Voice of our Shadow Page 9

  "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.

  6

  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.

  The coffee tasted like cold acid in my mouth. She finished the story sitting at the other end of the couch, looking straight ahead at the wall.

  "He had high blood pressure. A couple of years ago a doctor told him he should start exercising if he wanted to be safe." She turned to me, a hard metal line of smile on her lips. "You know what? The last time he went to a doctor they said his blood pressure was way down."

  "India, did he tell you what happened at the Hilton that day?"

  She nodded. "Little Boy?"

  "Yes."

  "You think his finding out about us did this to him?"

  "I don't know, India."

  "Me neither, Joe."

  Paul was buried three days later in a small cemetery that fronted one of the vineyards in Heiligenstadt. He had discovered the place while on a Sunday walk and had made India promise that if he died in Vienna, she would try to have him buried there. He said he liked the view – ornate stone and cast-iron markers with a backdrop of hills and grapevines. Way at the top, Schloss Leopoldsberg and the green beginnings of the Wienerwald.

  I knew some of the people at the service. A big bear of a man from Yugoslavia named Amir who loved to cook and who had the Tates over to dinner at least once a month. A few people from Paul's office, and a handsome black teacher from one of the international schools who pulled up in a bright-orange Porsche convertible. But I was surprised there weren't more. I kept looking at India to see if she was fully aware of the meager turnout. She wore no hat, and her hair blew light and free in the wind. Her face showed nothing but a kind of closed harmony. She later told me she was aware only of her grief and the last moments with her husband.

  The weather was fine and sunny; for a few moments the sun cheerfully reflected off a polished gravestone nearby. Except for an occasional car and the crunch of gravel underfoot, it was quiet. A stillness you were hesitant to upset because, when you did, the glass around the moment might shatter and Paul Tate would truly and forever be gone, and we would soon be leaving him.

  That's what I'd thought the two previous times I'd been to funerals – how you leave and "they" stay. Like someone seeing you off at the train. As it's pulling out of the station and you're waving goodbye to them from the window, inevitably they seem to diminish in size. Not only because you're moving and the physical distance is shrinking them, but because they're still there. You're bigger because you're off and away to something new, while they're shrinking because now they'll go home to the same lunches, television shows, dog, ink, and view from the living room window.

  I turned from thoughts of Paul to how India was taking it. She was holding her purse to her chest and looking up at the sky. What did she see there? I wondered if she was looking for heaven. Then she closed her eyes and lowered her head slowly. She hadn't cried at all that day, but how long could she hold out? I took a step toward her; she must have heard my feet on the gravel, because she turned and looked at me. Simultaneously, two very strange things happened. First, instead of seeming on the verge of tears or some kind of violent emotion, she looked, well, bored. That in itself was disconcerting, but then, an instant later, her face broke into a glorious smile, the kind that comes only when something wonderful happens to you for no reason at all. It was good I didn't have to say anything, because I would have been speechless.

  The minister from the English church finished his "ashes-to-ashes" litany. I had no idea what connection he had to the Tates. He evidently hadn't known Paul, because he spoke in a professionally sympathetic voice that had neither warmth nor sadness in it. The interesting thing to me was that he had the same name as the priest in my hometown – the man who'd delivered the funeral services for both Ross and my mother.

  When everything was done, I waited while the people said their last words to India. She looked fine; once again I had to admire how strong and sure she was, notwithstanding the smile of a few minutes before. She was not the kind of woman who would self-indulgently fall into her sadness and never reemerge. Death was forever and horrible, but its force didn't own her as it did so many others in the same situation. I knew the difference, too, because I had seen Ross's death drown my mother in its undertow. Now, watching India walk toward me, I could see that would never happen to her.

  "Take me home, Joe?" The wind gusted, and a drift of her hair blew across her face. Although I had expected her to ask, I still felt touched and honored that she wanted me with her then. I took her arm, and she pulled it tight to her side. For a moment I felt the curve and hardness of one of her ribs on the back of my hand.

  "I thought it was an okay service. Didn't you? At least it was harmless."

  "Yes, you're right. I think those Diane Wakoski poems were lovely."

  "Yeah, well, she was Paul's favorite."

  The Yugoslav passed and asked if we wanted a ride into town. India said thanks but she wanted to walk for a while, we'd catch the tram a few blocks away. I'd assumed she'd want to go by cab, but I said nothing. When he was gone, we were the only ones left in the cemetery.

  "Do you know how they bury people in Vienna, Joe?" She stopped on the gravel path and turned so she was looking down one of the short, orderly rows of grave markers.

  "How do you mean?"

  "It's not like in America, see? I'm a big expert on it now. Ask me anything. In the States you buy yourself a little plot of ground – your very own piece, right? – and it's yours forevermore. Not here, baby. You know what happens in merry old Wien? You rent a place for ten years. That's right, no kidding! You rent a plot in the cemetery for ten years, and then you have to pay on it again when the time's up or else they'll exhume you. Dig you right back up. One of the guys here told me some graveyards are so popular that even if you keep making your rent payments, they still dig you up after about forty years so someone else can rest in peace for a while. Oh, shit!"

  I looked at her; she looked sick and tired of the world. I squeezed her arm and accidentally bumped into the softness of her breast. She didn't seem to notice.

  "I know what I'll do, Joe." She started crying and wouldn't look at me. Staring straight ahead, she kept walking. "After ten years here, you and I will get Paul and we'll move him to a brand-new graveyard! A new place in the sun. Maybe we'll get a mobile home and have it fitted out for him. Move him around all the time. He'll be the best-traveled body in town." She shook her head; the tears flew away from her face. The only sounds in the world were her high heels hitting the pavement and the short gasps for breath.

  All the way home on the tram she held my hand tightly and looked at the floor. The crying had flushed her face, but it had begun to pale again by the time we reached her stop. I tugged gently on her arm. For the first time she looked from the floor to me.

  "Are we here? Would you mind sticking around, Joe? Do you mind coming home with me for a while?"

  "Selbstverstдndlich."

  "Joey, I hate to tell you this, but you speak German like Colonel Klink on Hogan's Heroes."

  "Oh, yeah?"

  "Yeah. Come on, let's get out of
here."

  The tram glided to a stop. We descended the steep metal steps to the street. I took her arm again, and she pulled it to her side. I remembered the time I'd watched the Tates walk away from me at the Cafй Landtmann. She had held Paul's arm that way, too.

  "How did you feel after your brother's death?"

  I swallowed and bit my lip. "Do you want to know the truth?"

  She stopped and drilled me with one of her looks. "Will you tell me the truth?"

  "Of course, India. How did I feel? Good and bad. Bad because he was gone and because he had been so much a part of my life up to that point. Big brothers really are important to you when you're young."

  "I believe you. So where did you get off feeling good? Where did that come from?"

  "Because kids are omnivorous in their greed. You said so yourself, remember? Yes, I was sorry he was gone, but now I could have his room and his desk, his football and the Albanian flag I'd always coveted."

  "Were you really like that? I don't believe it. I thought you said you were such a good little kid."

  "India, I don't think I was any different from most boys or girls that age. Ross had been bad for so long that he owned almost all of my parents' attention. Now all of a sudden I was about to get that attention. It's terrible to say, but you said you wanted to hear the truth."

  "Do you think it was bad to feel that way?"

  We reached the door to her building, and she went digging around in her pocketbook for her keys. I ran my hand lightly down the row of plastic buzzers.

  "Was I bad? Sure, I was a nasty little rat. But I think that's the way most kids are. People are so indifferent to them so much of the time, because they're kids, they just naturally grab for whatever they can get. People pay attention to children the way they do to dogs – once in a while they kiss and hug and smother them with a thousand presents, but it's all over in two seconds, and then the grownups want them out of there."