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Authors: Jane Smiley
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curtains, it was dark. I did, as you can imagine, kiss it on the cheek, laid an amicable hand on its scapula. I thought again of Einstein. I fell asleep, and woke up disoriented, fucking. “Where am I?” I said. In response, you came. But way of explanation, I added, “It’s very dark.” You simply said, “Mary.” Truly that is my name, although the name of many. You used a very one-in-the-afternoon, fully conscious, what-shall-we-have-for-lunch sort of intonation. In the morning you were gone in a pair of my jeans and a sweat shirt.
It is January. I was glad to have kept your shoes. Since then, four weeks ago, where have you been? I do not accuse, I simply wish to know. That and where you intend to be, which will become increasingly important from now on.
Long Distance
K irby Christianson is standing under the shower, fiddling with the hot-water spigot and thinking four apparently simultaneous thoughts: that there is never enough hot water in this apartment, that there was always plenty of hot water in Japan, that Mieko will be here in four days, and that he is unable to control Mieko’s expectations of him in any way. The thoughts of Mieko are accompanied by a feeling of anxiety as strong as the sensation of the hot water, and he would like the water to flow through him and wash it away. He turns from the shower head and bends backward, so that the stream can pour over his face.
When he shuts off the shower, the phone is ringing. A sense that it has been ringing for a long time—can a mechanical noise have a quality of desperation?—propels him naked and dripping into the living room. He picks up the phone and his caller, as he has suspected, is Mieko. Perhaps he is psychic; perhaps this is only a coincidence; or perhaps no one else has called him in the past week or so.
The connection has a crystalline clarity that tricks him into not allowing for the satellite delay. He is already annoyedafter the first hello. Mieko’s voice is sharp, high, very Japanese, although she speaks superb English. He says, “Hello, Mieko,” and he
sounds
annoyed, as if she calls him too much, although she has only called once to give him her airline information and once to change it. Uncannily attuned to the nuances of his voice, she says, “Oh, Kirby,” and falls silent.
Now there will be a flurry of tedious apologies, on both sides. He is tempted to hang up on her, call her back, and blame his telephone—faulty American technology. But he can’t be certain that she is at home. So he says, “Hello, Mieko? Hello, Mieko? Hello, Mieko?” more and more loudly, as if her voice were fading. His strategy works. She shouts, “Can you hear me, Kirby? I can hear you, Kirby.”
He holds the phone away from his ear. He says, “That’s better. Yes, I can hear you now.”
“Kirby, I cannot come. I cannot go through with my plan. My father has lung cancer, we learned this morning.”
He has never met the father, has seen the mother and the sister only from a distance, at a department store.
“Can you hear me, Kirby?”
“Yes, Mieko. I don’t know what to say.”
“You don’t have to say anything. I have said to my mother that I am happy to stay with her. She is considerably relieved.”
“Can you come later, in the spring?”
“My lie was that this Melville seminar I was supposed to attend would be offered just this one time, which was why I had to go now.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I know that I am only giving up pleasure. I know that my father might die.”
As she says this, Kirby is looking out his front window at the snowy roof of the house across the street, and he understands at once from the hopeless tone of her voice that to give up the pleasure that Mieko has promised herself is harder than to die. He understands that in his whole life he has never given up a pleasure that he cherished as much as Mieko cherished this one. He understands that in a just universe the father would rather die alone than steal
It is January. I was glad to have kept your shoes. Since then, four weeks ago, where have you been? I do not accuse, I simply wish to know. That and where you intend to be, which will become increasingly important from now on.
Long Distance
K irby Christianson is standing under the shower, fiddling with the hot-water spigot and thinking four apparently simultaneous thoughts: that there is never enough hot water in this apartment, that there was always plenty of hot water in Japan, that Mieko will be here in four days, and that he is unable to control Mieko’s expectations of him in any way. The thoughts of Mieko are accompanied by a feeling of anxiety as strong as the sensation of the hot water, and he would like the water to flow through him and wash it away. He turns from the shower head and bends backward, so that the stream can pour over his face.
When he shuts off the shower, the phone is ringing. A sense that it has been ringing for a long time—can a mechanical noise have a quality of desperation?—propels him naked and dripping into the living room. He picks up the phone and his caller, as he has suspected, is Mieko. Perhaps he is psychic; perhaps this is only a coincidence; or perhaps no one else has called him in the past week or so.
The connection has a crystalline clarity that tricks him into not allowing for the satellite delay. He is already annoyedafter the first hello. Mieko’s voice is sharp, high, very Japanese, although she speaks superb English. He says, “Hello, Mieko,” and he
sounds
annoyed, as if she calls him too much, although she has only called once to give him her airline information and once to change it. Uncannily attuned to the nuances of his voice, she says, “Oh, Kirby,” and falls silent.
Now there will be a flurry of tedious apologies, on both sides. He is tempted to hang up on her, call her back, and blame his telephone—faulty American technology. But he can’t be certain that she is at home. So he says, “Hello, Mieko? Hello, Mieko? Hello, Mieko?” more and more loudly, as if her voice were fading. His strategy works. She shouts, “Can you hear me, Kirby? I can hear you, Kirby.”
He holds the phone away from his ear. He says, “That’s better. Yes, I can hear you now.”
“Kirby, I cannot come. I cannot go through with my plan. My father has lung cancer, we learned this morning.”
He has never met the father, has seen the mother and the sister only from a distance, at a department store.
“Can you hear me, Kirby?”
“Yes, Mieko. I don’t know what to say.”
“You don’t have to say anything. I have said to my mother that I am happy to stay with her. She is considerably relieved.”
“Can you come later, in the spring?”
“My lie was that this Melville seminar I was supposed to attend would be offered just this one time, which was why I had to go now.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I know that I am only giving up pleasure. I know that my father might die.”
As she says this, Kirby is looking out his front window at the snowy roof of the house across the street, and he understands at once from the hopeless tone of her voice that to give up the pleasure that Mieko has promised herself is harder than to die. He understands that in his whole life he has never given up a pleasure that he cherished as much as Mieko cherished this one. He understands that in a just universe the father would rather die alone than steal
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