The Dog Who Knew Too Much (5 page)

I got up, walked to a corner of the run, faced north, and practiced whatever I could remember from years earlier and the night before. An hour later Dash and I headed for the West Village Fitness Club, on Varick Street, a short walk from Lisa's apartment. The Club, as it was called, had a twenty-five-meter indoor pool. I suspected that it was where Paul and Lisa had met.

As I entered the cavernous space, the pool was down a flight of stairs on the left. I could smell the chlorine. The aerobic equipment and weight machines were in a large mirrored room off to the right. The health bar, where Paul Wilcox had said to ask for him, was straight back.

I walked up to the young man who was standing near a display of high colonics making carrot juice and politely waited for him to notice me. To my surprise, he was practically naked, though if I looked half that good, I too might walk around wearing nothing but a tiny orange bikini. He was my height, maybe an inch or two taller, my age, maybe a year or two younger, and looked to be about 155 pounds soaking wet, which he was, his hairless body the color of jasmine tea.

“Would you like a carrot juice?” he asked over the sound of the juicer. His almond-shaped eyes, mysteriously hooded beneath epicanthic folds, were the color of melted bittersweet chocolate.

It was the voice from the telephone. Sounded like Queens. Must be ABC, I thought, American-born Chinese.

“Paul Wilcox?”

“The cousin?”

“Rachel,” I said, reaching out my hand.

He didn't take it.

“Funny she never mentioned you,” he said, pouring the hideous-looking brown juice into two glasses, “but I can see the family resemblance.”

“Yeah?”

Cool, I thought.

“Yeah. It's really strong.” He took off his round, metal-rimmed glasses and stared at me. “Your coloring is different. Lisa's was more extreme—whiter skin, darker hair. But you have the same body type, the same-shaped face, the same wild hair.”

Apparently the ancient rules of politeness had gotten lost in translation.

He walked around to the front of the counter and stood next to me. “And you're the same height.”

He was barefoot.

“The same shoe size, too,” I told him.

“So, are you like her in other ways?” he asked, carefully putting his glasses back on.

“Yeah. We were identical cousins.”

“Then you speak Chinese?”

“Not a word. How about you?” I asked.

“Not a word,” he said. “I'm only half Chinese, in case you were puzzled by the name.”

I shrugged one shoulder, as if to say, hey, you wanna be half Chinese, what's it my business.

“An identical cousin,” he said. “Another swimmer?”

“Dog paddle. Olympic quality.”

“You hide your grief well,” he said.

“Thanks. According to the Talmud, the deeper the sorrow, the less tongue it hath.” I emphasized the
th
.

“Ah, another scholar in the family. That's just the sort of thing she might have”—he took a swig of juice—“said,” he said, studying me.

I studied him right back.

I remembered a trick Ida had shown me, the time she asked me to bring my family album to a therapy session. She had placed her hand over the top half of people's faces, my mother's, my father's, Lili's, and mine, to show their smiling mouths. Then she'd slid her hand down and covered the mouths, exposing the tops of the faces. Without the smile, something else showed. I looked afraid. Lili looked defiant. My mother's eyes looked angry. My father's eyes looked sad beyond belief. Like Paul Wilcox's dark eyes.

He handed me one of the glasses of rust remover and led the way to one of the little bistro tables next to the juice bar.

“My cousin and I weren't close,” I confided. “You know how it is.”

“For sure.”

“Funny, you don't sound half Chinese.”

“Born in the USA.” He smiled, showing me his dimples. “Flushing.”

I skipped all the obvious cheap shots and got down to business. “The reason I called, Paul, is that I was wondering if you could tell me about Lisa. What she was like, you know, as an adult. What might have made her”—suddenly feeling the weight of what I was saying, I lowered my voice—“make the decision she did.”

He scratched Dashiell's nose-tackle-sized neck.

“He's huge, your boy,” he said. “What does he weigh?”

“Is this where you met my cousin?” I asked.

“What is this all about? Lisa never mentioned you, and I don't mean to be rude, but what's the deal?”

“It's my aunt Marsha.” I lowered my eyes. “She's not sleeping well. She needs—we all need—answers. Did you ever meet her, Lisa's mother?”

“No. I never did. Lisa said she wouldn't sic her relatives on a dog.” He shook his head. “No offense meant.”

“None taken,” I told him.

He took another swig of the sludge in his glass. “You're not drinking your juice,” he said.

I nodded. He was right. I wasn't drinking it.

“So you never met them?” I asked.

“What's the point of this, Rachel? She's dead.” He began looking around as if he were bored.

“Look, I'm sorry to stir things up. But my aunt asked me if I could find out what the hell was going on that made Lisa, you know, kill herself. It's so hard to—”

“Swallow,” he said. “Isn't it though? Lots of things in life are difficult to swallow. Don't you find that so, Rachel? Is it Rachel Jacobs?”

“Alexander. That branch of the family. Not the Jacobs branch.”

“And the Alexander branch resembles the Jacobs branch.”

“Exactly.”

“How homogeneous.” He drained his glass.

I picked up my glass of juice and set it right down again. If Lisa's boyfriend saw the family resemblance, perhaps the person at the desk would, too. Lisa's membership card to the Club was in one of the pockets of her calendar. Clearly my clever interview technique wasn't winning Paul Wilcox over. Maybe my dog paddle would.

“Did Lisa swim here?” I asked. “Is that how you met?”

Paul was looking away, and for a while he said nothing. “Maybe she got dizzy. It can happen when you exercise. Maybe she went to the window for a little air, and—”

“There was a note,” I said softly.

He turned and stared at me. “A
what
?”

“A note.”

He covered his face with his hands. They were clean and strong looking, his fingers long and graceful. He moved them to his lap when Dashiell got up and laid his head there.

“What did it—”

“‘I'm sorry. Lisa.' That's all. No one told you?”

“‘I'm sorry. Lisa'?”

I nodded.

Suddenly the top and bottom halves of Paul Wilcox's face were in concert.

“No way,” he said, his fist hitting the table so hard the top jumped and then continued to vibrate for another minute. Dashiell backed up a foot and barked until I signaled him to lie down.

“No
fucking
way. Lisa Jacobs never apologized to anyone in her life.”

“Is that a fact?” I said, cool as a Borzoi.

“Look, cousin, I found the first news difficult to believe, and now
this
. Give me a break.”

He pushed his chair back and got up.

“Wait a minute here,” he said, leaning over me, so close I could see his tonsils. “Are you telling me my name was on it?” he whispered. “That it was addressed to me? Is that why you're here?”

“No. Should it have been? Addressed to you?”

He just shook his head.

“Paul, were you and my cousin still going together when this happened?”

“No,” he said, pushing the chair back against the table so hard it moved the table closer to me. He began to walk away.

Good, I thought. At least one of us was telling the truth. His name hadn't appeared in Lisa's calendar since January 11.

And that time, it had been crossed out.

“When did you break up?” I asked his back.

But he didn't bother to answer me. Without turning around or saying good-bye, he disappeared down the stairs that led to the pool.

7

How Long Will It Take?

At ten thirty that night, after I had practiced the form alone in the garden, Dashiell and I headed back to Bank Street T'ai Chi. Avi opened the door before we reached the landing, his finger to his lips. Without speaking, I dropped my jacket onto one of the couches, changed into Lisa's black cotton shoes, and followed him onto the floor.

Standing behind Avi, I could see the strength of his movements, as if he were moving not through air but water—not springwater, cleansed of all impurities, but ocean water, thick with salt and life. It was as if he were swimming in the air.

After three hours of work Avi stopped, and we walked to the couches in the area between the office and the studio and sat opposite each other.

“How did you and Lisa meet?”

“So late, and still your head is full of questions,” he said.

“You said, first the t'ai chi, then the questions.”

Avi sat silently.

“You didn't mean after I learn the
whole
form?”

Was he meditating, looking straight ahead like that at nothing, as if he hadn't heard my question?

“Or not even then, right? When I get to the end of the form, you'll tell me we need to do corrections, that I am not good enough yet to ask you questions. Is that it? I am working so hard, staying up all night learning t'ai chi, and you will never help me learn what I need to know.”

He lifted his big hand like a stop sign.

“A student once asked his teacher, ‘Master, how long will it take me to learn Zen?' ‘Ten years,' the master told him. ‘But what if I work extra hard, then how long?' Twenty years,' the master replied.”

“Avi, I—”

“You are so busy thinking about the destination, you cannot keep your mind on the journey.”

“Avram, my aunt and uncle have asked me to help them understand the death of their daughter. They are in pain.”

“And they will not be in pain when you tell them why she is gone?”

Now I was the one who was silent.

“Avram,” I said after a moment, “I appreciate what you're trying to do, but I don't have ten years for this.”

“Then we should stop wasting time. Tomorrow come earlier, come at seven.”

I stood and picked up my jacket.

“I am only trying to help you make room for Lisa,” he said, “so that you will understand her.”

“Yeah, yeah,” I said. “It's like dog training.”

“Like dog—”

“Some people approach a dog so full of themselves, there is no room for the dog. They are full of ideas, full of answers. They think they know everything there is to know. And without looking at what is in front of them, they are sure that when the dog misbehaves, it's out of spite. They are so busy grabbing, punishing, being angry, that they never wonder, Who is this dog, what is he feeling, what does he understand, what confuses him, and why is he confused, what are his special abilities, and how can I use these to teach him what he needs to know? They are so sure they are right, they never examine their insubstantial conclusions. No matter what the dog might be able to tell them, they cannot learn it. There is no place inside them to put the information.”

“So tomorrow, when you come, you'll wear your Everything I Know About Zen I Learned from My Dog T-shirt?”

“I didn't say I knew anything about Zen. I was only talking about dogs. I used to be a dog trainer,” I said, “until I came here.”

“I understand,” he said.

“I'll see you tomorrow, then.”

He stood, reached for the jacket, and helped me into it. He put his warm hand on my cheek and looked into my eyes.

“I'll be here,” he whispered.

Then he walked to the door and held it open for me.

“Lisa was here every day. This was her life.”

He stopped and blew his nose.

I didn't breathe for fear he'd stop talking.

“There was nothing more important to her, nothing that took precedence over her studies. We spent many hours together, studying, talking, or silent, working on the form. One never stops trying to perfect one's ability to do the form. We do not think, Ah, now we have learned it. We pay attention to one detail at a time, taking pleasure in each. We do not think about what isn't. We pay attention to what is. Now, go, child. I will see you tomorrow.”

He closed the door.

Here I was, obeying him again.

Well, he was the
master
, wasn't he?

I heard the lock turn.

So what did that make me? I wondered as Dashiell and I headed down the stairs.

And more important, what had it made Lisa?

8

I Took the Stairs

When I woke up it was afternoon, three thirty to be exact. If I was going to be at Bank Street T'ai Chi by seven, I had to move. I cleaned and medicated Dashiell's ear, gave him his monthly heartworm preventive, and spent an hour in my office paying bills, now that I could, and taking care of paperwork.

Since I had to repark the car anyway, I drove five blocks to Lisa's street and in only forty-five minutes was able to find a legal spot. Waving to the concierge, I passed the elevators and took the stairs to the second floor. Paul Wilcox had made me more than curious about the strong resemblance to my
cousin
, and I wanted to look more carefully at the pictures of Lisa that were among the books in her living room.

I picked up one of the photos and took it over to the window, holding it so that the light would fall on it. lisa's eyes were as blue as the Caribbean; mine were more the gray-blue of the Atlantic. Her skin was white, like her mother's. Mine was fair, but not pearly or translucent, not as delicate looking as lisa's.