looked down at the ravine then up at the sky morphing into blues and purples. I have recalled this night often, sometimes daily, in the years since I left New Zealand, but I still do not know why it is this moment that I remember so clearly—sky, Werner, knife on plate, talk of how lambs die—instead of one of the louder, more eventful ones. Some of the loudest and most eventful events that happened there are still foggy, half-ruined slide shows, the images unfocused, a fleshy thumb obscuring some key thing or person. But that night it seemed I had reached some indescribable reason, and the wildebeest sulked away, and I made some sense to myself and I wouldn’t say I was happy or even content, but I had emptied myself of something and was just there.
I eat them for the sake of this pity , Werner said, pushing this dripping bite into his mouth.
What makes them lie down?
Pardon?
I mean, why do they give up so easily?
Werner put another bite of animal in his mouth and chewed.
They are not giving up , he said. They are just being polite.
He smiled, then turned back to face the ravine.
I crossed my feet at the ankles, then bent one leg over the other. Something that sounded like a bucket of nails being poured on the tin roof happened, then it went away.
Possums , he said, nodding toward where the noise had come from.
20
The front desk sent flowers and a balloon and a stuffed bear—the string noosed around his neck.
My husband and I watched telenovelas and every few minutes he would translate a good line, though it was obvious what was going on. There were lovers and there were enemies and sometimes you couldn’t tell them apart but it hardly mattered. Men tossed their heads around when they spoke. Old ladies cast spells. Doll-perfect women with angry black hair stomped in heels and demanded and demanded and demanded.
And I, like my husband, would rather watch someone else be angry than go through the trouble of my own, so while we watched the women spit and choke each other and the men shout and rub their temples, we felt our own anger dissolve or go numb. We had been angry that the other was angry and even angrier that we were experiencing anger—it was our honeymoon and if we were not exempt from pain now, we might never be.
The pain we were not exempt from had been made visible in the cast around my arm, which was fixing my wrist, maybe, but not us, this cast which was put on at the clinic I’d been carried to after falling down fifteen marble stairs outside our hotel: a twisted ankle, scraped knees, a broken wrist, a bruise, and a gash across my cheek. ( She fell down the stairs , he said, I fell down the stairs , I said, and isn’t that what people say has happened when that is exactly what hasn’t happened?) In fact, I had fallen down the stairs as we were arguing, or as we were trying not to argue and failing deeply. We had just checked in to this hotel, smiling and overpronouncing gracias and bueno and when the clerk had cooed, Oh, the honeymoon suite! , my husband put his hand on my shoulder and looked at me and I don’t know exactly why, but I looked at my husband and pretended I had no idea what was going on, and he said, What was that all about? And I said, What? And he said, Back there at reception—your, I don’t know, your attitude, it’s just not like you— and this took us into a conversation about attitudes and about what I was usually like , and this conversation tried its best not to be an argument, and we tried our best to be the sweet, sense-making people we had mostly been up to this moment, through the all-smiles, all-talking, all-consuming wave of the wedding, but this discussion of attitudes eventually fell into the argument category and we argued up the elevator, into the honeymoon suite, through the bathroom door, back into the hallway, back down the elevator, through the lobby, and back outside the hotel and I got a little distracted by this obscenely attractive Spanish
I eat them for the sake of this pity , Werner said, pushing this dripping bite into his mouth.
What makes them lie down?
Pardon?
I mean, why do they give up so easily?
Werner put another bite of animal in his mouth and chewed.
They are not giving up , he said. They are just being polite.
He smiled, then turned back to face the ravine.
I crossed my feet at the ankles, then bent one leg over the other. Something that sounded like a bucket of nails being poured on the tin roof happened, then it went away.
Possums , he said, nodding toward where the noise had come from.
20
The front desk sent flowers and a balloon and a stuffed bear—the string noosed around his neck.
My husband and I watched telenovelas and every few minutes he would translate a good line, though it was obvious what was going on. There were lovers and there were enemies and sometimes you couldn’t tell them apart but it hardly mattered. Men tossed their heads around when they spoke. Old ladies cast spells. Doll-perfect women with angry black hair stomped in heels and demanded and demanded and demanded.
And I, like my husband, would rather watch someone else be angry than go through the trouble of my own, so while we watched the women spit and choke each other and the men shout and rub their temples, we felt our own anger dissolve or go numb. We had been angry that the other was angry and even angrier that we were experiencing anger—it was our honeymoon and if we were not exempt from pain now, we might never be.
The pain we were not exempt from had been made visible in the cast around my arm, which was fixing my wrist, maybe, but not us, this cast which was put on at the clinic I’d been carried to after falling down fifteen marble stairs outside our hotel: a twisted ankle, scraped knees, a broken wrist, a bruise, and a gash across my cheek. ( She fell down the stairs , he said, I fell down the stairs , I said, and isn’t that what people say has happened when that is exactly what hasn’t happened?) In fact, I had fallen down the stairs as we were arguing, or as we were trying not to argue and failing deeply. We had just checked in to this hotel, smiling and overpronouncing gracias and bueno and when the clerk had cooed, Oh, the honeymoon suite! , my husband put his hand on my shoulder and looked at me and I don’t know exactly why, but I looked at my husband and pretended I had no idea what was going on, and he said, What was that all about? And I said, What? And he said, Back there at reception—your, I don’t know, your attitude, it’s just not like you— and this took us into a conversation about attitudes and about what I was usually like , and this conversation tried its best not to be an argument, and we tried our best to be the sweet, sense-making people we had mostly been up to this moment, through the all-smiles, all-talking, all-consuming wave of the wedding, but this discussion of attitudes eventually fell into the argument category and we argued up the elevator, into the honeymoon suite, through the bathroom door, back into the hallway, back down the elevator, through the lobby, and back outside the hotel and I got a little distracted by this obscenely attractive Spanish
Similar Books
