Meadoe shook Casablanca from its plastic box and put it in the VCR. “I don’t know. I suppose a bathing suit. He touched bare skin.”
Joan settled onto the couch after slipping a coaster under her wine glass. “How do you know that he was a he? You said you only saw feet.”
“I… I don’t know that either. In the dream I assumed it was a man.”
Meadoe sat on the couch. Joan moved over to accommodate. It was more of a love seat than a proper couch, not large enough for Meadoe to stretch out to take a nap on.
“And you said when he touched you in the dream you liked it? I’d say that was a good sign. It’s obvious the dream has sexual overtones, and you welcomed them.”
“The sun was hot. I was burning up, and his hand was cool. Do we have to talk about it? The movie has started.”
Black and white maps appeared on the screen with a voice over. Lines traced a path through Europe to Casablanca. The narrator said of refugees without visas in Casablanca that their fate was to “wait and wait and wait.” She thought about Nathaniel Shirley. What if he was a ghost in this house, caught in his sixteenth year, and like the refugees, looking for a way to escape?
An Englishman wearing a monocle said, “We hear very little, and we understand even less.” Meadoe nodded. That made sense. She hadn’t seen Casablanca before, and it struck her as funny. The music seemed overstated, and the acting stilted. A plane flying in one scene was clearly a model, and the Germans were stereotypical. She wondered how Japanese were portrayed in other films from that era.
Then a woman walked into the cafe. Ingrid Bergman. The prefect of police said to her, “I was informed you were the most beautiful woman ever to visit Casablanca. That was a gross understatement.” Meadoe leaned forward. It was true. She was beautiful. A fragility in the face. Flawless skin. A half smile that changed her appearance from somber to knowing. The pictures on Nathaniel’s wall didn’t do her justice.
Joan picked up her wine glass and sipped from it. Somewhere in the film Meadoe stopped thinking of it as stilted. Her own wine warmed on the table. At the end she cried so hard that Joan put her arm around her until Meadoe giggled at the ridiculousness of it.
“It’s all right,” said Joan. “There must be something in the story that speaks strongly to you. That’s why movies are such a powerful medium. They help us live the tales we can’t tell ourselves.”
An hour after Joan left, Meadoe didn’t feel tired at all. Normally she was in bed by 9:00 before work, but her mind raced with a million thoughts. With the curtains up, the house seemed homier, more enclosed and safer. She picked up a book, reread the same page twice without understanding a word; put it down. She looked into all the rooms for the tenth time, and then decided a shower might relax her. Afterwards, wearing a robe, she poured herself another glass of wine and started the video again.
She noticed details she missed the first time. The young woman who sought Bogart’s help was in the opening crowd scene hopefully looking at the plane overhead. Every time an Italian military officer appeared in the film, everyone ignored him. Senor Ugotti said to Bogart, “I have lots of friends in Casablanca, but just because you despise me, you’re the only one I trust,” which made Meadoe smile. There were jokes in the first half of the film she hadn’t got earlier. She poured more wine, feeling a pleasant torpor steal over her and closed her eyes. One of the books about ghosts said spirits were doomed to replay the circumstances of their deaths over and over. Is it like video, Meadoe wondered, or can it be changed? Bogie never gets the girl.
In the film, Sam sang “As Time Goes By.” Meadoe drifted. The tune went on and on. “And you must remember this, a kiss is but a kiss, a sigh is but a sigh.” She felt she wasn’t on her living room couch anymore, but in a theater watching Casablanca on a movie screen, back row. Silhouettes of heads filled the seats in front of her, the woman’s hair curled and styled. A curl of her own hair blocked her vision. But my hair is straight! she thought. She shook her head to move it. Buttered popcorn smells. After shave. Plush underneath her hands.
Bogart stared down a glass of whiskey. “Of all the gin joints in all the world,” he said.
Slowly, Meadoe realized someone’s hand was on top her left one, the fingers clasped around her hand, very proper and gentle. She didn’t move, but let it rest there. It didn’t make her feel anxious. Her stomach didn’t tighten. This is a good dream, she thought; no contact phobia. Joan would be proud.
At the roulette wheel, the young woman’s husband won a lot of money. Bogart had rigged the game so they would win and she wouldn’t have to make an unnamed sacrifice to save them both. Everyone congratulated Bogart, and he squirmed. Meadoe sighed. The scenes no longer seemed to be in order, but she liked it just as much. She leaned a little to rest her head on her companion’s shoulder. The theater air washed her in warmth, very warm, and sweat trickled down the side of her face. She didn’t mind though. She was comfortable. “Yes, Ugotti, I do respect you more,” said Bogart.
Her companion turned in his seat. She knew it was a he, and his hand came across her to stroke her other arm. His breath touched her cheek, but she kept watching the movie. Bergman told her husband she’d been lonely in Paris, but she didn’t tell him about Bogart. She didn’t tell him she’d fallen in love.
The hand on her arm moved. It stroked the side of her breast. Now Meadoe wasn’t really watching the movie. She heard it behind closed eyes. Everything was gentle. Not like the time with Christopher Towne. Very slow. And the air almost burned, as if she faced an oven, but the hand was cool and slow and pleasant. She knew she sat on her own couch in her own livingroom—she knew she was dreaming—but she also was in a theater. Both places at once. Not alone in either place.
Sam sang again, “It’s still the same old story, a fight for love and glory, a case of do or die.”
Meadoe sighed. Made a small sound in the back of her throat. Heard herself make it and thought, I’ll have to be quiet, or I’ll wake myself from this dream.
The hand moved again, to the front of her blouse, parting the cloth (doesn’t it have buttons? she thought), and the coolness was on her bare breast, holding it lightly, barely stroking. She turned to offer herself more easily, her breath caught high in her lungs, her skin a thousand times more sensitive than she’d ever felt it before.
Then a loud click. She sat straight up on her couch. The video had finished and ejected. She shook suddenly and realized she was covered with sweat, literally dripping, and the front of her robe was open.
She showered again before going to bed.
Monday morning, on the way to the library, Meadoe bought the video.
August 3 and 4, Monday and Tuesday Night: In the Interim
It took willpower to undress for bed both nights. Even with curtains, Meadoe felt watched. Pictures of her parents on her dresser seemed to have been rearranged. The medicine cabinet door opened on its own accord. No matter where she tuned the radio, it eventually played oldies. She listened to Chet Huntley read the news from a station she couldn’t get in the car and there was no listing for in the newspaper. It played polka favorites for an hour at 7:00.
When she finally turned out her light, she lay rigid on her back, hands at her side, looking at the ceiling. Did a floor board creak? Did the spoons drawer rattle in the kitchen? She thought, if I shut my eyes and then open them, will a face be staring into my face? Dare I sleep? Can I?