Alice Hoffman Page 7

  After a moment, Nina saw me through the glass. I think she opened her mouth. She was gulping down air, in a panic. I thought of Death, unable to take those who were turned from him. I did exactly that. I quickly turned my back to her. Perhaps I could pretend I hadn’t seen her. Perhaps she could pretend as well. Wasn’t that the way most people went about their lives? Put it in a box, tie it up tight, walk away. Please, oh please, let’s do.

  In the living room the students were devouring the refreshments. Who would have expected them to be so hungry? French bread, cheeses, white snowy berries that were most likely strawberries, punch, champagne, plenty of beer. The guests were cheerful — not gloomy and serious, as I had expected. Weren’t they all researching the end of the known universe, the end of the numerical continuum, continually trying to make sense out of columns of figures that refused to cooperate? Shouldn’t these students be glum, desperate? Shouldn’t they realize what little sense there was to be made of this world?

  “Your brother always gives the best parties,” someone said to me. I suppose that was a compliment. I found it surreal. I had never seen my brother speak at length to another person besides Nina and the funeral director in New Jersey when we were planning my grandmother’s funeral. Pine box, small gathering, white flowers that looked like a snowbank. I hadn’t known this part of him, just as I hadn’t know of his interest in fairy tales.

  “You’re leaving?” Ned caught up to me as I headed for the front door.

  Perhaps I’d never known him, and only thought I had. “Lovely party, but I don’t belong here. Look at them all.

  I barely speak their language. Math and science. I do not fit in.”

  “Library science,” my brother reminded me.

  We both laughed. Had we ever done that before?

  “Well, you seem much improved.” Ned sounded hopeful. I hated when he did that.

  “Seems that way.”

  My brother looked at me carefully. “Meaning?”

  I wanted to say, meaning Death is not standing at my feet, not at the moment at any rate, not right now. I was thinking about the volume of fairy tales on the shelf. I wanted to ask Ned what else there was I didn’t know about him. Instead, I said, “Meaning yes. Sure. I’m improved. But you look like crap.”

  My brother ran a hand through what was left of his hair.

  “Probably a gift from our father. Baldness.”

  “I think you inherit that gene from your mother. You look skinny, too. Maybe you’re the one who should go to the doctor.”

  “I have to say, I’m glad you came to the party.” My brother seemed genuinely happy I was there. “I know you don’t like these kinds of gatherings.”

  “I didn’t want to be rude.”

  “Really? That never stopped you before.”

  I could see through the crowd into the kitchen. Nina was back. She had shaken off whatever had possessed her in the garden and was now serving punch to the students.

  “Thank Nina for me, will you?”

  “Will do.” My brother looked behind him. Nina waved to him across the room. “Lucky me,” he said, and waved back.

  I drove home, if that’s what my rented cottage could be called. I let the cat out and drank a tall glass of whiskey and fell asleep on the couch. The quiet was overwhelming. I liked to be alone, or so I’d always thought. I fell asleep quickly; I was drunk, I suppose, exhausted in some deep way. I dreamed that my sister-in-law was a butterfly. I dreamed my grandmother was sweeping the floor. I dreamed I reached into a dark bucket of water and felt fish swim through my fingers; the coldness of that water turned to heat and rose up my arms, through my bloodstream, up to my chest.

  There was a knock on my door, and in my dreams I turned from the bucket too quickly and tipped it over. Water spilled on the floor, one drop at a time. Clear and then white and then red. That’s the way truth always surfaces in fairy tales, written in glass, in snow, in blood. As I came to consciousness I had a feeling of dread, the way I had on the morning after my mother’s accident. You can be betrayed in your sleep. The whole world can tilt while you’re dreaming of butterflies.

  I was still in the confines of my dreamworld as I went to the door. Rats, cats, bats, any of them might find their way up the path. I felt true panic. It was a feeling I remembered wholly. Go back to bed, it’s too dark, it’s too icy, it’s too late.

  I was relieved to find that my caller was only a delivery-man, bringing me a cardboard box of flowers. I laughed and had him wait while I went to find my purse. I tipped him ten dollars, extravagant for me.

  Giselle came running in, something in her mouth.

  “You’ve got a little hunter,” the deliveryman declared.

  “Oh, lovely.”

  Two little paws hung out of the cat’s jaws.

  A murderess. The perfect pet for me.

  A trail of blood dripped onto the floor as the cat trotted by. I couldn’t see the color, but I remembered it. I had hoped to see the feathers of some nasty crow or the whiskers of a rat, but instead Giselle dropped one of the moles she was always waiting for beside the hedges. Blind, and soft as a glove, helpless. Caught at last.

  Before I went over to deal with the mess, I lifted the cover of the box of flowers. Roses. Right away, I called to the deliveryman to ask what color they were.

  He laughed, then saw I was serious.

  “Color-blind,” I explained.

  The deliveryman was young and apologetic. “Sorry, I thought you were kidding. They’re red.”

  But they were white to me, as my admirer knew they would be. The duality of the gift amused me, but it also frightened me. One visit and Lazarus Jones thought he knew me. Fairy tales are riddles, and people are riddles, too. Figure one out and he’s yours forever, whether he likes it or not.

  Giselle was hovering over her prey in a corner; I shooed her away with a newspaper.

  “Go on! Leave it alone!”

  The cat had played her part, but the game seemed all wrong. The mole was curled up like a leaf. I sat down and when the poor little thing didn’t move, I picked it up with a bit of newspaper. The mole was lifeless. All the same, I held it up to my ear, the way some people do with shells to hear a far-off sea.

  After a while I got a shoebox from the closet, filled it with tissues, and lay the mole’s body inside. When I had time I would bury it next to the hedge, where it belonged. Now I was busy cleaning the blood off the floor, a trail that looked like snow to me.

  Giselle had figured out the riddle of the mole: stay beside the hedge long enough, it will appear and be yours. Blind and gentle, plodding through the dark, unable to see stars or teeth, it assumes what is safe one day will be safe again the next. That was how you caught somebody, easy as pie, in one bite. That was how I’d been caught, too. I put the roses in the freezer overnight. Cold storage for a cold heart. I didn’t know if I wanted them or not. In the morning, when I took them out from between the ice cubes and the cans of frozen juice, the roses shimmered. That’s all someone in the grip of an obsession needs: the single possibility that desire might be real, a tiny shred of evidence to show you’re not all alone in the dark. I thought of poor Jack Lyons, offering me field flowers in the parking lot in New Jersey. I thought of Jack far too often as a matter of fact. All the same, he hadn’t a clue as to who I was. But these roses sent by Lazarus Jones were so sharp a person could cut herself and draw blood. That was the key to my riddle. For all I’d done, for all I’d wished, a rose made of ice was exactly what I deserved.

  I drove out in the morning, when the sky was still dark and the rising heat pressed down on the earth. There was rain in the forecast, and I could feel the change in the atmosphere inside my body. In the night I’d dreamed I had long dark hair. There was ice all over my body. I was so cold in my dream that I woke up shivering. Now in the brutal temperature of the hazy morning I stopped at a service station, bought a diet Coke and gassed up my car. I crunched on ice. There was the smell of oil and oranges and heat. I’d
been more careful about my clothes this time: A black T-shirt, jeans, sandals, nothing that would make anyone stare. It took me close to an hour to get to the orchard on this occasion, time enough to change my mind. I wasn’t thinking much. I wasn’t seriously hoping for anything. I had the radio on and before I knew it I was listening to Johnny Cash. I thought of the roofer who’d been struck while doing penance for the affair he’d been having; he should have known he was done for when he heard “Ring of Fire.” And here it was again, playing on the AM station I was tuned to. People played that song a lot around Orlon. They listened to the warning, then walked right into the burning ring, clearheaded and stupid at the same time.

  I had all the windows open and the sky was getting light. If I were to have an accident now, the last thing I’d hear would be Johnny Cash’s voice. Would I hear it forever, the deep dark sound of it, all that pain bundled up inside? I was eight years older than my mother had been at the time when it happened, her age and mine combined. Now when I thought of her she seemed so young, almost as though she were the daughter, gone off to a celebration on a January night, her pale hair freshly washed, her hopeful blue scarf, ready for life. I was the little old lady left on the porch, the witch stomping her feet on the ice.

  When I got to the orchard I parked and got out, then reached into the backseat. I’d brought the frozen bouquet of flowers with me, packed with ice in a plastic bag. It was a test, of course. I was anxious to see how he’d do. Did he really know me, or had the choice of red roses been pure chance?

  It was still early but Lazarus Jones was awake. He’d heard the car, peered out the window, opened the door, and now stood looking out. The door was half open, half shut. The paint was peeling off the porch railings. Out in the field there were half a dozen men working. A few looked over in our direction, but I doubted they could see anything. The sunlight, after all, was blinding. It made sunspots appear in front of your eyes.

  Lazarus was wearing old jeans and a button-down blue shirt; his hair was wet from a shower. It was broiling hot already. I thought I had never seen such a beautiful man in all my life. Everything seemed unreal — the white oranges, the sound of trucks in the fields, the way he was looking at me.

  “I guess I have a visitor,” he said.

  “You must have wanted one. I figured this was an invitation.” I held out the flowers, ice covering the petals, stems black with cold. “I never got roses from anyone.”

  He opened the screen door wider. “I guess I passed the test,” he said. “I knew what you wanted.”

  He wasn’t the kind of man I would ever end up with. He was the sort some gorgeous woman snagged for her own; perhaps they’d been high school sweethearts, they’d been true to each other since the day they’d met. Two beautiful people, meant for each other. My left side was crooked, my hair patchy, my skin blotchy; I was ten years too old for him. But I was here at the door. I was the one he’d sent roses to.

  We went into the house and stood in the front hall. There was an umbrella stand and a rack laden with jackets and hats. There was a wooden bench where a person could sit and pull on his boots. The hallway was dark, dusty. Everything was. The windows hadn’t been cleaned in a long time. Once you were in the house you couldn’t tell what the weather was outside. It had its own atmosphere, apart from the rest of the world. There was a dull thrumming, an evenness, almost a deadness to the air, which I guessed might have been caused by Lazarus. The survivors in my group swore he could affect almost anything.

  Why did I stay? Because for once there was something louder than the continuous clicking in my head. Because he’d opened the door. I was startled by how consumed with desire I was. I was thinking the kind of thoughts I hadn’t had before. So this was it. The thing that made people do stupid, ridiculous things; this was everything, here in the dark hall.

  We went on into the kitchen. His breakfast was on the table: a glass of ice water, a bowl of cold cereal, a napkin, a spoon. I realized the flowers were melting, so I put them in the sink.

  “The worst of my effects is my inability to see red. I miss it and I never even liked it. Just my luck.”

  “You have bad luck? I’ll bet there’s more wrong with me than there is with you.” Lazarus held his hand over the spoon on the table. It lurched forward. Spun in a circle. When it stopped there was a clanging noise.

  “That’s a trick,” I said.

  “Electromagnetic something or other. Let’s just say it’s a disorder.” “What else can you do?” My stomach was lurching around. I was falling into something. Hard. If I stayed, my bones would shatter; I’d break into pieces at his feet. Stupid girl. Stupid me. I hadn’t turned to ice for nothing, for this, a stranger who wasn’t right for me in any way. It would take minutes to run down the hall and get into my car; driving over the speed limit, I could be back in Orlon in under an hour. But I already knew I wasn’t going anywhere.

  “You think I’m a magician?” He said it with contempt. As though he was used to having people look down on him, ready and waiting for that.

  I tilted my chin up. Faced him straight on. “Maybe.”

  “You have some children you want me to entertain at a birthday party — is that it? Me and a pony and some rabbits. You’d have to pay and I’m not cheap.”

  “I don’t like children,” I said.

  He laughed, surprised.

  “And I don’t have anyone.”

  He understood. There was no one in my life.

  “Then I’ll just entertain you.”

  He went to the table and picked up a napkin. For an instant I thought he was about to show me a party trick. Just to get back at me. Out of pride. A rabbit made out of paper; a toy bird that would spin and flutter in the air. Instead, he held the paper to his mouth and breathed out.

  The faucet in the sink dripped; the sound overpowered the clicking in my head. I watched as the paper ignited. The flame was so hot it was blue. When it rose too high and his fingers were being singed, Lazarus let the burning paper fall into the bowl of cereal, where it burned to ash. I’d never known fire had a sound, like a gasp, a sigh, something alive.

  “Do you have anything that can beat that?” he said.

  I could make a wish and turn it into blood and bones. What was that worth? I had ice in my veins; I was colder and more distant than a dark, sunless planet. If that’s what he wanted, then I might just be the perfect woman for him. I went to the table and took the glass of ice water. I filled my mouth with ice. A woman who stood in one place, who forever looked at the sky, motionless, frozen solid. If that’s what he wanted, that’s what he’d get. I kissed him, mouth open. I could feel the heat from inside him melting through, but I kept at it. It was why I was here, I knew that now. I couldn’t stop kissing him. I heard myself, my desire, and I couldn’t believe it was me. I was moaning. I sounded like the fire had, a gasp, a sigh. The riddle inside me: How do you melt ice? How can you move when you’re frozen inside?

  When the ice cubes inside my mouth had turned to water, and the water was nearly boiling, I pulled away. I went to the sink to spit out before I burned myself. Quite suddenly I knew what the myth of people struck by lightning becoming more sexual was made of. It was simply this: We knew we could be gone at any time. Standing by the window, up on the roof, playing golf, on the phone. The possibility of being blown out like a match made us burn.

  “Well.” Lazarus looked surprised at what he’d wound up with. “You do have some tricks.”

  I was drawn to him, a sparrow to a hawk, a hawk to a sparrow. There was no logic when I followed him down the hall to the bathroom. There was no reason for me to do the things I did. Except that I felt something. I didn’t think that was possible for me anymore. Not now, not ever. That I did seemed enough to excuse almost anything.

  He filled the tub with water. All I could hear was the sound of the tap. I understood that it was the only way we could be together — the elements most drawn to each other are the ones that destroy each other. I leaned down
and put one hand in the tub, splashed back and forth. The water felt like ice. I could feel it down my spine. Lazarus said it was nothing compared with the bath of ice they’d put him in at the hospital, when he was burning up alive and they needed to lower his temperature, keep his heart going. It had probably kept him alive. Pure ice. Now he craved it. A cold woman like me. I think he’d been dreaming of me and then I was there, in my red dress.

  The day was humid and now it started to rain. We could hear the rain hitting against the roof. There was thunder. I could be anywhere. I couldn’t leave.

  “I need it to be dark,” Lazarus told me.

  I didn’t care. I wanted whatever he did. He drew the blinds over the window, shut off the light above the sink. We could barely see each other. Then the last light. That one out, too. We were in the dark, groping, following our hands, hearts, skin. In truth, I was grateful for the dark. I wasn’t beautiful. I couldn’t forget that I was ten years older than he. I slipped off my clothes, stepped into the tub, shuddered in the cold water. He got in right after me, desperate, I think, wanting me; it must have been that. I could feel the edges of heat in the water. I held on to the smooth sides of the bathtub. I thought of fish in a bucket. Death standing at the foot of a bed. When he pulled himself on top of me, I imagined I might drown. Maybe I was supposed to. For all I knew, this was the other half of my death wish — half fire, half water. He drew me under and kissed me, deep, underwater, unending. By the time we came up for air, I was burning. I turned on the cold tap and let it run. Over my shoulders, over my chest, in the dark that I was grateful for. I could have been anywhere, but I was there. I could have driven west or east, but I had driven here to him. I closed my eyes. Burn me. Drown me. Do anything. When he moved inside, I pulled him deeper.

  When I got out of the bathtub my legs were shaking. Water had spilled onto the floor. Every step was slippery, dangerous, cold. “I have to do something,” I said.

  I wrapped a towel around me, then went to the kitchen to open the freezer. My hands were shaking. This was really crazy. I got a piece of ice and pushed it up inside me, where I was burning. I didn’t care. It was worth it. I wasn’t sure I had ever felt anything before.