RodMer Short Story Package QQ Parapraxis
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Here is Short Story Package QQ, a short story by Merike Lugus.

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Approximately 10,000 words

She was chasing after a Frisbee, swiveled around and ran backwards in anticipation of the catch when they collided, arms and legs momentarily suspended, her blonde hair fanning out, tumbling around her face together with sand and wind, his brown torso twisting to minimize the impact, arms taking flight, grasping at the air behind him. Hair like a raven's wing lifted from his forehead.

Juan had just started his late afternoon walk with his father when it happened. Nora scrambled to her feet and offered her hand to assist him. He was captivated by her mobile face as she apologized.

Yo soy...terribly sorry...muchos...ah...oh, very sorry...

He got up on one elbow, shielded his eyes from the sun with his hand to get a better look at his undoer and rescuer. This was on the Costa del Sol, where she was vacationing with her girlfriend Beth, and Beth's mother, Marilyn, who had taken her under her wing. That was many years ago. Nora was seventeen.

Juan and his father spent their summers in a villa nearby and spent a lot of time strolling along the beach observing the foreigners. Ogling the girls, Nora had accused him coquettishly. But she hadn't paid close attention to his response:

Woman is so beautiful. Very difficult to choose.

She heard only the singular 'woman', and he was indeed stroking the windblown hair from her eyes so he could examine them more closely. He saw specks of gold, slivers of turquoise, glint of diamonds. He told her she would make any man feel rich.

Beth and her mother rushed to her side after the collision, prepared to make amends using their schoolbook Spanish, but Juan and his father spoke rather good English and assured them that they themselves were somehow to blame. They insisted on paying for the trouble by taking them to dinner that very evening.

Once seated around the table the two men managed to make each guest feel she was the most desirable woman in the world, even though there was a tacit understanding that Juan was Nora's windfall, an understanding reinforced by his nimble arrangements to sit next to her. From Beth's point of view, this meant he gazed more at her across the table than at Nora. She kept count of the number of times she caught Juan glancing at her.

Everyone agreed that the mishap had been a lucky thing. Guided by real natives, the three tourists would have a more authentic experience of Spain, find out where and what the locals ate and where they went to hear the real Cante Flamenco.

Marilyn nodded her head vigorously throughout the meal. This was just the sort of worldly experience she had wanted the two girls to have. Especially Nora, who, it seemed to her, lived in another world, as if she expected life to lead her to its treasures without her having to chart the map herself. Marilyn took pride in her ability to nurture and extended herself as a sort of surrogate mother to Nora.

And the two men, ah, they were delighted to have the company of three beautiful American women.

Canadian, Beth corrected, suppressing an urge to giggle on hearing herself and Nora counted as women.

Ah, but of course.

Marilyn was all fluttery, finding herself of great interest to Juan's father.

Not Pablo she laughed, learning his name. That's too perfect--you do look like Picasso!

And you are Marilyn Monroe?

Oh heavens no! Just Marilyn Goldsmith from Mississagua.

And Nora had laughed when Juan introduced himself.

Not Don Juan, she had said.

Juan shrugged modestly and took a sideways glance at his father. Possibly related, he murmured.

Not to worry, Juan's father smiled. My Juan never catch woman like you.

Nora had laughed, looking from one to the other, thinking this was a joke between them. She noticed a sudden shift of mood in Juan, the aggressive thrust of his chin directed at his father. His black eyes narrowed. When he looked at her again, the intensity in them took her breath away. She had never encountered such a range and rapid flow of passion, like a glissando up and down a taut violin string. Distress, torment, desire, nuances too fleeting to be named.

Back in Toronto she bought all the authentic Flamenco music she could get hold of, pronouncing the names Juan had written down for her. She locked herself into her room and read the list over and over as if it were a love letter: Manuel Vallejo, Manolo Caracol, Pepe Pinto, La Niña de los Peines. His round, generous handwriting held a strange power. She stared at the bold loops and dashes, caressed the paper, kissed it, as she listened over and over to the exotic wails of desire and loss in a foreign language, her father pounding on the door, pleading with her to come to her senses.

When will my life begin? she wailed. She pulled back her hair, angled her face to the mirror and whispered in her sultriest whisper, yo t'amo. She tossed her hair like a horse unwilling to be tamed. And she stopped going out on dates.

Canadian men are children, she pronounced to Beth, practising a world-weary turn of the head, staring into space.

In her play dreams in the months that followed, he pulled her to him, pleading, you must love me. Promise. He said it tenderly. He said it roughly, even threateningly, and Nora closed her eyes and said, I promise. On her eighteenth birthday as she blew out the candles, she still promised. The promise was fed by unceasing postcards from Juan from his extensive travels.

Imagine her surprise when one evening he was on the telephone. He had to see her. She had inspired him. He described the colour of her hair, her eyes, her earlobes, the translucency of her skin where it was less touched by the sun. Nora blushed, unaware that any man would scrutinize her in such precise detail.

Because of her, he had done something rash.

For you I change my life. For you I bring my business to Canada. Everything.

He was calling from the airport. The one in Toronto. How you call it?

Urgency, passion bordering on mania burned right through the wires.

Let it be now, she thought fiercely and she stole out of the house, hopped on the subway to meet him in the heart of the city.

He did change his life, and hers too. She tore herself free from the restrictive home life with her father, something she had been on the verge of doing even before her trip to Spain. With or without his blessings she would marry Juan, she said defiantly. And she did.

Sarah was born and Juan showed off his daughter tenderly and proudly to the world. They moved into a nice house in the Annex. Many things did not turn out as Nora had expected, but she was in love and eager to compromise. In any case, she hadn't known what to expect, never having witnessed close up the love between a man and a woman. Her mother had left her and her brother years ago and her father struggled with his bitterness and raised his children alone. What she knew about love she had learned from comic books and Wuthering Heights and dreamy guesswork with Beth .

She began to notice that the sophistication she had thought was a part of Juan was more in his elegant language and in the proud way he carried himself, not in his actual behaviour. In truth, he was a bit 'square'. He never swore nor smoked and only occasionally had a glass of wine. At first she found that endearing, even reassuring. But when he began to frown when she reached for her second or third glass of wine, or when she experimented with exotic eye shadows, she felt annoyed.

Your beauty needs no embellishment, he told her. The first few times the words were whispered endearments. Later they were delivered in the form of a lecture.

It was a strange mixture. On the one hand there was his charm, some of which lay in his intense interest in everything Nora did or thought, an interest so different from her father's ill-disguised disappointment in her. On the other hand there was his solemnity which sometimes bordered on the morose.

I think it's a question of culture, she told Beth over a coffee in her kitchen. He'll get over it. This is Canada.

Beth wasn't sure what she meant by morose. Everyone thinks you're a dream couple, she said. He's sooo elegant!

Her first real disappointment in the marriage happened when Manuel was born two years after Sarah. Juan, regrettably, had important business elsewhere and couldn't be with her for a few weeks, but he sent his love and kisses from the airports of London, Geneva, Milan, Rome, Marseilles, Paris, Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and eventually Toronto. But the birth was long and difficult. Nora had never in her life felt so alone and she clung to her babies.

*

The airport has turned out to be an important presence in their lives. She's not exactly sure what Juan does for a living because she has no head for business or money, especially not the stock market, but his work requires frequent and sudden departures. He absolutely detests airports, but what can he do?

My work exhausting, he complains, but is important to keep competitive edge.

So, often when he comes home he is restless. She makes him dinner and asks how things went. O.K., he says and she can tell he's still far away. Eventually the name of a woman creeps into their conversation. Sofia's instinct for investments is admirable, for example. Next week it is Simone who has surprised him with her good judgment.

That's nice, says Nora. The children are taking a lot of her time. And her studies, too. The first few years at home she dedicated to children and learning Mediterranean cuisine. Now she has gone back to school. She wants to teach music, and has picked up the violin where she left off after she met Juan.

Margaret is very surprising woman, Juan says. She astonishes me completely.

Oh?

Oh yes, her understanding of people is very very good. She understands me very well.

Nora can't help but notice the frequency with which women's names pop up. His comments have become more personal, too. He describes their problems with their hair, their skin, their boyfriends or husbands. His heart goes out to Margaret, for example, because she is having serious difficulties with her husband.

Her husband is not a good man. Juan wants Nora's heart to go out to Margaret too.

Why is he not a good man? she asks, making an effort to control feelings outside her comfort zone.

He does not appreciate her. She is not beautiful, like you, her skin not so soft, but she is very fine.

Nora feels her throat constrict. Jealousy is not a new sensation but she still doesn't know what to do with it. She doesn't like it. But she can't see the enemy, not for sure. How much is a matter of culture, or is there a different kind of sophistication, one she is lacking in, she wonders. There is so much she doesn't know.

She is about to ask what these women mean to him, when suddenly he turns on her with sorrowful eyes and wants to know what she does with her time while he is gone. He asks her to go upstairs to the bedroom, away from the children's listening ears, and there he impresses on her the importance of faithfulness between a husband and wife, and the need for complete and utter honesty. Nora is disarmed, ashamed that she could have doubted his motives in spending time with Margaret, for instance. He undresses her tenderly as he explores her eyes. Nora feels no desire to make love and wonders if this is what was meant in all the love-stories she had read, that love involves pain. She wonders what he detects in her eyes.

He tells her afterwards that while he's gone, he worries all the time that some man with more time, more charm, more money, will steal her away with beautiful words and promises of exotic places.

Men are like that, he says, and you would be naive not to think so.

Nora laughs. She thinks he's quaint, worrying about her like that, as though she could be snatched away against her will. She hasn't known other men, other than her father or the few boys she dated, but she's pretty sure there is no line-up of them waiting their chance with her. But she finds it comforting that Juan should worry about this.

Oh, Juan, she says, it's you I love. It's you I want to live my life with.

My father say you are too good for man like me. He is filled with sorrow, as if his father's words come from a fountain of eternal truth. She hates it when he brings up his father. She feels they are up against an invisible force. At the same time, she feels strong in her indignation. She will show him his worth. That's what wives are for. They don't desert their husbands.

Your father--he doesn't even know me. I don't know why he would say something like that. Juan, listen to me. It's me you must listen to.

But lately, inside she is beginning to feel ugly. She's not sure when this feeling started to creep into her being. She's not even sure she's telling the truth any more when she says she loves him. She's not sure exactly when it happened, but their lovemaking has lost its joy. She feels almost as if she is being tested. Do you still love me? he asks again and again. Can you love someone like me?

Oh sweetheart! How can I convince you!

One night he says, you do not touch me with fingers of love. It's the first time that fear creeps into her loving. Maybe it is true. She is obviously not loving him with the depth that can convince him, and yet, she knows no other way. She is exhausted with trying.

She digs her fingers into his back in a demonstration of passion. He does not see the confusion in her face. And later, when there are tears, he does not see them either. He turns away wearily and she lies awake for a long time staring at his beautiful smooth back and thinks about other women. How do they make love? Where did they learn? Are movies something to go by? Perhaps she's not spirited enough? She wonders what it is to be a bitch, and is it too late to become one?

She's started to have coffee with someone at the Royal Conservatory for Music. His name is Michael. He's barely twenty and is totally dedicated to his career. He likes to spend time with Nora because she's older and safely married and because she is also dedicated to get him on the international concert stage. He plays violin in a way she never will. They laugh a lot. They're silly when together. He tells her she's a very funny lady, everything she says becomes a cartoon for a book he is working on.

People underestimate cartoons, he says. Wittgenstein thought you could tell all of philosophy through cartoons. I'm just picking up where he left off. I've got about sixty of them ready for drawing. You know anyone who can draw?

She doesn't see anything funny in it when she tells him he is younger while she has more experience. But he conjures up a baggy-eyed turbaned madam with lacquered nails toying with a petrified young man. He is mischievous, takes her to a restaurant where belly dancers move among the patrons and make their flesh tremble to the rhythm of the music. All the time he watches her, not the dancers, grinning, as if to say, what do you think of that.

Nora doesn't know what she thinks. He's deliberately testing the limits of her comfort.

Lighten up, he says.

She wants to be at ease in this ambiance. He makes it easy. He shrugs off the voluptuous dancers but she is wound up tight.

I'm tired of my own complexity, she says.

Michael laughs, visualizes another cartoon.

She loosens. They begin to plot getting into Roy Thompson Hall when it's empty so that Michael can have his first solo on a concert stage.

Lately Nora's been very confused. She has finally admitted a pattern. In fact it's a pattern that is making her physically ill but she has managed to ignore it by spending more time with Michael. And when she points out the pattern to Juan, he laughs, puts his arms around her and kisses her forehead. Or he is gloomy and hurt by what he calls her accusations. She doesn't like to aggravate him, he works such long hours.

One night his plane is due back from Texas at 6:00 p.m. She has the table set with candles. Sarah and Manuel are scrubbed clean and dressed for daddy. She had wanted all of them to pick him up at the airport, but he insisted he preferred to have dinner and candlelight waiting.

At eight o'clock Nora calls the airport to check if the plane made it on time. It had.

At nine o'clock Juan calls to say he ran into his friend Thiery and they are having a coffee together but he'll be home soon.

At ten o'clock he calls again. Thiery is having a nervous break-down over some woman and Juan thinks it best if he takes him home and stays with him until he's stable.

At eleven thirty he calls to say he is at Thiery's house and is managing to talk him out of suicide. He will be home soon.

Nora asks for Thiery's phone number. Well, it turns out it's not really a house he lives in but a sort of co-op in which he shares a telephone and it's probably too late to call because one couldn't know how many people one would be waking up.

Nora can't even remember who Thiery is, and she insists on getting a number anyway.

She walks around with the number in her hand. By now Sarah and Manuel are in bed and her stomach is aching. She feels feverish, puts on a heavy sweater to stop her shaking, then dials the number.

The number you have reached is not in service. Please hang up now.

This is the pattern that's emerging. She knows because she has started to keep a diary and she puts an asterisk next to every entry where she expresses her worry over Juan's whereabouts. Every time the plane is late, or he must stay abroad an extra day, or when his plans suddenly shift if she insists on going with him on a particular trip, say, to New York.

In the morning after the particular night in question, he is sleeping next to her, her Juan with the wounded eyes. She doesn't know when he crept in. When he wakes up, he will ask her if she loves him, or, he will say he is the only one who knows what love really is. She does not know what love between husband and wife should look like. She may not have seen it close up, but she'd been hoping that she was approximating it. Surely what she feels for her children is authentic love. She never doubts that. And now that she thinks of it, what she feels for Juan is not much different.

When he wakes, he will explore her eyes for deception. He will look and look to find love in her until she turns away-- a sure sign of guilt. However, should she stare back unblinkingly, and say of course she loves him, he will want to know what she is hiding from him. She finds herself on a narrow bridge between the ocean of deception and the ocean of indifference. When did this happen? Did he put her there or did she crawl out there on her own?

Nora is exhausted by this close scrutiny. Why can't he simply accept her love? She feels heavier and heavier. She drags herself through the days, unable to attend to anything but the children and her violin.

When Beth spent a couple of years in California, Nora missed their gossip about husbands and domestic life. She missed the carefree times when they assessed people and problems and plotted outrageous solutions. But when Beth comes back from Los Angeles she seems more distant. Nora can't tell for sure, but she senses that Beth is defensive of Juan when she tells her of her insecurities. She's still ostensibly her best friend, but she's beginning to make Nora feel uncomfortable. She finds excuses to avoid her.

She turns to Michael. Do you think he loves me, she asks him after theory class.

You're looking at the wrong person, Michael say. What do you want to hear?

How could I be so miserable if it isn't love? she says and starts to laugh.

You've fused with him, he says. Why don't you join our chamber group? Martha's moving to Vancouver and we need another violin.

Really? A small space opens in the back of her mind and she bursts into tears. Put that in one of your cartoons, she says, laughing then crying. I'm not usually like this, she adds.

Michael raises an eyebrow.

On this particular morning, after Juan's rescue of Thiery, there is a fog outside the window. So much fog it seems to Nora hardly worthwhile getting out of bed. But then, when was the last time she leapt out of bed eager to start the day?

A halo of light is where the sun should be. It's stuck there like a gob of butter in a bowl of cream of wheat. Is this how one finds Jesus? she wonders. His face shining through the fog, friendly, familiar, as if you've known him all your life. Maybe he can guide her through the mist? It's a thought that's been troubling her, and that's how she knows she is hopelessly lost. She's seen religion happen to others. Even to people who'd been contemptuous of it. It happens when the soul's depleted and it happens in a flash. Zap! and Christ and the Holy Ghost are inside you. Permanent residents.

She's been trying another route. She's been trying to stay open, keep expanding, grow so large she can contain all of Juan and not lose herself, and above all, keep the family together.

The thing is, she can't expand forever and that's why her head is so light, why she has no shape. She's trembling, losing track. Perhaps she's lost track altogether. It's been a mistake to lose herself in Juan's eyes, that much she knows. But now the fog. It has changed the gravity in this room. She is floating.

Juan stirs. In his sleep his brow is pinched as if he is under the strain of persecution. His smooth cheek droops towards his soft lips which to Nora appear to be ready to suckle. Is it love she feels, or disgust? He is her third child. With one hand he gropes for her breast. She can't bear the thought of being touched this morning. At least, not until she finds out a few things. She takes his hand and holds it in hers even as she knows that the first step out of the fog is for them to grow apart. She feels his worry. She has always felt his worry more than her own.

It's a strange fog, one in which inner clarity is sharpened at the expense of sight. She can finally say it: he knows. They've both known for quite a while. She's not sure who knew first but she remembers when it happened. They were driving home from a party; she had dressed more glamorously than usual, had flirted more than usual. It had been a different kind of crowd and Juan blamed her for getting them into it, for having a friend like Eric, who had friends who chose guests according to money, status or sex-appeal. For sure she didn't fit into the first two categories which is why she dressed to the teeth and sparkled.

The decisive moment at the party, the moment she decided to declare to Juan that there was another dimension to her, happened when a joint was passed around. Juan declined politely. When it came to her turn she could feel his eyes on her, she could feel the horror in them as she raised it to her lips and sucked. There was no mistake. She sucked a second time too. She sucked deliberate and deep, and she held it burning in her lungs as if she never intended to exhale, and she knew he was watching her and there'd be hell to pay.

It was good stuff too. Not that she was an expert, having tried it with Michael only once before in her life, but it made her feel fine and invincible. Juan drove them home from the party that night, and in her elevated state, watching from the moon, she saw two mismatched figures heroically struggling to keep together something that wouldn't stick. She saw each as a gloriously separate figure, clear space all around.

For mercy's sake, let them breathe, let them both breathe, she thought.

She said that aloud and he said she was stoned. But what she saw was what she wanted, clear space, and if she had to get stoned in order to see that, then she'd have to say that it's holy stuff not to be messed with but kept for special occasions. The only other time in her history that she'd been so clear headed was when careening along the 401 highway, backwards, having been side-swiped by a transport truck. The lights of the oncoming traffic were falling on her like a rush of stars. She might die and she might not. Truth had never been so simple.

Truth is still simple. It's the consequences she worries about. How much harm? To whom? Not her dumpling children, not over her dead body.

Good morning, he mumbles, giving her hand a squeeze. He heaves his body around and buries his face in the pillow.

How can man sleep with all this sun! he moans.

Sunlight? she checks the window. There's no sun, she says. She props herself up on pillows like a bather on an air mattress, preparing to float through the day.

To confront or not to confront.

They turned the clocks forward, she says.

One lost hour. Could that have been the hour of decision? The mist is spreading through her body. She feels more relaxed than ever before in this house. Go with it, go with it... her body hums. She has no other choice anyway. She can't make a muscle. She experiments. Make a muscle, she commands. The flesh winks at her. Mind sends the signal: this is no joke; asks, should they worry? She doesn't know. She doesn't know what it's about. Should she slide or should she fight? No one knows. Mind is blanking too.

Aii, what time is it? Juan sits up with a start.

She hears him but she can't answer.

What time is it? He stares at her.

She shakes her head vaguely. She feels no urgency and at the same time understands his.

What is wrong with you? He grips her shoulder and shakes it. She's like a rag doll, offering no resistance.

She shrugs vaguely.

Are the kids up? He finds his watch under his socks. Eight thirty! They'll be late for school!

Inside her head she calculates that it's really nine thirty, but she doesn't care. He'll find out soon enough, and why wasn't he listening anyway? The mist is even in her toes. She can't will them to move.

Are you feeling all right? he asks her.

Yes, there is concern in his voice. He senses something, she knows, because he decides to leave her alone. She hears everything. She hears the attempt at atonement. That's just a pre-emptive thing, she knows. He knows he's guilty of something. The pattern is to attack her first, keep her off-balance. But sometimes there's the hangdog thing as if all he ever wanted was to plop down at her feet and look up at her adoringly and it's not his fault there's something that fouls his good intentions. Or it's her fault. She's not what he'd bargained for.

Is it about last night? he asks.

One on one, she will lose. She could see him practising excuses and counter-attacks in his sleep. It's about last night and it isn't. It's about beginning to see. It's about feeling safe, keeping him away, separating herself from his needs. It's about seeing herself. Attached to him. Siamese twins. That's how they've lived. Twins joined at the lungs. For how long? She remembers breathing freely before she'd met him. Or now, for brief moments when with Michael. And inside this white cloud.

Soon she hears kitchen noises downstairs. Juan's voice, Mommy's not feeling well. Come on you two, fifteen minutes and I drive you. After fifteen minutes there will be another. He didn't say that, but she knows. He's easy with the kids.

Sarah pops her head in the doorway. Hi Mom! You O.K..?

She nods and smiles like a mother.

Gotto rush and see ya later, she disappears.

In the hallway, What's wrong with Mom?

I dunno... she looks O.K.

Mom? MOM? It's Manuel. His round face peers in at her. Are you sick? he whispers.

She nods and smiles.

She hears him whisper his diagnosis down the hall. Shhh! I think Mom's got laryngitis.

The front door opens and closes. Opens and closes.

Juan looks at her from the doorway, not crossing the threshold. There's a look on his face. It could be saying he's sorry. It could be saying she's lying. She tries to shake her head. Too much motion. She closes her eyes.

Outside the engine starts. She counts the seconds. He's gone. Is she lying, she wonders?

Every action has a consequence. Every consequence means pain for someone. She wants to have no consequence, create no pain, take up no space. To be one wave in an ocean, to rise and fall like the breath of eternal sleep. What is she saying! She catches herself, noting the dangerous underside to this white cloud. No, there is no escape from the pain of cause and effect, not even if one cuts loose and floats away on a white cloud. She's so very frightened of consequence. Of Juan's voice, his unhappiness, of losing her family.

But she also has a secret: There is something coiled inside her ready to leap. This frightens her most of all because once this something is out, there's no getting it back inside, there's no controlling it.

She wonders what will happen when Juan comes back, and he will, after he drops the kids off, because he can't bear ambiguity between them. He's made nervous by her messy corners. He says he doesn't understand her, she's not like other women. He says she moves in a shadowy world with shadowy objects. Once when playing the game of If you were a bird, he said he would be a hawk and she would be an owl. This had puzzled her.

Suddenly she understands. He wants to think of her as an owl because he cannot imagine anything different from himself. Owls are predators like himself, and if she is like him, then she is not to be trusted. Silly game. She hadn't thought fast enough. The truth is there's no bird to describe her. She's a sleepwalker, not an owl, and that's what frightens him. Owls are easy, but sleepwalkers? What are they up to?

She knows he will be back if he feels her slipping away. Because he can't lose her. He will be losing his left lung.

The front door opens and closes. Juan comes up the stairs. He takes in the fact she's still in bed. Glances at his watch.

Would you like coffee and croissant?

He sounds cautious. They've never been here before. Where are they?

No thank you, she says. Her body is taking up space in the bed but she's elsewhere having a nice time.

What's wrong? His forehead wrinkles like a puppy's.

She doesn't know.

Where are you?

She's not sure. She thinks she might be inside a cloud.

What's it like in there?

Soft. Very white. Sounds don't reach her well. He seems very far away. You are far away, she says.

Are you afraid?

No. She doesn't think so.

What can I do? he asks.

Nothing.

Shall I call a doctor.

No.

How long will you be like this?

I don't know.

What about tonight?

I don't want to go. You take the kids.

What will I tell Beth?

I don't care. She notes a tremor of distress inside her, hearing him pronounce the name. She visualizes Beth, the subtle music at the corners of her mouth.

She's gone to a lot of trouble planning this party, he says.

Irritation is building in him. She notes that too. She's a cosmic anthropologist observing the habits of creatures on other planets.

I don't care, she says.

You never care. She hears the stifled anger.

It's possible he doesn't believe that she can't move. She's not sure herself whether she's to be trusted. She can go to the bathroom, for instance. She can put on music. Heifetz is playing at this very moment.

I've cared too much, she says. About everyone except myself.

He's quiet for a long time, his hand on hers. He's rarely at a loss for words. Has she fooled him? Herself? This is new territory for her too.

It's not working, is it, she says. She states it as a fact.

What? He's stroking her wedding ring finger. He's stroking hard, feeling the bone.

Our marriage.

You've given up.

She smiles at this. Someone has to say it first, she says. Her smile broadens. She engages his eyes. She feels free. He sees something in her eyes, senses something new.

What? he says softly, smiling back at her.

Tell me the truth, she says, because I no longer care. Has there been a single year in our married lives that I've had you all to myself? The way she says it she might be asking him if the almond trees in Spain are still blooming.

Juan's face tightens, caught off guard. She almost forgot he's still in the real world. How she longs to have a true conversation with his angel.

His eyes are darting about. His mind is feverishly calculating her drift and how to get there first.

He can't possibly get there first, she is so far ahead. He would not believe how far ahead. Or how much she loves his unguarded self at this moment. He strives so hard for some sort of consistency, a theoretical plane that contains all his contradictions. Perhaps it's his intentions she's loved all along. They've lived according to their intentions, not according to the facts of their lives. Michael tells her she's too theoretical, too tolerant. Some people would call Juan a liar and be done with it.

I guess it's over, he says. He bites his lip and his head goes up and down like that of an old man hitting on the central truth of his life.

You didn't answer my question.

He smiles and shrugs. Well, 1985 wasn't a bad year.

She looks up at him, surprised to have felt the twist of a knife in her gut. She had been only half guessing. Well, maybe one third guessing. At least one tenth of her didn't know absolutely for sure. She notes the remnant of pride still within her. The pride that has kept her believing no one could replace her.

She thinks of all the names that have come up in their lives together, of his need to say those names, often, and softly. The latest one is Margaret, but she still remembers Beatrice, Rebecca, Sofia, Patricia. And so on. And so on. One half of her has known, the other half hasn't. There must be a name for that, she thinks, other than gullible or stupid. As there must be a name for one hand not knowing what the other is doing. Parapraxis, perhaps. Why not? she's been practising a kind of parapraxis for years. And he? Is Juan even aware of what he's doing to her?

They lock eyes. He sees her terrible pain. And she sees his panic. Never would he have bragged about 1985 had he known she was still so human. She wonders if her information has been wrongfully gained. Would this stand up in court? Or is she the culprit? She falls back into the mist.

But you're the only one I've ever loved, he insists, squeezing her hand, his eyes moist, pleading, so concentrated on penetrating her. She believes him, but the meaning of his love is disintegrating, becomes a part of the mist itself.

She detaches herself, contemplates the gilded poster behind him. Lovers in a tender embrace. A gift from Juan. What would an anthropologist say about this poster in the inner sanctum of a married couple's home? She notices for the first time that the woman is clinging. She might even be on her knees underneath the flowery garment, hanging from the man's neck. She wonders at what some people do in order to appear desired.

Inside her white cloud she is not cramped. Not on her knees. Her heart is too widespread to break.

What are you thinking? His voice is husky.

He can see it's good where I am, she thinks.

His gaze moves like a lover's from one eye to the other, to her lips. They sweep across her forehead, down her cheek. This must be an irresistible challenge, she thinks. She feels nothing, not love nor fear nor loathing. He is what he is, she thinks. He can't help it.

She doesn't know what to do. She only knows it feels good where she is, but she's scared, too. What if she can't get out of the cloud? She realizes he is speaking to her.

We can try again. One more time. I promise, I will do anything to stop your suffering. I promise.

He's gripping her hand tightly, kissing her shoulder. Tears begin to flow from her eyes, thinking of the word, suffering, thinking that he knows this is what she's been doing, and how long has he known, anyway? It's a silent, motionless crying. He kisses her tears, which flow and flow.

Please, just one more time. You're the only one I've ever loved. The only one who drives me mad... He's gripping both her shoulders and moving down her neck.

I will show you.

To her horror she realizes he wants to make love to her. Please, Juan, I don't want to. Not now for god's sake.

But she can't move. He's fumbling with the buttons of her pajamas, the lounging kind that's all in one piece. Thin silky jersey with a leopard print. Tiny covered buttons up front, like buttons on the back of a wedding dress. He is feverish, fumbling with the buttons.

And she is like a rag doll again, but pleading, not now, please not now. She's without force. She has will but no power.

You bitch! You big bitch! You make me want you! He's shaking her violently, and giving up on the buttons, rips open the front of the pajamas and forces it down her body. He is on her. This is what you want. Admit it, this is how you want it. His body shudders over her.

She cries silently for their humiliation. Her lack of strength, his lack of control. Have they reached the bare bones of their existence together? Has it ever been different? Dear god, surely we have loved each other. Inside the white cloud she thinks back. Surely there was love. In memory, Juan's expression shifts between tenderness, hurt and menace. Who is this man she has married?

He buckles with remorse, turns his head away. She is limp, unable to cover her naked body. He lifts the blanket over her and tucks her in.

Do you want me to stay home today? The penitent look is familiar but it is a stranger asking the question.

She shakes her head. Dear god, I am lost. No harm. No harm must come to anyone.

I have hurt you, he says. I promise I will never hurt you again. We can be good, he insists. I must change. But it must be real change. Somehow I must convince you.

It's too late, she says. She doesn't want to hear any of this, because... because she doesn't believe he can. Because, she can say at last from the safety of the white cloud, she wants to move on to a different life. But she listens all the same, because she doesn't want anything to change for Sarah and Manuel.

You must see me differently, really. If you could see how I can be, how I am intending to be, you will love me again.

I do love you, she says. That's not the point. I love you like one of my children. Can't you see, we're both suffocating. Why do I have to be the one to say it? You won't change. You can't. You may as well ask Manuel to change.

She's surprised at how calmly she's managed to say something that has been churning inside for months and months, maybe even years.

He looks at her as if she had just given him the solution. Manuel will grow up, he says. I will too.

Nora turns her had from him.

You will see, he says solemnly and kisses her on the forehead.

Sarah and Manuel are back from school. Nora listens to the sounds of her family from upstairs. The fridge door opens and doesn't close. That would be Sarah. She never thinks out what she wants before opening the fridge. Manuel shouts at her, don't keep the door open! Mom says! This is news to Nora, this obedience to her rules.

She hears Juan telling them that Mommy can't get out of bed yet but he will take them to the party. He brings her food on a tray and leaves it at the side of the bed without saying a word. But he can't resist making a point. He tiptoes, puts his finger to his lips as if to say shhh! Just as little Manuel would do. Juan's being her good child, so, how will she ever find the strength to leave him?

After the party he tucks the kids in bed and sleeps in the spare room. In the morning he's gone before she wakes up. Sarah and Manuel are gone too. A breakfast tray is by her bed. The house feels strangely empty. This is the space she needs. It's either this or life inside a white cloud. Feeling is starting to seep back into her and she begins to grieve for what they are about to lose. No amount of sweaters and blankets can warm the chill inside her now.

But life comes back to her. She gets up and showers. She tidies up in the children's rooms. She steps into the back yard and is dazzled by the spring sun. When Sarah and Manuel come home for lunch she has prepared their favourite treat, chocolate and oatmeal crunch. She loves them to death and they're both happy her mysterious laryngitis is over and she missed the best birthday cake ever and Beth sent her love.

In the middle of the afternoon there's a knock at the door. Through the frosted pane she makes out a tall man with curly hair. She opens the door and it's Juan standing there. His dark hair has been permed. Hands over her mouth she laughs in disbelief. His eyes are on fire as he anticipates her response. He turns his head this way and that for her to admire. She can't help staring at him, he looks so different, so wrong, impossible, but despite herself, she feels hope.

This is the new me, he says.

What's your name?

Juan.

Ahh, I knew a Juan once.

He doesn't seem surprised to see her up and about and does not comment on it. I've made arrangements he says. The baby-sitter is coming to look after the kids and you and I are going out.

Where?

To that new Greek restaurant. We'll sit outside and have wine with our meal and later we'll have Turkish coffee.

The Juan she knows doesn't like Greek food. He doesn't encourage her to drink wine. The Juan she knows dislikes Turkish coffee. She look at him suspiciously. It's already a foregone conclusion that the momentum of the previous day is gone. He has made her laugh.

As they go down the street he tells her he hasn't been feeling too well lately but she shouldn't worry. It's the same head flu he had some weeks ago. It seems to be chronic. She shouldn't worry but he tells her precisely how it affects his throat, ears and nose.

Why don't you see an ears, nose and throat specialist, she suggests.

He gives her the doctors-are-all-idiots look.

That's the other Juan, she says.

Ahh, good point, he says. I'll make the appointment tomorrow.

She keeps stealing glances at him, he looks so different. He is smiling, knowing she's looking.

Seated at last, overlooking the traffic on Avenue Road, he reaches across the table for her hand and gives it a squeeze. This feels so promising. The wine is poured into generous round glasses. He leans back in his chair, passes the glass under his nose, resists the scornful grimace of the old Juan. She feels she is out with a stranger. She'll take the opportunity to try to see him through the eyes of Margaret, for instance. Margaret has never experienced Juan as a child. She wants to see him as Margaret does.

Are you married? he asks politely.

Yes. And you?

Yes. Any children?

A girl and a boy. They're getting older now, seven and ten.

Ahh! I have a girl and a boy too, but they're just babies, seven and ten.

I see. What's your wife like?

What is your husband like?

She laughs. O.K. That's not a fair question. I take it back...

It's all right. My wife...my wife, she's very beautiful, very, how you say, full of compassion, very understanding. No really, don't look at me like that...I mean it. I love her very much. Now your turn.

If you love her very much, why are you here with me? Nora says teasingly, shaking her head. Just kidding. You want to know about my husband. The thing is, at times I've thought of leaving my husband. Most people would probably think I was a fool because he's very handsome, you know, and smart too, and in some ways the most remarkable person in the world. But...

I know-- bet he's dramatic, volatile. I bet he's a Spaniard with straight hair--the very worst kind. Totally unlike me. I'm Greek, you know.

Oh, yes, I know. But then, there's a problem with Greeks too. You know what they say about them bearing gifts.

Yes, yes, I've heard about that. His smile fades and he looks thoughtfully at his glass.

My husband has an identity problem, she says. It complicates things.

Oh, really? How do you mean?

Well, maybe not identity. Maybe it's a matter of confidence. You see, I don't think he believes that he can be loved.

Not lovable! That's tragic. Is it true?

Of course it's not true. He's very lovable. He's got a hundred girlfriends to prove it.

Surely you're exaggerating!

I don't know? Am I? She stares hard at him. Anyway, she says dismissively, even one is too many. From the wife's point of view, of course.

But surely you can't take them seriously. You. You who are so lovely and sophisticated. Surely they don't mean anything to him?

I'm not, she says.

Excuse me?

I'm not sophisticated. Nora is close to tears.

But that hair, that face, that dress...

I'm not sophisticated, she repeats, and the tears come. He bought me this dress. He brought it to me from Milan. This bracelet from Tehran. He doesn't know who I am! She spits out the words, angry at the tears. After all these years, he doesn't know the first thing about me. Everything is about him, him, him. I know him better than I know myself. I know his every like and dislike. I know what makes him sneeze, I know what constipates him. I know what makes him sad or angry. It's never about me. It's never the right time to talk about me. If I have a crisis, he has a bigger one.

He looks horrified. The man with the curly hair says, that's terrible! That's terrible that he shouldn't take the time to get to know someone like you. How long have you been together?

Over twelve years.

His eyes caress her. He is a fool, he says. His sincerity takes her breath away. He takes her hand, opens the palm to face him and he strokes her fingertips, which light up like candles.

Then I will tell you something about yourself, he says. I may not know you very well, but I can tell you this: you are the only person I know who makes decisions based on aesthetic judgments.

What do you mean, aesthetic judgments?

You approach people as potential friends and you see each one as an aesthetic entity. You see what is good in them and you sense what is needed to bring out that goodness, and so you act differently with each person. Therefore, very often you bring out qualities that are precious to those people.

I don't know what you're talking about.

Well, Nancy, for example, she is clever and cunning, and you encourage her mischievous side. That's why she likes you. Ann reads many books but is not very articulate and most people don't take her ideas seriously. Except you. You know how to bring them out and that's why she loves you. Dawn, on other hand-- well, it doesn't work with everyone--Dawn believes every one is selfish. She's busy trying to find out your...angle, what you want from her. She can not see that you want nothing for yourself and so she does not trust you. So, depending on who you are with, you are seen as witty or generous, or, sometimes...not trusted.

Doesn't that make me... deceitful or something?

No no. You are offering a bouquet of roses to strangers as they walk by.

Juan with the curly hair is talking to her and she is staring into the distance.

The reason Juan loves you, he continues, is that with your aesthetic judgment, you recognize something fine in him. You see through all his complexities, right to the quality of the man. He finds this irresistible. This is irresistible.

Nora thinks for a moment. She's trying to pinpoint the quality in Juan without which her life would seem so much poorer. Intensity, for instance. Or is it melodrama? Never knowing what to expect? He entertains her.

A young woman is walking down the street towards them. Juan can't see her yet, but she has lovely auburn hair and is wearing a sea-green dress that moves with her body. This is crazy, Nora thinks, I'm looking at this woman with Juan's eyes. She feels her insides bracing for the impact when the woman comes into Juan's line of vision.

And then it occurs to her that the quality he is talking about is the very thing he has to offer to the women who pass through his life. He is blessed with insight, he has a golden tongue, and he can't resist using his gifts. This is how he is with the others, she thinks. This is his secret.

The young woman is at his side now, is passing, has passed. Nora is tense as she watches Juan's eyes, but they are not distracted, they never leave hers. When the woman is safely gone, Nora's shoulders relax.

At this very moment Juan is holding out a fresh bouquet of roses to her, the woman who needs to be seen as kind and perceptive and generous.

Maybe people can change, she thinks.

Parapraxis all over again. Simultaneously forgetting and remembering the past, they go, giddily falling into the arms they had known and searched for, accepting and offering love without complications, as if unaware that they are inside the complications that had formed like a web around them. This is the way she had always imagined her marriage would be, with love freely given and taken. Yet in some recess of her mind she knows this is possible only because her hand is on the door knob, the door is opened a crack, she is peeping through that crack, like a voyeur taking pleasure in her own ability to take pleasure.

They fall asleep murmuring their happiness, their resolve to try again.

In the morning Juan is in excellent spirits. Before he and Nora go off in different directions for the day, Juan says, I bet you were impressed that I didn't even look at that woman in the sea-blue dress! Oh Juan, don't say it, don't ruin it, but he can't resist saying it.

Nora is not sure what she heard, but she thinks she is happy and knows she is happy to see Juan so happy, so she smiles and moves her head in a way that could mean either yes or no.

Just before he closes the door, he says, so, everything is clear between us?

Nora has perfected the head movement.

She goes through the day with the automatic pilot turned on. This is what sleepwalkers do. She doesn't bump into anything unpleasant. She doesn't hear anything unpleasant. She plays violin all morning, shares lunch with Sarah and Manuel and goes over to the Conservatory in the afternoon.

A quick coffee with Michael before heading home. She tells him how Juan has changed, and in the telling she laughs at herself and the absurdity of her hope; and she cries for the absurdity of her hope, Michael prodding her, driving for the truth because he believes truth will set her free and because Michael does not love Juan.

I think people can change, she says without conviction.

Don't bet on it, he says. Listen, Nora, I don't claim to understand the guy, but I do know good sound when I hear it. Have you given thought to joining our chamber group? Robert is dying to come in and I can't keep the spot open much longer.

Oh Michael, I really appreciate what you're doing. It's not that I don't want to, it's just that I've been so dragged out--

Listen to me, Nora, I'm going to tell them yes. For the first time since she's known him, Michael is angry. Fucking bastard, he says under his breath. He's got your time on hold, for god's sake!

Nora looks down at the limp hands in her lap. She sees how pathetic she must look through Michael's eyes. She is also thinking of Sarah and Manuel.

Juan calls at suppertime. Thiery is depressed again and has asked him to go to a pub with him after work.

Poor Thiery, Nora says, She'd like to meet him too. Which pub will they go to? Perhaps if she can get a baby sitter for Sarah and Manuel, she could join them a bit later.

He does not know for certain. Thiery might be in the mood to go out and he might not. They might just take a long walk. Thiery is sensitive, fussy.

Like Margaret, says Nora in a flat voice.

Silence. Nora can hear someone is with him. A hand over the mouthpiece, a muffled voice. The sound of female impatience.

Juan tells her not to be like that. He sounds wounded.

Like what?

Remember last night. Now his voice is velvet. I thought everything is fixed up.

Sorry. Nora's head spins. Is everything fixed up or not? She can't think clearly with Juan whispering in her ear.

I think I need you home tonight. I need you as much as Thiery does.

Noraaa, Juan cajoles. She is five years old and the lesson is about sharing. You are a very selfish person. I give to people. I spend time. I find out what they need and I give...

Nora puts the receiver down before he finishes, manages to get by Sarah reading on the couch and Manuel playing with a friend, pulls herself upstairs to the bedroom before her knees buckle and she falls into bed where she curls up tight. Because of the children downstairs she doesn't make a sound. But she can't stop her body from rumbling, much as the earth did that morning of the earthquake when they visited Beth in California. She is splitting open with grief, the grief spilling soundlessly from her gaping mouth. She hadn't known that a broken heart is not just a metaphor.

She thinks about Michael and his sixty cartoons but he can't reach her where she is now. It's true what they say, you die alone.

Eventually a numbness comes over her, the familiar comfort of the white cloud. She drags herself to the bathroom mirror, pushes the hair away from her face and thrusts it into the full light. It is an undefined face, a face without willpower. She stares at it with curiosity.

My god! she thinks, this is how people look when they are insane. This is how they do it in the movies, they just let everything go slack.

Downstairs Sarah is shouting at Manuel. Their voices come as if from a distant planet.

I can so be in this room. Steve and I were here first.

You've got your own room if you're gonna make all that noise.

We were here first...we were here first...we were here first...

Nora can't take her eyes away from her image. There is nothing beautiful in this face. How could she have let it happen? When? She can't let her children see her like this...this rag doll.

Sarah's peevish voice wafts into the room, Oh jeez Mannie! Get a life!

Despite herself, and ever so slightly, Nora smiles, and in so doing catches a glimpse of someone familiar in the mirror.

The phone rings. She freezes. She has nothing to say to Juan. She can't bear the thought of his voice. Nevertheless, she picks up the receiver before the children do, and waits...

Nora? Nora? are you there? Hello?

Michael...she scarcely breathes the word.

Are you all right?

Yes ... yes, I'm actually...yes...I'm all right.

Rehearsal tomorrow? My place at eight.

Yes...I'll be there.

http://www.rodmer.com/Stories/PkgQQ.html -- Revised Aug 17, 2005
Copyright © 2005 Rod Anderson and Merike Lugus
rod@rodmer.com