The Isle of Youth: Stories by Laura van den Berg

wandered into the kitchen. Glass bowls filled with punch sat on granite counters, alongside champagne glasses and cocktail napkins. Tiny charms in the shape of acrobats dangled from the stems of the glasses. Costumed partygoers leaned against doorjambs, propped elbows on counters, talked in rapid-fire French. I had expected this party to be unique, a once-in-a-lifetime event, but it was the same as any other party, really, except everyone was masked and speaking a language I couldn’t understand. I ladled some punch into a champagne glass and drank it. Then I walked around with the empty glass in my hand.
    The fish tank in the living room attracted me. The tank was black and had fluorescent lights, but there was nothing inside except water and silver pebbles. I studied the spines of the books in a bookcase: titles on deep-space organisms and intergalactic travel and black holes. I wondered if the person who owned this apartment ever dreamed of astronauts. A woman with crystals glued to her cheek in the shape of a heart tried to talk to me, but I couldn’t follow what she was saying. I just nodded until my neck hurt and the apartment felt airless. I pushed past a group of people wearing masks adorned with feathers and back into the kitchen. I filled my champagne glass and went out onto a small balcony with iron railings. It faced the same street as the bay window. Below, I saw the tops of heads and garbage can lids and slick stone streets. No one else was on the balcony and I couldn’t talk to the people indoors. I hadn’t seen Jean-Paul, Alain, or Dominique since we entered the party. I was starting to feel lonely for home. I went inside and slipped into a bedroom.
    I sat on the edge of the bed. I stared at the black phone on the bedside table. It was an old-fashioned rotary, an antique possibly. I dialed my husband’s international cell. I was surprised when he answered after the first ring.
    “Hello,” I said. “I didn’t think you’d pick up.”
    “I’m in Amsterdam,” he said. “My connection was delayed.”
    “Are you going back to Hartford? Back to the house?”
    “Where else did you think I’d go?”
    “I don’t know.” He had a brother who lived in upstate New York, a best friend from college in Des Moines. “Someplace I wouldn’t come back to.” I’d left the door cracked open and noise from the party seeped into the room.
    “Where are you?” my husband asked.
    “A party,” I said. “I met some people after you left.”
    “Oh,” he said.
    “So do you think you should get the house?”
    “Isn’t that a little premature?”
    “Leaving someone in a foreign country seems pretty final to me.”
    “Do you want the house?”
    “I never liked that house,” I said. “It was too dark. And the neighborhood was too quiet. It kept me up at night, it was so quiet. It short-circuited my nerves, it was so quiet.”
    “I like quiet.”
    “I know,” I said. “I always hated that about you.”
    “Let’s figure the house out when you get back.” He paused. “When are you getting back?”
    “I’m not sure.” I pressed the receiver against my forehead and shut my eyes. I heard him ask me to not take so long between answers, because these international minutes were costing him a fortune. Finally I said I had a question for him.
    “Shoot.”
    “When we were sitting on the bench this morning, you were saying something to me. Something important.”
    “I could tell you weren’t paying attention,” he said. “You kept looking over my shoulder.”
    “That’s true,” I said. “I was distracted. There were these acrobats.”
    “And now you’re wondering what I said?”
    “I was hoping you’d repeat it for me.”
    “We all have to live with our deficiencies.”
    “That’s what you said?”
    “No. That’s what I’m saying now.”
    “What does that mean? That you’re not repeating it for me?”
    “There are consequences for the things we do. That’s what I’m