The Woman Who Married a Cloud: The Collected Short Stories (61 page)

“And the bedroom? What does the bedroom look like?”

“I didn’t see it. I was about to go look when the guy appeared.”

“Go on.”

He didn’t like the next part of the story so he pulled the puppets off his hands, put them gently on the kitchen table, and stepped over to the window. Pushing the brown curtain aside, he looked down on the evening street and saw what he had seen a thousand times before—traffic, parked cars, and people passing by. It was just as the girlfriend had thought—he lived on a busy uninteresting street not in Rome or any other larger-than-life city.

Nothing about him or his days was larger than life; except perhaps the puppets. His girlfriend had given them to him before she left; a farewell gift that once again showed her kindness and good memory. Very early in their relationship he had told her that as a child his favorite thing to do was put on puppet shows for his family. Hand puppets of course, not marionettes. He had never understood the attraction of marionettes—they moved so unnaturally and were never convincing when you saw them perform. But a hand puppet moved and glided in a way that could really convince you to suspend your disbelief and accept the illusion that the figure was alive.

“I know you don’t like being alone, so if you ever feel blue these two’ll keep you company until you find someone new.” She said it sweetly, no malice at all in her voice. But the words stung even before he saw what her gift was. She handed him a wrapped box and then left for the last time.

Inside were two hand puppets. But they were not especially nice or unusual. They were the kind of puppets you’d buy as a last minute gift or an afterthought at a toy store, fully expecting the child who received it to lose interest in a few days. A man and a woman, both had rubber heads that smelled strongly of some weird chemical. You could imagine these puppet heads being produced by the thousands per hour in some dubious Bangladeshi or Albanian factory.

The woman wore a white blouse and blue skirt. The man had on a suit jacket, white shirt and red tie. Looking at them for the first time, squinting really, at the two cheap puppets pressed together face to face in the box, he wondered what kind of final message she was trying to send by giving him these things as her adios present. Was she saying ‘you’re still a child who needs toys? Why don’t you finally
grow up
for God’s sake?’ Or—‘get used to these pathetic things because they’ll be your only company for a while, Buster.’ However his ex girlfriend was neither a mean nor vindictive woman so he assumed there was really no ill intent in her gift although it would be easy to read it that way.

Because there was nothing else to do, he took them out of the box and slid them onto his hands. When was the last time he’d played with
puppets
? When he could count his age on less than ten fingers and the world looked a lot rosier than it did that day.

Wiggling his left hand and then his right, he said in a low campy voice, “Hello, Dear. What’s for dinner?”

And then answered in a high falsetto, “Your favorite—London Broil and scalloped potatoes.”

Without warning the breath caught in his throat. He knew if he didn’t hold still, he would cry. So he put the puppets back in their box and slid the top on. In the next days this box was moved around the kitchen as he prepared his single-now meals. A week or so later he opened it again and looked inside. The first time he had seen the puppets they were nose to nose. Now they were facing in opposite directions, as if they’d had an argument and were sulking. He thought that’s how they should have first been posed when she gave him the present. Symbolic of the way their relationship had ended up.

Lifting the female out, he brought it up close to his face and said without thinking, “I miss you.” He had a moment’s fantasy where the puppet either smiled, or dropped its clumsily painted eyes in embarrassment the way his girlfriend (ex-girlfriend) always did when he paid her a compliment. He sighed when the puppet’s blank expression stayed the same.

Later he honestly couldn’t remember how the scenarios had begun. It was as simple as one day when he was bored or sad or distraught he put on the puppets because there was nothing else to do. He held them up and made them talk to each other. In the beginning he felt stupid doing it, but then something clicked in his head. A moment later the male puppet was saying
his
words and the female, his girlfriend’s words. From memory he was repeating the dialog of one of the last fights they’d had before she left for good.

“Do you ever listen to me? I mean, do you ever
really
listen?”

“Yes, when you say something that makes sense.” He remembered the look on her face when he said that to her: startled, her expression said she couldn’t believe he let that slip out.

“Do you really think that? Do you think I talk crap to you all the time? Please tell me the truth; I want to know.”

When he didn’t know what to say, a new expression grew on her face that was a toxic mixture of ‘It
is,
isn’t it? That’s exactly what you think,’ contempt, anger, and finally dislike.

He remembered the moment because it felt like he’d been punched in the stomach. Seeing that awful look on her beautiful face, he could literally feel his spirit doubling over from remorse and knowing for sure what was coming now.

“How long have you felt this way?” the female puppet brought her short arms together again and again as if clapping to get his full attention.

The little man on his left hand turned away from her just like he had done that night when she asked that question. “I don’t know; for a while.”

“
For a while
? And you didn’t tell me?”

In situations like this there is almost always at least one moment of absolute annihilating clarity: A moment when you see things, people, or a situation so clearly that afterward there can be no doubt of the truth. But as significant as the epiphany can be, even more important is what we choose to do with the knowledge once we have it. Acceptance is logical but denial is so much easier and more comfortable.

He turned the man puppet to face him and addressed it sternly. “You
ass;
you stupid ass. Why did you say that? What was the point?” He made the puppet nod. “All you had to do was listen; all you had to do was
pretend
to listen. But no, you had to tell her exactly how you felt and hurt her so much. Thanks,
Mr. Honesty
.” The puppet nodded again, this time slowly, shamed.

He put it down on the table and questioned the woman on his other hand. “But what could I have done? By that time was there anything I could have done to fix things, or save us?”

If the puppet could have shrugged, it would. “Probably not, but by then you didn’t want to save us.” He pretended it really was his girlfriend and not a cheap rubber doll head perched on his three fingers talking about the end of their relationship.

That was the first time he made the puppets reenact scenes from his life. At first doing it felt odd but also unexpectedly cathartic. Somehow having them repeat exchanges and then adding his own postscript/coda at the end allowed him to stand apart from the different scenes and gain some surprisingly new perspective.

The next week he left them on a counter in the kitchen. Every now and then he would pick them up and sometimes recreate another scene from recent memory. Or he’d have one puppet do a monologue, usually a repeat of something that had really happened in the now-gone life with his ex: The episode of the failed birthday present. The discussion about getting a cat that turned into the very heated discussion about whether they were going to stay together or not. He even replayed the memorable conversation they’d had that night after making love when both of them cried and at the end of the talk everything seemed to be all right again.

The only thing that changed was his voice. No matter which puppet he used, he always spoke in his regular voice. After the first time he created that silly high falsetto for the woman, he stopped that and had both puppets speak in his own voice. Besides, his girlfriend had a nice almost-deep one that didn’t sound anything like the falsetto he’d given her that first time.

One night she called to ask how he was doing. That was just like her—even when their relationship was over she worried about him. They chatted for a few minutes. He really wanted to say how much he liked her parting gift and how it was helping him through this tough time without her. But as he was about to do that, he realized it might sound strange or pathetic to say he played with her puppets all the time now, although it was true. More and more he enjoyed performing what he thought of as ‘scenarios’ where he reenacted significant moments from their past. One night when he couldn’t sleep, he even sat silently on the couch in the living room at three in the morning wearing the puppets on his hands. They kept him company until he went back to bed.

How would she respond to hearing something like that? How would
he
have responded if their roles were reversed? Not well. Better to keep quiet about the whole thing. At the end of this conversation out of the blue he asked the name of her favorite childhood dog. Flummoxed by the question, she told him and then asked why he wanted to know
that.
He said he’d been trying to remember the name for days and it was driving him crazy.

As the scenarios became longer and more detailed, he found himself throughout the day writing down specific words or even whole lines of dialog that he wanted to remember to include.

One Saturday while eating a tuna melt sandwich and staring out the kitchen window he realized memory is not a stable friend. Too often it lies, distorts, or frequently forgets many things both important and trivial. Memory steals parts of your life that should have belonged to you forever. It’s like entrusting the only complete copy of your history to an erratic, frequently scatterbrained, sometimes irascible person who doesn’t always do their job well and can’t be bothered keeping the records straight. Unlike you, they don’t care what the name of that wonderful French restaurant in Amsterdam was or the name of your high school enemy’s sister.

In trying to remember the details of the time he’d shared with his lovely girlfriend, it was both disturbing and disheartening how much he couldn’t recall beyond a certain point. What had they done on their first date? What was that funny thing she’d said after they slept together the first time? What was the name of the childhood dog she loved so much and was always telling stories about?

One of his colleagues used the phrase “convenient history” to describe the way people remember their lives or specific events. Facts are superfluous; most people live in self-created convenient histories made up of unreliable memories—some true, some distorted, some altogether false. They do this either for peace of mind, or to keep a kind of daily balance, even sometimes to maintain sanity.

Were his puppet scenarios true reenactments of what had happened, or just imprecise convenient histories he conjured to assuage the pain of losing her?

The story of the unfinished apartment downstairs was a good example of this. So far as he’d gotten was true: An empty apartment in their building had been under construction for months. One day he went down to investigate and later told her what he’d discovered about it. She’d wanted to know specific details about the place. But he brushed her questions off as unimportant. Too late he realized he’d insulted her again by not listening; not giving importance to what mattered to her.

He had seen it coming for a long time but of course didn’t want to admit it to himself. No one wants to lose a good thing. No, it wasn’t good—it was great. There were many aspects of their relationship that were just absolutely great and he knew it. Worse, he knew that despite his many “issues” she loved him completely. She told him he was
her guy
and was determined to make it work. How did she do it? How could she so blithely overlook/swallow/accept ... his weaknesses, foibles, Cinerama ego and long brooding silences that he knew drove her crazy? They’d talked about this and she always repeated a version of the same thing: because she loved him, that’s all. When you love someone you make compromises or concessions; sometimes you eat crow, or sit on your hands when what you really want to do is punch boyfriend in the nose. Sometimes you either keep your mouth shut or breathe through your mouth when their behavior smells like skunk. That’s just the way it is—the rules of the love game. All in all you do your absolute best to
blend
with them, like cream in coffee. Because the benefits way outweigh the drawbacks. Didn’t he feel the same way? He always lied and said yes but his heart shook its head no!

Sadly it had always turned out like this for him. All new relationships started out great. Full speed ahead, bouquets and kisses and days full of yes yes yes. But inexorably the yes’s got quieter, then fewer, and then the No’s began moving into the neighborhood and drove property values way down. Predictably after a while he began noticing things he didn’t like about the women that he’d either overlooked or ignored in the wonderful first days. As soon as that happened he knew no matter what he did or how hard he worked to keep a love affair going, it was doomed.

Then it was just a matter of time. That was sad because he really liked every one of these women and honestly wanted so much for his relationships with them to work. Just once in all these thousands of years he wanted to know what it was like to love a person completely for a whole lifetime. Love them the way he’d heard about and seen for himself and read ten thousand books glorifying it. The real deal—100 percent lifetime love that over the course of years changes color like a chameleon but never ever goes away. But it never happened to him and he knew in his secret heart it never would.

Even when he knew a relationship was finished he’d stretch out the end as long as possible, hoping that one time—just once—out of nowhere a spark would rekindle in his dead heart and all of his initial feelings for the woman would be reborn. He’d feel a rebirth of wonder for them and their partnership and they would go on to write the next chapter of their life together.