The Dogs of Babel (7 page)

On Sunday afternoon, two days after our return, I arrived at Lexy’s house with flowers and a chew toy for Lorelei. The flowers, the first I ever gave her, were dahlias, so dark and red they were almost black.

“Wow,” Lexy said as she took them from me. “These are gorgeous. I’ve never seen flowers this color. They kind of remind me of the devil.”

“The devil?” I said. “Yes, that’s exactly what I was going for. It’s a test, to see if you’re receptive to the black arts. Now I can introduce you to the other members of the coven.”

She laughed. “No, don’t you see what I mean? They’re this deep bloodred color, and they’ve got these kind of seductive honeycomb petals that just draw you in further and further.” She waited a moment and then added grandly, “I believe I shall carry these flowers at my wedding.”

I only paused for a moment. “Well,” I said, “you’d better get married quickly. These are only going to last a day or two.”

She laughed and put her arms around me. “Oh, I don’t think you’re going to get off that easily,” she said. “But see what I mean about these flowers? They seduced me into asking you to marry me on our second date. I think we’d better put them in the other room before I lose control completely.”

“Oh, let’s keep them here and see what happens,” I said, and pulled her down with me onto the couch.

Later that afternoon, she took me to see her basement workshop, the place where she made her masks. There was a large table in the center of the room, covered with an untidy litter of newspapers and jars of paint. Unfinished faces, bare and ghostly, were stacked in piles on the floor. Everything was coated with a fine white dust. I remembered the mask I had worn at the wedding.

“I meant to ask you,” I said. “What does that mean, ‘You have taken the finest knight in all my company’? Is it from something?”

“It’s from ‘Tam Lin,’” she said. “Do you know that story?”

“No,” I said. “I don’t think so.”

“It’s from an old Scottish poem, but I first heard it as a fairy tale. There was a version of it on this record I used to have when I was a kid—I’ve always had trouble falling asleep, and I’d listen to these records of people reading stories, kind of like books on tape. It was always these washed-up actors doing the reading, people I’d never heard of but later saw on TV in old movies and stuff. Anyway, I loved this one. It’s the story of a woman named Janet who falls in love with a knight named Tam Lin, who’s been abducted by the fairy queen or the elf queen or something, and Janet has to rescue him and steal him back to the mortal world. She goes and waits for him in the woods at midnight on Halloween, and all the fairies ride by on horses, and Janet has to pull Tam Lin down from his horse and hold on to him while the fairy queen turns him into all kinds of horrible things—she turns him into a snake, and a snarling beast, and a red-hot bar of iron, but Janet has to hold on as tight as she can, until finally he turns into a ‘mother-naked man’—isn’t that a nice phrase, ‘a mother-naked man’?—and then he’s hers forever.”

“So she’s standing in the woods at midnight with a naked man in her arms? And this was a children’s story?”

Lexy laughed. “That’s nothing,” she said. “When I was in college, I went and found an early version of the poem, and it turns out that Janet was pregnant. That’s something they left out of the kids’ version.”

“So what about the ‘finest knight in all my company’ stuff?”

“Oh, that’s the best part. After Janet rescues him, and everything’s okay, the fairy queen throws a fit. The way it went in my version was,
Out then spoke the fairy queen, and an angry queen was she: ‘You have taken the finest knight in all my company.’
And then there’s this scary part that I found absolutely thrilling, where the fairy queen says to Tam Lin,
‘Had I known but yesterday what I know today, I’d have taken out your two grey eyes and put in eyes of clay. And had I known but yesterday you’d be no more my own, I’d have taken out your heart of flesh and put in one of stone.’
It still gives me goose bumps.”

“Lighthearted little story,” I said. “I can see why that would stick in your mind.”

She sank down onto a long, beat-up couch that ran along one wall. I sat down next to her. There was a series of soft thuds from the staircase as Lorelei loped down to join us. She came over to the couch and jumped up, insinuating her large, dense body into the small space between us.

“Can I help you?” I said to the dog as she wedged herself against my knees. Lexy stroked Lorelei, looking thoughtful.

“The thing is,” she said, “I always identified with the fairy queen.”

“Why is that?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe Janet was too goody-goody for me.

“Except for the getting knocked up part.”

She smiled. “Except for that.” She was quiet for a moment. “No, I guess I kind of identified with her anger. You know, she gets so mad, and it’s presented like she’s behaving totally inappropriately, but I can understand her point of view.”

I considered it. “Absolutely,” I said. “She’s just doing her thing, being the fairy queen, and Janet comes along and steals away her finest knight.”

“Right.”

I watched her scratch Lorelei gently behind the ears. I thought of the queen in the story, stamping her feet and yelling into the night wind, and I thought of Lexy in the Magic Kingdom, leaning against a fiberglass tree, close to tears, trembling with all of an elf queen’s fury. I picked up her hand and kissed it.

T
here is a kind of grieving that dogs do, a patient waiting for homecoming, a sniffing for a scent that is no longer there. Since Lexy died, I have often seen Lorelei sitting at the top of the basement stairs, listening for noises from the workshop below. This morning, I find her in the bedroom, sleeping stretched out on one of Lexy’s sweaters. I must have left the closet door open, and I can only assume that Lorelei, drawn by the scent of Lexy’s perfume, her hair, her skin, still lingering on her clothes, jumped up and tugged at the garment until she had freed it from its slippery, padded hanger. I don’t take the sweater away from her. Instead, I walk quietly out of the room and leave her to breathe in her memories, whatever they might be.

Today I have to go to the university to pick up some papers I left in my office. It’s the first time I’ve been back since the day two months ago when I announced my research plans to my colleagues. It wasn’t a very good day, the day I presented my proposal to the department; when I got to the part about canine language acquisition, the whole room turned very quiet, and people began to examine inanimate objects—their pens, their wedding rings, the conference table—with alarming intensity.

I’m hoping I won’t run into anyone today, and in fact I’ve planned my trip for a time when I thought no one would be around, but it seems that in my absence they’ve changed the day on which faculty meetings are held. I arrive to find every professor in the department standing in the hallway outside the conference room, drinking coffee and talking. They grow silent as, one by one, they see me approaching.

Julia Desmond is the first to speak. Julia is a tall woman, blessed with family money and prone to wearing extravagant jewelry. Today it’s rubies.

“Paul,” she says brightly, coming toward me with her arms outstretched. “How are you?”

I accept her embrace and kiss her lightly on the cheek. “Fine,” I say. “Just fine.” I look around at the group of people staring at me, smiles fixed on their faces. “I just came by to pick up a few things,” I say.

“Great, great,” says Julia. “We’ve missed you around here.” She smiles at me a moment longer, her hands still on my arms. She seems unsure what to say next. “Well, good to see you,” she says finally. She retreats into the conference room.

I make my way to my office, the crowd parting for me as if I were a holy man. Matthew Rice, the head of the department and a good friend of mine, comes up and stands beside me as I unlock the door. He follows me inside.

“So how are you really doing, Paul?” he asks, shutting the door behind him.

“So-so,” I say.

“We’ve all been worried about you,” he says. “But you’re looking good.”

“Thank you,” I say. I’m pretty sure he’s lying. I haven’t been paying much attention to my appearance of late. I know I’ve lost weight since Lexy’s death, and my clothes hang on me quite loosely.

“Are you keeping busy?” he asks, and seems immediately to regret it.

“Yes,” I say. “My research has been occupying most of my time.”

He nods and looks away from me. “Are you still working on that… project?” he asks. “The one with the dog?”

“Yes,” I say, perhaps too brightly. “It’s going quite well.”

He doesn’t meet my eyes. “That’s great,” he says, after a pause. “You know, Eleanor and I have that little beach house in Rehoboth, and you’re welcome to borrow it if you’d like. It might do you good to get away for a while.”

I think about it. Early morning walks on the beach with Lorelei running ahead of me, evenings bathed in the scent of sea air. It’s not an unwelcome idea.

Matthew goes on. “The only thing is,” he says, “Eleanor’s allergic to dogs, so you wouldn’t be able to bring Lorelei. But you can always board her or something for a week or two. Julia has dogs; she might be able to give you the name of a good kennel.”

Of course, I think. Of course. “Thanks anyway,” I say. My voice sounds thin and brittle as glass. “But I don’t think I can leave my research at this particular point.”

Matthew nods, looking down at the floor. “All right, then,” he says, turning toward the door. He looks stricken. I soften a bit.

“Really, I’m fine,” I say. “I’m sure this whole thing sounds crazy to you, but I really think there’s something there. I feel like I’m on the verge of something important. I just need some time to work it out.”

He smiles doubtfully, but at least he’s meeting my eyes. “Just imagine,” he says, “what it will mean if you succeed.” He pauses thoughtfully, considering it. “Well, I’ve got to get back to the meeting. Keep in touch, okay?”

“I will,” I say. “Give my love to Eleanor.”

I gather up the things I need and prepare to leave. On my way out, I notice a scrap of pink paper that has, apparently, been slid under the door. I pick it up. It’s a While You Were Out slip. Scrawled across the top it says, “Your dog called.” In the message space below, there are two words: “Woof, woof.” I crumple up the note and throw it away.

Back at home, I pick up Lexy’s sweater from the bedroom floor and hold it to my face. I wonder what she would think of the turns my life has taken. Lorelei wanders in to greet me, and I give her a little scratch behind the ears.

“Where’s Lexy?” I say to her. She looks up at me sharply. “Go get Lexy,” I say. And all of a sudden, she’s off, running wildly from room to room. I watch, heart-struck, as she charges through the house, sniffing in corners and barking. “Lorelei,” I call after her. “No! Stop it, girl! Quiet! Come!” I run through every command she knows. But it’s no use. I can’t stop her, not now that I’ve spoken those magic words. Around and around the house she runs, searching and yowling for what she has lost.

T
he first time I asked Lexy to marry me, she said no. It was early December, about nine months since we’d first met, and we’d gone away for the weekend. We were staying at a small inn on the beach, and the day had been rainy and blustery. We’d spent most of our time inside, with the fireplace lit, playing board games and drinking wine.

Now, as we lay in bed, Lexy reached over and picked up a felt-tip pen from the bedside table and took hold of both my hands. “This is what you give to me,” she said, and she began to write. She started on the backs of my hands and then turned them over to write on the palms. She covered my hands with words.
Square eggs,
she wrote, and
beaches in winter. Your lips on my neck
and
a week of appetizers,
and
really bad music.
She wrote,
Coffee milk,
and
Scrabble
and
flowers that look like the devil.
By the time she had finished, there was no space left at all.

“Now it’s your turn,” she said. She gave me the pen and offered up her hands. I didn’t know what to write. Hunger, I thought, and fullness. A feeling like wings inside me. The days and the seasons and a dog with a rough velvet hide. But instead I took her hand, and writing upside down so she could read it, I wrote letter by letter and finger by finger,
whole world.

It was the truest, most romantic thing I had ever said, and I didn’t even say it out loud. Caught up as I was in the wide generosity of my emotions, I turned her hands over and, almost without thinking about it, wrote across her palms,
Will you marry me?

She drew back and pulled her hands away. “Are you serious?” she said. She wasn’t smiling.

“I am completely serious,” I said, surprised to find that I was.

“You’re asking me to marry you.”

“I’m asking you to marry me.”

She searched my face. “Well… no,” she said. She looked away. “I have to say no. We don’t know enough about each other yet.”

I was perfectly calm. I was prepared to give her some time to get used to the idea. “You know everything there is to know about me,” I said. “And I know enough about you to know that I love you.”

She turned away from me. “What’s the matter?” I asked.

She didn’t speak for a moment. She had made her back stiff and hard, and when I reached out to touch her, she flinched away. “I know you love me,” she said finally. Her voice was ragged. “But how do you
know
that you love me?”

“Well, I know it because I want to be with you all the time,” I began.

“No. That’s not what I mean. I mean, how does it occur to you? How often do you really
know
it?”