Women and Men (44 page)

He looks still harder at Ship Rock. Time lost and running. Time looks through his eyes. At the possibilities for him.

Shipbuilding, for instance. Prime instance of the wisdom of the division-of-labor principle in the pursuit of the wealth of nations. Adam Smith or someone similar in those days thought so. Two hundred years ago. Eighteenth-century shipbuilding.

Rock men, red men, rich men, energy men, workmen, women, and men came here with him yet were waiting for him here; but having consolidated into a whole company they disperse now like family.

Look at Ship Rock for the last time.

Because—for God’s sake—he’s just seen this—or heard it said inside him—for God’s sake, the Rock doesn’t look like a ship! Doesn’t look like a volcano either, nor the stuff coming up out of a volcano—word’s "tuff," he thinks (but only after it’s hard, he thinks, so he’ll have to ask). The main thing is that the Rock doesn’t look like a ship, for the moment.

A discovery earned. But he won’t labor the point. Divide the labor; he did the discovering.

He is the center of a traffic jam in the middle of nowhere, three vehicles, gangsters, agents, famous kidnapped South American economist being handed over. But the camper has cut around him—what’s a road, out here?—and is detouring cross-country for the moment and he hears music from the car and he recalls what followed "hy-po-thet-i-cal" on the jukebox last night and it was "des-ti-nation."

Drop words into welcome well, draw up silence: fair trade: silence to the People.

He looks away toward the other car and sees with the Albuquerque woman an Indian—portly, young. He’ll know what organization the letters D.N.A. stand for. Something about lawyers who contribute to the economic revitalization of the people.

She herself is dark blonde. In her thirties, watching him from beside her car.

She’ll know if it’s just a myth that the plume from the power plant drifting south, drifting north, holds together for hundreds of miles, or has at least been seen hovering near Albuquerque.

She understands he’s looking at the Rock.

But it doesn’t look like a ship.

But it brought him here.

And it will get him home.

still life: sisters sharing information

How it happened?" exclaimed the fair-haired woman. "How it happened?" she said, looking past her companion who sat with her back to the street window. "I don’t care how it happened. It happened."

"But if you don’t care," replied the other woman, who was younger, "how do you keep it from happening all over again the next time?"

She had hesitantly introduced herself to the fair-haired woman only to be invited to sit down; rather, she had found out who she really was after she had sat down.

"Don’t worry, it could never happen in the same way again."

"You wouldn’t kill him by the same method?" said the younger woman and put her finger to her lips.

"Oh, I told you he said that—that I killed him."

"I thought you did."

"He always was a braggart."

"Has he recovered from being killed?"

They smiled. "He’s immortal, that’s why he’s boring," said the fair-haired woman, whose name was Maya. She reached across to touch the other’s hand, looking past her as if easily distracted by the street. "I’m better now," she said. "He pushed me into this free-lance thing like he pushed me into the book. I’m better now."

They seemed to tell each other in the corners of their eyes that the large man two tables away was listening to them at his leisure. The younger woman felt this modest challenge from the man, who was bald but had bushy red eyebrows and a mustache to end all mustaches.

"That book was everywhere," she said. "I even saw it in Burlington; I saw it here, of course, and do you know I saw it in Albuquerque."

"Oh," said Maya, "it was everywhere for two or three months, and then suddenly you couldn’t find a copy anywhere. A lot happened too fast. I thought he was being supportive. He said, ‘Behind every successful woman there’s a good man.’ "

"Yes. In her past," said the younger woman.

"Sounds like you know from experience."

"Other people’s."

"Saves wear and tear."

"Saves time," the younger woman said.

"Why don’t I believe you?" said the other. "Oh hell, one picks up what one can."

"Maybe so," said the younger woman, "but I’m never sure what it means when I first hear it."

"Well, I
overheard
it," said Maya, "that thing you mentioned. ‘Behind every successful woman . . .’ "

"You
mentioned it, Maya."

"You’re right," said the fair-haired woman, in response to the familiarity. "We were at a party and he had his back to me when he said it. He was wearing the burnt orange sweater I bought him. I remember how he looked. Tall as he is, he looked almost slight. But then it came to me: Second-Generation Pig, that’s what he is."

"Second generation?"

"A generation’s only about five years these days."

"Listen," said the younger woman, "at least he wanted you to do something with your life." She cast an eye at their neighbor, the man with the red mustache; he had received a large puffed pastry powdered with sugar, and he tilted it in his fingers curiously, like something outstandingly large, before biting into it.

"By that time," said Maya, "he wanted me out of the way; that was what he wanted. You’re nodding," she said to her attentive companion.

"He wanted you out of the way?"

"But nearby—how about nearby? Happily surviving—how’s that?"

"What’s nearby?" the younger woman asked. "Same house? Same neighborhood?"

"You really ask the questions," said Maya.

"They can be painful to ask," said the younger woman, nodding, nodding.

"Especially if you know the answers already. There, you’re doing it again," said Maya.

"All I know," said the younger woman, "is I’ll be glad to live in this neighborhood for a good long time. It’s not at all depressing like the West Side, and it’s realer than the Upper East Side."

"I couldn’t agree more," said the fair-haired woman. "It’s where I’m happily surviving."

The younger woman uncrossed her legs and recrossed them the other way. She leaned sideways on her elbow to sip her coffee. "You yourself said he wanted you to make something of your life."

"Why, he was proud of me. He bragged about me as if I weren’t there in the room; he reported my originality and my talents as if I were someone he happened to know. You’ve heard that story?" The voice eased into faint curiosity. "You’ve heard that one?"

For—as if to say,
When will people ever learn?
—the younger woman was slowly shaking her head, smiling with sisterly resignation: "Yes, I’ve heard it."

"Granted, it’s always nice to hear about yourself."

"There was nothing about you on the book jacket."

"You noticed."

"Suppose," said the younger woman, "the awful truth is that he’s right and you are talented."

"Listen," said Maya, "to hear him, you’d think I was consumed with ambition."

"What
were
you consumed with?" the younger woman asked, and then, surprised by herself, she laughed.

"Let me tell you," said Maya, "the Second-Generation Pig comes to you supporting your every endeavor. He wants for you what he knows you half-think you want. He tells you you’re loaded with talent, you’re incredible, you can do anything you decide to do. He’s a feminist, right? Wrong; he’s a closet pig."

"But this guy," said the other woman agreeably, "when I first sat down here, he sounded kind of special."

"You’re nodding again," said the fair-haired woman. Her fitfully blinking blue eyes looked away, undecided as to how lightly her needling had been meant.

"I mean," said the younger woman, feeling boring but smiling more or less good-naturedly and nodding hopefully, "the way you said he still phones, and he gave you the picture of yourself you didn’t know he took when you were working, and he tells jokes on himself, and he got that woman interested in you. He probably still loves you."

"Of course, he loves me
now.
Good old Dive."

"Dive?"

"My English for Dave. He did a lot of business in London in the old days. I guess it’s a term of endearment."

"Maybe it was once."

"He did take time off," said the fair-haired woman. "I mean, during the day though he’s a businessman."

"To do what?"

"I’d meet him here for an hour."

"Sounds nice."

"He scheduled me."

"Still, it sounds nice," said Sue. "I mean, you lived together but he took time during the day."

"One
day—just like clockwork, one day a week," said the fair-haired woman, and actually looked at her digital wristwatch. "I’m talking too much. I’ve got an audience. So listen, Sue," said the woman with some touch of confidential humor. "Sue is your name? I just got this message from you: you would like us to be silent for a minute."

It seemed true. They looked toward the rather gross man with the brilliant mustache munching on his pastry. He raised his eyes to them from his paper.

They looked past him, past the marble tables on the ironwork stands, to the Gaggia machine in good, silver working order. A small woman firmly pushed down the steam handle. She wore a yellow T-shirt and she had fat upper arms. Between the accelerations of the afternoon traffic outside, the man could be heard chewing.

The minute of silence was passing. This was the best table; it was in the front corner formed by two broad street windows. The two women, who didn’t know each other except through a mutual acquaintance, raised their cappuccino cups, which were glasses in metal holders.

She had come here earlier than she’d planned, and she had recognized this woman and been invited to sit down. This was the unknown woman Sue had once seen across the street walking with the leader, star, and proprietor of a workshop Sue had attended. It lasted four weekends, it was called the Body-Self Workshop, it had been a bit of everything—terrifically tense getting out of the elevator, later a relief, a weird, quite happy relief. It had been really a mind-bending (literally naked) overload of rap, sympathy, information on food, eating, yoga, habit patterning, marital muteness, role constipation— just about everything and anything from speculums and sex-after-marriage to how the ancient mysteries celebrated the reunion of mother and daughter after the daughter has been raped during the harvest. So Sue and this woman had that in common—same workshop though not the same sessions.

But a moment later, when she learned Maya’s name, Sue couldn’t get over it. This was the author of a book she had bought and read, a book that had won an award. It was a small, wonderful book about the author’s weekend attempts at art and the spoor of strange signatures, monsters, and angels of patterns that weren’t there the first time you looked, the tangled clench, the struggle secretly recorded and perhaps actually dreamt by these amateurish oils and watercolors leading back, or was it forward, to the intrigue of the author’s own odd, half-free self which more and more looked like the true creation.

That was the book and here was the author, with a fresh tan from Trinidad, taking an afternoon coffee break at an Italian pastry place in the neighborhood. She had been meaning to come here.

She couldn’t get over it. This woman was the author of the book she had on the shelf in her living room. Maya’s book was a book to reread and see the author finding herself and sharing it.

"My
boyfriend is named Dave," said Sue and stopped.

"It’s quite possible," said Maya, "and it’s quite possible he’s not a bastard."

"I don’t know how it’s happened, but he doesn’t appear to be," said Sue.

"You’re funny," said Maya.

"I mean," said Sue, "sometimes I think he’d just as soon not talk about it, but he’s been through quite a lot."

"My Dave hadn’t," said Maya. "He met me and made it up as he went along."

Sue opened her mouth. What came out was "I haven’t known him long. I mean, it’s been long enough. I really love him. We just bought a beautiful canoe."

Maya frowned. Sue nodded. Maya continued. Once upon a time, Maya was saying as if she were telling a story she’d told before, this Dave had had a mother, a mother and some brothers.

"Now
that’s
interesting," said Sue, who did not ask how many.

This mother had sent Dave out into the world trailing clouds of family pride. Maya told it from such a distance. This mother had told Dave to come back with first prize, otherwise forget it, she didn’t want to see him.

"Are mothers like that?" said Sue.

"I don’t follow you," said Maya.

The woman in the yellow T-shirt brought the man with the russet red mustache a small white cup of espresso and took away a cup. He opened his newspaper and refolded it.

This Dave had won first prize all right, Maya continued. Yes, indeed. He had done O.K. He had $300,000 in municipal bonds by the time he was twenty-nine. His mother was a beautiful person, he said; that was where he got his drive.

"Maybe he needed to explain it," said Sue. "I can understand that."

And so, of course, Dave had always needed women, and he had met Maya one afternoon when she was running up and down a train platform looking for her stolen suitcase, and later he wanted her to change her name from May to Maya after she had toyed with the idea. And he always sort of liked women, he listened, he asked questions about what they did and about their parents, and he touched them.

"Touched?" said Sue.

"He wasn’t very funny," said Maya, looking past Sue. A child yelled in the street. "But sometimes he had a jokey sweetness about him, and he did seem to listen."

"It’s nice," said Sue, who knew what she was talking about.

Maya frowned.

"I mean, it
is,"
said Sue, but Maya’s frown, aimed at her cappuccino, might have nothing to do with anything but distance and with this story of Dave with its sense somewhere beyond even Maya—and a sadness that half-included Sue.