Fantastic Metropolis

Mouche and I invite them over for cocktails early one July evening. We only glance at each other when they show up lugging suitcases. Perhaps Mouche grins at me over her shoulder as we lead them through the hot gray corridors of our house and out onto the back porch, into the scream of cicadas. They are laughing, making jokes about the season, making jokes about the noise. I don’t return Mouche’s grin. She goes for the Scotch-and-waters while we three sit down in wicker chairs and watch dry blue lightning silently split the sky, talk about the offer he just received and refused from a small liberal arts college up north because they have decided to stay down here, talk about the lingering humidity. The whole time I sit with my knees pressed together and my moist palms flat on my kneecaps. A clatter comes down a hallway. Mouche appears balancing the four drinks, gold liquid tinkling and sparkling among ice, on a silver tray. She wears a t-shirt with a picture of Monet stamped across the front, and a pair of faded jean shorts. Her shoulders are a smooth brown and gleam in the shadows. I wear a pair of white jogging shorts and an undershirt, no shoes. The couple, however, is wearing suits. He wears a khaki sports coat and khaki pants and Birkenstocks and a green-knit shirt with a tiny white polo player whacking a ball over the pocket. She wears a red sports coat of some thin summer material and a matching dress and brilliant white high-heels. Mouche and I are definitely underdressed for the occasion. I glance over at her as if to say: “So what can you do?” She glances back at me as if to say: “Not a whole bunch, Claude, not a whole bunch.” Neither of us enjoys having guests over because something like this invariably happens. We are either overdressed or underdressed, we are either puritan or devilish, we are either existentialist or too into pop psychology. It never fails. “So why have them over?” I ask Mouche with my eyes. “Beats me,” she answers back. So I sit with my knees together and my moist palms flat on my kneecaps, trying to remember if on the phone I indicated to them that this was in some way supposed to be a well-dressed event.

We chat for awhile and then he suggests we play a game. No one makes mention of supper, I notice, and yet it is past eight and my stomach has begun to hiss and gurgle.

For the next hour or so we recite punch lines, trying to get back to the original joke.

“No soap radio.”

“You should have seen the monkey try to put the cork back.”

“We may now perhaps to begin, yes?”

Around nine Mouche perks up.

“Say,” she says feigning casualness, “could we interest you in a bite to eat? We have the makings for some sandwiches. Bologna, maybe, or reubens…”

“That would be lovely,” the woman says.

“Excellent,” the man says.

Mouche disappears. I smile. The woman smiles. The man, about forty-five with a receding hairline, leans over, picks up my copy of The Courtier, and begins thumbing through it. It occurs to me that a stranger looking in on this scene would have to think nothing was out of the ordinary.

After dinner the woman excuses herself and heads upstairs. The man and I stroll leisurely into the living room. He takes a seat in the leather chair beneath our unicorn tapestry, flicks on a nearby light, sits reading The Courtier in a hot yellow circle. I sit on the piano stool, look through some music, hum to myself. Outside the cicadas are furious. A stagnant wet heat settles over everything, pushes its way through the corridors. Blue lightning flickers now and then. Far away, down by the swamp, frogs are croaking. A damp scent, the hint of mildew, waits in the hot gray corridors; in the dining room with its French doors open wide to the night; in the library with its heavy smell of dank pages and musk; in the three large bedrooms upstairs with their massive oak furniture carrying the fragrance of saturated wood, and the moist bedspreads, and the unclean sheets; in the bathroom with the sniff of rust and old water in the air. I wander through the dark house, thinking, hearing the crickets shriek, finding myself in a long passageway and then in the incredibly brilliant light of the kitchen, watching Mouche wash the dishes. Her bottom is firm and wonderful. Several pubic hairs curl out the left leg of her shorts; she has forgotten to shave. She turns around and I see a dew of perspiration on her forehead, in the fine fuzz above her upper lip. A strand of hair clings to her right temple. I brush it back. There is a quietness in the house that it seems criminal to fracture, so we speak in low voices.

“What time is it?” I ask.

“Almost eleven.”

“We should do something, watch television or something. I think they’re getting bored. He’s reading my book.”

“I’m getting sleepy,” she says. “We should be getting to bed soon.”

She rests her head against my chest, the fresh scent of her hair rising around me. I hug her and look up at the bright light.

“Just a little longer, ‘kay?”

“Sure,” Mouche says.

I am so proud of her it is nearly impossible to express.

When I return to the living room I notice he’s still alone. I ask where she’s gone.

“She was tired. She’s already headed up to bed.”

He laughs, adds: “She’s getting tired easier in her old age.”

I laugh too.

Sure enough, she is sprawled out on our bed, still dressed, her suit hiked up over her waist. Her suitcase is open on our oak armoire. Black lace underwear. Black lace bra. Deodorant can. Makeup kits smudged with pinks and greens and blues. Several stockings. Pastel blouses. A thick-toothed comb. Brush. A tube of toothpaste, a clear green fluid dripping out. I go down to the kitchen to tell Mouche, but can’t find her there. I look for her on the porch, wander through the garden out back, poke my head into the living room (he is still reading), walk through the corridors looking for her. “Mouche?” I whisper. “Mouche? Mouche?” There is no light whatsoever in the interior corridors now. I bump into things. A plant falls and smashes. I pause and listen. In the distance there is a rumble, thunder perhaps; otherwise everything is perfectly silent here. “Mouche?” I whisper again. “Mouche?” I push open one oak door after another, climb a flight of stairs, walk down the long stifling corridor that leads to the back section. In one passageway I think I hear something; stop; wait; call out. But it is nothing, the grumble of a pipe somewhere. Damp dust is in the air. I stand wiping my nose, wondering. After a while I can’t find light switches, can’t orient myself anymore, lose sense of time. It could be eleven-thirty or four in the morning. So I give up my search, lie down on the thick carpeting, rest my head on my arms. As I begin slipping asleep, little bits of thought flash on and off in my mind. Mouche? Mouche? A pipe grumbles. You can live without thinking. Somewhere it is raining. Perhaps in Eupen-et-Malmedy, perhaps over Lago di Pieta, perhaps somewhere in Baton Rouge. Somewhere a cool mist of rain is falling.

We live with them through the summer, more than once having to confess to ourselves that they are pleasant house mates. She is remarkably clean, helps us tidy every room (except our bedroom, in which she sleeps). He is no trouble at all. He spends much of his time reading in the living room, or examining the books in the library. I sometimes see him with Rime Sparse, sometimes with The Epic of Gilgamesh. It is difficult to discern a pattern to his reading habits.

Although Mouche and I seldom speak with them, nor they with us, there is something cordial in the atmosphere. We celebrate Labor Day together, Mouche cooking up a pot roast, smooth mashed potatoes, green peas, steamed carrots. All the vegetables are from our garden out back. We watch the football game together on Thanksgiving, drive out into the forest and find a small pine for Christmas. Early in December the winter rains come, bringing with them a wet coolness and thousands of black frogs. We start up the fireplaces and sit around, Mouche’s head on my lap, watching the flames eat away at the wood, and sip creme de cacao in warm milk. Mouche and I sleep in the living room, on the carpet, so we can tend the fires at night. In the spring Mouche and I climb into the flowing mud, the fast streams sweeping through our yard, and begin the long slow process of shoveling away frog corpses and re-digging ditches in order to channel off the water. We plant again, prune the banana, orange, lemon, and lime trees. For Easter Mouche bakes an angel cake. We sit at the dining room table, a cool breeze coming through the French doors, and laugh and drink and tell stories until our heads spin. Mouche grins over the brim of her glass at me. I sit at the table with my knees together and I poke the ice cubes bobbing in my glass, playing with the sparkles, listening to the tinkles as delicate as those of Chinese chimes.

One day in June Mouche catches cold and has to remain in the living room, wrapped to the chin in an Indian blanket, while I work in the garden alone. I am impressed by what a thoughtless chore gardening is. So little talent and so much luck adheres to it, one of the few occupations that works like an anesthetic on me. I kneel and chop and pluck, chop and pluck, knead and dig, without a thought in the world. Hours waft away like balloons. A dazzling sun turns in a sky the color of robins’ eggs. Cicadas are back. Birds, dull gray and brown, stir the branches above. A healthy perspiration trickles down my face, my neck, my back. I collect pile after pile of weeds with incredibly long and slender white roots. My knees hurt. Sunlight tingles up and down my backbone. Before long, shadows take on a purple color and begin lengthening. I think of nothing, concentrate on the movement of my hands; on my knuckles grimy with soil; on my fingernails, filled with black crescents of humus; on the overwhelming green fragrance in my head.

When the sun goes behind the house, I stand and return the shovel, trowel and aluminum bucket to the shed. When I try the back door, I realize it is locked. I jimmy the doorknob, but nothing happens. I knock at the porch door. No one answers. Purple shadows stretch around me. I walk around to the front of the house and ring the bell, wait several seconds, and ring again. After a time I walk around back again and try the porch door.

“Mouche!” I shout. “Mouche!”

No one answers.

I trot around to the windows and find them shut and locked. I go around front again and pound on the door.

“Mouche! I’m locked out! Mouche! Mouche!”

I try the windows again, pain in the pit of my stomach, perspiration slipping down my neck and back and stinging my eyes. I rap against the glass panes, kick against the base of the house, jog around back again and beat with all my strength against the frame of the porch.

“Mouche!” I shout. “Mouche, open the door! Open the door!”

But there is no movement inside.

In half an hour or so I walk around to the side of the house and lean against the window, cupping my hands and peering in. The house is dark. I can’t make out a thing. Colors pale. I remain there by the window, looking in from time to time, for much of the night.

In the morning a hot white haze rolls over the garden. All the colors are pastels. Pale greens, blues, yellows. Birds twitter in the trees, rustling the branches. The air is thick and smells of roses and honeysuckle. I lie on my side, drifting in and out of sleep, under a window in back of the house. My ribs throb, making breathing hard. Suddenly the porch door claps shut and I hear footsteps coming toward me across the yard. It is Mouche. She looks sleepy. Her eyes are puffy. I notice she no longer has a tan; her skin is the color of cotton. She walks right by me, saying over her shoulder: “Come on, let’s get going.”

“Get going?” I say, looking back at the porch door.

“It’s locked. They locked it behind me. All the windows too. I’m hungry. Let’s eat and then we’ve got to get going.”

We sit in the garden, in the midst of mimosa, hyacinth, and honeysuckle, and we make a small feast of bananas, half-moons of lemons, watermelon slices, and we stand and look around us for the last time, then leave. We cut through the yard, climb over the fence, and out. Hand in hand, we stroll up the street past many houses which have been taken over and some which have not.

Copyright © 1994 by Lance Olsen.