Love and Will (18 page)

He hears a plane, turns around to that slit of sky but doesn't see anything. Then he sees it for a couple of seconds. Flying west. A jumbo jet. It could be going to any number of places. California, Tahiti, Japan. It could be going, eventually, east. If it is, it'll soon turn around. But chances are much better, not that he really knows what he's talking about, that it's going west, or west now but north or south soon. He looks at the two windows. He's never seen anyone in the right one. The shade's always down. Never even seen the room. He's seen artificial light behind the shade. In the evening, very late, maybe five or six times. But he's never seen the shade raised even an inch from the sill in the year and two months he's lived here. The fourteen months since Jill asked him to leave their apartment, which he did and got this apartment that same day. In the other window—it's much smaller—he's seen a woman showering maybe fifteen times. Showering or just shampooing, if one doesn't always shower, meaning clean one's body, which he's never seen her do, except for her face and neck, when one shampoos. He wonders if the shaded window is part of the same apartment as that bathroom. The bathroom door is at the end of the left wall. If it was in the right wall, then the bathroom would have to lead to the shaded room. Though maybe the shaded room is a hallway in that apartment or a public hallway in that building. If he steps up to his window he can see four windows on the same floor to the right of the shaded window, two with blinds, two with shades, all opened or closed or lit or unlit at various times of the day, but none, except for the one next to the shaded window and there only a little, can he see inside. Not the right angle or too far away. But a public hallway wouldn't have a shaded window. Makes no sense. For the last two months the bathroom window has had a shade on it. Almost to the sill. Possibly because she caught him watching her showering several times. Sometimes it was by accident. He'd be slumped below the top of the padded chair when he'd hear a shower go on, look around or above the chair and see her showering. Or he'd enter his apartment, shut the door and see her showering. Hear and see at the same time sometimes. The shower part of her bathtub is right by the bathroom window. For a while at night when he came home he wouldn't turn on his apartment light till he found out if she was showering or not. If she was, he'd watch her in the dark till she left the bathroom or put her bathrobe on. If she only put on her underpants or bra, he'd continue to watch her till she left the room. If she put both underclothes on, he'd crawl away from the window to one of the lights, turn it on and stand and go about the apartment as if he just came home. But he only caught her showering once in the eight or so times when he came home and went through this routine, so he gave it up. She's a woman of about thirty-five, somewhat plump, somewhat pretty, who spends a great deal of time lathering her long dark hair. Sometimes he's seen her entirely covered with lather, which would start at her hair and slide down on all sides and sometimes in large clumps to the rest of her body, or the parts of her body he could see above the bathtub rim. He's gotten quite excited sometimes when he's seen her showering or drying herself and then putting on her underclothes. Once when she saw him looking at her while he was standing in the middle of the room and pretending to flip through a magazine, she slammed the window down and pulled the single shower curtain around her where he couldn't see her showering anymore, not that he would have been able to see much through the smoked glass. Once when it was night and he was reading in this chair, he heard her singing in the shower. He doesn't know if he had been so absorbed in the book that he had missed the shower going on, or else if the shower and singing had started at the same time. Anyway, he stood up, with his back to her put the book on the chair, shut the light, opened his door, slammed it, crawled to the far right corner of the window and raised his head just above the sill to watch her. By the time she was drying herself while standing in the tub, he had his pants down and his handkerchief out. He wonders about a woman who'd shower in front of an open window, one that faces another open window, especially one in which she must have known a man had caught or watched her showering several times. Maybe she has a let-him-look attitude about it, all he's seeing is a body, one not much different than any other woman's body her age, and if it does anything to him, it has nothing to do with her. Or maybe she liked showering in front of him, showing off her body, so to speak, the pleasure it might give him, let's say, maybe even showering more times than she normally would because he was there, but then felt the situation had possibilities or ramifications she hadn't thought about, so she stopped. He can't see her toilet or sink from his window. They must be on the right side of the bathroom.

Jill took her hand away from her mouth. He forgets what Esther was doing at the time. She was probably just lying peacefully or squirming a little but on her back. But why'd he pick this particular memory? It's the one that came to him, that's all. It could have been one of any number of memories that came to him when he just sat back and let things enter his head. The time his mother died. (He was in the hospital room.) The time Esther was born. (He was in the delivery room.) The time he and Jill got married. (It was in the living room of the apartment she and Esther now live in.) The time he learned his brother's plane had disappeared. (He was in his sister's living room.) The time Jill ran into the bathroom with her nightgown on fire. (He was on the toilet. She had said from the kitchen only a half-minute before “Do you smell gas?” He had said “No, why—you mean real gas? Do you?”) The time Jill accepted his marriage proposal. (He was on his knees in her living room, his arms around her legs, crying, while she was rubbing his head with one hand and with the other trying to get him to stand.) The time an ice cream popsicle stuck to the entire top of his tongue. (He was standing on a busy street corner, pointing to his mouth and gagging. The ice cream vendor got in his truck and drove off. A man said “Don't pull on it, kid. It's the dry ice it was packed in. Pull on it and you'll take off half your tongue. Just let it melt a few minutes and it'll come off on its own.”) The time Esther fell, though it actually seemed she had flown, down a flight of stairs. (They were in the summer cottage they rented and which Jill still rents. He was in the main room, working at his desk. Something made him look to his left and he saw her flying headfirst down the stairs. The staircase was in the hallway around twenty feet away, but he missed catching her by just a couple of inches at the bottom of the stairs. He doesn't see how that was possible. He must have seen her on one of the top steps, about to fall, and jumped out of his chair and ran to the stairs.) The time they took Esther to the hospital. (They were in their car, minutes after he'd missed catching her at the bottom of the stairs. He was driving. Esther was in Jill's lap in the rear seat, a compress on her nose, towels around her bleeding head. A rabbit jumped across the road and he swerved but hit it. The rabbit flew over the car and landed about fifty feet behind them. He'd hit it while it was in midair. Jill screamed. Esther was unconscious.) The time they waited while the doctors and nurses treated Esther. (It was outside the hospital examination room. They thought she was going to die. One of the doctors had said a few minutes before “I don't know if you know it, but she may die.” Jill said “Listen, you imbecile. I know we were negligent, but now's the stupidest time in the world to remind us.” The doctor said he didn't mean it that way. Jill said “You did too.” Carl pulled her into him, said “Don't argue, don't bother, don't worry, it'll all turn out all right. It's got to be all right. I'll go crazy if she dies.”) The time they buried his father. (Cemetery.) His mother. (Same cemetery.) The time he came home from summer camp and his parents said they'd given away his dog.

Jill said to him “—died.” He said “Who?” “—Kahn.” “What? I'm not hearing you for some reason. Who?” “Gretta Kahn. Gretta Kahn. She died two days ago, Monday.” “Oh Jesus, that can't be. It can't. What are you talking about? That was Randi on the phone, right? So what's she got to do with Gretta?” “Not your niece, Randi. Gretta's oldest son, Randy. He called from Charleston. Gretta died in San Diego. A massive heart attack, he said. She was visiting Mona. And because he knew she was such a good friend of ours—” “Her daughter?” “Mona, her daughter and Randy's sister, yes. They're having the funeral in San Diego—something about it's easier to, not the expense—and just wanted us to have the option of coming. I told him I didn't think we could. I was right, wasn't I?” “Come on,” he said, “she was too healthy. Anyone but her. Besides, it's too ridiculous. For it was just around this time of year last year—” “That's right. It's like a medical prophecy come true, except it's the reverse of what frequently is supposed to happen in that frequently it's the husband who dies a year after his wife.” He remembers she cried, they talked a lot about Gretta that night, neither of them slept well, and this went on for two or three days. She was one of their best friends. And of their best friends, she was just about the nicest of them and the one they loved most. Or else it seemed that way at the time. Was it so? He thinks it was, and if it wasn't, then she came as close as anyone at the time to being the nicest of their best friends and the one they loved the most. They didn't have many friends that both of them considered their best friends. He had best friends, she did. A few they shared. Or he had several fairly good friends, she had several very good friends, and a few of her very good friends he considered fairly good friends of his. What's he talking about? Gretta was a very good close friend of them both. They talked about deep serious things together, all three of them or just when he or Jill was with her. Sometimes. Sometimes they just had a good time together, when not a serious subject or mood came up. Jill and he didn't go to Gretta for advice, either separately or together, and she never came to either of them for it, but when they were with one another, separately or together, they often talked about the most important things in their lives, past or present, including what was bothering them most. When he or Jill were alone with Gretta they also occasionally talked about their respective spouses, something they didn't do with Gretta's husband Ike and Ike didn't do with them, talk personally about Gretta or about anything deep or serious that might interest either of them, though they still considered him to be one of their dearest friends, because he was so generous and warm and Gretta's husband, though maybe not one of their closest. He remembers trying to bring Gretta back then in his thoughts. Three years ago. He remembers that a day or so after Gretta died he said to Jill when the phone was ringing “Maybe that's Randy again, saying it was only a joke and Gretta isn't dead.” He remembers Jill saying “That's crazy” or “too bizarre for me.” “I know that was crazy or too bizarre,” he remembers saying after he or she finished talking to whomever it was on the phone, “what I said about Gretta before, but it was what I wished most. That it had been a joke. To lose Ike one year, Gretta the next? To lose them both? All a joke. For Randy or Mona or whatever the other son's name is—Gene—to say on the phone ‘Gretta and Ike are alive. They said they'll explain everything when they get to New York and see you all.'” He remembers lying in bed the next few days thinking of the various ways she could be alive. That it was a seizure of some kind where she appeared dead but wasn't. Or she had been dead but was revived. Where they'd get a letter from Gretta the next day or so explaining why Randy gave Jill that message and why she had to send this letter instead of making a phone call. That it was a bet. That it was part of a plot. That it was a chain of almost inconceivable false and incompetent medical reports from hospital to doctor to Gretta's children. It took him a while to get used to her death.

He hears a shower turned on behind him. He turns around. The shade's down, woman's singing. Both their windows are open. The weather's been gray and unseasonably cool the last few days but has warmed up in the last hour and the sun's now out. He looks at the sky. He recognizes the melody she's singing but can't make out the words. He shuts his eyes and listens. She's singing in French, but he's almost sure the song's American. She has a sweet voice. Professional, almost. For all he knows about singing voices, professional. Dulcet was the word Jill used for a voice this sweet. Jill knew about voices. She listened to opera, lieder and madrigals a few hours a day, once wanted to be an opera singer, sang in several languages in the shower sometimes but would never do it with the window open or so loud. “Sweeter than sweet,” she said, “is when you use ‘dulcet,' or at least when I use it.” He doesn't know if he'd recognize this woman if he saw her on the street. For one thing, it's been a long time since he's seen her in the shower. If he saw her and recognized her would he introduce himself? He doubts it. Of course not. Would she recognize him if she saw him? He doubts it. Maybe she would. Maybe she's already seen him on the street and recognized him several times while all to some of those times he might have looked straight at her but didn't recognize her. He wouldn't mind meeting her. He knows no woman to go out with. He hasn't been to bed with a woman since Jill, though he has been out with a number of them but never more than once or twice each. The third or fourth time is when you often get to go to bed together. He wonders if he should call Jill. He'd ask how she is. She'd say fine, probably, but why did he call? “To find out how you are and to find out, of course—how could you even ask that?—how Esther is.” “You spoke to Esther this morning,” she could say, “you'll see her this weekend. She's having her supper now.” It's around that time. He looks at his wrist. His watch isn't on it. Where'd he leave it? This could lead to a minute or two of panic. Watch, pen and wallet, all quite valuable when one considers the wallet's contents, and all given to him by Jill. Sentimental value then? Not only. But when they're out of his pockets and off his wrist, he likes to keep them together. The dresser. He goes into the bathroom, sees the three of them and his checkbook and keys on top of the dresser, looks at the watch. He should buy a clock. A small one, that doesn't tick. It's five after six. Just around the time she'd be eating. He used to like feeding her. “Baby eat meat,” she used to say. “Baby eat corn and peas, no beans,” though she used to pronounce them “con and peats.” Used to like putting the bib on her, making sure her hands were clean and if they weren't, washing them with a little warm water on a dish towel and drying them with the towel's other end. Now she feeds and washes herself, though sometimes when she insists he lets her eat with slightly dirty hands. Now she tucks the napkin into her shirt or spreads it out on her lap, though sometimes he lets her use her sleeve. He used to like feeding her spoonfuls and forkfuls of food, touching the cereal with his tongue before he gave it to her to make sure it wasn't hot. Squeezing orange juice for her almost every morning, every so often squeezing quarter of a grapefruit to add to the glass. He was usually the first up. Around six. Esther around seven. Jill around eight. Putting her to bed—he liked that too. Bathing her first, though the one who bathed her usually wasn't the one who then read to her and put her to bed. And after he washed her but while she was still playing with her water toys or the soap in the tub, massaging and brushing and flossing his teeth and gums and then applying that sodium bicarb-peroxide paste. He didn't like giving her shampoos. Liked rubbing her back to get her to sleep. Making love with his wife while the baby slept in the same room. She was always so receptive. His wife was. They loved each other, and he thinks the baby, as much as a one-to-two-year-old could, loved him then too. What went wrong? Why did it have to go wrong? Were there several or many things wrong or just one main one? He still loves Jill but she no longer loves him. That's what she's said so that's what he has to believe. He should go out. Take a walk, see what he sees. Not a movie. Maybe step in for coffee someplace, regular or espress. Maybe a beer. No beer. He doesn't like drinking in bars alone. Doesn't like eating out alone. Coffee in some stand-up place or on a coffee shop stool is still okay.