". . . wanna talk about it?"
The fat girl lay back on the couch. Probably, she thought, she was being duped in some way and this guy talking to her was a shrink. How particularly insidious. Of course they had set it up for her own good, as they say. But it wasn't fair. It wasn't honest. You can't go around setting up false images and then expect the quality of someone's life to improve. Even if you managed to get them to talk about something they'd been holding back for years. Deep down, they'd know they'd been manipulated, and they'd feel ripped off, and they'd dig down deeper in their hole. Wouldn't they? Maybe not. Who knew what the ratio was. Maybe the relief of talking would spring the trap, and they'd run around kissing ass the rest of their life, going 'Thank you! Thank you for manipulating me! Gee . . . I . . .
I really appreciate it. No, really!' After all, wasn't that how the establishment, the whole society, worked? Her mouth curled, not, she felt, with bitterness, but with a kind of grim cognizance.
"Think I could have a little more coffee?" This she said aloud to her captor.
"Sure, hon. Just have to say the word." Exactly, she thought. Just to have to say the word. Whadif I don't wanna/Why do I have to tell them anything, lousy s.o.b.s.
Coffee. "Are you going to go over and see Marie this afternoon?" He asks this as he stirs his own coffee. "No." Her voice is angry now, squeezed out between her teeth. "No." Her voice is angry now, squeezed out between her teeth. "No." He looks at her curiously.
She doesn't look back, but shifts her gaze infinitesimally but very deliberately away from him, as though she were a prisoner or a witness and wanted to make a movement without being seen but couldn't. He winced. She thought he was awfully unconvincing in his attempts at eliptics; at distracting her from his focus.
Smoke circled out of her mouth and she looked back at him, weary. She could see, of course, that he meant well. Or, she could see that he, of course, meant well. Yes that was it. Her perspicacity allowed her to see what another might not. That, under his smirk, he meant well. Whether he even knew it or not, he meant well.
"It started a long time ago." She still kept her eyes averted. "Are you sure I should tell you this? You might be bored."
"Look, Elizabeth. You're the one who wants to tell me, so tell me. If I get bored I'll let you know. I'm a big boy." Yeah, she thought. Big, but stupid. Stolid.
"Paul and I used to have different sets of friends. When I was in Junior High. Even up until I was fifteen. Because I was away at school, and besides I was very quiet, very withdrawn and he . . . he was superficially quite different. Of course I was the only one who understood him. The truth is, I was an ivory figurine. My hair was a long sweep down my back, my skin pale and perfect, with the most subtle sepia tones in it . . . no vulgar pinks. I was all beiges, very smooth. Very small breasts, what they call a boyish figure-tall of course. And I dressed with extreme - care; I never wanted to even own anything that didn't meet my demands. It would have given me hives.
"You don't understand. And Paul's hair. Dark. Curls. But he was outgoing. Witty. He held court. He had followers. Not friends. Followers. I went away to school for a year and when I came back he had moved out. Henry-our father-was happy about it. Mother of course was not. She knew he was up till all hours, driving off to another town on an impulse at three A.M. and then perhaps to the beach to see the sun rise. He never liked to let a day go by without doing something verifiably useless.
"He had a little cottage toward the edge of town and a black VW with no floor on the passenger side in front. He drove wildly but I don't remember ever being frightened. His face was so white and his hair so dark and his eyes took you past wanting to get home in time for dinner, that's for sure. For me it was a privilege to go somewhere with him. To meet the people he knew and listen to them talk about books and so on. But best of all I liked it when he'd spend time with just me. He didn't very often. He was so restless. I liked to go somewhere with him and just be with him. I remember it made me sad that he didn't just want to go for long walks with me, or sit and watch the cat play on the lawn. But I was as fascinated by his impulsiveness as hurt by its effect.
"Often I literally said not a word in the course of an evening. Just looked gravely into someone's eyes, and indicated hello and goodbye with my head. I was never self-conscious though."
Elizabeth looked at her interviewer. He was tapping his coffee cup rhythmically without sound with his little finger. She looked at his finger. He slowly stopped tapping. "I'm not bored, Elizabeth. It's just a nervous release. I won't do it if it bothers you."
"I don't mean to be hyper-sensitive, but I absolutely cannot go on talking if you do that. My stomach hurts."
Elizabeth rolled back onto the sofa and reached out with a trembling hand for a cigarette, then for matches, lit the cigarette and appeared to make conscientious effort to relax. She put her left hand on her stomach. Her thighs rolled in opposite directions and her feet looked swollen. She was wearing a loose dress of expensive grey linen. Her blond hair, dark smooth blond hair, was cut extremely evenly and looked like a medieval knight's. Her cheeks were very round and even, like two underripe pieces of fruit. Full but pale.
"I. . .I think maybe I better go, Elizabeth."
"Oh, for Chrissake-" . . . this was muttered, then a sigh. "Griffin,
dear" - the voice had become deeper, sonorous, and self-possessed. "You're busy-I shouldn't keep you. It was so nice of you to stop by-say hello to Martha-you won't forget, will you? No of course not-you're very responsible-very."
He looked down at her. Almost asleep. He had exhausted her day's allotment of energy. "Elizabeth-here's your medication, and the ice cream and the coffee are in the freezer. I didn't forget."
"Thank you." She held out her hand. Limp, heavy arm. Magnolia blossom palm. "See you tomorrow?"
"M-hm. Bye, honey."
Griffin took off. Quickly, silently out the door. Elizabeth convinced herself that she was in control by opening her eyes very
wide, and slowly getting up, she went to the kitchen, took a half-gallon container of Light and Lively from the freezer, a spoon from the dishtray, smiled at herself in the mirror, took the phone off the hook, and sat down in a big armchair, where she slowly ate the ice cream and then slept, sitting up, for fourteen hours.
Griffin and Teresa got on the bus. "Oh, it's pathetic. It's worse than you think. It's-"
"You don't have to tell me. I know how bad it is. But it's up and down. She was lowering her dose on her own a year ago and she was doing fine-really coming along."
"Yeah, for a couple of months-and then onto the beer-back on the needle-and back on the 'done. Panic. There's something so intractable-it's so damn frustrating."
"I think it's vanity, Grif. She's so - vain."
"What's vanity? Arrogance, you mean. She's never really honest when admitting something. She makes these acknowledgements. But that's when she doesn't ring true."
"Does she ever-ring true-as you put it?"
"Yes. But she seems to be talking to herself when she does. She might as well be. She really has nothing invested in communication."
"Well, Grif-it's awfully irritating. I don't know how you put up with it. I really don't."
"So much for your humanism--your special consciousness-how were you brought up-what's your excuse-nobody ever help you? Did it all on your lonesome, huh? I didn't know you were quite that tough. I knew you were tough, but not quite that tough."
Teresa shook her head sombrely. "Oh, Grif. Don't. Don't take it out on me. OK? This is my stop. See you later."
Griffin peered at her from between his fingers and tried to smile.
Griffin was eating his favorite brand of whole wheat bread, toasted, with orange marmalade, and black coffee, while watching a late-morning news review, when his phone rang.
"Griffin, dahling, how are you today?" Elizabeth was still sleepy, and sounded like a thirties star ordering the car. Besides that style, her voice had a warm quality, low and furry and warm; it gave you something of her, unequivocally. "How would you like to go somewhere today? I thought we could go to the zoo. And watch the seals. You know how I love to watch the seals."
"I'll pick you up at two-thirty. It's a perfect day for it."
"Great. That's great, Grif. Will you wear your white jacket?"
Griffin went so far as to file his nails and shine his shoes. He rang the buzzer of the second floor flat of the brownstone on 2lst Street at 2:32. No answer. He rang intermittently for another eleven minutes. Finally a vice came through the buzzer: "Grif? Hi! Come on up." She was wearing a huge blue bathrobe with a rip on one side and her hair was matted to her head. "I have to brush my hair. How is it outside? My mother called. I don't think I should go out today. I'm feeling a little dizzy."
Griffin was not surprised, but he released some air in a modified sigh and squelched the impulse to murmer "Gee . . . that's too bad. It's a perfect day for it." Instead he said: "It's a little hot out anyway. Do you need anything from the store?"
"Yes, I need some dishwashing liquid, some tea, ice cream, and wheat chex. And grapefruit juice." "I'll be back soon." "Thanks, Grif."
Half an hour later Elizabeth was ensconced in a voluminous dress, eating ice-cream in the big chair and rattling on.
"You see, Bill wasn't really my friend, he was Paul's. But we developed a bond that was equal in tensile strength because we were both so close to Paul. And Bill's girlfriend-Sandra-was an outsider. The hierarchy of ties. Paul was the apex. Bill was the arranger, the one who gave everything a shape. Bill and Paul understood each other. I resented it. They might even have slept together. This was a grim possibility which made covetous, and drained my heart-but even that idea became acceptable. It became romantic. The possibilities of unknown closeness, and then the three of us, possibly but not really the four of us, so close, and then the desperate sense of limitations-when I was alone I no longer felt safe or included. It was more and more important to me that I be with them, that I be missed if I were away even for a short time. I was their icon, their lovely lady, their taciturn poet, their symbol of mystery.
"Bill's birthday was on Halloween." Elizabeth lowered her mouth into a crescent. But then she laughed a little, low laugh. As a special treat, Paul drove fifty miles to get him a bit of heroin. They liked it on special occasions. They had never let me try it yet. Not shooting. I was being protected. Paul's face was so relaxed when he was high. Visions of angels I thought in the gauzy golden light you get around some mid-western sunsets. I was right about the gold part. But you know when you're high on junk you don't halucinate-everything real is beautified-beautiful in itself. Pathetic creepy ugly rotten people that you usually don't think about at all because if you did you'd get sour-are irradiated-understandable to the last cell in them . . . it's hard to describe, of course . . . you should try it, sometime . . . I'm tired, Grif."
"Poor little Lizzy . . . do you want me to rub your back . . . I'm going to go see Samson. I'll be back tonight to see if you need anything."
"Honey, just rub my neck for a few minutes very lightly and bring me a cup of tea. Thanks, honey, you're such a sweetie. My little sweeter sweetie . . ."
"Griffin went home and felt lethargic, unnaturally, even for a city summer day. He peered at himself in the mirror. He took a shower and then forced himself to put on his running shoes and went around the reservoir twice. Then he took another shower and called Dr. Zalbertina. "Dr. Zalbertina, this is Griffin Amesworth. I'm so sorry to bother you-yes-Elizabeth is . . . O.K. But I just wondered if we couldn't try some other approach--I don't mean to be impatient or to questin your judgement--it's just-yes, she is getting to the origin, I suppose you could say. Well, I suppose I do feel a lot of anger-most of it's at Paul, really, and of course; yes, yes, I see that, but also, objectively, don't you think she could start lowering the dose again-yes, yes. No she hasn't said anything about it herself. But I feel she's too resigned at this point. All right. Well, I hope it's doing her some good."
At 9:30 that night when Griffin entered Elizabeth's flat the light was low. A tiny light in a corner was it. Elizabeth was in the chair. "Oh, Henry-is that you-no? Oh, Grif-Samson, did you see Samson?" "No, not today. No. Tomorrow. I'll go tomorrow." "All right. Were you here today? I mean was it today?" "Yes. I'll see you tomorrow." "All right. We'll walk to the village for a coffee, tomorrow." "Oh, good. Reggio?" "Of course."
Samson scratched at his egg yoks with a strip of toast. "I can't believe it, Grif. You're lieing to her. She must know. She's so sensitive. You could be doing her a lot of harm, you know. Mixed up signals, poor validation."
"Oh, it's your Catholic upbringing. She's fucked up, man. She won't go to a shrink. We have to get her to talk. It's the only hope. She can't sit around like a clam with a straw stuck in the shell for some ice cream to go in through forever. Have a heart, Samson."
"Well, if you think it'll do any good. Where'd you get this idea?" "Well, she used to write things . . . years ago. And I just said it would be very helpful to me if she would tell me some things about Bill's death. I said I was fascinated by the deaths of young, brilliant people with everything to live for."
"You really laid it on, huh? So it's out of homage for Bill?"
"Basically. But as I'd hoped, it's really her story I'm getting. Dr. Zalbertina is pretty optimistic. She may really open up. Then we can start reducing the methadone again. And if I can stay in contact with her--about the book--she can use me as an outlet. She usually doesn't even talk to anybody about anything at all for a week or two at a time. You know?"
"Where do I come in, Grif?" Samson cast his eyes down, stirred his coffee, and looked up at Griffin, two blue eyes focusing hard, without sarcasm. The pupils hung poised and hard like dark gunmetal. "Well, see, to make her believe me I said I was going to get input from you too. And now I really want to. I need another point of view and you were there."
"Griffin, you want me to give you insights for the sake of a nonexistent project. You better consider writing this thing. Otherwise I'm going to feel like a weird accessory. That you need to flesh out your story so she'll know you've really talked to me--it's degrading."
"You know. . . It's not jive-and it's a good story--you might have some insights into your own life that--"
"I don't know what you're really interested in-why are you doing all this? Seriously."
"Elizabeth is an old friend. She was a lovely child. My mother was a friend of her mother. I would hope that somebody would do the same for me."
"I suppose this sort of point of view is the result of three generations of Trinity--just hope it's for the best."
"So now, talk will you . . . " Griffin whipped out a neat composition book.
"Very professional, aren't we? Very well, then. Your hero was a decadent sleaze. Very smart in a way. Got great grades. Personified a kind of sophistication back in small town USA for all of us-but he-well he had real experience, no question about it. He'd traveled, taken weird drugs-his Dad was a psychoanalyst and he used to have packets of psychic energizers around. Of course, his family had him locked up a few times in fancy Southern belle nuthouses. He was eccentric, and sometimes genuinely amusing. the type of gossip who really involved himself with his subject, whether in actuality or fantasy-he would speculate about the twists of someone's mind for hours with a real interest, as though they were his own child, when probably they were just a lover, a casual lover, or someone else's or just a friend.
"He was never innocent, never ingenuous, but he was-let's say-kind of like a kid-he could say nasty things, and get you in trouble, but he was having a good time, and he was there for you, affectionate, impulsive. Boy, could he get you in trouble. He was seductive with it. . . 'come over and smoke some hash' - 'oh, no, I have to go study' - 'oh, come on, Sam: it'll do you good . . .' And it would, but three hours later you'd be so wasted, so removed from any way of valueing your work, so abstracted away from your own motives and convictions, which would just seem like the rules of some game that somebody else had entered your name in, and you would walk home, and look at the stars. . . "
"Sam-what about Paul and Elizabeth-and Bill-you used to all hangout together, right? What was going on? What were the politics?"
"Oh, Bill was the ringleader, but Paul had the power. Bill had all the ideas-he was playful. But he catered to what he knew Paul would want. He either knew or thought he knew and if he was wrong, he'd give in. Oh, it was sickening. Paul was like chocolate fudge. His sister was cool about it, but she was fawning all over him and so was Kevin, and so was Bill's girlfriend, even. Oh, disgusting."
"We won't go into why it bothered you, although . . . I must confess I wonder what this guy had. I met him a few times. I think it was the appeal of selfishness. Lots of people are beautiful, but power is held by those who place themselves first, those to whom it never occurs to sacrifice. In them we see the human animal creature underlying our own stultified desires. We love them so."
"Whatever. All I know is that he ruled them-with a velvet glove, but he ruled all the same. He was the worm in the apple. He challenged them all to deeper and deeper shades of decadence. He was very vain. Liked to inaugurate styles. Wore purple slacks for awhile and managed not to look silly. Amazing!"
"Sam, you talk about these people in such a detached way. As if this was sociology class. How can you? Some are dead. . .what happened to allow you to talk thus dispassionately?"
"Well, you act like you're interviewing me. That could be part of it. Plus, I got to a point at which these people were inaccessible to me. At the time it hurt me. I felt excluded. It was an untenable situation. They shared junk. That's a bond of a tall order, you know. Expensive."
". . .is that honest? Is that all it was based on?"
"The exclusivity? No, they were into it before. We're us, we're the Three Musketeers. . .what was your name again?" Even among them. Bill and Paul were the core group, then came Elizabeth, and then Sandra. And me-I envied them, or I wanted in-but I also looked at them askance-I observed them, I didn't idolize them. No. And then when the going got tough-well-I had the same weirdly mixed feelings-but I was grateful to whatever source of being had worked to keep me from being more involved with them. But it was heavy hype at the time-the best of times, the worst. . .it was so romantic-nothing to what was to come, of course."
Griffin felt superior on the couch. That is, Griffin, sitting on the couch, felt superior. 'Good lord!' thought Grif, 'so high school, so obviously peer group behavior-the mystery is that these reasonably intelligent people would get sucked in!'
"Paul reached a point of fusion between his philosophical outlook and his activities. He sought pleasure and really felt no conflicts about it. I suppose that couldn't be true. . ." Sam looked at Griffin with wide eyes, repeating his doubt in them. "I suppose not, Sam. He was a product of our society. . ." "well, he convinced himself, and he convinced eyeryone around him. Even on days when his curls were 'dank and matted', when there were dark rings under his eyes, and it took mammoth effort for him to raise his arm-just the part between the elbow and the hand, to get himself a cigarette-even then, he seemed utterly committed, like a man of true and simple faith. That was very seductive. The first time I tried heroin. . ."
Sam was off and running now-his style had changed-he was a precise academician telling Grif the way things were (had been). . . "Sam. . . I didn't know. . .you never told me. . ." Griffin was the betrayed lover. How could he not have known? Why had he never been told? Was he not to be trusted-by a close friend? Probably Sam's shame and embarrassment was intense, but still. Sam stayed cool. Real cool. Raconteur. At the same time he savored without acknowledgement Griffin's subdued shock and chagrin. Which is part of the method of the raconteur, isn't it? "Perhaps, Griffin, the fact that I expose to your eagle heart my evil ways invalidates my input, eh? Nonsense, my boy." (He was waxing giddy now.) "Nonsense. . .all retrospective, and really tokenism anyway. . .seriously."
Griffin just stared at him, although he adjusted himself to look calm; interested but not obsessed. "Griffin-the point I wanted to make, anyway, is that Paul demonstrated the other kind of junky-not the sleaze but the man who can't reach the purist's dream of passivity, the zen that has been killed by pragmatism, without it. Not because he's an especially weak man, but rather, a rare one, one of the elite who wants to abdicate his birthright of stress and greed, and, humbly, realizes he needs a little chemical help. Of course, any way you cut it, no pun intended, the sleaze and the zen master type are really the same; the sleaze is escaping from the rat-race too. He just has a different head about it. . .does this help you see? Paul's influence? The realm, the associations. . .the romantic others who he reminded us of and made us feel like? It's hard to believe now. When I think of what he's turned into-such a mean shriveled and anti-tragic mess. Insipid, predictable, disgusting. Charisma? I don't think so. Like a ghost."
Griffin looked at Samson. Was there more pity or more hatred-sun and wind dried, petrified wood hatred-behind the shuttered eyes and furrowed brow? Irresoluble.
"Samson. . .can we continue this conversation later? I've got a job interview across town. I hope I can pull myself together for it."
"Don't look at me like that. What's the matter? Did I shake you up?"
"I guess so. I feel. . .naive."
"Well don't let that feeling lead you to desperate measures. Inexperience may be the better part of valour."
"See you, Sam. Take care."
". . .Oh, don't worry about me Grif. I ain't so romantic no more."
Griffin walked out into the bright sunshine as though from a dungeon. He felt scummy. He felt awkward. And, he realized, he hadn't even heard anything truly sordid. Just the perifery. From someone whose decadence was dilletantish.
Poor dear Elizabeth. The slug on the brocade sofa. Sensitive to her own dilemnae. Aware of it. But of course not, never unstylish enough to acknowledge it. Never would she force others to be the reeds she whispered to. So her sloth had a facade that was as natural as her voice was sensual, and that was a lot. Her facade was grounded. No edges. No chinks. No cracks. . . Griffin wished that Dick would come back and marry Elizabeth out of nostalgia for his old self, the self that had loved her before she'd hurt him so. Or that her Mother would convince her to move back home. Elizabeth was a barnacle on the West side of New York. Of course she was utterly unto herself-she disturbed in no way the maelstrom around her-but one worried about her. Griffin began, in a segwe of mood, to view his anxiety as the product of obtrusive, nasty behavior on Elizabeth's part. Slowly his patronizing concern changed to anger. 'Goddam selfish', (part of his mind paraphrased and in so doing, lightened, what another part evinced as deep rage). 'Goddam selfish, if you ask me. . .being here, in my territory, and such a mess. . .it's not as if there were a damn thing I could do. . .the bitch is so complacent. . .smug as a bug. . .' he carried on for awhile. "Elizabeth. . ." (he was on the phone to her now, a sunny, natural next step) "Elizabeth, come out and meet me! Come on. . .it's so pretty and we could get some exquisite coffee." "Oh, Griffin. Not today. . .it's too hot, and Garth is going to call me. Come on by, if you want to. It's cool here. Don't come till after three o'clock."
"O.K." Griffin didn't ask why. Probably she was still in her bathrobe and would slowly catalize a decision to move to the bathroom and clean up her act a little. It was neat, Griffin thought grudgingly, the degree to which she admitted to herself what she was. She didn't spend energy thinking she was going to be faster this afternoon than she had been yesterday afternoon. He could picture her. He could soak himself in her thought processes. Deciding to leave the sofa. Whether or not to take a bath. . .etc. But what enslaved him so? He felt sorry for himself. Jesus. (If her
decision making process in his imagination reflected a comprehensive philosophic examination of the universe and consequently an intense realism, he might have been able to justify his preoccupation with her, but unfortunately, as well as he could deduce, her limitations were severe, and in fact, while they had the aesthetic beauty of an honest self-remembering, they were circumscribed by an infantile egoism which heroin or its semblance through methadone and memory helped to protect. In other words, she was not one of those probably rare creatures whose really extraordinary sensibilities craved survival and could not achieve it in the context of the culture without artificial aid in lieu of real aid, but a recalcitrant bon-bon gulping broad protecting the intolerance she has for reality in proportion with her increasing tolerance for smack and lethargy.) He had acquiesced without even any pretense at resistance. (What a too perfect sentence.) But he had. Why? It was as though he were in love with her. But in fact it was that she was so deeply irrational, so unpretentious in the vastness of her arbitraryness, that normal forms were shot to hell, and there was a great, a really great seductiveness in Elizabeth's capacity to totally eschew self-discipline. For all her unhappiness in her circumstances, or rather, about them, for all any person perceiving her must deduce, she evinced great pleasure, a degree of pleasure often to be seen in the pursuit of pedestrian activities, as she slowly ate her dumb ice-cream, symbol of despair though it might be said to be. And of course, to return to the point, there was no arguing with the unjustifiable, the overtly selfish, the straightforward demonstrations of power the source of which was invisible, but which clearly convinced her as though she were Dorothy and behind the curtain was a real Wizard, an irrefutable wizard, who was also Dorothy, or rather, who was the real Elizabeth. Tenacious barnacle. He returned to his angry slant. The selfish, demanding presumptious. . .and she was wacky to boot. About as weird as possible outside. Right? I mean, she never went outside her damned apartment. He really did worry about her. Tonight, he'd worry the rest of that story out of her. That murder story.
". . .so, Griffin. . .how is your job hunting going? It's really hard, looking for work, isn't it? Gee, I hope you get something soon. Then you'll be able to settle into a routine. Isn't that light over there beautiful, Griffin? See how it just lights up that plant so the leaves look translucent? Look! I can see the cells grow. I would hate to leave this apartment." Griffin stood staring at the thus beatified leaves, nauseous at the vulgarity of his own aspect, but powerless not to act out the state of sanctity called for by his compadre. He had a suspicion that she was laughing at him, contemptuous of his compliance, while pretending that each of them were acting in absolute response to the wonder of the universe. It was this capacity she had to present herself with the innocence and surety of a fairy princess, and at the same time to suggest depraved duplicity that bothered him more, and debilitated him more, than any other side of her. She was never this way with Paul, he was sure. He, and he only, knew where she really stood. This thought horrified him. A., he didn't know how he'd arrived at it, and B., if it were so then he associated it with love, not with covertness, but with that thing that love was. . .a higher degree of sure understanding of another than others had. That kind of collusion was love. Yes, he felt it, he knew it, even though Paul was nowhere around, and even though his Elizabeth sat loose and round on her tuffet, and it was scary. Perhaps she loved him and incidentally, he was her brother. That semed likely, though probably it couldn't be true. There must be nuclear family entanglements to explain and to boggle the mind ad infinitum. The flavor of the collusion was like when kids on the block hid from you and wouldn't play with you. There were kids who didn't know that feeling, he supposed ruefully. Kids who were always on the other side. Cruel kids, rich kids, smart-assed kids. He looked at Elizabeth, numb with the rage of a wounded innocent, the self-righteous, uncomprehending rage of the wronged, the unfairly mistreated. But she was peculiarly beautiful just then, the light that touched the leaves lighting her eyelashes delicately, and she was solid, no sly feelings leaked through, she was just, after all, he thought, more sensitive than he, intrinsically better, and therefore he misread her.
"Elizabeth, may I have some more tea, please?" (He was always punctiliously polite with her.) "Griffin, I only have Chinese tea. I'm all out of good, black tea." etc. "Elizabeth, remember when I saw you after Bill died. . .and you had changed? You've never changed back. You. . .had another side to your personality before that happened that's gone now. . .you. . .or maybe you have another side now that you didn't have before."
"That's possible I suppose. Of course, Bill. . .I loved Bill, he was so close such a wonderful person it was so terrible. . ."
"Here's your tea, Elizabeth." "I. . .oh, thank you, sweetie. . .After Bill died a. . . something happened to my basic mood about life. Resignation, I certainly do think you're right, that I did change. Yes, I think you're right, there. I was thoughtless before that. I didn't know about things. I just took things for granted."
"Did you feel responsible, Elizabeth? You looked to me as if you were really suffering."
"Well, I missed him. No, I didn't feel responsible. Guilty, if that's what you mean. It wasn't anyone's fault. Just helpless, not responsible. It's hard as nails, seeing somebody just turn into something else, something shriveled and voiceless, right in front of you."
"But, Elizabeth. Elizabeth. It was his birthday, wasn't it? And Paul had brought the stuff for him, for a present."
"Yes, Griffin and because it was his birthday, he had it first and because it was his birthday we're alive and he's not and it was all because Paul just had to get a little treat for his birthday that he's dead. I always remember that his birthday was Halloween and - well, it kind of makes me wonder. Not that it's important. Facts."
"Did. . .does. . .Paul feel responsible?" Griffin studied her face for signs of upset, like a lover looking for symptoms of - love.
"I don't know; I never asked him."
"Well, what do you think?"
"He shouldn't. . .he was trying to do something nice. Rituals kill people. Money's always such a problem. Remember that awful waitress job I had right after Bill died? It was so insulting. There I was in the middle of a slough of pain and trauma serving beer to the scum of the earth."
"Forgive me, but you seemed to have an attitude, as they say, after Bill died. You were always a little withdrawn; after that happened you seemed contemptuous."
"I don't know about that. I'm sure. . .well. . .perhaps I felt other people didn't realize certain things."
"Such as. . .?"
"Griffin, dear, can you get me some strawberry ice-cream please?"
"Paul's come back from it all more than you have you know. Paul is more - he's more like other people."
"Griffin, dear, it's at east twelve years ago now. Many things have happened in Paul's life."
"Maybe not so many in yours? Is that it?"
"Griffin, dear, I have to go to sleep now. Come back and see me."
"Sometime?. . .I'll come tomorrow. We'll. . .go for a walk. O.K.?"
That night Griffin called Dr. Zalbertina. He wondered diffidently if Elizabeth had called to make an appointment. Dr. Zalbertina said no. Griffin wondered if the dose might not be lowered soon.
Dr. Zalbertina said no. "Griffin, you don't fully understand. I'm afraid. In these cases the patient must come in voluntarily ready to make a committment. There is absolutely no value--indeed, it can be dangerous--to pressure the patient."
"But Dr. Zalbertina. We're talking about years. Years and years in the life of a human being." There was a pause. "Cut the 'human being' stuff, O.K.? You are naive to the point of imbecility. You don't comprehend the magnitude of the problem, or how slim the chances are of the situation ever improving." "That's terribly depressing, Dr. . ." "Good. The situation is, in fact, quite depressing. Goodbye, Griffin, I'm afraid I'm just out the door--season tickets to the philharmonic--can't be late--my wife is waiting."
The next day Griffin called Elizabeth. There was no answer. He continued to try to reach her for several hours. He became extremely worried and called Teresa, who gave him Elizabeth's mother's number in Charleston. It turned out that her father had had a heart attack and died and Elizabeth had flown home for the funeral. After she came back, Griffin continued to see her, but for two weeks worth of frequent visits there was nothing that passed between them that resembled conversation. Elizabeth lay inert and unapologetic. Griffin came in, tried to engage her, failed and left.
Then one day: "Elizabeth, would you like some tea?"
"Thank you, Griffin dear. Did you see the little painting I made this morning? Here it is."
"Very pretty. Have you been painting a lot?"
"Oh, I don't know. A lot. Maybe I'll go on a little trip. Would you like to go to Mexico with me Griffin? Or Paris?"
"Sure. Why not, dear Elizabeth? When would you like to go?"
"Oh, soon. I'll take that little suitcase that Mother got for me when I was little."
"Elizabeth, have you seen Paul?"
"No, I haven't seen Paul in years and years. No. Paul is away."
"Would you rather go to Paris or Mexico? Or London?"
"Why Griffin. . .maybe London, after all. But no. Henry loved Paris. Sit still. I have a little treat for you."
She disappeared into the bedroom and came out, waddling but stately wearing a big floppy hat. "Isn't that lovely Grif? Paul sent it to me." She was smiling. Her fine hair was sticking to her head. It was a very hot day. There was a little sweat on her upper lip. Her robe, ripped halfway up the side by now, fell gracefully.
Griffin went to the corner to get her some soap, some writing paper, and some ice cream. He came back with these items and Elizabeth was practically asleep. "Come back tomorrow, Griffin and we'll go for a walk. Will you come tomorrow? You will, won't you?"
That night Griffin went out with some friends he hadn't seen in a while. A couple of cheerful people, a young married couple-old friends. They made a spaghetti dinner at their apartment in the east sixties and then they all went out to a nice air-conditioned movie and saw a good comedy. By the end of the night Griffin was making acerbic comments with the best of them. He felt relaxed and goofy. The next day he had no enthusiasm for Elizabeth. Her insulation was making it so effortful for him to be around her-he always felt called upon to penetrate her fluffy shroud of lassitude-of easy emptiness-to wake her, to energize her. And he always felt at the same time that something was missing in him because he failed ever to be quite like her. She was in a different class, either aristocratic or mad, or maybe both. But he went over there, bearing ice-cream, and eager to go back to the story of Bill, if she was up to it. He buzzed for twenty minutes. Finally Elizabeth let him in.
"Griffin: I'm so glad you're here. I'm very upset. You remember the picture I showed you? Well, somebody came in here and moved it. While I was asleep. Isn't that horrible? Who would do a thing like that?" Griffin felt a chill at the back of his neck.
"Elizabeth. . .no--that--that's terrible." Griffin felt Elizabeth was looking at him with more innocence, more real trust than she ever had. She had a problem she believed in for the first time in her life-for the first time in her life she was really asking for help. But he also felt he was in the land of marshmallows and candy-canes and little gold-flecked creatures for answering the way he had. Christ,
this was going too far! "Are you sure you didn't leave it there? Elizabeth-are you sure? She flinched. "It was definitely moved. It wasn't that far from the cigarettes when I went to sleep." "Oh."
"Maybe I didn't lock everything properly." Now she was looking at him with suspicion. Dark pools were floating in her eyes, progressing from the pupil to the periphery.
The next day when Griffin came over another picture had been turned upside down and Elizabeth's favorite coffee cup had been carefully cleaned-Elizabeth was sure she had left it with a spoon in it and a little coffee. "They think I don't know but they're fools. . .of course I know." Griffin was made to go the rounds of all windows-every conceivable orifice and aperture in fact. He thought next she'd be having him check for hidden marauders in the oven and maybe she'd push him in when he was bent over. He was irritated and concerned. The next day after making tea and conversation for awhile, Griffin tried to confront the situation. "Perhaps, Elizabeth-you have built up an oversensitivity in your loneliness. That is, you don't go out often-not often enough, I can't help thinking. And perhaps your preoccupations are so personal that you have over focused on your immediate environment. . ." He carried on this way, creating hypothesis of every imaginable kind. Trying to make a candy-tree out of the air for Elizabeth to play under so she could get off this fixation. But her response was to snarl at him and reaching suddenly into the pocket of her robe, she produced a jackknife. "So. . .you must be working with them. Trying to convince me it was in my mind! Get out of here! Get out out OUT of here!"
Griffin looked at her in horror, frozen in his chair. He ventured a sentence reminding Elizabeth of his patient involvement in her life. This was met with a growl and a vehement gesture with the knife. He edged toward the door. Everything was in slow motion. She showed more energy than he had seen in her in years as she raised the knife above her head. Once outside his eyes and cheeks smarted. The snowman had melted. He had failed to help an injured human being. Reasoning had taken a sucker punch.
That night he called Dr. Zalbertina. "I'm not surprised", said that worldly practitioner. "I'll have her mother check up on her."
Griffin felt that enough was enough and dedicated himself more definitely to getting a job.