A Widow's Story Page 18
Often when I return home to our house—that is, to my house—I find myself sitting in the car like this, in a kind of spiritual paralysis. When I am away from the house, I yearn to return to it; when I am in the house, I think that there is danger there, and I should flee; yet, in the car parked outside the house, in a kind of stasis, often I don’t move for minutes as if hypnotized. Ray would be astonished at this behavior, which is wholly “unlike” his wife.
The woman he’d known as his wife. Now, as his widow, she is not performing so very well.
Ray was the guardian of the household, and the house. Already without Ray’s guidance the house is beginning to fail. Think of the collapse of the chic future house in Ray Bradbury’s beautiful and chilling little parable, “There Will Come Soft Rains.”
Away from the house, sitting here—where?—why?—fighting a sensation of mounting panic—I am suddenly convinced that the house is in danger. Yet, I am too lethargic to drive back to the house. And there is something else I am frightened of—more frightened of—this is the Fitness Center.
Weighing the degree of fear/panic: am I more anxious about the house, or about going into the Fitness Center; is it more practical to deal with the anxiety about the house or the anxiety about the Fitness Center? . . .
Look. You’re here. You must be here for a reason.
So Ray would advise me, exasperated.
Oh but I am so reluctant to leave the (relative) safety of my battered white Honda—to enter the Fitness Center—to make my way to the large workout room, the size of a ballroom, to which Ray always went.
Soon, I will give a name to such places: sinkholes.
Places fraught with visceral memory, stirring terror if you approach them.
At this stage of the Siege—this is still early March—I haven’t been able to comprehend my experiences in any coherent way, let alone categorize them. Taxonomy is the instinctive response to a world of dismaying fecundity and complexity but I am not strong enough for taxonomy just now.
Much of my life washes over me like a frothy/dirty surf. In this surf are bits of debris—seaweed, broken glass, mud-clumps, rotted fish, nameless things—a kind of spiritual catatonia as if I’ve been stung by a venomous sea-creature hidden in the surf—a jellyfish, for instance.
On the south Jersey shore once, we’d seen them: hundreds—thousands?—of jellyfish washed up on the beach after a storm.
Transparent, translucent, dying dead. Even if they are dead you would be unwise to touch one of these jellyfish with a bare forefinger.
Ray said Let’s get out of here. We can walk somewhere else.
(Why am I thinking of jellyfish, in the Hopewell Valley Fitness Center? Why does every thought that pierces my brain seem to come from a source beyond me, and why do these thoughts bring both pain, and pleasure? Frequently we’d spoken of returning to Cape May. We’d never seen the annual bird migration which is supposed to be spectacular, nor the monarch butterfly migration. For years we’d spoken of this trip to south Jersey which was hardly an exotic trip, a matter of a few hours’ drive, and in the interim we’d traveled to England and to Europe a number of times but we’d never returned to beautiful Cape May and now the thought taunts me It’s too late for Cape May. You are never going to Cape May.)
Lisa is greeting someone else at the reception counter. Another plastic card has triggered the chirrupy THANK YOU HAVE A GOOD WORKOUT!
It’s been several minutes and I am still lingering in the corridor above the stairs to the workout room.
I am thinking of how coming to the Fitness Center with Ray was fun, or could be fun sometimes.
A dutiful sort of fun. Like grocery shopping.
Once, shopping at one of those massive windowless warehouse-sized stores on Route 1, I said to Ray with an air of actual surprise It’s fun shopping with you when you’re in a good mood! It doesn’t matter where we are.
Dryly Ray said It doesn’t?
Ray’s sense of humor!—he was droll, deadpan, often very funny. He never drew the attention of a gathering of friends by telling stories or anecdotes, his manner was to murmur asides, at the margins of a gathering. Sometimes his humor was unexpected, disconcerting. I know that, if Ray could comment on the Hopewell Valley Fitness Center, and on all the hours he’d spent here in the hope of maintaining “fitness,” thus prolonging his life, he’d have said with a wry philosophical shrug—Well, that was a God-damned waste of our time wasn’t it!
I am smiling, hearing this.
But nothing is sadder.
Here is the challenge: to summon all my strength, to descend the steps to the ground floor to the large, open, high-ceilinged space where the treadmills and weight machines are located.
Am I becoming catatonic? Am I catatonic?
(What do catatonics think about, I wonder. Encased in concrete, maybe they can’t think at all. Maybe that’s the point of catatonia.)
“Just the treadmill. A half hour. I can do this.”
Yet—I’m out of breath so frequently now. My heartbeat feels always slightly fast. While Ray moved dutifully from one weight machine to the next usually I just ran on the treadmill—as far from other people as I could manage. I did not want to be distracted by the huffing/puffing/grunting of red-faced sweaty men at their machines like visions out of Dante’s Inferno of twisted bodies, contorted faces, popping eyeballs.
(Was Ray one of these diligent, determined males? Not really! There was a certain—hard to describe—dogged languor in my husband’s fitness workouts that rarely left him sweaty, let alone short of breath. Ray had never been an athlete, nor had he much interest in sports, the lifeblood of the American male and, along with politics, the primary source of male bonding in our culture.)
On the treadmill, which I would set at 4.5, then raise, by degrees to 6—(for the uninitiated, this means six miles an hour—not fast for a runner)—I would lapse into a dreamy state—ridding my mind of the myriad distractions of my domestic life—what one might call “real life”—what I would now call my inexpressibly precious real life—that I might scroll through pages I’d written that morning—in my head revising, rewriting, “proofreading”—at such times my memory is sharply visual—eidetic?—and running seems to intensify it; my metabolism feels “normal” when I am running . . . But now, I am afraid of what my thoughts will veer toward, if I run on the treadmill. I am afraid that the frothy surf will wash over me, bearing more than I can withstand.
In the bland interior of the gym, I will be at the mercy of the memory-flash which I see almost continuously. No matter where I am, no matter what I am looking at—staring at—in fact I am seeing Ray in the hospital bed—in that moment when I hurried into the room—in the instant when I knew I’d come too late.
His face is so composed! His glasses have been removed from his face as if he were sleeping. The IV fluid drip in his bruised arm, the disfiguring oxygen mask, the heart monitor—all are removed.
They have given up on him. Their machines—they’ve taken from him, they’ve abandoned him.
I have come too late. I too abandoned him.
It’s as if a scrim has descended over the world. On this scrim, the memory of Ray. My last vision of Ray . . .
Cheery-blond Lisa is surprised, I am alone. Or, I am not greeting her with a bright flash of a smile to mirror her own.
Before the Fitness Center receptionist can inquire if something is wrong I tell her—the words are blurted out, with a faint stammer—that my husband and I have decided to “discontinue” our membership.
You would have thought that I’d rushed to the reception counter to report a fire.
“Oh! Is there any—reason?”
I explain that we’re moving away.
We’ve been very happy with the Fitness Center—“It’s been a wonderful place, we will miss it”—but—we’re moving away.
Lisa seems personally distressed to hear this. Perhaps there is something in my face—my watery eyes, a tightness in my mouth—that sti
rs her concern. Hesitantly she mentions that she hadn’t seen Ray in a while—a few weeks—and quickly I tell her, “Well, no—that isn’t quite right. Ray has been here more recently than that.”
Why it seems important to me to correct the receptionist on this utterly trivial point, I have no idea.
Carefully I enunciate our names for Lisa—“Raymond Smith”—“Joyce Smith.” With a somber little smile-frown Lisa removes our cards from a file. She types into a computer. She is terminating us, I suppose. Erasing, deleting. Yet—“Your and your husband’s membership dues are paid through March, so you can continue to visit us . . .”
Never! The thought fills me with dread.
“Where are you and Ray moving to, Joyce?”
My mind is blank. I am having trouble remembering why I am here. And why—alone?
“Just away. We’re not sure where.”
Chapter 41
“Won’t Be Seeing You for a While”
March 9, 2008. Since taking him to the hospital I have not dreamt of Ray. Since his death, I have not dreamt of Ray. But now, tonight, I dream of Ray.
I can’t see him clearly, we’re too close together. He’s sitting up in a bed—I think—though wearing his familiar blue sweater. His face is close to mine, we are touching. I am leaning over him, and against him. He is showing me two framed pictures—or diagrams—and these, too, I can’t see clearly. So many times—countless times!—in our life together Ray would show me material relating to the press, cover designs, photographs, pages of sample fonts—Ray would ask my opinion, we would confer—but now, since I can’t see clearly what he’s holding, I am not able to say anything; I am both eager and uneasy, for something is expected of me, I think—but what?
Ray’s voice is low, matter-of-fact: “I guess I won’t be seeing you for a while.”
And then the dream ends—I’m awake—I’m stunned, and I’m awake—it’s as if Ray had been in this room with me, a moment ago—and now . . .
“Oh God!”
Such a sense of loss comes over me, I can hardly bear it. I seem to be lying partly beneath my mother’s quilt, and I am partly dressed. Always, now, I wear socks to bed—warm wool socks—my toes are icy-cold, even with these socks; I wear a warm blue flannel bathrobe over my nightgown; still, I am often shivering, and try to sleep curled up, embracing my own (thin) sides, tightly. Sometimes the bedside lamp is on through the night, and the TV might be on, muted; if there’s a cat sleeping with me near the foot of the bed it will be Reynard, who comes into the bedroom and leaps onto the bed as if surreptitiously in the night, only of his own volition and never—never!—if I call him; he may nudge against my foot or leg with his side but will not acknowledge me if I speak to him, or rub his head.
Tonight—it’s almost 5 A.M.—the TV is not turned on, there is no companion-cat, I am alone in bed. Some of Ray’s papers are scattered about me—though not the novel manuscript, which I’ve set aside for the time being. On the bedside table are student manuscripts I’d read, edited, and annotated some hours ago. There’s a sound of wind in the trees outside—at a distance, a screech owl—what sounds like a screech owl—for the muffled shriek could be the sound of an owl’s prey also.
One of us would say Listen! Do you hear the screech owl?
Now, I don’t want to hear the screech owl. Whatever those blood-chilling shrieks are, I don’t want to hear.
What I want is to return to the dream. That is all that I want. Such yearning, it’s like thirst, the most terrible thirst, this yearning to return to the dream of Ray that has been the happiest event of my life, for weeks.
Chapter 42
“Can’t Find You Where Are You”
We were in a foreign city. We were separated from each other. There was a hotel—a large hotel—we had a room in this hotel—but I couldn’t seem to find it. I was walking on a street, alone—I was so anxious, I wouldn’t be able to find you—it seemed impossible in the dream that I could ever find you—and there was no way for us to speak with each other . . .
This recurring dream began a few years after we were married. How many variants of this dream I’ve had over the decades, I could not guess—hundreds?—thousands?
Ray laughed when I told him this dream. Ray took dreams very lightly, or gave that impression.
In the morning in the kitchen was the time when I would tell Ray of my recurring dream of loss—my loss of him. Each time I told the dream it was a slightly different dream but each time I told the dream it was obvious that it was the identical dream.
That dream again! You know I would never leave you.
Well, I know, but . . .
I would never dream about you that way.
In a tone of mild reproach Ray spoke as if this were the issue—some failure of trust of him, on my part—and not rather, what seems obvious, my terror at losing him.
Now since Ray has died, my sole recurring dream seems to have ceased.
In fact, the Widow’s recurring dream of decades will have ceased permanently. Which seems to refute the theory that the unconscious has but a primitive sense of time and capriciously confuses past, present, future as if all were one.
Chapter 43
“I Am Sorry to Inform You”
Thank you for your submission. I am sorry to inform you that, due to the unexpected death of editor Raymond Smith, Ontario Review will cease publication after its May 2008 issue.
Several hundred of these little blue slips I had printed up, a few days after Ray’s death.
It’s a measure of my fractured concentration at the time—my reputation for prolificacy notwithstanding—that numerous drafts were required to compose this melancholy rejection slip.
Originally, I’d written unexpected death but then, rereading what I’d written, I thought that it sounded too—melodramatic, or self-pitying. Or subjective.
For, for whom was the death of Raymond Smith unexpected; and why should total strangers care? Why should total strangers be informed?
Unexpected was therefore removed, but later, how many hours and drafts later I would be embarrassed to say, unexpected was re-inserted.
Sorry to inform you of the unexpected death of Raymond Smith.
Like a mildly deranged large flying insect trapped in a small space these words careened and blundered about inside my skull for an inordinate amount of time.
For I knew—common sense dictated—that I had no choice, I would have to discontinue Ontario Review which Ray and I had edited together since 1974. This was heartrending but I saw no alternative—90 percent of the editorial work on the magazine and 100 percent of the publishing/financial work had been my husband’s province.
We’d begun the biannual Ontario Review: A North American Journal of the Arts while we were living in Windsor, Ontario, and teaching together in the English department at the University of Windsor. I’d had the idea that since “small magazines” had been so integral a part of my writing career, I should help finance one of our own; also, both Ray and I were interested in promoting the work of excellent writers whom we knew in both Canada and the United States. Our intention was to publish Canadian and American writers and to make no distinction between the two, which was the special agenda of Ontario Review.
Our first issue, Fall 1974, was greeted with much interest in literary Canada—not because it was an extraordinary gathering of first-rate North American talent (which we believed it was) but because there were, at the time, many more writers and poets than there were reputable outlets for their work in Canada. We were fortunate to publish an interview with Philip Roth—which I’d “conducted”—as well as fiction by Bill Henderson, soon to become the founder of the legendary Pushcart Prize: Best of the Small Presses, and Lynne Sharon Schwartz before she’d published her first book of fiction. Like most beginning editors we’d called upon our friends to write for us and our “briefly noted” reviews—of new books by Paul Theroux, Alice Munro, and Beth Harvor—at the time virtually unknown—were signed “JCO.”
Starting a literary magazine is an adventure not for the fainthearted or the easily discouraged. Neither Ray nor I knew what to expect. Ray’s first experience with a printer was a near disaster—the printer had never printed anything more ambitious than a menu for a local Chinese restaurant—the page proofs were riddled with errors that required hours of Ray’s time and patience to correct; and, when the copies were finally printed, for some reason we never understood, a number were smeared with bloody fingerprints.
I wish that I could recall Ray’s exact words, when he eagerly opened the box from the printer, and saw the mysterious stains on the covers. I want to think that he’d said something appropriately witty but probably what emerged from his throat more resembled a sob.
And very likely I said uselessly Oh honey! How on earth did this happen!
Carefully we examined each of the copies to weed out the soiled ones—another effort that required hours. Exactly how many copies of this premiere issue Ray had had printed up, I can’t remember: maybe 1,000?
(If 1,000, most of these were never sold. No doubt, we gave them away. And we paid our contributors partly with three-year subscriptions. It would be years before OR had a circulation of 1,000.)
Our second issue went far more smoothly than the first. Through a bit of good luck—I’d written to Saul Bellow whom I scarcely knew, requesting something from him—we had a “self-interview” by Bellow, at about the time of Humboldt’s Gift. (When Bellow’s literary agent discovered that Saul had sent us this little gem, the agent tried to take it back; but too late, we told her—we’d already gone to press.) We published work by the Canadian writer Marian Engel, and poetry by Wendell Berry, David Ignatow, César Vallejo (in translation), and Theodore Weiss (destined to become our close friend after we moved to Princeton in 1978).