Rus Like Everyone Else (14 page)

“So what do you think?” Wanda said as she stood in the living room of her house, waving her arm about her.

“What do I think,” Rus said.

“Of the house,” she said.

Rus looked at the white walls, the drawing of roses on the wall, the shiny floor, and the table and the drawers.

“There is nothing lying around,” he said eventually.

Wanda smiled.

“Exactly,” she said. “Many people don't realize that storage is the key to an organized environment. Nobody has to know what scary things are happening behind those cupboard doors.” She pointed at a white chest and winked at him.

Rus stared at the chest. He had a brief vision of someone sitting in there, his hands tied, his eyes wide. Then he sat down on the couch next to Wanda.

“Shoes off, please,” she said. “And use coasters.”

Rus obediently took his shoes off as Wanda took a stack of paper
from her bag and started leafing through it. Only when Rus took a sip of the water and placed the glass carefully back on the coaster did she look up briefly. She nodded contently at him. Rus was amazed at how she worked through the papers, how she was unfazed by the words in the letter from the debt collector about auctions and evictions, and how she filed applications for registration processes and insurance forms.

They paused at nine for Wanda's show, which she watched every day. It was about women who talked about shoes and men, and they sat quietly together as the women on the television talked about shoes and men and hugged other women and cried in the shower, Rus taking sips of his water, Wanda drinking pink wine. Then, at ten, Wanda wanted to get started again, even though Rus was dizzy from the television flashing its lights at him and the questions Wanda kept asking him about his days and how she kept repeating, “So you have never worked in your life,” to which Rus said, “No, no, no, I haven't, I haven't,” until she had turned all his daydreaming into interesting research and relevant job experience. It turned out that many of the skills Rus developed were not useful at all, according to Wanda, but she made bird-watching “fieldwork” and named his Starbucks visits “undercover customer experience.” She practiced with him what he should say in a job interview, and how when they asked him about his bad habits he would say, “Working too hard.” When they finished the bus did not go anymore, and she said he could have a shower and sleep in the spare bed in her room if he wanted to.

Rus walked through the hallway of Wanda's house toward the shower. He had put the glasses in the machine that did the dishes as she asked him. The hallway was white too, and there were pictures hanging on the wall in an irregular pattern. There was one picture of Wanda in her bathing suit by the ocean, then there were two empty spots, then one of Wanda again where she wore a funny hat.

Rus walked along the pictures and the empty squares to the bathroom, which was the second door to the left. Wanda's bathroom was completely white, with a glass room that he could stand and shower in. There were sponges and bottles in pastel
colors, and the floor was tiles and not a tub, like he had in his house. The water of the shower surrounded him.

Rus opened every bottle, carefully soaping his entire body. His shoulders went down, and he thought of how Wanda had helped him with the papers and how she nodded when he put a coaster under his glass. She was there to help him, he thought, as he soaped his body, and she would be like a mother to him. His shoulders relaxed and the water was warm and it massaged his head.

This is a dream, he thought, but like a dream it took a turn all of a sudden, because Wanda opened the door and came into the bathroom with him. One by one she took all of her clothes off, looking at Rus but not saying anything. She opened the shower door slowly. Her body was large and brown and round, and it came extremely close to him. Rus saw that there were white triangles where her bikini had been. Rus stared at the triangles.

“Hi,” Wanda said in a soft, strange voice.

“Hello,” Rus said. He took a step back in the shower, away from the body, against the wall.

He wasn't used to sharing the shower. Wanda's body was a presence that unsettled him; he felt it was too, too close to him.

“Don't you want to get under the stream?” Wanda asked in the strange voice.

Rus did not answer. He had decided it was best to close his eyes and listen to the water stream, like he did at home, just listen to the water stream over him and focus on the sound of the water, pretending he was floating in a river toward the sea.

Rus tried this for a few minutes, but it wasn't working. He opened his eyes again.

Wanda had gotten out of the shower and was standing with her back to him in the bathroom, quickly wrapping a large towel around herself.

When you deliver the post in a neighborhood, going to every house each day around the same time, like I do, you get to know a lot about people. When a person is suddenly home every day when you deliver the mail, for instance, watching television in a collared shirt and a loose tie, sitting straight up on the couch, you register this, and you register it too when, weeks later, this person is wearing slacks with the collared shirt and is lying on the couch while watching television, the curtains half closed. And you see the change in the type of mail you push through the slot in the door.

When people get into debt, the postman always knows this, because debt collectors print their name on the outside of the envelope. When someone dies, we know it as well: first come the black-rimmed cards, and then the mail stops being addressed to Mr. and Mrs., but only says “Mrs. Blue,” for instance.

When you've worked here as long as I have, and paid attention, you know a lot about everyone, you know their routines, their secrets, and, at some point, you become very close to them. You know more about them than anyone else, even though they don't know you.

Those binoculars you see pressed against the window over there, for instance, were ordered by Mr. Lucas two months ago. They were part of a “professional spy kit” he ordered from the Shopping Channel on the TV. He is sitting crouched behind the window on the floor with those binoculars, watching the white van that is parked in front of his door. He is not being very inconspicuous though, Mr. Lucas. When the glass of the binoculars catches the reflection of the streetlamp, it creates a lighthouse effect that we can see all the way from up here.

Mr. Lucas does not realize this. Ever since he saw the white van park in front of his house he's been in a panic, afraid that his past has returned to come between him and his day with the Queen. If you go really close to the window you can hear him, the dialogue
he has with himself: “Get it together, Sam, control yourself, you're imagining it. But how can I imagine something like this? It is there, I see it! Calm down now, deep breaths.”

Behind the tinted windows of the van Ashraf is sleeping innocently, snoring lightly in the passenger seat, unaware of the panic he is causing.

ASHRAF AND THE POLICE

In Ashraf's dream his brother was tapping on their bedroom window, saying in a strange voice: “It is illegal to sleep in a parking space in this area.” Ashraf opened his eyes. On the radio there was music and gray noise; it was louder than it was before he went to sleep. He looked out the window of the van. In a sleepy haze he saw a police officer looking back at him. “It is illegal to sleep in a parking space in this area,” he shouted through the window. Ashraf sat up in his seat and opened the window. Cold air came in from the street. It was dark.

“A ticket could cost you over two hundred,” the police officer said.

A policewoman came up behind him. “Passport and license, please.”

Ashraf was silent for a bit. Then he said: “I usually have my license and papers, but I needed to leave them at work for copying. I start tomorrow as a package deliverer for the post.”

The officer nodded. “A postman. Are postmen excluded from the law?”

“No,” Ashraf replied.

The officer looked at his notebook and looked up again. “You're going to have to come with us,” he said.

Ashraf said nothing. He looked up at the sky above the officer. There was a full moon. He wondered if he should plead with the officer.

“Hello,” the officer said, tapping on his cheek. “Are you listening?”

“Hello,” Ashraf said. “Don't touch me.”

“Ah,” the officer said, “so you are not deaf.”

“I heard you in the first place, didn't I?” Ashraf zipped his sleeping bag open and got out of the car. It was cold. He pulled the sweater from the car door and pulled it over his head. The female police officer took his keys, while the policeman walked around the van and shone a flashlight on the license plate. Ashraf wondered what time it was and how much sleep he'd had. There were some birds already singing, but aside from that it was quiet in the street. The female police officer handed his keys to the policeman. “He will drive your van to the station,” she said. “You'll come with me.”

“I have to be at work at eight,” he said. He hoped they would take him to the nearest police station. The female officer walked him to the police car. Together they drove through the dark streets.
Ashraf closed his eyes.

“You'll probably have to stay in for a few hours, until we get the paperwork done. Then you can come back to show your license and registration and take your van with you. You will get a fine for sleeping in a restricted area, but I'll try to get them to give you a break for your license.”

Ashraf was silent. He heard the friendly tone of the police officer and knew he should say something, he should say thank you, but he really had nothing to thank her for. “Thanks,” he mumbled.

The police lady looked at him. “Well,” she said, “just remember to bring your license with you next time. It is obligatory for everyone, including you.”

“Yes,” Ashraf said.

“It is just a rule and rules are made for certain reasons. You never know if people are who they say they are. You could be an illegal immigrant. That van could be stolen. The only thing you can rely on these days are papers.”

Ashraf sank lower in the backseat. He tried not to listen to what she was saying, he tried not to think about it. He regretted thanking her.

“And imagine if all the tourists came here and slept in their cars in the streets,” she continued. “How disorderly. Imagine stepping out your front door and seeing tourists sleeping in their cars all over the street, making their food on gas cookers, not paying their parking money. There would be no parking spaces left, the hotels would be in trouble, and the order would disappear completely. We have to have rules like this, you see?”

Ashraf squeezed his hands. He felt blood rushing to his face, but he said nothing, clenched his teeth together, and turned as far away as possible. The car was silent. After a while, the policewoman parked the car. She was not nice anymore, because he hadn't answered and had turned away. He tried to open the door but it was locked.

“I am not going to run away,” Ashraf said. His voice was hoarse. “You can just open it.”

The police officer did not reply. She walked around the car and asked for assistance in her walkie-talkie. He kept quiet as they walked him into the station holding both his arms.

THE BOSS'S SON

“Gardener, gardener,” the Queen shouted through the window. “You need to keep me company, gardener. I need to talk to you.”

The boss's son walked up the stairs to her tower chamber. The Queen's eyes were red rimmed when he came up to the room, and she was staring at the framed photos on the wall of when she gave her memorial speech.

“What do you see when you look at me?” she said as she turned around toward him. “What do you see exactly?”

“I see the Queen,” the boss's son said, his face turning red. “She is very beautiful. A bit sad, but she still looks very beautiful when she is sad. Even the red spots on her cheeks are so... they are—”

He stammered and bent his head. The Queen covered her face with her hands.

“Nobody understands.” She started crying. “I am all alone.”

The boss's son started walking backward toward the door, assuming she'd want to be alone, but the Queen pointed at the chair by the door to indicate that he should stay. Quietly he sat there while she cried.

IN THE CELL

Ashraf was lying on his back on a bed in the police cell, thinking. Someone had written
MR. LI IS IN EAST
on the wall. He pictured a Chinese mafia person walking around on Canal Street. He hoped that his van was all right, that the policeman had not driven it too roughly. It was not his first time in a cell. There was the time when he was little, and the time when he was drinking with Youssef and they'd gotten into a fight, and the police came and put both of them away.

He looked at the empty ceiling of the cell. He had once surveyed a woman for City Statistics who said she never felt alone because God was always with her. She said God talked to her sometimes, saying, “Today you should take it easy, Annie,” or “Ask your husband to bring you to work.” When she was robbed in the streets ten years before, God had given her a message not to go out alone,
but she hadn't listened. Now she always listened and nothing bad had happened for ten years. It sounded very pleasant, but Ashraf did not go to the church meeting she had invited him to. He did not go to the mosque often either. In fact, he never went outside of holidays anymore. When he was young one of his uncles had taken him aside and pointed at the sky. He said, “There is nothing up there.”

It had turned out not to be true. There was a lot up there, a lot more than there was down here. There was the troposphere, the stratosphere, the mesosphere, the sun and the stars. Ashraf wrote the number on the wall of the cell. Ten trillion times ninety-three billion kilometers. The diameter of the observable universe. Ashraf smiled. The idea of infinity, of endless possibilities, gave him comfort, like God did for Annie.

If there really is infinite expansion, then everything you could possibly think of will someday be true somewhere, Ashraf thought. Everything you believe in will exist somewhere. There could be another Ashraf somewhere staring at a ceiling in a cell with the same thoughts. Ashraf pictured his mirror image in a cell in the universe. In his mind he reached out his hand to him, and his belly swung as he let the images of himself and Ashraf number two overlap for a second, and he felt number two's hand holding his.

THE MORNING AFTER

When Rus woke up, he did not see the hospital, like the day before, nor the bridge, like the day before that, nor his house, like all the days before that, but a woman. The woman was Wanda, of course. He immediately felt wide-awake, although it was still dark outside.

Rus sat up in the bed. His pillowcase had a drawing of a rose on it, and letters that read
SWEET DREAMS
,
WELTERUSTEN
, and
BONNE NUIT
.