With no definite purpose, he got up from his desk and opened his door. The corridor was deserted. Through the window across the hall, he could see that a moistness had drifted in from the sea, not quite fog but a thickening of the air, a translucence. A building shimmered without edges. An airplane became gauzy and disappeared in the haze. He went back to his desk and stared without interest at the screen of his computer. One of his feet prickled. After a few moments, he returned to the window in the hallway, where he stood looking out at the harbor. He saw a red barge sliding sluggishly toward a wharf. He saw a spit of land wander out, dissolving into water and haze. And further east, beyond the harbor, he saw the ocean hover and beam and glow.
BATH
It was 7:15 that evening, the heat just beginning to wane, when Bill arrived at his home in the suburbs. His shoes thudded like stones on the stairs. Still wearing his tie, lacking the energy or will even to loosen it, he slumped on the edge of the four-poster bed. He had not released his grip on his briefcase. He had not even taken off his jacket, despite the suffocating warmth of the room. For a moment he lifted his head and squinted toward the half-drawn damask drapes, which allowed a bright swath of sunlight to cut diagonally across the floor and up the back wall, illuminating the floral print above the bed.
A few feet away, Melissa sat cross-legged on the rug, sipping a scotch and watching Bill closely. She had been drinking on and off since late afternoon, and her lipstick, usually so perfect that her lips seemed like red flower petals, was now streaked and smeared. When the telephones rang, she stiffened like a cat about to leap and waited until the answering machine stopped the ringing. Several times she started to speak but instead took another drink of her liquor, dabbed at her underarms with a Kleenex, and gazed nervously at her husband.
Her husband, in fact, was barely aware of her presence. Again, he was brooding over the events of the day. And now his feet tingled. His position at the office seemed almost hopeless, an incredible change of fortune for someone who had only a few days ago been a rising figure in the company, almost certain to be elevated to senior partner. What had happened to him he could not comprehend, even though he went over and over it in his mind. Of one thing he was certain: that he had been afflicted far beyond what he deserved. Never had he been overly ambitious, or greedy. He knew plenty of those fellows; let them have their chairmanships and awards, their closets of suits. Let them even have their health. He did not begrudge them, he truly did not. But what about him? He, who played by the rules, who was more intelligent and able than most, who wanted only a nice house in the suburbs with a family who loved him, an adequate income, an eventual senior partnership and position where he could hold his place in the world. This affliction and degradation he did not at all deserve.
As he slumped on the edge of the bed, his legs shook and twitched. He had been sitting in this manner for ten minutes now, brooding and sour, insensible to his wife’s new skirts and blouses that lay strewn on the bed, some still in their shopping bags and wrapping tissues. Melissa was speaking, but her voice was drowned by the television and the sudden sputtering of an engine across the street. She waited and repeated herself, almost shouting. At last, he lifted his head and stared at her as if she were another telephone. “What, were you talking?”
“I’ll give you a bath before dinner,” she said. “Come.”
“A bath? I don’t want a bath before dinner.”
“Oh, Bill. It’ll be good for you. I bought a bottle of that lemon shampoo you like. I’ll shampoo your hair with it.” Taking the last swallow of her scotch, she stood up and swayed on her feet and beckoned. Her turquoise silk robe draped loosely from her small shoulders and shone in the late sun.
With a sigh, Bill began removing notes and things from his pockets, looking for somewhere to place them. He frowned when he discovered that his favorite repository for odds and ends, the little French country writing desk by the window, had vanished, replaced by a reddish table with curly brass drawer handles.
“I won’t like the bath,” he said.
“Of course you will.” She looked at her watch. “It’s seven thirty-five. I’ll go downstairs for one minute and put the chicken in. We’ll have dinner at eight.”
Bill nodded, half-listening to the TV on the bureau. A man in a tennis outfit, clearly with leisure time on his hands, was being interviewed. I said to myself, you’re good at food marketing. You’re particularly good at refrigerated foods. But markets change. You have to ask people what they like. If you want to sell golf balls, have you ever thought of asking people who play golf: What kind of golf balls do you want? Golf balls, Bill said to himself, and for a moment he tried to identify exactly what it was that he sold himself, or what he had been doing at the office for the past month. Not that his work could be reduced to those terms.
With some difficulty he undressed and went into the adjoining bathroom, where he found a small pleasure in the sensation of cool tiles against his bare feet and the sound of the water flowing into the tub. The running water was especially nice, like one of those white-noise machines for sleeping, and he closed the door to shut himself off from the television and the phones. Removing the last of his clothes, he sat on the edge of the tub, so that he could feel the spray of the warm water on his back, and he gazed absently at the objects on the marble counter: an enamel soap dish from Paris, a lavender-tinted glass bottle of perfume, talcum powder, an electric toothbrush, a clock. It was a liquid-crystal digital clock, some kind of novelty that Melissa had found, its numbers silently appearing and melting against the background of a pond as if rising and sinking. While the bath continued at his back, he watched the numbers emerge and dissolve, one after another, and listened to the sound of the water. He searched the small space for a magazine to read. He crossed and uncrossed his legs. Behind him, the hot-water pipe began thumping. His eyes moved to the brass water faucets at the sink, down to the olive and tan tiles on the floor, then back to the clock with the numbers rising and falling.
Now the clock bored him. He stood up in his towel and peered through the open bath window. Along the comfortable graveled road below, just wide enough for two cars to pass, clusters of sugar maples shaded the two-story clapboard houses. Water sprinklers whooshed and spun, and the glistening lawns were so correctly green that they appeared almost blue. Across the street, Olivia Cotter was cleaning the platform of her new deluxe-size gas grill while talking to someone on her remote phone. He had never noticed before how nervous she was, shifting constantly from one foot to the other. Her three children, barefoot, raced around the yard throwing water balloons at each other. Bill cringed at the thought that Olivia might have heard something about his briefcase fiasco from Tim. Olivia was the person on the street he talked to most, it was Olivia he always went to for advice about buying presents for Melissa. Several lots away, a tiny Max Pedersky perched in a lawn chair in front of his peeling and weedy Victorian. Abruptly, Bob Tournaby drove up in his BMW and began honking his horn. His wife, wearing a wide-brimmed sun hat and at work in the garden, serenely ignored him and continued trimming her roses. The Allison sisters, both teenagers, flew from another house, their black stiletto-heeled shoes clacking on the driveway. They shoved into a waiting automobile.
Oh, to be young again, Bill thought to himself. Images appeared in his mind. A tent in the cornfields, hitting a golf ball strong and easy, the broken right door of Peter’s ’63 Triumph. Suddenly Bill remembered with a quick stab of guilt that he had not gotten home early enough to see Alex. Nor had he answered his son’s messages. Turning from the window, he began mentally listing his activities for the weekend, intent upon spending various periods with his son. Saturday morning was out. From 9:30 to noon was the Council of Boston Leadership meeting at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Cambridge. Then, at 3:30, a tennis game with Stephen Roe at the new indoor courts in Waltham. At some point during the day he had to pick up shirts at the laundry and dog food for Gerty, get his black wingtip shoes resoled, and take the micr
owave for repair. Then at 6:30, he and Melissa were meeting one of her old college friends and her husband for dinner.
His deliberations were interrupted when his mental clock informed him that the bath must be full, and it was. Tufts of steam rolled off the tub and fogged the mirror above the counter. Letting his towel drop to the floor, he eased himself into the water, warm and velvety and green from the green of the enamel underneath, and he rested his head against the cool tiles of the back wall. Just as the water had settled around him, Melissa came in with the shampoo, smelling fresh and sweet-lemony, and she began working it with her fingers into his hair.
“Ah!” Bill released a long breath of air and closed his eyes. “Did you see Alex tonight?” he murmured.
“Of course I saw Alex. I made dinner for him. He went to the mall with Brad and some friend of Brad’s.”
Alex. Bill grunted and languidly scratched an itch on his forehead. Her fingers continued to work at his scalp. “I’m so behind at the office,” he said, his eyes still closed.
“You’ve always managed,” said Melissa. “You’re about the smartest man I know. That’s one of the reasons I married you.” She gently kneaded his neck and his shoulders and poured the warm bath water over his head, and again, until it seemed to him that he was completely enveloped in the flow of her, in her love, and he let his body go limp and let the warm water of her love wash over him. With the scent of her so close, magnified by the warm humidity of the air, he felt a stirring of desire, and tenderness. Surely, she loved him more than anyone did. Aside from his mother, she was the first and only woman who truly loved him. Moments of their life together flickered like distant stars in his mind. A book lying in the grass, open to the poem she had been reading. The look on her face as they walked on the beach one winter afternoon, their breaths feathery in the cold air, him holding her warm hand. Her shoulders under a web of sunlight their first morning. He wondered if she, too, remembered those moments, if they still remained in her memory against the years of their perfunctory existence together. Again, her smell, so close.
Carefully, he opened his eyes in the steamy light and saw her head and hair just above him, sweat on the skin of her neck. With a soapy arm, he pushed the sleeve of her robe up to the shoulder, so that he could see the little scar under her arm. “I love this,” he said, touching the place. “Can I have it?” She laughed. Then he pulled her down to him, ran his mouth along the sweat of her neck. She moaned as if she’d been wounded.
“When was the last time?” she whispered. She closed her eyes and reached for him in the water.
“I can’t remember.”
Her robe dropped to the floor, two drops of sweat slid between her breasts.
He began kissing her, using his tongue, starting at the neck, her shoulders, the undersides of her breasts, the soft curve of her belly, her thighs.
He flinched when she gripped his chest with her fingers, again when she bit his shoulder. “You aren’t numb there,” she mumbled, buried.
Then, leaning together over the bathroom counter. Sound drained from the room, the automobiles beyond the window, the telephones in the bedroom, even her panting, leaving only the digital numbers liquidly rising and falling, her nipples in the mirror. He cushioned his head on her white back.
And as he was leaning over her, happy in his brief oblivion, it occurred to him that now he could tell her everything that had happened on the train, because who could he tell if not her? And he would tell her about the way people were staring at him at the office, and about the new tingling in his feet. Yes, he could tell her everything because she truly did love him. Could she see how he struggled, how much responsibility he carried? But he was happy to take care of her, he was proud to take care of her, as long as she appreciated him. Couldn’t she spare just a little time from her antiques and her meetings and her house projects to compliment him now and then? It didn’t have to be every day, just now and then. Maybe now he could also tell her how he preferred not having the furniture constantly changing. It was a small thing. Did she believe that he never noticed having new tables and chairs every week? He would tell her everything, but he would do it gently and carefully, just as she had sponged him in small careful circles. Only let him think for a moment of how to begin. You have no idea of the burden I carry every day, he might say. But that was too vague and grandiose.
Then the telephones began ringing, and she slipped from underneath him and put on her robe and left to answer. By the time she returned, partly dressed, the moment had passed.
“That was Tess,” she said, helping him dry his hair. “There’s a meeting of the Boston Antiques Dealers’ Association tonight. I can’t believe I forgot.” She looked at her watch.
“You have to go.”
“I don’t want to go.” She kissed him on his bare shoulder and laid her head against his chest.
“The secretary has to be there.”
She put her arm around his waist. “Come with me.”
“I hate those meetings.”
She nodded and sighed. “I’ll leave your dinner in the oven. Have you made an appointment with a neurologist?”
“No,” he shouted, suddenly angry, surprised at his own voice. “No. And I’m not taking any suggestions from Henry. So please don’t say anything more to him about me. I’ll find myself a neurologist when I’m ready.”
She turned and put down the towel and looked away. “Both of us are on edge.”
“Do you think you can drive? I can take you.”
“I’m okay. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
After Melissa drove off and Bill had eaten and gone to his keyboard, he found that his anxieties had partly subsided. He could still feel the warm glow of his skin, smell the lemon shampoo in his hair, smell her on him. With an uncharacteristic impulse, he even permitted himself a half-glass of scotch. After the alcohol had filtered through his body, he felt even calmer. A pleasant breeze wafted through the open bedroom window. Then, with no further thoughts of his problem, aside from the necessity to peck with one finger, he began responding to his backlog of business from the day. So engrossed in his work did he become that at 9:30, when Olivia Cotter commenced to shout at her husband across the street, he hardly heard.
At 10:30, the letters and numbers began to dissolve on the screen and his head drooped back in his chair. He would have drifted off to sleep at that moment had he not been disturbed by the sound of an automobile grumbling down the street. Struggling to lift up his head, he squinted at the screen and reread his last memorandum. The lamp on the table had become a bright, burning eye. Melissa would be home soon. And Alex—did he remember his appointment tomorrow morning? Drowsily, Bill fumbled with the keyboard and entered his electronic mailbox. He would scroll through one more message before bed. It was from Alex, sent late that afternoon.
————————————
>>> MAIL 50.02.04 <<< From: ACHALM at AOL.COM
===> Received: from RING.NET.COM by NET.COM with GOTP
id AQ06498; Fri, 27 Jun 17:30:13 EDT
for
[email protected]; Fri, 27 June 17:31:41 –0400
Press * for message
>>> MAIL 50.02.04 <<< From: Alexander at AOL.COM Dear Dad,
I found a way to break the copy-protect lock of the Plato stuff and copy it into my preonsnal file. Isnt’ that totally cool!!! Brad says I should sell it. But I don’t want togo to jail or anything. I’m sending it just to you and Mom in the attached file. This is the second part. So far, I’m at $16.50 worth.
Love, Alex
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Bill began worrying whether Alex’s electronic copyright violation could be traced to their home. But his worries soon disappeared in the cottony ball of sleep that was enveloping him, and his thoughts drifted to the past. He was trying to remember the very last time he had hugged Alex, the exact moment of his life when he had decided that Alex was too old to hug. The exact moment. Now it was so hard to go back.
; He stared at the message from his son, trying to focus his eyes, and carried his laptop to the cushioned divan. As always, he found the divan completely uncomfortable, too short for him to lie down and too long to sit up. In the end, he collapsed in the middle with one leg sprawling over each side, the laptop resting on his stomach. His shoulders went slack, his head slumped back on the cushion. Then, with half-closed eyes, he looked sleepily at the screen.
Press return for the first line of the second section of Anytus. Press return for each successive paragraph. Return.
The uncommon grayness that swept over the city in late morning, causing the market to close early, hung overhead for the rest of the day, neither rupturing into the storm that the grain merchants predicted nor dissolving into the pellucid skies of the Aegean in spring.…
THE TANNERY
The uncommon grayness that swept over the city in late morning, causing the market to close early, hung suspended for the rest of the day, neither rupturing into the storm that the grain merchants predicted nor dissolving into the pellucid skies of the Aegean in spring. The darkness seeped into houses like gray liquid, absorbing all brightness in its path, and the air in the crooked streets of the city became sluggish and damp. But there was no rain. Following a period of holding its breath, the City of the Owl uneasily returned to its business. Torches were fired in the Prytaneum and the Tholos, where the councilors resumed their discussions. Oil lamps were lit in the dark houses. Slaves carried their bundles of pilchards and tuna, thrushes and quail into the flickering light while constantly glancing up at the sky.
In the commercial Stonecutters Quarter, where Anytus’s two-story stone tannery was crammed between private houses and shops, masons huddled in their shops waiting for rain. After no water from the sky was forthcoming, the wheels resumed grinding, filling the gray air with a fine chalky dust.