Eleven

The cubicle

From here on in, things take a darker turn. But then, you knew they would. You knew it, because you already know what happened to Laura.

Laura herself didn’t know it, of course. She had no thought of playing the doomed romantic heroine. She became that only later, in the frame of her own outcome and thus in the minds of her admirers. In the course of daily life she was frequently irritating, like anyone. Or dull. Or joyful, she could be that as well: given the right conditions, the secret of which was known only to her, she could drift off into a kind of rapture. It’s her flashes of joy that are most poignant for me now.

And so in memory she rambles through her mundane activities, to the outward eye nothing very unusual—a bright-haired girl walking up a hill, intent on thoughts of her own. There are many of these lovely, pensive girls, the landscape is cluttered with them, there’s one born every minute. Most of the time nothing out of the ordinary happens to them, these girls. This and that and the other, and then they get older. But Laura has been singled out, by you, by me. In a painting she’d be gathering wildflowers, though in real life she rarely did anything of the kind. The earth-faced god crouches behind her in the forest shade. Only we can see him. Only we know he will pounce.

I’ve looked back over what I’ve set down so far, and it seems inadequate. Perhaps there is too much frivolity in it, or too many things that might be taken for frivolity. A lot of clothes, the styles and colours outmoded now, shed butterflies’ wings. A lot of dinners, not always very good ones. Breakfasts, picnics, ocean voyages, costume balls, newspapers, boating on the river. Such items do not assort very well with tragedy. But in life, a tragedy is not one long scream. It includes everything that led up to it. Hour after trivial hour, day after day, year after year, and then the sudden moment: the knife stab, the shell-burst, the plummet of the car from the bridge.

It’s April now. The snowdrops have come and gone, the crocuses are up. Soon I’ll be able to take up residence on the back porch, at my mousy, scarred old wooden table, at least when it’s sunny. No ice on the sidewalks, and so I have begun to walk again. The winter months of inactivity have weakened me; I can feel it in my legs. Nevertheless I am determined to repossess my former territories, revisit my watering holes.

Today, with the aid of my cane and with several pauses along the way, I managed to make it as far as the cemetery. There were the two Chase angels, not obviously any the worse for wear after their winter in the snow; there were the family names, only slightly more illegible, but that might be my eyesight. I ran my fingers along these names, along the letters of them; despite their hardness, their tangibility, they appeared to soften under my touch, to fade, to waver. Time has been at them with its sharp invisible teeth.

Someone had cleared away last autumn’s soggy leaves from Laura’s grave. There was a small bunch of white narcissi, already wilted, the stems wrapped in aluminum foil. I scooped it up and chucked it into the nearest bin. Who do they think appreciates these offerings of theirs, these worshippers of Laura? More to the point, who do they think picks up after them? Them and their floral trash, littering the precincts with the tokens of their spurious grief.

I’ll give you something to cry about, Reenie would say. If we’d been her real children she would have slapped us. As it was, she never did, so we never found out what this threatening something might be.

On my return journey I stopped at the doughnut shop. I must have looked as tired as I felt, because a waitress came over right away. Usually they don’t serve tables, you have to stand at the counter and carry things yourself, but this girl—an oval-faced girl, dark-haired, in what looked like a black uniform—asked me what she could bring me. I ordered a coffee and, for a change, a blueberry muffin. Then I saw her talking to another girl, the one behind the counter, and I realized that she wasn’t a waitress at all, but a customer, like myself: her black uniform wasn’t even a uniform, only a jacket and slacks. Silver glittered on her somewhere, zippers perhaps: I couldn’t make out the details. Before I could thank her properly she was gone.

So refreshing, to find politeness and consideration in girls of that age. Too often (I reflected, thinking of Sabrina) they display only, thoughtless ingratitude. But thoughtless ingratitude is the armour of the young; without it, how would they ever get through life? The old wish the young well, but they wish them ill also: they would like to eat them up, and absorb their vitality, and remain immortal themselves. Without the protection of surliness and levity, all children would be crushed by the past—the past of others, loaded onto their shoulders. Selfishness is their saving grace.

Up to a point, of course.

The waitress in her blue smock brought the coffee. Also the muffin, which I regretted almost immediately. I couldn’t make much of an inroad into it. Everything in restaurants is becoming too big, too heavy—the material world manifesting itself as huge damp lumps of dough.

After I’d drunk as much of the coffee as I could manage, I set off to reclaim the washroom. In the middle cubicle, the writings I remembered from last autumn had been painted over, but luckily this season’s had already begun. At the top right-hand corner, one set of initials coyly declared its love for another set, as is their habit. Underneath that, printed neatly in blue:

Good judgment comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgment.

Under that, in purple ballpoint cursive: For an experienced girl call Anita the Mighty Mouth, I’ll take you to Heaven, and a phone number.

And, under that, in block lettering, and red Magic Marker: The Last Judgment is at hand. Prepare to meet thy Doom and that means you Anita.

Sometimes I think—no, sometimes I play with the idea—that these washroom scribblings are in reality the work of Laura, acting as if by long distance through the arms and hands of the girls who write them. A stupid notion, but a pleasing one, until I take the further logical step of deducing that in this case they must all be intended for me, because who else would Laura still know in this town? But if they are intended for me, what does Laura mean by them? Not what she says.

At other times I feel a strong urge to join in, to contribute; to link my own tremulous voice to the anonymous chorus of truncated serenades, scrawled love letters, lewd advertisements, hymns and curses.

The Moving Finger writes, and, having writ,

Moves on; nor all your Piety nor Wit

Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,

Nor all your Tears blot out a Word of it.

Ha, I think. That would make them sit up and bark.

Some day when I’m feeling better I’ll go back there and actually write the thing down. They should all be cheered by it, for isn’t it what they want? What we all want: to leave a message behind us that has an effect, if only a dire one; a message that cannot be cancelled out.

But such messages can be dangerous. Think twice before you wish, and especially before you wish to make yourself into the hand of fate.

(Think twice, said Reenie. Laura said, Why only twice? )