Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World (43 page)

"Why not—me too," I said.

After the waiter had at last finished writing down our order, she smiled at me.

"You didn't have to order so much just to keep pace with me, you know."

"No, I really am famished," I said. "It's been ages since I've been this hungry."

"Great," she said. "I never trust people with no appetite. It's like they're always holding something back on you, don't you think?"

"I wouldn't know," I said. I really wouldn't.

'"I wouldn't know' seems to be a pet expression with you," she observed.

"Maybe so."

"And 'maybe so' is another." I didn't know what to say. "Why are all your thoughts so uncertain?" I
wouldn't know, but maybe so, I
repeated over and over in my head when the waiter arrived aruhwith the air of the court chiropractor come to treat the crown prince's slipped disc, reverently uncorked the wine and/poured it into our glasses.

"In L'
Etranger
, the protagonist had a habit of saying 'It's not my fault'. Or so I seem to recall. Umm—what was his name now?"

"Meursault," I said.

"That's right, Meursault," she repeated. "I read it in high school. But you know, today's high school kids don't read anything of the kind. We did a survey at the library not so long ago. What authors do you read?"

"Turgenev."

"Turgenev wasn't so great. He was an anachronist."

"Maybe so," I said, "but I still like him. Flaubert and Thomas Hardy, too."

"You don't read anything new?"

"Sometimes I read Somerset Maugham."

"There aren't many people who'd consider Somerset Maugham new," she said, tipping back her glass. "The same as they don't put Benny Goodman in jukeboxes these days either."

"I love Maugham. I've read
The Razor's Edge
three times. Maybe it's not a spectacular novel, but it's very readable. Better that than the other way around."

"Maybe so," she laughed. "That orange shirt suits you."

"Thank you very much," I said. "You look beautiful."

"Thank yow," she said.

"I went home during lunch and changed. I don't live far from work so it was very convenient."

Several of the appetizers arrived, and for the next few minutes we ate in silence. The flavors were light, delicate, subtle. The shrimp were consummately fresh, the oysters kissed by the sea.

"So did you finish with the unicorn business?" she asked, as she let an oyster roll into her mouth.

"More or less," I said, wiping squid ink from my lips.

"And where were these unicorns?"

"In here," I said, tapping my temple. "The unicorns were all in my head."

"Symbolically speaking, you mean?"

"No, not at all. Do I seem like the symbolic type? They really were living in my consciousness. Someone found them out for me."

"Well, I'm glad they were found. Sounds very interesting. Tell me more."

"It's not so very interesting," I said, passing her the eggplant. She, in return, passed me the smelt.

"Still, I'd like to know more. Really I would."

"Well, it's like this. Deep in your consciousness there's this core that is imperceptible to yourself. In my case, the core is a town. A town with a river flowing through it and a high brick wall surrounding it. None of the people in the town can leave. Only unicorns can go in and out. The unicorns absorb the egos of the townpeople like blotter paper and carry them outside the wall. So the people in the town have nou£go, no self. I live in the town—or so the story goes. I don't know any more than that, since I haven't actually seen any of this with my own eyes."

"Well, it's certainly original, I'll say that."

River? The old man hadn't said anything about a river.

"But it's none of my creation, at least not that I'm aware of," I said.

"It's still yours, isn't it? Nobody else made it." 

"Well, I guess."

"The smelt's not bad, eh?"

"Not bad."

"All this does resemble a little that Russian unicorn story I read you, don't you think?" she said, slicing through the eggplant. "The Ukranian unicorns were supposed to have lived in a completely isolated community."

"It's similar in that way, yes."

"Maybe there's some link…"

"Just a second," I interrupted and reached into my blazer pocket. "I have a present for you."

I handed her the small black leather case.

"What is it?" she asked, turning over the curious metal object she removed from the case.

"I'll show you. Watch carefully."

She watched.

"Nail clippers?"

"Right! Folds back in reverse order. Like this."

"Very interesting," she said. "Tell me, though, do you often give nail clippers to women?"

"No, you're the first. Just now while I was waiting, I went into a hardware store and felt like buying something. The woodcarving sets were too big."

"Thank you. I'll keep them in my bag and think of you every time I use them."

The appetizers were cleared away and presently the entrees were served. My hunger had hardly subsided. Six plates of appetizers hadn't even put a dent in it. I shovelled a considerable volume of
tagliatelle
into my mouth in a relatively short period of time, then devoured half the macaroni. Having put that much under my belt, I could swear I saw faint lights looming up through darkness.

After the pasta, we sipped wine until the bass came.

"By the way," she said, "about your apartment, was the destruction done by some special machine? Or was it a demolition team?"

"Maybe you could call him a machine, but it was the work of one person," I said.

"Must have had a
lot
of determination."

"You wouldn't believe."

"A friend of yours?"

"A total stranger."

"It wouldn't have had anything to do with that unicorn business?" she asked.

"It did. But nobody'd bothered to ask me what I thought from the very beginning."

"And does that have something to do with your going away tomorrow?"

"Mm… yeah."

"You must have gotten yourself caught in a terrible mess."

"It's so complicated, I myself don't know what's what. Well, in my case, the simplest explanation is that I'm up to here in information warfare."

The waiter appeared suddenly with our fish and rice.

"I can't follow all this," she said, flaking her
suzuki
with the edge of her fork. "Our library is full of books and everyone just comes to read. Information is free to everyone and nobody fights over it."

"I wish I'd worked in a library myself," I said.

"The fish was exquisite," she purred, after we'd finished off our entrees. "Especially the sauce." "butter sauce is an art," I said. "It takes time. You minced shallots into melted butter, then heat it over a very low flame. No short cuts."

"Ah yes, you like to cook, don't you?"

"Well, I used to. You need real dedication. Fresh ingredients, a discerning palate, an eye for presentation. It's not a modern art. Good cooking has hardly evolved since the nineteenth century."

"The lemon souffle here is wonderful," she said, as the desserts arrived. "You still have room?"

The grape ice was light, the souffle tart, the expresso rich and heady Once we'd finished, the chef came out to greet us.

"Magnificent meal," we told him.

"It is a joy to cook for guests who love to eat," said the chef. "Even in Italia, my family does not eat this much."

"Why, thank you." We took it as a compliment.

The chef returned to the kitchen and we ordered another
espresso
each.

"You're the first person I've met who could match my appetite," she said.

"I can still eat," I said.

"I have some frozen pizza at home, and a bottle of Chivas."

"Let's do it."

Her place was indeed near the library. A small prefab affair, but it had a real entryway and a yard, if only big enough for one person to lie down. Doubtless it got no sun, but there was an azalea bush over to one corner. There was even a second story.

"It's really too much room for one person," she explained. "We bought the house because my husband and I were planning to have kids. I paid back the loan with his life insurance."

She took the pizza out of the freezer and popped it in the oven, then brought the Chivas Regal out to the living room table. While she opened a bottle of wine for herself, I selected a few tapes—Jackie McLean and Miles Davis and Wynton Kelly—and pushed the PLAY button on the cassette deck. We settled back to
Bags' Groove
, followed by
Surrey with a Fringe on Top
, and drinks until the pizza was done.

"You like old jazz?" she asked.

"When I was in high school, I listened to jazz all the time in coffee shops."

"And nowadays?"

"A bit of everything. I hear what people play me."

"But you don't listen of your own choosing?"

"Don't need to."

"My husband was something of a jazz buff. You probably had similar tastes. He was beaten to death in a bus, with an iron vase."

"He what?"

"Some punk was using hair spray in a bus, and when my husband asked him to quit, the guy brained him with an iron vase."

I didn't know what to say. "What was the kid doing carrying an iron vase?"

"Who knows?" she answered. "It was a pitiful way to die."

The oven timer rang: the pizza was done. Sitting side by side on the sofa, we each ate half.

"Want to see a unicorn skull?" I asked.

"A real one?" she said. "You honestly have one?"

"A replica. Not the real thing."

I went out to the car. It was a tranquil early October night. Here and there a patch of sky cut through the cloud cover to reveal a near-full moon. Fair weather tomorrow.

lr
returned with the Nike sports bag and produced the towel-wrapped, skull. She set down her wine glass and examined the skull up close.

"Extremely well made, I'll say that much."

"It was made by a skull specialist," I explained, taking a sip of whiskey.

"It's as good as real."

I stopped the cassette deck, took the fire tongs out of the bag, and tapped the skull. The skull gave off the same parchetij
mo-oan
.

"What's that?"

"Each skull has a unique resonance. And a skull expert can read all sorts of things from these sounds."

"Incredible!" she exclaimed. She then tried striking the skull with the tongs herself. "I can't believe this is a replica."

She set the skull on the table and reclaimed her wine glass. We scooted together, raised our glasses, and gazed at the skull.

"Put on more music," she smiled suggestively.

I chose another ceAiple of cassettes and returned to the sofa.

"Is here okay? Or shall we go upstairs?"

"Here's perfect," I said.

Pat Boone sang softly,
I'll Be Home
. Time seemed to flow in the wrong direction, which was fine by me. Time could go whichever way it pleased.

She drew the lace curtain on the window to the yard and turned out the lights. We stripped by moonlight. She removed her necklace, removed her bracelet-watch, took off her velvet dress. I undid my watch and threw it over the back of the sofa. Then I doffed my blazer, loosened my necktie, and bottomed-up the last of my whiskey.

She rolled down her panty hose as a bluesy Ray Charles came on with
Georgia on My
Mind
. I closed my eyes, put both feet up on the table and swizzled the minutes around in my head like the ice in a drink. Everything, everything, seemed once-upon-a-time. The clothes on the floor, the music, the conversation. Round and round it goes, and where it stops everyone knows. Like a dead heat on the merry-go-round. No one pulls ahead, no one gets left behind. You always get to the same spot.

"It seems so long ago," I said, my eyes still shut.

"Of course, silly," she said mysteriously, taking the glass from my hand and undoing the buttons of my shirt. Slowly, deliberately, as if stringing green beans.

"How'd you know?"

"I just know," she said. She put her lips to my bare chest. Her long hair swept over my stomach.

Eyes closed, I gave my body over to sensation. I thought about the
suzuki
, I thought about the nail clippers, I thought about the snail on the cleaners' front stoop. I opened my eyes and drew her to me, reaching around behind to undo the hook of her brassiere. There was no hook.

"Up front," she prompted.

Things do evolve after all.

We made love three times. We took a shower, then snuggled together on the sofa under a blanket while Bing Crosby crooned away. Euphoria. My erections had been perfect as the pyramids at Giza. Her hair smelled fresh and wonderful. The sofa cushions were nice and firm. Not bad, from back in the days when sofas were sofas.

I sang along with Bing:

QhDanny boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling From glen to glen, and down the mountain
side. The summer's gone, and all the roses falling
—
It's you, it's you must go, and I must
bide. But come ye back when summer's in the meadow, Arid when the valley's hushed and
white with snow. Its I'll be here in sunshine or in shadow, &hDannyJbcty, oh Danny Boy,
I'll miss you so
!

"A favorite of yours?" she asked.

"Yeah, I like it well enough," I said. "I won a dozen pencils in a school harmonica contest playing this tune." She laughed. "Life's funny like that." "A laugh a minute." She put on Danny Boy so I could sing it again.

But if you fall as all the flowers're dying, And you are dead, as dead you well may be, I'll
come and find the place where you are lying, And kneel and say an ave there for thee. But
come ye back when summer's in
—

The second time through made me terribly sad.

"Send me letters from wherever it is you're going," she said, touching me.

"I will," I promised. "If it's the sort of place I can mail letters from."