Bodily Harm (22 page)

What she remembers most clearly about the evening is not even Paul. It’s the deaf and dumb man on his knees in the street, the two men kicking at him, then watching him with that detachment, that almost friendly interest.

A long time ago, about a year ago, Jocasta said, I think it would be a great idea if all the men were turned into women and all the women were turned into men, even just for a day. Then they’d all know exactly how the other ones would like to be treated. When they got changed back, I mean. Don’t you think that’s a great idea?

It’s a great
idea
, said Rennie.

But would you vote for it? said Jocasta.

Probably not, said Rennie.

That’s the problem with great ideas, said Jocasta. Nobody votes for them.

Jocasta thinks it would be a great idea if all the men were changed into women and all the women were changed into men for a week. Then they’d each know how to treat the other ones when they got changed back, said Rennie.

Jocasta’s full of crap, said Jake. And too bony. Bony women shouldn’t wear V-necks.

What’s the matter with it? said Rennie. Wouldn’t you like to
know to how women want to be treated? Wouldn’t it make you irresistible?

Not if everyone else knew it too, said Jake. But first of all, that isn’t what would happen. The women would say, Now I’ve got you, you prick. Now it’s my turn. They’d all become rapists. Want to bet?

What would the men say? said Rennie.

Who knows? said Jake. Maybe they’d just say, Oh shit. Maybe they’d say they don’t feel like it tonight because they’re getting their periods. Maybe they’d want to have babies. Myself, I could do without it. Feh.

That would take more than a week, said Rennie.

Anyway, said Jake, do you really know how you want to be treated? You ever met anyone who does?

You mean any women, don’t you, said Rennie.

Skip the semantics, said Jake. Tell the truth. Tell me how you want to be treated. In twenty-five words or less. You say it, I’ll do it.

Rennie began to laugh. All right, she said. Is that a promise?

Later she said, It depends who by.

Rennie unlocks the door of her room. The mermaid lamp is on, and for a moment she can’t remember whether or not she turned it off when she left. She could swear she did. There’s a smell in the room that wasn’t there before.

She sees her notebook, laid out on the bed, with the material she’s been collecting, maps and brochures, neatly beside it. Someone’s been in here. Rennie senses an ambush. She had her purse with her, the camera and lenses are at the front desk, there’s nothing anyone would want. Is there? She opens the bureau drawer and hunts for the joints but they’re safely in place.

In the bathroom her cosmetic bag has been emptied into the sink: toothbrush, toothpaste, Love deodorant, dental floss, bottle of aspirins, the works. Two of the glass louvres have been slid out of the metal frame that holds them in place. They’re nowhere in sight, they must be outside somewhere, on a balcony, a fire escape, the ground, who knows what’s out there, and there’s no way of putting them back. That is how he got in, sliding himself into the bathroom like an anonymous letter. The man in the bathing suit. She thinks of herself standing there with a flashlight and a can of insect spray. God knows what he’d do, she’s glad she wasn’t here.

But it’s only a thief, there are worse things. Whatever he wanted, which was probably only money, he didn’t get: nothing is missing. She moves her notebook,
Fun in the Sunspots
, and sits down on the bed. Then she looks under it.

The box is there all right, but it’s been opened, the packing tape slit neatly. Styrofoam beads leak out onto the floor. Perhaps he’s made off with the heart medicine. She slides the box out, lifts the flap, and thrusts her hand into the fake snow.

At first there’s nothing. Then there are two tins of smoked oysters, which Rennie sets on the floor, and after that her hand hits something that is in no way like a tin of anything at all, except that it’s hard and metallic. Rennie pulls and it comes towards her, scattering styrofoam beads. This is something else she’s only seen pictures of. It’s the front end of a small machine gun.

Rennie shoves it back, replaces the smoked oysters and the styrofoam beads, and closes the flap. She wonders if the Englishwoman has any Scotch tape. She pushes the box as far under the bed as it will go and re-arranges the chenille coverlet, spreading it so it hangs to the floor.

This, thinks Rennie, is an exceptionally tacky movie. What next, what now? It’s not even a good lunchtime story, since the main point
of it would have to be her own stupidity. Dumb, gullible, naïve, to believe people; it came from drinking too much. Now she must try not to panic.

Everything, especially this room, is now unsafe but it happens to be the middle of the night and there’s no way she can move. She can’t report the break-in to the police or even to the Englishwoman: she may be naïve but it’s not terminal. No one would believe she didn’t know what was in the box when she picked it up at the airport. Lora knows, of course: that’s why she sent Rennie instead of picking it up herself. Who else knows? Whoever sent the box. Harold the customs official, maybe. And now another man, possibly in a bathing suit. A faceless stranger. Mr. X, in the bedroom, with a knife.

Rennie goes to the bathroom door, closes it, tries to lock it. She doesn’t want anyone else coming in through the bathroom window while she’s asleep. The lock is broken. She opens the bureau drawer again, takes out Lora’s joints, crumbles them into the toilet and flushes them down. She refolds her mix ’n’ match wardrobe and packs it into her bag. She cleans her things out of the bathroom. Then she lies down on the bed in her clothes and turns out the light. She wants somebody to be with her, she wants somebody to be with. A warm body, she doesn’t much care whose.

I
n the summer, soon after she’d come out of the hospital, Rennie called up Jocasta and asked if they could have lunch. She wanted some support.
Support
was what the women she knew said to each other, which had once made Rennie think of stretch stockings for varicose veins. Firm support, for life crises or anything else you could mention. Once Rennie had not intended to have life crises and she did not feel in need of support. But now she did. Jocasta was a little too surprised to hear from her, a little too pleased.

Rennie made it to the restaurant in the usual way, one foot in front of the other on a sidewalk that wasn’t really there; but it was important to keep your balance, it was important to behave normally. If you did that enough, Daniel said, sooner or later you would begin to feel normal.

Jocasta drank red wine and Perrier and gobbled up her spinach salad in no time flat. Then she started on the bread. She didn’t ask Rennie how she was, she didn’t ask her anything. Politely, elaborately, she
avoided the subject of Rennie. If anyone brought it up it wouldn’t be her.

Rennie picked at her quiche, watching Jocasta’s angular face with the huge mime’s eyes. She wondered whether she herself would be that odd at forty. She wondered whether she would ever be forty. She wanted Jocasta to reach across the table, past the breadbasket and the blue silk rose in the bud vase, and put her hand on top of Rennie’s and say that everything was going to be fine. She wanted to tell Jocasta she was dying.

Jocasta had just moved in with someone, or was it out on someone? Go with the flow, said Jocasta. She did a lot of moving. She was talking much too fast, Rennie embarrassed the hell out of her. Rennie concentrated on behaving normally. If she drank just enough but not too much, she could do it.

Who knows what goes on in their heads? said Jocasta. They were well into the second carafe of wine. Not me, I’ve stopped even trying. It used to be women that were so mysterious, remember? Well, not any more, now it’s men. Me, I’m an open book. All I want is a good enough time, no hassle, a few laughs, a little how-you-say romance, I’ll take the violins if they’re going around, dim lights, roses, fantastic sex, let
them
scrape the pâté off the rug in the morning, is that too much to ask? Are they afraid of my first name or something, is that it? Remember when we all batted our eyes and pretended not to know what dirty jokes meant and crossed our legs a lot and they chased around like pigs after a truffle and God did they complain. Frigid, cock teaser, professional virgin, remember those? Remember panty girdles, remember
falsies
, remember Peter Pan brassieres in the front seat after the formal, with your wires digging into his chest?

Rennie didn’t remember these things too well. But she didn’t say so, she didn’t want to remind Jocasta about her age.

There’s probably men still around who don’t think a woman’s a woman unless she feels like a car grille or the insides of a toaster, said Jocasta. Not the back seat though, God forbid the word should get around you were an easy out.

Well, so two months ago this man, a nice enough man, nice shoulders, said why didn’t we go out for dinner. I’ve known him a while, I like him okay, he’s fine, nothing wrong with him, not ultra bright but not a nylon stocking murderer either, and I’ve always felt I wouldn’t mind, you know. If the occasion should arise. Well, it looked as if it was arising, pardon the pun, so I tarted myself up, nothing too obvious, I just bought this fabulous black knitted sheath for the store, remember bat wings?

So out we go, he was paying it seems, though I did offer, it’s a new place over on Church, not too many of those damn asparagus ferns shedding down your back, I had the quails, which was a mistake, gnawing those tiny bones and trying to look soignée. But everything was going fine, a lot of eye contact, we talked about his career, he’s into real estate, doing up downtown houses. All he has to do is beat off the Marxists, the ones that rent rather than owning. The ones that own don’t care, it jacks up their property values.

So I admire him some and he asks me back to his place, and we sit on the broadloom drinking white wine, and he puts on a record, Bartok, which I thought was a little heavy for the occasion but never mind, and he wants to talk about himself some more. Okay, I don’t mind listening, but all this time he doesn’t touch me. What’s the matter, you think I have vaginal warts, I want to ask him, but I’m doing some serious listening, it’s all about his two business partners and how they can’t express anger. I personally think it’s just dandy when people can’t express anger, there’s enough of it in the world already.

So nothing happens and finally I say, I’m really tired, this certainly has been nice but I’ve got to get home, and he says, Why don’t
you stay the night? Funny you should ask, I think, though I don’t say it, so we go into the bedroom and I swear to God he turns around so his
back
is to me and he takes off all his clothes. I can’t believe it, I stand there with my mouth open, and before you know it he’s all tucked into his side of the bed, he was practically wearing striped flannelette pyjamas if you know what I mean. He asks if I want the light on or off, and by this time I’m so freaked I say
off
, so he turns it off and there I am, taking my clothes off all by myself in the dark. If I was smart I’d have left them on and headed fast for the Down elevator, but you know me, Little Mary Sunshine, ever hopeful, so I climb into the bed, expecting to be embraced passionately, maybe he’s just afraid of the light, but he says good night and turns over and goes to sleep!

Talk about feeling like an asshole. Now if a girl did that, what would she be called? There I was, horny as hell from looking at his
shoulders
for about five hours, and he’s sleeping away like a baby. So I got up and spent the night on his sofa.

So in the morning he waltzes in, all bright and shiny in his brown velour dressing gown with the monogram on the pocket, with two glasses of fresh orange juice, and he says, Where did
you
go last night? When I woke up this morning you weren’t there.

He hadn’t even noticed, he hadn’t noticed all night that I was gone.

I’m sorry, I said, but I think we have a semantic problem. A problem in communications, or maybe it’s linguistics. What does
spending the night
usually mean to you? I mean, I’m not knocking the orange juice but I don’t have to spend the night on the sofa to get it, I can squeeze it myself, you know what I mean?