Referred Pain: Stories Read online

  “You spoke to her? I said I’d call when I was done.”

  “She beat you to it. They suspect something but they’re not sure.” He waited, as if it pained him to go on. “They mentioned MS. Or something along those lines.”

  Julia sat upright. Another blunder. If only she’d called before her bath … “How can they know already? You said it would take a week.”

  “I guess when the results are bad they call right away.”

  That was a nasty trick, she thought. He hadn’t been so devious before. She felt too exposed and wished there were some way to cover herself. Of all the dire fantasies mothers were prone to, she’d never imagined anything like this. “How’d she sound? I mean, how’s she taking it?” She lifted the stopper to let the water out, rose and wrapped a towel around herself, ran her fingers through her damp hair.

  “She was pretty calm, considering. Until they know for sure, she’ll try to go along as usual, keep up with her work. She said not to panic. It may still turn out okay, but …”

  “I’ve got to get out of here. It’s too hot.” As she opened the door, the shock of cooler air hit her and she went weak, overcome by heat from within. She stretched out on the bed. “Could you open a window, please? And turn on a light?”

  He did, then stood staring down at her, huge and relentless, as if offering a challenge. If she didn’t remember their games so vividly, she might fear he’d actually leap on her, pummel her. Take her in one of his old wrestling holds for real and grip her hard till she gave up, gave in. In their early days he’d sometimes stare, too, but that was a different stare. And if he suddenly seized her and pinned her down … well, she had liked that. There was no wanting in this stare. It was hand-to-hand combat now, and he was the expert.

  “Why do you keep looking at me like that? Stop it.”

  He backed off but kept staring. This wasn’t fair. Joanne! Her precious baby! Kevin’s moving to Paris was benign, but this is going much too far, Nick. This is cruel. Those were the words to speak, but she felt too weak to say them.

  “I told you,” he said, “nothing is written in stone. The doctors have to study the results. They can misread them the first time.” He paced back and forth to the window, glancing down at his garden. “Besides, lots of people have these diseases with barely any symptoms. Only an occasional flare-up.”

  The time for cunning was past. He’d matched her in cunning. Now he was proposing a crude bargain. If she backed down on Kevin, he would back down on Joanne. Of course she must save Joanne—it was unbearable to think of her deprived of her promising future, in pain, confined to a wheelchair or worse … They might have to visit her in an institution, where Joanne might not even recognize them. Her own life, their life together, all their blithe indulgence in what they had brought into being, would become a pathetic joke.

  “Nick, please. I didn’t mean for anything like this to happen. I tried so hard …”

  He stood gazing out the window with his back to her. “You never really wanted them.”

  She had, she protested. She’d been a good mother.

  “Maybe so. But you’ve always tried to get rid of them. Colleges far away, trips abroad. You even wanted Kevin to take that UN job in Africa. I’m surprised you never suggested boarding school.”

  She sank deeper into the pillows. She’d thought of boarding school but knew he’d never agree. “I thought those were all great opportunities. Other kids were doing those things.”

  “Maybe.” When he turned around his face was dark, as if it had caught the darkness from out the window. “But our kids are different.”

  “They are. They’re special. That’s why we’re free to—”

  “You don’t need to say anything about it. Do you hear?”

  “Okay! I hear. Look, Nick, you’re right, in a way. I only went along with it in the first place to humor you.” She was whispering, as if they might be overheard.

  “Humor me! Humor me?” He was not whispering but shouting. “When Joanne started that literacy program at the center you almost wept with pride. And Kevin’s band? You put up with those rehearsals day and night and then cheered yourself hoarse.”

  “So what if I did? I liked it. I got caught up. Isn’t that what you wanted? But now that they’re … grown, we can … You know. We can do other things. We’ve done the children.”

  “Do you know what you’re saying? I don’t believe it. You can’t just give children up. It’s not like some job where you take early retirement.”

  “I don’t mean give them up.” That was a lie, she knew as soon as the words were out. She could give them up, provided they were well, and well launched. “I just mean we could be a little less involved. Gradually. Like in most families.”

  “But we are, aren’t we? We have been for a long time.” He poured a drink from the bottle he kept in the night table and didn’t offer her any. She always refused, but still it was a petty revenge. “How much less involved can we be, with each of them miles away? Where you wanted them,” he added bitterly.

  “I’m not enough, am I? I’ve never been enough. Not after the first few months. You just wanted someone to …”

  “I never said that. No. But you knew from the beginning how I felt about having children. You knew how I felt about losing …” He could never say his son’s name without pausing to swallow. “Tom.”

  “Why didn’t you leave, then? Find some woman who could give you what you—”

  “Julia!” His face twisted like a rag. “I would never use that to hurt you. We made a good life together. We found a way … Don’t ruin it.”

  “You can pretend all you want, but you can’t change the facts, Nick. Our children aren’t—”

  With a swift leap he was standing over her again, and this time she knew he could pounce. “Don’t say it.” He leaned down and gripped her arms so tightly that she winced. “Do you understand? Don’t ever say it.”

  “All right, all right. Let go.”

  “You’ll speak to Kevin about Paris?”

  “All right. But only if Joanne, you know, the tests …”

  He nodded, released his hold, and sat down heavily alongside her.

  “It’s a pity, though,” she murmured. “To live in the City of Light …”

  He seemed not to have heard. “I wonder if it’ll be a boy or a girl. Which would you rather have? You choose this time,” he said.

  The children would be with them till death, Julia thought. It was too late for change. In her future was a growing family—first words, first steps, the story all over again. It would go by in no time at all, just as before. Any day now the grandchildren would be visiting for holidays, starting school—At least Joanne would be well. She could count on that—Nick kept his word. Joanne would be well and finish her studies and probably marry too.

  “Julia?” he said, touching her arm again, but gently. “Boy or girl? Your call.”

  She shook her head. “Either one is fine with me, as long as it’s healthy.” She felt sick with defeat. “We’ll know soon enough anyway. The women all have that test now.”

  “Of course, you’re right. We can wait to hear.”

  Something in his voice made her glance up. He was smiling, the old smile, the smile from when he thought her body held hidden treasure, the smile that promised he would give her everything she wanted, for as long as she wanted, if she would play the game his way. And after all the ugliness of the past days, she found she still wanted him. It drifted through her like a fever gathering momentum, the slow onset of a furious virus. It was insistent. She had to cooperate, let it have its way.

  “Same as we did, remember?” She shrugged off the towel and reached to stroke his leg. “Remember we went for the amnio? Remember you saw it on the screen? You were so excited. I remember the look on your face.”

  Twisted Tales

  THERE ONCE WAS A woman who could not abide clutter. A thing out of place, intruding on a bare surface, vexed her like a hair on her tongue, a stone
in her shoe, a lash in her eye. Clutter kept her from thinking, as if the clutter were not merely around her but in her mind, or rather, as if her mind were nothing but a mirror reflecting her surroundings. When every surface was bare, then, she thought, she could begin to think, though what she would think about she didn’t yet know: there was too much clutter to tell.

  She spent her time throwing things away and putting things out of sight, but there weren’t enough places to put all the things. Finally she persuaded her husband that they must move to a bigger house.

  “Very well,” he said. “Now you’ll have enough places to put all the clutter that bothers you so.” Her husband hoped she would be happier in the bigger house and stop darting nervously about, looking for places to put things.

  They settled in the house with their children, and the woman arranged everything in its place—there were plenty of closets and shelves. But after a few weeks, when she felt almost ready to think her thoughts, whatever they might be, clutter began to appear again, as it will despite closets and shelves, reproducing and growing like a species with varied incarnations, so that she had no space to think.

  She began tossing things down into the basement, a cozy basement with a window near the ceiling and a small bathroom and small kitchen with a tiny stove and refrigerator. First she tossed down newspapers and magazines. Then sweaters and gloves and notebooks and candy bars the children left on chairs and tables. She tossed down vases and photographs and souvenirs from trips. Soon she was tossing down anything left on a surface, coffee cups with their dregs, mail, scraps of paper, books, pencils.

  Each night as she lay down in bed, she planned to begin thinking, but she was distracted by the possibility of clutter and would get up to check the house one last time. Invariably she would find some object on a surface and toss it down into the basement, and when she finally climbed back into bed, the thought of the clutter that might accumulate the next day made her too anxious to think.

  She never went down to the basement. Sometimes her husband and the children went down to clear away the things heaped at the foot of the stairs or to retrieve some object they needed, for she had tossed down the children’s toys and told them if they wanted to play with them they had to play in the basement. She tossed down the combs and brushes and coins and keys her husband left on the bedroom bureau. She was about to toss down the CD player, but her husband rescued it from her arms in time and carried it down along with the CDs. He carried down the computers and TV sets and radios and telephones too, before she could toss them.

  She needed to see the walls bare; the pictures and hangings and clocks were preventing her from thinking, though what she wanted to think about she didn’t yet know. She knew only that her mind must be empty in order to begin. Her husband had arranged a nest of blankets and pillows at the foot of the stairs so that the tossed-down things would not break. Still, there was a shattering of glass as one picture after another hurtled down.

  Her husband was distressed by the bare walls but was afraid of what his wife might do next if he challenged her. Without a word he swept up the glass and stacked the pictures against the basement wall. Meanwhile she rolled up the rugs and sent them bumping down the stairs. Down went pots and pans, sheets and towels. She stripped the windows of curtains and shades. She tossed down furniture. She was beginning to enjoy the bareness of the house and felt almost ready to think.

  The children complained that they had to keep running down to the basement to get what they needed to dress and go to school. She picked up the children one by one and tossed them down onto the nest of blankets and pillows, where they landed with no injury. From then on, in the morning she would toss down their breakfast and their lunchboxes, and in the evening, their dinner. With the children in the basement the house was much less cluttered, and she felt the faint stirring of what might have been a thought or two.

  The house was almost bare now, except for the double bed and some furniture too large to toss. In the evenings her husband would spend some time in the basement with the children, then come up to bed. One evening she stood waiting for him at the top of the stairs. She stretched out her arms, but they both knew he was too big for her to toss. She simply pointed and he understood. He turned and went back down the stairs.

  Now she was alone in the empty rooms. She sat on the floor and began to think. She thought about what it must be like in the basement, from which she could hear the lively sounds of talk and laughter and music. She thought of leaping down the stairs and landing softly on the blankets and pillows and saying, “Can I join you?” Then she thought that this talk and laughter and music were not meant for her. She would need to live a long time in emptiness before she was ready to return to talk and laughter and music, if ever.

  There was a man who never wanted to go to sleep. Like most people, he grew tired by nightfall, but he resisted going to sleep. He did useful work all day but the work was demanding, and when he came home he wanted the satisfaction of peace. He was glad to have dinner with his wife and children and share in their chatter; afterward there were always matters to attend to—homework or phone calls or minor repairs, bills to pay and letters to answer—and though these things were necessary and important and made up the fabric of his life, they did not give the satisfaction of peace but only delayed it.

  When the children went to sleep he and his wife would talk for a while, or read or watch television in the living room, and soon she would yawn and go off to sleep. “Come to bed,” she sometimes called from the bedroom, and fairly often he went to bed and made love to her, which was satisfying but not with the satisfaction of peace that he craved, and so he would return to the living room and read about the events of the day in the newspaper. The events of the day were never peaceful, so he would turn to a book; by this time it would be quite late and he would be quite sleepy, but he was reluctant to give up consciousness; it felt like admitting defeat, though by whom or what he didn’t know.

  He only knew he must keep vigil, waiting for a certain feeling to descend on him, not simply the satisfaction of peace but also a feeling of accomplishment. He had already accomplished everything necessary for the day both at work and at home, yet there was something more, something unknown and mysterious he wished to accomplish. To go to sleep unsatisfied would be a concession, and this concession to he knew not what felt treacherous and dangerous.

  Sometimes his wife came into the living room and asked why he wouldn’t go to sleep, and he tried to explain what he was waiting for. She said those vague needs were just signs of weariness and frustration from lack of sleep. She said the state he craved did not exist in life: was he keeping vigil for death? But he thought it was life, his real, not-yet-lived life, he was waiting for.

  He stayed up later and later, waiting, and once in a while, when the house had been still for some time, he would feel the satisfaction of peace approaching like a cloak settling gently on his shoulders, and even a faint feeling of accomplishment, like a suppleness in his muscles. But by then he was so tired that as he tried to cling to these stray feelings, elusive as daydreams, he would drift off. Then he roused himself to go to bed, since he knew he couldn’t manage a new day after a fitful night on the sofa. Even as he lay down, his body begging for rest, he fought against giving up unsatisfied. But sleep overtook him; he slept soundly for the few hours remaining till break of day, when he would begin again.

  He went on this way, keeping vigil and growing ever more fretful, until the days became a burden and his mind was not clear enough to accomplish what was necessary at work and at home. He realized at last that he couldn’t continue. He admitted defeat and began going to bed at a sensible hour like most people, without having attained the satisfaction of peace at the close of day or the feeling of accomplishment of he knew not what. He learned to live unsatisfied. Outwardly he seemed more at peace once he began to sleep regularly, and his wife was relieved, but what he truly felt was the resignation of defeat.

  All his life h
e longed to know whether the cravings whose satisfaction he had renounced were his alone, or whether others felt them too and learned to suffer them quietly. He never found out because this was not something anyone really talked about.

  A husband and wife invited a bunch of people over for a party. The man liked to get things organized well in advance. The night before, he suggested to his wife that they go out to buy food and drink for the party. She said no, she was busy and they could wait until tomorrow. The next morning, he wanted to get an early start, but she wanted to sleep late. “Okay, I’ll go myself.”

  “Please wait,” she said. “I want to pick out what we’ll serve.”

  Early in the afternoon, he said, “Let’s go. There’s not much time.” But she said she had things to do. All day he waited and fretted, while she kept finding things to do. “We have plenty of time,” she said.

  An hour before the guests were due to arrive, the man was agitated: there was nothing in the house to feed them. “There’s still time,” the woman said. She needed to rest before the party started.

  The guests arrived and the hosts were busy with greetings and embraces. They’d be going right out to get food, they told their guests; they were sorry to be so unprepared. But they got caught up in conversation and never did manage to go out for food.

  Time passed and no refreshments were served. The man was very embarrassed. Luckily some of the guests had brought offerings of snacks and bottles of wine. They put out the snacks, opened the bottles and drank, and in the end, even with such sparse fare, everyone had a good time.