World of Glass (7 page)

“You can't make money at that,” she says.

“I didn't ask him what he does for money. We're going to swim together at the Y.”

“You're going to travel all the way downtown just for a swim?”

“No. It's to see him too. Besides, I feel better when I go into the city.” I get up slowly and say, “I'm tired,” then head for my bedroom to rest. “It was an eventful day,” I say to myself. I lie down on my unmade bed and think about how I have had no nightmares in three days. I close my eyes and hear sounds coming from the TV. My breathing deepens. Slowly, the noise on the TV fades and I sleep.

I go to Pharmaprix a block away from home to buy goggles. I do not pick the most expensive ones. Not the sturdy kind that the athletes wear. I find a blue pair of Speedos, the lenses also tinted blue. The price on the box says $9. I pay for it at the cash. Phil Collins sings
You Can't Hurry Love
on the store muzak system. Mark invited me to swim even after I told him that I'd had a breakdown, and that I am recovering slowly. He knows this and little else and he still invited me to join him at the pool. I take small steps home. I see a young woman pushing a stroller, then two teenagers
in bell-bottomed hip-hugging jeans. One wears a nose ring. They wear matching pink T-shirts. I presume they are best friends. A Toyota Echo zooms by. I breathe in clean air. Exhale. Only a few more feet to my front door.

I take my medication once in the morning and again in the evening before I go to bed. 900 milligrams of Lithium and 5 milligrams of Risperdal a day. I wish that Dr. Ali would cut down the drugs again soon. I look into the bathroom mirror. I see dark circles around my eyes. I splash cold water onto my face. No soap. I wipe it dry with a small pink hand towel. I splash my face again several times to wash away the dark circles but they will not vanish.

My mother watches
As the World Turns.
I yearn for more life. I do not watch TV. Instead, my mind drifts to Mark. I think about his poem. He must have suffered from depression. I remember his low and articulate voice reading this poem to me. I must ask him to read more of his work. The more poems I read, the more I will learn about this man. Tomorrow, I will meet him at the Y at noon.

I sit on the bus and take out
Women and Madness
by Phyllis Chesler. A book that Joan sent me. “A classic,” she says. I read the introduction.

“Those suffering from bipolar disorders, depression or schizophrenia often respond to the right drug at the right dosage level. All drugs have negative side effects.” I look down at my left hand. My fingers tremble lightly. Risperdal and Lithium, I think. My eyes travel to the window. The book stays on my lap. It seems academic to me. We are
on the bridge over La rivière des Milles Iles. I see a small island; the water is thick and brown. Soon, we will drive through Laval, identical houses all in rows. Mowed lawns, high-rises. I try to go back to reading until we get to the terminal. I cannot concentrate.

Mark is reading on a dark blue seat in the lobby at the Y.

“What are you reading?”

“Neruda.” He closes the book. I follow him down metal stairs. Mark points to the women's change room. I say, “I'll meet you in the lobby in an hour.” I walk through the door and see two water fountains and rows of lockers. I walk around the room. A young woman blow-dries her long auburn hair in front of the wall-to-wall mirror. I turn the corner. There are private showers. Three. One for the handicapped. I open the door to the steam bath. Two women, nude, sitting on towels. They have their eyes closed. The steam makes it difficult to see clearly. I close the door. I choose locker number twelve. A locker where no one will see my scar. I take my clothes off. Put on my bathing suit. I walk through another set of doors to the pool. The bottom is aqua blue. I step down the ladder into the slow lane. I look for Mark but I cannot see clearly without my glasses. I do not know the colour of his bathing suit or cap. I am relaxed and do the breast stroke across the pool. Underwater, I see an elderly man kicking like frog legs ahead of me. He is slow, very slow. I stand. The water goes up to my breasts. I lift my goggles to rub my eyes. The chlorine stings them. Sunlight shines through the windows. A Québecois song plays through speakers.
Moi mes souliers ont beaucoup voyagé
. Félix Leclerc. All lanes are crowded. I move at a snail's pace. I do four, no, five lengths and get out of the pool to rest in the steam bath. A thirty-something woman sprinkles
scented oils where the vapors come out. I am hot. I feel as though I am melting. Relaxed. Very relaxed. I get out of the bath, shower, rub Healing Garden lotion on my face and legs, dress and wait for Mark in the lobby while trying to read more of
Women and Madness.
I see Mark climbing up the stairs. He carries a blue packsack over his shoulder.

“Where were you?” he says.

“Didn't stay in the pool long.”

“How did you like it?” he asks.

“It's like spending a day at the spa.”

“How many lengths did you do?” he asks.

“Five.” Silence.

“You must have been waiting a long time here for me.”

“Twenty minutes.” Mark looks at his watch. “Do you want to go for coffee?”

“Sure.”

“Let's take a quieter street,” he says. We turn down Hutchison. “There are a lot of Hassidic Jews on this street,” Mark says. I look across the street and see a woman in a long black skirt and beige nylons. She is pushing a baby carriage and seems to be wearing a wig. La Croissanterie is a block away. There's an outdoor terrace with umbrellas at each table. It is a day to sit in the shade. We arrive at the café and wait ten minutes for a table outside. We finally sit and order two café au laits in bowls.

“I teach tonight,” he says.

“What do you teach?”

“English at Vanier.” I have lost my fluency. Silence. My speech is crippled.

“I'd love to see more poems.”

“Why don't we plan to swim again next week? I'll show you more of my work.”

I do not know from day to day how I will feel. Words don't flow from my mouth. I stutter.

“I, I'd like that.”

Mark reads a few lines by Neruda:

Leaning into the afternoons I cast my sad nets towards your oceanic eyes.

There in the highest blaze my solitude lengthens and flames,

its arms turning like a drowning man's.

“It's got love, loneliness, longing and death,” I say.

“You need say no more than that,” he says.

For a moment, I feel pleasure. I tell him that I am bipolar. He listens calmly. His fist rests on his chin.

“I'm on powerful drugs.”

“What kind of medication?

“Risperdal and Lithium too. I suffered a psychosis.”

“You seem pretty normal to me.” His face does not reveal what he is thinking.

“I almost died a few times.”

“Van Gogh, Sylvia Plath, Robert Lowell, the list is endless.”

“So you understand?”

“I can relate,” he says and holds my hand.

“I have to go, but we'll talk again next week,” he says softly. I put three loonies on the table. Mark pulls out change from his pocket and puts it on top of the bill. We walk out of the café. Mark unlocks his bicycle from a parking meter by the café. I say goodbye and head toward avenue du Parc. I worry that I have told him too much, too soon. But he does not seem frightened or disturbed. He still wants to see me.

My mother comes home from her volunteer work at the craft shop. Handmade jewellery, dolls, clothes. Profits go to charitable organizations. While she sits at the cash, the ladies from the neighborhood drop in for coffee. They talk about their children, grandchildren. They gossip. “There's never a dull moment,” she says. We eat supper. Homemade hamburgers and oven-baked fries.

“I had a good day,” I say. “Mark is going to read me his poetry.”

“Poetry isn't a serious profession,” she says. Silence. I take two bites from my hamburger and eat one slice of crisp potato.

“I'll do the dishes in an hour. I need to rest.” I lie down on my bed and feel very grateful to have met Mark. I think about how I enjoyed his company today. Trip downtown. The swim.

The building on Hutchison where Mark lives is made of grey stone. I walk up the wooden steps to the second floor. Chipped red paint on the door. I ring the buzzer. Mark opens the door. A shorthaired grey and white cat sits in the vestibule.

“Say hello to Batman,” Mark says as he points at the cat.

“Bonjour Batman,” I say. I follow Mark through a long dark hallway into the kitchen. The sink is stacked with dirty dishes. He makes lemon zinger tea. I look at rows of books, the colourful abstract paintings on his walls.

“Did you make these?” I ask.

“Friends,” he says. We sip our tea on his navy sofa. I glance up at a classical guitar hanging on his wall.

“Do you play?”

“I compose my own songs.” He takes the guitar down and begins to play. Folk music. His finger strums the strings with ease. The sound brings a gentle smile to my face. Mark stops playing. He tells me that he hardly plays anymore.

“I made a CD,” he says. “I sold fifty copies, and then I realized that my music career wasn't going anywhere, so I went back to poetry.” He goes into the side table drawer and hands me his book of poems. Watercolours on the cover.

“Can I take it home with me to read?”

“You can keep it.” I leaf through it quickly, then put it in my handbag.

“I'll read it tomorrow,” I say.

“Teardrops,” he says as he gently touches my earring made of glass.

“I have to go home soon. I'm tired.”

“You can stay here. There's an extra bed in the front room.”

“Thanks. Maybe next time.”

Back home on my bed, propped up with pillows, I read Mark's poetry. Dark. Bleak landscapes. Poems about death and loneliness. Almost went over the edge himself, but was saved, saved by his poems. My mother comes into my room. She tells me to get dressed. We're going grocery shopping.

The phone rings. It's Mark. He invites me over to watch
A Beautiful Mind.
He rented the movie at Passport Vidéo. I say yes.

“How about six?” he says. “We can have dinner together.”

I wear black jeans and the green wool sweater my mother made me. On the bus, on the way into the city, I do not read. My face is turned toward the window. I am fragile. I could break like glass.

I ring Mark's buzzer. He opens the door. He wears a faded grey turtleneck sweater, khaki green corduroy pants. His shoes are black and unpolished.

“Hi,” I say.

“I'm cooking chicken legs and boiling Brussels sprouts. Do you drink red wine?”

“One glass should be all right.” Mark pours me a glass of Corvo and I sit at the kitchen table while he chops Brussels sprouts in half on the arborite counter.

“I'm not feeling well today,” I say.

“Why didn't you take a rain check on my invitation?”

“It's good for me to get out.” We eat and Mark does most of the talking. We watch the movie. A brilliant mathematician who develops schizophrenia. He becomes a zombie, a living corpse and finally, in the end, wins the Nobel Prize. I'm inspired. Triumph. He surmounted the insurmountable. A hero. One quote lingers with me long after the movie ends:
Perhaps it is good to have a beautiful mind, but an even greater gift is to have a beautiful heart.

“We'll swim again next week,” Mark says.

I stay in bed all day. I hear the neighbour's footsteps across the floor above my head. My mother is out playing bridge with the ladies. She will be home at six, in time for supper. We are having President's Choice frozen cannelloni with five cheeses, and a green salad. I take two Ativans to knock me out for the afternoon.

Mark and I have two glasses of dry red wine. He lets me smoke in his living room, but whispers things like, “You're choking me.” I feel bad, very bad, and butt out in a clear glass ashtray.

“I do want to quit. In a month. I need to prepare myself psychologically.” I have a third glass of wine. Tipsy. Mark puts his heavy arm over my shoulders.

“It feels right today,” he says.

“What feels right?”

“To get intimate.” I turn my head toward him and press my lips against his. Our lips part and our tongues touch. He pulls away.

“I feel like I'm kissing an ashtray,” he says. I go into his bathroom and wash my mouth with his mint-flavoured Listerine.

“That's better,” he says.

“I'm nervous. Haven't had sex in over four years. When was the last time for you?” I ask.

He looks down at his red Persian carpet. Pause.

“Over a year ago. Your skin is so soft.” Mark's penis is hard. He pulls our pants off gently, runs his hands along my waist, hips and legs. Lifts my top and notices the scar.

“What happened?” he says.

“I was making fries – hot oil.” He pauses for a moment and sits back on the sofa. He is no longer aroused. I pull my top down. We look at each other and I cry. Mark puts his arm around me and says, “Don't worry… we all have scars.” He kisses my forehead. We embrace and he starts to become aroused again. He slides my panties off. Cannot wait any longer. He slides a condom on, and comes inside me. He moans. I am too tense to come. Mark is too anxious to hold back. I hold him gently. I stay overnight and sleep in his bed. As I drift, Mark begins to snore louder and louder. At one point he stops. I count the seconds. He starts again. I pinch his arm. His eyes open.

“You were snoring.”

“I might be suffering from sleep apnea. I need to get it checked out.”

“Oh, that's terrible. I'll sleep in the living room.” I take a blue blanket from a chair and stretch out onto the sofa and stay there until morning. We eat fresh toasted bagels from Bagel St. Viateur and drink Colombian coffee for breakfast. I wear Mark's flannel housecoat.