The Collected Stories of Deborah Eisenberg (18 page)

“Very good,” the woman said. “The children like these very much.”

“Good,” I said. What had she meant? “I’ll take a dozen.”

“Did you have a pleasant Christmas?” she asked me, nestling my cookies into a box.

“Yes,” I said, perhaps too loudly, but she didn’t seem to notice the fire that roared over me. “And you?”

“Very good,” she said. “I was with my sister. All the children were home. But now today it feels so quiet.” She smiled, and I understood that her communication had been completed, and we both inclined our heads slightly as I left.

“Hello,” I said uncertainly to the butcher in the meat market next door. It occurred to me that I ought to stop and get something nourishing.

“What can I do for you?” the butcher asked in easy English.

“Actually,” I said dodging a swift memory of the leg of lamb in Ivan’s garbage can, “I’d like something for supper.” Ah! I had to smile—what the woman in the bakery had been telling me was how it felt to be a person when one’s sister and some children were around.

“Something in particular?” the butcher asked. “If I’m not being too nosy?”

“Please,” I said across a wall of nausea. “Sausages.” That had been good thinking—at least they would be in casings.

“Sausages,” he said. “How many sausages?”

“Not so many,” I said, trying not to think too concretely about the iridescent hunks of meat all around me.

“Let’s see,” he said. “Should we say…for two?”

“Good,” I said. Fortunately there was a chair to wait in. “Did you have a pleasant Christmas?” I asked.

“Excellent,” the butcher said. “Goose. And yours?”

“Oh, excellent,” I said. I supposed from his silence that that had been insufficient, so I continued. “It feels so quiet today, though. All the children have gone back.”

“Oh, I know that quiet,” the butcher said. “When they go.”

“They’re not exactly my children, of course,” I said. “They’re my sister’s. Stepsister’s, I mean. My sister would be too young a person to have children old enough to go back anywhere. You know,” I said, “I have a friend who believes that in a sense it doesn’t matter whether I’m a person with a stepsister who has children or whether someone else is.”

The butcher looked at me. “Interesting point,” he said. “That’s five seventy-eight with tax.”

“I know it sounds peculiar,” I said, counting out the price. “But this friend really believes that, assuming there’s a person with a stepsister, it just doesn’t ultimately matter—to the universe, for instance—whether that person happens to be me or whether that person happens to be someone else. And I was thinking—does it actually matter to you whether that person is me or that person is someone else?”

“To me…does it matter to me…” The butcher handed me my package. “Well, to me, sweetheart, you
are
someone else.”

“Well.” I laughed uneasily. “No. But do you mean—wait—I’m not sure I understand. That is, did you mean that I might as well be the person with the stepsister? That it’s an error to identify oneself as the occupant of a specific situation?” The butcher looked at me again. “I mean, how would you describe the difference between the place you occupy in the world and the place I occupy?”

“Well”—his eyes narrowed thoughtfully—“I’m standing over here, I see you standing over there, like that.”

“Oh—” I said.

“So,” he said. “Got everything? Know where you are?”

“Thanks,” I said. “Yes.”

“You’re all set, then,” he said. “Enjoy the sausages.”

Back at the apartment, I unpacked my purchases and put them away. Strange, that I missed Ivan so much more when we were together than when we were apart.

I was dozing when I heard noises in the kitchen. I went to investigate and found a man with black hair and pale, pale skin standing near the table and holding the bakery box to his ear as if it were a seashell.

“Sorry,” he said, putting it down. “The door was open. Where’s Ivan?”

“Gone,” I said.

“Oh,” he said. “Be back soon?”

“No,” I said. Well, I was up. I put on the kettle.

“Sit down,” he said. “Relax. I don’t bite.” He laughed—the sound of breaking dishes. “Name’s Eugene.” He held out a hand to me. “Mind if I sit for a minute, too? Foot’s killing me.”

He pulled up a chair across from me and sat, his long-lashed eyes cast down.

“What’s the matter with your foot?” I said after a while.

“Well, I’m not exactly sure. Doctor told me it was a calcium spur. Doesn’t bother me much, except just occasionally.” He fell silent for a minute. “Maybe I should see the guy again, though. Sometimes things…become
exacerbated
, I guess is how you’d put it. Turn into other things, almost.”

I nodded, willing him toward the door. I wanted to sleep. I wanted to have a meal.

“I was walking around, though,” he said, “and I thought I’d drop in to see Ivan.”

“I’m going to have a cup of tea,” I said. “Do you want one?”

“He doesn’t have any herb tea, does he?” Eugene said. “It’s good for the nerves. Soothing.” He was wearing heavy motorcycle boots, I saw, that were soaking wet. No wonder his feet hurt. “Yeah, Ivan owes me some money,” he said. “Thought I’d drop by and see if he had it on him by some chance.”

I put the teapot and cups on the table. I wondered how soon I could get Eugene to go.

“Where’re you from?” Eugene said. “You’re not from here, are you?”

“New York,” I said. I also wanted to get out of these clothes. They were becoming terribly uncomfortable.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought. I thought so.” He laughed miserably again. “Good old rotten apple.”

“Don’t like it much, huh?” I said.

“Oh, I like it all right,” Eugene said. “I love it. I was born and raised there. Whole family’s there. Yeah, I miss it a lot. From time to time.” He sipped delicately at his tea, still looking down. Then he tossed his thick black hair back from his face, as if he were aware of my stare.

“Aren’t you cold?” I asked suddenly. “Walking around like that?” I reached over to his leather jacket.

“Oh, I’m fine, thank you, dear,” he said. “I enjoy this. Of course I’ve got a scarf on, too. Neck’s a very sensitive part of the body. Courting disaster to expose the neck to the elements. But this is my kind of weather. I’d live outside if I could.” He lifted his eyes to me. They were pale and shallow, and they caught the light strangely, like pieces of bottle glass under water. “Candy?” he said, taking a little vial from his pocket and shaking some of its powdery contents out onto the table.

“No, thanks,” I said.

“Mind if I do?” He drew a wad of currency from another pocket and peeled off a large bill.

“That’s pretty,” I said, watching him roll it into a tight brown tube stippled with green and red. “I’ve never seen that one before.”

“Pretty,” he said. “You bet it’s pretty. It’s a cento. Still play money to me, though. A lot better than that stingy little monochrome crap back home, huh?”

Eugene tipped some more from the vial onto the table.

“So why don’t you go back?” I said. “If you like it so much.”

“Go back.” He sniffed loudly, eyes closed. “You know, I don’t feel this stuff the way a woman does. They say it’s a woman’s drug. I don’t get that feeling at the back of my head, like you can.” His light eyes rested on my face. “Well, I can’t go back. Not unless they extradite me.”

“For what?” Maybe I could just ask Eugene to go. Or maybe I could grab his teacup and smash it on the floor.

“Shot a guy,” he said.

“Yes?” I tucked my feet under me. This annoying skirt! I hated the feeling of wool next to my skin.

“Now, don’t get all nervous,” Eugene said. “It was completely justified. Guy tried to hurt me. I’d do it again, too. Fact, I said so to the judge. My lawyer kept telling me, ‘Shut up, maniac, shut up.’ And he told the judge, ‘Your Honor, you can see yourself my client’s as crazy as a lab rat.’ How do you like that? So I said, ‘Listen, Judge. What would you do if some cocksucker pulled a knife on you? I may be crazy, but I’m no fool.’” Eugene leaned back and put his hands against his eyes.

I poured myself some more tea. It felt thick going down. I hadn’t even had water, I remembered, for some time. “Would you like another cup?” I asked.

“Yeah,” Eugene said. “Thanks.”

“You know Ivan a long time?” he asked.

“Nine years,” I said.

“Nine years. A lot of bonds can be forged in nine years. So how come I never met you? Ivan and I hang out.”

“Oh, God, I don’t know,” I said. “It’s an on-and-off type of thing. We’re thrashing it out together now.”

“You’re thrashing it out together,” he said. “You’re thrashing it out together, but I only see one of you.”

“Right,” I said. “So how did you get to Canada, anyhow?”

“Oh. They put me in the hospital,” he said. “But I’ve got friends. Here,” he said. “Look.” He emptied a pocket onto the table. There was a key chain, and an earring, and something that I presumed was a switchblade, and a bundle of papers—business cards and phone numbers and all sorts of miscellany—that he started to read out to me. “Jesus,” he said, noticing me inspecting his knife. “You’ll take your whole arm off that way. Do it like this.” He demonstrated, flashing the blade out, then he folded it up and put it back in his pocket. “Here—look at this one.” He handed me a card covered with a meaningless mass of dots. “Now hold it up to the light.” He grabbed it back and placed it over a lamp near me. The dots became a couple engaged in fellatio. “Isn’t that something?”

“Yes,” I said. “I think you should go now, though. I have to do some things.” His face was changing and changing in front of me. He receded, rippling.

“Wait—” he said. “You don’t look good. Have you been eating right?”

“I’m all right,” I said. “I don’t care. Please leave.”

“You’re in bad shape, lady,” he said. “You’re not well. Sure you don’t want any of this?” He offered me the vial. “Pick you right up. Then we’ll fix you some more tea or something. Get some vitamins into you.”

“No, no. It’s just these clothes,” I said, plucking at them. “I’ve got to get out of these clothes.” He was beautiful, I saw. He was beautiful. He sparkled with beauty; it streamed from him in glistening sheets, as if he were emerging from a lake of it. I kicked at Micheline’s boots, but Eugene was already kneeling, and he drew them off, and the thick stockings, too, and my legs appeared, very long, almost shining in the growing dark, from beneath them.

“Got ’em,” he said, standing.

“Yes,” I said, holding my arms up. “Now get this one,” and he pulled the sweater over my head.

“Sh-h-h,” he said, folding the sweater neatly. “It’s O.K.” But I was rattling inside my body like a Halloween skeleton as he carried me to Ivan’s bed and wrapped a blanket around me.

“Look how white,” I said. “Look how white your skin is.”

“When I was in the jungle it was like leather,” he said. “Year and a half, shoe leather. Sh-h-h,” he said again, as I flinched at a noise. “It’s just this.” And I understood that it was just his knife, inside his pocket, that had made the noise when he’d dropped his clothes on the floor. “You like that, huh?” he said, holding the knife out for me.

Again and again and again I made the blade flash out, severing air from air, while Eugene waited. “That’s enough now,” he said. “First things first. You can play with that later.”

When we finished making love, the moon was a perfect circle high in the black window. “How about that?” Eugene said. “Nature.” We leaned against each other and looked at it. “You got any food here, by the way?” he asked. “I’m famished.”

By the time I’d located a robe—a warm, stripy thing in Ivan’s closet—Eugene was rummaging through the icebox. “You got special plans for this?” he said, holding up the violet toilet paper that apparently I’d refrigerated.

“Let’s see…” I said. “There’re some sausages.”

“Sausages,” he said. “Suckers are delicious, but they’ll kill you. Preservatives, saturated fats. Loaded with PCBs, too.”

“Really?” I said.

“Don’t you know that?” he said. “What are you smiling about? You think I’m kidding? Listen, Americans eat too much animal protein anyhow. Fiber’s where it’s at.” He nodded at me, his eyebrows raised. “What else you got?”

“There’s some pickled okra,” I said.

“Ivan’s into some heavy shit here, huh?” he said.

“Well…” It was true that I hadn’t shopped very efficiently. “Oh, there are these.” I undid the bakery box.

“Holy Christ,” Eugene said. “How do you like that—little Christmas trees. Isn’t that something!” He arranged them into a forest on the table and walked his fingers among them. “Here we come a-wassailing among the leaves so green,” he sang, and it sounded like something he didn’t often do.

“What’s the matter?” he said. “You don’t like Christmas carols?” So I did harmony as he sang another verse: