He wakes a little before six the next morning, an hour and a half before he’s to wake the girls and two hours before Sally usually gets up, does his exercises, sets the table, makes the kids’ lunches for camp, gets her breakfast in a pan and makes miso soup for her as he does every morning, goes out for a run, showers, reads, has another coffee, wakes the girls—“Sleep well?” he says, and they both say yes — at around eight he hears her stirring, looks in, says, “How ya doing?” and she says, “Fine,” and he brings her a coffee with warm milk, as he also does every morning unless she’s already out of bed and heading for the bathroom or kitchen; a little later he hears her shriek, and he runs in and sees she’s spilled the coffee on the bed, and he says, “What happened, you hurt?” and she says, “Shit, I felt so good getting up that for a moment I thought I was free of this stinking disease, and look at the goddamn mess I made,” and he says, “Don’t worry, I’ll do a wash and hang everything up and the sun’s already so strong it should all be dry by ten,” and she says, “You don’t have to, I can do it in the machines myself,” and he says, “It’s okay, you got plenty of other things to take care of; just move your butt so I can get the sheets off,” and she says, “You don’t have to get angry about it. It wasn’t my fault. My hand started shaking and I couldn’t hold the mug anymore,” and he says, “Who’s blaming you? Just lift yourself a little, that’s all I’m asking. I don’t want it to soak through to the mattress, if it hasn’t already done it,” and she pushes herself up just enough for him to pull the sheets and mattress cover out from under her; he gets the linen off the bed and sticks it in the washer and starts the machine, goes back to the dining room, girls are reading, their breakfasts eaten, and he says, “Anybody want some toast?” and they shake their heads, and a little later he says, “Okay, everybody, we’re going: lunches packed, bathing suits and towels and sunscreen in your bags?” and Fanny says, “Oh, gosh, I forgot my Thermos of water. They never give us enough out there,” and he says, “Get one for Josephine too, if that’s the case,” and she says, “She can do it herself, and I have to get ice out of the tray to put in it,” and he says, “Listen, she’s your sister and younger, and I’m asking you to help me — with so many things to do, I need your help,” and she does it, and he says, “Now let’s go if you want to catch the bus,” and the girls grab their bags and start for the door; he says, “Say goodbye to Mommy, we still have a few seconds,” and Fanny yells, “Goodbye, Mommy!” and Josephine yells, “See you later, Mommy, have a good day!” and he says, “Come on, go in and give her a kiss — she wants to see your faces, not just hear your voices,” and they drop their bags and run into the bedroom and probably kiss her and then come out, grab their bags, and he says, “Your caps, everyone has to wear a cap to protect herself from the sun,” and they put on their caps and get in the car; he drives to the pickup spot and stays there with them till they’re on the bus, on his way home he listens to French language tapes, his big learning project this summer; when he gets back to the house she’s pushing her walker to the bathroom, and he says, “Wait a second, the wash is almost finished, I can hear the last of the last spin cycle,” and just then the machine clicks off and he goes into the bathroom, sticks the sheets, pillowcases, and mattress cover into the laundry basket, and goes outside and hangs them on the line.
The Bellydancer
HE’S ON A ship four days out of Bremerhaven on its way to Quebec. He’d been in Europe for seven months — was supposed to have returned to New York in late August and it was now November — had delayed college a semester, and didn’t know if he’d ever go back to school. Had worked in Köln for three months, learned to speak German, had known lots of women, taken to wearing turtleneck jerseys and a beret after he saw a book cover with Thomas Mann in them, was a predentistry student, got interested in literature and painting and religious history on the trip, and carried two to three books with him everywhere, always one in German or French, though he wasn’t good in reading either and now wanted to be a novelist or playwright.
Meets an Austrian woman on the ship who’s fifteen years older than he. She saw him on the deck, softly reading Heine to himself, and said she finds it strange seeing a grown man doing that with this poet, as he, Schiller, and Goethe were the three she was forced to read that way in early school. Tall, long black hair, very blue eyes, very white skin, full figure, small waist (or seemed so because of her tight wide belt), embroidered headband, huge hoop earrings, clanky silver bracelets on both arms, peasant skirt that swept the floor, lots of dark lipstick. Her husband’s an army officer in Montreal and she was returning from Vienna where she’d visited her family. “I’m not Austrian anymore but full Canadian, with all your North American rights, though always, I insist, Viennese, so please don’t call me anything different.” He commented on her bracelets and she said she was once a bellydancer, still belly dances at very expensive restaurants and weddings in Canada if her family’s short of money that month: “For something like this I am still great in demand.” They drank a little in the saloon that night; when he tried touching her fingers, she said, “Don’t get so close; people will begin thinking and some can know my husband or his general.” Later she took him to the ship’s stern to show him silver dollars in the water. He knew what they were, a college girl had shown him on the ship going over, but pretended he was seeing them for the first time so he could be alone with her there. “Fantastic, never saw anything like it, I can see why they’re called that.” She let him kiss her lightly, said, “That was friendly and sweet, you’re a nice boy,” then grabbed his face and kissed him hard and made growling sounds and pulled his hair back till he screamed, and she said, “Excuse me, I can get that way, my own very human failing of which I apologize.” When he tried to go further, hand on her breast through her sweater, she said, “Behave yourself like that nice boy I said; with someone your age I always must instruct,” and he asked what she meant and she said, “What I said; don’t be childlike too in not understanding when you’re nearly a man. Tonight let us just shake hands, and perhaps that’s for all nights and no more little kisses, but that’s what we have to do to stay away from trouble.”
They walk around the deck the next night; she takes his hand and says, “I like you, you’re a nice boy again, so if you’re willing I want to show you a very special box in my cabin.” “What’s in it?” and she says, “Mysteries, beauties, tantalizing priceless objects, nothing shabby or cheap, or perhaps these things only to me and to connoisseurs who know their worth. I don’t open it to anyone but my husband, whenever he’s in a very dark mood and wants to be released, and to exceptionally special and generous friends, and then for them only rare times.” “What time’s that?” and she says, “Maybe you’ll see, and it could also be you won’t. From now to then it’s all up to you and what you do and say. But at the last moment, if it strikes me and even if it’s from nothing you have done, I can keep it locked or only open it a peek and then, without your seeing anything but dark inside, snap it shut for good. Do you know what I’m saying now?” and he says, “Sure, and I’ll do what you say.”
She shares the cabin with a Danish woman who’s out gambling with the ship’s officers, she says, and won’t return till late if at all; “I think she’s a hired slut.” They sit on her bunk, she says, “Turn around and shut your eyes closed and never open them till I command,” and he does, thinking she’s going to strip for him, since she gets up and he hears clothes rustling; then, after saying several times, “Keep your eyes closed, they must keep closed or I won’t open what I have for you,” she sits beside him and says, “All right, now!” and she’s still dressed and holding a box in her lap. It looks old, is made of carved painted wood, and is shaped like a steamer trunk the size of a shoebox. She leans over and opens it with a miniature trunk key on a chain around her neck, and it’s filled with what seems like a lot of cheap costume jewelry. She searches inside and pulls out a yellow and blue translucent necklace that looks like glass and sparkles when she holds it up. “This one King Farouk presented to me by hand after I danced for him. And I want you to know it was only for my dancing, not for my making love. Bellydancers in the Middle East are different from those kind of girls, like the Danish slut in the bed I sleep beside. You know who Farouk is?” and he says, “A great man, of course, maybe three hundred blubbery pounds of greatness,” and she says, “You’re too sarcastic and, I think, confusing him with the Aga Khan. Farouk was cultured and loved the art of belly dancing — and it