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Authors: Margaret Atwood
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she’s no longer that young. She isn’t sure why she’s having lunch with Elizabeth’s husband at all, except that something in the way he asked her – the invitation had been a kind of outburst – made it impossible for her to say no.
The anger and desperation of others have always been her weak points. She’s an appeaser and she knows it. Even in the women’sgroup she went to in graduate school, mostly because her roommate shamed her into it, she’d been cautious, afraid of saying the wrong thing; of being accused. She’d listened with mounting horror to the recitals of the others, their revelations about their grievances, their sex lives, the callousness of their lovers, even their marriages, for some of them were married. The horror wasn’t caused by the content but by Lesje’s realization that they were expecting her to do the same thing. She knew she couldn’t, she didn’t know the language. It would be no good to say that she was just a scientist, she wasn’t political. According to them, everything was political.
Already they were looking at her with calculation: her murmurs of assent had not been enough. Soon they would confront her. Panic-stricken, she searched her past for suitable offerings, but the only thing she could think of was so minor, so trivial, that she knew it would never be accepted. It was this: On the gold dome of the Museum’s lobby, up at the top, it said: THAT ALL MEN MAY KNOW HIS WORK . It was only a quotation from the Bible, she’d checked on that, but it might keep them busy; they were very big on the piggishness of God. On the other hand, they might reject it completely. Come on, Lesje. Something
personal
.
She’d told her roommate, who was a social historian with tinted granny glasses, that she didn’t really have time for the group, as her palynology course was heavier than she’d thought. Neither of them believed this, and shortly afterwards Lesje moved into a single apartment. She couldn’t stand the constant attempts to engage her in meaningful dialogue while she was eating her corn flakes or drying her hair. At that time nuances had bothered her; she was much happier among concrete things. Now she feels it might have been useful to have listened more carefully.
Nate hasn’t yet frightened her by asking her to tell him about herself, though he’s been talking since they sat down. She ordered the cheapest thing on the menu, a grilled cheese sandwich and aglass of milk. She listens, eating in small bites, concealing her teeth. Nate has given no hint yet as to why he called her. At the time she thought it might be because she’d known Chris, she knew Elizabeth, and he needed to talk about it. She could understand that. But so far he hasn’t mentioned either of them.
Lesje can’t see how he can get through a conversation, even five minutes of one, without mentioning an event that to her would have loomed very large in the foreground. If it were her life, which it isn’t. Until this lunch, this grilled cheese sandwich and – what is he eating? – a hot turkey sandwich on white bread, she thought about Nate, if at all, simply as the least interesting figure in that tragic triangle.
Elizabeth, who stalks about the Museum these days white-skinned, eyes black-shadowed, a little too plump to carry it off entirely but otherwise like some bereft queen out of a Shakespearean play, is of course the most interesting. Chris is interesting because he is dead. Lesje knew him, but not very well. Some people at work found him remote, others too intense. He was rumored to have a ferocious temper, but Lesje never saw it. She worked on only one project with him: Smaller Mammals of the Mesozoic. It’s finished now, installed in its glass case with push buttons wired for the voices. Lesje did the specifications and Chris built the models, using muskrat fur and rabbit and woodchuck, doctored, to cover the wooden forms. She used to visit him in that shadowy workroom, at one end of
The anger and desperation of others have always been her weak points. She’s an appeaser and she knows it. Even in the women’sgroup she went to in graduate school, mostly because her roommate shamed her into it, she’d been cautious, afraid of saying the wrong thing; of being accused. She’d listened with mounting horror to the recitals of the others, their revelations about their grievances, their sex lives, the callousness of their lovers, even their marriages, for some of them were married. The horror wasn’t caused by the content but by Lesje’s realization that they were expecting her to do the same thing. She knew she couldn’t, she didn’t know the language. It would be no good to say that she was just a scientist, she wasn’t political. According to them, everything was political.
Already they were looking at her with calculation: her murmurs of assent had not been enough. Soon they would confront her. Panic-stricken, she searched her past for suitable offerings, but the only thing she could think of was so minor, so trivial, that she knew it would never be accepted. It was this: On the gold dome of the Museum’s lobby, up at the top, it said: THAT ALL MEN MAY KNOW HIS WORK . It was only a quotation from the Bible, she’d checked on that, but it might keep them busy; they were very big on the piggishness of God. On the other hand, they might reject it completely. Come on, Lesje. Something
personal
.
She’d told her roommate, who was a social historian with tinted granny glasses, that she didn’t really have time for the group, as her palynology course was heavier than she’d thought. Neither of them believed this, and shortly afterwards Lesje moved into a single apartment. She couldn’t stand the constant attempts to engage her in meaningful dialogue while she was eating her corn flakes or drying her hair. At that time nuances had bothered her; she was much happier among concrete things. Now she feels it might have been useful to have listened more carefully.
Nate hasn’t yet frightened her by asking her to tell him about herself, though he’s been talking since they sat down. She ordered the cheapest thing on the menu, a grilled cheese sandwich and aglass of milk. She listens, eating in small bites, concealing her teeth. Nate has given no hint yet as to why he called her. At the time she thought it might be because she’d known Chris, she knew Elizabeth, and he needed to talk about it. She could understand that. But so far he hasn’t mentioned either of them.
Lesje can’t see how he can get through a conversation, even five minutes of one, without mentioning an event that to her would have loomed very large in the foreground. If it were her life, which it isn’t. Until this lunch, this grilled cheese sandwich and – what is he eating? – a hot turkey sandwich on white bread, she thought about Nate, if at all, simply as the least interesting figure in that tragic triangle.
Elizabeth, who stalks about the Museum these days white-skinned, eyes black-shadowed, a little too plump to carry it off entirely but otherwise like some bereft queen out of a Shakespearean play, is of course the most interesting. Chris is interesting because he is dead. Lesje knew him, but not very well. Some people at work found him remote, others too intense. He was rumored to have a ferocious temper, but Lesje never saw it. She worked on only one project with him: Smaller Mammals of the Mesozoic. It’s finished now, installed in its glass case with push buttons wired for the voices. Lesje did the specifications and Chris built the models, using muskrat fur and rabbit and woodchuck, doctored, to cover the wooden forms. She used to visit him in that shadowy workroom, at one end of
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