Look At Me_ A Novel Part 21

Originally, cows and sheep and pigs were herded through Chicago into railroad cars and taken to other cities to be butchered, but the animals lost weight on the trip.

"'Bro'?" Harris said, appealing to his wife. "From a kid this sick?" Harris said, appealing to his wife. "From a kid this sick?"

A disaster was mounting in Ricky. He turned to Charlotte and bawled, "Tell them!"

Then in the 1870s people started butchering the animals in slaughterhouses by the tracks, cutting them up and packing their parts in the railroad cars in pond ice ... ...

"Say it, Char!"

"He's not sick," she said, knowing it was a mistake. "He's well." And felt her brother relax beside her. There was silence in the room. "It's-it's just a thing we say," she said, nervous.

For a long moment, Harris just stared at her. "Wipe that look off your face," he said at last, "or you're excused."

"What look?" Charlotte asked.

"Harris, stop it," Ellen said.

Ah, there. At last, he'd done it-delivered his wife back into their midst-in perfect time for her to take Charlotte's side against him. Little piles of kudzu lay beside each plate; they had picked it from their salads without comment.

"That look," Harris told Charlotte, feeling an irrepressible twitch of rage. "The look you're wearing right now. Wipe that off or I'll ..." look," Harris told Charlotte, feeling an irrepressible twitch of rage. "The look you're wearing right now. Wipe that off or I'll ..."

"Stop it!" Ellen said.

He was standing up. Why was he standing up?

"That's not a look," Charlotte said, sounding tired. "It's my face."

The words lingered as she stood, carried her dishes to the sink and left the kitchen. They listened (Harris still standing) as she climbed the back stairs to her room. Almost immediately, Ricky bolted from the table and scrambled into her wake.

Standing by the half-empty dinner table, Harris experienced a wave of defeat.

"You're so brutal with her," Ellen said, not looking at him.

"She's arrogant."

"She's calm. It's her personality. And Ricky thrives on that."

Harris loaded the dishwasher, then returned to the table with a bottle of Chardonnay. Ellen hadn't moved. He poured the wine and watched her take a sip. "Ellen," he said. "I'm worried."

"About what?" She sounded afraid.

"You."

Now there were tears on her face-so many, as if they'd been waiting behind her eyes. "I'm fine," she sobbed.

"Tell me what to do," Harris said, leaning close, shaken by the intensity of her grief. "Tell me and I'll do it."

She shook her head. She was ready to tell him-she was! Her despair had an authority of its own, it demanded to be recognized. "Oh, Ellen," Gordon had finally said this afternoon, hardly meeting her eyes, "I'd love to, but." Like someone declining a dinner invitation. Smiling at her in edgy apology. He looked older, Ellen noticed then, tired around his mouth and eyes. And abruptly the time had presented itself-more than three years since they had last been together. Ellen had forgotten the length of time because for her, they hadn't been years of life so much as a dreadful hiatus from life. I'd love to, but. I'd love to, but. Embarra.s.sed for her because it was long over, their affair, and her query was so foolish. So inconvenient. Embarra.s.sed for her because it was long over, their affair, and her query was so foolish. So inconvenient.

"Three years is a long time," Ellen told Harris. It relieved her to say it, to lean against the truth in her husband's presence.

"It's a very long time," he rejoined eagerly. "The strain has been unbelievable. And it's not over, really, not until June."

"Not ever."

"That's not true," he said. "After a year his chances are excellent."

Upstairs, Charlotte waited for Ricky to come in her room. When he didn't, she opened his door and discovered him facedown on his bed, the floor beside him littered with crushed ten-dollar bills. "What's that?" she asked.

He looked up at her, his face grooved from the spread. "Money."

Charlotte came nearer the bed. When Ricky didn't move to let her sit, she squatted and picked up the bills, flattening them in a pile.

"What's that?" Ricky asked, and she frowned. "On your chest. What you keep touching."

Without realizing, she'd been fingering the amber bead through her sweater. "Nothing," she said. "A necklace." She left it there, out of sight. It hung between her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, as she now thought of them.

They eyed each other, Ricky waiting for Charlotte to take out the necklace and show it to him. She didn't. And then he didn't care. Severed from his Tony Hawk, he was slowly dying.

"Where were you?" Charlotte asked.

"Nowhere."

"Ricky," she said. "You won't tell?"

He turned upon her his blankest face, the face she'd taught him herself. "Tell you what," he said.

"Maybe the stars are out," Harris said. "Let's take a look."

Ellen pushed back her chair, her face wet. She was ready to do whatever Harris told her; some tiny flame of volition, of independence, had finally been snuffed. In three years, Ferdinand Magellan's crew had circ.u.mnavigated the globe for the first time in history, withstanding mutinies and supply shortages, teasing three s.h.i.+ps through a tortuous South American strait and then seeing Magellan killed in an internecine dispute in the Philippines. Three years was that long.

"I'll get our coats," Harris said.

Ellen waited in the empty kitchen. I'd love to, but. I'd love to, but. Even as Gordon spoke, the words had landed in her ears with a kind of echo. "I completely understand," she had answered-breezily, she thought. Hoped. And then she'd stood to go, surprising him. Maintaining her dignity, which was something. Even as Gordon spoke, the words had landed in her ears with a kind of echo. "I completely understand," she had answered-breezily, she thought. Hoped. And then she'd stood to go, surprising him. Maintaining her dignity, which was something.

Harris pulled the coat around Ellen's shoulders, took her hand and led her outdoors. She was afraid he would show her the constellations. He'd loved to do this when they first met, her soph.o.m.ore year at the University of Michigan, Harris twelve years older, in business school. And at nineteen, Ellen had relished touring the stars with her boyfriend, as if they were rooms in a mansion that one day she would own.

Tonight the sky was cloudy. Thank G.o.d.

Harris put his arm around his wife and pulled her close. There was so much he wanted to say. Courage! Look around you! The makings of happiness are before us! When Demographics in America first began to thrive, when he launched his focus groups of disenfranchised machine tool workers and reconstructed farmers, when the politicians started showing up, Ellen had been electrified. If all these people were coming to him here, she'd said-here in the middle of nowhere-imagine what would happen when they moved somewhere central! By then, Harris had glimpsed the truth that his wife still could not accept: this this was the center. This. The center of the world. The place everyone turned to learn what American voters and moviegoers and wors.h.i.+pers, investors and sports fans, dieters, parents, cooks, drivers, smokers, hospital patients, music lovers, home-builders, drinkers, gardeners really cared about. What they would buy, yearn for, dream of. Harris had those answers. Or knew how to find them. The Lord had given him this gift. was the center. This. The center of the world. The place everyone turned to learn what American voters and moviegoers and wors.h.i.+pers, investors and sports fans, dieters, parents, cooks, drivers, smokers, hospital patients, music lovers, home-builders, drinkers, gardeners really cared about. What they would buy, yearn for, dream of. Harris had those answers. Or knew how to find them. The Lord had given him this gift.

But to Ellen, they were merely back where she had started.

"This summer, let's go somewhere," Harris said. "Let's take a trip." He needed her. Needed her to look at him as she was doing now, for the first time tonight. When he woke in the middle of the night, his wife was always turned the other way. Harris would reach for her, seal her in his arms, but the next time he opened his eyes, she had always escaped.

"Africa," he said. "Asia."

She glanced at the sky. "It was supposed to snow."

"Ellen, look at me."

She did. She held his hand and looked up at him.

"Anywhere you want," Harris said.

As soon as it was quiet, Charlotte slipped from the house and pedaled madly through the cold. She looked for the moon, whose size she recorded occasionally in her notes. Tonight, a layer of violet clouds hid the sky, and the air trilled with flecks of ice.

His light was on. She pulled into the driveway on the quiet, ill-lit street, skimmed down it quickly and softly and knocked on the back door. He opened it, scanning the yard while she stepped past him into the kitchen. The shades were down.

"How are you?" he asked, his accent always most audible in those first words, when he hadn't spoken in a while. Charlotte had given up asking where it came from.

"I'm good," she said.

He poured her a gla.s.s of juice and sat across the table from her, sipping his Bud, watching her with his strange dark eyes. "Tell me what you did today," he said, and Charlotte told him: a trigonometry test (what kinds of problems? he wanted to know, compet.i.tive with Mr. Marx, her math teacher). The fight at dinner, a short version because she didn't want to think about it-she was here to forget it. She told him everything except about seeing Uncle Moose, whom she never mentioned.

She left her chair and came to him, kissing his mouth, relis.h.i.+ng the sense of being taller, kissing down. If he smiles, then he loves me. If he kisses back then he If he smiles, then he loves me. If he kisses back then he but this was just habit, tiny corroborations of what she already knew. but this was just habit, tiny corroborations of what she already knew.

He'd given her the amber necklace. Three nights after Christmas, pushed it into her palm while she slept so Charlotte woke to find it there, balled up and warm, a little sticky.

She kissed him, and Michael felt her pulse in his mouth, all that young, fresh blood lifting itself to him, rousing him from his torpor. At times he was hypnotized by the power of this release. Holding Charlotte's face, he came as near as he ever did, anymore, to feeling the rage he so desperately missed, rage and desire commingled; he imagined snapping her neck, crus.h.i.+ng her skull between his palms, and the eroticism of that vision made him catch his breath. She had died a hundred different ways at his hands, but what he did instead was pull off her s.h.i.+rt and her clothes and do it that way, kill her as many times as she could take it.

He carried her upstairs, bouncing her in his arms to demonstrate her lightness. Charlotte heard the whistle of a train, a last vestige of that network that had revolutionized the world, cars loaded with grain or beef packed in ice cut from frozen ponds, butchered parts neatly stacked. Michael set her facedown on his bed, took her hips in his hands and eased himself inside her from behind. Charlotte held very still while he moved, while he did everything, finding all the parts of her until she moaned and thrashed in his hands, and then he turned her onto her back and began again, mercilessly, ready, the veiled tails of fish flinging shadows on the walls. She looked at his face, his dark eyes fixed on her or was it something behind her (she could never tell). He moved with absolute concentration, his breathing measured and slow, and she flailed against him, trying to get away, but he wasn't done with her yet, he could make it happen again and again until she hardly breathed. He wanted her spent, limp beneath him, and only when she was empty, her heart almost stopped, her head a can of broken thoughts, only then did he release himself with a quiet that astonished Charlotte, his body convulsing for whole minutes, it seemed, but soundlessly, like someone being electrocuted. Afterward he held very still, recovering himself, then withdrew slowly and pulled off the condom, dropped it in a basket he kept by the bed for that purpose, uncoiled his body and lay beside Charlotte as she dangled near sleep. His eyes open. She had never seen him even doze.

When the girl's modest weight grew heavier beside him, Michael pulled on his jeans and a sweater and went noiselessly downstairs in his bare feet to the living room, where he'd moved the TV after her nocturnal visits had begun. He turned it on. A shopping channel. Smiling blonde in magenta sweater. Michael relaxed slightly, letting himself drift among the images. "You can wear this all by itself or drape the cardigan over it." Drape. You can drape the cardigan.... You can drape the cardigan.... He murmured the words to himself, memorizing. He murmured the words to himself, memorizing.

Because even now, with no conspiracy to fight, no plan or mission or any idea, really, what to do next, the apparatus of infiltration was still alive in him, operating with an efficiency and an independence Michael was coming to find grotesque. He was a machine of adaptation, listening, memorizing, his mind gnawing like a ma.s.s of termites at the heft of all he didn't know.

He went to the kitchen, took a beer from the refrigerator and swallowed half while staring at the kitchen shade, wondering if he was developing a resistance to alcohol or had simply ceased to notice its effects.

Then he heard something faint, tinkling. A barely discernible crackle. It seemed to come from everywhere at once; Michael wondered at first if it was happening inside him.

He pushed open the back door. And there, in the light from the kitchen, he saw thousands of soft white plummeting spots. Snow. He stared, amazed to find that it looked exactly as he'd imagined, like snow in a picture. He stepped outside and a soft cold layer stung his bare feet. He breathed in frozen splotches as he tipped back his head to look up at the trillions of feathery shadows hurtling toward him through the streetlight. He felt them on his face, in his eyelashes. They melted and ran down his neck.

For years he'd made such a common, stupid mistake: a.s.sumed the world was full of people like himself-conspirators-failing to consider that his several lives would have been impossible in such a place. He'd credited his light skin and chameleon face, his ease with languages and ability to germinate doc.u.ments; his instinct for plotting a few coordinates of knowledge onto a vast, alien landscape and waiting for the strands of connection to form and proliferate, until eventually his ignorance would fragment, fall away like an island dissolving into the sea. The difference between not knowing and knowing was so slight. One fact.

But he owed his survival to none of that. Michael saw this now, tilting back his head, letting the snow ache in his eyes. He owed it to faith: other people's faith, which in most cases was so powerful that the most gigantic a.s.sumption-you were the person you claimed to be-was one they accepted at the outset.

Faith. Of all things.

It wasn't that people weren't bad. But if they were bad alone, there was no way to stop them efficiently. If the badness worked through them, then they, too, were its victims.

His feet ached, his hair was caked with snow. He opened the door and went back inside. Screen door. Formica table. Linoleum floor. Screen door. Formica table. Linoleum floor. Memorizing. Memorizing.

In the living room, he drove his cold feet into the cus.h.i.+ons of the couch and turned to a cooking show. A bearded man making crepes. "Let a small amount of batter spread evenly over the pan, and keep the flame under control." Batter. Flame. Control. Batter. Flame. Control. Michael memorized the crepe-maker's technique. Michael memorized the crepe-maker's technique.

He must have dozed, because when he heard the girl come downstairs, the TV displayed a family of baboons gnawing leaves. "Homer, like any kid, makes a mess of his meal," a narrator said.

"What time is it?" she asked, her small, warm hand on his neck.

He tilted back his head to look at her. She was wearing one of his s.h.i.+rts. Michael encouraged this; for a day or two, the s.h.i.+rt would retain the smell of the lotion she wore. It reminded him of the sea. "Four," he said.

"I better go."

He followed her upstairs and watched her dress. The fish danced in their bowl. He found himself looking at them often as he went to sleep, just as she had instructed. And he slept well.

"Did you see?" she asked, pointing out the window at the snow.

"I saw."

In her tennis shoes she bounced down the stairs, Michael behind her. "Whoops," she said. "My gla.s.ses."

They were on the windowsill, beside the fish. Michael retrieved them and slipped them onto himself. He hadn't realized how terrible her eyes were, everything running together in a way that made a pain in the center of his head. "Is this what you see, without them?" he asked, emerging from the bedroom.

She stood on the stairs, laughing up at him. "Now you really look like a teacher."

An idea: clear gla.s.ses. He'd used them at other times. But whom was he trying to deceive, and for what reason?

In the kitchen she went straight to the freezer. Waffles, her favorite. He'd bought real maple syrup, but she preferred the fake kind.

"I'm making one for you," she said, dropping two into the toaster.

"No," Michael said, and pulled one out. "I had lunch at McDonald's." It relieved him, somehow, to say it.

"Lunch," she said, puzzled. "That was yesterday."

He smiled. It was true, lunch was yesterday. He raised the shade, watching the snow spin through the light on his neighbor's house. "You can ride your bike in this?" he asked.

"Of course!"

"You won't fall?"

"Please."

She pulled the waffle from the toaster with two fingers, dropped it onto a plate, b.u.t.tered it and poured syrup on top. He sat beside her at the table, dreading the vacancy she would leave behind. Often he heard a thrumming sound-the whir of emptiness-and felt the possibility of panic moving inside him. But he hadn't panicked yet. Never in his life.

"One bite," Charlotte said, and held out a forkful of waffle.

He shook his head. He had covered the overhead bulb with a big round globe that filled the kitchen with feathery light.

If he eats the waffle.

"Come on," she said, raising the fork to his mouth. He smelled the b.u.t.ter, the syrup. "Open up."

Chapter Twelve.