windows, staring out in the direction of the water.
In this tense atmosphere of impossible expectation, our mermaid did something at last, something that made us look at her in a new way: she disappeared. One morning the glass case was gone. A sign on a stand told us that the Historical Society was no longer able topreserve her properly. We learned that she had been sent to a marine laboratory in New Haven and from there to Washington, D.C., where she was to be examined by a team of scientists before being turned over to the Smithsonian for further study. Even as the facts were reported to us, even as we agreed that it was probably all for the best, a skepticism penetrated our belief, as if words were being used to deflect us from the thing we wanted to know. Before our eyes we had only the sign where the glass case had been. Soon there was not even that.
In the midst of our disappointment we detected the presence of another feeling, one that surprised us, though not entirely. It was a lightening of spirit, almost a gaiety. We understood that our mermaid’s departure was somehow pleasing to us. Had we secretly resented her? Her absence gave rise to our exuberant farewells. Some said that she had been spirited away in the night by others of her kind, who had vowed to return her to the ocean. Others claimed they had noticed small movements in her eyelids and lips; after a long sleep, our mermaid had gradually awakened. Whether she had smashed the glass and escaped alone to the water, or been aided by unknown forces in the night, who could say? The important thing was that she was out of human hands, she was back in her true element. Disappearance improved her. As the old parties ended, and the costumes were tossed into drawers and boxes, never to be looked at again, as legs reappeared and breasts retreated, as we returned to the normal course of things, our lost mermaid underwent a sea-change: her mottled skin grew fresh and lovely, her scales glistened, her gold hair caught the light, and like an exiled queen restored to her throne, she assumed again her rightful place in her own land, far in the distance, forever out of reach, out there beyond where we can clearly see.
THE WIFE AND THE THIEF
S he is the wife whose husband sleeps. She is the wife who lies awake, listening to the footsteps below. The thief is making his way steadily through the living room, stopping now and then, perhaps to bend close to objects, to hold them up and feel their weight, before he drops them into his sack. Do thieves have sacks? She knows she ought to wake her husband up, there isn’t a second to lose, but she needs to be sure, very sure, before she destroys his sleep. Her husband can never fall back to sleep if you wake him up at night, next day at the office he’s a wreck of a man, his day ruined, his life a living hell, and though he never complains, in a direct sort of way, that he’d rather be dead, he manages to let her see, at breakfast early in the morning, and again at dinner, the tiredness in his eyes, the sadness of a body that has been unfairly deprived of sleep, none of which would matter a damn if only she could be sure. She’s sure, but is she sure she’s sure? It’s possible that the footsteps are not footsteps at all, but only the sounds a house makes, in the middle of the night, a creak of floorboards, a faint snap of wood in a door. But she’s sure the sounds she hears are not those sounds, at least so far as she can tell. The sounds she hears are far more regular than that, they are the sounds, she swears she’s sure, that footsteps make, when someone is movingthrough your house, threatening your very existence. But even if she’s sure she’s sure, or as sure she’s sure as she can be, that the sounds she hears are not the sounds a house makes, but the sounds that footsteps make, when a thief has broken into your house and is creeping around, dropping things into his sack, if thieves have sacks, how can she wake
In this tense atmosphere of impossible expectation, our mermaid did something at last, something that made us look at her in a new way: she disappeared. One morning the glass case was gone. A sign on a stand told us that the Historical Society was no longer able topreserve her properly. We learned that she had been sent to a marine laboratory in New Haven and from there to Washington, D.C., where she was to be examined by a team of scientists before being turned over to the Smithsonian for further study. Even as the facts were reported to us, even as we agreed that it was probably all for the best, a skepticism penetrated our belief, as if words were being used to deflect us from the thing we wanted to know. Before our eyes we had only the sign where the glass case had been. Soon there was not even that.
In the midst of our disappointment we detected the presence of another feeling, one that surprised us, though not entirely. It was a lightening of spirit, almost a gaiety. We understood that our mermaid’s departure was somehow pleasing to us. Had we secretly resented her? Her absence gave rise to our exuberant farewells. Some said that she had been spirited away in the night by others of her kind, who had vowed to return her to the ocean. Others claimed they had noticed small movements in her eyelids and lips; after a long sleep, our mermaid had gradually awakened. Whether she had smashed the glass and escaped alone to the water, or been aided by unknown forces in the night, who could say? The important thing was that she was out of human hands, she was back in her true element. Disappearance improved her. As the old parties ended, and the costumes were tossed into drawers and boxes, never to be looked at again, as legs reappeared and breasts retreated, as we returned to the normal course of things, our lost mermaid underwent a sea-change: her mottled skin grew fresh and lovely, her scales glistened, her gold hair caught the light, and like an exiled queen restored to her throne, she assumed again her rightful place in her own land, far in the distance, forever out of reach, out there beyond where we can clearly see.
THE WIFE AND THE THIEF
S he is the wife whose husband sleeps. She is the wife who lies awake, listening to the footsteps below. The thief is making his way steadily through the living room, stopping now and then, perhaps to bend close to objects, to hold them up and feel their weight, before he drops them into his sack. Do thieves have sacks? She knows she ought to wake her husband up, there isn’t a second to lose, but she needs to be sure, very sure, before she destroys his sleep. Her husband can never fall back to sleep if you wake him up at night, next day at the office he’s a wreck of a man, his day ruined, his life a living hell, and though he never complains, in a direct sort of way, that he’d rather be dead, he manages to let her see, at breakfast early in the morning, and again at dinner, the tiredness in his eyes, the sadness of a body that has been unfairly deprived of sleep, none of which would matter a damn if only she could be sure. She’s sure, but is she sure she’s sure? It’s possible that the footsteps are not footsteps at all, but only the sounds a house makes, in the middle of the night, a creak of floorboards, a faint snap of wood in a door. But she’s sure the sounds she hears are not those sounds, at least so far as she can tell. The sounds she hears are far more regular than that, they are the sounds, she swears she’s sure, that footsteps make, when someone is movingthrough your house, threatening your very existence. But even if she’s sure she’s sure, or as sure she’s sure as she can be, that the sounds she hears are not the sounds a house makes, but the sounds that footsteps make, when a thief has broken into your house and is creeping around, dropping things into his sack, if thieves have sacks, how can she wake
Similar Books
