The Ice Cream Man (5 page)

The woman washes her hands in the kitchen. Everything on the table has remained untouched since breakfast. Three white porcelain cups and saucers and a milk jug festooned with clumsily painted flowers in blue, yellow, and red. They do not resemble any real flowers, they just mimic something that does not grow anywhere, and the woman actually disdains such inaccuracy. There is milk in the jug; she hasn’t taken it to a cool place. She decides to drink something else, heats up some more water, and pours a bit of sugar and milk into it. The landlady’s cup has been turned upside down. A dab of butter remains on the edge of the man’s plate; bread crumbs and cumin seeds have fallen on the tablecloth. In the middle of the table is a piece of uncut fatty sausage; she wants to leave that in the room all day to warm up. She wants to wait so long that it spoils—then she would eat it. Outside, the valley spreads out before her eyes, pale like an overexposed photograph; a butterfly flutters; a current of air brushes against her cheek. She remembers how the man crouched down in the car to see the house on the hill, this house where she is now standing on the veranda.

The man is away for some time. He returns in the afternoon with the saw and a newspaper under his arm. The woman has just finished clearing the breakfast dishes from the table and is washing them in the galvanized basin. The man takes a pocket flashlight and two batteries out of the newspaper, places them on the kitchen table, and sits down. He handles the flashlight earnestly and cautiously, as if it were a gun; he unscrews the end and pushes the batteries inside. A few twists in the opposite direction, his hand around the shaft, thumb on the metal button that you have to slide, not press. It has grooves to improve friction so a sweaty, panicky thumb will not slide off at the crucial moment—a moment when someone absolutely must have some light quickly, when someone needs to see what is happening in the dark.

“I haven’t eaten anything,” the man says.

The woman shrugs. “You should have eaten.”

“Have you eaten anything?”

“Yes.”

“Is there anything left over?”

“I heated up what was left from yesterday. There was only enough for one.”

“Is there anything else?”

“Go and see what’s in the pantry.”

The man slides the switch, and the flashlight lights up. The man is so pleased that he forgets the woman’s tenseness and continues calmly, “Couldn’t you bring something to the table now, Esther?”

“Don’t start calling me Esther when the landlady isn’t around.”

“It’s good to follow the same routines even when it’s just the two of us.”

“I’m not going to do anything for you beyond what’s necessary.”

“As long as you know what’s necessary.”

“I was thinking of my husband while you were out.”

“That must have felt nice.”

“It did.”

“Good.”

“Who do you think of,
Tomáš
?
”

“I think of a hole. Just a hole. Not the kind of hole you go into, but the kind you come out of.”

That evening, the man reads his newspaper at the table and the woman puts the dry dishes away in the cupboard, then picks up the slop bucket from under the sink to take it to the trash pile, but the man takes the bucket from her. When the man has checked the yard and returns, the basin is overturned next to the sink and the dish rag is drying on top of it. He blows out the oil lamp that hangs from the ceiling and makes his way toward their room in the dark. The woman is already in bed. The man gets undresse
d, takes the blanket from underneath the sofa, and spreads it out on top. He puts the flashlight under the pillow against the headrest. The woman has fallen asleep and the languor of sleep can be heard in her breathing, a languor that has spread to the muscles under her jaw.

Before falling asleep, the woman thought about what sort of dreams Esther might have. She has only known Esther for a few days and wonders what sorts of symbolism, memories, and premonitions Esther’s brain might weave together in this house she has arrived at along with her husband. Most of the house is locked—as is the landlady’s half, which they have not seen at all. They have access only to the main room, the pantry, the cellar, and their own room. The woman tried to peer into the landlady’s windows from the garden, but the curtains were drawn and she could see only a flowerpot and a sliver of reddish-brown carpet through the gap between them. While the man was taking the slop bucket to the trash pile, the woman was overcome with uncharacteristic tiredness, so she tipped over the dishwashing basin and spread the dishrag out to dry. She rapidly grew so tired that she went to bed without washing her face or emptying her bladder. Her last sensation was tightness in her womb and the thought that, with the landlady away, she could get up and make the floorboards creak any number of times during the night and urinate right in the grass if she wanted.

In the morning, she cannot remember any of her dreams. She is sure she dreamed something, and she waits for some event in the light of day or something she sees that might jog her memory. She waits in vain; the dream slips away from her. But every time she hears the man’s voice, she feels something on the tip of her tongue, like a foreign word she uses so rarely that she has completely forgotten it.

The woman comes down into the coal cellar. Upon seeing her, the man asks, “Where’s the landlady?”

“I don’t know.”

“You can’t come down here unless you know where the landlady is.”

“Why not? She’s gone off somewhere without saying anything.”

“What was she wearing?”

“Clothes.”

“Anything else?”

“A hat.”

“But no bag?”

“She had a bag with her.”

“What bag?”

“A handbag!” the woman snaps.

The man continues shoveling coal into the scuttle; his sleeves are rolled up to the elbows; the front of his shirt is black, dirt-caked gloves on his hands.

“Why are you dirtying your shirt like that?”

“This is a dirty job.”

“What sense is there in shoveling coal with a white shirt on? You might as well have put on a tie.”

“You know perfectly well that I only have two shirts, and they’re both white.”

“Yes, I know. An office drone’s shirts. It’s a wonder that the landlady hasn’t dressed you in her dead husband’s shirts.”

The woman looks over at the black wall and notices for the first time a tiny rectangular window up near the edge of the ceiling. It is so dirty that the overcast daylight only just penetrates it. The man’s shirt is collecting light for itself, and all the wavelengths are reflected from its fabric back to the woman’s eyes, but the coal-stained parts suck in the light and keep it captive.

“You should have taken it off,” the woman says after a long silence.

“Don’t you have anything to do?” the man asks as he strikes the shovel into the coal and leaves it protruding, then lifts the scuttle by the handle and heads for the boiler room.

“The potatoes are cooking,” the woman explains to herself, her words drowned out by the rattle of the tumbling coal.

The woman supports herself against the wall, lifts her foot over the high threshold, and stands in the boiler room doorway as she observes the man’s outlines against the orange of the open firebox.

“One of your arms looks shorter than the other.”

The man says nothing. The woman comes closer.

“It’s shorter. The left one. I thought there was
something . . .
lopsided about you. Let’s have a look. It’s somehow bent all the time. Can’t you straighten your elbow all the way?”

The man shuts the hatch, and suddenly the room is much darker.

“I can’t see anything now. Are you standing up straight? Stand up straight . . . your left upper arm is shorter, it’s not just bent. Why?”

“It’s never bothered me.”

“It must have been that way since you were a child; the bone hasn’t grown the way it should.”

“What difference does it make?”

“Hold still.”

“Just leave it.”

The man turns away, but only partially, and he remains standing there a bit too long before coming suddenly to his senses. He is bending over the coal scuttle when he feels a touch on the crook of his arm and then the woman’s fingertips, very distinctly and individually, on the fabric, and two thumbs curved under his shirt cuff, how they push his cuff up toward the bulge of his bicep; in the middle, there is something, a darker spot, a shadow or indentation, like a pursed mouth, and to get a better look at it, the woman guides it toward the firebox hatch, takes hold of the handle, and shrieks in pain. She snatches her hand away before she realizes what has happened, clutches it in the other one, and whimpers, bent over like an arc around the pain. The man tears off his gloves and tries to open the woman’s fists—show me, Esther, show me what’s happened—but the woman pushes him away, staggers out of the boiler room, and runs up the stairs, bumping against the walls as if she were carrying something too heavy.

In the main room, the woman plunges her burned hand into cold water and pulls at her bangs with her other hand.

“Stupid, stupid, stupid . . .”

The hill and the sky. The spruce forest a prickly, sighing wall. In the garden, the woman touches the roses. Examines the grafts and turns over the leaves. There are no aphids; the soap solution has been effective. She pulls the weeds and snips off the dried blooms, inspects the buds.

“Well, what’s taking so long?” the woman asks, hearing the man’s silence.

“Didn’t the landlady ask you to weed the vegetable patch?”

“You get on with that rabbit hutch.”

“Haven’t you spent enough time on those roses now?”

“Can’t you see what I’ve accomplished?”

“You can’t eat them.”

“You can’t eat a child, either!”

“What on earth? A child?”

“I’ve worked out your system,” the woman says after a brief moment. “You say and do the opposite of everything. If you really are a gardener, you’ll think you are misleading everyone by despising roses. Or do you despise roses because you’re a man? Or because of the war?”

The man does not reply, instead nailing some metal mesh across two boards.

“Didn’t you tell Mrs. Němcová that you don’t understand poetry at all? Nothing but balderdash. Did you actually say balderdash? You haven’t ventured such a clear-cut view within earshot of Mrs. Němcová. That must mean that you really write poetry in secret. Do you?”

“If you like.”

“Or is Tomáš meant to be stupid, so no one notices how clever you are?”

“Have you noticed that I don’t ask you any questions? You always open your mouth first. And then you just carry on. Not that it ever leads anywhere.”

The woman is overcome by a tremendous urge to say something nasty to the man, to tell him that there has been no change in his status, as if something had already happened during the night that she is now ashamed of, on account of which she must now announce that it was only a passing fit, a bit like epilepsy that comes and goes; she couldn’t do anything about it and the man helped her, stuffed a cloth into her mouth, made sure she didn’t fall and hurt herself.

“Don’t you understand how simple it is? You draw a line leading from yourself as far as the paper will allow. However far that is, there’s a straight line in between, do you see? And an accountant. Haven’t you come up with anything better? Stop that infernal tapping! You’re like a woodpecker! Have you studied anything?”

“Look at this: it’s a sign.”

“You fool, the landlady is nowhere in sight.”

“She is coming back, though.”

“You’ve said that several times already. But you never kiss me.”

“And guess why?”

“Why, then?”

“Because you beg and plead.”

“Ugh, what a thing to say! The nerve!”

“Then be quiet. If, for once, you can take no for an answer.”

“You’re not going to decide when I stay quiet. Or what it means if I do stay quiet,” the woman shouts, then remains silent for some time, so nothing is left in any doubt.

“What is it you really do?”