the window,” and went with the phone to the bedroom, put the phone back in and said “So where was I? About your stabbing me. I'd overpower you gently, if it came to that, but I promise—” and she said “What a good noble man,” and looked away. “We have enough food for the next two days?” he said, and she shut her eyes, her expression: “Will this creep never shut up and leave?” He took her hand and went into the kitchen with her, looked inside the refrigerator and cabinets and said “There's plenty of food but just one beer and no wine. You'd like some tonight, wouldn't you, if just to blot me out?” and she kept her eyes shut with the same expression. “That didn't get to you? I didn't say what you felt? I'm not making this worse? No, I should sacrifice everything, right, everything, for you once said a self-sacrificing person is the best kind of person there is, or ‘to be,' or whatever you said, for when everyone else is trying to get what they want, the self-sacrificer  .     well, he     oh, the hell with that sentence. But I should sacrifice the whole thing of it—the kid, what I want most in life, and after that the most, you, because you think it's the right thing for me to do, but you shouldn't give up anything, right? You're not looking at me. I'm not here for you now. And I sound angry-mad to you, don't I, but don't worry, I'm not. Because I'm going to get my way after all, except it'll be hard. And I'd have some wine and scotch sent over but I have no credit card or check account and I don't want to blow all the cash on me for that and I certainly won't use yours. I'll live,” and he made coffee, toasted two English muffins and heated a little milk and set a plate of buttered muffins and a mug of coffee on the counter for her, with warm milk and half a teaspoon of unstirred sugar in it as she liked it in the morning, but she didn't touch them. “You going on a starvation diet? Very unlike you. One thing I loved about you, along with many other things of course, was that you always loved food and appreciated wine, when you were well,” and she said “It's a way of aborting too, you know—fetus needs food,” and he said “Then I think I'd force it down you gently if I saw it was becoming a problem for it,” and she said “Okay, though don't take it as a surrender to your threat—half a muffin I'll eat, and food for energy to zip out of here when I see my break,” and stood by the sink and ate the muffin while looking out the window. After she finished he said “Want the other half, or mine, which isn't buttered?” and she shook her head without looking away from the window. She looks so beautiful, he thought, so dreamy, in thought but nothing about what he's saying; maybe at what she's seeing, the sky almost, a bird gliding around up there. “All right, you win,” he said, “no reason why now and not before or later, but there it is, maybe it was hearing myself with that forcing-the-food-down-you that did it, but I've gone on long enough with this, right? Right,” because she was only looking out the window. “It is idiotic, debased, all the other things you said. It'll never—this baby—materialize, or it'd just be too hard for me to get it to, and I don't want to make you feel even worse than you've been. Seeing you at the window    .  I won't ask you to say what you were thinking then—before, right after I asked do you want my English muffin?—because you won't tell me and it's none of my business    .  but that too; so that does it. I do—speech, speech—want the baby more than anything and secondly for you to want it and thirdly, or really tied firstly, for you to want it with me, but if you got sick while I was keeping you here or in some cabin that does exist but never could have been, what would I do? It could happen, and the baby could have been lost that way, something I also hadn't thought of before, so, and with my usual confusion and tied-up tongue    .  just too many things working against it, that's all. So you're free to go—I hate putting it that way. It does suddenly make me feel more like a jailer than someone trying to protect or save his kid, and you don't have to go, for I'm going,” and collected his things in two shopping bags—”I'm taking two of your big paper shopping bags, the kind with handles, do you mind?” and she just continued looking out the window—books, extra pair of running shoes, clothes, shaving gear, his exercise towel—and went into the living room. She was in a chair reading today's
Times
, which had been delivered to the front door—he'd forgot about that—and said “You won't—last shot?—change your mind?” She didn't look up. “Only joking; not joking, but of course you won't. So, tell the cops I'll be home in about half an hour, that's how long it should take me if I make good subway connections, and for them not to come with their weapons drawn, as I'm prepared to go peacefully and     anyway, long life and much luck,” and put the keys to her apartment on the little table by the door and left. She didn't call the police or she did and they didn't come and he never saw nor heard from her again. A few years later he was walking up the aisle of a city bus and saw a friend of hers in a seat and said “Oh, hi,” and she said “My goodness, Gould, hello,” and he stood beside her and said “You are     your name? Excuse me, it's been some time,” and she said “Sharon La Verge,” and he said “Right, I remember you and Maria and once we all went to a movie—