Now Is the Time to Open Your Heart Page 3

  He owned several clocks. For when their batteries failed he forgot that was the reason they stopped. Seeing some other clock and fancying it, he bought it. He bought shoes he already had. Underwear too.

  Deep down he actually thought time had stopped. The clocks, then, were mementos, trinkets. Curios. Reminders of a time when people still lived and behaved as if they were going somewhere. Somewhere important. We are the Kings of the Universe was the internal mantra of almost everyone. And we are on a mission to Something, Someplace, better.

  Not so. And now most people knew. Would the end be brutish and short? Or would it be long and drawn out? People dying slowly of every illness under the sun. From viruses that seeped from under jungle rocks. From infections received while making love. From fratricide. Genocide. Hatred that intensified over decades, centuries, until nothing could stop its rolling over and flattening entire peoples, races, continents. Would the passion and joy of future generations be expressed in acts of hate, as acts of “sex” were now routinely expressed in acts of violence?

  The indigenous Australians thought Time was synonymous with Forever and that therefore it was ridiculous to wear it on your arm. Or to think one’s short present lifetime made much of an impression on Time at all.

  It was over, he thought, the kind of Time watches measured. We should all throw them away. He didn’t though. He bought more. So that when he looked about his cluttered rooms, with their assortment of rundown clocks, he understood he had, by buying them, been attempting to preserve time, to hoard it.

  I am a fool, he thought, observing this. And yet he continued to buy any timepiece that appealed to him.

  While she was regurgitating over her left forearm into the yellowed grass and dusty olive green bushes, she thought of a serving dish her first husband and their child had given her for Valentine’s Day. It had been a lively red and covered with white flowers. It was these white flowers, dozens of them, that now poured from her mouth. At the time of the gift she’d stuffed her disappointment. That she was now perceived as someone who, on a day especially set aside to celebrate lovers, could be enraptured to receive a serving dish.

  Look at the roses! the child had cried.

  Her husband had beamed at her. They’d chosen it together, he declared.

  She had forced a smile she drew out of the thin air just behind her head. And she had said patiently, with kindness, to the child: No, they are daisies.

  And he had said: Aren’t they vibrant?

  And she had replied: Yes, they are.

  But all the time she was thinking: Am I so old now? Is the life that has Cupid in it, not to mention Eros, over for me?

  And she began to think of the labor it sometimes was for her now to make love.

  A lump had risen in her throat. Of sadness. Of disappointment. Anger that she had entered the unromantic era of life, so soon! That her child was in cahoots with her father in giving her this awful gift, this mirror in which she saw herself as someone whom time was passing by.

  More years passed, and she stayed with them, and she saw how they ceased to really see her. They saw instead a service, a servant. And she’d gazed into their greedy eyes and saw the rest of her life being sucked away. And she had swallowed and swallowed.

  Well. There it lay now, stinking in the sun beside one of the mightiest rivers on earth. The mass of rotten, once vibrant but artificial flowers, thrust upon her as a compliment when she had, in her soul, felt much too young, much too alive in her subterranean depths, to receive them. The pretense had been heavy as a car.

  And to think how she had lain under him, night after night, dreaming of getting away; of being high on a hillside in the sun. Her wings grown back, her brows smooth and black above eyes that welcomed space, nothingness, in place of the domesticated, bourgeois life of a way that no longer fit.

  The women were gentle with her. Placing all her small belongings—toothbrush and paste, soap, eyeglasses—within her reach.

  Of what are you thinking? asked Avoa.

  I am thinking of the moment something dies and how we instinctively know it. And of how we try not to know what we know because we do not yet understand how we are to negotiate change.

  From death back into life?

  From death, being dead, back into life, yes, she said.

  Each night the crew set up the Porta Potti latrine in the most exquisite location imaginable. Tonight, under a huge canopy of stars, she sat like a queen, the flashing, roaring river silver in the moonlight. She thought of how diligently she’d worked to free herself. Difficult because of the shock she was in, discovering she was trapped. Captured most of all by possessions.

  They’d bought a fairly large house, two floors, seven rooms, every one of which had to be filled. She groaned, now on the toilet, thinking about it. And yet they’d both rushed to the task. Buying things. It had excited them. Rug after perfect rug they’d bought. They’d bought silver. And linens. Chairs. A dining set. At some point, she thought, but wasn’t sure, an electric knife. Now she couldn’t imagine owning or using one. And they’d bought couches and lamps and footrests and stools and more art than she cared to recall. She had loved it, the art, more than anything else. Yet when she knew she must leave, the art became the heaviest purchase. He loved it too. And how do you divide a Matisse, even if it is only a print?

  The heaving sickness past, her nausea gone, her bodily fluids replaced, she felt the lightness of being in the open space around her. Her walls the canyon’s walls, she owned them not at all; her floor, the river beach. Her view, the heavens. It was, this freedom she was in, the longed-for cathedral of her dreams.

  You will come back so different, Yolo had said, before she left on her journey, holding her loosely about the waist and gazing down at her. For months he’d felt, every time he held her, a kind of humming coming from her body. A buzzing. Energy being amassed, stored, building to the bursting point. And yet, when he mentioned this to her she said she felt no such activity. She felt instead dull, lethargic, as though she were solid, stuck.

  Not so, he’d insisted. Your molecules are singing.

  I don’t hear them, she’d drily replied.

  And if I change? she’d asked, looking at him intently, wanting to catch his most instinctive response. What will that mean to you? To herself she was thinking: Of course I will change; at least I hope so. Pray so. Without changing I will be doomed to stay my present self and I’m so weary of that!

  I will still adore you, he said, kissing the top of her head. Only more so, probably.

  She laughed. As he did so often, he’d offered the best possible response. It freed her. Now she could imagine a return. She saw herself flying back home, swooping in through a window, a large black bird. Transformed. Still welcome. Now she could go.

  She mentioned to the oarswomen, but no more than that, the diarrhea. As her body spasmed and cramped and the precious fluids she was being given by Avoa disappeared into the elegantly situated latrine, she thought of the French characterization (she’d read it in an Englishman’s book) of the English as people with a “talent” for diarrhea. Always, when they travel, getting it, having it, or looking for a place to have it. It humanized the English in a way that tickled her and so she smiled, even as she felt concern about her dizziness. She would not go home, though. Returning before ending her sojourn on the river was out of the question.

  She left the latrine, gazed with adoration at the full moon rising just above the canyon’s rim, leaning for several moments on her stick, and felt a peace—fleeting—she had not felt in years.

  For her life, like human life everywhere on the planet, had speeded up and speeded up until peace was rarely possible. Always there was movement, noise, inevitable and constant distraction. Even if you managed to steal a day of quiet and expected no one to call the quiet place you had chosen, there would be the harsh ring of the phone you forgot to unplug and a solicitous voice—not the voice of one’s children or lover—asking you to subscribe to a newspa
per or to change your telephone service. A madness had seized earth. The madness of speed. As if to speed things up meant to actually go somewhere. And where, after all, was there to go? The present is all there ever is, no matter how you lean forward or back. Standing beside the river, realizing that the water of earth is recycled forever, she deeply understood this: that there are two “presents.” One is of the moment. The other is of a longer moment—the “moment” that includes the history and knowledge one knows. So that, she mused, if the tears shed by the mother of Isis are now part of this river then I am somehow connected to her in this longer “present” that I am able to envision and that contains both of us.

  A straw had stuck in one of her waterproof sandals. She bent to pull it out. It was the sundried spike of a yellow flower. The voice of her body urged her to put it into her mouth. To chew it. She did so. Immediately her stomach calmed. The dizziness left her.

  Was it wild chamomile, she wondered.

  What is this called? she asked the oarswoman of their boat.

  At the moment that she asked, the woman, frowning, did not recall the flower’s name.

  And she realized she did not care. She did not need to know the name humans had given the flower. To herself she called it friend and from then on looked for it along the banks of the river and felt concern for its health.

  That husband had shoved her in the back when she told him she was leaving. They had been hiking in the mountains when she told him; she was just ahead of him on a particularly rough part of the trail. Jagged rocks had been pushed up during the last winter; some so sharp she felt they might pierce the soles of her stout walking boots. They skirted a ravine, and a drop of more than two hundred feet was to their immediate right. She had been working up to telling him gradually; later on she would almost smile to think how like a coward she’d started out feigning cheerfulness down in the flatland, near the parking lot. She’d even rapped their trusty gray Dodge smartly as they were leaving, a signal that it was to be there, trusty as ever, when they returned. He’d smiled at her good-luck knock, and they’d felt companionable; at least she had felt that way. She’d wanted to talk, she’d said, and he’d suggested combining it with a hike through mountains they’d hiked often before the children came.

  I don’t see how we can go on like this, she’d muttered over her shoulder, as they climbed. He could barely hear her.

  What? What did you say? he called, as she, always more nimble climbing than he, moved easily ahead.

  I need more of my own life, she replied.

  Your what? he said.

  They’d stopped for breath. Admired the majestic view. She’d taken off her hat, shaken out her locks. Her back was still to him as they resumed.

  I need to live alone, she said.

  She felt him stop. She paused and was about to turn, and he, at the same moment, pushed her. It was a blow, but with the flat of his hand, against the small of her back. She scrambled to keep her footing on the narrow ledge. She might have fallen to her death. Steadying herself she turned to face him; he was staring at her as if she’d turned into his worst enemy.

  She very carefully relieved herself of the backpack she was carrying, old and mauve and endearingly worn. She’d had it, she thought, even before she met him. And when she’d run off from the dorm to spend nights with him, she’d packed nightgown and toothbrush, jeans and a change of panties, in it. He’d told her she needn’t bring a nightgown. She had though, because the backpack felt ridiculously light and flat without the flannel nightgown as filler. Besides, he’d liked to peel the old-fashioned thing off her. He’d also liked to dive underneath it and rest his face between her thighs.

  Ah, she thought. Placing the memory at her feet.

  Do you realize, she said to him, that I have lived with you for nine years. That I have carried in my body two of your children. That I have cooked thousands of breakfasts and lunches and dinners for you. That I have sat up with you when you’ve been sick. That I have helped you care for your parents. That I have shared my body with you whenever you wanted it, whether I felt like it or not? Do you realize . . .

  But he had already raised his hand to strike her again.

  She was wearing a bright pink scarf around her neck. She began to take it off, very slowly. Another couple was coming up the path. The man chubby and talking loudly; the woman slender and a bit stooped. She seemed to be carrying the backpack for both of them, while the man carried a notebook into which he seemed to be making notations. He nearly fell as he passed them, and they hastened, both of them, to set him aright. She looked at her husband and wanted to smile; she thought this action would amuse them both. On his part the movement was simply reflex. His anger was unabated. She gazed into his face, a face she had seen go through innumerable changes. His face changed so much! In passion it was one way; in horror, another. In joy he became flushed as a boy. In grief, his features had seemed to dissolve and a grayness crept over him.

  It wasn’t that she’d never seen him so angry. She’d never seen him so angry with her.

  He was angry enough to kill.

  The precipice to their right now seemed ominous. Far below they heard the sound of water dashing against rocks. She felt her kinship with all women who have, against their husband’s will, initiated divorce. Some made it; she knew. Thousands upon thousands, and, over time, millions upon millions, did not. She said a brief prayer for them.

  Do you realize, she continued, the pink scarf now held loosely in both hands, that I have done all of those things, and more, with and for you. And yet, at the moment I tell you I must have time alone to be with myself, you strike out at me. Would you call this love?

  Though she was crying, she talked through the tears as if they weren’t there. Her voice was calm, almost serene, though her heart was beating fast.

  His face was like a storm moving in slow motion. It seemed to spread, the cloud that was his face, to cover all the space around them and then to blot out the sky. He was clenching his teeth and his hands were in fists.

  She moved closer to the edge of the ledge that jutted out, creating a shallow overhang. She peered cautiously over the side.

  Here, she said, pushing the scarf into his hands. You could strangle me and kick me over the edge. They wouldn’t find my body for months and then it wouldn’t surface near here. I’d be far downstream in no time. You’d be in the clear. I won’t, she said calmly, live in fear of you.

  She watched his face coalesce once more into the face she knew. He seemed to come back into himself.

  You bitch, he said.

  Why, because I want to be on my own?

  He flung down the scarf, turned, and fled back down the trail.

  When she returned to the parking lot shortly afterward he and the trusty Dodge were gone. She had trail mix in her backpack, a bottle of water, and half a box of raisins, but no money, no credit card, no driver’s license. She was a hundred miles from home.

  Her favorite Marlon Brando story came to her: He’d been on a talk show trying to endure it, she felt, and the host had asked him why he hadn’t made it to a particular Hollywood party. Marlon said he’d tried to make it but that as he was crossing the desert his car broke down. He found himself all alone in the middle of nowhere. What did you do? asked the host, breathlessly. Well, drawled Marlon, I got out of the car, climbed on top of it, lay down, and watched the stars.

  There was no time to watch the stars; she had children to get home to. But Kate realized she need not panic. She walked confidently to the edge of the parking-lot exit and held out her thumb.

  When she found herself at her own door hours later, she was relieved to see the Dodge parked in its usual place. All lights in the house were out. Picking up a stone from her pretty front garden, she wrapped her pink scarf around it and carefully broke one of the panes of glass in the door. No one stirred. She let herself into the house that already felt different; it was the house of those who would remain there, not the house of the one who would
leave. She could hear her husband snoring. She lay under a blanket on the couch and within minutes, her head tilted at an awkward angle, her snores became a tired, rather despondent match for his. Toward morning she felt his heavy body on top of her. He ignored her resistance. Entered her body as if he owned it. She struggled silently and at last simply ceased. She lay beneath him thinking: There’s no return from this, no way we will ever come back together again. She tried to accept this clarity as a gift.

  He apologized for shoving her on the trail. But never mentioned the rape. He joined a men’s group. He learned men like him allowed themselves to show only two of the so-called negative emotions, anger and fear. He’d felt them both, he said. Anger that she wanted to leave him; fear that he wouldn’t be able to cope. She’d gazed at him and felt a wave of sickness gathering in her heart. That she had, for years, given herself willingly to someone who would take what she did not wish to give; how had this happened? Within six months he’d become lovers with his secretary, who did everything Kate had done in the house, plus the work she did on her job. He seemed hardly ruffled, coping.

  The women could tell she was feeling better; her smile was pensive, but there. As her body gave up the last of its bitter memories of her first marriage, she experienced a lightness that actually made it easier to remain seated the long hours necessary, in the boat. Now she was open, as well, to the full magic of the journey. The shocking depth of the blue sky above their heads, which they saw only in slivers; the cresting white of the waves that no longer unsettled her, but which she welcomed. Kiss the waves! the oarswomen advised. She feasted her eyes on the darting industry of the birds, the pale dusty colors of stones underfoot as they made camp each night; and she began to be present to the other women whom she had largely ignored.