mind tracing the pathways that
had brought her to this road on this night—as though each step could be unraveled and
retraveled—the men who’d touched her, taught her something, and left.
Michael was the first. In the spring of her
junior year, they’d both quit their cross-country teams, and every day after
school, he took her home to his room. He was shy, tender, perfect. For the junior talent
show, he came on stage in his thick glasses and dirty white sneakers and a baggy
Sherlock Holmes double-breasted raincoat. He carried his cymbals, one in each hand, his
glasses glinting in the spotlights like fevers of the brain. When he clanged the cymbals
together, the audiencewent wild. She felt in that moment that she
loved him as much as it was possible to love anyone. But she was wrong. Then there was
Drew with the bad reputation, and Zachary, the aesthete, and Brandon with the beautiful,
sad eyes. And a while later, Lawrence.
She undressed and lay in bed, with the moon
passing across the window. The lights of the Gordons’ house shone across the
boundary fence. She thought of Hasse, his kindness, his sweet lovemaking. And then an
image of Erika and Lawrence flashed into her mind. She imagined a hotel room, and her
face grew hot with shame and fury. Her heart pounded, and finally it slowed. The moon
passed out of sight, and she slept.
The following day, Alice came home from
work at lunchtime. Isaac was still among the missing. The house was very still, except
for the trilling of the crested barbet in the tree. Daphne was asleep, visibly pregnant.
Alice patted her, asked her how she was while Daphne thumped her tail against the floor
and panted, too hot to stand up.
Alice sat down at the wooden table in the
kitchen with a glass of water, gulped it down, and refilled the glass. She was losing
weight, not because she wanted to. Her head, her whole body, was dizzy with memories. In
those early days of being together with Lawrence, her love for him had been a spring
colt, a shiny, shy thing. He was a man for whom words came hard, like water at the
bottom of a deep well, with only one bucket to the top. She’d been patient,
thinking there would be words worth waiting for.
In graduate school, they’d moved into
a scantily winterized outbuilding ten miles outside of Providence, part of a
nolonger-working farm. The windows rattled in the wind. In May, the lilacs dwarfed the
building they lived in, dwarfed everything in sight. They were almost frightening when
they bloomed, throwing their scent into the air so insanely, there was nothing to
breathe that wasn’t lilac.
Lawrence was in a doctoral program in
economics. Alice was in anthropology. Lawrence’s extended family sprawled like the
lilacs. She loved them, perhaps more than she loved him. His sister, Wren, his brothers,
Howard and Jeremy, his empty-headed young niece, Dahlia,his bulky
aunts and rumbling uncles, and especially a caustic great uncle who lived alone not far
from them and dressed impeccably, a silk cravat hiding his stringy old neck.
After Lawrence had successfully defended his
thesis, his adviser told him of a job in newly independent Botswana in the Ministry of
Finance and Development Planning. As soon as Lawrence told Alice it would be good for
his career, she knew he’d be going. He left Providence in June and asked her to
visit the following summer when she’d be working on her thesis.
After he left, his letters were full of his
work, and when she thought back on them, not very interesting. But something in her
wouldn’t let him go. It all felt promising. She went to Botswana that next summer
to visit a man she thought she might marry. From Providence to London, from London to
Johannesburg. From Johannesburg, she boarded a night train to Mafeking, and in the
morning changed trains for Gaborone. When she woke somewhere between Mafeking and the
border of Botswana, a bleached and pitiless landscape stretched forth, with no sign of
human habitation.
had brought her to this road on this night—as though each step could be unraveled and
retraveled—the men who’d touched her, taught her something, and left.
Michael was the first. In the spring of her
junior year, they’d both quit their cross-country teams, and every day after
school, he took her home to his room. He was shy, tender, perfect. For the junior talent
show, he came on stage in his thick glasses and dirty white sneakers and a baggy
Sherlock Holmes double-breasted raincoat. He carried his cymbals, one in each hand, his
glasses glinting in the spotlights like fevers of the brain. When he clanged the cymbals
together, the audiencewent wild. She felt in that moment that she
loved him as much as it was possible to love anyone. But she was wrong. Then there was
Drew with the bad reputation, and Zachary, the aesthete, and Brandon with the beautiful,
sad eyes. And a while later, Lawrence.
She undressed and lay in bed, with the moon
passing across the window. The lights of the Gordons’ house shone across the
boundary fence. She thought of Hasse, his kindness, his sweet lovemaking. And then an
image of Erika and Lawrence flashed into her mind. She imagined a hotel room, and her
face grew hot with shame and fury. Her heart pounded, and finally it slowed. The moon
passed out of sight, and she slept.
The following day, Alice came home from
work at lunchtime. Isaac was still among the missing. The house was very still, except
for the trilling of the crested barbet in the tree. Daphne was asleep, visibly pregnant.
Alice patted her, asked her how she was while Daphne thumped her tail against the floor
and panted, too hot to stand up.
Alice sat down at the wooden table in the
kitchen with a glass of water, gulped it down, and refilled the glass. She was losing
weight, not because she wanted to. Her head, her whole body, was dizzy with memories. In
those early days of being together with Lawrence, her love for him had been a spring
colt, a shiny, shy thing. He was a man for whom words came hard, like water at the
bottom of a deep well, with only one bucket to the top. She’d been patient,
thinking there would be words worth waiting for.
In graduate school, they’d moved into
a scantily winterized outbuilding ten miles outside of Providence, part of a
nolonger-working farm. The windows rattled in the wind. In May, the lilacs dwarfed the
building they lived in, dwarfed everything in sight. They were almost frightening when
they bloomed, throwing their scent into the air so insanely, there was nothing to
breathe that wasn’t lilac.
Lawrence was in a doctoral program in
economics. Alice was in anthropology. Lawrence’s extended family sprawled like the
lilacs. She loved them, perhaps more than she loved him. His sister, Wren, his brothers,
Howard and Jeremy, his empty-headed young niece, Dahlia,his bulky
aunts and rumbling uncles, and especially a caustic great uncle who lived alone not far
from them and dressed impeccably, a silk cravat hiding his stringy old neck.
After Lawrence had successfully defended his
thesis, his adviser told him of a job in newly independent Botswana in the Ministry of
Finance and Development Planning. As soon as Lawrence told Alice it would be good for
his career, she knew he’d be going. He left Providence in June and asked her to
visit the following summer when she’d be working on her thesis.
After he left, his letters were full of his
work, and when she thought back on them, not very interesting. But something in her
wouldn’t let him go. It all felt promising. She went to Botswana that next summer
to visit a man she thought she might marry. From Providence to London, from London to
Johannesburg. From Johannesburg, she boarded a night train to Mafeking, and in the
morning changed trains for Gaborone. When she woke somewhere between Mafeking and the
border of Botswana, a bleached and pitiless landscape stretched forth, with no sign of
human habitation.
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