All Things Cease to Appear (33 page)

—

DRIVING BACK
to Chosen after work, he reviewed what he’d said to them in class. He doubted that his students grasped any real concept of the sublime, especially as it existed in nature. They saw drugs, not nature, as the conduit for enlightenment.

Perhaps they were too young, he concluded. They didn’t know anything yet.

He thought distantly of Burke’s theory—that one experienced the sublime in nature only through astonishment, which in turn was a condition of revelation, that only terror gave one access to such elevated experience.

He knew this to be true. He had felt it himself, lately, with that girl—a state of being that made everything else irrelevant. The place that existed between pleasure and pain, without boundaries or light, darkness or gravity, the place where the soul lives. How she looked when he did certain things—her astonishment, her terror—and then the awful pleasure that came at last.

—

DEBEERS LIVED
in a small brick house on Kinderhook Creek. The mulberry tree on the front lawn was strung with ghosts, and when you crossed the threshold you heard the harrowing cries of the dead on a tape. Floyd was wearing a white wig, knickers and a gray vest and waistcoat, and holding a highball glass full of whiskey. Where’s Lady Catherine?

She couldn’t make it. Not an easy night to find a sitter.

Pity, DeBeers said. Can you guess who I am?

George chuckled at his costume. He’d even fashioned buckles on his shoes. Hmm, he said.

Swedenborg, of course, Floyd announced in operatic singsong. My little gift to you.

Well, that was very nice of you, Floyd.

I thought you’d appreciate it.

Christ, what have you been drinking?

Not drinking, Millicent said, displeased. He’s tripping.

Tripping?

Smiling devilishly, DeBeers took his hand and led him into the dining room—low-ceilinged with a raging fire—and snatched a plastic jack-o’-lantern off the table. I’ve been known to dabble in hallucinogens. It reminds me there’s a whole world out there we don’t even see. Here, he said, an offering. A little treat from a friend in Berkeley.

You don’t have to, Millicent said.

They’re fun, a woman piped up, unwinding out of the dark in her costume.

Justine, he said, gaping at her. She was wearing a long blue frock and her face was thick with yellow paint, her eyes blackened, and black lipstick around her mouth. You have me stumped.

I’ll give you a hint. She opened her mouth and let out the closest thing to a blood-curdling scream she could muster.

Very convincing, he said. Munch would be impressed.

Thank you. She looked him over. And what are you?

He’d come straight from work. That’s a very good question. I’ve been trying to figure that out for years.

But she didn’t laugh.

I’m myself, he said, isn’t it obvious?

You’re
what
?

Just a humble schoolteacher.

Hardly, she said. In fact, that’s one of the scariest costumes I’ve ever seen.

She was serious.

Ha, ha, he said.

We’re doing a séance later, DeBeers interrupted.

Go on, Justine said. Eat your vegetables.

The mushrooms tasted mealy, gritty with dirt. A little anxiously, George chewed and swallowed them, then had a brief, sudden memory of himself as a boy, in the woods behind school, an older kid holding him down and making him eat dirt. It was the same taste, a little foul. He didn’t like the memory, which must’ve been why he’d repressed it. George had learned the deviations of the human spirit at a young age. For reasons that remained mysterious to him, he’d been bullied throughout grade school. For the seventh grade his parents coughed up the money to send him to St. Magnus, where bullying as a spectator sport was not tolerated by the fierce, egalitarian nuns. These were memories he had never shared, not with his parents, not with his wife.

They went out to the backyard and down a hill to the creek, where strangers were toasting marshmallows in a bonfire. He could feel the fire warming his hands and toes. This was nice, he thought. It was something they did in the country, bonfires. He felt the firelight on his face and could see it reflected in Justine’s eyes—things were, it occurred to him, getting a little strange. The word
furry
came to mind. The fire cracked and sizzled.

Where’s Bram?

Home, she said, staring into the flames, and offering no further explanation. Watching her, he felt a strong bond of love and wondered if she felt it, too.

—

THE SÉANCE WAS
at the round table in the dining room. He tried not to sit too close to the fire. The room smelled damp, and cool air was leaking through the window frames. Candles flickered madly, casting silhouettes of the guests on the walls, a carousel of shadows. The psychic was a dark-haired woman with a high forehead and an accent he couldn’t place. Maybe Hungarian or something like it. Her fingernails were painted black. He hadn’t been listening to her preamble, preoccupied instead with the faces around the table, yellow and misshapen as ogres.

Let’s join hands, she said.

He didn’t really want to, but there was no getting around it. He had Justine on one side, DeBeers on the other. Both their palms were sweaty, and Justine’s was cold. DeBeers had a big bearish hand, warm, and it occurred to him how seldom he’d held hands with a man, or for that matter with anyone besides Franny. It was something you grew out of naturally, maybe because by taking someone’s hand you were admitting to weakness, vulnerability. It was a kind of giving in, he thought, or giving up, he wasn’t sure which. He had no recollection of ever holding hands with his mother or father. He sat there thinking about it and then did recall an exception, with his father. They’d taken him to that place. Maybe he was nine or ten. A hospital of some sort, in the city. He could remember the silent drive from their house. Looking out the windows at the skyscrapers. The uncomfortable clothes he had on, an itchy wool coat. He’d talked to a doctor, a square-headed man with thick glasses and enormous hands. They’d left him there overnight. They’re just going to observe you, he remembered his father telling him as he walked him down the long blue corridor, holding his hand. Strange, the things you remember. He couldn’t remember anything after that. Maybe just the white blocks of light on the slippery tiled floors.

There is someone among us, the psychic said. Name yourself.

The room filled with wind. The sort you get only on water. Papers swirled through the room like white birds. The table shook. Through the shaking cold of the room he saw a familiar face.

It was his cousin Henri, drenched, pale, teeth chattering, lips blue. George could feel the water filling his shoes, rising over his knees, pooling inside his trousers.

Identify yourself, the psychic commanded.

But the apparition only laughed. I thought you loved me, it said to George, and kept on saying it.
I thought you loved me!

He pushed back from the table and staggered through the rooms of Floyd’s house and out the door. He saw the sharp blades of grass spread out under his feet as he crossed the great lawn. He walked to the dark edge of the property and threw up.

Hey, Justine said. You okay?

He felt her hand on his back. He pulled himself up and wiped his mouth.

It’s the ’shrooms, she said. Collateral damage.

You sound like an expert.

She was lighting a joint. Here, smoke some of this, you’ll feel better.

Sorry, he said, and took the joint. They walked down to the creek and stood there looking at it.

What just happened in there?

Nothing, she said. I think it’s bullshit.

Did you see something? Was there a lot of wind?

No, and I didn’t see anything. Did you?

I’m tripping my balls off.

Duh.

I don’t even know who I am, he said.

They walked into a field and after a while were far from the house. They walked like soldiers, without speaking. Suddenly she dropped to her knees. I have to stop, she said. I need to rest.

Yes, he said. Rest.

They lay there side by side like they’d been shaken out of the sky. The sky was vast and bright. He closed his eyes, his mind a tomb. The air alive with sound, a pandemonium of indigenous life that grew loud in his ears.

And then she said, Life.

He looked at her. She was looking up at the stars.

You have to be yourself, she said, finally. In life. Or you might as well be dead.

What?

Dead, she said. You may as well—

I think you’re beautiful, he heard himself say.

No, I’m not. She turned and looked at him.

To me you are.

Which means I’m not actually beautiful, but right now, in this moment, I am.

Right now, in this moment, he repeated, a confirmation of something essential. Then he reached out and put his hand on her breast.

She shook her head. That’s not—that can’t happen, George. Even if I wanted it to.

Okay, he said.

Do you know why?

He nodded, but he didn’t. Not really.

She’s my friend.

I’m really high.

We don’t have to talk about it. She pulled him up. They were like a seesaw, he thought. Or the oil rigs in
Giant.
Back and forth, back and forth.

She stood there looking at him. What are you looking at?

You.

What do you see?

You frighten me, she said. Her makeup had come off, and her skin glowed in the cold.

I just wanted to kiss you, he said. Nothing more.

Somehow their mouths came together. Hers was warm and sticky, her tongue thick as fudge. He didn’t know how long it lasted. He could feel her breasts against his chest.

They walked back, she in the lead. Okay, she wanted to be the leader. That was all right. But he heard someone. Then dogs.

Justine, he called.

But she was gone. He was alone. He was alone in the woods, in a clearing of birches, their white trunks like a cult of surrender. The moon was bright, the ground wild with shadows.

He heard something else.

He saw the long hair first, white, and the long yellow robe. He saw the staff. He saw two black dogs. He saw the face of God.

God, he said.

You are loved, God said.

George stood there, then dropped to his knees and wept.

—

I HAVE SOMETHING
to tell you, he said to his wife. They were lying next to each other in bed as husband and wife. It was not quite morning.

What is it? she said, concerned. She sat up in bed, pulling the covers up across her breasts, and looked at him.

I saw God. Last night, in the woods. He told her the story, excluding the part about the mushrooms and kissing Justine.

You don’t believe in God, she said, doubtfully.

I know. He closed his eyes, trying to remember the face. It was at once old and young, familiar. It might not have been Him, he said. It could have been someone’s costume.

What did He look like?

Exactly how you would expect God to look.

What do you make of it?

I don’t know.

She looped her arms around her knees. I don’t know what you expect me to say.

I guess I just wanted you to know.

All right. Now I know.

It kind of freaked me out.

She nodded.

Look: I’m sorry, Catherine. I want you to know that.

What?

I’m just sorry, that’s all.

That’s not good enough, George.

She got up and went to the bathroom and filled the water glass and brought it back to him with some aspirin. Take these.

He took the pills from her hand.

Now, rest.

She left him alone. He lay there listening to the sound of his wife and daughter clomping down the stairs into the kitchen, taking out pots and pans, opening and closing the refrigerator, making breakfast. They were happy voices. They were singing together, a song he knew. If he tried very hard, he could almost remember the words.

The Mysteries of Nature

1

THEY WERE FRIENDS,
good friends. Close.

They’d take long walks together with her dogs, pushing Franny in the stroller. Their farm like something out of a children’s book, with dogs and sheep and alpaca and hens. The alpaca would spit. They’d loiter by the fence, aloof as teenagers. She’d lift Franny up to pet their necks.

Justine taught her things: how to needlepoint, how to knit, how to make dahl. Catherine loved her disorganized house, the enormous pillows from India, her menagerie of plants, her good-smelling kitchen. Unlike Catherine’s organized closet, Justine’s clothes were heaped in a pile. She’d stand there half naked with her Gauguin breasts, in no particular hurry to cover herself, foraging through the mess for something clean to put on, holding it up, smelling it, decisively thrusting her arms through the sleeves.

She’d make coffee in a glass carafe, then set down the cup and say, That’ll put hair on your chest. Sugar cubes in a clay bowl. Silver spoons. She served scones that she made herself with thick butter, jam from the cellar in a jar sticky with spiderwebs.

Justine and Bram, they lived differently. They were always touching, kissing. Unlike her and George, always stepping out of each other’s way.

In their bathroom, under a stack of magazines—
Vogue, Mother Jones, The Christian Science Monitor
—Catherine discovered a book called
Behind Closed Doors.
A large coffee-table book, it was full of black-and-white photographs of a couple having sex—a manual of sorts. She flipped through its pages, taking note of the positions—the man and the woman, their ecstasy, their pale, elegant dance of love—and suppressing a familiar apprehension that something dirty was getting on her hands.

—

JUSTINE BELONGED
to a women’s club that served the region, and they had meetings once a month in their headquarters in Albany. As a fund-raiser, the group was sponsoring a reading by a renowned poet, and she invited Catherine along. Catherine had told George her plans well in advance, but when he came home that afternoon he claimed to have no recollection. Where’s this you’re going?