The phone. “Help me,” a woman said softly.
“I’m sorry — ”
“Please help me.”
The voice sounded vaguely … “Who is this?”
“You know who it is.”
“Ruth?” he said. All evening, he’d expected her call. A last goodbye, a final chat with Robbie before space and the wall of many days came between them. “Ruthie, is that you?”
“Help me. Oh God.”
A soft ringing filled his ears, ever since he’d torn himself from his Dewar’s. “Are you at home?”
A roach the size of his nose scurried across the gritty kitchen floor, by the stove where Hoffmann used to wait. His faithful cat, no longer here.
His gentle wife, no longer here.
What have I done?
I’ve done the right thing. “Ruthie?”
“Love me … all I want — ”
“I do, Ruth. Honey, I do.”
“Yes?”
“Of course I do. But you know I can’t stay.” Say it all. “I’m not … I can’t — ”
“Please.”
“Ruth, honey, believe me — ”
“Ruth? Who the fuck is Ruth?”
Frederick’s fingers tingled. Oh Lord. “I’m sorry, I — ”
“Answer me!”
Of course not. How could he have thought it was her? “This is awful. I think we’ve made a mistake.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’ve got the wrong number,” he said.
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“I’m sorry. This isn’t the hotline.”
“Asshole.” The phone went dead.
The stove reared on its greasy hind legs. The oven door popped open. Fangs curled from the top of the broiler. A river of gas, then blue and yellow flames. The mighty appliance burst through the wall of Frederick’s apartment, spewing fire across the park. It grew and grew, and wobbled as it grew, its burners all aglow, disintegrating, finally, in the smoke of an ashy mushroom, black on the eastern horizon —
The following morning on the plane, still groggy from his nightmares, Frederick buckled his seatbelt. He dropped his book in his lap.
“Scuse me,” someone said. An elderly man. “I b’lieve that window seat is mine.”
Frederick unfastened himself, half-stood so the fellow could pass. A stewardess in a crisp blue uniform sauntered by, offering magazines. The hem of her jacket brushed the tops of her hips. This pleased Frederick immensely.
Saucy, he thought.
His companion took a Life. “Sure is somethin’ ‘bout Cuber, ain’t it?”
Annoyed — my god, he needed stillness now (Time to grieve? he wondered. For his family? For himself?) — Frederick flipped the pages of his book, and tried to focus his vision. “All this futile grasping after nonsense — ”
By “nonsense,” Wittgenstein meant, apparently, metaphysical concerns, questions of right or wrong, ethics. Spiritual bounty, like the Jesuits used to teach.
Let them go, Frederick thought, recalling Mark’s advice. Those silly old schoolboy lessons — sail them out on the wind.
What did the Jesuits know about the art world? Or marriage?
“You s’pose them Kennedys know what the hell they’re doin’?” the old man next to him said. “Sittin’ up there with their hoity-toity wives. Hell, Havana’s a mite too close to Houston for my taste, eh?”
Frederick closed his eyes. Glimmers.
Robbie, crying, crouched beneath the rusty steel wings of an angel, the sky all red above him: an image from last night’s dreams. Ruth came running through the garden. “Too small!” she yelled. “He won’t be safe there! For God’s sakes, can’t you see he’s grown?” The sky bubbled, a burning crimson canvas.
“Miss?” It hurt to open his eyes.
“Yes, sir?”
“Can I get a Scotch, please?”
“As soon as we’re off the ground, sir.”
“I’m tellin’ you, we get JFK here in Texas, out of his sweet-smellin’ ol’ rose garden, he’ll learn a thing or two about life in the real world. Where’d you say you’re goin’, friend?”
The plane began to hustle down the runway. The tilt. The disconcerting lift. Frederick listened to the bell in his ears. He felt, for a moment, weightless, bathed in solid white from the window. The man beside him was waiting for an answer. On the fellow’s face, a blissful grin.
Frederick gripped the seat. His forearm turned a shallow red. It was scarred, from the night he’d dropped his knife, but not too badly, he noticed, not too badly. Thank you, Ruth. Dear Ruth. He turned to the man. “Paraguay,” he said.
Henry’s Women
Henry had already bought a bottle of pinot noir before he remembered he’d have to drink it all himself.
A steamy, rain-dark evening in Houston. Kate lived west of Rice: funky student housing, beer signs and naked-lady posters in most of the grimy windows. A hamburger joint sealed the street at the end of her block, along with a second-run cinema. Tonight, Cocteau’s Beauty and the Beast was on.
Kate’s place was a surprisingly large walk-up: six rooms, two stories above a liquor store.
Kate and Ben’s place, Henry reminded himself. As recently as last week she’d shared it with the capricious bastard. Henry’s nerves nearly folded him in two.
She met him at the door wearing an airy smock. Elegant yellow. Apparently, she took his gaze to be critical. Frowning, she turned her head and twisted a curl of her hair. “Maternity clothes,” she said. “Yuck.”
“I think it’s nice.” She noticed the bagged bottle in his hand. “I forgot you couldn’t drink,” he said.
“Would you like some?”
“A small glass. After I wrestle your boxes.”
“I really appreciate this.” She stood aside to let him in.
Eight boxes, tightly taped, blocked most of the chairs and the couch in the living room. Henry carried them, one by one, up the rickety attic steps. “Geez, what’s in these?” he asked, huffing.
“Clothes, college yearbooks — I don’t even know,” Kate said. “Ben packed them himself. I just want them out of sight.”
With the boxes finally stowed, Henry settled on her couch, an old hounds-tooth affair. The room looked spare now (had Ben already moved his share of the furniture?). A framed David Hockney print (L.A. pool, pale blue) hung above a portable black-and-white television; azaleas drooped in clay vases on a tiny glass-topped table. Henry smoothed his straight black hair, dabbed at a scuff on his shoe. Kate brought him a glass of wine.
With obvious pain she bent forward, toward the couch. Henry held out his arm. She smiled, shook her head no, then plunked herself down.
He sipped his pinot noir, and accidentally made a sucking sound. He felt himself blush. “So,” he said. “Do you know what the baby’s going to be? Or do you believe in that sort of thing? The tests and stuff.”
“Oh yes, I’ve been through it all. Amniocentesis, ultrasound. Doctor says it looks like a girl.”
“Right. I guess they make you take the tests.”
“They’re all girls at first. I think. I mean, I don’t understand this chromosome stuff, but something odd has to happen to make the X-Y switch — to make a hoy.” She poured herself a glass of Fresca. “Ever been married?”
“No.”
“Smart.”
“How’d you meet Ben?” he asked. If she’d told him the other night, he didn’t remember.
“Computer convention, downtown Ramada, six years ago. No — seven, now. He’s a television newswriter.” Kate was with Wang.