Can't and Won't: Stories Read online

  One day she was given a large cardboard box full of fresh vegetables by the son of a friend: it was midsummer by now, and he had too many vegetables in his garden even to sell. There were too many vegetables in the box for her and her husband, and she decided to share them with some of her neighbors who did not have gardens. She gave some of the vegetables to a neighbor around the corner, a professional dancer who had recently moved into the neighborhood with his blind dog. When she left him, she took the rest of the vegetables across the street from him to the other Davis and his wife.

  Now, as they were talking in the driveway about one thing and another, including the rug, she admitted to them that she often had a hard time making up her mind, and not only about the rug. Then the other Davis admitted that he, too, had a hard time making up his mind. His wife said it was amazing how firmly her husband could decide in favor of something, before he changed his mind and decided just as firmly against that thing. She said that it helped him to talk to her about whatever the thing was that he was trying to make up his mind about. She said her answers were usually, in sequence, over a period of time: “Yes, I think you’re right”; “Do whatever you want”; “I don’t care.” She said that in this case, since both Davises were so indecisive, the rug was taking on a life of its own. She said they should give it a name. Both Davises liked that idea, but no name came to mind right away.

  This Davis was left with the wish that there were a Solomon to turn to, for a judgment, because probably the question really was, not whether she did or didn’t want to keep the rug, but, more generally, which of them really valued the rug more: she thought that if the other Davis valued it more than she did, he should have it; if she valued it more, she should keep it. Or perhaps the question had to be put a little differently, since it was, in a sense, already “her” rug: perhaps she merely had to decide that she valued it more than she had before, just enough more to keep it. But no, she thought again, if the other Davis really loved the rug more than she did, he should have it. She thought maybe she should suggest to the other Davis that he take it and keep it in his house for a while, to see whether he loved it very much, or merely liked it somewhat, or in fact did not want it at all. If he loved it, he should keep it; if he did not want it, she would keep it; if he merely liked it somewhat, she would keep it. But she was not sure this was the best solution, either.

  Contingency (vs. Necessity)

  He could be our dog.

  But he is not our dog.

  So he barks at us.

  Brief Incident in Short a, Long a, and Schwa

  Cat, gray tabby, calm, watches large black ant. Man, rapt, stands staring at cat and ant. Ant advances along path. Ant halts, baffled. Ant backtracks fast—straight at cat. Cat, alarmed, backs away. Man, standing, staring, laughs. Ant changes path again. Cat, calm again, watches again.

  Contingency (vs. Necessity) 2: On Vacation

  He could be my husband.

  But he is not my husband.

  He is her husband.

  And so he takes her picture (not mine) as she stands in her flowered beach outfit in front of the old fortress.

  A Story Told to Me by a Friend

  A friend of mine told me a sad story the other day about a neighbor of hers. He had begun a correspondence with a stranger through an online dating service. The friend lived hundreds of miles away, in North Carolina. The two men exchanged messages and then photos and were soon having long conversations, at first in writing and then by phone. They found that they had many interests in common, were emotionally and intellectually compatible, were comfortable with each other, and were physically attracted to each other, as far as they could tell on the Internet. Their professional interests, too, were close, my friend’s neighbor being an accountant and his new friend down South an assistant professor of economics at a small college. After some months, they seemed to be well and truly in love, and my friend’s neighbor was convinced that “this was it,” as he put it. When some vacation time came up, he arranged to fly down South for a few days and meet his Internet love.

  During the day of travel, he called his friend two or three times and they talked. Then he was surprised to receive no answer. Nor was his friend at the airport to meet him. After waiting and calling several more times, my friend’s neighbor left the airport and went to the address his friend had given him. No one answered when he knocked and rang. Every possibility went through his mind.

  Here, some parts of the story are missing, but my friend told me that what her neighbor learned was that, on that very day, even as he was on his way south, his Internet friend had died of a heart attack while on the phone with his doctor; the traveler, having learned this either from the man’s neighbor or from the police, had made his way to the local morgue; he had been allowed to view his Internet friend; and so it was here, face to face with a dead man, that he first laid eyes on the one who, he had been convinced, was to have been his companion for life.

  The Bad Novel

  This dull, difficult novel I have brought with me on my trip—I keep trying to read it. I have gone back to it so many times, each time dreading it and each time finding it no better than the last time, that by now it has become something of an old friend. My old friend the bad novel.

  After You Left

  story from Flaubert

  You wanted me to tell you everything I did after we left each other.

  Well, I was very sad; it had been so lovely. When I saw your back disappear into the train compartment, I went up on the bridge to watch your train pass under me. That was all I saw; you were inside it! I looked after it as long as I could, and I listened to it. In the other direction, towards Rouen, the sky was red and striped with broad bands of purple. The sky would be long dark by the time I reached Rouen and you reached Paris. I lit another cigar. For a while I paced back and forth. Then, because I felt so numb and tired, I went into a café across the street and drank a glass of kirsch.

  My train came into the station, heading in the opposite direction from yours. In the compartment, I met a man I knew from my schooldays. We talked for a long time, almost all the way back to Rouen.

  When I arrived, Louis was there to meet me, as we had planned, but my mother hadn’t sent the carriage to take us home. We waited for a while, and then, by moonlight, we walked across the bridge and through the port. In that part of town there are two places where we could hire a hackney cab.

  At the second place, the people live in an old church. It was dark. We knocked and woke the woman, who came to the door in her nightcap. Imagine the scene, in the middle of the night, with the interior of that old church behind her—her jaws gaping in a yawn; a candle burning; the lace shawl she wore hanging down below her hips. The horse had to be harnessed, of course. The breeching band had broken, and we waited while they mended it with a piece of rope.

  On the way home, I told Louis about my old school friend, who is his old school friend, too. I told him how you and I had spent our time together. Out the window, the moon was shining on the river. I remembered another journey home late at night by moonlight. I described it to Louis: There was deep snow on the ground. I was in a sleigh, wearing my red wool hat and wrapped in my fur cloak. I had lost my boots that day, on my way to see an exhibition of savages from Africa. All the windows were open, and I was smoking my pipe. The river was dark. The trees were dark. The moon shone on the fields of snow: they looked as smooth as satin. The snow-covered houses looked like little white bears curled up asleep. I imagined that I was in the Russian steppe. I thought I could hear reindeer snorting in the mist, I thought I could see a pack of wolves leaping up at the back of the sleigh. The eyes of the wolves were shining like coals on both sides of the road.

  When at last we reached home, it was one in the morning. I wanted to organize my work table before I went to bed. Out my study window, the moon was still shining—on the water, on the towpath, and, close to the house, on the tulip tree by my window. When I was done, Louis went off to his ro
om and I went off to mine.

  The Bodyguard

  He goes with me wherever I go. He has fair hair. He is young and strong. His arms and legs are round and muscular. He is my bodyguard. But he never opens his eyes, and never leaves his armchair. Lying deep in the chair, he is carried from place to place, attended, in turn, by his own caregivers.

  dream

  The Child

  She is bending over her child. She can’t leave her. The child is laid out in state on a table. She wants to take one more photograph of the child, probably the last. In life, the child would never sit still for a photograph. She says to herself, “I’m going to get the camera,” as if saying to the child, “Don’t move.”

  dream

  The Churchyard

  I have the key to the churchyard and unlock the gate. The church is in the city, and it has a large enclosure. Now that the gate is open, many people come in and sit on the grass to enjoy the sun.

  Meanwhile, girls at the street corner are raising money for their mother-in-law, who is called “La Bella.”

  I have offended or disappointed two women, but I am cradling Jesus (who is alive) amid a cozy pile of people.

  dream

  My Sister and the Queen of England

  For fifty years now, nag nag nag and harp harp harp. No matter what my sister did, it wasn’t good enough for my mother, or for my father either. She moved to England to get away, and married an Englishman, and when he died, she married another Englishman, but that wasn’t enough.

  Then she was awarded the Order of the British Empire. My parents flew over to England and watched from across the ballroom floor as my sister walked out there alone and stood and talked to the Queen of England. They were impressed. My mother told me in a letter that no one else receiving honors that day talked to the Queen as long as my sister did. I wasn’t surprised, because my sister has always been a great talker, no matter what the occasion. But when I asked my mother later what my sister was wearing, she didn’t remember very well—white gloves and some kind of a tent, she said.

  Four Lords of Parliament had mentioned my sister in their maiden speeches, because she had done so much for the disabled, and she treated the disabled, my mother said, like anyone else. She talked to her drivers the same way she talked to the Lords, and she talked to the Lords the same way she talked to the disabled. Everyone loved her, and no one minded that her house was a little untidy. My mother said the house was still untidy, and my sister was still letting her figure go, she invited too many people into her home, and she left the butter out all day, she told too much of her private business to her friend the Indian grocer on the corner, and she wouldn’t stop talking, but my mother and father felt they had to keep quiet because how could they say anything against her now, she had done so much good and was so admired.

  I’m proud of my sister, and I’m happy for her because of the award, but I’m also happy that my mother and father have finally been silenced for a while, and will let her alone for a while, though I don’t think it will be for long, and I’m sorry it took the Queen of England to do it.

  The Visit to the Dentist

  story from Flaubert

  Last week I went to the dentist, thinking he was going to pull my tooth. He said it would be better to wait and see if the pain subsided.

  Well, the pain did not subside—I was in agony and running a fever. So yesterday I went to have it pulled. On my way to see him, I had to cross the old marketplace where they used to execute people, not so long ago. I remembered that when I was only six or seven years old, returning home from school one day, I crossed the square after an execution had taken place. The guillotine was there. I saw fresh blood on the paving stones. They were carrying away the basket.

  Last night I thought about how I had entered the square on my way to the dentist dreading what was about to happen to me, and how, in the same way, those people condemned to death also used to enter that square dreading what was about to happen to them—though it was worse for them.

  When I fell asleep, I dreamed about the guillotine; the strange thing was that my little niece, who sleeps downstairs, also dreamed about a guillotine, though I hadn’t said anything to her about it. I wonder if thoughts are fluid, and flow downward, from one person to another, within the same house.

  Letter to a Frozen Peas Manufacturer

  Dear Frozen Peas Manufacturer,

  We are writing to you because we feel that the peas illustrated on your package of frozen peas are a most unattractive color. We are referring to the 16 oz. plastic package that shows three or four pods, one of them split open, with peas rolling out near them. The peas are a dull yellow green, more the color of pea soup than fresh peas and nothing like the actual color of your peas, which are a nice bright dark green. The depicted peas are, moreover, about three times the size of the actual peas inside the package, which, together with their dull color, makes them even less appealing—they appear to be past their maturity and mealy in texture. Additionally, the color of your illustrated peas contrasts poorly with the color of the lettering and other decoration on your package, which is an almost harsh neon green. We have compared your depiction of peas to that of other frozen peas packages and yours is by far the least appealing. Most food manufacturers depict food on their packaging that is more attractive than the food inside and therefore deceptive. You are doing the opposite: you are falsely representing your peas as less attractive than they actually are. We enjoy your peas and do not want your business to suffer. Please reconsider your art.

  Yours sincerely.

  The Cornmeal

  This morning, the bowl of hot cooked cornmeal, set under a transparent plate and left there, has covered the underside of the plate with droplets of condensation: it, too, is taking action in its own little way.

  II

  Two Undertakers

  One undertaker, taking a body north on the highway, in France, stops at a roadside restaurant for a bite of lunch. There he meets another undertaker, a colleague known to him, who has also stopped for a bite of lunch and who is taking a body south. They decide to sit at the same table and have their meal together.

  This encounter of two professionals is witnessed by Roland Barthes. It is his own deceased mother who is being taken south. He watches from a separate table, where he sits with his sister. His mother, of course, lies outside in the hearse.

  I Ask Mary About Her Friend, the Depressive, and His Vacation

  One year, she says

  “He’s away in the Badlands.”

  The next year, she says

  “He’s away in the Black Hills.”

  The Magic of the Train

  We can see by the way they look from behind, as we watch them walk away from us down the train car, past the open doors of the toilets, through the sliding doors at the end, into some other part of the train, we can tell by the backs of them, these two women, in their tight black jeans, their platform heels, their tight sweaters and jean jackets in fashionable layers, their ample, loose, long black hair, the way they stride along, that they’re in their late teens or maybe their early twenties. But when they come back the other way towards us, after a little while, from their excursion through the train to some strange and magical part of it up ahead, when they come back, still striding along, we can now see their faces, pale, haggard, with violet shadows under their eyes, sagging cheeks, odd moles here and there, laugh lines, crow’s-feet, though they are both smiling a little, gently, and we see that in the meantime, under the magical effect of the train, they have aged twenty years.

  Eating Fish Alone

  Eating fish is something I generally do alone. I eat fish at home only when I am by myself in the house, because of the strong smell. I am alone with sardines on white bread with mayonnaise and lettuce, I am alone with smoked salmon on buttered rye bread, or tuna fish and anchovies in a salade Niçoise, or a canned salmon salad sandwich, or sometimes salmon cakes sautéed in butter.

  I usually order fish, to
o, when I eat out. I order it because I like it and because it is not meat, which I rarely eat, or pasta, which is usually too rich, or a vegetarian dish, which I am likely to know all too well. I bring a book with me, though often the light over the table is not very good for reading and I am too distracted to read. I try to choose a table with good light, then I order a glass of wine and take out my book. I always want my glass of wine immediately, and I am very impatient until it comes. When it comes, and I have taken my first sip, I put my book down beside my plate and consider the menu, and my plan is always to order fish.

  I love fish, but many fish should not be eaten anymore, and it has become difficult to know which fish I can eat. I carry with me in my wallet a little folding list put out by the Audubon Society that advises which fish to avoid, which fish to eat with caution, and which fish to eat freely. When I eat with other people I do not take this list out of my wallet, because it is not much fun to have dinner with someone who takes a list like this out of her wallet before she orders. I simply manage without it, though usually I can remember only that I should not eat farmed salmon or wild salmon, except for wild Alaskan salmon, which is never on the menu.