Love Begins in Winter (5 page)

W
E WERE TWO PEOPLE
in a car not speaking. I think it was a French writer who said that we perceive when love begins and when it declines by our embarrassment while alone together.

Hannah flew up to San Francisco for the concert. It took place in the afternoon. There were more children present than usual because of the time. As I drew each note from the instrument, I could sense her out there, watching, listening—biting her lip.

Anna's form appeared as always, but it felt far away. When I turned to look, I could see only the outline of her body. She was leaving me, and I wasn't surprised. I wondered where she would go. I would miss her in a new way.

We left San Francisco that afternoon by driving in a straight line over hills. The reflection off the water made the light seem golden; many of the houses were red and wore small towers at their corners. People sat in parks and drank water from plastic bottles. A man in a black T-shirt walked his dog and chatted on a cell phone. A girl on a bicycle ticked past. Her basket was full of lemons. Her hair was very curly. The sidewalk cafés were packed. Faces hidden by newspapers. Groups waiting for a table.

Our car moved forward slowly—it took hours to get out of San Francisco, but we were together, the only two passengers on a journey where the destination was unimportant. Hannah talked about my concert. She said she was the only person not clapping at the end. She said that for her the concert would never end.

When we turned true south onto the Pacific Coast Highway, Hannah said nothing for quite some time. I thought she was enjoying the scenery. A motorcycle passed us. Then we caught up to an RV and drove slowly behind it for several miles.

I began to ask Hannah questions, but she answered only with a word or two. I told her about the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York—about the long fountain full of coins.

“I wonder how many of those wishes have come true,” she said.

More silence.

“Do you hear that?” I asked.

“What?” she said. “I don't hear anything.”

“That's the sound of keys on my ring,” I said. “Sooner or later I'll find the one that unlocks you.”

She didn't say anything but placed her hand on top of mine.

I took several very sharp curves, and then the road straightened out.

I looked at the sea. I thought of fish bobbing along the bottom. The motion of weeds.

Then Hannah said, “I want to tell you about Jonathan.”

And little by little, his life was placed before me like a map with a small and beautiful country at its center.

I saw him with his book in the garden, sketching.

Then a body stretched out in the snow.

The fist of acorns.

The severed hand of her father in the shed.

The dumb hanging ladder.

Years later:

The many meals that would sit in front of her mother and turn cold.

The guilt of her father as he'd laugh at something on the television, then suddenly stop laughing and leave the room.

One night, Hannah said, he went out in his socks, took the chain saw from the shed, and cut the tree down. Her mother didn't think it was possible. But he managed it somehow with his right hand and the stump of his left arm. It took six hours. When the tree fell, it crushed the neighbor's greenhouse. That afternoon they found a note in their letter box. It was from the neighbor. It read:

 

Then I see my Anna.

The rainy day.

The accident.

A car speeding away.

The back wheel of her bicycle still spinning.

I stopped the car and we sat at a picnic table and held hands. After a couple of hours a park official with long gray hair came over and told us we had to pay five dollars to picnic, so we left. It wasn't the money, but the atmosphere had changed. I started the car with my foot on the brake.

When we were back on the road, Hannah said she was hungry.

It had clouded over.

Fog wrapped the cliff in its thick coat.

Then it started to rain.

The swoosh of the windshield wipers was reassuring.

We turned inland at the first road.

The fog thinned out.

There were birds flying in the opposite direction—away from land. I couldn't think where they were going. Perhaps to a tall wet rock, far out at sea.

We stopped at a supermarket in Carmel for food. We held hands as the glass doors separated before us. I went for bread (the staple of my childhood). A few yards away Hannah held up an apple. I nodded. She selected another. I held up the baguette. She nodded. I decided right then that I would never tell her about Anna.

The man at the deli counter wanted us to try the different things spread before him in shiny bowls. He gave us pieces of cheese and meat on toothpicks. He asked how long we were together.

“Forever,” Hannah said.

At the checkout, Hannah noticed a box of kites. They were on sale. She bought two.

The cashier scrutinized the kites for a bar code.

“You should get one,” Hannah said to her.

“I'm not into kites,” the cashier replied.

“Then what are you into?” Hannah asked.

The cashier looked up. “Music,” she said.

Hannah and I spent the night at a Buddhist retreat center in the mountains perched above Santa Cruz. I had heard about it from Sandy, my agent. She thought it might be a nice place for me. It was supposed to be very quiet, with large prayer wheels painted in bright colors. I stopped in Santa Cruz for gas. A man opposite the gas station was throwing bottles at passing cars and screaming. I hoped he wouldn't come over. I thought about it as we drove away. Hannah asked if I was okay.

“I'm fine,” I said.

The key to our room was waiting for us. It was not late when we arrived, but the surrounding forest threw dark nets over all the buildings.

Hannah stayed in the shower for a very long time. The drops sounded like a heavy rain, which made me fall asleep.

When I awoke, Hannah was sitting at the edge of the bed drying her hair in a towel. It was hot in the room because the window was open. I sat up and wrapped her in the sheet. She turned to me, so I kissed her shoulders, then her neck, then her cheek, finally her lips.

My mouth lingered on hers; I tasted her. I felt for her tongue with mine. I felt the blood surging through my body. We pressed against one another.

Impossibly close.

She gripped my arms. Her nails tore into me. Soon we both were burning. Sweat pooled in the ridge of my back as I moved like a tide determined to crash against those ancient rocks.

Then—a moment before—inside, I kept very still. Our bodies moved of their own accord. Hannah's body was swallowing, digesting all that was mine to give. For those final moments, we existed seamlessly—all memory negated by a desire that both belonged to us and controlled us.

After, we kept very still, like the only two roots of the forest.

The sweat on our bodies dried.

We lay on our backs with our eyes open. I would like to have seen her eyes then. Mine were clear.

Finally she turned to me with great tenderness. She asked if I was hungry. I said I was, and so in the darkness we dressed and slipped out to the car.

The first restaurant we found was mostly empty, but the hostess said they were expecting a large party any minute. She suggested another place. So we left our car where it was and walked.

The sidewalk was very narrow and crowded with plants. It was completely dark and there were no streetlights. Hannah held my hand and led me through. We passed a dozen Craftsman houses from the 1930s. People were inside. We could see them. A couple sat in separate armchairs watching television. They laughed at the same time but did not look at one another. In another house, a small boy sat before a kitchen table. He was peeling an orange. In another, a woman undressed and then turned off the light. I pictured Edward Hopper across the street in a fedora gazing up from the shadows.

When we reached the other restaurant, there was a wedding party at the bar. A band played mediocre but recognizable music, and the guests sang the chorus. The groom was surrounded by his friends. They had loosened their neckties. Each drink had an umbrella in it.

Hannah ordered a cold glass of wine. Our waitress was in high school. She wore makeup. There were several pens tucked into her apron, and her jeans were rolled at the bottom.

We ate the same salad but from different plates. When an entrée of pasta arrived, we ate from the same plate. Then we just sat and held hands under the table.

“Do you think there's an afterlife?” Hannah said as I signed the check.

“I think we're in it,” I said, and we left without anyone noticing.

We walked back to our car through the dark suburb. Most of the lights were out by then. I looked for the small boy, but he must have gone to bed.

The next day we continued driving south. We had wrapped some of the food from breakfast in paper towels. The rental car smelled like a hotel. We were wearing the same clothes as yesterday, but our hair smelled of Hannah's shampoo. Hannah wore shoes she said she hadn't liked for a long time. They were maroon-and-beige heels. I told her I liked them. I also told her how I had noticed her shoes a few moments after we collided. She looked down at her feet and moved them around.

Hannah was in a better mood. She hadn't mentioned Jonathan, but whenever she thought about him, I could tell—she became quiet and still, like a statue. In Greek theater, the final breath of each tragic hero transforms the body to marble.

She told me about her life in Los Angeles, and then she wanted to know about New York. She was especially interested in Central Park. She'd heard there were parrots there. I told her the parrots were in Brooklyn.

I told her about my recent concert. The Central Park Conservancy had given me a “key” to the park. One of the benefits of possessing this key was a complimentary carriage ride. I recalled how I stood in line behind a man and his daughter. The little girl was about three years old. She had Cinderella clips in her hair. She was very excited that soon she would be riding in a carriage with her father. Her father bent down to her level to tell her things. Then he whispered something to her and she put her hands on his cheeks. Then I heard the girl remind her father that she was wearing underpants—that she wasn't young anymore.

The carriage attendant, who was watching a small television, hung up his cell phone, then stood up from his chair and informed everyone that the horse was very tired and would have to take a long break soon—so there would be only three more rides. The father and the girl were fourth in line. The girl tugged on her father's jacket and asked what the man had said. The father put his hand on her head but didn't say anything. The father looked around and sighed. His daughter asked him to tell her more about the horse.

“Has Cinderella ever ridden on a horse? Or does she just ride in the carriage?”

And then suddenly two women in sweat suits who were third in line walked away. The father grabbed his daughter's hand and they moved up one space. The daughter asked if the horse was married and if it liked apples.

One of the women who had walked away told her friend that she was tired and wanted to go back to the hotel. Her friend laughed and they held each other's arms.

Hannah thought it was a nice story. Then we passed what I thought were sea lions. They were sea elephants, and Hannah made me stop so she could take photographs.

Every forty miles we would stop, either to walk around or smoke cigarettes. We even kissed a few times.

I had a concert in Phoenix in two days. I wondered if the city was named after the mythic bird that rose from the ashes. Hannah said it had to be.

When it got dark, I thought we could take blankets from the trunk and build a fire on the beach. I pulled into the parking lot of a convenience store and suggested that we walk across to the beach so that no one would know we were there. Hannah thought it was a clever idea, and I went inside to give the cashier twenty dollars. He seemed pleased with the arrangement.

The beach was much cooler than we'd imagined, but it felt good because, after parking, we kissed in the car for twenty minutes with the air-conditioning off. Hannah moved her neck when I kissed it, guiding my mouth into all the spaces she wanted to feel me.

I wasn't able to build a fire because the air was too damp. It got quite cold too. So we just lay under the blankets and held one another. I could feel her hair pressed against my neck. Her body fit perfectly with mine. She pulled her legs up. We lay very still, making outlines in the sand. In the background, waves pounded a scatter of rocks not far out.

I woke at dawn. It was still cold, but the air felt soft and fresh in my throat. Hannah was nowhere to be seen. I sat up and looked around. The beach was deserted. I wondered if she had gone back to the car to get warm. I decided to look for her, and then saw her erect body a few hundred yards away on the bluff. She was flying a kite.

When I reached her, the wind had blown back her hair. The wind was blowing so hard her eyes watered.

At first I thought I'd just sit and watch.

At her feet lay another kite, already assembled.

“That's your kite, Monsieur Bonnet,” she said without looking at me.

I unfurled the line quickly, and Hannah told me to start on the beach and then run up the bluff in order to launch it. I tumble-ran down the bluff.

I held out the kite and hit the bluff running. My kite took easily.

It was exhilarating. I had not flown a kite in thirty years. The force pulling on me was more powerful than I could have imagined. But I was the one who held on. I was not captive but captor.

We flew our kites for most of the morning, occasionally glancing at one another.