Voice of Our Shadow (11 page)

“That’s great. Well, now that we’ve got that settled, you kids’ll have to excuse me for a minute. I’ll be back in two shakes.” Paul got up, briefcase in hand, and headed out of the room.

I watched until I heard the crunch of celery in my ear. I turned to see India pointing a long green stalk at me.

“Don’t you
dare
ask me how it happened, Joe. The whole thing was his idea. He woke up this morning in a big lather and wanted to know what I thought of it. What could I say? No? Maybe he thinks he’s doing penance or something for being suspicious of you before.”

“I don’t know. It gives me the willies.”

“You and me both, Joe. But I don’t want to talk about it today. It’s far away, and a lot can happen. Let’s eat lots of turkey now and be happy.”

“That might be a little difficult.” I nervously wiped my mouth with my napkin.

“Quiet! I want you to tell me what the Lennox family used to do for Thanksgiving. Did you guys eat turkey?”

“No, as a matter of fact. My brother, Ross, didn’t like it, so we had goose instead.”

“Goose? Whoever heard of eating goose on Thanksgiving? That Ross sounds like a real weirdo, Joe.”

“Weirdo? It’s not the right word for him. He … Do you know you ask about him a lot, India?”

“Yep. Does it bother you? You want to know why? Because he sounds like an interesting demon.” She smiled and plucked an olive off my plate.

“Do you like demons?”

“Only if they’re interesting.” She took another olive off my plate. “Do you know that line from Isak Dinesen: ‘It is a moving thing to work together with a demon’?”

The waiter brought the salad, which cut off the rest of whatever else she was going to say. We ate for a while, and then she put down her fork and continued.

“Paul was a little demon when we first met. It’s amazing, huh? It’s true though. He had hundreds of unpaid traffic tickets, and he used to shoplift with the coolest expression on his face you ever saw.”

“Paul? Steal?”

“That’s right.”

“I can’t believe it. My brother used to shoplift too. He once stole all our presents for Christmas.”

“Really? How marvelous! See, he was interesting! I’ll tell you something else too — you describe him with the most mixed emotions I’ve ever heard. One day he sounds like your hero, and the next you make him out to be Jack the Ripper.”

We talked about it. The main course came, and the waiter asked if he should serve Paul’s too or wait until he returned. I looked at my watch and with a jolt realized how long he had been gone. I looked at India to see if she was worried. She pushed the turkey around her plate for a few seconds, then looked at me.

“Joe, it’s silly, but would you go to the bathroom and take a look? Everything is okay, I’m sure, but do it for me, would you?”

I put my napkin down and hastily brushed some crumbs off the front of my pants. “Sure! Don’t, uh, don’t let the waiter eat my turkey, okay?” I said it lightly, hoping she’d smile. But the look on her face was a kind of limbo between concern and exaggerated ease.

I was up, but I didn’t want to go. I didn’t want to move from the spot. I would have stood there happily in the middle of the restaurant, in front of all those people, for the rest of the day. Dread has no dignity.

Admittedly, since my brother’s death terror was as much a part of me as anything else. I was forever quick to jump to conclusions, and often imagined the most awful thing that could occur in any given situation. That was because if I was wrong and it turned out to be nothing, then I would be delighted. If I was right (which was rarely), then the horror could no longer strike me with as much force as it had when Ross died.

I tried not to walk too quickly, both for India’s peace of mind (if she happened to be watching) and so as not to draw the eyes of anyone around us. I stared straight ahead, but saw nothing. The thousand clanks of forks on plates and knives on spoons was louder and more alarming than I had ever realized. It drowned out the slip of my feet crossing the carpet and all the noises I make and am so aware of when I’m frightened and am moving toward whatever it is that’s frightening me.

At the last minute I stumbled on a bumpy part of the carpet and only just regained my balance. The men’s room was directly across from the restaurant in a darkened alcove lit only by a green HERREN sign above the door. I touched the cold metal knob and closed my eyes. I took a gigantic breath and pushed it open. I looked down the line of glistening white urinals. Paul wasn’t there. I let out the breath. The room was unnaturally bright and smelled strongly of pine disinfectant. Three gray toilet stalls faced a line of white sinks on the far side of the urinals.

I called his name while I walked toward them. There was no answer. A dismal fear began to take hold of me again, although rationally I knew he could be in any of a hundred different places: making a long telephone call, browsing by the magazine rack …

“Paul?”

I saw something move beneath the door of the middle stall and, without thinking, fell to my knees to see what it was.

For a moment I was sure I recognized his beat-up black loafers, but then the legs rose slowly up and out of view — as if whoever was in there had pulled them to his chest for some bizarre reason. The thought rushed in and out of my mind that I should slide closer to the stall so I could see, but a remnant of the saner me prevailed and wailed that I should get the hell out of there and stop looking under toilet doors.

“Everybody out there has to sit down!”

“Paul?”

“No Paul! Little Boy is here! If you want to stay for the show, you have to play with Little Boy!”

I didn’t know what to do. I was down on my knees looking up at the toilet door. A black top hat rose from behind it. Then Paul’s face, framed by his two open hands (palms facing outward, thumbs under his chin). He was wearing his Little Boy gloves.

“We have called you all here today to find the answer to the Big Question: Why is Joseph Lennox fucking India Tate?” He looked down at me sweetly. I closed my eyes and saw the blood beating fast behind the lids.

“No one wants to answer? Aw, come on, gang. Boy puts on a whole magic show for you, and you won’t answer his one little teeny question?”

I mustered the courage to look at him again. His eyes were closed, but his mouth still moved, talking silently.

Then, “Ha! If no one’s going to volunteer, I’ll just have to call on you, that’s all. Joseph Lennox in the third row! Will you tell us why Joseph Lennox is fucking Paul Tate’s wife?”

“Paul —”

“
Not
Paul! Little Boy! Paul isn’t with us tonight. He’s out somewhere going crazy.”

The outside door whooshed open; a man in a gray suit came in. Paul ducked down into the stall, and I stupidly pretended to be tying my shoe. The man ignored me after a fast glance. He tucked in his shirt, straightened his tie, and went out. I watched him leave. When I turned back, Paul was there again, smiling down at me. This time he was resting his elbows on top of the metal door, his chin propped on his crossed white hands. In any other situation he would have looked cute. His head began to move from side to side, slowly and exactly, like a metronome pendulum to the beat.

“In-dia and Joe, sittin’ in a tree

K-I-S-S-I-N-G!”

He said it two or three times. I didn’t know what to do, where to go. What was I supposed to do? The smile fell away, and he pursed his lips. “Joey, I’d never have done it to you.” His voice was soft as a prayer in church. “
Never
! Goddamn you! Get out! Get out of my fucking life! Bastard. You’d have gone with us to Italy! You’d’ve fucked her there, too! Get out!”

I think he was crying. I couldn’t look. I ran.

Two miserable days later I was still trying to figure out what to do when the telephone rang. I looked at it for three full rings before I picked it up.

“Joe?” It was India. Her voice was scared, haunted.

“India? Hi.”

“Joe, Paul’s dead.”

“
Dead
? What? What are you talking about?”

“He’s
dead
, goddamn it! What do you think I mean? The ambulance men just came and took him away. He’s gone. He’s dead!” She started crying. Big, startling sobs, broken only by gasps for breath.

“Oh, my God!
How?
What happened?”

“His heart. He had a heart attack. He was doing his exercises and he just fell on the floor. I thought he was kidding. But he’s dead, Joe. Oh, my God, what am I going to do? Joe, you’re the only person I could call. What am I going to do?”

“I’ll be there in half an hour. Less. India, don’t do anything until I get there.”

No one ever gets used to death. Soldiers, doctors, morticians see it continually and grow accustomed to a part or a facet of it, but not the whole thing. I don’t think anyone could. To me, being told of the death of someone I knew well is like walking down a familiar staircase in the dark. You know from a million times on it just how many steps there are to the bottom, but then your foot moves to touch the next one … and it’s not there. Stumbling, you can’t believe it. And you will often stumble there from now on because, as with all things you know by habit, you’ve used that lost step so many times the two of you are inseparable.

Rushing down the staircase of my building, I kept testing (or was it tasting?) the words, like an actor trying to get his new lines straight. “Paul’s
dead
?” “Paul Tate is dead.” “
Paul’s dead
.” Nothing sounded right — they were sentences from an alien, out-of-this-world language. Words which, until that day, I had never imagined could exist together.

Right outside the door was a flower stand, and for an instant I wondered whether I should buy some for India. The vendor saw me looking and enthusiastically said the roses were especially nice today. The image of those red flowers brought me around fast and sent me dashing down the street in search of a cab.

The driver had on a monstrous black-and-yellow-plaid golf cap with a fuzzy black pompon on it. It was so bad-looking that I had a desperate urge to knock it off his head and say, “How can you wear that when my friend just died?” There was a miniature soccer ball hanging by a string from the rearview mirror. I kept my eyes shut for the rest of the trip so I wouldn’t have to see these things.

“
Wiedersehen!
” he chirped over his shoulder, and the cab pulled away from the curb. I turned to face their building. It looked new and had the familiar plaque on the wall saying the original building that had been there was destroyed in the war. This one had been put up in the 1950s.

I pressed the button in the call box and was disconcerted by how quickly her answer came. I wondered if she had been sitting by the buzzer since our phone conversation.

“Joe, is that you?”

“Yes, India. Before I come up, would you like me to go to the store or anything for you? You want some wine?”

“No, come up.”

Their apartment was freezing cold, but she stood in the doorway wearing my favorite yellow T-shirt and a white linen skirt that looked as if it should have been worn in the dog days of August. Her feet were bare, too. Both the Tates seemed completely oblivious to the cold. I gave up being bewildered once I realized it made total sense in a way: both of them had so much bubbling, steaming life-energy that some of it inevitably ended up being turned into thermal units. This thought made so much sense to me that I had to test it out. Once, when we were waiting for a tram on a mean, godawful, cold, foggy night in October, I “accidentally” touched Paul’s hand. It was as warm as a coffeepot. But that was all over now.

Their apartment was ominously clean. I guess I half expected it to be turned upside down for some reason, but it wasn’t. Magazines were carefully fanned out across the bamboo coffee table, silk pillows upright and undented on the couch … The worst thing of all was that their table was still set for two. Everything — place mats, wineglasses, silverware. It gave the illusion that dinner was due to arrive at any moment.

“Do you want a cup of coffee, Joe? I just made a pot.”

I didn’t, but it was easy to see she wanted to be up and moving, doing something with her hands and body.

“Yes, that’d be great.”

She brought out a tray jammed with big coffee mugs, a heavy porcelain sugar and cream set, a plate of sliced pound cake, and two linen napkins. She fooled around with the coffee and cake as long as she could, but finally her spring ran down and she was still.

Her empty hands began to fiddle and crawl up and over each other, while at the same time she tried to give me a comfortable, uncomplicated smile. I put the warm mug down and rubbed my mouth with my fingers.

“I’m a widow, Joe. A
widow
. What a fucking strange word.”

“Will you tell me what happened? Can you?”

“Yes.” She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. “He always does his exercises — those exercises before dinner. He said they relaxed him and made him hungry. I was in the kitchen making —” She threw her head back and groaned. Covering her face with her hands, she slid off the couch and onto the floor. Curled into a fetal position, she wept and wept until there was nothing left. When I thought she was done, I slipped down beside her and put my hand on her back. The touch started her off again, and she crawled, still crying, into my lap. It was a long time before silence returned.

He had been doing sit-ups. They had a little joke where he always counted them off loudly so she could hear how good he was at them. She didn’t pay attention when his voice stopped. She thought he was either tired or out of breath. When she came into the room he was lying on his back, hands clenched tightly over his upper chest. She thought he was kidding. She went to the table and arranged the silverware. From time to time she looked over at him, and when he didn’t stop, she got mad. She told him to stop kidding around. When nothing changed she swept angrily around the table, preparing to tickle him into submission. She bent over him, fingers out and ready to attack. Then for the first time she saw that the very tip of his tongue stuck out from between his lips and there was blood around it.