The Bradbury Report (27 page)

“Just be careful.”

“No, I know. I am careful. I try to be. Cripes. I certainly don't want to give him the wrong idea. It's absurd, really,” she said, “to imagine me, at my age, capable of exciting a man.”

“I don't know,” I said.

“Look at my hands,” she said. She showed them to me. “Garden tools. Simple friction. That's all it was.”

“Probably not so simple,” I said. “For either of you.”

“Maybe not,” she said.

 

Anna took a few steps towards Alan. I stayed where I was and watched them. She approached him slowly, so as not to frighten him, though you could see he was not at all frightened. She slumped a little and bent at the knees to make herself smaller, less imposing. Needlessly. If he'd wanted to, he could have snapped her neck like a twig.

“Hello, you,” she said to him.

Alan was rapt. The closer she came to the couch, the more frenetically he bounced, the more rapidly he opened and closed his fists. His whimper changed to a monotonal series of short, staccato peeps, hoos. Monkey song. He began to toss his head side to side. It would have been jarring, dismaying, to see any normal-looking twenty-one-year-old man behave in this way. Because he looked so much like me, as I had once looked, it was harder to watch his antics. And it wasn't a question, merely, of how he looked. Had I ever had any dignity? Any grace? Watching him, I was appalling to myself. The thought of being me was appalling. At that moment, I pretty much lost all hope. For any of us.

Anna sat next to Alan on the couch. He stopped tossing his head so he could look at her. “Shush now,” she said. “Hush.” He stopped hooing. “It's okay,” she said. “You're okay.” She laid her palm flat on his thigh. He stopped bouncing. She touched his wrist with her fingertips and his hands grew still. It was like watching an exorcism. “That's better,” she said. “That's good. You're good now.” She smiled at him. She gently rubbed his arm, just below his shoulder. “It's okay. You'll be fine. Everything's fine.” She took his hand in hers. “It's good to see you again. I missed you.” With the back of her fingers she brushed his cheek. “You've had a rough time, kiddo,” she said. “You're okay now. Things will be okay.”

He looked at her, wanting and waiting for more.

“You know who I am,” she said. She was smiling at him all the while.

He did not answer. Or blink. If he'd been any more intent on her he might have turned inside out.

“You do. Of course you do. You know. You remember. We spent some time together, you and I. In my house. You stayed in my house. You remember. You were sick. We had a time. You stayed with me. In my house. Can you remember?”

He did not speak.

“Do you understand what I'm saying?” she said.

It was hard to say for sure, but he appeared to nod.

Anna looked at me. I had not moved. “Won't you say something to him?”

“What should I say?”

“Say, ‘hello.' ”

“Hello,” I said. I could barely bring myself to look at him. He did not look at me.

“Speak to him,” Anna said.

“I have nothing to say. He's not interested in me. He doesn't know I'm here.”

“Say something. Let him know you're not a danger.”

I could think of nothing to say.

“She sells sea shells by the seashore,” I said.

“Pathetic,” she said.

“I've heard a lot about you.” I pointed to Anna. “I'm a friend of hers. We are old friends.”

“It's the best I can do,” I said. “Give me a chance. This is awkward for me.”

“How do you think it is for him?”

“We are your friends,” I said to Alan. Then, to Anna: “Should I come closer?”

“You'd better not,” she said.

For Anna, it must have been confusing to see us, Alan and me, come together in space and time (the universe did not explode): a version of the young man she'd known, looking just the way she'd known him; and the young man she'd known, an old man, looking so much different. Watching her with Alan that afternoon, I must have thought seeing him would have waked in her a memory of what she felt for me back in graduate school. I do remember thinking she might prefer Alan to me. She might have permitted herself to think—she was in for more sadness, if so—that, unlike me, he would not choose another woman over her. That she need not compete for his favor or affection. That Alan was a version of me not susceptible of wooing. However unconsciously, she might have seen in him a safer, denatured, at-one-remove way to experience at least some form of the intimacy she was denied
back in Iowa, forty-five years ago. Cavalier, the way I posit myself at the epicenter of her thoughts and feelings.

Anna put an index finger to her breast. “My name is Anna,” she said to Alan. ‘Anna. I'm sure I told you this. When you stayed with me.” She pointed to herself again. “Can you say, ‘Anna'?”

Anna held for his response. She waited what seemed to me a long time. Good pedagogy.

“That's okay,” she said, when it became clear he would keep mum. “You don't have to speak. When you're ready.” She pointed to me. “That's Ray. Ray is my friend. Your friend, too.”

You'd have expected her next to point to him and say his name, his new name, but she didn't.

“When you stayed with me,” she said, “you were in Iowa. That's where I live. It's far from here. In another country, called America. You've traveled a great distance.” She stood up. “Here,” she said, “come here with me.” She took his hand and bid him stand.

This was the first time I'd seen Alan on his feet. He was bigger than I expected. His forearms were ropy with muscles and veins, his neck was thick. Standing still—this would be true of him always—he was awkward, ill at ease, as if he didn't know how to distribute his weight evenly. In motion he was easy and loose, athletic.

(I was never easy, or loose, or athletic. Except for baseball, and bowling, I was not even marginally good at sports. My father, who was almost always encouraging, told me I ran like Groucho Marx. I didn't know what that meant. Later, a gym teacher told me I ran as if I had nails in the bottom of my feet. A middle-school football coach told me I had no heart. Alan looked like he would be good at anything he tried.)

She led him to the window on the right side of the wing chair. “Look out there,” she said. Alan looked out the window with her. “This is Ottawa. You're in Ottawa now. Ottawa is a city in a country called Canada. It's a good place. You'll be safe here. We'll be with you now.”

It was impossible to tell how much, if anything, he understood.

Standing at the window, she said, “Down there, that's a garden.
Those two people live here. They are growing vegetables. Tomatoes. Beans. Carrots. Squash. Good things to eat.”

He continued to look out the window, shifting his weight from side to side. “Did you work in a garden, I wonder?”

He didn't answer.

“You eat vegetables, I know,” she said. She touched his arm. “What is
your
name?” she said. “Will you tell me
your
name?”

He didn't answer.

“Were you given a name?”

Again, he did not speak.

“What shall we call you, then?” She said this hopefully, then looked to me for help. I shrugged my shoulders. She smiled at him, gave his arm a squeeze. “Don't worry, kiddo. We'll come up with something.”

She left him at the window, and moved towards me. “I can't bear the way I'm talking. I sound so condescending. No wonder he won't answer. It's beneath him.”

“You think?” I said.

“Absolutely,” she said.

“Well, you're doing better than I could.”

“But what next? He's here. We're here. What do we do? How do we start? How do we spend the next five minutes? The next hour?”

“You got me,” I said, though how to pass the time had latterly emerged as the most salient question in my life.

“Would you like to see your room?” she said to Alan. “Let's see your room.” Alan stayed where he was, his back to us. “Come on, you,” she said. “I'll show you where you sleep. Let's go see your bed.”

Still, he didn't move.

“Why don't we put your clothes away,” she said. “Shall we? Do you have any clothes?” He did not budge. “Well, I'm going to see your bedroom.” She crossed the living room and started down the hall.

Alan turned away from the window. He looked unhappy.

“Wait,” I said to Anna. “Do you think I should be alone with him?”

“I had hoped he'd follow me,” she said from the hallway.

“He hasn't,” I said.

She came back into the room. “Come on.” She implored him.

“Go,” I said to him. “Scoot.”

He paid no attention to me.

“Please,” she said. “Please come with me.”

I was not convinced there was any correlation between the way she asked and his compliance, but he did, then, go with her. Though I was not in his way, he managed, as he passed, to ram me with his shoulder. It was as if I'd been hit in the chest with a medicine ball. I caved in. The breath rushed out of me and I stumbled backwards. By the time I was able to say, “Hey. Watch it,” he was out of the room.

I went over to the window. There were two women in the brick-walled garden below, bending together over a single plot. They looked to be about the same age, somewhere in their late sixties, early seven-ties, and might have been sisters. One of the women had on a broad-brimmed straw hat; the other wore a red visor. They were in shorts and T-shirts and both wore gardening gloves. I watched them while Anna and Alan were in the bedroom he and I were to share, which, at that moment, was a forbidding prospect. One among many. The two women looked happy and peaceful. I wanted to open the window and call to them. I wanted to tell them what was going on up here. I'd never liked gardening—too many bugs, too much dirt. I'd left it to Sara, who was inspired. But I wanted to be down in the garden with those two old, happy sisters, engaged in unexceptional activity, passing the time in the midafternoon sun, with the bugs and the Canadian dirt.

Anna came back into the room, with Alan right behind her. He seemed pleased. She was carrying a brown paper grocery bag, crumpled at the top. “These are all his clothes,” she said. “He needs everything. He needs underwear, socks, shirts, and trousers. He's got nothing. I can't believe it. What were they thinking?”

“He can wear some of my clothes for the time being,” I said.

“If they fit,” she said. “It will be autumn soon. He'll need warm things.”

“We'll be okay,” I said.

“We'll have to take him shopping.”

“Not right now,” I said.

She laughed. “No. Not right now.”

(We'd take him shopping a week later. Foolishly. Apart from a brief midnight walk around Friel Street to give him some air, it was the first time he'd been out of the apartment. In that week's time he demonstrated that, when he wanted to, he could speak, at least a little. He was willing to say Anna's name. He would not speak my name, nor would he speak directly to me. When he was hungry, he'd ask for food. He'd say, “I'm hungry,” or “I want food,” or “Give me food,” or “I want to eat.” He had no trouble with pronouns, never confused I and you, or me and you, the way, Anna told me, little children often do. He'd say, “I'm tired,” when he was sleepy, and, to Anna, “Good night,” before he went to bed. He'd say, “I have to piss,” and “I have to shit.” Anna begged him to substitute “pee” for “piss,” and “poop” for “shit,” but he wouldn't. Sometime during that first week he discovered TV, then asked for it constantly. “I want TV,” he'd repeat, loudly, and we had to turn it on to shut him up. When he was sick of being in the apartment—those first few weeks, not without reason, we were reluctant to let him out, and we'd find him pacing the perimeter—he'd say, “I want to go out.”

We went on a Monday morning, choosing a day and time when we figured the stores wouldn't be busy. We drove out to a mall in a western suburb. We'd forgotten to account for the back-to-school shoppers, and the department store, a three-story megalith on one end of the mall, was crowded with mothers and their children. I watched to see how Alan would react to the mother-child relationship, which was so multifariously on display, but he seemed unstruck by it. He had no interest in the kids, but he was embarrassingly interested in the women, especially the young mothers, and spent a lot of the time gaping at them in what looked like a broad parody of amazement. Anna had to keep tugging at him to get him to close his mouth and move on. After brushing too close by a young blonde woman with large breasts—she might still have been nursing the toddler clinging to her leg—Alan leaned over and said something in Anna's ear. Whatever he said—she wouldn't repeat it—upset her, and made her angry.

After that, Anna took charge. She summarily gathered some socks and undershorts—I insisted he have boxers—and a pair of pajamas, then grabbed some shirts and slacks for him to try on. Also a woolen V-neck sweater. None of the stuff she chose, save for the sweater, was to my taste—it was all voguish and cheaply made—but he was indifferent, as, by now, was she. We located the bank of men's fitting rooms. Though we would have been happy to get him off the floor, we were afraid to send him into one of those curtained stalls by himself. That I would go in with him was not an option. That past week I'd had to sleep out on the couch, because he'd refused to let me in the bedroom. Nor would he let me see him unless he was fully dressed. He slept in his underwear—he shunned the pajamas Anna bought for him—and even after he agreed to let me sleep in the room, I had to wait until he was in his bed, and under the covers, before I could enter. Anna, who had lost heart, decided we would just pay for the clothes and take our chances. Except for the slacks, which, though wearable, were half an inch too short and snug in the crotch, the clothes fit him okay.)