The Anniversary Man (2 page)

′Whatever . . . I don′t know. Just names.′

′Names are just sounds, John.′

′Eh?′

′Think of them as sounds. Just make believe they′re throwing sounds at you.′

′And what good would that do?′

Smiled, almost laughed. ′Why . . . in your mind you just catch them and throw them back.′

And John Costello wondered later - much later - if his mother would have seen the Devil coming and protected them both.

 

He smiled at the girl. ′I work here, yes.′

′You own the place?′

′My father does.′

She nodded understandingly. ′I came for soda bread. You have soda bread?′

′We have soda bread.′

′How much?′

′Dollar and a quarter.′

′Only have a dollar.′ She held out the note as if to prove she wasn′t lying.

John Costello wrapped a loaf of soda bread in paper. Brown-bagged it. Passed it over the counter. ′You can owe me.′

When he took the dollar their fingers touched. Like touching electric.

′What′s your name?′ she asked.

′John . . . John Costello.′

′My name is Nadia. That′s Russian for hope.′

′Are you Russian?′

′Sometimes,′ she said. And then she smiled like a sunset and walked away.

 

 

She came again the following day.

She brought the quarter, and paid her debt.

′How old are you, John Costello?′ she asked.

She had on a skirt, a tee-shirt. Her breasts were small and perfect. Her teeth were matchless. She smelled like cigarettes and Juicy Fruit.

′Sixteen,′ he said.

′When are you seventeen?′

′January.′

′You got a girlfriend?′

He shook his head.

′Okay,′ she said, then turned and walked away.

He opened his mouth to speak but there was silence inside.

The door closed behind her. He watched her reach the corner, and then he watched her disappear.

 

The Connemara was never empty. It always held atmosphere, if nothing else. But the people who came were real people with real lives. They all carried stories. More than the stories themselves, it was the words they used to build them; no-one talked like that anymore. The detractions and minor anecdotes they employed to fill the gaps, like mortar between bricks. It was the way those words sounded - the timbre, the pitch, the cadence - as they followed one another out of their mouths and into the world. Words the world had waited for.

Old men who selected pieces of their varicolored lives for sharing - different hues for different days - and unfolded them carefully, as if they were delicate gifts, fashioned to survive just one telling, and then they were gone. Gossamer stories, perhaps cobwebs or shadows. They told stories to be heard, so their lives would not go unnoticed by the world when their work was done. Some of these men had known one another twenty, thirty years, but knew nothing of occupations. They spoke of externals - baseball, automobiles, sometimes girls, all things outside, all things definable with phrases from newspapers and TV, some of which they used with no real understanding. Often their conversations were not conversations in the real sense of the word. Ask a question and then they′d tell you what you thought about it. Everything was a matter of opinion: their own. But they didn′t see it. They saw a discussion, a two-way thing, structured and balanced, a meeting of minds. But it was not.

These old men, the ones who haunted The Connemara, perhaps they also saw their end when the Devil came. Perhaps they looked back at the gaping yaw of the past and they saw a world that would never return. Their time had been and gone. Their time had run out.

They heard of what happened to Costello′s boy, to the girl who was with him, and they closed their eyes.

A deep breath. A silent prayer. A wonder as to what had become of everything, and how it all would end.

And then said nothing to one another, for there was nothing more to say.

 

 

She came three times in the following week.

Nadia. Russian for hope.

′I am studying art,′ she said.

′Art.′ A statement, not a question.

′You know what art is.′

John Costello smiled with certainty.

′So I am studying art, and one day I′ll go to New York, the Metropolitan perhaps, and I will—′

Costello′s mind drifted, away to the sidewalk, the street beyond. It was raining.

′Do you have an umbrella?′ he asked, a question out of left field with a curve in its tail.

She stopped mid-sentence, looked at him as if the only acceptable response was a headlock. ′An umbrella?′

He glanced toward the window. ′Rain,′ he said matter-of-factly.

She turned and looked. ′Rain,′ she echoed. ′No, I don′t have an umbrella.′

′I do.′

′Well that′s good for you then, isn′t it?′

′I′ll get it. You can bring it back whenever you like.′

She smiled. Warmth. A real sense of something. ′Thank you,′ she said, and for a moment looked embarrassed. ′That′s very thoughtful of you, John.′

′Thoughtful,′ he said. ′Yes, I s′pose it is.′

He crossed from the counter to the window after she′d left the diner. He watched her hopscotch between puddles toward the corner. A sudden gust caught the umbrella, her skirt, her hair. Looked as if she′d blow away.

And then she was gone.

 

 

John Costello and Nadia McGowan ate lunch together for the first time on Saturday, October 6th, 1984.

They ate corned beef on rye with mustard, and green pickles, and they shared a tomato the size of a fist. Scarlet, a blood-red thing, sweet and juicy.

They ate together and she told him something that made him laugh.

The following day he took her to the movies. Places In The Heart. John Malkovich. Sally Field. Won two Oscars, best actress and screenplay. John Costello did not kiss Nadia McGowan, nor did he try, though he did hold her hand for the last half hour.

He was nearly seventeen, and wanted so much to see her perfect breasts, the way her hair would fall across her naked shoulders.

Later, after everything, he would remember that evening. He walked her home, to a house on the corner of Machin and Wintergreen. Her father waited for her on the doorstep, and he shook John Costello′s hand and said, I know your father. From the soda bread. And he looked at John closely, as if to ascertain intentions from appearance alone.

Nadia McGowan watched John Costello from her bedroom window as she took off her sweater. John Costello, she thought, is quiet and sensitive, but beneath that he is strong, intelligent, and he listens, and there is something about him that I can love.

I hope he asks me out again.

He did. The following day. A date fixed for the subsequent Saturday. They saw the same movie, but this time they paid attention to one another and not to the screen.

She was the first girl he kissed. Proper kisses. Lips parted, the feeling of a tongue other than your own. Later, in the darkened hallway of her house, there behind the front door, her parents out for the evening, she removed her bra and let him touch her perfect breasts.

And then later: the second day of November.

′Tonight,′ she said. They sat together on a narrow wooden bench at the end of Carlisle Street near the park.

He looked at her, his head to one side as if bearing a weight on his shoulder.

′Did you ever . . .′ she said. ′You know . . . did you ever have sex before?′

′In my mind,′ he whispered. ′With you. A thousand times. Yes.′

She laughed. ′Seriously. For real, John, for real.′

He shook his head. ′No. You?′

She reached out and touched his face. ′Tonight,′ she whispered. ′The first time for both of us.′

 

They fell into a rhythm, as if this was somehow familiar territory. It was not, but it didn′t matter, for discovery was as much a part of the journey as the destination. Perhaps more than half.

She stood ahead of him and she held out her arms to close around him, but he smiled and moved to the right, and he stood beside her so she could rest her head against his shoulder.

′You smell great,′ he said, and she laughed, and said, ′Good. I wouldn′t want to smell bad.′

′You are—′

Ssshhh, she mouthed, and pressed her finger to his lips, and she kissed him, and he could feel her hand on the flat of his stomach, and he pulled her in closer.