Voice of our Shadow Page 15

  "– I decided to come over here and cook because –"

  "India?"

  "– and I knew . . . What, Joey? Is the Great Silent One going to say something?"

  I put a hand on each of her shoulders and held her tight. "India, I'm back. I'm here. Take it easy, pal."

  "What do you mean, take it easy?" She stopped with her mouth halfway open. She shivered as if the cold outside had pierced her. The basting brush she'd been holding in her hand fell to the floor. "Oh, Joe, I was so afraid you wouldn't come back."

  "I'm here."

  "Yes, you really are. Hello, pulcino."

  "Hello, India."

  We smiled, and she dropped her head to her chest. She shook it from side to side, and I gripped her more tightly.

  "I'm home, India." I said it softly, a good night to a child you're tucking in.

  "You're a good man, Joey. You didn't have to come back."

  "Let's not talk about it. I'm here."

  "Okay. How about some chicken?"

  "I'm ready."

  Our meal went well; by the time we'd finished, both of us were much happier. I told her about New York, but not about Karen. That was for some other time.

  "Let me see how you look. Stand up."

  She checked me out carefully, reminding me of someone looking over a used car before they bought it.

  "You're not any fatter, God knows, but your face looks good. New York did you good, huh? How do I look? Like Judith Anderson with a tan, right?"

  I sat down and picked up my wineglass. "You look . . . I don't know, India. You look the way I thought you would."

  "And how's that?"

  "Tired. Scared."

  "Bad, huh?"

  "Yeah, kind of bad."

  "I thought the tan would hide me." She shoved back from the table and put her napkin over her head. It covered her eyes completely.

  "India?"

  "Don't bother me now. I'm crying."

  "India, do you want to tell me about what's been happening or do you want to wait a while?" I pulled the napkin away and saw her eyes were wet.

  "Why did I make you come back? What good will it do? I couldn't get Paul; I couldn't talk with him. He came and he came and he came, and each time there was a moment when I actually had the guts to say, 'Wait, Paul. Listen to me!' But it was so stupid. So fucking stupid."

  I took her hand, and she squeezed mine in a scared vise.

  "Everything is shit, Joe. He won't go away. He's having so goddamned much fun. What can I do? Joey, what am I going to do?"

  I spoke as gently as I could. "What have you done so far?"

  "Everything. Nothing. Gone to a palmist. A medium. Read books. Prayed." She brushed the air with her hand, dismissing it all with a contemptuous wave. "India Tate, ghost hunter."

  "I don't know what to say to you."

  "Say, 'India, here I am back with a million answers to every one of your questions.' Say, Til kick out the ghosts and I'll warm up your bed again, and just ask me 'cause I'm your Answer Man.' " She looked at me sadly, knowing my answer even before I gave it.

  "The sun is ninety-three million miles from the earth. The pitcher's mound is ninety-feet from home plate. Carol Reed directed The Third Man. How are those for answers?"

  She picked up a fork and tapped me on the back of the hand with it. "You're a jerk, Joe, but you're a nice jerk. Can I ask a favor?"

  I'm not an intuitive person, but this time I knew what she was going to say before she said it. I was right.

  "Can we go to bed?" As if she knew I'd hesitate, she didn't wait for an answer. Getting up from the table, she moved toward the bedroom door without looking at me. "Leave the lights on in here. I don't like to think of the house dark these days."

  That last sentence struck me hard, and still not knowing what I'd do when I got there, I followed her.

  On the plane I'd resolved not to sleep with India when I returned. A private promise to myself to remain true to Karen, however sophomoric that seemed. I felt that, if I kept that promise, somehow Karen would know or sense it in that profound and mysterious way women are capable of sensing things, and it would reassure her when we got back together again. I didn't know when that reunion would take place, but I was sure it would.

  The familiar glow of the familiar lamp in that familiar room. India was taking two small brown combs out of her hair and had already unbuttoned the top brass button of her jeans. I could see the top line of white on her underpants. I stood in the doorway and tried not to watch or respond to the casual sensuality of her actions. For a moment, while her arms were raised high and angled over her head, she stopped and looked at me with a combination of desire and hope that made her look sixteen years old and open to everything in the world. How unfair! It wasn't right for her to show me this side of her when all I wanted to do was help, not love, her. I felt the pulse in my throat and was scared by the extravagance of my heart's response.

  "You look as if you swallowed a clam shell. Are you all right?"

  "Yes, but I have to go to the bathroom."

  "Uh huh." She was already back into the private motions of undressing and seemed to have barely heard me. I was grateful for that, because I needed time to break the uncertain spell she had cast.

  I had only just clicked on the light in the toilet when she screamed.

  The first thing I saw was her standing by the side of the bed in only her white panties, looking down. Her breasts were so much older than Karen's.

  She had pulled the bedspread back. Laid carefully in a row were many centerfolds from Playboy magazine. The vaginas of the women had been cut out, and in their place were faces: old men, children, dogs . . . All of them were smiling with the greatest glee. Written somewhere on each picture in big crude letters was WELCOME HOME, JOE! GOOD TO HAVE YOU BACK WITH US!

  4

  The Viennese, who are old hands at snow in the Austrian mountains, seemed dismayed that it had come to visit them in town, particularly in such abundance. Children and a few slow-moving cars owned the streets. While looking out the window, I saw both a man and his dog slip and fall down at the same time. Every few hours the snowplows tried to bully the snow out of the way, but it was useless.

  India stayed with me that night, but I did no more than hold her in my arms and try to calm her. At her insistence I took the pictures off the bed and burned each to a gray-violet crisp in the sink before washing the ashes down the drain.

  The next morning the sun shone weakly for a few hours, but by midmorning the sky had clouded over, and it was snowing hard again by the time we reached the street.

  "I want to walk for a while. Can we walk?" She was holding my arm and watching where our feet went. With every step her high rubber boots disappeared up to the calf in the white.

  "Sure, but I think it'd be better if we walked in the street."

  "I don't know why, but I feel a lot better today. Maybe it's just being outside." She looked at me, and her eyes, straining to be happy and unconcerned, asked that I agree. The complete whiteness of the world did calm some of the violence of the night before. But I had a strong feeling that no matter what we did or where we went, we were being watched.

  India reached down and took a handful of snow. She tried to pat it into a ball, but it was too fresh and light to stay together.

  "Old snow is best for that."

  We were standing in the middle of the street, and I kept looking around for cars. "India, are we going to walk or what?"

  "I'm pretending this interests me so I can avoid asking why you didn't make love to me last night."

  "Last night? Are you nuts?"

  "I wanted you to."

  "Even after all that?"

  "Because of all that, Joey."

  "But, India, he . . . he might've been there."

  "Too bad. I wanted you."

  "Come on. Let's walk."

  She dropped the snow and looked at me. "You know what? You held me as if I were dying of the plague."

  "
Stop it!" My embarrassment turned to anger. The kind of anger that comes when you know you're to blame but don't want to admit it.

  "You said he might've been in the room. But you know what, Joe? He's been in the room for months. You know what it's like to have him there for months? It's shit, Joe. And, God, I wanted you back. If you came back, so what if he was there? Months, Joe. Live alone with him for months like this and then ask me why I wanted you last night. He's everywhere now; there's nowhere to hide. So take me and let him see us. I don't care."

  What could I say? Better to explain it all, tell her about Karen, so at least she'd have a concrete answer? There are so many different ways to fail a person. Answer this question honestly, thereby hitting her again after she'd already been hit so many times? Keep quiet and add to the confusion, her valid fear that she was almost entirely alone now in the battle against her dead husband? Standing there, helpless, I felt the weight of her need, and I came close to hating her for it.

  My heart was beating like an angry dog's, and I was so overdressed against the snow that I felt hot and bound in by all my clothes. If I'd had three wishes, I'd have rolled them into one and asked to be sitting in a Chock Full o'Nuts in New York, drinking coffee and eating doughnuts with Karen. That's what owned my mind then – coffee and doughnuts with Karen.

  The year before he died, Ross had a girlfriend named Mary Poe. She was a tough babe who smoked two packs a day and had the longest fingernails I'd ever seen in my life. She'd been Bobby's girl for a while, but it hadn't worked out, and Ross'd inherited her. Between cigarettes, she laughed a lot and hung on Ross like tinsel on a Christmas tree. After they'd gone out for a few months, however, Ross grew tired of her and tried to end the relationship. It turned out to be one of the few times I ever saw my brother completely confused, because no matter what he did, she would not go away. He stopped calling her, wouldn't go near her at school, and for spite started dating her best friend. That didn't stop Mary. The crueler he got, the more she pursued him. She knitted him two sweaters and a pair of gloves (which he ceremoniously burned in front of her at school one day), called at least once a night, and sent him letters so drowned in Canoe cologne that our mailbox began to smell like a whore's handkerchief. At one particularly desperate point, he halfheartedly threatened to kill her, but she shrugged and said she was already dead without him. Luckily, in the end she found someone else, and Ross vowed he would never get involved with girls again.

  Why I bring all this up is that I remember the scared, trapped look he used to get whenever the phone rang at night during that time. As India and I trudged down the silent, abandoned street that morning, I felt the same "no exit" way, only a hundred times worse because of Paul's immanence.

  "Let's go in here for a coffee, Joe. My toes just went into shock."

  It was midmorning, but because of the snow, the cafй was almost empty. A tired-looking old man sat with a glass of white wine in a corner, a chow dog asleep at his feet under the table.

  We ordered, and the waiter, happy to have something to do, rushed behind the counter to get it.

  Things were uncomfortably silent; I got so desperate for some kind of noise I was about to tell India a dumb joke, when the door opened and a big fat man came in with a dachshund right behind him. The chow took one look at them and leapt to attention, barking. The dachshund marched right over to the chow and nipped him on the leg. India gasped, but the big dog loved it. He jumped back and started hopping around, barking all the time. The dachshund took two steps forward and nipped him again. The two owners watched it all with big smiles on their faces.

  India crossed her arms and shook her head. "What is this, the zoo?"

  "I just noticed the dachshund's a girl."

  India laughed. "That's the answer. Maybe if I bite Paul, he'll go away."

  "Or at least he'll baric at you."

  "Yeah." She stretched both arms over her head and, smiling, looked at me. "Joe, I'm being really stupid. I apologize. Maybe it's my way of paying you a compliment."

  "How so?"

  "Maybe I had so much faith in you I thought once you returned, everything would immediately be all right again, like I said last night, you know? Did you ever get that feeling about a person? That they can fix anything as soon as they get their hands on it? Yeah, that's what it was. I thought your return would send those bogeymen way the hell away."

  "Bogeyman."

  "Yeah, singular. One at a time, huh? Let's go. This place is beginning to sound like Born Free."

  The rest of the day went well as we roamed around town, relishing the feeling that the whole place belonged entirely to us and the snow. We went shopping in the First District, and she bought me a crazy-looking T-shirt at the Fiorucci store.

  "When am I supposed to wear it?"

  "Not when, Joe, where? It's the ugliest shirt I've seen since Paul's Hawaiian disaster." She said it as if he were only a step away, and I recalled for an instant all the good times we'd had together in the fall.

  As time went on, I noticed how often both of us spoke of him in loving and nostalgic ways. India didn't want to talk about what he'd done to her while I was away in New York, but the days of Paul alive were always fresh and near to her, and I truly liked being swept back to the days of our joint happiness.

  The snow held on for a few more days, and then one of those weird, spectacularly warm and sunny spells came and erased most traces of winter. I'm probably one of the few people who don't like that kind of weather. It's false; you walk around looking suspiciously at the sky, sure that any minute now all snowy hell will break loose. But people started wearing light coats and sat with their faces to the sun in parks on the still-damp benches. Horse-drawn carriages were full of smiling tourists, and I knew when they got home they'd rave about Vienna and its marvelous winter weather.

  The one thing I did like about it was the change it brought in India. She was suddenly gay and full of life again. Although my longing for Karen deepened by the day, being around India again reminded me why I had been so attracted to her from the beginning. At her best, she radiated a supremely clever and interesting life-view that made you want to know her opinion on everything. Whether it was a painting by Schiele or the difference between Austrian and American cigarettes, what she had to say made you either sit up and take notice or else hate yourself for never having had the intelligence or imagination to see it that way yourself. So many times I wondered what would have happened to us if I hadn't met Karen. But I had, and she now monopolized my capacity to love.

  I thought about her constantly and, mustering my courage one Saturday night, called her in New York. While the phone rang, I moved through her apartment in my mind, an affectionate camera stopping here and there to focus in on things I liked or felt particularly nostalgic about. She wasn't in. I feverishly figured out the time difference and felt a little better when I realized I'd miscalculated – it was only a little after one in the afternoon there. I tried again later, but still no answer. It made me groan with doubt and jealousy; I knew if I called again and she wasn't there, my heart would break. I called India instead and asked in a sad voice if she wanted to go to the movies.

  When we got to the theater we discovered the film didn't start for fifteen minutes; I was all for taking a slow walk around the block to kill time. When I moved to go, India took my arm and held me there.

  "What's up?"

  "I don't want to go tonight."

  "What? Why?"

  "Don't ask why, I just don't want to go, okay? I changed my mind."

  "India –"

  "Because this theater reminds me of Paul, all right? It reminds me of the night we all met here. It reminds me of –" She whirled around and walked away. She stumbled once and then strode forward, widening the gap between us with every step.

  "India, wait! What are you doing?"

  She kept moving. Trying to catch up with her, I noticed out of the corner of my eye an ad in a travel agency window for a trip to New York.

&
nbsp; "India, for godsake, will you stop!"

  She did, and I almost bumped smack into her. When she turned, the tears on her face shone, reflecting the white lights from a store window. I realized I didn't want to know why she was crying. I didn't want to know what new thing I had done wrong, or in what new way I had failed her.

  "Can't you see he's everywhere in this town? Everywhere I turn, everything I see . . . Even you remind me of him."

  She was off again, with me trailing after her like a bodyguard.

  She crossed a couple of streets and entered a small park. It was dimly lit; a bronze statue in the middle was our only companion. She stopped, and I stood facing her back a few feet away. Neither of us moved for some time. Then I saw the dog.

  It was a white boxer. I remember someone once telling me that breeders often kill white boxers when they're born because they're freaks, mistakes of nature. I sort of liked them and enjoyed seeing such funny yet brutal faces the color of clouds.

  The dog came from nowhere and gleamed, a moving patch of snow in the night. It was alone and had no collar or muzzle on. India hadn't moved. I watched it sniff its way over to us. When it was only a few feet away, it stopped and looked directly at us.

  "Matty!" She sucked in breath and grabbed my arm. "It's Matty!"

  "Who? What are you talking about?" The tone of her voice made me scared, but I had to know what she was saying.

  "It's Matty. Matterhorn! Paul's dog in London. We gave him away when we moved here. We had to because – Matty! Matty, come here!"

  He started moving again: in the bushes, on the walk, across the flower bed. In the dark he glowed and moved busily, doing dog's business. He was huge. He must have weighed over eighty pounds.

  "Matty! Come!" She bent down. He came right toward her, wiggling and whimpering like a puppy.

  "India, be careful. You don't know –"

  "Shut up. So what?" She looked at me with eyes as mad as fire.

  The dog heard the change in her tone of voice and stopped dead, two feet away. It looked at India and then at me.

  "Matty!"