Anyhow…
Maybe I would have made it worth his while.
No doubt. You have your charms.
Too bad you were never handsome. I might have stayed with you then, or at least stayed with you longer.
I hope you got what you wanted with your other men.
Did I hurt you just now?
Not at all. I’ve had harder lovers than you. But you haven’t answered me. Did you get what you wanted?
Mostly. But it didn’t mean as much to me as it should have. Maybe you were better off.
You think I got less?
You didn’t get me!
Yes I did.
I’ll bet you don’t even remember me! I’ll test you. What size was I?
Seven.
That was just for awhile, after a certain thing happened. I guess I have to give you half-marks. You did try, I admit. I don’t know how I felt about that.
I loved you so much.
Why?
You were my first. Isn’t that the best reason?
I demand that you destroy all my letters.
Why should I? What will you do in return?
I’ll tell you bright new stories and sing you all the ghost songs I know. Ha, ha! I actually don’t know any ghost songs.
Then tell me a story.
And you’ll destroy my letters?
Not yet. But—
Here’s your story: When I was seventeen, I used to wish for a big brass bed with someone in it to watch me combing my hair. And it had to be a brass bed that wouldn’t squeak! I was always very particular.
This is your bed, Victoria. I’ll sit here and watch you comb your hair whenever you like.
Well, I’m not seventeen now. Now I’d rather make friends with the sun again, which I actually can’t. I like what you said about the reeds in the marsh. Are there many flowers?
It’s too late in the season.
I wish I could stay up all day, see the sun and dance on my grave.
Will you dance with me now?
Did you ever learn how?
Not really, but I could try.
You were the worst dancer of any of them. Not only did you try to get too intimate, but you never learned my timing. That’s why I only let you dance with me once.
I must be worse now. Old men with stomach cancer aren’t known for their fancy moves.
Never mind. I wish my grave had a porch that we could eat dinner on.
You and me?
Yes.
It makes me happy that you would say that.
Well, don’t get spoiled or I’ll be bitchy again. I quite enjoy being bitchy.
And you’re my favorite dead bitch both spoiled and decayed.
What do you like for dinner these days?
Nothing now. Before I had cancer, I used to sauté catfish with whatever green vegetables were in season. I had a girlfriend who taught me how to cook fish.
Was she good in bed?
Excellent.
As good as me?
I don’t know.
It used to make me sad, the way I could wrap men around my little finger. I knew exactly what to do to drive them crazy. The only thing I didn’t know was how to feel it.
Then I’m sorry for you, Victoria. I always felt it.
Well, we’re both beyond that now, aren’t we? It’s nice to just be domestic.
Next time I’ll bring two paper plates so we can eat together. I’ll pretend to eat a little something to be companionable, and I’ll set fire to your portion, so it can be a burnt offering, and you can hover over the smoke.
That sounds like fun! Will you burn incense to me? Then I’ll perform a snake dance.
With or without clothes?
Whatever you like, darling.
You know what I like.
Of course I do. You’re no different from the others.
Once upon a time in that swamp he liked to visit, a lost black crayfish on the path, seeing his approach, extended its pincers in what he presumed to be a terrified threat. The ghoul’s attitude of menace now struck him as nearly as ludicrously innocuous as that. Nearly every night it rushed toward him, burying its snout in his belly. He thought: This is how it must have been for Victoria when I came to her, back when we were seventeen.
But when he was all alone at home, he frequently imagined that the thing would come bursting through the front door. Then he would hear it rushing up the stairs. He lay in bed watching the bedroom door and knowing that in an instant it would fly open and the ghoul would come leaping at him with its mouth already wide open to bite. Wishing to domesticate not only the thing itself but also his dread of it, he reminded himself that it was, so it seemed, his future. Perhaps he would learn to be fond of it, and then it would take him to laugh with the fat green people who lay on their backs beneath the ground, rolling from side to side and kicking like infants.
It was August. Behind the well-known headstones lurked other strange old beings which were actually familiar; by September, should he live that long, he might be able to make pets of them also. Each time he vomited, he felt freer. He no longer opened the hospital’s invoices or returned the doctor’s automated calls. He often lay on his back all day, imagining that he was thinking, and never lonely, thanks to the pain. He assured himself: Although I now belong to death, I can nonetheless own my death, just as I can own my memories of Victoria no matter who she was or is. And when I do take possession of and perhaps even love my death, then the other death which once corrupted me when I was seventeen, seeping out in my shyness and hideous poems, will be tamed, like this ghoul. — In point of fact, learning about himself had become ever more sinister; but since he was dying he lacked any obligation to continue this education.
In one of those lengthening nights when his belly was pregnant with foulness the ghost rose tall and narrow in the twilight, like an egret’s neck, and said: When we were seventeen and my mother started reading your letters, I felt like a little girl who had her hands slapped. I knew that once I got away from her I would never want to come back.
Well, has she caught up with you yet?
She’s looking for me, but I’m still hiding. We’re both losing strength—
I can’t understand the rules here.
You’re making progress—
It’s not very pleasant, is it?
I’m not brilliant, but I have so many friends even here. In the 1950s I could have been called the typical golden girl. Jane’s temper, Mary’s psychological problems, Cornelia’s issues with her mother, they get to be too much sometimes, but they’re all so self-centered that they don’t listen to each other, and so I’d feel useless if I didn’t listen. And there’s someone else here who needs me. It embarrasses me to say so; he’s passionate, and the things he says—
Who is it?
Your friend Isaac.
He smiled at that; he would have laughed but then his stomach would have hurt.
Does that offend you? she demanded. He said things to me that I wish you would have…
Which things? he asked, wearily pitying her.
If I told you, it wouldn’t be the same.
Things I should have said when?
When you were seventeen, of course. You don’t count now.
But I didn’t count then, either.
Your interpretation disturbed me at the time.
My interpretation of what? I—
Listen: I had sex with you not for some quest or even curiosity but because I enjoyed it, I really did! It was just the right place and the right time. I didn’t expect to find anything in what I did with you. I would have done it again if the opportunity arose. Actually I wouldn’t have, you know — not with you. You were too… But I certainly did it with others.
I know, Victoria. And do you remember them all?
Actually I didn’t sleep with as many people as you, so…
For an instant he could have been her age and coming closer, trembling with excitement, kissing her hard round breasts. Then he said: Victoria, I forget some things. It was awhile ago—