He was there, hair dry, wearing different clothes. His arms were raised over his head, the stray torn like a mast in his hands on top. He was moving slowly around the place, as if in a deep Oriental exercise or a dance, the cat investigating the bookshelves.
“It’s you,” Mamie said, frozen by the open door.
The pumpkin stench of the bathroom wafted toward her. The uriney cold rushed in from behind, carrying with it the flap of helicopters. He turned to see her, brought the cat down to his chest. “Hi.” He was chewing on a difficult bit of candy, pieces of it stuck in his teeth. He pointed to his cheek, grimacing. “Jujubes,” he said. “They play with your mind.”
The television burst on: people chanting together, like an anthem for cola. We are the Undying. We are …
He turned away and lifted the cat up high again, close to the golden moldings of the ceiling. “Cats love this,” he said. His arms were long and tireless. In the reach, his shirt had come untucked, and the soft bare skin of his waist flashed like a smile. “Where have you been?”
There was only this world, this looted, ventriloquized earth. If one were to look for a place to die, mightn’t it be here? — like some old lesson of knowing your kind and returning. She was afraid, and the afraid, she realized, sought opportunities for bravery in love. She tucked the flower in her blouse. Life or death. Something or nothing. You want something or nothing?
She stepped toward him with a heart she’d someday tear the terror from.
Here. But not now.