Some Great Thing (30 page)

Simon considered that flattering: seeing him would be too much, he is irresistible, she would be overcome. Whenever he saw her from the window he was torn between calling to her, and wanting to hide. He would have no reason to give her for being so near her house.

He ate more chicken wings, more deep-fried vegetables, chili, veal schnitzel, the occasional Polish sausage.

It was what you men of morals call a State of Want.

Swedish meatballs, spaghetti bolognese, a half carafe of the house red, might as well make it a whole. Desire can be stupefying.

But if she was carrying the extra bag, if he saw corn chips through the shopping bag (like a leg through a sun-soaked skirt), he would spring to attention, crane his neck. Maybe Kwyet was still in the store? Maybe she was waiting in the car? Maybe he could run out before Matty noticed and slip Kwyet a note?

Week after week after week. The face in the mirror grew unrecognizable.

Chicken fingers with fries and the house plum sauce. Three-cheese melt. A bacon burger with salad and/or fries. Was he trying to look like Leonard?

The face grew shiny, sad, cruel. To be honest, it began to look like mine.

H
E SAW HER AGAIN
one Friday sitting in the car waiting for her mother who had just run into the store. Now was his chance to talk to her. He planned to slip freely from the eatery, but he was stiff, awfully sluggish as he stood up, and slightly dizzy. He stumbled toward the door and the waitress said she’d see him later. It was very bright outside. When he got through the door he stopped defensively, shielding his eyes as if he had stumbled into some sort of inquisition. Out of the corner of his eye he saw someone emerging from the store next door. He realized it was Matty, already, so he quickly retreated into the eatery and watched her through the tinted glass door.

His car was near, so he decided to follow them when they drove away. Matty got into her car and Simon slipped more carefully out of the eatery this time and got into his own car.

Matty and Kwyet pulled away and drove the usual route to their house. But as they got near they took an unexpected turn left. Simon followed them at a safe distance. At one point Matty reached across and stroked Kwyet’s cheek.

Imagine being inside the intimacy of that car.

Where were they going now? Another unexpected left, now slower, slower, careful. What were they doing? They were stopping.

Kwyet got out of the car. She stretched. Oh, she stretched! (When she stretches we can all stay still and hope.)

Then Matty got out of the car. She went around the front, Kwyet went around the back and got in behind the wheel.

Kwyet drove much more quickly than Matty. He could see Matty shrinking a bit, probably offering gentle suggestions about speed. He fell back from them, sped to catch up, fell back. They knew all the roads around there better than he did. They were all new roads (built by Leonard’s friends, no doubt).

He knew where their house was though, and it was clear they were going somewhere else. It was a sunny day; perhaps they were just having a drive. Kwyet had sped up so much that he could see only the shine of the car’s paint, and when she turned a corner he saw nothing.

He drove on, turned the same corner, but he couldn’t see them anymore.

H
E FOLLOWED THEM LIKE
that for months. There were several occasions when he was sure he could see Kwyet’s eyes in the rearview mirror looking at him.

And once there was Kwyet’s face looking up from a book in their living room. She saw him, and her look was inscrutable—remote, warm, surprised, apathetic—every contradiction harmonized into an ineffably perfect calm that made Simon frantic.

And Matty. He realized middle-aged Eros would soon have run his course anyway, but, let’s speak in unadorned language now: you tasted like fresh bread.

He knew he had developed an inevitable obsession with your daughter, but that would not necessarily have meant the end. He had the funds for an army of loves. Loving you and your daughter made perfect sense. The three of them could have met in the park for ever, never getting to know each other, laughing in green delight.

Now someone wanted to make that into a golf course.

H
E WORKED BUSILY BEHIND
the scenes. He avoided his office.

Eyebrows—Leonard’s, Eleanor’s, Renée’s—rising two by two.

“Dammit, Struthers, why the delay?”

“Dammit, Schutz, the damned don’t delay, they eat too much and thrive on venality. How are your developer friends?”

H
E COULD NEVER HEAR
their voices. Whenever Kwyet visited and they ate dinner together like this, Kwyet was the most animated. Matty smiled, made witty contributions. He knew they were witty because Kwyet smiled and Leonard continued eating. Kwyet tells stories. She moves her hands. She describes a world he doesn’t know in words he can’t hear. Windows shouldn’t be triple glazed.

I
N THE BATHROOM AT
work one day Leonard was in one of the cubicles, shaking the toilet seat and quietly weeping. I was sitting in the cubicle next to him, trying to be quiet so he wouldn’t know I was there. One is used to hearing one’s colleagues at their most vulnerable when they are in the cubicle next door. It is a time when we all tacitly agree to be human, to put up with each other. But this was upsetting.

Everyone in there was listening intently. Was a man really weeping? There was a sense of shuddering nearby.

I suppose he felt his career was threatened. I suppose he was afraid that his income might be questioned. I suppose he knew that his wife had betrayed him.

It was chilling and dreary, I have to admit—a moment when I couldn’t think of anything but emptiness and struggle and how remote the fictions were that baffle the struggle and emptiness.

W
HY PUT KWYET AMID
such predictable geometry?

No line is an accident, every street a foregone conclusion. Mrs.
Smith, who wears blue plaid pajamas, lives at this end of the street, ergo the same Mrs. Smith,
ceteris paribus
(pajamas), lives at the other end of the street. Every up has a matching down. Loops, curves, roundels, turrets, mere variations on a theme of straight. Why not squeeze it all together on every side, see what gives? Bend that house into this, let’s wriggle cheek to cheek. Draw a cincture tight around each outside wall until cracks and comical bulges appear, until the space between us is just an idea. There is no need for streets; he can
traboule
through your living room when expedience dictates. Or if it is all too close, Kwyet, then run beyond the walls.

He can’t keep walking down these streets. Every house has two dormers, on every slanted roof, staring forward, relentless, catatonic. He is walking down the aisle of a mental ward.

Neighbors, neighbors. He was not what he seemed, some common voyeur. He was never what he seemed. But he couldn’t do this much longer. All these walls going up between him and Kwyet. Why won’t you just come out of your house?

He was a giant, Kwyet. Didn’t your mother tell you? When he was your age, he could accomplish anything, have anyone he chose.

“S
TRUTHERS
.”

“Schutz.”

“What’s happening with this golf-course proposal?”

“I am considering it.”

“What’s the problem?”

“I beg your pardon.”

“Look, Simon … I am not alone among our colleagues … I don’t need to remind you that these are political appointments. They end, Simon. Approve the golf course.”

“Are you telling me what to do?”

“Let me put it another way. Our Division needs funding, and
if it doesn’t get new sources of income, as well as higher public approval, we will all end up in Transport.”

“I have been concentrating on something else.”

“So I gather. And I am beginning to wonder whether it is all that efficient for you to be involved in these decisions.”

“They are
my
decisions, Leonard. Remember who I am. I am well aware that these are political appointments, and if you think that I cannot get another one, you are forgetting who I
am
. It is the whole idea, the whole vision.”

“Of what? Vision of what?”

“Imagination, Leonard. I am talking about imagination.”

“What
are
you talking about?”

“How many golf courses are there in the world?”

“I don’t care.”

“Well, these phases, these proposals, these developments, the golf course … more houses, more houses, more houses, and a golf course, Leonard. What are we left with then? What has it all become?”

“A neighborhood.”

“The end, Leonard. Death pretending to be life. Predictability, disappointment, and in the middle of it all a manicured fantasy for men in plaid knickers. A golf course, Leonard? I am talking about creating something wonderful, using the Greenbelt as a
proper
playground, where
imagination grows
, not where it ends, not where it has to fit into all the familiar vessels. We can put things there that renew possibility.”

“Right. Like a worm farm?”

“Would that be worse than a golf course? I know what your interests are in this, Leonard.”

“Enough with your threats. I need to know what you are talking about. There is pressure on me.
Why will you not approve this golf course?
What
exactly
are you talking about?”

“I’ll show you.”

“Yes?”

Distrust was rising to a point that was no longer fruitful.

It was indeed conceivable that all of their appointments could end soon—Simon’s, Leonard’s, all of theirs. Even if no one did anything wrong. He realized the truth. He was capable of realizing the truth.

I have been looking for a point where it all went wrong.

It was good that he moved quickly.

Someone fell from a window.

“W
HAT ARE YA READING
, Jer?”

“A letter.”

“Yer up late. Yiz are always up late.”

“Are you feeling all right?”

“I was only wondering if ya wanted to come and sleep with me, like, not sleep with me but, like, maybe you’d like to join me in the room for the night.”

“Are you feeling all right?”

“It doesn’t mean there’s something wrong if I want ya to join me, is it? Does there?”

“No. I was only asking. Yeah. I want to join you.”

“Come on then.”

“Fuckin Government.”

“What’s that?”

“Nothing.”

“Don’t be taking yer work to bed, cause there’s no room for the three of us—not near these ribs.”